iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

haha! What about pineapples they have spiral-tiled skin, are they always left-handed or right-handed spirals or are they racemic enantiomorphs? Sweet with a sweet hard core. Oh I know – romanesco! Deliciously mathy at all scales you may never finish it.

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Or you could just get the kids to make your flyer

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Aha, an old bookshop. Abandon time all ye who enter. "Chamber's Seven-Figure Mathematical Tables, 1878". Amazing. They would have been computed by assistants, probably women. Oh well, at least I have rescued one book from the AI shredder!

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Through the misty arches... across the 150th meridian east... what lies beyond?

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I wondered if that was just a preserved facade, there seem to be quite a few of those. Yesterday I tried unsuccessfully to find the 'Collins Street, 5pm' building in the 1955 painting by Brack at the NGV. Ironically the faded sign in the painting is 'Bank of New South Wales'.

Collins St., 5 pm, a 1955 painting by Australian artist John Brack at the NGV. My photo

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Oh that is too bad, the Tugatinah power station was a lovely art deco building. Glad I took a picture 2/5/2026 returning from Queenstown to Hobart. At the time it was not possible to try a better angle because the area was fenced off for works. (I've got pictures from previous years...somewhere.)

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Must have been amazing on the railmotor from Narrandera, crossing the vast Murrumbidgee floodplain on the trestle viaduct.

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Lucky me! At that moment a three Pacific National loco looooong loaded container train drew out of the Sun Rice factory, onto the triangle then onto the up main and away! Where was it going?

3 Pacific National locomotives haul a loaded train out of the Sun Rice factory at Leeton, NSW

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Meanwhile, back on the open branch line, the extraordinary Leeton station sits in a hyperbolic triangle of rails! If you ever make it within you are imprisoned! I know this because it happened in a 1960s superman comic. Abandon hope all ye jokers who think they can escape from Leeton by train!

Leeton station, NSW, sits within a hyperbolic triangle of rails

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

How to lay rails across the vast Murrumbidgee flood plain: Fell the enormous river red gums along the surveyed route as you go, and rearrange the logs into a trestle viaduct. The sleepers and some cross-timbers are sawn, but of outsized dimension! The rails are still in place. #railways #heritage

Timber trestle railway viaduct spans the vast Murrumbidgee river flood plain

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Pessimists who gloomily drive old cars beware. Kangaroos have a particular dislike of Morris Minors.

Roadside sign with cartoon-ish outline of giant kangaroo lifting up what appears to be a Morris Minor with its feet.

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Naww... There is a topiary steam engine at Railton! Nice town. The old railway station is in need of some TLC, and yes the town itself was constructed as a railway town so there is unrealized potential. The line itself is still in business tho.

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Just a rake of three Abt rack engines steaming through the Tassie wilderness, nothing special. #trains #railways

Three Abt rack engines all coupled and in steam on a test run near Queenstown, Tasmania

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

More little fractal frosticles on the windscreen this morning, but fog has descended so not as sparkly as yesterday

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Oho, something new on an Aussie country pub menu! Galway Spice Bag: fried chicken, chips, McDonnell's curry sauce, onion, capsicum, Chinese sauce. So of course I absolutely had to order this culinary marvel!

Aussie country pub menu has got something new: Galway Spice Bag

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Interestinger and interestinger. Revitalised. Raised from the dead. This miracle I must witness!

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Another warm tropical winter morning in Canberra. Great fun it were, thoughtlessly stepping barefoot down the back to put the recycling out.

The temperature is minus 5 at 7:10 am in Canberra

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Well...um. Nothing a few hardwood beams wouldn't fix. Stay tuned for next week's forward-thinking green engineering solution. Recycle, re-use, we are told! The old gasometer is just to the left.

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

The disused river bridge on the old Yass Tramway is of massive proportions, hugely over-engineered. I wonder what its story is? Never mind, I have a brill idea – why not re-purpose it to bridge the sad and sorry Victoria pass causeway? There, fixed it! None of the big-talkers on FB thought of THAT!!

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

NSW Transport has put up quite a good layperson summary of the Victoria pass causeway collapse and the new structure to be overlaid. A delicate operation indeed! Meanwhile, dawn breaks next door at Clarence and the road is clear... #engineering #rail www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system/files...

Dawn breaks at old Newnes junction on the main western line of NSW – view from the driver's cab

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Check out Jupiter and Venus cosying up in the evening sky! Feelin lucky to be able to walk home from work. You wouldn't see - or at least enjoy and photograph - that piece of astronomy from a car, or standing in the tram.

Jupiter and Venus in the evening sky, on my walk home from work in Canberra

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Pareidolia 12500 m above the south China sea. Well, anyway, the cloud formation looked like a crocodile seconds before I took the picture.

Pareidolia. 12500 m above the south China sea. Cloud structure looks like a crocodile.

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

The Abt engines are given the the third degree in the workshops before being allowed out

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Well here is a west coast railway for you! No safety compromises with an Abt rack system. Tasmania.

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

A tiny octagonal prism of a shop! Be funny if it sold hexagons such as honeycomb or pineapples. Nature doesn't seem to do octagons much. Perhaps it sells nested octagonal coffee tables, this being a very retro-trendy town.

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Unpleasant sign of the week. Time for loud tweenagers with skateboards to invade these *premises*, I think.

Unpleasant sign on building reads 'CHILDREN NOT ALLOWED TO PLAY ON THESE PREMISES'.

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

'the Chairman compared the design to a platypus, saying it would reduce noise and vibration, especially when it enters tunnels.' Uh... I guess... I have just the level crossing sign for them, tho! #trains #railways

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Ah. What's on the in-flight menu. Dynasty Culinary Passions. Huh? Why the bloody hell would you serve porcini mushrooms with fried rice? More AI slop, literally. There's no escape.

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

Leaves on the line. Train is late! Will the Derwent valley railway ever see a train again? Watch this space. #trains #railways #autumn

Derwent valley railway line covered with autumn leaves

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Generously proportioned. Comfy hardwood bench seat at Hobart airport, thoughtfully shaped in bas relief, holds backsides of all sizes.

Hardwood seat at Hobart airport in backside bas relief

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Tassie roadside sign of the week. Beware. Giant kangaroos will scoop up your Morris Minor and kick it into the lake, with you in it. Hmm. You'd think Tasmania would modernize its jalopy fleet. The all-new Morris Minor EV should do the trick! Bounce faster than the roos! #wildlife #roads #cars

Roadside sign in Tassie seems to show a giant kangaroo up-ending a Morris Minor

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

They have fuller full moons in Tassie, too. So *they* say. Taswegians are so fulla shite. #moon

Full moon sails above mount Owen, Queenstown, Tasmania

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Poor old Abt rack locomotive, Mount Lyell No. 5, is in steam again. As far as I can tell, it is dismantled into a thousand pieces and re-mantled about every three months in the workshops. Seems a bit excessive. Oh well, what would I know. They do engines differently in Tassie. #trains #railways

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Is that Mount Doom? Mount LOOM, at any rate. Did they astroturf the foreground or something. Typical, absolutely bloody typical ugly Tasmania #landscapes #nature #mountains

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

Damn good nosh in Tassie, tho. Trad. Authentic. In Oz, wherever there is a regional food specialty the local bakery puts it in a pie, and soon the curried version appears! One of the best (I mean, of course, worst) is the Curried Corned Beef & White Sauce Pie - far N Qld, where else! #food

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

Now, platyPI Are incredibly shy, I waited an AGE for one to come by, The stars were beginning to appear in the sky! When - It did not. That is the sort of place Tasmania is. Shocking, I tell you. #wildlife

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Oh *honestly*. Tasmania is AWFUL. Don't come here. Landscapes like this are a bloody disgrace. Railway bridge too, we hates railways. #nature #railways

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

Aww...very nice, but here is the REAL Croydon Railway Station! 😀

Croydon railway station, NW Qld, with the famous Gulflander ready to depart on its 94-mile journey west to Normanton

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

O the jewels that appeared on my front path overnight! Wealth beyond belief! I am richer than all the billionaires in the world combined! You are too - just look around! #nature

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Here is a 7 for you! A 77 in fact! The bar at 77 Northbourne avenue. That wonderful second digit, protective of the first! A 7 does not need to be crossed to be fascinating! That is how I do 7s on the chalk board now.

The extra angles in the second 7 at 77 Northbourne Avenue, Canberra

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

May the railways never change! A living, working museum

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Rowena Ball @rowena-mathscieng.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

I do not like this hole in the pavement. I do not like it one bit. Ow, that is not a nice hole.

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