dangermouse.net – Page 2 – David Morgan-Mar

Games and marking

Friday was online games night. My wife and I went out to the local pizza place for dinner and I joined in games with my friends when we got home. We played El Grande and then Just One. People were in and out a bit doing things so we had a few interruptions.

The other main thing I’ve been doing both yesterday and today is continuing to mark university image processing assignments. I powered through the remainder of the undergrad ones today, both the written reports and the presentation videos. Now I only have three postgrad teams left to mark, but these will take longer because they have to submit individual video reviews of papers, rather than a single team video presenting their work. So I have seventeen 20-minute videos to go, having marked just four so far. So it’ll probably take me well into next week.

I did a 5k run today, barely scraping the distance under 27 minutes, which is a good time for me. Especially given it was 22.4°C and 75% humidity.

We had fajitas for dinner. I planned to do this to use up some halloumi which we’ve had in the fridge for a while. But when it came to chopping up the vegetables and cooking them up, I completely forgot about the halloumi!

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New content today:

A new dental era

My dentist is retiring. I got a text message today announcing this from his office. Which reminded me that I’m overdue for a checkup and clean. So I immediately phoned the office to book in for one, but they informed me that there were no appointments free until after his retirement at the end of November. The hygienist is still going to be working there but a new dentist will start and take over the practise in December. So I won’t get to see the old dentist again. I’ve been going there for many years now and really liked his work. Hopefully the new dentist will be as good.

In language learning, Duolingo has decided that it’s going to block my progress in learning vocabulary and grammar until I master katakana. I have to complete 25 lessons just on memorising katakana before it will let me continue with the vocabulary exercises. Which is annoying, as I suspect my vocab and grammar will decay a bit before I can resume.

I did all of the hiragana memory exercises, but they haven’t really stuck with me, unfortunately. So I’ve now also started using Anki flashcards to learn the hiragana characters properly. So Im currently memorising both hiragana and katakana at the same time. And trying to do it quickly so I can get back to the vocabulary exercises.

Also today I marked one of the university image processing assignments. This was a very interesting one that is very different from the usual object recognition or image segmentation stuff that most students attempt. This team decided to try generating images, namely camouflage patches to match various photograph scenes. They implemented a generative adversarial network, with the generator using a neural network to produce candidate camouflage image patches, and the discriminator attempting to detect the patches when overlaid over the original landscape source image. The goal of the generator is to produce patches that the discriminator can’t detect. Their results looked pretty impressive. They mainly get marked on the layout and writing of their report, so it’s not all about performance.

Scully was a bit off-colour today, not eating her breakfast or any treats at all during the day. She wanted to go out a few times to eat grass, and eventually threw up late in the afternoon. After which she hungrily ate her food and wanted more, so she seems better now.

New content today:

Yeah, that happened

Much of the day I had the TV on with updates from the US election. Enough said.

I spent time composing Irregular Webcomic! strips with the photos I took yesterday. I took Scully for a walk at lunch and had some fish & chips, sitting in my favourite lookout spot overlooking the harbour.

The day was hot and the air was a bit grey with pollution unfortunately. We’re supposed to have two more hot days, around 30°C or a bit over, before a cool change for the weekend.

I also started the marking work for the university image processing final assessment reports. I need to get those done in the next week or so.

New content today:

Annoyances and comics making

Today I had a few tasks: Write up my class notes for the new week’s ethics lessons, on the topic of “Annoying Things”. I came up with an interesting fun question for the kids:

If you had an annoyance superpower that could make other people annoyed by things, how would you use it?

When I asked it in the first class tonight, the kids laughed and had a great time answering it. They said it probably wouldn’t be good to use it on most people, but you could potentially become a crime-fighting superhero by using it on criminals to distract them when they’re committing crimes.

One of the kids was a new 8-year-old. I’m always a bit worried when parents sign up kids this young to classes meant for 10-12 year olds. But she turned out to be mature and intelligent and have good enough English (not her native language) to participate without problem.

After I completed the lesson plan, I finished writing my latest batch of Irregular Webcomic! strips. By then it was time for an early lunch time walk with Scully. We went on a long walk around to Grumpy Baker and the harbour foreshore. I got a mushroom pie (vegetarian) from the bakery, and then did some ball fetching with Scully on the grass by the water. She was pretty worn out by the time we walked back home. The day was mild and cloudy, but a bit humid.

After lunch I photographed the sets for the new comics and assembled one for tonight. The I switched over to Darths & Droids writing, and hammered out another strip for that.

For dinner it was pizza night. We had a mix of pumpkin and asparagus today. Maybe a bit unconventional, but in my Italian video practice tonight I watched a video with a guy making a “zuccamisu” – a pumpkin spice tiramisu.

So if the Italians can do it to their own food, I don’t see why I can’t!

New content today:

Last will and testament

I did a very grown up thing today: I saw a lawyer and signed my will! My wife and I decided recently that we should probably draw up wills, so we can figure out who we want to leave stuff to in the event that something happens to either one or both of us. We also did powers of attorney, which grants nominated people the authority to handle our legal and financial stuff if we’re incapacitated.

First thing this morning I did a favour for our neighbour by taking their dog out. The husband had had surgery recently on his foot and his wife had gone out very early for a family thing, so they asked me to take their dog out for a morning walk. Fortunately their dog gets along very well with Scully, so it was easy enough.

Apart from those things, my day was very routine, with six ethics classes, making some vege burgers for dinner, and not much time for much else.

New content today:

Full on comics writing

Today I mostly dedicated to bashing out a bunch of Irregular Webcomic! scripts, hopefully to do some photographing tomorrow in time for Monday’s update. I got several done, but still want to do another few for the batch.

Before that I did my 5k run. It was really tough going today. I chose the more hilly route, and it was also hotter and more humid than yesterday, so I ended up quite a bit slower.

I baked some sourdough and made fried rice for dinner. And did some ethics classes in the evening. Not that exciting for a Sunday, I’m afraid.

New content today:

Anniversary dinner and Arcs

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary, so my wife and I had a special dinner out at one of our favourite (albeit expensive) places, The Bathers’ Pavilion at Balmoral Beach. Firstly, the view from the dinning room is wonderful.

We were there before sunset and so got to watch the beach and water as night fell. We started with some potato scallops, battered, sprinkled with wakame and topped with a vinegar mayo.

My appetiser was kingfish with rhubarb and pink peppercorns.

My wife had a vegetarian appetiser of wood ear mushrooms with witlof, blackberries, and black garlic. I tried a small bite and this was truly delicious.

My main was duck cooked two ways, a sliced breast fillet and duck sausages.

My wife had roasted cauliflower and kale, with…. I’m not sure what the orange bits or the sauce are.

For dessert we shared this chocolate, passionfruit, and caramel construction.

It was an indulgent and delicious dinner. We drove home and picked up Scully from our neighbours who had minded her while we were out.

Today I did a 5k run in the morning, followed by housecleaning: vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom and shower, emptying (water) and refilling (crystals) the damp absorbers.

Then after lunch we went out to a fabric showroom to choose new fabric for the upholstery on our dining chairs. These chairs are 25 years old and the seats are getting worn and the foam padding is squashed and flat, so we decided to get them reupholstered. I got a quote from a company during the week, and they said we should go to this showroom to choose a fabric, and let them know what it is so they can order it wholesale for us.

The showroom was in Glebe, so after picking a fabric we walked over to Glebe Point Road to get coffee (for my wife) and snacks from a cafe. Then we headed back home.

This afternoon we tried a 2-player game of Arcs. It’s only the second time I’ve payed, after the 4-player one we did at games night a few weeks ago, and I was teaching my wife to play. So it was fairly instructional and strategy-free. (My wife won, but it was only a learning game!)

New content yesterday:

New content today:

Noises in the night…

I was woken by a weird noise just before 3:30 this morning. At first I thought Scully was being sick, so I jumped out of bed. But she was fast asleep still.

The noise sounded like a wet wheezing, like a sort of cross between a small animal and a squeeze bottle half full of water was being squeezed repeatedly to force the air out. It was so loud that I was sure it was in our bedroom and I turned on the light thinking it must be some sort of animal. I thought it was coming from under the bed. I was prepared to have to deal with a mouse or rat or something. But I searched and couldn’t find anything, until I finally realised the noise might have been coming from outside. I confirmed this by opening the window and the sound was much louder and from that direction. And then it died away.

I’m guessing it was the death rattle of a possum or a big bird that maybe a cat had caught. I’m not sure what else it could have been. But the upshot was I was now wide awake and had trouble getting back to sleep, so it wasn’t a very restful night.

This morning I taught two ethics classes, and then prepared to go into the University of Technology Sydney for the last tutorial lesson of the year on image processing. The students have their final assessment projects due tomorrow. So next week I’ll be marking those.

Because it’s Halloween, I thought there might be some students, at least, dressed up for the occasion at the university, being a trendy sort of place where young people do fun things. But of the thousands of students I saw, not a single one had anything. I didn’t seen a single indication anywhere that it’s Halloween. No costumes, no decorations. I know it’s nowhere near as big here as in the USA, but I was honestly a little surprised.

And in other news, I have signed up to Bluesky, which I am hoping will be a better replacement for Twitter for me than Mastodon turned out to be. If you’re interested, you can follow me here: @dmmaus.bsky.social.

The problem I found with Mastodon was that I picked a server that matched one of my interests, namely tabletop roleplaying games, but then the way the system works, my posts get shown to everyone who is also on the same server, and they all expect everyone to talk mainly about games all the time. So I felt stifled in my ability to just post random shower thoughts and wry observations, as I did back on Twitter. I could probably move to a less specialised and more social server, but it looks like Bluesky is much closer to what I hoped a Twitter replacement would be. I’ll stay on Mastodon, but I’m sure to post much more frequently on Bluesky, I think.

New content today:

Trying new pies

This morning I had some Magic cards to send off to eBay buyers. Two packages, plus one person with a local pickup option. The buyer turned out to live in the block of flat immediately next door to one of my friends. This is in Newtown, home of The Pie Tin, one of my favourite pie shops, but one which I don’t get to visit often because it’s tricky to get to. But I can use my friend’s car parking spot if he’s home! So that’s what I arranged to do.

I parked there, met the eBay buyer and gave him the cards, and then took Scully over to The Pie Tin and had an early lunch. I decided to try some new things. They had a pan-fried chicken pie with vegetables, and a tuna mornay pie. I got one of each and went with Scully to a nearby park to sit and eat. They were both really good.

Once back home I went up to the post office to send the other two packages of cards. Then my wife contacted me and asked about dinner, and I realised I should have bought eggs! So I walked up to the shops again and got some eggs, to make quiche for dinner tonight, before my ethics classes.

In the afternoon I had a visit from a guy from a place that does blinds and other window accessories. Our window blinds are aging and in need of replacement, so we booked someone to come measure up the windows and give us a quote for new blinds. I was honestly expecting him to measure them with a tape measure, but he used a laser gadget. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, but there you go.

New content today:

Chinese Lebanese pizza

My back is much better today. So much so that when my wife got home I went out for a run. I took it a bit easy and only did 2.5 km, instead of my usual 5k. But it went well and I’m very happy that this episode of back pain has healed up quickly.

For lunch today I took Scully for a bit of a drive a couple of suburbs away to try a new place. I actually wanted to go visit the bottle shop to restock on some liquor, and chose a place to eat nearby. It was a Lebanese bakery, which made Lebanese style pizzas and pides and stuff. It was called Cedar Dough Lebanese Bakery, and the sign outside had the cedar tree of Lebanon on it, overlaid with Arabic text. Very authentically Lebanese. And when I went in to order something, the woman behind the counter was Chinese. Not exactly what I expected, but she was friendly and took my order for a folded pizza stuffed with cheese, mushrooms, and olives. I ate it sitting at the table outside with Scully, and it was pretty good.

In the morning before that I wrote up my next ethics lesson plan, on the topic of Hobbies. Tonight I had the first class. it went pretty well, except for one question, which I think I might have to excise from the class.

I asked: Are there any hobbies that could be harmful or raise ethical issues?
I expected: things like hunting, or trail bike riding.
I got: stealing things, committing crimes, bullying people.
In hindsight I’m glad no kid said serial killing…

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