Beatrice Casey, Week Six: Success, Fries, and Tennis

After weeks and weeks of trying and failing, I finally hit the nail on the head. Yayy! I figured out how to display the number of pixels in the census transform. Overcome with excitement, I tested it out on a few more picture sets, and it worked without a problem. I showed Dr. Taylor and he was very pleased with my work (whew!). He then explained to me the next step in my task. It is very similar to what I have done, but it just applies the information differently. My task is to make a histogram that shows how many times an 8 bit pattern from a census transform occurs. Once the 3x3 pixel square undergoes a census transform, it become a binary, meaning it is solely zeros and ones. However, in a sequence of these zeroes and ones you can add them up to get one number ( i.e. 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 would equal 51. It sounds weird, right? How does that many zeroes and ones add up to 51?? Well binary is read from right to left, with the right most integer being 2⁰, then 2¹, and so forth. You then add all the numbers in the sequence and that is how you get the answer).  Now, I have to write code that will calculate how many times these specific patterns occur and generate a histogram from this. This will be challenging, but it will be done. So, I made progress! Woohoo!

Julia and I at Shake Shack

A picture of baby Julia in my lab

On Tuesday, Dr. Peretz took us EXPers in Philadelphia to Shake Shack for a lunch with Julia Hu and Bridgid Greed. I was very excited to see Julia because we are good friends and I hadn’t seen her in a long time. I left the lab to walk to the shake shack, and I used the maps app to help me navigate. I got to where I thought was the Shake Shack we were eating at, but the maps app told me that it was actually another few minutes’ walk away. I was super confused because I was quite literally IN the Shake Shack, and yet I wasn’t there yet? I texted Julia and asked if she was almost there because I wasn’t sure if there was another Shake Shack down the street (which is very likely, given how there is a Starbucks on every. single. street corner.). However, I was in the right place (thank god) and we went inside to order. Julia and I caught up on some things and we placed our order, after ages of debating whether or not we should get a shake AND fries (PS- she got a shake and I got the fries). We grabbed a seat and waited for our food. When it arrived, we had 9 extra fries and 1 extra burger. Don’t know how that happened, but more fries is never a bad thing. We all ate and chatted until we decided we should get back to work. I wanted to spend some time with Julia, so she came with me to my lab (along with Pang) and I showed them around and we actually found a picture of baby Julia in my lab! To say she was in shock is an understatement. We then ventured to Pang’s lab, where she showed us her space and what she does- it’s very cool and very different from my lab! After this, Julia and I walked around a bit (I had forgotten something at my house and we walked to go get it) and we chatted some more and reminisced on some good memories. We stopped by Starbucks because it was way too hot to not have anything to drink. Eventually, we said our goodbyes and she promised to come back another time (and she better!). I went back to work and continued to plow through my code.

This weekend I finally played some tennis with my mother!!! It felt so good to go back out on the courts and start hitting again. Fortunately, I haven’t lost my touch (or at least most of it) and I’m so happy to be working on my game again. One major perk of playing tennis is the amazing shoes! I almost passed out from excitement when I remembered that I have not one, but two shoes for the season AND they are limited edition 2016 US Open Vapor 9.5 Tour shoes… If that means nothing to you, totally understandable but they are my favourite shoes by far and they are super cute. Can’t wait for the season so I can wear them every day! Anyways, enough with my shoe-fangirling… I had a realization this weekend that I am scarily near the end of my time in the lab. YIKES! Two more weeks before I say goodbye to Philadelphia and my lab. This has been a very special experience and honestly, the time flew by faster than I thought it would. Until next time!