Mike Oren.com

Fairly uneventful week for the most part, although I have finally scheduled the first meeting of my program of study (POS) committee--that'll be taking place the Wed. before Thanksgiving break. My research group also conducted a virtual pumpkin carving contest on Halloween (I'll try to remember to post pics or a video later) in order to showcase (and test) our multi-modal mesh manipulation system (M4). From this, we decided to make some fundamental changes to the way our user interface works--the base UI code is extremely simple, only indicating if a button is touched or not and changing the color accordingly; we will be adding a need to exert a certain amount of force on the buttons, a state for touching (but not activating the button yet), and then when the button is activated the user will be given auditory feedback as well as the visual feedback. This goes along with moving from a traditional hierarchal UI to a radial design that reduces motion and seems to be more natural when using a pen-based system. Right now I'm simply implementing these features primarily in Python, but I have made changes to the base C++ code as necessary, and I'm seriously debating if I might be better off simply writing my own node or considerably rewriting the current button node.

Outside of school stuff, things with Danielle and me seem to be improving. I've been trying to send her an e-mail or text message every morning so she can wake up to something to make her smile and at night I've been calling her before I go to sleep and reading to her from Stardust--the book that led to the movie we both enjoy. We also talked about both of us watching the same movie at the same time, but we ended up deciding against that. So all of this--plus returning to writing weekly letters--seems to be helping ease the problems of a long distance relationship that has been too close to the brink of collapsing for several months now (we've been dating for over four years, with now over half of that being long distance--what with me always gone for summers and me off in grad school and such).

Being in Iowa, I have decided to get involved more in the primary process than I would have been in Illinois. Politically, I'm independent and a moderate (fiscally I'm more conservative, but socially I'm more liberal), but for the purpose of caucusing in January I have registered as a Democrat. My support for the primary is going to Obama as I feel out of the candidates with a chance to win the national primary, he is both the most moderate and the most sincere (Clinton strikes me as too old school politics and too much of a political game player--plus I see her as a person that divides people rather than unite them. I like Edwards and his policy and plans but, honestly, he lacks a certain amount of charisma or salesmanship or something as he just fails to grab my attention--I feel he'd be a great vice president, but he doesn't have enough get up and go attitude to be president; he's not putting himself out there enough). I've supported Obama for awhile now (since February or March), having even gone to the trouble of donating to his campaign. Recently though I volunteered to be a precinct captain for him in the caucus, helped put up fliers for a campaign event, and today I'm joining other supporters in canvasing. I really believe he is the best candidate when it comes to inspiring people and uniting them, and I feel that is exactly the type of president this country needs right now. In addition, I feel that he's the candidate most likely to bring about changes in foreign policy that will finally end our Cold War politics that the Bush administration (and to a lesser extent the Clinton administartion) have shown are no longer feasible in the current political landscape.