Summary

This week, it rained on Monday. I fretted over and shuffled around my code a bit and added some functionality, most notably the ability to convert statistics into graphics.

Things I Learned

Mobile Sara will look wherever you click (on the screen)
snow leopards ⊄ leopards
the inside of that ArticuLab closet is overwhelmingly massive
Pittsburgh bus fare is $2.75 (I've been spoiled by the Charm City Circulator)
but it's free for students, apparently?
another way to get to the ArticuLab
the location of the (analog!) thermostat
there are flamingos in France

Research

At the beginning of the week, we had some technical (is that the technical term?) difficulties. Since Plan A (collecting logs) and Plan B (writing integration tests) didn't work out, Timo came up with a Plan C: learn how to play with graphical user interfaces. I've not done anything GUI-related before, so it was pretty interesting (if not quick, because I am slow) to finally figure that out. (Also, technologically-challenged me is super excited to go home from this internship and be able to do computer science things, like this and how to set up Eclipse*.

I also went through a mid-week crisis where I decided I could come up with a better options than my currently strangely-schema-ed data structure, tried to rewrite said data structure twice, and eventually reverted to the original. I did, however, switch some things so that it'll run for either simultaneous phone conversations or not-simultaneous phone conversations (in a "comment out either Line A or Line B" sort of way).

Finally, I collected some data (via letting the other interns chat with Sara) and analyzed it (which involved altering/adding to my current code so I could make better conclusions).

*A challenge I've probably literally avoided for over a thousand days at this point, but after IntelliJ, I'm pretty sure I can do it.

Meetings

Reading Group

This week, we talked about World of Warcraft (or at least about racialization within World of Warcraft). Samantha also gave us some tips on elevator pitches, demonstrated (quite excellently) said pitches, and awarded House points to Slytherin.

Daily Logs

These are more or less lifted from Bitbucket, where I keep a README of these things.

Mon 6/5

Worked on my progress report (which explains everything I've done so far, since my code is badly structured/commented); read through SARA code; started Swing tutorial.

Tues 6/6

Finished a basic GUI (with a histogram) for my data structure; struggled with running SARA (apparently it doesn't like eduroam?).

Wed 6/7

More graphics things; struggled some more with running SARA; collected some (once again slightly hardcoded) data; reformatted data structure.

Thurs 6/8

Reformatted data structure some more (slash cleaned up code); finished graphics; worked on this website; went to reading group.

Fri 6/9

Worked on this website; organized/added some code; analyzed data; attended team meeting and a talk.

Not Work

Exploration

This is my third week in Pittsburgh, but for the past couple weeks, I've only done a casually-wandering-around (i.e. on my way back from campus or to the grocery store) sort of touring of the city. So this weekend, my roommate (who just graduated from CMU slash started a job here) gave me a tour tour, including a visit to an arts festival downtown, a nap in a park, and a trip over a bridge.

Also, she happens to know, like, 31415926535 facts about Pittsburgh and CMU and everything in between, so our venture was super informative (for me) (especially regarding food) in addition to interesting (and also hot, because the weather suddenly got nice).

And even though we were out all day, my roommate claims we've only skimmed the surface of a sliver of the city. Pittsburgh, it turns out, is a pretty big place.

Miscellaneous

found free copies of the first two Harry Potter books, which is good because I happen to collect books and I don't (edit: didn't) have any Harry Potter ones
in addition to going on a tour of Pittsburgh with my roommate, I also went on a tour of Fancy Target (fancy because it has escalators) with myself
read a bit of Hemingway, finished some Lord of the Rings, and started Le Petit Prince (Timo mentioned Baobab (the software) last week, which I took as the universe's sign that I should probably start reading about the ones on B612)