Monthly Archives: August 2014

Bananas

Digital art

Bananas 8AUG2014Sylvia Szucs created this original digital painting on You Paint, the package included on a Dell computer, inspired by her own plantain patch. Actually , this was an exercise in how to utilize this software which came as part of the computer packaging. I came back to an initial attempt to copy a picture, which was totally a disaster.  Then I just played with what the software will do.

Five comments:

  1. One has to learn how the software and mouse react.
  2. The capacity is not huge in this simple child’s You Paint software.   It crashes under too great complexity.
  3. I feel a little under the influence of various needleworks.
  4. This also came out partially stained-glass like.
  5. There are always constraints on what we do.  I do not mind some constraints.
  6. Removal of recent errors is easy.  Recent changes can be undone.

 

Silent Auction

Fund Raising,

Silent Auction Item 8AUG2014-page-001 This is a set of bidding sheets to fit onto an 8 by 11 inch piece of paper when printed, simplified.  An advantage of these sheets are the ir small size, which permit more items to be laid out on a table.

I contributed:

  • The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones
  • A jarred brownie mix
  • A jarred fruited nutted oatmeal mix for two
  • A gallon of nearly organic spray weed killer with a  spray bottle
  • A larger hand crocheted doily, my take on an existing design
  • A cute little granny square bookmark, blue and white

All of the above items sold.  I was pleased that I overheard positive feedback from the weed killer and the small bookmark.

I also took the following items which did not sell:

  • 9 hand crocheted hot mats
  • One pair of booties
  • Two doilies of my own design, not completely worked out in terms of lying flat, though I like them
  • Two hand crocheted nylon scrubbies

These are some lessons I learned:

Instead of arriving about an hour early, I would get there about three hours early to help set up.

I would have my little sheets pre-filled out.  ( I am very prone to underestimating how long it takes to do simple tasks.)  I would take my time and write on them neatly.

I would try to get the more inexpensive items place at the front.

A lot of people did not buy anything, even inexpensive items.

I would participate more in the bidding.

I would make more effort to speak with everybody, and try to get to know more participants.

I also took a dessert.  (Actually two, and one would have been enough.)  Marshmallows make a hard-to-cut surface.  Brownies and lemon squares can be made a day in advance.

I would make more showy  small things like the book mark for $1, and some totally solid thing for pot holders and coaster sets.

I would make round, none-curling scrubby,  soap holders.

Try not to forget something you have prepared.  I forgot  a loaf of plantain bread.

Keep working up ideas.

 

 

 

Multiplication Exercise And Lumosity

Brain, Education, Exercise, ,

Multiplication table, 20 by 18 When I printed out the form on yesterday’s post, it was missing the last two columns on the right, and since there was exactly room for them, I manually added them by ruler.  Then I filled out the multiplication table, by multiply  the number on the top by the number on the left, and writing the result in the box where the columns and rows intersect.

 

DSC03809 The upper left quadrant is what my father had me fill out when I was six.  The upper right quadrant is less familiar territory, where I multiplied the larger numbers along the top by the smaller number on the left.  I did these in my head.  If it did not come easily, and I wasn’t sure I checked myself by calculator.  Write-overs mostly indicate that I had more difficulty performing that calculation in my head, and had to correct a number that I had written down.

The work fell into four quadrants:

Quadrant                                         Number of write-overs

  1. Upper Left                                         0
  2. Upper Right                                      9
  3. Lower Left                                       14
  4. Lower Right                                    30

This is a surprisingly good exercise to refresh one’s practice of multiplication.

Observations during this exercise:

In Quadrant 1, it came easier to multiply the larger number by the smaller number in reciprocal pairs.   For example it came easier to multiply 3 X 8 than 8 x 3, both of which are 24.   The order in which you multiply numbers does not change the outcome.  This is called the commutative law, and it applies to both addition and multiplication.

Quadrant 2 has the same multipliers as Quadrant 3,  only Quadrant 2 multiplies the larger number by the smaller number, and Quadrant 3 multiplies the smaller number by the larger number.  As you can see from the larger number of write-overs in Quadrant 3, 14 as opposed to nine in Quadrant 2, it was a little harder to multiply the smaller number by the larger one

Quadrant 4, with its 30 write-overs, multiplied two larger than accustomed numbers, and so it is not surprising that mental calculations were more than twice the other write-overs combined.

DSC03808 My Lumosity performance results over time show that after a few months of steady improvement, I have more or less leveled off in over all, and I want to see if this multiplication practice will improve my performance in any of the categories, and permit renewed increasing Lumosity performance.