The big news in Australia, which was even ahead of the war in Ukraine on the TV news bulletin tonight, is the absolutely massive amount of rainfall and subsequent flooding currently hitting the eastern coast. Six people are confirmed dead from floodwater incidents, and it’s feared another has died but no body has been found yet. Brisbane’s Wivenhoe Dam is now up to 180.6% capacity – from the 120% that I reported yesterday. They are doing controlled releases of water to avoid dam failure, which means it’s washing downstream towards Brisbane. There’s already flooding of central Brisbane streets from the elevated river level, and flood warnings have been issued fore many suburbs. Current estimates are that around 1500 homes will be flooded in the city tonight and tomorrow.
And that’s just the city. There are smaller towns around the region that are experiencing much worse. Some river levels are up to 22 metres above normal, and thousands of people are being evacuated.
The heavy persistent rain is set to continue for another day or so, and the weather system is moving south, into New South Wales, which is already experiencing flooding in many regions. It’s not anywhere near as bad all the way down here in Sydney, but we’ve received 250 mm of rain in the past four days, and the forecast is for another 150 mm or so in the next few days.
Besides watching the weather reports, I had the 4th class of 6 in my current run of the game design course. Today we worked on combining ideas into a playable set of game rules. The main concept the student came up with for the game is “disagreeing with everyone”. I proposed a few possibilities for how to theme it: (1) a simple party game where you propose business ideas and everyone criticises them, (2) a meeting of philosophers, who naturally can’t agree on anything, or (3) a family gathering, where everyone gets into arguments about various topics. The student chose theme 3 – so we’re now working on a game which is set at a family gathering, and the goal is to argue with all the family members.
I’ll make a first draft of the game rules and equipment—probably just a couple of decks of cards—this week and send it off to the student to playtest before our next lesson next Sunday.
New content today:
Should we be worried that this is the second time that your students chose the theme that was most antisocial?
Hmm, it’s interesting, isn’t it? We’ll see if the pattern continues next time I run the course.
Wasn’t it just recently that Australia was experiencing a continent-wide drought?
Hey, David, you’re a world traveler. I’m going to be in England for meetings next month, and I’ll have a day I can spend anywhere in the country. My first thought was Oxford, because I’m a science nerd. You’ve presumably been there several times, any suggestions from an actual scientist-turned-imaging-expert-and-artist-and-educator-and-entrepreneur? *
I’ll be spending a couple of days in London, but I have already been there several times (for the same reason, business travel). Unless there’s a hole-in-the-wall restaurant or something you recommend?
*You’ve done a few things, eh?
Yes, we were in drought a couple of years ago. That’s how it goes here, either not enough or too much rain.
Anywhere in England? Yeah, Oxford’s not bad for a science nerd, there’s the Ashmolean Museum and the Museum of the History of Science. I found Cambridge to be more attractive as a place though, and it has the Whipple Museum and Isaac Newton’s (alleged) apple tree.
Although I’m always partial to history, and in that vein I’d recommend Bath. The Roman baths and other structures are very cool. And there’s also William Herschel’s house, now a museum of astronomy. And the Jane Austen Museum if you’re into that sort of thing (my wife dragged me there, but it was actually decent).
As for London itself, no, I don’t really have any particularly interesting eateries to recommend. Other than grabbing some street food at the Borough Market, which is one of my favourite places there.