Friday, July 15, 2016

July 13

I started off my day with a cup of coffee from the k-cup machine. They finally have lids that fit the cups, so my coffee stays warmer than before, but I always end up with an inch or so of cold, bitter liquid in the afternoon. (According to Google, microwaving Styrofoam is not a good idea because it contains styrene, which will leach into the food/drink and is likely to be a carcinogen. Which just shows how much kitchen experience I have.)
As I was helping Alice put her icee away, I noticed some people had whole tubs of ice cream in the freezer. I mentioned bringing ice cream to the other interns, and Allyse immediately decided we would bring ice cream this Friday.  Poor Zihao was initially listed as bringing ice cream, but he looked completely overwhelmed as people tossed out flavor suggestions and reminded him of their allergies, so Allyse took over and also promised to bring a scoop or two (why we need two ice cream scoops for one tub I do not know).
I finished L04 and than attempted to open the fits files Lydia had emailed me in AstroImageJ. Nathan nicely helped me when I got stuck and we were able to open the file but instead of looking at stars, I was looking at a Spanish vocabulary sheet!


I checked to make sure I had downloaded and was opening the correct file. Nathan and I couldn't figure out the problem, so I brought my computer to the tech guys down the hall. At first, Jim was confused about what exactly I was asking, but then he realized that I hadn't unzipped the file. Apparently, files are compressed to make them practical to move between computers. Compressing removes redundancy so files are transferable. He wasn't sure why AstroImagej was opening Spanish vocab instead, but put it down to the program not being able to handle the unzipped files.
Finally, I was able to open the correct image in AstroImagej:
Then, Kristina told me I had to hold off on the practicals anyways, at least until I learned about bias files. At least I know how to open the files for when I do start!
I also attended the Wednesday lecture series (which came with 6 sheets of free pizza for attendees). Dr. Pelz, who works with Nathan, Alice, and Maria in the visual perception lab, gave a presentation on Perception & Recognition and how what we see everyday is an illusion. After seeing an optical illusion (or, as he put it, a neural illusion) and how the motion imprinted on our brains, one of the RU's asked if that was why when he stopped his car if felt like he was going backwards. Dr. Pelz replied that he was probably speeding and not looking at his surroundings because the motion when driving a car shouldn't be enough to imprint on your brain. 
Afterwards, I went to building 17 and continued reading L12.










No comments:

Post a Comment