Accredited

Good news is I got my accreditation as advanced researcher, which is the requirement to become a full professor in Catalonia. This is awarded by the AQU (Agency for the Quality of the University system).

More information: http://www.aqu.cat/professorat/catedratic/index_en.html

Data scientist and postdoc positions available at Eurecat (Data Science team)

Eurecat is hiring! http://eurecat.org/en/eurecat/work-with-us/

About Eurecat Data Science »


Two research scientists (apply here)

Eurecat seeks for its Data Science team a full-time research scientist or senior research scientist in data mining, machine learning, or information retrieval.

Responsibilities:

  • To engage in technology transfer projects with companies (mostly in Catalonia), at all stages from requirements gathering and proposal preparation to design and implementation of software solutions.
  • To perform applied research in the framework of grants from the public sector (mainly from the European Union), including participating in the preparation and reporting related to such grants.
  • For senior researchers, to mentor and supervise junior colleagues in the fulfilment of the above goals.

Required skills:

  • A PhD or MSc in Computing Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent.
  • Proven record of technology transfer results, published research results, or both.
  • Proficiency in the usage of data analysis tools.
  • English at a professional proficiency level.

Desired skills and experience:

  • Catalan or Spanish language proficiency are a plus.

Post-doc in Privacy or Non-Discrimination (apply here)

Eurecat seeks for its Data Science team a post-doc in data mining or machine learning. The focus will be on privacy-preserving data mining and algorithmic discrimination.

Responsibilities:

  • To engage in technology transfer projects with companies in Catalonia, at all stages from requirements gathering and proposal preparation to design, implementation, and deployment of software solutions.
  • To perform applied research in the framework of grants from the public sector, including participating in the preparation and reporting related to such grants.

Required skills:

  • A PhD in Computing Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent.
  • Proven record of published research results on topics related to privacy-preserving data mining and /or algorithmic discrimination.
  • Proficiency in the usage of data analysis tools.
  • English at a professional proficiency level.

Desired skills and experience:

  • Catalan or Spanish language proficiency are a plus.

Two internship positions (e-mail jobs@eurecat.org to apply)

Eurecat seeks for its Data Science team two interns in data mining, machine learning, or information retrieval. The focus will be on the development and implementation of algorithms for data analysis and mining. Possible topics include anonymization and privacy, algorithmic bias, graph algorithms, recommender systems, classification and clustering, time series forecasting, and general-purpose data analysis.

Responsibilities:

  • To engage in technology transfer projects (mostly with companies in Catalonia) through the design, implementation, and deployment of software solutions.
  • To perform applied research in the framework of grants from the public sector.

Required skills:

  • Currently enrolled in a MSc or PhD program in Computing Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent.
  • Proficiency in the usage of data analysis tools.
  • Experience designed and implementing data mining algorithms.
  • English at a professional proficiency level.

Desired skills and experience:

  • Catalan or Spanish language proficiency are a plus.

For more information, see the "data mining" offers under work with us in our site.

It's not always the same thing

This is the best advice I can give you right now.

When you are feeling miserable,
learn to recognize what could cheer you up.

Sometimes it's getting drunk or getting high.
Sometimes it's fucking.
Sometimes it's exercising.
Sometimes it's buying something, or eating something nice.
Sometimes it's reading a book, listening a song, dancing a little.
Sometimes it's literally just taking a shit.
Sometimes it's being with friends, other times it's being alone.

What's most important to know is this,
or you can wreck your life pretty badly:
it's not always the same thing.

I'm turning 40 today! These are some things I've learned so far

Some things I've learned during my 40 years on Earth. I'm not including scientific/technical stuff, just everyday stuff; I'm also not including skills, manners, or basic things such as speaking or reading, which I owe to my parents :-)

The list is roughly in chronological order. Years are only approximate references, none of these lessons I learned overnight, but they all changed my life.

  • 5
  • Books are wonderful
  • Programming is fun
  • Some people are idiots
  • God is a lie
  • 10
  • Science gives answers
  • Majority opinions mean nothing
  • Being different means being hurt
  • Everybody dies even the Sun
  • 15
  • Intelligence is not enough
  • A life worth living takes effort
  • Planning saves money and trouble
  • Lying is avoidable
  • Family brings great joys and great sorrows
  • Romance is tragic
  • 20
  • Romance doesn't need to be tragic
  • Some drugs are great
  • Syntactic correctness means nothing
  • Beautiful code is poetry
  • 25
  • Being permanently unsatisfied is fine
  • Good deeds are punished all the time
  • Evil deeds are rewarded all the time
  • Copyright is bad for art
  • Patents are bad for science
  • Hard work can compensate lack of talent
  • 30
  • Physical exercise is necessary
  • Nationalism is a form of hate
  • Immigration is treated as a crime
  • Animals are people
  • 35
  • Money intensifies personalities
  • Men treat women unfairly everywhere
  • People are often wrong about each other
  • Enlightenment is not a period but a process
  • Billions are essentially slaves
  • Everybody must be treated kindly
  • 40

Thanks to all for your birthday greetings :-)

A tip for the New Year: organize your project folders by year

TL;DR: Create a folder named "2016" in your "Desktop" or "Documents" (wherever you keep your work files). Move everything there. If you need anything again, take it back out.

* * *

There are many ways of organizing your folders in a directory structure. None of them will ever be complete satisfactory, because we use multiple dimensions to find our stuff. Sometimes we would like to look for a particular typology of project, or by the name of a collaborator, or by date.

Of all the dimensions by which you could organize a directory structure, what I do is to organize them by aspects of life (for most that will be "Work" and "Personal") and inside each area, by year.

Organizing your folders by year is not by itself better than other criteria of organizing things, but has two distinct advantages: it makes it easy to tidy up things, moving unused stuff out of the way, and it is backup-friendly.

A simple method, though not the one I follow which I explain below, is to keep only what you're currently using in the top level, and move stuff from previous years into one folder per year:

  1. Create a folder with the name of the year that passed.
  2. Move everything into that folder.
  3. If you need any of that again, move it out of the folder and back to the top-level of your "Desktop" or "Documents."

* * *

The method I use is the following. I keep top-level folders "inv" for research, and "pers" for personal (in the past, "inv" was "research," which was too long; even before, it was "work," which didn't feel right to me).

Inside each of these top-level folders, I keep one folder per project, like this:

  1. 2016_bigcrisisdata/
  2. 2016_swdm/
  3. 2016_digital_health/
  4. 2016_petitions_modeling/
  5. 2016_bureaucracy/
  6. 2016_reviews/
  7. 2016_recommendations/
  8. Archive/

If I continue adding or modifying files in a folder, because I continue active on that project, I rename the folder, e.g., "2016_digital_health -> 2017_digital_health."

If I continue using some files as reference in a read-only manner, I keep those files with the year they have in the top-level folder.

If I stop using a folder, I move it to the “Archive.” From there, I copy or move stuff to an external backup when it gets several months old.

I keep no files in the top level, only folders. If I need to start anything, I create a top-level folder, and then move to the “Archive/” if it goes nowhere. Alternatively, I use some one of the generic folders: “{Year}_bureaucracy/”, “{Year}_reviews/”, “{Year}_recommendations/” are the generic ones I use now.

* * *

I backup continuously and automatically my working directory, as I try to keep there only the active projects and the recently archived ones. If I need to answer a question about something I did years ago (which doesn't happen often, but it happens), I go to to the external backup.

Over the years, I have found this way of organizing things makes things easy for me. In general, having a simple method for organizing your stuff can save you a lot of time and effort. Just choose a way and follow it, and make exceptions when necessary, in whatever way works best for you.

Happy New Year!

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