|
About This Author
Come closer.
|
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.
September 30, 2010 at 3:17pm September 30, 2010 at 3:17pm
| |
Things like this (Cracked link; dirty words)  are the reason I don't think I have a real future ahead of me in comedy writing. Kind of like how I have no future playing guitar because of people like Nils Lofgren and Alex Lifeson.
I just. Couldn't. Stop. Laughing.
(Oh, I'll keep trying to be funny. But I'll forever be in that guy's shadow.) |
September 27, 2010 at 11:07pm September 27, 2010 at 11:07pm September 23, 2010 at 11:44pm September 23, 2010 at 11:44pm
| |
In honor of Bruce Springsteen's 61st birthday today.
...She went away, she cut me like a knife
Hello beautiful thing, maybe you could save my life
In just a glance, down here on magic street
Loves a fool's dance
And I ain't got much sense, but I still got my feet
The girls in their summer clothes
In the cool of the evening light
The girls in their summer clothes, pass me by...
|
September 22, 2010 at 9:49pm September 22, 2010 at 9:49pm
| |
Check out the sky tonight.
Jupiter was at opposition last night, putting it about as close to Earth as it ever gets - which, fortunately, is still a damn long ways away, or we'd be toast. Tonight is the Fall Equinox, at 11:09 pm Eastern, and Jupiter will still be damn close to opposition... but joined by the Full Moon, which will hit true opposition early tomorrow morning.
A full moon that close to the Equinox? And all lined up with Jupiter and Uranus? What does it mean?
Nothing, really. It's just cool.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100918.html
Science ROCKS. |
September 21, 2010 at 9:21pm September 21, 2010 at 9:21pm
| |
I almost didn't do this, because 1) I've been mentioning Leonard Cohen way too much lately and 2) Springsteen's birthday is in two days, but...
I'm doing it anyway.
Today, Leonard Cohen, singer, songwriter, musician, poet, novelist, and all around awesome dude, turns 76.
...
And I'll dance with you in Vienna
I'll be wearing a river's disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,
My mouth on the dew of your thighs
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
With the photographs there, and the moths
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty
My cheap violin and my cross
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
To the pools that you lift on your wrist
Oh my love, Oh my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz
It's yours now. It's all that there is.
Interestingly, I just found out that a movie titled "Take This Waltz," with Seth Rogen and Sarah Silverman, is supposed to be released next year. Haven't found out if there's a tie to the song or not. But wasn't disappointed when " Bird on a Wire " came out with someone else's cover of the song "Bird on a Wire" in the soundtrack and a pretty good plot that had nothing to do with the movie at all except share a title. I did, however, discover that Sarah Silverman has a nude scene in it, which will be reason enough to go see the movie unless some asshole cuts it from the final release.
Okay, that's all I'm going to say about Jewish Canadian dudes
| Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson are both of Jewish descent as well |
|
September 19, 2010 at 9:59pm September 19, 2010 at 9:59pm
| |
I've burned through my concert budget for this year, already. I hope Bruce, Dar, Gogol Bordello, or, well, anyone else doesn't come to town over the next three and a half months, because I might have to divert drinking funds, and we wouldn't want that.
How did I blow the rest of my budget?
Last night, on these guys:
(That's Rush, the Canadian prog-rock band, not Rush, the Big Fat Idiot.)
That's a fan-made video of a song from 1981. I found fan-made concert footage from last night (Bristow, VA) already up on YouTube, but it sucks ass compared to being there, so I didn't link it.
Some people don't like Rush. I get that. Really, I do. Geddy Lee's voice just doesn't do it for many people. They're not my favorite band - you all know what that is. Still, I know musical genius when I hear it. And even more when I see it.
There is no doubt at all that Neil Peart is the greatest drummer alive. He might be the greatest drummer who ever lived - I don't know; I suspect he'd say that honor goes to Buddy Rich, to whom he paid tribute in his signature concert drum solo. Neil's also a kick-ass lyricist.
The other guys don't suck, either. Okay, that's an understatement. They fucking rock. My friend tells me that someone once asked Alex Lifeson, "So, when did you know you were a rock god? Was it when you looked down and everyone was playing air guitar?" Supposedly, he replied, "No, it was when I saw they were getting the chords right."
And they have this excellent, subtle sense of humor that almost never comes across in their songs, but really comes out on stage.
Even if you're not a Rush fan, you need to see them, just once. Preferably before Geddy Lee turns into a baritone. |
September 17, 2010 at 10:06pm September 17, 2010 at 10:06pm
| |
Yeah o yeah you seen me walk
On burning bridges
Yeah o yeah you seen me fall
In love with witches
And you know my brain is held
Inside by stitches
Yet you know I did survive
All of your lovely sieges
Beer.
Some say that it is the defining characteristic of civilization; that the specialization and coordination necessary to take grain and ferment it in a certain way to produce a beverage that is nutritious, refreshing, and clean (as compared to some sources of water in a pre-scientific world) is what caused societies to form the hives of specialization we know as cities.
And you know that I'll pick up
Every time you call
Just to thank you one more time
Alcohol
And you know that I'll survive
Every time you come
Just to thank you one more time
For everything you've done
Alcohol
Alcohol
Today, I went to a beer tasting in a nearby town. The town, for all that it's tiny, has a claim to fame: it was featured in the old TV show, The Waltons. The Dew Drop Inn still exists.
There were ten brewers there today, featuring ten special craft brews. Most of these beers were porters, stouts and ales, the technical differences between which I'm still not all that clear on. It has something to do with what process is used to ferment them. What was notably lacking was tired, common lagers and weak pilsners.
I've mentioned before, in here, my affection for a particular beer, Old Rasputin Imperial Stout. "Imperial" is a style that harks back to the days of the Russian Empire, before the Bolshevik Revolution. It seems someone from the British Isles brought some Guinness to Moscow, and it was a great success - so much so that the Tsar ordered casks of the holy nectar to be shipped to them. Problem is, Moscow is cold in the winter, and the casks froze, ruining the beer. I call this "alcohol abuse."
In a flash of inspiration not seen in England since an apple fell on Isaac Newton's head, or pretty much ever since, the master brewers invented a brewing process that increased the alcohol content in the stout, while adjusting the other ingredients so that the increased ethanol didn't unbalance the beer. They shipped this to Moscow, and the increased alcohol content (about 10%, as compared to an ordinary brew's 4-5%) acted as a natural anti-freeze, keeping the sacred beverage from freezing.
Thus was born Imperial Stout, and the process has since been applied to other beers. I even had an Imperial style lager recently that was, without exception, the best beer I've ever tasted - and I'm not a lager guy.
And I'm sorry some of us
Given you bad name
yeah o yeah, cause without you
Nothing is the same
Yeah o yeah i miss you so
Every time we break up
Just to hit a higher note
Every time we make up
Anyway, this was a beer connoisseur's tasting. Some people there seemed to be fish out of water - one older guy said the beers were, in general, too dark for his taste.
That's okay. You find what you like and drink it. For instance, I don't like India Pale Ales (IPAs), because they're hoppier than a frog on meth. IPA, incidentally, has a similar backstory to Imperial style beers, but in this case they had to ramp up the hops content to ship the brew around the bottom of Africa, which took time - and hops are the preservatives of beer.
There was an IPA there today, and while it was an excellent example of an IPA, it's not a style I choose to drink.
The problem is... well, let me illustrate. Last night, at my poker game, I produced a large bottle of an Imperial stout (Allagash label, for those who care) and proceeded to drink it. I found it excellent, but hardly worth the $16 they charge for a large bottle of the stuff. So I switched to my old standby, Bass Ale...
And found I didn't like it.
So I'm forever ruined for cheap, mass-produced beer by the assholes who insist that quality matters - and with whom I agree.
Thing is, I'm not just a beer snob. I'm also a wine snob. And a tequila snob. Don't get me started on Cuervo Gold, for example: sure, in college, that was what I drank, but once I realized that just because the Mexican authorities consider anything with at least 51% agave that's distilled in a particular region of Mexico can be called tequila doesn't mean that anything called tequila is any good. Once I discovered real tequila - blanco, reposado, anejo; it doesn't matter - I could never go back to the cheap stuff.
Life is, after all, too damn short to drink the cheap stuff.
Who's crawlin' up my spine - alcohol
I've been waiting long long time - alcohol
Now you teach me how to rhyme - alcohol
Just don't stab me in the back with cartisol
Now we reunite - alcohol
And forever be divine - alcohol
Screw a light bulb in my head - alcohol
may that ceremony be happy or sad...
(Lyrics by Gogol Bordello) |
September 12, 2010 at 10:29pm September 12, 2010 at 10:29pm
| |
Lots of media attention on attempted Koran/Qu'ran/(you know, the Muslim holy book) burnings, lately. And I get all my information from the internet - no cable or newspapers - so I can only imagine the media carnage on those platforms.
Of course, even on the internet, there's been plenty of hot air (pun intended) blown around about it. And a person's opinion doesn't seem to have much to do with the political or religious leanings of the person - that is, not all Jews believed one way or another; not all atheists were in agreement; not all Christians agreed or disagreed. I'm not exposed to enough Muslims to know, but I figure they might be an exception; I can't imagine a Muslim being okay with it. But I suppose it could happen.
Me, I'm conflicted. And even though - or more likely, because - the time for Qu'ran burnings and other inappropriate 9/11 commemorations has past, I'm going to put my thoughts down here, to try to organize them and give y'all a chance to tell me how wrong I am.
My first response, upon hearing about the concept of "Let's burn a Qu'ran," was, "Book burning is Bad." This is my visceral response to any book burning, and I'm not even sure why. I think it's because the Nazis liked to burn books, and my family's Jewish - and we all know that they didn't stop the burning at books. It's also because I personally think that the greatest atrocity against world knowledge, science, and progress was not the Holocaust (which is arguably the greatest atrocity against humanity), but the burning of the Library at Alexandria. Interesting stories behind that, but basically, you had then what you have here today: an intellectual elite that wasn't very religious, and a subset of Christians who had enough intelligence to know how to make fire, but not enough to keep them from using it to burn books (and torture and kill one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, but that's another issue).
Okay, that was my first reaction before I knew anything other than "this preacher wants to burn a Qu'ran." Then my inner libertarian kicked in. "Is the book his property; i.e., did he obtain it through legal means like buying it? And is the fire going to be on private property? And are there safeguards to protect damage to others' property?" If the answer to these questions is "yes," then I believe that the First Amendment grants us the right to free speech, which includes burning private property on private property, assuming you're not causing direct harm to someone else's property.
Nothing, of course, is ever as simple as libertarians like to pretend it is. In this case, there was the threat of retaliation from some of the people whose holy book it was. Now, if the original 9/11 attacks were the result of angry, radical Muslims, is it really smart to make more angry, radical Muslims?
But then I thought about it further, and I thought, "So what?" Freedom isn't free, as they say. I know they think this means that we should support the military, but what it really means is this: The reason we have things like freedom of speech and freedom of religion enshrined in the Constitution is that, by and large, these things didn't much exist except as philosophical constructs before the late 1700s. The thing is, freedom of speech is a radical idea. Before that - and even after, before we decided that the Constitution overrode local ordinances - there were blasphemy laws in this country. Other countries still have blasphemy laws. The basic idea of a blasphemy law is that you can't say something to offend (whatever religion is in power), or you get punished through the civil system. And people died to defend the radical idea that a person's freedom to speak his or her mind, even if it goes against conventional wisdom, is sacrosanct.
To me, nothing is more offensive than the idea of blasphemy laws. Plenty of worse laws out there, yes, but they don't offend me on a personal level.
Now, I didn't hear anyone saying it should be illegal to burn a Qu'ran (or a Bible, or a Torah, or the Book of Mormon, or whatever), just that it was a Bad Idea. Probably someone did; I don't know. I just didn't hear it. Naturally, if I owned a copy of one of these and wanted to chuck it into my fireplace, no one would be the wiser. But these people tried to do it publicly for the express purpose of pissing people off. Well... Okay. I believe we have the Constitutionally guaranteed right to piss people off. There may be consequences. People may get mad and kill other people over this.
That's because free speech is a radical idea.
And the only way to protect this radical idea is to use it, and face the consequences. Face them boldly, willingly, and with full knowledge that you may die for the idea. That, because we as a society hold freedom of speech to be one of our highest ideals, we need to support this freedom no matter the consequences.
Personally, I think we'd do better as a society if we'd actually bother to read the Qu'ran. And the Bible. I don't see how anyone can read either book from start to finish without realizing that religion - all religion - is made-up bunk.
But your opinion will differ. And that's okay. Because we're all free to have one - and we're all free to have one because we're willing to face the consequences if someone doesn't like our ideas.
Me, I'm working on a community center and mosque with some Muslims in my neighborhood. I've worked on church site plans, too. If they asked me to work on a temple, I'd do that. If the secular humanists wanted a headquarters, I'd give them the same professional consideration. I wouldn't burn any of their holy books (not that secular humanists have a holy book, but you know what I mean), because I believe in finding commonalities, not differences. But that's just me.
Do what thou wilt. |
September 11, 2010 at 12:30am September 11, 2010 at 12:30am
| |
On the urging of Artemismad  , I ventured into the depths of this website on a cool September early morning, six years ago today.
As with anything, lots of things have changed - and lots of things haven't.
A bit of history is in order, I think.
The first item I posted:
The first item of mine to receive an awardicon (from kittiara):
The first story I posted:
My first entry in "Invalid Item" , where I'm now one of the judges:
My first Merit Badge, for helping Davy Kraken  out with a contest thing:
![Merit Badge in Problem Solving
[Click For More Info]
I never even asked, but he devised a great Excel program for my ACRO*BATICS contest that generates letters for acronyms in a better way than anything I could have ever put together. I am in awe of your technical wizardry, Robert. Thank you.](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/general-Problem_Solving-210.gif)
And my first blog:
Which contains my reaction to becoming a Moderator in 2006:
"Ever have One of Those Days?"
(A note on that blog: At the time, journals were limited to 500 entries, and when you quit using them as a "blog," comments disappeared. When SM changed that policy, the comments reappeared. So some things in my last entry in that book probably don't make much sense, now.)
And, for my final exhibit on Memory Lane, my first newsletter (oddly, Action/Adventure - I later became a regular of Comedy and Fantasy, but not A/A):
"Action/Adventure Newsletter (January 3, 2007)"
As for the future...
Who knows? I might even get off my ass and write.
But first, another beer! |
September 4, 2010 at 11:40pm September 4, 2010 at 11:40pm
| |
I'm in Ohio visiting Brandiwyn🎶Prep starts 10/1!  , who is about to open a music school.
The place is awesome. She just got signs up, and they're really cool. We spent most of the day painting the interior. "We" meaning me and a bunch of her friends.
The problem - for me - is that in the same strip mall there are:
- A cigar store.
- A bar.
If the bar is going to have Old Rasputin Imperial Stout on tap, I will not be held responsible for my actions.
I'm just saying.
Whatever I did tonight, it's Not My Fault.  |
September 1, 2010 at 11:49pm September 1, 2010 at 11:49pm
| |
So a while back, this year, in this blog, I was indecisive about getting a new car.
Well, no longer.
The separation pretty much clinched it - once I knew I wasn't going to be completely cleaned out, I started searching anew.
So if you recall (or bother to scroll down), I was looking for something that I liked that didn't scream "mid-life crisis" or "prick."
I went test-driving again - the guys at Toyota still ignored me, but fuck 'em. The Camry wasn't as good as other cars in its price range, anyway.
I still like the Nissan I looked at, but I still felt like I wanted something that could get me around in the snow and onto job sites (assuming I have job sites again )
So this is what I ended up buying:
http://s210.photobucket.com/albums/bb153/Cathartes_Aura/Mine/?action=view¤...
That's a 2010 Subaru Legacy, and while I was expecting to buy a car in my favorite color (black), that blue was too cool to pass up.
I could tell you about engine, gas mileage, sunroof, and other neat features, but the real thing that sold me on it:
A face-melting Harman-Kardon stereo system.
That sucker goes beyond eleven. WAY beyond eleven.
I'll be deaf by the time I'm ready to sell that car, but I don't care. |
© Copyright 2025 Robert Waltz (UN: cathartes02 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Robert Waltz has granted InkSpot.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
|
I'm more than happy with Carrion Luggage, however.
Comment • View 3 comments 
![Merit Badge in Quill Award
[Click For More Info]
Congratulations on winning Best Blog in the 2021 edition of [Link To Item #quills] !](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/group-Quill_Award-1375927_6.gif)
![Merit Badge in Quill Award 2
[Click For More Info]
2022 Quill Award - Best Blog - [Link To Item #1196512] . Congratulations!!!](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/group-Quill_Award_2-1375927_6.gif)
![Merit Badge in 30DBC Winner
[Click For More Info]
Congratulations on winning the Jan. 2019 [Link To Item #30dbc] !!](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/group-30DBC_Winner-2064535_14.gif)
![Merit Badge in Blogging
[Click For More Info]
Congratulations on winning an honorable mention for Best Blog at the 2018 Quill Awards for [Link To Item #1196512] . *^*Smile*^* This award was sponsored by the blogging consortium including [Link To Item #30dbc] , [Link To Item #blogcity] , [Link To Item #bcof] and [Link To Item #1953629] . For more details, see [Link To Item #quills] .](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/type-Blogging-2180.gif)
![Merit Badge in Highly Recommended
[Click For More Info]
I highly recommend your blog.](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/Kudos-Highly_Recommended.gif)
![Merit Badge in Opinion
[Click For More Info]
For diving into the prompts for Journalistic Intentions- thanks for joining the fun!](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/genre-Opinion-1150.gif)
![Merit Badge in High Five
[Click For More Info]
For your inventive entries in [Link To Item #2213121] ! Thanks for the great read!](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/Kudos-High_Five.gif)
![Merit Badge in Enlightening
[Click For More Info]
For winning 3rd Place in [Link To Item #2213121] . Congratulations!](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/general-Enlightening.gif)
![Merit Badge in Quarks Bar
[Click For More Info]
For your awesome Klingon Bloodwine recipe from [Link to Book Entry #1016079] that deserves to be on the topmost shelf at Quark's.](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/group-Quarks_Bar-2046190_12.gif)
