David Morgan-Mar – Page 63

Games day

Updating Saturday morning because I was busy Friday night. It was a day dedicated to games!

Andrew C. is an experienced golfer, and a few months ago invited me and another friend to try playing a par 3 “pitch and putt” course. We had no experience hitting a golf ball, and it took us a while to start to get the hang of it, but I managed to hit a few half-decent shots (as well as losing two balls). Yesterday Andrew and I went to try the course again. The 18 holes have par 54. Andrew scored 61, while I managed 92 (better than my first effort). I tied one hole with Andrew, and won two holes. My technique is still terrible, but improving! Here’s a photo of one of my best shots of the day. These are our balls after our tee shots on this hole: mine is nearest the hole, Andrew’s is in the foreground. Unfortunately I didn’t sink the putt for a birdie.

After that we grabbed some lunch at a Japanese place and had a bit of a drive along the beachy coast to head home. All up, a good morning/lunch time. Although it’s still the depths of winter here the day was sunny and warm.

And Friday evening was our fortnightly board games night. We had 5 people, which is a little on the low side, but enough for plenty of games. We started early and had a writing session for Darths & Droids, writing four strips before moving on to the games.

We played a quick game of Ingenious to warm up, then when our host’s daughters arrived home from dance lessons one of them joined us for a game of Junk Art, which was a lot of fun. We liked that one because Steven – who is the most serious game player and strategist and hence who often wins games of strategic skill – needed to use dexterity skills instead, and so most of us beat him!

After the girls went to bed, we started a game of Power Grid, with the Italian map board. I got off to a reasonable start, but by the time we’d estimated the game would finish we were still clearly only about halfway through. It was getting late and I’d promised my wife I’d be home by a certain time, so I had to leave mid-game. The others continued, playing me as a robo-player by making reasonable decisions for me in my absence. And I ended up coming second! So that’s pretty good.

New Friday content:

Geology

Today was dedicated to writing a new article for my science blog, 100 Proofs that the Earth is a Globe. I started working on something about earthquakes, but after getting a couple of paragraphs in I decided that it would be better to discuss plate tectonics first. So I switched tracks and worked on that. I started around 9am, and with various interruptions during the day, I just finished and posted the article now at 8:30pm. Phew! It’s about 2000 words, and writing that much researched material in one day is pretty good – writers often aim for a steady 1000 words a day, so it’s well above that.

One interruption was walking up the street to get some lunch, and also pick up a package that failed to be delivered yesterday. To spoil myself a bit, I ordered myself a new LEGO set: the Stranger Things set. The box is huge! It should be awesome. Maybe to be featured in a future Irregular Webcomic?

And that was my whole day really, apart from taking Scully to the dog park this afternoon. While there I chatted with another dog owner, Trevor, who has a golden coloured cavoodle named Ruffy. He’s a retired geologist, so I mentioned that I’d been working on an article about plate tectonics all day, and we had a bit of a discussion about that.

New content today:

Secret project

Wednesday is Ethics day! My class this morning was about half the normal size, 9 or 10 kids, down from 18, because of what they explained to me was a rehearsal for some sort of dance performance thing, which apparently lots of the students are involved in. It was the final lesson of the moral responsibility topic, so I had to do the sum up discussion with just half the class. The thing about this topic is that the kids were pretty much all agreed that people should help those most in need, rather than their own friends or family if their needs are less. So there weren’t a lot of opposing opinions to go through like there are on some other topics. Next week we start on stealing, which should be interesting.

After teaching my class, I travelled into the city to visit some book shops and a game shop. I bought a copy of Stephen Fry’s Heroes, part two of his retelling of the Greek myths, following Mythos, which was stories about the gods. I do love the Greek myths, and have a few different versions of them on my bookshelves.

When I got home I worked all afternoon on a secret project. Not secret from you, dear reader, but secret from my friends, some of whom might read this blog, so I dare not share any details here until the time is ripe. I can say that it’s related to a Magic: the Gathering card game evening that I am planning to hold – but no more than that. Oh, I can show you the invitation I just sent to my friends:

invitation

I am so looking forward to this!

New comics content today:

Day off

I took a bit of a day off from my creative activities today. I went to have lunch with an old friend, and returned the equipment I borrowed from the university for yesterday’s science experiment at the school. I’m trying to think what else I did, but I kind of just did some grocery shopping and housework and goofed off a bit.

New content update: today:

And yesterday since I missed it then (I need to make this a daily habit so I don’t forget):

School science visit

Today was the big day! I spent the day at a local primary school, talking to the kindergarten to Year 2 classes about the solar system. I got back in 2 weeks to do the Year 3 to 6 classes. It’s Science Week, so some of the kids also set up tables in the playground at recess to show off the science experiments they’ve been doing in class recently. There were crystals being grown, model boats being floated and loaded with weights until they sank, electronic kits being used to build various gadgets, and the Science Club showed off some results from the bacteria growing experiment I did with them earlier this year.

Also today I spent an hour and a half with the Science Club students. We went through the results of the colour naming experiment, which I reported on over on 100 Proofs not long ago. Then we performed a new experiment, to measure the strength of Earth’s gravity using a pendulum. We varied the mass of the pendulum, the distance it swung, and the length of the string. We took a whole bunch of measurements, and I’ll analyse them and calculate the results for next time we meet in two weeks.

Oh, and we also made another measurement of the length of a vertical stick’s shadow at midday, as part of our ongoing measurement of the size of the Earth using the geometry of the Earth’s orbit.

It was a busy day, and I didn’t have time for much else other than relaxing afterwards! The teachers at this school work very hard for their students, and I’m constantly amazed how much work they do and how demanding it is. School teachers are one of the most under-appreciated professions, easily.

Chilly Sunday

It feels like a little bit of winter has finally hit Sydney this weekend, with cold weather and strong winds. It was a good day to stay inside, but Scully needed some exercise so we went out for a bit in the afternoon to run around the park. Oh and this morning she had a visit from Luna next door for a play date:

Yes, our neighbour has a black toy poodle too!

Otherwise I continued preparing for tomorrow’s school visit, finishing off my slides on the solar system. And figuring out relative sizes of various balls that I’ll be using to represent planets and the sun and stuff.

Oh, and I’ve been intending to start doing this for a while, but keep forgetting, so let’s start today. New content today:

School prep

Saturday is housecleaning day at Chez DMM. After the weekly chores, I spent much of the day preparing for my school science visit on Monday, putting together slides for my talk on the solar system, and calculating what size balls I need to have ready to show the kids the comparative sizes of the sun and planets. I’m borrowing a 600 mm exercise ball from a friend. If the Earth is that size, I need a 160 mm diameter ball to represent the moon – I think the styrofoam ball I used for this 100 Proofs that the Earth is a Globe post will work nicely. It’s 150 mm, but close enough. And then to show the relativedistance between the Earth and moon I need to put the balls 18 m apart, which I think I can just about manage in the school library where I do my presentations.

And if the sun is represented by the exercise ball, then the Earth needs to be a 5 mm bead, and it needs to be 64 metres away! And Neptune needs to be 19 kilometres away! Hopefully this will impress on the kids just how big space is.

On a different topic, I noticed a disturbing thing today. I made a post to the Irregular Webcomic! Facebook page, and as I was doing it I noticed that Facebook was advertising some groups that it thought I “should join to increase your audience”. What sort of groups were these? Let’s take a look at them:

FOR THE BOYS – a group whose icon is a bunch of bikini models
Over 18 PEEP SHOW – icon is a silhouette of a woman
Holden Haters – icon is a Ford logo
Have a laugh Australia – icon is an “R over 18s” logo

So, Facebook, I’d like to know (a) why do you think people in these groups might be interested in my comics, and (b) why is there no feedback mechanism to let you know that these groups are not appropriate, or to hide them as suggestions?

School science prep

Today I did further preparation for my school science visit on Monday. I’ve been trying to contact a nearby high school to borrow some of their lab equipment, but they kept not returning my calls. So this morning I decided to try Sydney University, where I studied for several years, and know some of the staff in the physics department. I called up and got onto the first year lab coordinator (who I hadn’t met before) and asked her if I could borrow some stuff. She put me onto the lab technician, but he wasn’t in yet, so I sent an email.

Then I was planning to go do some grocery shopping, but I didn’t want to be out driving the car when he phoned back, so instead i stayed home in that sort of anticipatory state that makes it hard to concentrate on anything. He emailed back at 11:00, saying to meet him in the physics labs at 11:45.

Now, I was at home, and the university is on the other side of the harbour… I mailed back saying I might be a few minutes late, and jumped in the car. Fortunately traffic wasn’t bad and I managed to find a parking spot right next to the university gate closest to the physics building, so I was actually on time. I borrowed a retort stand and clamps, and a brass mass carrier with a stack of brass weights. Pretty simple stuff, but it would have been tricky to improvise adequately for Monday.

And I spent some time trying (in vain mostly) to help solve puzzles for the MUMS Puzzle Hunt. I don’t know where the rest of the day went!

Oh! I queued up a bunch of new comic submissions for Lightning Made of Owls. We had a bit of a slump in submissions for a while, but now there are several comics in the queue. If you want to make a simple gag comic and have it published, send it in!

Bento box

Today was a bit of a lazy day, work-wise. I actually spent most of my time at home refactoring code, which didn’t achieve anything tangible beyond making it easier to add on more stuff later.

I also spent a lot of time out. I arranged to meet a friend for lunch at a Japanese place near the station two stops away from where I live. I could have caught the train, but I decided to walk to get a bit of exercise.

Now let me tell you about the area where I live. It ain’t flat. Not by a long shot. There are hills everywhere. My tracking app (I use Strava, if you want to follow my profile) tells me the walk there by the most direct route was 3.72 km, with an elevation gain of 103 metres. (I ended up only 29 m higher than I began, so I also went downhill 74 m.) The restaurant does bento boxes, and I had one with some sushi, a bowl of udon soup, and something I’ve never seen before: fish katsu! It was good.

For the walk home, I took a longer route, covering 5.55 km, with an elevation gain of 72 m. Later in the afternoon I also took Scully for a walk and play in the park. The weather’s turned windy here, but it wasn’t very cold – the forecasters say tomorrow we’ll get a blast of colder air. Anyway, here’s Scully, posing after fetching her ball in the dog park.

Announcing mezzacotta Café v2.0

It’s Wednesday, Ethics teaching day. I walked to the school, taught my class, and walked home – a total walk of 8 kilometres. Well, I took a slightly indirect route home because it’s a more pleasant walk than along the main road.

Back home, I did a bunch of work for the ISO Photography standards committee that I’m still on. I started on this committee back with my old job at Canon Information Systems Research Australia. When the company decided to close down, I decided to continue working on the committee, since it’s a good way to keep up with professional photographic technology research, and I wanted to make sure Australia maintained its role in the international committee. Anyway, I had a bunch of documents to go through, so that took some time.

Then I spent time solving puzzles from the 2019 MUMS Puzzle Hunt, which started today. I’m part of the team “mezzacotta” with some of my friends.

In between I worked on integrating HTML/CSS to make the new mezzacotta Café look nice. Here’s the old original version. And here’s the new updated version made with our new mezzacotta Random Generator technology. The new version began with the same vocabulary a few days ago, but has had a few new additions made to it already. And it looks nicer!