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About This Author
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Complex Numbers
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.
January 31, 2007 at 2:22pm January 31, 2007 at 2:22pm
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I wanna build me a house, on higher ground
I wanna find me a world, where love's the only sound
High above this road, filled with shadow and doubt
I want to shoulder my load, and figure it all out
I thought I'd have it figured it all out by now. Ah, the naïveté of youth. At least I'm old enough to know I'll never have it all figured out, and be okay with that.
What's the divide between youth and age? When does one transmute to the other?
I think my mother was young until she surrendered. I'm not sure when exactly that was: sometime between when I was in high school and when I came back, briefly, from college. At some point, her dreams became memories, and after a while she was nothing but memories. In 1999, the transformation was complete, and she became a memory.
She would have been 90 years old today.
My own birthday is coming up next month. I'm not ready to surrender, not yet. Thanks in part to the memory of my mother, I still have dreams - and it's not too late to let them come true.
I got somethin' in my heart, I been waitin' to give
I got a life I wanna start, one I been waitin' to live
No more waitin', tonight I feel the light I say the prayer,
I open the door, I climb the stairs...
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January 30, 2007 at 12:29pm January 30, 2007 at 12:29pm
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elusive ennui warm inside   asks: what do you think is the most important invention/discovery of the last 100 years? and why?
As a matter of boundaries, this leaves out fire, roads, the wheel, aqueducts, electric lights, radio, telephone, automobiles, powered flight, x-rays, radio, and AC power - among other things.
That leaves a whole lot of territory - the last 100 years has witnessed an explosion of technology, from the small (microchips) to the huge (Saturn V, the rocket that put a dude on the moon).
As for discoveries, well, there's relativity, quantum mechanics, galaxies, the Big Bang theory of origin, and Bruce Springsteen.
So I got to thinking - what's really important, and to whom?
They say that necessity is the mother of invention. To that, I say that laziness is the milkman. For every invention that resulted from perceived necessity, there's at least one that was designed to help us stop doing crap work: washing machines, cars, water pumps, boat engines, and so on arose not so much out of necessity, but some man or woman going, "I'm tired of doing this shit. I'm going to design a machine that can do it for me." Even the personal computer, which could be argued to be the invention with the most far-reaching effects, falls into this category.
But even the personal computer relies on earlier technologies: microchips, printed circuits, CRTs and so on. Those in turn relied on earlier discoveries and inventions, and on all the way back to fire and the wedge.
No, if I had to choose the most important invention of the last 100 years, it would have to be one that enabled other inventions, provided a foundation on which other discoveries and/or inventions could stand. And ultimately, what drives invention?
Necessity. Laziness. And dreams - both the night kind and the day kind. Without dreams, we are mere automatons, going through our daily routines without thought or hope.
A big feature of the Industrial Revolution, and one that continued long afterward, is the industrial image of people working as cogs in a giant, well-oiled machine. We all have our function, says this myth, and we must perform it for 40 years, then retire and die. We must get up at six, get dressed, go to work, come home, eat dinner, go to sleep, rinse, repeat. Progress depends on you! Don't call in sick! We're depending on you!
This stifles dreams, aborts inventions, resists discoveries, smothers curiosity. Cogs have no free will. The great inventions of the industrial age, paradoxically, destroyed our individuality, caused us to be ruled by the tyranny of time.
But there was subversion and rebellion against this chronocracy. Of course, all open rebellion was quickly squashed, its practitioners relegated to the fringes to live in boxes under bridges. But there was guerilla warfare, gradual erosion of the soul-numbing industriousness.
And what was it that was at the root cause of this insurrection? A rebellion that got to the root of the chronocracy, striking a blow against the oppression of the measured life while at the same time giving us more time to dream, to think, to plan... to invent.
I'm unable to determine the name of the rebel-saint who blew up the Parliament of Industry. Perhaps she or he is destined to go through history unappreciated, unsung, unrecorded. But the invention has forever changed the way we approach work and dreams.
It is.... the snooze button. |
January 29, 2007 at 12:29pm January 29, 2007 at 12:29pm
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I really should get some formal training in philosophy (including logic) and other crap I missed out on in college as a result of the engineering school not requiring more than one "liberal arts" course per semester. And even that was *cough cough wheeze* years ago now, so I barely remember any of it.
They say "write what you know," but I want to know everything so I can write about everything. Some people say I already think I do know everything, but I don't; I just act like it sometimes.
The older I get, the more I realize I don't really know how to think about things; I don't know how much of my personal philosophy is new and how much of it is just retreads of thoughts that have come before.
I suppose I could read, but reading is limited, especially if I lack the referents for what has come before, what the book has built on. Like reading T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land without knowing any of his allusions.
Well, just some random thoughts because I don't have much profound, enlightening or even humorous to say today. |
January 28, 2007 at 7:07pm January 28, 2007 at 7:07pm
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One of my great revelations in life was when it came to me that those things we call "creation" and "destruction" are not antonyms; that, in point of fact, they are one and the same thing. Certainly I'd heard this expressed before, but it's one thing to hear somebody say it in relation to some form of mysticism, and another to have its reality punch you in the gut. They're not just "two sides of the same coin," I realized; they ARE the coin, yin and yang, two heads, two tails.
So much of our worldview is dictated by language. Did what we call "intelligence" in humans predate the development of language, or was it the other way around? Or, alternatively, was it all part of the same evolutionary development? In any event, we insist on calling this event a "creation" and that other event a "destruction." But I can't imagine an instance of creation that does not also involve destruction. If I write on a piece of paper, creating a poem, I destroy the configuration of the paper and whatever I use to write it. If I got my hands on high explosives and blew something up, I would create a mess (and light, heat, noise, and legal trouble). Even if I only create something in my mind - an idea, or whatever - it destroys whatever neural configuration was there before (or however memory works).
Whether we call some event a creation or a destruction is a matter of the value we place on whatever is being created or destroyed.
Today has just been one of those days when my mind refuses to stop dwelling on the past, on all that I've lost along the way. But can I apply the semantic gymnastics above to the loss/gain relationship? Can we really lose or gain anything without gaining or losing something else? I suppose it's all in how you look at it. "Loss" has negative connotations - except, maybe, when it comes to losing weight. "Gain" has positive connotations, but certainly it's possible to gain something undesirable, like a tumor or, somewhat less malignantly, a traffic citation.
Can it really be all in how we look at things? Certainly there are absolutes, but so much of our experience is polarized through this half-empty vs. half-full filter. The optimists have been telling me this all along, but I don't listen to optimists; I don't trust anyone who smiles all the time. |
January 27, 2007 at 7:21pm January 27, 2007 at 7:21pm
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"Daily Writing Challenge"  [E] update:
I haven't done today's writing yet. That means I have 2000 words to write today, and an additional 2000 words every day from tomorrow through the 31st. Not far to go now. 10,000 words.
If I make it through this month, I'll have the option of continuing in March, at 2000 words every day. I haven't decided if I'm going to do this yet, or not. I don't think I can if I just continue with what I've been doing, but if I manage to get an outline together in February and know what I'm doing and where I'm going with one story or another, I might do it.
First, though, I have to make it through this month. I'm sitting here procrastinating. I know once I get into the writing, it'll go fairly smoothly. Still, I'm putting it off like I always do with stuff. I had hoped I would learn better by now.
Oh, and then there's the Fiction Writing class I signed up for. It begins Monday, and runs for like 9 weeks, once a week. I'm supposed to bring a story, or the beginning of a story, to work on. I'm torn between bringing the short story that I feel is my most promising work (though it does need work: "Cerebronaut" [13+]) and bringing a novel-length story I've started. I'm up to 20K words or so in the novel, but I don't know whether to proceed with it or abandon it.
Maybe I'll bring both. What the hell.
Okay. Enough with the procrastination. Time to write.
Well, maybe some dinner first... |
January 26, 2007 at 12:54pm January 26, 2007 at 12:54pm
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My wife sent me a link to this webcomic today. As a public service, I give you:
http://www.hello-cthulhu.com/?date=2003-11-30
(That's the first comic. You can click on the "Next" links for even more Wrong.)
Of course, that reminded me of this one:
http://craphound.com/images/hellovader.jpg
Screaming in terror yet?
Speaking of Wrong:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,21107363-2,00.html?from=public_rss
A LEADING Perth psychologist forced his bulimic client to wear a dog collar, sexually assaulted her and whipped her with a wire coathanger and cat o'nine tails, saying it was part of a new treatment, a Perth court was told yesterday.
And as if that's not whacked enough: the guy's name was Bruce Beaton.
Oh, speaking of guys with sickly appropriate names:
http://www.post-trib.com/news/224383,putz.article
How do you get to live to 59 with that name, huh?
Well. At least his first name wasn't Randy. |
January 25, 2007 at 2:05pm January 25, 2007 at 2:05pm
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terryjroo: hmmm. *Puts on her red clown nose and rainbow colored wig* Can we go back to talking about sex? I promise, I won't lie!
elusive ennui warm inside : you know you could talk about breasts in the movies... that's not political. and okay wellll why not talk about tantric buddhism?... then you can at least have sex while you're in some 'lotus eating state of ego free bliss'
novusfemina: And tantric sex. Tantric sex is good.
Well, I've talked about religion and politics this month; I suppose I should give at least a passing nod to that other taboo topic of polite conversation: sex.
I have some passing familiarity with the concepts of Tantric sex: the interplay of the chakras, the Kundalini serpent and all that. We in the West, conditioned as we are by a religious tradition that tends to compartmentalize sex and relegate it to a "lower" or "animal" function, are often shocked by the idea of sex as a spiritual exercise.
Maybe if more of us thought of it as spiritual and uplifting, instead of mechanical or, at worst, sinful, we wouldn't be so bloody dysfunctional about the whole concept.
And why shouldn't it be spiritual? It's the ultimate act of creation. And I'm not even talking about its mundane result of reproduction; that doesn't create a life, so much as continue what's already there. No, what it creates is much more subtle. I've said before that reproduction is not, as is commonly assumed, the purpose of sex. A potential result, yes; not its purpose. Any number of mechanisms could have evolved by which the species would be propagated. Nor, thanks to technology, is the act itself essential for procreation.
Anyway, if this little digression wasn't enough for all y'all who have left sex-related comments after previous entries, feel free to check out my ongoing Daily Writing Challenge journal, especially some of this month's entries. "Overcoming Adversity" [XGC] - just remember these are rough drafts  |
January 24, 2007 at 2:03pm January 24, 2007 at 2:03pm
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First of all, no, I haven't seen the Will Smith movie with that (misspelled) title.
It's axiomatic - or perhaps clichéd; sometimes I can't tell the difference - that "ignorance is bliss." Mavis Moog once wrote, "Knowledge is blisser," but I'm not so sure about that.
Human mythology is rife with examples of knowledge being Bad. The best-known myth of that sort is the one involving Adam and Eve. They were living in a state of shining happiness when they "ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge" - which God told them would kill them, but admitted in private that it would make them "become like us" (the antecedent of "us" still being hotly debated). Running a close second, and a favorite of industrial-age writers, is Prometheus. In this case, Prometheus is a god already (well, technically, a Titan) who defies mean old Zeus by giving fire (a metaphor for knowledge, technology and civilization) to the poor, shuddering humans.
At some point I'm going to explore in some depth the central importance of the "apple" imagery among all these knowledge myths - and its use even in myths of science, as an inspiration for Newton among other things. But not today.
Point is, God sentences Adam and Eve to lifetimes of tedium, and Zeus sentences Prometheus to having his liver torn out on a daily basis. Nothing good comes to those who explore knowledge at the expense of a deity's wishes.
All of which makes me wonder what my neighbor, Thomas Jefferson, was thinking when he co-opted Locke's idea of property rights, replacing it with this silly "pursuit of happiness" nonsense. I mean, Tom was an educated man and a great thinker; he had little use for organized religion, and owned quite a lot of property (I'm talking about land here, not slaves. Don't give me crap about Jefferson's owning slaves. I've heard it all.) Still, it's right there, in one of my country's founding documents: the right to (among other things) the pursuit of happiness.
But happiness is anathema to knowledge. This idea is supported by deep-rooted cultural memes, and is one of the few philosophical ideas at home in both eastern and western spirituality (Buddhism's destruction of the ego as a means to enlightenment comes to mind; one must know nothing to experience Nirvana (or be its lead singer (nootch))). Knowledge is elusive; the more one knows, the more one wants to know. Happiness, too, is elusive (and we have no explicit right to it, anyway; all we have is the right to pursue it) but is quite simply not found in the assumption of knowledge. Clearly, some people can find satisfaction in the pursuit of knowledge, but the very force that drives scientific investigation is by its nature unquenchable. There is always the drive to find out more, gain more knowledge; a discontent with what is already known. And discontent is not happiness.
So I've decided, today, that this whole pursuit of happiness thing is crap. It's a semantic paradox, for starters; and the clincher for me was when I realized that I'd rather know stuff, if necessary in defiance of the gods and mortal authorities, than fit myself into some lotus-eating state of ego-free bliss.
Give me that apple. It won't make me happy, but it will set me free. |
January 24, 2007 at 12:16am January 24, 2007 at 12:16am
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I know... enough with the political rants, right?
Someone suggested I talk about the weather. But that would likely lead to a discussion about global warming, which at present is a political hot potato.
Damn Al Gore for taking away the Last Safe Topic!
Oops, I talked about politics again. Damn. |
January 23, 2007 at 4:17pm January 23, 2007 at 4:17pm
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Looks like a lot of people have strong feelings about Hillary Clinton. Okay, I can understand that, I suppose. Of all the folks who would be King, she's probably best known. Of course, yesterday's blog was really meant to be more about "the media" than about Clinton.
I can't help but wonder if she would be so popular with "the media" if she were a man. Her husband's admitted infidelity was not, as some would have it, a reason to label him a bad President. There were plenty of other reasons for that label, but they don't matter now. She's not her husband. But let's consider for a minute a role reversal. Let's pretend it was Hillary, and not Bill, who was president eight years ago. Better yet, let's not put familiar names to it: say it was Joan Brown who was President, and her well-spoken, also politically powerful husband, Jim Brown, was First Gentleman. There's a scandal, and it turns out that Joan Brown had a brief affair with an aide. Now, I know some people would have trouble accepting Jim Brown as a viable candidate, ten years later. After all, he couldn't even inspire loyalty in his wife!
Is there a double standard? Would there be a double standard, more appropriately, if there were more women in powerful positions? Are we still so culturally ignorant that we can accept infidelity from men more than we can from women - or are there some of you out there who think it's perfectly understandable in women, but not in men?
Or is the whole cheating thing becoming an outmoded concept? I know when Bill Clinton was caught with his cigar out, my first thought was, "Naughty boy was cheating on his wife." Same as it would be if any other guy had done it, basically. Yes, there's some moralistic overtones there; I was raised to believe that's wrong - not for any mystical reason, but because it's not fair to the spouse. My second thought was, "This is between him and his wife," because, really, it's not our business. (Lying under oath WAS our business, but even there, everybody lies about sex; it's axiomatic.)
Would my reaction - would your reaction, whatever it was - have been the same if the sexual dynamics were reversed?
And what bearing does all this have on the 2008 primaries and elections? Pretty much nothing. Just some thoughts I had on gender dynamics and double standards. I'm far more concerned, as I said, with what any of the candidates might do for (or to) our country.
Anyway, no, I don't have strong feelings about it. Not yet. My wife asked me last night why I'm so "threatened" by her candidacy. I don't have an answer for that - it's like asking me when I quit beating my kids. I did have strong feelings about, and felt threatened by, the candidacy of W, both times. I didn't want him to win. I very, very badly didn't want him to win, under any circumstances, even if it meant possibly electing lame-ass Democrats. Of course, he did, and life went on - after a fashion, and without a Constitution. So I guess my answer would be: I'm concerned (gods know why; I have no stake in it) about the future of this country, and the rights of its citizens, and whether there will be an environment for your children to inherit.
I think the core issue for me isn't the plumbing of the candidates, but how the process is treated, and received by the people. The 2000 elections proved to me that few people in this country have a good idea of how a presidential election is supposed to work. The Supreme Court, for example, is not supposed to be allowed to decide on any aspect of an election. The 2004 elections emphasized that ignorance once again to me, what with all the folks who were actually surprised that a majority of votes doesn't automatically translate into an electoral college victory. And I'm not even going to touch the hot potato of election fraud.
It's turned into a goddamn sporting event, is the problem. Go Red Team! Go Blue Team! Hey, look, the coaches are shouting obscenities at each other! "We just couldn't get control of the ball. Next time, we'll focus on controlling the ball." People are Democrats or Republicans for the same reason they're Steelers fans or Baptists: Because Daddy or Mommy was.
I shouldn't be surprised, and really, I'm not. Disappointed would be a better word. Democracy is predicated on the assumption that a well-informed, educated populace knows what's good for it. But a misinformed, ill-educated populace also knows what's good for it: bread and circuses.
We're not lacking for bread, and the whole bloody thing is a circus. What sucks is that we are the clowns. |
January 22, 2007 at 7:20pm January 22, 2007 at 7:20pm
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Or, rather, don't shut up, but stop concentrating on her sex and start concentrating on whether she can fix the mess her husband's successor got us into.
Granted, now, I don't watch TV and I hate newspapers so my entire worldview is shaped by Internet articles. All I've seen so far is:
 A majority of women support Hillary
Where she stands in the polls (I've already forgotten this number and for fuck's sake, the election's two years away still)
How much money she has to spend on the campaign.
Nothing at all on issues. I hear she's pro-choice, but that doesn't distinguish her from most other Democrats.
They've been threatening our country with her candidacy for at least six years, now. Does she still have that abhorrent stance on health care that made me pissed off at her ten years ago? If so, I want nothing to do with her.
I don't give a damn that she's a chick. That means absolutely nothing to me. To support her because she's a woman is just as stupid as NOT supporting her because she's a woman. I also don't give a damn that she's a Democrat. Neither of the two major parties have a stellar track record, and we're still a long ways from running a serious other party. While I've said I'm not going to support ANY Republican until I get some proof their asses aren't being kissed by the religious "right," I'd change my mind if I don't get some real facts here soon.
I do get the feeling she's not running because she has a Plan, but because Hillary Clinton wants to be in the history books as the first female president - get her face on coins, shit like that.
And that's a stupid reason to become President. If that IS the case, I hope Condi Rice runs against her and wins.
And now that I've violated my own suggestion to shut up about her already, I'll shut up now |
January 21, 2007 at 5:43pm January 21, 2007 at 5:43pm
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It snowed today.
Right now some of you are going, "Big, fat, hairy deal."
I'm with you, believe me. Snow around here is nothing but an excuse for people to drive like stupid maniacs, and for the City to demonstrate its tax-spending ability by sending out enormous salt trucks to every asphalted nook and paved cranny of the municipality. Hello? It's Sunday, for shit's sake! It didn't even snow that much!
Point is, because of the frozen stupid coming from the leaden skies, my in-laws weenied out of coming up to take us to the Barn for the promised steak dinner. The reason they were making the drive from Lynchburg to begin with is they had tickets to the UVA-Duke basketball game. "Next time, then," my mother-in-law said. "Oh, do you want the tickets?"
Oh, yeah, going to a sports event is right up there with getting my fingers trimmed. No, I'll just sit here and play video games. Sadly for all you voyeurs out there, it was too cold to sit around in my boxers (Terry  ) so I wore sweats.
So, no steak dinner for me tonight - hence the title of this entry. Instead, frozen pizza and beer, and another mad rush to get my Challenge entry in. Yes, I know I could have done it earlier, but I had undead to destroy. |
January 20, 2007 at 9:08pm January 20, 2007 at 9:08pm
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I was hoping to stay home today. As you know, that's my preferred mode of existence, anyway. I've been known to get sunburns walking from the door to the car. But my wife had other plans.
Oh, I'm not resentful or anything. In fact, I figured we'd do it as early as possible so I'd have time to do my Daily Writing Challenge (increasing to 1900 words today) and a blog entry and some reviews I'd promised a while back and a whole bunch of other stuff, not excluding some time to play Oblivion.
The first step was to remove Kirstin's old dresser, a long, low number with nine drawers. We took the drawers out - okay, she took the drawers out and we emerged, me blinking and squinting in the unaccustomed sunlight, to tilt the bloody damn thing into the bed of my pickup.
To the Salvation Army we went - sadly. I despise the Salvation Army, not least because I can't go to the grocery store between Halloween and Christmas without hearing, "ding ding ding ding ding ding..." But the Goodwill around here doesn't take furniture, and there was no way I was going to pay to take it to the ducking fump. So to the Army we went, me squealing tires so I wouldn't have to hear them ask God to bless me.
Then it's up to the furniture place to get Kirstin's new piece of furniture, a much narrower and taller thing that fit better in her room. Yes, we have separate rooms - though all she uses hers for is keeping her clothing and various bellydance supplies. One of the advantages of not having kids - our modest four-bedroom house has exactly one room to sleep in. Anyway, I'm in the driver's seat when the thing gets dumped into the bed, and I swear my front wheels come up off the ground for a moment as it bounces in.
On the way back, I'm having fun hoping the brakes continue to work - what is it about a sunny Saturday afternoon that brings out a load of crazy drivers, anyway? When we finally get home, we try to take the bloody thing out of the truck.
It's not budging.
I go get the handtruck, and together, we manage to tilt the thing up on its side, maneuver it over the tailgate (fortunately, the truck is parked facing uphill, else that would have been impossible), and onto the dolly. Then we wrap bungee cords around the thing to secure it to the dolly. These turn out to be useless, since even though we'd stretched them to the limits of our strength, as soon as I tilted the hand truck backwards, they stretched even more.
Still, we managed to get the assembly tilted onto one corner, maneuvered it up over the curb, up the lawn (yes, uphill), past two steps onto the front stoop, and over the threshold.
It's the foyer stairs that become our nemesis.
We live in a split-foyer house, and it's all we can do to lift the dolly up over the lip of the lowermost step. Then it's wait to catch my breath, and we manage to get it up over the next step, though I end up overextending my elbow. Ow.
And that's it. It's not budging. That's when I finally look at the weight stamped on the side of the carton:
90.6 kg.
That's, like, 200 pounds. And that's not counting the hand truck, or the force necessary to have the hand truck's wheels clear the stair lips.
So we do what any couple with severe, chronic back issues would do: We call my brother-in-law, who fortunately is no more than five minutes away. Meanwhile, I'm upstairs, and my wife is in the foyer trying to keep the thing from slipping backwards. Just for fun, I let go of it and go get something to drink. "Mmmm, that's good!" I exclaim, downing some fresh, icy water. "Damn, I needed that drink!"
Remember, all of this is HER fault. Yeah.
Anyway, finally her brother arrives, and we manage to get the bloody damn beast up the rest of the stairs, out of its carton, and into her room, without dinging up the walls. Go us. The thing has more drawers than Victoria's Secret, by the way. Dozens of the little buggers.
So now I'm sitting here with my back in spasms and my elbow all swollen, causing me pain every time I hit the keyboard. So why am I telling you this on top of the 1900 words I've already written?
Beats me.
Tomorrow, her mother is taking us all out to the local fancy steak house (Aberdeen Barn), so at least I get a free meal out of her family for all this. But until it's time to get dressed and go out, hopefully after sunset, I'm going to sit in the house. Playing my video game. In my underwear. |
January 19, 2007 at 1:59pm January 19, 2007 at 1:59pm
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Okay, folks, no squicky or gross links today, I promise. Though the links I do provide might make you angry.
I thought I'd take a few moments to address some of the comments from yesterday's controversial entry:
darkin: You know, Robert, I could have gone my entire life without reading that first article! MY ENTIRE LIFE!!!!
Well, darkin, I know how much you care about others, and you wouldn't have wanted me to suffer the misery of reading that article all by myself, would you? You were just being your usual altruistic, unselfish self. I'll be glad to continue to help you help others
Kenzie  : Yikes. I think you've managed to make this optimistic person think unkindly about mankind. That's not an easy task.
My work here is done.
Nada : Turning green here....gawd, thanks soooo much for sharing. I don't think I could have even put that into my Sunday Funnies it was so gross. If you promise not to share that kind of stuff I'll come back.
I promise not to share that kind of stuff... today. Realistically, probably not again for a while. I tend to think this was a one of a kind sort of experience
dragonfly~guess who's back? : Wow--that was pretty icky. kudos to you, sir, for providing us all with our icky qouta for the week.
I have to add, that as I've read more of the previous blog entries, you have gained a new reader!
Translation: "I'd love to see this sort of thing about once a week, and your other blog entries have been much, much better."  Seriously, thanks for reading!
elusive ennui warm inside : yes... well did they ever ask if he'd eaten any of it? never eat anything the cook wouldn't eat...
And never eat anything with the word "Surprise" in the name.
Mavis Moog The meatball thing is art. It's challenging a deep seated modern taboo.
I'm all for challenging taboos; just look at some of my writing. It's useful to me to consider three levels of action: thought, word and deed. When considering a taboo action, the first thing that happens is thought - even if, as occurs in some crimes of passion, that thought is short-lived. One of the great eye-opening moments of my life came when I finally realized that there are people - nay, entire religions full of people - who seem to take the thought as the deed. That is, some consider that to even think about, say, adultery is the same thing as doing it. This honestly never occurred to me, and I strongly suspect it is just another example of organized religion keeping people in line by making them believe they're Bad - because who can control their initial thoughts? If I convince you that purple elephants, for example, are unclean and that any association with purple elephants will condemn your soul to eternal torment, well, oops, too late, you've already imagined a purple elephant, haven't you? You're going to Hell unless you give me 10% of your pre-tax income from now on. I take PayPal.
ANYway, the point is that I am convinced that there is no harm in harboring thoughts involving taboo actions. There may be some implied harm when the thoughts go to the level of words - either spoken or written - depending on the context. For example, if someone says "I think pot should be legal," it's not the same thing as saying "I smoke pot." Further, the one does not imply the other, though the latter expression may lead impressionable people to break the law, to their detriment. The final level, deed, is where the real trouble comes in. Deeds have real effects on other people. Some of you may recall my distinction between reality and imagination: imagination affects only you; reality affects other people also.
That said, I will continue to challenge taboos in my writing. I'm still not eating meatballs.
Speaking of taboos, let's look for a moment at one taboo that really isn't, much, anymore, except, apparently, in North Dakota:
http://tinyurl.com/25z5uk
North Dakota is one of the few states that outlaws cohabitation, which is defined as a man and woman living together "openly and notoriously" as if they were married... It is listed as a sex crime in state law, alongside adultery and incest.
Okay, let me get this straight... You're a guy living in North Dakota with his girlfriend. They catch you and try you, and you're convicted of cohabitation. You get sent to jail for a month and get fined $1000. Okay, no biggie, lots of people have spent a month in jail and had to pay $1000 fines. But now you have to register as a sex offender, and for the rest of your life you have to have your name pop up on registries, never be able to adopt, live in restricted communities amongst real sex offenders like child molesters and rapists? What the fuck is wrong with people??!
"If we look at the research, social science evidence suggests that living together is not a good way to prepare for marriage, or to avoid divorce," Freier said. "Cohabitating is not positive for the family, and poses a special risk for women and children."
You mean like this happy family, here?:
http://tinyurl.com/34gq9m
Tigger thinks of Prancer : Anyway, I think I'm going to bring meatless balls to work for lunch today.
*covers self* Damn, Tigs, I knew you were a feminist; I just didn't know you were THAT militant!
novusfemina: As for a Robot that builds houses.. why didn't they make a robot that CLEANS houses first?
Because they're still working on getting the boobs to look realistic. Snoogans! |
January 18, 2007 at 5:17pm January 18, 2007 at 5:17pm
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Or is it Art Imitates Life? I forget which one is more ironic. Either way, Art Isn't Pretty:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/but-is-it-art/2007/01/13/1168105219066.html
You know, I don't think I have a comment for this one. I'm just going to go home and drink.
It'll be a while before I eat another meatball, though.
Speaking of art imitating life, here's yet more examples of people who will now have the leisure time to follow gentle pursuits like philosophy, art and converation:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2546574,00.html
(It should be noted that my comment there is ironic as well. Long ago, optimistic prognosticators kept saying that the computer and automation in general would give us more leisure time, and we would use that time to pursue art, philosophy and so on. Well, that didn't happen, did it? And people who do have more leisure time spend it glued to the TV, or pretending to have sex on the Internet. Those who do manage to spend time on artistic pursuits... well, read the first link above to see how well THAT turned out. Nootch.) |
January 17, 2007 at 8:37pm January 17, 2007 at 8:37pm
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Buckaroo Banzai
1999(?)-2007
Before I met her, my wife was offered a fluffy white rabbit by someone who was about to move. She already had two bunnies, and declined. Well, the someone moved, and a couple days later, Kirstin found the bunny under a car, his fur all matted and greasy.
Angora bunnies don't survive in the wild. They're pets, or commercial sources of angora fur. She took him in, and for about six years he hopped around, looking cute and causing trouble. He always managed to chew through live electric cords without getting himself shocked; just about every lamp in the house has electrical tape wrapped around a splice.
His name was Bucky, but everyone called him "The Fluffy Bunny" or just "The Bunny." When we married, we were like the Brady Bunch, me with my three cats and her with the three rabbits. The cats ("Kitties!" [E]) never knew quite what to make of him, and they pretty much left each other alone. The other rabbits eventually went away: Lucy got very sick, and Pudge went to live with someone else.
Sunday, The Bunny jumped off a tabletop and tore a claw off. Monday, he went to the vet, but when he got back he still didn't seem quite right, so he went again today. For the last time. It wasn't the injury that laid him low, but kidney failure.
He was a good bunny. |
January 16, 2007 at 1:23pm January 16, 2007 at 1:23pm
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Middle of January. The time for looking back at 2006 is long gone, and most of us have broken the majority of our silly New Year's resolutions by now. Heck, it might even be safe for me to go to the gym again, soon.
So much of what we are is purchased at the expense of experience, often painful, always necessary.
I've always heard it's not good to dwell on these experiences. But how do we do better in the future if we don't learn from the experiences of the past?
I had to put my resume together today for the first time in nearly 20 years - not because I'm looking for a job, but because a potential client wanted resumes of key staff for a project we might be selected for.
I just haven't bothered. Why should I? After getting the job I got in 1989, I was promoted internally until I got as far as I thought I could get, then got another job through a colleague who knew more about my work experience than I did myself. Then I quit to start another company, and we were self-financed; I didn't need to convince any investors that I was qualified (I did have to convince clients, but successful track records count for more than words on paper).
Anyway, I put the resume together, and it was kinda boring. Very narrow. My focus has been on land development, period, end of discussion, end of story. I never wanted to specialize like that. By nature, I'm a generalist, learning everything I can about everything I can.
Back in high school, they asked me where I saw myself in 10 years. "Spacecraft engineer," I said. Scotty was my hero.
Well angel, won't you believe in love for me
C'mon and meet me tonight, darling, out in the street
We'll move with the city in the dark
You got to walk it, talk it, in your heart
There's nothin' to lose it's a heartache
The deck's stacked
So put your foot to the floor, darling
Tonight we'll blow off the doors, baby
We're gonna even the score
And honey we won't look back
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January 15, 2007 at 4:47pm January 15, 2007 at 4:47pm
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For a short time in Virginia, the third Monday of January was set aside as "Lee - Jackson - King Day." Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, of course, were Virginians most famous for fighting for the South in the War of Northern Aggression.
Pause a moment to imagine Lee, Jackson, and their fellow Southerner, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., spinning in their graves, each for his own reason. Attach a turbine to them; power former Confederate capital Richmond for the rest of the year.
Done with the visualization? Well, this observance lasted from the mid-eighties to 2000. To be fair, Lee-Jackson Day was a State observance for most of a century before King was tacked on. This was due to an unfortunate conjunction of birthdays; they weren't even the same zodiacal sign (Lee and Jackson were both Aquarians, I think, while King would have been a Capricorn).
It took a governor most remembered for putting the Commonwealth into the deep red and screwing localities out of car taxes to segregate the two observances by moving Lee-Jackson Day to the Friday before MLKJr Day - though the Confederate generals were born later in January.
Oh, but that's not all.
The cherry on the Parfait of Doom?
State and local offices are closed on MLKJr Day AND Lee-Jackson Day. That's right. They get a four day weekend mere weeks after the double whammy of Christmas and New Year's Day.
Almost no one in the private sector has either day off.
There was a woman who worked for the County. Let's call her A--. She left her cushy County job to work in the private sector, for one of my competitors, hereafter known as B--. So one day, B-- notices that A-- hadn't shown up for work, so he calls her. The following conversation is pure hearsay:
B--: "Everything okay?"
A--: "Sure. What's going on?"
B--: "Well, we were wondering when you were planning on coming in."
A--: "What? It's Martin Luther King Day."
B--: "Um... we don't get that day off."
A--: "Since when?"
It's worth noting, I think, that MLKJr Day is currently the only Federal holiday that honors an individual American. So, he wasn't a Virginian. I think I can live with that.
In '65 tension was running high at my high school
There was a lot of fights between the black and white
There was nothing you could do
Two cars at a light on a Saturday night in the back seat there was a gun
Words were passed in a shotgun blast
Troubled times had come to my hometown
My hometown
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January 14, 2007 at 12:35pm January 14, 2007 at 12:35pm
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Almost makes me want to believe in karma. I've been ranting about thumpers (I'm done, for now, by the way. I'll find something else to rant about soon enough. Maybe politics. Yeah.) and sure enough...
I'm eating breakfast this morning when there's a knock on the door. Two kids in suits. Mormons, I think. Well, I'll be polite; Mormon missionaries don't usually annoy me, and they rarely press the issues. As a fine, upstanding non-church-goer, I'm wearing sweats and my Writing.com Convention 2006 T-shirt on a Sunday morning - my own version of evangelism.
But when I open the door the taller one's holding a copy of the New Testament (I'm not sure which translation) and The Watchtower.
Oh no, I think. Jehovah's Witlesses.
Am I prejudiced? When it comes to door-to-door religion salesmen, yeah, I'm prejudiced.
"There's a lot of bad stuff going on in the world," says the guy with The Watchtower. "Have you ever stopped to consider how a just and loving God can allow such atrocities to occur?"
"Yep, and I think I've got it pretty much figured out," I say. What I don't say is that there's nothing going on in the world that can't be attributed to a combination of semi-random acts of Nature and willful acts of twisted human Nature.
Meanwhile, my cat's stropping my shins. The door's open, because I'm not about to let these guys in to see my rather eclectic home decorations (a machete from Afghanistan, a Turkish prayer rug with the Kaaba featured prominently; a pentagram plaque; graven images everywhere) but fortunately, it's another fine January summer day. Did I wake up in Australia? Point is, I was eating breakfast.
My wife comes to the door in her bathrobe, which is open in front. She's even wearing clothes, almost. "Look, thanks for coming by, but I'm in the middle of breakfast," I say
"Well, we won't take any more of your time, then. Have a wonderful day." And they leave without even looking at my wife. Now that was almost insulting. So was their failure to offer me a Watchtower - I like to read while I eat, and I can't read my Calvin and Hobbes collection at breakfast, because I spew my food all over it when I inevitably laugh.
So that's it - no more thumper rants for a while. I figure it's safe to go off on politics; the next election's far enough away that they probably won't be going door to door for a while. |
January 13, 2007 at 6:05pm January 13, 2007 at 6:05pm
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Wendopolis  commented: The one complaint thing works both ways. A parent at my girls' school in Bakersfield complained about the YMCA flyers the kids took home and what happened? No more flyers. Course, could have been a California thing.
Which I also disagree with...
Okay, tangential rant here: A lot of people think that a democracy means, "Majority Rules." That isn't democracy; that's mob rule. Mobocracy. Whatever. No - democracy means we acknowledge that everyone has certain rights; these rights cannot be legally abridged by any entity, governmental or otherwise; and willful abridgement of these rights leads to the loss of one's own rights.
As such, democracy isn't about the majority getting its way - that would be anarchy - but about protecting the rights of the minority.
Now, granted, religious rightwingnuts ARE a minority, and they DO have rights - the same rights that the rest of us do. You don't get to impose your worldview on the rest of us through legislation or other means, and the attempt to do it by swaying the hearts and souls of children - especially when they're not your own - is just plain fucked up. You DO get to believe as you choose.
Okay, so to get off the tangent, let's assume for a moment that the complainant against the YMCA fliers was an atheist. She could have been one of any other number of groups, but for the sake of argument: atheist. Now, given the above discussion about rights, whose right is being promulgated, and whose is being violated - if any?
It could be argued (though not by me) that if only evolution is taught in schools, then the rights of those who don't believe in evolution are being violated. My main issue with this argument is that evolution is a scientific theory, subject to testing and revision, based on rigorous observational data - whereas creationism, for instance, is NOT. So it's not atheism vs. theism, but rational discourse vs. superstition. And superstition doesn't belong in schools (Halloween decorations aren't superstition - they're just fun; there's no effort to convince kids that spirits and whatnot actually exist).
Obviously, the flat-earthers disagree with me; sadly, I don't know if there's any middle ground. I wouldn't mind seeing religion taught in schools as it is taught in many colleges: critically, comparatively, and as a sociological phenomenon rather than as the Truth. The problem with THAT idea is obvious from the get-go: where do you find decent teachers who can teach religion in an unbiased manner, when we can hardly find decent math teachers anymore, and math is about as objective as a subject ever gets?
So the YMCA handed out fliers. Without knowing whether the fliers' tone was "Come be a Christian!" or "Come exercise here!" I don't know if the loudmouth had a basis for complaint or not.
But around here, they managed to convince the school board that handing out religous fliers would be a Good Thing to Do in public schools. The result?
(Ignore the mugshot at the top and scroll down to "Saturday, December 9" around the middle of the page:)
http://tinyurl.com/yce8d4
On September 14, due to legal pressure from the conservative Christian legal group, Liberty Counsel, the Albemarle County School Board voted to allow religious fliers to be distributed in schools. Now, a Pagan group is likely making Liberty Counsel wish they’d stayed home with their New Testament. Local organization NatureSpirit earlier this month sent a flier through the schools advertising a Pagan ritual to celebrate Yule.
Amusing side note: the guy doing that is the guy who was dating my wife before I started dating her.
Moral of this story? As Cerebus the Aardvark once said, "You can get what you want and still not be happy." |
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I'm more than happy with Carrion Luggage, however.
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