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Berlin Pictures, at Long Last

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:11:14 GMT

berlin-2010-7
Originally uploaded by DixiePistols.

I finally posted some of my pictures from my most recent Berlin trip. I had a great time. Here are some highlights:

We went to the German Resistance Museum
I stayed in Kreuzberg
We went to the Neues Museum, which has tons of cool Egyptian Art
We went to the DDR museum
We took plenty of public transportation
We drank plenty of coffee
We saw cool East German stuff

Awesome!

Tempelhof

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 22:40:53 GMT

tempelhof-4
Originally uploaded by DixiePistols.

The last weekend I was in Berlin we went on a tour of Tempelhof airport. Tempelhof, now closed, was one of the oldest major airports in Europe. Orville Wright flew at the location in 1909. The later terminal building is a great example of architecture from between the wars, and is absolutely enormous. Some of the highlights of the tour were the basketball court, used by American servicemen, the large main terminal hall, and the underground bunkers. Click through for plenty more pictures.

A380

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:48:10 GMT

The Beast
Originally uploaded by DixiePistols.

Well, you may have heard this already... You see, I've been very excited. I got the chance to change my return flight from Berlin. Something went wrong with my original itinerary. When I was rebooking, I saw that the A380 was an option, and I was pumped. It didn't matter that I had to fly an extra leg to take it. I wanted to.

Okay, I know it's not that big of a deal, but this was the first time I had ever flown on the A380, and it was a lot sooner than I expected. For the moment, it's mostly being flown by Asian carriers which I never fly since I have never been. I remember seeing the A380 at the 2005 Le Bourget air show in Paris when it was still being tested, and now that I've flown it "only" five years later tells you something about the slow pace of airplane development.

The first thing I noticed when walking through terminal 2E was that its tail was so much larger than all the other planes in front of it. I couldn't see it, but I could see its tail. When I finally got near by, I took a couple of pictures. Other people were having their picture taken in front of it, which was kind of funny. I was on the top deck or "pont superior," so I got to go upstairs to the higher jet bridge. The A380 has two decks, but the upper deck is not merely for super rich people like on the 747. On top, the configuration is 2-4-2 (bottom 3-4-3) and I was sitting in the aisle, but in one of the pairs of seats near the window. 93-K was my seat, which I thought was pretty awesome.

Was it all that different? Well no. In fact, from the top deck, you feel strangely like you are on a 767 or something. It's a funny thing knowing that there are another 300 passengers sitting below you, our of site. But there were a few cool things about it. One is the personal entertainment system. It's common on most newer planes, but Delta's 767 don't have them, so that was worth changing my flight by itself. I watched Funny People and JFK. One cool addition is a messaging service that allows you to chat (like on AIM or something) with other passengers on the plane. The entertainment system does give you access to the three cameras mounted on the exterior, one facing forward from the nose, one from the tail, and another one facing straight down. That was very cool, and allowed me to see our gnarly off-axis landing (crosswinds, etc.).

It was definitely nice flying on Air France. We were given a menu for lunch, aperitifs beforehand, and they even set up a self-service bar that was accessible for the duration of the flight. I helped myself to some champagne.

The interior of the cabin is nice even back in coach. They have some kind of LED mood lighting that simulates the passing of the sunlight. The windows are larger than normal, and under each window there is a storage compartment, usable by the person sitting next to the window.

While overall the experience is pretty similar to any other new plane, it is a very large plane. Ours had 536 people, completely full. When walking through the jetbridge, it almost felt like I was boarding a cruise ship or something. And when the plane took off I got the impression that everyone around me was amazed; it just seems so improbable.

In summary, I would definitely recommend a ride. Airplane fanboyism is now complete!

Berlinale

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:27:44 GMT

I am lucky enough to be in Berlin during the Berlinale, the annual film festival. It turns out to be a pretty big deal, and while I was initially skeptical, I have bought into the whole thing, and we've bought tickets to see five different movies. So far, I've just seen two, but they were both pretty good:

Summer Wars is an anime about a boy who is paid to be the popular girl's boyfriend during a family reunion. During this reunion, hackers compromise the all-encompassing Google-like network called Oz, and wreck havoc. The nerdy main character has to rescue the world. I thought this movie was pretty good. I guess I like anime a lot more when it's not in the fantasy genre, my least favorite genre. Of course it contains its moments that are cringe-inducing in their cutsiness, but I think that's par for the course. Best part? The artificial intelligence behind the virus came out of "a Pittsburgh robotics laboratory." Wonder where that could be?!
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll was a biopic about Ian Dury, the singer/songwriter for some punk/new wave bands like The Blockheads. Actually I thought I was going to see a documentary, but that idea was dispelled about fifteen seconds into the movie. Also, I didn't know anything about Ian Dury. I'd maybe heard the song Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll once or twice in my life. But still, it turned out to be a pretty good movie. Ian had polio as a child, so a lot of the movie is kind of about his struggles as a kid, and the parallel struggles of his son's life, since he, you know, has a father who is largely absent. Best part? This movie contains the actors from The Office (U.K.) who play Gareth Keenan and Chris Finch!

All that, and three more movies to see by Sunday. I'm pretty pumped. The only funny thing is that the Berlinale has some of the worst lines I have ever seen in my life. They are both long and completely disorganized. Like any true American, I love and respect lines. I guess when the line philosophies of dozens of nations come together in one city, it's pretty much a recipe for disaster. People love complaining about roped-off lines and how they make you feel like cattle, but at least you know where you stand, to use a pun.

Also, new Sick Ridiculous song Duckles Chuckles. Please check it out!

Berlin, February 2010

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:41:31 GMT

Well folks, I am back in Berlin! I'm here for the next three weeks, and looking to see some neat stuff as well as continue some cool research projects I am working on. I've just been here since Wednesday, and most of that time has been spent either working on recovering from jet-lag, but there were a few highlights:

In Pittsburgh, I showed up to the airport early and asked them to put me on an earlier flight. They did! And I credit this decision for my ability to actually get out ahead of the impending snowstorm. While NYC also had an impending snow storm, it was slightly less, um, impending, so my 8pm flight was just fine.
In Berlin, it's cold! Much colder than it was in November, and just about as cold as Pittsburgh. Strangely enough, no one shovels their sidewalks here. It's a complete joke. There is a thick layer of ice everywhere. I sort of thought Pittsburgh was bad in this way, but by comparison to Berlin, Pittsburgh is awesome.
Last night we went out for dinner at a burrito place! It was actually pretty good, believe it or not. It's rare to get good Mexican food in Europe (or say anywhere outside of Mexico and the southern United States) but this was pretty tasty. I had flautas!
Also last night we went to a Ping Pong bar called, "Dr. Pong." At Dr. Pong there is only one table, but dozens of patrons, so what happens is, everyone gets a paddle and then walks around the ping pong table, hitting the ball back and forth. If you miss, or hit it out, you're eliminated, and then at the end the final two people play a game to five. The best part is when there are three people left, so they're really running around the table to keep the ball in play! Apparently these bars are pretty popular here, especially with hipsters, and I could see it catching on in the U.S. Gooski's anyone?
Tomorrow I want to go to the Museum of the German Resistance. We'll see how that goes...

Okay, I guess that's about it. I sure do love bullet points... They really help me organize my thoughts...

The New Orleans Saints Win the NFL Superbowl

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:01:40 GMT

I am writing this now because I want to remember this moment. Tonight the Saints won the Superbowl. It was awesome. Here's what I remember:

Every single pundit picking the Colts. That's okay, I don't hold it against them. But this is just for future reference. In the NFL, especially in the playoffs, you never know what is going to happen.
What do you even say about the on-sides kick to start the half? Awesome. In fact, Sean Payton was back with the more aggressive calling that we expect from him, and that we sort of missed in the last game.
Blitzing! As in, we didn't do nearly as much as last game. This turned out to be a great strategy. I thought we blitzed a little too much last game, so this game was perfect. Standard defense until the fourth quarter when we threw in some new ones. (We did run some 3/4 though.)
The Colts started off hot, but from the second quarter on the Saints look great, like the regular season Saints!
When Porter made the interception, I went buck wild. Amazing. Same reaction as the Favre interception * 100.
Wish I were in New Orleans, getting wild with those bonkers Saints fans. Insane.

Dream big kids. One day it could happen to you.

Snotorious B.I.G.

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:51:57 GMT

Snowpocalypse2010 (3 of 10)
Originally uploaded by DixiePistols.

Snow pictures up! These are all shots from my backyard.

Thanks Rob for the phrase, "Snotorious B.I.G."

Question about function... optimization?

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:16:19 GMT

Computer science people, I am looking to be pointed in the right direction. I am looking for a solution to a problem, and I think the answer might lie in an area of Computer Science/Statistics/O.R. that I know very little about. Here's the deal:

I have two mathematical functions, f_1 and f_2. Both functions intersect with the Y axis at exactly two points (and basically what happens below the Y axis can be ignored). f_1 is fixed; it's input. But f_2 is defined in terms of two parameters that I can tweak. Here's what I am trying to answer:

How can I pick the two parameters of f_2 so that the area under f_2 is as large as possible and yet still contained entirely within the area under f_1?

I have come up with sort of a brute-force algorithm that I think will solve the problem, but if there's a 'best' or well-known way to solve this class of problems I'd like to learn more about it. I have heard about topics like 'function optimization.' Is this relevant? Also, because what I am doing is sort of a surprise, I'd like to hide most of the details, but I can give more if that will help the quality of your responses.

Ramos Gin Fizz & Sazerac

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:36:18 GMT

Ramos Gin Fizz
Originally uploaded by DixiePistols.

Yesterday, in order to prepare for the Saints playoff game, I decided to try to make two classic New Orleans cocktails. They turned out pretty well!

The first was the Ramos Gin Fizz, pictured here. There are several different kinds of Gin Fizzes. The Ramos Gin Fizz is a milky, eggy contraption, said to be the favorite of Huey P. Long. I followed the recipe from this YouTube video on New Orleans cocktails. The funny thing here is really the combination of citrus (lemon & lime) and cream. As Brianne asked, YES, it did curdle when I first put them together. I guess that was a little off-putting, but once you shake the whole thing up, I guess it kind of beats the curdle into a more creamy mixture. Anyway, it doesn't matter matter, because it tasted pretty great. Creamy, sparkling and orange-y, thanks to the orange flower water, which I purchased at Salim's on Centre. Actually I think it was better than the only other one I've ever had, at the Carousel Bar in New Orleans, because that one had ice in it, which was kind of weird. Other changes: I used sugar instead of simple syrup, and light cream instead of heavy cream.

The next drink I made was a Sazerac. This again came from the New Orleans cocktails series on YouTube. The Sazerac is funny, because the drink itself is pretty simple, but the process is very complicated. I was smart enough to pick up some Peychaud's bitters last time I was in New Orleans, but I did not get Herbsaint, and I did not want to buy Absinthe, which is like $60 at the liquor store. Instead I used Pernod, and it was perfectly fine. My Sazerac was good, although not the best one I have had.

Oh yeah, and the Saints won, so I may have to continue this newly formed tradition next week. Feel free to play along at home.

Haiti

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:11:33 GMT

Really sad about the situation in Haiti. Seriously. I made a small donation to the American Red Cross, and I would recommend you do the same. Watching the news today, I started thinking about all of people who donated their time to come to New Orleans after Katrina to rebuild. I was always extremely impressed by those people. Wonder if Americans are going to be going to Haiti to volunteer in the near future. I know that the military and some doctors are already there...

Cannibal Resource

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:08:45 GMT

The song Cannibal Resource from the Dirty Projectors is highly recommended. The rest of the album, unfortunately, did not jump out at me in the same way.

Book Review: Where Men Win Glory

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:06:19 GMT

Last night, I finished reading, Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer. I highly recommend reading it. Where Men Win Glory is the story of Pat Tillman who left the NFL after his fourth season to join the Army Rangers, and who was later killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. Pat, as it turns out, what an extremely interesting man. He was thoughtful, intelligent, curious and extremely loving. The book describes his life growing up in California, his struggles to make it to the NFL and then his decision to join the Army when, as he puts it, 9/11 makes his job as a football player seem kind of pointless. After he is killed in Afghanistan, his story is used by the Army and the government in a pretty disingenuous manner. From the numerous journal entries he wrote, we see that this clearly goes against his will, and it eventually takes a lot of prodding from his mother and family to uncover the true story.

Overall I liked this book for two reasons. First, it was a great recap for me of a number of details about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that I had either forgotten or never knew in the first place. While other readers seemed to get bogged down in this earlier part of the book, I did not. I found the writing style to be engaging and the topic to be very interesting. Second, Tillman was clearly an amazing man. He had a very well-developed moral code. He was not rushing into a war to kill, or even in the assumption that the wars were justified. The excerpts from his journal were far and away the most interesting part for me. By the time we get to his death and the quasi cover-up, I really felt disappointed, like we had lost a unique man.

It's not a short book, but it's a pretty quick read, and I finished it over the course of about three days.

Sick Cafe

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:40:07 GMT

newyear2009-9
Originally uploaded by sick ridiculous.

Hey folks. I am alive!

After a much enjoyed, if not deserved, winter break in New Orleans and Pittsburgh, I am back to a somewhat normal life. This means I am coming in to school every day. Most people are here yet, though, so it's kind of boring.

Anywho, just before the New Year (actually New Year's Eve-Eve) Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous played a show at Club Cafe, right here in Pittsburgh. If you've never been, Club Cafe is a great venue that hosts a number of smallish national acts, usually of the folk/singer-songwriter variety. I have seen a bunch of good bands there, and the sound is great. We had a awesome time opening for our friends in Slingshot Genius. We even busted out a soon-to-be-favorite, "Duckles Chuckles," which we wrote when our friends Stephen & Laura moved to Washington D.C.

Please enjoy some pictures by clicking though. Our friend Shafeeq also took some pro-style pictures. Thanks bro!

Also, peep this incredible poster that Tom made for the show.

Fritz Cola - Powerful Stuff

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:59:18 GMT

Fritz Cola - Powerful Stuff
Originally uploaded by DixiePistols.

Here's a shot of some fritz-kola, which I just finished enjoying. Good business.

Man, I'll be leaving Berlin this Monday. It's been fun, and I've even gotten some work done, which is really good because I have this deadline coming up in December... Anyway, what have we learned?

- I learned that autotuner has finally made it to Germany.
- Most German beer is very similar. That being said, Schultheiss was my favorite, and since you can't find it everywhere, Jever will do as well.
- Berlin is fun.
- Donner is delicious. But I already knew that.
- The "Wallpaper*" series of guide books is kind of pretentious and lacks good maps, but being able to fit the book in my pocket makes up for any shortcomings.

This week I went to an English bookstore called St. George's and got a few books for the way home. One, "Goodbye to Berlin," I have almost finished. It's pretty good. It was the basis (indirectly) for the musical Cabaret. The other one, "Berlin Alexanderplatz" I haven't started yet.

Flying Heavy Metal

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:09:25 GMT

Did you know that Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden, is a commercial airline pilot? In fact, he hosts a show about airplanes on Discovery Channel called, "Flying Heavy Metal," and I've been watching it on YouTube. Awesome.

Spree

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:23:02 GMT

Reichstag People
Originally uploaded by DixiePistols.

Yesterday was a great day! The weather was sunny and perfect for site-seeing. We finally did some of the most touristy stuff in Berlin, and as a result, I got some pretty good pictures. Some of them are posted here! Most of them, however, are stuck on my stoopid memory card*.

So we started by taking a big walk down "The Spree," the main and most quaint river in Berlin. We saw people with letters. We saw architectural marvels. We also spent a ton of time waiting in line to see The Reichstag, the seat of the German government. This is possibly the most touristy thing you can do in Berlin, and appropriately we waiting in line for line an hour. But once we got up there, the views were great. There was even some kind of session going on inside, as you can see from the picture to the right.

We continued along to the Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust memorial, and finally a trip to Prenzlauer Berg, a pretty cool neighborhood, for dinner (pizza!) and drinks. The drinks were at a very cool bar called Neue Odessa. I would highly recommend it for its Victorian wallpaper and delicious drinks. Singapore Sling... mmm...

*Every time I try to copy a bunch of pictures from my camera's memory card to my laptop, I get an annoying "Memory Parity Check Failure," blue screen of death. Arrrrrgh!

OOPSLA Student Research Competition: Results

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:34:26 GMT

I guess I never mentioned this because of how hectic things were the last two weeks, but I did participate in the OOPSLA 2009 Student Research Competition. The first day, I presented my poster in an all-conference poster session. Owing to the excellent position of my poster (Yay for alphabetically-early last names!) I talked to a ton of people, thus giving me the necessary confidence for when the actual judges came to talk to me.

That night, I had a message in my hotel room that I had passed on to the final round, meaning I needed to give a short presentation explaining my work. Of course I didn't have one, so I wrote one there in the conference. The results, were pretty good. I think I gave a good talk. My slides were fine. I definitely could have answered the questions better.

Nonetheless, I won third place, which amazingly means I will receive a plaque and a small monetary prize. Tudo Dumitraş, another CMU student from a different research group, won first prize.

Therefore, from this point forward, I shall refer to my thesis work as award-winning research.

Alexanderplatz

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:51:09 GMT

My first day of site-seeing in Berlin, and it was a doozy! We started off in Alexanderplatz*, which is sort of the center of East Berlin. They have they crazy TV Tower that looks like Sputnik on a pole. We walked around that whole area, which has a number of neat shops**, wide streets and was filled with people. The weather was sunny today, for the first time that I've been here, but it was still pretty cold.

We saw a couple neat art exhibitions. The first was Scorpio's Garden, which was just a sort of temporary gallery of contemporary art made by Berlin artists. The highlight was a video of a guy blowing up a raft with a tube connected to an accordian that he played.

Then we went to the German national museum for a retrospective on Berlin art during the Cold War. There was a bunch of stuff, some of it explicitly commenting on the division of Germany, and others more abstract. My favorite was the Literature Sausage made by an artist who would shred books by authors he disliked, add spices and wrap the pieces up on sausage casing.

Finally we chilled out at this little coffee shop with a pig for a logo, where over the speaker a woman sang "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd in German. All in all a good day. Pictures soon and more fun tomorrow!

*"I've platz-ed myself" and "I almost platz-ed myself" have become my go-to comedy phrases for the time-being.
**One of them had nutcrackers. I was delighted to learn that the German word is Nusseknocker, or Nußeknocker if you're feeling sassy.

Henne & Trendy Bar

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:48:44 GMT

Last night we went out of the house, pretty much for the first time since I've been here. We went to two places.

Henne - was a cozy restaurant where they primarily serve fried chicken. Sounds a little funny, but actually is was very classically German. The inside had a great looking bar area and lots of wood, kind of that winter lodge feeling. Apparently it's one of the older restaurants in Berlin, but it's casual. The Chicken was excellent! We each had a half chicken. And the potato salad was cold and delicious, filled with mayonnaise-y flavor.

Some Trendy Bar - forgot the name of this place. Actually I never knew it because it was the kind of place that doesn't go out of its way to tell you what it's called. This trendy bar had cocktails and a cool decor inside. It was full of hipsters and easily could have been transported to the US without me noticing. Would recommend.

Berlin

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:52:40 GMT

I finally made it to Berlin yesterday. Today I am trying to work, but I am fighting jet-lag pretty hard. The period right after lunch, where I'm full of food and it's 6am or whatever in Pittsburgh is always the hardest part of my day. I planned that time to read a paper, but that may have been a mistake. I am having to fight very hard to stay awake.

Lame parts: It's snowing here... and cold. So the weather is actually kind of worse than in Pittsburgh.

Cool parts: I was bumped off my flight and put on a business class ticket one day later. I think that was the first time I've ever flown business class across the ocean, when it actually matters. Definitely nice, but probably not worth ten times the cost of a normal ticket, which is what I believe it normally costs. Also, there are a bunch of cool little restaurants near-by with soups and things, and a bunch of neat ~~coffee~~ kaffee shops too.

Last Night's Concert

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:50:53 GMT

Man, it's been a busy freaking week! I'll begin at the end: Last night was the third club gig for Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous, and our second at the Smiling Moose. There were good times all around. First off, gotta give props to those of you who made it out. We really appreciate it, and we don't take any of our fans for granted! Of course, we also don't expect all of our fans to come to every single show! But hopefully those who were there had a good time.

We had a couple surprises in store. First, we played with an electric guitar for the first time every. Tom & I passed the electric guitar back & forth for max rock, although some songs we stilled played with two acoustic guitars... Actually my guitar gets out of tune really easily because of my dumb Bigsby Tailpiece. (I am pretty sure I have complained about this before.) So there were a couple times where it went out of tune during a song, but for the most part it was all good. We also dressed up in a band uniform: White shirts, black ties and black pants. Some lady at the bar asked us where we worked. We told her, "we work in a band."

The other bands on balance were pretty good, but way too loud. My ears have been messed up all day today. But seriously, this band Stone Cold Killer is really great & hilarious. They are sort of like a new 70s-style metal band. You could probably compare them to Eagles of Death Metal, or maybe the Supersuckers. Definitely check them out.

Sick Ridiculous Closes Out Rocktober

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:39:18 GMT

Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous has a show coming up next Thursday! It'll be our first club gig in quite a while, so you should definitely come check it out. We have a few surprises up our sleeves. Also, the headlining band will be Sound of Urchin (on their Rocktober Tour), a band that has been on the Late Late Show and that has opened up for Tenacious D. So, we'll be in good company. Here's the facts JACK:

When: Next Thursday, October 29th (Wear your Halloween costumes)
Where: Smiling Moose on the South Side (1306 E. Carson) This show is upstairs. If you saw us there last time, this is different.
How Much Bling: 9USD
With Whom: After the Fall, Stone Cold Killer and Sound of Urchin (We will go first)
At what time: Web site says 7:30

Scavenger Hunt Location: And the Winner Is...

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:10:59 GMT

This Saturday is the annual Urban Hike Scavenger Hunt. Feel free to join us. Should be a great time! Here's the official press release:

Although the competition was intense between the four locations that made it to the final round, the Urban Hike Committee agreed that Bloomfield's bid was the most compelling.

Join us there on Saturday October 24th for our annual Scavenger Hunt. We'll meet in Friendship Parklet (near the intersection of Friendship and Mathilda) at 1:00pm. Get ready to compete against teams from all around the world (well, all around the city, anyway) for bragging rights, and maybe even a few prizes (we might be just a little short on medals).

Your team will need one digital camera, and a connector to upload photos to a laptop (we can't accept photos via e-mail). We also highly recommend you delete any non-Urban Hike photos from your camera prior to the event - this is mostly for speed and ease of scoring, but for your own embarrassment factor as well. ;-)

Form a team of up to 5 people, or come on your own and we'll put you on a team. RSVP's from teams would be much appreciated, and you can respond to info@urbanhike.org, or on Facebook (become a Facebook Fan of Urban Hike, if you haven't already!).

IMPAQT!!!

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:46:22 GMT

I just finished my application to CMU's IMPAQT project. This project attempts to better connect CMU's Pittsburgh campus with its other campus in Doha, Qatar. I think I made some good points in my application, but I always have trouble with these things. I also tried to keep it light. Let's see how that works out.