Monthly Archives: October 2010

People and Stuff

A lot has happened this week, and while crap keeps piling up on one end it is worth while to become aware of the good things that just don’t stop happening on the other end. Tuesday night was engineering night, the Mechatroniker Stammtsich took place at the KHG Kellerbar, so let me introduce to you, the future of engineering!

Both pics are a little blurry, but I guess that’s because these people are so dynamic and energetic! It was the perfect occasion to grab some beer and some pizza with Kurt, David and Daniel! I just couldn’t believe it when Kurt pulled out some Snaps!!! He told me it’s important to have something at hand to warm yourself as winter approaches.

Let me tell you, these people really know how to rock! I just made one mistake, I did not stop there, but went to Wolfi’s birthday party after KHG Kellerbar. I gotta admit: I’m getting too old for that stuff, coming home at 4 am I gave my body a really hard time!

Talking about seeing good friends: This weekend was heavily music burdened. We had a lot of rehearsals with our local wind band, and one thing that I am especially happy about is that I had the chance to make some music with my best friend Birgit from Salzburg. We did some songs for the christening of one of her nephews. I just love her voice, I will never get it why she did not go into studying music!

Also meet her wonderful daughter Fiona:

I guess it’s enough now for this “people’s post”. Thank you everybody for being part of it!

Uni brennt?

Have you ever designed a microstrip filter and measured it? No? Today I had the pleasure to take some measurements for my advisor. Nothing fancy, just some measurement data he needs for a lecture on Thursday.

I took measurements up to 25 GHz, but being a 77-GHz guy it didn’t really bother me. The electronic cal-kit is really cool tough, you don’t have to do anything yourself! After lunch, we went to the university assembly concerning the university budget situation. The government is cutting university budgets and by means of this assembly students, faculty and staff are trying to make their voices heard.

It was an interesting thing to be part of. The panel discussion was really interesting, primarily not for its contents, but for trying to understand it. I don’t want to get overly political, but I think the main problem of something like this assembly is that you have people with sooooo many different backgrounds. Some are really trying to analyze problems and are trying to find solutions. Others are just there to be against something. And the wild mixture of different ideas makes it really difficult to figure out who belongs to which group. Whatever somebody says the rule seems to be: Tell it as if it were the truth and shout it as loud as possible, this will make people believe you and follow you.

However, as for me, it’s really hard to believe a student in his 9th year, blaming the system for everything. And I don’t get it why everybody should be allowed to study, let’s say, economics, when we know we will just produce unemployed people, while we could identify needs and try to get people there (right now they say it’s engineers and doctors, but I don’t know whether there is a “scientific” basis for both claims). Of course how to get students into specific areas is another story, some money and clever marketing people could also do the trick instead of admission restrictions.

So here are my two major points of criticism:
1.) I feel like most people “in politics” are not trying to get a scientific base on which they can make their decisions.
2.) There is no room for uncertainty. When somebody makes a claim it is always an ultimate truth.

The problem might be that people do not demand scientific methods in politics, or only to the point where it goes directly into how “to get more votes” … Whatever, it was interesting being part of it.

It was also good to get back to my realms, which was trying to get material properties @ 80 GHz for some material we have a 3D printer for. Thanks to Kurt it was really easy to handle the 400 K€ machinery!

I’d like to finish my post with a totally different story, namely the story told by the trees of winter approaching at an unbelievably high speed.

So get yourself a cup of tea, a warm blanket and enjoy the last days of fall!

Vienna …

Yesterday we had the IEEE Austrian Section general assembly. I managed to be in Vienna two hours before the meeting(s) got started. So I had like 1 1/2 hours to walk the city. It was a wonderfull, chilly day in fall. Here’s a pic of the opera in Vienna

Wennst in Wien bist musst in Steffl besuchn – When you are in Vienna you have to visit St. Stephan’s Cathedral. And I did it:

After paying my dues to the Steffl i went to Karlskirche, which is right next to the Technical University of Vienna.

Later I met wonderful friends from Graz and Vienna that I acutually had met in Belgium for the first time. The general assembly itself was a very unorganized event and not really exciting.

But I met a lot of new people and so it was worth it. I arrived back home in Linz at 12:00 pm with Andrea already waiting for me.


The Sausage Cooker

Tomorrow we will have a special event for all engineering freshman known for many years now as “Beer & Prezels” (actually it should be called beer, sausages & pretzels). Preparations for this event were running a little late so professors had to improvise and I was asked to get a sausage cooker from home.

Although I was a little bit pissed because of the 2 hours drive, back and forth, but as a little bit of a reward I got this photo:

By the way this is the ominous where it is parked in our office now for the showdown tomorrow in the afternoon


Autumn Leaves

The fall/winter term already started at universty and a lot of new things are on the roadmap or have already started. Monday’s dancing night now, Andrea and I started taking dancing lessons on Monday. It’s interesting how well, or not so well we work as a dancing couple. But we will work on that. Taking the class with such good friends as my sister and her boyfriend (also an engineer) and another couple of friends is really fun!

Besides that, life is as always and I am currently working on some exciting new antenna ideas, but more on that later. For now I’ll leave you with a photo I took of a “burning tree” that I see change color every morning when I look out of the window. It reminds me of how fast summer is turing into winter now …

Facebook

Actually only a small part of today was related to facebook. I used two facebook features I have never used before today. First I created a page for the IEEE Student Branch at the Johannes Kepler University. Check it out and “like” it if you like it :)

And just a few minutes ago I created an event, namely the concert of our windband in November.

It will be a great concert played by all local hobby musicians! So if you’re still looking for something to happen on Saturday, November 6 check out this: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=159406067420645