Master of surprises

A hectic job in Silicon Valley. A new home owner. Two young kids. A demanding wife (just kidding). And today, I got my Masters. Yep. By surprise. A letter from the Flemish Chamber of Engineers (Vlaamse Ingenieurskamer, VIK) addressed to me arrived in my parents' mailbox a few and started with Dear Master. Now, I've been called Master in other places, but this one was worth checking out. I contacted a few fellow Industrieel Ingenieurs (as my diploma is called) in Belgium. They hadn't heard about it. Why would they know or care. The Bologna Declaration [pdf], agreed upon in 1999 by the educational ministers of 30 countries in Europe, was not about how your diploma stands up within your own country. It is about leveling the different higher education degrees between the countries who signed the declaration. But ... but ... but the Burgerlijk Ingenieurs, the other and 5 year engineering degrees, would whine. Not realizing that is was not about how one Belgian engineering degree stacks against the other, they derailed the implementation of the declaration for quiet a while. Finally, the news of 2003 (!) caught up with me: we, the industrieel ingenieurs, can call ourselves Masters of Science. Here's the email from the ministry of education I received.

From: infolijn@vlaanderen.be

U wenst meer informatie over de gelijkschakeling naar bacholor/master van een vroeger behaald diploma aan een hogeschool in Vlaanderen?

Het decreet van 4 april 2003 betreffende de herstructurering van het hoger onderwijs in Vlaanderen stelt dat de volgende graden, die vóór 2004-2005 werden verleend,
-gelijkgesteld worden met de graad van bachelor: de graden gegradueerde, maatschappelijke assistent, vroedvrouw, kleuterleid(st)er, kleuteronderwijzer(es), onderwijzer(es), assistent in de psychologie, maatschappelijk adviseur, architect-assistent, technisch ingenieur, van geaggregeerde voor het secundair onderwijs groep 1 of van gegradueerde voor het lager secundair onderwijs;
-gelijkgesteld worden met de graad van master: de graden van industrieel ingenieur, architect, interieurarchitect, meester, licentiaat of handelsingenieur.

Concreet betekent dit dat personen die afstudeerden vóór 2004-2005 hun oude graad behouden. Zij mogen wel ook de titel van bachelor respectievelijk master voeren.

Het decreet kan u raadplegen op volgende website van het Departement Onderwijs: http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/hogeronderwijs/ zie rechts bij 'Regelgeving' en klik op 'Regelgeving bachelor-masterstructuur in Vlaanderen, inclusief flexibilisering'

Graag tot een volgende keer.

Met vriendelijke groeten,
De Vlaamse Infolijn

Tel. 0800 - 3 02 01 elke werkdag tussen 9 en 19 uur
Website: http://www.vlaanderen.be/infolijn
Email: info@vlaanderen.be

Technorati: Masters Bologna Industrieel Ingenieur

Campeon del Mundo!

The morning of September 25, I woke up to my dad chanting: Tom Boonen is the new world champion cycling! The Belgian national team had apparently been riding a fantastic race in Madrid. Every time somebody attacked, one or two of the Belgian riders participated. I watched it delayed on cycling.tv. The end was extremely exciting. While Bettini was omni present, for a moment, I thought it was going to be a Dutch rider. In the final kilometers, a group of six were ahead, among them two Dutch riders. Luckily, they were caught and in the sprint, Tom Boonen showed who was King.

Belgium has a rich cycling tradition. Growing up, I watched religiously all the Classic races, as well as the Tour de France, typically from 2PM till finish (around 5PM). I compare the experience to watching the baseball play-offs. Sure, it takes several hours. But a lot of things can happen and at any given time. It was rarely boring. (Unlike basketball, where there is a lot of scoring, but you really only have to watch the last 3 minutes to get the excitment.) Watching cycling on TV was typically very exciting.

In Belgium, I grew up on a bicycle. I went to primary school by bicycle. Twenty two kilometers a day to and from high school. Twenty two kilometers to and from university. Hundreds of kilometers a day on vacation throughout Europe. Even in California, I bought a racing bicycle and even conquered Mount Hamilton a couple of times. But then it slowed down a little.

Recently, I found the motivation again to hop on my bike:

• KRIB (Katrina, Rita, Iraq and Bush) have sent gas prices through the roof.

• A Honda Civic fits four. Five at most. With my parents in town, we are one too many to fit in one car. I've choosen to pedal behind the calvery and show up at parties half an hour later in bicycle gear.
  
• Riding a bicycle over the Menlo Park bicycle bridge looking down at bumper to bumper traffic gives a kick.
  
• It eases our commute to work and school.
• And I get to exercise a little. Luckily there are showers at work, so, I can refresh before sitting behind my computer.

So, three to four times a week, I have been commuting to work by bicycle or combining two bicycle trips with a ride on caltain. See hi when you see a guy with a jersey of Vlaanderen 2002, a big backpack and riding a black Trek 1200 commuter racing bike.

Technorati: Cycling Tom Boonen

Goodness, Gracious - Great Halls of Fame!

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this got to be unbelievable. What a player!"

"That's right, John! And did you know he is only the fourth player in history to be able to score two touchdowns in a double digits fourth quarter comeback. What a game!"

"He sure earned his credits to go to Canton, Ohio."

I heard NFL players get to go to on a field trip to Disneyland when they win the superbowl. But where is Canton, Ohio? Or did he say Dayton, Ohio? It turns out Canton is the home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, a museum of football players and events.


Similarly as there is a Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, a Tennis Hall of Fame and even a Rock'n Roll Hall of Fame. Sounds all pretty interesting to take a peek. Especially since I haven't heard of them in Europe. A Soccer Hall of Fame? A Biljart Hall of Fame? A Cycling Hall of Fame? The closest thing to a soccer hall of fame would be the thropies and scarfs hanging in the club bar. Or the website celebrating 125 years of Royal Antwerp Football club and a celebration game between the players who used to play for the team througout the years and a top international team, such as Manchester United. But after the game, it is back to the daily obscurity for most of those players.

When I heard about a process to be inducted in the hall of fame, as well as limitation on the number of inductees, I was disappointed. Can you imagine the lobbying effort to get your player or band inducted? Let's take a look at the 2005 inductees into the rock 'n roll hall of fame: U2! Hold on a second. U2 isn't already part of the elite gang? And the famous "rock 'n roll" duo, Simon and Garfunkel (!), were inducted in 1990. Or for that manner, "rock 'n roller" Bob Marley in 1994.

Or take a look at the tennis group: Ivan Lendl ("Leno") finally made it in 2001! That's 12 years after ending his career of 94 Singles Titles and 52 Finals and 6 Doubles Titles and 10 Finals.

And that's when I realized this has nothing to do with the merits of the player, the band or the sport. It is about hijacking a sport to create a profit center. And a ceremony show. And let's sell commercial time slots. Anyone interesting in starting a hall of fame restaurant chain where we sell jackets and pins? No thank you! I prefer the smoke filled club bar with the trophy box.

Technorati: NFL Tennis Music

Chinese 101: no thank you

Hunting for new recipes, I started browsing Martin Yan's China Town cookbook for some oriental tastes. Most of the ingredients look standard. A lot of the meats, fish or poultry first get a coating of cornstarch. The oriental taste seems to come primarely from the sauce: some soy sauce here, some satay sauce there, and a few spoonfuls of fish sauce, oyster sauce or hoisin sauce.
Fortunately, our neighborhood has a large Vietnamese and Chinese population. We have two 99 Ranch (oriental) supermarkets within a 5 minute drive. I always found a visit to 99 Ranch an interesting tourist attraction, where you can pick your live sucker fish and have it butchered in front of your eyes. Or choose the smiley frog with the nicest legs to be disjointed and ready to be seared in a garlic butter sauce. (On the other hand, the strong smell that hangs around the supermaket has been a bit of turn of.) As we were strolling around the aisles on the look out for hoisin and satay sauce, I realized I could pnly read about 25% of all the products in the supermarket. Come on now! I understand the clientele is 90% oriental. But give me break! Allow a 'whitee' to understand what he is buying. In Belgium, there are three official languages: Dutch (Flemish), French (Walloon) and German. Laws are written and published in all three languages. People are expected to know the three languages, so shopping in Liege, you should not be surprised to read all in French. The point is there are three official languages. In the US, the one and only official language is English, not Spanish, not Chinese, not Ebonics. Every product should therefor at a minimum have one word in English explaining its content. (It is probably good marketing anyway.)

Technorati: Chinese The English Language

Is it Colour or Color?

If Tony Blair would tune in to prime time American network television, he would feel very much at home. Not only are all the so called reality shows British clones, the judges are British as well. (Add a black and latin judge for the ratings.) Case in point: Simon Cowell of American Idol (UK: Pop Idol) and Len Goodman of Dancing with the Stars (UK: Strictly Come Dancing). Both judges probably came with the contract to have an American version of the show. However, you didn't see this with the hosts of Operation Robinson (Survivor), Big Brother or Belgian's De Mol (The Mole). Arent' there any American dancing judges or music experts?

Not only is American television infatuated with the English accent, so is radio. Commercials and announcements are regularly in a true English accent. A good time for aspiring English actors and voice overs in the U.S. I presume.

Why the fetish for English pronunciation? Or is it the overall use of the English language? Are the Brits really the superior country when it comes down the use of the English language? The current assumption is the Lords would smoke the Yanks.

Let's settle it in a duel, or translateded on this side of the pond as "Bring it on!". A new reality show: "Straight A's", based upon the Dutch/Belgian "Tien voor Taal" (10 for language). The original show was co-produced by the VRT, in Belgium, and by the KRO Dutch television channel. It has two teams from both counties dueling on various aspects of the Dutch language. In one episode all team members were librarians. In the next, politicians, or movie stars. You get the idea. The show has been very popular for over 15 years. (Earlier this year, the VRT ended the co-production. The KRO continues the show in Holland.) Here are some ideas for the panels:

NFL bad men with tiny voices vs. Liverpool scouse swearing soccer players

Texas congresmen vs. Lords of the Common House

Stanford vs. Cambridge

Princeton vs. Oxford

Ellison and co vs. Branson and co

Motley Crue vs. The Rolling Stones

American Idol vs. Pop Idol

BackStreet Boys vs. Spice Girls

Wallstreet Journal vs. Financial Times

Star vs. The Sun

ABC, NBC, FOX: did I mention I optioned the show?

Technorati: Reality Shows The English Language

Mister Schwarzenegger: turn off them cellphones!

During the 2004 year end, we moved to San Jose. Our place is about a mile from my first job in the United States: VLSI Technologies, (now part of Philips). Moving to San Jose was sort of a home coming. But also a necessary few steps back.

Every day, I commute up the South Bay to Menlo Park. And (for several reasons) during rush hour. It allows me to enjoy the American way of driving to the fullest. A few years ago, the Bay Area commute was worse than the Los Angeles daily grid lock. Tata and Wipro have swung the pendulum the other direction and made sure Los Angeles is back the traffic king of California. Nevertheless, the daily commute is not ride around the track: there was a reason Ray Charles went to drive in the desert.

Many mornings, another well trained driver reminds me to write a letter to the gubernator to take some action. For years, before the evening news in Belgium was about to commence, Flor Koninckx, colonel of federal police, did his little spiel on road safety in a 5 minute segment called 'Kijk Uit'(Watch Out). Arnold, here is your chance to put your acting skills to good use: start creating 5-minute road safety infomercials and make the popular channels broadcast them.

Episode 1: Turn of Your cellphones!

Episode 2: (Since episode 1 was not a succes, plan B:) Handsfree dialing - I make it mandatory!

Episode 3-10: repeat of episode 2 - believe me: 95% of careless driving relates to driving with one ear on the phone. It is furthermore impressive to see how many people are on the phone between 5 and 6PM. Guilty as charged. It is also the time I call my wife. Albeit, on a handsfree mobile. Not only does it allow both hands for driving (manual transmission anyone?), but is avoids tunnel vision.

Episode 11: A Hummer (or any other SUV) is not sexual, nor does it allow you to act like a dick.

Episode 12: Keep a distance! - It drives me nuts how people drive up to the car in front, only to tap the break and back to the gas pedal. You become insensitive to the stop lights going on. Will you react at 65 mph the same way, when it really is necessary? So far, I still get a small heart attack when at full speed in the car pool lane, break lights go on in front of me.

Episode 13:No CHP allowed during rush hour! - You would only hope the men and women of the law would have more common sense when they start pulling over people in plain rush hour for minor traffic violations. My wife was pulled over to check if there was actually a baby in the car seat. She had pulled to car seat cover down to protect her from the sun. Apparently, it is a classic carpool-lane-trick in the book. What the CHP doesn't seem to get that the act of pulling someone over creates typically huge traffic jams: one because the act of pulling over slows down traffic, two, a cop on the side of the road is always trouble. So, here's my advise, when you really really need to make your quota for the month, pull them over at the next exit, and off the highway. Traffic will get back to normal, once you get out of sight.

Episode 14: Asian special - An at the end of the episode: a raffle for a free trip to Buenos Aires. The survivor is allowed to return. [Mark Burnett - here's a suggestion for your next Survivor.]

Episode 15: Driving uphill - Your car will slow down you know, unless you put your foot down a little more. And no, the road doesn't end at the end of the hill. So no need to jump on your break. We have lots of hills in Austria. I can relate.

Episode 16: Rental trucks - Afraid the big wheeler in the car pool lane is out of control? No worries, it's only a rental truck. The driver has no clue his loading bed carries a ton of concrete and thinks of fig cookies when you bring up Newton.

Technorati: driving cellphone

A Doobious ruling (and a farmer called Filburn)

This week the Supreme Court ruled against medical marijuana. la-li-la. I thought great for tourism to Amsterdam. (Sure, Belgium has decriminalized marijuana for several years. But tourism destination of choice for sex depraved or drug curious yanks is and will remain Amsterdam and specifically the streets at the end of the Kalverstraat.)

In the evening, I tuned into the Gene Burns program on KGO on the ruling of the Supreme Court. Gene is an authority on constitutional law. His introductory piece deep dived into the majority opinion of the Supreme Court ruling. Boy-o-boy, this ruling has much less to do with a doobey, than it has to do with personal freedom. Here's the story of a fellow named Filburn.

When you first heard the news about the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the medical marijuana case of Gonzales v. Raich, you probably didn’t give much thought to a Ohioan farmer named Roscoe Filburn. Yet, Mr. Filburn’s fight to use the wheat grown on his own land is intimately tied with this landmark case on the legality of state’s rights to legalize medical marijuana. Gene thinks it goes to the very heart of the structure and state of American government today—the Founding Fathers would not be pleased to see the rise in power and control in the federal government.

Roscoe Filburn, an Ohio dairy and poultry farmer, who raised a small quantity of winter wheat — some to sell, some to feed his livestock, and some to consume. In 1940, under authority of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the central government told Mr. Filburn that for the next year he would be limited to planting 11 acres of wheat and harvesting 20 bushels per acre. He harvested 12 acres over his allotment for consumption on his own property. When the government fined him, Mr. Filburn refused to pay.

Wickard v. Filburn got to the Supreme Court, and in 1942, the justices unanimously ruled against the farmer. The government claimed that if Mr. Filburn grew wheat for his own use, he would not be buying it — and that affected interstate commerce. This case is heavily cited in the majority opinion ruling against Diane Monson and Angel Raich, two Californian women who, despite growing marijuana in their own yard, were forced to shut down their medical distribution of the drug.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that federal authorities may prosecute people using doctor-recommended pot, concluding that medical marijuana laws in California and nine other states don't make such users immune from federal laws against marijuana possession. It’s a dramatic overreach of federal government powers, but the precedent was already set in Wickard v. Filburn and the rest of FDR’s forceful New Deal agencies.

People ask Gene why he is a libertarian—this ruling does most of the explaining for him. Over the decades since the Great Depression, both political parties have attempted to grab the reins of federal control for their own reasons—the Democrats for huge, inefficient social economic programs and Republicans for “values” issues. Nevertheless, the end result has been a government that is far too strong, going against the design of the Founding Fathers.

Never mind that marijuana should be completely decriminalized, an issue for another day
[Source: KGO810 Program summaries]

Technorati: constitution marijuana

Waiting for Gridot

Over the last months, I have morphed from thinking about applications in terms of processes and threads to an even more parallized form of computing. That is, I use the word grid about a hundred times a day: utility computing grid, grid computing, distributed resource managers (DRM), shared virtual memory systems, job management and placements software and so on.


Sun Grid Rack with Sun Fire v20z compute nodes

Initially I spend a lot of time trying to understand the many aspects of grid computing. Next I distilled it into two definitions which intended to make it easier for partners to understand what we ment with grid. In a narrow definition, it came down to sharing (heterogenous) compute resources. However, grid was also being used in a much broader context of the entire infrastructure running, managing, provisioning, loadbalancing the heterogenous resources upon which more loosely coupled and parallelized applications were scheduled. (The fun is only starting.)

Many presentations derailed on the slide trying to define grid. Everybody seemed to have their spin on grid and wanted to have the nuance of their definition heard. Only few realized that most of us were all in agreement and were talking about the same thing: the sharing of distributed resources. As a donkey doesn't hit his feet twice on the same rock, I avoid grid definition discussions and omit the slide from my presentations.

A colleague, who spent the last decade trolling around in the world of grid, said it best:

There is a play by the Nobel laureate Irish absurd playwriter Samuel Beckett, called "Waiting for Godot." Two homeless people have a dialogue in a park, while waiting for someone called Godot. The play ends and Godot never arrives.
Paraphrasing Beckett, [one could use the] "Waiting for Grid-ot" metaphor. If we believe Gridot will arrive some day, we will make many computers work better and better together.
Gridot will arrive when the entire planet will be managed as one computer. We replace the Grid definition with our new faith in Gridot! :-)

Oh, and what might this have to do with flanders you might ask? Recently the university of Antwerp created Belgium's fastest computer: the CalcUA - a grid cluster of Sun Fire V20z - at the University of Antwerp: http://www.calcua.ua.ac.be/

Technorati: grid

Red means stop,

Green means go, Yellow means take it slow. The little children's song has taught my son the concept and understands the traffic lights. (Although some of us are not in agreement yet about the middle colour:yellow or orange?). In the last couple of years however, the number of red light abusers has been stagering. Today, green means:

Observe a few cars running the red light

Look for the more intelligently challenged drivers, who only decided to run the red light when already it already turned red. You know, the ones that you do not expect to be flying through the red light anymore

Start of very slow and paranoically look left and right

Kick it in high gear 'cause else you will be one of the red light drivers at the next light.

Before increasing the fines for driving through a red light, it is essential the lights get recalibrated. In many cases, it is impossible to clear the intersection when the light changes to yellow/orange. So, dear officer, let's play the game fair and gives us enough time to get through the intersection. After that, go the for the big fines. Please go for the big fines. And hopefully the song will get its true meaning back.
- The Family Alliance for the restoration of children's lyrics.

A good California Whine

Last weekend, the San Jose Mercury News ran an article in the Food and Wine section on the end of cheap California wines: Buyer's market for wine may be ending. Before coming to California, my knowledge of wine was limited to a few white wines from the Mozel area in Germany, where my family had vacationed for almost ten years in a row. Auslese, Trockenbere-Auslese, even Icewine, were all quality terms I was familiar with and had tasted. I knew even some Mozel-slang: schorle-morle for the refreshing drink of white wine mixed with sparkling water. Red wines were unknown to me. I had never heard of Carbenet Sauvignon. Red ment Bordeaux to me. Don't ask me about the grape variatle.

California has introduced me to the wine culture. On my first weekend in California, we visited the Savannah-Chanelle winery in the Saratoga Mountains. And not much later, we made our first of several visits to Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley. I learned to appreciate a Cab and Merlot and learned about the Zinfandel, Pinot Noir and the Syrah (Shiraz). What I did not appreciated were the prices of the wines. I thought you would be able to buy the wine much cheaper at the vineyard. In Zeltingen-am-Mozel, my parents always got a great deal on the cases of wine they purchased: 3 or 4 Euros it was in the time. I am not sure what they pay currently for Auslese. And after tasting a few interesting wines, such as the Provence from the Peju winery - a red wine which one needs to chill - Napa Valley will sober you up instantly with the $18 or more price tags. The coastal wineries are a little less pricey but you still pay $12 or so for a bottle. If you wanted a better quality wine, you are looking at $30 and up. .. upUpUP to $150. And here we were in the heart of the California wine country.

On my last visit to Argentina, we conquered Mendoza, during the wine festival: a couple of pesos buys you a good wine. A couple of dollars buys you an excellent wine. For a long time, the only wine we bought in California were the Latin American or Australian wines at Trader Joe's supermarket. The average price for a good wine was $6. (Currently, a tight wallet has put us in the Charles Shaw, two-buck-chuck, $2 category.)

I'll end with this whine: when a good wine costs you elsewhere in the world, between $4-$6, don't tell me that $20 a bottle for California wine is a buyers' market. Give me a break!