Weekly Status Update #22: Ain’t nobody got time for that

This will be the shortest weekly status update in the history of weekly status updates, I imagine, but let’s see what’s up: PacificVis, PhD defenses, Promotors, BOA and blinky lights.

  • PacificVis, PacificVis, PacificVis… My implementation isn’t done yet, while next Tuesday I’m doing the evaluation with the medical domain experts. Seriously uncool. I hope to finish the major features today so that the rest is just gravy. Is that even a saying? I don’t know, deal with it. I did get it to run on my laptop last week, which will be pretty convenient for the evaluation 😉
  • On Tuesday, one of our (now former) group members had his PhD defense. It’s really crazy formal in Delft, complete with paranymphs, penguin suits, hats, and addressing the committee with old-school ancient Dutch words (hooggeleerde opponent), which is always a barrel of laughs for our typically non-Dutch PhDs. In any case, it’s a really special and nerve-wrecking occasion for the person obtaining his PhD, but typically for me it means one more cool person leaving our group, which I am selfishly not too happy about 😉
  • On Friday I had a meeting with my promotor. I think the word promotor is a Dutch thing, but it’s the full professor that promotes the PhD candidate to a doctor. It’s really cool to have both a supervisor and promotor that are both very much up to date and involved in my project and to receive valuable advice from both of them. In my case, they have different backgrounds and this really adds a lot. Friday was another one of these cool meetings where afterwards I felt energized, motivated and ready to kick some PacificVis ass.
  • On Saturday, I was supposed to go to Baroeg Open Air (BOA) all day. BOA is a one-day festival in Rotterdam that is free and typically features a lot of metal bands. This year however, it was quite light in the metal department (as opposed to heavy, haha ;)). In light of PacificVis implementations not being done, I chose to only attend the evening part and saw two bands: Clan of Xymox and Bolt Thrower. I’m not into gothic music as much as people like to think, but Clan of Xymox was really great to dance to. Though I have to admit that these goths seem to have a very specific dance style that I couldn’t really follow. I’m not even talking cybergoth dancing which is really next level shit with those arms all over the place. Luckily Bolt Thrower was up next which is far easier for me to dance to 🙂 All in all, it was good to see old and new friends again and today-me is so glad yesterday-me didn’t go for the full day.
  • I’ve got nothing for this fifth point. Drawing blanks! Let’s check those arms with the blinky lights again:

Alright, that’s all I’ve got. Back to the implementation trenches again 😉 See you next week and have a good one, imaginary blog-readers!

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