jonny goes to england

I’m in Eindhoven for the FAST workshop for the next two days. Tomorrow I’ll give a talk on our latest research, which will hopefully go well!

I took the Eurostar because I was a bit fed up with flying. Well not really the flying part, but the security checks and other harassments you have to endure when you take an airplane these days.
The Eurostar lounge at St Pancras is great, very spacious, nice and clean. Unfortunately, the eurostar people mistake their trains for airplanes!  The wagons are very densely seated so that you have not more space than on an airplane. Legroom is for weenies. But it’s probably much better at non-peak time.

The picture above is the reengineered and recently reopened Oxford Circus pedestrian crossing. The British learned some urban design lessons from Japan and took over the crossing from Tokyo’s Shibuya station. At their famous four-way crossing, 5000 people can cross the road with one green light without any jams.

I crossed Oxford Circus yesterday and it was a bit awkward because people, including me, just walked all over, but I’m sure everybody will get properly trained on how to cross the road in the japanese-way within a few weeks

Speaking of Japan, I got lucky and can tag along with my coworker to travel to Japan in December! We will be going to an information theory security conference in Shizuoka (not too far from Tokyo). Definitely more on that in some later posts.

Ignore the post earlier today. Actually, the image upload problem appears to be a firefox problem. I’m not surprised — version 3.5 is a bit of a let down on Macs.

Anyway, here are some pics I meant to upload a long time ago.

In September, we had our Phd conference again.

District 9. A good movie worth watching.

Some homeless people set our garden on fire. It’s surprising how very fast fire spreads, even though it was some meters away from our house, it still filled the flat with smoke.

I called 112 from my mobile to inform the firefighters, it rings twice and then a woman picks up and is talking to someone else and giggling and snickering. I said “helloo??” after she did not start speaking to me, she: “Oh! Hey, hi! Fire or Police?”, me: “Fire!”, she: “Ok” and connected me. That wasn’t very reassuring Anyway, they came very quickly (3 minutes or so) and put it out.

I thought about making the picture series “Weird Shit from Tesco”, potato cakes would certainly get a mention. Whenever I make potato cakes, I tell myself “this is not meant to taste like that”.

Our fire alarm when changing batteries:

I had to deal with Barclays today again, and I will spare you the details or rants. However I’d like to share with you their new security question which I got asked by two different people while they authenticate me:

Person: “How old are you now and when is your next birthday?”

Me: “I’m 27, next birthday is on the <date> 2010″

Person: “Thanks. How old will you be at your next birthday?”

Me: “What??? I just told you I’m 27. So I will be 28.”

Person: “Thank you.”

Twice! This so this is not a silly mistake from that person but actually on their protocol. Retarded.

I noticed recently that my cooking skills steadily increased (eventhough the ones who lived with me would probably disagree) in the last 3 years. Fortunately, I found an old picture of one of my meals when I first arrived here.

From the 3 cooked eggs + pasta “salad” without sauce 3 years ago

To recently my first proper (edible) steak on the grill pan (with rice or so):

Wow. Today, it’s exactly 3 years since I left Switzerland..

The arrival – just arrived on campus

One year – finished master, starting phd

Two years – hm still doing phd

Now – ack, still doing phd!

How will September 2010 look like? That’s quite undefined. I try to finish the thesis around then, but what happens afterwards is completely undefined. I probably won’t (and can’t, and don’t want to) stay at QM however I wouldn’t want to leave London already. In any way, I don’t have too much time to decide as (any kind of) job search takes a lot of time here. I keep you posted on my decisions

I think I haven’t mentioned this here, but my latest paper has been accepted for publication and I’ll present it at the Formal Methods Week in Eindhoven in November! Quite cool.

I do not own a car, but if I did I would certainly let it wash at Prestige Hand Car Wash around our corner.

As seen at Great Eastern street.

… OR how to wash hands. How many steps does it take to wash your hands? Two? Three?

Well, while more and more people catch swine flu (two in our department so far), NHS is putting up posters on how to wash hands on toilets, just in case you forgot how it worked. In our toilets, there’s an easy to memorise,  5-step action plan to get your hands clean:

In the office toilets of a friend, however, NHS put up the 13-step master plan to kill the germs:

I could swear steps 5 – 8 in sequence mean something dirty in sign-language:

Last weekend I moved into my new flat. It’s pretty cool and you feel at home very quickly.

Despite shields warning that there’s high vehicle crime, it feels like quite a nice, residential area

It’s moving time. Yes, again .. but hey I stayed over 8 months at my current place and I’m going to miss it. Mostly the perfect location. But I won’t move far away .. 10-12 minutes walk from here. It will be a two bedroom flat which I’m going to share with a friend. We will sign the contract on Thursday and we’ll also move that evening. I hope to get pictures up soon after that as it’s a very nice flat. As usual, there will be an initial no-internet time mostly depending on the speed of BT. Hopefully it’s not going to take over 2 weeks like in the flat in Bethnal Green..

Previous moving stories and flats can be found here, and here, and here.

Too bad my stuff does not fit in a single suitcase and some plastic bags anymore like in 2007! :s

Crazy. Restaurants and bars are already inviting people to book their Christmas dinners.