Remote Learning VII: Last Day

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(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

The whole remote process was a hairy situation for a while.

Is it over, or just paused? I can't say at this time. Summer school will be remote certainly, but there is no certainty about what fall brings.

As for the hair jokes, I was ready to give all the characters hair cuts this week even if I wasn't able to get one myself, because it was getting to be too much to draw too much of it. Thankfully, I was able to. I showed up Wednesday morning at 7:55 am, and by 8:05, there were three people waiting in the shop with two more waiting in a car out front. We all had the same idea.

The oddest part of this comic was trying to find a suitable font that was readable when small. I wasn't Courier or System, but neither would appear that small. And Arial just looked wrong. I guess I could've tried shrinking the text and touching it up, but I don't imagine that would be time well spent.

Summer vacation, on the other hand, I plan on being time well spent. At least, some of the time it will be.

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School's Out

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(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

But are those students or teachers?

Here in NYC, school ends at the end of the week, even though, for all intents and purposes ("intensive purposes" for those in some sectors of social media), it's been over for a while. And, I'm not referring to the fact that the school buildings themselves have shut down. School life changed after that, but it didn't end.

As for boredom, my brother-in-law brought my nephew over to use our pool yesterday (during "recess") while I was inside working. The little one was so bored while sitting in the sun, drying off, that he actually called his mother (working from home) to ask her what he could do. Seriously.

Another "building" comic, and it wasn't as quick to make as I imagined. Not that I thought it would be easy because I knew I'd want to put some detail into it. If I reuse these buildings, I'll add more.

House like these have popped up in my neighborhood for a few decades now, but really hit their stride, I think, about 15 years ago. (There were some legal changes that forced designs like this, and others that forced many of them into existence in a short span of time. Literally, nearly an entire block in my neighborhood was transformed into their dwellings in about a six-month period.) I thought them ugly back then, and lacking in character, but newer constructions tend to look worse. It take a while for aesthetically-pleasing to catch up with functional and legally-compliant.

Part of the reason the character of the neighborhood has to change, of course, is to comply with newer regulations. For the most part, this is a good thing. For example, homes now have better access, at least on ground floors. On the other hand, they have problems with parking. Most of these have room for one or two cars to park out front, but each other removes a couple of spaces of curbside parking. Basically, it's a wash, unless the resident with the spot doesn't own a car.

Anyway, I wasn't planning on complaining about construction. I just wanted to point out that rows of buildings like these aren't atypical around here. On the other hand, lots of kids inside them might be. I have no idea how big these units are, but they really can't be very big.

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Coffee Temperature

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(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

When the pot has been sitting there long enough -- and there's still some in it -- you can nuke it, or add ice.

And, of course, I'm not dumping coffee that I went out and paid to have prepared for me! (Unless it was swill to begin with.)

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Happy Fathers Day 2020

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(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

I was going to make a joke that Grandpa couldn't make it up the ladder -- and then I realized that after 12 years, I've never drawn a ladder into the pool.

I checked on many of the "dad jokes" that I've posted on reddit, and I discovered that I all the ones that I can probably illustrate. Well, there was one more.

After that, it would be borrowing other people's dad jokes. But, really, don't they belong to the world? Well, probably not. But a lot of Dads think alike.

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Remote Viewing

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(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

Kids! Where would Dads be without them? Well, they wouldn't be Dads, I guess.

The fact that I haven't used a "remote control" joke yet surprises me. But it's probably coming soon enough.

I've thought about this "exterior House" approach for a while. I've seen it done in other comics. It made sense here so I wouldn't have to invent a new character (i.e., Bibi's father).

In case I don't get to post a comic on Sunday, Happy Fathers Day! to all the Dads out there.

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Combinations

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(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

Math teachers! They're worse than kids!

And don't even tell him about the ready-made cominations on the back of the menu. That'll just confuse things more -- especially if there are options.

Assuming the problem on the left corresponds to the items on the menu, then there are 4032 different combinations that can be made. Assuming that Mike hates exactly half the appetizers and then skips ordering dessert, the number of combinations is reduced to 252, which, of course, is 1/16 of the original amount, or nearly a 94% reduction.

And the kids are actually easier. They're such picky eaters. They get the same thing every time, or pick one of maybe 3 or 4 things.

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Online Engagement

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(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

They always know more than they think they know because they have so many other tools in their kit if they look to use them.

I've been wanting to do something like this since the lockdown began. The question was how to do it. At one point, I thought about just using their houses, which would imply that they all lived on the same street, which maybe they do. And then I thought about gaming -- but that meant recreating that environment. It was a while before it occured to me that I only needed to create a sense of the environment, and not copy the world itself. As it is, the landscape for this comic was proably twice the size as what I used.

I tagged this as a "School Life" comic, even if it doesn't fit that format. But the time I was done, I knew I wasn't squeezing it down to the dimensions I usually use.

For what it's worth, I did want to have more story lines involving the students this scholatic year, even if I hadn't plotted out exactly what those stories would be. Whatever they might have been, everything had to be put on hold before being scrapped for this year.

Ironically -- and this may still come up -- the last time Daisy appeared, she was comfortable enough to make eye contact with someone. The next step would've been attempting to allow someone to hold her hand. And then the lockdown occured. Timing is everything.

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Guest Comic: Irregular Webcomic

A couple of weeks ago, David Morgan-Mar of Irregular Webcomic suffered a hand injury which make creating comics that required the manipulation of LEGO minifigures and photographing of same a little difficult to say the least. Rather than go into reprints, it was suggested that he should run guest comics.

The call went out on Twitter, and luckily, I saw the tweet.

I still have some LEGO blocks and figures in the basement which come out when my nephew comes over. (Mostly, just then. That's the ticket.) I went through them, looking for ideas, and taking pictures.

As that Friday evening played out, I wound up occupied with other things and didn't get back downstairs to clean up. The following morning, my darling wife approached me, and rather than being angry or disgusted that I left a mess downstairs, she was practically giggling wondering what I was doing, setting up the blocks when my nephew wasn't here.

After telling her about the comics, she suggested, which I had thought about as well, that I should involve my nephew, Mikey, as he might get a kick out of it. And, let's face it, he has a much more extensive LEGO collection than I do!

Later that Saturday, we were in his backyard with his LEGO table and figures (with some of mine as well), and we set up a couple more comics. And then I took more pictures as he "flew" around with some of my pieces. Let's face it, at seven years old, he's not composing four-panel stories, with or without punchlines.

Anyway, the first strip posted yesterday, at https://www.irregularwebcomic.net/4275.html".

Did I say "first"? Why, yes I did. I submitted a few of them. I don't know how many he'll use, or how many other comic creators stepped forward to submit guest strips, which run Monday through Friday. I'll keep you up to date.

Historical note: when DMM previously decided to stop making comics, he asked some of the webcomic people of the day to create guest strips. I had one back then, too: https://www.irregularwebcomic.net/3195.html.

Crown Polyhedron

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(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

Silly two-dimensional child.

Actually, Trapezoid Rule was established back in 2011. I guess the times are changing. Or transforming.

A shoutout (out, not at) has to go @GWOMaths (Great Women of Mathematics) on Twitter. A recent post had a question about Noble Disphenoids, which I, of course, had to look up. This led to reading up on crown polyhedra, antiprisms, and other mathy goodness.

One thing I have to say about trapezoids over crown polyhedra: they are soooooo much easier to draw.

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Mr. Burke Walks ... aka Walkin' in Brooklyn

With the weather getting warmer, I've started to get more walking time in (even if I have to wear a mask to do it). And a little over a year ago, I started tracking my routes around Brooklyn on a map -- using MS Paint, of course, because what else would I use, right?

In the past six months or so, these walks have gotten longer, pushing past the usual mile or two, as I ventured farther from home or job sites. I discovered how (relatively) short a trip it is from Williamsburg to Barclays Center, for example.

And when I remember, I take pictures of interesting things I saw.

So, with time on my hands, I started Yet Another Blog. We'll see how long this lasts, but I have enough photos to keep it up through the summer.

Rather than call it "Mr. Burke Walks", keeping with a theme of mine, I gave it the title "Walkin' In Brooklyn". I left off the final g to make it sound more Brooklyn ... and because the name wasn't available. Stop by.

And, by the way, I lied. I don't really have time on my hands. I just don't allocate it the way that I should.

(x, why?) Mini: Sewing Circle

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(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

S is obviously the North-South axis, and W is obviously the East-West axis. Now, if e and i are the actual constants, it gets interesting.

Believe it or not, I actually debated whether or not to put parentheses around ng. On the one hand, if I didn't I might get comments or complaints. On the other side, nobody leaves comments any way, so maybe I should do that. On the gripping hand, I'd like to get a third mechanical arm, but that's neither here nor there.


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Pool Temperature

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(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

Temperature of: Ice < Cans < Pool Water < Warm Body < Outside of Pool

Mike's original final line was supposed to be something like "Not as cold as your analysis", but then I realized that a range of values would be better. The snag was trying to use "hot" in a way that was supposed to mean "as sexy as when we first met" that didn't sound like "you look overheated yourself". I'm not sure if I succeeded in that.

Sharon's "bursting" dialogue in the center was going to be a math gag for below the comic, but I decided to just squeeze it in. As well as it could be squoze.


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(x, why?) Mini: Crisis on Infinite Dimensions

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(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

If that dodecahedron is binary, then it's showing a 5 on the face facing us.

The antiprism is a bit twisted, and I hope the shading gives it a perception of a three-dimensional solid, not a two-dimensional envelope. A square antiprism consists of two parallel square bases, but one is rotated (in this case) 45 degrees compared to the other. Instead vertical faces composed of rectangles, the two bases are separated by triangles.

I was originally going to use a hexagonal prism and antiprism, but then I realized that I was using the Platonic Solids anyway, so I just used the Cube.

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Work Outstanding

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(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

Last Known Whereabouts: Polar region.

Outstanding work vs Work outstanding

One of the problems with email, and written correspondence, in general, is the loss of inflection and tone, and the immediate feedback to see if you were understood or not.

Not everyone is married to an English teacher.

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Also Known As

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(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

(C)Copyright 2020, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

Last Known Whereabouts: Polar region.

Known Associates: some folks that live with sin.

As long as I'm bringing the characters back, I might as well get some use out of them. Right?



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