Xiaomeng and I participated in a game jam for Hugging Face. One of the requirements was that we had to include Open Source AI in some way. We did great in my opinion, and did way more than was required. We ended up 7th out of 87 for the mutual rankings. For the top 10 three of the Hugging Face employees will be judges. We’ll see how that plays out next week.
I was feeling out of it and had a low level headache all week. I did a pool test of my dive equipment and it all checked out, but I skipped the pub meeting. I managed to get my work done, but not to the level I would have liked.
We made it to the weekend, and met up with Nasir to head out to Wales for a caving trip. We were really looking forward to this trip. The first night was a little rough and we camped in a tent in the pouring rain. It had a few leaks and we got a little damp. Overall we did get decent sleep. The caves were amazing, and the club is really well kitted out. We did a tour with Jack as our guide and were joined by Floyd and Lauren. We got to see some amazing formations, and I had a blast climbing up the cracks. Most of the cave was about a meter across and four to five meters high.
The trip was a great success. After that we had an amazing group meal and them people got drunk and started a fire in the backyard. It was a nice time, even it still cold and wet. The second night in the tent was much better and we got some good sleep.
This weekend we didn’t do much, as Steph got back on Saturday, and I was still recovering from getting back from the US. Sunday we went to the BSAC party and had a great time hanging out with all the people there. We headed back and had a great discussion on the book “Of Boys and Men.” I think there was a lot there to unpack, and that some of the fixes are things we can do, but it wasn’t obvious in the way the book presented it.
Steph and I played some more Frosthaven this week, and we added in the second character each. I’m the Frozen Fist, while she is the Blink Blade.
We hung out with some of the people from the Westminster Speleological Group on Tuesday, July 4. I was calling it ‘Uppity colonists day.’ We met a few of the people that were going to be on the trip to Wales.
Thursday we had a vet come over the check on the kitties and they are doing well. Lana is putting on a little weight, but not fat yet. Archer’s tooth isn’t a problem now, but we should get it taken care of before it becomes a real problem. The vet recommended that I look into getting it fixes soon, as the lead time of getting a surgical appointment might be a while.
Friday morning Steph and I went to a special exhibit at the British Museum, which was ok. It had some good items, but the main exhibits are just as good and free.
I took most of the weekend to make a game with Xiaomeng, which I’ll describe more in next week’s post.
The best part of the weekend was getting to have high tea with George and Clarissa, who were in London after a trip around Europe. It was great to see them and I love the discussions George and I can get into around AI, ownership, and rights.
This was a busy week at work, from many different angles.
There were multiple groups coming to London from California for work trips that I had to meet with. Then there was the Beat Saber competition, where rounds 1 and 2 were on Wednesday. I did really well in round 1 and barely got through round 2, so that puts me in the top 12. I’m pretty sure I’ll make it to the top 8, but I think I’ll lose at that point.
We had a great time at the dive meeting this week, and met a group that was interested in playing board games with us. I look forward to when we can meet up with them and play. We did get a few more rounds of Frosthaven in, and finally beat the scenario with the stupid ally. We then went on to the boss fight, and did really well on that one.
Friday we had a great walk around Little Venice. We had dinner on the Cheese Barge, which is a floating restaurant on the canal. It was tasty food, and we got a toastie, a rarebit, and some croquettes.
Saturday morning I headed to the canal and broke out the standup paddle board for the first time here. I went to the astroturf stairs and inflated the paddle board. Then I headed to the St. Pancras lock and portaged around it. I made it up to the Camden locks, but didn’t want to walk around those with a paddle board. Camden market is packed in the best of times and slow to get through. No way I was making it through with a massive board. I turned back and headed to Battlebridge Basin, near Ice Wharf. The canal had some nasty parts, but mostly it was really nice. I’ll have to try going further with the board and paddling around Regents Park and maybe around Angel.
Nancy and Punit organized a picnic somewhat at the behest of Irene. We met at the astroturf stairs and got some food at the canopy market. It was Thai day at the canopy market and the food was pretty tasty. I of course got a Thai ice tea and grabbed Steoh her own so she wouldn’t take any if mine /s. We headed to a shady table in coal drop hards and grabbed some more food at the Japanese market there. This area has so much going on, it is fantastic.
That evening we jumped on Grounded and played some with Michelle and Michael. We geared up and improved the base. We started fighting harder enemies, but didn’t make any story progress.
the next day we went climbing with Punit and Roel. My grip got too tired to continue surprisingly early. Steph and I then met a friend of Irene’s, Nish, who was great to talk to. We had some tasty Ethiopian food and chatted about life and work.
Monday, Steph and I did a power pump class, but really didn’t like it because of the instructor. The woman kept doing one of my biggest pet peeves, counting loudly and not in time with the music. I ignored her counting and moved in time with the music. Steph ended up leaving early. The class itself was also overpacked. We had gotten the last sign up spots, but more people came to the class anyway.
We had ordered Frosthaven, a new massive board game. It arrived Monday and Steph put on some podcasts while she unpacked it. Archer liked the box it came in and had a little session inside it. He was so cute. We ended up playing a few times, although we lost pretty badly on the third scenario. We had an ally appear in one room, and we were supposed to protect the ally. Unfortunately that ally decided to run forward quickly and be shot by a bunch of Archers before we even had the chance to step into the room.
Overall the weather has been getting much warmer. The kitties have taken to a melted pose where they are all stretched out, compared to how they had been tightly curled up and sometimes even under a blanket. They are still up for being cuddly, which is nice. We had expected them to not want to cuddle once it got warm enough.
We took advantage of the weather and went to another one of the bars that we’ve been eyeing for a while, Rotunda. It has a Mexican theme, but specifically it is theming itself around Tulum. With the sun going down it was a bit chilly, but I was still fine in just a single layer. I really enjoy sitting and talking with Steph along the canal.
That weekend Steph went diving for the first time with the dive group we meet with on Wednesdays in Holborn. She did the scallop dive and barbecue with them. They only had the one spot left, so I stayed in London and did a game jam. While working on the game jam I was able to visit a number of the private park around London that had been opened up for the weekend. I went to Mecklenburgh Square gardens, Bedford Square Garden, and Montague Street Gardens. They were all slightly nicer than the public gardens nearby; being cleaner and less worn. They didn’t have the amenities that a garden/park like Russel Square has, but that is to be expected.
Sunday Punit and I walked to the Welcome Collection and tried to co-work from there, but they don’t have outlets. Then we tried the British Library, but all the seating was full. Then we ended up back at The Hub and it was a pretty good place to work. The wandering had eaten up most of our time, and Punit then had to meet Nancy for something with their new place out in Walthamstow.
The game jam went really well. I was participating in Mini Jam 134: Islands with the restriction of “On a Grid.” I chose to do a hex grid and an island building game. It turned out really well, and I placed 8th out of 118. A coworker also participated and made a nice tower defense that placed 19th. A pretty good showing and a great jam. I made sure that most of the elements I worked on for this jam would be reusable, like the progressive draft and hex grid.
The kitties were happy to see us when we got back from Paris. It was so nice to have such a short travel period, and given experience we could easily show up half an hour to an hour later and still be fine at the train station. We had a full week. Tuesday Steph and I went climbing at Yonder. Wednesday Steph went to BSAC while I worked on an updated project base for my game jams.
Thursday we met up with with Lynne for dinner at Kaki, and they were able to do the crispy chili dish with tofu. It was great, and makes me want to go there even more often.
Friday we went to the comedy club with some Meta employees. Steph and I shaded the truth when asked about what we did, with some of the other Meta people making up whole new personas. Only one got called out on it. We had a great time and stopped by the Thornhill Arms finally.
For the weekend we had a full Saturday of climbing in the morning with Punit and Roel. Then we had a lovely lunch in Coal Drop Yards with Punit. We had a short break before heading to a couples massage, that was a pretty intense Thai massage. After the massage we had some games with people in California planned. We played Azul on BGA with Brian and Brittany, then played some Grounded with Michael and Michelle.
Sunday we did a great escape room at ClueQuest with Nancy and Punit, then got lunch at Duck and Dimsum.
Bookclub was an amazing discussion, from a great book for discussing and a great set of people to talk to. We were reading The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin. Nicole had her first time joining a discussion, and I hope she wasn’t put off by it only being myself, Michelle, and her.
This week was extra short, as we got back from Zurich late on Monday and headed to Paris early Friday. I still got plenty done at work, even if it wasn’t what I was planning on doing.
Tuesday I had a nice soak using the bath bomb Steph got for me from Lush. They are Mario mystery bock shapes with a soap inside. I enjoyed the soak and listening to a good book.
We went to the Shard for afternoon tea to celebrate Steph’s position with the Zurich company, as well as my birthday a little. We were probably about one third of the way up the Shard, but the views were still amazing. The high tea was themed around peter pan, and they brought it out on a pirate ship.
Wednesday I had dinner with Nancy and Punit, while Steph went to the BSAC club and tried out her gear. She said it was packed and she got to talk to some great people. Nancy and Punit made some great fish curry, and samosas. I brought over some berries and smoothies. Punit seemed to like the smoothy, but Nancy politely only had a sip, and I think she was put off by the chunkiness.
I had a great playtest with Brian for their new game. I like the direction they are taking, and I’m impressed by the multiplayer.
Steph and I had a great climbing session with Punit. We did one of the gyms that I’d been to once before, and Steph hadn’t been to yet. They had some competition routes posted, and I was able to do up to 7, and then 9. 8 had a tricky part that I didn’t have the grip strength to get past. 10 and above I couldn’t even start on the wall. I had a great time of it.
We also went back to the diving club and are now thinking of doing a dive trip to Turkey in the fall. It would be great to go with the Turkish guy who is organizing the trip, as he knows the area really well. The dive club is full of really friendly people.
The restaurant Kaki is quickly becoming my favorite, as it has a dish that is very similar to our favorite dish in the bay, magic chili tofu. It is the same mix of spicy, sichuan peppercorns, ginger, garlic, and crispy chilis. I’m really happy we found this place. The crazy part is that it is one of the closest restaurants to our flat, and has a great view of the canal. We hadn’t tried it until recently as we have a few places that we pointed at and said, “That would be great once the weather is nice enough to sit outside.” We’ll have to try some of the other nearby places like that.
We continue to see lots of young chicks of all sorts of birds in the canals and lakes. Steph and I went to a meeting of a London dive club together. It was great getting to meet people there, and to hear how the diving is around the UK. It is much harder to get to the water from London, since we don’t have cars. I suppose it would have been just as hard for us to get to the water without a car in California, but we had more of a network for that. Steph is planning a dive with them, but I won’t be joining for the first dive since they only had one extra spot. Their meetings are great, in the top room of a tavern, and they have all sorts of little ceremonies and traditions that make the meetings great.
One of my corworkers and I took most of the weekend to do a game jam with Mini Jam 132: Severed with the restriction of having multiple endings. We called the game Severed Heads, United Hearts. It uses AI NPCs that you must convince to join your side instead of your rival’s. They vote several times and you can chat with them to convince them to choose you over the rival, Henry. I was pretty happy with how it turned out, but it is obviously not the kind of experience that the game jam crowd would appreciate.
Monday was May Day and Steph and I took advantage of it by going to Little Venice near Paddington. They had a lot of houseboats as well as floating restaurants there. They had a festival going on, but it was kind of generic festival booths with the small addition of being able to ride on the canal boats. The funny part is you can do that on normal days anyway, so it was just longer lines for the normal activities. We decided to continue the walk along the canal and found a gorgeous garden area next to the canal near Regents Park. It showed that the wisteria was starting to bloom, so I looked up places we could find some good wisteria vines. I found a place that we ended up visiting on Thursday afternoon, which was a gorgeous house completely covered in a huge wisteria vine. It was on a quaint alley that you get to through a gorgeous arch. It was one of the most picturesque houses I’ve seen in London.
In addition to all the flowers, there are all the baby animals. The main ones we see are the baby birds. I’ve seen a few different types and they are all adorable fluff balls.
Friday we went to the sauna and steamroom at better St. Pancras. Then in the evening we took a nice walk along the canal to dinner at the Feng Shang Princess, a restaurant floating on the canal. The walk there was really nice and we were surprised as we got to Camden Market that it wasn’t crazily packed with people. The food was mediocre, but the restaurant was a nice atmosphere. I probably wouldn’t go again or recommend it. It is probably more worth walking by than going to. On the way home there was a downpour like I haven’t seen since I lived in the southeast US. We both got hit pretty hard, and our pants got soaked. I had brought an umbrella from checking the forecast, so it wasn’t too bad. We ended up tubing it back, although I was pretty confused by the Northern line out of Camden station. We also saw later that the Northern Line going the other route had a train car start smoking and people had to break the glass to get out.
Saturday was a chill day and I played around with more AI. I tried the Alpaca and Vicuna models as well as some other spinoffs. I was amazed that they ran on my macbook, but they aren’t nearly as good as GPT4. They will get to be very useful soon, but aren’t quite there yet. The depth maps to 3D meshes worked pretty well. I had fun making a 3D version of my kingly picture from last week.
Sunday I went on a walk and saw another fox. It was on the other side of a fence and then it walked a little way down and poked through. We crossed the street together and went into a park that had some woods. Steph and I then went to Lightroom, an exhibit in the basement of the building I work in. It was ok, but it didn’t feel all that immersive compared to VR.
It's an Exciting World 