September 2016

Hello world.

When I was still a student, I was mentally preparing myself for becoming a PhD student. I knew from the experiences of some acquaintences that the life of a PhD student can be hard and stressful.

When I was writing my master's thesis, I discovered that to finish the thesis I needed more than divine inspiration and mathematical skill. I needed discipline and a good dose of tenacity. I started collecting productivity hacks and tips and tricks on writing research papers. This article summarizes the best tips I found.

1. Optimise your productivity

Last week, when I was visiting the SANS SEC560 course in Brussels, I wrote a small tool in Python 3 called tuvok. This tool takes a tv-series and a minimum rating and then outputs a list of all tv-episodes of that series that have a rating equal to or higher than the minimum rating.

Tiny but cosy restaurant with lots of obscure great beers. I had a Saison Dupont draft beer with the "Lamsballekes" (meat balls of lamb in tomatosauce with goat cheese with fries and a light salad). Beautiful room with high ceiliings, wood work, an antigue mirror and large fin de siecle window has you eating bistrofood in style.

Burger bar with relaxed atmosphere. Slightly alternative. They also have really good tonic and the burgers are huge. Their walls are covered in graffiti art that depicts the history of Belgium.