Reimo found a bug in my bit shift implementation today. It took nearly 3 hours to figure out what it was about. And it was a nice one - not something stupid, but rather something that did actually take some ingenuity to piece together. Basically, one sub protocol was faulty - but with probability 1 over 2^32 so the bug would not have occurred.. except I had used the protocol in a way that magnified that error to one half under certain cases.. Thankfully, Reimo found these cases and figured out the pattern of how to reproduce the error. If he had not, I would have easily spent a week without figuring it out. And I am fairly sure it would have passed academic peer review in the paper without any problems.
Today was the first day in Aarhus that the temperature rose above 20 degrees. It was a nice early summers day.. about time, considering how envious I have been over the weather in Estonia for quite some time already.
I have wanted to talk about cycling here for quite a while.
First of all my bike. On the plus side, it is very light. It has wide wheels but due to its lightness, I still quite often just glide past other cyclists who are actually pedalling while I am not. On a minus side, Its gear system is fairly bust so only the central gear can really be used.. and it only works when the bike is going fairly slowly.. so in effect, there is an upper limit on the speed at which I can pedal myself up to.. which is not nice since it is somewhat lower than I would like.
Now, most roads have bike lanes on both sides of the road. I have gotten so used to them that I now get confused whenever there isn't one. There is a negative side to that too - namely, to make a left turn, you have to go along with the pedestrian traffic, which usually means waiting for two lights instead of just one (as it is for cars).
The lanes see a fair bit of use, however. I have waited with 10 cyclists for a light to go green.. And I usually drive past at least 5 on my way to the university. The lanes are fairly tight in some places and the passing maneuvre might be fairly tricky on some occasions. Also, the lanes are used by scooters.. so one does have to be careful when trying to pass someone as he might otherwise well get reared by a scooter.. which is not nice..
I discovered that on my way back home (which is mostly downhill), I can get down to the next intersection precisely for the time the light is green if I pedal myself to full speed before the slope and then bend down to a low position and just speed downhill. This of course assuming my leather jacket does not start flapping in the wind.. otherwise, I just barely miss it.
Also, when my grandfather heared I was in Denmark and was driving a bicycle, he remmembered something from his youth. When he was a small boy, his father, a sea captain, frequently visited Denmark. Since they did not really have bicycles in Estonia yet, it was quite common for sailors to steal them from Denmark (where the streets were full of them) and bring them back home. So for all we know, Estonian sailors might be to blame for the bicycle locks being invented and becoming commonplace :P
Showing posts with label Aarhus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aarhus. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
I discovered the seventh position
which, on a bass guitar, is very similar to the second position in terms of having all the C major (natural) notes within the reach of four fingers.
So yes, I played bass for most of the morning in case anyone was wondering. I also read up on a few blogs and comics and made lunch, then went out for a walk again.
Today, I walked through the forest-park that is quite nearby, and finally ended up by the sea. The water is still very cold but I can easily imagine going swimming in a month or so.
When I arrived back home, I just crawled into bed and slept for an hour. I think I have a cold. When I woke, I felt quite hungry so I went to the kitchen with a pack of spaghetti and a bottle of ketchup.
Well, the kitchen had suffered from a chinese invasion while I had been away. There were at any given point 6 chinese students preparing food in the rather crowded kitchen corner. Needless to say, Taiji came in quite handy :) The faces kept changing and my final count was around 15.. which means about one quarter of the students on this floor are chinese.. I wouldnt have guessed that, as I had seen only 5 of them previously.
I did manage to cook my spaghetti and two eggs to go with it, though. I sat down with Bilge (the person next door to my room) and a german girl who is doing her PhD in Scientific Theory (which encapsules the philosophy, practice and history of science). She is still looking for a good topic, but after her discussion with Pirjo (the finnish PhD student also doing Computer Science) she was thinking about taking a topic related to CS. As she needed something interdiciplinary, I suggested bioinformatics to her, but that was out for personal reasons. She was considering Human-computer interaction, however, which was what Pirjo is working on. Should work.
In general, it has been one of the most unproductive weekends I have had in a long while. I enjoyed it, and am hopefully ready to get back to work on Monday.
So yes, I played bass for most of the morning in case anyone was wondering. I also read up on a few blogs and comics and made lunch, then went out for a walk again.
Today, I walked through the forest-park that is quite nearby, and finally ended up by the sea. The water is still very cold but I can easily imagine going swimming in a month or so.
When I arrived back home, I just crawled into bed and slept for an hour. I think I have a cold. When I woke, I felt quite hungry so I went to the kitchen with a pack of spaghetti and a bottle of ketchup.
Well, the kitchen had suffered from a chinese invasion while I had been away. There were at any given point 6 chinese students preparing food in the rather crowded kitchen corner. Needless to say, Taiji came in quite handy :) The faces kept changing and my final count was around 15.. which means about one quarter of the students on this floor are chinese.. I wouldnt have guessed that, as I had seen only 5 of them previously.
I did manage to cook my spaghetti and two eggs to go with it, though. I sat down with Bilge (the person next door to my room) and a german girl who is doing her PhD in Scientific Theory (which encapsules the philosophy, practice and history of science). She is still looking for a good topic, but after her discussion with Pirjo (the finnish PhD student also doing Computer Science) she was thinking about taking a topic related to CS. As she needed something interdiciplinary, I suggested bioinformatics to her, but that was out for personal reasons. She was considering Human-computer interaction, however, which was what Pirjo is working on. Should work.
In general, it has been one of the most unproductive weekends I have had in a long while. I enjoyed it, and am hopefully ready to get back to work on Monday.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Aarhus
My alarm clock rang at 7.30 today, like every other day. However, since today is saturday, I chose to ignore it and slept on til 8.30. Then woke up, made myself a cup of coffe and sat down with my bass..
I finally left my room again at 10.10 to go get some shopping done before the stores close - in here, people actually respect the weekend and stores are open only from 10 to 14 on Saturday and are always closed on Sunday (with very few exeptions such as large food stores or cafes in the center). I first went through the general store to get an extension cord and some batteries (as my amplifier had ran out of juice). I then went to see the guitar shop I had passed on my way back home on thursday. They only had a few bass amps but they gave me directions to another store which I had not visited before and which was also a nice walking distance away. That other store had a very nice sounding and small amp, but it cost a lot, even after the discount they promised to make me. I said I would go and think about it, then went back home to read reviews.
I spent the next hour reading reviews on portable bass amps and came to the conclusion that I should go and look over one of the amps they showed me on thursday (as this seemed to be the second smallest amp that was considered to be any good other than the very expensive one I was shown) - and go explore the city center again while I am there. So I did.
Central Aarhus is very beautiful by the way. Narrow streets and old houses mixed tastefully with modern ones. Not many sights though - just the cathedral, which is quite similar to the Jaani church in Tartu, just a bit bigger. Also - the central square is quite nice - having the central library on one side and some financial institutions on the other, all built from red bricks. Kind of reminds me of the new Viru square in Tallinn, only being a bit smaller and having grass patches instead of being just pavement.
In general, the feeling I have gotten thus far from Aarhus is that it is a nice blend of features from Tallinn (size, sea, layout) and Tartu (students, general ambience). I could easily imagine living here for a longer period so Im considering trying to apply for a postdoc here at some poing. I would not have considered Denmark as an option before because of the presumed language barrier, but since EVERYONE (all the clerks in guitar stores, grocery stores and kiosks that I have visited) speaks fluent english, this is definately not a problem in reality.
After getting back from my tour of the city, I made lunch and then went to my room to read, practice bass and watch yet another episode of "The Outer Limits". Weekends are for resting, after all.
Two things that are somewhat worrying me are the amounts of food and coffe I consume - both have gone up considerably since coming here. However, I have been walking 8+ km each day so that might excuse the food part. The coffe bit is just my lazyness though and I should try to get it somewhat under control.
I would also like to say a few things about yesterday.
I visited the faculty library, which was quite interesting. It was open 24 hours and fully self-service, for instance. Also, it had couches and beanbags alongside the more common table-and-chair arrangements. Needless to say, I liked it.
Also, it turns out that each friday, they set up a bar at the lounge of the faculty and many people use that opportunity to sit down with their collegues in an informal setting. I had an interesting chat with three of my co-PhD-students, two natives and one originally from ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
Otherwise - still no luck with the bike and I also havent gotten to the bank to get myself a local account (on which they could pay me my daily allowance). Other than these things, however, I am quite settled in.
I finally left my room again at 10.10 to go get some shopping done before the stores close - in here, people actually respect the weekend and stores are open only from 10 to 14 on Saturday and are always closed on Sunday (with very few exeptions such as large food stores or cafes in the center). I first went through the general store to get an extension cord and some batteries (as my amplifier had ran out of juice). I then went to see the guitar shop I had passed on my way back home on thursday. They only had a few bass amps but they gave me directions to another store which I had not visited before and which was also a nice walking distance away. That other store had a very nice sounding and small amp, but it cost a lot, even after the discount they promised to make me. I said I would go and think about it, then went back home to read reviews.
I spent the next hour reading reviews on portable bass amps and came to the conclusion that I should go and look over one of the amps they showed me on thursday (as this seemed to be the second smallest amp that was considered to be any good other than the very expensive one I was shown) - and go explore the city center again while I am there. So I did.
Central Aarhus is very beautiful by the way. Narrow streets and old houses mixed tastefully with modern ones. Not many sights though - just the cathedral, which is quite similar to the Jaani church in Tartu, just a bit bigger. Also - the central square is quite nice - having the central library on one side and some financial institutions on the other, all built from red bricks. Kind of reminds me of the new Viru square in Tallinn, only being a bit smaller and having grass patches instead of being just pavement.
In general, the feeling I have gotten thus far from Aarhus is that it is a nice blend of features from Tallinn (size, sea, layout) and Tartu (students, general ambience). I could easily imagine living here for a longer period so Im considering trying to apply for a postdoc here at some poing. I would not have considered Denmark as an option before because of the presumed language barrier, but since EVERYONE (all the clerks in guitar stores, grocery stores and kiosks that I have visited) speaks fluent english, this is definately not a problem in reality.
After getting back from my tour of the city, I made lunch and then went to my room to read, practice bass and watch yet another episode of "The Outer Limits". Weekends are for resting, after all.
Two things that are somewhat worrying me are the amounts of food and coffe I consume - both have gone up considerably since coming here. However, I have been walking 8+ km each day so that might excuse the food part. The coffe bit is just my lazyness though and I should try to get it somewhat under control.
I would also like to say a few things about yesterday.
I visited the faculty library, which was quite interesting. It was open 24 hours and fully self-service, for instance. Also, it had couches and beanbags alongside the more common table-and-chair arrangements. Needless to say, I liked it.
Also, it turns out that each friday, they set up a bar at the lounge of the faculty and many people use that opportunity to sit down with their collegues in an informal setting. I had an interesting chat with three of my co-PhD-students, two natives and one originally from ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
Otherwise - still no luck with the bike and I also havent gotten to the bank to get myself a local account (on which they could pay me my daily allowance). Other than these things, however, I am quite settled in.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Denmark - Day 1
Aarhus airport is a very nice small town airport probably quite similar to that of Tartu (which I have not used yet). Actually the smallest one I have yet to visit. We walked off the plane and directly into the waiting hall (no buses, no long tunnels). Which was nice. What was not so nice was the fact that just after I had started repacking my bags (so as not to have two very heavy backbacks), they announced that the bus to Aarhus would be departing.. so I just packed up again and dashed out of the airport. The bus was indeed waiting. My first surprise was the ticket, being priced at 95 DKK.
However, my surprise was quickly alleviated when I saw the first roadsign which read "Aarhus 43". Yes - the airport was 43 km away from the city. That gave me a nice view of the surrounding countryside, however. Which was quite nice, but probably quite stereotypical of western Europe as well. At some point the bus driver started calling out stops. I asked him what direction would he be entering the city from.. he pulled over and showed me on the map. It turned out that he will be stopping about half a km from where I needed to go, which was good news to me, as I had already counted on a 3 km walk from town center.
I noticed quite a few things after getting of the bus. To be precise, I noticed 3 joggers and 2 people riding bycicles. The conditions here are very favourable for both, as the car roads have bicycle lanes on both sides and the traffic itself is quite light. The best way I could find of describing this place would be as "the opposite of india" - plenty of space, very clean streets and relatively few people.
The University Guesthouse I am staying at for the first night is also incredibly nice. Small on the outside, very spacious on the inside. The guesthouse resembles a set of apartments more than it does a hotel, having a large living room with a kitchen corner for every three guest rooms.
The first order of business was getting something to eat - there were no meals on the planes and I had last eaten quite early in the morning. I remembered I had walked past a small store (REMA 1000 - logo quite resembling that "Rimi" used to have at some point). I bought pasta, garlic salt, ketchup and some cookies - costing 64 DKK. Prices here are pretty similar to those in Estonia, at least by the numbers on the price tags. However, one Danish Kroon is a bit over two Estonian kroons. Anyways, its still pretty convenient :P However, it would be nice to know how much money I will be getting from the university here..
Anways, I am just now finishing my pasta and will go out for a walk soon after. I will probably post some pictures later tonight.
However, my surprise was quickly alleviated when I saw the first roadsign which read "Aarhus 43". Yes - the airport was 43 km away from the city. That gave me a nice view of the surrounding countryside, however. Which was quite nice, but probably quite stereotypical of western Europe as well. At some point the bus driver started calling out stops. I asked him what direction would he be entering the city from.. he pulled over and showed me on the map. It turned out that he will be stopping about half a km from where I needed to go, which was good news to me, as I had already counted on a 3 km walk from town center.
I noticed quite a few things after getting of the bus. To be precise, I noticed 3 joggers and 2 people riding bycicles. The conditions here are very favourable for both, as the car roads have bicycle lanes on both sides and the traffic itself is quite light. The best way I could find of describing this place would be as "the opposite of india" - plenty of space, very clean streets and relatively few people.
The University Guesthouse I am staying at for the first night is also incredibly nice. Small on the outside, very spacious on the inside. The guesthouse resembles a set of apartments more than it does a hotel, having a large living room with a kitchen corner for every three guest rooms.
The first order of business was getting something to eat - there were no meals on the planes and I had last eaten quite early in the morning. I remembered I had walked past a small store (REMA 1000 - logo quite resembling that "Rimi" used to have at some point). I bought pasta, garlic salt, ketchup and some cookies - costing 64 DKK. Prices here are pretty similar to those in Estonia, at least by the numbers on the price tags. However, one Danish Kroon is a bit over two Estonian kroons. Anyways, its still pretty convenient :P However, it would be nice to know how much money I will be getting from the university here..
Anways, I am just now finishing my pasta and will go out for a walk soon after. I will probably post some pictures later tonight.
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