New Years Eve

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While I was at home, cooking with my family, we came to the subject of old things: Keeping them for their sentimental value, or throwing them away to prevent your house / flat / room from clogging up with old and mostly useless stuff.
At that time, I was a bit disappointed my dad threw away my first mobile phone. Especially, because it had Snake I on it, in my opinion one of the all-time great mobile phone games. The next second, my brother gave me his iPhone, started a Snake app and asked me, which phone (which skin) I want to play it on.
This was terrific! But why is it, that some good old things never seem to get boring or out of style? How come they are revived in emulators, apps and new editions, like the settlers? Are they really that brilliant or is it just child-hood memories? Sure today there are fivethousand games called Snake with amazing graphics and different Levels, but for me the first one will always be the special one.
One reason, I think, why Snake I was an epic success, is that not much more was possible at the time, than a broad and long, moving pixel, eating small and stationary ones. And it still puts a huge smile on your face today, if you forget about fancy 3D effects and billions of useless options. Modesty is what I’m talking about.
If you don’t expect too much from something, it is easier to like it! We get lots of new innovations, 3D cinema as my favourite example, and most of us don’t even think about whether we need them at all and just accept and request them further on. I think it can only help to question new products, innovations and techniques; to be modest. To focus on the key aspects that are really important and hopefully, get along with more things we like, apples… bananas… and so on. So be modest and be happy =)

I wish you all a very very happy new year!

Well done Basel and Lyon!

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What a terrific gameday it has been in the Champions league yesterday. ManU, as first former finalist in CL history, didn’t make it through. The fiesty Swiss from Basel gave them a hard time and finally won 2-1.

Lyon did a masterpiece as well! Against hopelessly overtaxed Zagrebians. What I really liked, they did not give up. Honestly, whoever picks up the ball, after scoring a goal, the seventh one, and takes it to the center circle running, to be able to score maybe another one, does have fighting spirit!

What a sporty night! I hope, there is more of this to come in the round of the last 16!

Northern Lights

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Finally I managed to upload the best pictures of the northern lights from Tina’s, Orla’s, Alex and mine trip to Kiruna, Swedens most northern city.

It was around 9 pm, we’ve been sitting outside chatting when someone shouted out loud “the lights!!!”. Immediately, thirty to forty people ran on to the frozen lake, amazed by the spectacular view on the night sky. Although the apperance of the lights in shape changed over time, it happened really slowly, so there was plenty of time to admire them. I’m a bit sad we only saw green lights. Google images shows thousands of examples of different colours. I suppose there’s no other way than going back to the arctic circle, to admire this great phenomenon once again.

 

Chalmers: Café Bulten

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I just went for another coffee at my favourite café on the campus: Bulten. Besides the lovely staff, I also like going there because you can choose between two different coffee-roast levels. Having made the experience the “mörk” version, the dark side of the coffee as I like to call it, is too heavy for my taste, I usually avoid it. But with the “mellan” version, the medium roast, there is another problem. The variety of intenseness of the coffee is rather extreme! I like to imagine the people working there making their coffee at home just like pouring powder out of a big box, not using any sort of measurement tool.

Now think of this person going to work and making 10 liters of coffee the same way: the results are quite surprising! While my last coffee made me rather drowsy, this one tastes like a cigarre and is blowing my shoes off!

Chalmers is quite famous for it’s six-sigma lectures. If only they apply this knowledge to their own facilites, having a coffee’d be a lot more satisfying.

Just when you thought… – 18.11.11

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… you’ve seen it all, and sit down to do some studies, you spot a guy trying to eat a sandwich with knife and fork! And it is neither one of these small toasts, nor one of those soft sandwiches, you get at subway. No, it is a full rock-solid and crusty french whole-wheat baguette, loaded with tomatoes, cocumber and peppers! I had to silence my laughter. But, thank god humans do learn! After knife-sawing it for a whole minute lacking satisfying progress, the guy switched to the informal, but more practical procedure of using his hands, finally being able to cure his appetite.

A Weekend in Norway – 04.11.11

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On my way to Trondheim I had to switch planes in Oslo. This is my first time outside he EU since our family holiday in ’96 in Turkey. We’ve been in Greece ’98, but that doesn’t count… yet. So I had to check if the amount of alcoholics I was obviously carrying
met the import regulations of norway, or not. Of course everything was fine, since my research on the regulations was more than sufficient. But I enjoyed talking to the blond officer anyway! Afterwards I can say, that it wouldn’t have been a problem to carry more than that. Until know I didn’t have to show my passport once on the journey!

The Airport in Oslo is quite impressive – athough that’s nothing special if you’ve never been there before. As I was walking along the gates, I spotted the passengers from a plane that had arrived just minutes before. The de-boarding passengers were civilian and military half-half. What surprised me was the fact, that there were some uniformed Norweigan blonde Soldier-innen. Positively surprise me ;)

Anyway, after walking up and down again I decided to sit down for a beer. Since there was exactly one place showing football (Celtic – Renne), nice, guess where I went. I ordered a draft Carlsberg. The question on the size was awnsered with my usual “large”. As I signed the receipe I first recognised that large – in this case – ment 0.6 l, which was nice. Then I spotted the price – 92, which in SEK would’ve been catastrophicly expensive, but in NOK was just apocalyptically horrid! That’s about 12,50 € for 1 – ONE – beer! Not a keg, not a case, a GLASS of beer. This was when I decided to enjoy it and actually wrote this text ;)

But this was only until my joy was interrupted by a female voice. Because of my so far aknowledged swedish-knowledge I’ve mentioned to identify the numbers 3 – 8 and 6, which was my flight… So I now had to take my beer, pack my things and enter the plane.
Thanks… I wished I hadn’t studied swedish…

So, finally in Trondheim, Eva just took our car for the weekend and we start our trip to Geiranger – Fjordenpower!

You all have a nice weekend!

Klausuren in Schweden / Day of the Tentacle revived – 15.10.11

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Erinnert sich noch einer an Bernard aus Day of Tentacle? Dem uralten point-and-click Adventure von 1993? Ganz schön alt? Das ist inzwschen auch Bernard! Der gute ist zwischenzeitlich nach Schweden ausgewandert und nun als Klausuraufsicht tätig – und gerade heute war er in meiner Klausur! Viel gelernt hat er im Leben zwar nicht, dafür ist er äusserst kreativ geworden! Nachdem ihm der Befehl “schüttel” in seinem Arsenal fehlt wirkte er zunächst etwas ratlos, in seiner wohlbekannten Haltung, ein Tetra-Pack Saft in der Hand. Doch Bernard improvisierte und wandte den Befehl “drehe”  im 2-sek-Takt auf seinen Saft an. Wohlerfreut zeigte er sich auch nach der Kombination “benutze” “Tetra-Pack” mit “Mund”. Das homogene Ergebnis schien zu schmecken!

Was Klausuren in Schweden angeht… Zunächst wird hier alles anonymisiert. Anstatt seines Namens oder der Matrikelnummer wird ein vorher für einen erstellter examcode auf jedem Schriftpapier eingetragen. Die persönlichen Daten werden auf dem Hüllbogen zwar eingetragen, jedoch von Bernard, nach zweifachem Durchlaufen der “vergleiche” Funktion mit seinem Kontrollpapier, mit einer schwarz gefärbten Klebelasche sorgfältig verschlossen. Clever! Wenn dann noch jedes Blatt mit einer laufenden Nummer versehen wurde, macht Bernard auch gerne Gebrauch von den Funktionen “nehme”, “unschuldig grinsen” und wäht im Dialog die Option “Hej då”. Nach vier Stunden, die einem für eine Prüfung zur Verfügung stehn ist man auch ganz froh endlich abgeben zu können. Der Zeitdruck, dem wir in Deutschland unterliegen, wird hier gegen Schreibdruck ausgetauscht. Anstatt eine Präzise Antwort zu verlangen sind die Fragen deutlich offener gestellt und es wird erwartet eine Motivation abzugeben, warum die eigene Antwort die richtige ist. Mancher hat heute 20 Din-A4 Seiten Text produziert! Ich hoffe mal das System des “antworten” und “motivierens” habe ich mit meinen 10 Seiten nicht verfehlt, aber das werden die Ergebnisse in den nächsten Tagen zeigen.

Frölunda: TRE! – HV71: NILL!!!

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Stark wars! Als Neu-Fan hab ich mich zuerst mit Fanartikeln eingedeckt, um in die Menge zu passen. Nach einem Feuerwerk beim Einlauf der Spieler und der Frölunda-Hymne hieß es Aufstellung nehmen und Aufstehen für die Schwedische Nationalhymne. Im Vergleich zum Fußball waren die Fan-Kurven recht klein, die Frölunda Fankurve ist auf einem Bild zu sehen.

Ganz hervorragend war auch, dass Frölunda mit 3-0 gewonnen hat, so gabs jede Menge Action und Grund zum Jubeln! Mit Studentenrabatt ist ein Icehockeyspiel hier auf jeden Fall einen Ausflug wert! Für mich wird dies nicht der letzte Besuch gewesen sein.