Roger P. Karrer's Homepage - Private Area

My Korean website

If you are Korean, you may try to find my site in cy - check for "suyeoniaegi" ^^

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Roger from A to Z (extended CV)

All you may (or may not) have wanted to know about me :-)

Adaptive applications. One key point in my research. Distributed adaptive applications are smart because they can deal with resource fluctuations. An in real life, you also have to adapt to a lot of things, i.e., try to optimize what you want or what you need given the environmental influences.

Biomedical Engineering. Originally (from my 2nd to my 20 birthday), all I ever wanted to be was an physician. Just before the beginning of my studies, I switched to Computer Science, as I found my interest shifted towards technical medicine. In the last two years of my undergraduate studies, I attended several lectures. By then, my research focus had fixed on Computer Science. But I still consider Biomedical Engineering a particularly interesting field of research.

Chess. Chess is a great game, although I am not a good player. What I like about Chess is the strategic planning and execution. More than playing chess, I like the analogy that our life is like a game of Chess, as it is presented in the Musical Chess. My life is a chessboard, and I am fighting against my adversaries. I have my figures: my skills, my friends, my will, my power. My adversaries are many people: rivals, collaborators, enemies. The goal? Success, love, happiness, freedom. I have to "move" my figures in a smart way to succeed. Moving here has to be interpreted in many ways: you can talk, make friends, show feelings – or not! Moves can be intellectual, planned, strategic, but also emotional, with your heart. Apropos musical: I like the song "nobody is on nobody's side" - listen to the text. The text may sound frustrating, depressive, but in fact it is just like one of the rules in chess. Accept it or not, use it or not in your very own game of chess!

Diving. I traveled 3 times to the Maledives and also did some diving in the Caribbeans. The underwater world is gorgeous and there is always something new to discover. I also like the silence and the feeling of floating in the water. I accomplished the PADI Open Water, Advanced and Rescue Diver.

ETH. My alma mater. I got a Diploma in Computer Science in 1996 and a PhD in Computer Science from ETH Zurich in 2002. I liked my studies and my graduate time there, and I am most grateful to my advisor, Thomas Gross, for giving me the opportunity to pursue my degree.

Food. I almost like any kind of food (except chinese, due to an allergy). I really love eating, especially in a nice (... romantic ...) atmosphere, with decent light, maybe some music, nice people around, beautifully decorated dishes, a tasty glass of wine - you get the picture. And hey, who says that we cannot have this feeling everyday at home as well?

Garfield. We have many things in common: we like Lasagna, we are smart, we are intelligent, and most of all, very modest.

Hobbies. Although there is not much time left for hobbies besides my work, I still try to spare some time for Salsa dancing with my girl friend, jogging, swimming, reading literature and (also writing) poems and making puzzles.

I an interesting thing, this "I". Many people have asked the question "who am I" or "what am I". I don't know either, but it is interesting to reflect on this question, to find my own limitations, to see my strengths and my weaknesses, and also to see how I change over time.

J ogging. One of my favourite hobbies. Especially after working, there is no such thing as going out and run through the forests near my home. It gives me a feeling of recharging a used battery, and there are lots of beautiful moments: the sunlight breaking through the trees, the smell of rain on a hot summer's day, the first green leafs in spring, the sound of your boots in the snow on a cold winter day, and every now and then seeing some deer.

Korea. My second home is now Korea, after I got married to Suyeon, my beautiful wife. I already feel half Korean, as I admire and love the Korean culture. I am trying to learn Korean, but it is very tough. I hope that someday I will be able to talk to all my new family: my new mom, my sister, my aunts and uncles and cousins. To be honest (and to my shame), I hardly new anything about Korea before I met Suyeon. It was not until 2004 that I visited Asia for the first time. However, I visited Seoul 3 times in 2005, and I am really fascinated by the modern lifestyle and the dynamics and the power. I just wish Korea were closer to my current location so that I could visit more often.

Languages. I was always fascinated by languages, so I tried to study as many and as much as I could: German, English, French Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Latin. I especially like to travel in countries where these languages are spoken, to learn how people live and what they think. My travels to South America and Cuba were among the most interesting. I still try to keep up the knowledge by reading literature in the original language, but the knowledge is fading.

Music. the music of interest ranges from classic to pop. I particularly like Salsa music (it's hot!) and musicals. Besides the sound I like to listen to the words and the message in the song.

Networks are the field of my research. They are a little bit like Garfield: slow, lazy, quickly irritated. But I like them as people like cats :-). On part of my research is to feel the mood of the network (resource measurements) and react to the mood (

Octopus. Octopus is the name of the framework I designed and implemented in my dissertation. It is a distributed system for multimedia applications that take the topology of the network into account. The distributed system matches with the arms of the octopus, and when an application uses one of the available nodes inside the network, it is as if the Octopus sucks to a part of the topology. And, of course, a smart coordination is needed to steer the application. Whoever has seen a real Octopus will confirm that they are very smart.

Puzzles always fascinated me, probably also because it was almost the only game which can be played alone for hours. The largest one I managed to do contained 9000 pieces. I gave up on my 12000 pieces puzzle after a year due to space problems. But I am very sure that I will start it again, you bet! Oh, don't ask me about any higher meaning of puzzles or why I like them. Probably because I can relax and listen to music, and because I can think a lot about anything while my hands are busy. Finally, there was a guy who said that "the whole is more than just the sum of all pieces".

Quamvis sunt sub aqua sub aqua maledicere temptant. A sentence of the Metamorphoses by Ovid. One of my favorite books. A language as beautiful as an icy river flowing in the spring sun. 

Reading. One of my very favourite hobbies is reading. Like puzzles, it can keep you busy for hours and keeps up to my interests in literature and languages, as I try to read as much in the original language as possible My favourite author is Emile Zola, who describes the different social structures during the Second Empire in his books. My preferred author in Italian is Italo Calvino, in Spanish Isabel Allende, and in English Shakespeare. In German, I particularly like Hermann Hesse. Regarding Poetry, my very favorite is Rainer Maria Rilke. In English, of course, Shakespeare (Sonnets).

Sports: To keep a balance to my everyday work, I go jogging and swimming (2-3 times a week). In winter, I also go skiing.

Travel: I travelled quite a lot. Some vacations were pure recreation (Maledives), but I prefer to visit countries and people, to see how they live, what their problems and their solutions are, how they find happiness. I remember the journeys to Cuba, the USA, Mexico, Ecuador/Peru/Bolivia.

Ut desint vires tamen est laudanda voluntas. A nice motto, if applied correctly. You may not achieve everything in life, that is true. But it should not be used as an excuse if something does not work out.

Volleyball: I like volleyball because it is one of these sports where you don't just run and try to kick a ball in order to go on running. It requires coordination, feelings for the ball, and it is a team sport.

Wine. I very much like wine, but I am not an expert (unfortunately). I prefer red wine of Italy or Spain. I usually have a glass of red wine with every dinner (no, I am not an alcoholic :-)).

XYZ The alphabet may end here, but not I. If you want to find out more about me, you have to meet me personally. CU!
Roger