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You're in Wearforge -> Main -> SachaChua
Hi there! You wanted to hear what my day was like, so here it is.
Morning. Hate mornings. Reached over to hit alarm clock, but then
realized class was going to start Real Soon Now.
I did all the usual morning stuff: dress up, wash my face, brush my
teeth, fix my hair, put on my glasses and my wearable. The wearable had
been on all night, transcribing the speech I'd captured the previous
day.
I hit the just-woke-up macro, and today's summary was shown.
Gnus listed my mail and news, diary listed my classes and
appointments, and a notes buffer had all the notes active during that
context (morning, sleepy, school, dorm...).
I glanced at the summarized information and quickly hit a few
keystrokes that created a new note.
TODO: Borrow a book from the library.
Another keystroke, and it got added to the always-visible buffer of
notes.
Long day today, so I slip on the rest of my wearable. The portable
keyboard stuffed in my backpack, I set my wearable to DND (Biking)
mode, grabbed my bike, and coasted down the incline to my first
class.
I walked into the classroom and switch from DND (Biking) to Class
(CS178). The context change automatically brought up all my CS178
notes as well as a remembrance agent that indexed my class notes and
whatever websites I'd pulled from the Net. I had hooked
location-changes to CS178 to bring up the outline form of my teacher's
PowerPoint? slides (converted them with another computer), so Emacs
jumped to my bookmarked position and waited for me to fill more
information in.
Note to self: Figure out how to do all those context changes
automatically. Then again, it only takes a couple of keystrokes to set
my location.
Of course, while it was doing all of that setup, I had sat down at my
usual spot near the front (and conveniently near a wall outlet!),
plugged in my power cord, and placed my keyboard on the desk.
I nearly forgot the questions I was supposed to ask - I was curious
about a point discussed in the last lecture. Good thing that it was
there in my notes buffer. Asked question, noted answer, moved on to
lecture proper.
Recitation's always been my favorite part, but my teacher hardly calls on
me any more. Still, when the rest of the class is unresponsive (or
just sleepy) and my hand is the only one up, at least that allows her
to choose between going ahead and giving the answer, or calling on me
to give not only what we had previously discussed but also what other
people think (although I try not to show off too much =) ).
I have to take the gear off during quizzes, but that's okay. I still
do pretty good. Naturally quiz results go into the wearable too, so I
know my class standing.
Assignment. Filed it away as a TODO.
I had a bit of time before the next class, so I reviewed my notes for
the previous class. I spent around five minutes reordering and
rephrasing my notes.
Teacher still wasn't there, so I reviewed my notes for the next class
too. Emacs collected all the scattered notes I made and
organized them. Each note had been marked by its place in the
syllabus, so that was easy enough to do. Let's see... we had a quiz
last week, so I looked at all the material since then. I had reviewed
the material every evening and written some sample questions I could
use to 'test' myself, and the flashcard mode I installed the other
week really helped. I wish I had a classmate into wearables as well!
Then we could just beam-swap questions.
Popped in a fresh set of batteries. Note to self: find better power
supply.
Lunch! Ate lunch with one hand while discreetly scrolling through
HOWTOs with the other. =)
After lunch, I labsat the introductory CS class. I'm a teaching
assistant, see. =) Anyway, quite a few students came up to me and
asked about their programs. I don't have face recognition yet, but
student IDs are a good enough substitute, and besides - you get to
know people over time. I love having a wearable -
instant access to all their records.
Dropped by the CS department to ask about research. Needed more
advice. Was standing outside cubicle, so no place to write, but it was
relatively quiet so audio pickup was very good.
Dropped by the CE department to ask about hardware. Used webcam to
capture diagram drawn on scratch paper. ;)
Hmm. Looks like the last quiz didn't go too well. Looks like there'll
be a Friday tutoring session again today. I check the papers and I
actually go to the trouble of encoding them (crazy senior with way too
much time on her hands) so I'd classified the most frequent
errors. Should make for a nice discussion.
Improved my notes program.
Class day finished quickly, so I biked back to the dorm and hooked into
the power outlet, Net and a larger monitor. After reviewing and
refining my notes, I sent it to the various class mailing lists I'm
subscribed to. Sometimes I get replies back. If the replies have
interesting facts, I merge it into my notes. I also make HTML
copies for my website. Today's records also go on the Net - whatever
stories I'd gathered, like that joke I heard in class or the
crazy thing that happened during break.
Hold on a sec. Emacs just announced that new personal mail has
arrived, and that one of my best friend's birthday is coming up soon. Mmm,
should start looking for more info on robotics. That's what she's into
(see, I have it noted down in bbdb!). Not that I can get her hardware,
but I can give her a hug, tell her about something new, and maybe even
treat her to a movie, like that new one coming out...
Hmmm. The imdb entry for that movie looks pretty okay. Reviews,
too. Should be fine. Note to self: Check her sched, then buy tickets online.
Hmmm, just received an SMS. I quickly switch to the sms.misc group in
Gnus. "What time should we pick you up tomorrow? - Mom" My reply ("5
o' clock, please. Thanks, love you!") is sent through the mobile phone
connected to my computer through the serial port. Note to self: Should
find better way to handle GSM.
Note to self: My mom suggested that I find some more noble purpose for
wearable computing. Maybe augmented memory like those people at MIT
are doing - the systems that help people suffering from amnesia or
Alzheimer's or something? She also wants a system she can use herself,
so it has to be much friendlier..
Anyway, I'm off to practice on the Twiddler some more. I can type
painfully slowly - it takes me one or two thoughts to get any sort of
coordination - but I feel like I'm making progress.
You can check my website at SOMEURL for the blow-by-blow account of my
day.. I learned quite a lot today! Note to self: Provide nice
searchable interface for this. Maybe even check out those
Self-Organizing Maps...
Sacha 8)
That's what I want to do. =)
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