Codex Vanitate archive

## So far this morning

Categories: Journal, Projects
Tags:
Published on: August 11, 2018

So far this morning I’ve

• Gotten jupyter notebooks running natively on my workstation rather than using the linux subsystem as a workaround
• Learned how to integrate functions in python using scipy
• Got exporting of jupyter notebooks to html working properly
• Built a scale model of the terrain around my home town in Unity
• Gained three levels on my warlock

Now I’m going to put my pants on.

## Integrating Functions

Quick example on integrating functions with jupyter, matplotlib, numpy, and scipy

### Import the required libraries

For this example we’ll be using $$f(x) = e^{-x}sin(3x)$$ as our function.

### Set the range for your plot and integration

To plot $$f(x)$$ we get an array of linearly spaced values from numpy, pass that array and our function to the plot function, and show the plot.

Evalating the integral $$\int_{0}^{2\pi}e^{-x}sin(3x)$$ simply requires passing our function and the range of the intgral to scipy’s quad function which will return a tuple of the integral and the estimated error.

Integral: 0.29943976718048754
Estimated error 5.05015300411582e-13

## Dissappointed

Categories: Journal
Tags:
Published on: August 6, 2018

There comes a point when it’s clear that you’re not the central figure in your kid’s life. It’s a good thing. You know it’s going to happen someday. You accept it as a natural part of growing up.

The problem is, that moment sneaks up on you when you least expect it and then punches you in the kidney without the slightest warning. Sure, they still want to do things with you but, the fact is, you’re no longer at the top of the priority list and, in fact, you’re further down that list than you’d like to admit.

God, it hurts.

But, it’s good. It’s necessary. And I’d be the worst kind of parent if I manipulated my kid into doing things that make me happy rather than the things that make her happy. So, here I sit, going through another block of python code while she talks and laughs with her friends in the next room rather than playing video games with me.

It’s the right thing but damn if it doesn’t suck ass.

## Plugin testing

Categories: Journal
Tags: ,
Published on: August 5, 2018

One of the benefits of coming back to an existing wordpress blog rather than continuing to try to roll my own in github.io is that I can easily piggyback on other people writing plugins to solve the same problems. So far, the Crayon and MathJax-Latex plugins seem to fit the bill.

### Testing Latex / Math

\begin{align} J(\theta) &= \frac{1}{m}\sum_{i=1}^{m}Cost(h_\theta(x)^{(i)},y^{(i)}) \\ Cost(h_\theta(x),y) &= -log(h_\theta(x))& y=1 \\ Cost(h_\theta(x),y) &= -log(1-h_\theta(x))& y=0 \end{align}

## Three years of silence

Categories: Family, Journal, Social Media
Tags: No Tags
Published on: August 5, 2018

I’ve been disconnected from social media for two years now. I still occasionally shitpost on reddit but that’s a habit I’ve largely broken myself of. I find, however, that I do need to find someplace to write things down that is both isolated enough from the internet that I don’t get much traffic but public enough that it’s accessible to the people who matter so I’ve dusted off this old wordpress blog. I shuttered it about the time I withdrew from most social media engagement and put the house in AR up for sale for the move to OR; too much to do, too little time.

Going back through the posts and republishing what had been previously made private simply reaffirms that keeping some form of journal is a good idea. I’ve been reminded of things I’d forgotten and identified trends and behaviors that you don’t see in your day to day grind. The short notes about life with my wife and daughter are what took me most by surprise. The reminders of how my little girl has been growing up and how much I love my wife hit hard.

I don’t get the last three years of silence back. I don’t know what I’ve forgotten but the value of keeping some sort of journal, even if it’s just to jog my own memory, is clear.

## This is the beginning of the song

Categories: Journal
Tags: No Tags
Published on: July 23, 2015

Cultural identity pings

## Bad Buddhist: I don’t like prostration

Categories: Journal
Tags: No Tags
Published on: July 23, 2015

I was looking at some photos taken at a recent festival at Bodghaya and one of them were of the boards used by people making multiple prostrations. I’ve meditated with people who similarly, although less frequently, prostrate themselves. I never prostrate myself.

I understand many of the reasons for prostration but it never feels like anything other than an ostentatious display when public and a meaningless gesture when private. I’m sure that’s part of my western upbringing. Looking at the common rationals for prostration, it isn’t surprising that I’m not inclined to bow my head and bend my back: accumulation of merit, veneration of the Buddha, cultivating humility / negating pride.

The accumulation of merit has always struck me as a very simplistic way to get people to do good things when they might not otherwise be disposed to it. The performance of good deeds in the hopes of a better reincarnation smacks of the belief in something that is actually reincarnated. This runs counter to my own belief that I’m simply a temporary confluence of flesh, mind, thought and experience; that what lives on after I die are simply the echos and ripples of my thoughts and actions, not me. Good deeds aren’t for me, they’re for other people and if that moves the needle on the cosmic balance enough that I benefit indirectly, that’s my better life. Not the next life, this one.

Venerating the Buddha is similarly not a strong motivation to bow. Bowing before someone or some thing to venerate it just isn’t a big part of my cultural experience. My view of Siddhartha Gautama is closer to how a basketball fan might view Michael Jordan. I recognize the accomplishment and feel the desire to emulate it but, just as most basketball fans don’t bow to effigies of Jordan. My veneration takes the form of reaffirming my commitment and taking refuge.

Finally, the real reason I don’t want to prostrate myself is that I don’t want to bow my head or bend my back for anyone. I’m not vain but I am prideful. I should bow for no other reason than to cultivate humility. The trap there is when does prostration stop being an exercise in humility and become a display.

## Snowpocalypse 2014: The Homecoming

Categories: Journal
Tags: No Tags
Published on: July 23, 2015

Getting from the airport to the house yesterday was… interesting. First I had to identify my car among all the other lumps of snow in the economy lot. This consisted of wading in knee deep snow, up and down the rows in the general area of where I remembered parking and listening for the muffled chirp from my car alarm as I repeatedly enabled and disabled it…

Once I’d dug out the driver’s side door I began my fervent appeals to any deity which both existed and might be listening that the thing would start or I’d be wading back to the terminal to try to get a cab. Thanks to a hastily cobbled together “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” deal with Nyarlothotep, the car started, allowing me to put it into a half hour defrost cycle while a dug it out with a hastily modified cardboard box I’d been meaning to recycle.

After some digging and scraping I had most of the snow off the machine and had managed to chip through enough ice that I could see out the windshield and the sides. At this point a plume of steam was coming off my body from a combination of exercise and cold. Time to hit the road.

I say road in the loosest possible terms since what I was driving on was a raised platform of packed snow and ice with Arkansas storm drains on either side i.e. a ditch. I couldn’t actually see the ditches since they were filled with snow but the occasional car trunk projecting from the snow like some long buried Easter Island monolith assured me that they were there.

## Antisocial again

Categories: Journal
Tags: No Tags
Published on: June 17, 2014

I’m taking another break from social media, Facebook in particular, because I keep mistaking people making claims and posting links to political and social activism as an invitation to discussion. It’s regrettable as FB is the primary way in which I communicate with my brother now that we’re not playing Star Wars The Old Republic together anymore.

## There’s never a can of spinach around when you need one

Categories: Family, Journal, Social Media
Tags: No Tags
Published on: January 6, 2014

I try to stay away from facebook but it’s simply too good of a tool for staying in touch with people. The problem is that it’s a really easy way to stay in touch with people and is turning into a means of broadcasting opinions on subjects which, honestly, are forbidden from polite conversation for a reason.

I read and I hold my tongue. People I love and respect say things that I would absolutely refuse to pass unchallenged over dinner or a beer and I hold my tongue. People a know tangentially say things which would get them stabbed with a butter knife if they had been spoken in my presence and I hold my tongue. And then I can’t hold my tongue anymore. I’ve had all I can stand and I can’t stand no more.

The problem is that my outbursts are making a wreck of my wife’s friendships and she’s pleaded with me to start writing in a blog rather than continue to ensure that we will die friendless and alone. I’ve never been good at listening to someone say something stupid and then go off and write a blog post about it. I tend to get into people’s faces. It somehow feels more honest. But, for the love I hold for my wife and for her mental well being, I’ll again try to redirect my spleen here rather than use it to power my low orbit ridicule cannon.

## Oh that’s not right…

Categories: Journal
Tags: ,
Published on: November 12, 2013

So another Halloween has come and gone. Our 13th wedding anniversary was a success. The wife has a new job that she loves and the kid has a new school that she also loves (although the homework slightly less so). I reconnected with my brother and we’ve been playing SWTOR and talking over mumble. We’re starting what is probably one of the more politically incorrect guilds in recent memory so be sure to look for us on Anita Sarkeesian’s blog, Jezebel, and the View in the coming months as we attempt to explain that it’s all in fun and what the British mean by “taking the piss”. Our oven dying an untimely death by thunderstorm right before Thanksgiving notwithstanding, things are good.

As I pack away and make minor repairs on my Halloween decorations it’s also time to start coming up with ideas for next year. I need to redo my graveyard fence, not so much because it is need of repair but that it can be improved. I don’t think I can reattach the head to “the guy” who I had hung from a gibbet in the front yard. He’s been hanging from a tree limb or a gibbet for about five years now and a windstorm finally popped his head off. I could probably reattach the head but I’d never be able to hang him from it again.

Now the gibbet is very simple construction: two 4x4s in a slightly offcenter ‘T’ formation. Nothing special but great for hanging a body from. I like the hanged man idea and I’m cheap so the first thing that occurs to me is that I can still hang him from the gibbet. I just need to make it a nice even ‘T’ and then tie his arms to the crossbars with the rope he’d formerly been hung with. Simple…

And then I remember where I live. I’m contemplating putting what can only be considered a crucified skeleton in my front yard. Yeah, no way someone can take that the wrong way.

«page 2 of 6»
Welcome , today is Thursday, May 28, 2020