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Relationship Hacking: Part 7 - An Amazing Night
Last night was amazing.
You know those moments where you really connect with someone else? When you see them in a new light and everything is great? My wife and I had one of those moments last night.
It was a beautiful evening that felt like summer. My wife had the day off, and had picked up some burgers, beer, and wine for dinner. We started talking about our life, the future, poly, and kids. It was a truly happy moment for me. We imagine a future where my wife can go traveling with someone who likes traveling more than me while I stay home looking after the kids. We talk about opening our own business (a recurring dream we have had for years and years). I told her that I feel like my life is just starting.
Our one year wedding anniversary is coming up pretty soon. We talked about how our relationship was before we got married versus after, and it seems like we were different people then. Much more immature. Much worse communication. Less connection. It's amazing what can change in a year.
My other relationship is progressing very well too. We saw each other again last weekend, and had a great time again. I'm seeing her again on Thursday (for our 4th date). There is a definitely a spark there, and I feel that there is a very good chance that we will have sex that night - my first new sexual partner in over 12 years.
I am happy and loving life. It's been a long time since I've felt this happy.
-- Snow
Relationship Hacking: Part 6 - It's happening!
So...
Shortly after my last entry, I met a girl on Tinder. We met for drinks and and ended up chatting for a few hours. She is also poly and has a couple other partners. She's very smart and opinionated. We had a great time and arranged to meet again.
Last night, we met again for dinner at a fancy restaurant. She showed up in a super sexy dress and I couldn't take my eyes off her. We had another great time and are planning on seeing each other again this weekend. I can't wait!
Admittedly, it was pretty weird to be all fired up from a great date and then coming home to my wife. We cuddled in bed like we always do, but my mind was racing thinking about my date. It kinda felt wrong. My wife there with her head rested on my chest while I think about my date with the other girl.
I don't know what else to say, as things are still really new. New Relationship Energy (NRE) is intoxifying. Its something I haven't felt for over a decade, and I'm really excited by it! More updates to come. Hopefully good ones!
-- Snow
Simple brute force Mandelbrot from 1401 to Basic to Python
Read about http://dpeckett.com/turning-the-arduino-uno-into-an-apple who in
turn had been inspired by
http://www.righto.com/2015/03/12-minute-mandelbrot-fractals-on-50.html which
was discussed on Soylent
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/03/26/1555201 and out of pure
curiosity wanted to see what the simple Basic program would look like as
Python.
The Apple II result of the program is very limited by the screen/terminal as is
the direct translation into Python but it is then slightly improved to give a
result fairly close to the original 1978 first ever plot of a Mandelbrot. The
recent 1401 version has about twice as much detail than that.
N.b.: The Python is written and tested in Python 3.2.3 it does not and will
not work in Python 2.7.3 (having both in Linux is usually easy as
they're treated entirely separately as python and python3).
The Basic isn't tested or anything by me as I didn't write it, it is
some version that runs on an Apple II emulation.
Integer Basic program to calculate the Mandelbrot fractal:
1 DIM LINE$(31)
2 FOR PY=1 TO 15
3 FOR PX=1 TO 31
4 X=0
5 XT=0
6 Y=0
7 FOR I=0 to 11
8 XT = (X*X)/10 - (Y*Y)/10 + (PX-23)
9 Y = (X*Y)/5 + (10*PY - 75)/8
10 X = XT
11 IF (X/10)*X + (Y/10)*Y >= 400 THEN GOTO 15
12 NEXT I
13 LINE$(PX)="*"
14 GOTO 16
15 LINE$(PX)=" "
16 NEXT PX
17 PRINT LINE$
18 NEXT PY
19 END
Python translation and result:
N.b.: Unlike in Basic the Python ranges do not include the end points.
Basic goto structure is rearranged using a break and else statement.
"px" becomes "px-1" where applicable due to the difference between
Basic arrays and Python lists (or maybe I'm wrong about that).
Python printing is a bit more complex for the use case.
The Python still manages to be fewer lines and is much easier to read
in my opinion (I don't really know Basic but I don't know all that much
Python either). I can see why goto is vilified :3
>>> line = [None] * 31
>>> for py in range(1, 16):
... for px in range(1, 32):
... x = 0
... xt = 0
... y = 0
... for i in range(0, 12):
... xt = (x * x) / 10 - (y * y) / 10 + (px - 23)
... y = (x * y) / 5 + (10 * py - 75) / 8
... x = xt
... if (x / 10) * x + (y / 10) * y >= 400:
... line[px-1] = " "
... break
... else:
... line[px-1] = "*"
... for j in range(len(line)):
... print(line[j], end = "")
... print("")
...
***
* ***
**********
***********
* * ************
*****************
******************
******************
*****************
* * ************
***********
**********
* ***
***
*
>>>
N.b.: The output isn't identical most likely because Python automatically
creates floating point numbers out of divided integers.
Expanded Python example and result:
Increasing the fidelity of the plot isn't as straightforward as one could
assume in Python: ranges can be stepped but don't take floating point values so
one has to do it "manually" with a few more variables. We change things to
start from zero as well, no reason not to.
The smallest preset Linux terminals are 80x24 so we can at least try to make
use of up to 79x24 for display, or more if we imagine printing it as was done
in 1978 and resulted in a picture consisting of at least 31 rows and 68
columns (and if less than half the height scrolls off the screen that's not
much of a problem).
Our plot is distorted because our typeface is taller than it's wide but we can
use that to cram higher detail into the horizontal axis (and this will help
make it look less distorted as well).
Out of laziness I left the px-1 stuff in to save/discard an empty column and
shifting the plot 1 character to the left. One could increase that to something
like px-7 or 8 and lower stepx appropriately for a little bit more detail. If
one wanted to do it properly and avoid the wasted work one could instead shift
the 'for px...' range to (7, 86) or similar.
I think I've goldplated this enough as is, I blame procrastination :3
(I'm posting this in my journal to force myself to stop).
line = [None] * 79
stepx = 0.35
stepy = 0.5
for py in range(0, 30):
for px in range(0, 79):
sx = px * stepx
sy = py * stepy
x = 0
xt = 0
y = 0
for i in range(0, 25):
xt = (x * x) / 10 - (y * y) / 10 + (sx - 23)
y = (x * y) / 5 + (10 * sy - 75) / 8
x = xt
if (x / 10) * x + (y / 10) * y >= 400:
line[px-1] = " "
break
else:
line[px-1] = "*"
for j in range(len(line)):
print(line[j], end = "")
print("")
**
******
*******
* *****
*** *************** *
********************** ***
*************************
****************************
****************************** *
* * *******************************
********** ********************************
*********** ********************************
************* ********************************
*************************************************
*****************************************************************
*************************************************
************* ********************************
*********** ********************************
********** ********************************
* * *******************************
****************************** *
****************************
*************************
********************** ***
*** *************** *
* *****
*******
******
**
Not bad for 22 lines of code, easily recognizable :)
Relationship Hacking: Part 5 - Hurry up and Wait!
It's been roughly 3 months since my last entry, so I figured it's time for another update...
My wife and I have spent a lot of time over the last few months reading everything about non-monogamy that we could get our hands on. It's been pretty great actually because prior to that, we hadn't really read the same books before. I had earlier done a review of 'Opening Up', and that book really only scratched the surface of the whole poly thing. I have since read 'More Than Two', 'The Polyamorists Next Door' (which focuses more on poly with kids), and have recently started 'The Ethical Slut'.
These books go into much more detail on the actual workings of a poly relationship. Things like time management, being poly with kids, and dealing with stigma. It's been great to read the books, and then discuss them with my wife to see where we stand.
While both my wife and I have been addicted to learning all about poly, we still have no practical experience. It's all just theory at this point in time. We really just want something to happen.
I've been continuing my online search for women, with abysmal results. I've been trying to improve my look, with some success, but its had a negligible difference as far as the dating scene is concerned. It's honestly been very, very depressing for me, as mentioned in my previous journal entry. I've spent many, many hours viewing profiles and trying to think of good messages to send. 80% of them don't even respond, and 19% do respond but it doesn't go anywhere. I acknowledge that I am looking for a very, very specific person and so the odds are already stacked against me, but it's really hard not to take it personally.
Some days are worse than others (of course) and on the bad days when I'm moping around the house, my wife has been amazingly supportive and tries to pick me up. Without her, I would be dangerously depressed. I could go into a rant about online dating and the imbalance of power between the sexes, but I'll save that for another day.
I'm really all about equality in a relationship, and as such, my wife has the exact same liberties that I do. I would never have one set of rules for me, and another set of rules for her - she is also free to pursue extra relationships, and it's something that I would like to see her do. Thankfully for my sanity, she is not interested in pursuing on her own right now. She wants to see how things go with me first. If she was actively looking, I think it would pretty hard to see men lined up around the block while I get nothing but crickets. As I read more about polyamory, I realize that this is a pretty common problem for men.
In other news, my wife has had her IUD taken out and we have been doing natural birth control planning for the last couple months. Talking about a Baby or Poly has basically been the focus of our life for the last year. Lots, and lots of talk and theory, but nothing real yet, which is frustrating us both. We are both just really anxious for something to happen, and when it does, I'll post it here.
-- Snow
April 1st, 2015
A day that will live in e-fame-y.
Irritable Duncan Syndrome
Irritable Duncan "Trust-me-I-know-what-I'm doing" Syndrome reckons that, when he and the rest of the Conservative Party are re-elected in this May's General Election, he'll make £12 billion (US$17.8 billion) of welfare cuts but he won't tell us before the election what these cuts will be, Allegedly, it's "Not relevant."
There aren't that many poor, sick, disabled and needy left un-kicked, but it's highly amusing that thousands of people in one of the world's most highly-developed countries are having to resort to food banks.
Goodness only knows how much worse it will get if the loony right UKIP get some seats. Anyone but an imbecile can see that they'd vote with the Conservatives on many issues or even form a coalition.
So hurry up and vote Tory to keep the hopeless, sneering socialists down.
God save the Queen etc.
Brief inconsequential rant on behalf of H.P. Lovecraft
Today I lapsed in my local front of the ’War On Open Tabs (And Also Windows)’ (or ‘Woot(Aaw)’ for short) and from looking closer at ChipWhisperer-Lite detouring to EEVBlog and on to ESD (ElectroStatic Discharge) issues and Bill Beaty who tricked me into clicking onwards to ‘Vulture Central’ (The Register) where I ended up picking through the bones of the recent news of “Lost White City of the Monkey God Found After 500 Years” in which I came across a reference to a work of Lovecraft written 94 years ago which I didn't remember reading.
However it turned out I had read it under a different name, and on that same Wikipedia page once again yet another venerated authority was quoted slagging off HPL accusing him of being a “racist” or supremacist or anything else non-imaginative even though HPL had plainly explained what he was writing about or in response to (which was unimaginative shitty white village dramas).
At which point I wanted to congratulate E. F. Bleiler for picking through a dead man's brain in order to arouse himself and revel in the sticky glory of it. HPL would surely appreciate the combined or better yet unified necrophiliac morbidity and righteous “holy” bigoted megalomania of Bleiler's actions.
(And where else to offer my sarcastic approval than on my very own journal? Did I piss on his grave? I apologize but in my defense I can't be blamed for not noticing it on account of the latrine placed at the same spot by so many of his peers).
But yes for a while already E. F. Bleiler has been just as dead and if there's anything left after a few generations of macro and microfaunal procreation any maggots can continue his gruesome trade on his own brain :)
Now please excuse me as I make a few bookmarks for perusal in the eternity of time I do not have (and correct an index in an actual book) and close twenty or so tabs… the war must go on.
…and now I can't help but wonder what the world would be like if there was a Mr. and/or Mrs. Crowley-Lovecraft out there, and yes it has to be a double-barreled surname ;)
P.S. Happy Easter!
Foggy/overcast 88.8% eclipse: not much (or any) difference
Title says it all really but I found it surprising that there wasn't much noticeable difference. It started out foggy but the fog had mostly risen to 100% low cloud cover at local eclipse maximum (88.8%) yet if I didn't know and someone told me there was an 88.8% eclipse at that moment I wouldn't have believed them at all. The level of light felt unexceptionally normal. It was more noticeable a while after the local maximum was over as it started to get a little bit brighter but for all purposes it was just like a normal variation caused by weather, no weird shadows, not even any streetlights turning themselves on.
It was so unnoticeable I double-checked the time of the event and my clock. I guess my eyes almost entirely compensated for the small and ever so gradual change. Right now it's not even supposed to be entirely over yet but meh :)
I slept through the last eclipse so maybe this is all completely normal, the lack of difference that is; me sleeping right through “events” is very normal :D
Moral hazard: I learnt something today
How deeply unfortunate that it's given such an easily misunderstood ‘name’.
Want to sum up most or maybe all of humanity's problems in two words?
The specific meaning of ‘Moral hazard’ should be shouted from the rooftops. Every single human being ought to be taught what the concept means and the fact that it does not just apply as a term in economics. It describes every major problem inherent to politics I can think of. The fallacies of ideology and ideals or principles, the limits to society, the inescapable “death” from complexity, automatic corruption and institutionalized cronyism, the pressures towards groupthink, secrecy, pressure groups and lobbying, and everything else, it's all there, it touches everything.
If someone wants to make a truly better society and/or if they have to rebuild from the ground then they should focus on removing and inhibiting as much moral hazard as possible. Maybe it's all it takes but the amount of work it requires is enormous.
The first step towards that would be to identify all of it in anything new or old.
