We also spotted the otters playing in the lake, but they were too elusive for the camera.
First Fall Morning at the Cabin
Looking Sharp!
Griffin and our Spanish exchange student, Irene, went to the homecoming dance in style.
Maggie at Ren Fest
Gemini Math
As I’ve mentioned before, I play with AI regularly to make sure I understand how it works. Gemini, Google’s LLM, has generally been pretty impressive. It’s not without its hallucinations (and numerous other concerns), but more often right than wrong.
Today, I was working on some exercises for my beginning computer science students. They need to be able to use Cartesian coordinates in their Python programs (using the “turtle” module). Most of them need more practice. I created a simple polygon in GeoGebra so that they can identify the vertices. I needed to create a bunch more.
Then I thought, This is a perfect task for Gemini! I explained what I wanted to Gemini and this is what it came up with:
Yikes! Even if math isn’t your thing, I suspect you’ll be able to see some egregious errors here. It is utter nonsense, wrong in just about every possible way. I’m surprised that it knew which axis to label x and y. (Even then, it added the specious “0” and “e“.)
I think my colleagues in the math department don’t have to worry about being replaced by AI “teachers” quite yet.
Humanizer
It’s hard for me to believe that someone wrote this copy with a straight face. It seems like a mockery of AI — a dystopian satire of the robot apocalypse. Humanizer? Really???
First Day of Third Grade
First Day of 8th and 11th Grades
It’s that time again! Maggie enters eighth grade today while Griffin begins his junior year. It’s an orientation day at both grade levels, so there won’t be any real classes until tomorrow. (For the teachers, orientation is far more work than a regular class day, so I’ll definitely earn my meager keep today!)
Road Hazards
After a fantastic morning hiking the north rim of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone (that post will have to wait for better bandwidth), we headed back to our cabin via the longer route along the shore of Yellowstone Lake. We encountered multiple natural obstacles along the way.
First, a bison crossed the road near Canyon Village. This brings traffic to a stop not just because people don’t want to injure the bison, but because everybody wants pictures. Including me.
Shortly thereafter, we stopped again for an elk with an impressive rack of antlers moseying across. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a picture. It’s the closest view I’ve ever had of an elk.
Then we were hit with a sudden thunderstorm. The temperature dropped more than 20 degrees in ten minutes and the wind picked up dramatically. The waters of Yellowstone Lake were whipped into whitecaps.
Shortly after Maggie took that picture, we were stopped because a large pine fell across the road about five cars ahead of us. It fully stopped traffic in both directions. A group of road heroes managed to tow it to the side with a large pickup. This only cleared one lane, but it was enough for people to squeeze by.
When we finally returned to our cabins, Old Faithful welcome us home by erupting as we pulled in. Pretty amazing.
Fairy Falls
We hiked up past Grand Prismatic Spring and Fairy Falls to Imperial Geyser. Although it was a relatively easy route, the sun is intense at this altitude, so we were flagging a bit by the time we got back to the trailhead.
Baby Birds
Next to our garage, we have a ramshackle clematis. Hidden within the leaves and flowers is a sparrow nest with some just hatched babies. Meanwhile, a robin has gotten busy with a nest on top of the light fixture containing two bright blue eggs.
