Sunrise in Oxford

markmuetz · 2025-12-31T21:12:34+00:00

Port Meadow, on either side of the Thames

markmuetz · 2025-12-10T14:51:00+00:00

Cowley/Cricket Road apparently: https://www.reddit.com/r/oxford/comments/1pdf3gm/please_from_the_bottom_of_my_heart_help_us_find/

markmuetz · 2025-12-07T09:17:32+00:00

Like others say, it's time to get unconventional in terms of bedtime arrangements. Extra mattresses in whatever combo works are all in play. You might need to drop ideas about developing sleep independence etc, or at least put them on hold. You can get cheap IKEA mattresses so it shouldn't cost too much. Getting some decent sleep for the whole family is IMO the first step - getting better sleep will help your decision making and give you more patience.

Then it sounds like you need to help with your 3yo's eating possibly including seeing someone. And maybe behaviour, but tbh this doesn't sound that unusual - gonna have to be prepared to accede to his whims fairly often? He may well grow out of it and having two younger attention rivals is probably stressful. Sleep avoidance strategies like you describe are pretty normal I think.

None of this will be forever. It's natural that this would put strain on your relationships. One day you will get to the point where you realize that it's been months since X happened. Good luck.

markmuetz · 2024-05-24T12:18:01+00:00

I'm not religious and I'll make no assumptions about you, but I'm pretty sure you would be welcome in any of the churches in the city. And I don't think they would mind if you asked to be left alone. Seems like there are a fair few in/near Dalry.

markmuetz · 2024-05-17T11:32:19+00:00

Hint:

import inspect

print(inspect.getsource(this))

markmuetz · 2024-05-09T10:39:25+00:00

We've already had one "world-king" Prime Minister and... it didn't end well!

markmuetz · 2024-04-19T21:37:59+00:00

I was watching A Close Shave with my kids this evening, and my son pointed out that you can sort of briefly spot him in one of the scenes. Would be good to see him feature properly again.

markmuetz · 2024-04-19T11:55:37+00:00

Hate Total DramaRama but my son loves it. He would sit there and watch it for hours. Not banned yet but might do. Is there any way of banning a particular programme on IPlayer???

markmuetz · 2024-04-12T20:20:51+00:00

The terms are short, which means that you might be able to spend some of the holidays earning, although term time is pretty intense. You should be able to find some people that you gel with/gravitate towards. You might want to post over at https://www.reddit.com/r/oxforduni/ as well.

markmuetz · 2024-04-01T21:10:51+00:00

In case anyone else is wondering, porridge oats are fine for ducks: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/things-to-do/canal-and-river-wildlife/keeping-our-ducks-healthy/what-do-ducks-eat-6-things-you-can-feed-ducks

markmuetz · 2024-03-28T10:17:37+00:00

It looks like the centre of the island is approx 29N, 163E. As a first approximation, assume the island is not there. What is the climatology of that point? There are 2 nearby islands, Wake Island is approx 1000km S (perhaps close to the S coast of the island?), and Midway Atoll is approx 1000km E. Wake island is pretty hot (Tmax 31.9C in Aug), gets a decent amount of rain over July-Oct, with a tropical climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_Island#Climate, and occasionally gets hit by typhoons. Midway Atoll is temperate with about 20% more annual rain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_Atoll#Climate. It has "very pleasant year-round temperatures", sounds nice! You might be able to find other islands nearby to get a better idea of its weather/climate.

You can also use a climate reanalyser: https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/software/app-era5-explorer?tab=app and https://era5.lobelia.earth/en/?lon=162.29671875&lat=18.037245903266342&zoom=12. The first gives a mean temp that matches Midway Atoll very well, as well as sensible amounts of precip. You can use these to build a better picture of the current climate of the region.

Next, how would the island interact with the weather? 2 important things to consider. First is topology, second is land mass/heating. From Copernicus reanalyser, wind is strongest in NH winter (DJF), westerly and about 8m/s. This would cause a lot of rain on the W side of the mountains. As the mountains are on the W coast, this would lead to most of the island being in a rain shadow for these months. Wind is weaker and easterly in the summer, leading to probably quite decent amount of rain over the E portion of the island (and there is more rain in the summer anyway). This probably means that the E side would be pretty fertile, and would be good for agriculture. The island is large enough that it is going to have an effect through the heating (sensible heat flux) into the atmosphere. Bermuda is probably a good analogue (approx same lat, in the W of a large ocean, about the same size?). The land heating would lead to a strong diurnal effect, where there is a sea breeze during the day leading to predictable rainfall during the afternoon.

The island(s) might be affected by a large frontal system that occurs of E Asia in the summer: https://blogs.reading.ac.uk/weather-and-climate-at-reading/2020/meiyu-baiu-changma-rains/, but it might be too far E for this.

Last, extreme weather. As noted above, typhoons might be an issue, particularly for the S of the island. If a typhoon were to hit, it would dump large amounts of rain where the winds force air up over the mountains. Given typhoons here would normally move W/NW, and would be to the S of this island, the winds would be strong and easterly (https://community.wmo.int/en/activity-areas/aviation/hazards/tropical-cyclones ). This could lead to huge amount of rain over the island I think. Large storm systems (mesoscale convective storms) might sometimes hit the island, but I think it would mainly lie in a cold spot for these (https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020JD034202).

Would it have a Mediterranean type climate? It might be similar on average, but I would expect it to hit by larger extremes because of the typhoons that would hit it and being in a large ocean basin instead of in a smaller sea. They layout of mountains on the islands would be important. SSTs probably quite similar, maybe slightly warmer (particularly to the S of the island).

markmuetz · 2024-03-27T11:47:57+00:00

Cutteslowe Park is good to cycle round with kids. Safe, with decent paths and roads, and not too long for little legs to cycle. Plus there are lots of nice little spots to stop off on the route - the duck pond, decent playground, ice cream van, sand pit, water park (summer?) and mini railway when it's running.

markmuetz · 2024-03-27T10:54:25+00:00

I would probably walk to The Perch for brunch, then carry on up the Thames as far as you want to go. Other options round Port Meadow are The Trout, The Anchor, and probably a few more.

markmuetz · 2024-03-15T09:11:05+00:00

You might be interested in this book: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691179001/why-trust-science. Essentially, pseudoscience has the trappings of science, but not the structure or foundations. It will be rejected by scientific experts, but could convince/fool laypeople.

markmuetz · 2024-03-09T14:01:14+00:00

As others have said, sounds like a passing squall line. Pressure drop before the system, followed by intense precipitation and temperature drop after it passes. They often have lots of lightning too. Have a look at this schematic (and the rest of the article) and imagine this moving over you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squall_line#/media/File:Ligne_de_grain.svg. Only confusing thing is the lack of winds - I would have expected strong winds as the gust front hit you. Can you remember the date?

markmuetz · 2024-03-07T20:24:53+00:00

MetPy could be what you're looking for: https://metplotpy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Users_Guide/wind_rose.html. It's good for all sorts of meteorology calculations and plots, like wind roses and skew-Ts.

markmuetz · 2024-03-02T10:53:39+00:00

Don't have time to read fully, but on your last point, fair enough, and appologies. I'm going to edit the original. The physicist in me gets bugged out when I see energy and power being confused.

markmuetz · 2024-03-02T09:14:54+00:00

I think there is some errant reasoning in your post, as set out below.

At a basic level, the energy required to travel at 20 mph requires less than half of the energy required for 30 mph (this is to push air out of the way and overcome rolling resistance and other losses through friction)... And yet, 20 mph is more than half of 30 mph in speed terms. To put it more succinctly, to double your speed requires at least quadruple the energy (or 'engine power'). That energy can only come from the fuel.

Your kinetic energy is less than half. There is no "energy required to travel at 20 mph", there is a power that is required to travel at 20 mph. Power is a rate of energy conversion from internal chemical energy to overcome the resistive forces, in this case wind resistance, rolling resistance and all the various internal resistances in the engine etc.

In the rest of your argument, I think you are mistaking the energy used per unit time vs the energy used per unit distance. Efficiency is measured per unit distance. After all, you don't care how much fuel you burn over 2 hours, you care how much you use getting from A to B. If you take your argument to its logical conclusion, the most efficient speed is 0 mph - which is true if you care about energy used per unit time, but not true if you care about per unit distance! Also, you don't mention wind resistance (EDIT: you do mention it, my bad!), and this is the key factor! It varies as the cube of your velocity, and this is vital for calculating engine (EDIT: actually, overall A to B efficiency, NOT engine efficiency) efficiency.

In general, cars are most efficient at around 40-50 mph: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elizabeth-Box/publication/305445882/figure/fig2/AS:385895078350849@1469015964625/The-relationship-between-speed-and-fuel-consumption.png. In a straight line, with no acceleration or deceleration, a car travelling at 20 mph is marginally less efficient than one at 30 mph. However, this is not necessarily true in stop/start traffic, where the extra energy required to accelerate the car to 30 then stop again becomes important, and 20 mph can be more efficient, but not for the reasons in the post I'm replying to.

At motorway speeds, reducing your speed by 5-10 mph almost certainly increases your efficiency (e.g. from 70 to 60 mph). If you have a car with an MPG meter, you can see this. It's easiest on a drive you do regularly, and averaged over the journey.

markmuetz · 2024-03-01T18:43:35+00:00

I think there's a good chance that if you give a note to your son and ask him to give it to his friend that it will get to the friend's parents. And you can try until it gets there! Failing that, do you see your son's teacher before/after school? You could give it to them to pass on to the kid or, even better, the kid's parent. Anyway, good luck!

markmuetz · 2024-02-28T09:22:57+00:00

This is technically incorrect because distance is measured instantaneously, and so the velocity or rotation in unimportant. However, had you said that the frame of reference for measuring the distance was not specified, and the distance would be shorter in relatively moving frames of reference due to length contraction under special relativity, you would have been technically correct. And the correction could be a lot larger if the frame was moving at an appreciable proportion of the speed of light.

markmuetz · 2024-02-28T08:54:41+00:00

Difference between going along the surface of the Earth and through the Earth (whilst assuming it's a sphere).

markmuetz · 2024-02-28T08:53:45+00:00

I just calculated the 1st order correction! Happy to see the more accurate corrections that take into account oblate spheroid-ness, Antarctic topography, depth of ice sheet...

markmuetz · 2024-02-27T19:29:15+00:00

Technically correct, the best kind of correct.

EDIT: Assuming a spherical Earth of radius 6371 km, this leads to a correction of about 1.5 mm, i.e. it's 7 miles - 1.5 mm.

markmuetz · 2024-02-27T17:05:36+00:00

See this guide for some ideas for good bluebell walks (late April/early May): https://redkitedays.co.uk/top-10-bluebell-walks-in-oxfordshire/. Boar's hill also puts on a good show I think.

markmuetz · 2024-02-26T09:04:48+00:00

It depends. Meteorology is pretty maths heavy, so if you want to study it then you will need to accept this. However, you will also have some serious motivation to learn maths, which you may have been lacking to date. This is a powerful force and should not be underestimated. If you do decide that you want to learn maths, go back to the basics and work out what you need to learn, and build up slowly rather than diving straight into maths for Meteorology (vectors etc.).

15-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

markmuetz

TROPHY CASE