I met Gautam Jain during a Stanford summer session (2002). Now, he gave me a visit in Vienna. I showed him our coffee culture and some bars. He got to enjoy the ups and downs of Vienna nightlife. He liked it.

Labels: Stanford

I'm very happy about SungWoo giving me a visit in Shanghai. We spend a few days enjoying the food in China. Although we mostly had Japanese and Korean food we really liked the cracy low prices. Our highlights were a fun night out in Park97 and shopping for cheap movies (we are talking about high quality -Dual Layer- 0.60 Euro DVD's).
That's now the 3rd time we met since our summer in 2002. Last time I visited SungWoo in Korea and the winter before he gave me a visit in Austria.

Labels: Asia, Stanford

Everyone loves pictures! So here are some from 2004, 2002, 2001 and 2000.

Labels: Stanford

Getting together what I learned in cs148, I wrote a Pac Man game as final project. It was simple, but fun :-)

I found the texture part, in this case the face for pacman, most interesting:

1. First you need a 2d matrix, the texture representing a color for each pixel. In my case that's a 128x128 pixel smily.
2. Next a matrix transformation (2d->3d) to map the color pixel on the 3d object (as shown in the picture below).
3. Lastly another transformation (3D->2D) brings the color from the object back to the view port. Which is again a 2d matrix, namley the monitor.

Of course you do the math in reverse order. To get the right pixel of the texture, to the right pixel on the the screen.
Well at least I thought that's pretty cool stuff.

Labels: coding, Stanford

Preparing for my next computer graphics project Animal Farm, I played around with some animations for a walking horse. The animation of the legs is simple based on the sin function of the movement of the horse. With positive sign for the femoral movement and a negative sign for the lower leg movement.

Now I can inherit this functionality for pretty much every animal on the farm.

My goal is to model a short story out of George Orwells Animal Farm. I wanna keep it simple, so I will just put the famous quote "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." and a pig called Napoleon in it. Anyway should be fun.

Labels: coding, Stanford

This weekend our SRC group went camping in Big Basin. Even though hundreds of mosquito's destroyed every fun, I was impressed by those huge trees. Like the one I'm standing in (in) the picture. This monster tree is more than a 100m(!) high. I have never seen something like that in Austria.

Back from hiking, we had just enough time to take a shower before we went on to a party at Lomita. People got dressed really crazy, almost European. It was there, where I first tried, the new famous US party drink, Most. Surely they call it different. But hey I know what it is, it is Austrian! But I undersand, someone can't drink Red Bull all the time :-)

Labels: Stanford

During my computer graphics class at Stanford, I had the chance to model some trees. Studding the standard books of computer graphics I quickly found my way into OpenGL.
Generated using simple recursive algorithms for transformation in OpenGL

void fractal2D(double steps) {
 if(steps > 20) set color brown:
 else set color to a random green;
 drawRectangle(-steps/20,0,steps/20,steps); // 1:20
 glTranslated(0, steps, 0); // move to the top of the rectangle
 if(steps > 2) {
  glPushMatrix();
  glRotatef(-RandInt(90), 0, 0, 1);
  fractal2D(steps/2); // start first branch
  glPopMatrix();
  glRotatef(RandInt(90), 0, 0, 1); 
  fractal2D(steps/1.2); // start secound branch
 }
}

Labels: coding, Stanford

That's me, shot by Hideaki
Today, like most days at Stanford, I start of with an American breakfast. Pancakes and bagels with cream-cheese. Starting at 9, I had Economics, followed by computer graphics. I'm done by 1. When I get to have some coffee and read a bit in The Economist (luckily available on campus). Then I may bike around a bit, till 5. The time for dinner. Nights are filled with homeworks.

Labels: Stanford

My room at Stanford is in...

...Roble Hall. Get the Google Stanford map for direction.

Labels: Stanford

Back at Stanford, it took me almost a week to settle in. But now I'm happy again. I found some very interesting classes for this summer quarter.

• Economics 52: Economic Analysis III link
  Economics 52, an intermediate course in macroeconomics. The focus will be on developing analytical models, using both mathematics and graphs. The last week of the course will be dedicated to an in-depth analysis of the U.S. economy.
• Introduction to Decision Making in Organizations link [blocked from outside of campus]
  Topics include: what makes a good decision, how decisions can be made better, framing and structuring techniques, modeling and analysis tools, biases and probability assessment, and effective presentations. Student teams study and present real decision cases. 3 units, Sum (Robinson, Holtzman)
• Introductory Computer Graphics link
  This course is an introduction to 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional computer graphics. Topics covered include scan conversion, 2-dimensional transformations and clipping, 3-dimensional display techniques, representations and transformations, projection algorithms, illumination and color models, hiddensurface elimination, Bezier and B-Spline curves, animation, and ray tracing. There will be a strong emphasis on the mathematical and geometric aspects of graphics.

Labels: Stanford

I just moved out of my apartment in the Marokkanergasse. I liked it, but I always love to change apartment once in a while. Beside, I'm leaving for Stanford next week, if I get housing and the immigration office doesn't send me back :-)

Zum Thema in der Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung vom 10.05.2004 Seite 42

In Handschellen

Amerika wird für Reporter gefährlich / Von Elena Lappin

LONDON, 9. Mai

Als ich am Montag vor einer Woche auf dem Londoner Flughafen Heathrow das Flugzeug nach Los Angeles bestieg, freute ich mich auf meinen ersten Besuch in Kalifornien. Ich flog als freie Journalistin im Auftrag einer britischen Zeitschrift dorthin, wollte mir auf Einladung von Freunden während meines sechstägigen Aufenthalts aber auch ein wenig das Land ansehen. Statt dessen verbrachte ich 26 Stunden in einer Haftzelle, und meinen einzigen Blick auf Los Angeles warf ich aus dem vergitterten Fenster des Gefangenentransporters, mit dem man mich in Handschellen vom Flughafen zu dem in der Stadt gelegenen Gefängnis fuhr.

Versehentlich war ich als ausländische Journalistin ohne das Pressevisum auf amerikanischem Boden gelandet, das die neuen strengen Richtlinien des Heimatschutzministeriums für die Einreise verlangen. Ich hatte nur meinen britischen Paß bei mir, und wie die meisten anderen Besucher aus Ländern mit vereinfachter Visumpflicht wußte ich nicht, daß die Vereinigten Staaten seit März 2003 (als man dort das Ministerium für Heimatschutz gründete, um den erhöhten Sicherheitsanforderungen nach dem 11. September zu genügen) in befreundeten Journalisten aus befreundeten Ländern feindliche Ausländer erblicken, deren Absichten die staatlichen Behörden einer genauen Überprüfung unterziehen müssen, bevor sie ihrer Arbeit nachgehen dürfen.

Was für ein Land hat Angst vor der ausländischen Presse? Dieser Frage nachzugehen hatte ich viel Zeit während meiner verstörenden, demütigenden und zutiefst enttäuschenden Begegnung mit einem Amerika, das nur noch ein Zerrbild jenes Landes ist, welches ich liebe. (Nur Länder wie Kuba, Syrien, Iran, Nordkorea und vielleicht noch Zimbabwe verlangen spezielle Visen von Journalisten.) Wenn ich mich bei der Paßkontrolle als Touristin bezeichnet hätte, wäre ich mit einem Lächeln durchgewinkt worden. Doch da ich mich wahrheitsgemäß als Journalistin zu erkennen gab, wurde ich zu einer verdächtigen Person und an einen “Aufsichtsbeamten³ verwiesen.

Während ich meine Lage mehreren Beamten erklärte, war ich noch lange der festen Überzeugung, mein unschuldiger Irrtum, der auf meiner (und meiner Papiere) Unkenntnis hinsichtlich der neuen und immer noch unklaren Visumpflichten basierte, werde sich rasch aufklären und dann verziehen werden. Ich kam aus Großbritannien, das sich als treuer Verbündeter der Vereinigten Staaten erwiesen hatte. Konnten sie mir wirklich die Einreise verweigern? Es mag unglaublich scheinen, aber so kam es. Und sobald die Entscheidung gefallen war, mich abzuschieben, behandelte man mich wie einen gefährlichen Kriminellen, der keinerlei Grundrechte besaß. Ich wurde abgetastet und durchsucht, desgleichen mein Gepäck. Man nahm meine Fingerabdrücke und fotografierte mich. Dann führte man mich, die Hände mit Handschellen auf dem Rücken gefesselt ­ eine besonders schmerzhafte und demütigende Methode ­, durch das Flughafengebäude zu einem Transporter und fuhr mich in ein Gefängnis für Abschiebehäftlinge.

In Handschellen zwischen all den freien Passagieren auf dem Flughafen von Los Angeles hindurchgeführt zu werden war eine unbeschreiblich befremdliche Erfahrung. Mehr als alles andere machte sie mir die kafkaeske Tatsache deutlich, daß ich nun eine Gefangene war. Die Nacht verbrachte ich in einem “Hafttank³ hinter dicken Glaswänden ohne Stuhl oder Bett. Er enthielt nur eine kaum vierzig Zentimeter breite Stahlbank, eine Toilette und ein Waschbecken gleichfalls aus Stahl (und beide voll einsehbar für alle, die vorbeigingen, wie auch für die alles überblickende Kamera), eine grelle Neonleuchte und ein von Big Brother kontrolliertes Fernsehgerät an einer Ecke der Decke, in dem die ganze Nacht eine Shopping-Sendung lief. Ich konnte kaum atmen in diesem Fischtank, aber es half nichts, daß ich wiederholt an die Scheibe klopfte. Als schließlich ein Beamter vorbeiging, rief ich ihm durch die Tür zu, daß mir schlecht sei, aber das interessierte ihn nicht.

Am Morgen brachte man mich (wiederum in Handschellen) zurück auf den Flughafen, wo ich in einem Büro des Sicherheitsdienstes unter der Bewachung von acht schläfrigen, fernsehschauenden Beamten den Rest des Tages verbrachte und auf den Nachtflug nach London wartete. Während sie ihr appetitanregendes Frühstück aßen, mußte ich viermal nach etwas Eßbarem fragen und wurde angeschrien, bevor man mir etwas zu essen holte, für das ich natürlich zu zahlen hatte.

Später fand ich heraus, daß ich nicht die einzige bin, die so etwas erlebt hat. Zwölf Journalisten wurden im Jahr 2003 auf dem Flughafen von Los Angeles festgenommen und abgeschoben, einen weiteren traf dieses Schicksal auf einem anderen amerikanischen Flughafen. Als Häftling durfte ich keinen Stift bei mir haben. Doch ich kann mich noch gut daran erinnern, was ich gesehen habe: ein Land, das ein tiefes Gefühl der Verunsicherung hinter einer Fassade aus Mißhandlung und willkürlicher (wenn auch durchaus beabsichtigter) Mißachtung der bürgerlichen Freiheiten versteckt. Der 3. Mai war übrigens der Weltpressetag.

Aus dem Englischen von Michael Bischoff. Die Autorin schreibt für den “Guardian".

Labels: Stanford

With a little understanding of physics you are able to explain/solve every mechanical problem. That's why I can't wait to get into the physics program at Stanford.

PHYSICS 28 Mechanics, Heat, and Electricity 6 units Mon-Fri 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
For biology, social science, and premedical students. The sequence 28 and 29 fulfills the one-year college physics requirement with lab of most medical schools. Topics include Newtonian mechanics, fluid mechanics, theory of heat, electric charges, and currents. Calculus is used as a language and developed as needed. Prerequisite: Working knowledge of elementary algebra and trigonometry.

PHYSICS 29 Electricity and Magnetism, Optics, Modern Physics 6 units Mon-Fri 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Magnetism, induced currents; wave motion, optics; relativity, quantum mechanics, atomic theory, radioactivity, nuclear structure and reactions, elementary particles, astrophysics, and cosmology. Prerequisite: PHYSICS 28.

Labels: Stanford

mov, summer quarter, good bye Marokkanergasse, scheduling and OR

• As shown at derbaum.com, I brought back some fun movie clips: Wiesenski, Caribbean and The Secret Ingredient.
• During this summer (June 20th till Aug 17th) I'm going back to Stanford to study Physics.
• That's why I give up my apartment in Marokkanergasse. It was good place, but now I have to move on.
• Currently I'm working on an LP on scheduling, which I may inlcude in future version of Caltella. In short, this should find an optimal schedule for one or more person, regarding a certain task, with the goal to maximise spare time.
• Looking at the above task, the field of Operation Research seems very interesting to me. A field where I can combine my interst in math, economics and computer science.

Labels: Economics, movies, Patrick, Stanford, TU

Intro | Café | Seoul Subway | My Room | Cheju Island | Reunion | Karaoke

Intro

Since the end of July 2003 I'm in Seoul Korea to do some research in the Computer and Communication Lab of the Yonsei University. I'm having a pretty good time so far. I get to know a lot of people and everyone is really kind and fun to hang out with.
Also I love Korean food. Like Kimchi, Bulgogi and of course always soup. It's so good and it's much cheaper than in Vienna. I go out eating everyday. Well surely I have no clue how to cook Korean food. Even if I would, my room doesn't have a kitchen (well of course I can always make ramen). But since it's cheap to eat out, I just go for lunch and dinner.

In the lab I spend most of my time programming on a transmission protocol for calendar events (caltella). Which is the fundament for a paper I'm going to write about P2P systems. However, it's a great laboratory with nice people.

That's the Engineering building where I'm working.

Café

As a little surprise to me, I found even more coffee houses in Seoul than there seem to be in Vienna!

And I'm not talking about some kind of Starbucks. I'm talking about a nice place to hang out, with service and ceramic cups. I even found places with newspapers available, not in English but still. That's nice to see.

Above is the picture of Café Tous Les Jours a European-style bakery. My favorite place.

Seoul Subway

Some important places in Seoul

	station	line
Yonsei Universtiy (that's where I'm)	Sinchon	2
Kyobo Bookstore	Gangnam	2
SungWoo's place	Apgujeong	3
Huge Elektronic market	Itaewon	6
Market	Yongson	1
JinWoo's apartment (Exit 6)	Shin Yong San	4
Market	Dongdaemun	1,4

My room

My apartment, or should I say room, is rather small with about 3.5m2. As a matter of fact, when I flip over my (green) matrace and stretch out diagonaly I can touch all four walls of my room at once.

Wow, I have never been in a room that small. However, when I open my window I can see the lab where I'm working. I could even trow a stone at it, since it's so close. That kind a makes up for the small size. Plus, with 200.000Won/Month, which is about 150 Euro, it's pretty cheap. Surely I wouldn't wanna stay forever but, for the time I'm here it's ok.

You can see my window within the red circle.

Cheju Island

During the national celebration day of Korea (15th August) SungWoo, his family and I went to the wonderful Cheju Island. As SungWoo's father explaned to me, Cheju is famous for three things: the weather, food and woman.
Surely, I can agree with him.

Reunion...

...with my friends from Stanford.
Jun, Janet, Angela, Patrick, Tony, David and BonSung

Karaoke-night in Jonggak

Judi, Patrick and Kara


Soni


"At first I was afraid, I was petrified
Kept thinkin I could never live without you by my side
But then I spent so many nights thinkin how you did me wrong
And I grew strong and I learned how to get along"

Labels: Asia, Stanford

Sung Woo, my friend from Korea, visited me in Austria! We didn't see each other since our last summer in Stanford.
We had some funny skidays with Lutzy, we walked thru Vienna and of course we spend some time in Viennese Coffeehouses.
To make a long story short, I showed him Austrian and I think (hope) he liked it.

Patrick and SungWoo flying over the mountain

Labels: Asia, Stanford

Ok, I miss my Austrian Café's. By now everybody should know that.
People try to help me and point me to there favorite Cafés in town and so, every time I give it another try to find a Café which fulfills my few basic needs.
It's Palo Alto, for gods sack, a small town yes, but one of the richest one in the world. There must be some place serving descent coffee. Yes, I like Starbucks coffee, but the coffee is not served. So what are my basic needs?

• a cup of coffee (expresso, preferable with hot milk in a cup)
• newspaper (not just tabloids)
• service (yes, indeed)

The first point cuts 80% of the coffee shops I tried. Is it to much to ask for a nice cup to serve a hot drink? Next, newspapers are missing, this kick's out the rest, and service is something which I just dream of, until I get back to my Cafe Prückel.
So why is that? Is it because of missing demand, do Americans prefer the freedom to get there coffee them self, waiting in line? Perhaps to chat up other people in line???
This bothers me, so I keep on talking with American's about that. Asking why? I try to explain, why Austrian Cafés have better service, but nobody seems to get my point.
One explanation, starts with the waiter in mind. The idea of serving coffee, or serving in general, is labeled as a poor job. Which nobody likes to do. Unlike in Austria where we call the waiter Herr Ober, which is considered the highest position in the shop. So being the Ober is something people can be proud about. You can tell, just by watching the Ober. His movement has to follow a certain style and arrogance. He knows, it's something not everybody could do. He has a tradition to keep up. Vienna is known for there Café's and it is his responsibility to keep the high standard up, for another century.
So as long as I'm here I have to live with this barbarian baristas, who drink there coffee in paper cups, while walking the street.
→ On 23 Jul 2002, 09:24 am commented wenyu to this story: Very funny. IÁÏm not sure this would make you feel better or worse. But I didn't find any satisfying coffee house in P.A. during the year I stayed at Stanford. Neither did my classmate from China. (we made joint effort in the search sometimes.) And my standards on coffee house are apparently not as high as yours. Good luck.
→ On 28 Jul 2002, 03:36 pm commented veronique to this story: hi patrick, perhaps we could meet at "in einem sonntag im august" again? berlin misses you!!!! konrad and i are going to visit you in vienna as soon as possible to get to know the wunderful atmosphere of vienna«s coffeehouses.... 20 hugs, veronique

Labels: eat+drink, Patrick, Stanford

Yep, back again! This year I plan to take courses in Computer Science and Mathematics. I'm there from 22nd June 2002 until 20th August 2002.

193J. Programming in Java

3 units, Staff, days/times to be announced. Hands-on experience to gain practical Java programming skills. Topics: object-oriented programming (classes, objects, messaging, inheritance), Java language features (interfaces, exceptions, packages, concurrency, garbage collection), use of the built-in packages (lang, util, io, networking, awt, swing), applets and servlets, security and verification, Java implementation and the virtual machine. Intensive programming assignments. Prerequisite: knowledge of C language and programming experience at the level of 106B/X.

19. Calculus

3 units, Staff, MTWTh 1:15 and 2:15. The basic notions of the calculus-derivatives and integrals. Elementary techniques of computation and applications. May be taken as a one-quarter introduction to calculus or as the first course in the three-quarter sequence 19, 20, 21. Prerequisites: algebra and trigonometry, or consent of instructor. GER:2c

Labels: Stanford

from my old weblog KLDB Sitze gerade in der Green Library (Stanford) und habe eine neue Version auf einen neuen ftp Server geladen. Alles ist wieder anders, nichts funktioniert was funktioniert hat aber alles ist besser. Ich muss die Einträge wieder mittels eines file editors eingeben anstatt im Browser wie gewohnt und nicht alle alten Daten sind vorübergehend greifbar. Jedoch hoffe ich diese Probleme bald zu loesen. Jede neu Version zeigt mir wie schade es ist das die alte nicht mehr zugänglich ist (das moechte ich diesmal aendern). Oh ich arbeite jetzt mit Mac OS X und es hat mich in der Tat wieder einen grossen Schritt vorangebracht. PHP, Apache alles laeuft fein, auser MySQL, nun sehe ich natürlich die Zukunft meiner kldb in MySQL. Es gibt einige gute Idee von Nico die ich gerne mit ihm einbauen würde. Hoffe wir fahren bald wieder auf ein Arbeits Spass Wochenende um wieder Ideen auszutauschen und einiges voranzu bringen.

Labels: Stanford

A roadbike offers the fastest tranportation on campus. Everywhere to anywhere in less than 8min and about 15min to Palo Alto.

Labels: Stanford

In naher Zukunft möchte ich mit der Aufarbeitung allter Digitaler Tagebücher (e-day.book, bockaktionen, pat@stanford,...) beginnen, sodas ich sie in die KLDB integrieren kann. Davor werde ich jedoch noch mindestens einmal das System* überarbeiten und verst. Text (Information) und Verwaltung, Formatierung,... trennen sodas eine Nachträgliche Änderung keine Mehrarbeit nach sich zieht. Weiters werde ich mehr Multimedia - Daten (mp3, Bilder,...) integrieren, Das Layout mit Photoshop Kenntnissen aufpeppen, Internet integrieren, verbesserte Datensicherung vorbereiten (vielleicht irgendwann automatisierter upload auf verschiedene FTP Server). *[Notiz: 23.Feb.2004] Das aktuelle System war damals meine KLDB.

Labels: Stanford

Zurück in Wien ist meine schöne URL aus Stanford (patrick.stanford.edu) futsch. Aber mir hat das Layout gut gefallen und auch die Cronologische Anordnung von Dingen die mir gerade durch denn Kopf gingen. Wer sich zurück erinnert an die Zeiten als ich die Webseite über die Bock Aktionen betreute, dem kommt dieses Schema vielleicht bekannt vor. Nun ich hab dieses Schema natürlich nicht neu erfunden es hat etwas von einem Tagebuch finde ich, nur das es total öffentlich ist und das Passierte teilweise auch extra für die Öffentlichkeit ausgesucht ist. Doch bin ich nun nichtmehr in Stanford sondern in Wien möchte aber wieder zurück in einigen Jahren wenn ich bereit bin zu studierten. Bis es so weit ist muss ich einiges tun, das es jemals so weit kommt... Diese Aktivitäten (und mehr) möchte ich auf dieser Seite sammeln.

Nachtrag vom Februar 2006: Dieses "Schema" hat inzwischen einen wohl bekannten Namen: Blog.

Labels: Patrick, Stanford

In college I will attend courses just like at Stanford. I already use my PowerBook to write all my daily notes on derbaum.com. I want to write my lecture notes on my notebook as well. It would have many advantages. But, besides all that great technology, I need to be aware that it should never be more complicated, or slower to write, than a college block. So in order to collect and share all this information, I need a working system. A System that supports me, instead of holds me back. If I can not add a formula or graph right away, the system failed. The focus should be on the content and not on where to save or how to format my lecture notes. I will need to prepare myself in advanced so everything works smoothly right from the start. That's why I need a simple, working system to write all my lecture notes. The system needs to be extremely flexible, but still based on structure to make it easily accessible. The big test will be my summer session this year, where I will actually sit in classes and try it out.

A few things to do

• Since lessening to the lecture and watching the blackboard is the most important part in a lecture, I need to be perfect in typing.
• All things like formation text, mathematic formulars, tables,... should be possible while I'm totally focused on the class (not on the task of writing the formular).
• The process of starting, saving, editing, linking,... Lecture note should be totally easy or done in the background.

Things I can do with PHP

• file management
• text manipulation
• the starting, saving, editing, linking,... Lecture note process
• sharing lecture_notes
• sort, search,... Lecture notes

Things I can't do with PHP

• drawing small notes, graphs,...
• spell checking
• mathematic formulas

Programs watch out for

• Mathematica 4.1 (export in MathML)
• MS Office v.X (templates*, Apple Script)

Why don't base the hole system on the code of derbaum.com?

• show_lecture_note($class, $lecture_note_id)
  Almost like derbaum.com, $class would be $topic, $lecture_note_id would be $story_id.
• Would it be a problem if I have hundreds or even thousands of $stories?
• What would I have to rewrite?
  • STYLE! First of all I wouldn't want the left bar like on derbaum.com
  • The get_the_story_formatted as well as the submit_a_story function would be replaces with something which fits my needs.
• Ether way to keep on working on derbaum.com, with the idea in mind that I may use the code to collect lecture notes is the right way for now.
  • Work around the topic system.
    • Each topic has a folder where I can add pictures, tables,...
    • Better way to link to the folder (I could replace "/" with "pictures/NAME_OF_TOPIC/").
    • A description for each topic is very important in case I use the system for my lecture notes because I will probable show lecture notes (stories) by courses (topics) instead of a chronological order.
• I will run two (compatible) system so it would be easy to link around, just like the sections system on Slashdot. Which brings up the crease thought that I could try the, much more powerfully, slashcode. Ahhrr...
• Two equal programs, so what if I improve one of them, how can I upgrade the other? (Templates?!)
• Actually I can't see a good reason why not using the derbaum.com-code, it's just a question of adjustment

Labels: Apple, Stanford