They checked it

Sep. 21st, 2025 05:37 pm
azurelunatic: Hinky: adj: pure evil fuckery afoot. Syn.: suspicious (hinky)
[personal profile] azurelunatic
The worst part of colonoscopy prep turned out to be the sheer number of trips to the bathroom, which knotted up my legs something fierce. The second worst part was the taste of the solution, even with added flavorings. It was salty! (I got the huge jug rather than the Miralax version. Miralax at least isn't salty.) Next time, probably either green unsweetened Kool-Aid or lemonade Crystal Lite or whatever.

Off topic for FFA )

I did make the planned gallon of orange jello, but since it was a little late for me to actually eat it, I put mandarin orange slices in it. Since that's often part of Belovedest's lunch. Today I packed it into smaller boxes to help with that effort and to decrease the crowding in the fridge.

I got a slight nap after everything was about finished. The split prep schedule meant that I started the second half around 12:30 am. Appointment check in time 6 am.

The distance in the facility wasn't super bad, although we brought my chair just in case. (Speaking of the chair, I have decked it out with retroreflective tape and electroluminescent wire. It looks much safer. The cup holder went on Friday.)

The procedure wasn't bad. )

I got dressed again. I had picked a cute nightgown for the outing, black with flowers and butterflies. Instead of a coat (it's getting chilly at night) I wore my dramatic black velvet robe, the one with lace trim and bell sleeves. I received a compliment. And as soon as I proved I could stand up without excessive wobbling, we were off.

Belovedest gathered breakfast for me on our way home, and I took a much needed nap (interrupted a few times to confirm that I could be made conscious and accept hydration).

And that was that.

We did our usual Friday shopping on Saturday. I was still sore. Today my legs are thankfully feeling normal.

Uncertain Machine Ethics Planning

Sep. 18th, 2025 08:11 pm
purplecat: An open book with a quill pen and a lamp. (General:Academia)
[personal profile] purplecat
My PhD student had a paper published in AAMAS on Uncertain Machine Ethics Planning. This is a good conference which, for my sins, I'm currently joint Programme Chair for (this means I'm currently in the process of trying to find 1,300 potential referees in the hopes of ending up with 650). Anyhoo... AAMAS rewards pretty theory heavy papers and this was no exception, but the bottom line is that he's developed a technique in which a system can reason across several potential plans of action, using different moral theories in order to work out which plan of action is least unacceptable across all the moral theories (I hope this makes sense, we keep running into double negatives in the theory). It's grounded in a philosophical concept called hypothetical retrospection - in which even if something turns out badly you can argue it was still the correct choice because at the time you made the choice the chance of it turning out badly was low. There are some details such as ranking outcomes so, in the situation where you can get an apple (for sure) or gamble with a low chance on getting an all expenses paid holiday (yes I know this isn't a moral choice), no number of apples can outweigh the small chance of getting the holiday - I guess the moral equivalent might be no number of people made a little bit happier can be outweighed by killing someone.

Moral theories can be big theoretical juggernauts like utilitarianism or kantian morality - or more subtle distinction around which values are preferred (though this doesn't really come out in the paper if you can wade through all the formalism).
purplecat: The Tardis against a sunset (or possibly sunrise) (Doctor Who)
[personal profile] purplecat
Two Doctor Who companion outfits for your delectation and delight! Outfits selected by a mixture of ones I, personally, like; lists on the internet; and a certain random element.


Outfits below the Cut )

Vote for your favourite of these costumes. Use whatever criteria you please - most practical, most outrageously spacey, most of its decade!

Voting will remain open for at least a week, possibly longer!

Costume Bracket Masterlist

Images are a mixture of my own screencaps, screencaps from Lost in Time Graphics, PCJ's Whoniverse Gallery, and random Google searches.

Colonoscopy week.

Sep. 16th, 2025 01:10 am
azurelunatic: A metal sculpture of a walking duck with a duckling on its back, in front of the University Place Library (ducks in a row)
[personal profile] azurelunatic
I'm not looking forward to this.

On the other hand, I wasn't thinking with some of the usual parts of my sense of humor when I was picking out my non-red jello for Liquid Diet Day (24 oz food service pack) and rolled the wrong citrus out of three: orange.

I could have had lemon jelly.
https://youtu.be/ioudby-xooc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_Jelly
azurelunatic: "Where's the goddamn NERF BAT when you *really* need it?" Animated cartoon tech support loses her cool.  (nerf bat)
[personal profile] azurelunatic
Goodbye to bad rubbish BJ, who could make simple things like Madonna being active in the music industry longer than most people of our generation being aware of, plus she didn't look in her early 40s at the time, into some kind of sinister conspiracy theory situation.

You were an absolute jackass, and I honestly don't care if you're alive or not except that I might need to avoid you.

Thanks to Votania and Darkside, who helped me realize what a bad friend BJ was, never mind as a prospective life partner and spouse. Bleck.

This random thought brought to me by the death of Charles Entertainment Kirk, which would probably have been making BJ's circles flail in panic, and hearing a Madonna song on the Doof. (A back episode, we didn't have a SunDoof that I'm aware of.)
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