July 2025 – dangermouse.net

Setting up for more teaching!

Well, I had the usual five online classes today, on the Sharing topic. For the older 13-15 age group I recast the topic as “Resource Distribution” and concentrated more on complex real world scenarios such as countries or communities sharing resources, rather than individuals sharing things. I wrote about 1.5 times the usual length of scenarios and questions, and am picking different subsets with some overlap between the age groups. So it’s kind of an efficient way to get two somewhat different topics.

Also I had a video meeting with a teacher at Wenona School, to kick off our new STEM Professionals in Schools partnership. She told me some of the science programmes and projects the kids are doing to give me an idea of where I might be able to help. I suggested a first step would be if I come into the school and do a short presentation for some of the students and the use the visit to meet some other science teachers and get further ideas on how we can work together. She said they have a science club every fortnight on Thursdays at lunch time, and I could come to do a talk next week. So I’ll be heading in then and doing a talk on cameras and human vision, to cross over between physics and biology and hopefully appeal to a wide range of the students.

For lunch today I got fish & chips from my regular shop in Greenwich for lunch. I was shocked to discover they’ve raised the price for a basic fish & chips to $18.40. 😲 The last price I recall was $14.90. Which I still hadn’t got over thinking of as a bit expensive after they raised it from $12.90. Wow.

Weather was miserable, as you’d expect from the forecast of a solid week of rain. It was very cold. The rain did stop occasionally, and I almost got home from buying lunch without getting wet, but it started raining again just as Scully and I approached home, and then she had to dawdle and sniff around the grass for a few minutes before going inside. 🙄

Start of a week of rain

Two natural events dominated today: the massive 8.8 earthquake off Kamchatka and the subsequent tsunamis events still rolling across the Pacific Ocean as I write this; and the local weather here in Sydney.

It’s raining here, and has been all day, and the forecast is that we’ll only see the sun again next Tuesday. It’s not especially heavy, but has been steady and the accumulated total over the next six days is forecast to potentially be well over 100 mm. And it’s very cold. We’d been enjoying some warmer temperatures, but now we’ve plunged back into cold about as harsh as Sydney ever gets.

I did brave the weather briefly at lunch time to go buy some bread. But other than that I’ve bee rugged up at home trying to stay warm. One of my classes tonight had a Japanese student, but she didn’t show up, so I guess her schedule might have been disrupted by tsunami evacuations.

In some good news, I received a response from the local council about my request to spray the nearby park for bindii weeds. The grassy areas where Scully likes to walk and sniff around are covered with this weed and in the spring make it almost impossible for her to walk there due to the thorns. The council sprays larger parks for bindii, but they’ve always neglected this one small one near my place. I’ve asked them in the past to spray it, but this year for the first time they’ve responded positively and said they will add it to the spraying roster this year and for the future. Yay!

Super busy Tuesday

Not much time to write a blog post. I spent all my time today completing my report on the Berlin standards meeting for Standards Australia, writing my new ethics topic for the week on the topic of “Sharing”, running a class with it, then writing and making a new Darths & Droids strip so I don’t get behind and miss an update.

And walking Scully. Here’s a photo.

The weather was nice, but it looks like it’ll be the last day for a while. The forecast is for a lot of rain over the next few days, and no more sunshine until Tuesday next week!

Image Processing restarts for another year

Today it was up early for an 8am start with critical thinking classes, up to 1pm. Then I walked Scully up to my wife’s work to drop her off there for the afternoon, so I could head home and get ready to go into the city for the first Image Processing lecture of the semester. I used the opportunity to run home via the 5k route I developed in the last couple of weeks. Today I managed to run below 27:30, which I consider a good time. And this is on a route that involves a road tunnel with about 30 steps down and the same number back up on the other side. I don’t run down steps as I’m too terrified of tripping, so this slows me down a fair bit.

I used to work with a guy who would leap down flights of stairs, taking 2 or 3 steps at a time. I tried it once and was so convinced I’d end up breaking a leg that I’ve never tried it again. I don’t know how anyone could do that.

One I was home and had a shower and changed, I had about an hour free before I had to go into the city. I worked on my Berlin meeting report for Standards Australia, getting another section completed. Only one part to go, which hopefully I can knock off tomorrow.

I got into the university about 5pm, giving me time to eat dinner before the lecture began at 6. But I was still full from the lunch I’d picked up on the way to dropping Scully off, after 1pm. The combination of a late lunch and a forced early dinner meant I didn’t want to eat much, so I just got a small box of sushi rather than sit in at a restaurant for a hot meal. Next week I’ll have to remember not to have such a big lunch, even if I’m hungry after the long morning of working.

The lecture went easily, as it was the introductory stuff about the overall subject and administrative details for the students. I didn’t have to do too much other than introduce myself to the students. We had a special observer today, a visiting lecturer from Ho Chi Minh University of Technology, who is here for collaborations and to observe our teaching methods. The lecture was very full; something like 350 students are enrolled in the subject!

Reporting on Berlin

Today I started work on a task that I need to do as a follow-up to the photography standards meeting I attended on Berlin in June. I have to write a report for Standards Australia on events of the meeting. Ideally I’d have completed this by now, but I’ve been so busy getting back up to speed after returning from Europe that I haven’t had time until today. I hoped to finish it, but being a plenary meeting there’s a lot more that I need to report on. I got about half way through and will hope to finish it off maybe Tuesday.

I won’t have much time tomorrow due to teaching online classes, and then heading into university for the first lecture of this year’s image processing course. Also today I had an extra class, one of the ones moved from Monday night to make room for the university teaching. So a couple of busy working days for me.

Neighbours moving in

Friday I did the usual: Pick up groceries in the morning, teaching a bunch of critical thinking/ethics classes online, then Friday evening board games night. It was a fairly small grocery shop this week, after last week’s big one. I ordered online, except for fresh fruit and vegetables, as I normally do, and selected those myself before picking up the order. For some reason the supermarket included a dozen eggs in my order, even though I didn’t order any. Well, given the scarcity and price of eggs these days I’m not going to complain about getting a dozen free. So for dinner I decided to make quiche and use up most of the previous dozen.

Games night was meant to be in person this fortnight, but one guy was away skiing and two others recused themselves due to sniffles and not wanting to spread potential cold or flu viruses. With very small numbers for in-person, we converted it to online, and ended up with five participants, including the guy who was down at the snow, so that worked out pretty well.

We played Marrakech to start, then a long game of Castles of Burgundy. I didn’t win either. Then we moved to Just One, which is really optimal at 5 players. We got off to a bad start, missing the first two words, but recovered to score a mediocre 11 from 15.

Today I slept in a bit, still catching up on sleep after getting over the jetlag. I think I’m good now though. Scully had her annual checkup and vaccinations today, and my wife took her in to the vet for those. I went for a 5k run. The weather was cooler today and I ran my best time since getting back from Europe. I’m also getting back into the groove there after three weeks break.

And our new neighbours moved in today. We didn’t see much of them, but heard the movers bringing in furniture. Presumably we’ll bump into them in the next few days and have a proper introduction.

This afternoon I did a task I needed to get done for Standards Australia. We decided to revise our document outlining the case for international participation in the standardisation of photography technology, and I get to go over and update the text. I rewrote parts to reflect various changes in applications of photographic technology over the past 5 years or so since we last did this. I had to look up Government policy on things like self-driving cars to update statements about them and the role of cameras in safety monitoring. At the last update, the text said that officially released policy was that self-driving cars would be on Australian roads by 2026, but the latest update now says between 2026 and 2031. So it seems they’re pushing the date out as they realise the technology isn’t mature enough yet.

Tonight for dinner we took a long walk to the pizza place at Naremburn. We tried to get a table at our favourite pizza place, but they had a large booking in the outdoor section, so we couldn’t get in. So we decided to go further to this other one. It’s a bit more old school – they only have the traditional sort of pizza toppings that places had 30 or 40 years ago, and none of the new “gourmet” variations that many pizza places have now with ingredients like satay chicken or figs and gorgonzola.

Back into routine, I think

Today was fairly unremarkable. I slept okay and got up at a normal time, so I think I’ve finally conquered the jetlag.

I did ethics classes. Following yesterday’s comment, I switched my “believable” prediction from an eclipse to a sunrise, but still some of the kids expressed doubts that such a thing could reasonably be predicted. I’m at a bit of a loss for coming up with something that I can ask the kids “is this a reasonable prediction” and just have them say yes.

I took Scully on a long walk, down to the harbour shore. On the way I got a sweet treat from the new cafe, which I think is now better than the old Grumpy Baker. They had a hazelnut slice which I got and it was delicious: a thick biscuit base, with a kind of hazelnut cream on top, topped by a thin layer of chocolate with crunchy hazelnut pieces in it.

I spent time this afternoon writing and rewriting a new Darths & Droids strip. I had a complete version before realising something which made me have to scrap the entire thing and start from scratch. That’s how it goes sometimes. And the scrapped version I thought was really good, but alas unusable. I might save it for later behind-the-scenes bonus material.

Two steps forward

I think I’ve broken the jetlag, finally. I had a good sleep last night, and slept in a bit in the morning, which has allowed me to catch up a bit and not feel so tired.

I did a 5k run to keep up with exercise. And after lunch went to pick up Scully from my wife’s work and walk her home. My morning went pretty quickly. I made cauliflower and pumpkin soup for dinner – something that can keep hot on the stove for my wife when she gets home (while I’m in the middle of my evening Zoom classes), and then I can eat after I’ve finished.

One problem I’ve discovered with my current critical thinking topic on Predictions is that I wrote a question about astronomers predicting an eclipse, asking the kids if this sort of prediction could be believed. I expected them to say yes, and then I could follow-up with: Why is it believable? But… so far most of the kids have said that you probably can’t believe a prediction of an eclipse by scientists.

I’m wondering what’s going on. One of my friends suggested that they aren’t old enough to know or understand the steps that go into predicting an eclipse, and have a learnt skepticism for most things as a side effect of their other education (as most of these kids are pretty smart for their age). I may have to replace the question with something more believable. Like astronomers predicting what time the sun will rise tomorrow.

In other news, I kind of want to watch KPop Demon Hunters now, after one of the kids talked about it.

One step back

My recovery from jetlag took a slight backwards step after the previous night’s good sleep. I did sleep more than I have been for the past week, but woke up a few times and tossed and turned a bit, but did eventually drift back off. But I felt much better during the day today; I didn’t get a strong tired spell mid-afternoon. So hopefully things are rejigging into place.

I worked on my new week’s ethics lesson plan. This week we’re going to discuss predictions, ranging from fortune tellers, to weather forecasts, to eclipses. Thinking about how reliable different sorts of predictions are and why, and how you can tell the difference. And the importance of predictions in everyday life, for example: Will that car hit me if I cross the road now? Where is the ball going and where should I run to kick it? How long is my homework going to take to finish? What is my chess opponent going to do? Should I take an umbrella today?

In other teaching news, I got contacted by CSIRO about hooking up with a new partner school for their STEM Professionals in Schools programme. The teacher at the school I visited a few times last year lost contact and apparently left the programme, so I was waiting for them to find me another nearby school to go to. They’ve partnered me up with Wenona, a girls’ high school not far from home, a little closer than Loreto actually. I’ve reached out to the contact teacher there by email, and hopefully will get a response soon and set up a meeting.

Scully and I went on a couple of walks. Returning from the second one, we bumped int our new neighbours in the hallway. They’ve had workers in today installing new timber flooring. They asked me about the locations of the gas meters, since they have a natural gas company rep coming tomorrow to read the meters prior to initiating a new account for them. And they said the renovation work should be completed by Friday, and they are moving in on Saturday. It’s a youngish couple, maybe late 20s or early 30s. They also said hi to Scully, though they weren’t super enthusiastic dog-lover racing over to skritch her. Though it might have been the fact they were both holding large boxes of renovation material.

For dinner I made cauliflower steaks, which are all the rage in vegetarian circles at the moment. Simple sliced a cauliflower into thick slabs, roasted it in olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper until it was going crispy, and served it with a tahini and lemon sauce and a side salad. Very delicious.

Better sleep, busy day

Last night I got a much better sleep, finally, after my Europe trip. I woke up a couple of times, but instead of lying there unable to sleep, I fell back to sleep. And I was still snoozing when my wife woke me up just 20 minutes before my first ethics class of the day at 08:00!

I had to quickly gulp down a small serve of muesli for breakfast and get set up for the class. I had two in a row, after which I finished the second half of my breakfast at 10:00. Then two more classes.

After those I walked Scully up to my wife’s work, and did a 5k run to get home. I varied my route slightly from last Monday when I did the same thing, because while running a deliberately longer way around a building I encountered stairs, and I really don’t want to run down stairs, so I made sure to avoid that this week. It meant doing a couple of laps of the park near my place before finishing to get the distance up to 5k, but that was okay.

Tonight I finished the last two Monday evening classes for several weeks. I am moving them, one to Sunday and one to Tuesday, because from next week I will be tutoring the university image processing course at UTS again. The timeslot changes every year and this year they’ve scheduled it for 6-9pm on Mondays. So I’ll need to drop Scully at my wife’s work and head into the city on the train, and have a quick dinner in there somewhere before the lecture starts.