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 |    Not for the faint of art. |
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Complex Numbers A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number. The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi. Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary. Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty. ![Merit Badge in Quill Award
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| I'm not one to keep photos around. Everything else, sure, but some reminders I just don't want. PROMPT May 11th Look at a picture from your younger years. You don’t have to share the photo with us, but try to describe it in as much detail as possible. What led up to the photo being taken and what happened after? But hey, what the hell, I do have a few pics of Young Me lying around, and some of them have already been uploaded right here. Because I can't be arsed to go find others, I'll use this one. And because it's already here, I'll go ahead and share it:  I'm the ugly bastard on the right, with the hair. From the description within that item: I spent most of the summer of '84 working for a surveyor - then left and did a road-trip to Florida with my friend Pat. That was the summer that Born in the USA came out. I was about to enter my second year of college; Pat had just been graduated from high school. We took a week to drive to Disney World, where two random girls came up to us as we hung out by a fountain and asked to take our picture. We still don't know why. Maybe she thought I was Mickey and Pat was Goofy. This is not that picture, but it's from the same trip. Some takeaways from this: 1. Working for a surveyor is hard physical labor. I've never been much of a bodybuilder, but damn, I was cut that summer. 2. Yes, I measure the epochs of my life in terms of Springsteen albums. 3. This represents the first and last time I went to Disney World. 4. Pat is still my friend. Honestly, I don't know how. We're very different, and besides, I met him because he was chasing the same chick I was. This was in middle school. Neither of us were successful. But he lives nearby, after having moved to several other states and back, and as luck would have it, he called me yesterday, just to catch up. We still road-trip on occasion, the last one being to Atlantic City. 5. Some people have looked at that photo and disagreed with the "ugly" description. But nothing has been able to change my self-perception, then or now. In fact, it didn't occur to me until 20 years later that there was some remote possibility that the girls who took the (other) picture did so because they thought we were cute. Or, at least, that Pat was. 6. Like I said, this is not the same picture. This was before digital cameras, so we never got copies. I have absolutely no memory of who shot the one above (by deduction, I think it was either my cousin in Tampa or a friend I had in Jacksonville), but it was probably taken with the Nikon my mom gave me for my high school graduation, the one that I used the entire time I did photography semi-professionally. I say this because otherwise, I don't think I would have it now. 7. Pretty sure it was my ex-wife who scanned this one in. Like I said, I don't care much for pictures, certainly not enough to bother to scan them. I'd made decent money that summer, with the surveyor, and the plan was always to do the road trip. We took our time heading south, stopping at campgrounds and seeing sights. The trip took place in August, which is probably the worst time to go to Florida, and the one thing I remember more than anything else is how freaking hot it was -- and also the summer thunderstorms in the Wang, every day at 3 or 4 o'clock. Those at least cooled things off for a bit, but did nothing to help the oppressive humidity. That summer birthed my lifelong aversion to being outdoors, camping, and crowds, but it also made me realize that I really like road-tripping. It's just that my definition of "roughing it" now is staying in a three-star hotel. Being young and idiotic, we both ran out of money while in Florida. This led to a mad dash back up the coast with our last $20, which back then stretched a pretty long way with food and gas. That of course resulted in me being broke once I got back to college -- an entire summer job's earnings, gone just like that -- but I was used to being broke at college. It wasn't until much later that I actually figured out how to be good with money. All this remembering has given me a massive headache. Beer should cure that. I'll get right on it. And meanwhile, I'll just be wishing I could take another road trip. Preferably one that doesn't involve camping. Maybe someday... |
| GAAAAH! I should have known something like this was coming, and skipped this month. PROMPT May 10th The prompt today is very simple: Write about the person you call Mom. Every year starting, oh, around Passover, my inbox starts getting spammed with Mother's Day advertisements. "Gifts Mom Will Love!" "Treat Your Mom To This Shiny Thing!" "Make Mom Happy With This One Weird Trick!" Now, I'm not against getting emails from companies I do business with, even if they're ads, but I wish Gmail had a "time out" function where I could send mail by certain senders into the Spam folder between, say, April 1 and May 20, and I'd do that with any merchant who uses the words "mom" or "mother." It's not that I object to the made-up holiday itself. I mean, all holidays are made-up. Yes, that one. That one, too. Especially that one with the jingling bells and ho-ho-hos. Some were just made up earlier than others. But look, even the woman who thought up Mother's Day in the first place tried to make it go away  because it became commercialized.Still, it's not the commercialization that annoys me. Start anything in the US, and it will become commercialized, just as sure as the sun rises in the east and gives you cancer if you're out in it for more than 30 seconds. Some mothers are simply not worthy of worship on this fine day. Some of them are so toxic, so venomous, that you're better off just cutting them loose. Oh, I know, I know, "family above all and she's your MOTHER how DARE you," well, bullshit. If your maternal figure tears you down, undermines you, guilt-trips you, ridicules your aspirations, insults your dog, tries to run your life, or otherwise destroys your self-esteem, cut her loose. Mother's Day would be an especially good time to do this. Oh, sure, maybe she shat you out so she'd have someone to take care of her in her old age, but listen: you owe her nothing if she's not going to take care of you. Eh, that doesn't apply to me either. But I have friends who complain about their mothers' bullshit, and yet still worship them. The myth of family is so ingrained in society that they just don't see there's a way out. You'll divorce your spouse in a heartbeat, even though you chose them, but separating from your mother feels like shitting on God, the American Flag, and a stack of $100 bills all at the same time. I can only imagine it's worse in cultures with an even stronger myth of family. I have one friend who did it, "divorced" her mother. The lady is legit psycho, and my friend just couldn't deal with her anymore. But she still feels guilty about it sometimes, I think, and especially in May. This all of course goes for dads, too, and if it were June that's what I'd be ranting about. But it's not. It's May. Besides, somehow it's more acceptable to kick your dad out of your life than your mom, maybe because so many fathers "go out for cigarettes" and never come back. I don't mean you should ignore your mom if she simply votes the other way from you in elections, or gives unsolicited advice, or shows up unexpectedly. But despite what everything in society screams at you all the time, there are situations where you're better off without her. My mom wasn't terrible, and I helped make sure she was taken care of in her old age, and I was looking into her eyes as she died, 21 years ago. I'm done with moms. |
| All memories are inaccurate. PROMPT May 9th Choose an event in your life that someone else remembers differently. Describe both memories and debate the differences. Who do you think is right? Why do you think you remember it differently? When I was a kid, I loved astronomy. Okay, I still do. But when I was young, my father would take me out on cold winter nights and point out stars and planets, and I was fascinated. For a few minutes, until I got cold. The only thing that kept me from being an astronomer is that I absolutely despise the cold, and in my voracious reading on the subject, I discovered that mountaintop telescopes are generally not heated. Fuck that. Next idea. Hell, I turned down admission to MIT because I didn't think I'd survive a Boston winter. Cambridge. Whatever. Point is, I remember seeing Jupiter's moons without optical aids. Now, this isn't completely unreasonable. People have reported seeing the Big Four, or a subset thereof, for centuries, and some probably saw them before Galileo resolved them in his telescope, but they didn't know what they were seeing. It's rare, but it happens. Thing is, I also remember wearing glasses to correct astigmatism as a kid. It's unlikely that both of these memories are accurate. I'm going to go with the "glasses" one because I also remember seeing a class photo of Kid Me with a goofy haircut wearing goofy glasses. So why do I remember seeing Io, Callisto, Ganymede, and/or Europa? Probably because I wanted it to be true that I was one of the few who could resolve them with the naked eye. I'm far more certain that, at some point, I saw them through a telescope or binoculars, and later conflated that memory with observing the Jovian system without lenses. I don't have a direct response to the prompt. That would require me talking to someone I've known for a long time, probably at length, and that's not going to happen. The thing with Jupiter's moons is as close as I'm going to get to it. But it's not just me. Science has known for a long time now that memories are usually distorted, often confused, and sometimes flat-out false. There was a whole scare back in the 80s and 90s involving Satanic ritual abuse of children. It was a Big Deal at the time; in those pre-internet days, the "news" still spread around the country like wildfire. The problem is, as I recall (which could mean nothing), not a single one of those allegations turned out to be true and, moreover, most of them were connected with a single psychologist who was found to be encouraging false memories in older "survivors" of this "epidemic." It would have been mildly amusing if the allegations hadn't resulted in the ruination of several innocent caretakers. Or, again, so I recall. The details are fuzzy and I can't be arsed to look them up, because the whole thing was just so stupid and unbelievable... and yet otherwise rational people believed it. Some say the Salem Witch Trials were the result of ergot poisoning or some such, but I maintain that it was just simple human herd mentality, the same mentality that caused people to actually believe that there was systematic abuse of children in the name of The Dark Lord, or the herd mentality that insists that covid-19 is a hoax. What I can be arsed to look up are citations for my assertion that memory is unreliable. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/mental-memory-is-unreliable-and-it-could-... https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hidden-motives/201203/unreliable-memory An excerpt from this second one: We tend to think that memories are stored in our brains just as they are in computers. Once registered, the data are put away for safe-keeping and eventual recall. The facts don’t change. But neuroscientists have shown that each time we remember something, we are reconstructing the event, reassembling it from traces throughout the brain. Psychologists have pointed out that we also suppress memories that are painful or damaging to self-esteem. We could say that, as a result, memory is unreliable. We could also say it is adaptive, reshaping itself to accommodate the new situations we find ourselves facing. Either way, we have to face the fact that it is “flexible.” So, it doesn't matter what the memory is. Someone else is always going to remember it differently. Their recollection will be wrong. So will yours. Even if it's on video, you're not going to remember accurately the things outside the frame, or your emotions, or what you were thinking, or any number of thousands of other details. You may be absolutely certain that events unfolded in a certain way, were caused by this, led to that, whatever, but you are wrong. I probably didn't see Jupiter's moons without aid. I'm pretty sure my father wrapped me in a blanket and mispronounced "Betelgeuse." I know for damn sure it was cold, because I remember freezing my little tuchis off and it usually is cold on nights when you can see Betelgeuse, and besides, the blanket. It was a red and white plaid thing with a weird, stiff, brown plastic fringe, and I have no idea what became of it. But do I really know for damn sure, or am I mixing different memories and filling in the blanks? You can never know for sure, but there are some things that you want to know for sure; in my case, that my father encouraged me to love science and learning, so whatever memories reinforce that, I'll keep. "Who do you think is right?" Both. And neither. Life is about reconciling what you think are your memories with what you wanted to happen, what you want to happen, and how you want to feel in the present. And I'm okay with that. |
| "The Ultimate List of 400 Personal Values?" I'd bet I can think of at least one that's not on the list. PROMPT May 8th Take a look at this list of values: https://liveboldandbloom.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/400-personal-values-list... Pick your top ten values and rank them based on how important they are to you. Then, write about the values you chose and if any have changed throughout your life. I'm not a consistent person (yes, consistency is on the list). So if I were doing this prompt yesterday, or two hours ago, the result would probably be different. Without context, I can't tell if these are meant to be values we look for in others, or strive for in ourselves. To me, that's what personal values are -- things to strive for, not fixed personality traits. But in looking for them in others, we see how well the person wears said values. So I'm approaching this as an exercise in what's important to me, things that I either work towards or want to work towards. Also, "extroversion?" Seriously? Like that's something one can strive for? At least it also includes "introversion." So to get this out of the way, Waltz's Top Ten Values, As Of The Early Morning of May 8, 2020: 10. Comfort 9. Fairness 8. Wittiness 7. Independence 6. Cleverness 5. Efficiency 4. Learning 3. Wealth 2. Humor And the #1 value from the list is (drumroll...) 1. Reason Yes, I'm aware that some of those are considered shallow. So be it. I'm not going to pretend to be something I'm not -- well, not unless it's something I want to be, and then I'll pretend the fuck out of it until I become it. I'm also aware that 8, 6, and 2 are basically restatements of the same thing. Doesn't matter. Comedy is that important to me. Though "cleverness" extends beyond comedy into being able to figure things out. Before you go tearing me up for not being clever, I didn't say I was clever; I said the concept is important to me. I didn't always realize the importance of comedy in my life. I think most people are like that, at first, not being able to articulate what we value. One day, it struck me that humor -- having a sense of humor, being funny, being perceived as funny -- is actually one of my main motivations in life. I wish I were better at it. Sometimes, I think I'm brilliant. Other times, not so much. Doesn't matter; what matters is that I try. Not only is it important to me to make jokes, but to spread mirth, and to be able to laugh at others' humor. "Wealth" seems materialistic, I know, but it's a prerequisite for "comfort" and "independence," at least for me. A means to an end, not an end in itself. As for #1, well, anyone who reads this blog should know that I value reason. Not exclusively, of course; part of "reason" when applied to humans is knowing that they're largely unreasonable, emotional, irrational. Speaking of reason, the list claims 400 values. I counted the first column: 50. There are eight columns. 50*8=400. Math isn't hard. But one of the items, "knowledgeableness" (wtf) is almost German in its compoundedness. The word is so long that it takes up two lines, and that column isn't any taller than the others. I can't be arsed to count to 400, but that particular column does, indeed, contain only 49 values. Therefore, the title is misleading and whoever put that together should feel bad. Not just for not knowing how to count, but... seriously... "knowledgeableness?" My browser spell checker doesn't even recognize the word. And yet I still like it better than "being-ness." In conclusion, I identify with a lot more of those values, but this exercise is Top Ten so that's what I stuck with. Empathy is one example; I've noted before that it's something I want to work on. It's... not going well. There are also some -- I'm looking at you, being-ness -- that are the polar opposite of what I value. Conformity. Fashion. Extroversion. Piety. And I'm amused that "adequacy" is on there. "Oh, yes, I strive for adequacy. One might say I even have delusions of adequacy." And what in the liquid hell is "buoyancy?" Absurdity. Absurdity isn't on the list. I propose it for the Missing Value to make it an even 400. Hell, it might even make my Top 10 next time I think about it. If I ever do. It'll be more efficient if I don't. |
| I used to believe that we stayed basically the same person all our lives. Then I read something recently, but didn't bother to save a link, about how some scientists did a study on young people, then studied them again when they were older, and what they found that Old You doesn't really have anything in common with Young You. I mean, we've known this from a physical standpoint - cells get replaced and all that - but it kind of calls into question the idea of continuity of consciousness, and identity itself. PROMPT May 7th Start your entry today with the words: “I used to believe...” I did save this link , and it was destined to show up in here at some point. It might as well be now, because I used to have superstitious thoughts, myself, when I was much younger. But I'm a different person now.The science of superstition – and why people believe in the unbelievable The number 13, black cats, breaking mirrors, or walking under ladders, may all be things you actively avoid – if you’re anything like the 25% of people in the US who consider themselves superstitious. Mirrors used to be remarkably expensive, which probably led to social shaming for anyone who broke one, kind of like we shame anyone who flagrantly wastes money. Walking under ladders can be a bad idea for very practical reasons; we tend not to look up, and if there's a ladder, there's a chance someone is on it doing something, and that someone might have slippery fingers, and having something fall on your head is a Bad Idea. All sorts of explanations have been proposed for the number 13, from the astrological to plain number theory, but none of them are particularly compelling to me. However, there's no goddamn reason to be afraid of black cats. There's one pawing at my face right now. She just wants food. Robin is a good kitty. Even if you don’t consider yourself a particularly superstitious person, you probably say “bless you” when someone sneezes, just in case the devil should decide to steal their soul – as our ancestors thought possible during a sneeze. No, I say it because it's de rigeur, a social acknowledgement, like saying "goodbye," even though that literally comes from the phrase "God be with ye." It makes me uncomfortable to do so, though, because I know the origin. Superstition also explains why many buildings do not have a 13th floor – preferring to label it 14, 14A 12B or M (the 13th letter of the alphabet) on elevator button panels because of concerns about superstitious tenants. I've stayed in hotels run by and primarily for people of Chinese descent, and those hotels didn't have a fourth floor. As far as a superstition can make any sense at all, that one makes more sense than the "thirteen" thing; from what I understand, the Mandarin word for "four" is very similar to the one for "death." Or something like that, anyway. Labeling the floor "M" is potentially confusing; that's usually for "Mezzanine," a term I still don't have a firm grip on, but I know that it exists and usually refers to the second floor of the lobby or, in theaters, a middle tier of seating. On top of this, some airlines such as Air France and Lufthansa, do not have a 13th row. Lufthansa also has no 17th row – because in some countries – such as Italy and Brazil – the typical unlucky number is 17 and not 13. Prime numbers just don't get enough respect. Psychologists who have investigated what role superstitions play, have found that they derive from the assumption that a connection exists between co-occurring, non-related events. For instance, the notion that charms promote good luck, or protect you from bad luck. Also known as "magical thinking." For many people, engaging with superstitious behaviours provides a sense of control and reduces anxiety – which is why levels of superstition increase at times of stress and angst. My take? If it makes you feel better, there's nothing inherently wrong with superstition -- provided, of course, no harm is done. The black cat one can directly cause harm, for example, to the cat as well as emotional damage to its human. But if you insist on wearing the same underpants every time you play the lottery, who cares? Just wash those nasty things occasionally. Unless that's part of your superstition, in which case, get a grip, man. Clearly it isn't working, or you'd be rich by now, and you'd be better off getting a job and wearing clean underwear to it. Superstitious beliefs have been shown to help promote a positive mental attitude. Although they can lead to irrational decisions, such as trusting in the merits of good luck and destiny rather than sound decision making. Which is another reason to be wary of superstitions, though it's clear to me that "sound decision making" isn't a widespread human characteristic as it is. A more traditional illustration is the Curse of the Pharaohs, which is said to be cast upon any person who disturbs the mummy of an Ancient Egyptian person – especially a pharaoh. While the curse is of course utter nonsense, and we've learned a great deal about ancient humans by studying their dead, those poor bastards were buried or entombed for a reason, which is probably a similar reason to why we bury the dead today. Would you want your bones studied by archaeologists 6,000 years from now? Well, granted, you won't care, because you'll have been dead for 6,000 years, but that just brings up the uncomfortable question of why we do anything if we're just going to be dead in 6,000 years. Superstitions practices tend to vary across sports, but there are similarities. Within football, gymnastics and athletics, for example, competitors reported praying for success, checking appearance in mirror and dressing well to feel better prepared. Oh, those are terrible actions, just absolutely terrible. Wait, no they're not. Prayer (or meditation or whatever) can focus the mind, and wanting to look good is pretty damn universal. So, clearly, superstition isn't all bad. Hell, I consider myself a rationalist, but there are some things I like to do that might be considered superstitious -- because they help me remember my purpose and goals. For example, I have a coin I carry around in my wallet that has sentimental value to me. Every time I open my wallet, I have to be careful not to let it fall out. This reminds me that I try to be careful with money in general, and hopefully keeps me from making stupid spending decisions. Well, most of the time. Well, sometimes. Which is better than none of the time, I suppose. It could easily be mistaken for a "lucky coin," but that's not how I think of it. Usually. Oh, no, now that I've talked about it, the luck will disappear. Dammit! Still, leave black cats alone. Better yet, adopt one. Other than looking like little house panthers, they're just cats. Just remember to feed them. |
| I may have overdone the cultural appropriation of Cinco de Mayo yesterday. My stash of tequila is almost gone. This would be a crisis if I didn't have plenty of other beverages; I'm about done with tequila for at least a few days. PROMPT May 6th Write about an object you own that has negligible monetary value, but is priceless to you. I'm usually wary of revealing stuff that people could use against me if I inadvertently piss them off, so the temptation is there to make up something about a RealDoll. Those things are expensive, or so I've heard, but the used RealDoll market is, understandably, nonexistent. So it would fit the bill quite nicely. If you've never heard of a RealDoll, congratulations. I strongly suggest you don't Google it. On a philosophical note, if something has negligible monetary value, can one truly say that one "owns" it? Can a person truly own anything, for that matter? And what is the sound of one hand clapping? While we're at it, how are "worthless" and "priceless" antonyms? I have a lousy memory, and I rely on objects to remind me of the past. There's a lot of past, so there's a lot of objects. Most of them are objectively worthless, but, at the same time, I probably wouldn't be overly emotional if they vanished. For a while, I had a cat named Ghost. I met him as a kitten; he wasn't even a week old, and no one knew where his mother was. His eyes were closed, and he was utterly helpless, a little gray blob. At that age, without maternal care, kittens have a tendency to fail to survive. When he did survive, against the odds, that's when I named him. He grew into a tiger-striped gray tabby with a little white spot on the very tip of his tail. He was my cat before I got married, and he was still with me after my wife dumped me, more constant than any human. He'd follow me on my walking adventures, taillight held high, and at night he'd stand sentinel at the foot of the bed. A couple of months after I had a heart attack, Ghost also had a heart attack, at the ripe old age of 16. He was still alive when I rushed him to the vet; afterward, he wasn't. His ashes, worthless and priceless, stand on a shelf, accompanied by those of my other good kitties, their memory guarded by a statue of Bastet. I lack the genes that prompt some people to need to have someone to take care of, or to need to have someone to take care of them. But for a while there, Ghost and I took care of each other, and it's nice to have a memory of that. |
| Full disclosure: I'm on the last glass of a bottle of Gewurztraminer from a Virginia winery. I suppose you might think that since I can still spell Gewurztraminer, maybe I'm not really drunk. Well, then, you don't know me. PROMPT May 5th Find a local news story that makes you feel something. Share the story along with your opinion on it in your blog. So. I live in Charlottesville, VA. Most of you already know that; it's not like I've been trying to keep it a secret or anything. A couple of years ago, my small (~40K, give or take, depending on whether UVA is in session) town made the international news for all the wrong reasons. The reasons are wrong because in order to protest the removal of a certain traitor's statue from a local park -- and by "park" I mean a one-square-block piece of downtown -- the fascist nazi confederate KKK scum had to import a bunch of people from all over the country, because while there certainly are racists in my town just like there are anywhere, they're far from a majority. The guy you've heard about? The one who killed a girl and injured a bunch of other people? He was from fucking Ohio. You know. Yankee territory. And he was tried locally, convicted, and, last I heard, sentenced to a long goddamned time in prison. Anyway, like I said, I'm drunk, so I'm probably rambling, and I'm also probably getting closer to actually coming down on a particular political side, something I've always tried to avoid in this blog, but it's getting harder and harder to do so. So to address today's prompt, I actively looked for a piece of local news, which I don't usually do, even though one of my closest and oldest friends is a local journalist. https://www.nbc29.com/2020/05/04/charlottesville-election-officials-offering-sel... Charlottesville election officials offering self-addressed stamp to encourage voting by mail Both political parties are holding primaries on June 23 and the registration deadline is only weeks away, but election officials are already seeing activity that suggests the virus will not stop the vote. At first, this news confused me, probably because of the Gewurztraminer. Before my state -- which, incidentally, has a goddamn medical doctor for a governor -- instituted a lockdown of sorts, I distinctly remember going to the actual voting poll location and voting in the Presidential primary. No. I'm not drunk enough to tell you who I voted for. Yet. Point is, I thought the primaries were done? But no, these are the other election primaries. Okay. Fine. Moving on. Why does this make me feel something? Because I'm an American. And a Virginian. The most basic, the most fundamental, the most important right that we have as Americans, is the idea that our opinion matters. And voting is the most immediate exercise of this right. And so, anything that helps people, of whatever political orientation, exercise this right, I consider to be a positive thing. Other localities haven't done this. Other places have put restrictions on remote voting. They've effectively disenfranchised anyone who understands that going out in public and mingling with other people doesn't just affect an individual, but has repercussions that interfere with everyone else's right to personal autonomy. And that's what it boils down to, in my opinion: it's not about your right to get a gods-be-damned haircut. It's about my right to stay alive because after you catch the covid at your barber, you might come in contact with me. You'd think that the people who are always screaming about "right to life" would understand this basic principle, but that turns out not to be the case. Either way, though, they have just as much right to vote as I do, or any other citizen does. Again, that's basic. That's what we're supposed to be about: everyone gets one, and only one, vote. Even if an election goes against what I believe in, I want to be able to at least think, "Oh, well, it was a fair election." I can't think that if there's obvious bias in who can and cannot vote. Now, I'm not one of those who proclaim that if you don't vote, you don't get to bitch about the outcome. Nah. This is America. You get to bitch whether you voted or not. But for shit's sake, don't try to suppress the votes of others. That's unAmerican. Sigh. I guess I can expect a lot of shit from the other side on this one. And I've been so careful to be neutral, up until now. But, whatever. You have the right to your opinion. And I have the right to ignore it. Damn. Finished that last glass. Guess I'll open up another wottle of bine. It's not like there's a shortage. |
| I learned to cook in self-defense, but I don't really want to talk about cooking today; there are other things on my mind. Besides, talking about cooking makes me hungry, and I'm still working on losing weight. I've plateaued, but I don't want to backslide. PROMPT May 4th Describe your cooking or baking ability. What was the last thing you cooked/baked that you we’re proud of? Are you a recipe-follower or freestyler? My mom was great in many ways, but she was a terrible cook. Her method of cooking pasta, for example, was to break the shit out of a bunch of spaghetti, throw it in a pot, cover it with cold water, and boil it for an hour. If it weren't for TV commercials, I'd never have even known that pasta sauce was a thing that existed. So I guess TV commercials aren't all bad after all. Now, my parents were old-school, so my dad only cooked on those occasions when my mom was sick or visiting family. Fortunately, I never absorbed sexist attitudes towards cooking (though I did and still do reserve the right to make jokes about it), which is a good thing since I've been single way more than I've lived with women. As an aside, I have a friend out in Mormon country, and she recently perused ads for rentals. One such ad was put out by two guys who were specifically looking for a female housemate. "If I answer this ad," she asked me, "will I get raped and/or murdered?" "No," I pointed out. "They want someone to do the cooking and cleaning." She didn't answer the ad, but I suspect that they'd have been sorely disappointed. She'd be coming home from work all like, "Greetings, housemates. Hey, you need to pick up your Legos. Also, what's for dinner?" Asides aside, like any other skill, cooking is something you work on or you lose, the way I lost my ability to read Latin. With it being just me -- my housemate and I don't usually share food -- I don't see the point, especially since with the weight-loss plan and all I don't eat large portions, and certainly not big bowls of pasta, or cakes or cookies. When I do cook, though, I need a recipe to follow. I got shit for this once from a guest. "You're following a recipe? That's cheating!" She never got invited back. "I don't follow recipes" is code for "I lack the simple ability to follow instructions." As an engineer, I value instruction-following over creativity. Or maybe it's the other way around: I have zero creativity, so I pride myself in my ability to follow instructions. Also, I'm absolute rubbish at substitutions. "Oh, this recipe calls for baking powder. I don't have any baking powder, so I'll substitute cornstarch. It's about the same consistency, right?" Since I lack creativity, I also don't have a good way to segué into the topic I actually want to discuss, so I'll just dive right in. Today, May 4, 2020, is the 50th anniversary of the Kent State fascist murders of innocent college students. Yeah, I'm biased. Here's a less biased look at it, from the New Yorker, a source I usually despise for its rambling, beat-around-the bush, deconstructionist style of "journalism." But somehow I read this article in its entirety.This spring marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Kent State shootings, an occasion explored in Derf Backderf’s deeply researched and gut-wrenching graphic nonfiction novel, “Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio” Incidentally, if I created a character named Derf Backderf, my (hypothetical) agent and publisher would crucify me. Bill Schroeder, a sophomore, was an R.O.T.C. student. “He didn’t like Vietnam and Cambodia but if he had to go to Vietnam,” his roommate said later, “he would have gone.” Schroeder was walking to class when he was shot in the back. Jeff Miller, a junior from Plainview, Long Island, hated the war, and went out to join the protest; he was shot in the mouth. Sandy Scheuer had been training to become a speech therapist. Shot in the neck, she bled to death. Allison Krause, a freshman honor student from outside Pittsburgh, was about to transfer. She’d refused to join groups like Students for a Democratic Society, which, by 1969, had become increasingly violent. (Her father told a reporter that she had called them “a bunch of finks.”) But she became outraged when the National Guard occupied the campus. I would normally quote more, but I don't feel like it. Read the article. History doesn't really repeat itself. Nor, as some have suggested, does it rhyme. No, it echoes. The echoes of Kent State and the anti-war protests are still reverberating today, fifty years later. The players may have changed; to use the astrology-like vernacular popular today, those kids who were protesting fascism then were, and are, Baby Boomers. Now they're mostly on the other side, and fifty years from now the kids screaming for political shifts are going to be the targets of their grandchildren's protests. Every revolution fights the Establishment. Every successful revolution becomes the Establishment. I'm not old enough to be a Boomer, though not by much. By the way these stupid things are counted, I'm Gen-X, the generation that has largely been ignored in the latest culture war, which suits me just fine. Reading that article, you might think, "Oh, but some of the protesters did violent things. They had to be put down." Be very careful with this attitude, I will urge. We have protestors these days, too, and some of them engaging in biological warfare. What else can you call deliberately infecting others with a potentially deadly virus? Should we kill them to save ourselves? And I strongly suspect that these protesters would invoke the Second Amendment in a heartbeat if they grow fed up with government overreach, real or perceived. It's said that "violence never solves anything." This is demonstrably untrue. It may not be the best solution, but what if the North had engaged in sit-ins instead of fighting the Civil War? What if England had followed Chamberlain's policy of appeasement toward Nazi Germany? There's no simple answer, I know. But in war, innocents suffer the most. And to quote my second-favorite video game: War. War never changes. |
| Does anyone else go through life feeling like an outsider everywhere, or is that just me? PROMPT May 3rd What do you do you relax and unwind in the evening? Paint us a picture of your ideal relaxation  I am fortunate in that I have nothing to unwind from anymore. That wasn't always the case, of course. Used to be, I'd come home from work and play video games. Now I just play video games. Or do whatever: write, learn stuff, browse the internet (outside of these 30DBC months, I have to find blog fodder somewhere), read, watch shows or movies, that sort of thing. I've heard people say that they wouldn't know what to do with their time if they retired. I have never had that problem, nor have I wrapped my identity up in my work (my profession, sure; once an engineer, always an engineer, working or not). I'm never bored, though I sometimes look for some new experience or knowledge -- everything is potential material for writing, but that's not why I do it; it's mostly for the experience, and the writing is secondary. And I still don't have time to do all the things I want to do. It's like when I went with friends to see the 2017 total eclipse. I've mentioned that in here before, I think. It was my first eclipse experience. I know a lot of people who prepared with cameras and whatnot. While it was tempting to try to get photos -- I used to be a photographer, though I gave up the professional side of that when everything switched to digital and everybody became a photographer -- I figured there were 30 million other people who would be standing, sitting, or reclining in the path of totality, and at least 5 million of them would be able to get a better photo than I could (I was never all that great at it, to be honest). Rather than trying to compete with that, I decided that instead of fiddling with equipment, I'd just absorb the experience. And I'm glad I did. But everyone else around me seemed like they had to be doing something else, mostly involving cameras. Again: outsider. Mobile phone cameras suck for recording eclipses, by the way. As most of those people found out firsthand. I don't know. If I'm still around in four years, there's another eclipse then, also here in the US. Maybe then I'll try my hand at photographing it, since I already had the experience. Yeah, I know I've gotten off track; I do that sometimes. The point is, I don't do things just because "everyone else" is doing them, nor do I refrain from them just because "everyone else" is doing them. I want my own experiences. Hence the "outsider" comment above. There is one place where I feel less like an outsider, and this brings us back to the actual prompt for the day. That place is the quintessential location for relaxation: a bar. While some are more welcoming than others -- there's not much I hate more than a crowded sports bar with pitchers of Bud Light and 35 wide-screen TVs, all showing different sportsball games (or, worse, inane commentary on said sportsball games or, even worse if that's possible, ads) -- in general, if I can sit down at the bar, have a drink, and pass judgment on their liquor and/or draft beer selection, I'm happy. Best of all are the craft breweries, where I can chat with the bartender or fellow beer drinkers about the brews. Now, don't get me wrong; I also very much enjoy other adult beverages, but the beer culture is where I fit in the most. It's usually an exception to me feeling like an outsider. That is, until someone inevitably asks me if I brew my own beer. No, I do not. There were, before the pandemic, nearly 10,000 craft breweries in the US alone, and there will always be someone who brews better beer than I could. Besides, I know enough about the process to understand that brewing is 90% cleaning, 9% waiting, 0.9% mixing ingredients, and 0.1% enjoying the fruits of one's labor. This doesn't strike me as a worthwhile use of my time, not when I can go to a brewery and enjoy the fruits of someone else's labor. Besides, I hate cleaning. We'll see how many breweries remain after the pandemic. I'm preparing myself for tragedy, though I'm doing my part to keep my favorite local one in business by ordering delivery from them once a week. And then, if and when I can drive around the country again, I'll resume visiting whichever of these establishments are still... you know... established. Meanwhile, I have my delivered craft beer and I have my cigars; and I have a deck behind my house with a patio table and umbrella, and a laptop to watch movies on. What could be more relaxing? |
| Some prompts are easier than others. This is not one of those. PROMPT May 2nd What one fictional character would most like to meet and talk to? Why? What would you like to ask? Lara Croft, because she's smart and hot, and "Can I raid your tomb?" On second thought, I'd rather not have my final words be a cheesy pickup line, so let's pick someone else. That's right. Wile E. Coyote is the one fictional character I would most like to meet and talk to. The reason is simple: I want the answers to a few questions. I imagine the meeting would go something like this (you'll have to imagine him holding up signs for his part of the conversation): "Hey, Wile." "Hey, Waltz." "Wile... why?" "Why what?" "Well, you're a bit like Sisyphus, aren't you? Always chasing that Road Runner, and always failing, and yet you keep trying." He shrugs. "I'm hungry." "I get that, but, you know, why not, I dunno... scavenge?" "But I'm specifically hungry for Road Runner." "Look, this pursuit clearly isn't working out for you." "I suppose I'm also teaching kids an important lesson." "Yeah, I learned it long ago." "And what exactly did you learn, Waltz?" "I learned to never pursue your goals, because not only will you be disappointed, but the methods you use in pursuing your goals will inevitably leave you worse off than you were before." He blinks. "That's... that's very Buddhist, you know." "I suppose." "And wrong." "Look, mutt, you're the one setting yourself up to be a bad example, here. I learned how to do that from you, too." "You were supposed to learn that you should always follow your dreams, even if you fail the first time." "Well, Wile, that's just idiotic. Better to reduce your expectations and be realistic about your own limitations. And above all, avoid getting blown up or flattened at the bottom of a cliff. Besides, what's the goal, here? You want to devour an autonomous living creature whose only crime is being delicious." "He's also way too smug." "Okay, you have a point, there." "Anyway, I gotta go. I'm expecting a delivery from Acmezon, and I wanna get back to my lair before Sylvester does his porch-pirate thing." "Good talk, Wile." "See ya, Waltz." Aaaaand that's all, folks. |
| And it's May. Specifically, it's May 1, the beginning of summer here in the only hemisphere that really matters. "Waltz, have you been drinking again? Summer starts in late June!" Yes, and no. To both sentences. Confused? Read on! But first, 30DBC PROMPT May 1st Tell us something uplifting! We need good news now more than ever. What is something positive that happened or is about to happen in your life? What has made you smile recently? Something positive... hmmm... where have I... oh yeah. Long ago, in a faraway land (I think it was the early noughties and Massachusetts), there lived a guy named Randall K. Milholland. Randy had, at the time, the typical aimlessness of young adulthood, and, according to that link and other sources, his friend suggested that he do "something positive" with his life.So he started a webcomic called Something*Positive. Here's a link to the current comic.I can't say I've been following that strip since the beginning, but after getting introduced to it in, oh, 2004 or so, I went back and read all of the archives. Sometimes autobiographical, often dark, usually funny, and almost always worth a read, this comic has been a mainstay of my internet existence right alongside WDC (I started here in 2004 also) and Fark. I know that "dark humor is like food; not everyone gets it." What I tell people is if they click on the First Comic link and aren't immediately repulsed by its content, they'll probably enjoy the rest of the series. I don't do "uplifting." I don't give a fuck about "good news." And I generally only smile when a) my cats do something amusing or b) something terrible has happened to someone who I think deserved it. Besides, no one can tell when I smile; I lack the genetic programming to show my teeth when I try. So it doesn't matter anyway. If you want "Something Positive," well, there it is. But, hey, I'm not trying to subvert the prompt, here. I found some good news on the internet. This really isn't relevant to my life, except that I love SCIENCE! and I get excited when there's new discoveries in SCIENCE! Besides, it's on the Good News Network, so it's appropriate here: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/researchers-make-plants-that-glow-sustainably/ For the First Time, Researchers Make Plants That Glow Sustainably—And They Could One Day Light Up Our Homes Although glowing plants may seem like a work of science fiction, researchers have succeeded in creating plants that produce their own visible luminescence—and they say the possibilities for how we can use these plants are endless. I mostly encounter references to glowing plants in fantasy, but okay, I'll make allowances for movies such as Avatar, which is technically science fiction. In fantasy, they're a good excuse to represent a "magical" feel, whereas in science fiction, it's more "otherworldly." At least, that's how I see it as a connoisseur of both genres. This week in Nature Biotechnology, the scientists revealed that bioluminescence found in some mushrooms is metabolically similar to the natural processes common among plants. Fun Fact For You: mushrooms, and all fungi really, are more closely related to animals than to plants. This seems counterintuitive, but genetic studies have established this to a high degree of confidence. Here's a link to the current state of genetic descent research. In the image at that link, you can see, way over on the right, that plants split off from the path leading to animals and other... kingdoms? Phyla? Whatever they're calling it these days, earlier than fungi split off from animals.But, in the end, all life apparently came from the same source, and horizontal gene transfer isn't unheard of in the natural world; sometimes, we just make it happen on purpose. The plants described in this week’s discovery can also be used for practical and aesthetic purposes, most notably for creating glowing flowers and other ornamental plants—and while replacing street lights with glowing trees may prove fantastical, the plants produce a pleasant green aura that emanates from their living energy. Or, and hear me out here, maybe "pleasant" is overselling the concept. Depends on your point of view, of course. According to the authors, the plants can produce over a billion photons per minute. Okay, this is misleading as hell. I mean, I'm not doubting it, but out of curiosity, I looked up how many photons a typical candle emits in a given time period. The tl;dr is at the bottom of the page: 1.51*1020 photons per second. Since a billion is 1*109, a billion photons per minute just doesn't seem that impressive. Even if you make allowances for the analysis' simplifying assumptions used to calculate the photon emission of a candle, we're looking at a plant that emits several orders of magnitude less light than a simple candle.But, as the saying goes, the marvel isn't in how well the bear dances; it's that it dances at all. I mean, come on: glowing plants. Light Bio is a new company that plans to commercialize this novel technology in ornamental house plants in partnership with Planta. Of course, if you've been following along, you'll know that house plants don't last long around me. No plant does, except poison ivy and ragweed. So, while this is cool, it will never do me any good because I guarantee you within a week I'll have a dead mutant plant to dispose of, and I have my doubts about the bioutility of dead glowing houseplants. As for the teaser at the top of this entry... First of all, I drank beer earlier, but I'm entirely over it now. That's the "yes and no" to the hypothetical question above. As for the hypothetical statement, the thing is, we have two summers, and they overlap. Astronomical seasons begin on solstices and equinoxes. Equinotcta. Equinotctae? Equinocti? Whatever; my last Latin class was XL years ago. Point is, astronomical summer in the northern hemisphere runs from the June solstice to the September equinox. But civil summer is roughly centered on the summer solstice. It begins about halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, and ends between then and the autumnal equinox. Fall equinox. Whatever. In modern times, that's been defined with respect to the Gregorian calendar as May 1 through August 1 (again, for the northern hemisphere). May 1 is, or was, known in the Celtic regions of the British Isles as Beltane and they treated it like the beginning of summer, so there it is. Modern Pagans still celebrate the occasion as Beltane. June 21 (or whatever day close to that when the sun's highest in the sky) is called Midsummer because it was literally in the middle of the time period they considered "summer." This confused me for many years, until I figured out that people use the same word to mean different things. The actual midpoint, the First Day of Summer, is usually closer to May 5, but no one cares except the most extreme pedants. Naturally, this means I care. But again, "whatever;" the temperature outside right now is roughly 55F, not a thermometer reading I care to associate with "summer." To be fair, it is, as I write this, the witching hour. So, again in the spirit of the prompt, happy Beltane, and enjoy your summer! Even if you end up spending it indoors with your cats, like I plan on doing. |
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when I saw this. On the bright side, if the author smokes enough weed, maybe this kind of phrasing will fall by the wayside. In that case, uh, yay, weed?
Whoops...