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What happens if there is a human in the loop of a data generation process? This blog post is an illustration of a thought we had during a collaboration with BASF. It is obvious in hindsight but puzzled us for a while when we analyzed process data. Imagine you have some kind of data generation process involving independent variables x1 and x2, and a dependent variable y = f(x1, x2) = x1 + x2. We sample from this process in the range [0, 1] for both x1 and x2: ...

Update: The corresponding paper has been published in "Computers and Chemical Engineering": https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compchemeng.2023.108574 Steamcracker at BASF Ludwigshafen site Recently, I did a project with German chemicals manufacturer BASF (wiki link). BASF is the largest chemicals manufacturer in the world, and the Ludwigshafen site pictured above is the largest chemical production complex in the world (I recommend doing a tour, it's free and very interesting). In this blog post, I will summarize a part of the results of this project that I think could be interesting for the wider Machine Learning community. I will cut out almost all of the chemical engineering parts, as that is not my area of expertise and this blog post is directed at the ML community. A pre-print of our results is also on arxiv. ...

Update 2024-08-04: There now is a larger study demonstrating that many people experience altered states of consciousness during or because of meditation. Image by unsplash user Alexas_Fotos The benefits of meditation are so well researched that they have their own wikipedia page. Therefore, being a notorious optimizer, it has always been tempting to me. Since 2015, I have started to meditate around 6-8 times. I usually stick with it for 2-3 months, and then slowly do it less and less. In this blog post I'm going to attempt to describe why I never manage to stick with it. ...

TLDR: When sprouting broccoli seeds, soak them only 4-8 hours before draining. I'm a big fan of Dr. Rhonda Patrick, a scientist turned science communicator. One of her main topics is Sulforaphane and its health benefits. The easiest and cheapest way to get Sulforaphane into your system is to consume plenty of broccoli sprouts, which is exactly what I do. In this post I report a little science experiment I did to see how long one should soak the seeds before sprouting. ...

I've been a Linux user since almost 10 years. Over the years I've used Ubuntu with the Unity environment, Kubuntu and KDE Neon with Plasma, Debian with Gnome and Raspbian with XFCE. Since Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, made a few decisions which I really didn't like (most importantly, forcing the use of snaps), I've decided to jump ship. Debian had problems with GPU drivers, so I was looking for something entirely new. Since Fedora has been gaining in popularity and I was curious to try out vanilla Gnome in version 40+, I went for it. I installed Fedora around three months ago and used it as my main OS. I wrote down a few notes about positive and negative experiences, which eventually became enough for an entire blog post. I really liked Gnome and Fedora! Below is a collection of papercuts, which might make it seem as if I didn't enjoy it, but the opposite is the case. If the issues mentioned below are fixed (which I'm sure they will be soon), I would consider it a perfect OS! ...