Category: MIT

related or about MIT in the larger sense

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Flying to Geneva, again

It is going towards Thanksgiving and the semester lies in its last stretch. Students are dropping their least liked classes and professors are lookoing forward to the end of the term. At the same time temperatures are approaching real cold, the afternoons become very short and leaves are piling up in the yard. Rakink seems useless but it is not as this one year showed when I waited for the last leave to drop and was barely able to make it for the towns last pickup….. Ana had chipped in quite a bit which did not seem fair. Anyway I am on my way to Geneva to one of those meeting that seem useless when you do not go but turn out to be very useful once you go.
One of the invariably useful features of CERN trips are that there is nothing else but work to do and magically lots on the todo list gets done and the inbox clears up. Looking forward to be back tough.

Update…. it seems my luck is running out. I lost my flight in Charlotte and l am just barely making it back to Boston. Is that what you call poetic justice, as I left Ana home to deal with the new car purchase? Maybe it is just fate to make sure the, two of us are available to buy the new car 🙂   I think that must be it. So, bottom line: My luck is not running out but just continuing even in a bigger picture.
Let’s see how this plays out tomorrow…. at least there is never a dull moment in our lifes.

It turns out missing the flight was a blessing as we did buy the new used car in the morning of the next day — would not have happened with Ana by herself — I had a much better 1 stop flight to Geneva and I even had a good talk at the C&O week. I also did not miss the important dinner of this working week so to summarize, my luck has not run out on the contrary it is intensifying its streak it seems. Hang in there!

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Home Match – Oct 23 – Union Boat Club

The season opener is going to be an interesting match. All of our highest rank players are not available and it is up to Tim (Apratim) to play our number 1. The exact matching is as follows

  1 - Alex McFerran  / Apratim Sahay
  2 - Mike McElroy   / Frans Kaashoek
  3 - Hunter Nadler  / Christoph Paus 
  4 - Jeff Carter    / Vijaya Kolachalama

If I remember correctly we did win last year against the Union Boat Club. In fact last year we had an excellent start but Justin was more available in the beginning of the season. Let’s see how it goes, at least we should give them a run for their money 😉

Game 1: Alex / Apratim        - L(3:0) - 9:7  9:5 9:8
Game 2: Mike / Frans          - L(3:0) - 9:4  9:5 9:6
Game 3: Hunter / Christoph    - L(3:2) - 9:10 9:6 9:6 3:9 9:2
Game 4: Jeff / Vijaya         - L(3:1) - 9:5  5:9 9:4 9:5

The games started with Christoph taking on Hunter. As we thought we only had one court the game had a large number of spectators. After a slow start Christoph pulled through in the first and

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Getting to Philedalphia

Deleware Valley MIT Alumni Club Visit
In my hotel room in Philly in front of the mirror.

In a weak moment of last year I somehow agreed to speak to the MIT Alumni Club in Philadelphia. Not that I do not usually very much enjoy such events, but I am usually that busy that it really always comes at a moment where I should be doing something else. And as usual even knowing long before I was not really prepared for it and it gets worse, when the day came bad weather hit the east coast and now I am sitting at Logan waiting for my departure. The 12:00 flight is leaving now at around 14:15 and the 12:30 is scheduled for 14:40… I am not even standby on the 12:00 flight and on a huge list for the 12:30 flight that is supposed to leave soon afterwards. The plane of the 12:00 flight is already at the gate. If the captain gives permission (assuming Philadelphia is open enough) we might be boarding soon….

It turns out all went perfectly well. The captain gave permission, there were spots even beyond the standby list and I got out on the first flight pretty much at the time of my original flight and I arrived at 15:58 in Philadelphia, even a few minutes before planned. Once arrived I figured that the Marriot and the Renaissance Hotels are not the same and that nobody had made a reservation. I had assumed the Wilkens (my hosts) had done it and they assumed I had taken care of the reservation myself as I did for the flight. Anyway, of course there was room and I am sitting here, using the expensive network and will soon take a shower and review my talk to be ready for tonight. I think it will be fun.

The talk went very well, I had a ton of questions and only few people blinking with sleepy eyes. It was fun and time and again the lesson is, you need to do this more often.

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Seattle – City of Coffee

First morning in Seattle, it is different from Boston…. Not yet sure though what it is. It seems somehow more Asian and somehow more modern. Need to see how I can make that more precise. Anyway…. enjoying my coffee in the Pineapple Cafe this morning.

imagePineapple Cafe on 43rd Street

The picture shows a nice wall drawing in the cafe which is part of the general atmosphere here in the area. As the cab driver assured me, it is not always as foggy here (they had fog for four days in a row already) and the city is very expensive, he moved from Los Angeles and was hoping for better prices on real estate but he had to pay even more. Let’s see whether I can figure out what the difference is between Boston and Seattle while I am here. It feels quite different!

Just found this interesting discussion and I mostly agree with the general statements that Boston has better public transport, is dirtier, has better education opportunities, feels more urban and is more stressed out. Weather of course is more intense in Boston and the laid back west coast folks like that. Both have really nice sides it seems, I love to live in Boston feel the seasons, enjoy the dirty city and take advantage of the excellent universities.

Here is another impression from a coffee shop in Seattle, not a chain but one of these more unique ones you find a lot of at the west coast.
IMG_20130122_125806Solstice Coffee on University Avenue

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Squash Match versus Harvard coming up

We will play the ‘havaad’ club of Boston tonight. I am interested to see how the game goes. I am playing on 2…. not my usual spot but I am willing to take the challenge.

35 minutes later: And I got whipped pretty bad. The courts here are slow, my strings were close to breaking, I was not well warmed up….. 🙂

I need to exercise more and play with more different and better players than myself. Physical fitness was clearly not the issue.

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WordPress Mobile App Installed on my Phone

mobile location
Location of first mobile wordpress post.

Woooohooo…. this is my first post from my phone. If this is working well enough be prepared to see much more blogging from me soon. Well I will have to edit each post on a proper computer it seems because my spelling sucks on the mobile phone even more than on the desktop computer.

This is where I am right now…. 🙂 …. Waiting at the elevator which is right beside the womens’ rest room. Proof of the mobility.

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Nachgesang auf einen Weggefaehrten

Es muss Weihnachten 2007 oder 2008 gewesen sein als wir uns in Deutschland die Feier in der grossen Familie gefallen liessen. Bei diesem Anlass klagte Alex zum wiederholten Male ueber die Qualitaet des Kaffee’s aus ihrem wunderbaren Vollautomat, der dunkelroten “Vienna Millenium” von Saeco. Da unsere Machine am CERN kurz vorher ihren Geist aufgegeben hatte nach ungefaehr 1.5 Jahren (eigentlich viel zu frueh und durch einen unbedarften Versuch die Machine wieder in Gang zu bringen) kam mir die Idee Alex von dieser Machine zu befreien. Alex hat uns dann tatsaechlich die Machine ueberlassen und seitdem hat sie bis Mai 2012 hervorragende Dienst geleistet, ich wuerde schaetzen ueber 10 Kaffees im Durchschnitt pro Tag. Das waeren also (bin mir fast sicher wir haben im Januar 2008 gestartet) 4.25 * 365 * 10 = 15512.5 Kaffees insgesamt.

Leider hat mein treuer Wegbegleiter durch so viele lange Naechte schliesslich in der letzten Woche seinen Geist aufgegeben. Das Mahlwerk will die Bohnen einfach nicht mehr zerkleinern und in den Schlund der Presse schieben…. Ruhe in Frieden mein alter Freund!

Vienna Millenium von Saeco