Christian M. Schmid

Last Day In Venice

Feb 8, 2014 · Traveling

The last day in Venice is over and I am on the train again on the way back home. I had a great time and lots of great memories to take home with me!

A visit to the Peggy Guggenheim collection was on the list for today. While I am not sure about Peggy (she’s buried on the grounds of her collection right next to her 14 dogs), I am sure that I saw some great pieces of art today including some Picassos.

Some final walks without any specific destination but the goal to breath in some of the cities air concluded this short visit. I am sure I’ll be back some day!

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The Second Day Wasn't Bad Either

Feb 7, 2014 · Traveling

… the weather was not as good as on the first day, but good enough to allow for a visit to the Doge’s Palace and the island of Murano,

Murano is known for its long tradition in the production and manufacturing of glass. I don’t exactly know how much of the stuff you get there today is Chinese, but I guess the island still adds to the charm of the Venice.

We enjoyed dinner at a restaurant that had a beautiful view on the Rialto bridge.

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They even had WiFi, so I could publish Harald Baumgartner’s Website after his show had aired directly from that Rialto bridge restaurant. Oh how I love technology …

A Perfect Day in Venice

Feb 6, 2014 · Traveling

The night train was not as comfortable as my own bed and I woke up every other hour, still it was way better than those 8 hour transatlantic flights that always give me a neck pain, when I sleep.

Whatever marginal discomfort the train ride might have left me with, it was totally blown away by the great first day in Venice. Here’s a photo that I took today: It shows Venice as seen from the bell tower on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore.

Venice

Lots of sun, great places to visit, great art, not too many tourists (at least compared to Venice in summer). What can I say: A Perfect Day in Venice.

On the Night Train to Venice

Feb 5, 2014 · Traveling

I’ve never been in a sleeping car before. We boarded the train in Linz at about 11 pm and are expected to arrive in Venice at 8:30 am tomorrow morning. The compartment looks similar to the one in this photo, which I found on wikipedia

It’s not fancy, but it’s inexpensive and potentially promises the comfort of a couple of hours of sleep. The others, most of who boarded in Vienna already, are sound asleep, so I’ll close my laptop for now.

The Other Way Round

Feb 4, 2014 · Reflection

Today I ran the same track that I’ve been running on for years - the other way round. I have no idea why it has never occurred to me that I could do the bridges clockwise instead of counter-clockwise.

While there is nothing revolutionary about the fact of me running it the other way round, maybe the significance of this finding is that we keep on doing things the exact same way for too long quite often without really knowing why.

View on Sports Tracker

Planned Obsolescence

Feb 3, 2014 · DIY

A while ago I learned about something called planned obsolescence. Today I found another example of it.

I can’t fight my genetics: my dad is bald, my dad’s dad was bald, my mom’s dad was bold - you get the idea. The only logical thing (at least for me) is to trim the little I have left regularly, for which I bought a Philips QC5055 about three years ago.

The clipper seems well built, no doubt. But I do see now where they have made design choices that I would classify as planned obsolescence.

The battery is not replaceable and it does barely last for one cut after three years. - I always need a wall outlet nearby.
The plastic combs that you need to adjust the hair length break easily. It’s not that I have handled the clipper super carefully, but they should at least provide replacements for those fragile parts. - Which they did, but are listed as out of stock in all web shops I could find. They even explicitly exclude the combs from their warranty in newer products.

In the interest of prolonging the life of my hair clipper, I have already fixed the comb with the help of superglue twice. Meet my new best friend (aka superglue):

What I take from this:

Always look for products that have replaceable batters, even better if they are AAs or some other standard form factor. (E.g., keep your hands of those electronic devices that have the battery per-installed and are sealed like vaults. And yes that does include your iThings)
Always have some superglue and some scotch tape around. They might come in handy, save you some money and give you the sensation of empowerment which you may find in fixing the things around you!
Try fixing things, even if you risk breaking them entirely (which I did with a Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini 2 weeks ago, while trying to replace its display).

Harald Baumgarter @ Herz von Österreich

Feb 2, 2014 · Friends, Online

About two years ago I blogged about setting up the website of Austrian singer Harald Baumgartner. In an attempt to make his work more well known to the public he’s now part of a reality television-music competition series called “Herz von Österreich” (“Heart of Austria”). It’s only airing in Austria, so you might not have heard of it, it’s similar to the Idols TV series. - As I don’t watch television, I didn’t know about it either until he called me last week.

The show in which he’s going to appear is going to air this week on Friday and so some updates to his website became inevitable. I guess that’s the kind of stuff you’re supposed to do on an idle Sunday afternoon. Helping an old friend.

See for yourself http://www.haraldbaumgartner.com - and please don’t forget to vote for him on Friday.

Left4Dead2

Feb 1, 2014 · Friends, Linux, University

Some time during the last year I got myself a steam account. Originally, I just wanted to see where Linux gaming was. My verdict: The choices are limited and most games are only available for Windows. But those that are available on Linux (Half Life 2, Portal, Left4Dead, …) are just as playable on Linux as on Windows.

At any rate, during the holiday season Steam gave away Left4Dead2 for free. That’s why I and most of my steam friends at uni have it and why we meet online to play it from time to time, such as today. Guilty as charged, there’s a little video game addict in me ;)

Left4Dead2 After all: you have to be prepared for the ultimate zombie apocalypse. Apart from that it’s probably a good idea to make sure you and your colleagues at work (the place where you are most likely going to be when it’s going to happen) are working like a well-oiled zombie defence machine.

Actually that justification sucks …

My Job #2

Jan 31, 2014 · Engineering, University

In my last post I claimed that part of my research is paid for by Infineon, the rest of the money is actually coming from public funding. That is why we have to provide an annual report about our activities once a year. Today I spent most of my time preparing the 2013 report.

The afternoon mostly went into updating my CV and preparing job application material. This week’s discussions made me understand that I should at least be able to hand in something at any given time. - You gotta be prepared ;)

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Looking for a Job

Jan 29, 2014 · Engineering, Infineon, University

Ok, I’ll finally talk about my job. I am a PhD student and I am employed by the Johannes Kepler University Linz. However I am not involved in the teaching side of university apart from supervising Bachelor and Master Theses. I am a research assistant, I don’t TA and my research is (mostly) paid for by a company called Infineon.

To be a little bit more specific: I am doing research in the field of mm-wave radar systems. I’ve had quite a good time as PhD student. Lots of interesting conferences, research directions, research questions + great researchers around me. However (hopefully) I am going to graduate soon. Which brings me to the title of this post: I am going to be looking for a new job soon (May/June)!

I can’t help it, I have to make this yet another pleading for getting an engineering degree. One of the reasons: If you were flexible regarding the exact location, getting a job as an engineer has never been a problem during the last 20 years. To give you an example: As of today I haven’t applied for a single job, but I have received 6 job offers during the last year.

Today I was invited to yet another “job interview” at Infineon. - If you believe what some people say about a major Japanese customer awarding Infineon with a design win regarding automotive radar, you could image that they’d have a few of job openings in that field, such as

Actually it was less of an interview, because they know about my background. At any rate it was an interesting discussion and they are definitely on the list of addresses when I am going to start sending out job applications in April.

If you are a talented engineer, are looking for a job, would like to shape tomorrow’s driver-assistance system or maybe even self-driving transportation systems (aka cars), and are willing to move to a nice and dynamic city, I do highly recommend taking a look at the job offers above. Please apply even if you don’t think you’re the perfect fit!