I was browsing the Global Trajectory Competition portal looking for some slides for work in the morning and came across a way of making XKCD-style images in Python. I used to love and use Python a lot, even for fun, anyway. But now it's even more fun!

This will correlate well with how much time I'll spend writing Python scripts for the hell of it.

If you want the source code that reproduces this plot it's on my GitHub. In the same repository you can get a high-res version of the plot (I can't believe I actually pay them to host this and can't seem to upload high-res images).

As the ESA Education funded students at the International Astronautical Congress we had to do outreach with pupils from Toronto schools. It was a great experience, besides it was genuinely fun.

One of the things I was involved in was assisting pupils in coming up with short stories about aliens, illustrating and writing them up in the form of comics. One of the pupils, a little girl (approx. 11 years old) whom I was looking after didn't fancy drawing a comic, but she really wanted to just draw. I thought it was fair enough and told her to just take a blank sheet of paper and draw whatever she wanted. Eventually she showed me her work - it depicted two aliens, obviously fighting, and a spaceship; all of this surrounded by flames. I must say I was somewhat surprised, a bit worried even, so I asked her for some clarification. I almost wish I hadn't.

Both aliens were indeed fighting. One of them, a female wanted to fly the spaceship while the other, a male, would never let her. The direness of  the situation was depicted by the flames surrounding everything.

Why would an 11 year old come up with something like this? Why is our society so deeply flawed that even children face, and hence realise, the social norms that dictate what they should and shouldn't do based on their sex? Next time you have a chance to do something about this please remind yourself of this story. There are simply too many reasons why this is a good thing to do to mention them all.

On a more personal note: I've been a very keen sailor for man years and am currently following a round-the-world regatta, the Volvo Ocean Race. Sailing around the World is potentially the hardest, most challenging thing one can do. And this is the team I'm a supporter of.

I do believe I've reached a point where I can commit to updating this website regularly, so here it goes. I officially promise to keep this site up to date from now on. I'm not sure how often I can do it or how often I will have something to write about, though.

Since, for now, this website as a whole is generally intended to spread the word about my research this blog will generally be about that. This focus may evolve over time depending on how my career and life in general change, though. Or I may simply feel like writing about something specific (which will most likely have to do with Space, given my interests).