I’m supervising an MSc student for her thesis this summer, and the work she’s doing with me is going to involve a fair amount of programming, in the context of remote sensing & GIS processing. She’s got experience programming in IDL from a programming course during the taught part of her Masters, but has no […]
Author: Robin Wilson
Software Sustainability in Remote Sensing
As part of my fellowship with the Software Sustainability Institute, I’ve written an article on Software Sustainability in Remote Sensing. This article was originally written a couple of years ago and it never quite got around to being published. However, I have recently updated it, and it’s now been posted on the SSI’s blog. I’ve […]
I’m an academic in a wheelchair – why is it so difficult?
I must say this is a bit of a departure from the normal content of my blog, but I think this is something important to post, as part of Blogging Against Disablism Day 2016. (For those who are coming here from BADD16, this blog usually talks about my academic work, Python programming, computing tips and […]
How to: rescue lost code from a Jupyter/IPython notebook
Jupyter (formerly known as IPython) notebooks are great – but have you ever accidentally deleted a cell that contained a really important function that you want to keep? Well, this post might help you get it back. So, imagine you have a notebook with the following code: and then you accidentally delete the top cell, with […]
Previously Unpublicised Code: RPiNDVI
Another instalment in my Previously Unpublicised Code series…this time RPiNDVI, my code for displaying live NDVI images from the Raspberry Pi NoIR camera. It isn’t perfect, and it isn’t finished – but it does the job as a proof-of-concept. If you point the camera out of your window you should see high NDVI values (white) […]
My thesis writing timeline – analysed using Dropbox and Python
I wrote my PhD thesis in LaTeX, and stored all of the files in my Dropbox folder. Dropbox stores previous versions of your files – for up to 30 days if you are on their free plan. Towards the end of my PhD, I realised that I could write a fairly simple Python script that […]
How to: Set the Python executable used to run .py files from the command-line on Windows
Summary: When you type script.py at the Command Prompt on Windows, the Python executable used to run the script is not the first python.exe file found on your PATH, it is the the executable that is configured to run .py files when you double-click on them, which is configured in the registry. I ran into a strange […]
How to: Get Sublime Text style editing in the IPython/Jupyter notebook
So, I really like the Jupyter notebook (formerly known as the IPython notebook), but I often find myself missing the ‘fancy’ features that ‘proper’ editors have. I particularly miss the amazing multiple cursor functionality of editors like Sublime Text and Atom. I’ve known for a while that you can edit a cell in your default […]
Ten Little IDL programs in Python
I recently saw Michael Galloy’s post at http://michaelgalloy.com/2016/02/18/ten-little-idl-programs.html, showing some short (less than ten lines long) programs in IDL. I used to do a lot of programming in IDL, but have switched almost all of my work to Python now – and was intrigued to see what the code looked like in Python. I can’t […]
Programming link clearance 2015: Python edition
I have a Coding bookmarks folder which is stuffed full of loads of interesting articles that I’ve never shared with anyone because they don’t really fit into any of my posts. So, taking an idea from The Old New Thing, I’m going to run a few ‘Link Clearance’ posts. This is the Python-focused one (there will be […]
How to: Get Python packages which need a C compiler installed easily on Windows
Summary: Microsoft now provides a single, small installer to get all that you need to compile Python 2.7 binary packages on Windows! This is just a brief post to share the news on something that I didn’t know about until yesterday – but that would have saved me a lot of trouble! You may have experienced […]
Job: Research Assistant with Python & Remote Sensing/Image Processing experience
This isn’t normal content for my blog, but I thought a post here might reach people who would be interested in the job. Don’t worry, normal service will be resumed shortly – this isn’t going to turn into a job listing site! A research assistant is required to assist with the development of an algorithm […]
Hacking the Worcester Wave thermostat in Python – Part 3
So, last time we worked out how communications were encrypted and managed to read the current status of the heating system (whether the boiler is on or not, the current temperature, and so on). That’s great – but it’d be even better if we could actually control the thermostat from Python: set the temperature, change […]
Hacking the Worcester Wave thermostat in Python – Part 2
In the previous part we had established that the Worcester Wave thermostat app communicates with a remote server (run by Worcester Bosch) using the XMPP protocol, with TLS encryption. However, because of the encryption we haven’t yet managed to see the actual content of any of these messages! To decrypt the messages we need to do […]
Hacking the Worcester Wave thermostat in Python – Part 1
When we bought a new boiler last year, we decided to install a ‘smart thermostat’. There are a wide range available these days, including the Google Nest, the Hive (from British Gas), and the Worcester Bosch ‘Wave’. As we had a Worcester Bosch boiler we got the Wave – and it wasn’t much more expensive […]