Some stunning proofs that the Sirus Engine actually works.. but not perfectly.

As you know, one of my recurring themes on this blog (lately) has been my desire to test the accuracy of the Synastry Engine found in Sirus 1.1. I have my reservations about the specific design parameters of this software, but are the ideas behind it sound? How sound are they? Can they be tested? If they are tested, will they pass any tests?

Looking for proof is getting easier and easier these days. Suddenly, I am finding all manner of evidence... at work. With my weight now down to 240.4 pounds, and paltry 10.4 pounds away from the magic 100 pound weight loss figure, females are beginning to surface. Furthermore, several previously known candidates have had there birthdays in the past 45 days.

Let me explain it to you.

Case #1: The Young Lioness

Just a few weeks ago, a young lady from USC joined our ranks. The two of us hit it off rather immediately. It turns out her birthday is 8/19/1990. Yes, I know. This means that I am very nearly 24 years older than she is. I am quite literally old enough to be her father. For all I know, I just may be older than her father.

Nonetheless, this is the one circulating rumors in the office that I look like Gerard Butler. She has shown an assortment of other signs of interest (such as inviting me to a USC Sorority party) that I won't go into.

The feeling is mutual. I love her to death. Frankly, I'm losing sleep over her. I am greatly saddened by the fact that I am just to damn old for her. If I were 10 years younger, there is no doubt I would be after her like a dog after a bone.

Nonetheless, the notion of hurting this girl is absolutely out of the question. I would shoot myself before injuring her. Because I cannot see a happy conclusion to this thing for her, I believe I have to leave well enough alone. This makes me very melancholic, but it has to be this way.

What does Sirus say?

1. Romantic and Sexual Attraction: 241

2. Similarity of Interests and Temperament: 0

3. Mutual Success and High Achievement: 39

4. Problem Solving, Communication, and Mutual Understanding: 115

5. Mutual Kindness, Friendliness, Pleasantness, and Peace: 150

6. Aggressiveness, Competition, Power, Success, or Violence: 0

7. Adventurousness, Surprises, Disturbances: 163

8. Shared Creativity, Imagination, and Inspiration: 115

The one ranking I would seriously dispute is line 2. She actually has a keen interest in football. We have already talked football a few times. I also made her Chicken Gumbo and Risotto. This triggered a 3 day running debate between her and some other office girls on the topic of how much older can a guy be before he's too old to date? I bullshit you not.

Anyway... the mere fact that 20 year old girl would bond with a 44 (nearly 45) year old guy at work is extremely improbable at best. Why would this happen?

If you look at the two charts, it's pretty straight-forward. She is mostly Fire and Earth, with little Water and no Air. I am mostly Fire and Earth, with little Water and no Air. She is an Air Adept. I am an Air Adept. It get's better. Her Mercury is in Virgo. My Mercury is in Virgo. Her fire is entirely Leo. My fire is mostly Leo. Her Venus is in Leo. My Venus is in Leo. My Mars is also in Leo. My Mars conjuncts her Venus EXACTLY.

As you know the conjunction of Mars and Venus is a dead-sure sign of attraction.

I could tell you more about my sorrows in this case, but this would be off point. The key point is that there was a fairly massive synastry reaction, and computer said it would be so. It also gives clear-cut reasons why this would be true. You may not agree with any of the precepts, but the system obtained reasonably accurate results.

Case #2: The Cancer Girl

About a year ago, our company hired a new graduate Cancer girl straight out of U.C. Berkeley. She took a fairly immediate interest in me, even when I weighed 330 pounds. It was a terrible time for me as I was suffering a lot from arthritis, and prepping for gastric bypass, which I thought was immanent, so I didn't do anything about it. I think she understood I was not in the best of health, and she kind of backed away... for a time.

Lately she has been coming straight at me, which is most unusual for a Cancer girl. These are extremely femme and maternal women, who are usually very indirect. The word associated with Cancer women is circumambulation. They kind of move around the object of their affections. They don't go straight at 'em. If you have ever seen crabs do the mating dance, they kind of circle around and around each other like a couple of boxers in a ring. This is what Cancer women are know for.

Not this one; not by a long shot. You might say she circumambulated in the beginning, but not anymore. Perhaps she has tired of the indirect approach (because it is not producing the results she wants) and she's going direct now.

It just so happens that her birthday 6/25 of an unknown year. I could ask, but she would certainly know why I am asking. She would want to know the scores. Given her physical age, and the fact she just graduated from college about 1 year ago, there are a limited number of years she might hail from. The only thing I needed to do was look up 6/25 in each of the possible years and compare them to my chart.

Based on my research, I would say the year has to be 1985. She could very well be turning 26 this year. Also, there really isn't another workable option. No other 6/25 score produces much of anything in terms of synastry. Her birthday is coming up in just 8 days. I will find out for sure then. I am laying down the prediction that her birthday is 6/25/1985.

Suppose it is 6/25/1985? What does Sirus say?

1. Romantic and Sexual Attraction: 227

2. Similarity of Interests and Temperament: 200

3. Mutual Success and High Achievement: 59

4. Problem Solving, Communication, and Mutual Understanding: 148

5. Mutual Kindness, Friendliness, Pleasantness, and Peace: 291

6. Aggressiveness, Competition, Power, Success, or Violence: 41

7. Adventurousness, Surprises, Disturbances: 88

8. Shared Creativity, Imagination, and Inspiration: 157

With scores like that, I aught to be crazy about her. Why don't I feel monster magnets hauling me in? Perhaps it is because she is a woman of fairly strong religious and cultural attachments... Attachments I don't share. At age 44, I have been down that road before in an assortment of different ways. Never once has it worked out. It has always turned out badly.

I know why match makers claim that there needs to be a commonality of culture.

Perhaps I wrote this one off immediately due to these attachments. Nevertheless, I am suspicious of this hypothesis. If the scores really are that good, I should feel the temptation. There would be a magnetic pull. I really don't feel those monster magnets pulling, as I have in the past. I like her just fine. I think she's great in her own way. I think the pleasantness and peace score is reasonable.

Much depends on her birth year. We shall see.

Case #3: The Brazilian Taurus

A couple of years ago, a girl from Brazil joined our deposits section. The first time I saw her in the company kitchen, I had an immediate synastry reaction to her. WHO IS THAT GIRL!?!? I tried not to stare at her. Most of you would not find her beautiful. That didn't matter to me. I was immediately attracted to her. The monster magnets were pulling.

It turns out she was born 5/8/1979 at 7:35 AM in Curitiba Brazil. How do I know that? She gave me that information personally. It turns out her score is 231. If you were to simply examine our two charts, you would say that score is preposterously low.

• Her Ascendant is Taurus, mine is Virgo (Trine)
• Her sun is in Taurus, mine Virgo (Trine)
• Her moon is in Libra, mine Aries (180 degree opposition)
• Her Venus is in Aries, mine Leo (Trine)
• Her Mars is in Aries, mine is Leo (Trine)

Frankly, I am not sure why the score isn't 639. Four trines and an opposition in the personal planets??? Give me a break! That is a nuclear fuel cocktail. 231 looks bloody low given that lineup. A professional astrologer would look at that lineup and declare "You two were made for each other."

The problem was, at the time, she was married and getting divorced. I was not in the best of health. I am getting healthy at a rapid pace. She's healing up and getting over it.

I like her very, very much. I think she is extremely cool. She has signaled me with her interest. The only reason I hesitate is because I know it will work out. Does that sound odd to you? Before I start that big bolder rolling down the hill, I better make damn sure I want to let it smash everything in it's path. There ain't going to be no stopping it if it starts rolling.

This could be crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, off the hook crazy.

Case Four: Top Gemini Discovered

Just a week or so ago, I wrote a blog called "I ain't feeling you, Gemini". In that blog entry, I mentioned that my top Gemini score was born on 6/16/1982.

It just so happens that there is another Brazilian girl in our company who was born on 6/16/1982 in Sao Paulo... and she is best buddies with the Taurus... and I had no idea she was Top Gemini until today.

I have to tell you that this news came as a great shock to me. This girl has been trying to get my attention for four years now. She has sent me about 301 signals that she is interested. She has always gone out of her way to be extraordinarily nice to me. Although there is some attraction there, I never suspected for one moment that she was Top Gemini.

So why haven't I taken the bait? I hate to sound like a chick, but I have a deep and abiding sense that it just would not work out. I believe it would end, and I believe it would end messy, not clean. I don't know why I am so certain without evidence that this is true. This certainty arises from unknown sources.

If I can put my finger on anything, I can only tell you she reminds me a little of my older sister. My older sister and I are infamous advasaries. Our aggression score is 650, and that is no exaggeration of the real facts. Just ask our mutual parents. Anyone who reminds me at all of my elder sister immediately reminds me of an ancient enemy, and immediately gets a red flag warning.

Now, Top Gemini happens to have an aggression score score of ZERO, and I think that just may be accurate. I doubt I would fight with her.

I have to say that this discovery has disturbed me greatly today. It forced me to wonder if I have been unfair to her, and if I have been missing out on a very good thing. She would certainly say the answer is YES. One thing is for sure: If I were to construct a leader board of the girls with the top score in the building, Top Gemini would be at the #1 spot, and she would have an 86 point lead on her next closest pursuer.

Discussion

If I were to summarize the performance of the Sirus 1.1 synastry engine in this case I would say two things about it: It's stunning, but still somewhat inaccurate. It produces remarkable results, but they are still off my significant margins in an assortment of ways.

If we were to rank these four office girls according to Sirus engine, they would order in this fashion:

1. Top Gemini 327
2. Little Leo 241
3. Brazilian Taurus 231
4. Cancer Girl 225

If I were to rank them according to my immediate reactions to them, I would order them this way:

1. Brazilian Taurus
2. Little Leo
3. Top Gemini
4. Cancer Girl

There is not much gap between 1 & 2. There is a big gap between 2 & 3.

If I were to rank them according to my current interest level, they would go like this:

1. Little Leo
2. Brazilian Taurus
3. Top Gemini
4. Cancer Girl

Yep, that's right. If Commissioner Goodell called this draft to order, put me on the clock, and gave me 15 minutes to make my decision, I would shock the world and draft the girl nearly 24 years younger than me. I am sure the critics would have a field day. My fans would be fulminating over my draft.

Mind you, I have never gone out with any one of these four females. Everything changes in the dynamics of a dating situation. You never know until you know. Still, this is how I currently see it.

The most important take away message from this blog entry is as follows: The Sirus engine is generally on track, but it isn't perfect. The arrow points in the right direction, but it is somewhat crooked. A real astrologer can look at two charts, such as mine and the Brazilian Taurus, and clearly see that the numerical score is way, way, way too low. The same dude could look at a chart like mine and Top Gemini and seriously question why the scores are as high as they are.

In reality, my experience as one of the two subjects in each of these real-world experience is close to, but not quite in line with the predictions of the system.

Final Word

I still believe we need a new engine that differentiates between good and bad types of attraction. It needs to distinguish between types of attraction that are durable and evanescent. Furthermore, there are clear cut signs as to which party will be more attracted, and which less. This also needs to be spelled out. The score is not the same for both parties involved, and evidence for this can be seen in the two charts.

The Bod Pod, Round 3

I had my 3rd encounter with the BodPod last Friday, June the 10th. The absolute bottom line is this: I did not outperform the outperformance, but it was a good performance nonetheless.

Over the last 14 day cycle I reduced my fat mass by 7.385 pounds. I increased my lean by a paltry 0.19 pounds, and I reduced my body volume by 3.644 liters.

In one sense, this is a real victory. I had a bad start to the week with a mild knee injury, but I still lost more fat mass than my gastric bypass surgeon would recommend during a two week cycle. At the same time I not only preserved my lean mass, I increased it mildly. This defies the laws of biology. I am proudly defiant.

Still, it was not all I had hoped. Since I lost the first 4 days of this next cycle on vacation in San Francisco, I am uncertain of what this next 2 week cycle will bring. I did check my weight the second I arrived home today, and the results were good. The Tanita said my weight was 242.4 when arrived home this evening around 5:00pm.

Remember, the Tanita is a tad high; approximately 0.85 pounds high. The BodPod would probably say I weigh 241.55. This would indicate a loss of 3.788 pounds already. Is such a thing possible? Well... yes. I suffered a case of food poisoning on Sunday night in San Francisco. I vomited and suffered diarrhea all Sunday night and Monday. I was barely fit for travel this morning when it was time to leave.

Of course, the dehydration that comes with food poisoning is a temporary thing. My weight could snap up again as I recover.

Nevertheless, there is progress. I continue to hear strange rumors brothers and sisters. I will give you two examples. On Saturday morning, I got a text message in my hotel room indicating that a certain female at work [I will code name her M] told several co-workers (on Friday) that yours truly looked like Gerard Butler of 300 fame.

Of course, this struck me as totally preposterous. So stunned was I by this news, that I immediately shot a picture of myself in the Hotel Room Mirror. I was trying to figure out how such a crazy, crazy claim could turn into office gossip. You can see the photo right here on this blog. Incidentally, that's fresh out of the shower, no makeup, shot with an Android phone.

I fired the photo off to my aunt and my mom, and got a nearly immediate reply from my Aunt. She said she had to do a Google image search for Gerard Butler, because she didn't know who he was, but after studying the photos, she totally agreed. She's now telling people her nephew looks like Gerard Butler.

Ask a stupid question and you get a...

Old King Leonidas is one hell of a man. You know, I was once turned down by girl who was totally obsessed with Gerard Butler. This happened back in 2007. I have often thought that if I looked more like that Gerard, my life would be happier. To hear this kind of talk is a little bit more than ridiculous.

It got worse. On Sunday night, my brother and I cooked dinner at Jamie Wong's place in San Francisco. Jamie is my brothers former (?) girlfriend and a longtime reader of this blog. I mentioned this preposterous rumor circulating at work and she said.

"You do look like Gerard Butler, but with a little Sean Connery mixed in."

Well, at least Sean is a Virgo like me. I guess I really look Scottish. You guys better quit or I am going to get a fat head.

I ain't feelin' you, Gemini

So for those who don't know, it's Gemini season. All the Gemini boys and girls are having their birthdays right about now. I have been carefully scanning the birthday lists for all the notable women born under the constellation of Gemini, and there are some. Nevertheless, I have come to a conclusion: I ain't feeling you.

I had some notable Gemini celebrity crushes once upon a time. The most notable were Stevie Nicks and Steffi Graf. Morena Baccarin drove me bat-shit crazy during the days of Firefly/Serenity. I was mad for her. According to the computer, the feeling would be mutual in Morena's case. I have splendid scores vs. Morena.

1. Romantic and Sexual Attraction: 259

2. Similarity of Interests and Temperament: 343

3. Mutual Success and High Achievement: 168

4. Problem Solving, Communication, and Mutual Understanding: 49

5. Mutual Kindness, Friendliness, Pleasantness, and Peace: 232

6. Aggressiveness, Competition, Power, Success, or Violence: 0

7. Adventurousness, Surprises, Disturbances: 120

8. Shared Creativity, Imagination, and Inspiration: 109

However, this is a very special case. Morena has a remarkable amount of Taurus and Virgo in her chart. She's more Earth than Air. Her Mars and Venus are conjuncted in Taurus, and this is what makes her such an utter knock-out. Frankly, it don't get no better than that. That's as good as it ever gets for any woman who would like to be a sex symbol. She also has a Virgo moon, which means she is apt to go after a Virgo guy. Taken together, the combination of Virgo moon with Venus & Mars in Taurus indicates that this is a very emotionally, romantically and sexually harmonious woman. She is self-consistent, unconfused about what she wants, and therefore uncomplicated.

Wow... talk about a 500 foot tape-measure grand-slam home run...

Most of my Gemini scores are not so thrilling. That is because few Geminis can match up with that combo of features.

According to Sirus, my best of the best Gemini score falls on 6/16/1982. The score is 324. This pales in comparison to my top Aries score of 537/538. It also pales in comparison to my top Pisces score of 532. It also pales in comparison to my top Aquarius score of 448. It also pales in comparison to my top Capricorn (409), top Leo (396) and top Virgo (390) scores. I hate to mention it, but I also have higher Sagittarius (373), Libra (371), Taurus (367) and Scorpio (337) scores.

Folks, Gemini can only beat-out Cancer versus my chart. I find this fact very strange. Cancer is always regarded as a premiere match up for Virgo. Gemini is usually regarded as much better than either Aries or Sagittarius for a Virgo. Gemini would certainly be considered better for a Virgo than Aquarius, under normal circumstances.

Once again, the fire in my chart upsets the apple cart of general synastry. You don't normally find so much Aries and Leo in a Virgo boy. This is antagonizing to gentile and maternal Cancer. It also antagonizes the placid and romantic Taurus women.

The presence of Leo and Aries in my chart should be great for Gemini. The Mercurial nature of Virgo should be intriguing for them as well. Still, the computer says it ain't so. For whatever reasons, I don't score that well that often vs. Gemini. Is there any truth to these scores? Do I feel these scores are right or wrong?

I hate to say it, but they are looking more and more reasonable every day. As each day of Gemini passes, I see a new list of birthdays for famous females. Very, very few catch my eye, tickle my fancy, or interest me in any way. Sorry to say this girls, but you ain't strong enough to carry the jock-straps of the Capricorn and Pisces girls. Both of those groups have serious knock-out power.

During Pisces season, I could loose hours examining the photos of Pisces girls, reading their bios, looking at their facebook pages, etc. I had lost time experiences, and couldn't believe how the time flew by. During this Gemini season, I have hardly devoted much time to studying Gemini girls. I'm just not interested.

At work, I know a bunch of Geminis. Our MIS/IT Director is a Gemini. He is a personal buddy of mine. Aaron Graham, Former USC linebacker and current hardware guru of our company, just happens to be a Gemini. These are good friends. However, a buddy is one thing. A girlfriend is quite a different kettle of fish.

I happen to know three women at work who are very flirty these days, and they are all Geminis. In none of these cases would I feel comfortable flirting back. There are two reasons.

First, there are serious question about the sincerity of a Gemini flirt. These are the most flirty women in the Zodiac, and they are very seldom serious about it. They usually don't mean anything by it. They just flirt to avoid boredom at work. This is just a way to while away the hours pleasantly. My sister's BFF happens to be just such a Gemini flirt.

Second, to quote Aliens, I got a bad feeling about this drop. Call me foolish, call me irresponsible, call me a dreamer, but I get a bad, bad feeling anytime I consider taking cheese that has been carefully placed on the mouse trap's trigger. I have a strong foreboding sense of dread that nothing good can come from it. It just won't work out.

At the risk of sounding like a woman, I can't explain why. These certainly seem like nice and pleasant women. There is nothing wrong with them in particular. Nevertheless, I was convinced--before I knew what they were--that making any move would be a bad move. I still feel that way.

I had to hesitate before I wrote this, but I guess I will spit it out. Gemini is a masculine sign. Furthermore, it is the sign most highly associated with both male and female bisexuality. As I study photo after photo of Gemini women, I see a pronounced trend towards a hard, thick, masculine jaw-line. Angelina Jolie is not the only one. This is rather typical. Many of these women do seem masculine in some way or another.

If you compare and contrast this versus Pisces and Capricorn women, there just ain't no contest. The Pisces and Capricorn women are far and away more feminine and therefore alluring.

I would really love to pull blood samples from 100 Gemini, Capricorn and Pisces females. I would love to test and compare their testosterone levels. I would bet you dollars to donuts that the Gemini women will have twice the level of testosterone found in the blood of Capricorn and Pisces females.

Some of you might think that was a great thing. Not me, man. I like my women femme.

Outperforming the outperformance

Last night I arrived home from the gym around 12:30 AM. It was the end of a Murder Day. For some reason or another, I could not contain my curiosity about my weight. I didn't expect anything positive from a visit to the scale.

I thought it had been a bad week. I had good reason to think that, as I will soon explain. Also, I never weigh myself at night. Only in the morning. Weighing myself at night is tantamount to busting the liturgy, and you know we just can't do that.

Nevertheless, I couldn't contain my curiosity. Last night the scale read 248.6. I just woke up about an hour ago. As usual in the mornings, I went downstairs to the bathroom to relieve myself. As I looked across the floor to the bathroom scale, I could not contain my curiosity again. This morning, the scale read 248.0. I dehydrated and evacuated to the tune of 0.6 pounds overnight.

Just 8 days ago, the BOD POD measured my weight at 252.533. My home scale is not perfect. It disagrees slightly with the BOD POD. It is slightly heavy by approximately 0.85 pounds. The BOD POD is lighter by 0.85 pounds. Unless I miss my guess, the BOD POD scale would probably say I weigh 247.15 this morning.

We are talking about a minimum loss of 4.533 pounds if we take the numbers literally, at face value. In reality, we're probably talking about a loss of 5.383 pounds. All of this in just 8 days. The moral of the story is that I am surging. My average weight loss over the past 8 days was probably 0.6729 pounds. That's phenomenal. That's almost too fast. That might even be a rate that would concern Dr. Quilici and his team of experts.

For the past several weeks, my numerical projections have stated that I should weigh approximately 244-245 pounds during my visit to San Francisco this coming weekend. It does look like I am going to hit that target. I am most of the way there as I write this. I may even out-perform that goal.

There is no doubt that it was a bad week. I had one a hell of a rotten Memorial Day weekend. I tweaked my surgically repaired and arthritic right knee during my Friday evening workout. It was swollen and sore all weekend long.

My Playstation 3 died on Friday night due to serious overheating problems. My Sony DA5400ES receiver died suddenly and completely on that Saturday morning. Suddenly 2/3rds of my home entertainment system was dead. I wasted most of Saturday and Sunday looking for replacement parts. My bum-knee prevented weigh lifting and aerobic work, through most of the 3 day weekend.

The weekend I thought would be a workout-bonanza was a complete bust-ola.

I only pulled 3 double-day workouts during the 4 day work week. Only one of them was a Murder-Day. I only pumped iron once this week.

Yesterday was that one Murder Day. I got up in the morning, hit a couple of minutes on the shake weight to wake up, warm up, and start my heart beating. I jumped on the ROM and did the standard 4 minute upper-body workout. At lunch, I did 20 minutes on the treadmill for 260 kcal, and another 20 on the bike for 320 kcal. I did this again in the evening. I also did 12 minutes in the steam sauna, and 10 minutes in the dry sauna. That was my good Friday.

I have no idea how such a short week of work can produce those kinds of results. I am going to presume that I was just overdue for a big gainer. I am little concerned about my lean weight. I look forward to next-Friday's BOD POD test with great interest. If I even maintain my lean weight at status-quo, much less increase it, this should be great two-week cycle.

Surprisingly, my knees feel great this morning. I am set to do it again today.

The problem with Sirus 1.1 and Janus 4.3

Before embarking on a fools errand it is usually wise to sit down and think seriously about if and why this is really necessary. If you are going to spill a lot of blood and treasure in a vainglorious adventure leading to Pyrrhic Victory, it is better not go in the first place.

Why should I attempt to write an entirely new Synastry engine from scratch? That is the question. Let me give you a set of answers, but let me give you the really big one up front.

The problem with Sirus and Janus is that they are conceptually wrong for this era. Both applications were designed explicitly to serve the needs of a professional astrologer providing information to one client. As such, you need knowledge level of a professional astrologer to really exploit the system.

More importantly, the design scope of the synastry engine is incredibly limited. It was designed to counsel one client about one or two prospective romantic entanglements. Beyond a couple of comparisons, comparison become incredibly difficult and convoluted.

Further, there is no such thing as a query engine in these software packages. It is not possible to go to a database and query the set of all Taurus sun-dates with romance score of 150 or higher versus a given chart. It not possible to write a query that says "give me all Capricorn birth dates where Mars conjuncts Venus in the Davison chart vs. this particular natal chart". Neither can you write a query that says give me the solution set of all Pisces birthdates where Mars conjuncts Venus and both the Ascendant and Sun fall into your 7th house.

Yet these are precisely the ways in which you identify prime candidates for love and marriage. So why didn't the software vendors build such an engine?

Because this just isn't the way professional astrologers work. The workflow of a professional astrologer is pretty simple. A woman walks in the door and says she is conflicted. Man X is good and Man Y is more exciting. She does not know which one is the right man for her. What should she do? In this situation, the professional astrologer types in three birth dates, prints a pair of reports, and then explains it to her.

Both Janus and Sirus are perfectly adapted to this workflow. There is nothing about the ordinary work-a-day astrologer's job that cannot be accomplished with these two apps. If I wanted to go into business right now, I could. I own legit licenses.

Unfortunately, this is not what I am interested in. The question that obsesses my mind is the calculation of the perfect birth date of the perfect mate. I already have a pretty good idea of what that is. For the record, the date is 3/12/1986.

However, I am not absolutely confident of their methodology. Further, I am fairly sure that a better methodology can be constructed. Understand that I hacked and bent and warped these applications to make them do what I wanted them to do. Programmer tricks, my friends.

I would rather design an engine that is entirely built around the idea of query investigation and detailed comparison of outstanding prospects. For this task, an entirely new database application would have to be devised. It would have to be based on a full SQL engine with some pivoting analytical powers. It would need to solve some really complex celestial mechanics problems.

Most important, it would have to be able to differentiate between positive and negative elements of sexual attraction. It would need to differentiate between an individual who be a great short term sexual affair, and someone who is a great long-term mate in life. Believe it or not, these distinctions are entirely possible. As I mentioned before, squares and oppositions are not good for long-term stability and copacetic life together. Sextiles and Trines are.

I am fairly certain I can build this engine. In fact, I already started. I started several weeks ago. I already have a very rudimentary scoring engine working. It is not very sophisticated. It does not yet do a Davison chart. It does not identify every possible aspect that produces attraction. It does not yet distinguish between positive and negative attraction types.

All of this will be addressed in good time.

The great advantage of this project is that I am writing a fully-object oriented engine, which is written in fully-modern managed code. This means it doesn't leak memory, and is safe for deployment to the web environment. It means that I can scale it out on a service backbone across hundreds of virtual servers in the cloud. This means that I can construct a Software as a Service (SAS) website that can make money. This also means that I can drive a nice smart phone app that will communicate with my SAS web services for processing information.

There are a lot of advantages to dumping C/C++ and Delphi in this day and age. Believe me, there was no greater lover of Borland's Delphi than I was. Still, the time has come to move on. Even Anders Hejlsberg moved on to .NET more than a decade ago.

Graphing the solution set of all Mars Venus conjunctions in the Davison Chart

Now here's a dandy celestial mechanics problem for you. Given the elliptical orbit position of Mars and Venus in one individual's natal chart, graph the solution set of all possible Mars-Venus positions that will result in Mars-Venus conjunction in the Davison chart.

Sound like absolute gibberish to you? It won't if you are somewhat familiar with astronomy of astrology. You know that the bodies of our solar system orbit the sun according to an eliptical pattern, ergo it is possible to determin their location at any given time. Conversely, it possible to determine the calandar date and time when they will reach precisely these positions. This is just about perfectly predictable, celestial mechanics being what they are.

The Davison Harmonic means chart simply takes the position of two natal chart bodies (his Mars and her Mars) and averages them together. If his Mars is at 180 degrees (00 Libra) and her Mars is 00 degress (00 Aries) together they wind up at 90 degrees (00 Cancer). That's it folks. There is no more magic to it than that. You just add th two positions and divide by two. It's so easy a caveman could do it.

You do the same thing with Venus. You do the same thing with the Sun. You do the same withing Mercury. You do the same thing with Jupiter, etc. This is how Davison chart is made. It's nothing more than the average position of two charts.

Now what about this Mars-Venus conjunction thing? As we have recently learned, according to the principle of synastry, a Mars-Venus conjunction in Davison chart is considered the strongest possible sign of sexual attraction. It doesn't necessarily mean the two of you will ultimately marry or be happy together, but it does signify ultra-massive sexual attraction. More points are awarded for this aspect than any other possible aspect.

Given a fixed location of Venus and Mars, it should be possible to graph a solution set of all possible variable Mars-Venus combinations that will produce a conjunction between Mars and Venus in the Davison chart. Given the various positions in the solution set, it should be possible to calculate a real calandar date when each of these positions actually occured.

Given a graphed solution set, we should be able to compute a set of dates. Given a set of dates, we can apply a date rang to eliminate impossible or undesirable prospects. I doubt you would want to date some one 50 years older or younger than yourself. I doubt you could date someone born in 1809. All crazy dates would need to be filtered out by simply selecting those within an acceptable date range. It's just one SQL statement folks

Select * from VenusConjMars where Birthdate between '' and ''

There you would have it.

Now the real trick is to graph the solution set of all positions that produce a conjunction, and then use celestial mechanics to compute the date. This is where the math turns brutal. I am sure there is one guy in NASA reading this blog right now who is chuckling and laughing "Oh that's so easy a caveman could do it." Yeah, like anything else, it's easy when you know how. I didn't do so well in the complex mathematical modeling class.

Further, a conjunction between Mars and Venus in the Davison chart tells us nothing about the Sun signs. It also tells us relatively little about the Mars and Venus relate to each other between two Natal charts. I can easily imagine a bunch of scenarios where you might line up Cancers and Sagitarrians who have poorly aspected Mars and Venus signs, just because a Davison conjunction occured. The point is simple: A bunch of other comparisons will also be necessary to ferret out a really great candidate.

Want an example? If you read my last blog entry, carefully, you noted that the highest possible score for me is an Aries female born on 4/13/1979. She has a score 532. By no means is Aries considered a good match with Virgo. Now this particular Aries may well be, but wouldn't you prefer to look for a more ideal candidate? Maybe you would and maybe you wouldn't. The question goes to temperment.

A exciting discovery in the world of synastry

I have figured out a way to get Sirus to expose it's "thinking" and reveal more about how it calculates the final sexual attraction, problem solving, peace, and creativity scores. For those well versed in Microsoft T-SQL, this is tantamount to the "Show Plan" feature which forced the SQL engine to explain it's strategy for acquiring your result set.

Consider the following output from the from Sexual Attraction Match Maker.

(A) David A. Leon (B) Fire Ewe

9.53 Points, Ven cnj Mar in composite chart, Orb = 0°14'

4.28 Points, B's Ven opp A's Ura, Orb = 0°43'

1.79 Points, A's Ven sqr B's Ura, Orb = 2°01'

2.65 Points, A's Ven tri B's Nep, Orb = 1°41'

3.15 Points, B's Ven tri A's Nep, Orb = 1°04'

3.75 Points, Ven opp Nep in composite chart, Orb = 0°19'

5.17 Points, B's Ven opp A's Plu, Orb = 0°41'

0.26 Point, A's Ven sxt B's Plu, Orb = 4°22'

2.47 Points, Ven tri Plu in composite chart, Orb = 2°32'

TOTAL= 33.05 points times 16.090 is 532 points

(A) David A. Leon (B) Theoretical Pisces

6.85 Points, A's Ven tri B's Mar, Orb = 0°07'

6.98 Points, B's Ven tri A's Mar, Orb = 0°01'

6.94 Points, Ven tri Mar in composite chart, Orb = 0°02'

4.78 Points, A's Ven tri B's Ura, Orb = 0°13'

3.28 Points, Ven opp Nep in composite chart, Orb = 0°54'

3.94 Points, Ven tri Plu in composite chart, Orb = 1°04'

TOTAL= 32.77 points times 16.090 is 527 points

(A) David A. Leon (B) The Big One

2.42 Points, Ven cnj Mar in composite chart, Orb = 3°47'

4.57 Points, B's Ven opp A's Ura, Orb = 0°26'

1.79 Points, A's Ven tri B's Nep, Orb = 2°46'

3.93 Points, B's Ven tri A's Nep, Orb = 0°05'

2.93 Points, Ven opp Nep in composite chart, Orb = 1°20'

3.79 Points, B's Ven opp A's Plu, Orb = 1°50'

1.34 Points, A's Ven sxt B's Plu, Orb = 1°39'

4.90 Points, Ven tri Plu in composite chart, Orb = 0°06'

TOTAL= 25.67 points times 16.090 is 413 points

(A) David A. Leon (B) Lauren Bacall

4.77 Points, B's Ven cnj A's Mar, Orb = 2°37'

2.42 Points, A's Ven opp B's Mar, Orb = 3°29'

4.57 Points, Ven sqr Mar in composite chart, Orb = 0°26'

0.21 Point, A's Ven qucnx B's Ura, Orb = 2°41'

0.30 Point, Ven sxt Ura in composite chart, Orb = 4°30'

4.28 Points, A's Ven cnj B's Nep, Orb = 0°43'

5.86 Points, Ven cnj Plu in composite chart, Orb = 0°49'

TOTAL= 22.41 points times 16.090 is 361 points

(A) David A. Leon (B) Kim Kardashian

6.56 Points, B's Ven cnj A's Ura, Orb = 0°19'

1.71 Points, A's Ven sqr B's Ura, Orb = 2°09'

2.82 Points, A's Ven tri B's Nep, Orb = 1°28'

1.99 Points, B's Ven sxt A's Nep, Orb = 0°01'

2.56 Points, Ven sqr Nep in composite chart, Orb = 0°44'

4.58 Points, B's Ven cnj A's Plu, Orb = 1°44'

1.96 Points, A's Ven sxt B's Plu, Orb = 0°05'

TOTAL= 22.18 points times 16.090 is 357 points

(A) David A. Leon (B) Lexi Belle

4.11 Points, A's Ven cnj B's Mar, Orb = 2°56'

4.25 Points, B's Ven cnj A's Mar, Orb = 2°53'

4.18 Points, Ven cnj Mar in composite chart, Orb = 2°55'

4.04 Points, A's Ven tri B's Ura, Orb = 0°58'

2.16 Points, Ven tri Nep in composite chart, Orb = 2°18'

1.04 Points, Ven sxt Plu in composite chart, Orb = 2°24'

TOTAL= 19.78 points times 16.090 is 318 points

(A) David A. Leon (B) Baby Doll

6.50 Points, B's Ven tri A's Mar, Orb = 0°22'

0.82 Point, A's Ven sxt B's Mar, Orb = 3°38'

0.99 Point, A's Ven tri B's Ura, Orb = 4°01'

0.98 Point, Ven sxt Nep in composite chart, Orb = 2°33'

4.70 Points, Ven cnj Plu in composite chart, Orb = 1°39'

TOTAL= 13.99 points times 16.090 is 225 points

(A) David A. Leon (B) Sabine

4.24 Points, A's Ven sqr B's Mar, Orb = 0°46'

0.35 Point, B's Ven sqr A's Mar, Orb = 4°39'

2.30 Points, Ven sqr Mar in composite chart, Orb = 2°42'

4.96 Points, Ven tri Ura in composite chart, Orb = 0°02'

TOTAL= 11.85 points times 16.090 is 191 points

(A) David A. Leon (B) Capicorn

0.87 Point, B's Ven qucnx A's Mar, Orb = 1°41'

2.07 Points, Ven cnj Ura in composite chart, Orb = 3°31'

2.84 Points, A's Ven tri B's Nep, Orb = 1°27'

1.10 Points, A's Ven sxt B's Plu, Orb = 2°14'

TOTAL= 6.88 points times 16.090 is 111 points

Each one of these is a different female from a different Sun sign and a different year. As you can see, a number of different aspects are identified. Each one is given a score. Venus conjunction Mars in the composite chart is the big prime mover; this packs one hell of a whollop. Venus opposition Pluto also packs a whollop. Trines between Venus and Mars also shoot the score way up.

There are a number of lesser relations that can add to the score, including problem relations like Squares. In general, Squares are a bad thing. Yet a Venus Square Mars sends the score up for some reason. This may not be a good thing overall, but it does send the score up.

Obviously, the philosophy of the programmers is that attraction is a messy hot-salad. It's a tossed mixture of a bunch of odd ingredients: some agreeable, some not.

16.090 figure is a coefficient of normalization used to make the total aspects fit their 150 point scoring system. I am pretty sure that the decimal figure assigned for each relations is scaled on a bell curve, more points for a more precise aspect, fewer points for a less precise aspect.

The exciting thing about this discovery is that it should facilitate the creation of a better synastry engine. One which will allow us to distinguish between good elements of attraction, such as trines and sextiles, and bad elements of attraction, such as Squares and Oppositions.

More importantly, it should be possible to construct a search engine that will find specific dates for you that contain Mars conjunct Venus in the Davison chart, with Trines or sextiles between Mars and Venus. You could also toss in Venus opposite Pluto. The logic of the Sirus engine suggests that these are elements that send attraction shooting through the roof.

Why not construct an intelligent query engine that will immediately and automatically find such match-ups for any given individual?