forgive us our sines

[september 19 2018 • wednesday]

finally finished the first math LT!! im actually excited to see how i did for once because it think inside well??? here’s some pictures of my notes 🌼

It doesn’t simply protect copyrighted content, it will also absolutely impact the bottom line of these big businesses too. This is how I see it.

 Here’s my current fandom:

How did I get into Kingsman? Was it because I saw a trailer for it on TV and thought, “Hey, I should see that.”

Nope. It was via online fandom content almost two years after Kingsman: The Secret Service was released. I never would’ve given it the time of day if not for gifsets and fanfic that I saw and read before I’d even seen the movie. But I saw those things first, so the movie then caught my interest, and I watched it. Legally. I ended up purchasing movie tickets for the sequel, I bought the movies on Blu-ray, I bought some official Kingsman merchandise (don’t judge me), and I even spent a little money on one of the official Kingsman mobile games (like 20 dolla, and I’m not proud of it). 

I spend a significant part of my online time interacting in the orbit of the Kingsman fandom. I look forward to the third movie (the actual third movie, not this weird prequel thing…ugh). I will actively spend money on the movie and probably some official merchandise when it’s released too. I also have an interest in the actors from the movie and legally seek out their other work (even Robin Hood, haaaa). Meaning I intend to SPEND MONEY on things related to Kingsman because fandom content keeps my interest going long beyond its official release. Fandom content is often what will catch my interest in the first place.

My fandom before Kingsman?

When I got into Marvel/Captain America, how do you think that happened?

Did I see trailers before other movies? TV commercials? Was it because of people I knew in real life who enjoyed it? Nope. I rarely see any promotional material for things because I don’t normally take in content in the traditional way (the same as most other Millennials and Gen Z, I’d wager). I knew of them, obviously, because they’re insanely popular. But I didn’t give a shit.

I didn’t give a lick about Marvel and it wasn’t until I saw some fan commentary and gifsets on Tumblr/in fan spaces of Captain America: The Winter Soldier that I was like, “Oooh, this sounds interesting. I need to watch this.”

And I watched it. Legally. And I bought it. Legally. And I went out and legally watched everything else Marvel. I bought legal/licensed Marvel merchandise. I bought Marvel comics, ffs. Do you think I cared about comics before that? At this point, I’ve probably spent a good few hundred dollars on Marvel related content. Probably closer to $1000 than $100. And that’s mild compared to some people! 

Do you think I would’ve done any of that if I hadn’t first seen fan created content that technically uses copyrighted material?

I sure the fuck would not. I would’ve gone on not caring about it at all.

My point is, Article 13 is so fucking short-sighted. Fandom and creative content made by people not associated with these businesses often makes or breaks that content. How many people do you think got into Marvel the same way I did? How many millions of dollars have people spent on Marvel related merchandise because fandom content fostered their interest way beyond “See it in the movie theatre, then go home and forget about it?” 

Here’s another example for the other end of the spectrum:

Avatar. The James Cameron movie. It made $2.7 billion at the box office worldwide. That’s nice. But does anyone really give a shit about it? I’ve never seen it. Don’t have any desire to see it or the supposed upcoming sequels. The only online content I see about it? Mocks it. There is no fandom. 

To compare fandoms on Ao3:

No one gives a shit. No one is looking for Avatar. Maybe the sequels will do well, I’m not a psychic. I have no idea. But my point is, there is no longevity there. No one is looking for official Avatar merchandise. No one is creating works about it that keeps interest going years after it was released. And continued interest means continued profit.

So Avatar did really, really well at the box office. Exceptionally well. And then?

Are people buying Avatar clothing? Books? Mugs, tchotchkes, spending thousands of dollars to meet the cast and creators at conventions? Special editions of the movies? Collector’s items?

Google “Avatar pop” and what do you think comes up? Pop! figures for the Avatar movie? Nope. There aren’t any. Are there Pop! figures for Avatar: The Last Airbender, which has a healthy online fandom presence? Yep.

Supernatural is an excellent example as well. A small show on a struggling network. Isn’t it on season 247 at this point? What do you think helped it last as long as it has? All that sweet network promo? The A-List status of its stars (hahahaha)? 

HAAAAA! NO! It’s the fucking fan content! All the fanvids, fanfic, artwork, gifsets, commentary, discussions, meta, and beyond. All those creations get seen by hundreds, thousands of people who may have never heard of it before. But it’s that kind of content that sparks an interest. If you’re in that fandom, think of the coolest piece of art (or the best fanfic), that’s what inspires people to seek something out. That’s what cultivates an interest for years, including purchasing god knows what for god knows how much money. Terribly photoshopped ~official~ promo pictures and a couple commercials ain’t gonna do it. 

Does the below image make me go “LOL WHAT? wats happening? wats going on? wat is this????”

Ya. Dark, morbid, funny. Sounds interesting…

Does the below official image make me go, “Oooh, gotta watch whatever that is!”

It sure the fuck does not. Sorry Jensen Ackles, you’re good looking and all, but nah. Can’t say I have any interest in whatever that is. WHY ARE YOU IN A CAGE? WHAT IS THAT CHAIN FOR? help me i’m scared

ANYWAY. Which content style above is going to inspire and cultivate enough of a longterm interest that people are willing to buy board games, clothing, jewelry, DVD sets, magazines, go to conventions, buy god knows what else, and spread the word about the show? For over a decade? It ain’t the second picture, I can tell you that much.

Fan content creates new fans and cultivates longterm interest which earns big businesses more money.

If you look through definitions of “number” most will say that numbers are used to represent quantities (amounts or measures). Whole numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, … are probably the first numbers that come to mind and they are often used to count things like say how may watermelons jimmy has. But when quantifying things like money, whole numbers are not always enough and so we have rational numbers (which include the whole numbers but also fractions and numbers with finite or repeating decimal expansions). Yet, sometimes even these numbers are not enough to express certain quantities. Pi, for example, is not a rational number but is certainly a number as it represents the quantity that is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. It can be shown that the number pi has an infinite decimal expansion with no repeating patterns, and so a number like pi is called an irrational number. (Because they are silly? Although at first some thought so, the term irrational just means not rational.)  More specifically, pi is a transcendental number as it is not the root of any polynomial. (Transcendental, because they transcend the usual notion of number? Idk. Again, strange names.) So, the rational numbers were extended to the real numbers to include both rational and irrational numbers. Either way, we see that both rational and irrational numbers are truly numbers since they can be used to represent quantities.

What about complex numbers though? Are they really numbers, or do people just call them “numbers”? So, we should ask, can complex numbers represent some amount or measure of something? Can jimmy have i watermelons? No, but jimmy can’t really have pi watermelons either and pi is a number. Jimmy may have a watermelon that weighs pi pounds though (the only way to know this would be if jimmy had a scale with infinite accuracy, which, turns out, he does). Okay but can jimmy have a watermelon weighing i pounds? That doesn’t seem to make sense. To see if complex numbers can represent quantities we need to elaborate on what complex numbers are exactly.

The complex numbers are the real numbers extended to include the square root of negative 1 (i) and all its multiples. They have the form a+bi where a and b are real numbers. i is called an imaginary number (named imaginary because, i is not a real number, but this implies numbers like i are somehow not “real”, in the usual English sense of the word (are any numbers really “real”? again, with the names). What truly makes complex numbers different than the other numbers we have discussed is that they “live” in 2 dimensions (the complex plane); complex numbers (e.g., 7+2i) have a real part (7) and an imaginary part (2i). While real numbers (which include whole, rational, and irrational numbers) “live” in one dimension (they can be found anywhere on the number line).

So, a complex number is a sort of two-dimensional quantity, it has a real measure and an imaginary measure. This makes them strange as numbers. We know 12 is bigger than 11 and that there are a bunch of numbers in-between 11 and 12, but which is bigger 2-8i or 3+i? Complex numbers cannot be compared in the same way i.e., there is no way to order complex numbers from smallest to largest.

Circuits!

Power companies try to save the amount of copper needed for power lines by using thinner wires, which makes R quite high.

To minimize P dissipated by the wires, they minimize I by maximizing V. This is why power lines transfer electricity at high voltage.

Current is the rate of charge flow through the cross-section of a conductor (wire).

Traditionally, the direction of current is taken as the flow of positive charges.

The unit for current is Coulombs per second, C/s.

Resistors

All resistors in series share the same current.

Vseries = V1 + V2 + V3

Voltage drop among resistors in series is split according to the resistance - greater resistance, greater voltage drop (V = IR).

Vparallel = V1 = V2 = V3

All resistors in parallel share the same voltage.

Iparallel = I1 + I2 + I3

Current among resistors in parallel is split according to the resistance - greater resistance, less current (I = V/R).

Resistivity (ρ = RA/L)

Resistivity is the inverse of conductivity.

Greater resistivity, greater resistance of the material.

Rearranging the above equation to get R = ρL/A. To make a wire of low resistance, select a material that has low resistivity, keep the wire short, and keep the diameter of the wire large.

Extension cords are made really thick to keep the resistance down, so it doesn’t heat up and cause a fire.

Conductivity theory

Conductivity is affected by electrolyte concentration:

No electrolyte, no ionization, no conductivity.

Optimal concentration of electrolyte, greatest conductivity due to greatest mobility of ions.

Too much electrolyte, ions are too crowded, less ion mobility, less conductivity.

Conductivity is affected by temperature:

In Metals, Conductivity Decreases as Temperature Increases.In Semiconductors, Conductivity Increases as Temperature Increases.At extremely low temperatures (below a certain critical temperature typically a few degrees above absolute zero), some materials have superconductivity - virtually no resistance to current flow, a current will loop almost forever under such conditions.

Conductivity (σ) is the inverse of resistivity (ρ).

010818 // 10/100 days of productivity

One of Germany’s oldest forests is about to be destroyed for charcoal!

The Hambacher Forst is 12,000 years old and the oldest trees about 350 years old and is home to many animals and plants.

But now the energy company RWE wants to clear it to get charcoal for coal-fired Power stations.

There are 150 activists that try to save it but get brutally dispelled by 3500 policemen. 17 got arrested, many got hurt.

Please, sign the petition to stop the clearing!

https://aktion.campact.de/kohleaus/hambach-appell/teilnehmen?

https://www.change.org/p/hambacher-wald-retten-und-dich-das-klima-sch%C3%BCtzen

It’s happening, it’s real, right now.

Another example of the police protecting business interests and not the interests of the public, or even the interests of our planet.

https://www.dw.com/en/hambach-forest-police-clearing-treehouses-again-despite-sundays-mass-protests/a-45510700

https://hambachforest.org/blog/2018/09/16/news-ticker-september-1-13/

https://hambachforest.org/blog/2018/09/16/press-announcement-16-09-18/

https://global.handelsblatt.com/politics/rwe-coal-hambach-forest-occupation-962422

https://popularresistance.org/solidarity-with-amazing-resistance-to-destruction-of-hambacher-forest/

so im due to start at cambridge university for bio natural sciences in october and i thought i would write a post about what helped me make a successful application. hopefully this is useful to some people!! (also this is an incredibly long post you’ve been warned)

if anyone wants me to do a more in depth post on one specific section, or you guys have any questions at all, feel free to drop me a message!!

i’ve left a few posts up, and i hope i will populate it with truly useful content soon, but i am taking a hiatus. i don’t know how long i will be gone. it will probably be a year – i’m learning german now to prepare for university, where i hope to study mathematics.

you can find me over at @polysprachen , where I will post mostly language-related stuff and shitposts.

@integreation: queen of study blogging, down-to-earth advice, excellent food, that really hot blue dress, and soc (solidarity of colour)

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