Lockdown Round Two.

For those who somehow aren't aware (perhaps you're elsewhere in the world reading this), most of Sydney is in lockdown, and has been for about a month now - and it's looking like we may not come out for another month or two, with the numbers still being quite high. The Delta variant is just raging through the country at the moment, and it's not particularly fun.

But it's interesting to me comparing this lockdown to last time, in terms of my own experience.

Last lockdown was very different for me. It was still hard, and still difficult, and I still struggled with things like energy and not being able to see people and all of that, for sure. But the work that I was doing before lockdown I had mostly been doing from home anyway, so it wasn't too hard to transition to all from home. But this time, the work I'm doing has been all in-person, and can't really be done from home (for the most part). I was also in a relationship last time, and living with my partner, whereas now I'm separated - still living with other people, but it's a different experience.

And this lockdown, for me, has been a fair bit more difficult. Most days I haven't had energy to do much at all. Like, 2-3 out of 10 for most of the day, most days. I have spurts and bits of energy that come now and then, but they're rather hard to control and direct.

I think I just wasn't ready for it. Mentally, for some reason, I thought that we'd only have to do the thing once, and then it would be past and done, and we'd be able to move on. But the real world is a bit more complicated than that - and so are viruses! Mutation is a thing. And so here we are.

I heard somebody mentioning the other day that perhaps we'll just keep seeing the virus mutating and growing, and maybe we won't be able to keep up with it with vaccinations and the like, and we'll just have to live in lockdown from now on - it reminded me (strangely) of a race called the Quarians from the Mass Effect games. They would live all their lives in these environmental suits, could basically only eat what they can put through a straw or a tube, and all their air and everything is regulated and filtered by the suit. Maybe that's one future that we end up heading towards, but I doubt it. I guess I'm slightly more positive than that.

But this virus has certainly ravaged the world. At the moment, the recorded deaths on the WHO website are about 4.1 million. That's about 0.6% of the global population - and chances are, there are plenty of deaths that haven't been recorded, and we also aren't finished yet. And that might seem small; but for the influenza pandemic that happened about a hundred years ago, which is generally considered to have one of the highest death tolls, killed (very roughly) 1.8% of the population of the time (using an average of the death figures and population figures available online). So we're about a third of the way to being as bad as that, with all of the modern help that we have now. That's substantial.

Covid has changed the world. And it's going to continue to change the world, in more ways than I think we can understand right now. But I hope you're able to find hope amongst it. This is one bit of hope made during lockdown that I've found really lovely.

So have another cup of tea. Or hot chocolate. Or whatever it is that helps you. Find a good book. That old song you loved. Give yourself a bit more love. You need it right now.

And please. Do the right thing, folks. Stay safe. And keep others safe too.

Numbers I Like And Why

We've had some heavy-hitting posts recently, so here's a lighter and more random one to change the tone a bit.

Very occasionally on this blog, you will see me posting some maths-related content - most notably to do with the square grid problem or the associated (and harder) triangle grid problem. This is because I quite enjoy numbers, and maths puzzles, but they're also not something I think about terribly often.

But, for a fun simple post, I thought why not talk about some of the numbers that I like and why I like them. 

0 and 1 are both pretty simple numbers. I appreciate them more as symbols than anything else, I think - how they're used in binary, on or off, present or not present. So I appreciate them, but they aren't much to write home about for me.

2 is fine. It's a pair, it's a couple, it's our first even number - and also prime, which is cool! We can use it to double things, or halve things, and I'm interested in either of those. Also the only number where x + x = x^2, but you know, that's fairly self-evident. Again, it's not anything too crazy.

3, now, there's a number. Another odd prime, but get in line, 2 beat you to the punch. Also the number of trinity, so there's significance there for me spiritually. But a lot of things come in threes (when you simplify them down a bit), and in some cultures it's quite significant - black, white and grey; man, woman and child; sun, moon, and stars.

4 is great too. Our first square - no, wait, 1 beat us there. Okay, our first even square, then. It's also the number of cycles. Like the cycle of seasons, or the cycle of elements, or many others that are quite natural in our lives, and in nature - I've found that life just tends to work in these cycles.

5 always feels a bit weird. It's not doing anything too crazy, and it feels like it's mostly just a half-way point for 10. But hey, you're putting in good work, five! Also the number of Magic, of course ;)

6 isn't anything too special either. Woo, we multiplied 2 and 3! Good job everyone! Let's move on.

7 is fun, though. It's the first number where people aren't sure what the shape is called - septagon? Heptagon? Yes, they're both right! - and it's the number of people you'll inevitably have coming over for your boardgame night to try and find a game that you can all play (spoilers, I specifically made a game for this that plays with exactly 7 people, but stopped working on it years ago).

8, now, that's a cube! Our first one - 1, SIT DOWN. Will you do this every time? Dammit, 1. Yes, you're all of the powers, yay! Go sit over there again.
Anyway. Yes, 8 is a cube! And....it also sounds like "ate"?.....Okay, it doesn't have much else going for it. Actually! (coming back later) I do rather like 8 as a base, because you can halve it 4 times without getting into decimals. Though I guess if you were base 8, they'd be octimals? Anyway. It also makes 7 like our 9. What's so special about our 9? I'm glad you asked ;)

9 is pretty cool, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's our first odd non-prime. Also, in base 10 (that's the number system we use) it has the handy feature of having all its multiples have a digit sum of 9. Folks sometimes use this to remember the 9 times tables using their fingers. It also means that you can add or subtract 9 from a number as many times as you like (as long as it doesn't take you below 0) and the digit sum won't change. (The digit sum, by the way, being the number you get when you continuously add all the digits of a number together until you only have a single-digit number left.) So 9 feels a bit magical. I also kinda imagine it like a triangle of triangles? Like the triforce symbol. I tend to have shapes or symbols I associate with these lower numbers.

10 is our first two-digit number, and our first number to use 0 as a placeholder. It's a very blocky number (like 5), and it's often a good frame of reference number to give an idea of how big numbers are, up until we get to three-digit numbers. Dividing and multiplying by 10 is always nice and easy in base-10, and we're pretty happy with it.

I won't continue on with every number, but I thought I should cover each of the first digits, because they're a bit special. But then, of course, my next one is...

11, because it's my birth month! It's also our first palindromic number, and I do love a good palindrome. Also, 11^2 is a palindrome as well. And so are its third and fourth powers! But not its fifth. It stops there, it's had enough fun for now. It's also one of two numbers in English that kinda break the mould, cause it doesn't do the whole -teen thing. Probably because we used to work off a base-12 system in some older cultures (at least for some things), and the names just stuck around.

Speaking of which, 12 is around dozen, so why not. It's our first number that has multiple ways to multiply to it (apart from the obvious of multiplying by 1). It's also a neat system for doing a base off of (which is why some places still use it), since you can halve it a couple of times without it getting into decimals, or third it once without getting into decimals. I do prefer 8, though.

Then 13, the baker's dozen, the unlucky number. I actually quite like 13. It's halfway through the alphabet, it's another odd prime, both of its digits are odd....and I just kinda like it? It's also the gateway number into the teens......

16 is a square of a square, which is fun. But that's about it.

I also quite like 17, but don't have a particularly good reason for doing so. Another odd prime, I guess? And it has the digits 1 and 7, which are both decent numbers that I like. Oh, that's right, I remember now why I liked this number 😅Some mysteries can stay mysteries for the internet, at least.

21 is probably the next number that I rather like. It's 3 times 7 (both numbers I like), and still a bit of a significant number in terms of age these days for some reason? I did like my 21st birthday rather more than my 18th, but I put a bit more effort into the former than the latter, I think.

27 is my birth day, and also a cube - 3^3, which is fun! It doesn't really have too much else going for it, though, I think? But I like it.

42, because it is life, the universe, and everything - or at least, the answer to it. Apparently. Or maybe that was 54? Who knows.

And, yes, 69 - but not just for the usual reason! If you grew up with particular calculators in school, and you liked playing around with them, you may have discovered that the largest factorial (a maths function where you multiply all the positive integers up to and including that number together, represented by an exclamation mark) that the calculator could show was 69! Above that it would just give MATH ERROR. Or is that the usual reason you were thinking of, perhaps?

Those are all the ones that I can think of. There are probably other numbers that I like as well, that I've just forgotten at the moment for one reason or another. But this will do for now. Some of these numbers also remind me of people that I've known, or loved - numbers like 13, or 17, 16, or 21. Some numbers remind me of myself. And some numbers are just interesting as numbers. I hope that you have some numbers you enjoy too :)