lederhosen

So, I did a course on demography the other day. Nothing too taxing, but interesting to learn about the various techniques we use for population estimates etc. At one point we compared three different projections for Australia's future population, based on three different assumptions about Net Overseas Migration.

Only, it was acronymised, so the first column of the table read: "NOM NOM NOM".

Then we looked at Indigenous population estimates between Census years. Problem here is that while we get reasonably good estimates for the Census years, the birth/death records aren't reliable enough that we can just tally up the difference - while most Indigenous births/deaths do get recorded, a lot of them aren't identified as Indigenous. However, we do have moderately good estimates of Indigenous birth rates and death rates* for each age group. So, if we want to estimate the Indigenous population for (say) 2004, we get better data by taking the Census estimates from 2006, and then applying the birth/death rates in reverse.

Or, as the lecturer put it, "we go back in time and bring people back to life!"

*which, in case you're wondering, are pretty depressing - about three times the national average for most age groups, up to six times for the 35-44s. Detail p. 73 here.

Probably of interest only to a very few on my f-list (if anybody), but: a while back I talked about the 'remoteness' classifications we use for places Australia. The method used to determine those classifications is a bit complicated, based on road distance to townships etc. of various size; see here if you want the gory details.

But the short version is: if you live in or near a city of at least 250,000 people, you're RA 0 ('Major Cities of Australia'). And even if the largest nearby town is only 5,000 people, you're no worse than RA 3 ('Remote Australia').

Here is a map of what Australia looks like, rated on that scale. Those tiny red bits you can barely see, on a few spots around the coast? That's where more than half of the Australian population lives.

The big white bit that covers most of the map... well, you probably wouldn't want your car to break down in there.

Note to self: must resist temptation to rephrase the message "$FANCY_NEW_TECHNIQUE will not produce desired cost savings due to $IMMUTABLE_MATHEMATICAL_CONSTRAINTS" as "no, you can't have a pony" when dealing with other departments.

Must... resist...

Exercise: 20km, total 150km/90mi: night 6 from Rivendell, walking along clifftop.

Some days, proving a mathematical result is like building a Rolls-Royce engine, every piece perfectly shaped and meshing precisely with the next.

Some days, it's like patching up a battered Volkswagen with duct tape and chewing gum, in the hope that it can go just a little further before it falls apart.

Guess what sort of day I just had.

(At least I didn't quite end up having to pee in the radiator.)

Whee, specs for the project still changing. Spent large chunk of today rewriting stuff accordingly. Oh well, it's a good opportunity to rack up some extra hours that will translate into extra leave over the Christmas break, and it's not like it's the first job where I've had to deal with that stuff.

Exercise: 20km/10 pages: up to page 27 of Council of Elrond. Everybody agrees Ring must be thrown into Mt. Doom, except for NeilBoromir, who wants to use it.

Have arrived in Canberra with a week's worth of clothes and excessive quantities of Wife Cake. Canberra put on an eclipse of the moon to welcome me back, which I thought was awfully decent. Welcome function to new work at 3pm today, then official start tomorrow morning. Spent the taxi ride to the station yesterday discussing error analysis with the driver, which seems auspicious.

Some happy news yesterday, but I can't share it quite yet, so I'll just hint mysteriously :-)

Today I convolved some data. For the uninitiated, this is pretty much the signals-processing equivalent of sex, only uncomplicated by other people.

Then later on, I deconvolved some other data. I'm not sure what this is the signals-processing equivalent of.

And yesterday I finished painting a figure I've spent ages on (Sir Stephen Swift, to those following the Aramia game; he makes an appearance in edward_dujean's imminent summary). I'm very pleased with how he came out. The face and eyes (always fiddly) turned out well, with very little effort on my part; the blacklining, shading & highlighting on his armour came up very nicely, and the basing isn't too shabby. I'm tempted to enter this fellow next time there's a novice contest; I can see one or two spots where he'll lose marks (I didn't entirely succeed in getting all the casting lines off, and my freehand on his shield is a bit wobbly), but I'd be interested in commentary on the rest of it. One of these days I will get a camera with a decent macro mode so I can bore you all with my miniatures in better focus.

Incidentally, it is entirely a coincidence that one of the major ethnic groups in my setting just happens to have the same rather dark skin that I've found easiest to paint ;-)

Mixing up variable names just caused my left eyeball to expand to roughly 8x10³ kilometres in diameter. Now I'm kinda glad Nature doesn't make that sort of mistake.

Arthur asked me to give him a hand with a mathematical problem the other day. Good news: on investigation, there's a single-line Matlab command that will do what he wants. Bad news: he needs to do it in Excel. (Eventually solved, but rather more work that way.)

Via usekh, this hurts my brain. Still trying to figure out whether it's intended tongue-in-cheek; I suspect so, but it looks as if some of the subjects are taking it at face value. Reminds me of Kim Newman's Pitbull Brittan, a stirring tale of a Thatcherite superhero who goes around walloping striking miners and combating evil unionists.

CBC story, by way of james_nicoll: "...a spokesperson with the Greater Toronto Airports Authority said lightning was causing technical problems with the airport's lightning-detection system".

Also, lovely octopus icons! And I have yet another Girl Genius icon, too.

Also, goddamn earworms! (See current music, below.) At least there's this site to 'help'.

Also also, I am disturbed to read this passage on Wikipedia: Badger Badger Badger, not for its content but for its implications: "The audio doesn't match up exactly with the visuals. This becomes plainly discernible after 30 minutes of continuous playing. At this point, the audio is at the twelfth "badger" in the first line while the visuals show the mushroom. Over the next few hours, the visuals continue to play faster than the audio, achieving maximum separation at 4 hours 12 minutes. Thereafter the gap begins to close, and becomes synchronized again at about 8 hours 30 minutes. This process continues cyclically."

Also also also, somebody at the Onion feels the same way I do about the age-old "how do I write female characters?" issue.

I knew I'd forgotten some...

4. If you are exposing something, you 'bare' it. If you're putting up with it, carrying it, or just about anything else, including grinning-and-etc, you 'bear' it.

5. A large pile of treasure is a 'hoard'. A large pile of Vikings - or indeed Mongols, Visigoths, Huns, Orcs, Chaos Warriors, or sysadmins - is a 'horde'. To help remember the difference: pirates go "ARRR!" when they find treasure, peasants go "EEEE!" when they see Vikings approaching.

6. That mischievous lass stealing your wallet is a 'rogue'. The makeup she applies to her face is 'rouge'. Do not confuse the two. Not even as deliberate irony, because it's been done to death already.

7. I love helping people with mathematical problems. Really I do. But if you come to me asking "if I add two numbers together and then square the result, is that the same as squaring each of the numbers and then adding them together?", and you already hold a science-related degree, I reserve the right to weep tears of blood after you leave.

- Apropos of nothing in particular, when did people stop pronouncing "Los Angeles" with a hard 'g' (like 'angle')? I noticed American actors doing this in an old Hitchcock movie tonight and it threw me, because I don't think I've ever heard it IRL.