Fire Engine Sirens

As a child when I had a fever, a temperature of 100.4°F or higher, I had these dreams where I heard the sounds of fire engine sirens.  These dreams most likely reflected the uncertainty about when I was going to get better, and they built up my anxiety concerning my fear of the unknown.  I don’t remember what the fire trucks were doing in my childhood dreams, but the sirens always gave me a headache.  I guess the fire truck signified some type of urgency, like a problem that needed to be resolved by immediate action obtaining a quick resolution.  At this time in my life, I didn’t know anything about the Greek mythical sirens, that Odysseus or Ulysses encountered in his adventures and how they lured sailors to their deaths, but these sirens always haunted my dreams.  This was such a long time ago and I remembered them as being fire engine sirens, but it is quite possible that my dreams could have been about an ambulance that had a siren and flashing lights.

Most times, you have to let a fever run its course, but getting rest and staying hydrated are always recommended as solutions.  There’s no evidence that sweating out a fever will help you feel better faster, but years ago, that is what my parents believed.  The sounds of these sirens in my sleep caused me to panic and that made me sweat more and usually in the morning, I was soaking wet, but my fever had broken by then.  I always felt that these sirens put me on my road to recovery, so even though they were very annoying in my dreams, I was happy to wake up feeling normal again.

Written for Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Dream Interpretation hosted by Cai where she asked us to share a childhood dream.

The Diophantine Equation

Maxwell’s equations, Einstein’s field equations and Schrödinger’s equations are some of the most difficult equations for anyone to attempt to solve, and if you don’t have a degree in mathematics, then forget about it.  Maxwell’s equations require an understanding of some calculus, vector calculus, light differential equations, and basic electromagnetism.  Working with Einstein’s field equations which relate spacetime curvature to matter and energy would require you to know about tensor calculus (or differential geometry).  To understand Schrödinger’s equations, you would have to know Linear Algebra, Partial Differential Equations, Hilbert space, the Dirac- delta function, and Fourier transforms.  To work on a Diophantine equation, all you need to know is what constitutes an integer and the basic arithmetic of Euclidean division, where you divide the dividend by the divisor, however this equation can be very difficult to solve.

Around 270, Diophantus of Alexandria wrote a collection of books called Arithmetica, that contains approximately 260 assorted algebra problems that deal with finding integer solutions to equations in several unknowns.  Diophantine equations are polynomial equations that involve only sums, products, and powers in which all the constants have integer coefficients and where only integer solutions are accepted.  An example would be, ax + by = c or x² − y² = z³, where a, b, c, x, y, and z are integers.  Diophantus was the first to introduce algebraic symbolism.  A Diophantine equation is an equation relating integer (or sometimes natural number or whole number) quantities.  Finding the solution or solutions to a Diophantine equation is closely tied to modular arithmetic, number theory, Galois theory, Fermat’s Last Theorem, theta-functions and Abelian functions.  Often, when a Diophantine equation has infinitely many solutions, parametric form is used to express the relation between the variables of the equation.  The equation ax + by = c, has many solutions and if we choose a to be 3 and x to be 4 and b to be 6 and y to be 1, then c would equal 18 as shown here: 3·4+6·1=18, but I am not going to get into how to solve Diophantine equations in this post.

The German mathematician David Hilbert (1862–1943) was a speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1900, where he proposed a list of 23 as yet unsolved problems that he saw as being the greatest challenges for twentieth-century mathematics and this proved to be very influential in the development of mathematics in the last century.  The tenth problem in his list relates to a Diophantine equation, where Hilbert asked for a computing algorithm which will tell if a given polynomial Diophantine equation with integer coefficients has a solution in integers or not, or they would have to prove that a solution was impossible.  Given a Diophantine equation with any number of unknown quantities and with rational integral numerical coefficients: To devise a process according to which it can be determined in a finite number of operations whether the equation is solvable in rational integers.  This tenth problem was solved in 1970 by Yuri Matiyasevich and his ingenious solution reduced the proof to polynomials, proving that no such algorithm exists.  Matiyasevich built on the work of others including Julia Robinson, Martin Davis, and Hilary Putnam, eventually showing that one could model Turing machines using Diophantine equations where a solution to a Diophantine equation existing was equivalent to the corresponding Turing machine halting.  The halting problem tried to determine from a description of an arbitrary computer program and an input, whether the program will finish running, or continue to run forever.  A general procedure to solve Diophantine equations is equivalent to solving the Halting problem.

Written for FOWC with Fandango – Equation.

U is for Usefulness

Blogs can be good information sources, but some are more credible than others and many are trying to sell you products, so they seem pushy to me.  Bloggers get popular when they write great posts with content that their readers can relate to.  Relevance can be determined by a variety of factors, including the accuracy and quality of the information, the context in which it is presented, and the needs and interests of the intended audience.  Information that is highly accurate and well-researched may be more relevant to a scientific audience than to a general audience, while information that is presented in a clear and accessible way may be more relevant to a broader audience.  Different people may have different perspectives and information needs, so what may be useful or related to one person may not be as relevant to another.  Useless, meaningless, inconsequential information is counterproductive and a waste of time and money, so I consider it to be worthless.  Most blogs contain interesting topics, but not that many are useful, and it is not like there is a shortage of topics to write about.  Much of the content produced by bloggers is useless and I just read a statistic that only 3% of people think social media currently provides useful, educational content.  Not all topics are beneficial or advantageous and many bloggers don’t contribute anything to society, they don’t want to solve any problems or write things that might help or assist others.

Google’s automated ranking systems are designed to present helpful, reliable information that’s primarily created to benefit people, not to gain search engine rankings, in the top Search results.  Content relevance is all about your audience’s perception of your content’s pertinence to topics, issues, needs, or interests.  Content usefulness refers to your content’s ability to help users make decisions or make progress toward goals.  Useful content is in demand and what is deemed to be useful is judged by your audience.  Understanding your target audience is absolutely vital if you want a successful blog.  Identifying exactly who you are trying to reach through your blog will help you generate blog ideas, find more readers and build a stronger following.  Knowing as much information as possible about your target audience can help you understand your readers, and this will help you create a more loyal following and build better relationships.  Knowing your audience helps you to make decisions about what information you should include, how you should arrange that information, and what kind of supporting details will be necessary for the reader to understand what you are presenting.  The writing process is something that no two people do the same way.  There is no “right way” or “wrong way” to write.  It can be a very messy process, or it can be fluid where we chose the outcome and follow the steps.  When you decide to write something, you should think of what you want to say, and to whom you want to say it to.  If something is bothering you that you want to resolve, then you should write about that.

Content written about Blogging can be useful to many bloggers, but it really depends on the amount of experience that the writer has with the subject and how deep you go into it.  I think that Music blogs are useful, because I think there is a story behind every song.  Everyone has their own identity and own interests and some of the more popular topics are: Food, Cooking, Recipes, Travel, Nature, Culture, Humor, Entertainment, Movies, Lifestyle, Adventure, Environment, Education, Self-Improvement, Fitness, Health, Beauty, Fashion, Photography, Art, Books, Literature, Reading, Fiction, Writing, Poetry, Love, Creativity, Inspiration, Religion, Politics, Family, Relationships, Sports, Work, Social Media, History, Design, Science, Technology, Internet and Mental Health.

Resourceful Insects

As much as Tim had tried to ignore it, he couldn’t deny it any longer.  Tim had to hire an exterminator, but before he could do that, he had to clean his house.  A very large cockroach crawled up on to the table where Tim was eating his dinner last night and he knew that something had to be done.  Tim had clutter all over his house, as he was a bachelor, but things were relatively clean, however he would need to move some of his furniture and storage boxes away from corners and walls so that the exterminators would have enough room to access to these areas where the bugs like to hide.  Tim lived in Florida where it is always warm and humid, making it cockroach season every day in the Sunshine State.  There is nothing that survives the ravages of time quite like a cockroach, and Tim was calling 2024 the year of the cockroach.  That night, Tim was woken up from his sleep, when a cockroach was crawling on his forehead, and this was the last straw.  Tim felt this ominous tickling sensation and he swatted the bastard as he was waking up.  He lost a whole night’s sleep over that and all night long he kept hearing the pitter-patter of their feet along with some hissing or mild chirping noises.  Tim had cans of Raid and Roach Motels spread all around his place, but he felt like he would never be the same again, since this cockroach disrespected his personal space by crawling directly onto his face.

Written for Fandango’s Story Starter #146.

T is for Themes

A theme is pre-designed template or framework that determines the overall appearance and structure of a website.  The theme is the first thing you notice on a website, and it is like the fancy clothes that a website wears to impress its visitors.  A theme is your site’s visual design and overall layout and by using a theme, you won’t have to build your website’s design from scratch, as a theme provides the design framework you need to launch your website quickly.  When a website has a visually appealing design and user-centric theme, it creates a powerful combination.  It captures people’s attention with its looks, and then keeps them engaged with a seamless and enjoyable user experience.  The theme that you select will determine all design components such as page layouts, backgrounds, color palettes, headers and footers, positioning, sizing, typography, and other elements that create a consistent and cohesive appearance throughout the website.  Themes provide a starting point for your website’s look and functionality, and it controls how your website’s content is presented to a visitor.

When I started my blog on April 23, 2017, I selected the Affinity theme which at the time was the latest addition to WordPress’s small collection of themes.  I was unaware that this theme was created specifically for weddings, so it is probably the wrong theme for me, especially since WordPress has retired this theme, but I made it work and it still works, so I see no reason to change it.  Affinity is a one-page theme that includes a front-page template with large, featured images, and it is comprised of plenty of space for all your event’s details, and a special Guestbook template to collect comments from your well-wishers.  Affinity will support five different customization panels, which are sections of content that can be expanded or collapsed as needed.  I never used any of these panels, which I imagine are sliding panels that can be used to feature different wedding cakes, or they could be utilized to feature the books that you have for sale, or each one of your cats could have their own space.  Affinity includes support for a sidebar widget area and three optional widget areas in the footer.  If widgets are added to the sidebar, the one-column layout becomes a two-column layout.  It also has a fullwidth page template for removing the sidebar on select pages.  I am using the sidebar, but I don’t have any widgets in my footer.

There are so many themes available and countless customization options, that it can be challenging to know where to start and if you are new to blogging, it is no wonder why people will pay from $500 to $5,000 to have a professional do this for them.

Contemporary Art Trends

New styles are emerging as artists continue to express themselves, which in turn creates more kinds of art and Asako intends to stay at the top of her game, being the early bird that catches the worm.  She expects to embrace fresh perspectives, by using innovative techniques, leading to her thought-provoking creations.  Asako wants to challenge herself by envisioning a future where art becomes a powerful catalyst for positive change.  She takes her work seriously and she is more than ready to construct captivating, and inspiring pieces for all the world to enjoy.  She started off her wall mural painting a red plus sign inside of an x on the top left portion, creating an 8-pointed star symbol, known as The Star of Ishtar.  The eight points of the star are thought to symbolize different aspects of the goddess Ishtar, including love, fertility, beauty, sex, magic, divine law, political power and war.  From the star, a rainbow trails off at the top of its arc, bending the path of its light as secrets diminish its colors designed to reduce the effect of the sunlight.  Asako placed a red handprint under the arc of the rainbow to signify hope and inclusion that her art would become a promise of a better future.

Asako painted some letters along with a menagerie of other symbols, including swirls, and squiggles that held deep meaning to her as she poured her heart into her latest work. She stepped back away from her painting, taking a few deep breaths, wondering if it was complete while looking at her masterpiece, or if she should continue painting.  She was able to see that her intention was met for Earth Day and that her work was making the world a better place, so she knew that it was almost finished.  As she dipped her brush into the blue paint, she had this feeling that since our planet looks blue from outer space because two-thirds of the surface is covered with water, that it needed an ocean on the bottom, so people don’t go around taking water for granted.  Asako understood that water connects every aspect of life, reinforcing the viability of every living thing.  She sat down cross-legged on a floor, deciding to paint the boundless, dark, and turbulent primeval waters residing below the chaotic atmosphere of the rest of her painting, and she would title her piece Ce Magnifique.

Written for Melissa’s Flash Fiction Challenge #265.

The Shadow Knows

Everything emits, reflects, and absorbs light in varying amounts, and shadows are caused when a light source is blocked.  Because the world is round, during the day when the Sun is above the Earth, which is always turning, rotating, or spinning, the length of a shadow will increase or decrease depending upon the time of the day.  Shadows are longest in the early morning and late afternoon/early evening when the sun appears low in the sky.  Viewed above the North Pole, the Earth rotates on its axis counterclockwise, from west to east.  This is also called a prograde rotation and that makes the Moon and the Sun (and all other celestial objects) appear to move from east to west across the sky, thus we see the Sun rising every day in the east and setting in the west.  The size and darkness of a shadow depends on the relative position of the and intensity of the light source and the object, as well as the type of the object and its transparency or reflectivity of the surface on which the shadow falls.  The shadow will get smaller as the distance increases, and it will get bigger as the distance decreases.  The closer to the light source an object is, the bigger the shadow will be, simply because a larger object is able to block more of the light.  The further away from the light source an object is, the smaller the shadow will be.  A narrower angular projection of the shadow is seen when the object is farther away whereas a wider angle of projection happens when the object is closer.  A shadow will appear darker when the light source is more intense and when the surface on which the shadow falls is less reflective or transparent.  Additionally, the distance between the object and the surface on which the shadow falls can also affect the darkness of the shadow.  If the object is closer to the surface, the shadow may appear darker.  In most cases, the brighter the light is, the darker the shadow will be cast.

Greek mythology says that before this world came into existence, only a confused mass of shapeless elements was present, and that was called Chaos.  Eventually all the elements consolidated resolving themselves into two widely different substances, a lighter portion which soared above and formed the sky and became known as Caelus or Father Sky and the solid mass beneath, which is known as Terra or Mother Earth.  They were both large beings, but they had no human qualities.  Caelus and Terra coexisted with two other mighty powers who were also the offspring of Chaos.  They were Erebus meaning Darkness and Nyx standing for Night.  Together they formed a striking contrast to the cheerful light of heaven and the bright smiles of earth.

Erebus reigned in that mysterious world below, where no ray of sunshine, no gleam of daylight, nor trace of health-giving terrestrial life ever appeared.  Nyx, the sister of Erebus, represented Night, and she had power over sleep and death.  They were married and they had many children, the best being Aether (Brightness), Hemera (Day), Philotes (Friendship) and Eleos the goddess of mercy, pity and compassion.  They also had eighteen dark children the three oldest being Charun the ferryman of Tartarus, Mendacius the god of trickery, cunning deception, craftiness, guile, and treachery and Adicia goddess of injustice and wrongdoing.  The other 15 dark children were, Discordia (Strife), Fatum (Doom, Destiny), Fraus (Fraud, Deceit and Deception), Furor (Spirit of mad rage and frenzy), Invidia (Envy, indignation and retribution), Miseria (Pain, distress), the two Keres which included Achlys (Mist of Death) and Mors (Peaceful Death), Querella (Blame and complaint), Senectus (Old Age), Somnus (Sleep), and the four Somnium which included Hypnos (Semblance), Phantasos (Dreams of fantasy), Phobetor (Nightmares) and Somnia (Dreams).

Every human is thought to exhibit light and dark patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in our daily life.  Psychologist Carl Jung thought that people should embrace the shadow when he said, “the brighter the light, the darker the shadow”, meaning that we are never simply who or what we think we are.  We are a mystery, even unto ourselves.  Jung made up the term shadow to describe those aspects of the personality that we choose to reject and repress.  Philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli felt that human nature is inherently flawed because people are selfish, greedy, easily deceived, and are never satisfied.  We must all be who we are, being both good and evil, light and shadow as that is what defines us and, in the end, all we have is ourselves.

Written for Sadje at Keep It Alive What Do You See #235.

S is for Stories

When it comes to blogging, the ultimate goal is to create a connection with your readers.  For writers looking to connect with their readers on a deeper level, it’s imperative to learn the basics of powerful storytelling.  Storytelling is the art where you use language and narrative to convey a message or idea that is integrated into a story to convey your thoughts, so you can create an emotional connection with your audience and make your content more memorable and shareable.  The power of fiction lies in its ability to transport readers to another world, allowing them to experience emotions and situations that they may not have encountered in their own lives.  Great stories are the result of a writer having carefully selected what he or she is going to say and not going to say.  As human beings, we are psychologically wired to enjoy a good story.  It also helps us understand concepts easier by placing ourselves into the shoes of the main character.  Stories appeal to our emotions and our sense of empathy and they can entertain, teach, and inspire us.  By incorporating storytelling into your blog posts, you can create a unique voice and style that sets you apart from the rest.

Stories are as old as time, and the first stories were made up so early humans could try to better understand things around them.  Our ancient ancestors feared thunder, lightning, rains, floods and storms because they were not able to explain this natural phenomenon, thus humans made up gods to help them understand nature and stories were written about these gods.  Early humans looked to the stars to find the divine and constellations became a human invention because of this.  Today, this is manifested in the childhood belief in and our poetic fascination that Heaven resided in the clouds above us.  For many cultures, the gods were found in constellations and planets, and they became an expression of the human desire to impress our own order upon the apparent chaos that we saw in the night sky.  Dividing the sky into recognizable star groupings had practical purposes for navigators beyond sight of land, for travelers in the trackless desert who wanted signposts, for farmers who wanted a calendar and for shepherds who wanted a nightly clock, but the earliest motivation was to humanize the forbidding blackness of night.  Human curiosity and human imagination made it necessary for people to develop explanations about celestial phenomena.  Stories were told about the Sun, the Moon, the stars, and the planets and eventually they became beings who resembled earthly creatures.  Zeus, Jupiter and Thor were all gods of thunder and lightning, and this calmed the early civilizations, as they no longer needed to say WTF was that, as the stories and legends of these gods gave the early humans a logical explanation for storms.

Most stories start with a beginning, progress through the middle, and come to an end, which is relatable for readers, and this holds their attention.  If you have interesting characters in your story, your readers will want to go on a journey with them, while that are experiencing happiness, sadness, and seeing how they are able to overcome hardships.  This emotional connection that you build with your characters, will strengthen the bond that your reader has with them, which is essential for any blogger looking to connect with their audience.  Everyone may relate to the emotions and events depicted in stories since they are universal to the human condition.  A good story will make your readers care about what happens to the characters that you created, they will want to feel their struggles, and root for their success.  This emotional connection is what makes storytelling such a powerful tool in blogging.  Readers who connect with your story are more likely to engage with your content, share it with others, and come back for more.

Sponges

To me it seems like free should be a contradiction of what a professional is, as the term professional refers to someone who is being paid to do something and free denotes that no money is involved.  I guess professionals can do things for free, as the word means conforming to the standards of a profession, but I will always think of a professional as someone who has a career that they are being paid for, and they are good at the job they are doing.  I worked as a substitute teacher for three years after I retired from being an electrical engineer and I have mixed feelings about this job, as it had its good days and its bad days.  The good and the bad days were mostly determined by the students that I had and some of them were very sweet, and others were complete monsters.  One day I had a class of Second Graders, and the teacher left me instructions for the lessons that they needed to learn that day, but when it came to reading, I was unable to find the book that she selected.  I asked the students, and they were not able to find the book either.  I had my tablet with me and I had just written a story about a pirate ship that was attacked by a sea monster, so I asked the class if they wanted me to read that story for them.  The all listened very intently as I read the story and when I finished reading it, they lined up in front of my desk, because they all wanted my autograph.

Another wonderful time I had as a substitute teacher was the week where I had the Fourth and Fifth Grade AVID Advancement Via Individual Determination students, because these students actually wanted to learn.  That makes all the difference when students have the right attitude.  I finished all the topics that they were supposed to learn by Thursday, so I asked them if there was anything special that they wanted to learn about for Friday.  One of the students said that she wanted to learn about String Theory, and although I heard of it, I didn’t know enough about it to teach anyone.  Other joined in and said they would also like to learn about String Theory, and I realized that I opened up a big can of worms, as String Theory is usually taught to graduate students as a part of Quantum physics.  I went home and researched String Theory and I wrote 14 pages on it, that included some diagrams.  I realized that I had to start off by teaching them the Standard Model of particle physics, so I could explain how the basic building blocks of matter interact, and they are governed by four fundamental forces.  The Standard Model was very effective for people to understand how atoms work, but since it failed to fit in gravity, String Theory came about to join everything together.

Their minds were sucking up all this information that I was giving them like sponges, and I felt very comfortable being able to teach them a subject that I just learned about the night before.  They all seemed to catch on to the twelve basic building blocks including quarks, leptons, the gluon, the photon and the bosons, as I explained how String Theory is supposed to be a Theory of Everything.  I told them how all of the different fundamental particles of the Standard Model are really just different manifestations of one basic object, that is termed a string.  I let them know that the string can move around and oscillate in different ways and that the strings came in two forms, closed strings and open strings.  Physicists believe that the closed strings might describe gravity.  I told them that all particles in the universe can be divided into two types, either bosons or fermions and this is about the time that they were getting lost, so we just had recess for the rest of the day.

If I know a topic well enough, I am very comfortable sharing my knowledge about it with others, if they are willing to listen.  Nobody ever comes to me for advice on anything, but I love explaining things and I don’t mind working for free if the person is sincere about wanting to learn.  This is the reason that I wrote my third book So You Want To Learn Calculus, as I had difficulty understanding this subject even though I was able to see the patterns and I could get the answers.  I think I had a lot of bad teachers and after taking three semesters of calculus, I still did not know what this subject was about.

Written for Sadje’s Sunday Poser #181 where today she asked, “Are you comfortable giving free professional advice?”

Fill Them Up with Love

Holly Knight and Mike Chapman wrote the song ‘In Your Wildest Dreams’ which was sung by the duet of Tina Turner with Barry White and it was recorded on Tina’s 1996 ninth solo studio album titled Wildest Dreams.  This song charted #32 in the UK, but it only reached #101 in the US.  The original European album version features spoken vocals by actor Antonio Banderas, but for the US edition Banderas was replaced with White, which makes sense because it seems like this song was written for White to sing.  On the European version, Turner does all the vocals until the end, when Banderas comes in with a part-Spanish, part-English spoken section.  Turner and White sing about a night of sultry lovemaking, where not much else is going on.  They are both attracter to each other and this allows them to manifest their deepest desires.  The sun goes down and the moon comes up, but they don’t have to focus on reality because their hearts are pumping whenever they get near to each other.  The night is hot and people are walking around, but for them it is all about the scent of their skin and the feel of their breath.  The desire consumes them as they both sing, “not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet” to prolong the extasy.  Finally, they arrive at the place where they are able to open their hearts and fill then with love.

In 1989, Holly Knight and Mike Chapman cowrote ‘The Best’ which became one of Turner’s biggest hits, but they wrote it for Bonnie Tyler.  In the early 70s, Chapman co-wrote a string of hit singles for Sweet, Mud and Suzi Quatro with Nicky Chinn, before going on to produce ground-breaking albums by Blondie and The Knack.  In the years between 1970 and 1980, he was knocking out hits as a writer and a producer at an alarming rate.  In 1980, Knight’s first big break came when she played keyboards (uncredited) on Kiss’ Unmasked album.  In the early 1980s, she helped form Spider who recorded two studio albums.  Chapman and Knight collaborated on the Spider’s single, ‘Better Be Good To Me’, which Tina Turner recorded six months later on her 1984 multi-platinum album, Private Dancer.  Mike Chapman urged her to move to Los Angeles to pursue her songwriting career.

[Turner]
Oh Baby

[White]
Oh Baby

[Turner]
The sun goes down

[White]
And the moon comes up

[Turner]
My heart is pumping for you

[White]
As a mad thing starts

[Both]
Never in your wildest dreams
Did you ever get this feeling
Never in your wildest dreams
Never in your wildest dreams
Could it ever be this easy
Never in your wildest dreams

[Turner]
The night is hot outside your window

[White]
I hear people walking people talking

[Turner]
I smell your skin I feel you breathing
Don’t let me go

[Both]
not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet

Never in your wildest dreams
Could you ever get this easy
Never in your wildest dreams
Never in your wildest dreams
Did it ever get this easy
Never in your wildest dreams

[Turner]
The world is slowly turning
As it turns I see your face
Touch your eyes, your lips… space
We’ve arrived at the place
Where they open hearts
And fill them up with love
Filled with love filled with love
This one is pumping for you

[Both]
As a mad thing starts

Never in your wildest dreams
Did you ever get this feeling
Never in your wildest dreams
Never in your wildest dreams
Could it ever be this easy
Never in your wildest dreams

[White]
Oh Baby
Never in my wildest dreams

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the theme is to find a duet.