Anticlimax

Know the feeling of subtle disappointment when your attempts to overwhelm an audience flounder before gargantuan lack of interest? That’s how I felt yesterday when I presented my diploma thesis in front of the textile institute.

They have a regular time for presentations of all sorts and attendance is always only a sub-set of all employees. But yesterday was not only poorly visited, the people who were there were mostly newbies, students and from the business side of things. None of the engineering heavy-hitters that might get a good discussion rolling.

Second, the professor wasn’t there at all and my supervisor only staid for 15 minutes, before his mobile rang and he had to leave.

Third, nobody seemed really interested in my topic (which with process control, neural networks and sensor calibration is a bit beyond the usual scope).

Considering that I did practice several times and invested considerable work in structure, graphs, clarity and rhethoric, I was rather disappointed that my efforts seemed to leave everyone wholly unmoved. The only ones who had much positive to say where two of my neighbors who’d shown up. They professed to like it, and they’re not the people for courtesy lies.

I’m holding the presentation again for the physicists at some later time, and I suspect that then I will get my comeuppance in tough questions and more attention than I want. I AM looking forward to it!

Diagnosing bike damage

What happens when your tire is flat and you can’t inflate it anymore? Then it probably has a puncture somewhere. You take the tire off the bike, check for surface damage. Then you remove the pressure hose, check that for damage. When you can’t find any, you take it to your room, inflate it and dip it into water. No bubbles. So where is the air going then? Some sort of vent trouble, maybe. Put the hose back in, fix up the vent, try to pressurize. No luck.

So what’s wrong then? Turns out that my pump is actually broken (I don’t even know how long I’ve had it)! Not only was the rubber ring corroded so the air didn’t go into the vent, but the pump mechanism itself was broken so that therewas hardly any air movement at all. That was why I hadn’t heard the air escaping when trying to pump up the tire. So, after making several attempts over a week to figure out what was wrong, I fixed it by buying a new pump for 2,50€. And lo! my tire inflated, my bike was ready and I could take a ride in the evening sun. Despite maintenance, my bike keeps having issues with the gear shift and the brakes (I replace them, but they wear down very quickly). At some point, I want to get a new bike. I’ve been using this one for at least seven years, and the it’s hardly ever been working right for the last two years.

Peer review means it’s not just your fault

I’ve been to the institute again today to fix up some remaining stuff. The professor needed the grade sheet which I’d packed by accident, my supervisor wanted some info, and I needed to walk around with a checklist where places like the electronics lab could sign that I’d returned everything I’d borrowed from them. Just basic wrap-up.

The interesting perspective for the coming weeks is my supervisor’s intention to publicize my thesis work in a peer-reviewed journal. The Textile Research Journal is one of the few textile publications that focus on scientific inquiry and publication of research, not just development. For me, it’d be the first time writing an actual paper for publication, and not a bad start at that. My supervisor has published in the TRJ before, so he has a good grasp of what is required. I approve of scientific publication a great deal, and I think that since I’m not continuing this topic for a PhD thesis (I’m switching institutes), publicizing it in a reputable journal is the best thing that could happen. After all, publications are what one’s reputation is built on in the science community.

1st rejection

My job application campaign has met its first outright rejection today, although for a very good reason. I’d applied to Prof. Lunze in Bochum, one of the big names in control engineering. I’m a physicist, so a little bit out-of-subject, but mathematically challenging modelling combined with experimental setups, statistical evaluation and intuition is exactly what I’ve learnt to do. And Lunze came with good recommendations from my brother, who did his PhD there (he was a control engineer, though).

Today I got my application materials back in the mail, with a letter saying that professor Lunze is definitely in favor of hiring across disciplines, but he’s done it so often that soon he won’t have enough control engineer grad students to grade his exercises. So the next job openings have to be distributed in-subject. An interesting possibility gone for me, but through external circumstances. I can live with that, since I have two applications outstanding and two more invitations to interviews. The most interesting offer so far is unfortunately sadly underpaid. I shall have to see if I can make them budge about that.

Computer breaks, but which part?

My desktop computer has been giving me trouble for the past four hours, and besides wasting time I wanted to use for learning, I’ve mostly had my patience tried by my inability to determine which part is actually broken.

• at first I thought it was the graphics card (black screen), so I get another one from a neighbor
• then it doesn’t start (or starts and stops again a second later), so maybe it’s underpowered
• different power supply in, still doesn’t work
• I discover the screen cable is loose, so that might explain the black screen
• unable to fix the problem, I decide to connect my notebook to screen and keyboard and use that
• however, mounting the old hard drive as an external USB drive does not work because the drive refuses to spin up no matter what I do

So, I’m using my notebook right now with my actual external HD. The drawback is that I’ve lost current tabs and some video and audio data that was only on the desktop’s hard drive. I have to see if I can get it working again. Now, I should use the rest of the night to learn something.

Taste democracy, evildoer

Today was Mensa in Deutschland e.V. (MinD)’s main membership assembly. Of about 6,500 members, a good 400 had come to Hamburg to participate in this five hour session of the association’s supreme deciding body. We had a number of major points on the agenda, like

• hearing the financial reports for 2007
• exculpation of the board
• hearing the audit results for 2007
• electing a new board for two years

We also had a large number of motions, some concerned with changing the ordinance of the association. E.g., one particular one was concerned with banning clubs-inside-the-club, i.e., any member of MinD should have access to any subgroup. Most important, we had a motion for expulsion of a member, in fact, a member running to be member of the board. Expulsion at all is pretty rare, having happened only twice in the past 20 years, apparently.

We had some very, very intense discussions, structured by a number of immediate motions, like limitation of alloted time, closure of speaker list, and similar. I saw a lot of democracy in action. For someone as unacquainted with MinD as I am, it was a crash course in the internal politics and workings of the association. The financial report was interesting in so far as MinD grosses quite a lot more money than I had expected, and most importantly makes a profit from the IQ test business.

The board was exculped as expected. There was some bad blood about the audit, because the auditors had, by widespread opinion, overstepped their boundaries by commenting more on monetary policy than on conscienciousness and formal correctness of the books. The assembly passed a formal reprimand, but denied an external re-audit. A motion to strip the auditors of their position is gathering signatures, but will most likely fall short.

The expulsion motion was the main talking point, but I will not go into details for privacy’s sake. The motion was successful by large margin, however.

Most other motions failed. Among others the motion for access to all sub clubs mentioned above. Mostly because there are both kids’ and adults’ subgroups that depend on allowing access to a limited group of members only.

The program for the annual meeting 2009 in Munich was presented, and Dortmund was elected the place for 2010; the committee will now start planning for real.

Final thoughts: I learned a lot about the important people in MinD, I saw the base procedural and some of its weaknesses. In summary, MinD has quite a few people who are poor at taking criticism, communicating dissent curteously or just dealing with conflict in a reasonable manner. This is pretty much in accordance with its reputation, but most of those people can be dealt with and are in their way productive members. I am not without personality flaws, either, and I have yet to do much of anything for MinD. I think I’ll start by getting engaged my MHN, the student network that is not-quite-a-subgroup.

More relaxation, please

I headed out a bit later today, had a nice walk through downtown and finally took a look at the quaint little spice museum. It had touchable (and tastable) samples of all common spices, information on trade and history. They had a few old documents from spice companies posted, including a request for authorization of a new “brown cake spice mix” from 1944 signed “Heil Hitler”. I thought that was hilarious.

The afternoon was filled by a visit to Lufthansa’s main maintenance base in Hamburg. Lufthansa Technik is a company division that does multi-day maintenance jobs on large traffic airplanes, and by the public airport is their primary site. Of course, they care for Lufthansa’s fleet, but 60% of their work is done on contract work. They to standard and VIP work; standard is the regular planes which take anything from a in-depth check to a full overhaul with repaint. The VIP business means custom work; apparently some people delight in turning a 747 into their personal flying house. The money is good, apparently. We also saw the mechanics hall dedicated to turbines; overall, I’d consider those the most interesting thing of a jet plane. A surprising revelation was that modern jet planes are actually sort of propeller-based. The combustion turns the turbofan, and the air moved by the turbofan that does not pass through the combustion chamber again provides 80% of the thrust. So basically, a turbofan jet engine is a propeller that so happens to be driven by jet combustion.

Before leaving, I grabbed a coupon for Lufthansa’s workers only shopping mart, right across the street. We found various international items there, most remarkably spice sprays. Some sick mind has taken spice oils and put them into hairspray cans. I got a chili-ginger, in case you’re wondering.

The King Lives!

I’ve just been to see the Lion King musical here in Hamburg, and after a very nice ferry trip over the Elbe river, I was in for a great show. The Lion King musical rocks, no second thought about it. If there is justice in the world, this musical will win every costume builder’s award for the next five years running. Other aspects, like the backgrounds, the choreography and the scene play were nothing short of genius, either. The cast was… pretty much perfect as well. All the lead roles were filled by extremely capable singers. The background dancers were very, very good. The one thing that was a little surprising was that almost all characters had this strong accent to their german, but all in the same way. This could be coincidence, as the actors were ethnic africans, but more likely it is some deliberate planning by the director.

The story comes across really well. I haven’t seen the movie in almost ten years, but from what I recall, the musical connects the different parts almost perfectly. Some of the fight scenes are a little less boisterous when you’re playing with real humans, but the intensity of the dancing and singing makes up for it. The percussion was also nicely done; there were drum booths on both sides of the stage, where you could see the drummers at work with congas, gongs, soundsticks and more. The entire show lasted a good three hours, which is long, but never got boring. While fifty euro may sound expensive, I’d say it’s definitely the best musical to spend money on at the moment. We will have a hard time capturing even some of that in our choir’s medley performance.

Oh, btw: The live game of Scotland Yard was a rousing success: We had seven chaser teams, one Mr.X teams and were limited to subway, bus and major streets. We had 2h30, and every 15 mins we got an SMS from Mr.X telling us where they’d been two minutes ago. The seven chasers were free to communicate by phone or SMS; the people who profited most from the game where probably the phone companies. In the end, we did not catch Mr.X, but one of our teams did about 45 minutes in, thanks to careful positioning and some luck. They joined up with Mr.X and evaded pursuit successfully for the rest of the game. We did have one major close shave: Had they not gotten of one station earlier, we would have had them.

Fortune favors the brave

Mensa is an association with a well-deserved reputation for being chaotic. But this time around, it has come far from failing me and has actually succeeded beyond my wildest expectations. The annual meeting started yesterday, so I went to the main office to pick up the program brochure, membership card, city plan and event tickets. I not only managed that with ease, but I also weaselled my way into two new events that I hadn’t been part of before – the live-action Scotland Yard game today and a tour of DESY, the particle research lab in Hamburg, which was yesterday evening. I got into Scotland Yard Live just by agreeing to be team leader, which means I have to read my SMS.

After the office bust, I had some free time and went to the planetarium in the old water tower to catch a show. I had lunch, returned to downtown and was in time for a tea-tasting session in the old harbor storage town (Speicherstadt, very nice). The tasting was a real experience: Twelve very different teas, none with an even remotely similar taste. I learned a lot, e.g. that I always overdosed on tea. Two teaspoons per liter for black, 6-8 leaves per cup for green. Draft time 2″30 for black maximum, green unlimited. I also found out that Mensa has an avid tea drinker community and I had a very nice chat with people. At that point, persuaded by some experienced mensans (and the nice few days I’d had), I decided to lengthen my stay by two days until sunday. Again, total victory. The hostel will extend at the reasonable rate of 20€/night, the train ticket is a loss but a mensan will take me to Cologne on sunday afternoon, and from there I can take the train with my student ticket. I even managed to book one more event, crab cleaning on sunday on the fish market.

The evening was given to a tour of DESY. DESY originally means Deutsches ElektronenSYnchroton, i.e. german electron synchrotron. By now, it’s an established facility that possesses several accelerator rings, most of which are actually retired or being refitted now. The most interesting piece in operation is a superconducting linear accelerator of just 300 m length. It’s a test piece for an intendend international project of 30 km length, TESLA. But even the test piece works so well that at the end is the most capable free electron laser in the world, FLASH. For a laser physicist, that is one of the coolest pieces of equipment in existence. We got to see the experimental end of FLASH (i.e., the experimental stations; the wigglers are supercooled and difficult to access) and part of the synchrotrons. It’s reassuring to see that the walls have lead bricks in them, preventing everyone OUTSIDE from radiation.

The most impressive thing about projects like DESY are the logistics, in my opinion. Example: For a new synchrotron radiation application, they’re building a hall at the moment. It’s 350 m long and curved to be one eigth of a circle. Because the equipment intended to be in it is so vibration-sensitive, the foundations were poured in a single piece of concrete. Repeat: A 350 x 50 x 1 m curved piece of concrete was poured in one sitting. It lasted five days and had three concrete factories, 72 trucks and 5 concrete pumps operating 24/7. They also dumped a few hundred kilograms of steel per cubicmeter poured.

Okay, I should head out now. First program point is 0900, Holsten brewery. Oh, and I’m booked for the Lion King musical this evening!

Second part of Speech Seminar

The second half of the seminar, which by now was two days ago, was a worthy continuation of the first day. We started out with a enunciation exercise. Take a wine cork, bite down on the front part of it, so your tongue is impeded as little as possible but the mouth is open. Now read a story to somebody. It’s hard work, but it’s great training.

After the corking, we focused on breathing. I know the technique from the choir, but I did not apply it to daily speech until now. It’s apparently important to breath into the back so the diaphragm lowers and the lungs expand downwards, instead of forward and upward. This allows slower, deeper breathing and better air flow. I know that from singing, but seeing the difference it makes in somebody’s speech was quite suprising. Upward-breathers often sound gasping and excited by comparison (not the good excited either). It’s something that needs training to keep going under stress (like speaking in front of people), but it’s a good thing when it works.

In the second part, we worked on body language. Stance, confidence, arm movement, wriggling, head tilting, and so forth. We applied that and the breathing in a last big exercise, a self-presentation. The most successful (and overall perhaps most skilled) participant was the most nervous, and it cost her in appearance. Other people improvised successfully by drawing on the whiteboard and using the cuteness to give their explainations a good flow. I had a little talk, mostly on physics, reading, cooking and travelling. I started out with Stephen Hawking’s “physicists cannot be bad people” (he said that about Merkel, btw) and continued with my own “physicists are people who want their playground to be the size of the planet”. Good fun was had by all, and apparently my posture is steady, my voice sincere, and my snap-breathing is something that I controlled partly.

Then, the seminar was over. We took our leave of the teacher (long may she prosper) and found a cafe in the Altona train station to have a nice chat about the upcoming events.