Club logo image is missing

Veterans Golf Club of Victoria

Webmasters Preamble

Remembering that our Club is a Social and Golf Club I added these Keep in Contact pages to the web site to help us through the Corona Virus shutdown and to maintain the Club in our lives.

At the moment these Keep in Contact pages are being updated daily with new jokes or Club chit chat. But more of the chit chat needs to come from members. When you read this consider putting finger to keyboard and tell us something as your contribution.

Anything you provide may be sanitised for the sensitive but otherwise published unadorned.

Again file size is getting significant, so I've moved the first half of May to here.

Golf allowed again as of 13th May.


15th May 2020 - The internet: (4) text styles Click here if bored

Modifying text appearance using Style

As we saw in the first item about HTML files, the appearance of items in HTML is controlled by using descriptors such as <p>---</p> to surround an item and thereby tell the browser how to display that item.

In practice there can only be a limited number of these descriptors and so a means of defining a style to set the appearance of an item with a given descriptor was defined.

Modifying appearance of indivdual items

Firstly we'll look at how the appearance of individual text items are controlled by 'styles' and we do that for a sample of paragraph definitions:

Colour

Let's start with setting the colour (naturally we have to use the USA spelling, since the whole system is basically USA financed)

  • Paragraph <p style="color: red;">This is red text</p> appears as:

    This is red text

  • Paragraph <p style="color: orange;">This is orange text</p> appears as:

    This is orange text

  • Paragraph <p style="color: purple;">This is purple text</p> appears as:

    This is purple text

  • Paragraph <p style="color: #21C222;">This is colour defined by colour number <strong>21C222</strong></p> appears as below including making the colour number in bold text by use of the <strong> </strong> descriptors:

    This is colour defined by colour number #21C222

    The hexadecimal number allows us to use any of some 16.5 million colours.

  • Paragraph <p style="color: rgb(23, 67, 187);">This is colour defined by colour <strong> rgb(23, 67, 187)</strong></p> appears as below including making the colour number in bold text by use of the <strong> </strong> descriptors:

    This is colour defined by colour rgb(23, 67, 187)

    The rgb number (easier to understand, harder to type) also allows us to use any of some 16.5 million colours.

Font style

  • Paragraph <p style="font-family: Lucida Bright;">Lucida Bright text</p> appears as:

    Lucida Bright text

  • Paragraph <p style="font-family: broadway;">broadway text</p> appears as:

    broadway text

  • Paragraph <p style="font-family: algerian;">Algerian text</p> appears as:

    Algerian text

Note that the Algerian font does not include lower case characters

Font size

  • Paragraph <p style="font-size: 15px;">I like chocolates</p> appears as:

    I like chocolates

  • Paragraph <p style="font-size: 30px;">I like chocolates</p> appears as:

    I like chocolates

  • Paragraph <p style="font-size: 1.2em;">I like chocolates</p> appears as:

    I like chocolates

Font size can be defined in more than one way. Of the two above, em is a relative value to the normal size of the descriptor type.
px is much more complicated in its behaviour, but simpler to understand. One px will be the smallest unit which the viewing device can display without pixelation. Hence, in general it is the best unit to use for text size.

Text location

There are so many options here I'll only show a tiny sample.

  • Paragraph <p style="margin-left: 100px;;">Left side indented 100px</p> appears as:

    Left side indented 100px

  • Paragraph <p style="text-align: right;">Right side</p> appears as:

    Right side

  • Paragraph <p style="float: right; margin-top: -50px;">Right side with smaller vertical clearance</p> appears as:

    Right side with smaller vertical clearance

Combination

Paragraph <p style="text-align: right; margin-top: -5px; margin-right: 200px; font-size: 1.2em; font-family: magneto; color: rgb(203, 87, 127);">Complex appearance</p> appears as:

Complex appearance

As can be seen the style definition for this last item is getting quite long for such a short piece of visible text. So in the next item I'll show how to deal with this by using CSS files.


14th May 2020 - It wont be yours unless Click here to claim ownership

Swinging lesson from Joe

John Molloy has lifted the lid on Joe Cirnigliaro's swing. Here it is.

Golf in the 1950s

Joy in the rain

13th May 2020 - The rapid thinker Click here to outsmart him

Don't muck about - decide now.

This is the fourth of Stan's videos. As an addition to the third one, it provides further information on living at home during the corona virus pandemic.


12th May 2020 - The polite way Click here to save the dog

The wrong choice

The train was quite crowded and a U. S. Marine walked the entire length looking for a seat. There seemed to be one next to a well-dressed French woman, but when he got there, he saw it was taken by the woman's poodle. The war-weary Marine asked,"Ma'am, may I have that seat?"

The French woman sniffed and said to no one in particular, "Americans are so rude. My Fifi is using that seat."

The Marine walked the entire train again, but the only seat available was under that dog. "Please, ma'am. May I sit down? I'm very tired."

She snorted, "Not only are you Americans rude, you are also arrogant!"

This time the Marine didn't say a word; he just picked up the little dog, tossed it out the train window and sat down.

The woman shrieked, "Someone defend me! Put this American in his place!"

An English gentleman sitting nearby spoke up. "Sir, you Americans seem to have a penchant for doing the wrong thing. You hold the fork in the wrong hand. You drive your autos on the wrong side of the road. And now, sir, you seem to have thrown the wrong bitch out the window."


11th May 2020 - Only when it rains Click here to raise the umbrella

Surgical shenanigans

This video arrived in my hands via a circuitous route which included quite a few club members, but seems to have originated with Bill Heron and is worth showing here.

It also brought forth this reminiscence from Lindsay Quennell, "Yes, I enjoyed the video too. I recently rediscovered the history of my school at its 150th anniversary year (when we sorted out our bookcases). Reading sections of it It took me back to my chemistry teacher who seemed to have great pleasure caning boys. He was over 6ft tall and gave his all to deliver the canings. Years later I was giving anaesthetics in a regional hospital and found him languishing in a hospital bed. I was very professional and could not use the opportunity to stand over him and tell him what I thought of him years ago but I would have enjoyed showing him this video."

Golf in the 1950s

Joy in the rain

I came across this little poem in New Zealand while cycling around the South Island. It rained on 28 of the 31 days of our trip including two days when it rained all day!

Rain

It rained and rained and rained
The average fall was well maintained
And when the tracks were simple bogs
It started raining cats and dogs.
After a drought of half an hour
We had a most refreshing shower,
And then, most curious thing of all
A gentle rain began to fall.
Next day but one was fairly dry
Save for one deluge from the sky
Which wetted the party to the skin,
And then, at last - the rain set in.


10th May 2020 - Managing the economy Click here to reform the church hierarchy

Golf allowed in Victoria

All clubs are different, but the way is open to start playing golf again as of Wednesday.

Captain Harold is now in a position to clarify how the Club can start golfing again and I'm sure he'll bring us up to date ASAP.

Economists in action

Three economists went hunting. They spotted a deer and the first lined up a shot that just missed, 10cm to the left. The next took his turn and missed 10cm to the right. The third didn't take a shot at all, but began jumping up and down screaming, "we got it, we got it!"

The brothel clientel

Three Irishmen are sitting in the pub window seat, watching the front door of the brothel over the road. The local Methodist Pastor appears, and quickly goes inside. "Would you look at that!" says the first Irishman. "Didn't I always say what a bunch of hypocrites they are?"

Rabbi not found

No sooner are the words out of his mouth than a Rabbi appears at the door, knocks, and goes inside. "Another one trying to fool everyone with pious preaching and stupid hats!"

They continue drinking their beer roundly condemning the Pastor and the Rabbi when they see their own Catholic Priest knock on the door. "Ah, now dat's sad." says the third Irishman. "One of the girls must have died."

Reprise

I recognise that most members will have opted out of the Internet snippet where the best was at the end, so here's the good stuff from there, a couple of my favourite songs and an extract of a video of some fantastic table tennis.

The original 16 minute full video can be seen on Youtube here


9th May 2020 - A generous member Click here to congratulate Terry

A generous member

While we have been missing our golf for a couple of months consider the community spirit of Terry Donahue. Terry did not play with us through the last year and I think the reason why will be clear when you read his brief description of his time consuming volunteer work through Engineers without Borders Australia.

"Further to our discussion regarding Biodigesters the attached is a good summary of how they work and their benefits.  I became involved 3 years ago when asked how to get a trial lot from Phon Pen in Cambodia to Yangon in Myanmar.

Having had container shipping experience and contacts we agreed to purchase, ship and pay for the installation of 10 of these units in Sharn State in Myanmar. Fortunately we had a neighbour who had built 20 schools in that area and helped make the process happen.  From that start I have spent time testing, giving advice and visiting the locations to make great improvements to Biodigester operations.

Along the way we have also along the way have built two more schools and a Medical Centre is to be completed this winter."

Further information

Youtube has more videos on biodigesters and the curious can start here.


8th May 2020 - The internet: (3) HTML files continued Click here if bored

Including non-text items in HTML files

Starting with the simplest, lets insert a horizontal line. The needed text is:

<hr>

and the result is:


In this case it's not quite the standard which would be a single black line as I've made a special definition of how the line appears. More of this in a later exposition.

How to link to another page.

A major aspect of the internet is the ability to provide access to other information without actually repeating that information.

This is done by linking to another file, or place in the current file. The text to link to another file looks like this:

<a href="demonstration.html">Click here to see the demonstration file</a>

and displays like this:

Click here to see the demonstration file

How to insert an image

The HTML text to insert an image is:

<img src="images/small_sky.jpg" />

and this inserts the image which is a file called small_sky.jpg in a sub-folder named images of the folder containing the HTML file.

How to insert a sound file

We use the audio word to indicate that an audio file is coming:

<audio >

<source src="audio/twelve.wav">

Error: Your browser does not support this audio format.

</audio>

The first line indicates an audio file: the second line identifies the file: the third line is an automatically displayed error message which will appear in older browsers and the last line is the closing of the audio information.

Just because I like it, I added another song

How to insert a video

This is a bit more complex as we need to tell the browser the screen size to display and specific type of file, but here it is:

<video width="420" height="250" controls>

<source src="videos/funny_table_tennis_short.mp4" type="video/mp4">

Error: Your browser does not support the video tag.

</video>

The first line sets the size of the video as it is to appear on the screen: the second line identifies the video file and the type of video file: the third line is an automatically displayed error message which will appear in older browsers and the last line is the closing of the video information.

The output from this is shown below with a video of some fantastic table tennis. The original 16 minute full video can be seen on Youtube here


7th May 2020 - The internet: (2) HTML files Click here if bored

The whys, hows and whats of HTML files

In this second of a few articles on the internet I'll show you how HTML files are made and displayed.

Why use HTML?

In my days as an Engineering student we used text books from three primary publishing practices:

  1. British - the layout was dull, the graphic artists skills did not move much beyond a ruler and 2h pencil. The text looked as though it was produced on a typewriter. The main hindrance to learning was boredom
  2. German - The text was dull, the fonts used were hard to read and the illustrations were either non-existant or overly complex. The difficulty of reading and use of greek symbols made learning unduly complex.
  3. American - the layouts were alive, the illustrations in colour and clear.

The learning experience was vastly enhanced by proper use of colour, distinctive fonts and clear setout even if the textual content and linework of the illustrations had been identical.

Hows and whats of HTML

Text

In the electronic age a means of creating these appearance enhancements was needed and the method adopted via various enhancements of the original idea was to add appearance descriptors around the text.

Several standard text types were defined. Each segment of text was then enclosed in descriptive parameters enclosed between a < and a >, with the description ending with </ >.

This for a normal paragraph the HTML would be <p>The text to display</p> and when read this would appear as: The text to display

Provision was made for 6 levels of headers, paragraph, body and others, some of which show below:

  • Heading 1 <h1>This is heading 1 text</h1> appears as:

    This is heading 1 text

  • Heading 3 <h3>This is heading 3 text</h3> appears as:

    This is heading 3 text

  • Heading 6 <h6>This is heading 6 text</h6> appears as:

    This is heading 6 text
  • Paragraph with super-text <p>12<sup>th</sup> June</p> appears as:

    12th June

As well as text HTML provides for Lines, Images, Sound files, Video files and User input items. We'll look at these tomorrow.

Creating an HTML file.

As you can see above the content of an HTML file is entirely plain text. These files can be created in any text editor.

Naturally enough there are very many text editor which are enhanced to make writing of HTML files easier (The American approach - add colour to highlight relevant aspects of the file.)

The program I'm using to write this shows the HTML part of the files as:

There are also HTML writing programs with a functionality What you see is what you get (wysiwyg) where you set a style as in a word processor and see the text as it will appear on the web while you are typing.


6th May 2020 - Managing your car Click here to drive off safely

Three car stories - some of which may not be true

Recovering from lost keys.

Finding a woman sobbing that she had locked her keys in her car, a passing soldier assures her that he can help. She looks on amazed as he removes his jacket, rolls it into a tight ball and rubs it against the car door. Amazingly, the door unlocks.

"That's so clever" the woman gasps, "How did you do that?"

"Easy", the soldier replied, "these are my khakis."

The car collector

My neighbor said to me today, "Dave, why do you have so many cars?"

"Well", I said "The wife and I have been doing a bit of swinging recently."

"Oh right." he said sheepishly. "Do a lot of them stay overnight?"

"No." I said, "It's just that every time she pulls a set of keys out the hat, the owner clears out."

The ecstasy of parking

He was in ecstasy with a huge smile on his face as his wife moved forwards, then backwards, forward, then backwards again....back and forth...back and forth...in and out...in and out.

Her heart was pounding...her face was flushed...then she moaned, softly at first, then began to groan louder. Finally, totally exhausted, she let out an almighty scream and shouted,

"Okay, okay I can't park the bloody car! You do it, you SMUG bastard!"

Keeping up to date with technology

"Viagra" is now available in powder form for your tea. It doesn't enhance your sexual performance but it does prevent your biscuit going soft.


5th May 2020 - Personal stories Click here to return

Memories of my Mother

Shopping for shoes at Jeffry's

In the early 1950s Melbourne's poshest shoe store was Jeffry's.

So having set the background I can tell you that my mother who was not always noted for her elegant dressing visited the store in about 1950 with a view to buying some shoes.

She was greeted by the ultimate in supercilious saleslady and the conversation followed along these lines as reported by my brother.

Saleslady, looking down her nose and thinking no one dressed like that can afford to shop in this store, "And how can I help you, Madam?"

Mother, "I'd like to look at some comfortable but elegant shoes"

Saleslady, "Oohh, and what size does madam take?"

Mother, "I'm not sure - but - I have my foot with me."

A couple more stories of my mother while I'm at it.

Inspecting gloves at Hall and Welsh

Travelling to Melbourne on the train Mother noticed she had left her gloves at home.

On arriving at Melbourne she went to Melbourne fashion store Hall & Welsh to source a new pair. Again she was met with an unpleasant saleslady who clearly didn't want Mother in the store.

A pair of elegant gloves was finally found and Mother tried them on, then holding her hand up peered at one assessing its suitability.

After a short delay, she handed the glove back, looked at the saleslady and mildly said as she walked out, "If that's the best you have, I'll have to look elsewhere."

A 1936 wedding
Dad and Mum in 1936

Erudite student

As a second grade teacher she had a student who was an only child in an intellectual household. This child had an excellent command of english and social poise, but was hopeless at arithmetic.

After much effort based on age and birthdays the child finally reached the ability to add one to his previous age and know that five plus one equalled six.

With that under control he was asked, "Well, now you are six, how old will you be after your next birthday?"

The response, "I'm blowed if I know Mrs Comerford!"

Mind your language.

My mother was a well bred lady to whom swearing was a clear sign of an inadequate vocabulary.

Her 8 year old son, Laurie, accidently spilt a quart tin of pale blue paint on her bed.

Soon after, outside and using kerosene to remove paint from the double bed blankets apparently she swore.

My brother, "Mum, you shouldn't swear, the neighbours will hear you!"

Mother, "If they had **** paint on their blankets, they'd swear too!"

Some more erudition from Mother

"How dare you insinuate that I should tolerate such bombastic phraseology from such an inferior phenomen as you!"


4th May 2020 - Life in isolation Click here to stop barking

Life in isolation

Ball not found

3rd May 2020 - The internet: (1) Introduction Click here if bored

An introduction to the internet

This is the first of a few articles I'll write to introduce members with suitable curiosity to some aspects of the internet.

What is the internet?

In simple terms it is a collection of information stored on computers with tools which enable users to:

  1. View some of the data. If you were to read constantly and no new data was added you might get through much of what's there some time before the Universe ends - but not much. Plus, the majority of the data is password protected by the owner and you won't have the password or the links to find it.
  2. Change the appearance of the data while it is being viewed.
  3. Modify some of the data. You do this regularly by accessing the internet - it records you were there and what you did. You may also do things like log in or play games which adds still more data;
  4. Create some of the data. Deliberately as distinct from inadvertantly as in the item above.

The majority of users of the internet are only interested in item 1 above, although for many items the data provider may require creation of data such as name, password and other details before allowing access to the data they created (or bought, or stole)

There are also users who are interested in item 2 above and give more credance to appearance than content.

How do we access this data

Programs called 'Browsers' have been written to access these text files and interpret the instructions in them to display the data.

Browsers are available for computers, tablets and smart phones.

Well known browsers include: Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Netscape, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari, Tor and Seamonkey, but there are many more. Windowschimp has a good discussion on some of them here

Most of us will be familiar with the processes of using a browser and the processes of adding small amounts of data with logins, playing games etc.

So, I'm going to talk about adding more deliberately created data such as a web site.

What is a web site?

Ignoring the technology behind browsers a web site contains nothing more than:

  1. a set of files written in plain text;
  2. image files like photographs or diagrams;
  3. sound files;
  4. video files;
  5. database files.

There are three types of files written in plain text:

  1. hypertext markup language (HTML) files;
  2. cascading style sheet (CSS) files;
  3. program language enhanced HTML files.

But enough is enough for today. In later articles I'll expand on the the role of these three plain text file types and how they are created.


2nd May 2020 - Technological wedding Click here for a cheap divorce
Cheap Marriage certificates

Marriage in the era of the Corona virus

Membership renewals

I've just had a look at the membership renewals for this year and it is really pleasing to see we have 100 renewed members, along with our 6 life members and 6 social members. Hopefully we'll see each other on the course again soon.


1st May 2020 - Sorting the goat from the sheep Click here to enrol in a rural TAFE course

Some more on Bill Gates

While I was searching for the 2005 video yesterday, amongsat the other things which turned up were people accusing Bill of being responsible for distribution of the virus! How weird can some people's imagination get?

Camberra bureaucracy

A jackeroo named Billy was minding his own business, doing his job and keeping an eye on his animals in a remote paddock in the Queensland outback when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni® suit, Gucci® shoes, RayBan® sunglasses and YSL® tie, leaned out the window and asked the jackeroo, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your paddock, will you give me a calf?"

Billy looks at the bloke, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell® notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3® cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young bloke then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop® and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot® that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL® database through an ODBC connected Excel® spread sheet with email on his Blackberry® and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-colour, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet® printer, turns to the jackeroo and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Billy

He watches the yuppie man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the boot of his car.

Then Billy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, OK, why not?

"You're a bureaucrat from Canberra" says Billy

"Wow! That's correct" says the yuppie "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required," answers Billy "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked.
Dog not found You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows for that matter. This is a herd of sheep. Now give me back my dog."


Home page