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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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| As I might have mentioned before, beer is as old as civilization. Just like civilization itself, it's gone through some changes, as this article from The Takeout demonstrates. It's no secret that drinking too much beer can make your head feel like it's spinning. What? Damn, I thought that was the room. But things could get way worse for beer drinkers in the Middle Ages, when the drink could cause full-on hallucinations. Which isn't always a bad thing. Hell, sometimes, that's the goal. The culprit for such false visions, sounds, and sensations was an ingredient called black henbane, which brewers often added to ales. You don't want to try black henbane? What are you, chicken? At the time, the general practice was to make beer without hops. I've noted before that hops, now considered one of the essential ingredients of beer (though some people take it too far), are a relatively late addition to the art of brewing. By "relatively late addition," I mean it's still older than my country, but it still took something like 11,000 years to figure out. Instead, beer makers flavored their goods with plants, herbs, and various other flora, collectively known as gruit. In case you're wondering (I did, when I first saw it), you pronounce gruit almost exactly like fruit. Which makes me want to do a Guardians of the Galaxy parody with "I am Gruit." Perhaps the most dangerous characteristic of black henbane is that it causes dry mouth, causing the beer drinker to be increasingly thirsty, and thus, wanting to drink more beer. Shit, don't say that out loud! If they figure this out, AB/InBev would absolutely bring back black henbane as a way to sell more pisswatery beer-like liquid and thus make more profits. Which reminds me of a thing my dad told me long ago. In New Orleans, during the Depression, he said there was a place that served big plates of Cajun spiced shrimp for free. The catch was, beer was a dime, and if you've ever had Cajun-spiced shrimp (or anything), you might understand how this was a remarkably effective business model for the 1930s. This was problematic, because while a small bit of the plant could cause a drunk sensation, too much of it could result in extreme hallucination, and even death. Ah, yes, another case of "the dose makes the poison." Lots of things are harmless or even beneficial in small quantities, but large ones will kill. Vitamin A comes to mind. By the beginning of the 16th century, the presence of black henbane in beers and ales began to dwindle. Around this time, brewers were discovering that it was cheaper to make their goods with hops rather than gruit, and that the resulting beer had a longer shelf life (even though most beer doesn't last as long as you think). The origin of this perfect marriage of hops and malt is still a bit of a mystery to me, but their preservative qualities were almost certainly part of the reason hops became ubiquitous. The IPA style was, originally, overhopped so the beer could make it all the way from England to India without becoming too skunked. Why didn't they just make the beer in India? Well, I'm not entirely sure, but this was before air conditioning, and beer needs time to cool after being brewed, and India is mostly hotter than hell. By the year 1516, Germany had outlawed henbane in the country's beer production, as part of the German Purity Laws, but not every country across Europe followed suit so quickly. So Germany marched into other countries to impose their purity laws. Okay, okay, just kidding. They didn't do that. Cheap shot at Germany (and it wasn't even technically Germany at the time). I have German ancestry, so don't give me shit about it. Here, I'll make up for it. I'm telling this joke now to get it out of my system because after next week, I'll need to refrain lest I get my ass kicked in France: Why are the streets of Paris lined with trees? Because Germans like to march in the shade. But I digress. The reason beer is defined as it is now (water, malt, hops, yeast) goes back to the Reinheitsgebot,  which some say is the oldest still-enforced food regulation in the world, and is probably one of the reasons why German beer is world-famous.And if you're still curious about the effects of black henbane in beer, just remember that the average life expectancy for males in the Middle Ages was 31.3 years. This is where I lost faith in the article. Unfortunately, it's close to the end of it. "Life expectancy" and "average" can be slippery concepts, and, taken together, get skewed by a much higher infant mortality rate back then than any developed country (even the US) experiences today. So that's misleading. I can believe the stuff about henbane, though. It tracks with what I already knew. |
| Somewhat predictably, I'll take a break from the usual today in order to blab about this being my 20-year anniversary here. Unfortunately, I said most of what I wanted to say back on September 1, as we began the site's 24th anniversary: "Four and Twenty" Having my own milestone so soon after that of the website itself, though, is kind of like I'd imagine it would feel like for your birthday to be on December 26: everyone's burned out on celebrating, including me. Especially me. Which is fine. I'm on board with celebrating actual birthdays, but membership anniversaries are just, well, whatever. Still, this being the 20th, one of those nice rounded-end numbers, I felt I should say something about it. Things were a bit different back in 2004. Smartphones weren't ubiquitous yet. The internet hadn't become a mire of scams, ads, and influenzas. And a certain other event that took place on a September 11 was still fresh on everyone's mind. I hadn't intended to join on the 11th, for that reason. I tried to create an account here the previous day (my dad's birthday, and he was still alive back then, so already a significant day for me), but for whatever technical reason, it never took. That's also how my username got the annoying 02 at the end; while the account didn't work, my attempt was enough to block off just "cathartes" as already in use. It's been long enough that I don't remember all the details exactly (hell, 20 days is probably long enough for that, for me), but I vaguely recall creating this account with help from a friend who was already a member, shortly after midnight, forcing my account anniversary to be on a day that was already infamous. I've considered changing my username to something else, but never went through with it. It's kind of part of my identity now, so I'm ambivalent about the idea. So, I'll just finish by posting what I'm pretty sure was my first item on here, created on September 11, 2004—but which I'd written some years earlier: "Ghost Poem #1" [ASR]Odd that it was a poem, I suppose, because I'm more of a fiction writer and, now, a blogger, but I suppose it was something quick and simple to put up here to get started. And even back then, when I had an actual job and a spouse, I was all about quick and simple. Some things don't change all that much. |
| Today, I have secrets to share (yes, I know that just last week, I refused to share secrets). From Smithsonian Magazine: Eight Secret Societies You Probably Haven’t Heard Of Many of these selective clubs peaked in popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries Of course you haven't heard of them. They're secret. The university I went to was infested with secret societies. Still is, as far as I know. The only thing most people knew about them was their penchant for tagging the major landmarks, like the one pictured here, in a fluff piece focusing on their altruism rather than their penchant for trying to take over the world.Naturally, I was never invited to join any of them (or was I?) Not that I would have; I'm firmly of the Marxist opinion about joining any club that would have me as a member. But other secret societies are larger in scope and membership, and some have already taken over the world. It’s not uncommon for public figures to be involved in selective societies, many of which have deep historical roots. One reason for the proliferation of public figures in secret societies is simple: control. You've probably heard rumors about goat-shagging or circle jerks or other compromising activities at initiations. Some of those rumors have a grain of truth to them. The deal is that the society helps you get the power, money, and position you crave, but you have to toe their ideological line, or the pics/videos of the goat-shagging or circle-jerking come out, and you have to resign in disgrace. ...the popularity of these secret clubs peaked in the 18th and 19th centuries. Back then, these societies served as safe spaces for open dialogue about everything from academia to religious discourse, removed from the restrictive eye of the church and state. As far as it goes, those seem like worthy goals to me. In recent years, Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, and other novelists have shined a light on some of the bigger secret fraternal organizations, like the Order of Skull and Bones, the Freemasons, the Rosicrucian Order and the Illuminati. Yeah, look, I'm not going to disparage Dan Brown as a writer. But he's a fiction writer, and fiction writers are known for Making Shit Up. It's right there in the name, folks. I may be biased because I read The Da Vinci Code right after I read the purportedly nonfiction Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which made it obvious to me that Brown had cribbed some of the main points of the latter, and added his own embellishments. So, on to the actual societies featured in the article. As there are eight of them, I'll select only a few: The Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World It is well-known that you want to name your group something innocuous to hide the dastardly deeds they're doing. Like calling your dictatorship a "democratic people's republic," or your fascist movement "socialist," or your propaganda arm the Ministry of Truth. In any case, come on, who hasn't heard of the Elks? Around the turn of the 19th century, two Black men in Cincinnati were denied admission to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World, an organization founded in 1868 with the goal of serving those in need. Barred from membership, Arthur James Riggs and Benjamin Franklin Howard decided to create their own order. Hence the "improved" bit in the name. The Odd Fellows Interestingly, real skeletons appear in the order’s lodges; they are used during initiation to remind members of their mortality, the Washington Post reported in 2001. "Do as we say, or this will be your fate." The Ancient Order of United Workmen While Elks and Oddfellows (along with Meese and Masons) are fairly well-known, I hadn't heard of this one. Sounds like it's time for them to make a comeback. The Molly Maguires Come on, now, even the article admits they made a movie about this one, so its existence is hardly a secret. Still, known or not, some of these societies do operate in secret, which has certain advantages. If you really do want to do good in the world, without the inevitable pressure of the press, that's one way to go about it. Or you could be trying to take it over for nefarious purposes. And that's the problem: Lots of these groups claim to be altruistic, but one can never be sure. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm late for my International Benevolent and Democratic People's Order of Malt meeting. It's kind of like the Knights of Malta, only it's not Catholic, it's missing an 'a' at the end, and it's not-so-secretly about beer. |
| Back before the welcome Birthday Week diversion, I featured an article from Ars Technica on how they're coordinating time between Earth and Moon: "Moon Time" Then, I wrote: "I have a couple of articles about this, from different perspectives." Well, today, the other article popped up. Being from Atlas Obscura, this one may be a little more approachable, but it also gives me more opportunity to be pedantic. Moon Time Is a Thing Now—Here’s Why It Matters Physicists recently created Coordinated Lunar Time, a time zone for our Moon. On the Moon, there is no normal. There is no wind, no rain, no erosion. Leaving aside that these things are "normal" for the moon, there is some wind (the solar wind) and some erosion, though that process works a good bit more slowly there. Nothing flies overhead, and nothing green strains toward the sky. ...yet. There are no daily rhythms like those we experience on Earth—no chirping of crickets, no sunset breeze. I could live with the former, very easily. But there's also no air, so I wouldn't live very long. A lunar day and a lunar night each last two Earth weeks. Roughly. This corresponds with the phases of the moon, and is the result of the Moon always showing the same hemisphere to Earth, and its orbit around our planet. It's all very Newtonian. What’s more, seconds tick by slightly faster than they do on our home world. That effect is relativistic. To understand why Moon time is so strange—and why scientists recently created a new and unique time zone just for the Moon—we have to spend a moment with Einstein. People think of Einstein, they think of the famous equation. But time dilation is another thing entirely. He figured out a bunch of different shit; that's why they called him a genius. Special relativity explains how different places in the universe perceive time and space differently; time seems to move more slowly in a larger gravitational field, relative to a lower gravity environment. And a clock moving through space ticks more slowly than a stationary one. I have no quibbles here. It's just really hard to grok, because it's outside our everyday experience. In the Hollywood interpretation of these theories, a character traveling in space for a long time, or under the gravitational influence of a black hole or other very large object, will age much more slowly than his loved ones on Earth. As usual, Hollywood tends to exaggerate for the spectacle. You have to be traveling pretty damn close to light speed to experience that effect without precise measuring tools. And by "large," the author here means "massive." Black holes are generally pretty small, on a cosmic scale. GPS satellites have to account for it in order to work. So every time you get directions on your smartphone, you experience the practical effects of special relativity. I've noted this before, but it's relevant here. In fact, all navigation is really about time. We invented longitude for this reason. And I've talked about this, as well. Latitude is pretty easy to figure out. Longitude is a lot trickier. First, we needed to invent a prime meridian, an imaginary line drawn from pole to pole along the planet’s surface. Then, for navigation, you need to figure out where you are relative to that fixed line. The simplest way to do this is to use a time scale that is the same at both locations. So longitude is really about clocks. There's been a lot of talk lately, among some science video channels I occasionally watch, about how the Greenwich Meridian, the 0 degree longitude line, is in the "wrong" place. But ultimately, it doesn't matter where we put it, as long as everyone agrees on it. An earlier Prime Merdian went through Paris instead of a suburb of London, and I'm sure the French are just pleased as punch that everyone went with the English definition. So pleased that, even though France is mostly south of England, they use the next time zone to the east. The only relevant thing here is that one needs to define a Prime Meridian for the Moon, which I'm pretty sure they've already done. I say it should have gone through the center of Armstrong's first footprint, but no one listens to me.Anyway, the article goes into how GPS accounts for relative time for Earth. But we can’t just port this system over to the Moon. Clocks on the lunar surface actually tick faster than Earth clocks by almost 58 microseconds per day. It’s not much in a given day, but over the months it will add up, and it’s enough to disrupt the precise timing of GPS. And thus, the calculation of latitude/longitude. “It’s like having the entire Moon synchronized to one ‘time zone’ adjusted for the Moon’s gravity, rather than having clocks gradually drift out of sync with Earth’s time,” NIST physicist Bijunath Patla said in a statement earlier this month. As good a summary as I've seen. The physicists say their efforts to develop Coordinated Lunar Time could be applied to other places in the solar system, simply by adapting the clock system for any other world’s gravity. Yeah, not really "any." The world would need to have a definable surface, which some of the larger planets don't. But we're not about to live in Jupiter's atmosphere anytime soon, so, fine. It’s about time. Thanks, now I can't use that pun in this entry's title. |
| My first random selection of a past blog entry landed on one I'd already revisited. I knew that could happen, obviously, but I was still mulling over whether to do another revisit, or just skip it and roll again. I've decided, instead, to point to the previous Revisited, thus: "Revisited: "Best Waste of Time EVER"" But that's all I'm going to say about it.And then I rolled again, and got this discussion of an article, posted about four years ago: "Orange You Glad This Wasn't You?" That's the one we'll look at today. Something a little different today. Yeah, back then, maybe it was "a little different," but I think now it looks like just another article I could riff on. The link, to a 2020 bit about Tropicana's orange juice marketing disaster back in 2009, is still there... but when I looked, it said "Member-only story." That's their right, of course, but nothing from Medium has ever captured my attention enough to become a "member," and to me, there are very few articles on the internet worth reading that aren't also worth sharing. So I don't bother. I pay WaPo for a subscription, because that's the newspaper I grew up with (if indeed I grew up at all), but that's about it. Therefore, all I can do is talk about my own reactions. Even the specific "rebrand" they're talking about is hidden and forgotten. So why am I linking something about orange juice? Because it's a product, and some marketing techniques apply to a broad range of products... like, for instance, your writing. Not that I'll ever apply these techniques. But, being entirely altruistic and thinking only of my readers, I perform the public service of informing them. Okay, no, I just find this stuff fascinating for whatever reason, and I'd rather learn from others' failures than from my own. But maybe this will help someone else. Or, hey, maybe you just like orange juice. The reality is a bit of both. Coke's "New Coke" fiasco personally affected me. I don't drink orange juice, so I never noticed a rebrand. Yes, almost 40 years later, and I still carry trauma from that horrible year. The article helpfully includes "before" and "after" pics. Not any more, if you're not a member. Function is more important than form. Well... for me. Engineer, remember? But I can admit that when it comes to trying to sell shit, part of the function is to catch a viewer's eye (or ear in the case of radio). That requires form. Much as I rag on myself for having no artistic talent (I don't) or not understanding marketing (I don't), I do have some background in graphic design and artistic composition. Part of being a photographer. I maintain that I wasn't very good at it, but I understand some of the theory, just like I understand some music theory even though I'm a terrible musician. Then I quoted the following from the original article: “Historically, we always show the outside of the orange. What was fascinating was that we had never shown the product called the juice.” Really? I mean, it’s juice. Give me a clear symbol of it, and I’m good to go. And what could be clearer than the actual fruit the juice is from? On which I commented: Somewhere in there, I think, is probably a metaphor for promoting one's writing. I'm not quite sure what it is, but I'm pretty sure it's in there. Having had four years to think about it, I'm still unable to articulate what that metaphor is, but I'm still sure there is one, taunting me. I think it's encapsulated in the line, "Give me a clear symbol of it, and I’m good to go." People respond to symbols; that's kind of our thing as humans, to let one thing stand for another, or for an abstract concept. But I'm reminded of what might have been my first lesson in marketing failures, which, to be fair, could have been an urban legend. The story went something like this: In some less-developed country, it was standard practice to show an image of the contents of the can on the label. If it's beans, for example, the can depicts beans. For carrots, there's a picture of carrots. That way, even those who can't read (a large portion of the population) would know what's supposed to be in the can. Anyway, the fail I heard about was that Gerber tried to enter that market, but couldn't... because their baby food cans had a picture of a baby. Almost every barbecue joint I've ever seen uses a pig as a mascot. This is not because they're marketing to literal pigs. Metaphorical ones, maybe, but their customers generally don't root for truffles and oink. In any case, I think I've discussed other marketing mistakes in here since then. That entry's comment section is also good for examples, because I turned it into a Merit Badge contest, which is something I haven't done for a while. Except for last week's free badge giveaway, of course. But I can't leave this without noting that the header for this blog doesn't exactly depict what's in the can. So I guess I really do fail at marketing. |
"Blog Week Birthday Bastion 2024" [13+] by WakeUpAndLive️~Happiness  Prompt 7. Sept 7. The world is not an ideal place for lots of people. What can YOU do to make it better? Well, the one most overwhelmingly important thing I have already done is: avoid bringing another human into a far-from-ideal world. The second most important thing is that I attempt to bring knowledge and comedy into an ignorant and largely humorless world. In that, I fail most of the time, but at least it makes me feel good to try. And there are other things I do. I recycle, to the extent that I'm able. I help out with causes, when I can be sure that it's going more to the cause than to the organizer. I try to minimize my water use, and refrain from littering. All of that amounts to spit in the ocean, and it doesn't even make me feel good to brag about it. And for every infinitesimal improvement we can make individually, millions of times worse stuff gets done by other people, governments, and big corporations. "Every little bit helps," my ass. You think it makes a difference if you give a dollar to a billionaire? No, they only notice if you try to take one. If there's anything that the pandemic years drove home to me, it's that any effort we make has to be a collective effort—and that it will never be a collective effort. There will always be those who deliberately make things worse. If an asteroid were about to hit the ocean, and the only way to avoid it would be for everyone to, I don't know, jump up and down at the same time, at least half the population will continue to sit on their asses, out of ignorance, apathy, a death wish, or maybe just plain spite. "The other political side wants me to do this, so I absolutely refuse to do it." So you're jumping up and down... for what? Some marginal improvement in your fitness? So you can say you're at least trying to help? I mean, in that particular case, I'd probably do it, just on the off-chance that everyone else will, too. But they won't. Yeah, some people are in a position to make improvements now, and I wish them the best. But I'm not in that position. What we need are big, systemic changes, not that one extra dollar. I can travel less, reducing my carbon footprint. I can move to a plant-based diet, helping the environment while reducing animal suffering. I can drive less, walk more. (I know this because I spent over a year without a car.) I can volunteer my time to causes I care about. I can mentor youth, sharing my vast intelligence and infinite wisdom with the impressionable younger generation. Yes, I can do all these things. But I won't.  FINAL DAY! We get to give out a free Merit Badge every day this week. Want one? Anyone who comments here before 11:30 pm WDC time today could get today's. (I'll need that extra half-hour to pick a winner and send the badge before midnight.) To clarify:  When I say "comment," I mean comment. Not review. Though reviews are always welcome. I also mean "here," not on the newsfeed post. MB recipient will be chosen at random. Maximum of one MB per commenter for the week. If I don't get comments, I'll pick a previous commenter, and maybe not at random. The MB will be the one I commissioned two years ago, "Complexity," which is a publicly available MB. I appreciate all comments; this is just a little incentive. |
"Blog Week Birthday Bastion 2024" [13+] by WakeUpAndLive️~Happiness Prompt 6. Sept 6. Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets. Paul Tournier Can you share a secret? Small or big, tell us. No? Tell us why not. No. ...well, now I have to come up with at least 299 more words. I'm pretty open in here, I think, though there are some things I edge around in an effort to avoid potential problems. This blog is public, though, so once I share something here, it can no longer be considered a "secret" in a literal sense of the word. So asking me to share a secret in here is the same as asking me to destroy it. Some things were told to me in confidence by other people, and those aren't mine to disclose. If I'm ever in doubt about whether someone else's words to me are confidential or not, I assume they are. So those aren't getting discussed. Ever wonder, though, why "secretary" contains the word "secret?" That's not an accident. While the word has largely fallen out of favor in the business world due to sexist connotations, replaced by "office assistant" or some similar term, a secretary is, historically, someone entrusted with secrets. The word survives in government administration, like with the Secretary of State in the US, or the UN's Secretariat. I suppose we didn't want to go with "minister" like in the UK or other countries, despite its inclusion in "administer." How the word "secretary" got applied to desks with top shelves is still a mystery to me. Perhaps it was because secretaries tended to use such desks for organization, while a boss's desk is traditionally shelf-free, as they had secretaries to do all the filing and such. Or it might be used there in the sense not of "secret," but of "secrete," as in hiding, filing, or secreting stuff away. In yet another example of English's weirdness, "secrete" can also mean to ooze forth, like... well, you know what I'm talking about; unless you're a biologist, it's usually considered disgusting. But the noun and verb are etymologically related. I suppose it's no secret that when I can't think of anything else to say about a subject, I retreat into etymology. Most word origins are traced back to Latin or Greek, but even Latin and Greek built on earlier languages. It's just that the further back in time you go, the fewer written records survive, so it's tough to trace everything back to what linguists call Proto-Indo-European, or PIE, the apparent source of most Western languages. But language probably got invented long before PIE, and it's even tougher to peer back into that ancient time. The past holds many secrets, and we will probably never expose them all. We get to give out a free Merit Badge every day this week. Want one? Anyone who comments here before 11:30 pm WDC time today could get today's. (I'll need that extra half-hour to pick a winner and send the badge before midnight.) To clarify: When I say "comment," I mean comment. Not review. Though reviews are always welcome. I also mean "here," not on the newsfeed post. MB recipient will be chosen at random. Maximum of one MB per commenter for the week. If I don't get comments, I'll pick a previous commenter, and maybe not at random. The MB will be the one I commissioned two years ago, "Complexity," which is a publicly available MB. I appreciate all comments; this is just a little incentive. |
"Blog Week Birthday Bastion 2024" [13+] by WakeUpAndLive️~Happiness Prompt 5. Sept 5. The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go. Dr. Seuss Tell us more about the writer in you. Plans/Aspirations/Fears/Status etc? Plans: None. As a writer, anyway. Apart from continuing to do what I'm doing now. Other than writing, I plan to travel more. I may write about it, but the travel writing field is crowded with young influenzas who can't write for shit, but look good in selfies. Aspirations: None. Used to be, I wanted to get published. I abandoned that goal, I don't know, maybe about when I turned 50? No one wants to publish old, unestablished writers. Well, almost no one. You can probably find a counterexample if you look for one, because it made the news. It made the news for the same reason lottery wins and lightning strikes do: it's rare. Plus, I'd have to be an exceptional writer. I may be a decent writer, but I'm not exceptional in any way. And don't say "self-publishing" at me. While it's absolutely a legitimate route, it involves way more work than I'm willing to do, including marketing. I hate marketing, not to mention it would be hypocritical of me to push ads on people while hating all the ads being pushed on me. Not that I'm above being hypocritical, of course. That just seems a step too far. Fears: Tornadoes, picking up dog shit, anything touching my eyeballs, and success. The tornado thing is probably understandable. Not that I live in an especially twister-prone area; it's just that they are, to me, natural disasters worse than earthquakes, floods, fires, or volcanoes. Picking up dog shit is just something that grosses me out. Thus, I don't have a dog. Every once in a while I'll owe a favor to someone, and sometimes that favor means walking their dog while they're on vacation. Just because I can work through my fears doesn't mean I want to. (Before you ask, cat shit doesn't bother me as much, though it's still not my favorite chore to clean up.) I also dealt with the eyeball thing a few years ago, because I had to. That doesn't mean I'm eager to have eye surgery again. The "success" one does relate to writing. Let's say a miracle happens and I get one of my novels published. Suddenly, I'm expected to write more. You know what happens to me when I'm expected to do something? It becomes work, and I'm violently allergic to work. Status: Another English word with more than one meaning. From context, I'm guessing this is the "how are things going" definition, as in "status report." Answer: cruising along. As for the other definition, where I fit in the social hierarchy, well, I reject the concept of a social hierarchy. But that's really irrelevant; I just like to play with words. In any case, there is one writing-related thing that's been on my mind lately. As I've mentioned a few times, I've done a blog entry every day for nearly 5 years. Whether it's prompted like this one, or a spontaneous personal update, or commenting on some article, I've managed to find something to say every day since December 14, 2019. This wasn't planned; I just blogged every day for a few months, and the plan after that was to go to Scotland for a couple of weeks for the Islay Festival. Then, well, you know what happened in early 2020. I didn't go anywhere. I kept blogging. When I finally was able to go somewhere, I stayed in the US, and still managed to get an entry in every day. This will end. It may end during my upcoming Europe trip, now only 2 weeks away. That's not the plan, but it could happen. My shit gets stolen or broken, or I can't connect to the internet, or I just get too busy and/or too drunk, or I fuck up the time zone difference. I don't know. Ideally, though, I continue on this track until at least December 13, completing a 5-year daily blogging streak. That's as close to a "plan" as I get with writing, these days. In either case, though, blogs here are limited to 3000 entries, and this is entry number 2812. Less than 200 to go. Enough to take me to early next year if I continue at this rate, but then... bam! Brick wall. Other people here have dealt with the limit by deleting old entries. I won't do that. Most never have to worry about the limit, and that's perfectly okay. But I've been considering what to do next. Quit? Start a new blog? Concentrate on fiction and poetry for a while? If I started a new blog, I'd have to think of a title that's somehow works as well as, or better than, Complex Numbers, and on that front, I'm stumped. Oh well, at least it wouldn't be work. Heading into the last days of Birthday week, now. We get to give out a free Merit Badge every day this week. Want one? Anyone who comments here before 11:30 pm WDC time today could get today's. (I'll need that extra half-hour to pick a winner and send the badge before midnight.) To clarify: When I say "comment," I mean comment. Not review. Though reviews are always welcome. I also mean "here," not on the newsfeed post. MB recipient will be chosen at random. Maximum of one MB per commenter for the week. If I don't get comments, I'll pick a previous commenter, and maybe not at random. The MB will be the one I commissioned two years ago, "Complexity," which is a publicly available MB. I appreciate all comments; this is just a little incentive. |
"Blog Week Birthday Bastion 2024" [13+] by WakeUpAndLive️~Happiness Prompt 4. Sept 4. Photo prompts. (Choose 1,2,3 or 4 and write fiction or non-fiction) PhotoPrompt 3  I'm only posting the prompt pic I picked. One of the others was a blue rubber duck, and I almost picked that one, but dismissed it as "too cute." Ducks and dragons are related, though. A drake is a male duck. A drake is also, depending on the source, a particular subtype of dragon, or a synonym for dragon. The latter has a different etymology, one which is more apparent when you consider the adjective form, "draconic." That should not be confused with "draconian," which is used to describe oppressive policies. Nor should it be confused with the explorer Sir Francis Drake, or his namesake Frank Drake, originator of the Drake Equation, which has nothing to do with dragons. Unless aliens are dragons. Which isn't technically impossible. Another synonym for dragon is worm, or wyrm, which also confused me as a kid. English is weird. Dragons are, unlike ducks, creatures of fantasy. Unless you count Komodo dragons, though I say that's cheating. But I have this hypothesis that dragons were dinosaurs. Why were dragons part of the folklore of several geographically separate cultures? I think it's because of dinosaur bones. Some ancient t-rex or brontosaurus skeleton or whatever got exposed via erosion. Early humans, clever and creative but without our understanding of geological time, might have seen these enormous bones poking out of some sedimentary rock, and pictured what sort of creature might have made them. Clearly, it was a giant, flying, fire-breathing, gold-hoarding monster, because what else could it be? But also, ducks are dinosaurs. All birds are. Lots of dinosaur lineages indeed went extinct, but at least one survived into modern times and their genetically-plastic descendants exploded into the vast diversity of avian species we encounter today. Those eggs you had for breakfast? Dinosaur eggs. That KFC bucket you reluctantly bought over the Labor Day weekend? Kentucky-fried dinosaur parts. Don't feel bad about eating chicken. Their ancestors probably munched on ours. Colonel Sanders was just doling out payback. So, if you're wondering what a dragon would taste like... well, it would probably taste like chicken. Or duck. Unlike our modern birds, though, dragon meat might even come pre-cooked. All that fire breath had to do something to their insides, right? Let's do this again. We get to give out a free Merit Badge every day this week. Want one? Anyone who comments here before 11:30 pm WDC time today could get today's. (I'll need that extra half-hour to pick a winner and send the badge before midnight.) To clarify: When I say "comment," I mean comment. Not review. Though reviews are always welcome. I also mean "here," not on the newsfeed post. MB recipient will be chosen at random. Maximum of one MB per commenter for the week. If I don't get comments, I'll pick a previous commenter, and maybe not at random. The MB will be the one I commissioned two years ago, "Complexity," which is a publicly available MB. I appreciate all comments; this is just a little incentive. |
"Blog Week Birthday Bastion 2024" [13+] by WakeUpAndLive️~Happiness Prompt 3. Sept 3. You can achieve all the things you want to do, but it's much better to do it with loved ones around you; family and friends, people that you care about that can help you on the way and can celebrate you, and you can enjoy the journey. ~John Lasseter Your most significant other(s) is/are....! Write about your loved ones (furry or not). Right, as if I were capable of love. Okay, okay, that's a joke, and I'm determined not to make today's entry as existentially terrifying as yesterday's. But as I showed then, you can't count on anyone. Just saying. And not just because I was given up for adoption as an infant, either. Still, "love" carries a lot of baggage and assumptions. The Greeks might have gotten it closer to right by slicing it up into sub-loves: eros, agape, whatever. They say the Inuit have dozens of words for snow. While this is probably false, like all legends, it illuminates what might be a greater truth: the more important a concept is culturally, the more words they'll have to describe its various shades and gradations. We just have two words for love: love itself, and like. We've got dozens of words for killing, though. And hundreds of words for penis. All of which is to say that while there are people (and cats) that I particularly care about, I neither have nor want a "significant other." I've been married twice, and you know what Einstein supposedly said about the definition of insanity. Einstein probably didn't say that, though, and it's not really the definition of insanity. You know who (probably) did originate that quote, though? According to some of my fact-checking sources, in its current form ("Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"), it was Rita Mae Brown, in the voice of one of her characters. Rita lives near me. I met her a few times. Exceptionally nice lady. Cat person. I suspect she found it extraordinarily amusing that her quote became misattributed to the guy whose picture is in the dictionary under "genius." Well, enough with the name-dropping. If it helps, I live near John Grisham, too, and never met him. The point is, these days, I'm done with that sort of love. You know how some guys, they'll meet someone of their preferred gender, and their mind immediately fast-forwards ahead to the sex part? Mine fast-forwards to the breakup part, and I don't want to deal with that again. But I have friends. And cats. That's enough for me. Because if there's one thing I learned early and took with me into adulthood, it was how to be comfortable being alone. It always surprises me how much other people depend on each other, as if that rug won't be pulled out from under them at some point. Some say the pain of eventual abandonment is worth the pleasure of another's company, but I'm not so sure. Don't dare think I'm bitter about it, though. I get that some people would be, but I'm not them. Mostly, as always, I'm amused, and laughter is one constant friend I can count on. Let's do this again. We get to give out a free Merit Badge every day this week. Want one? Anyone who comments here before 11:30 pm WDC time today could get today's. (I'll need that extra half-hour to pick a winner and send the badge before midnight.) To clarify: When I say "comment," I mean comment. Not review. Though reviews are always welcome. I also mean "here," not on the newsfeed post. MB recipient will be chosen at random. Maximum of one MB per commenter for the week. If I don't get comments, I'll pick a previous commenter, and maybe not at random. The MB will be the one I commissioned two years ago, "Complexity," which is a publicly available MB. I appreciate all comments; this is just a little incentive. |
"Blog Week Birthday Bastion 2024" [13+] by WakeUpAndLive️~Happiness Prompt 2. Sept 2. Tell us about an earthshaking Life-or-Death situation in your life. What happened, how did it change you, if at all? I've been close to death three times that I know of, each time from some medical issue. I say "that I know of," because who knows what might have happened had I crossed a street a few seconds later, or decided to go out instead of staying home? Thing is, none of those instances were particularly "earthshaking." For a human over the age of, maybe, 3 or 4, being alive means living with knowledge of your own mortality, even if only in abstract terms. As better writers than me have noted, death is one of the very few certainties, along with taxes and construction on the Capital Beltway. Doesn't make it easier to contemplate, maybe, but you know it's coming. And with age comes even deeper knowledge of the inevitability of drawing one's final breath. You've lost many pets, if you're lucky enough to have had pets. You've lost family. Maybe you've lost friends to the Reaper's scythe. Or, like me, you watch your parents slowly decline into husks of their former selves, to the point where death becomes a release and a relief, not something to be feared. It creeps closer and closer, as sure as getting honked at in Manhattan. The only unknown is: how are you going to handle the knowledge? Back when Facebook was new and shiny, I had an account there (still do, because I can't get into the damn thing to close my account, but that's not really relevant) and I, like many people, became curious about what people I knew long ago were up to. I found a mutual friend of a high school girlfriend, whom I asked about—not trying to start anything back up, but like I said, just curiosity. "Oh, she died a few years ago," the mutual friend told me. Apparently, she'd just gotten back from her honeymoon and was in great spirits, looking forward to her new life, when she collapsed on a sidewalk from an undiagnosed congenital heart condition. She was in her early 30s. Her twin brother, who, somewhat predictably, never much liked me, got checked out; turns out he had the same condition, but knowing about it, the docs were able to treat it. Last I heard, he was still kicking. I even ran across his name in a news story once, a few years back. I may be getting some of the details wrong, because this was long ago, and her death even longer ago, but the result remains the same: that's most likely when it really hit me that anyone can die of anything at any time. Sure, I'd known that intellectually, but that was probably the moment when I felt it in my gut. What changed my perception, at least to some degree, was facing not the prospect of my own death, but getting hit by the news of the death of someone my own age I'd once cared about. Some people deal by trying everything they can to extend their life. I can understand that, though that's not me. Other people deal by deliberately trying to shorten it. That's not me, either. Still others cling to the belief that there's a life after death, that their consciousness will, through supernatural means, survive their body's demise. While I'm not here to disparage anyone's closely held beliefs, I couldn't take comfort in that; one of the many things I'd find scarier than death would be eternal life. No, between watching my parents decline and die, and hearing about my former girlfriend, the only thing that makes any kind sense to me is to live while I'm still alive. Sometimes, that means doing things that have been shown to reduce one's life span, but that's not why I do them. I do anything I do for one overwhelming reason: I fucking feel like it. And that, folks, is why I plan to be in France three weeks from now: because I feel like it. I could die tonight. Or on the trip. Or 20 years from now, or anytime in between. But I lived first. Life's too short to drink the cheap stuff. You wanna live until You die alone and will And I can fly alone at will I'm not so far below I'll live beneath your sky With tainted eyes I've made my mind To live until I die Let's do this again. We get to give out a free Merit Badge every day this week. Want one? Anyone who comments here before 11:30 pm WDC time today could get today's. (I'll need that extra half-hour to pick a winner and send the badge before midnight.) To clarify: When I say "comment," I mean comment. Not review. Though reviews are always welcome. I also mean "here," not on the newsfeed post. MB recipient will be chosen at random. Maximum of one MB per commenter for the week. If I don't get comments, I'll pick a previous commenter, and maybe not at random. The MB will be the one I commissioned two years ago, "Complexity," which is a publicly available MB. I appreciate all comments; this is just a little incentive. |
"Blog Week Birthday Bastion 2024" [13+] by WakeUpAndLive️~Happiness Prompt 1. Sept 1. It's the site's 24th Anniversary. Tell us about your love or fondness of Writing.com. What makes this a wonderful place for writers? Why are you (still) here? My own site milestone is coming up: as of next Wednesday, I'll have been a member here for 20 years. The funny thing is, I still consider myself a later transplant to the jungle here. When I joined, I met writers who had been around for as long as four years, and they had their communities, their cliques, their ways of doing things. And yet, they welcomed the newbie (me). Some of them are still around, and remain good friends. Some of them are not, and I miss them. Objectively, I know that for a newbie today, there's not a lot of difference between a 20 and 24 year tenure here. And I admit, I'm not very good at paying that long-ago welcome forward; I never do know what to say to, or do for, a new member struggling to figure out the site or learn the ins and outs of WritingML, unless they ask me directly. To be fair to myself, when they do ask me directly (or in the Tech Support forum), I do my best to answer their questions. It just occurred to me that my current daily blogging streak is longer than the time between the site's launch and the day I joined. Perhaps that's enough to change my perspective. And I guess I've become a blogger. I mean, anyone can be a blogger, but I think this site focuses on fiction writing and poetry. I've done plenty of that, and I generally enjoy reading it, but this seems like this is the niche I've slotted myself into. Not what I'd planned, but I'll run with it. The real treasure, as the cliché goes, is the friends we make along the way. I've met more people here than I can count, and I can count pretty high, what with being comfortable with exponential notation and all. And I've met many of them in person. I stood up for one at his wedding. I've helped with another member's business plan. I've gone on road trips with some. I've traveled throughout the US, and even to other countries, to meet up with WDC authors. And I'm willing to continue to do that. Sometimes, the only thing I have in common with the people I've met is a love of reading and writing. Sometimes, that's enough. We get to give out a free Merit Badge every day this week. Want one? Anyone who comments here before 11:30 pm WDC time today could get today's (I'll need that extra half-hour to pick a winner and send the badge before midnight.) To clarify: When I say "comment," I mean comment. Not review. Though reviews are always welcome. I also mean "here," not on the newsfeed post. MB recipient will be chosen at random. Maximum of one MB per commenter for the week. If I don't get comments, I'll pick a previous commenter, and maybe not at random. The MB will be the one I commissioned two years ago, "Complexity," which is a publicly available MB. I appreciate all comments; this is just a little incentive. |
| In August and everything after You get a little less than you expected somehow —Counting Crows I usually do these archaeological expeditions on Sundays, but, as I noted yesterday, all of next week will be (or at least should be) taken up by entries for "Blog Week Birthday Bastion 2024" [13+].The past, imperfect, goes all the way to April of 2007 today, for a short entry about consumer automation: "Meet George Jetson" My wife wants a robot. Yes, this was long enough ago that I was actually married. No, not for that. I haven't been replaced by a machine yet. Or, well, maybe I have; her friends have been holding a lot of schtupperware parties lately. "Schtup" is a Yiddish word for sexual intercourse. Her friends had these get-togethers where the host would demonstrate various "toys" (mostly made of plastic) and get some sort of commission on sales. It would have been impossible for me not to make a pun on Tupperware parties. By "demonstrate," I don't mean what you're thinking. Get your mind out of the gutter, please. But specifically, she wants a robot she saw that travels around the house, cleaning it. A few years back, my housemate got a Roomba. It was a massive pain to organize around, since neither of us is naturally organized. There's barely enough open floor space for it to do its thing, and I can't be arsed to do all the work it would take to possess less stuff. It collects dust now, on top rather than inside. Now, overlooking for the moment the years of therapy our cats will have to endure if we actually get this little slice of science fiction... Also, the cats were not amused. Yes, I've seen those videos of cats sitting on the damn things while they scoot around, but my cats are different. ...glossing over the price (which, really, is probably comparable to an Oreck vacuum cleaner)... The house is, and was, uncarpeted except for one single room. Not worth spending that kind of dough. Then I'd be the sucker instead of the vacuum cleaner. ...and even forgetting for the moment how this little gadget confirms my theory that if necessity is the mother of invention, laziness is the milkman... Huh. I've been saying that for at least 17 years. I had no idea. ...aside from all that, there's something fundamentally wrong here: There exists a household cleaning robot, and I still don't have my flying car. Every time I complain that I don't have a flying car, two responses come soaring in, as if jerked by knees: 1) Flying cars do exist (generally accompanied by a link to a video); 2) People can't drive in 2D; imagine the chaos if they tried it in 3D. For 1, I say "Okay, they exist. Fine. They're not production models and, more importantly, my complaint is not that they don't exist, but that I don't own one." For 2, my response is that I don't give a good goddamn if anyone else has one; I'd be perfectly happy being the only owner of one. I was promised a flying car. It was right there at the 1939 World's Fair: Flying Cars are the Future. The far future, apparently. Point is, how come she gets a household robot, and I'm still stuck driving a vehicle that never leaves the ground (except maybe when I'm being chased by Roscoe P. Coltrane)? Spoiler: she didn't get a household robot. I'm not saying that the lack was a proximate cause of our divorce, but it probably didn't help. There follows a link to a Popular Mechanics article (I presume from the URL), but the link doesn't work any more and I have no idea what point I was trying to make with it. Nor can I be arsed to search it out. And just to forestall another assumption: it's not like I expected her to do all the cleaning. We both did that. Not that I would have done as much if I'd been single, as evidenced by the fact that these days, I hire a maid service, which is almost as much an organizational pain in the ass as the Roomba was. |
| I expect to participate in "Blog Week Birthday Bastion 2024" [13+] every day next week, and this will likely be the last link I comment on for a while. So savor it. Which should be easy enough, because it's about food. Do You Really Need to Bake With a Scale? I am legally obligated to tell you the truth, even if you don't want to hear it. You're probably better off baking with an oven, I think. So listen to me, your baking therapist: You need to stop the negative self-talk. It’s not you—it’s your measuring cup. And it’s letting you down! Which is what I've been saying. But no, I get it, I'm not an expert. My advice is that taking my advice isn't always a good idea. But I've railed on this numerous times, most recently here: "Waxy Scaley" When I tried using measuring cups on five separate occasions. I got five totally different weights. This! Is! Not! Okay! I think we get the point without all the bangs. We all measure flour differently. Some of us dip-and-sweep, others fluff-and-spoon, a few of us live on the edge and simply tilt the bag over the measuring cup, hoping for the best, and there are those who shall not be named who use liquid measuring cups (please don’t). No mention of sifting? Shame. With a baking scale, however, 125 grams of flour (the generally accepted standard weight of 1 cup all-purpose flour) remains 125 grams no matter where and who in the world you are. I could quibble about this. Unless you're using a balance scale, you're measuring weight, not mass. The same mass weighs a different amount depending on where you are on or off the planet. But I won't. Accuracy is indeed important, as is precision, but it's possible to take it too far. The trick is knowing when you're taking it too far. Why am I so focused on flour? Because every crumbly cookie, sunken cake, or leaden bread that made you believe you’re a bad baker can almost always be traced back to too much or too little flour. Not mentioned in the article: the kind of flour you're using can also be important. You know why biscuits (American biscuits, not what the UK calls cookies) are better in the South? It's not because we're better bakers. It's that the proper flour for biscuits is generally only available in the American south. This scientific study supports my assertion; also note their use of grams, not cups (though their mixing of SI and Imperial units made me twitch).But the measuring thing holds true for other ingredients. Baking soda is an essential ingredient in many baked goods, and it works because of a chemical reaction, and chemical reactions are usually driven by mass, not volume. Flour has a structural purpose in baking; given enough moisture and heat it forms a protein network that lends physical shape to your treats. That protein network is mostly gluten. This is one reason why gluten-free baked things taste like mushy ass. The benefits of a baking scale go far beyond flour, though. Ever come across measurements like “a scant ½ cup”? (I’m sorry, what?). It’s never an issue when a recipe is written with weights. I don't think I've ever seen that (in my defense, I don't bake often). But what I have seen is stuff like "heaping tablespoon." Come on. Or how about measuring sticky peanut butter or molasses or honey? Which was the focus of the last blog entry I did on this, the one I linked up there. Or what about when a recipe calls for chocolate or nuts? With so many variables—mini chips vs. regular chips vs. fèves, finely chopped vs. coarsely chopped nuts—a scale is the only way to ensure consistency. While I agree with this, there are some ingredients, like chocolate chips for the eponymous cookies, where the actual quantity is more a matter of personal preference. The point remains, though: a standard cup of Hershey's Kisses (not great chocolate, but they're basically giant chocolate chips), if you can even measure something that bulky in cups, is not going to weigh the same as a cup of mini chocolate chips. This has to do with solids vs. air voids, but that's just on a bigger scale (pun intended) than the flour problem. Even if a favorite recipe doesn’t list weights, you can use this immensely handy conversion chart from King Arthur Flour to figure them out yourself. Half my work in cooking seems to be finding these conversions online. As an aside, it doesn't matter if it's grams or ounces. As long as you're on Earth, it's close enough. Just don't confuse weight ounces with fluid ounces. Once you understand the life-changing magic of baking with a scale, you may never, ever use measuring cups again. Hold onto those spoons, though: For very small amounts, like teaspoons, I prefer to stick to volume measures. Most scales measure in 1-gram increments, so they just aren’t sensitive enough to pick up the nuances of something like ¼ teaspoon baking soda. I used to have a 0.01-gram kitchen scale. Bought it from Amazon. Later, I realized that this probably put me on a drug-dealer watch list. No, assholes, I'm just using it to get the precise amount of cornstarch measured out. By "used to have," I mean it fell off the counter once, and I replaced it with a scale that's less precise but has greater capacity. And is more durable. The article ends with a link to a hamantaschen recipe, for which we are in the wrong time of year. But that's never stopped me before. |
| I have a couple of articles about this, from different perspectives. This one, from Ars Technica, gets a little, well... technical. Researchers figure out how to keep clocks on the Earth, Moon in sync A single standardized Earth/Moon time would aid communications, enable lunar GPS. I'm pretty sure I've talked about this sort of thing in here before, but if so, that was before they'd figured this out. I found one example: "Luna Ticks" Our communications and GPS networks all depend on keeping careful track of the precise timing of signals—including accounting for the effects of relativity. From what I understand, there are two opposite effects of relativity with GPS. One is the relative speed of the satellites; the other is their elevation. While opposite, they inconveniently don't cancel each other out. You also have to account for distance from receiver to each satellite, because of the speed of light. I mention this because while the lag time to satellites in low earth orbit is small, the moon is about 1.3 light-seconds away, and a second and a third (pun intended, of course) is a long damn time for some things. It's relatively easy to account for that on the Earth, where we're dealing with a single set of adjustments that can be programmed into electronics that need to keep track of these things. But plans are in place to send a large array of hardware to the Moon, which has a considerably lower gravitational field (faster clocks!), which means that objects can stay in orbit despite moving more slowly (also faster clocks!). No mention here of accounting for the variable gravitational field of the Moon, which I've seen described as "lumpy." I trust they've figured out how to deal with that, but if not, I'm certain we'll hear about it in an "oopsie!" article in the future. It would be easy to set up an equivalent system to track time on the Moon... I think this author has a different definition of "easy" than I do. I might have chosen "straightforward," instead. ...but that would inevitably see the clocks run out of sync with those on Earth—a serious problem for things like scientific observations. Relativity put a dagger in the back of the concept of "simultaneous;" two space-time events that seem to be simultaneous for one observer can be asynchronous for another. This is generally not an issue on Earth, and doesn't matter to our day-to-day lives (as long as we're not physicists), but I expect it makes a difference when dealing with separate worlds. So, the International Astronomical Union has a resolution that calls for a "Lunar Celestial Reference System" and "Lunar Coordinate Time" to handle things there. Yawn. Come on, you can do better than that. "Loonie time" is right there on top of my brain. Give me a few minutes (and a few drinks), and I might even come up with some forced acronyms, like "Lunar Uncoupled Normative, Asynchronous, Temporal Isochronic ClockS." And that's without benefit of beer. Anyway, We're getting ready to explore the Moon. Son, we've been exploring the Moon since before I was born. Just not very often by way of humans visiting the place. We'll have an increasing set of hardware, and eventually facilities on the lunar surface. Or under it, as I noted in another entry: "Cave People" All that could potentially be handled by an independent lunar positioning system, if we're willing to accept it marching to its own temporal beat. But that will become a problem if we're ultimately going to do things like perform astronomy from the Moon, as the precise timing of events will be critical. Thing about lunar astronomy is... well, it's obvious that not having an atmosphere helps a lot with observations, but we have space telescopes for shit like that. No, the thing is, to the best of my limited understanding, you can put a telescope on the Moon and one on Earth and one out in space, and what you get is effectively one big giant telescope, able to resolve distant objects to greater precision. That is, if all your you get all your ticks and tocks lined up right. As always, it's possible I got something wrong there, but the point is, I can see how synchronization would be important when doing astronomy between Earth and some other world. What does this look like? Well, a lot of deriving equations. The paper's body has 55 of them, and there are another 67 in the appendices. So, a lot of the paper ends up looking like this. If you want to get heart palpitations, go to the article to find out what "this" is. Still, using their system, they're able to calculate that an object near the surface of the Moon will pick up an extra 56 microseconds every day, which is a problem in situations where we may be relying on measuring time with nanosecond precision. This sort of thing is why I strongly object to airy "time is an illusion" proclamations. Nothing that can be calculated to that degree of accuracy deserves to be reduced to "illusion." It may not be fundamental, sure, and it's probably an emergent property, but so is temperature. If time is an illusion, then it's time (pun intended) to revise the definition of "illusion." And the researchers say that their approach, while focused on the Earth/Moon system, is still generalizable. Which means that it should be possible to modify it and create a frame of reference that would work on both Earth and anywhere else in the Solar System. Mars or bust! |
| I promise I have more articles in the queue from not-Cracked than from Cracked, but sometimes, the RNG likes to cluster things. I should probably mention that there are images in the article that may get you called in to HR at work, but that'll probably happen anyway, just from wasting your time reading this blog and a dick joke site. 5 Simple Science Questions We Bet You’ll Get Wrong What is a day? What is the Earth made of? You don’t really know Yeah, I get it. There's a lot I don't know. There's probably even some stuff I get wrong, though I try to fix that when I become aware. Phrasing aside, though, as usual, the article has an interesting take on things. Between time travel, fusion reactors and the brain transplants we hear are happening any day now, science can sound like an intimidating set of disciplines. I don't know about brain transplants, but I did see something recently about a brain implant for thought-to-text. No, not Muskmelon's crazy stunt; this one seems legit.Of course, I immediately saw the potential to reverse this so that advertisers can pay to have their product beamed directly into our brains. And you know damn well that's going to happen, along with people using it for porn. Today, however, let’s set aside the most complicated theories and applications. Porn isn't that complicated, unless you're doing it in space. 5. How Many Minutes Does Earth Take to Rotate Once? Oh, I know this trick question. A solar day is not the same as a sidereal day. The Earth takes 1,436 minutes for each rotation. Or, it takes 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds. The article explains this in good-enough detail, but the simple explanation is: that's how long it takes for the same distant star (that is not the one we're orbiting) to reappear in the same place in the sky, relative to any point on the earth's surface. But also, that sort of knowledge makes people like me fun at parties, but doesn't much matter for our 24-hour-everyday lives. 4. Would It Be Sexy to Have X-Ray Vision? No. 3. What Color Is the Sun? Another trick question, and also involving the accursed daystar. The Sun is yellow, say most people with eyes. Except when it's red or orange. People who know more about space might offer a different answer. The Sun is actually white, they’d say. Again, details in the article, but basically, white is what happens when you mix a full spectrum of light colors together. And of course the sun has a full spectrum, else we wouldn't sometimes see rainbows. (I may be mixing up cause and effect; our eyes evolved to see that range for reasons). But to confuse us even further, physicists refer to the kind of photon emissions from the sun as "black-body radiation," for reasons I won't go into but you're free to look up. So maybe the sun is "actually" black. 2. What Is the World’s Most Common Substance? Oh, that's easy: Stupidity. What is the most abundant material on Earth — or rather, what is the most abundant material on or in Earth? Um... advertisements? Is it rock? Sure, but you’re going to have to be more specific than that. Anything can be considered rock. Well, maybe not smooth jazz. The most common substance in the world is in fact... bridgmanite. We’ll forgive you for never having heard that word before since scientists only got around to naming it within the last decade. Yep, okay, you got me. Never heard of it before this. My knowledge continues to expand, thanks to a juvenile humor website. 1. Should You Shoot C-4 Explosives, for Fun? I'm a big fan of doing lots of things for fun, so... yes? On the other hand, if you answered “yes” because explosions are cool, we have bad news. The C-4 will not explode, so shooting it might be quite boring. Awww. Yeah, my understanding was the whole point of C-4 was to have a stable explosive. Which sounds weird, but you want it to blow up when you want it to blow up, not while you're transporting it to the thing you want to blow up. So it requires a detonator or whatever. Shooting Tannerite, now... yeehaw! |
| In a twist of cosmic coincidence, today's article is also from Cracked and is also about opposites. 5 Words That Mean the Exact Opposite If You Go to England Jack Reacher makes no sense, and to understand why, you need to understand British English Clearly meant for an American audience. If a British rag had written this article, it would have been "5 Words Yanks Get Backwards." England is a strange land, where they speak a language known as English. You might have trouble understanding what anyone there is saying. Strewth. For example, you might hear someone described as “mean,” and you think that refers to how they say cruel things. You later realize it really refers to how they’re stingy with money. In fairness, those traits often go hand in hand. 5. Tabling an Issue In America, when someone says, “Let’s table that discussion,” they mean, “Let’s stop talking about that for now.” Except these days, you'd say "let's put a pin in that and circle back later." In Britain, when someone wants to table something, it instead means they want to discuss it right now. And this nicely illustrates the hazards of verbing nouns. "Take it off the table" or "put it on the table" would be close equivalents, and less ambiguous. 4. Public School If you went to public school in the U.S., that means you went for free, in a school set up by your local government. Generally badly. In England, however, the term “public schools” refers to the most elite schools in the country, places like Eton and Harrow... They’re run by private institutions and charge fees. I've known about this difference for a while, and I gotta say, in this case, I'm going to side with the US. But it's not like either side of the pond is going to change its usage soon, so it's just important to know there's a difference. The way I remember it is that a pub, originally public house, is also privately owned. 3. The Doughnut Effect One of the few delicacies that doesn't have a different name in the two Englishes. We say cookie; they say biscuit. They say donut too; they just don't use the lazy spelling. However, this item isn't about delicious treats, but about how cities grow rings around them... differently in each country. Oh, just read it.. 2. Luck Out If you luck out, that means you stumbled into some good luck. That is, obviously, the US version. As one should expect by now, the UK version is the precise opposite. Though the character Reacher is American, the author Lee Child is British. It appears here that the author is using “luck out” in the exact opposite way from how Americans do. I'm mostly just including this because the subhead up there called out Jack Reacher. And this is not an invitation to discuss the literary merits, or lack thereof, of the Reacher books. Which I've never read, but I've enjoyed the Amazon adaptation so far. 1. A Moot Point When I was a kid, I read books in both American and British English, which is why I'm largely bilingual now. But I gotta admit, this one confused me for the longest time. If a British person says a point is moot, they mean it’s up for debate, while when an American says it, they mean it’s closed for debate. The article actually goes into some of the semantic reasons for that, which is one reason I read Cracked. This one's similarity to the "table" one is, however, too obvious not to comment on. But the article did that for me, too. |
| Today, we have a bit of linguistic education from that well-respected teaching site, Cracked: 5 Words That Switched Meaning Because Everyone Used Them Wrong ‘Entitlement’ now means you don’t deserve something, which is absurd There are way more than five, but we have to take tiny attention spans into account, here. Some words mean two things that are complete opposites. “Cleave,” for example, can mean both splitting something apart or joining two things together. This is known as a contronym, and I've discussed them before: "Contronyms" . But that was almost five years ago, and today's bit isn't exactly about contronyms.5. ‘Steep Learning Curve’ And already, we step out of theme: that's a phrase, not a word. A steep learning curve indicates a process that’s easy to learn, with production rates rapidly increasing over time. With a shallow curve, on the other hand, rates increase more slowly, indicating a process that’s harder to learn. Though, as the article so helpfully points out, a lot depends on how you define your graph's axes. Ask me, it's probably best to do as they suggest and stay away from "learning curve," especially since that borders on corpspeak. 4. ‘Mystery Box’ If you’re a normal person, you may go your whole life without hearing about mystery box storytelling. If you’re a nerd, however, you know the term well. Mystery box storytelling is when a series lures you in by dangling a bunch of mysteries, mysteries to which the writers themselves do not yet know the answers. Well, I'm a nerd, and I think I know a few things about writing, but I'd never heard that particular phrase. (Again... phrase, not word.) The name “mystery box” comes from a TED talk that J.J. Abrams gave in 2008, initially inspired by people asking him what the island in Lost is. The real mystery box here is how one director can fuck up so many different franchise movies, while still continuing to get hired as a director. If I were inclined toward conspiracy theories, I'd say Paramount (the owner of Star Trek) hired him as a double agent to ruin Star Wars for Disney. It’s a bit odd, though, to call them mystery box shows after Abrams’ choice of theme for one TED talk. Because he used the box to talk about so many different concepts, and because mystery boxes are an actual thing, with one specific mystery: What’s inside, and is it worth the price you paid? But the point here isn't to slam Abrams as a director (I liked a lot of his stuff, just not all of it); it's to show how the phrase got to be misused, and for that, there's lots more background in the article. 3. ‘Entitlement’ Hey, look! A single word, unattached to others! An entitlement is something you’re entitled to. That’s what it means. That’s how nouns work. In the U.S., federal benefits programs are called “entitlements,” based on the assumption that recipients are entitled to them. Some of these programs, like Social Security, are contributory, which means you personally paid into them. Others, like nutrition assistance, are non-contributory, paid from the government’s discretionary budget, but by calling them “entitlements,” the government is still saying recipients are entitled to them. This has bugged me for years: people calling contractual or legal obligations "entitlements" like it's a bad thing. We’ve now reached the point when advocates for entitlements argue it’s insulting to refer to these programs as entitlements: Shit, I've been there for at least a decade. Maybe longer. Maybe less. My relationship with duration (durationship?) can be tenuous. 2. ‘Low Man on the Totem Pole’ And we're back to phrases. You probably think the “low man on the totem pole” is the most junior person in an organization. They have not ascended very far, and they lack power. But have you considered what sort of person would manage to be the bottom figure in a human totem pole? They would need to be strong enough to support everyone else. Well, workers *are* the most important people in an organization. In a totem pole, the bottom figure isn’t some peon being squashed by the important figure on top. They’re the figure in the pole who’s been carved with the most detail, and they may also be the biggest. Eh, I avoid the phrase anyway, for cultural reasons. But now I'll never see it in the same way again. 1. A Special Note on ‘Literally’ Oh, hell, I'm going to hate this part. The dictionary now notes that the word has a second definition, which essentially means “not literally,” and this inclusion attracted a lot of controversy online around a decade ago. "The dictionary" (misleading, as there are several entities competing in that space) is descriptive, not prescriptive, at least the English ones. It pretty much has to base its definitions on how people are using words... even when that usage is objectively wrong, as with emphatic uses of "literally" or any use of "decimate" to mean something other than "remove one-tenth of." Literally doesn’t serve here as a synonym for figuratively, a disclaimer clarifying that they’re joking. It serves as emphasis. In fact, it emphasizes their statement by declaring it’s literal. You know it’s not literal (again, from context), but they’re telling you it is, and therein lies the sentence’s humor. Okay, so, by framing it as comedy, you're moving me to your side. Waltz's Second Law states: "Never let the facts get in the way of a good joke. Or a bad one. Especially a bad one." So, people generally don’t use “literally” as a synonym for “figuratively.” But they used to. Go through classic novels from a century or two ago, and you’ll find many authors doing so. Huh... okay. Despite the criticisms that young people misuse “literally,” using it as a replacement for “figuratively,” doing so now comes across as a very formal or outdated way of speaking. The word did change meaning, but it reversed in the opposite way to what people think, becoming more literal. And there it is, folks: proof that I can be persuaded, given enough evidence. And comedy. |
| Today's trip through the Wonka tunnel of time takes us back about five and a half years, to the end of February, 2019. Or about a month after my last Revisited entry. Random numbers will do that. The entry itself, "Journeys" , was mostly just a personal update, utterly uninspiring and uninspired. This happens sometimes, too.Finally, the last day of the hated month of February. I don't remember when I first noted to myself, "You know? I really, really hate February." But clearly, it was over five and a half years ago. Unfortunately, the weather report here indicates more cold days ahead, and possibly s**w. But at least the end is in sight: three weeks to the equinox. Not a big fan of winter in general. If I can make it that far without straying too far from my healthy-eating-and-exercise plan, begun on the solstice, I'll consider it a win. Then it won't feel so bad when I inevitably fail. See, this is why I'm a pessimist: I can smugly assert that I totally expected to fail, so I was right, and I love being right. There follows a couple of links to WDC activities, one of which is currently inactive, the other of which is, as I understand it, on its final round. I'm starting to get antsy for travel again, too. Part of that, though, is the crappy weather we've been having (normal for February in Virginia, but still crappy), so we'll see if I still have the urge in, say, April. I don't remember, and can't be arsed to look up, if I actually went anywhere in 2019. That long ago, in the Before Time, stuff starts to blend together into some kind of idyllic swirl, an innocent's last gasp before everything went to shit a year later. It's nearly the end of August now, and already I'm mourning the end of summer. Oh well. Soon, Oktoberfest beers will be available, and those always make the transition to autumn more tolerable. And, of course, I have a journey to look forward to. |
| This week, the agent got back to me with dates for travel. I still don't have tickets in hand (or, more likely, email), so things might still change, but right now my trip's scheduled for about 9/21 to 10/10. As a bonus, she came in under my budget, even with my refusal to fly steerage. Finally, hallelujah, eureka, etc... wait. That's just four weeks away. Shit. Snuck up on me. Fortunately, there's not much else to do. I still want a travel laptop or tablet, but that's easy enough; I just have to venture (shudder) into a local retailer. Staples, maybe. Or Breast Buy. I already have a plug adapter. Maybe visit another store to buy some other clothes, but that's easy enough, too. It did occur to me that at one point, I'd heard the EU was going to start requiring visas (or visa-like applications) from US travelers, so I looked that up. {xlink:https://www.cntraveler.com/story/americans-will-need-visa-for-the-eu}Pushed back to 2025. Whew. Seems to me the travel agent would have told me if that was required, but one never knows. I think I've figured out the best way to get cash there: ATM card. Problem: I haven't used an ATM in well over a decade, so I don't actually possess a debit card. It's rare that I actually need cash, as I pay for almost everything with a credit card. The reaction to this usually surprises and disappoints me, and look, I'm hard to disappoint because I'm a pessimist. I usually get comments like "I hate credit cards" or "you must have a really low interest rate" or "wow, your debt must be crushing" or some other response about the inherent peril of using credit cards. Thing is, no, I don't pay extra. I choose cards that feature cash-back promotions, so they pay me. And funny thing about credit cards: at least for now, if you pay off the balance in full when it's due, the amount of interest charged is zero. So I basically use it like a debit card. But there's one drawback (besides needing to make an effort to stay on top of things): if you use the credit card to get a cash advance, that grace period of zero interest goes right out the window, at least for the portion of the balance that was the cash advance. I don't know exactly how it works, because I've never gotten a cash advance, but I can see that fucking up my budget for months, because it accumulates interest during the period between taking the cash advance and paying it back. Does that interest then garner further interest? I don't know, and I don't want to find out the hard way. Point is, I called my bank and asked for a debit card. I also made them give me a PIN for my primary credit card (same bank) because, apparently, some European merchants use chip-and-PIN systems instead of tap-and-signature. Ask me, that's a more secure system anyway, and I don't know why we can't adopt it here. The bank rep didn't instill a lot of confidence in me, though, because she kept saying things like "PIN number" and "automatic ATM machine." I think I reached their Department of Redundancy Department. The idea is that I expect to pay for most things in Europe with the CC, but there are some situations where cash is useful. I don't want to carry a lot of dollars, pay someone to convert them to euros, then pay someone again to convert them back to dollars as I return. At least I won't have to worry about tipping... right? Right? Back in the old days, we used traveler's cheques, but I don't think that's a thing anymore. And most of the countries I've visited up until now were cool with taking US money (though at an unfavorable exchange rate). Apparently, there's a 1% fee for using the debit card at a foreign ATM, but I think that's still cheaper (and easier) than currency exchange. Which I might still have to do on the return, but whatever. That is, unless one of you more seasoned international travelers have any better ideas. I'm open to suggestions. |
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