Talking With Pictures

The various research groups in the CS department have been doing presentations about the research they've done and are doing so that other students and faculty in the department can have a chance to see what's going on. The graphics lab's presentation was yesterday. Ten of the students presented their research or, in some cases, research areas they were interested in. The format was 4-6 slides with no text. Each student talked about the first and last slide and another student talked about the middle slide. It was basically a whirlwind tour of stuff going on in the graphics lab.

For my slides, I basically converted my NSERC research proposal into comic format. They're shown below but, since there's no text, they might not make a whole lot of sense, but oh well.

That is all.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

'Tis the Season... Not

So, I was at the mall today to get some thank you cards to send to my references since they were pretty awesome about getting the reference letters in for the Vanier scholarship on such short notice. When I went into the card store I couldn't help but notice that they ALREADY HAD CHRISTMAS STUFF OUT. And it's only early October. I mean, cripes! I know capitalism/materialism is getting a bit out of hand these days, but still, couldn't they at least wait until after Thanksgiving? (*)

Sigh.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

(*) And by Thanksgiving, I mean Canadian Thanksgiving which is this weekend.

Showmanship and Other Ships

Coffee hour in the graphics lab is Friday afternoons. It doesn't actually involve coffee, but there are generally snacks. Today, one of the lab members came in wearing a chinese shirt with a book (it had "Bible" on the cover, but that's inconsequential to the story, really, but it did create an interesting image) which he then proceeded to open (the book, not the shirt) and which then burst into flames (doused upon closing it). It was certainly a flashy entrance. He also tried to do something similar with a wallet, but it didn't want to cooperate.

In non-fire related news, today I was asked by the computer science department to submit an application for the Vanier Canada Graduate scholarship (as a follow-up to my NSERC application which was submitted last week). This is a good thing. The Vanier is rather prestigious (not to mention valuable) and whilst I have no idea what my liklihood of getting one is, I think that this development bodes quite well for my NSERC application, if nothing else.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Watch for Falling Blocks

I spent yesterday afternoon playing Tetris. Well, "tetrominos", but same diff. There was, actually, a good reason for this. The first assignment assignment (technically the second, actually, but the first one is just practice and doesn't count for anything) for the graphics course I'm TAing this term was due yesterday so the other TA and I spent much of the afternoon marking. The assignment is, basically, Tetris. The students don't actually have to implement any of the actual gameplay, they just have to render the results. Part of the marking invovles "playing" the game, hence why I say I spent much of yesterday afternoon playing Tetris.

I was also in the undergrad graphics lab earlier this week for the first time since I took the course nine years ago (not really a surprise or anything since I had no reason to be there until this term). It seemed nicer than I remembered, though that may be largely because all the computers are reasonably up-to-date with reasonably nice flat screen monitors, as opposed to the clunky octane workstations that were there when I took the course and which were kinda out of date even back then.

I'm finding I'm actually kind of liking the lab/office hour side of TAing, as opposed to just marking that I've done the past couple of terms. Of course, part of that might be because this is the graphics course and, hence, an area I'm reasonably familiar with. I may not like it as much if I had to do this for some random CS course.

Anyway, that's all for now.

Freak Out,
-TFitC