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Working with dates and times in python
Having finished all the most urgent tasks at work and having started the year end vacation I decided to pick up my python learning on Datacamp again. I followed the course on working with dates and types in python which is part of their python programmer track. It was a nice introduction to the datetime library and how to use datetime objects in pandas. The nice thing about python is that for almost every task you can think of there is probably a library out there to do the heavy lifting for you. This is also the case for dates…
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Understanding the Universe. An introduction to physics and astrophysics, James B. Seaborn (ISBN 978-146126868-0, Springer)
James Seaborn has been teaching an introductory course for many years and this book is the translation into book form of that course. The book is intended for non science majors and teaches physics with an emphasis on topics and applications in astrophysics. I was curious to learn how that approach would work. The result is a physics course at the level of 6th grade high school but applying and illustrating the concepts from the first chapters to astronomy. The first chapters deal with Newton’s laws, uniform circular motion, energy conservation and the universal law of gravitation. This takes up…
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Command And Control, Eric Schlosser (ISBN 9780141037912, Penguin)
Command and Control is written by Eric Schlosser. I read his bestseller fastfood nation long ago and liked it a lot so when this book came out in 2014 I bought it and read it. It was a scary read at the time and this year while we were on holiday this summer I decided to read it again in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Having grown up during the Cold War and the nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the US I remember the relief when the Berlin Wall fell and the threat of nuclear…
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Barca. The rise and fall of the club that built modern football, Simon Kuper (ISBN 978-1780724744, Short Books)
This was really an enjoyable read. I don’t remember how exactly it ended up on my to read list but I must have read about it somewhere and as I used to enjoy watching Barcelona games on Dutch tv in the nineties I bought it and put it on the pile. Then a few weeks ago when the World Championship in Qutar started and I wasn’t going to watch a lot of the games due the continuous controversy around it (corruption, slave labour, …) I decided to read this book instead. I have to confess I didn’t ban watching the…
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First 550km with the Stromer ST3 Pinion
This week I reached the 550km mark on my new Stromer. I have it since mid October and due to some unforeseen circumstances I haven’t been in the office as much as expected so the kilometers have added up more slowly than normal. Still, I am now accustomed to the bike and have used it in bad weather without having to worry about the chain. I just get on and ride. Only part that suffers a bit from mud are the disc brakes so a bit of cleaning every now and then is needed there. When deciding on the model…
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Why I am not watching the 2022 World Cup Football
Ever since the 2022 edition was given to Qatar the decision has been publicly debated on and off. It all started with the dubious motivation to host the most important football tournament in a hot desert country with no football tradition to speak off. That got fixed by moving the tournament from the summer to the winter and by building giant air conditioned football stadiums. Likely not contributing positively in our struggle to keep climate change under control. Then there were the incidents with unsafe working conditions, deaths and ‘slave labour’ while building the stadiums. Then followed the illiberal standpoint…
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Brasserie de Abdijmolen
Went for an early dinner a few weeks ago on a Friday at Brasserie de Abdijmolen in de abdij van het park in Heverlee. The sun was shining but it was raining on and off so we decided to play it safe and sit inside even though some people were enjoying a drink outside. As we were early we could pick a table upstairs next to the window and enjoy the sunlight and view over the water. The terrace upstairs was closed because of the bad weather and it was good we sat inside as there were a couple of…
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Café-Restaurant Bourla
Two weeks ago we went to Antwerp to visit the recently reopened KMSKA. After the visit we walked along the river to the city centre and then went for dinner in Café-Restaurant Bourla. This is located behind the Bourla theatre on the Graanmarkt. It is located in an old luxurious building and when you enter the restaurant it feels like you step into another era. The interior adds to making the dinner experience a real night out. We were a bit early but decided to have a drink before we ordered our food. We were a party of 8 and…
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