Ph.D.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah....

'Nuff said.

Energy

These fine gentlemen (The Mars Volta) are fairly energetic. Exactly the opposite of how I feel. I would care to wager that they do drugs.



And here is a version with better sound. Though it lacks the live feeeel, that I so diiig. (My apologies. As is well-known, it is obligatory to use at least one slang-expression, when discussing musicians with helmet-hair.)

Mandatory cutesy baby pics

Here's some cute pics of our little sleepy bear:

How to spend five weeks

Well, well, well. I've been away for a few weeks. I've been busy stuff in the the non-virtual world, not the least preparing for becoming a dad in three weeks.

But well, what do you know - my son decided he couldn't wait, so early Monday morning (3.45 am), I became the proud and somewhat surprised father to a healthy boy! We'd heard that many give birth too late the first time, so we were really caught somewhat surprised. We've just come home from the hospital now - we're extremely happy - but still somewhat puzzled by the events that have pooled up over the last few days. We should probably start by finally selecting a name - he hasn't got one yet, as we thought we had plenty of time to think about that. We also have to buy the last few things, and assemble a lot of stuff. But hey; most importantly, both he and Lena are in fine shape.

I'll try to upload some pictures in the next post.

Now I have to go change a diaper...

How to spend five years

So I just handed in this tiny thing, called a dissertation.

I must admit - it's a nice sensation. It goes a long way towards bringing closure to the ... hmmm ... last ... five years of my life. Five years and bit, in fact. Dammit, that's a long time. I'm getting old.

What did I do(?!), you eagerly shout... without having read the bloody thing? Well, ok - right now my passing-on-the-stairway-version is the following:

I worked with a framework (bigraphs) for domain-specific programming languages (DSLs). I developed some fundamental theory and algorithms that enabled us to implement a prototype tool to play around with such languages. Oh yeah, and then I developed a DSL, the snappily named C calculus (C for cell), that biochemists can use to describe and experiment with cells and proteins in silico. Check out this poster, for some nice pictures:

Quirky?

Sometimes, I worry that my stint in academia has left me quirky and absent-minded. As usual, my beloved brother comes to my aid, by reminding me that these tendencies have nothing to do with my time in academia.

I recently received an email from him, saying (translated):

Subject: 3 things.

(1) I know what to get dad for Christmas.
(2) What do you know about OCR-scanning?
(3) I forgot the third thing.

Stephan

A crazy, crazy life

Where have I been, you ask?

I'm in my cellar. Writing my dissertation. It's not too bad. No really. I'm ok.

When I look out, I can sometimes see people walking past the window. I notice when the sun sets, because then I have to turn on another light. And sometimes I get up and walk a bit about, and play hockey with myself - bouncing a ball against the wall.

Today, something incredible happened. After lunch, I ate a clementine - and it had 26 seeds in it! How about that!