Tag: standards

Finland ISO meeting, day 1

Virtual Finland meeting, that is. I got up a bit early this morning, so I could finish breakfast and be ready to start my ISO Photography Standards meeting at 7 o’clock. There were delegates web-conferencing in from all over the USA, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, and me in Australia.

Unfortunately with people scattered across the globe, the time zone is bad for at least somebody. Last meeting, it was bad for me, having to stay awake until 2:30am every day (for five days in a row). This time it’s a decent block of time in the morning, but the people in Europe are suffering with an 11pm to 2:30am shift.

The first sessions are administrative, and we discussed the next meeting in February, which was supposed to be me hosting here in Sydney. Given the current COVID situation and the fact that there’s no end in sight to the Australian Government ban on foreign visitors entering the country, we decided to make the call and convert it to another virtual meeting. Then the question of timing came up. The chair suggested that we revert back to the timing of the last meeting, which is described as “Morning, New York time”, as opposed to this meeting’s “Evening, New York Time”.

“Morning, NYC” (last meeting) corresponds to:

  • Sydney: 11pm – 2:30am
  • Tokyo: 10pm – 1:30am
  • Europe: 3pm – 6:30pm
  • East USA: 9am – midday
  • West USA: 6am – 9am

“Evening, NYC” (this meeting) corresponds to:

  • Sydney: 7am – 10:30am
  • Tokyo: 6am – 9:30am
  • Europe: 11pm – 2:30am
  • East USA: 5pm – 8:30pm
  • West USA: 2pm – 5:30pm

I was dreading having another late night shift. And then someone pointed out that daylight saving will have changed by February… which makes the proposal to switch back to “Morning, NYC” look like this:

“Morning, NYC, DST” (southern hemisphere summer, proposed for next meeting):

  • Sydney: 1am – 4:30am
  • Tokyo: 11pm – 2:30am
  • Europe: 3pm – 6:30pm
  • East USA: 9am – midday
  • West USA: 6am – 9am

USA/Europe move back an hour and Sydney moves forward an hour, making a two hour relative time shift. Japan doesn’t have DST, so moves forward an hour relative to Europe/USA. As you can see, this proposal is not merely bad for me, it’s much worse.

(Now, there’s also the fact that alternating between these two schedules alternately screws Sydney/Tokyo or Europe, but never screws anyone in the USA. But there are so many delegates in the USA that the idea of a schedule where Europe/Sydney/Tokyo get decent times and everyone in the USA has to stay up until 3 in the morning on whatever didn’t seem to be considered as a serious option, alas.)

Anyway, I had a go at proposing an alternative schedule for the southern summer meeting:

“Evening, NYC, DST” (southern hemisphere summer):

  • Sydney: 7am – 10:30am
  • Tokyo: 5am – 8:30am
  • Europe: 9pm – 12:30am
  • East USA: 3pm – 6:30pm
  • West USA: midday – 3:30pm

This keeps things same for me, makes Tokyo have to get up a bit early, but also has the big advantage of pulling Europe into an almost reasonable timeslot. It’s actually not terrible for anybody. The timing will be discussed and finalised later this meeting. I’m hoping some sort of sanity prevails and we can have this schedule for February, and then I’d be happy (or at least resigned) to go back to the “Morning NYC” schedule for the next meeting in the southern winter.

Assuming it’s still virtual that is. The June 2021 meeting is currently scheduled for Okayama in Japan, and I’m hoping we might possibly be able to do it face-to-face by then.

I’ll let you know how it goes as this meeting continues.

New content today:

Virtual Finland

I should be in Finland right now. If not for COVID-19, I would be. My next ISO Photography Standards meeting was scheduled for Tampere in Finland, beginning Monday. But of course it’s been converted to an online meeting, so I’m still at home. I was really looking forward to this one too, because I’ve never visited Finland.

Normally for these meetings I travel to arrive a couple of days early, to give myself time to do some sightseeing. Sightseeing helps with the jetlag, because I stay awake all day despite any tiredness and crash into bed in the evening. I use this method whenever I travel and it works reasonably well for me.

So, today I should have been sightseeing in Tampere. Instead, my wife and I went over to her sister’s new place. She recently moved house, so we went over to have a look at the new place. It was raining moderately heavily this morning, and we got a bit wet, but it was good to visit and see the place.

We got home, had lunch, took Scully for a run in the park, and played some Codenames Duet campaign games – winning Paris, but losing twice at the more difficult Madrid.

This week I have the virtual meeting. After last time, when it was at a time that meant I had to stay up late, they’ve shifted the time zone for this meeting. This time it’s on from 07:00 to 10:30 in my time zone, so it’s much more convenient. But because Australia is so far east, it’s actually on from Tuesday-Saturday in my time zone.

New content today:

Veg day

Today was very lazy. After the mental exertions of yesterday, I didn’t feel particularly inspired to do much today, and spent a lot of time just goofing off and browsing websites. It was also very cold again which prompted me not to venture outdoors. I ended up getting very cold just sitting at home and had some mugs of liquorice tea to warm up.

I did write a bit of Darths & Droids with some help from co-authors via online chat. Oh, and the main thing I got done was going through a bunch of emails and documents for ISO photography standards that have built up over the past few weeks. So I had some technical reading to do.

Oh, I got some good news today! An email from a Kickstarter I backed over a year ago for some gaming dice, that estimated delivery of rewards by September 2019. The campaign organiser said that the rewards are now shipping! A year late, but I do have to credit the organiser with providing regular informative updates and assurances that the project had not been dropped. The problem was with their supply chain and not directly themself, so I don’t blame them. And I’m now looking forward to getting my hands on those dice.

New content today:

Late Games Night post

It’s Saturday morning already and this is a catch-up post for last night, when it was our fortnightly board games night. Again we played virtually, using Board Game Arena to begin with. I played games of Kingdomino, Downforce, 7 Wonders (several games), and 6 Nimmt, before we moved on to skribbl.io, which is essentially an online version of Pictionary. I didn’t win any of the games – which is pretty usual for me as some of my friends are much more competitive and thus motivated to be a lot more careful with their strategy. I did come second in one game of 7 Wonders, which I’m happy with.

On Friday morning I had a Zoom meeting with Standards Australia for the follow-up to the ISO Photography meeting I had back in June. This is to brief the Australian photography experts on what happened during the (virtual) New York meeting, as well as to deal with some local Australian photography standards business (such as officially adopting recent ISO amendments, etc).

After that I took Scully for a walk to the fish & chips shop, to get myself some fish & chips for lunch. Then I spent the afternoon cleaning the car after last weekend’s road trip. Since it rained heavily, and we had Scully in and out of the car, it was pretty dirty, with mud in various places inside the car, as well as on the exterior. For the first time I actually removed the floor mats and washed them with detergent and hosed them off.

And in other news, a COVID alert was issued for my local supermarket, for anyone who shopped there between 10:30 and 11am on Monday. I shopped there on Monday morning, and I was there around 10:30, although I can’t remember if I’d left before 10:30 or was there for a few minutes afterwards. So it’s possible I was there at the same time as someone who has since tested positive. Official advice is that the risk of transmission is low, and to monitor for symptoms, but not to self-isolate and test immediately. Still, it’s too close to home, and a bit scary.

New content today:

Standards reporting

Today was a day to work on writing my report for the recent ISO Photography standards meeting – the one that I attended virtually and had to stay up to 2am each night for four nights a few weeks ago. Part of my role in this is to prepare a report for Standards Australia on all of the things discussed at the meeting. So I basically worked on that for much of the day. Got it finished a bit after dinner.

I’m going well with reading the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book 6 in Italian. I’m up to page 72, and there are 216 pages, so that’s exactly a third of the way through. I’m definitely noticing that as I work my way through these books I’m having to look up fewer words, and I can work out the meanings of more unfamiliar words by context without needing to look them up.

New content today:

Recovery Saturday

The ISO Photography Standards meeting concluded late last night. I’ve now spent the past 4 nights staying up until 2am (really a bit later, since I need to brush my teeth and get ready for bed after that), and waking up some time between 7 and 8 am, so I’m really surviving on limited sleep. So today was a relax and recover day, punctuated only by necessary housework.

I spent some time writing new Irregular Webcomic! strips. I’m now ready to photograph the remainder of the batch I began during the week.

That was about it really. It’s now just after 8pm and I’m ready for bed…

New content today:

3 nights down, 1 to go

The Thursday night of my ISO standards meeting was a little tougher , because I was a bit more tired, but also a bit easier in that the technical discussion was on topics closer to my ow expertise and interests than the previous night, so it was easier to pay attention and not drift off. I slept from 2:15 to about 8:30, so barely over 6 hours, which is about what I’ve had the past three nights.

This morning I did a big grocery shop, took Scully for a walk.

The final night of the meeting is about to begin, and I’m prepared with some chocolate peanut butter cake to boost my blood sugar levels for the next few hours.

Tonight is actually fortnightly board games night with my friends, and we’re still meeting virtually for that. So I’ve been able to stay up playing games until the ISO meeting begins at 11pm.

New content today:

2 nights down, 2 to go

I was up again until 2am last night, attending the ISO Photography Standards meeting being held virtually with delegates all around the world. I managed okay, staying alert for all of the technical discussions and contributing some comments. Which I hope were coherent and insightful.

So that’s two nights down, and tonight and Friday to go. I woke up this morning when my wife got up, and didn’t really manage to sleep in at all, so it was only about 5 hours sleep. I can manage on that for a few days, but it’ll all catch up with like a ton of bricks at some point. I just hope I can last to the end of the meeting first.

I’ve taken it a bit easy today, at least mentally. I went for a couple of walks to get some sunlight and fresh air, and I’ve spent a bit of time trying to write more comic scripts.

For lunch today I walked to the local fish & chip shop, and looking at their menu I decided to go fully retro and order stuff I haven’t had for years. I got a fish cake and a battered sav, plus some potato scallops. They even had Chiko rolls on the menu, but I didn’t opt for one of those. The potato scallops were excellent, but I understand why I haven’t bothered with fish cakes or battered savs for many years. I enjoyed it in a “this is nostalgic” sort of sense, but not so much in a culinary sense. Ah well.

New content today:

Getting back up to speed

I was up to 2am last night, with my ISO Photography Standards meeting, as explained yesterday. The meeting chair kept things moving and was meticulous with keeping discussion to time, so we didn’t go late, and the meeting ended as scheduled at 2am Sydney time (midday in New York City). By the time I brushed my teeth and otherwise prepared for bed it was about 20 minute past – an incredibly late night for me.

I woke this morning around 7am, since one late night isn’t enough to trigger a change of morning rising habit, so I didn’t get a normal night’s sleep. So now as late evening approaches, I’m pretty tired already…. but have to stay up again and participate in technical discussion until 2am all over again. I just have to keep the finish line of Friday night in mind.

Today I worked on a new batch of Irregular Webcomic! strips – the first new ones I’ve been able to make since I injured my hand. I didn’t have time to write a normal full batch of 20 strips (4 weeks worth), only managing to write 10 before I decided I had to go ahead and start photographing and assembling, because I need new strips ready for tomorrow night’s update when the guest strips sent by Chris Burke run out.

Normally I take the photos when my wife and Scully are out of the house, because it involves a big mess all over the living room floor as I lay out all my Lego boxes. However with my wife working from home at the moment due to COVID-19, it’s difficult to find such times. Fortunately today was Scully’s 6-weekly grooming appointment at the dog groomer. So I dropped her off and then rushed through taking the Lego photos while she at least was out of the house.

The dog groomer moved premises recently, and this was the first time we’d been to the new premises. It’s really nice, in a more modern building (the move was because the previous building is going to be demolished for redevelopment), with more space for the all the dogs in daycare. Scully was a bit nervous at first because she didn’t know what this new place was about, but as soon as she recognised the groomer she was happy.

Now, to kill another hour or so and then try to stay alert through three hours of technical standards work…

New content today:

Improving my handicap

This morning I played golf for the first time since injuring my hand. I met a friend for a round at the “par 3 pitch and putt” course we’ve played several times. Last time we played match play with me having a relative handicap of 17, and I won, so this time we reduced my handicap to 16. It was a tight contest, and my friend could have tied the round and forced us into a play-off hole by winning the 18th, but we halved the hole, and so I ended up on slightly more points, winning again. Next time we’ll reduce my handicap another stroke to 15.

My putting wasn’t great, but I made up for it with some good tee shots. One tee shot landed on the green and rolled gently past the hole, maybe 10 centimetres away, although it didn’t stop until a couple of metres past the hole – but it had been darn close to going in.

And the good news is that my left hand held up well. I was able to play all the strokes with as much strength as I wanted, without any problem or pain.

Tonight I have to stay up until 2am, because I have an online meeting for ISO photography standards. This meeting was scheduled for New York City this week, but obviously with the COVID-19 situation I’m not able to travel there, nor are most of the other delegates. ISO is holding all meetings virtually at the moment, currently until at least the end of September. Which means it affects our next meeting as well, which was scheduled for Tampere in Finland in September. The meeting after that I am actually supposed to be hosting right here in Sydney, in February, but it remains to be seen whether that will go ahead face-to-face or virtually.

Anyway, because this week’s meeting is notionally hosted in New York City, the agenda schedule is on New York time. Normally it would be 9-5, which corresponds to 11pm to 7am for me – just about maximally awful. Especially given I am not in any way a night owl – I work best in the morning and start getting too tired to do much of anything by about 9pm. But fortunately the organiser decided that the meetings could be compressed into 9-12 New York time, meaning 11pm to 2am for me. Which is better (both for me and the numerous Japanese delegates), but it means we have to extend into an extra day, so I have these hours Tuesday, Wednesday Thursday, and Friday night (normally the meeting would go over just three days).

So… honestly I’m not looking forward to having to concentrate on highly technical content in an online meeting lasting until 2am, four nights in a row. But I’m just going to have to knuckle down and power through it, and hopefully catch up on sleep on the weekend.

New content today: