Hello, Steemit community :)
My name is Ashley, I'm 26, and I'm a recreational mathematician, blockchain enthusiast, and budding freelance computer programmer and web developer. I'm engaged to Matt, aka the witness @complexring and I decided to put a face and introduction behind my posts.
I have no desire to be anonymous on here (if I did, you all wouldn't know about it!) and I really want to build a coherent online presence across a wide variety of social media and blogging sites. I have the account @ashley-toth in addition to @edgeland, because I wanted to test the Facebook signup feature and grab my real name.
My life on Steemit so far
I read the whitepaper shortly after it was published (at Matt's prompting) and @ned was kind enough to talk with me on Skype! I knew this had potential, and was especially impressed with the way things are structured and the fact that it was Dan and Ned doing this, but I have to admit that I was skeptical about what would happen to the price...
- I thought the market might just tank significantly after July 4th because so many users would be cashing out their STEEM and SBD. Obviously, I misjudged people's long-term investment and interest in trading the token, and there were forces at play that I didn't understand. There's actually volume and buy support!?
- I was worried when the rewards structure was changed, because there was so much argument about it and the developers were changing the curation rewards so dramatically. At the time I thought the incentive to curate would be decreased and that users would be upset if a change were implemented retroactively. I actually like the way things turned out though.
- My family and friends thought I was scamming them. (Ok, this wasn't really a serious concern, but you know, negativity from others never cheers me up.)
Needless to say...never mind. We have already realized some AMAZING benefits of being early adopters of Steem, and I'm so happy that my fiancé had the foresight to start participating and mining from nearly the beginning. We're going to use what we've made to pay off some debts, help pay for our wedding, and invest in meaningful and innovative projects.
I plan to keep all of my VESTS indefinitely and build my blog while transferring some of my SBD to bitcoin and other tokens for holding and diversified investment. (Here, as always, it's important to diversify.)
I do still wonder about the very long-term value of STEEM and SBD. The points raised by @kyletorpey about altcoins deserve consideration. Are there plans to encourage people to buy SBD besides making an app for using SBD for direct purchase of merchandise?
More about me
I met Matt while pursuing my M.S. in mathematics at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. The climate was absolutely beautiful there, and I see why it's ranked as one of the best places to live in the U.S. It really does look like this.
Crepuscular rays at Horsetooth
Photo submitted by: Preetam Yengkokpam
I wrote a thesis on the periodic points of Hénon maps (which are cross sections of the famous Lorenz attractor in chaos theory) and graduated in 2015.
When I finish my professional website, I'll provide a link to this work and my CV on Steemit and everywhere else.
We were in a long-distance relationship for a year and a half while Matt did fancy post-docs in Korea, China, Berkeley, and Canada and I was still in school. This was not fun, but there were some perks, like getting to visit China and have a free place to stay. Here I am at the top of the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai.
We are getting married on Labor Day weekend, which will be our 3rd anniversary of being together! (I wish I had seen the Bitcoin Wedding Registry post by @exitmass earlier: https://steemit.com/life/@exitmass/the-bitcoin-wedding-registry#@edgeland/re-kareemaudi-re-exitmass-the-bitcoin-wedding-registry-20160719t165144209z.) This was our engagement picture:
Work and blogging about work
I'm teaching myself PHP and Ruby on Rails for web development, and want to become well-versed in blockchains and be able to write up my own shitcoin! I'm a fan of Mr. Money Mustache's claim that understanding computers well is so rare that it can be considered an economic loophole in society. Having seen Matt and many people on Steemit succeed at working remotely, I plan to use my background in math to do the same, and to document my journey online. My primary goals are to network with people, build a resumé of completed projects, and write up original ideas on the @edgeland blog as often as possible. I would do this even if Steemit didn't exist, but definitely feel like it's the best community in which to operate.
You'll probably also see posts about attempts at convincing people to join Steemit (I'm going to step it up and try some of the methods of @cryptoctopus and @clains), math and science, and meta blogging.
Other things I care about
“All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.”
— J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known
I agree with this statement on all levels, and I really care about basic human rights and freedom. If I could change anything, I would like to see more people have greater control over their lives and less fear and anxiety.
I consider my involvement in the crypto-world and use of Steemit to be aligned with this vision, and I think the community here is wonderfully free-thinking and objective. It's so exciting to see.
Right now I'm working to generate publicity and funding for the David Bohm Society, which exists to connect people around the proposals of David Bohm and J. Krishnamurti and the practice of Bohm dialogue.
In my spare time, I play classical piano, read, hike, and enjoy home-brew and good red wine. :D
Twitter: Ashley Toth/apathlessland, and I'm tweeting this Steemit post
Facebook: Ashley Toth
Wow! The Wow is for several things. First that J. Krishnamurti quote was one I hadn't encountered before. That truly resonates with me. That is so close to my own personal beliefs and something I say in a way that is nowhere near as short and elegant as that.
I love Stochastics and Chaos Theory. I haven't done much with it in a couple of decades other than some occasional fractals and such for various projects, but it is something I first became interest in around 1988.
I don't consider myself on par with any mathematician (yourself included). I was so much of a computer geek that I could learn math VERY fast but that also made me get bored really fast in mathematics classes. I did do a Stochastics special topic course around 92 or 93, and I went up thru Calc II, but haven't really used it much in the fields I worked in since then. I loved math. I did not like math classes. :) That is still true. I don't have much patience for doing the same form of problem over and over again as homework. I kind of see the reasoning behind such tasks, I just failed in the patience for them. I wanted to apply the knowledge NOW.
Third wow. I've lived most of my life in Colorado (predominantly on the Western Slope) and now live in the Westminster area north of Denver so I definitely can relate to that photo you shared.
I wish you and your fiance the best. You are a very interesting person, I suspect I'll be enjoying other posts from you in the future.
Thanks @dwinblood! I'm following your blog.
Fractals and chaos theory are so fun. I never took a course in stochastic but am sure I could figure it out. Math classes become more helpful at the graduate level, when you actually start to need a teacher just to see what the hell is going on sometimes. ;)
Wow, you're in CO. I miss it.
I did like Math. I just usually understood the lesson (in calc classes) in the first 10 minutes and the rest of the 40 minutes or so I was bored because he wouldn't give the assignment until the end of class. That was usually like doing 100 of the problems of the same type overnight and bringing them to class.
I was young, rebellious, and very much a programming nut. WWW hadn't hit yet. I was very active on the internet in college but it was all FTP, Archie, Telnet, and Gopher for the most part... and it was almost always a unix machine or a VAX VMS machine you were talking to... all command line and ASCII. :)
In my Stochastics class me and one friend did all of our work on Commodore Amiga 2000s... I actually did the entire class load of work for that in a week (like I said I liked it). Then the rest of the people all using x386s basically did what I had done. I had some mandelbrot set movies, and julia set movies, and some weird pseudo 3D attempts that didn't look awesome (3d modeling was still in its infancy).
So I'm old.... but I love this stuff. I saw bitcoin when it was $0.005/coin and thought "Gee that is a cool idea, but the government will probably squash it, plus $20 will buy my family a meal"
Of course I am kicking myself as I did recognize the potential. I just didn't take the risk.
No risk, no reward.
As to my blog... I'm kind of all over the place at the moment. I will likely make a regular gamedev blog as one of my pieces, as to the rest, I'm still trying to find what I might be good at talking about that people want to hear.
Thanks.
I guess those were the days, man! I didn't really experience anything before WWW and I had a Lenovo laptop and an eMac in college. I'm glad I grew up with sleeker technology, but also sometimes wish I had the direct knowledge of the history of computers and the internet that people older than I have.
You must have had a lot spare time to do what you wanted if you finished class assignments that quickly. I felt the same way about all the repetitive calc problems, but I started attending the professors' research sessions and going to math conferences and that was a bit more interesting.
I've met so many people who say that about bitcoin. sighs
At least we didn't miss the boat with Steem.
You could write about programming and hardware then vs. now, and how the internet developed vs. how you expected it to. I also like programming exercises and challenges. There used to be a section in "Scientific American" with programming assignments before the magazine got watered down. Have you seen Project Euler?
Don't know much about gamedev but I'd probably look at that too.
Will check out Project Euler... doesn't sound familiar.
Cool thing about a good game engine. You don't have to use it just for games. It just saves you having to do all the very complex building of a powerful and efficient 3D engine, and input handler. So you can focus on the fun stuff. Unless you want to build an engine. :) You can use the tech for anything though :)
EDIT: Project Euler sounds cool. I book marked it up. I'll keep in mind maybe posting something about old school computer stuff. I wouldn't have thought of that.
If you'll write about gamedev, I'll follow. ;) Also, we started long time ago, when demoscene was amazing thing, maybe you can write about it.
edgeland
Excellent work 👍👍👍👍👍🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸
Thanks everyone
You're in Westminster? My wife and I just left Louisville for California about 6 months ago - we definitely traded down.
Yeah I live in Westminster. I also work from home as a Senior Network Engineer, and part time Game Developer, and now steemit poster. :)
first official STEEM LOTTERY https://steemit.com/lottery/@willytrader/first-official-steem-lottery
That is Awesome you went to CSU! I'm in Fort Collins, born and raised. Wish we knew this before you guys moved away, we certainly could have met up at some point to hand out! @complexring and I are "buddies" on some trade-related chat channels, so I had to ping him and ask him about it. We're already in talks about plans for the next time you guys are back in town :)
Congrats on the engagement and the steemit success! Great to see more and more people getting involved here, and so many from all walks of life!
Wow. It's crazy that you're friends online and unknowingly lived in the same place. Yes, we should definitely get together next time we visit the area!
Thanks. :D
Wow, your future husband has one magnificent beard! :-)
Lol! Thank you.
Awesome. The quote definitely by Jiddu Krishnamurthi is so true for all the "followers" in this world. Breaking free of obedience also removes sceptism and allows the mind to grow in endless possibilities. Happy Steeming.
.
I know. I'm a very lucky guy!
!cheetah whitelist
Okay, I have whitelisted @edgeland. I won't bug them.
Welcome aboard and thank you for this lovely written intro :)
Let me know if i can be any assistance on the design part
Happy to help!
Thank you :)
brains and looks . your bf is a lucky guy
all the best
Thanks! :D
Greetings! Looking forward to meeting you and @complexring in Acapulco!
Interesting... I can see us doing this.
My grandparents lived in Guatemala for a while. They weren't anarchists, but they described their willingness to leave the (relative and temporary) safety and luxury of the U.S. for more adventure.
I love how this lady talks about taxes! (around 11:00)
Thanks brindleswan; the video you posted has relieved a lot of my concerns in moving to Acapulco
"A recreational mathematician" - the best kind. I'm something like that as well. I just got my MS in electrical engineering from CU Boulder - and now I'm finishing up my PhD at UCSB. Anyway, always fun to find a fellow Colorado-lover. If you're ever in the mood for some recreational economics, you might find my game theory series fun. I go super easy on the math though, so maybe that will be disappointing. :)
Thanks! I doubt it'll disappoint completely. I'll let you know. ;)
Wow, this is so uplifting to read.
I am currently doing my Electrical Engineering course, and I love to do recreational maths on the side for fun.
I hope to one day make it to my PhD, though I have been struggling with some courses I hope to get better.
Go for it! Electrical Engineering is such a great blend of physics, math, and "real" engineering. I hope you stick it out!
My friends and family tried to tell me it was a get rick quick scheme. They dont understand that this isnt easy and its so much more than just the money. I feel the money is the reward, and losses come from greed. This is a whole new world that ive walked into and i cant find the words to explain to friends and family that this isnt a scam, and im actually really, really excited to begin this new challenge and learn along the way.
Without support its difficult but I know i have support from my Steemit community.
It's great that you think this way! I like meeting people who care about the community and innovation. :D
Well, writing isn't that easy, and scamming the site enough to literally "get rich" would also take time and effort, could be risky, and would f*** up the value in the long term. I'd much rather learn how to write well and develop my abilities than copy and paste someone else's pictures and try to get away with pretending to be them....
That's exactly true. I don't even know how you could do this without having a sense of guilt because gosh darn that's just horrible. Someone recently tried to steal my identity and it worries me everyday but I don't understand how they could have felt right doing it.
Welcome, I upvoted (not only) for the Krishnamurti quote.
Haha. I love Krishnamurti. Thank you!
and Krishnamurti loves you) And others Steemiters. Have a good journey here!
Thanks! I wish you well on your journey too.
Feels good to be in good companion here.
+1 to that :)
Steemit welcomes you here, all the best for your journey!!! =D
Glad to see you posting here rather than FB, reddit =D
Absolutely. Why not monetize your content, all day long...?
Yes, why someone would continue to post on FB unrewarded is beyond me.
Honestly, I have no idea about the math stuff but I can really get down with the other things you care about section and have very similar views!
Haha, fair enough! Thanks. :D
Obviously you've done the math then.. :) Powering down your account is not something you're going to do willy nilly then... you see the real value.
I also won't be powering down my account from my vests anytime soon. :)
Nice meeting you.
yeah welcome steemit, I hope you become part of the community here at least add a little joke to $5000 in 1 hour :)
nice post
cheers
nice post $15000
@blackjincrypto lol
lol :)
Upvote now all
$10000+ today :)
Now I feel the pressure to post something good. :p
@edgeland yeah it's great, good job
@blackjincrypto It's Very Simple bro, post looks interesting
true
interesting and funny
Hi Ashley! Great to have you here! I love your writing style and think you'll be a huge contribution to the community here! :0)
Thanks!
Welcome to Steemit! Very interesting story. Glad so many others are involved with blockchain technology and more increasing on a daily basis!
"and I really want to build a coherent online presence across a wide variety of social media and blogging sites"
This is what I want now too, more people need to know about it and share this amazing innovative experience with everyone!
Thanks!
Yes, I can't believe how few people still know about it.
Recreational mathematics, sounds like a codeword for weed.
'sometimes I think about how many grams are in an ounce and how many ounces are in a pound and then realize 452 grams are in a pound and they're all intertwined.'
Hahaha....
Don't worry I'm a troll
Good to know.
Trying to understand how "recreation" and "maths" can go together, but I'm having a hard time... I'm not against maths - I just don't get it...
Haven't you met people who do puzzles or brainteasers for fun? It's like that but much more frustrating.
Aha... nice... Ok I think I get it. I like some frustrating activities too - like trying to optimize some types of code for 1-2-5% performance gains and spending like 15 hours straight on it - that "normal" people won't do... I guess it's for the satisfaction of knowing you made a difference. As for puzzles, yes, I've actually done some 5000-7000 pieces puzzles which are hanging on my walls... but that was pre-Internet era, lol.
The code optimization sounds intense!
It is - only due to my self-inflicting exhaustion ahahaha... otherwise it's pretty mundane, moving code around, rewriting very simple pieces in a different order that affect the processor cache, trying various compilation flags (that can take hours because there are so many combinations that can make a difference) etc. Thing is I'm not a good coder (I don't consider myself one actually) so my "repertoire" of what I can do in terms of optimization, like rewriting entire chunks differently, is pretty limited. Still the avenues you can explore to make stuff faster are a lot.
One of the "mind blowing" things about optimization, is that of hardware efficiency. Imagine a data center, if you will, like FB or Google, where they pay millions of dollars in hardware and energy. Say a data center can have 10mn operating expenses. Now if you can make things faster by just 10% - suddenly you consume much less power - say -5%. And then you save hundreds of thousands of dollars. When you extrapolate this same process into multiple data centers of the same company, you get millions in savings just because a small tweak made a program faster. It's similar with mining hardware too - as you pay less for electricity for more hashpower. Yet I don't run any costly data center or mining data center - but the idea that this can do that and that I can achieve it, is kind of appealing to me.
On a deeper level I can't really relax if something is not working at optimal efficiency at all times. My mind keeps going back to a pattern like "ok I need to make this better ASAP". And it won't settle until I do it, lol...
Welcome! Glad to have another thought provoking steemian amongst us! :)
hey :) you have a same opinion with me ,about "really care about basic human rights and freedom" exactly :) happy steemit Ashley Toth / @edgeland
:)
Butterfly Effect!
Hello ashley :) nice skill ...i like that....you want share your skill to us? ...i hope you agree with that
What is recreational mathematics? Is it like chess problems, card counting, and IQ style tests?
By "recreational," I just mean that I know some math and like to do it, but am not an academic or full-time teacher.
But yes, examples are games like Go and Chess, puzzles like the ones in the WSJ's Varsity Math, Sudoku, and writing programs to generate these:
In that case we have something in common.
I've been thinking of taking Mandelbrot and Julia set generation programs like that and throwing them into Unity. Could easily generate a heightmap and from that fully 3D exploreable images like that. However, it'd be difficult to do that including zooming. Though it could be done.
EDIT: If you get bored... check it out. Unity is free to use. It's pretty awesome too. You can use C#, a hybrid java, or a variant on python (called Boo). I recommend C# for Unity.
Let me know if you need any help if you are interested. :)
I am by no means a mathematician or exceptional at much other than counting in binary but codeacademy has helped a bunch. I have been able to play around with Javascript, Ruby, Python designing apps and build your own adventure platforms with my friends. Its free and educational! :)
Don't discount those accomplishments. For some fields I believe if a person has the desire and self-motivation the information is out there and they can easily learn the same things they would learn at a university. The problem is to do it truly well you need a lot of passion and self motivation since you don't have someone you are paying you telling you that you must turn something in. On the flip side those people that did it on their own are often FAR MORE skilled at it as they had to be truly passionate about the topic to make it that far. Some of the best programmers and IT people I've worked with were that way DESPITE the college or lack of college education. There are some fields that do require a university as we can't really do some things without access to really expensive and specialized equipment, and resources. I believe you can be a brilliant programmer, mathematician or both without going to a University if you have the drive and will to do so. I don't consider myself particularly skilled at math. I am great at the math I have a purpose for, and other parts of math I didn't put to use so they have atrophied to almost non-existence. It is also the fact that I may not have ever learned some maths that would truly have helped me. So I am ignorant. I am a decent and eccentric programmer though, so I managed to code fractals despite some of the crazy math involved. I could look at the code and understand what it was doing better than I could look at the math. I'd like to rectify that but I kind of doubt I will at this stage. Though ya never know... stranger things have happened.
Does @hmfoucault have anything to do with Foucault's Pendulum?
EDIT: you may have to reply to your own post, or to mine... though the only way I'll know you replied to your own is if you put @dwinblood somewhere in it to let me know. I like to talk so I run into this nesting limit at least once a day. :)
Cool, thanks! I've never used Unity, but I've seen 3D images before and liked them, so I'll check it out and let you know what happens.
I've made some Mandelbrot and Julia sets with Java and with BASIC in the past. Made one where you can move the cursor around and see the Julia set corresponding to each point on the Mandelbrot set. :D
I was going to ask you what language you used to do those. Last time I made a mandelbrot program (a few years ago) I wrote them in C. I made some videos... they were not as smooth and fancy as people that put a lot of time into it. :)
I thought about making my own number system using strings so I could do higher precision floating point. It'd be SLOW but the problem with the sets I'm sure you know is you can only zoom in so far before your float or double can no longer keep track of it. I think it'd be neat to keep zooming. That'd be really slow though :)
I guess it's been longer than I thought. I made the last program one day and two videos the next day. I've been meaning to play with 3D versions of that. Wonder if that'd make for an interesting blog.
Really amazing and inspiring post! I am so excited to be part of this community already! I can feel this is going to be amazing! :) Alla x
Thanks! Me too. :)
like the way you think..
Thanks!
You seem to be doing pretty good for someone who is lost. Well done!
Haha, thanks.
@edgeland Welcome.
I understand that the point of SBD is just to allow conversion between Steem/Steem Power and to the user's preferred cryptocurrency (more often than not eventually to fiat).
That is, to provide liquidity. I believe in the whitepaper it was mentioned that the majority of Steem Dollars received are sold (not verbatim of course).
Feel free to reply to me, I'll be online most of the day.
Look forward to
People will still buy Steem (in the form of Steem power) to increase their expectancy from posting on the platform (or similar ones).
So you'll still have enough people effectively going long.
Speculators will also buy Steem because it's value will appreciate.
Oh, you're saying people will buy SBD just to do conversions and to go long in Steem? I forgot about that part of the paper.
"My family and friends thought I was scamming them. (Ok, this wasn't really a serious concern, but you know, negativity from others never cheers me up.)"
I get this a lot too it can be quite annoying at times xD
thanks for the interesting post :)
Oh! You're engaged to @complexring. The guy who sends STEEM to accounts with rock band names that haven't posted anything yet? That would explain a lot!
Yes, @complexring has computer and financial skills and understands the structure of Steemit well. That clearly makes us better positioned to contribute to this community and to be crypto-investors and advocates of worldwide financial freedom. ;)
You can not get lost if you have no destination
"understanding computers well is so rare that it can be considered an economic loophole in society." Enjoyed this the most because it resonated with my thought processes I was having this morning about technology. Overall a great read and well worth my time. You're a polymath in my book! Thanks for sharing. :)
Wow, thank you!
You're very welcome. Looking forward to your future material. :)
Interesting... We can think about our life in a huge scale. Great post😊
Nice Ashley! My husband and I just started out on Steemit:
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@dka/from-south-africa-to-laos-introduceyourself
Voted for it! I love all the water pictures.
Thanks for the great post. Good luck with your(s) future ;-)
Thanks!
@Ashley welcome, nice to meet you and join in community steemit
Happy Steemit!!!
Wow, I'm totally thinking about starting a website too after I found Steemit. One about establishing artists. I'm trying to get my cousin who does fine arts onboard as well as her friends. I think it really help them establish themselves early since they're all first year students.
And you're a classical pianist too... definitely will follow. Which composers do enjoy most?
For the record... everyone is a little lost sometimes right? It's all a journey and I've decided to enjoy it, no matter how unsettled I may feel at times.
Look forward to your future posts :)
That's great! I'm trying to get some of the fine artists in my life to join, too.
I really like to play Bach and Beethoven, and music that feels "impressionistic," like Chopin, Debussy, and John Field. I think John Field doesn't get enough credit. Also, Dvorak's duets are a blast, but I don't have anyone to play with now. :)
Definitely love Debussy, especially 'Estampes', I was mesmerized when I first heard that suite. And Beethoven is a close second for me... so much passion! I never realised how amazing Bach was til I played it... for me the most challenging to play. John Field is definitely overlooked... creator of the nocturne.
I'm really loving some of Shostakovich's prelude and fugues atm... quite dark musically though.
You have great taste. I'm relaxing with the 'Estampes' now, and I want to learn it. Playing Bach well is so hard, but it's stunningly beautiful when you do. I like the way Glenn Gould emphasized the hypnotic quality of Bach's music instead of focusing on speed.
I agree that Shostakovich is dark, but enjoyable. I have to be in the right mood for it.
Ha! I like it.
very interesting story ^^,Nice to know you
Was at the Pearl Tower few years back.
Love the looks of the people who were scared to stand on the glass floor.
Lol! Yes, they're a hoot!
no thanks... vertigo...
:/
Not all who wander are lost
Look at you, so young and carefree :)
You guys rock. Welcome to Steemit.
Thanks. :)
thanks for the great quotes. You have a very interesting life! Enjoy!
Hi Ashley!!! First of all congratulations on your upcoming wedding. Second of all I agree with you I try and have as many social media accounts as I can, and make a presence in online media. Third of all I love that you play piano, I kind of do I've have like 3 years of lessons but I've always loved people that can play the piano.
Hi! That's great. I know it's hard to learn but 3 years is significant. What do you like to play?
Excellent work 👍👍👍👍👍🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸
Thanks
You should check out the Nexus Project as well. You will be pleasantly surprised with what is going on.
Ok, I will. Thanks! Looks like it's NSF funded?
Finally Matt allows me (us) to meet his beautiful wife. Thanks for this awesome post, Ashley. ;)
Thank you, aizensou. ;)
Tell Matt that I'm so so jealous him ...