Inverloch photographs

I’ve just got back from a holiday in Victoria.

My parents spent the week as volunteers digging up dinosaur bones at Inverloch. I spent much of it in Melbourne, catching up with my Uncle David and Auntie Sue, but we all spent a few days together at Inverloch as well.

We caught up with relatives at Nhill, both on the way there and on the way back. On the way back we went via Shepparton, where I caught up with a much-valued friend I haven’t seen in thirteen years. It was very nice to see her again.

Right now I don’t really feel like describing our holiday in detail, but feel free to ask questions. The rest of this post is devoted to my beach photographs.

Day one at Inverloch (i.e. the day my uncle, aunt and I joined my parents there):

Ten Minutes Too Late

This post is a tangential response to Richard Wiseman’s latest puzzle. Very tangential. The puzzle alludes to the tradition of a lock of hair as a romantic gift, which made me think of a traditional Irish song I know that also alludes to such things.

I was going to quote the lyrics in the comments section of Richard’s blog, but then I thought: hey, why not sing it, and upload the mp3? As it’s a traditional song, there’s no copyright to worry about, and it’s also an opportunity for me to sing to those who care to listen.

Here’s the relevant part (verse three):

Fractal collection

I’m posting this in the process of moving stuff from my old website to the blog, or to my new website, or to box.net, depending on where I think it belongs.

So here are a few images from my collection of fractals, and after the images, the information you need to explore them for yourself. For other blog posts that include similar fractal images, see here and here.

The first one uses a fractal formula that I stumbled upon in the nineties (when I originally created these images). Artistically, I see some sort of magical artifact (e.g. the knob from a wizard’s staff or something).

A World Within Your Mind

In 1997, I wrote a song called “A World Within Your Mind“, which may be the best song I ever wrote. The words and music have been on my website for years, but what with (a) the fact that I’m slowly migrating to a new website, and (b) the fact that I now see the website as secondary to the blog (rather than the other way around), I’ve decided that I should post it here.

The recording is almost as old as the song itself, and involved the use of a cassette tape. Lyrics below.

A World Within Your Mind (Adrian Morgan, 1997)

There’s a world I was exploring
A world within your mind
And in it I was searching
For a path I could not find.

I could not just keep going for I’d seen a sign that said
There is no place to go here on the path ahead.
I looked around within that world to find some other track
But I could not find a place to go but only forward and back.
So I just kept on going, ignoring what I knew -
That sign that said don’t go this way, it’s not the path for you.

The Ghost of January Past

I’m taking a break from the Interesting Stuff series, at least until after the first week of February. Meanwhile, I’d like to mention that the 11 January 2010 edition of 365 Days of Astronomy is my favourite so far this year.

Now, below are selected items that I published or linked to in previous Januaries.

In 2007, I published an article about my friend Pam Marlow and her model-building exploits. This was originally written as a university assignment some years previously, and involved an interview with Pam.

Other things I published in 2007 include some information on my family’s ancestry, and a limerick that someone on Usenet once wrote for me.

In 2009 I published a large collection of photographs from our holiday in Warrnambool.

Items I linked to in my Interesting Stuff series included how to swap faces with another person, the compatibility of music and wine, and revisions to our understanding of the Milky Way Galaxy.

New web space (and Elemental is back)

Just a quick announcement.

I recently registered the domain quidjfravzgembtchowlkspynx.com which I intend will eventually replace my website at NetYP (although the necessary file transferring and link updating will take some time).

I didn’t want to register my own domain, but it seems that it’s really hard to get Internet space these days without one. The days when host.com/member addresses were common seems to be over. I’m uncomfortable with the notion of choosing a short, snappy domain name because there aren’t enough to go around and I’m no more entitled than anyone else, but by using a word that I invented I can feel that it rightly belongs to me.

Anyway, you may remember my solitaire card game Elemental, and the PHP implementation that was online until some time ago. Well, it’s now back at the new site.

If you enjoy the game, I hope you’ll play it regularly and recommend it to others who might enjoy it too.

Television upgrade: the pictures

Over the last couple of days I’ve been settling back at my place after the Christmas break. One thing I needed to do was install a new television, replacing an analogue TV with a digital one that also has an inbuilt DVD player. Here are some pictures:

Old.

New.

Interesting Stuff: Early January 2010

Some interesting links, followed by some personal news.

Over the Christmas break I’ve rested from the task of gathering interesting links to publish on this blog, but here are a few that I couldn’t resist.

• Possibly venomous dinosaur.
• A genuine thought-to-speech translator.
• The proper way to make a music video.
• Someone else’s collection of notable events in science.
• A few choice images from an photographic gallery I was browsing: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
• An intriguing treatment for tinnitus.
• Long, illustrated discussion of the Staffordshire Hoard.
• Map of the world showing travel time to major cities.

Final post in the parlour games trilogy

I’ve also written two posts [one, two] about the rotary drawing game from “Parlour Games for Modern Families” by Myfanwy Jones and Spiri Tsintziras, which I got from my parents for Christmas. This post makes it a trilogy,

Other things my parents gave me for Christmas include a hat with a built-in net to keep the flies out, a small “optical illusion” jigsaw puzzle (took me one afternoon), and a $500 gift voucher towards a digital television (what with support for analogue soon to be terminated). Bought one for $749 (this model), as yet still in the box.

New Year’s Day 2010

On the evening of New Year’s Day, there are fireworks at Port Vincent. Also food. Here is a short collection of photographs from the 2010 celebrations.