Hello people!

My vacation of two weeks is up and running.. and I kinda like it 🙂 It has been like four or five days since the last time I did something on my thesis..  and the strange thing is, I still think about it everyday! It’s ridiculous.
Luckily it’s not that I think about it for hours, but just sometimes those thoughts pop up.. ‘what if I would do stuff like this…’, ‘how would this/that be different…’
There are still sooo many things I want to do, and I just hope that I hav e enough time…

In the mean time I am still training for the coming cycling-season, which is quite difficult this month. Rain, wind and other bad weather conditions are kinda ruining my schedule. Besides that, this is also the season of the flu… which you really can’t escape. Everyone has to suffer this virus for at least four weeks, if you are lucky. Because it can also last even longer! (As you all might know by now). But a training schedule also needs to contain a resting-period, which I have planned during my vacation 🙂

Right now I am in a nice and cosy house in Spa, where the birds sing and the stars shine bright during the night sky. Long walks through the wilderness of the Ardennen really relax the mind and the muscles. In the evening we eat together (with the whole family) and play boardgames.

At last… I would like to give some special attention to a project a friend of mine is doing at the moment: A legbank for Colombia

They have a vision to help the people of Colombia that have, or need, a prosthesis. At the moment a prosthesis is very expensive compared to the amount the people earn.
So they came up with a new design which aims on the following properties:

• Socket manufactured directly on the stump
• Less material waste and quicker process
• Portable and accessible to people in remote areas

But what they stil need is some funding.. If you would like to read more information, check out their site:
https://onepercentclub.com/en/#!/projects/a-legbank-for-colombia

There you can also support them by donating some money, the fund raising lasts some 20 days from now on.

Oh, yeah, I wish all of you a nice Christmas (or any other holiday you are celebrating the coming days) and a Happy New Year in advance. Be careful with the fireworks and enjoy the time with your family and friends!

It is the last day of November as you see! Time for the Novemblog.

Most of the time when I write these blog I use my Blackberry agenda (yes I still have one, and it’s awesome) to look up what I’ve done. But I just realised that November went really fast!
The stuff I did was not thát exciting though… I spend most of my time on my thesis, sports and with friends. The usual.

Although there were some nice things… like the gala I had last Friday or the Master Event in which I kinda helped with the organisation.
And lately I have been thinking about what I want to do after graduation. I have spend previous blogs also on this subject and it keeps coming back.
I also notice that with the other people that are graduating. Somehow you are trying to plan your own future, figure out some expectations about something you hardly know anything about! Sometimes it seems futile to stress about these ideas…. but on the other hand you sort of have to. You can’t show up on a job interview and be like:
“yeah this jobs seems like fun…”
“But why?”
“I don’t know… I just kinda like it, ya knooww”
“Right-ooo”

The choice I have to make is also a bit… strange. Because I am doing a technical study, I seem to have a lot of choice… while other studies struggle to even get a job in their study direction, I get to pick what kind of job I want! How cool/strange is that!

Anyhow, the first choice I have to make is: how much (and in which way) do I want to continue with Mathematics? Do I like it enough to pursue a Phd career? Or do I want to do more ‘pratical’ work with it. And what kind of ‘practical’ work would I like to do then? So many questions…
Wow.. wait what.. I never realised that the word quest (a.k.a search) was “hidden” inside question.. maybe it’s because I didn’t have any latin.. However.. the search is long from over and I will keep you guys updated on what I am planning to do.. but first… let me take a

(by the way, this kinda isnt a selfie.. since I am not in it.. but you know what I mean..)

On this last day of November I still have no presents for my family on 5 december! And at this moment I really have to get some inspiration to find some… I have been talking for quite some time now, so this blog is comming to an end.. but not before I show you the following:

The guy catching here is Odell Beckham Jr. It really is an amasing catch which he has practiced a lot!

Soooooooooooooo… there I am again, there you are… again!

Let’s talk business. Because stuff is getting serious. People/couples around me are getting married, some are getting kids, some are graduating,… it’s almost insane… almost.

Luckily I’m just sitting here, waiting for stuff to change. Because during your thesis, not much is changing. You (or atleast.. I) sit in my ‘office’ the whole week, staring at a computer screen and thinking in my head… (oh btw… besides my thesis project, I do have hobbies and friends.. I really do!)

When you look at it this way, it is hard to see how your thesis could be any fun.
But believe me, doing your thesis can (and in my case, is) fun to do! You’ll get used to the screen-staring and start appreciating all the little things that you’ve done to improve your model. Change won’t come in a day, it takes a week… sometimes even more… But when you’ve finally programmed your new idea into the model and it works, then it is totally awesome!

Just remember that you decide what kind of thesis project you will be doing, you decide how much you like it. It can be difficult to know what you like to do in the first place, because there are a lot of options. Then keep in mind that with most things you do, you can always find a thing/aspect that you like. Especially when you invest 40 hours a week in a project, it just start to grow on you.

The stuff I will be doing after my graduation is still unclear. As I said before, I used to worry about this, but not anymore. I rather think about my thesis project than what kind of job I want to do, I’ll deal with that later. Procrastination is healthy and keeps you from worrying! 🙂

By the way, one of the options after graduation is to obtain a PhD position. I don’t know if I would like to do that, but if you (yes YOU) are interested, then my department has an offer especially for you! This PhD position is a collaboration between the TU Delft and Almatis. It is mainly concerned with modelling a rotary kiln furnace. You can find more information about it on the following link

http://www.cfd-online.com/Jobs/showjob.php?record_id=12183

Well, we have arrived at the end of my blog again. I would like to end with the following song, by Tycho:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA0dGYgk22U[/youtube]

Gonna see him tonight in Amsterdam 😀

Now it is time to post some amazing facts

#1. According to Google: “Amazing Facts is a multifaceted, soul-winning ministry committed to proclaiming the gospel and the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14″

#2. Your brain named itself.

#3. Mosses are indicators of pollution. They can grow only in clean environments.

#4. The square root of 69 is 8.30662386292

Now it is really over.

Bye (:

Wow, I totally forgot to give an update last month! Lost track of time I guess…

To all those people that I have disappointed last month, you better get ready because this time the blog intensity gets intensified to the intensity of thousand intense suns!

Let me first give some very good reasons on why I did not, could not or was not able to write a blog. The main reasons are listed in here: my list of reasons.
Wait… maybe that was the wrong one.

Anyway, first off:
it was summer, kinda… 

The second reason:
I had other stuff to do.

And the last reason:
I forgot it.

Wait wait wait wait wait. As I am writing this I just discovered that I totally did not forget to post a blog last month. So I take all my apologies back and begin anew:

My thesis project is rocking ducking awesome. It is strange how fast time is passing by when you are doing such a project. There are just so many things to do, think and write about. If you don’t watch out, those 8-9 months are over before you know it.
The status of my project is that I am still in the literature study-phase. Which means that I have to read a lot of books/papers and see what others did, in theory. As I’ve already told in my previous blog, I was fooling around with Matlab most of the time. So these weeks I really have to start reading the material of other scientist to see how/what they did in my case.

At the end of this phase, which takes about 3 months, I have to deliver a report and give a presentation to my supervisor and others from the same research group. This report then contains reviews of the models/papers/books that also have treated my problem (or a similar one).
The reason behind this is to prevent that a student is reinventing the wheel, since that is just a waste of time.

The Matlab results I have gained thus far are mainly 2D simulations of the differentiation process. Most things work the way I want to, but I am still unable to derive the right kind of parameters for my model. I hope I find a clever way of guessing the values soon, because otherwise the model keeps producing counter-intuitive results (Like cells that move way too fast).

The next step is to switch to 3D and implement some adaptions to the model (which I invented on my own :D).

Then there are still some minor things I could talk about… but as you can see, my thesis is my main focus lately. It is strange to know that next year I (hopefully) will be working, living somewhere else and doing a lot of stuff different!
At first I had some trouble dealing with this… The most part consisted of not knowing where to live/work, or where you want to live/work. I just hope I can find my new home close to my work… that would be awesome.
But that would still mean that the question where do I can /want to work? is unanswered.
Even though I still don’t have an answer to this question, I somehow have gained peace with it. Since I am graduating at the University there is a big chance (in general) of not having a job immediately after graduation. So I’ll just let it be and fix those problems when I’m done with this project.

Speaking of projects…! There is one really awesome thing going on at the TU Delft… and for that you must (or atleast… I insist) that you visit this website: http://www.theoceancleanup.com/.

For the lazy, here is a short video:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IjaZ2g-21E[/youtube]

Oh, and there are no fries. I ate them al.

It has been a month! So here is another blob of black pixels, neatly alligned such that you can understand it.
And you know what? NOTHING HAPPENED.
Well okay, not nothing… I mean, time passed by, the earth made several pirouettes around itself and I slept every now and then.

O yeah, I also started my thesis project, fo real.
Which is pretty damn awesome. Maybe I’ve already talked about this in the last post.. but now I will go into it in more detail.

In general it is one big project of 8-9 months.. and you know, that is quite special. I can’t be sure, but as far as I know, in most companies a project last only for like 3 months. And while you are doing one project, there are like six others waiting for you.

So this project is quite unique, especially for me. I have never had a project this long, never even learned how to plan such a thing.

For now I am just fooling around with a mathematical framework/model that I got from my supervisor. He wrote a small paper about an idea he had… and it is my job to see how the model behaves when it’s implemented in the computer.
I don’t know yet where my work will end, there is no set end goal yet. But I think that will come as time moves forward.

oh! Almost for got the “details” of my project…I am modeling the process of differentiation of a type of stem cells to adipocytes or myocytes (fancy names for fat and muscle cells resp.).
There is a whole lot of biology going on there, but since I have already received this mathematical framework I can (for now) ignore this. 😀
Probably later on I will need to know more about that.

If I don’t forget it, I will post some pictures/movies of my simulations again!
That’s all for now.

BYE

Yellow!

It has been a long time since I wrote my last post and meanwhile a lot has happened. So prepare yourself for some ultra-mega-spectacular summary of these last few weeks.

• 10th of June: done at TNO.
• “free” time for the next 3-4 weeks.
• start with my thesis project.

Bam.

Finishing the report for TNO still took a lot of time, which resulting in a busy last work day. But when it was over, it was over. And I could finally have some “free”-time.

In those 3-4 weeks of having no obligatory tasks, it still did not feel like vacation. This was mainly due to an assignment that I had to finish for my last course. Although I enjoyed myself, this creeping thought of having this assignment kind of killed the whole “freedom” feeling.

Eventually I had to start working on this assignment. I assumed that it would be ‘easy’ and I would get it done in no-time, but it turned out to be the other way… Because of my attitude I procastinated a lot which resulted in me working very hard in the last two weeks to really complete it on time.
I know it was my own choice to do it this way and I could have handled it differently but I just wanted to start my thesis project as soon as possible.

And now, the rollercoaster-ride called the “thesis project” has started and will be done in 9 months (approximately/hopefully). Which means that after that time I should have made up my mind on where and what I want to work/live on/in.

It is strange how fast it all goes. The hardest part for me now is to choose where I would like to work. Which comes down to the question: “what kind of stuff do I want to do for 40 hours a week?”
I think you can never really have a ‘good’ answer to that question until you just try something. So that’s probably what will happen over time.

Oh, before I forget! This time I would include a puzzle. According to Wikipedia, a puzzle can be a game, problem or a toy that tests a person’s ingenuity. And this word represents the quality of being clever, orginial or inventive.

The “problem” I have found is:
You are going to visit your grandmother on Mother’s day. You want to give her two cakes. However, to get to her house you must cross seven bridges. At each bridge is a troll who demands ½ of all of your cakes as the price to pass. However, this troll, being a nice troll, feels bad and gives you back 1 of the cakes that he took.

So actually, you could consider this more of a riddle than a puzzle… But maybe riddles are a subset of puzzles… Anyway, if you have read all of this: thank you for reading this!
If you only scrolled down to see look at the pictures and read the puzzle: Well, that is also fine. I mean, you probably had better things to do. Or atleast, that’s what I hope.

Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, …, welcome, welcome, welcome, …, welcome, welcome, …, welcome,

As you all know, the last couple of weeks the Netherlands/Holland/Dutchland had some really nice weather! Which is good if you want to train a lot for some 1/4 triathlon (like I do). But, of course, there is also a downside.

As I am writing this, I am sitting at my desk, inside…, behind my computer…, with the iron curtains closed…. and no possibility to open a window… I am still trying to think of a way where you can combine a desk-job with being inside and outside. It would be even better if the work you do outside is somewhat physically challenging and still counts as ‘work’.
For now, I have not found a solution to this problem… (If you have found the answer to this, let me know! Sitting inside gets really boring…)

Speaking of solutions, my Matlab file keeps getting more complex/better/awesome’r and is actually solving physical relevant “problems”. These problems aren’t actually problems, when you compare the things you see on the news, they are just a tool to impress your colleagues with your Matlab/smartness-skills.

That is how I feel when I solved another problem.

Now you might be wondering.. oh, what did Seb do? Why is he talking about all this stuff? Well.. just for a quick `heads up’. My intern at TNO consist of simulating the airflow inside a Greenhouse with the Lattice Boltzmann Method. Which is some new fancy method that is mildly awesome and can simulate quite complex stuff.

These last days I’ve been trying to model the relative humidity inside a greenhouse. Which I’ve been somewhat successful in, but I’m not sure yet.
Here is an impression of what I’m looking at most of the time:

(Click on it for a better view)

This is a simulation of a square that is heated from below. It looks nice, but I’m not sure whether it has any use.

In whatever way, anyhow, anyway, -random-, in either way, the intern at TNO is quite alright! (By the way, those first few words are all synonyms).
Yes, you have to be inside all day, yes it might get boring sometimes. But when you are working, you are not alone. You always have your colleagues that can cheer you up, or distract you when you are all out of concentration.

My final presentation will be on the second of June, so my time here is almost over. And I think I’ll miss the people here. The `ambience’ and the way of working appeals to me, not a lot people seem stressed and for most people the quote `work to live, don’t live to work’ applies.

Oh, and check out this video:

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/80318195[/vimeo]

Well hello there!

For all those people that were thinking: “wow, his last post was really really really long… I’m never gonna read all of that!”
This one is significantly shorter 🙂

First things first! There are finally some results from my intern at TNO. Look at them below…

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrjW9WUXs6M[/youtube]

Besides this good news, there is even more good news! But also some bad news… Let me first talk about the good news. As you’ve all noticed, the weather is really really nice. Which is a good ánd bad thing.
Because when you must be inside all-day-long, it kinda sucks. But! In the afternoon/weekend I don’t have to study/work at all, so then I can be outside all the time 🙂

So, because the weather was so nic… suddenly I realize that I’m doing a typical Dutch ‘thing’ now… talking about the weather… Really, if you ever meet someone from the Netherlands, start talking about the weather. They will instantly love you, because you can “relate” to them.
Anyway, because of several reasons, I went cycling last weekend. Not just for fun, no, I had my first ‘serious’ cycling-competition. If you want you can see me here in action (if you don’t, close your eyes really fast now!) :

(Picture was taken by fotokoos.nl)

Although it didn’t go as I’m used to… In retrospect, looking at how much I’ve trained on the bike this year, I did quite alright.

But now the bad news. And I will keep this short…
Because it took so long to get some results at TNO, they didn’t want to proceed with the project I’m on. So one moment you have something and the other moment.. it is all gone 🙁  There is only one upside I can think of right now.. and that is that I can be more in the sun. But that’s about it…

EDIT: April fool’s!

Oh and for those that were wondering whát you are seeing in the short movie… that should represent the speed (not velocity) at a certain point in the greenhouse. Where the floor (bottom) was heated. As you can see, it moves around quite fast, this is due the fact that I have not optimized some parameters. So it not a good representation of the world, yet.