Highlights of the Christmas season

This post covers events that occured between December 10 (the night of the 2011 lunar eclipse) and January 14 (when I installed Skype on my brand new desktop computer). There’s enough material here to appeal to a variety of interests, but mostly it’s about Christmas.

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It was overcast here on the night of the total lunar eclipse, but there were occasional gaps in the clouds, and it was a very pleasant night to be out. I walked over to Shepherd’s Hill Recreation Park to wait for a photo opportunity from the top of the hill.

Here is the blurry result. I don’t have proper equipment for night-time photography, so this is the best I could do.

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Canberra plans

Mum and I plan to spend four Late February days in Canberra, staying in the Canberra Motor Village. Dad has other commitments and won’t be coming. I’ve been researching things to see, and thought I’d put them together in a blog post where people who’ve been there can comment with further recommendations and advice.

I was about thirteen the last time I was in Canberra, and that was en route from Sydney (where I’d attended the original 1990 Whovention). So we didn’t do much.

Mangrove walk on Boxing Day

Having just published one slideshow, here’s another.

On Boxing Day, we went to St Kilda to meet up with relatives over from Melbourne. I haven’t been to St Kilda for many years, and am pleased to report that the adventure playground and mangrove swamp are both still there.

This slideshow includes eleven images from the mangrove walk plus one image from the playground.

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As with the previous post, there is a gallery of images below the fold.

I will fill in more details about my Christmas break activities in a future blog post. The pair published today are all about the photographs.

Beach walk on Christmas Day

One of the things we did on Christmas Day was to go for a walk on the beach, with mostly people I’d never met before.

The beach, Balgowan, is one I’ve been to many, many times, but rarely in such perfect weather. It was an ideal day for a walk, and for taking photographs. Enjoy the slideshow (22 images).

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Below the fold: a gallery of images in the slideshow, to make it easier to click on the photograph you want to see.

News & links for early December

This collection of links and personal news is somewhat delayed, and very possibly the last one for the year assuming Christmas has its usual influence on free time. I’ll start with some news, break it up with some links, and finish with more news.

A recent highlight around here was the visit of some friends from England (the Dessons, who I caught up with when I was over there in September). They arrived via Perth on 25 November, and we’d planned to have tea at my place, but the flight was delayed (apparently the wing defroster malfunctioned) so there wasn’t time for more than a quick chat at the airport. My parents and I had tea at Glenelg while waiting for the re-scheduled flight. At the end of the evening, my parents drove the Dessons home to their place, while I went home in a taxi.

The Dessons visited my place on 6 December, on their way to exploring other parts of the country. I served a simple lunch (which nevertheless included combinations that were new to them), went for a walk, came back for coffee, and showed them my calendar collection. Had a really great time.

News & links for late November

I’ll start with some interesting links, and then follow up with personal news further down.

• Skulls carved out of fruit and vegetables.
• Lots of photographs of rare cloud formations.
• Ancestors of whales. Includes an overview of the fossil discoveries as well as a captivating drawing.
• Mathematics of tree branches.
• Why using genetic engineering to combat mosquitos is not easy.
• Archaeological remains of a man who had been crucified.
• Short article by Paul Willis on pushing back the date of America’s earliest inhabitants.
• I liked the November 18 edition of 365 Days of Astronomy, which discusses constellations recognised by Aboriginal Australians. I especially like the way it includes examples from different parts of the country.
• Lovely video from space, with city lights, aurorae, and more.
• Under Europa’s ice, not just the deep ocean but shallow lakes as well.
• The  star I once informally adopted as my fictional homeworld can be found at pixel coordinates (2206, 526) on this recent Astronomy Picture of the Day image. On the ultra-high resolution version available here, the coordinates are (1337, 4413). It also happens to be a lovely image in its own right.
• A video on extremism and anti-extremism. Meanwhile, I’m somewhat intrigued by this book on Islamic history. I won’t add it to my wishlist just yet, but it merits consideration.

Calendar themes

Earlier this month I ordered a 2012 wall calendar from Zazzle, which I have very recently received in the mail. It will be hung on my wall throughout the coming year, and will find a permanent home as part of my collection.

With the new one, I now have seven calendars in my collection, which I’ve been keeping since 2006. I add one calendar to it each year, always the same one that I hang on my office wall. The “one per year” rule distinguishes it from the type of collection where people accumulate as many items as possible, and the fact that I use the calendars distinguishes it from the type of collection where people keep items in pristine condition. The idea is to choose a different theme every year, one that I’ve never had since I started the collection. There are so many calendar themes available that I can probably keep going forever without running out of interesting ones.

In this post I’ll show you my entire collection to date, including photographs of the front and back covers. I’ll also remind you of the calendar I created myself, which is available to buy on Zazzle should you think it worthy. In the comments, I invite you to share your favourite calendar themes.

News & links for early November

Looks like it’s time for another collection of personal news and interesting links, which means I haven’t had time to write about anything else. There are certain topics I’ve been meaning to write about, but I’ve just been too busy. Hope to get to them soon.

A few links:

• Stan Carey wrote a silly poem about octopuses, inspired indirectly by the word’s plurality of available plurals (octopi, octopodes, octopuses). In the comments, I set it to music.
  

News & Links for late October

I don’t have a lot of news from the last fortnight, but what I do have you’ll find at the end of this post. First, interesting links:

• Overconfidence in one’s ability to read facial expressions can have tragic consequences.
• Nice overview article on slime moulds (though I don’t get the bit about relative vs absolute values).
• Once in a while I update my old blog post about sun-bearing exo-constellations. Most recently I was prompted to do so my Mark Rosenfelder’s article on the nearest stars.
• Effects of alcohol are largely in your head.
• Stars reionised the universe in only 200 million years.
• Remember this cartoon? Turns out it’s actually true. (Contains disturbing content, but makes you think.)
• Photograph of a planet in the process of formation.
• How to build a moonbase. (Bet it won’t happen any time soon & would cost more than forecast if it did.)
• Mineral could reveal exactly when Mars was wet.

Playing with Ganjifa (Part II)

This is the second of two blog posts about Ganjifa cards. In the first, I showed sample cards from my own deck (which I bought from a playing card museum in Germany), suggested suitable English names for the eight suits, and shared some thoughts on how to shuffle them.

In this sequel, I’ll describe a game I’ve invented especially for Ganjifa. For the international deck of cards we’re all familiar with, there are hundreds of games of many different types, each type radically different from the next. But the traditional playing cards of India have never proliferated in the same way, and far fewer games are played with them (even those few are difficult to find information on). This need not be the case. I propose we enrich the potential of Ganjifa cards by inventing new games, taking inspiration from games that use the familiar deck of hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs, and changing them to take advantage of a deck with twice as many suits and cards that are circular instead of rectangular. They are surely worthy of the attention. Also, let us build on each other’s inventions to create families of related games.