Through the wonders of MythTV, I was able to capture the short news segment featuring yours truly. There's nothing like being the subject of not-so-witty local news anchorman banter. So, without further ado, the "odd little kicker:"
Mike on TV (28 MB)
I'm the one in the yellow mask. You also have to love the cheese references at the end. I'm also the one that made the front page of the student newspaper the next day! Looks like it's going more towards 1.5 minutes of fame!
For now, I'm off to Philadelphia, PA for the APS 2006 DPP meeting. The horrendous work weeks are now over -- now to catch up on the world of US fusion and plasma physics research.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Mike -- Now on TV!
As a brief reprieve from the pre-APS meeting pressure, my friend Soren and I decided to go for a bit of Halloween fun. Being a multitasker, we decided to do so while underwater. (It's not November yet -- and recall I once went diving in Lake Superior even then!)
Under a slight drizzle, we joined about ten others from the UW SCUBA club and carved pumpkins underwater. The local news station was there for the festivities, and took a long look at my buddy and myself while we were preparing for the dive, as well as while descending. It turns out I was the one to make the cut for the 10 PM news reel!
It may be more like 15 seconds of fame, but I'll take what I can get.
Under a slight drizzle, we joined about ten others from the UW SCUBA club and carved pumpkins underwater. The local news station was there for the festivities, and took a long look at my buddy and myself while we were preparing for the dive, as well as while descending. It turns out I was the one to make the cut for the 10 PM news reel!
It may be more like 15 seconds of fame, but I'll take what I can get.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Only in Wisconsin
Isn't it great when the state in which you live gets 'interesting' press coverage?
It would seem that the Republican candidate for Wisconsin Secretary of State is using her affairs with Packers players in the 60's as a campaign tactic.
Wow. Just -- wow.
It would seem that the Republican candidate for Wisconsin Secretary of State is using her affairs with Packers players in the 60's as a campaign tactic.
Wow. Just -- wow.
Sunday, October 1, 2006
Going Pink
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month. As a part of an effort to raise awareness about the campaign, the Pink for October group has led a rally for websites to change to a pink-based color theme for the month. (For those of you reading an aggregate: kravlor.com)
Being slashdotted doesn't hurt one's awareness, either.
My mother was afflicted with breast cancer -- and was one of its survivors. It changed my life, and that of my family instantly. Hopefully, with enough resources and research the battle against cancer can eventually be won.
Being slashdotted doesn't hurt one's awareness, either.
My mother was afflicted with breast cancer -- and was one of its survivors. It changed my life, and that of my family instantly. Hopefully, with enough resources and research the battle against cancer can eventually be won.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
A Breath of Air
Now that fall is upon me, I realize that summer flew by very, very fast. Partially this was because I was working a tremendous amount. But, I now know rudimentary French, having learned a year's worth in a scant eight weeks. Will I remember it? Likely not -- but that's what happens when you cram that much vocabulary in too fast; unused words fall off the end of the list as you put in new ones!
Fortunately this will be my last semester of academic work. After 6.5 years of maximized higher-education courseloads, this will be a welcome change. Plus, a MS degree is going to be a nice Christmas present. Aside from getting back into the swing of things with coursework, research at Pegasus is continuing to go well. I've supervised several undergraduate research projects, and am continuing to do so. My research in plasma control is going well too, although at times it seems more like excess debugging than actual science.
The summer and fall also seem to be prime wedding season, with friends and family lining up at the altar at a (seemingly) ever-increasing rate! Soon, I'll be up there by default. :)
Finally, to relate to the title: Kristen is taking a SCUBA class! By the end of October, we'll be able to do underwater pumpkin carving together with the UW Scuba club. Hooray for diving!
Fortunately this will be my last semester of academic work. After 6.5 years of maximized higher-education courseloads, this will be a welcome change. Plus, a MS degree is going to be a nice Christmas present. Aside from getting back into the swing of things with coursework, research at Pegasus is continuing to go well. I've supervised several undergraduate research projects, and am continuing to do so. My research in plasma control is going well too, although at times it seems more like excess debugging than actual science.
The summer and fall also seem to be prime wedding season, with friends and family lining up at the altar at a (seemingly) ever-increasing rate! Soon, I'll be up there by default. :)
Finally, to relate to the title: Kristen is taking a SCUBA class! By the end of October, we'll be able to do underwater pumpkin carving together with the UW Scuba club. Hooray for diving!
A Breath of Air
Now that fall is upon me, I realize that summer flew by very, very fast. Partially this was because I was working a tremendous amount. But, I now know rudimentary French, having learned a year's worth in a scant eight weeks. Will I remember it? Likely not -- but that's what happens when you cram that much vocabulary in too fast; unused words fall off the end of the list as you put in new ones!
Fortunately this will be my last semester of academic work. After 6.5 years of maximized higher-education courseloads, this will be a welcome change. Plus, a MS degree is going to be a nice Christmas present. Aside from getting back into the swing of things with coursework, research at Pegasus is continuing to go well. I've supervised several undergraduate research projects, and am continuing to do so. My research in plasma control is going well too, although at times it seems more like excess debugging than actual science.
The summer and fall also seem to be prime wedding season, with friends and family lining up at the altar at a (seemingly) ever-increasing rate! Soon, I'll be up there by default. :)
Finally, to relate to the title: Kristen is taking a SCUBA class! By the end of October, we'll be able to do underwater pumpkin carving together with the UW Scuba club. Hooray for diving!
Fortunately this will be my last semester of academic work. After 6.5 years of maximized higher-education courseloads, this will be a welcome change. Plus, a MS degree is going to be a nice Christmas present. Aside from getting back into the swing of things with coursework, research at Pegasus is continuing to go well. I've supervised several undergraduate research projects, and am continuing to do so. My research in plasma control is going well too, although at times it seems more like excess debugging than actual science.
The summer and fall also seem to be prime wedding season, with friends and family lining up at the altar at a (seemingly) ever-increasing rate! Soon, I'll be up there by default. :)
Finally, to relate to the title: Kristen is taking a SCUBA class! By the end of October, we'll be able to do underwater pumpkin carving together with the UW Scuba club. Hooray for diving!
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Soaked!
You'd think that by living far, far away from dangerous things like rivers one would be less prone to casual flooding events. However, just that happened today.
I was isolated snugly in the basement of my building during a meeting, when one of my coworkers poked his head into the room. He was dripping water head to toe, and proclaimed that it was raining cats and dogs outside. Shortly thereafter, our vacuum technician reported flooding in our basement floor and led a team of undergraduates to circumvent the problem.
Downtown Madison and the areas near my lab were hit hardest. My girlfriend was trapped in her car as the roads were flooding. Fortunately, she was able to get off the roads safely. Afterward, she took pictures to show just how bad things were. (These were taken after the water had receded by eight inches!)
A local newspaper reporter also got a chance to snap a picture of her, too!
Yikes!
I was isolated snugly in the basement of my building during a meeting, when one of my coworkers poked his head into the room. He was dripping water head to toe, and proclaimed that it was raining cats and dogs outside. Shortly thereafter, our vacuum technician reported flooding in our basement floor and led a team of undergraduates to circumvent the problem.
Downtown Madison and the areas near my lab were hit hardest. My girlfriend was trapped in her car as the roads were flooding. Fortunately, she was able to get off the roads safely. Afterward, she took pictures to show just how bad things were. (These were taken after the water had receded by eight inches!)
A local newspaper reporter also got a chance to snap a picture of her, too!
Yikes!
Sunday, May 28, 2006
LVM Is Fun
There's nothing like starting a long weekend with Linux nerdery. To wit: the main server at kravlor.com now has an aggregate shared storage block of .8 TB, providing on average 1 TB of storage to machines on the network! (It turns out that MythTV eats a lot of storage, especially when one gets a chance to watch TV every few months or so!)
Niftier is that hard disks in the set can be reshuffled in and out with little repercussion. (On production-scale servers, for instance, drives can even be hot-swapped, avoiding a reboot!)
Also, the photo gallery has been provisionally fixed. It has been on the fritz since I nuked the kravlor.com server following a compromise. (Moral of the story: mod_rewrite is difficult to debug.)
Niftier is that hard disks in the set can be reshuffled in and out with little repercussion. (On production-scale servers, for instance, drives can even be hot-swapped, avoiding a reboot!)
Also, the photo gallery has been provisionally fixed. It has been on the fritz since I nuked the kravlor.com server following a compromise. (Moral of the story: mod_rewrite is difficult to debug.)
Friday, May 12, 2006
(Fun - Sun) + Work in San Diego
Bullseye!
That was where my conference was held today, on the General Atomics campus. I've been attending a conference on active control of plasmas in today's modern tokamaks, and otherwise getting in touch with a lot of people actively involved in the research community that I am particularly interested for my work on Pegasus. (It's pretty nifty to be in a spot that is so clearly distinguishable from space. Ok, pretty super spiffy.)
It being my first time in a higher-security DOE facility, let's just say it was impressive. Very impressive. The control room was laced with many, many operator/data visualization stations; several large-screen projectors with machine status information, etc.; cool blinking lights; and more.
It would appear that people from MIT are interested in the work that I've been doing to make interfacing C, LabView, and Igor programs with their data acquisition/storage/retrieval system, MDSplus.
I look forward to seeing what the final day of the conference brings -- as well as my return for a week-long stay in early June.
That was where my conference was held today, on the General Atomics campus. I've been attending a conference on active control of plasmas in today's modern tokamaks, and otherwise getting in touch with a lot of people actively involved in the research community that I am particularly interested for my work on Pegasus. (It's pretty nifty to be in a spot that is so clearly distinguishable from space. Ok, pretty super spiffy.)
It being my first time in a higher-security DOE facility, let's just say it was impressive. Very impressive. The control room was laced with many, many operator/data visualization stations; several large-screen projectors with machine status information, etc.; cool blinking lights; and more.
It would appear that people from MIT are interested in the work that I've been doing to make interfacing C, LabView, and Igor programs with their data acquisition/storage/retrieval system, MDSplus.
I look forward to seeing what the final day of the conference brings -- as well as my return for a week-long stay in early June.
Thursday, May 4, 2006
You Know You're In Graduate School...
... when your pen runs out of ink as a result of working on the math for your magnetohydrodynamics final. :)
As a followup to my last post, there has been an amazing response at a blog set up to thank Colbert for his performance. With more than 45,000 comments (the vast majority compliments/thank yous) in less than a week -- and growing rapidly -- it would seem that his performance struck a resonance with the American people!
As a followup to my last post, there has been an amazing response at a blog set up to thank Colbert for his performance. With more than 45,000 comments (the vast majority compliments/thank yous) in less than a week -- and growing rapidly -- it would seem that his performance struck a resonance with the American people!
Monday, May 1, 2006
A Newfound Appreciation For Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert made a great speech at the White House Correspondents' dinner on Saturday.
All I can say is that if you haven't seen this routine, you need to. My particular favorite zinger:
"I mean, nothing satisfies [the White House Correspondents]. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, 'Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.' First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring -- if anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!"
Colbert certainly has... guts... to be able to give the delivery he did with President Bush less than six feet away.
And perhaps of more interesting note, the New York Times completely omitted Colbert's sharp performance at the event, which also included a performance by a Bush lookalike. Perhaps Colbert was hitting too close to home with certain lapdogs of the Administration?
All I can say is that if you haven't seen this routine, you need to. My particular favorite zinger:
"I mean, nothing satisfies [the White House Correspondents]. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, 'Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.' First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring -- if anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!"
Colbert certainly has... guts... to be able to give the delivery he did with President Bush less than six feet away.
And perhaps of more interesting note, the New York Times completely omitted Colbert's sharp performance at the event, which also included a performance by a Bush lookalike. Perhaps Colbert was hitting too close to home with certain lapdogs of the Administration?
Saturday, April 1, 2006
Laptops are Fun
I've been enjoying the use of my new laptop computer. I finally decided to bite the bullet and obtain a machine that will be helpful while I travel and make increasing numbers of professional presentations. And, of course, play games.
In particular, this post is coming from the waiting area of my local area Car-X, where I will unfortunately soon pay a rather large sum to make sure my car can stop safely. (Brakes, it turns out, are an important safety feature of a motor vehicle these days.)
Work is continuing to go well. I've been versing myself in the art of Igor Pro XOP programming, which is essentially grafting the codes I've developed over the last several months into a different package that can then be accessed through Igor, a program that our research group uses extensively to view, manipulate, and otherwise look at data from our experiments.
With things starting to warm up these days, it's just about time for a BBQ!
In particular, this post is coming from the waiting area of my local area Car-X, where I will unfortunately soon pay a rather large sum to make sure my car can stop safely. (Brakes, it turns out, are an important safety feature of a motor vehicle these days.)
Work is continuing to go well. I've been versing myself in the art of Igor Pro XOP programming, which is essentially grafting the codes I've developed over the last several months into a different package that can then be accessed through Igor, a program that our research group uses extensively to view, manipulate, and otherwise look at data from our experiments.
With things starting to warm up these days, it's just about time for a BBQ!
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Hacked Again!
There's nothing like finding out that your web server has been compromised by some Romanian kiddiez. And then kicking yourself because it's clearly your own fault.
At least it's forced me to upgrade my server OS -- something that really, really needed to be done. Unfortunately, it seems my CMS, Drupal, doesn't play nice with the latest versions of PHP and MYSQL. So, things may look craptacular for a while until I get it fixed. :)
Let this be a lesson -- MythTV users should not be allowed SSH login!
At least it's forced me to upgrade my server OS -- something that really, really needed to be done. Unfortunately, it seems my CMS, Drupal, doesn't play nice with the latest versions of PHP and MYSQL. So, things may look craptacular for a while until I get it fixed. :)
Let this be a lesson -- MythTV users should not be allowed SSH login!
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
This is NOT Funny
Miss Deaf Texas Killed by Freight Train
She never heard it coming...
Is it wrong to laugh (at first) to this terrible tradgedy? It is unfortunately ironic.
She never heard it coming...
Is it wrong to laugh (at first) to this terrible tradgedy? It is unfortunately ironic.
Monday, March 6, 2006
Two Losses (one real)
Today Kirby Puckett died following complications from a stroke. I remember going to Twins games as a kid and hearing the Metrodome roar when the announcer called his name. He was a role model to many Minnesotans, myself included. It's a shame for things to end this way.
... and although I probably shouldn't mention these in the same posting, Fox killed off Edgar Stiles (along with tons of other agents) (CTRL+SHIFT+F5!) on 24 tonight. (How could they release the nerve gas in the headquarters? Damn them!)
Ok, back to solving linearized magnetohydrodynamics. I've had my night of TV for the week. It's a shame when it brings bad news, real or otherwise.
... and although I probably shouldn't mention these in the same posting, Fox killed off Edgar Stiles (along with tons of other agents) (CTRL+SHIFT+F5!) on 24 tonight. (How could they release the nerve gas in the headquarters? Damn them!)
Ok, back to solving linearized magnetohydrodynamics. I've had my night of TV for the week. It's a shame when it brings bad news, real or otherwise.
Two Losses (one real)
Today Kirby Puckett died following complications from a stroke. I remember going to Twins games as a kid and hearing the Metrodome roar when the announcer called his name. He was a role model to many Minnesotans, myself included. It's a shame for things to end this way.
... and although I probably shouldn't mention these in the same posting, Fox killed off Edgar Stiles (along with tons of other agents) (CTRL+SHIFT+F5!) on 24 tonight. (How could they release the nerve gas in the headquarters? Damn them!)
Ok, back to solving linearized magnetohydrodynamics. I've had my night of TV for the week. It's a shame when it brings bad news, real or otherwise.
... and although I probably shouldn't mention these in the same posting, Fox killed off Edgar Stiles (along with tons of other agents) (CTRL+SHIFT+F5!) on 24 tonight. (How could they release the nerve gas in the headquarters? Damn them!)
Ok, back to solving linearized magnetohydrodynamics. I've had my night of TV for the week. It's a shame when it brings bad news, real or otherwise.
Thursday, March 2, 2006
A Chance to Defeat Discrimination
Today the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature approved a measure that will place an amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution before voters in November with the following text:
"Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state."
In essence, gay marriage will be prohibited -- and so will all forms of civil unions or other domestic partnerships that have been endorsed by other states.
While I'm not the person that would be directly discriminated against by this amendment -- and it is discrimination in my book -- we should all take pause and examine the situation that the Legislature has put before Wisconsin residents, namely, the very real possibility that the Constitution will be used to discriminate and segregate a portion of our population and specifically deny them rights.
This legal move is fundamentally wrong in and of itself, regardless of one's perspective on homosexuality. The Constitution of the US or its states should be used to protect rights of citizens, not banish them.
To that end, I look forward to voting against this measure. More information is available here.
On a completely different topic, my promised MythTV update has come around, including new information about how to export stored video to DVD!
"Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state."
In essence, gay marriage will be prohibited -- and so will all forms of civil unions or other domestic partnerships that have been endorsed by other states.
While I'm not the person that would be directly discriminated against by this amendment -- and it is discrimination in my book -- we should all take pause and examine the situation that the Legislature has put before Wisconsin residents, namely, the very real possibility that the Constitution will be used to discriminate and segregate a portion of our population and specifically deny them rights.
This legal move is fundamentally wrong in and of itself, regardless of one's perspective on homosexuality. The Constitution of the US or its states should be used to protect rights of citizens, not banish them.
To that end, I look forward to voting against this measure. More information is available here.
On a completely different topic, my promised MythTV update has come around, including new information about how to export stored video to DVD!
A Chance to Defeat Discrimination
Today the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature approved a measure that will place an amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution before voters in November with the following text:
"Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state."
In essence, gay marriage will be prohibited -- and so will all forms of civil unions or other domestic partnerships that have been endorsed by other states.
While I'm not the person that would be directly discriminated against by this amendment -- and it is discrimination in my book -- we should all take pause and examine the situation that the Legislature has put before Wisconsin residents, namely, the very real possibility that the Constitution will be used to discriminate and segregate a portion of our population and specifically deny them rights.
This legal move is fundamentally wrong in and of itself, regardless of one's perspective on homosexuality. The Constitution of the US or its states should be used to protect rights of citizens, not banish them.
To that end, I look forward to voting against this measure. More information is available here.
On a completely different topic, my promised MythTV update has come around, including new information about how to export stored video to DVD!
"Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state."
In essence, gay marriage will be prohibited -- and so will all forms of civil unions or other domestic partnerships that have been endorsed by other states.
While I'm not the person that would be directly discriminated against by this amendment -- and it is discrimination in my book -- we should all take pause and examine the situation that the Legislature has put before Wisconsin residents, namely, the very real possibility that the Constitution will be used to discriminate and segregate a portion of our population and specifically deny them rights.
This legal move is fundamentally wrong in and of itself, regardless of one's perspective on homosexuality. The Constitution of the US or its states should be used to protect rights of citizens, not banish them.
To that end, I look forward to voting against this measure. More information is available here.
On a completely different topic, my promised MythTV update has come around, including new information about how to export stored video to DVD!
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Minnesota Republicans -- Now Phoning Home!
Yes, I'm mirroring a /. story, but this is something that really hits home for me, since I grew up in Minnesota.
It turns out that the Minnesota GOP has been distributing a CD that contains a Flash-based poll system. However, what they don't tell you is that should you run the CD, it phones home to the GOP, along with your name, address, and political opinions! And, to make things worse, this is done without any type of notice in the packaging or the program itself.
Clearly, this is Not A Good Idea. As for myself, I'd put it in the same bin as all the spyware and malware that is floating around the Internet and otherwise infesting Windows machines. (As an aside, I wonder whether an outbound-blocking firewall such as ZoneAlarm would be capable of detecting this mothership-signaling behavior?) Let's hope that this is treated with the same type of legal classification (illegal) that malware deserves.
It turns out that the Minnesota GOP has been distributing a CD that contains a Flash-based poll system. However, what they don't tell you is that should you run the CD, it phones home to the GOP, along with your name, address, and political opinions! And, to make things worse, this is done without any type of notice in the packaging or the program itself.
Clearly, this is Not A Good Idea. As for myself, I'd put it in the same bin as all the spyware and malware that is floating around the Internet and otherwise infesting Windows machines. (As an aside, I wonder whether an outbound-blocking firewall such as ZoneAlarm would be capable of detecting this mothership-signaling behavior?) Let's hope that this is treated with the same type of legal classification (illegal) that malware deserves.
Knocked Offline
Things have been very busy lately, largely due to my work at Pegasus. I've been in the process of establishing a link between the DIII-D PCS, the Pegasus data archive system, written primarily in LabVIEW, and MDSplus. Substantial progress has been made in the last few days, so I'm glad to almost be done at this point! I've certainly learned a lot about LabVIEW programming, and how to interface it to external libraries in C -- and will be glad to be done with passing data types between one another shortly!
I have been trying to write, but unfortunately my Internet access which provides access to this site has been very spotty over the last few weeks. With any luck a technician will be fixing things early tomorrow morning. And, with further luck, I'll be continuing to write sporadic updates, mixed with technical updates on some of the features I've been working on. First up on the list of things to write about: I've figured out a way to export recorded programs from my MythTV box to DVD, in a straightforward manner. (With a GUI, too!)
For now though, it's back to circuit analysis and MHD. At least I got a chance to go swing dancing this weekend!
I have been trying to write, but unfortunately my Internet access which provides access to this site has been very spotty over the last few weeks. With any luck a technician will be fixing things early tomorrow morning. And, with further luck, I'll be continuing to write sporadic updates, mixed with technical updates on some of the features I've been working on. First up on the list of things to write about: I've figured out a way to export recorded programs from my MythTV box to DVD, in a straightforward manner. (With a GUI, too!)
For now though, it's back to circuit analysis and MHD. At least I got a chance to go swing dancing this weekend!
Saturday, February 4, 2006
Checking In
It's probably been a bit longer than it should have been between my last post and now. However, the life of a graduate student often precludes the mythical 'free time' you need to write these entries!
I had the good fortune to spend the Christmas holiday with my family. Over New Years, I drove from Minnesota to Chicago to see my cousin get married. (Kristen and I took advantage of the weekend as well; she came into town via an Amtrak commuter train the day my family flew out, and we spend the day on the town, ending up at her family's place outside Milwaukee.) Aside from that, there isn't really much else going on.
I'm still working hard, most recently on a project that only true computer programming types can appreciate: creating an interface library to pass data types between different programming languages. Specifically, between LabView and MDSplus, a data storage and retrieval system that has become the de facto standard in the fusion science research community. It turns out that MDSplus is a requisite component of the PCS system I will be using for my Ph.D thesis research. It's been straightforward, and exceedingly dull, work.
To make things more fun at home, I've been working on my homebrew PVR as well. I am working on a way to export the TV shows I record to DVD's playable on any player. It's been a fun challenge, and when I have a solution I like, I'll write more about it in my PVR section.
For now, it's back to my new theory course of the semester -- Magnetohydrodynamics. (It's fun to say, not to do!)
I had the good fortune to spend the Christmas holiday with my family. Over New Years, I drove from Minnesota to Chicago to see my cousin get married. (Kristen and I took advantage of the weekend as well; she came into town via an Amtrak commuter train the day my family flew out, and we spend the day on the town, ending up at her family's place outside Milwaukee.) Aside from that, there isn't really much else going on.
I'm still working hard, most recently on a project that only true computer programming types can appreciate: creating an interface library to pass data types between different programming languages. Specifically, between LabView and MDSplus, a data storage and retrieval system that has become the de facto standard in the fusion science research community. It turns out that MDSplus is a requisite component of the PCS system I will be using for my Ph.D thesis research. It's been straightforward, and exceedingly dull, work.
To make things more fun at home, I've been working on my homebrew PVR as well. I am working on a way to export the TV shows I record to DVD's playable on any player. It's been a fun challenge, and when I have a solution I like, I'll write more about it in my PVR section.
For now, it's back to my new theory course of the semester -- Magnetohydrodynamics. (It's fun to say, not to do!)
Checking In
It's probably been a bit longer than it should have been between my last post and now. However, the life of a graduate student often precludes the mythical 'free time' you need to write these entries!
I had the good fortune to spend the Christmas holiday with my family. Over New Years, I drove from Minnesota to Chicago to see my cousin get married. (Kristen and I took advantage of the weekend as well; she came into town via an Amtrak commuter train the day my family flew out, and we spend the day on the town, ending up at her family's place outside Milwaukee.) Aside from that, there isn't really much else going on.
I'm still working hard, most recently on a project that only true computer programming types can appreciate: creating an interface library to pass data types between different programming languages. Specifically, between LabView and MDSplus, a data storage and retrieval system that has become the de facto standard in the fusion science research community. It turns out that MDSplus is a requisite component of the PCS system I will be using for my Ph.D thesis research. It's been straightforward, and exceedingly dull, work.
To make things more fun at home, I've been working on my homebrew PVR as well. I am working on a way to export the TV shows I record to DVD's playable on any player. It's been a fun challenge, and when I have a solution I like, I'll write more about it in my PVR section.
For now, it's back to my new theory course of the semester -- Magnetohydrodynamics. (It's fun to say, not to do!)
I had the good fortune to spend the Christmas holiday with my family. Over New Years, I drove from Minnesota to Chicago to see my cousin get married. (Kristen and I took advantage of the weekend as well; she came into town via an Amtrak commuter train the day my family flew out, and we spend the day on the town, ending up at her family's place outside Milwaukee.) Aside from that, there isn't really much else going on.
I'm still working hard, most recently on a project that only true computer programming types can appreciate: creating an interface library to pass data types between different programming languages. Specifically, between LabView and MDSplus, a data storage and retrieval system that has become the de facto standard in the fusion science research community. It turns out that MDSplus is a requisite component of the PCS system I will be using for my Ph.D thesis research. It's been straightforward, and exceedingly dull, work.
To make things more fun at home, I've been working on my homebrew PVR as well. I am working on a way to export the TV shows I record to DVD's playable on any player. It's been a fun challenge, and when I have a solution I like, I'll write more about it in my PVR section.
For now, it's back to my new theory course of the semester -- Magnetohydrodynamics. (It's fun to say, not to do!)
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