Some holiday cheer

Eric Aaron is a computer science professor whose work I have read and referenced. His approach to behaviorally-based or inspired motion - hybrid dynamical systems* - was actually an approach we considered before charging off into multi-objective optimization**. Well, a month or so ago, he visited my old lab and talked to my advisor - and was impressed with what she said about my research! He emailed me, wants to have a chat and read my dissertation draft, and have me up to give a talk next semester! An invited talk! Whee!

*A hybrid dynamical system is one that makes on/off, left/right/center, or otherwise "discrete" changes between more continuous states at certain cutoff points. For example, your washing machine. It starts off in a "filling" state, described by some continuous equation like "water-in-washer-now = water-in-washer-before + fill-rate*time" Then, when it reaches the "full" state, something goes "click," and it begins the wash cycle. The old equation for water in the washer stops working, and now there is just a constant amount of water. Then the wash cycle ends, something else goes "click," and the water drains out according to some third equation.

**Balancing two or more objectives according to some standard. Would you rather save time or money? If you have a lot of money, you might want to save time by paying for convenience items. If you have a lot of free time, you might want to save money by doing things yourself. If you don't have an excess of either, you'll probably want to strike a balance. What you want is the "some standard;" optimization is what you do to try and achieve it.

(Brought to you by the number pi.)