how to find IBAN for the German bank

Do you know what anIBAN is ? I thought that this standard is used everywhere. How does it look in Germany ? Well as I need to transfer money for registration fee at the university and for dormitory rental I've got the bank numbers. In the competition national bank numbers vs. IBAN: 2:0.
It was quite surprising as Frankfurt is known as German's bank center. How to deal with that ?
Well, before I give you an answer couple you need some explanation. Why do I think that not IBAN bank numbers can be a problem ?
Because it is in my case. Without it I couldn't specify bank transfer through the internet. Therefore I needed to visit my bank. To my surprise they gave me huge form to fill in. When I asked about format for the German bank's data they didn't give me the answer. The only one I've got was: write it down as you think it would be correct.

Great, thanks :/

So, what I did, was to phone to the German bank and ask for the IBAN for that account. Now I have it, but indirectly ;).

When you will ever be looking for the IBAN in such a case please give a try to IBAN rechner :D.

Random walk

It looks like my process of learning bioinformatics. Though, it should be rather breadth first ;). On of the first MCMC algorithms in my case was Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. And if you will look for good visualization of it please give a try this applet.

Going to Leipzig (working with *.tex files)

This year we managed to publish our educational paper on ICSE. As in a few days is deadline for camera ready papers we put the finishing touches on. One of the requirements for this paper is to send document in one source file (bibliography included). As we always work on the multiple *.tex files there is a need to combine it. One of the solution (and the only one was used in previous publications) is to do it manually. But I am very lazy person.
So after spending sometime online I've found another solution: flatex or flatten. Enjoy.

On the road

Last Thursday I did 1900 kilometers. Czarnkow-Frankfurt-Czarnkow. First of all I need to thanks my brother. It didn't happened without his help. We spent in the car about 20 hours. What for ? First of all I wanted to look in most beautiful eyes in the world.

But as I don't want to talk about my privacy to much, let me tell you about two issues:
German Ordnung and German's roads.

1. I've been always listening about how well everything is organized in Germany. And it might be truth in some areas, but it doesn't work everywhere. I have couple of things to finalize at the university and as (after phone conversation) it seemed to be quite easy, it was impossible. Simply it was to early to finalize papers for students card. It was even to early to leave documents (I want to add that the day before it was not, at least I was informed it wasn't ;) ). Fortunately I managed to fill dormitory's papers (what should have been impossible :D). And as Frankfurt is sometimes call Bankfrut I've newer thought that there is no chance to open bank account during one day.


2. German autobahn - the only thing I can say is: In Poland we don't have roads we have paths :D

Health insurance

As Poland is part of the European Union we can use our insurance round EU. The only thing you need is insurance card called EKUZ. But to my surprise the card is written in Polish ;) I can only assume that all card in whole Europe has the same design and are this way recognizable. Anyway, when you are in my age please be aware that there are some problems with the card ;) When you are passing 26 you cannot stay on your parents insurance and your university takes control. The new insurance card is needed. And I want mention this card is valid only for 4 months. So even if you are going for Socrates for half a year you need two cards.
Simple, isn't it ? ;)

Crawling through the information's ocean

What do you think hearing a "bioinformatics" ?? Genetics, statistics, probability theory, computational mathematics, data mining, wtf ? ;)
And from my short experience you can find that all. I can say, I am excited cause bioinformatics integrates my knowledge with the ocean of new methods and problems. Continuous improvement ... But there is also a risk, I should have learn more in high-school or even during my MA studies, there are things that still reminds new for me, but they shouldn't. It makes me feel so stupid... It makes me want to leave this feeling behind.

On the road of basis

What I am doing for living ? Well, I am software engineer. I work on the software architecture analysis methods at the university, I work as developer (in Eclipse) and consultant/support engineer (for the last year in IBM).
What I will be doing in Frankfurt ? During next half I year I will work for the bioinformatics team. Work... well we will see how much of work means an exchange program (Socrates).
For today it means a lot of learning. And unfortunately, learn the basis. It is quite sad to see how much I've forgot from my high-school education (the another explanation is I didn't get much from high-school ;) ). On the other hand is great experience, how genetics basis looks like from the software engineer's point of view :)

It also seams that level of my German is to low to attend German intensive course in Frankfurt. But I feel the progress :).

4'th February - World Cancer Day

Everybody has heard about cancer, how dangerous it is... Scientists are working on treatment strategies but that is nothing without our personal engagement.
All you need is good prevention plan. I've just got a great presentation made by the most wonderful person I've ever met. It should be really helpful.
And remember all you need is good prevention plan. When you have it there is nothing to be afraid of.