Cursor 14 (English version) year 56

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14 20 March 2014 | year 56

Biweekly magazine of the Eindhoven University of Technology For the latest news: www.cursor.tue.nl/en and follow @TUeCursor_news on

First ice dome, now Sagrada Familia

Better audiovisual facilities and extra funds for Biomedical Engineering and IE&IS

Monday 17 March - In December, students of Built Environment will be building the Sagrada Familia out of ice. The Gaudí tower is going to measure approximately forty meters in height, and will be built in the Finnish town of Juuka, just like the ice dome. Once again, the students will rely on pykrete - the mixture of ice and sand that the largest ice dome in the world was built with last January.

Chinese dan reaching semce group TU/e happy i-finals Thursday 13 M arch -

Chinese Danc semi-finals of e Group Eindho the TV show Ev ven is very plea erybody Danc sed with reachi and alumni of e Now. The grou ng the TU/e mostly. p consists of Ph D candidates Participating in Asia Week Eind hoven last year attention for th generated e group, and ev en led to the gr the program. M oup entering embers of the dance group co the choreograp me up with hy for the show s themselves. panel was blow The judging n away by the group’s perfor originality, an mance and d voted them straight into th The dancers w e semi-finals. ill be working hard to make make it into th sure they’ll e semi-finals on April 4.

Exam week crowds at MetaForum tackled Tuesday 11 March - The noise, the mess, and the lack of workspaces at MetaForum during exam periods isn’t just getting on the nerves of Eindhoven students, but it’s bothering the Information Expertise Center as well. Working with Internal Affairs, the latter will try and tackle the problem with the help of banners, extra cleaning, and possibly opening lecture theaters that are not being used. Starting March 31 banners and LED screens will be displaying texts pointing out to students that studying in a clean environment is more pleasant than doing so in a pigsty. Whether or not the lecture theaters on the ground floor will become available for students to study quietly will be decided on April 3.

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Friday 14 March - The Executive Board will be putting aside extra budget structurally in order to intercept the major increase of students and maintain the quality of education at TU/e. In 2014, 1.5 million euro will be earmarked for that purpose, and 3 million for 2015. The money will be used for the improvement of the audiovisual facilities in the Auditorium, among other things. Starting next academic year, lecturers will be able to digitally loop their classes to other lecture theaters as well as see the students in those rooms via large screens. The departments of Biomedical Engineering and IE&IS will be allotted more money for extra lecturers.

Network issues MetaForum over soon Friday 7 March - To end the complaints about slow or lost connection in MetaForum, fixed network cables will be installed. Last week, the Executive board decided to set aside 175,000 euro to that end. Soon, students can connect their laptops to the network by plugging into the connection slots fitted into the tables. They’ll also have more options to connect to the network, and the opportunity to work with a faster network connection than when using wifi. The change concerns approximately seven hundred workspaces on floor -1 and 0. Attempts to make the wireless network function properly have failed.

More news on www.cursor.tue.nl/en

No bike no pride

Biking is an indispensable part of living in the Netherlands. Is it so? I have been living here for one and a half year now, but I am neither ashamed nor proud to say that I still don’t know how to ride a bike! Every time I state this fact, I attract so much attention that I feel almost like a celebrity or a criminal - or both.

So the options there are either you ride a bike through the middle of all these or take one of the above modes of transport. The first option being almost synonymous to suicide, I settled with the latter option. Living at the heart of such a crowded city in India, learning how to ride a bike seemed nothing but a luxury and a waste of time.

The first few weeks after joining the masters here, I felt really awkward not to possess a bike. Even when I got myself a bike, I attracted more attention for not riding, but walking the bike around. I actually had the intention of learning how to ride the bike. With that intention I went to the TU/e Sports centre to check whether they provide any biking courses. The guy gave me a ‘Are you kidding me?’ look and I didn’t dare to ask anyone else about it again. I was born and brought up in a city with approximately 4.5 million people and thousands of automobiles to carry these people around. There are buses, trams, taxis, cars, autos, rickshaws, trucks and motorbikes running around in the street.

However, after I landed in Holland, I had an observation. Biking doesn’t feature as a culture of Holland like the windmills, wooden shoes or tulips do. It is just part of daily sustainable lifestyle. But what amazes me the most is that people possess one or more bikes like yet another inevitable material possession. The possessiveness is expressed at its height when the bike is broken or stolen. I remember that day, when I reminded a few of my friends that they still have the option to ‘walk’ to their destinations without any bikes! Hoping not to forget this option myself, one day, I still wish to learn biking and experience the fun. Lets go for it then!

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