Personal Blog
Rocks and Diamonds : Dynamite
Dynamite can be very useful in Rocks and diamonds.
One option is to have this explode when you start the level, the 2nd option is to allow you to carry and drop when you want.
Each of these has it's own use. Having things explode at the starts adds some dynamics to the start of the video.
#games,#rocksndiamonds,#level,#dynamite
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Rocks n diamonds level configuration
I am working on a few resources to help people get started with Rocks and Diamonds level creation.
So this video shows the basic level configuration setting size, time and number of gems to collect. Then I add the required elements to the level area (gems and an exit). Finally I test the level to make sure it is working ok.
#games,#rocksndiamonds,#level,#config
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Particle Physics course follow up
I am just following up on my OpenLearn particle phyiscs course review follow up.
As part of this I had to work out the charge spectrum on groups of 3 quarks.
This short article explains (or tries to) how to do this. Firstly thank to the course creators, Open Learn and the Open University without whom the course would not have been possible. Thank you also to users on the physics irc channel who gave me some help with doing this.
So if we take a Proton as an example, this has 3 quarks
uud
so firstly I had to write down all the possible combinations
uuu uud udu udd duu dud ddu ddd
There are repeated combiations here so by removing these we get
uuu ddd duu ddu
From here we then need to list the charges associated with each, and calculate totals
uud = 2/3 + 2/3 + 2/3 = +2e ddd = -1/3 + -1/3 + -1/3 = -1e duu = -1/3 + 2/3 + 2/3 = 1e ddu = -1/3 + -1/3 + 2/3 = 0
Now list the totals
+2e -1e 1e 0
if we put them in some sort of order
-1e 0 1e +2e
We get the charge spectrum
The activity had a sort of frurt machine that would come up with combinations of all the 6 quarks
u d s c t b
Details of where they fit in to the standard model and associated charges can be found on the standard model table.
This may sound complex, which is perfectly fine, once it was explained to be, and someone worked through it, it was much clearer, I decided to write it all down, and then type up here, as this helps to reinforce learning.
Given there are 6 quarks, the number of different combinations of 3 quarks is huge. Then think there would be anti baryons, so the same combination but with antiquarks
Mesons have combinations of 1 quark and 1 antiquark.
#particle,#physics,#science,#charge,#spectrum
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SeaGL day one comments
So yesterday I attended part of the Seattle Linux user group conference. This was really well put together with talks live streamed using Big Blue Button,along side chat on IRC and Jitsi.
I attended one talk on Democratising Documentation from Megan Guiney, which was partly about 'zines' which are small independent publications, and the culture around this, methods of putting them together, and how this was done on a budget before the days of the internet and easier access to technology.
I also attended a talk on demystifying collaborator culture, from Jill Rouleau. This was also interesting in that it reaches out to potential new contributors and explains the culture / expectations behind mailing lists, irc etc. This could be useful for the Debian Acacdemy team so I also sent the details to the Academy mailing list.
Hoping to catch up on a few talks later today, and also catch up on recordings of talks that I missed.
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The Dawn of Gravitational Wave Astronomy
So on to another high end physics lecture
This is from the Institute of Physics
#physics,#astronomy,#lecture,#gravitational,#waves
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Seattle GNU/Linux conference
Seattle GNU/Linux conference is this Friday and Saturday you can find more information and a join link here
You can join online
Fri 9:00–16:30 PST (17:00–00:30 UTC) Sat 9:00–16:30 PST (17:00–00:30 UTC)
Sorry for the short notice, I have only just found out about this.
#conference,#gnu,#linux,#virtual,#seattle,#washington,#usa
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State of the Onion
Development of the Tor Browser
On Monday November 16, 2020 there is a State of the Onion: Tor & Community Updates from 2020 event.
Join us for the (virtual) State of the Onion at on Nov 16, 2020 @ 16:00 – 18:00 UTC.*
#tor,#privacy,#event,#browser,#update,#development,#state
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Astronify Review
Just watched the latest Space Telescope Science Institute lecture, mentioned in a blog post from 10/11/2020
The full lecture title was
Hearing The Light: How Sonification Deepens our Understanding of the Cosmos and Makes Astronomy More Accessible
This talk was really interesting, it covered how data from astronomy can be presented in an audible way, rather than as a graph on a screen or paper for example.
Why would this be important ?
Well, for most people, visual data can be seen by the eyes, if you are blind or partially sited, this this data is in accessible to you.
One of the examples given is the light curve from a star transit, this may look as follows
------ --------
| |
| |
| |
--------------
So this, would illustrate, how the light from a star, drops when a planet passes in front of the host star.
If we were to express this audibly then the curve would start off as one tone then drop to a lower tone and go back up to the original higher tone.
This makes astronomy more accessible. It is also another way to represent data from Kepler and TESS telescopes.
The lecture explains this far better, but from the Q/A session we learn that this can be found in every day life.
The lecture emphasises that sonification is not about recording existing sound we could hear. So a microphone under water to record sound from sea life is NOT Sonification, however I think they suggested that turning non audible sound to audible sound IS an example, Other given examples, included star flares, which again can be represented. Once you know what to listen for, it helps us confirm the data further.
The team has a website at https://astronify.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ but I would recommend watching the video first.
#astronomy,#stsci,#data,#audio,#sonification,#presentation,#Astronify
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Astrobiology course 4
So following on from previous post I have been watching the lecture on Where to look for life in the solar system presented by Dr Jennifer Blank.
Really interesting and in fact this builds on the course undertaken as part of my Certificate in Contemporary Science course. S186 : Planets and introduction.
So lots of moons around Jupiter that seem to have sub surface water, but importantly thank to Tidal Heating this could be liquid water under the surface.
So Io, Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa, are interesting but given between Jupiter and Saturn there are over 100 moons. There are lots of interesting moons out there, some with very interesting molecules that include organics.
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Astronify
Tuesday 10th November
Location: Online Attendance Only Time: 8:00 PM – 9:30 PM
So following on from Septembers lecture, the Space telescope science institute present their next lecture.
You can find more upcoming (monthly) lectures below.
http://www.stsci.edu/public-lectures
Link to last months video lecture and a review of the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope lecture
#video,#astronomy,#space,#science,#stsci
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