The Catan Dice Game comes with small marking pads to keep score, but you can get the pdf of the score sheet off the Catan website and print it out full size.
By laminating the pages with plastic (yes I know) I could mark the pages and then re-use them.
I did not want to use a plastic pen to mark them but I found a pencil to do the job - Staedtler Glasochrom.
Of course when writing with my pencil I want a nice sharp line.
I found a sharpener that gives a great point. But it has plastic parts.
A warning though do not take it on plane - the change in air pressure causes the ink to leak out. If the cap is on it will fill with ink - permanent and waterproof.
In grade 8, the Canadian teacher did not understand that biro was the Australian term for a pen, after the inventor.
In order to reduce my use of plastic, I am saving my remaining pens for special use. For everyday use I am converting back to pencil.
When I started school, the teacher said that my work was far too grubby and that I needed to change from HB pencils to 4H pencils. I used Copperplate 4H for the rest of my school days.
Now because I like a thick dark line I am using 4B, and 6B pencils.
A friend asked me to look at their radio. The radio was a present from their father for doing well at high school exams, but it no longer worked.
The radio is an AWA Radiola model B24Z first made in 1964. The original power supply was an Eveready 9 volt battery (type 2362), and is no longer available. I tested the radio with a modern 9 volt alkaline battery (6LR61) and it worked very well. So I replaced the battery connectors with new 9 volt snap connectors, I added a cardboard holder for the new battery as it was considerably smaller than the original and I installed the new battery.
These radios have great reception with a five inch ferrite rod antenna internal shielding and an all metal front face. They are a great collectable radio.
So the radio from 1964 - 57 years ago - works very well. I wonder if anything else that man purchased in 1964 is still in working order.
On Mars the rovers carry colour calibration targets. This allows the images captured to be adjusted to the correct colours depending on the light conditions and the colour response of the cameras.
At my favourite hardware warehouse I found a colour calibration card for use with mobile telephone cameras. It is a card with various colour squares and a grey scale and raised ridges. These characterise the light source and the camera response. In the centre is a hole for the colour to be matched.
The card is stored in a sleeve to protect it from abrasion, staining and fading.
The trademark on this card is Coloursmith and there is a mobile phone app to go with it to produce a colour matched paint.
This card could have applications for recording science.
Long ago I used to put off folding my washing because there were so many tasks to complete. Now I do it very quickly.
One of the changes I made was to make all of my socks the same - it is no trouble to pair them up now. A sock can pair with any other sock.
It's high summer, my bee hive is under attack. The flies (which are imitating wasps) are laying eggs in crevices hoping that when the maggots hatch they can sneak into the hive.
I got together with some friends. We all have native bee hives.
I helped to extract some honey. Then demonstrated how to split a bee hive into two.
We laid out samples of our honey and compared tastes.
Left - Sweet with mild flavour
Middle - Well balanced flavour
Right - Very strong flavour
This is native bee honey harvested from the hive of the previous post.
The hive produced a total of two jars like this, about 1 kg.
The native bee honey is less viscous than european honey bee honey. The taste is sweet with a citrus tang. Like honey bee honey the taste varies with the plants used to make it. Because the honey matures in pods made from a mixture of wax and resin it has favours and substances contributed from the resin. The antimicrobial activity of Tetragonula carbonaria honey has been measured to be higher than the famous Manuka honey.
It is delicious.
The honey super has been flipped over to drain the honey out. The bees are still calmly wandering over the hive.
Next the honey is strained through a mesh sieve.
Can you smell the sticky sweetness?
I intend to leave most of the propolis (mixture of bee wax and tree resin) so the bees can quickly rebuild.
The bees are still very calm - they are crawling around the hive and not flying in a defensive cloud.
When a native bee hive weighs about 9 kg then it is read to be harvested.
The overall hive dimensions are 200mm x 280mm x 295mm (high). The box is has three pieces. The bottom piece and middle piece form a single chamber for the brood. The middle level (mid box) is sealed at the top to separate it from the top piece (honey super) except for a connecting hole towards the top-back.
The front of the bottom piece has a main entrance (12mm diameter). The back of the mid box has a hole of a vent (7mm diameter).
The thoney super is a chamber much smaller than the combined chamber of the bottom and middle pieces. Bees enter it by going through the brood chamber to the top-back and passing through the connecting hole.
The position of the entrance between the mid box and the honey super means that the bees are likely to store only honey in the top level.
The painted design on the front is to help the bees find the right hive.
I changed my preferred brand of clothes peg.
But for all the brands I have used, they all break at the hinge.
I once went bush waking (with a friend) through Guy Fawkes National Park. We camped at Marengo Creek near where it joins Guy Fawkes River in New South Wales : 30.125211 degrees South, 152.301443 degrees West.
I went for a swim in the creek in a large basin. The circular hole was made made by a fallen tree when its roots lifted from the earth. As I cooled off in the water up to my neck, small fish swam up and began to nibble at my skin - it was a strange tickling sensation and very enjoyable.
Gas lighting was nominated as word of the year yesterday by Mirrium-Webster. When I look it up, the source of the term is nomin...
