The wheels of academia have begun to turn and I've been approved to start my thesis project in the Center for Wireless Communication (CWC). I can't give out many of the technical details yet, but let me just say that it's insanely cool and has to do with the Eyeborg Project.
If you've never heard about the Eyeborg Project, please check out their channel on vimeo and visit their homepage (www.eyeborgproject.com).
Showing posts with label kiel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kiel. Show all posts
20090328
This Weekend
Today was the first day that I was able to see Jules since I left Montreal for Kiel, 2 weeks ago - it seems like an eternity already. Erin, Jules, & I were able to use Skype to have a video converstation. He's getting bigger every day! Kids are so great... particularly Jules :) I can't wait until meine kleine Familie is here in May. I think that I won't be able to put Jules down for a whole day. I'm practising keeping my weekends free and packed with fun things, so that when Erin & Jules are here we can own the weekends and do nothing but fun stuff !!
I know that it might seem like little, but my aim is to only work 4 or 5 hours per evening, and do all of my studying during the day - that's about 1/2 to 3/4 of my full-time work schedule. Also, I'm sure that the university lecture schedule will have an afternoon or morning open at least once a week too, which I aim to spend with Jules.
I just changed the background photo on my Desktop to a big smiley picture of Jules too - I'm hooked - I miss my little dude!
In spite of my obvious bias, I really do think I have the cutest little dude in the whole world, wouldn't you agree?
Today, part of my fun-weekend was having a hay-day at the Markt in Exerzierplatz. I believe that stands are set up every Saturday and there are all sorts of bio-food stands (fruits/veges, bread), and some slightly more expensive places ou on peut acheter du fromage. There are, of course, lots of places to get seafood as well. Today, I picked up some rauchte Mackerel a slightly older, harder (Italian?) Gouda called Leonardo, and a sheep's cheese (which will always remind me of Quebec). I also bought some Kürbiskern-brotchen (pumpkin-seed bread) and some Chianti. We bought loads of bio-veges for dinner tomorrow, and I also scored some very kräftig bio / fair-trade Kaffee from Tanzania, which might even overtake Ethiopia or Mexico as my favourite! On the way back, we were walking through a bit of an artsy area, where there are lots of shops and an exhibit or two. There is a very chill cafe/lounge called Sternstunde very close to Schrevenpark, which I'm sure will be a target to go with Erin & Jules after playing in the park all day, this summer.
I know that it might seem like little, but my aim is to only work 4 or 5 hours per evening, and do all of my studying during the day - that's about 1/2 to 3/4 of my full-time work schedule. Also, I'm sure that the university lecture schedule will have an afternoon or morning open at least once a week too, which I aim to spend with Jules.
I just changed the background photo on my Desktop to a big smiley picture of Jules too - I'm hooked - I miss my little dude!
In spite of my obvious bias, I really do think I have the cutest little dude in the whole world, wouldn't you agree?
Today, part of my fun-weekend was having a hay-day at the Markt in Exerzierplatz. I believe that stands are set up every Saturday and there are all sorts of bio-food stands (fruits/veges, bread), and some slightly more expensive places ou on peut acheter du fromage. There are, of course, lots of places to get seafood as well. Today, I picked up some rauchte Mackerel a slightly older, harder (Italian?) Gouda called Leonardo, and a sheep's cheese (which will always remind me of Quebec). I also bought some Kürbiskern-brotchen (pumpkin-seed bread) and some Chianti. We bought loads of bio-veges for dinner tomorrow, and I also scored some very kräftig bio / fair-trade Kaffee from Tanzania, which might even overtake Ethiopia or Mexico as my favourite! On the way back, we were walking through a bit of an artsy area, where there are lots of shops and an exhibit or two. There is a very chill cafe/lounge called Sternstunde very close to Schrevenpark, which I'm sure will be a target to go with Erin & Jules after playing in the park all day, this summer.
20080708
Geeentoo Binary Package Repository
If anyone is also using an Asus EEE with Gentoo instead of the default Xandros operating system, feel free to use the binary package repository that I have set up here .I'm going to try my best to put together some documentation about how I arrange my EEE PC, providing /etc/portage/{package,savedconfig}*, /etc/make.conf, /etc/init.d/portage_squashfs, etc. Although right now the documentation will probably consist of a static html page with links to the Gentoo Wiki and other places.
My eventual plans for the EEE are to get a full-blown GRP (Gentoo Reference Platform) set up on it, to create a stage4 for Geeentoo, and then of course to do hardware modifications :)
Planned modifications include:
- 2 Accelerometers (probably the same kind in the FreeRunner)
- a bluetooth transceiver (I'm using a Linksys USB model)
- a touchscreen to go underneath the LCD (a la iVancouver.com)
- 2GB of Ram (a la iVancouver.com)
- An internal USB Rubee RFID Tag reader (from Visible Assets Ltd.)
In any event - stay posted!!
20070720
Done Exams!
I've finished my exams for the 2007 summer semester here in Kiel. Both of them went pretty well. The first was Computer Vision II: Stochastic and Topological Approaches to Image Processing, and the second one was Neuroinformatik. CVII went pretty well, although I was a bit pissed about the last question. Neuro went better actually, although I like CV a bit more. CVII is actually a fairly hard course, not as hard as CVI, but still.
I had a beer, as per tradition, as soon as I got out of the last exam, and then on the walk home, the air smelled fresher, the sun felt brighter, all of the music on my iPod seemed to fit perfectly with everything - a good sign ;-) Actually, having the ability to take time and walk home was a big change all by itself ;-) Usually I have no time what so ever, and am racing to catch the next bus too hand something in, or meet up with my study groups.
Now I can focus on my work a bit more, and get a couple of big projects out of the way. I'm excited to actually be able to concentrate on one 'job' for the summer, getting new toys to play with (i.e. embedded devices), and doing some electrical design / hacking too! I'm also planning on hacking a couple of open source apps like Banshee, iPodLinux, and writing more interesting code for my various embedded devices.
Finally, I can design some image processing hardware too, once I learn about the PCI bus and interface with the new TS-7800 boards ;-) Since I tore apart my old crappy 1.3 megapixel digital camera, I'm also hoping to put linux on it.
As of next semester I'm going to be registered in the M.Sc. in Digital Communications, which is taught in english, as opposed to Informatik, which is taught in german. That should lighten my load considerably, but also provide the same type of challenges that I'm used to in areas such as DSP, communication theory, analog & digital circuit design, and so on.
Digital Communications is an engineering program, which I like better. Not to say that I didn't like all of the experiences I had in Informatik - Professor Sommer's lectures are exactly what I was looking for by travelling halfway across the world, and I can't even put a price on some of the things I learned studying with him. The things that I have yet to develop will likely be some of the most advanced in my life.
I've also learned some very interesting things in CV, Neuro, Numerische Math., and yes, even Mathematical Logic!! Unfortunately, I have to give up my office, which is a bummer, but the change to Digital Communication will surely have plenty of benefits to make up for it ;-)
The best and most important part everything now, though, is enjoying the summer!!! I'm really looking forward to meeting up with all of my friends in Canada, seeing all of my family, and of course Erin too :) woohoo!
I had a beer, as per tradition, as soon as I got out of the last exam, and then on the walk home, the air smelled fresher, the sun felt brighter, all of the music on my iPod seemed to fit perfectly with everything - a good sign ;-) Actually, having the ability to take time and walk home was a big change all by itself ;-) Usually I have no time what so ever, and am racing to catch the next bus too hand something in, or meet up with my study groups.
I'm looking forward to coming home ____SO____ much!!!
Now I can focus on my work a bit more, and get a couple of big projects out of the way. I'm excited to actually be able to concentrate on one 'job' for the summer, getting new toys to play with (i.e. embedded devices), and doing some electrical design / hacking too! I'm also planning on hacking a couple of open source apps like Banshee, iPodLinux, and writing more interesting code for my various embedded devices.
Finally, I can design some image processing hardware too, once I learn about the PCI bus and interface with the new TS-7800 boards ;-) Since I tore apart my old crappy 1.3 megapixel digital camera, I'm also hoping to put linux on it.
As of next semester I'm going to be registered in the M.Sc. in Digital Communications, which is taught in english, as opposed to Informatik, which is taught in german. That should lighten my load considerably, but also provide the same type of challenges that I'm used to in areas such as DSP, communication theory, analog & digital circuit design, and so on.
Digital Communications is an engineering program, which I like better. Not to say that I didn't like all of the experiences I had in Informatik - Professor Sommer's lectures are exactly what I was looking for by travelling halfway across the world, and I can't even put a price on some of the things I learned studying with him. The things that I have yet to develop will likely be some of the most advanced in my life.
I've also learned some very interesting things in CV, Neuro, Numerische Math., and yes, even Mathematical Logic!! Unfortunately, I have to give up my office, which is a bummer, but the change to Digital Communication will surely have plenty of benefits to make up for it ;-)
The best and most important part everything now, though, is enjoying the summer!!! I'm really looking forward to meeting up with all of my friends in Canada, seeing all of my family, and of course Erin too :) woohoo!
20070517
Switching to Digital Communications
So, I promised that I would post some newer going-ons about what's happening in Kiel. I have an offer to change my course of study from Informatik (read: computer science, not your local IT department) to Digital Communications (once an engineer always an engineer).
There are a couple of key benefits for me here, the first being that the M.Sc. in Digital Communications is all taught in English. Now, don't get me wrong - I don't want to give you the impression that I'm flaking out because all of my courses at the moment are in German. I really like the courses that I'm taking in Informatik, those which are related to my field of study. In general, however, I've found that Informatik is a bit on the boring and theoretical side. I'm an electrical guy - I actually like to get my hands dirty and _apply_ my knowledge once in a while.
The other major reason why I chose to switch is because having a full time job _and_ studying for a graduate degree is _incredibly_ draining. I ended up having stress-related health problems about a month ago. Since then I made the decision to not kill myself by working too hard. This also means that I've cut down my course load and applied for the DigiComm program. I tend to work about 20 to 30 hours per week. If you add the number of lecture hours I have on top of that, as well as approximately 1-5 times the amount of time required for native-German speakers to study, it adds up to quite a lot.
I'm looking forward to the change.
There are a couple of key benefits for me here, the first being that the M.Sc. in Digital Communications is all taught in English. Now, don't get me wrong - I don't want to give you the impression that I'm flaking out because all of my courses at the moment are in German. I really like the courses that I'm taking in Informatik, those which are related to my field of study. In general, however, I've found that Informatik is a bit on the boring and theoretical side. I'm an electrical guy - I actually like to get my hands dirty and _apply_ my knowledge once in a while.
The other major reason why I chose to switch is because having a full time job _and_ studying for a graduate degree is _incredibly_ draining. I ended up having stress-related health problems about a month ago. Since then I made the decision to not kill myself by working too hard. This also means that I've cut down my course load and applied for the DigiComm program. I tend to work about 20 to 30 hours per week. If you add the number of lecture hours I have on top of that, as well as approximately 1-5 times the amount of time required for native-German speakers to study, it adds up to quite a lot.
I'm looking forward to the change.
20070514
First 'blogger' entry
"Hello World!"
- anonymous programmer
It was a very hard decision, but I just decided to move my blog to a remote service. Formerly, I had done all of the web-hosting and setup of the blog engine myself from home, using no-ip.com's service and a linux box (www.perpetual-notion.myftp.org) - you wouldn't believe how easy that is. However, now that I'm living my digital life out of my laptop from virtually wherever I am in the world, I feel that having something static would probably be a much wiser idea.
I suppose that there are a few other methods I could have pursued, such as:
- Hacking the linksys router to incorporate a flash memory reader / writer
- Hacking the linksys router to incorporate a USB port / external hard disk
Eric had mentioned that I should continue with my blog, and I guess there are good grounds for that request (the primary reason being that I'm anti-social and don't call home nearly enough). In spite of my anti-social nature, I too sometimes feel somewhat disconnected from the rest of 'the world' back home.
Thus, I went with blogger.com Since Google already has the right to search through all of my email, I would imagine that they would love the opportunity to search through my blog postings as well. However this will probably also be an easier way to publish photos for everyone to see and also to get some feedback from my friends & family abroad.
My current method to communicate is skype, but mainly with Erin, and mailing photos as postcards by simply writing an address and fixing a stamp to the back - that's one of the best parts about digital photography (Erin is really a way better photographer than me, but I still like sending her pictures as postcards too ;-)).
In any event, I'll write something fairly soon so that you can all have some idea about what's happening in my life. That might be tomorrow, because I'm a bit busy with schoolwork and work tonight - I would have loved to go to the danish film that's playing at the university tonight, but I thought that travelling to an island and walking a kilometer out into the north sea was enough fun for one weekend!! heheeh...
ciao 4 now
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