Wouldn't you know it

I like to joke around about the "depression of remote sensing". It arises because we're really testing the technology, meaning, we're using it for things that it may or may not successfully accomplish. This "testing" necessarily involves trying many different approaches to things and many false starts. Although you may ultimately succeed, many days (most days?) are characterized by failure.

I've been plodding along at mapping my species for a while now, incrementally getting closer to the goal. It's a tough problem because the species is characterized by a relatively sparse architecture, so it doesn't present very pure or strong signals to the sensor. On Monday I was totally discouraged. I didn't think I'd ever succeed, which is bad bad bad, since then I'd have to come up with a new thesis. So I went home on Monday thoroughly in the dumps. That evening I came up with a few new ideas. I tried them out yesterday, and it actually worked! I couldn't believe it! The Holy Grail was in my grasp! Today I was going to start applying it to the rest of the images (all 64 of them).

But wouldn't you know it, when I got to lab this morning, my computer was broken. It won't turn on. The power supply has died. It's like a curse; the depression of remote sensing is impossible to shake! (Plus it's freezing in lab; the computer I switched to has the newer, much buggier version of software; and I dreamt about remote sensing again last night. I can't work under these conditions! :D)