MSRI week 2.95

K, so I'm a day ahead of my scheduled weekly wrapup. Whatever. Just wanted to let you know all about the cool stuff that went down this week.

So our project, Supernova Recognition, is pretty cool. Basically we take a bunch of vectors, run them through a testing ground, ans ask "Is that white spot a supernova?" We finally figured out how to run the testing data (reading the instructions can be very useful), and on our initial data set of 10000 points, we were 84% accurate. Granted, this is the data set we just trained to determined the best jusgement criteria. Hmm. We're gonna need to tweak some of the variables a bit for a better fit. Also we don't know which are false positives and which are false negatives. But we have a couple weeks to figure that out.

My co-workers on that project, Thomas and Talea, are great. Thomas puts on the internet classical radio station. We talk things out. We show everyone else what we're doing. It's chill. I hope we can maintain this kind of aura all the way through. Especially since Thomas is my roomate.

On Wednesday I slept in until 10:30. It felt SO GOOD! We had the whole day off, so it was just a day to recuperate and collect. I went with a few people to go see fireworks over the bay. It was less than stellar. From where we were at, we could see one medium-sized fireworks show and one itsy-bitsy fireworks show. We could barely feel the explosions. So that was mixed, but I got to hang out with people, and that's part of what the 4th of July is all about. Oh, and if you ever need to fly, apparently the 4th is the cheapest day to buy tickets. Or so I've heard.

Of course, once the fireworks were done, we got to walk along the bay. Everybody here is so rushrush. I don't like having to catch up to them, and in so ignoring the scenery. Granted, it was 11 at night in Oakland, but still you miss out on a lot of things. I could see the sky clearly after the fireworks were done, but nature's light show was just starting.

The weather here is so rediculuous. Yesterday it was foggy ALL DAY. At 5 we could see the mist still rolling across out office windows. Very cool and weird at the same time. Then today it was a blazing 85 degrees, not windy, and too hot for the jackets that everyone brought. Ugh. If this weather were a rodeo bull we'd've fallen off a long time ago.

So yeah today the group went kayaking near the marina in Oakland. I and two other guys refrained. I had my reasons, as I'm sure they did, too. One of them is an actual lifeguard, so that was interesting to learn. We just chilled and tried to cope with the director of the program, who also declined to kayak. 2 hours later, everyone came rowing in sopping wet. I took a couple pictures when everyone got out of their boats. There was also this Chinese restaurant in Oakland we went to. Good food for the price.

On Friday we had a lecture about Grad School- getting in, applying, and funding for it. I don't know what it was, but there was something about Ms. Patt's message that we wouldn't have to worry about funding for grad school that caught my attention. Apply for fellowships, people. It also became evident that I could also apply to grad school for math. At this point, I don't know what to do. But I have another year to think it over before crunch time.

And apparently UC Berkeley is at the top or near the top for a bunch of different stuff, including Physics, Astronomy (They just had a huge colloquium with people from all over, including the UofA and Steward Observatory), Math, and basically anything else you can think of. The campus is breathtaking. On one hand because of all the hills that you have to walk/bike up, and also it's so darn beautiful. There's a creek runnning through the middle of campus. Plenty of trees. Lots of trees. Almost east coast-like. It's like the school was built around the scenery and not the other way around, which is the feeling I get a lot of at the UofA. I mean, those flowers that they have to replant every month? The city I'm not as much a fan of. So that's a definite drawback. I went with our TA, Edgar, to the bay to see the fireworks, and we drove by a lot of poor neighborhoods. Of course, that's for California standards (Edgar says he and a friend are paying like 1400 for a 1bedroom/big enough living room to split into another bedroom apartment!!!! Holy moly).

But that's the news down here from the source. Supposedly Incubus is playing at the Greek Theater next Saturday, and Daft Punk two weeks after that. Free tunes. Yay!