An Error in Innovation

This article is probably the hardest article I've worked on all year. 

When I interviewed last week, I went there to interview a professor. He talked to me for half an hour and handed me off to a [cute and smart] grad student in his group. I talked with him for an hour. They were both trying to explain to me what their research was (which is in "theory of filtering and estimation", using Bayesian inference and a little bit of control theory), and it took me forever to get. 

I think the grad student understood that, since he reassured me that it had taken him months to get an intuition about this sort of thing, and I was learning it all in one hour. 

To make it short, they're trying to make noisy measurements like radar and precision force sensors more accurate by comparing the sensor measurement to a model, and calling the difference the "innovation error", and using that difference to keep updating the prediction until the error approaches zero. The simulations he showed me were pretty amazing, especially when I knew the math behind it had to be ridiculously complex.

It's going well, though. It took me two days to go through all the material. I did, after all, have an hour and a half of recordings to go through (some of it more than once, and I'm going to have to go back and get more quotes, unfortunately) as well as 7 pages of notes and scribbled diagrams that they had both drawn for me as a way of helping me understand. I've since drawn my own, paraphrased notes on the papers. 

The most exciting thing is that this is really my first serious piece of science writing. This is complicated stuff. Not everyone would be able to understand this like I did, with my physics and math background. And most people wouldn't care anyway. So how do I make them understand? And how do I make them care?

This is what science writing is. 

If I do this right, this'll be a very important piece for me. 

My, What Beautiful Handwriting You Have

That's what I thought while the professor was writing in front of me. Now I'm trying to read his notes and I'm lost in the beauty of his handwriting and can't find the words.

In other words, it's pretty but impractical. Good thing I recorded the whole conversation (or should I call it a lecture?)

Part-Attention

I didn't have anything to do at work today. At least, that's what I thought.

I was puttering, sending emails and updating the website for an organization of which I am webmaster, preparing some questions for a professor I'm interviewing tomorrow--and it hit me.

I have transcripts of two student interviews that I never wrote articles for.

They were from at least two weeks ago, if not three. I panicked just a little bit. How did those slip through the cracks? How had I forgotten already? They were not time-sensitive, by any means, and I had been keeping busy these last three weeks with other things, but how had I never come back to them? I had had little tidbits of time in which to work on them, if I had wanted, but I had completely forgotten.

A problem with working part-time: your job tends to take up only part of your attention.

I have schoolwork, rehearsals, riding lessons, places to be, and it's hard to keep track of everything. Work sort of falls to the back of everything, since I technically only think about it 9 hours out of the week. I get behind, I lose track of things, I forget things by simply focusing on "what's due today" rather than the long-term, no-due-date projects.

I think I'll need to make a system for that. I already have post-its on my desktop with some proper phrasing things such as saying "the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering" BEFORE I use the universally-employed "MechSE," which I suppose is an acronym, but I've never thought of it that way.

Anyway. I'll have to make a master post-it with all my projects on it. Then maybe this will stop happening.

Being a full-time student with a part-time job is a lot like having a full-time job.

More pictures.

I was just elected to be the English Historian for the equestrian club.

I definitely need a better camera!

Pics (Or It Didn't Happen)

I feel so obtrusive as a photographer. You have to get in front of people and duck behind tables and run while bending over so as not to block any views. And the whole time you are SO conscious of like, your existence. And what you're wearing. And literally every move you make.

Still, I got a few nice pictures. The event was pretty small; it was just an elective night to educate upperclassmen ME majors as to their upper-level electives that they need in order to graduate. So I got pictures, plus a few words from the VP of ASME and the head of the undergrade MechSE office (whom I already knew). I would call it a successful outing.

I'll upload the pictures and such to the network at work tomorrow. Along with pictures I got of the EcoMarathon. I don't know whether I should interview people about it or just do a short news piece on what happened, who won and who didn't, and throw in a couple of names that I get off their website. We already did a piece on them before the competition, so I feel like another piece should just be the news-worthy part, which is the results. (? Maybe?)

Also, if I'm going to keep taking pictures, I need a camera without a digital zoom. If you zoom in with a digital zoom, all motion is blurry. And that's reeally not useful for journalistic purposes.

Laziness and Photography

I'm sitting cross-legged in an upper hallway of the physics building as we speak, waiting to go to work. I originally came here because there was a hold on my account that kept me from registering for classes--even when there really shouldn't have been. But then, as I waited for them to get back from their lunch break, I logged on and found the holds had been removed already...even though I hadn't talked to them yet.

Maybe they were just a little late in getting my registration eligibility approved. Either way, I decided to stay here. And I'm not sure why, because people keep giving me weird looks, and one person said "Hey, how are you?" when I swear to a stack of holy bibles I had no idea who he was. (Although I replied enthusiastically all the same. No reason to make it awkward, especially when he was so nice.)

I have a photographer gig! I mean, not really. Sort of. Bill has a conflict at two upcoming MechSE events, and either I or Chad (my fellow worker) have to cover the events. Chad has a conflict on Tuesday, so I'm covering Tuesday and he'll cover Wednesday. I'm not sure exactly what I have to do, but I like taking pictures. Maybe I'll upload one or two?

When I did an interview this weekend, I barely remembered to take a picture of him before I left, to put in the article. Unfortunately it was against a wall (I should have gone outside, why didn't I think of it) but my phone takes pretty good pictures, so quality won't be a problem.

He didn't say if we had to write articles on the events. I suppose I can just ask him today.

Three of the five articles on the MechSE site right now are mine. Oh, and four of the six spotlights.

That makes me feel really good.