My-Life

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 :-( ...

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. ...

We wish you a very happy new year 2013!

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. ...

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): ...

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"): ...

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)

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. ...

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 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). ...