Hobbies

My hobbies / activities

  • I’m an avid reader. One of my favourite series of books is the discworld set of novels. They are both funny and deeply philosophical. Its author, Terry Pratchett, recently passed away (in 2015). I wish that progress in medical imaging, to which I contribute, would have been more helpful in his case.

  • I love cinema. My favourite film of all times is Andrei Rublyev (Андрей Рублев), also on IMDB by Andrei Tarkovsky. This is the one film that had the most effect on me. I often think of it. I’ve only seen it once in a theater, it is hard to find a place where it is projected, but if it shows somewhere near you, I urge you to go and see it. It lasts for 3 hours, but it is an experience. You can (legally !) watch it in HD online here, at open culture, as well as 4 of Tarkovsky’s other films, which are all very good indeed. I particularly recommend Solaris (Солярис) in that list.

  • I’m an amateur musician, I play the oboe in a local orchestra, I’m the webmaster and the treasurer of this association. Come and listen to us sometime!

  • I’m an amateur astronomer and dabble in astrophotography. Actually astrophotography was one of the prime reason for me to go into computer vision. Unfortunately I live in the city and have little time to look at the sky these days, but I’m involved in a large European project putting together astronomy and computer vision. When I was a teenager I was involved in an astronomy association, and we built our own 10” telescope, including grinding the mirror.

  • I’m a huge geek and like to configure computers for fun, particularly big machine like compute servers.

  • I’m a fan of Wikipedia (did you notice?), and I try to contribute when I can.

  • Finally I have a wife and I’m a father of two great daughters. There are some pictures on my FB page.