Friday 5.5

1. It was a pretty quiet week around here which is typical. If every week were full of grandiose events or happenings, well, soon they wouldn't be as grandiose- they'd just be a typical week. I guess you could go down a rabbit hole of what is typical? But for my purposes, typical is hearing neither great nor bad news, nothing great nor terrible occurring, and the quotidian events not particularly distinguishing one day from the next.  

2. My Monday was a little bit different than usual Mondays because I had to run errands after work. I try to not have to go anywhere after work but it was a needs must situation. I had planned to get a decent bit of things/errands accomplished on Sunday but I ended up being on the road driving for about five hours total and spending about two and half hours with my brother so getting things done on Sunday didn't occur which meant they had occur on Monday. 

In particular, I had few fresh groceries for meals for the week. Monday was Dominos pizza day at school and I was hoping I'd get to bring pizza home. The last time it was Dominos pizza day, I brought home two whole pizzas! Not so this time.  I didn't bring so much as a slice home. And so I had to get dinner items. I went to Aldi and bought frozen items to bake for dinner. I try to make home made food most of the time; frozen seems like a cop out but since I'd been hoping to not have to cook due to possibly having Dominos, I didn't have it in me to cook. I did buy ingredients for chili to make later that week.

3. Also on Monday, I completed putting together small jars of hot pepper jelly and cream cheese to give to my coworkers. I had hoped to give these to my coworkers on Monday but I didn't buy the cream cheese on Sunday (since I went out of town) so I couldn't give them to my coworkers on Monday. It's common to eat the jelly and cream cheese together (what I do is put the jelly over a block of cream cheese and then dip crackers into it). 

It actually worked out pretty well to give the jelly/cream cheese to my coworkers on Tuesday since Tuesday was the first day of fall and I made little tags that said, "Happy Fall." The jelly is not a fall food, really, but I make it in the fall since that's when garden bell peppers ripen. 

My coworkers expressed a lot of gratitude for the jelly/cream cheese. They were sweet to express such thanks! I feel like I'm still faking it till I make it with my job. It's not that I don't like my coworkers because I genuinely do. It's more like faking enthusiasm for the idea of having coworkers to give things to if that makes sense. 

Here is what I gave to my coworkers. Last year I gave out jelly that I'd made to neighbors. The packaging was much more cute last year than this year. But I had more free time last year so... yeah not as cute but I don't think anyone cared too much about that. 

4. And so Tuesday was the aforementioned first day of fall. Our temps had fallen gloriously on Monday; Tuesday's weather continued near Perfect Fall Temperatures. It was also overcast on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday which I enjoyed. I like a moody, cool overcast day, what can I say? I went to sit outside and read after work on Tuesday and even with a blanket on, I started to feel too cold. I think the temp was in the low to mid 60's. We have heaters for the patio and I'm pretty sure a remote control controls them but I don't know which remote and I didn't want to mess with them all (Donnie keeps all the outdoor remotes in one place) so I just went inside- that took care of being too cold quickly! The heat isn't on in our house but the outside temp wasn't cool enough to make the house cool. 

5. On Tuesday at school, we served orange chicken. It was pretty tasty! There was a pan of it that was leftover that was going to be thrown out so I said I'd take some home. "Some" ended up being a large pan (probably at least 11 by 15) full of orange chicken. We had it for dinner and Donnie liked it as well (definitely tasted quite a bit like Panda Express's orange chicken). It's not healthy but it had protein in it anyway, it tasted good, and all I had to do was prepare rice for a meal. I froze the rest to eat later. 

Wait, didn't I just say I felt guilty for buying frozen food to reheat for meals? Yes, but it's different when the food is not frozen and you didn't have to pay for it...

On Wednesday, I made the aforementioned chili and it was good! I tweaked one of the chili recipes from the food site Skinny Taste. It called for a bell pepper cut into pieces and this was all I had from the garden:

Did you know that red peppers are green peppers that turned red with time? This green pepper was in the turning red process when I picked it. It was kind of small and I hoped it was ripe- it was!

I also had garden tomatoes in the refrigerator that I had to do something with. Some of them had been sitting in there for a few days. I knew I had to make marinara with them. I did use a few for the chili. 

Here's what was cookin'

Got some marinara 

...and dinner. The breadsticks are Bosco sticks, from school. They're breadsticks with cheese in the middle. They were the perfect accompaniment for the chili.

5.5 Did you see the story out of Stanford University where the university used AI to change a photo of three students? The photo was for a brochure of the college, apparently purporting to show diversity and... better looking students. 

The odd thing regarding diversity is that  it swapped one non white person for another non white person. It appeared to darken the hair color of a person with fair skin and it slimmed the face of a female student.

From the Daily Mail:

"Stanford University released AI-generated images in a brochure that altered the race, gender, and appearance of pictures college students.

The original image showcases three students: an Asian woman, a white man, and a Latino man. 

The Latino man underwent the biggest AI transformation for the brochure- becoming both a woman and black. The other two students saw their faces slimmed down and elongated."

The link takes you to the Daily Mail's site where you can view the two photos. Interestingly, a number of US online newsites picked up the story but most did not include photos.

Perhaps not surprisingly, using AI to alter a photo is in violation of Stanford's own AI policy.

From The Stanford Daily:

"Stanford confirmed that Residential and Dining Enterprises (R&DE) used generative AI to modify the appearance of several students in a promotional image. R&DE changed the students' clothing into Stanford merchandise, slimmed down two students' faces and entirely changed one student's race, gender, and appearance (my note: the latter is one way of saying the original person was taken out of the photo entirely!)

University public relations director Charlene Gage said that the image was altered with AI in violation of University Regulations."

Ms. Gage went on to say that additional training will be done, yada, yada, yada.

Sometimes I take pictures of things and I wish the picture had turned out better than it did. But I've never used AI to alter a photo. Perhaps I will someday but as of now I can say the photos I post are the ones that come straight from the "click" on my Nikon or the photo button on my phone. 

Let's say for example that you make a delicious treat that tastes really good- say a pumpkin dump cake. But the photos you took of it are less than stellar. I mean, the dessert itself is just not that great looking which, of course, is obvious in the photos. Still, you take the photos, you post them and then you tell your readers that the dessert tastes good and you post a link to the recipe and then you post the only photos you have of the dessert, non spectacular looking as they are. 

Real good dessert, real life so the picture depicts reality; nothing AI about it

Yes, I didn't even think to take a picture of it until I had gotten into it to try it (I HAD to try it before I offered it to guests!!) 

Ok, I've now posted something about "the cake" five days in a row. I'll stop now!!