Thousandapologies

Today, I found myself getting up too early for my recently acquired holiday rhythm (getting up at 11.00 going to sleep at around 2.00) to travel to the Mathematikum in Giessen. My aunt, a mathematic teacher, had gotten me enthousiastic about it and so at around 9.00 in the morning we left for a three hour ride accross the German autobahn. Much of the journey made me nostalgic off the trip the Namesake, Drachslaaa, and I made to Innsbruck two years ago, as Giessen is in the neighbourhood of Frankfurt a.M., which we passed then as well. Upon arrival, it became clear that this museum wasn’t so much about reading, walking, reading, the usual you expect, but more about doing; trying to solve all kinds of puzzles (most of trying to make one shape out of a couple of other shapes) and actually exploring all kinds of mathematics and also physics. I must say I really loved the way the museum was set up, and I think the playful way that all kinds of mathematical stuff was dealth with, for example Pythagoras’ law etc.,  even got the most demotivated students to enjoy the matter. Kept me wondering about whether this couldn’t be done during the normal lessons. The only minor disadvantage I found is that, because of this playfulness I think more complex mathematics were not dealth with. I would have loved to see more examples like the one that used a parabolic to calculate easy multiplications, a really nice example. But all in all, it’s definitely worth the visit! I must say after this visit and also by recently doing some research into some simulation mathematics for Tally, my interest for this field has been again enkindled, and I’m looking forward to do more with it again in a future job.

8 en 9 November 2008, dus over ongeveer twee weekjes, wordt de tweede zoom experience gehouden. Vorig jaar een erg leuk fotografie evenement, met veel informatie en workshops over fotografie, internationaal gerenommeerde bedrijven die hun apparatuur beschikbaar stellen om vooral maar veel uit te proberen, en natuurlijk veel gelegenheid tot fotograferen met modellen, acrobatiek, skaters en wat aparte auto’s die ook mooi op een fotootje stonden. Dit jaar belooft het een nog leuker evenement te worden, immers er staan nog veel meer activiteiten gepland en er is een twee keer zo groot oppervlak gereserveerd in de Jaarbeurshallen te Utrecht. Mocht je naar bovenstaand bericht zin hebben gekregen om mee te gaan, laat me dan wat weten. Je kunt kaarten bestellen via de website van de zoom experience, maar ik heb nog één kaartje met korting over, kosten €7.50. Hopelijk tot dan!

Sometimes a trip turns out better than you can imagine even in your wildest dreams…my weekend trip to the Italian Alps, together with my friend and colleague Danish Nadeem, turned out to be just like that. While I expected the trip to be beautiful, the Alps are a beautiful piece of nature after all, I never expected such a warm welcome from such beautiful people…

Last Friday, Danish and I left, damn early in the morning I must say, from Aachen Hbf to continue on a eight hour journey, via Switzerland, to Domodossola, Italy where we were picked up by Danish’s friend Agnese and her sister Arianne (Ari). No time was left to have a short rest as Agnese already started on what turned out a three day guided tour; only a quick pitstop was made to pick up her bella amica Marianne (Mari), after which we continued at high speeds meandering across the valleys, a couple of honks here and some flashes of light there, to finally reach Formazza cascada: the Formazza waterfall. At first, the almost-Dutch rain prevented us from having a look from the top, so we decided to go for a nice cappuccino to warm us up again, after which we dared to have a look over the ever-more daunting edge which made the continuous stream of water a lot more impressive than at first sight.

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Just back from a beautiful weekend in the Italian Alps, together with Danish, an awesome trip it was, about which I will post more later. For now, an impression of the landscape filmed by Danish:

More on my splendid PinkPop adventure later but for now one of the most amazing gigs/bands I’ve ever seen:

After a largely uneventful, quite bumpy landing in Lisboa, and eleven hour travel I arrived in the middle of nowhere in Carvoeiro, Portugal. Although, really hard to reach, the whereabouts of the hotel are just beautiful; a room with a view over a bay and the adjacent ocean. Temperatures also far above the current Dutch ones, which after such a long time let me feel how it is to wear a t-shirt again . Yesterday, the day after my arrival, we already had one day of conference, and surprisingly, a really interesting one. Especially, the enthousiasm with most of the presenters is amazing to see, and maybe it’s also because it’s the first conference really related to my own work. Finally, seeing some different perspectives on m-learning is really refreshing, especially when realising that on most of the previous conferences/winter/summerschools I was kind of a black sheep in the family; almost the only one doing something mobile. The afternoon was very very nice, we had a guided tour of the vicinity of the Hotel and visited two towns, Lagos and Silje, both pitoreske and quiet Portuguese cities. Most of the time, I spend in good company of Guila(Italian) and Heloisa (Brazilian), and had an amazing time in the evening, during the conference dinner, when the wine rose to our heads and yours truly was even convinced to take part in one of the traditional Portuguese folklore dances (and yes I sucked at it, but it was great fun). Today, the second day of the conference already seems promising again, and I can only hope it will be something like Yesterday. I also hope we will have some time to see some more of the surroundings of the hotel, which seem very pretty. I’ll try to upload some pictures soon for your enjoyment, so stay tuned….

Well, it’s already more than a week since we have back, so I figured I owed you a wee update. Winterschool 2008 went by just too fast; The Namesake, Ali Nadeem, the Skippyboy, Blondie, and I all had a great time there. Unfortunately, this year’s programme didn’t contain that much relevant information for me, and while I also feel some parts could be improved (for example the overcrowded schedule), I still look back with many happy feelings to the week spent in Innsbruck. Again it was a week of getting to know people in the field of e-learning and meeting again with people we met earlier at the previous Winterschool or Summerschool; luckily most of the people were splendid company, which we also noticed at the Wednesday, when we formed bonds sledging down a mountain and on Thursday, going into Innsbruck for the evening for a jolly night full of laughter, pints of vitamine G, and crappy pizza’s. It seems to me that these events were even most important, because these are were real contacts are made; first getting to know each other personally, can lead to lasting contacts and maybe even joint work in a later period. Apart from this, I think for me, the very last lecture, given by Scott Wilson about Notification/Awareness systems and OpenId, was most useful and interesting. Luckily, this year we did not have to drive back all the way from Innsbruck and the plain ride was far more relaxed than the twelve and a half hour journey(inclusive two hours of traffic jam in the middle of nowhere) back then.

Finally, I do not want you to miss the Namesake’s account of my great sledging skills, which resulted in the two of us almost dying, me from almost hitting a tree, and him from sheer laughter, so here we go:

Wednesday and what a day! I almost never have laughed so hard, or have been scared for my life! This of course alludes to the sledding day! The Namesake, I, Danish and Enrique forged a bond of men, as we sledded down the DEEP incline! Of course nothing comes easy and there were mistakes a plenty, one of which had the Namesake hurtling down the mountain his arms flailing, him shouting “oh f*ck” as he hurtled with the help of good ol Newton, on his sled. I doubled and nearly fell down, laughing my ass off. Till now that memory of the Namesake flailing around as he hurtled half-way down the mountain, really makes me laugh my butt off. Well done m8! [from: http://tim.sodhis.net/2008/02/24/back-from-innsbruck/ ]

Just arrived at the Grillhof in Igls, Vill, Austria near Innsbruck for the second TENCc Winterschool. So much contrast to last year our travels today were, the only disadvantage this year being to get up at a time in the morning me in big ole party mood usually will hit the bed. This because our train already left at 7.10 in the morning, to head for Rotterdam airport where we caugth our flight; one hour flight only which was quite uneventful and the plane manouvring and landing between the mountains gave us a beautiful look at the area already. So much unlinke last year when we had to drive up to Innsbruck, and tha Drachslaa and me had to take turns behind the steering wheel, the journey totalling in an amazing 10 an a half hours total. Now, the Namesake, Danish and me met at Heerlen station, sat down in the train and took a bus to Rotterdam, where we met Skippyboy…so much easier, so much better… The weather here in Austria is just plain awesome, with lots of sun, no clouds and a terrific view of the mountains. Time for a stroll and taking pics; I’ll try to upload a few later. Anyway, I’ll keep you updated! And of course a small picture for your enjoyment.

Dum Dum Dum…think of the Beegees song, often loudly heard in the OUNL hallways sung by the Namesake and yours truly, and really the title illustrates my current allowed lazyness and moreover the lack of updates on this blog. I’ve been busy doing mostly none computer stuff, catching up on some reading, visiting some friends, eating too much (hope you had a merry Christmas too) and currently preparing for New Years eve (I wish you all the best!). Also I’ve been busy reading a lot on photography and recently bought a new portrait lense. So, enough inspiration for new blog posts, which will appear soon when I’m fed up with being lazy. See you soon!

Yesterday Tally, Cyril (my cousin) and I went to visit the zoom experience together, of which I have told you in a previous post. It was held in the jaarbeurshallen in Utrecht, so it was quite some travelling to do. Normally, it takes you about two and a half hours to reach Utrecht from my home town, but yesterday it took us even more… because of some problems with the railways it tooks us five hours to reach Utrecht Luckily, the experience was quite worth the while and we did not travel that much for nothing.

We arrived at Utrecht Central Station at about 14:00 in the afternoon, and after a small snack and some coffee, we headed for the jaarbeurshallen which is only a 5 minutes walk from the station. Already, we saw a lot of people with SLR cameras coming our way, so we knew we must be heading in the right direction. At the entrance, already we found a lot of people gathered around a pretty model and shooting pictures, which almost made us forget that there was a big hall to explore too Anyway, two big halls were reserved for the event and there was quite a lot to explore: some workshops on digital photo editing were held (which we unfortunately all missed), almost all major camera companies were present to try and sell you a camera, and, also a lot of booths/stands had some equipment to sell, like for example rucksacks, drawing tablets (wacom), or offered to print out your photos on a big sheet of paper. Unfortunately, these stand made up the biggest part of the event, and having missed all workshops, we found ourselves wondering what else there was to do. Read more…