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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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| This Cracked article might have been better to post before Halloween, but remember, tomorrow is Election Day here. Scary stuff is still in our future. I have often looked at articles about what some scientists are doing and think: "You fools! Have you never seen a horror movie?" Animal testing is an unfortunate but necessary part of certain scientific fields — that is, until the scientists decide to go all Dr. Moreau on some rats. Then it’s just weird. It’s like they’ve never seen a single monster movie. See? I'm not the only one. (Sometimes, "horror" gets replaced with "science fiction," but usually, horror is still a subgenre.) 5 The Spider Goat Spider silk is super useful for a lot of different things, but there’s a reason you don’t see a lot of spider farms. I saw a video recently on how silkworms do their thing. Silkworms are larval moths, and generally unpleasant to look at, but they lack the visceral horror of arachnids. Still, spiders are cool... from a distance. In 2012, Utah State University geneticists rectified that problem by splicing spider DNA into goat embryos, who eventually grew up to lactate spider silk. Friendly neighborhood spider-goat. 4 The Man Mice In 2013, scientists at the University of Rochester implanted human glial brain cells into the brains of newborn mice, who became much smarter and learned faster than other mice as a result. "What are we going to do tomorrow night, Brain?" Also, anyone who has ever seen a horror movie should have implored them to stop. 3 Acid Elephant In the ‘60s, experimenting with LSD was all the rage, in both the scientific and “hanging out in your friend’s cousin’s basement” senses of the word. By 1962, scientists at the University of Oklahoma had run out of ideas until one of them asked, “What if we gave an elephant a thousand doses?” Which makes me wonder: if we see pink elephants, what do elephants see? Gray humans? 2 Magnetized Cockroaches “Can you turn a cockroach into a magnet?” is a question you only ask after you’ve been seriously scientifically jaded... ...or on a serious acid trip. 1 Zombie Dogs Believe it or not, we do know how to bring once-living creatures back from the dead. Thus shifting the definition of "dead." Used to be: heart stopped = death, but then CPR came along, and now doctors have to pretty much guess when the point of no return occurs. Cornish hoped to try his method on humans, specifically a recently executed prisoner, but the government forbade it not out of any fear of a zombie apocalypse but because they weren’t sure how double jeopardy laws applied to a revived corpse. Seems like an important legal loophole to fix. Add to this mix the penchant of certain scientists to revive millennia-old bacteria found in ice cores, and you definitely have the makings of a horror movie. But still not as scary as tomorrow's election. |
I have an article in the queue about author deaths. Back in June of 2021, I shared a different article about author deaths: "Inevitable"  As you know, one reason I do these entries is to see how things have changed. I can assure you that every person listed in that original article is still dead. The original article, from LitHub, is still up. Though I clicked on it to check, I no longer follow that site and want nothing to do with them, which is why we haven't had any LitHub links in over a year. So here's my 2024 take on my 2021 words: Most of us don't choose the time and place of our demise, with notable exceptions such as Hunter S. Thompson. On manner of death, Thompson, of course, plagiarized Hemingway. Quote from the article: "Camus died in a car crash. Simple enough, right? ...Apparently, Camus once said that the most absurd way to die was in a car accident." My response: I can think of far more absurd ways to die, but most of them involve alcohol and maybe prostitutes. I think, with that, I was trying to invoke the same ironic twist ending that Camus experienced. Interesting as some of these are, I think it's better to be remembered for how you lived than for how you died. But, failing the former, I'll take the latter. |
| I guess sometimes Lifehacker is good for a laugh. Laughacker? I don't know. Spatchcocking Your Chicken Is Worth the Effort Those thighs aren't going to crisp tucked way under there. Settle down, Beavis. Roast chicken is an everyday pleasure—a good fit for both special occasions and midnight snacks. Which is why my grocery store sells rotisserie chicks. While you might be familiar with the classic roasting style, with trussed legs and tucked wings, this method can lead to overcooked breasts and soggy thighs, two phrases I want nowhere near my chicken. Heh heh heh huh huh There’s a better way to roast your chicken for more even cooking: spatchcocking. Bwaaaaahahahaha You can spatchcock, or butterfly, any bird. That bit might only be funny if you're familiar with British slang. Traditional roasting puts the driest cut of meat (the breast of the chicken) at the top, often closest to the heating element—before you've even turned up the heat, it’s a recipe for overcooking. The parts that are juiciest (i.e. the thighs) are lower, if not completely under the rest of the body, and shielded from direct heat. Somehow I'm hungry for wings, now, and I hate wings. Illustrated instructions follow. I'd suggest not going to the link if you're vegan or vegetarian, or, like me, are allergic to hard work. |
| Did my early voting today, so I can spend Election Day doing more important things, like drinking. Unrelated to that or, well, anything else, really, is this Atlas Obscura article featuring an obscure city in an obscure state: The Strange Heat Island Lurking Beneath Minneapolis An urban explorer ventured deep below downtown in search of Schieks Cave. What he found changed science. Greg Brick knew it was there, lurking beneath his city, hidden within the Minneapolis water and sewer system: an enticing geologic anomaly called Schieks Cave. That sort of thing fascinates me, but I can't be arsed to do all the work or break the laws necessary to explore for myself. When Brick arrived at the cave, he shined a flashlight into the thick darkness of the city’s underbelly. He found not just the natural void but also concrete walls that previous generations of civil engineers had built to support the natural structure. If those civil engineers were anything like me, they wrote something like "put a concrete wall here" on a map, and some minimum-wage temps did the actual work. The water was about 20 degrees hotter than it was supposed to be. It was more like the groundwater of Mississippi than that of Minneapolis. Something was warming the water beneath his city. Well, clearly, that's because Minneapolis is actually a gateway to Hell. [The cave's] discovery in 1904 by a city sewer engineer was initially kept secret lest the public fear Minneapolis had been built on unstable ground. Apparently, it was, else generations of civil engineers wouldn't have specced out concrete support walls in the cave. He finally had a way to access the cave—but there was another problem. Along the route, the raw sewage poured from shafts overhead, shooting bacteria into the air as it splashed down and creating what’s politely known as “coliform aerosols.” Unsurprisingly, Brick got sick. Another reason for us civil engineers to stay at our desks. In 2008, a separate team from the University of Minnesota had predicted that heat from Minneapolis’s urban surface was conducting itself deep underground, heating the groundwater there like a metropolitan microwave. As the article notes, this turned out to be the correct explanation, not the "gateway to Hell" one. Much to my disappointment. But it’s not all bad news: Canadian and European researchers recently suggested recycling underground heat and using it as a low-carbon way to heat homes, while also cooling the groundwater back down to normal temps. I hope their "suggestion" included exactly how to do that. Now, from the headline, I was expecting some discovery of dark matter or a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics or whatever. But no. Still, at least it's not boring. |
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