This year I don't want to sit down so much. I want to stand. I heard that is a healthy thing to do. So, for my column in De Volkskrant (also on Blendle, both in Dutch) I made myself a little box that shouts "Get off your ass!" when I sit down for longer than 20 seconds. Ideal for at work. Although [...]
My new years resolution: getting out of bed on time! ("Yeah, right" someone to my left now murmurs...). I noticed that in 2015 three of my favourite makers made souped up versions of alarm clocks that are guaranteed to get you out of bed. In order of aggressiveness: Colin Furze: one of my maker [...]
Woohoo! new Star Wars! I enjoyed every minute of it. Woohoo X-wings! Woohoo Han and Chewie! Woohoo Rey kicks absolute ass! As a die hard fan, I loved every minute of it. This movie is 100% made for me. Right? Well. Maybe. Watching the movie, nothing seemed wrong, but reflecting afterwards, [...]
I gave a presentation in which I show 5 things you can do at home with kids, in 10 minutes. In the spirit of the things-explainer by XKCD, I only use the 1000 most used English words, or: ten-hundred most used words, because a thousand is not on the list.... The video is posted below. Using the [...]
Ever measured pressure using a soda can? Ever used your own hair as a humidity sensor? Ever measured temperature with your watch? Yes: we need you! No: this will be your first time. This Friday we will hold a MacGyver-style hackathon in which you will build a device using cast-offs donated by the[...]
Yesterday (May 21st) research was published in Science Magazine that showed that the thinning of the Arctic Ice sheet happens faster than previous anticipated. This work was done by Bert Wouters (Bristol), and co-authored by some people from Utrecht University. Listen to this interview done by BBC [...]
My academic year has four seasons: the relative relaxed time of post-EGU, the slow build up of pre-AGU, the brief relief of post-AGU before the hectic period of pre-EGU. EGU and AGU are the main scientific conferences in the geo-sciences. EGU, or: the European Geosciences Union General Assembly, is [...]
A kid looks at me and asks: "what do you do again?". What to answer? Do I bore her with the memory saving hacks I employ to reduce the computational load of a data assimilation scheme in the context of a global hydrological model? I can already see her suppressed yawn. So no, I do not answer [...]
Last summer, I wrote this blog to encourage people who want to become "makers", to start with copying other peoples work. Last week, when I worked on the "LEGO-Copy-Machine" together with Felienne, I realised that my LEGO skills could use some dusting off. Therefore, I decided to copy work from [...]
So how were the holidays? More specifically, how was talking to family members not seen in ages? How was "what do you do again?" What to answer? Do I bore them with the memory saving hacks I employ to reduce the computational load of a data assimilation scheme in the context of a global [...]