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Friday, Nov. 1, 2024

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Complex Numbers

by Robert Waltz

Rated: 18+ · Book · Personal · #1196512

Not for the faint of art.

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.

http://www.ddewey.net/mandelbrot/

Signature for Honorable Mentions in 2018 Quill Awards

A signature for exclusive use of winners at the 2019 Quill Awards

Signature for those who have won a Quill Award at the 2020 Quill Awards

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

tj: Tenebrous Jekyll

about 7 hours ago
In response to "Phases"

Perhaps, if the full moon drives one to madness, the half moon will only make one half-crazy.

1 Like

Battywyn🎶

Oct 29, 2024 at 12:18pm
In response to "The Numbers Don't Lie"

I hear ya. I like to think I'm discerning enough to detect fakes, but that might just be my ego talking. When it comes to local businesses, I also go to social media and request recommendations. With both reviews from strangers and recommendations from friends, I give more credence when more (anecdotal, heh) details are provided. It's more an art than science, but liars either have such flawless details that their story sounds fabricated, or they get embarrassed when they trip themselves up. Truthtellers make errors, because memories are fallible, but they get more confused than embarrassed. Ultimately, the only way to really know is to try the product/service yourself. Which is why you'll hear about my Cancun vacation next month, but you don't have to believe me.

1 Like

Robert Waltz

Oct 29, 2024 at 11:07am
In response to "The Numbers Don't Lie"

Battywyn🎶

- I, too, look at the 1-star reviews, though again, reviews aren't my sole criteria. But sometimes it's blatant fake reviewing from the competition: "Don't stay here! It has rats, bedbugs, and roaches! Stay at this other place instead!" where "this other place" is clearly owned by the reviewer.

On the other paw, five-star reviews are often salted by the establishment in question.

Used to be, you could look at the four- and two- star reviews to get more honest, nuanced opinions, but the establishments, and their competition, have figured out that trick.

Which is one reason why reviews aren't my sole criteria.

(None of this applies to WDC reviews, or to the artificially inflated Uber rating system)

Battywyn🎶

Oct 29, 2024 at 11:00am
In response to "The Numbers Don't Lie"

And I was going to conclude by saying, when evaluating Caribbean vacation destinations, even if 5,000 people gave it a 4.8 rating, if the one star reviews were from seven people who encountered rats in their rooms, I'm very likely to not choose this destination.

2 Like

Battywyn🎶

Oct 29, 2024 at 10:58am
In response to "The Numbers Don't Lie"

Well, that was annoying. I was still in the process of editing, so please excuse the multitude of errors. I also intended to italicize the quotes from your post. Stupid f****** Parkinson's.

1 Like

Battywyn🎶

Oct 29, 2024 at 10:56am
In response to "The Numbers Don't Lie"

You know what sometimes lies? Anecdotes.

Also, dogs, I've heard.

Oh, hell no.

🤣 I love a good inside joke, but my marketing guru would tell you to cross link here

The fallacy is named after Robert McNamara, the U.S. Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, where his over-reliance on measurable data led to several misguided strategies

Bet he's proud of his claim to fame.

What's the point in data, then?

The point in data is a decimal separator, unless here in non-english speaking countries, in which case it's more likely a thousands separator.

So, whenever I'm evaluating online reviews for pretty much anything, and for the record I check them for almost everything - I always consider three things: 1. The average rating (eg, number of stars); 2. The The number of contributors to the rating; and three. What the one star ratings say.

1 Like

Annette

Oct 28, 2024 at 2:47pm
In response to "Waste Not"

In Southern California, every single family residence has a green bin. Every trash day, three different trucks make the rounds.

1 for composting
1 for recycling
1 for garbage

Trader Joe's sells almost exclusively packaged foods, even perishables. They have contracts with college food pantries. In many colleges, there are now pantries that are open to the students 4 or 5 days a week plus 1 day when people from the community can drive up and receive a bag with a mix of fresh fruits and vegetables along with non-perishable foods and donated sundries.

Churches are huge food redistribution centers also.

The "too hard to set up" systems have created good jobs here. Instead of seeing food donations as a liability, they have created a supervised and refrigerated second market.

The cost for employees is small because, of course, many of the positions are volunteers. But the supervisors and some of the staff are full time employees with benefits.

The article has thrown up obstacles that are easy to overcome.

3 Like

AnotherDreamer

Oct 28, 2024 at 11:33am
In response to "Waste Not"

https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6156cebc4c605e281289a232/6156cebc4c605eb8bc89... e%20for%20beginners%2024%2009%2018.pdf

1 Like

Robert Waltz

Oct 28, 2024 at 11:33am
In response to "Waste Not"

AnotherDreamer

- Hey, it's a replicator from Star Trek!

Now let's invent the holodeck.

2 Like

AnotherDreamer

Oct 28, 2024 at 11:27am
In response to "Waste Not"

We the people of the world could use those products before they are compost as free sources for 3D printed foods that could be used for emergency food, or if tasty enough, re sold.https://builtin.com/articles/3d-printed-food

2 Like

December 14, 2019 at 1:17am

#971433

Unwritten, Expanded

I'm back! Actually been back a while, but it's taken me this long to recover enough from my trip to concentrate on a blog entry. This getting-old shit sucks.

Today's link is from several months ago, but I think the underlying information is worth highlighting, if only to mock the living hell out of it. I touched on some of this in this week's Comedy newsletter, "Unwritten"

, but I can get more personal (and snarky) here.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/02/22/15-unwritten-rules-calling-textin...

'Use at least one Emoji per text': The new rules of communicating in the digital era

And already my bullshit meter needs replacement, because the headline broke it. I, and the people I text with regularly (a select few), use emojis sparingly, if at all. We also use complete words, spelled correctly (absent the inevitable occasional typo), and proper punctuation.

Yeah, it takes longer, but it's less annoying.

But also easier is unwittingly getting caught up in a major disconnect by violating a tangle of new rules for communicating. A big one for some: Don't call until you've texted to confirm it's OK to call. But that's just the beginning.

As I pointed out in the newsletter, once you've done an article like the one I'm linking here, the rules are no longer "unwritten." By definition. However, they're not necessarily "rules," either. This one, for example? Whatever. If someone has my phone number, I expect they might call at some point. That's okay. As long as they don't expect me to answer, especially if they're not on my contact list. Any unidentified number is a health insurance telemarketer, as far as I'm concerned.

Come to think of it, I wasn't plagued by insurance scam calls all week. Could this be because I finally signed up for an Obamacare plan? Yes, I'm going to have health insurance, after two years without any. Thing is, how the fuck do the telemarketers know this?

Don't answer that.

"I'm usually pretty chill and not much bothers me," said Mark Angiello, a 29-year-old office manager from White Plains, New York. But the one thing that really gets under his skin, that he "hates more than anything else in life" is the horrendous one-word message – "K."

So... wait... we're supposed to, on the one hand, condense our texts into emojis and "u" for "you" and acronyms such as IDK or LOL or whatevs, but you're going to get pissed because someone typed "K" for "OK?" Good gods.

Twitter user @Ryannlawrence writes, "If I give you an emoji in a text, you have to give me one back. Those are the rules. "Twitter user @Zelvel writes: "It's an unsaid rule in texting if you weren't the last person to send a text before you fell asleep, you should be the first to send one in the morning."

Neither of these "rules" make any sense whatsoever and this is why I despise and avoid Twatter.

Other examples include don't leave a message after the beep...

If you don't leave me a voicemail, and you're not on my contacts list, I will not return the call. Period. To be safe, leave a gods-be-damned message, even if it's just "Hey, it's ***. Call me back."

...don't send too many texts in a row...

Two? Five? Seventeen? 42? How many is too many, you unutterably idiotic prat?

...and don't just start a conversation with "Hey."

How about "yo?" Does "Yo!" work for you? Thor's balls...

"These rules are simply a new manifestation of a phenomenon we've seen in the past," said James Ivory, professor of communication at Virginia Tech.

All due respect to Virginia Tech (I'm a UVA grad; that's a joke), but are you being descriptive or prescriptive here?

So, not everyone gets the memo.

Oh? Maybe you should have texted me to find out if I got the memo. Oh, wait, you can't. Look, you might be thinking this is an "age" thing for me, or a "technology" thing, but no. For me, it's a refusal to conform to social norms until a) I know what the freaking norms are and b) I have internalized a damn good reason for conforming.

"As soon as people aren’t talking face to face, the first thing that gets lost is some of the richness of the nonverbal communication," Ivory said.

Or you could, you know, learn how to frakking write. But I suppose if everyone knew how to write, writers would be out of a job. Not that most of us have that job, anyway.

"People immediately fill that gap by trying to approximate it," either by using emoji, adopting informal etiquette or sending gifs – those animated images that seem to sum up a sentiment in seconds.

You mean like this?

So, okay, now the article gets to the inevitable numbered list that makes it clickbait. As usual, I'll just highlight a few select items.

2. One word texts like OK and LOL are conversation killers. Don't respond with one word, unless you don't want to talk anymore.

K.

6. Don't ask for likes, comments or shares.

This one, I can actually get behind. I don't believe I've ever done it. My posts - such as they are, avoiding Failbook and Tweeter - need to stand on their own. And as a rule, I never like or share if you beg for it. It's like begging for a kiss; it makes you look desperate and lonely. But hey, if you ask for comments, as long as you're not begging, okay, I can sometimes accommodate that.

8. You don't actually have to leave a voice message.

As I noted above, yes. Yes, you really do. If you want me to get back to you at all.

14. If you don't get a response, you don't have to get angry. It's not always that big of a deal.

Anyone who gets angry when I don't respond immediately gets ignored forever. I sleep at irregular intervals, and I turn my phone volume off when I'm napping, lest I be woken by an "urgent" robocall. If I don't respond, it's because I was asleep. Maybe I'll miss something important like a new beer release, but so be it.

Anyway, what all of these boil down to is the usual: be mindful of others. Hell, even I can do that (most of the time, anyway), and I'm generally known for having no shits to give. I don't need vapid internet articles that mostly quote Twunter users and professors at second-rate colleges (

) to tell me that.

5 Like • Comment • View 7 comments

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