The hardship of being a student

Many people, our family, (some) friends and acquaintances will probably, at some point, tell us: "C'mon, don't be like that. Those will be the best days of your life".

How wrong (or not so guaranteed to be right) those words are... I have had the chance, even if for a short amount of time, to work in my field of study, and completely apart from it. Working in my field of study has been one of the best experiences so far, and one thing I'm sure of - I certainly DO NOT MISS being evaluated, the stress of close deadlines, exams, and the frustration and demotivation of not being able to study or lacking time to do so.

It's completely wrong to think study times are easy -  it's ridiculous. Some would say I am probably just being a lazy ass, but I'm not. I have tried very hard to exceed my own expectations, push myself to focus and keep working - but it's easy said. I get tired and sick of being demanded to write about things I don't know, understand things others explain poorly, and in the end (except in rare cases) being branded with a number. From 0 to 20. Even if it is a 20, it's just a number. Which does not reflect the effect it had on you - during the work, the almost sadness of wanting to spend personal time with those you like, but you can't because you sacrifice every bit of your time towards work; and after the work is finished, the relief - even if the work was poorly done, you still have the relief, for an instant, of not being burdened by the responsibility of work.

I am tired. I surely don't miss assignments. And, on another (but not independent subject) I'd like to ask Professors and supervisors a little respect for student who enslave themselves and allow getting used for benefit of others. Why do we do it? Because science! Because it's in us and it's who we are - we want to become researchers so badly we allow ourselves to go through every little shit we are told to do.

It's hard to find motivation in all this. But hey: better times will come, right? We do this for the relief and satisfaction after submitting assigned work. We do this because in the end (and in the process) we learn something. Even if we only see a mountain, we learn at every step.

So please, fellow students and researchers: since there is no elevator to sucess, we have to take the stairs. And many people will take them along with you.

Datsun 510 appearance in Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

I am outdated! I am a slowpoke in the Transformers series, I know. I only watched the third film a few days ago.

In a busy scenario, Sam has his life in a kind of uncertain state: he his living with his girlfriend but he does not have a job. Bumblebee is working with human military, so when his parents arrive, he goes to his garage and a 510 shows up: (at this point I was drooling over the screen)

Funnily enough, his mother mistakes his car with Bumblebee: it's also yellow with black stripes.

However, throughout the film, they refer to the car as a piece of crap, and jokingly as a "collector's piece".

Why does the USA in general have so little love for the 510? Is it because they have so many of them in there? I'd really like to have one.

The film actually gave me some styling ideas, like the Datsun sticker in the front of the car (I'd move it to the side rather than have it at the center). The wheels are Watanabe-style at the back, and I don't know the name of the ones in the front, but I've seen some 510's with them on:

I would keep the same wheels at the front or back. Particularly, the Watanabes, which look great in most Japanese retro rides.

A similar one I've really liked is this one:

It is the perfect ride, since it has a capable engine (SR20DE), 4 doors, 4 seats, roll cage and racing harnesses.
In the meanwhile I've thought of buying a Datsun Sunny/1200 or a Toyota Corolla KE20  in about one or two years, but I'll leave that to other posts.

I know I've said something about the USA showing no love for the 510, but I've seen American people with some of the sweetest Japanese retro rides ever. Don't get me wrong: even though the general opinion is not to like them, the car culture is everywhere in the world.

I hope you all enjoy your rides!

Deciding on a Career - PhD or not to PhD?

Sometime in the life of a student fascinated about science, a question will come: go for a PhD or not? You may think the time for such decision has come for me, but in fact, it hasn't: I'm still half way in my Master's, so why am I making a post about this?

Truth is, I have given this question some thinking, but only now that other people ask me what I'll do it's become more serious. Partly because the outcome of my Master's thesis will influence my choice of  "if", "where" and "with who" I will do a PhD.

Some readers probably know I am a bit (a big bit) of a petrolhead. I like cars, but more importantly, I love to learn - hence my passion for restoration and modification. That's something I still have not had time to put into. Mostly because I'm not a very time-organized person. But it's definitely something important for me.

On the other hand, I am passionate about neuroscience. Sometimes the difficulties in a project make me wonder if I should be studying this, but fortunately I've had a recent conversation with a colleague. That conversation was a life changer. Right now I truly believe I will go for a PhD. And that's the result of never getting enough of science. I thing both my passions (cars and neuroscience, with everything attached to those two) are two sides of the same coin: looking to know how thing work.

The ideal situation for me would be to do both simultaneously: restomodding a Datsun as a hobby while doing the PhD. However... The ideal country for each of them is not the same. I hope I can find balance in the future.

I am thinking too much ahead. But thinking sometimes is good. I am grateful someone made me think and realise what I want. For now, I am happy with finding what I want!

London Transport: a guide by a newbie for other newbier newbies

   When I first came here I noticed a there were a lot of transports but there was the lack of a short guide. Why would you need a guide? Simply because there are many details in the London transport which are not obvious at first. I will try to be short, and should there be any mistakes or gaps, I'll fix them if you tell me.

   Types: In London you have buses, trains (you'll see the work 'rail' a lot), tram (which I never used), underground (or tube), DLR, Overground, WAIT WHAT? Well... the first four seem pretty obvious, but DRL and Overground not so much. DLR (Docklands Light Railway)  is a way of transport for the docks, at the same price as tube, and Overground is a suburban rail also at the same price as tube (but confirm this before you travel).

   Tube stations have direct connections with DLR and Overground, so you can plan your journey by looking at one of these maps:

   Buses are cheaper than tube and are really cool to use at weekends, because there is less traffic. In each bus stop there are maps you can use, which are really handy when you're looking for some place.

   The train is more expensive than bus, but cheaper than tube. This is by far my favourite transport for everyday commute. It's more quiet than the tube, it's fast and the time between trains is not too long (10 - 15 minutes).

   In London there are also Barclay's bicycles which can be used to go around the city, but they are paid so it will only compensate depending on how long you have to use them. The best thing about this service is that Barclay's spread maps around the city, and for this reason I've never actually felt lost in London.

   You can have 7 days or 1 month Travelcards which may compensate if you use more than one transport per day (for instance, rail and tube), but you are limited to certain zones (London is divided in layers, like an onion, going from the most central zone 1, to peripheral zones like 6.

   If you have any questions or corrections to this post, let me know. Best of luck in your next travel in London!

Bike riding - Beating uphill sections

Uphill sections are, for me, some kind of double edged sword: they're hard to beat, get me tired and slow, but after an uphill there's a delightful downhill section where I can stretch and  my legs and drink some water.

The way I go through these sections has a great impact on my performance during the ride and how tired I get after it. So far, I found two ways of doing this:

1 - Sit and keep the cadence you feel confortable with (number of revolutions per time, rhythm) even if it means using lower gears and go slower;

2 - Or lift my butt and use higher gears (keeping the right cadence too).

The main difference I find between these two is what part of me feels more tired: my heart (first method) or my legs (second method).

The first method is ideal for long uphill sections where endurance is required. Since I keep sit, all the effort goes to keep my rhythm. For best use, you should keep your body still (except your legs of course) and follow a straight line.

The second method is best for doing uphill sprints. This way I can use the weight of my body by rocking my hip in each pedal stroke. The reason for using higher gears in this method is because each stroke is much stronger than the first method ones. If you use low gears in method 2,  you will feel each stroke being wasted, because the pedal will go down too fast and recoveries will be very hard. I recommend shifting up one or two gears.

Final comment on bike riding:

Training is the key to learn more. Even though effort management and technique are important, knowledge and stamina need training to improve. For me, living in such beautiful place, not far from the sea, is a privilege and a pleasure to be able to ride my bike around here. I guess I'll miss this for the next few months. 

Personal Status Update + a personal cheesy but caring message

In little more than a month I will be leaving my country to stay a few months working in an investigation project. Which sounds pretty cool right?

Well, on one side, of course. On the other, I have had little time for preparations since I am working to make some money during the day and only come to the PC at night.

Days go by without me noticing I'm running out of time for preparing my work abroad. I would like to  keep writing about cars, and bike riding, and Linux stuff I learn here and there... there are a few drafts of ideas I have for blog posts, but there is something much more important now.

When I look back at my life, I know I have not always been the disciplined person I wish I was (otherwise this blog would have much more contents, of course). I have not always been helpful to others when I should have, but more importantly, I have not been up to the person I love the most: my girlfriend.

Even though I am still a klutz, I am getting better over time because of her. And even though I still fail her sometimes, I wish we can both be happy together. So this post is dedicated to her.

To anyone who might read this: remind yourself who are the most important people in your life and make sure you tell them.

Ford and the small turbocharged engine

   Diesel engines have received a lot of attention lately: smaller (1.4 liter) blocks, turbocharged, low consumptions and emissions... No wonder people in Portugal buy, mostly, small turbocharged diesel cars (and diesel is also cheaper than petrol).

   However, those of us who are, and will always be in love with petrol engines, there was not much of a choice: either a small, sluggish high compression engine, but somehow easy on fuel consumption (such as "my" VW Polo 1.0 MPI), or a larger petrol engine, which was not so easy on gas mileage...

   Finally some motor companies decided to dedicate to petrol engines: Ford was recently awarded with the 2014 International Engine of the Year for its 1.0 EcoBoost engine!

  The 3 cylinder, 100, 125 or 140 hp turbocharged EcoBoost engine features low fuel consumption and still keeps a good performance, hence being so popular in Europe (1 in each 5 Fords sold in Europe had this engine), according to Autoblog (article in Portuguese). The turbocharger in this engine is running 1.6 bar, an impressive number if you think about the 1.1 bar value in a 2013 Impreza (source here).

   This reminds me of a 180 hp 1.4 liter engine created by FIAT. However, the popularity of this Ford 1.0 might be boosted by the increasing fuel price, and economical crisis in Europe.

  Whatever the reason for its popularity is, I hope this engine marks the beginning of an era where turbochargers increase the efficiency of small engines, end the boredom of small slow petrol engines, and brings back the popularity of small petrol engines over diesel ones.

   Let the forced induction begin.

How easy is writing a blog post?

A few months after I created this blog to write freely and clear my mind, but after a while I started writing less and less. At first it was because I really had lack of time. But I guess that was the beginning of being lazy about it.

Not only lazy: I, somehow, lost interest. Probably because I did not have an idea of what this blog should be, so in the beginning I was only fuelled by the feeling of having something new. 

Because some posts are useful (such as in the Linux tab), I worried about keeping each post neat and informative. But that was not what I needed from this blog. I needed a place where I could speak my mind freely without worrying about what others might think. Having views made me very strict: I didn't want to disappoint those who read this blog.

I postponed some writing because I didn't think i would be useful to anyone. Except me.

I am a person without much discipline over myself, actually. Keeping restrictions over my writing made me avoid this blog.

It is as easy to write in a blog as much you allow yourself.

That's the conclusion to which I've come.

Maybe I mixed this blog too much. Maybe I should have started it with a single and exact purpose. But I didn't and it's who I am, I am a bit messy too (we all are, more or less).

From now on I hope my writing reflects more of how I think and less of how I make things rational and strict.

Post written under the influence of:

 From Youtube description: "The track is called "A Place To Hide" and its about finding home, whatever "home" means for you. It may be a person, a place or even a side of yourself where you feel most at home. Whatever it is, I hope this track helps you reflect on what it is and how to find it."

Lubuntu tips for an old PC

   My old PC (Pentium IV @ 3.4 GHz, 1 Gb RAM, ATI Radeon 9550 256 Mb) was running Windows XP until Microsoft's support ended. I had to either risk keeping the XP or changing the OS. Since Microsoft OSes are paid and tend to be resource-hungry, I switched completely to Linux in this PC. Between Mint, Debian, Lubuntu or Crunchbang, I went for Lubuntu (as you probably guessed by the title).

   Lubuntu 14.04 is actually a pretty nifty and soft-running OS in this PC. It does not consume much RAM, the CPU is not frequently pushed hard, and so far, (almost) everything goes well.

   Since it's an old PC, I have some tips which may be useful when using it. These tips are also arguable, and the post is not closed (I'll possibly add more stuff while using this PC).

   Keeping tabs on everything:

htop allows you to check how much of your CPU and RAM you are using, as well as how much of those resources each process is using up. To install it:

sudo apt-get install htop

It looks something like this:

You can use it to evaluate which processes consume more resources, and choose which programs are better for you. I used it, for instance, to check how Mozilla Firefox (installed by default) and Midori compared.

   A less RAM-hungry browser:

To install it, according to the browser website:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:midori/ppa && sudo apt-get update -qq && sudo apt-get install midori

Or download the deb file, and use gdebi (read this post).

From My experience, Midori is much lighter on RAM, but randomly'ish pushes hard on the CPU. If your problem is lack of RAM, go for it. I recommend it for simple searches when you have other software running on your PC. But Midori is nowhere near as stable and complete as Firefox. That's why I use Firefox for more often.

I'll add more stuff soon!

Overall, Lubuntu is a very good, stable enough, and pretty OS which can give  anew life to your PC.

MOOG in Kei to the City

My interest in cars has led me to watch Mighty Car Mods.

One of the films they made, Kei to the City, has a really great soundstrack. The interesting thing is, besides how good and inspiring those songs are, they're created by Blair Joscelyne, or Moog, one of the Mighty Car Mods member.

The album, uploaded by a youtube user, has soundtracks featuring male and female voices, different rhythms, genres from hip-hop, to house and vocal tunes.

This album is just a bit of what Moog can do. From other songs I've heard, I noticed he can work with a variety of styles, keeping each song as a different set of feelings transmitted to the listeners.

His music is available in Blair Joscelyne's website, MCM website, as well as on iTunes.

It's always great to find artists you knew nothing about and having a pleasant surprise!

Bike Riding: Somewhere to go, something to drink!

One of the things really enjoy doing is cycling. I use a mountain bike with an aluminum frame, front spring suspension, rear suspension (mostly for comfort) and mechanical disks brakes. It suits everything I do: road and cross-country (although I wish I could do cross-country more often).

I used to ride my bicycle more often than I do now since lately I have had little time to do it.

Yesterday I decided to go for a ride with an objective: reach one of the highest locations in this region and take a picture. Since I had to go somewhere, I went towards the sea. 

The landscape makes it worth it:

Down this hill there a beach ;)

After this ride I leave two bicycle riding tips:

Tip #1: Drink water! Even if you don't feel thirsty, drink. And always take more water than you'll need, or find a place to refill. I ran out of water at 2/3 of the 25 kms I did, and it became much harder after that.

Tip #2: Keep the right rotation! When pedaling, the right rotation speed is more important than how fast you are going. Try finding the best rotation speed that suits you and keep it. Use the gears to compensate for uphill or downhill effort while maintaining rotation speed.

Tip #3: Ride with an objective! Going somewhere specific or reaching N kms, it doesn't really matter. If you stick to your goal, riding there will be easier. ;)

How to: Install Firefox in Debian Wheezy

This post covers the installation of Mozilla Firefox in Gnome 2 environment.

Step 1:

Download the latest Mozilla Firefox from the official website (choose language and distribution).

Step 2:

Extract firefox-29.0.1.tar.bz2 (version may be different). Using unp may be a good idea, it's always handy:

unp firefox-29.0.1.tar.bz2

or just use tar:

tar xvjf firefox-29.0.1.tar.bz2

Step 3:

Move the firefox/ folder to opt/:

sudo mv firefox/ /opt

Step 4:

Apply permissions to users. This is needed to run firefox from the Applications menu, but the permissions you give it are your choice. I chose to allow superuser and sudoers write and execute permissions, and guest users only execute:

sudo chmod 750 firefox/

Step 5:

Create an alias inside the bin folder so you can call firefox from the terminal. I called it realfirefox since firefox was already used by Iceweasel xD.

sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/realfirefox

Step 6:

Create an Applications menu entry so you can use Firefox from the Internet menu, like this:

cd /usr/share/applications/

Create a .desktop file for Firefox:

touch firefox.desktop

And with a text editor like gedit

gksudo gedit firefox.desktop

paste this inside the firefox.desktop file:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Mozilla Firefox
Comment=Browse the World Wide Web
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Exec=/usr/bin/realfirefox %U
Icon=/opt/firefox/browser/icons/mozicon128.png
StartupNotify=true
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;

Voilà! By now you should have you beloved Firefox working via GUI. But remember, for every Firefox version, you have to repeat this process.

Daiki Kasho in Gran Turismo series

It's not the first song which comes to my mind when I think of Daiki Kasho, but "Place in This World" is definitely a great example.

I find Daiki Kasho to be a composer who can make songs of several types and inspire lots of different emotions.

I first knew his songs from the Gran Turismo series. In case you want to check the bands he worked with (I did, and it's definitely worth it):

• Dakota Star
• Alan Brey
• Chiaki
• Jonathan Underdown (from Fade)
• Ray Hikari (from Station of Revenge, and the one who sings the song below)

If anyone ever stumbles upon this page, I'll glady post any links to these bands or a blog with an interview, information, whatever. I believe there is also a portuguese guy who really likes Dakota Star and has uploaded videos on Youtube, so it's great that people keep these bands alive.

After all, these are the songs we will remember we heard when playing videogames.

Happy gaming ;)

Installing programs on Linux

One of the main problems new Linux users have is installing programs.

In Windows, you can just double-click a .exe or .msi file and an installer will run the work for you. In Macintosh, you can double-click a .dmg file or drop it in the Applications folder (dropping it is actually pretty intuitive, if you think about it).

In Debian and Ubuntu you can click your .deb file too, and use a graphical interface which runs gdebi installer for you. (for instance, installing latexila)

[Side note: when I mention Ubuntu, most of what I say applies to it's derived distributions like Lubuntu or Mint]

However, my preferred way of installing packages is using the terminal. You can either install packages from the repositories or download them and install "manually". I'll cover both ways.

Let's assume you want to install a package and you don't know if it is in the repositories. In a terminal, type:

sudo apt-get update

apt-cache search package_name

If your desired package is available, it'll show as output. Proceed to install it:

sudo apt-get install package-name 

[Side note: Even though this post covers Debian based distributions, CentOS or Fedora have their own repositories and installers. Instead of apt-get (aptitude), they use yum, Arch Linux uses pacman, etc, but the logic is the same.]

If not, that package may be in a personal repository (PPA). You can add that PPA to your list

using:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:someonesppa

For an example, check this previous post on PulseAudio Equalizer.

After this step you can install it by typing:

sudo apt-get install package-name

Now, let's say the package you want is not in the main repositories and there are no PPA's you can find in which your package is available, but you were able to download a .deb file and you want it to work.

My favourite way to do this is using gdebi in the terminal. Just cd to the folder where your .deb file is and type:

sudo gdebi package_name.deb

Or if your are not inside that folder, give it the path:

sudo gdebi /path/to/file/package_name

and gdebi will do it for you. If your package has dependencies you don't have installed, gdebi will solve them for you.

Another way to install .deb files is by using dpkg (you have to change to the directory where your file is, just like with gdebi):

sudo dpkg -i desired_package_name

However, dpkg will not solve missing dependencies. You might be wondering why you would use it, then. Some packages like libreoffice have to be installed by running the installer for all files inside a folder full of .deb files. dpkg will install all files iteratively (sudo dpkg -i *.deb), whereas gdebi (sudo gdebi *.deb) will try to get dependencies from the repositories instead of keep looking for packages inside that folder, so it'll fail.

[Another side note: *.deb means it'll run through all .deb files inside that folder. If you wanted to install all files whose name starts with banana, you would do banana*]

By now you should be able to install quite a few things. However, let's imagine there are no PPA's nor .deb files for you package, and you only managed to find a .tar.gz (or something similar). Don't worry, there's still hope you can get your beloved package!

It's worth mentioning that you don't install a .tar.gz file. Tarball's (as they're called) are compressed files, like .zip or .rar, but they're commonly used to distribute packages (you can store regular files in them if you want).

First things first, you have to extract what's inside:

tar zfx package_name.tar.gz

but my favourite way is to use unp, which will unpack tarballs, zips, whatever is compressed:

unp package_name.tar.gz

After extraction, what I recommend is to read the REAME or INSTALL file. They contain specific instructions you should follow. I'll give some hints, but when dealing with compressed packages, always try to follow the instructions. If the developer is kind enough, there may be an installer file which you can run (a script that will do the install for you).

If there is no such thing, run the following commands:

./configure

make

sudo make install

And by now you should be able to install software. But remember, ALWAYS read the README help files.

If this tutorial was of any help and you have suggestions to this post or my writting, feel free to comment and I'll try to reply as soon as possible ;)

Mixed blog

Very quick post with a simple though: after looking at some pretty fascinating blogs dedicated to neuroscience, I'm thinking maybe it should have been a good idea to split the blog instead of running a mixed topic one.

Perils of blogging for the first time. Let's hope this blog doesn't become messy ;)

BTW: The awsome blog I found: Computing for Psychologists

PulseAudio Equalizer for Linux

 When using the PC, listening to music became a habit.

PulseAudio Equalizer is an equalizer for Linux with a GUI (Graphical User Interface) with a lot of presets which work pretty well.

In order to install on Debian 7 (where it was tested, will probably work on Ubuntu, Linux Mint and related distros):


Add the repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8

This line will add the PPA to your repository list: it tells your software installer where to search for new packages. In this case you add someone's personal repository in order to install what they developed.

Next, update your software installer:

sudo apt-get update

This is an important line. Before installing something via APT, you should update it. If you tried running the next code line without updating, it probably wouldn't find the equalizer because APT wouldn't know it has another repository in it's list to search for software.

Finally, install the equalizer:

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio-equalizer


Final note on update and upgrade:

If you want to upgrade your packages via

sudo apt-get upgrade


You should run

sudo apt-get update

because your packages might have been updated and APT doesn't know about that yet, so it'll not upgrade your packages because their versions match the latest version as read by APT.

Source with detailed information and bug fix here.

Stairway To Heaven - Led Zeppelin

Timeless masterpiece

MRI: a glympse of a fascinating area of research

Some of you may have already been inside an Magnetic Resonance scanner. From the outside it has a pretty simple donut-like shape, like this:

(image from here)

Even though the outside has a fancy minimalist design, the way it works is one of the most sophisticated method's I've ever studied, and I'm far from fully understanding it. Every time I read something on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), not only I learn something new but also have new questions about it.

Very very very (I really have to emphasize it) briefly, this technique works by placing a human body in a strong magnetic field.

This magnetic field is slightly different from the head to feet, meaning the atoms inside the body will precess (rotate somehow like a spinning top) at different speeds.

Different speeds mean they'll have different resonance frequencies. It is possible to stimulate a number of elements, but because hydrogen is abundant inside the human body and the MR signal is strong, this is the chosen element for stimulation.

When precessing protons are stimulated by radiofrequency pulses, they absorb energy and tend to return to their lowest energy state (oriented along the magnetic field). When releasing energy, protons emit a magnetization signal which can be detected by electromagnetic induction in coils.

After reconstruction from frequency domain, different types of images can be obtained depending on how the protons are stimulated. 

New techniques such as diffusion kurtosis imaging may provide new information relevant to clinicians. Scientists all over the world actively investigate new ways to stimulate protons and have different contrast images, new types of information, etc.

Maybe one day I'll get to work on this. So far I analysed DTI images in order to look for differences between Parkinson's disease and healthy subjects, which was a pretty interesting project and in which I've learnt many things.

Suggested reading (online and free): The Basics of MRI by Joseph P. Hornak.

One of my favorite songs. Sometimes it takes a lot to start something over (give it a thought)... But it may be worth it ;)

Enjoy the clip, quite funny too!

Linux: nohup and ampersand (&)

When in a linux shell (Debian, in my case), you may want to run several commands in the same shell, or even close it and keep the programs you called running.

If you want to edit a textfile, lets say, potato.txt, you'll use gedit (or any other text editor):

gedit potato.txt

However you won't be able to write in that terminal until you close gedit. If you want to use your terminal while editing potato.txt, type instead:

gedit potato.txt &

If you suddenly close your terminal, gedit will close and you're likely to lose any data you changed. The nohup command might be the solution:

nohup gedit potato.txt &

Even if you close your terminal, gedit will keep running. If a command or program is frozen, and closing the terminal won't kill it, you might just use pkill to do it:

pkill gedit

However, there are still a lot of things I can't figure out: when I try running matlab with nohup, the splash screen will appear but matlab won't open.

In that case, screen might help you. In a shell, type:

screen

It's possible that the screen page will appear (with version, license, etc), just type ENTER. It may look like nothing changed. Type:

matlab &

Just like you'd do any other time. Matlab will start. In the shell, press CTRL+A and then D (without hitting CTRL) and your shell with dettach from Matlab. Now you can close the shell and Matlab will keep running ;)

I hope this was helpful. For more information check nohup and & and running matlab in the background.

JDM symbol: Datsun 510

I decided to start the first topic with something that I really like: cars.

Since I was a child I always grew up wandering around my father's car repair shop. Perhaps that's why I like cars.

Some of them are not that pretty, not that fast or not that classy. However, that does not mean they're not special.

One car I like a lot is the Datsun 510:

(you can find other info on this one here, from where I got the picture)

It is a small salloon car from the late 60's / early 70's, with some quite interesting features such as autolocking differential and independent rear suspensions, which is quite remarkable for a car with over 40 years (even some of modern cars don't have that technology).

On my personal point of view, it is a very preety and exciting car, and it's definitly something I intend to have. I'd like to restore one myself, at my own pace and taste.

Even though I can't afford a car project at a moment (as a university student without income, I have no time nor money), it's something I hope I can do in a few years!