Exciting research opportunities abound!

I went to a lab fair for Cognitive Science, which means various lab directors from Carleton sat down to chat about their projects and where they needed assistants and things like that. So aside from learning a few names and getting my name out there, I’ve also gotten a position as a volunteer research assistant (i.e. no benefit for me unless we get published), and names of a few people with research grants with which to pay people like me to do things. I’ll go through those in order.

        First, the volunteer stuff. Met a man named Jim Davies, who carries five notebooks with him to write down his research ideas. He has also given a TEDx talk at my school. I haven’t watched it yet, though I will, but first I have some stuff to do. But anyway! So he’s doing research on building a computer that can imagine the way humans do. The ultimate goal is to construct a massive database of images, with various parts labelled, and have the computer construct images based on keywords. So, for example, based on its experience of “car” images, if you say “car” to the computer it will make a car and perhaps put it on a road or driveway. If you say “puppy” it might put it near some grass or flowers.

        So my help with this is to create a Python program (note: I don’t yet know Python, so that’s step 1) that will submit queries to the Oracle of Objects, and so if I say (on the proximity page) “dog” it tells me there’s a 10% chance a picture of a dog will include a man. So that’s the basic “AI” of the imagination-bot, to go through its database of images and calculate these percentages and use them to generate its images. Now, one caveat is that it will be creating a kind of collage out of the images in its database - it isn’t going to spontaneously create these images like a human being might. So someone else needs to work on its ability to do photo-stitching, i.e. super-powered photoshopping.

        So yeah! That’s something to do in my spare time. I have to report back on my progress January 4th.

        Also? Jim Davies had two widescreen monitors set up in his office, except one was vertical (portrait orientation) and it was pretty cool seeing him manage them. Still kinda toying with the idea of more monitors. Also the main method of co-ordination with him and his assistants is shared google calendars. Thanks, Google!

        Now the paid work, which is… well, much more interesting to my wallet. Carleton has a Language and Brain Lab, as well as a Logic, Language, and Information Lab. Both of these labs have acquired research grants, allowing them to pay undergraduate students to do work as research assistants for them during the summer. So, essentially, summer jobs doing interesting research. This is far better than my planned summer jobs working for the government. I have to send out a few e-mails to the people I spoke to today, but one in particular mentioned that he would be looking for applications soon. Perrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect.

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        In unrelated news, I did a cool thing in Echo Bazaar, but it’s pretty spoilerrific. This is the culmination of a long series of silk hunting/spider extermination expeditions at The Silken Chapel near the Wolfstack Docks. Something that was immensely boring, unrewarding, and unsatisfying. Until this happened! Now it’s kinda cool. Image is here, if you want to see it.