Zürich trip

Zürich is the largest city of Switzerland. It is situated on the banks of Lake Zürich and is divided by the Limmat river. Above the city rises the Ueltiberg mountain which was natural barrier for the glacier in the last glacial age and it created the Zürich valley as well as Zürich lake.Nowadays, Zürich is the center of soft industry, banking and entertainment. 

My train was planned to arrive to the Zürich Haupt Bahnhof at 9am and as the train was approaching its final stop Sun was just rising from behind the mighty alpine mountain range. It was spectacular view because all the sky was covered by dark clound, there was just a little of clear sky directly above the Alp which rising Sun coloured to the golden. I tried to capture this when I reached the top of the Uetliberg, my first stop.

Uetliberg is a great spot for picnic in summer and for hiking along the eastern bank of the lake with beautiful views. In winter it is very cold place because of cold winds from Alps which I experienced on my own. I better returned back down to the city and I started my city tour on the Zürich`s luxuriest street Bahnhofstrasse. This street begins directly in front of main station and leads to the lake. This street is place of the luxury - the world`s most famous boutiques, jewelery and swiss watches and the place of the banks. The biggest Switzerland banks have their headquarters here and under ground level they preserve huge amount of gold. This street is compared to Champs Elysees, Fifth Avenue or London's Bond Street.

Along the street there are multiple landmarks worth of visiting, here is just a short list:

Peters Platz

Augustinergasse

Frau münster and Münster Brücke

Swiss vs. Czech university

I had a great opportunity to study a year abroad during my master degree studies. In this article I would like to describe differences between my home university at Brno, Czech Republic and my hosting university at Lugano, Switzerland. 

First of all, I study computer science. This is quite a novel academic discipline when compared to others. Philosophy, medicine and other human and social sciences are as old as humankind itself. Most of natural sciences such as chemistry, physics an so on existed from early ages but significantly advanced with the industrial revolution in 18th century. It enabled scientist use new technologies which led to more sophisticated and complex experiments and revealed the secrets on nano world as well as distant galaxies.  The roots of the computer science dates back to 1694 (Leibnitz`s calculator) but the computers as we know them today first appeared in 1940s. So one would expect that the academic curriculum of such novel discipline would not differ so much amongst different universities. But is this really true?

Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Information Technology

In Brno there are two huge lecture room. The main lecture room has capacity of 300 people and the lectures are streamed in real time to two smaller rooms of capacity 150 and 90 people. The second lecture room has capacity of 150 with live stream to two rooms of capacity 70 people. So you can imagine that there is no personal contact with the lecturer - during the lecture you are lost in the mass of the people or you can be even in the different room as the lecturer himself. There are also exercises classes related to the lectures with about 30 students each but this exercises are led by the teaching assistants, not the lecturer himself. 

During the semester there is quite a high number of programming projects (either there is bigger amount of smaller ones or few of the big team projects). Average students have big difficulties following the lectures and dealing with the programming so they either follow the lectures and do the minimum of projects or vice versa.

On the lectures the huge amount of information is presented and very wide area of computer science is covered. The lectures takes place one a week and it is usually three hours lecture. This is very tiresome and exhaustive, especially when you have two consecutive lecture blocks. But the lectures are streamed online so you can even watch them from home or download the video from the lecture and watch it later and multiple times when the subject is still unclear. But this video streaming was abused by the huge number of students who watched all the lectures just before the exam at the high speed so the streams have been reduced recently, not all subject have them available.

The university education in Czech is free of charge. The Brno University of Technology has big capacity of dormitory and the school also pays students housing scholarship. So from the financial point of the view university does it very easy for students.

Universita della Svizzera italiana, Faculty of Informatics

The first and the most obvious difference I noticed is the amount of students at lectures. The lectures are visited by approximately 30 students so the lecturer knows your name and the lectures are very interactive (professors asks lot of questions). The lectures are organized in two 1.5 hour blocks (so the lecture takes place twice a week) and the amount of data covered on the subject is not as huge as in Brno. At the beginning of the lectures there is usually short recap from the last lecture. The offered subjects deal with the computation theory, algorithms, SW design and so on. It does not contain any hardware subjects nor theory of underlying electronics signals.

The number and complexity of programming assignments is not as high as in Brno. Professors are interested more in program results and their interpretation than the code itself. You usually have free choice of programming language.

Each student of informatics gets MacBook Pro from university and if he graduates he can keep it. University also organizes some trips and cultural events for new students (barbecue, aperitifs, museum visit, town excursion, ...). There is also career service which helps students to consult future career and internships. But all this luxury is not for free. Domestic Swiss students pays 2000CHF tuition fee per semester. For foreign students this fee is doubled.
USI is also an international university, students from all around the world study here. You can meet people from USA, Mexico, Brazil, China, India, Germany, Sweden, Romania, Macedonia, Spain, Italy and lot more. This is great opportunity to prepare for working in multicultural environment which big IT companies like Google and Facebook definitely are.

Conclusion 

From my point of view, the swiss university tries to form their students to specialists in specific areas of computer science. They cover narrow spectrum of the computer science but in more detail. They also try to encourage practical experience in form of internships at different companies.

The absolvent of Brno University of technology is full of theoretical knowledge and has overview of very wide spectrum of computer science. If the student was active he found some internships by himself and he is ready to work in commercial sphere. What do you think, which approach is better?

Milan - City Tour, Party and Hostel

Milan has welcomed us very nicely - fresh morning air, cloudless sky and peaceful atmosphere of saturday morning. We stopped in very first caffe we found for a brekfast. Prizes in Milan are completely different when compared to those in Lugano, everythig seems so cheep. We had cappuccino, milk with honey and croissant with marmelade.

After this refreshing brekfast we begun our city tour. We had no specific itinerrary, just a short list of places we wanted to visit. Without a map we were just randomly walking through the Milan's luxurious streets. First landmark we came across was Castello Sfortezsco and adjacent park. First, we hang out for a while in this park and enjoyed the atmosphere of the local families spending their weekend by various games, picnics or just walks.

Our walk continued to the very heart of Milan - Duomo di Milano. I don't think that I could describe the duomo in all its beauty and complexity, all the statues, narrow towers, ... I'd better reference you to someone more relevenat in this area - Mark Twain.

What a wonder it is! So grand, so solemn, so vast! And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful! A very world of solid weight, and yet it seems ...a delusion of frostwork that might vanish with a breath!...Away above, on the lofty roof, rank on rank of carved and fretted spires spring high in the air, and through their rich tracery one sees the sky beyond. -- Mark Twain

After enjoying beauty of the past times represented by the Duomo, we came back to the present world to see what is considered modern and stylish nowadays. Big part of contemporary fashion world is concentrated in the wery small area - Corso Vittorio Emanuelle II and Via Montenapoleone. Louis Vitton, Dolce & Gabana, Prada, Gucci, Versace, Armani - that are just some of all the luxurious boutiques over there. In every of those boutiques there are specially trained shop assistants dressed up in a uniform. There is also a guy who opens a door for you and welcomes you in the shop.

Just after a few blocks further the atmosphere completely changed again. We left the modern luxury and entered to the world of artists. Narrow streets garnished with paintings full of color, abstract shapes and various thoughts put on the canvas. There also were some slovak folk paintings from Humenne.

To come back to reality from those little worlds, that very easily confuses you are living a completely different place and time, we went to one of numerous Milan's parks. But it evolved another way as we expected. Instead of coming back to reality we slipped to conversation about different dimensions of the world. We imagined that the people going around us are cows and birds in lower dimension, that we can influence their flow of reality without their notice. Similarly, we are just the same intercepted by creatures from higher dimension and so on. Then appeared strange humble bee, who we considered to be the godzilla eating and destructing the civilization living on my jeans. (Why would normal people keep such a veird conversation? Well, we were not completely normal in that time; who knows why...)

Till now everything was perfect but things begun to fell apart as soon as we decided to go to our hostel and check-in. We somehow managed to screw up our reservation - we reserved it for the wrong date. But the guy in hostel was very willing (in his specific way) and helped us to find other free room, which would be otherwise inpossible to find by ourselves. He was perfect example of an Italian, his desk was in an (un)organized chaos. There were sticky notes and drafts of papers with some notes all over his workplace. When the internet did not work he smashed his hand to the table and mumbled something in italian. Finally, he found some hostel for us, but it was on the opposite side of the city. He also wrote us exact instruction how to get there, he repeated it to us at least five times, each time more and more nervously as we still had some additional questions. But he explained it very cleary  because we had no problem finding the place.

In our backup hostel we took a short rest after the exhausting day. We needed to gain new energy to explore the Milan's nightlife. Milan is not only the capital of fashion, business, but it is also the city in which nightlife means much more than a simple drawn-out dinner. There are hundreds and hundreds of bars, lounge bars, wine bars, pubs, cafés, bistrots, pubs, wine cellars, live music bars and lots of others besides. The Milanese night scene is so wide-ranging and changes continuously, just like everything in this eclectic city. There are clubs that are furnished in hi-tech style, or that are inspired by the Savannah, with leopard-skin chairs, palm trees and pretend elephants’ heads. We started our night tour by having drinks at metro station and then next to the Duomo. We have been searching for some club so long that we actually did not visit any of them. The nightlife in Milan is so electric that we actually realized we should go to some club at 4am, which was very bad time because the clubs were already closing. So instead we had a 1.5 hour walk back to our hostel through Milans night streets.

In the morning, the hostel cleaning lady has waken us up telling us we must leave our room till 11:00. Half asleep, we told her to give us five more minutes. It was very difficult, but we managed to leave our room just on time. First place we went after leaving the hostel was nearby cafe where we had our brekfast - capuccino with a sendwich.

Milan is famous mainly as a city of fashion so we wanted to buy some cool jeans or shirt. We headed straight to the shopping area but we were not much successful. We found just one shop with affortable prizes but we didn't find anything worth of buying.

After the last night we really didn't feel like walking, so as we came in front of duomo we sat down on the walking path. We discussed our night trip and also planned what to do during the rest of the day. We didn't thought of anything special so we just roamed through the Milans historic streets. Somehow we managed to come to the Brera, known as the Milan's "Little Paris". Streets were really beautiful, somehow different from the rest of the city. The restaurants mixed with the street fairs full of old things - old photos, old toys, old ceramics,... It was really special. At the end of the street there was one little restaurant with quite friendly prizes, so we did not hesitate and stopped there for a lunch.

TODO:
-park pri hrade
-komplikacie s listkami na stanici(vlak na ktory sme sli nechodi v nedelu; neplatny spiatocny listok a kupa noveho)

Erasmus - experience that lasts for the lifetime

Prvé kvapky dažda dopadli na zem. Vo vzduchu bol cítiť dážď. Zažltnuté listy na stromoch signalizovali koniec leta a pomalý príchod chladných jesenných dní. Leto sa skončilo. Bolo to krásne leto, z ktorého mi ostalo kopec spomienok. Hneď na jeho začiatku dovolenka v Chorvátsku s bandou malých nezbedných chalanov. Potom krátky bicyklový výlet do Zuberca a na záver turisticky ladená dovolenka na Liptove.

Západné Tatry - pohľad zo Sivého Vrchu

Čas však neúprosné beží a tak skončilo aj toto obdobie. Teraz predomnou stojí nová výzva, more nových zážitkov a miest, ktoré treba navštíviť. Obnáša to však neľahkú úlohu - zanechať domov a vydať sa do sveta. V posledný deň pred odchodom na mňa dolahla nostalgia v plnej miere. Pohľad na môj bicykel, ako smutne stojí na balkóne. Posteľ a polička s knihami, ktoré za ten čas, čo budem preč zapadnú prachom...

Tieto pocity však veľmi rýchlo pominuli v deň odjazdu. Mám všetko pobalené? Mám lístok na autobus a letenku? A pas? Neostalo mi veľa času zaoberať sa návalmi nostalgie. Ešte posledné objatie a rolzlúčka a hurá na autobus smer Praha.

Cesta autobusom mi ubehla veľmi rýchlo. Možno aj preto, že som od väčšinu cesty prespal. Čakala ma totiž prebdená noc v Prahe na letisku. Na poslednú chvíľu sa mi vsak ozval Kubo, spolužiak z gympla, ktorý sa celé leto zaoberal svojím výskumom prehistorických ústric. Ukázal mi nočnú Prahu, nemal som však z nej veľmi dobrý pocit. Na ulici sa to hemžilo podnapitými indivíduami a turistami zo západu. Po tejto prehliadke sme si ešte spravili nočeru (ráno-raňajky, večer-večera, noc-nočera), bolo okolo druhej hodiny v noci. Na letisku prebehlo všetko podľa plánu, až na zhruba hodinové meškanie lietadla.

Miláno ma privítalo hustým dažďom. Autous smer Lugano však stál hneď pred východom z letiska. Šofér bol typický taliansky Don Giovanni - dlhé ulízané a už šedivé vlasy, fúzy pod nosom, cigareta v ústach a gigantický zlatý prsteň a reťaz na krku. Keď ma zbadal, ako idem s tým obrovským kufrom smerom ku jeho autobusu hneď na mňa čosi zakričal. Rozumel som mu iba jedno slovo - Lugano. Tak som prikývol na súhlas a hneď mi z ruky vytrhol kufor a odniesol ho až k autobusu.

Už počas cesty autobusom z Milána sa mi naskytli panoramatické pohľady na jazero v Lugane a malebné mestečko na upätí kopcov priamo nad jazerom. Naplnilo ma to istým druhom uspokojenia, že som zvládol tú dlhú cestu a v poriadku som dorazil do cieľa mojej cesty. Miesta, ktoré mi bude domovom prinajmenšom ďalšieho pol roka.

Lugano

Lugano, Living A Swiss Mediterranean Lifestyle

Lugano, the city

This little picturesque city with 55 000 inhabitants is situated in southern Switzerland. It belongs to italian speaking canton of Ticino. The Italian metropolitan center, Milan is just 60 km away. Lugano is favourite tourist destination because surrounding mountains, beautiful lake and Mediterranean climate.

San Salvatore mountain

San Salvatore is one of mountains which spans directly above Lugano. You can admire the Lake of Lugano, Lombardian planes and majestic peaks of Swiss Alps. 

Lake Lugano

This glacier lake has 50 square kilometers and it lies both in Switzerland (63%) and in Italy (37%). It is perfect spot for nautical sports in summer or just for cooling down in summer heats.

Fairytale Marathon

Fairytale Marathon je akcia zameraná pre programátorov-grafikov s mottom "Ukažte co umíte v průběhu 48 hodin!" Toto motto je naozaj vystihujúce. Zistil som, že v pribehu dvoch dní sa dá toho stihnúť naozaj vela. Ale iba za cenu nedostatku spánku, veľmi skromného jedálničku a bolestí zadných častí tela z neustáleho sedenia:)

Zadanie znelo nasledovne:

Vytvořte systém, který:

• na vstup dostane pohádku v českém jazyce, UTF8 kódování, plain text

• bude mít interaktivní uživatelské rozhraní (v nejširším smyslu)

• s použitím libovolných technologií (web, mobil, desktop, …)

• cílová skupina jsou děti – miřte na ně UI i obsah

• postup zpracování:

  • systém dostane text, má 10 min na zpracování

  • můžete mít rodičovské UI ve kterém po zpracování systémem dospělá zkušená osoba (někdo z vašeho týmu) během max 1 minuty provede upravení pohádky

  • pak je pohádka předvedena dítěti – s libovolnými prvky interaktivity

  • mateřský jazyk dítěte není znám – jazyk prezentace musí být globální

Na prvý pohľad sa zdá že zadanie je celkom priateľné a vcelku zaujímavé. Veď každý raz bol dieťa, tak si dokáže predstaviť ako by tento systém mohol vyzerať. Ale po krátkom zamyslení sa nad týmito pár riadkami každý programátor zistí že zadanie je neriešitelné, a podla slov prof. Herouta - experta na PC grafiku - "zadání bylo brutální".  Ďalej to komentoval týmito slovami: 

"Mě nadchlo na účastnících Marathonu, že jsou tím typem lidí, kteří se neptají: „Jde to zadání vyřešit?“ Protože by si museli celkem správně odpovědět, že nejde. Zadání je brutální v tom smyslu, že nebylo možné přijít s uspokojivým řešením ani kdyby na to měli tým dvacíti vývojářů a dva měsíce času, natož dva dny ve čtyřech lidech. Tam proště poznání IT a vědy vůbec ještě není. "

Takže sme mali vymyslieť riešenie neriešitelného problému. Ale fakt, že zadanie je neriešitelné, v tom zhone pri riešení nikto ani nezaregistroval. Každý sa snažil niečo vymyslieť a popasovať sa s týmto problémom.

Na celej akcii bolo množstvo vecí, ktoré ma fascinovali: pohodovosť jednotlivých účastníkov a taktiež aj oragnizátorov, atmosféra v ktorej sa pracovalo, pripravené občerstvenie a "coffe-breaks". Ale asi najviac ma oslovila atmosféra, ktorá zavládla počas noci: vonku nie je ani živej duše, ale v priestoroch CVT sa poneviera partička IT-ákov a ťuká si niečo do klávesnice, bojuje so stále silnejším pocitom ospalosti. Borci, ktorý to už nezvládajú sa prechádzaju po miestnosti a hladajú zbytky nedopitej kávy...proste psycho.

Ja som bol v týme ešte s jedným spolužiakom. Pôvodne sme boli traja, ale tretí člen týmu to vzdal už v úvodnej časti súťaže. Asi nezvládol ten pocit zúfalstva a bezmocnosti, ktorý sa dostavil hneď po zverejnení zadania. Tieto návaly zúfalstva sa potom ešte niekoľkokrát zopakovali, ale nakoniec sme dokázali aj vo dvojici vytvoriť celkom slušnú aplikáciu - vlastne to bola hra. Táto hra fugovala tak, že najskôr analyzovala text rozprávky, zistila si klúčové slová tvoriace dej rozprávky a k týmto slovám si na internete našla obrázky. Obrázky sa potom zobrazili na hracej ploche, pridalo sa zopár obrázkov ktoré s rozprávkou nemali nič spoločné a cielom hry bolo obrázky usporiadať tak, aby ich postupnosť korešpondovala s dejom rozprávky.

Nahranie textu rozprávky

Začiatok hry

Priebeh hry

Ešte sme plánovali do spodnej časti umiestniť text rozprávky, ale už sme to nestihli. Ak si chce niekto hru vyzkúšať, demo je na tejto adese: http://www.stud.fit.vutbr.cz/~xkardo00/fairy-tale/cards.html

A ako sme dopadli? Skončili sme na 4. mieste a získali sme ocenenie za "originálny nápad". Ale na takýchto akciách sa nehrá na umiestnenie. Ide tu hlavne o množstvo skúseností, nadviazanie nových kontaktov a o ten pocit sebauspokojenia na konci, povedať si že som to dokázal - to je na nezaplatenie.

Ako som zacal...

Dnes som bol na prvej schodzke s veducim mojej bakalarskej prace. Temu som si volil, da sa povedat, iba podla nazvu, pretoze popis vypisanych bakalarskych prac v informacnom systeme je velmi strucny. Ale nazov bol dostatocne vystihujuci a pochopil som ze bude treba vytvorit software, ktory by vedel analyzovat nejake video a rozpoznavat na nom urcite objekty a ich vlastnosti (len tak mimochodom nazov BP, ktoru som si vybral znie "Vizuální systém identifikace poruchových stavů systémů letounu").

Tato tema mi padla do oka ked som prisiel z prednasky o PC videni. Jeden profesor o tom tak zaujimavo vykladal, ze som ho pocas celeho vykladu pozorne pocuval (ani raz som nepozrel do notasu co nove na facebooku), ba da sa povedat, ze som kazde jeho slovo uplne hltal. Len tak mimochodom ta prednaska bola pocas letnych prazdnin. Dostal som totiz moznost zucastnit sa kurzu Socrates IP na Krete. Boli to asi moje dva najkrajsie tyzdne ktore mali co-to do cinenia so skolou :)

Ale spat ku schodzke s veducim. Ocakaval som ze bude prebiehat v pokojnej atmosfere, ze mi bude povedane ako zacat, aku literaturu si mam nastudovat a ze sa dozviem co presne budem v tej BP robit. Ale veci sa nevyvyjali uplne podla mojich predstav. Po tom ako som sa predstavil veduci hned zacal vykladat a nezastavil sa dobrych 10 minut. Z tohoto rozpravania som sa dozvedel asi tolko, ze to co je napisane v zadani je uplne nezavazne, ze mam moznosti kolko len chcem. Mozem si vybrat ci budem analyzovat pohlad na palubnu dosku lietadla a zistovat stav roznych kontroliek, alebo seria kamier bude sledovat klapky na kridlach lietadla a budem urcovat ich vychylenie. Dalej ze si mozem vybrat ci to chcem pozorovat na lietadle alebo na vrtulniku(tu samozrejme plati iba sledovanie pristrojovej dosky). No a este som sa dozvedel ze ak sa mi toto nebude pacit, ze mozem vytvorit nejake komponenty alebo algoritmy na letovy simulator, ktory sa nachadza v priestoroch FIT. Mal som co robit aby som si vsetky tieto informacie zapamatal. Potom veduci navrhol, aby sme sa isli pozriet na spominany simulator. Mohol som si ho dokonca aj vyskusat a zapilotovat si :) Tu mi este parkrat zdoraznil ze moznosti mam naozaj vela a je to len na mne.Prislubil mi, ze s pracou mi pomozu a budu sa snazit aby som napisal naozaj svelu pracu, ku ktorej by skusobna komisia nemala ziadne pripomienky. Dalej mi ponukol, ze ku simulatoru budem mat pristup kedykolvek mi to vyhovuje a mozem si priviest aj kamaratov alebo frajerku, aby som sa pochvalil na com robim :) Ja som nejako naznacil, ze najviac sa mi pozdava varianta, kedy budem analyzovat pristrojovu dosku. Veduci sa ku tomu tiez priklonil, pretoze tato varianta slubovala najvacsi prinos do praxe. Bude mozne kontrolovat pilota, ci neprekracuje niektore hodnoty letovych parametrov, ci nezabudol na nejaky ukon a ci dodrzuje to co mu bolo nakazane od riadiacej veze. Tak sme sa dohodli, ze sa pojdeme pozriet na letisko Brno-Turany na ich experimentalne lietadlo. Aby som vedel do coho idem, pripadne si pozrel moznosti kam by sa dala pripevnit kamera.

The SimStar - letovy simulator

Tak asi tolko ku prvej schodzke, este aj teraz spracovavam v hlave vsetky tie veci co mi boli povedane. Dufam ze sa mi tam co najskor utrasu a budem mat jasno ako dalej....