Humans vs. Robots: Showdown in Space
Some months ago, I reviewed a paper about the efficiency of human space exploration versus robotic space exploration. The question isn’t as simple as you might think. Read More …
Year: 2012
Extreme Email Management via GMail Filters
To follow up on my old blogpost http://cosmicrays.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/gmail-workflow/ I now have a refined method-much the same as in the original blog post only more of it: more filters, labels, and inboxes. I was reminded of this is a post TEDxZurich 2012 conversation about my email management techniques and as part of that conversation I did a few quick analytics on my Filter system and was inspired to create an infographic of the result. Read More …
Android vs. iOS development
circleof6 for Android is out now! Download and spread the word.
My first Android application was a real trip, and I’m extremely happy to have developed the exact same application under both iOS and Android to be in the unique position to make a fair comparison. Read More …
Cryptography course–the power of XOR
I took a Cryptography I course on coursera.org taught by Stanford’s Dan Boneh. The lectures are easy listening (I usually put on my wireless headphones while doing a household chore, and set my iPad somewhere convenient if I need to glance at the slide), although clocking in at about 2 hours a week, are certainly a bit of a commitment. The are broken into 5-20 minute chunks, the online system tracks which you have listened to already, and asks you 0-3 questions a lecture to make the whole process more interactive and to jolt you to attention if you’ve filtered out an important section. Read More …
circleof6 TED audition talk live
My TED 2013 audition talk on circleof6app.com went live today. It was an extremely tough story to tell, so please take the time to rate the talk or leave a comment if you take the time to watch it. That’s the easiest way you can help the project get more exposure.
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Higgs Boson
Yesterday was a big day for physics. A new particle was discovered, a boson, at the energy 126GeV, with every indication it is probably the much sought after Higgs. Read More …
Dynamic Bayesian Combination of Multiple Imperfect Classifiers
Using the new Voxcharta.org system, I was the only physicist at my institute to upvote this paper, Dynamic Bayesian Combination of Multiple Imperfect Classifiers (pdf), more in the realm of machine learning or computer science than traditional astrophysics or astronomy. As such I was nominated to discuss it at our weekly journal club. Here I give a brief review of concepts needed to follow the paper, and then go in depth into how we can use the opinions of multiple lay people as to whether an object is a supernova or not to achieve a highly accurate classification at the expert level. Read More …
Scientific Paper Reading, Voxcharta, Excellent Notation
I use the Stay Focused Chrome extension to block Wordpress, Google Reader, Hacker News, Twitter and Facebook at work, beyond 2 minutes of aggregate usage. Read More …
NASA Space Apps Challenge
Directly after coming back from Doha to Zürich, I got a quick 6hrs of sleep and took the train to Lausanne where I was a co-organizer of the NASA Space Apps Challenge sponsored by the Swiss Space Center, among others. We had over 30 people at the event, and 3 distinguished guest speakers and judges (including Dr. Prasenjit Saha from my institute, on crowd sourcing gravitational lensing measurements), and an action packed weekend. Read More …