The Servant

Avoiding self-emasculation, one pathetic post at a... dang it...

[persnickkitty]

Need to save up money, and FAST.

Hey guys! Anyone who’s followed me for much time at all knows that I have been having some real money troubles and am constantly making the choice between paying my bills and having food to eat.

BUT THINGS CAN FINALLY CHANGE!

A close friend of mine is in a dire situation and needs a place fast, and so we’re going to try and become roommates to split rent and make things cheaper for everybody. 

If we get the place we’re going to look at, we have until December 23rd and I need to have around $900 to spare. Some will be saved from my wages at work, but it’ll need help!

With all the bills I have, itll be tough….but not impossible. 

This is an opportunity I cant miss! I can finally, after this year of struggling, get OUT of here.

I put a Donate button on my blog for the most giving of souls, but I’m also still VERY MUCH offering commissions!

DONATION BENEFITS:

If you donate any amount over $30, ill put your OC in a webcomic im working on (first five pages viewable here)! And every 30 you donate will get you an additional OC. ($60 = 2 OCs, $90 = 3, etc.) And I’m not talking one panel, or a distant group shot…they’ll help out some with the action for a bit!

Email AND Paypal: [email protected]

Send me screenshots with proof of your donation if you donate through the button, or just email me with the email you send with! And of course, signal boosts so appreciated…I want this more than I’ve wanted anything else for a damn long time!

[persnickkitty]

Hey! Update! Im drifting around $600 which is AMAZING. $650 is what it’ll take to lock down the apartment for me and my cats if we get approved!

Now i need to make sure i can get OUT of my current apartment–it’s $200 to sublease to someone else, and I’ll definitely have some moving expenses to fix the place back up before i get out of there.

Please, keep spreading this and consider commissioning / donating! Even if i dont end up getting out, all the donation OCs will still make it into the comic and the money will be used to keep me on my damn feet.

You guys are the damn best!

[servantofthewrittenword]

Me: Haha this is gonna be a fun joke character.

Character: *Accidentally develops most endearing personality*

Character: *Suddenly has well developed in depth backstory*

Character: *Spawns goals and aspirations*

Character: *has hopes, complex feelings, insecurities*

Character: *makes you and your friends cry*

Me: What the fuck just happened?

[mathed-potatoes]

Open discussion - What’s your proof-writing process? 

This is my third semester assisting classes, and my second semester assisting an introduction to mathematical proofs course (for freshmen of any major). My office hours are starting to get popular, so I’ve got a great opportunity to build up the educational materials arsenal with new and ever more effective exercises and activities for teaching abstract mathematical thinking. Right now, I’m brainstorming on ways to write killer proofs. Any input you can give me on the following would be highly appreciated:

1. What is your favorite strategy for getting started with a proof? How did you establish the method? What methods did not work as well/did not work at all? 

2. Are there any activities or assignments that stuck with you as really fun/encouraging/informative proof-writing drills? How did they work? 

3. I’m noticing that the psychological aspect is usually people’s biggest stumbling block. Most of the students have never seen proofs before, and I think it’s deeply disturbing to be told that the math you knew (and liked, since many of them want to major in mathematics) is REALLY DIFFERENT than big-league math. How can this revelation made less jarring? What were the critical factors when you got started with proofs (learning environment/availability of resources/lots of feedback/etc.)?

-NOTE: This is a tough question for me, because I was never good at math until I met hard-core abstract stuff. It’s hard for me to put myself in the shoes of students who rocked at math in high school, and are now having their perspective changed. I (obstreperously and constantly) champion the cause that math is for everyone. I’ve been focusing on bringing abstract thinkers in to the world of math, and now I have an opportunity to extend that focus to include keeping calculation-based thinkers on board.

[servantofthewrittenword]

1) In the case of any proof of an implication statement (something that can be written as “If ____, then ____”), I try to figure out whether I can prove it directly, indirectly, or contrapositively. If I can make a bunch of steps in logic based on just the assumption, I’ll try a direct proof. If I can make a bunch of steps in logic based on the negated conclusion, I’ll try to prove contrapositively. If it’s a little bit of both, then I try an indirect proof. At the very least, I plan out a “want to show” that makes a few steps in logic before putting pen to paper (or type to LaTeX; whatever blows your hair back).

2) Having started proof-writing as a computer scientist for a while really helped. The way you write proofs in my “Foundations of Logical Thought” class is sort of like a table. On one side, you have what you conclude, and on the other, the theorem/axiom/etc. used, plus the number(s) of the line(s) that has(have) the necessary condition(s). So if you wanted to make a proof in words based on this table, you would take each line and make a sentence out of it, splitting up into paragraphs when a natural break in your proof occurred.

3) Start by going back to algebra. Start with an un-simplified algebraic equation and ask students to simplify. Then, make them write out each step next to the new line. If they subtract from both sides, WRITE THAT OUT. What will help is to have students talk it out first. Say what they will do, do it, then write it down. Repeat until finished, point to the side of the board that has each step written out, and say “That’s a proof.” Because it is.

As someone who always liked math (but hated the way it was taught), I love how proof-writing takes me out of my comfort zone. It helps me explain things better to myself and to others, and it gives me confidence in my answers. For many people who don’t like math, the reason is because they may not be confident in the answers it gives them. Proofs give confidence.

[persnickkitty]

REAL QUICK DESPERATE TO MAKE RENT COMMISSIONS

I can churn these out REAL fast–in monochrome OR actual color–so I’m gonna do unlimited $10 character (oc or fandom) flat waist-ups. (+5 for quick shading) because wow! i need money.

my email and paypal are both [email protected], email me or shoot me a fanmail/ask! (though asks may not reach me bc tumblr)

[mathed-potatoes]

Serious research progress today - verifying all sorts of identities with the goal of making this code bulletproof for Eisenstein integer prime factorization. 

Just don’t look too closely at that middle page, which is where servantofthewrittenword and I made a list of all the Harry Potter characters who would have been at Hogwarts during the Mauraders era. We had to research it because we’re very serious researchers, okay? We research everything. 

[mathed-potatoes]

I wouldn't consider the non-potato set closed since there are operations on members in the non-potato set (potato, water, soil) that can produce a potato, but I thoroughly enjoyed your post.

I was sorta hoping no one would call me out my potato post, but I gotta be honest here: I kept thinking after I posted that and I concluded that I was wrong in saying the boundary values belonged to the non-potato set. I would say that it is, morally, easier to push a potato into non-potatoness than to create a potato from components. You bring up another important matter of philosophy: is a pre-potato a potato? Is the potato trajectory sufficient to be considered a boundary value of the potato set? 

Maybe, to avoid philosophy altogether, we should say that the potato set is clopen. Also, I can hear my proof coach getting mad at this discussion. His exact words when I behave this way are, ‘Don’t apply precise logic to imprecise things.’ 

[servantofthewrittenword]

Sounds like a guy I really don’t want to hang out with. Anyone who would criticize me for applying “precise logic to imprecise things” is the kind of negativity I don’t need in my life.

[awkward-aeries-blog-deactivated]

Are you interested?

Imagine a mini documentary series that covered mental illness but not in a totally dreary light. Just interviews with real people who are incredible and happen to be suffering from a mental illness. The hook would be cutaway sketches that would try to visually express what the illness is like.

The primary focus would be to humanize people with mental illness - including the ones with more “scary” illnesses - to promote more support for those worldwide.

Reblog if you are interested.

Also feel free to submit any experiences you have with mental illness if you think it’d help.

[servantofthewrittenword]

magda: go upstairs and bug your sister.

small maximoff child: but she bugs me!

me: *screams forever*

[awkward-aeries-blog-deactivated]

Keep reading

[servantofthewrittenword]

As someone with not a lot of experience with these kinds of things, I can only offer so much amateur advice, so I just want to open with sympathy instead: Sabrina, I really enjoy your videos, no matter where you post them, and I’m glad to be subscribed.

Now, if I have any advice, it’s two things:

(1) You probably don’t need five channels. Maybe two or three, if you’re really self-conscious about a professional channel and a non-professional one (and a third for CCK). I can appreciate wanting to hold yourself to a higher standard of video-making, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to keep your content separate. But as someone who likes your videos, no matter what they are, I would rather not need to subscribe to five different channels.

(2) I first started watching your videos with the “Meninist Makeup Tutorial,” which was one of your most popular videos. I bet you got a lot of subscribers from that. Most viral video YouTubers get a crapton of subscribers and then lose them rapidly. Don’t fret too much: I myself would much rather have a few dedicated subscribers than a lot of subs who hate me.

Hope I was able to brighten your day a bit!

[servantofthewrittenword]

Three Random Tropes 01: Snaps

Leave No Survivors Green-Eyed Epiphany Curtain Clothing

Open on a dinner party. Clinking wine glasses, golden and white linens everywhere, and a buffet line the length of a city block. Jenny wants to celebrate her best friend (and boss) Monica’s birthday, and she pulled out all the stops on the swanky affair. Jenny rents out this beautiful ballroom in a hotel, invites nearly everyone at Monica’s law firm, and all their friends, and even gets the best dining service she knows in the city to cater the event. Nothing could possibly go wrong!

Then Bradley shows up. He’s this up-and-coming employee at the firm, and Monica’s had his eye on him for quite some time. Jenny thought it was all professional, and then Bradley comes in, with his fancy three-piece suit, sterling silver cuff links in the shape of his initials, and ebony shoes so shiny, Jenny’s dark skin shown in them very clearly. Monica has bedroom eyes, and a little thread in the back of Jenny’s mind just... snaps.

Jenny makes all the arrangements of her 30th birthday for Monica, and all her attention is on this... this... guy. Men like Bradley are pigs, and they come a dime a dozen. Jenny is different! She’s well-respected, determined, and only more than rightfully deserving of Monica. Jenny grabs the tablecloth off one of the standing tables, and runs off to the bathroom.

A few minutes pass, and Monica is wondering where her BFFL ran off to. Then Jenny comes back. She has cast off her powder-blue, office-casual dress, and now sports the golden and white tablecloth as the most amazing dress Monica has ever seen. Jenny even decided to put on a few layers of makeup, and if she had the means to upholster something to her heels, she would have done that, too.

Monica. Is. Floored. How could she possibly resist Jenny now? Well, Bradley can think of one way. The man swaggers over to Jenny and immediately makes conversation. Bradley never knew such a hot gal worked in his law firm. Monica. Is. Furious.

She looks around the room, and all eyes are on Jenny. As the three-tier birthday cake (that might be confused for a colorful wedding cake at any other party) rolls out of the kitchen and the band begins to play the song we all know, Monica feels betrayed. How could her BFFL, who planned this whole thing so she could be the star of the show, suddenly steal her spotlight, right as the party was just beginning? In reality, the party was three hours in, but that didn’t matter to Monica. No one deserves to leave the party without seeing just how important Monica really is. She takes the cake-cutting knife, and with a lustful gleam in her eye, a little thread in the back of Monica’s mind just... snaps.

The gold and white motif incorporates into Jenny’s dress suddenly takes on a crimson hue. Then Bradley gets red on him. By the time the party-goers realize something is wrong, all the doors are locked. And when everyone notices the cell service in this basement ballroom is terrible, panic ensues. It’s like they’re running right into Monica’s knife. And after minutes pass, when the police finally arrive, Monica stands on the still-warm corpses of her former lover and her former BFFL, blood-stained teeth bared in a sick smile. When she attacks the cops with the knife, she knows that she will finally get the recognition she deserves. Or at least her name will make it onto next morning’s news reel...

[Author’s note: The second and third tropes were rather simple to integrate, since they both belong in the same-ish genre of sitcom. The first, however, typically belongs in some adventure story. But since I had trouble create some Hero’s Journey using the other two tropes, it had to be some horror twist, with a main character performing the massacre. Thus, we get this Cinderella-meets-Carrie synopsis. I could probably flesh it out more into a short story, if I really cared. This was written probably in the span of an hour, just as a way to exercise my creative muscle. It doesn’t have to make sense.]

This is the first in a series of writing exercises, where I go to tvtropes.org and click random three times. I then try to make a story/synopsis based on these three random tropes, hence the title Three Random Tropes. Send me an ask with your thoughts, or if you have any ideas for writing prompts I should try out.

[diedinpompeji-deactivated201505]

PLUTO 2015

NASA

[wand-erin-gs]

I AM SCREAMING OH MY GOODNESS

[aquariusdegel]

OH MY GOD DO YOU GUYS UNDERSTAND HOW AMAZING THIS IS I HAVE BEEN READING ASTRONOMY BOOKS FOR YEARS AND EVERYTIME THERE’S JUST A PIXELLY BLUR FOR PLUTO NOT ANYMORE. NEVER AGAIN.

[thefrankiieffect]

GUYS I AM FREAKING OUT HISTORY WAS JUST MADE WE KNOW WHAT PLUTO LOOKS LIKE FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER ASTRONOMY AND SCIENCE YALL

[servantofthewrittenword]

Sorry, but this is an artist’s rendition of Pluto’s surface, not actual images. They’re made by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Labs, and it’s part of their documentation of the New Horizons spacecraft as it approaches Pluto. We have some really good images so far, but nothing this detailed yet.

[awkward-aeries-blog-deactivated]

“It isn’t easy dating a zombie…”

[servantofthewrittenword]

The Witch of Agnesi

I’m gonna let my math geek flag fly for a bit, because I’m completely fascinated by this curve:

First studied by Fermat around 1630, and first named the “versiera” by Guido Grandi in the early 1700′s, the curve’s modern name came from Maria Gaetana Agnesi, in a really roundabout way. Grandi called it the “versiera,” both as a reference to a sailing term from the Latin “versoria” (what wasn’t related to sailing back then?) and the versed sine function used in the (his) construction of this curve. Agnesi also used this term in her book, Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventù italiana, or Analytical Institutions for the Use of Italian Youth. Now, “versiera” is also a shorter form of a then-common Italian word “avversiera,” derived from the Latin “Adversarius.” This was a nickname for the Devil, the “Adversary of God,” and at the time was synonymous with “witch.” Cambridge professor John Colson, in translating Agnesi’s work, mistranslated “versiera” as “witch.” Thus, the curve came to be known as “The Witch of Agnesi.”

Now, etymology are fun, but math is equally fun, so how do you make The Witch of Agnesi? Start with a circle of radius a in the Cartesian (x-y) plane. Put the bottom of the circle on the origin O, and center it on the y-axis. Where the circle crosses the y-axis again at the top of the circle, label that point M, and draw its tangent line. Now, take any point A on the circle, and draw the secant line OA. Look at the point where the line tangent to the circle at M and OA cross. Label that point N. Now, we need a line parallel to the y-axis crossing N, and another line parallel to the x-axis crossing A. Label the point at which these two lines cross P. So, we should have a circle of radius a centered on the y-axis, crossing at O and M, and a right triangle NPA. If I lost you somewhere in this construction, consult the picture below:

Now, if we vary the position of A and trace the path of P, the Witch appears in the trace. Pretty cool, right?

That’s all fine and good if you’re into geometry. But what’s the explicit curve, with y as a function of x?

(Remember, a is the radius of the circle). When a = 1/2, the curve resembles something many statisticians should be familiar with:

Yep, it’s the probability density function of the Cauchy distribution (without the constant)! Since I’m a physicist by major, we sometimes call it the Lorentzian, or Lorentz distribution, but I’m not picky. Especially because I am forever going to call it the Witch. It’s a much cooler name, if you ask me.

(All images from Wikipedia page, Witch of Agnesi)

[ginkotree]

*goes to make a personal post* actually you know what never mind better internalize this shit

[servantofthewrittenword]

A few updates:

My second blog is gone now: I deleted it. In retrospect, I didn't post anything there I wouldn't post here, so it was really unnecessary. I manually archived the long posts (mostly for my benefit), and will use this blog as a combination of both. Not like I post anything on either blog, but it adds to the idea that needing two blogs was just a dumb idea.

Semester’s over, and it’s time for summer. I want to have more content to post here. I had a few thoughts for things I could do: flash-fiction Fridays, pre-planning posts, and a whole host of other ideas that aren't necessarily alliterative. I even had an idea to anonymously post some of my really-snarky comments on assignments I’m grading, since that seemed to make my friends laugh. If you have an idea for what to post, or just want to encourage me to do short, personal posts like a normal Tumblrer, send me something in my ask box.

I told my media friend that I was thinking about a new version of the thing that became the one post on my deleted blog. Details of the old thing are not important. The new thing is a podcast or non-videotaped content where I sit down with him and others and tell him and others about an idea I had. I have a lot of those, as you may know. Stuff like video games, TV shows, movies, or just whatever comes to mind. I might even talk about my writing projects. I found that by having someone else there to interact with in idea-pitching, I’m more comfortable about sharing the idea. Also, my friends are brilliant people, and they have great ideas, too. Usually this makes the sum of the ideas even more awesome. It’s loads better than staring at a box of half-finished drafts and wallowing in self-pity. Now I can tell someone about my ideas and wallow in self-pity! The whole “wallowing in self-pity” thing is a non-negotiable term in my “continued existence” contract. Now accepting names for this new podcast.

That should be everything. Oh, and I have a Twitter now. It’ll be easier to encourage me to to do shorter, personal posts there. I’m not using some long moniker there: it’s just Blaze Utz, my real name. It’s easier to type than servantofthewrittenword. Follow if you want to. I’m not your guardian; do what you want.

[servantofthewrittenword]

Going off social media for the next six weeks or so. I'll use the time to write some more. And if it has nothing to do with PZ or some other major project, I'll post it here when I get back online.

[servantofthewrittenword]

I'm thinking about disabling my other Tumblr and just doing all my posts here. What do you think?