Vote Alexander Karapetian for Felix Editor!

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Hello there! Thanks for visiting,

I’ve been working for Felix for three years now, and I love this paper. In my experience undertaking roles such as News Reporter, Copy Editor, Photographer, Web Editor, News Editor (2010-11) and Science Editor (2012-12), I’ve learnt a lot about how to keep Felix running, and I feel the time has come for me to take the reins.

I’m a third year Computing student, and I’ve always had a keen interest in writing and journalism. I’ve contributed to The Guardian, The London Student and The Medical Student before and Felix has certainly taken up most of my time during my degree. Since the day I started at Imperial, I’ve dedicated myself to staying on top of news every week. So why should you vote for me?

Transparency: Your Felix, your rules

A vote for me is a vote for openness, approachability and sociability throughout Felix. Whenever I go out representing the cat, I do my best to get people involved. Anyone should be able to contribute, and everyone should know our door’s always open. If elected, I will set up and man a Felix stall in the JCR every week to get to know our readers personally, to listen to your criticisms, and to give you a platform to approach us and get involved.

We’re not just a newspaper, but a society too. We’ve seen some incredible efforts put in this year and watching freshers, postgraduates and everyone in between become such an integral part of Felix is wonderful and needs to be continued. As your Editor, I promise not to just look after Felix, but also to do my best to keep you, the readers, happy. I will communicate transparently to help make Felix your paper, one that you can truly be proud of, and one that reflects the excellence of this university.

Stability: A bigger Hangman

We need to bring back Hangman. I’ve listened to your comments and it’s pretty clear that you want Felix to be funny. You just want it done right. We’ve learnt some valuable lessons this year, and if you elect me, I promise to triple Felix’s comedic content and launch two new Hangman subsections to give you those much-needed laughs. Satire, and I’m talking Mock The Week style repartee localised to Imperial, would feature prominently in my Felix.

We’re a student paper, not The Guardian, and you can rest assured that while I will continue to stay on top of college issues and bring you interesting features weekly, we’ll keep it as entertaining as possible for you. More comics, more wit, more investigative journalism and more opportunities for you to write in and get involved. It’s your content, done your way.

Professionalism: No more mistakes

We can do so much more with the resources we have. Felix is based near PhotoSoc in the West Basement of Beit Quad, and we’re down the corridor from Stoic TV as well as IC Radio. If elected, I will closely collaborate with the rest of the Media Group to produce more entertaining shows, as well as revamping FelixOnline to get relevant student-led videos showing up on our online articles too.

Together, we can be a very strong media outlet, and I will ensure our output resonates with your interests at the core. We will introduce ways to allow you to anonymously tip-off Felix about any potentially newsworthy material, and with our resources, we can deploy a team armed with cameras to capture the moments as they happen. If elected, I will also improve our quality control so that we catch mistakes and errors effectively. We’re all tired of seeing errors in an article’s research, spelling or grammar, and I vow to put a stop to them.

Outside the box: Keeping the Cat free

South Kensington isn’t our only campus, and I feel it’s important to ensure we’re reporting on Imperial as a whole where relevant. If elected, I promise to look into ways of distributing the paper to other campuses that do not currently receive Felix, and I will proactively look into producing a sister publication targeted at Silwood Park whilst ensuring I, Science and Phoenix are comprehensively taken care of. As Science Editor this year I’ve helped keep our section open to contributors to I, Science, and unified collaboration is key to our prosperity.

If elected, I will adhere to a rigorous schedule to keep the distribution points filled and will introduce improvements to the way we deliver to Charing Cross and the Reynolds. There’s no reason our website has to follow the same deadlines as the paper, too. I’ll increase our frontline reporting, post to the website more frequently, and as we’ve been on the same design for nearly two years now, I feel a departure from the current style will be beneficial, introducing a fresh look and feel.

Alexander Karapetian: Your Editor

Felix is an award winning publication and I have been tirelessly involved in ensuring its production to the highest standard in both content and coverage thus far. If elected, I will aspire to elevate its standard and maintain its award winning status, and your vote can make it happen. Unleash the true potential of Felix and vote Alexander Karapetian for Felix Editor. Thanks!

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Voting is open from March 12, 00:01 to March 16, 23:59

Twitter: www.twitter.com/alexkara15

Deja Vu

So it’s coming up to that time of year again, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find some time to myself to relax. In my last post, I mentioned that there were pressing times ahead – little did I appreciate how much of an understatement that was. As I wake up after a 14 hour sleep following an all nighter with childhood best friend Charles, attempting to understand the curious depths of Photoshop, a chilling realisation hits me. I’ve been here before.

We pulled the same all nighter this time last year (+/- 5 days), the same time I was swamped with work due to the huge Operating Systems lab we had, Pintos. This year, it’s not one massive piece of work, but a sum of parts – with my final year individual project, 3 group projects and a piece of coursework all running simultaneously, all but one due in before elections. Ah yes, elections – that happened last year too.

In fact, quite a few things are repeating again. Around this time last year, I got through to the interview stage of a national engineering leadership award run by the Royal Academy of Engineering. I also broke many stories in Felix regarding cyber security and privacy issues. Interestingly, here I am again, shortlisted for the Cadzow Smith engineering leadership award (run by the Worshipful Company of Engineers). It would appear that universities nominate one person each for the prize, so I feel privileged to get this far. It would also appear that Imperial’s nominees have won first prize in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2007,2008, 2010 and 2011… No pressure.

As for the stories regarding privacy issues? Well, I’ve been sustaining more than my average output for Felix these few weeks, and it’s not like I wrote a story on methods which could be used to rig the National Student Survey after being alerted to it by Computing students. It’s not like I provided commentary either, or like it got into the London Student newspaper too…

The feeling of déjà vu given by all of these re-occurrences combined is slightly frustrating, and the workload doesn’t help, but I’m going to power on and see everything through giving it my all, just like I did last time. One thing I appreciate is that I’m at least in better company this time round.

Alex Kara

Achievement Unlocked: App-ortunist

So I’ve recently rekindled my love for mobile development and have been getting stuck in to some side projects alongside my university work. I’d like to say I found the free time to do it but it’s more of a case of having to be more efficient at everything else without sacrificing quality. Over Christmas I started coding an app for Imperial’s student radio station, IC Radio, to let users stream the station’s output. I initially targeted iPhone and iOS since I’d already had some experience with it and I was rather excited to have my first submission to the app store approved two weeks ago!

I updated my IC Radio iOS app last week with Sorin, so it’s currently what I like to call version 1.1, and 1.2 is in the pipeline with additional functionality such as showing the upcoming show schedule. I anticipated calls for an Android version so I started it alongside the iOS app. As much as I approached it with an open mind, I was hit with the barrage of problems that arose from the fragmentation of Android, such as not being sure which SDK to target and various annoyances in the Java platform, quite early on. I’m hoping as time goes by and I become more familiar with the methods, my disdain and awkward affair with this hideous layer on Java will diffuse. Nonetheless, I will finish coding the app and release it to the Android marketplace in due time.

I do find it rather peculiar, however, that though my initial idea was to have an app to myself so I could listen to the stream and discover new music on demand (I got into Simian Mobile Disco through them, with Sleep Deprivation being a hit during my A level Computing coursework), I’m unable to write the same functionality for my Windows Phone. Why? Well, the stream is given in the form of an m3u playlist – fairly standard. Not a standard WP7 likes to support though. I’m thinking of workarounds such as converting the playlist file on the fly when it’s downloaded, since it really just redirects to an mp3 stream, but it’s upsetting how in this case, I’m unable to ‘eat my own dog food‘ without resorting to listening on my iPad using my iOS app.

Otherwise, I have some more exciting side projects lined up, I’ve recently decided to reimplement a few ideas I had when I wrote programs targeting the .NET Compact Framework and using SQLCE for my Windows Mobile 2003SE PDA in secondary school. I suppose one could say I was a bit of a mobile developer hipster, writing mobile apps before they were called apps, but I definitely see a one-to-one mapping from those old programs to current devices and think they’ll satisfy my hobbyist programming desires while I crack on with a large project involving optimising a kinetic simulation of muscles.

In terms of other things going on, Kelly and I have been having some nice ideas for further improving our Science section in Felix which we’ll be implementing very soon, and I’m closely looking forward to buying myself a Kinect for Windows and developing for that with my beloved Visual Studio 2010 (which Microsoft just released an Achievements system for!) Microsoft’s vision for the Kinect sensor is quite a heartfelt appeal to developers who love to free existing systems and push them to their boundaries. My Robotics lecturer recently told the class that the device is among the state of the art for depth perception and I’m really keen on seeing what comes out of Kinect development, as well as contributing to it myself.

The Christmas holidays were work filled, but I got an Xbox with Kinect and a few games which I’m having fun playing here on my projector when I have time. I’m found on Xbox Live at AlexKara15 to those who want to add me on yet another social network :)

Otherwise, my group project presentation went well, and I’m sad to see this mark the end of my last major group project at Imperial. I don’t believe we’ve seen the end of my infamous WAVE gameplay mechanics just yet, either. I’ve uploaded my first year AI group project with Fraser onto my personal Department of Computing profile as well, which can be found here. Also, the RCSU Science Challenge 2012 was launched, and I met Lord Robert Winston, who’s a professor here. He said he’d never had his picture taken with an iPad before. I’m not sure whether I’ll enter again this year, but it’s likely after having won last year’s maths prize.

So, once again we have both exciting and pressing times ahead. Much anticipation to see how this all pans out!

Alex Kara

</2011>

Happy New Year! I hope 2012 brings you prosperity and good tidings. That is all :)

- Alexander

Six months on…

So the dust settled and it comes to not only the end of the summer holidays, but the end of the first term of my final year of study at Imperial. It’s been an eventful three months, but for the sake of continuity I’ll briefly summarise the three before. I took a rain check on going to the Build Windows conference and as it turns out, unfortunately hadn’t the time. The Royal Academy of Engineering were also somewhat reluctant to fund the trip if it didn’t include some sort of industrial visit. I did, however, visit some Windows Phone 7 developer camps and learn more about C# and Windows Azure.

Otherwise, I kicked off the third year giving up my old position as News Editor for Felix, our student newspaper, and taking up another in Felix Science. Being a Science Editor on top of the flexibilities of the final year projects meant I could spend more time across the board, and I sustained my usual output for the News section as a reporter on top of my new workload. I’ve learnt a lot having to research various intriguing stories for Science, (albeit having been typecast to the more physics and quantum themed stories) and we signed off with a feature on snowflakes. We’ve received a few compliments about the section and I’m really proud of how it’s going so far, managing to push four pages almost every week. I’m also particularly happy I wrote a few Comment pieces, notably a head-to-head debate on different University systems and a discussion following a study on the effects of social media here and there. The academic workload isn’t set to decrease, however, and as the final year group project draws to a close, the individual project begins.

I remained actively involved in both RCSU and CGCU events (Scientists’ and Engineers’ unions, respectively) throughout these three months and met a lot of new people (notably the first years) who brought a wave of enthusiasm that refreshed the whole experience. As expected, though, I’ve been very busy balancing academic study, group projects, Felix and the occasional partying. The evidence stands, I’ve only been able to update this blog now!

I’m not living with Fraser this year, but I’ve moved slightly further down the road closer to medic central, one might say. He’s spending time being an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant (UTA) and I won’t doubt the Computing freshers are learning extensively from him and having their minds blown on a regular basis. I’ve been using my spare time entering various writing competitions, I was lucky enough to take the mathematics prize for the Science Challenge 2011, the award ceremony for which was in November. In addition, I’m preparing an app to help publicise IC Radio, our radio station. It should be finished very soon, especially since I got my first Mac to be able to use Xcode outside of the labs and work from home.

I hope to be able to find time to continue playing Pokémon Black sometime soon, and I have extra co-op content in Portal 2 to get done with Sorin, my Partner In Science who’s just about recovering from the second year compilers coursework. Nonetheless, I look forward to the ever-increasing and unavoidable festivities of the coming week. Merry Christmas everyone!

Alexander Karapetian

Momentum

I’ve been insanely busy the last two weeks or so, and quite frankly I’ve been loving it. Following on from my last post, I have to say I did end up going to the Summer Ball. I didn’t know it was feasible to cram so much work and play into my schedule, and now term’s properly ended, I’m much more appreciative of the serenity an empty schedule brings. It’s quickly wearing thin though, since I do crave pressure, and I am preparing a variety of events to keep myself busy over the summer.

You may recall this:

“Due to the proximity of our deadline, reports and presentations to Imperial’s Summer Ball, I might give it a miss”

I didn’t. Nor did my work suffer! After having a very long day from 7am to 11pm that Friday (and most other days really), with the first half exam-filled and the second involving group project work, I felt entitled to some kind of social activity. I’d just written a 2000 word report after all. I must say, I felt the Summer Ball was better than the previous year in terms of experience, but I also felt this experience was made so by the people – not the event itself. For once, I didn’t suit up, as it was described to be festival style. The weather was also unforgiving but yielded its rainy onslaught from around 8pm onwards, leaving us to enjoy the afterparty following the acts and fireworks. The next day, I finished up writing my PDP document as planned (explained later).

A good proportion of my days in the last two weeks were “exam-filled”. I’ve been taking Microsoft Certification exams to get myself the qualification titles I once dreamed of in college. Sure, my fanaticism over them may have dissolved over time and they may not mean much by themselves, but they’re a nice boost to my CV and I loved the additional pressure the various three-hour exams provided in my life alongside all the other work. I managed to complete those necessary for the following:

• MCP – Microsoft Certified Professional, basically one exam
• MCDST – Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician, the other half
• MCTS – Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist, a standalone three hour exam
• MCITP – Microsoft Certified IT Professional, building on the above for the Pro level

This puts me nicely on the third section here. The next two levels up are MCM (Master) and MCA (Architect).. I reckon they ran out of names and began taking ideas from The Matrix. I must say though, I did seem to become rather addicted to the whole exam regime. Can’t imagine why, Imperial’s was quite fulfilling! Still, I reckon I got slightly carried away.

In terms of the group project, I drafted up our slides, made a few changes and we rehearsed a few times. The presentation went quite well, in that the group were sufficiently content with their performance and left for their respective homes satisfied it was all over. Though, the department seemed sufficiently content too, enough to withdraw our freedom and call us back to present again (along with three other groups) to a VIP audience two days later. Inconvenient as it was, this meant we were shortlisted for the IBM prize, so we regrouped and presented for the final time last Friday (after I’d passed my MCITP exam that morning). The results are yet to be announced.

I also finished my PDP (Personal Development Plan) for the Royal Academy of Engineering the day after the Summer Ball. It was approved shortly after, so I can now begin applying for funding – I submitted my application to attend the aforementioned Windows 8 developer conference and am awaiting feedback on that front. If all goes to plan, I’ll be booking a flight to California in September, and I doubt even the Disneyland Resort next to the conference centre will distract me from all the exciting tech!

Alongside all of the above, I managed to sustain my usual output of news for Felix, and we finished the last issue of the academic year. A few of us ended up submitting a selection of our stories to the Guardian Student Media Awards. It’s been a dramatic, thoroughly intriguing and fun-filled year for me working as News Editor under the current Editor-in-Chief and I look forward to exciting times ahead under the next!

Bring on the summer :)

Alexander Karapetian

Saving Science

It’s coming up to the end of term and I’m in the last week of live development in my group project, for which we’ve been producing an online trading game where players experience gameplay somewhat akin to a form of bartender training. Due to the proximity of our deadline, reports and presentations to Imperial’s Summer Ball though, I might give it a miss. I was looking towards other means of satisfying a desire to suit up since the event was revamped to represent more of a festival and it looks like the RCSU Summer Ball has filled that gap.

The DSTL departmental team building event came and went, and I led my team of 7 through the various challenges to an overall state of success. We got our Belbin test results back also, the results of which showed my preferred team roles to be the Monitor/Evaluator and Coordinator. I also received delivery of my iPad2 a few days ago and hastily upgraded to the just-announced iOS5 development release. So far it’s handling really well, but I’ve yet to have a full session out with it to test it against a busy schedule.

Anyway, while my group project seems to be coming together by way of a fierce, winning combination of front/back end insights and Pair Programming, I’ve taken some time to fulfil other duties I had been procrastinating against and have ended up quite pleased with my productivity. Not only have I begun saving science in the Portal 2 co-op, completed a first draft of the Personal Development Plan for my engineering leadership award, submitted my essay entry to the RCSU Science Challenge, scheduled a three hour Microsoft Certification exam for Wednesday and prepared an application to CERN for a technical internship, but I’ve also identified a potential first use of my award – attending Microsoft’s Build Windows conference in California, showcasing Windows 8 from a developer’s perspective. I won’t go into the various obstacles I had to overcome on the Computing lab machines for the group project work too.

I’ve started to realise that waiting another two years to reconcile my degree with Physics is far too long when my mind craves it so, and in beginning to miss the theory dearly, I’ve rekindled a drive to refresh my knowledge and understanding of quantum mechanics and its consequences in Computing (just in case). This served as good motivation to join open forums such as the BarCamp UnConference. Members can lecture audiences who sign up openly, so I’ll probably be talking on fascinating topics such as the Riemann Hypothesis and Quantum Computational Complexity Classes.

Also, it’s Felix’s last issue of the year next week. Last year, we published a joke issue with fake news all over the place (Link, large PDF). My intent to switch to the Technology section next year has been met with support thus far. One downside of all this regrouping is that I’ve had to prioritise everything again. Consequently, my driving theory test has now expired and I will have to retake it again before I next try to pass my driving test. Never mind.

It’s a very promising future once again, and I anxiously await my exam results next month to see how it will all begin playing out.

Alex Kara