14. November 2019

UK taxes for dummies, a visual approach

In the UK, I was recently asked by someone how much money would remain from their income after taxes. While I could give a pretty good estimate, I discovered I had actually no idea how the net income is actually computed. None of the documentation I found was easy to understand. However, I can read maths. And I can look at pictures. So here’s a visual approach to a net income calculator for the UK, for dummies like me.

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27. Oktober 2019

Walnut bread: I'll be back

A second, brief post on my quest for becoming independent from commercially sold bread. Where I got tips for free (and then dutifully paid for merchandise), and where to get all the flour you cannot find in your UK supermarket.

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8. September 2019

Baking bread took me seven years to learn

But not for the reasons that you would imagine. I just failed to realize bread making is neither time consuming, nor particularly difficult. For those who are not satisfied with the bread available to purchase, and those who don’t want to wait seven years to find a solution, let me write this down…

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27. Juli 2019

The staircase up Mount Everest, an office workout

No need to climb the ladders up Mount Everest if you have the staircase of an eleven-floor office block to scale. This staircase is going to replace the hill training for me in the months to come. Around 8890 meters over 2068 floors in 17 weeks. Let’s see how difficult that is.

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30. Juni 2019

Forecasting Ozone levels in London

How high will be ozone levels in London next year? I have looked into the London Average Air Quality dataset in order to see patterns and to produce crude estimates. Here is what I learnt about ozone and discovered about roadside and backgroudn ozone levels in London.

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30. Mai 2019

Statistics tell you when to stop practicing

Assume you are practicing for an exam. You could spend all your time left until the exam practicing (possibly too much), or you could spend almost no time practicing (likely too little). So how do you know when enough is enough? When can you stop practicing and yet be confident that you will pass the exam?

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6. April 2019

Applying Machine Learning to Strava activities using BigQuery ML

Today, I’ll demo how to train a logistic regression model in BigQuery ML. That is Machine Learning models written in SQL, and executed in BigQuery.

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9. Februar 2019

Inspecting air pollution data from OpenAQ using Colab, Pandas, and BigQuery

OpenAQ is publishing real-time air quality data from around the world to BigQuery. Today, I have poked around in the dataset to inspect air quality from many places of the world.

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5. Februar 2019

Running the North Downs Way─XNRG Pilgrim's Challenge 2019

Postcard-Britain! The 66 mile race course took me from Farnham over the very pretty & snow-covered North Downs, until the snow subsided and was replaced by mud, past Box Hill until Redhill and back the next day. This post is about the madness that is required to enjoy such an adventure, and the odd things that you might encounter.

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16. Dezember 2018

Runsightseeing: Thirteen London parks in a day

London has so many parks. Today, I managed to run and visit thirteen of them on an extended sightseeing trip, discovering various artwork while doing so, and passing through many different neighbourhoods. I failed to complete the XNRG Santa Virtual Ultra Challenge, but I regret nothing.

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26. November 2018

Running the Ridgeway─Druid's Challenge 2018

A comeback to the world of ultra-running. This time, I ran (and walked) the Ridgeway from Tring to Swindon in three days as part of the XNRG Druid’s Challenge.

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6. Oktober 2018

What probability theory tells you about starting on time

Whether you are an event organizer waiting for participants to turn up or whether you are a bus driver waiting for passengers running to catch the bus, there is a dilemma: if you are so kind and wait for everyone to arrive, you make everyone else wait. Let’s explain the dilemma with probability theory.

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4. Juli 2018

Analysing Strava activities using Colab, Pandas & Matplotlib (Part 4)

How do you analyse Strava activities—such as runs or bike rides—with Colab, Python, Pandas, and Matplotlib? In my fourth article on this topic, let’s invite scikit-learn and NLTK to the party, and apply some Machine Learning.

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15. Juni 2018

Analysing Strava activities using Colab, Pandas & Matplotlib (Part 3)

How do you analyse Strava activities—such as runs or bike rides—with Colab, Python, Pandas, and Matplotlib? In my third article on this topic, I am demonstrating how to visualize the data in different ways.

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1. Juni 2018

Analysing Strava activities using Colab, Pandas & Matplotlib (Part 2)

How do you analyse Strava activities—such as runs or bike rides—with Colab, Python, Pandas, and Matplotlib? In my second article on this topic, I am demonstrating how to group and aggregate the data in many different ways.

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28. Mai 2018

Analysing Strava activities using Colab, Pandas & Matplotlib (Part 1)

How do you analyse Strava activities—such as runs or bike rides—with Colab, Python, Pandas, and Matplotlib? In this post, I am demonstrating how to get started, and will give you a taster of what is possible with this state-of-the-art technology for data analysis.

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7. Mai 2018

Run to work—Notes on kilometer 124

In the last five weeks: 15 run-commutes completed, 124 kilometers logged, £43.50 saved on public transport. The trick? Always having my kit ready the night before.

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7. April 2018

Misleading infographics: How Not To Bubble Chart

I discovered a misleading infographic on mortality cause by gender in the OECD report “Health at a Glance 2017” while working on a course assignment. A few notes on how not to do bubble charts.

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31. März 2018

Run to work, revisited

With my recent move to East London, running to work has become a topic again. Surprisingly as it may sound, getting the logistics right is the hardest part. Here is my plan on my comeback to run-commutes.

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26. November 2017

A Walk in The Woods: 2017 Edition of Wendover Woods 50

After having watched the second half of the film adaptation of Bill Bryson’s A Walk in The Woods, I can’t help but spot the remote similarities: an ambitious challenge, an uncompleted journey through the “woods”, and a literary attempt to explain the adventure. In my case, I gave up during a footrace of 50 miles and about 3000 m elevation gain, known in the runner’s world as Wendover Woods 50.

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26. Oktober 2017

Memories from University: Teaching the Computer to play Connect Four

How do you teach a computer to play games? I took a classic brute-force approach along with some techniques to make the search for a good move faster. Can you beat the machine?

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8. Oktober 2017

Lakes in a Day: I've dunnit, finally

Finally my dream has come true, even though things were different than imagined: A race report of Lakes in a Day, traversing the Lake District in 50 miles with 4000 m ascent.

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26. Juli 2017

North of the Arctic Circle: Hiking adventures in Sweden

My dream of returning to Northern Sweden for some hiking came true this year. Streams and lakes, puddles and pools, snow and ice, mountains and valleys; orienteering, pathfinding, river crossing, wild camping. Fabulous views rewarded the efforts I put in.

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2. Mai 2017

Running the XNRG South Downs Devil's Challenge 2017

It’s bank holiday weekend in the UK. What better thing to do than joining a bunch of nutters for a three-day foot race from Winchester to Eastbourne, covering 156 kilometers and many hills? I could not come up with a better idea, so here is how it went.

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15. April 2017

Garden of England: Running from Ashford to Canterbury

This Saturday, I decided to explore the North Downs Way between Wye and Canterbury. A trip report touching many things: navigating with phone and compass instead of maps, public footpaths and plough teeth, explosives and barbed wire, parking lots in unexpected places, and oceans of bluebells.

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