[Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View] [Friends]
Below are the 14 most recent journal entries recorded in
Irregular Webcomic!'s InsaneJournal:
| Tuesday, October 17th, 2023 | |
| 10:11 am | Irregular Webcomic! #5077  Three things: 1. I suspect like most people, I had thought it was "Moh's scale", named after some person named Moh. But no, it's "the Mohs scale" named after the German geologist Friedrich Mohs. If you learn nothing else today, at least remember this from now on. 2. I was writing this annotation immediately after the previous one on the price of mercury. I was commenting to my friends in our Discord chat about both topics, not revealing that they had come up independently while researching Irregular Webcomic! annotations, and they were desperately trying to figure out the connection between the Mohs scale and the price of mercury. What they came up with was the name coincidence between Friedrich Mohs and Freddie Mercury. 3. I couldn't remember if in the past I preferred "elven" or "elvish" as an adjective. So I searched. And of course found that I've used both. "Elven" wins slightly, with 24 usages in 17 strips (prior to the publication of this strip), while "elvish" has 11 usages in 11 strips. Even Alvissa herself is inconsistent in which one she prefers. |
| Wednesday, October 18th, 2023 | |
| 10:11 am | Irregular Webcomic! #5078  There's a reason why women were considered bad luck on pirate ships! |
| Monday, October 16th, 2023 | |
| 10:11 am | Irregular Webcomic! #5076  When being liquid is not the same thing as being a liquid. I tried finding any real world liquid assets. Crude oil costs a bit over US$80 a barrel at the moment, which is 159 litres. So pretty close to US$0.50 a litre. Mercury... well... I had serious trouble finding the market price of mercury. Firstly, apparently there's a company named "Liquid Mercury", and 90% of the hits I got trying to find the price of mercury ended up giving me that company's share price. Then I found this page on a site dedicated to metal prices, which looks very useful for historical mercury prices, until you realise it quotes the price "per flask" of mercury, and nowhere does it give any indication how much mercury is in a "flask". Wikipedia tells me a "flask" is an ancient unit of measure, used for mercury and nothing else, corresponding to 76 pounds, or a little over 2.5 litres at room temperature. But it looks like the price of mercury has gone up and down unpredictably by large amounts in recent years and that metals page only lists prices up to 2018, so who knows what price it would be today? Google searching for "How much does a flask of mercury cost" gives a whole slew of pages that seem consistent at about $135-$150... until you look closely and realise these are all homework problems for school mathematics lessons on calculating volumes. And not actual prices in any sense. Remember when you used to be able to look stuff up on the Internet?? I found another source that gives mercury prices in Australia, recent indications being about US$30,000 per ton. Now, again it doesn't say what sort of ton, but let's assume a metric ton, which converts to about 74 litres of mercury. This gives a price of US$400 a litre. But again, the price fluctuates wildly, depending on which countries are importing/exporting the substance. Anyway, after half an hour I gave up. My best guess is that mercury, while a liquid asset in the scientific sense, is a volatile one in the economic sense. |
| Sunday, October 15th, 2023 | |
| 10:11 am | Irregular Webcomic! #2493 Rerun  There was almost a continuity error in this strip. I wrote it forgetting that in the previous instalment Jane had run off away from the house. Thankfully I recovered gracefully by modifying Terry's opening line. I could have gone back and reshot photos and reconfigured the storyline, but then I wouldn't be the laziest webcomic artist ever, would I? 2023-10-15 Rerun commentary: Tasmanian devils are indeed nasty pieces of work. I'd be tempted to bet on a Tasmanian devil up against a Balrog. |
| Saturday, October 14th, 2023 | |
| 10:11 am | Irregular Webcomic! #2492 Rerun  Hey, it's a big revelation to the characters. I'm guessing none of you were terribly surprised by this discovery though. 2023-10-14 Rerun commentary: Unfortunately stopping the Nazis from conquering Europe isn't quite as easy as it might seem. Especially when you're |
| Friday, October 13th, 2023 | |
| 10:11 am | Irregular Webcomic! #5075  I was seriously wondering if perhaps the real William Shakespeare had invented the phrase "best of both worlds". But cross-referencing a bunch of website hits, it seems the idiom only appeared in the 19th century. |
| Thursday, October 12th, 2023 | |
| 10:11 am | Irregular Webcomic! #5074  When I wrote this strip, I only had one ridiculous thing in panel 2. By the time it came to assemble the photos, I had two more things to add. |
| Wednesday, October 4th, 2023 | |
| 10:11 am | Irregular Webcomic! #5068  Don't call an ancient Greek myth an ancient Greek myth to its face. |
| Thursday, October 5th, 2023 | |
| 10:11 am | Irregular Webcomic! #5069  It would have been easy to forget that Captain Ponsonby mentioned his mother-in-law in an earlier strip. So easy that one might guess that the comic author might have forgotten it when concocting the story idea that whoever returned Wendy to Jamaica would win her hand in marriage. But fortunately no reader has made such a baseless accusation. |
| Friday, October 6th, 2023 | |
| 10:11 am | Irregular Webcomic! #5070  Vampires and werewolves seem to have this natural affinity for one another in stories. Where there's one, you may as well have the other. Who can go past two monsters for the price of one? |
| Saturday, October 7th, 2023 | |
| 10:11 am | Irregular Webcomic! #2490 Rerun  I wonder why it's mostly just flame that comes in gouts. Apparently a "gout" is supposed to be just a drop or a splash, but it sounds like a lot more. I suspect the meaning is in the process of shifting, since most people seem to use it these days to mean a huge burst, not a small spurt. 2023-10-07 Rerun commentary: Apparently blood comes in gouts too. Where it probably makes more sense that it's relatively small splashes or spurts, rather than huge, vast plumes of fluid. At least hopefully. Eww. |
| Sunday, October 8th, 2023 | |
| 10:11 am | Irregular Webcomic! #2491 Rerun  It seems to be a universal fascination when meeting foreigners to want to hear them saying something in their own language. Which is weird, because in most cases where this happens by request, the listener doesn't understand a word of what was said. I guess human beings must have a liking for being completely in the dark. 2023-10-08 Rerun commentary: |
| Monday, October 9th, 2023 | |
| 10:11 am | Irregular Webcomic! #5071  Hitler was[1] a bit of a frustrated artist. He enjoyed painting, mostly in watercolours, and produced hundreds of works. Early in his life he tried to sell these to make a living, but never had much success. Art critics describe his work as technically somewhat talented when it came to representing architecture, but severely lacking in other elements, particularly natural ones such as landscapes, trees, and people. Imagine if Hitler had been a more talented artist, had achieved success in this field, and dedicated his life to art. [1] Among other things. |
| Tuesday, October 10th, 2023 | |
| 10:11 am | Irregular Webcomic! #5072  As someone who studied astronomy for my doctorate, I'm generally happy when people show some interest in astronomical phenomena. But honestly, I am so over this ridiculous "supermoon" media hype that we now get several times a year. It doesn't have any great significance and the moon barely looks any different to any other full moon. It'd be nicer if people just appreciated seeing the moon any time it's visible in the sky. |