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How to not drift away when reading academic papers
Whether you like it or not, reading academic papers is a big part of research projects. The most general and agreed-upon theories taught during undergraduate studies are published in books that are mostly easier to read. However, more specified and cutting-edge knowledge is only available in papers. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate reading papers, as they mostly are within the topics I am interested in. However, if I have to read many papers at once, or if the article is poorly written, it might become a bit dreary. Some times, I read over the same paragraph multiple times without actually interpreting the text at all. It’s like part of my brain is just turned off, and I get sleepy because of it. If this sounds familiar to you, then I might have a solution for you.
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Releasing my package for surface code simulations: Qsurface
A little while ago, I started my graduation project in the field of quantum error-correction. During this project, we have successfully developed a new type of decoder for the surface code, for which the publication is currently in pre-print. To fully understand the mechanics of the surface code decoders that eventually led to our decoder, I had built my surface code simulator in Python that allowed for the visualization of each decoding step. To my surprise, my application for a microgrant to the Unitary Fund was accepted, which allowed me the continue working for a few months after graduation. Today, I’ve finished my work and released the simulator on PyPI, which means you can install it via
pip install qsurface! Let me tell you more about it.
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Should the renovated station be named Delft Campus?
Just a about a year ago, construction work started on renovating the train station of Delft Zuid. Similarly to what happened to Station Delft, the goal of the renovation project is to improve the connection between Rotterdam and The Hague by adding 2 tracks to the existing rail, such that the Intercity’s can overtake the Sprinters. For station Delft, this project took almost 15 years, yikes. (Who remembers that big blue metal pedestrian bridge?) By also moving large segments of the new rail underground in the city center, space is made available for the construction of ~40.000 new apartments in the new neighborhood of Nieuw Delft by 2040.
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Parse and plot activity data interactively in Jupyter with GPSbabel, Gpxpy, Geopy and Gmaps
In the last months it seemed that everyone is joining Strava. It may due to that we’re all tired of staying in our homes during the COVID-pandemic. Or it may be due to the fact that almost half of all people have gained weight due to lack of movement. Whatever the reason, Strava has gained a lot of users. However, if you are an OG user and have joined before May 20th, 2020, you’ll know that there were many useful features that are now locked behind the Strava subscription. For example, the leaderboard, matched runs and route builder are all only for those that pay a minimum of around $5 per month. For many, it is just not woth it.
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