Author Archives: hds

Thesis progress

While working on my thesis dissertation, I regularly commit changes to a code repository. This gives me peace of mind – I push the repository to a couple of different servers – and allows me to easily go back and … Continue reading

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Kitesurfing and Ninlil

Yesterday I went for my first Kitesurfing lesson. A present from Andrea for my birthday. It was absolutely fantastic. The first session was theory, then safety stuff, and then we got onto the beach with some kites and (on a … Continue reading

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Explain it simply

Given what I’m doing at the moment. Yesterday’s xkcd comic is a perfect fit. As the quote often attributed to Albert Einstein (I’m not sure whether he said it or not) goes: If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t … Continue reading

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The beginning of the end

Today I officially started writing my Ph.D. dissertation. That’s to say, I created a latex document, organised a bit of formatting and the structure for chapters and what-not. Then I actually starting writing. This was really just re-writing some work … Continue reading

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Spanish surnames

This is just a quick post about spanish (or perhaps “latino”) surnames. Following of from yesterday’s My eight surnames. I’ll call this a spanish thing, but it extends all spanish speaking latin american countries, as well as Portugal and Brazil … Continue reading

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My eight surnames

Yesterday, Andrea and I went to see the new spanish film, Ocho Apellidos Vascos (Eight Basque Surnames). Image source. An incredibly funny film, but with a lot of references that you need to have grown up here to understand. I … Continue reading

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Montserrat

Last Sunday, Andrea and I took a trip to Montserrat. The mountain in central Catalunya that’s so popular that it’s a (very common) girl’s name. We drove to the base of the mountain and took the cable car up to … Continue reading

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About talking to mathematicians

This week I read a couple of blog posts relating to mathematicians. The first is How to talk to a mathematician from Math with Bad Drawings (by Ben Orlin), and the second is titled Mathematicians are chronically lost and confused (and … Continue reading

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Starbound

A few weeks ago I discovered the game Starbound. It’s a new (as in not finished) platform adventure game by a developer called Chucklefish. It was released a bit before Christmas as a beta, which is to say that they’re … Continue reading

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The Silent Partner

Evan’s recent viral success was the final push that he needed to get his new web site off the ground. I am happy to announce that the-silent-partner.com is now live. I think the site looks great, thanks to design and … Continue reading

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