I had originally planned to have this trip as a brief respite from the chaos of school. After three and a half years of slogging through the ECE curriculum, I had decided to start taking advantage of the opportunities around me to do things I really enjoyed. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret being an ECE major. That was probably one of the best decisions of my life, for all the discipline it instilled in my work ethic and how much knowledge it jammed into my tiny little human skull. Looking back, I think my level of curiosity hasn’t changed since starting college, but my agency, my ability to execute on that curiosity and explore has grown like Moore’s Law. But Moore’s Law is dying, and so too is my will to continue grinding away at my studies. And as I was saying, what started as a respite has ended up overlapping unceremoniously with a few big project deadlines. Chaos has followed me to Holland.
So anyway, the chance popped up to get some money ($$$) and travel via the Bybee Travel Award (would recommend if you are a Rice ECE major), and I decided to take my chances. DoJo, the illustrious and infamous professor of ELEC 241 fame, has recently done research with the Van Gogh Museum on thread counting. (Check out his work here if you are so inclined.) As my thinking went, the Van Gogh Museum is in Amsterdam—Amsterdam is a cool place—let’s go to Amsterdam. I got the money ($$$) and planned the trip.
It ended up turning into a pretty dope agenda. I found the cheapest possible tickets. They were during finals period, and I would only have 1 final that would be easier than dirt so no problems there. I found the cheapest lodging possible (hint: hostels). Last but not least I started contacting people. DoJo helped with getting contacts and sort of advised me on the trip. This is what my starting lineup looked like:
- On first base and batting at a .401 we have Ella Hendriks of Van Gogh fame. She had served as a conservator for the Van Gogh Museum for many years and recently taken a professor position at the University of Amsterdam. She is also the person who started the collaboration DoJo participated in.
- On second base and riding a 44/16 gear ratio, we have Eric Postma. Eric splits his time between the University of Tillburg and JADS (Jheronimus Academy of Data Science) and is a professor in Artificial Intelligence. His current research is using ML in image recognition and cognitive modelling (if that isn’t buzzwordy what is??), and he also initiated an international consortium for digital painting analysis. I’ll be taking a train down to JADS to meet him.
- In the outfield we have Gjorgji Strezoski and Nanne Van Noord from the University of Amsterdam. Nanne was a former PhD student of Eric, and is in the Worring research group at the UvA. Marcel Worring has done work on something called OmniArt (linked here). It involves using Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition to improve the quality of categorical analysis in the artistic domain. Both Nanne and Gjorgji will be very interesting to talk to.
- Last but not least catching for the home team we’ve got Teio Meedendorp from the Van Gogh Museum. I will be meeting with him at the Van Gogh Museum on the last day of my visit here, and his work is mainly in the cultural heritage range.
The lineup is well balanced between those involved in the art world and those involved in the sciences. The challenge now becomes figuring out what learn from each person and making sure my time counts.
Today was my first full day in the city, and I spent it mostly walking around and exploring on my own. One of the best parts of being alone is that I can just wander for hours and look for any hidden gems tucked throughout the city. While running in the morning I ended up on the east side of the city in the neighborhoods. The whole place felt old and well-worn, yet living. Kids played tennis in the park as if it wasn’t 40 degrees and grey outside, and couples rode their bikes to wherever, one person pedaling and the other sitting on the rear rack casually. The whole city is full to the brim with these upright city bikes. People talk about how Amsterdam is the cycling capital of the world, but now I really believe them. So. Many. Bikes.
I’m getting over a bit of jetlag and gearing up for tomorrow where I will travel to JADS and meet with Eric Postma. One of the ways I’m trying to make my time count is reading up on each person’s work and trying to find interesting questions to ask related to it. There’s no point in spending time with them learning about what is already available on the internet. Talk about a blessing of the modern world.
So far this trip has yet to be a complete disaster. Stay tuned though!