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Thursday, February 21, 2008

Eggheads in Pierre -- Students Present Research

"We Go Dome!" the football players at Montrose liked to grunt around November. Yesterday, I went Dome -- Capitol Dome! I joined 88 other university students for the Student Research Poster Session, sponsored by SD-EPSCoR. My friend Patrick Weber was there from SDSU, presenting a proof he and his fellow students worked out on triangle similarity using imaginary numbers (word is a math guru challenged the calculations, but Weber stood his mathematical ground -- good man!). The future Jordanian millionaire next to me -- Ahmad from the School of Mines -- presented a design for antennae on paper that can be embedded in helmets and eliminate one more piece of equipment our soldiers have to lug around.

Among DSU's contingent, budding Internet magnate Matt Paulson showed a stunningly simple yet effective way to keep hackers from stealing your PIN when you do online banking. Huron's Alex Wollman showed research on genetic programming, a programming method that looks to me like a way to allow computers to generate their own new software.

And me? Well, I got to jawbone a few legislators about my continuing research on e-Government.


Here's me with my poster. If nothing else, years in education gives you lots of practice at putting together bright bulletin boards for the kids.


District 8 Representative David Gassman takes in my spiel. He's still recovering from a nasty bout with influenza-A that knocked him out of commission all last week. No more excused votes for him, though: he's fighting off the bug like a champ.


District 8 Representative Russell Olson drops by to take my e-Government survey and ask some good tough questions about how my revamp of the LRC website would work. Turning it into a 24-7 crackerbarrell sounds great, but he wants to know what sort of security the system will have, who will run it, and how much it will cost. That's Rep. Olson for you -- big ideas are great, but we need the nuts and bolts as well. Expect lots of input from Olson and other legislators in this research!

District 8 Senator Dan Sutton stopped by about ten seconds after this picture was taken. Let me say a big thank you to our full District 8 delegation for taking time between session and caucus meetings to check out the poster session. I'll keep working to turn this initial research into something that help the legislators do their jobs and help citizens participate in the process. Stay tuned for more of better government through egghead ideas!

Photo credit: all photos by Dr. Wayne Pauli, DSU. See all of Dr. Pauli's photos of the session here!

11 comments:

  1. Dude! That's some serious beard-age!

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  2. Did they release Ted Kaczynski already? What about hantavirus worries?

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  3. jackrabit1: Serious windchill calls for serious beardage!

    anon: I'm scratching my whiskers, trying to figure out if that's funny or not... while I try to figure that out, here's some light reading for you.

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  4. Actually, I think Cory in his winter hair looks much more like a young Cat Stevens...which is definitely A-OK with me!

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  5. Cory, anon 4:40pm was definately meant to be funny. Cat Stevens? Sure, why not.

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  6. Yes, Erin, but can he SING like Cat Stevens?

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  7. I'd love to see some of that "beardage" transplanted to jackrabit1's forehead. Those new lights in the Middle School really give off a glare when he's doing ball games...

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  8. Ya know... if I REALLY start going bald, I'm not going to get one of those stupid toupees or get a ridiculous combover. I'm going Telly "Who loves ya, baby" Savalas!

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  9. Maybe even shine up that "Chrome Dome" with a little Turtle Wax!

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  10. jackr...Find out what Dave Zolnowski uses on his head to get that high lustre shine. Perhaps he uses a shoe shine machine to buff it each morning.

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  11. I will... as soon as I can get some semblance of a voice back!

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