The future has come

Yesterday I took part at a very interesting speech of Professor Hiroshi Ishii from MIT, which was the keynote of the TEI Conference taking part in Bonn. He presented very interesting work in the area of Tangible User Interfaces coordinated by him at MIT. It wasn't one of that boring technology speeches, but more like a quick look into the future. It was more like a vision of a creative and happy humankind interacting with high-tech physical objects.

At the end of his presentation, one of his students showed the video of a project on which he worked on, and which will be released in 2-3 months from now: G-Speak (an identical application like the one Tom Cruise used in Minority Report). Cool! That's even more science fiction than Microsoft Surface! Imagine 3 years from now, every police department having such a wall.

Plumb - Damaged

Here is a song that just sticks in your memory once you hear it. I like its soft & melancholic rhythm (doubled from time to time with short piano strokes), simple lyrics and the spatial and dreamy melodic line.

Recommended by Tudor.

UAE shocks again

After shocking the world with Burj Dubai, an almost 1 kilometer tall skyscraper, UAE does it again: Masdar City will be the first non-polluting city on Earth.
I definitely would like to see other cities investing big amounts of money in that, in the near future.

German grade conversion formula

Today, I got my first result from a German exam. If you didn't know, the German grading system is a bit different from the Romanian one: the grades are from 1 to 5, where 1 is the maximum grade and 4 is the last passing grade (5=failed). So, if you get 1 at your exam in Germany, you don't have to cut your veins, or jump from a building - but rather go out and buy your friends some beer, because you're da' man.
Also, you can have grades with fractions, like 1.3, 1.5, and so on.

Today I got a result that didn't tell me too much, because where I come from, the grading system goes from 1 to 10 (where 10 is the maximum grade). So, I came up with a formula to convert from German grades to Romanian grades:

RomanianGrade = 5/3 * (7 - GermanGrade)

If you want to have fun converting your grades from Romanian to German grading system, use the following formula:

GermanGrade = 7 - 3/5 * RomanianGrade

Glass noodles

Today, my colleagues from China gathered in my flat's kitchen to celebrate Chinese New Year's Eve. They also cooked "glass noodles", and invited me to try. They are really tasty, and very spicy. Actually, delicious!!!

Plate of "glass noodles"

The upper-left part says "medium spicy", but my mouth was already burning :D

This is how the pot looks like.

People gather around the pot, and eat for a couple of hours. It's more of a social thing like shisha, or chimarrao. Everybody picks stuff from the pot (shrimps, noodles) and when it gets empty, they refill. Cool!

Rheinland goes crazy

Tomorrow is Altweiber. All shops will close, and the carnival will be celebrated on the streets. Everyone will wear costumes, dance and sing carnival songs. Although I am not a fan of buying costumes for just one day, at least I tried some of them on. :D

Funky ...

Jailbird costume :)

Leapsa de voci

I was tagged by Simona, with the "vocal tag" ("leapsa vocala"). Hmm, 3 of my favourite voices in romanian music industry? Simplu .. (not the band) ;)

1. Andra (and here)
2. Holograf
3. Celia

Tag goes further to Bianca and Marius :)

Un blog interesant

Iata un blog care merita tot respectul! E al lui Marius Ursache, fondatorul Grapefruit. In fiecare an, cam jurul Craciunului, omul isi alege o destinatie exotica si porneste, incercand sa evite pe cat posibil drumurile batute des de turisti. Cititi mai multe aici ...

Winter holidays

I just came back from Romania, where I've had great times with my relatives and friends. The new year's eve caught me and my girlfriend in Baile Herculane, a wonderful resort with thermal spas in the South-Western part of Romania.


All the above pictures are from Baile Herculane. To see more, visit my Picasaweb gallery.

Above is the entry to Brancusi House Museum; very traditional. Check out other pictures here.

Cellphone finder

I found a cool service from O2 Germany. You can locate your phone if you loose it, or it gets stolen (only in Germany). To do so, you need Internet to login to your O2 web-account, and click on some link. The good part is that it's free too.

You can also use the service to track others.

Going home for holidays

Finally, some free time! First half of the semester is over, so I have a small holiday. The school is quite tough here. I have to better appreciate free time. For the next weeks, I will try as much as possible to be a couch potato, and to ignore my laptop (including Internet, Facebook, messenger).

Now I'm in Bonn, attending my last lecture. Later, this evening, I'll be in Vienna, enjoying Elisir D'Amore, by Gaetano Donizetti at Vienna State Opera, and hopefully visiting the Christmas Market too. Tomorrow morning I'll be in Bucharest, and by the end of the week I'll arrive in Iasi, my dear home city.
I'm really looking forward to spend some time with my family and friends again.

The intellectual "tag, you're it" :))

I was tagged by Marius. Here are the rules:

1. Take the book that is the closest to you.
   
2. Open it at page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence (including).
4. Post the text of the following 4 sentences on your blog.
5. Don't dare to search for that very special or "intellectual" book through your bookshelf.
6. Pass "it" to 6 friends.
   

The book I always carry in my backpack is "Fundamentals of Computer Graphics" by Peter Shirley and at page 123 you can read:

These days, postmultiplication using column vectors is fairly standard, but in many older books and systems you will run across row vectors and premultiplication. The only difference is that the transform matrix must be replaced with its transpose. The transpose A(T) of a matrix A is one whose rows are switched with its columns.

Tough book, but interesting if you can understand all the mathematical concepts. I hope I will pass the exam :P

Later edit: I tag you, the one that read this post. If you pass it on, write a comment.

Want to be cool?

After reading Simona's post, I thought I should do it too. You should now call me AREKKUSU. :))

Japanize your name too

Lasers over Bonn

As I was walking near the Marktplatz two days ago, I noticed a laser-ray crossing the skies of Bonn.

Image source: uni-bonn.deApparently, they celebrate 150 years since the birth of Heinrich Hertz.

Autumn is gone...

Another winter is coming...

Parenting classes?

An interesting idea proposed by Mai.

Shift happens

The idea of a "computer" first came up in 2400 BC, with the Babylonian abacus. 4 300 years later (1960), it evolved into the first computer.
Within 40 years, the computer became as we know it today. This is an amazing development rate, but where will it get us?

A "must see", from Karl Fisch, and Scott McLeod, based on true facts.

Unusual way to become famous

Mina, a 13 years old girl, became famous in less than 3 months after sharing a video online.

Mina 13 - How the angels fly - MyVideo

She now has a contract with a music studio who sponsored her, and a brand new video.

Coolness factor

Have you ever seen one of those spoiled kids that talk a lot without actually saying anything? I was coming from Aachen recently, and on the train there were three (probably British) fancy guys sitting next to me: two girls, and one cool guy.
I couldn't stop taking my laptop out of the bag, and writing down what they said while trying not to laugh. Let me put here parts of their conversation (mostly between the alpha-girl, and the "cool" guy). I won't comment much on their physical aspect, since that is not nice. Let's just say... the girls ate too much in their lives, and the guy was too fancy to be a guy.

She: Do you like... like people in Cologne?
He: Well, yeah.. it's like.. people in Cologne are like... nice.
She: Yeah exactly.
He: Cuz when I.. like.. went to Prague and back.. it's like.. good. (*wtf did he mean? :|)
She: yeaa, exactly.... like.... yeaaaa, definitely, like...... yeaaa, german guys are like really cool, and like.... yeaa
He: Yeah... no.... definitely.

She: I'd probably like.. say like... I don't know.
He: Yeah, it was like.. 4 hours.. like woow, I was like... oh my god! (yes, he-s a guy :|)
She: Ahahaha (cool laugh).
He: Can you like.. stir it? (talking about a drink)
She: Well ya, no, it's like.. yea, like you can also stir it, but it's not like........ you don't have to, you can just like.. drink it like that.

I wonder how two of this people become lovers. How do they communicate?
She: - Like... yea... like... it's so... oh my god!
He: - Do you like... like me?
She: - Like, yeah, definitely!
He: OK.. cool, let's like.. get married or something. (:|)

Are spammers intelligent people?

Have you ever asked yourselves how intelligent people that make spam really are? I think most of them are just idiots. Why are they even bothering? Is there still anybody out there who would even open a spam e-mail?

Do you want to meet new people? Maybe yes, but at least not by clicking on some blinking link in a suspicious mail written half in Chinese, half like "g E t so.me R Ea1 C h1ck$". Even if you're curious enough to open such a link, you would end up in some really cheap site asking money from you.
Punch the monkey!!! and win 1 000 000 000$. Send this to 10 friends, and you'll go to heaven!

You spammers out there reading this, if you send spam, at least do it intelligent! Convince us to click on your stupid links! :D