My-Life on Jean-Etienne's blog

Moving from US to Belgium during a pandemic

Thu, 06 Aug 2020 19:13:34 +0000

We moved our family from the US (Maryland, just in case you didn’t know yet) to Belgium - no big deal. During the COVID-19 pandemic, in July-August 2020 - now we’re talking …

I wrote this post to document our journey. We were (and still are) extremely privileged to have been able to do this, in the conditions we did it. The journey is not over. I’ll update and continue to document it until we fall back into something more “normal” … [long post]

Programming Merit Badge presentation (2020)

Sun, 02 Feb 2020 04:29:08 +0000

This year, my elder son graduated from Cub Scouts to Scouts (time flies very fast!) and I signed up to be a counselor for Programming (and Public Health) in his troop.

Today, February 1st, 2020, was Merit Badge Day and I taught 6 scouts what is programming and the basics of programming in Python (and Scratch - but they all knew that already) (and nobody chose Public Health …).

I am now sharing my presentation and a few tips and tricks. Feel free to re-use, improve and give me any feedback to make it better.

Time commuting in Belgium

Mon, 06 Aug 2018 18:41:19 +0000

DISO1 - Data I Sit On, episode 1. This post is the first of a series of a few exploring data I collected in the past and that I found interesting to look at again … (I already posted about data I collected, see the Quantified Self tag on this blog)

Life is short and full of different experiences. One of the experiences I don’t specifically enjoy but is integral part of life is commuting. Although I tried to minimize commuting (mainly by choosing home close to the office) and benefit(ed) from good work conditions (flexible working hours, home working, etc.), a big change occurred when I took a new opportunity, in 2015, to work in the Belgian capital, Brussels.

Counting steps is the easiest way to reduce cardiovascular risk

Thu, 16 Feb 2017 01:42:00 +0000

After abandoning my Fitbit device in January because using it didn’t see improvement in my weight (see previous post), I was wondering if I could still measure my risk to develop cardiovascular diseases and other preventable chronic diseases (diabetes e.g.). So, still sitting at my desk (something I do for more than 8 hours a day in theory - probably more in practice), I looked into the ways to monitor my risk for these diseases …

Do you gain weight before moving to the USA?

Thu, 02 Feb 2017 04:33:30 +0000

I’ve been using several Fitbit devices since a few years and I decided to stop using them in 2017. My feeling (like many people experienced before) is that wearable devices don’t work. Yes, you’ve read correctly: I was a big supporter of wearables, following the adage “what you can’t measure you can’t manage”, but not anymore.

Why do I write that? What works then? And what does that have to do with the title?

Happy New Year 2017!

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 02:55:24 +0000

I wish you all a very happy new year 2017. This time of the year is when you usually do new resolutions. And, among others, I resolved to post more often new ideas and thoughts on at least one broad topics: quantified self.

Is it worth buying a coffee machine at work?

Tue, 15 Mar 2016 17:57:52 +0000

As I moved to a new office, I met new colleagues and one of them brought her own coffee machine and placed it on her desk. It’s a bright red Nespresso machine, a kind of statement that the owner doesn’t drink the free coffee offered in kitchenettes on all floors:

Given that the company has a professional Nespresso machine downstairs (i.e. similar quality of coffee but with capsules of different shapes), I was wondering if this is really worth buying. The calculation is simple …

Happy New Year 2015!

Wed, 31 Dec 2014 23:30:41 +0000

May your 2015 be filled with magic, dreams and good madness!

Movember 2014 is over, thanks for your support!

Fri, 12 Dec 2014 00:14:20 +0000

With more than 2,400€ collected, our team - Bordet’s angels - can be proud, for a first participation! We are 12th of more than 100 Belgian teams. One key learning is that the gold, old paper display still works better than anything else to raise money.

And it was fun for me, a bit itchy in the end. But with the right trimming tools, this goes away very quickly. Thanks for all my supporters ;-) - your support is worth a thousand thank-you!

Nearly halfway through Movember

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 23:42:38 +0000

We’re nearly halfway through Movember, the month we grow our moustache in order to raise awareness about men’s health. I am in Amsterdam, for a congress and this was the hardest day of the month so far: since 8am, nearly every single person I met said it didn’t look good. And this can be harsh when you talk with (potential) business partners! However, practically, when you have time, this is an unique opportunity to initiate discussions with others about prostate cancer.

Any free solution for the demise of Google Reader?

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:56:09 +0000

Last week Google announced it will shut down its Reader service. It is a web-based RSS reader. It therefore allows to be kept updated of news from around the net in a central location. I liked the service for 3 reasons (on top of the fact it’s free, 0$, to use):

It’s web-based, accessible from anywhere/everywhere with a simple browser;
It’s text-based, you can quickly scan headlines and use the powerful search function from Google;
It’s backed by an API so you can use it via different apps on different platforms and they all stay synchronised (the web/mobile version of Reader is not as efficient as the web/desktop version; hence the proliferation of apps using Reader as a backbone).

Of course it frustrated a lot of people, from scientists to consultants … to name a few only. People are looking for alternative ( you can do a search on Google while the Search service is still working). Feedly is cited very often as the next best alternative. However its nice, graphical interface conflicts with my second reason to like Google Reader: it’s text-based. The Old Reader looks also interesting, it is text-based but no apps on different platforms yet. But both are also proprietary and can be turned off (or changed to a pay-for-use model) at any moment :-(

Map of GAVI eligible countries in R

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 22:48:45 +0000

I was trying to reproduce the map of the GAVI Alliance eligible countries (btw I was surprised India is eligible - but that’s the beauty of relying on numbers only and not assumptions) in R. This is the original map (there are 57 countries eligible):

I started to use the R package rworldmap because it seemed the most appropriate for this task. Everything went fine. Most of the time was spent converting the list of countries from plain English to plain “ISO3” code as required (ISO3 is in fact ISO 3166-1 alpha-3). I took my source from Wikipedia.

Happy New Year 2013!

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 22:18:17 +0000

We wish you a very happy new year 2013!

I wish I were not that connected

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:15:43 +0000

Before:

We had a fixed phone line at home. We had a fixed phone line on our desk at the office. There was a letterbox in front of the house and a pigeon hole at some central location in the office. And we were not reachable when sleeping, when in meeting, when commuting, …

Now:

We have a fixed phone line at home. We have a fixed phone line on our desk at the office. We have a mobile phone in our pocket or connected to the hands-free system in the car. The computers and tablet are running Skype or another communication software that shows every contact if we are “available”, “busy” or “not to be disturbed”. There are still letterboxes and pigeon holes but also e-mails, instant messaging, … The fixed lines fall back on the mobile if there is no answer after 5 tones. We are reachable when sleeping, when in meeting, when commuting, … People call you when you don’t answer their e-mail after 5-10 minutes.

Pi in Pubmed

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:06:37 +0000

On March 14th, 2012 (3/14/2012), it was Pi day. According to Wikipedia, Pi (π) is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of any Euclidean circle’s circumference to its diameter. While others estimated π using Monte Carlo in R or declared π is wrong, I tried to see how many times the pi value is cited in Pubmed, a database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. And here are the results (please note the log y-axis):

Holi hai!

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:18:58 +0000

March 7th, 2012 is Holi! It is first a Hindu spring festival celebration but it is also known as the festival of colours. The main day is celebrated by people throwing scented powder and perfume at each other. Bonfires are lit on the eve of the festival ( more info on Wikipedia).

Now compare how a movie showed Holi in 1981 (" Silsila"):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZNTbobkg-I]

With a movie showing a Holi celebration in 2010 (" Action_Replayy"):

Chúc mừng năm mới!

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:01:15 +0000

In three days (Jan 23rd, 2012) it will be the Vietnamese Tết. This year is the year of the Dragon. Happy New Year!

For those interested there will be a celebration at Théâtre Marni in Brussels on January 28th afternoon. And BelVietnam is mentioning three celebrations in Brussels on January 21st, 29th and February 12th.

Photo credit: Dragon boats resting on Sông Hương river, Huế, Vietnam (from my photos on Flickr, licence CC-by-sa)

2012 will be the first year after the International Year of Chemistry

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:31:49 +0000

Indeed: 2011 was the International Year of Chemistry (IYC). But why IUPAC and UNESCO dedicated a year to that basic science? It was for two reasons: one looking at the past and one looking at the future.

Looking at the past, 2011 was the 100th anniversary of Marie Curie’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discovery of the elements radium and polonium. She was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize. And her discovery was very important for both the science in itself and its applications to health. Radium’s radioactivity seemed to contradict the principle of the conservation of energy. The discovery of radium allowed other great names in chemistry and physics like Rutherford to study the atom and radioactivity decay. In medicine, the radioactivity of radium allowed the development of radiation therapies, used to control or kill malignant cells in cancer treatment.

Happy New Year 2012!

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 23:08:30 +0000

I wish you a very happy New Year 2012! Lots of things happened since 6 years (since I started this blog) and lots of things happened in this last year too. I’m sure it is the same in your life. I hope you will have lots of new discoveries in 2012 as well as a healthy and strong life, full of happiness!

If I look back, the top 5 posts this year were:

TEDxBrussels in tweets and videos

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 23:10:57 +0000

TEDxBrussels is a local, self-organized event that brings a TED-like experience to Brussels. I already often mentioned videos and presentations from TED (for instance here, here or here). When I read that it will again be organized in Brussels in 2011 I decided to attend this edition. Here is a short summary of this intense day with my tweets and the just-released videos. It would be very time consuming to write about each and every talk. Here I will just highlight speakers I like the most (you can have a look at TEDxBrussels website for the complete list of speakers).

Happy Diwali 2011!

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:51:06 +0000

Happy Diwali 2011 … from my office! :)

By the way, I recently found some Maggi Masala Spice noodles in Brussels. I’m feeling like a student now ;)

Happy Independence Day 2011!

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:08:19 +0000

Today is the Indian Independence Day.

Photo credit: Boy holding Indian flag by myself on Flickr (CC-by-sa)

Calendar of events about India in Belgium

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 13:29:26 +0000

Although its presence in Belgium is more discreet than China or other European countries (for obvious reasons in the latter case), India has always something to show in Belgium. I decided to put some (most of?) events related to India in Belgium in a calendar so everyone can be aware of them. Here you are:

[googleapps domain=“www” dir=“calendar/embed” query=“height=350&wkst=2&hl=en_GB&bgcolor=%23FFFFFF&src=09d2i9naunu5fpkm6sdeqsikvs%40group.calendar.google.com&color=%238D6F47&ctz=Europe%2FParis” width=“500” height=“350” /]

Protest in Happyland!

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 22:08:40 +0000

The other day, I was the witness of a demonstration in Happyland!

It all started with Mr. Crab who had something interesting to show:

And then people started to gather around him very quickly:

And he was soon surrounded by many people (moreover, Duplo’s came to the rescue):

Managing photos

Sun, 15 May 2011 16:22:42 +0000

I am still managing my photos based on directories named by date + event (e.g. “110515-person” contains photos from the person and taken today). I tried Shotwell, saw Picasa or iPhoto working but I was not really convinced. Maybe I like to be closer to the file structure (and it’s enough for my needs) and don’t like too much the idea of being dependent on a software and its internal database.

Today is not World Epilepsy Day

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 22:15:00 +0000

I continue in the serie of “World x Day” and for a reason still unknown even to myself, I thought today was the World Epilepsy Day (it’s in fact on March 26th, called Purple Day). But, anyway, epilepsy is “a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. […] Epilepsy is usually controlled, but cannot be cured with medication, although surgery may be considered in difficult cases.” ( Wikipedia).

Out of curiosity, I was looking for mathematical models for the description of the epidemiology of epilepsy. But unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything. Probably because epilepsy is not an infectious disease for which tentative mathematical models have more predictive power (in terms of the population scale and time scale). The epidemiology of noninfectious diseases is primarily a study of risk factors associated with the chance of developing the disease. Nothing very fancy for a mathemarical model! ;-) (But if you find something, feel free to share! Thanks in advance!)

Chúc mừng năm mới!

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:44:01 +0000

Happy Vietnamese New Year!

The Joy of Stats

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 22:05:08 +0000

Here is yet another interesting video from Prof. Hans Rosling :-) From the video: “Believe me, there is nothing boring about statistics, especially not today when we can make the data seen”. For the rest, watch the video …

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/oOOmqHzkkOo?fs=1&hl=en_US

Btw, it is also featuring David McCandless whose work was already shown here before. Re- :-)

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Fri, 24 Dec 2010 17:42:03 +0000

A few years ago (2006!), I wished Merry Christmas with a 12 days of Christmas from Boymongoose.

This year, I wish you some wonderful holidays (under the snow for those in Northern Europe) and a Merry Christmas with again a 12 days of Christmas song. This time, it’s from Straight No Chaser ;-) Enjoy!

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/2Fe11OlMiz8?fs=1&hl=en_US

Installing Fedora 14 on a Toshiba Satellite L670-10K

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 01:12:05 +0000

No issue, installation even smoother than the installation of Fedora 13 on the same machine, last month.

Happy Diwali!

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 23:17:07 +0000

Happy Software Freedom Day 2010!

Sat, 18 Sep 2010 21:29:56 +0000

Today, September 18th 2010, it’s Freedom Software Day all over the world. It is an annual worldwide celebration of Free Software, a public education effort with the aim of increasing awareness of Free Software and its virtues, and encouraging its use.

On the SFD website, there isn’t a lot of events registered for Belgium. There is only one, in fact, in Oostende ( LiLiT is doing an install party in Liege but I can’t see any reference to SFD; still, it’s a good initiative!). Well, a SFD on September 18th in Belgium might not have been a good idea if the goal is to increase awareness of Free Software: more than half of the population is celebrating the Walloon Region or preparing a Sunday without car in Brussels (while others are just looking for a government since April 2010!). So, at a personal level, I decided to give Ubuntu a try ( 10.04 LTS).

Les bien étranges manières de Test-Achats

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 17:59:09 +0000

(Post in French regarding the strange manners of a French-speaking Belgian consumer association: Test-Achats)

Test-Achats est une association de défense des consommateurs belges ainsi que le nom de leur magazine mensuel. Je veux lire un de leurs articles sur leur site web. C’est impossible, il faut s’abonner. Payer pour lire un article me paraît normal (une personne a travaillé pour écrire cet article). Mais il aurait été intéressant de pouvoir acheter l’article à l’unité plutôt que de devoir s’abonner pour pouvoir avoir un code d’accès aux archives et seulement lire 1 article (vente liée ?). Passons.

Summer in Scotland

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 21:26:51 +0000

We are back from Scotland and it was really amazing. “Awesome!” (as they would say in another part of the world). You can’t imagine how beautiful is the landscape, how rich is the biodiversity (although we were in the West, where they said “God had no earth left when he created Scottish Highlands”) and how kind are people.

We spent lovely nights at the Rowantree Cottage in Arrochar. It was the first time Neel called someone “The Gentleman” (Bill Thompson) and “The Lady” (Irene Thompson), our lovely hosts. And Charlie the cat was also very kind and patient with Neel.

Thank you for the bread

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 20:18:11 +0000

First evening after first day of work after holidays, we decided to keep the dinner simple: rice and sandwiches (“bread” for The Little One).

As usual, he couldn’t easily find sleep (but finds every possible excuses not to sleep). When it’s my turn to go and comfort him, he finally decides he’ll go to sleep with Bow-bow, his plush dog …

Dad - Good night, Neel

Son - Good night, papa

Tetris wall

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:59:34 +0000

Dear wife,

I agree to have the decoration you want everywhere in our new home. You can have all the furniture and appliances you want in the kitchen. I’m OK if all the shelves with my computer books are in the basement. OK too if you don’t want to see the file server in the living room. Agreed: I’ll put back Windows on your laptop. But …

But I absolutely want one wall painted like these:

Every year the same?

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:55:14 +0000

Every year, same resolutions. And same end? As I did previous years, I promised to myself to update this blog more often but it seems “daily life” events caught me up.

This year, I resigned from my position at Callataÿ & Wouters ( C&W). A lot can be said and written but overall, it was an interesting experience. I’ve learned a lot about software development and how to manage people (or not). Finally, I’ve met some very interesting people. Let’s close this chapter now.

Happy new year 2010!

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 01:28:02 +0000

Powerplant screensaver

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:20:13 +0000

Do you know your local powerplant chimney can be a screensaver? (movie taken in October 2009 in the South of Brussels, Belgium)

[youtube

&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0]

March 25th, 2009: Document Freedom Day

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:01:14 +0000

This 25th of March, 2009 is Document Freedom Day. Although it’s not as important as starvation in parts of the world, the economic crisis or the continuous deterioration of our privacy and civil rights (in UK and elsewhere), it’s good to take a break and think about our use of electronic documents in our everyday live. Let me just give you an example …

A few days ago, I was trying to retrieve data from an experiment. As a well-formatted student, I stored my data in a then state-of-the-art, proprietary statistical software my dear statistical professor taught me to use. As long as I had this software, it was fine. Now that my university stopped to pay the license, that I didn’t installed this software on my new computer, I am stuck with a serie of 1, 0 and other delirious characters in that file. Does that mean I lost all my data? Yes.

Welcome again!

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:31:28 +0000

Hi, and welcome back on my blog.

Following the progressive migration from epot.org to jepoirrier.net, you landed on the new address for my blog: http://www.jepoirrier.net/blog ( new RSS feed here).

The migration process was easy, thanks to the WordPress eXtended RSS that contains posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags. But there are two things left I wanted to keep: existing users and images which links are hard-coded in various posts.

Happy Diwali 2008 in Belgium!

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:43:09 +0000

Diwali, the Indian Festival of Lights, is under way in India. But if you live in Belgium, there will be at least three occasions to celebrate!

In Antwerpen, first, on October 29th, morning.

Then in Leuven, on November 1st evening, organised by the association of Indian students in Leuven.

Finally in Ghent, on November 3rd evening, organised by the Indo-Belgian Association of Ghent.

Edit on November 1st: Bharatiya Samaj is also organising Diwali in Bruxelles on November 8th.

"Word processors" are not meant to be usable

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:03:01 +0000

(… at least for large documents)

Two week-ends ago, I spend a whole day trying to apply a consistent style to a thesis. I spent hours trying to be obeyed by a word processor because it would systematically change the style of some element, somewhere in the 100-or-so pages. Including figures was also a nightmare: we had to keep an eye on the (limited) memory of the computer (otherwise we got unexpected screen freeze, a lot of noise from the hard disk (paging), etc). Generating a bibliography was also another daunting task, even with the use of a dedicated reference manager …

We moved

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:51:10 +0000

Everything is in the title. All the boxes and other furniture are all right (their owner too). Now my journeys to work will be much shorter and I’ll be able to resume my previous evening activities :-)

Smoking terrorism

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:03:23 +0000

Despite the fact I have smokers amongst my friends, I couldn’t resist to rant a little bit about smokers (“terrorism” is currently a buzzword in Belgium and in the world, so I put it in the title). While some smokers I know understand that " One’s freedom stops where others’ freedom starts", I am about to think that many of the smokers are still thinking they are the only ones on this planet and, if one dares to complaint, they will grumble, act as if they are victim of some sort of segregation or, worse, retaliate.

Three restaurants in Germany

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:20:40 +0000

A small post to report three very interesting restaurants in Germany. The first one is in Berlin, on Potsdamer Platz: Ristorante Essenza ( website). It’s a very stylish and very classy Italian restaurant. The decor is very sober, the ceiling is very high and I really liked the rugged wall with small cases for different wine bottles. The (English-speaking) service is impeccable and waiters are very tactful. But we don’t enter a restaurant only to enjoy the place … Food in Ristorante Essenza is also delicious, pizzas are served in good proportions and sea food is really nicely cooked. I didn’t have the opportunity to taste their wines (by choice; but they looked all very fine on the menu). Finally, icing on the cake, prices are really, really affordable for this advanced standing (Italian restaurants in Belgium will have many lessons to take in order to beat that standard).

Season's greetings

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 12:53:42 +0000

Conforming to the current trend ;-) I’m wishing you, reader of this blog, a very happy new year 2008! A lot of things will happen in 2008 and I hope to be able to write more often on this blog (no, it’s not a new year’s resolution).

Diwali in Leuven

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:19:19 +0000

Diwali in a major Indian festival known as the “Festival of Lights”. As usual, ISAL is inviting you to its annual Diwali celebration party. It will take place on November 10th, 2007 in Leuven and everyone is welcome. More details here.

Using free fonts if you work at a University

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:21:28 +0000

In the Free Software Movement, we believe computer users should have the freedom to change and redistribute the software that they use. The “free” in free software refers to freedom: it means users have the freedom to run, modify and redistribute the software. Free software contributes to human knowledge, while non-free software does not. Universities should therefore encourage free software for the sake of advancing human knowledge, just as they should encourage scientists and other scholars to publish their work.

Some news

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:05:05 +0000

Things are better now: Nandini is back, ankle is better (not 100% though), parents-in-law moved into their new home and all the family is fine :-)

Time is running out ...

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 10:10:51 +0000

We are already on July 8th, 2007! :-0

Belgian finance public service website :-(

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 10:08:50 +0000

I was looking for a simple info on the Belgian finance public service website: the address of their office in Liege. I know it’s rue Paradis but I also need opening hours and a general contact phone number. I can tell you this website is really crappy! First, when you arrive on the website, you are overwhelmed by links, info, text everywhere and, of course, the photo of the Finance minister. Now it will take you at least 30 seconds to know where to look. Then, it’s impossible to easily find an address ; I didn’t even find it at all! I tried their “search engine”: no result. Their site map takes ages to load (with no result, of course; it won’t be funny otherwise). When you try to click on most services on the left, you launch a new website, completely different from the main one (still no sign of the address). I guess they don’t want to be contacted …

Introduction aux Logiciels Libres

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 00:11:22 +0000

AprÃ¨s ma prÃ©sentation d’hier Ã la soirÃ©e du Liege Linux Team, j’ai placÃ© ma prÃ©sentation en ligne : " Introduction aux Logiciels Libres" (ou directement : fichier PDF, 1.8Mo). Tout commentaire ou amÃ©lioration possible est le(la) bienvenu(e) !

Edit (a little bit later): since I usually write in English here, I translated my presentation in English. It’s here: " Introduction to Free Software" (PDF, 1.9Mb).

Snownews

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 05:52:02 +0000

Taking advantage of my laptop crash, I went back to some text-mode tools ( vim, mutt, …): they are fast, easy to use (once you read at least the introduction section in the manual) and reliable (text files are more easily recovered after corruption than binary blobs). I also tested and adopted Snownews.

Snownews is a text-mode RSS newsreader. Installing it is very easy: download the archive, and type the usual “./configure; make; make install”. Since I’m following some blogs written in French, I configured Snownews with Unicode support: “./configure –charset=UTF-8”.

A voté !

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 11:55:14 +0000

As every Belgian citizen, I voted today for our legislative bodies ( Chambre et Sénat). As always, I was confronted to the same problem: electronic voting. Technically, I’ve no problem to understand and use the system: it’s an ethical problem. I don’t know if my vote is correctly written on the card, even with all the given guarantees and technical details (you can test such a voting machine here or watch a demo of the Belgian system, both in French). Personally, I saw two problems:

No television since a week

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 21:56:10 +0000

There isn’t any television in our flat since a week. What a relief! No more stupid TV series, no more political soap operas ( federal elections this Sunday), … It also means more time for real work and real relaxation :-)

Jet lag

Fri, 25 May 2007 12:18:55 +0000

I’m back from an excellent trip to Baltimore and Washington. Now, I’m trying to cope with the jet lag and the huge amount of work left here. :-)

Mapping my ride

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 23:20:44 +0000

Nearly 2 months ago, I got a GPS tracker. I discovered its antenna is sufficiently sensitive to work in my pocket so I took it on my Saturday morning bike ride. Back home, I was able to retrieve data from the tracker in various formats. What can I do with this data? Find the total distance I rode, of course!

I am lazy ;-) so I decided to use the Kompass track file since it’s only a CSV text file (I should have used the GPX file format but parsing XML is still more difficult for me than a plain text file). With a rather simple Python script, I was able to store all the latitudes and longitudes in a collection of objects. But, hey, how do I compute the distance from longitudes and latitudes?

Proton transactions history

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 23:20:55 +0000

Did you know that the last 3 transactions you made with a Proton card (the Belgian electronic purse) are stored in the chip? I simply used the card reader/challenge solver given by my bank to have access to the online banking system. Usually, you press on the “M1” button. If you press on the “Info” button, you’ll get the last 3 transactions you made with Proton, the reader EPCI number, battery level and embedded software version.

New website design

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 19:40:45 +0000

Small news to share my amazement for CSS: changing the design of my website took me around 15 minutes (based on a Ganesh Gunasegaran’s initial template). The content didn’t change. Only the way “semantic elements” are displayed was changed (+ some minor adaptations, of course). Et voilÃ! :-)

Next step: adapt this blog design to my website design (I won’t do it right now).

About iPod+DRM

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 11:11:18 +0000

I don’t understand why people are buying and offering Apple iPods to their family members. In fact, offering an iPod is like telling you: “Here is a costly electronic device I’m giving you, it’s cool thanks to huge marketing efforts but hey, in 5 - 10 years (or immediately if you lose your player), you won’t be able to read any music files you bought anymore: it has DRM inside. Moreover, when this one will be old, you’ll be forced to buy an Apple player to keep listening to music you bought”. In short: “I am offering you a beautiful trap”.

How do I handle my bibliographic data?

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 05:38:27 +0000

In science, you have to justify nearly all your assertions and this is done by citing another scientific paper, called a “reference”. With practise and advices of some people, I arrived to a satisfactory references management system I’ll explain below. My “problem” is that in the academic world where I work nearly everyone use EndNote or Reference Manager, two proprietary reference management software for MS-Windows. And I want to use the simple yet powerful BibTeX system.

Holi hai!

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:31:18 +0000

Holi is an annual and popular Indian spring festival. Although the playful throwing of the coloured powders won’t be allowed in the college, ISAL is inviting you to its annual Holi celebration party. As usual, it will take place in Leuven and everyone is welcome. More details here.

PhD photo tour

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 02:16:06 +0000

When I began my Ph.D., I don’t know if Flickr existed but, at least, I didn’t know it existed. So I didn’t know about this PhD vs Girlfriend comparison nor these work/motivation/courbature vs time charts. I didn’t get a canned Ph.D. where all the techniques are already used since a long time in the lab but then it would have been too easy! Finally, after my defense, if I have the opportunity to go to the USA, I’ll get this smart car (or the plate, at least).

Tagged

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 01:50:18 +0000

I was surprised being tagged by Chris. One day, it could be interesting to study how and why people are making (web) links to each other (see the blogroll on the left, for example), what are the motivations, etc. Here, I posted a comment about recyclable bags on his blog.

Apparently, Jeff Pulver started this “blog-tag” game “in which bloggers are sharing five things about themselves that relatively few people know, and then tagging five other bloggers to be it”. I like the way he calls it a “Virtual Cocktail Party”. Is it useful? I don’t think so :-D

Have not blogged for ages

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 21:13:25 +0000

I am still alive. I am very busy. And things will not calm down soon: I have to finish my thesis. Nearly all my other projects are paused. Although writing entries are not time consuming, I am not sure I’ll be able to update my blog with (imho) interesting news, projects and software.

Dhrupad concert (announcement)

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 00:48:57 +0000

In the context of the Bozar Festival India, my father-in-law (Philippe Falisse) will give a dhrupad concert with the Gundecha Brothers on Wednesday 17th of January 2007 at 20:00. The concert will take place at the Planetarium of the Royal Observatory of Belgium ( access plan). :-)

Personal storage is the future

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 20:48:31 +0000

While everyone (interested in this topic) is looking at internet applications, using and abusing of buzzwords like " Web 2.0", " mashup" or " Ajax", I think the next wave of cool software applications will be related to personal, local storage and organisation of documents.

Of course, you have > 2Gb of storage in most free e-mail services. Of course, you have broadband access at home, at work and nearly everywhere you go. Of course, you can watch movies on the web. Of course, you can share photos on the web. Of course, you can download songs and books on the web. Etc.

Happy holidays and new year 2007!

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 00:40:59 +0000

It’s a bit late to wish you a merry Christmas (if you celebrate this event). But it’s still time to wish you a happy new year 2007. :-) And now, a little video-clip/remake from Boymongoose (some background about India needed).

youtube owK5tHjL0aE

You like Indian self-satire? Here is Welcome to the Laddu shop (after 50 Cent “Candy shop”) and Curry n Spice girl (after Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl”) (a lot of background about India needed). OK now, back to real work …

Wonderful concert of Shahid Parvez @ Bozar

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 22:05:48 +0000

This evening, we attended a wonderful concert of Shahid Parvez at Bozar. He plays the sitar and was accompanied by tabla and tanpura. As usual, it’s better to hear a live concert rather than a CD. I was also delighted by the games played between the tabla player and Shahid Parvez :-D No photos since I didn’t dare to disturb the performance.

Nice Christmas celebration in Leuven

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 22:49:57 +0000

On Saturday, we participated in the ISAL Christmas party. I did a 15 minutes presentation on Belgium for our Indian friends, Shreyas did a mime game (with some very funny participations) and Alam came dressed up like Santa Claus :-)

Some photos are available on the ISAL photo album.

Kuchipudi at Bozar

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 22:57:10 +0000

This evening, we went to see Mallika Sarabhai dancing Kuchipudi at Bozar. Kuchipudi is a dance from South India. It looks a little bit like Bharatanatyam (with my non-specialists eyes) but with more contact with the audience (or is it the way it was performed by these specific dancers?).

I think that if you want to see only one dance from India, you have to see Bharata Natyam. If you want a gentle introduction to Indian dance, Kuchipudi can be more accessible.

Spice corner at Bozar Bazaar

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 21:52:16 +0000

Yesterday, we went for the Bazaar organised by the Bozar. While people were selling Indian bibelots and food ( yummy!), Nandini set up a “Spice Corner” where she exposed and explained everything about Indian spices (you could even taste Pan Masala!). She had quite a success but, unfortunately for some visitors, Nandini did not sell anything. Our famous Peter also had a table for Rose vzw that was represented by Swapna (they were still there on Sunday).

ISAL Christmas party on Dec.16th

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 14:49:42 +0000

ISAL is inviting you to the annual Christmas party, full of spices and fun.

It will be held on Saturday, December 16th 2006 (19.00 hour = 07.00 PM), at Holy Spirit College, Naamsestraat 40, B-3000, Leuven. You can find the menu (veg and non-veg) and other details on the Christmas party webpage.

Rose Annual Dinner

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 13:12:14 +0000

On Saturday, we went for the Rose Dinner 2006. Rose is an independent not-for-profit organization run by volunteers. Its mission is to support and foster primary education for children from economically disadvantaged rural communities in developing countries (mainly India), primarily by improving basic facilities in primary schools. Yesterday, its impressive team of cooks offered us great food (thanks Swapna), there was a good atmosphere. It’s good to see that people that actually do something in an effective manner. :-)

How to remove files ending with '~'

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 11:20:15 +0000

The vim text editor always produce a file ending with a tilde (~) as a kind of backup of the currently modified file (this is a default behaviour). On my MS-Windows machine (Pentium M, 1.73GHz), I was tired of manually deleting these files so I first used the “Search” option in the File Explorer. After some time, I got tired to wait for the results.

So I wrote a Python and a batch scripts to find all these files. They are going much faster than the Search GUI. The first time I launch them, they are still going slow (but faster than a GUI). As you can see in the graph below, the second time I launch these scripts, they went at least 10 times faster. I’m not a specialist but I guess it has something to do with caching at the OS level. For the first run, the batch script is 20% slower than the Python script. After that, the Python script is 50% slower than the batch script (but between 3.7s and 5.6s, the difference is not big).

White & Nerdy

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 16:26:35 +0000

It’s Sunday, let’s rest a little bit … I really liked this Al Yancovic’s video " White & Nerdy". To fully understand it, you need some basic technical background and a friend that looks like the white & nerdy guy in the video. Because, of course, you are not like him ;-)

" Dont’ download this song" is also great (some background about DRM is welcome).

" It’s all about Pentiums" is not my music style but some lyrics are good.

Diwali 2006 @ ISAL

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 12:21:56 +0000

On Saturday, after the Kolam ritual, we went for Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, organized by the ISAL. It was very nice to meet people we already met on previous ISAL “functions” and to talk with them. And I think that ISAL is attracting more and more people, both of Indian origin (working in Belgium, for example) and of non-Indian origin: this time, people from Belgium, China, Poland, Russia, Spain, etc. were there. As usual, I took some photos.

Kolam ritual @ Bozar

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 12:14:14 +0000

On Saturday, we went to see a Kolam ritual at Bozar. Kolam is the designs the Pulluvans are drawing on the floor for a lot of occasions, using multicoloured sands, rice and spices. Here, it was supposed to be a ritual for a family (“supposed” only because it was a demonstration for the public and no family was specifically involved). In this ritual, two women in a trance erase the drawings and answer questions the family is asking. The whole ceremony is linked to snakes that are supposed to have been in Kerala before men and that should be pleased in order to peacefully live together.

Town and province elections in Belgium

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 21:09:59 +0000

Today, we were required to vote for the Belgian town and province elections (voting is mandatory in Belgium). A certain percentage of polling stations used an electronic voting technique. After identification, a person gives you a (presumably blank) magnetic card, you enter a voting booth, insert the card into a computer and, with a stylus, you point on a screen. The screen mimics a paper used in the old-fashioned way of voting: white circles on the left of a candidate’s name. After you voted, the computer gives your card back and you simply put it in a ballot box. If you want to know more about potential problems with electronic voting, you can look at Poureva, Recul dÃ©mocratique and the Wikipedia article about electronic voting, e.g..

Part of wish list for Christmas ;-)

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 00:47:35 +0000

Since a few months, I am telling myself that I need a new mobile phone to replace my old Nokia 3410 (battery is nearly dead, some keys are not working all the time, etc.). Yesterday, Trolltech, the company behing Qt, announced the shipping of a green Linux-based mobile phone in September 2006. I don’t know if it will be a true product or “only” a development tool (a kind of prototype for developers). But I know that I want one if it’s available.

Happy Independence Day!

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 14:39:50 +0000

Today, 15th of August, is the Independence Day of India. Happy Independence Day!

Picture from ISAL

Today, the Indian Embassy in Belgium held a very small ceremony (but I was in my lab at that moment ; MS-Word invitation). I guess it is/was celebrated all over India ( more pictures on the Times of India website).

By the way, Bozar are organizing an India Festival from October 2006 to January 2007. You’ll enjoy expositions, listen to music, see theatre plays, listen to literature, watch cinema and dance, both from old-style India and from modern India. If I have to pinpoint one event, it will be the Dhrupad concert where my father-in-law will sing with the Gundecha Brothers ( dhrupad on Wikipedia). It will be on Wednesday 17.01.2007 at 20:00. But, of course, there will be many more great artists from India …

Life isn't sweet all the time

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 07:48:38 +0000

Especially when one loses a beloved aunt …

Glimpses of India at IMEC

Sun, 25 Jun 2006 21:12:49 +0000

This Friday (June 23rd), we went to IMEC, a research center in nanoelectronics and nanotechnology (in Leuven). We weren’t there for the technology but because they organised an afternoon with Indian dances, songs, etc. We were only able to attend the last few dances but we met people from ISAL (I am tempted to add: “as usual”). It was nicely done with posters explaining some Indian traditions, huge flat screens showing Bollywood dances and food (of course). Looking for more informations on their website, I see that they have a bioelectronics section where they are studying neurons interactions with electronic chips :-) (a.o.). Unfortunately, there isn’t any jobs for biologists in this department for the moment.

Associative memory

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 10:01:06 +0000

Sunday, we went to a restaurant with my in-laws. They used to go there since a long time and they personally know the restaurant owner. Each time they eat there, it’s an opportunity to chat about the respective families ; so, when my wife is with her parents, the owner remembers what my wife is doing in life. But, since a few months, we went there three or four times alone (i.e. just my wife and me) and the owner never recognised my wife.

What about recruitment companies?

Mon, 08 May 2006 21:40:15 +0000

I am slowly beginning to look for a job ; at least, for what I’ll do after my Ph.D. (there is still a lot of work in order to finish it!) (some people find that I am too slow at this quest for a job). I worked hard to develop the behavioural lab but I think that I wouldn’t be able to continue in this field (behavioural science doesn’t get a lot of funding). Anyway, I have some other people to see before I perhaps decide to reject this career option for/by myself.

Why cream is important on top of coffee?

Mon, 01 May 2006 23:35:42 +0000

Not because it makes a beautiful “moustache” when we drink the coffee (as I told a Nespresso commercial) but to keep the coffee aroma inside the cup (as he told me, later).

This short line to say that the week-end was full of “things to do” and these “things” kept me away from real work. We went to Spa Balmoral for a grant interview for my wife, we went to Brussel for Bharati the show, we spent a delightful, sunny afternoon with my parents and we spent some time at the usual, annual Falisse cousins meeting (and it was also a pleasure to meet them all). Therefore, I am not sure to be able to do everything I planned in due time.

kalayatra ...

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 23:52:46 +0000

The Indian Students’ Association of Leuven warmly invites you to experience the magic of Indian music and dances! It will be on May, 17th, 2006, at P. De Somer Aula, in Leuven (Deberiotstraat, 24).

(And, by the way, it’s Nandini -my wife- that drew the poster ;-))

Nice addresses for holidays

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 23:29:41 +0000

After one year of hard work, we finally took some holidays. We spent three days in Middelkerke, at Hotel Were-di. It’s a nice hotel, clean and small. It’s not too far from the beach and the city is much less crowded that other big cities on the Belgian coast. The restaurant on the ground floor is nice, food is good but I still don’t understand the need to pay so much for the “nouvelle cuisine” (I know: I am a greedy fellow).

A new Jabber ID

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 23:06:47 +0000

I’ve recently learned that the Jabber.org server was an experimental one but I was too lazy to change my Jabber ID. Now that the Jabber.org server is down (apparently since 23.00, Belgian time), I am forced to change. My new Jabber ID is “jepoirrier at jabber.fr”. I will still use the old one (“jepoirrier at jabber.org”) but I will gradually switch all my contacts to this new ID.

BTW, the Jabber.org status can be found here. The Jabber.fr server is hosted by APINC and its status are here.

I own a city!

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 13:07:13 +0000

Well … a city has the same name as mine: Poirrier, in North Haiti (maps from Falling rain and Nona). :-) Now I’m sure this will brighten your days!

Seen on tv: "Last Witness" from Chang-ho Bae

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 02:22:42 +0000

Just a small post to say that I liked the film “Last Witness” from Chang-ho Bae (Korea, 2001 ; reviews here, here and also in French). It was shown this night on Arte TV. In one phrase, this film follows police detective Ho’s investigation on murders linked with the past war of Korea (do not look at the reviews if you don’t want to know the end of the main plot). (photo from Arte)

Présentations "Messagerie instantanée" et "OOo Impress" aux Namur Linux Days 2006

Sun, 19 Mar 2006 00:42:23 +0000

Les Namur Linux Days avaient pour objectifs de prÃ©senter les applications libres, sous GNU/Linux et disponibles pour l’utilisateur final, leur degrÃ© d’utilisabilitÃ©, leur Ã©tat d’avancement et leur diversitÃ©.

Ma premiÃ¨re prÃ©sentation Ã©tait consacrÃ©e Ã la messagerie instantanÃ©e sous GNU/Linux (dont Jabber !) et vous pouvez la tÃ©lÃ©charger ici (page reprenant toute une sÃ©rie d’informations dont la prÃ©sentation en PDF).

Ma seconde prÃ©sentation Ã©tait consacrÃ©e Ã OpenOffice.org Impress. Cette page reprend plus d’informations ainsi que la prÃ©sentation Ã tÃ©lÃ©charger.

ISAL will celebrate Holi on 11th March

Sun, 05 Mar 2006 02:03:04 +0000

The Indian Students Association of Leuven (ISAL) will celebrate Holi on the 11th of March 2006, in Leuven ( more info soon). Holi is an annual Hindu spring festival, aka. festival of colors ( article from Wikipedia). Although it has Hindu roots, Holi is now celebrated by people with all religions (even by people without religion). It will be a good occasion to meet other young Indians (students or not) in Belgium, eat good food :-) and maybe play with colors. Of course, you are welcome; just drop a line to the Office Bearers to say you’ll come.

Carpool for FOSDEM (from Liege, on Saturday)

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 00:07:13 +0000

FOSDEM is the annual Belgian meeting of free software developers. Like in 2005, I would only be able to go there on Saturday (Sunday, we are preparing experiments for Monday, in the lab). A car will thus do the journey from Liege to Bruxelles, on Saturday morning (8.00-8.30) and it will come back in the evening (at around 18.00-19.00, except if we stop in a nice Indian restaurant in Leuven). There are 2 or 3 seats left. If you are interested, please contact me.

Why do we need to stress?

Tue, 07 Feb 2006 10:32:02 +0000

Yesterday evening, I watch “Le Voyage des femmes de ZartalÃ©” (ZartalÃ© women’s journey), a film from Claude MouriÃ©ras, on Arte TV ( description in French). We didn’t initially plan to watch it. But it was worth. In the Afghan village of ZartalÃ©, half of the community suffers from tuberculosis. There is only one small hospital nearby (a journey of at least a couple of hours). Classes are given in the fields by the mullah. The film depicts the calm conflicts between traditional values and modern ones (medications -vs- prayers, illiteracy -vs- literacy, …) and the importance (or influence, if you like) of religion.

A lot of work

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 16:53:40 +0000

I have quite a lot of work. Therefore, I don’t have much time to post here. However, some days ago, I found this cool “ad” in another lab:

The first time I saw this one, I thought one can buy alkaloids, fatty acids, etc. for 0.3 - 0.65 euros from there. But, I quickly understood that it was not the case: these are parts of notes you can buy. ;-)

Sales ...

Sat, 07 Jan 2006 21:41:13 +0000

I spent the whole afternoon in shopping malls and fashion boutiques. Now I know that sales are giving me headache … Am I becoming old or is it a normal reaction to heat, crowd, noise, smoke, etc.?

GNU/Linux installation and usage: prejudices are hard to fight

Mon, 26 Dec 2005 12:07:05 +0000

Regarding GNU/Linux installation and usage, prejudices are still hard to fight (at least in my environment). Yesterday, we had the usual Christmas dinner with some friends and family. At one moment, talks went on technology, computers, peer-to-peer, etc. One of the boys just bought an Apple Powerbook and his wife got a laptop PC from her work (MS-Windows only, of course). We ask them to put GNU/Linux or, at least to try free software. For their general usage, OpenOffice.org (writer, calc and impress), The Gimp, FireFox, Thunderbird, … are sufficient. They don’t need more: specific applications they might use are already on dedicated computers in the laboratory.

Where am I? - Où suis-je ?

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 00:29:09 +0000

If you used to see me on MSN or Yahoo!, there is a risk I won’t be there anymore. I’ll now try to only use the free Jabber protocol. If you want to know more about jabber, please have a look at the Jabber overview. Clients (software) are available for MS-Windows, Linux, MacOS, etc. ; see here for a list of software (with some of them, you will even still be able to chat with your MSN and Yahoo! contacts). My Jabber ID is jepoirrier at jabber.org.

No network at work

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 16:27:56 +0000

Today, internet was down from 8.30 to 15.40 (I don’t know the reason). We were able to work on the local network but not further. No mail, no web surfing, no chat, nothing. This gave us the opportunity to work hard :-) Soon after the “disaster”, I looked for incidents on verious support websites. I didn’t find anything. But I do find some interesting graphs about the internet connection. For example: Of course, this link is completely useless if the connection is down (since we wouldn’t be able to access it). And, anyway, it’s again a geek-only concern.

My webcam is working (again)!

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 02:28:48 +0000

My webcam is finally working with Fedora Core 3. Thanks to Luc Saillard’s page on Philips USB Webcam Driver for Linux, I was able to download and put a new module for my webcam (a Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000). I first tested it with GnomeMeeting and it worked fine. Thanks to camE, I was able to take this snapshot (and get rid of any unnecessary GUI ; snapshot is a reduced version of what I get).

Liege is a top criminal city (following an european urban audit)

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 21:47:05 +0000

Following an urban audit from the European Commission, Liege (the city where I am living) is one of the top criminal city in Europe ( detailed results here)! In 2001, they counted 256 crimes for 1000 inhabitants. In Belgium, Bruxelles has 153 crimes and Charleroi, a city one often refers as a mafia city has only 144 crimes for 1000 inhabitants. Even big capital cities like London has a lower scores than Liege (146) …

Late work, hard work

Thu, 24 Nov 2005 22:37:09 +0000

What is Grid Computing?

Mon, 21 Nov 2005 06:09:02 +0000

I’ve recently discovered that a grid computing service was available at the University of Liege (where I am working), inside the Alma-Grid structure. The “Alma-grid” name is quite confusing since, if I understand correctly, they offer lab solutions for genomics, proteomics, etc., and bioinformatics is only a part of it.

A Grid is a network of many computers sharing their unused ressources (CPU and/or disk storage) to solve large-scale computation problems. We can see that like a distributed computational and/or storage system. Well-known “grid computing” projects are, a.o., SETI@Home or Folding@Home. The main advantage of a grid is that you reach the power of mainframe computers in terms of CPU power and/or storage, without the cost of buying one since a grid usually uses common desktop computers distributed around the world.

Caught in action!

Wed, 10 Aug 2005 16:33:07 +0000

This morning, I got a fine from the police because, on Sunday, I drove at 70km/h instead of 50km/h on an empty road. :-( Well, maybe I was at 70km/h, I don’t remember and I didn’t pay attention at that moment. It’s just bad luck: I had to take care of my lab animals on Sunday. That’s why I was on this road. Oh, the beautiful shortcut: I am fined because I pay attention to the well-being of my lab animals. ;-) Anyway, since my wife got her temporary driving licence, I will have to pay attention to this kind of thing in order to give her good driving habits.

I am a statistic

Fri, 22 Jul 2005 16:53:07 +0000

I am a statistics because I replied to this MIT weblog survey (I found the link on Alex Schroeder’s diary). Alex Schroeder put the “I made some Science” sticker on his weblog but, since I did some biological experiments today, this sticker wouldn’t mean anything on my website ;-)

Old house for geeks in Liege (Belgium)

Fri, 22 Jul 2005 08:21:02 +0000

My parents-in-law just came for some holidays in Belgium and they choose a nice, old-style house near Liège (Belgium), in Trooz. It’s called " Biche les prés". It has plenty of rooms, a nice, well-kept garden, it’s clean and situated near a forest, away from the city (20 km from Liège) … and it has a computer with GNU/Linux (RedHat 9 in dual boot with MS-Windows) and an internet connection (modem). Of course, M. Spirlet won’t give you the root password ;-) but, at least, if you left your laptop at work (like I did), you can read your mail with your favorite operating system.

Hello world!

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 15:02:53 +0000

First post on my blog. Let’s see what I’ll be able to put here …

Oh, by the way, thanks for visiting my blog :-)

My-Life on Jean-Etienne's blog

Moving from US to Belgium during a pandemic

Programming Merit Badge presentation (2020)

Time commuting in Belgium

Counting steps is the easiest way to reduce cardiovascular risk

Do you gain weight before moving to the USA?

Happy New Year 2017!

Is it worth buying a coffee machine at work?

Happy New Year 2015!

Movember 2014 is over, thanks for your support!

Nearly halfway through Movember

Any free solution for the demise of Google Reader?

Map of GAVI eligible countries in R

Happy New Year 2013!

I wish I were not that connected

Pi in Pubmed

Holi hai!

Chúc mừng năm mới!

2012 will be the first year after the International Year of Chemistry

Happy New Year 2012!

TEDxBrussels in tweets and videos

Happy Diwali 2011!

Happy Independence Day 2011!

Calendar of events about India in Belgium

Protest in Happyland!

Managing photos

Today is *not* World Epilepsy Day

Chúc mừng năm mới!

The Joy of Stats

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Installing Fedora 14 on a Toshiba Satellite L670-10K

Happy Diwali!

Happy Software Freedom Day 2010!

Les bien étranges manières de Test-Achats

Summer in Scotland

Thank you for the bread

Tetris wall

Every year the same?

Happy new year 2010!

Powerplant screensaver

March 25th, 2009: Document Freedom Day

Welcome again!

Happy Diwali 2008 in Belgium!

"Word processors" are not meant to be usable

We moved

Smoking terrorism

Three restaurants in Germany

Season's greetings

Diwali in Leuven

Using free fonts if you work at a University

Some news

Time is running out ...

Belgian finance public service website :-(

Introduction aux Logiciels Libres

Snownews

A voté !

No television since a week

Jet lag

Mapping my ride

Proton transactions history

New website design

About iPod+DRM

How do I handle my bibliographic data?

Holi hai!

PhD photo tour

Tagged

Have not blogged for ages

Dhrupad concert (announcement)

Personal storage is the future

Happy holidays and new year 2007!

Wonderful concert of Shahid Parvez @ Bozar

Nice Christmas celebration in Leuven

Kuchipudi at Bozar

Spice corner at Bozar Bazaar

ISAL Christmas party on Dec.16th

Rose Annual Dinner

How to remove files ending with '~'

White & Nerdy

Diwali 2006 @ ISAL

Kolam ritual @ Bozar

Today is not World Epilepsy Day