Choices, Perfectionism and Photoshopping

Christian M. Schmid,
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Today I stumbled across yet another video

Many people on youtube gave it a like. I disliked it and some people asked why.

To begin with, I’d like to make one thing clear: The video is georgeous. The song is beautiful, the lyrics are convincing, the setup of people making music in a backyard is awesome. It really has everything that justifies it to be called “beautiful”.

What I don’t like about the video is that it is trying to sell the image that this actually was the setup that they used to record the whole thing. You can see mics all over the place and they left some imperfections in the video that probably are supposed to make you think that this was the original way it was recorded. E.g., how the drum pickup at around 1:55 is not perfect, or the imperfect intonation of the brass instruments, which for instance can be heard at around 3:30.

I do still doubt that it was recorded in that backyard, as they try to lead you to believe. There is musical photoshopping going on. If not entirely, at least at quite a few points. Like at 1:32 (“And I”) when you hear Emily sing background vocals while her mouth is not moving.

Again you can still say that the video is beautiful, there is no argument about that. – But so are the photos of those superficial models on the covers of the magazines at your local newspaper kiosk. I would rather prefer it to be a little bit more authentic with less photoshopping. Even if that meant it would turn out to be less perfect.

Keeping on Top of Mail

Christian M. Schmid,
,

I did some statistics a while ago. Today I can give you an updated version. My term as IEEE Region 8 Student Representative lasts for 388 days now and on average I have received about 18 e-mails per day and I have sent out about 3.5 e-mails per day. – My work and private e-mails go through different accounts, so that is just the IEEE stuff.

The way I try to deal with my mail is simple. – Nothing is allowed to stay in my e-mail Inbox, unless it is unfinished buissness. If I receive some invitiation to some conference that I don’t care about -> it goes into my Ads folder. If I receive some ads -> again Ads folder.

Other mail goes into project related folders unless it requires some action that I am for some reason not willing to put on my todo list. In that sense my Inbox is also a kind of todo list, which should be as empty as possible. From time to time I fall a little behind, so it was time to do some serious housekeeping today.

email_before_after

IEEE Chat Session

Christian M. Schmid,
,

We had the very first IEEE Region 8 SAC online chat session this year. About 40-50 participants from all over Region 8 (Africa, Europe, Middle East, Russia) dialed in. We (Piotr, Femia, Maciej, Rui Costa) tried to give them an update on

I guess there are a lot of exciting things coming up in 2014. Some people started sharing screenshots from the online session on facebook. I can’t resist to share with you the screenshot of this pink desktop by Christine Avdikou.

1522935_10203021811289754_507451353_o

Pro Scientia

Christian M. Schmid,
,

I am part of a network and scholarship program called “Pro Scientia”.

One of the aspects of “Pro Scienta” is that the scholarship students meet once or twice a month. During those meetings one of the students presents his research, art or any other topic that has some scientific, religious, cultural, historical, social and whatnot relevance, which is then open for discussion.

All of the scholarship students are grad students and mostly PhDs. Today we had a presentation from Benjamin, a PhD student in the field of education and psychology, about “Development and learning of leadership skills with a special focus on principals”. Well the actual title was a little shorter, but that’s just my interpretation.

pro_scientia

The discussions are often intense, they are totally worth it. I’ve never found myself having discussions in such an interdisciplinary setup before joining Pro Scientia. In the photo you’ve got a lawyer, an engineer, a priest, an architect, a social scientist, an artist.

So if you are a grad student or artist who happens to be in Austria, are interested in interdisciplinary discussions and are good at what you do, you might want to consider applying for a Pro Scientia Scholarship: http://www.proscientia.at/.

A Screenshot

Christian M. Schmid,
,

Designing and building stuff that exploits physics to serve a specific function, that’s what I think it comes down when you ask me about what engineering is.

Today I took this screenshot that is almost like a stereotype for what we electrical engineers do. Actually this PCB (short for printed circuit board) was not even designed by me. It was designed by a gifted colleague who did it according to my specifications.

platine

It’s the power supply for my newest 77-GHz radar front-end, which would be the really interesting part. Sadly I can’t show you the radar, because if I would I’d not be able to publish it in any scientific journal or conference. Something like this http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6507334 or http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6697594. And publications is what the scientific engineering community also lives for.

Walks and Teleconference

Christian M. Schmid,
,

Today was an idle day. Some playing portal, some cleaning, relaxing and going for walks. It’s way to warm around here, so it feel a little like walking in April.

plesch 2014

Later that night we had a teleconference for the next IEEE Region 8 Student and Young Professional Congress in Krakow, Poland – the event formally known as IEEE Region 8 Student Branch Congress (SBC). The meeting was dedicated to online promotion of the event.

I think in the end it was a good meeting, although I do feel that we are making progress too slowly. But we have still enough time left, so I’ll promise you it will be the best SYP congress ever!

There was a time when

Christian M. Schmid,
,

… I was a musician. The time when I practice the piano for hours every day and the time I played at least a gig every week. Today I am an engineer with a profound understanding of music but with a lack is practice. Maybe that’s a good thing. Because there’s no pressure, no need to make a living out of music.

Today I had one of those once-or-twice-a-month gigs that I still do with a band called Bojazzl at a small bar, about an hour from Linz. Their piano player had broken his clavicle and they had asked me to jump in, which I really enjoyed. Although I would have needed more rehearsals to really make the most out of it.

canape

IEEE JKU Linz Stammtisch

Christian M. Schmid,
, ,

While my job as IEEE Region 8 Student Representative involves working two and sometimes three levels higher up in the IEEE geographic hierarchy, I always enjoy staying in touch with the local student branch (SB) at JKU. After all that’s the entity where my IEEE track started.

Being past past past chair is one thing, but what is really rewarding and makes me happy is to see that the SB is even more active than in my days and that they prosper like never before. Apart from many other activities they still have their monthly series of Stammtische, which are social meetings that try to bring students and industry closer together.

That is exactly where I spent today’s evening: The IEEE Stammtisch featuring Commend.

This is how it works: The SB approaches companies that might be interested in giving a presentation. A company representative joins one of those meetings in a local bar and pays for drinks, food and some extra cash for the SB. In return the SB provides the infrastructure (beamer, …) and the students.

What’s in it for the company? To get in touch with potential future employees or customers. What’s in it for the students? To get in touch with potential future employers and to learn about what’s happening outside the academic world.

What’s in it for me apart from that? Grabbing a beer with friends, getting to know the future leaders of the SB and learning about what matters to the current generation of engineering students.

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Another Round of “Try something new for 30 days”

Christian M. Schmid,
,

When looking at the last couple of my blog posts, you could think that I spend most of my time around computers. I guess that’s mostly because I rarely blog about other things. That’s about to change for the next 30 days.

A couple of years ago a came across this TED talk entitled “Try something new for 30 days”.

I’ll do it again and this time the challenge is to write a blog post every day, for 30 days. Many of the posts are going to be boring and are not going to be relevant to anyone, so I am not going to push them through facebook, twitter or anything else, but they will be here.