On the topic of cycling in London: much has been written, and more will be written. That is because it is a complicated matter. This is a brief and incomplete view on the upsides, the downsides, and the quirky aspects of cycling in London.

The pedal of the electric piano in my room keeps sliding and slipping away under my foot. A well-known issue. Placing the piano on a large piece of cardboard fixed this: a cut-out of the right size is now keeping the pedal in place.

The ice conditions and the weather in Stockholm being far from ideal for ice-skating, we travelled all the way up to Lake Siljan in Dalarna, Sweden. An essay on the wonders of long-distance ice-skating, a winter activity as fantastic as well as little known outside the Nordic countries.

It was my second time in France. After exploring the countryside in the Auvergne a decade ago, this time I visited the capital over a weekend while travelling from London to Munich by train and by bus. A mixed story about discovering Paris by foot.

Man brukar säga att det är mycket lättare att lära sig ett främmande språk när man befinner sig i landet där språket talas än om man befinner sig utomlands. Angående svenska som främmande språk får jag nu ingå kompromisser eftersom jag inte längre bor i Sverige. Kommer jag att glömma bort allt som jag lärt mig? Helst inte.

A visit to Milton Keynes gave me a brief look into former codebreakers’ life at Bletchley Park during World War II. The exhibition also featured a rebuilt exemplar of the bombe, an electromechanical machine that played a role in breaking the code of the Enigma. I got fascinated for several reasons.

It was my first four-day hiking trip in the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada in the Sequoia National Park (California). This is a recount of my experiences and a descriptions of the lessons I learnt while carrying my backpack with food and shelter over segments of the High Sierra Trail.

A friend recently showed me this place. I am posting no more than this: have a look at Saatchi Gallery in London and find out. Guess first what it is. Find out later.

Spending a day at the Channel near Eastbourne, escaping to more scenic running routes than London can offer. Wind and rain. The weather forecast calls it “heavy drizzle”. Impressive.

The deserted City of London on Saturday. Almost empty. Brilliant colors and stark contrasts on a unique day of sunshine and rainfall – a few pictures.

A recount of a hiking trip into the wilderness of Scotland: on ex-hurricanes and their effects, suicidal drivers, famous spots from the literature and the movies, a town nicknamed Lang Toon and on the festival time in Edinburgh.

Time to have a look how my experiment worked out in the first month. Running to work has lived up to my expectations and has never yet failed to lift my spirits. There is room for improvement, but the 14 runs totalling in more than 70 km were worth every kilometer. Here are the few lessons learned.

Finally gotten around to check out Vauxwall, a newly opened bouldering centre in London. We were pleasantly surprised by finding nice bouldering areas in a few railway arches near Vauxhall. Even better, we had the place basically for us – no one else there, what a luxury.

How is it to run a marathon? Having asked me this question often enough, I decided to settle the matter and run laps in Hyde Park until I either give up or finish. No starter fees. Without time limit. Lessons learnt from a long journey.

Persistence paid off. The little, remaining work on my Master’s thesis at KTH is finally completed. I can hardly remember touching a subject at university that was as demanding and as satisfying as the research on how to segment moving objects in videos taken by a RGB-D camera. Thanks to everyone who helped me with this mission.

It’s 5.5 kilometers for me to my workplace in London. I took my running shoes instead of public transport. And I will do this again. The idea is not new, though – and people are already shouting on the web for making running to work tax-deductible. But it’s not tax that matters. It’s trading commuting time against exercise.

Impressions from a riverside walk with a friend. This is “proof” for all my friends who had expressed doubt on the weather in London before I left to live there. Besides, I don’t even have an umbrella.

Mountain View in California is a place where cars are the primary means of transport. But I was told that biking is an option, too. So, I tested getting around with a bike. Here is a short review.

Humans are quite good at detecting motion. How about machines? Can computers automatically segment objects in videos? I dedicated my Master thesis to a particular variant of this question. Here are a few videos as a preview.

Cambridge is a bicycle-friendly city. And as I have learned recently, students at Cambridge University are usually not allowed to keep and use cars.

For some reasons, the front shifter of my bicycle stopped working properly. Time to take a screwdriver and see how the shifter actually works.

Everything has an end. Such has my student life in Stockholm. The last days give me a chance to sum up my roughly twenty months in Sweden.

From Sweden over the Baltic Sea to Åland in Finland for an afternoon of ice-skating. Waiting for us were beautiful frozen fjords. How come so few students are interested in this hobby?

Äntligen var det dags att sätta på sig skridskorna. Tillsammans med klubben gick det på en solig lördag norrut från Stockholm för att åka skridsko på Tämnaren, Upplands största insjö. Den mörka årstiden lyser verkligen upp när isen lagt sig. På riktigt.

German keyboards are usually pretty annoying for programming. Mapping the third-level of the buttons D, F, C, V to {, }, [, ] places the curly braces and brackets at more convenient locations without destroying much of the benefits of a German keyboard.