Video work

Turns out I misspelled someones name in the credits of the timelapse movie I created for the 2008 fieldschool. I always have problems trying to insert new video into an existing file using virtual dub (either mismatched codecs, framerates, or streams), but I think I finally got this working. Check it out on youtube, its the 2008 american bar excavation video.

Alex

Microphotography Gallery

I was waiting for Kirsten after finishing up some ceramics, so I started taking some more shots with the microscope, check them out here. Each image seen is a compilation of 8-12 images that are at various focus settings, then merged together to fix depth of field issues using a program called helicon focus. If you have ideas for interesting things to photo, lemmie know and I will give em a try.

Alex

Microphotography Working

After months of fiddling around off on down where I work at the radiation center, I finally got the microscope/computer/camera to play together. While the quality still is a little iffy, overall I am pretty happy with the results. Check it out below. The first set of images are edge on at 7, 20, and 45x magnifications, and the second set are the head of the quarter, at the same mag. You can checkout what it looks like for ceramics at my ceramics work gallery

Alex

Internship stuff

I am working on getting Deanna's placename stuff working on the web. Greg created a template populated using adobe contribute, and it looks pretty slick, with easy content addition. Hopefully it will be ready for primetime sometime in the next week or two. I am currently cleaning up video of elders talking about placenames for Deanna,;the dvd's she had were interlaced, so I am using virtualdub to remove the visual problems, cleaning up the sound with audacity, and getting them ready to post into the placename project. I also am working on getting the meta gallery setup with a guestbook and email notification. Check it out here http://kingisland.oregonstate.edu and http://oregonstate.edu/cla/anthropology/gallery/kingston

House Stuff

So, lots to do on the house. I am currently working on FINALLY reinstalling the kitchen cabinet doors. They make the kitchen look so much nicer than just having open cabinets. The upstairs bathroom just needs a bead of caulk around the top of the shower enclosure and a thresh hold for the floor installed, and it will be done (though I am sure Kirsten will want some more shelving in there as well. We found that the cobwebs and grime on the ceiling can be removed by vacuuming, so now we need to get a really long vacuum hose and we will be able to finally get it cleaned up. Next on the list is the downstairs bathroom, new doors throughout, and the downstairs bedroom.

Thesis timeline and technical challenges

Well, after talking to Loren (my Major Prof), I feel that I am on track for completing my thesis in an acceptable time frame (completion in spring/summer). I have had my INAA (Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis) data for several weeks now, and hope to have it processed by the end of next week. I am currently looking at bivariate plot groupings (element1/element2) and cluster diagrams.

One of my big questions is what to do when INAA returns back below detection limit values. These values look like negative values within my dataset. It appears that I have three options when I encounter samples with below concentration values.

Do I:

1. Throw away the element in question for all samples (if several samples have below concentration values for Sc for example, then just don't include Sc in my analysis).
   
2. Set the below detection limits results to 0, and the rest of the values to 1 for a given element.
3. Set the below detection limits results to 0, and don't touch the other values for a given element.

There's a lot more I could talk about here, but I will leave that for a later discussion.

Blog Creation

Welcome whoever is reading this. I keep on getting asked from various people what I am currently up to professionally as well as personally, so I decided that maybe it would be convenient to put all of this into a blog format. Here you go,

Alex