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How I became Dr Robin Wilson: Part 2

At the end of the previous post in this series, I was six months into my PhD and worrying that I really needed to come up with an overarching topic/framework/story/something into which all of the various bits of research that I was doing would fit. This part is the story of how I managed to […]

Interactive cloud frequency web map, with Google Earth Engine

Summary: I’ve developed an interactive cloud frequency map, available here. It may be particularly useful for satellite imaging researchers working out where they can acquire imagery easily. One of the major issues with optical satellite imaging is that you can’t see through clouds: so normally when its cloudy, you can’t get anything useful from your images. […]

How I became Dr Robin Wilson: Part 1

As many of you probably know, I’ve been working towards a PhD at the University of Southampton. This post is the brief story of my PhD, my graduation and my future plans. So, back in the dim and distant days of 2010, I started a PhD with the Institute for Complex Systems Simulation (ICSS) at […]

How to: load the Google Maps Places library through Google API Loader

Google have recently introduced a new way of loading their javascript APIs: their Google API Loader. To use it, all you do is add a script tag in your HTML: <script src=”https://www.google.com/jsapi”></script> You can then load whatever Google APIs you want using code like this: google.load(‘visualization’, ‘1.0’); google.load(‘jquery’, ‘1’); google.load(‘maps’, ‘3’); google.setOnLoadCallback(function() { console.log(‘Callback’) }); […]

IPython tips, tricks & notes – Part 1

During the last week, I attended the Next Generation Computational Modelling (NGCM) Summer Academy at the University of Southampton. Three days were spent on a detailed IPython course, run by MinRK, one of the core IPython developers, and two days on a Pandas course taught by Skipper Seaborn and Chris Fonnesbeck. The course was very […]

How to: Log electricity usage from a CurrentCost EnviR – Part 1

After borrowing a CurrentCost electricity usage meter from my local library (if you’re in the area, then Eastleigh library will loan you one for free!), I decided to buy one, as I’d found it very useful in trying to reduce my electricity usage. The benefit of buying one as opposed to borrowing one was that […]

Review: High Performance Python by Gorelick and Ozsvald

Summary: Fascinating book covering the whole breadth of high performance Python. It starts with detailed discussion of various profiling methods, continues with chapters on performance in standard Python, then focuses on high performance using arrays, compiling to C and various approaches to parallel programming. I learnt a lot from the book, and have already started improving […]