I'm going to have to mop that up.
The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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8:20am on Monday, 24th March, 2025:
Weird
Hey! Someone has spilled a pot of yellow primroses next to our walnut tree.
I'm going to have to mop that up.
8:30am on Sunday, 23rd March, 2025:
Anecdote
For the first time in twenty years, none of my second- or third-year students have mis-spelled the word "lose" in their assignment. OK, there are still the exams, where they won't hhave AI to help them, but still, I feel that my job is done.
Maybe I'll try to teach them how to spell "rogue" next.
8:59am on Saturday, 22nd March, 2025:
Weird
Our local Asda has finally caught up with the more progressive Asdas in the country and baked some raspberry and white chocolate hot cross buns.
I won't be buying any more.
9:14am on Friday, 21st March, 2025:
Anecdote
The CE317 assignment I gave my students involves writing a story. The students like to describe their protagonist (although they're not obliged to — I actually ask for a plot, not a story), which often entails stating that character's age.
I'ver been running this assignment for maybe twenty years. For the first fifteen of these, the characters were usually aged 16. This was so common that in my list of cut-and-paste frequent comments, I had one reading "Why are they always 16?".
Around five years ago, they stopped being 16 and started being 17. A year later, they were 18. They remained 18 for the next two years. This year, I had to modify my cut-and-paste comment to read "Why are they always 19?".
I don't know why this has happened. Maybe COVID-19 is to blame. Maybe social media is, or society in general, or large language models.
On the plus side, at least the protagonists are no longer habitually orphans.
7:45am on Thursday, 20th March, 2025:
Anecdote
I'll finish marking my CE317 assignment today, excepting the submissions of those students who choose to submit late. This means it's a year since I last marked the assignment, so I'm free to list some of the howlers I came across. There aren't as many as there has often been in the past, because ChatGPT isn't as prone to them as students are, but here you go anyway.
Thus, the Dame is offering her a colonic lifestyle with no efforts at all.
Gone were the baron wastelands and the deserted planes.
Cedric's eyes open, finding himself surrounded by a 13-year-old boy.
He fast enough to escape and tie his hand with some lady's dog leash father.
Skeptical and overwhelmed, she prouns the seer as crazy.
Matt tries to connect copper cables to a fridges batter.
It's an amour piece commonly used in the time period by Incredibly strong and skilful warriors.
The bark from the tree is the scares component that Ada is looking for.
He won numerous awards back in his prime, until that one faithful day where during a rally trial in sweden, his car was sabotaged and his break lines were cut and so he ended up in a horrific crash after flying off the mountain below, in which he lost his arm and mentally disturbed him.
8:00am on Wednesday, 19th March, 2025:
Anecdote
Speaking of fashion...
At the university yesterday, I noticed two different forms of the same, unusual theme, being exhibited by female students. I only saw three of each, but they were striking.
The first set wore overalls. These were basically dungarees, but not over a shirt or anything: they had sleeves and no front bib. They were like all-in-one jeans, but not made of denim. The three examples I noticed were in different places at different times. One of the overalls (there's probably a technical name for them in fashion circles, but I don't know what it is) was a light brown, the other two were light blue, like faded jeans. The blue ones were made out of cotton and the brown one was more like thick cheesecloth; none were constructed to be hard-wearing. They weren't designed to be actual overalls, just plain, one-piece outfits.
The second set wore the same kind of one-piece outfit but skin tight and made of lycra. They looked as if they were wearing spandex wetsuits. One such outfit was black, and the wearer might have been an athlete, but the other two (one light brown, one light grey) didn't give off that vibe (especially the one in the brown). This is the kind of fashion that, if it took off, probably wouldn't do much good either for young women (because not everyone will have the figure to carry it off) or young men (because it takes an act of will not to gawp).
Fashions are supposed to change, but students are wearing pretty much the same today that they did 2o years ago.
The 1970s, when I was a student, may have been weird fashion-wise, but at least they were different to the 60s and 80s.
7:50am on Tuesday, 18th March, 2025:
Anecdote
I recently took part in a podcast about (of all things) fashion in MMORPGs. I'd actually been thinking about this for some time, but as I know nothing about fashion I was happy to talk about it to someone who does (Tracy Greenan).
You can listen to the result on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/episode/78ZYZfIGOq0ceWXOvx13Q2?si=3NEF2PSJSM-j3766iir4_A, although I can't do so myself because I don't have a Spotify account and don't want one.
8:52am on Monday, 17th March, 2025:
Anecdote
8:38am on Sunday, 16th March, 2025:
Weird
My subscription to DeeVid.ai renewed on Friday so yesterday I thought I'd have another play with it. I wanted to see how it handled liquids, so gave it an AI-generated image as a starter that included a wine glass and instructed the image-to-video creator to have her drink from it.
It came out pretty well. The way the liquid moves is good, and the refraction through two pieces of glass on her eyes is a bonus.
I don't think she gets on well with alcohol, though.
8:20am on Saturday, 15th March, 2025:
Anecdote
Tariffs adversely affect the markets of the countries that levy them, so I'm not generally in favour of the UK's responding to the USA's tariffs with tariffs of its own.
That said, I'd be pleased if the UK were to respond with but a single tariff: 200% on Tesla vehicles.
8:04am on Friday, 14th March, 2025:
Anecdote
My CE317 is due in today.
7:41am on Thursday, 13th March, 2025:
Anecdote
Yesterday, I discovered that having my tooth pulled out back in January or whenever it was has restored the ability to speak like Donald Duck that I had as a child.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
7:51am on Wednesday, 12th March, 2025:
Anecdote
Yesterday was the day of the class in which I get my second-year students to play board games then write reviews for them. The aim is for them to learn to analyse games objectively by writing said reviews, but it also helps them to make friends through play.
I've been giving them the same form to fill in for well over a decade, and have hundreds of reviews that use it. This time, I thought I'd try something different, and gave them a choice of three forms: standard magazine-style review; Schell's tetrad; PENS (player experience needs satisfaction). Of the three, they far preferred PENS for filling in, which was interesting as it's not in wide use as far as I know.
At most, I'll be running this class one more time. I had 40 board games in my office, and took 17 for them to select from to play. Afterwards, I let any student who wanted any of the games have it for free. Around half the students took me up on the offer, which was great! It meant I didn't have as many to take back to my office afterwards on my sack barrow.
The games they fought over (because more than one person wanted to to have it) were Ticket to Ride, P for Pizza and Abandon Ship. Games that individuals were keen to have included Machi Koro and Bears vs Babies (!). Some classics, such as San Juan and Puerto Rico, were ignored.
Apparently, there's a board game society at the university, but it has too many games so it's selling some off. I therefore don't think I shall be offering them what's left of my supply when I retire.
Yes, the chairs in that room do match the colour of the walls.
8:00am on Tuesday, 11th March, 2025:
Weird
I don't know what the difference between these two kinds of sausages is. They seem to be describing the same thing.
Yes, I have only just got around to blogging this, despite taking the photo two days before Christmas.
7:43am on Monday, 10th March, 2025:
Anecdote
Tomorrow, I'll be teaching my CE217 class in a room with flat tables and three TV screens. For some reason, there's a patch of carpet underneath the TV support stands that's a different colour to the rest of the carpet.
I've no idea why. It might be they used the wrong piece of carpet, or it might be because it's beyond the reach of vacuum cleaners. I don't want to poke it with a finger to see if it's covered in several years' worth of dust, though, in case I'm right and it is.
Yes, the wall really is that colour. This may be why, uniquely among my teaching events, no student ever falls asleep in this class.
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Copyright © 2025 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).