Lindt Factory Outlet

It turns out that the Lindt chocolate factory is within walking distance from my work!
And they have a large outlet shop attached!
That means chocolate for me !

Unless I forget my wallet at my desk.
Which I did.

Fortunately, I did have 6-7 euros in my hoodie pocket, so I didn't have to leave empty handed.

Good : The chocolates filled with pistachio cream and the ones filled with Christmas Punch.
Odd: Chili pepper with sour cherry filling, and the blueberry with lavender filling.

The pistachio ones are a definite get more for me chocolate, and I think that I'll have to bring some of the Christmas punch ones back for others.

Presentation Ready

So, I finished put putting together the presentation that I'm going to give on Monday.
The presentation is on coupling the Finite Volume CFD method with other physics.

This means that I get to stand up in front of a bunch of people and show off all of the little test cases that I've done to test modifications I've made to US3D.

Here are the movies that I'm going to show.

This is movie of a gas being accelerated in a centrifuge. The gas gets pushed outwards as the centrifuge speeds up.




This is a movie of a cylinder dropping from 100km above the earth. The plot on the right compares to an expected trajectory.
Notice the different flowfields at different points in the fall.




This is a movie of two square reservoirs at different temperatures, with heat allowed to transfer from one to the other via a dividing membrane.




This last movie is similar to the previous, only here the membrane is allowed to deform. Notice that it vibrates like a drum.

Back from Bremen.

I just got back from the Hypersonics Conference in Bremen.
The conference was ok, but I did not enjoy the drive there and back.
For some reason since arriving in Germany, I've been getting nauseous in cars. I think it may be the way people in Germany drive on the highways, combined with the unease of being driven someplace where you have no idea where you are. If I can manage to fall asleep on the trip then it's not so bad, but otherwise it's not good.

Now for the good stuff.
Most of the conference focused on scramjets, but there was one or two good talks on decelerators, so I really enjoyed those.
Oh! And there was a dinner at the historic town hall that I had a blast at.
I sat at a table where I didn't know anybody, and a couple of us ended having some really good discussions that we all enjoyed.
Including the use of the word "bourgeoisie" in it's historically accurate, non-connotation sense, AND I got to discuss Candide with a professor who was french! Excellent!

Here is a picture of the ceiling of the hall where we had the dinner.




And here is a statue depicting a famous folk tale of Bremen.




Some one also told me that Bremen was the town where the Pied Piper story had originally took place, and that the story is based on some historic event or something.

Music Bunker

I was supposed to go play pool last night, but it was the last night that one of the persons I play with was in Aachen, so we ended up going out for beers instead.
It was lots of fun, and then afterwards, we decided to go to this Drum&Bass music club.
The place was in a former bunker/bomb shelter with 1.5 meter thick concrete walls. It was kind of odd, because until you've gone down a bunch a stairs and quite a ways along a graffiti saturated hallway, you can't even hear the music, the walls are so thick.
The music was really good, and I had quite a lot of fun.

Here is a picture I found online of the outside entrance.





The real tricky part was that when I left, I left through a different path as the one I came in. So there was a fair amount of mental geometry to figure out where I was.

I had a cool adventure and got home safely, so that that qualifies as a good night out.

Saturday morning pancakes!

I fell asleep so very early last night.
So early that I woke fully rested at 4:30am!
So I talked to Bonnie via iChat for a bit, then went back to bed to read for a while.
I should be glad that I woke up that early, as I will need to be up early on monday. I going to a conference in Bremen and need to be at the main building of the university for 6am.

For breakfast I made pancakes. Instead of the usual imitation maple syrup used in Canada and the US, I've been eating the pancakes here with nuttela and raspberry jam. Yum!
I makes it like you really are eating a cake for breakfast.
I think that this will have to be something that I carry on with after I return to mpls.

I think I will go in to work for a bit today as there are some things that I wish to get done. Then I think I am meeting up with some people for a game or two of pool later tonight.

Oh, I just remembered that I put a load of laundry in the washing machine! I guess I'll have to wait until that's done to go out.

The washing machine in my flat is kind of sketchy. It's looks like it's some 30+ years old, wait what year is it, yeah, maybe more like 40 years old. But I guess that 40>30, so my first statement still holds.
Anyway it's old, and sometimes seems to get tired and wait 15-30min or so before continuing on.

I'm reading a recent Terry Pratchett book "Nation" that I picked up here. It's quite good. I'm enjoying it.

Weird Dream

I just had this strange dream, where I was at some market, and someone was extolling the virtues of organic, non GMO carrots, and how even without fertilizers or pesticides or anything then are grown to be just as large and delicious and healthy as other carrots.
The I asked, "But can they be grow to the size of those super large carrots that industrial food manufactures use, cut up into tiny pieces for ingredients in other things?"

As a response, the person pointed to two people carrying away a carrot the size of the trunk of a large tree. That shut me up.

Friends

Usually, at work, people go to lunch at the same place everyday. It's sort of one of the university cafeterias where the food inexpensive. It's also pretty good by cafeteria standards.
However, it can get boring going to the same place everyday, so a couple of us have started going elsewhere once a week for "fancy" lunch day.
The other people just think that we're weird for wanting to go to different places. I guess there is no room in the standard german engineering student "cheap food = nourishment" equation for "Hey, Let go for Sushi!!!".

I like it because it's a bit of an adventure, (lunch IS an adventure), and the people who do this are more fun to talk to.

Also it makes me feel like I have friends here instead of just colleagues.

And today, at lunch, I mentioned that I wanted to go buy a jacket/sports-coat and that we should go shopping. So after work the three of us went shopping, and then to a cafe for coffee and cakes.

I had a lot of fun. :-)

International Differences in Graduate Ed.

Oh-my, it's been a while since I posted.

I've been mostly working sleeping and watching mediocre movies over the internet.

What I've learned:

1) The Alien movies are better than the Matrix movies.
2) The only point to the Alien vs Predator movies is to see the Predators kill the Aliens. No one cares about the humans.
3) Pretty much all Jet Li movies are kinda dumb.
4) Miley Cyrus is pretty cool.

Anyway...

I've learned that being a PhD student is quite different in Germany than it is in the US.
For one, you don't take any classes as a PhD student here. You are expected to figure out what you need to know from books and papers and stuff. Which kinda sucks if you're just starting out.
Also, you get your funding by working on projects for companies instead of through research grants and TA appointments. Which is different.

Some one told me that she's found that students from american universities give better presentations than those from german universities, and was wondering if we have to take a course on how to give presentations. I made a joke that it was just part of the american culture of selling and marketing, but I don't really know why this is the case.

Maybe it has to do with having opportunities to give presentations. I'm thinking I should try to organize some of the people here to give little 10-15 minute presentations on cool stuff people have figured out. That should give both practice, and share knowledge of cool stuff.