Help shaft.ed succeed in life

[Kison]

Gorgeous shots.

How's the food?

[shaft.ed]

Food has been hit or miss. Really good and really bad in Italy. We found a place in Slovenia that we liked a lot and gave ridiculous portions of meat so we just ate their twice. Croatia has been quite strange with the best food coming from unexpected places (national park cafeteria, boat tour and bus station stall).

And somehow we ended up eating Chinese in Rome and sushi in Venice. They were both good to great in quality.

[shaft.ed]

ZOMG! This morning we just decided let's go to Budapest. After 7 hrs on the train and a few minutes roaming around looking for an apartment to rent I'm on a balcony in Budapest. Beautiful city.

Korts, help. Where do we find roasted chestnuts, goulash and baklava?

[shaft.ed]

We started our trip with a scenic train tour through the Bernina Pass. That meant an early train out to Switzerland and a transfer to Chur for the route between Chur and Tirano Italy. Although we came for the Alps, we ended up with pretty crappy whether so we couldnt see them at all. This did make for some interesting views as our train winded around little towns draped in clouds.




Taking pictures from the train wasn't easy since it was moving and the windows are reflective. I'd actually recommend putting the camera away and just enjoying the views, but I couldn't help it. The train to St. Moritz was full, but this was ahead of the pass itself although the views were still beautiful. After St. Moritz we ended up with an entire car to ourselves (the forced first class purchase from Eurail was pretty convenient at times). We passed by the milk lake

which was still impressive even with the cloud cover.

But the highlight had to be Alp Grum.



If you have some extra time in your trip I would recommend getting out here and walking around. It was incredible.

TIP: We took the local commuter trains instead of the tourist Panorama trains because it fit better into our schedule and was cheaper since the tourist trains aren't completely covered by Eurail passes. This is definitely the way to go as the Panorama trains we passed en route were stuffed with people standing elbow to elbow.

Our journey through the pass ended in Tirano. We decided to go on to Milan to be closer to our next day's destination, but had some time to kill and it was dinner time. So we got take out of pasta and pizza. I noticed that my wife's pasta was in a container that looked like a frozen dinner. Sure enough it had "Microwave 4 minutes" printed right on the top. Got that heated TV dinner for the bargain price of 7 Euros.
Tourist traps 1, shaft.ed 0

Next day we departed from Milano Centrale. This station has some of the oddest decor I have seen. It felt like a mix between Gothic and Art Deco.



We took the train from Milan to La Spezia and then caught a local to our destination on the Cinque Terre. Manarola is an incredibly photogenic town. It is beautiful from almost any angle. Between the ocean cliffs, the charming buildings and the terraced vineyards, there is just so much eye candy.


But it was way more inundated with tourists than I had expected. We spent the day walking some of the easy trails around the town and settled on the cliffs to watch the sunset.

By the time the sun was down the day visitors were gone and the town was much more relaxed. We ate at one of the family run restaurants in town and 2 out of the 3 dishes we ordered were wonderful, especially the trofie with Sea Bass and white wine sauce.
Tourist Traps 1, shaft.ed 1

After dinner we went down to the ice cream parlor and cashed in on their deal of 5 scoops of ice cream for 3 Euro! Then went down to the seaside to watch the waves crash on the rocks.

Great place

.

Next day, we slept in a bit and then were off to Rome. Our route took us back to La Spezia and we had about an hour to kill there. It was actually a nicer town than I expected and itself might be worth a visit. We strolled around an open air market and got some stuff for lunch.

In Rome we first had to find a hotel. We didn't have reservations anywhere except Manarola. When we got to the listed address for the hotel we searched out, it was just a desk with a couple Indian guys chatting at it. They said the rooms were actually somewhere else, and so we had to walk from the south side of Termini to the North. This was actually better as the south side seemed more sketchy and smelled of piss. But those who haven't been to Rome, be aware the listed address for your hostel/hotel might be very different from its actual location. A lot of hostels that I found during my search (especially those near Termini) were actually laundromat/internet cafe hybrids that acted as a point of contact to eventually get you to your rooms.

After finally getting a room we walked up to high ground and watched the sun set over the Basilica.

We somehow ended up eating Chinese food (really good chinese food) and then walked the city at night. This was my favorite thing about Rome the city's sites at night are just spectacular.


The next day we started with a subway trip to St. Peter's.

This seriously felt like giant gaudy bathroom with the pink marble all over the place. Enjoyed the exterior with the sculpture work way more than the interior.

The line for the Sistine Chapel was over 2 hours so we skipped it unfortunately and walked across the entire town catching sites along the way. The only standout to me was the Pantheon. Although the floor is over half coated with other people, and again pink marble everywhere, it's still a great experience looking up through the dome.


For some reason I got the idea that Circo Massimo was an open air market. But it was just a big ring of grass surrounded by lots of traffic. Yeah not worth the walk. So we headed up to the Colosseum to see the inside during the day. The admission was a it pricey at 12 Euro a person, but I think it was worth it. It was interesting to see the guts of the place exposed.

By the time we got done the sun was fading and we walked back to the hotel before heading out for dinner, which was unremarkable. Overall, I felt Rome to be too hectic for me. The sidewalks were all too small with too many people. And motor bikes are everywhere with their engines howling all day and night. It was also an incredibly dirty city (actually what we saw of Italy was mostly dirty), and the smell of pee could pop up after almost any turn. That said, the sites are incredible and I'm glad we made even the short stop here.

Next day depart for Venice.

[shaft.ed]

yeah, so I'm too lazy to keep boring you guys with the detail of our trip.

Here's the image dump

[shaft.ed]

Ok so new question

Say you have a pile of 300 images, and within this 300 images there should only be about 60 unique images represented somewhere between 3 and 6 times. Does anyone know of any software that might be able to do this?

Just for completeness' sake, the images represent single slices in depth through a volume of a fluorescent sample. However, the sample is in motion along the z-axis. The "same" stack of slices was collected 5 times in order to account for planes that may not have been represented in individual stacks due to jumping around along the z-axis.

[Espeonage]

Dropped in to say.

MUST BE ANOTHER KELLOG'S CRUNCHY NUT

[Espeonage]

Food has been hit or miss. Really good and really bad in Italy. We found a place in Slovenia that we liked a lot and gave ridiculous portions of meat so we just ate their twice. Croatia has been quite strange with the best food coming from unexpected places (national park cafeteria, boat tour and bus station stall).

And somehow we ended up eating Chinese in Rome and sushi in Venice. They were both good to great in quality.

GRUELKHOL + POTATO + ROOKWURST = BEST MEAL YOU EVER HAD.

Mix in unhealthy amounts of white vinegar after serving and it gets even better.

[Mr. Flay]

Ok so new question

Say you have a pile of 300 images, and within this 300 images there should only be about 60 unique images represented somewhere between 3 and 6 times. Does anyone know of any software that might be able to do this?

Just for completeness' sake, the images represent single slices in depth through a volume of a fluorescent sample. However, the sample is in motion along the z-axis. The "same" stack of slices was collected 5 times in order to account for planes that may not have been represented in individual stacks due to jumping around along the z-axis.

Are they literally identical files, or merely so similar as to be useless?

If the latter, I have no ideas... but if the first, you may be able to use some sort of Binary Compare software.

[shaft.ed]

no they are the same sample imaged 5 times in a row over the same static 3-D space. It takes about 9 seconds to acquire 60 512x512 planes, so each image at an 'identical' depth will be about 9 seconds apart. But since the sample is in motion the image planes won't line up in every instance even though they are from the same depth. My hope was to toss these image into some sort of "likeness" filter and force them into a number of bins equal to number of z-steps plus any extra distance on the top and bottom that might be caused by movement along the z-axis. This would then reconstruct a virtual stepping along the z-axis.

[mykonian]

likeness filters do exist. I don't know how they work, and I don't know if anyone implemented them on pictures, so you'll need to find someone much smarter and experienced for that.

If I remember this all correctly, it's an algorithm first designed to find people abusing insurances, but also used in voice recognition software. In the first appliance the goal is to fish out patterns that aren't within the expected differences between people, the second it's the opposite. Your voice is never exactly the same, but the software is able to recognize the pattern as long as it stays within expected differences.

And for such an algorithm, data should be data. So I'm pretty sure a solution exists, I just wouldn't know where you can find it.

[Mr. Flay]

I'm pretty sure a solution exists, I just wouldn't know where you can find it.

[shaft.ed]

I'm pretty sure a solution exists, I just wouldn't know where you can find it.

[shaft.ed]

does anyone know what kind of chatting apps are ideal nowadays?
Interfacing with phones and PCs

trying to coordinate lab stuff and I wanted a place I could sit online if anyone needed something from me

[zoraster]

slack is the professional product. Discord less so but still would work.

[Vi]

Microsoft Teams has replaced Skype for Business.

[springlullaby]

DingTalk comes with a cool story.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/9/21171 ... re-reviews

Skype for Business is getting canned in 2021.

[shaft.ed]

I'm more looking for WeChat but not Chinese

[springlullaby]

Whatsapp?

Depending on the size of your team, you probably can get by with Google Hangout.
More "pro" than messenger.

[springlullaby]

I'm pretty sure a solution exists, I just wouldn't know where you can find it.

Mykonian AND Mr Flay. The feels.

[Equinox]

For research teams, I've used Discord, Skype, and Slack. Any of the three would be good enough, but that assumes that your team members are consistently checking and using the service, so use whichever one people seem to already be using and are comfortable with using for a professional setting.

For what it's worth, Slack died fairly quickly because people didn't use it consistently enough, so the team switched to Discord, which has been working phenomenally well. The team using Skype only uses it for scheduled meetings; other communications are by email, but there isn't much intra-team communication that really needs to be done outside of those meetings.

Microsoft Teams has replaced Skype for Business.

Is that what that monstrosity is? It suddenly appeared across all workstations one fine winter morning, but we could not figure out why because IT did not enable it, so Microsoft Teams showed us a message encouraging us to ask IT to please enable it for unstated reasons.

[Vi]

Microsoft Teams has replaced Skype for Business.

Is that what that monstrosity is? It suddenly appeared across all workstations one fine winter morning, but we could not figure out why because IT did not enable it, so Microsoft Teams showed us a message encouraging us to ask IT to please enable it for unstated reasons.

It showed up on my

personal

computer unannounced, which I was not pleased to see.

The reason why is likely the same reason my computer is not given the option to stay in sleep mode all day.