Bence Ferdinandy

Don't abuse Co-authored-by for marking AI assistance

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Instead, use a dedicated AI-assistant: trailer with a more useful format.

Secure and redundant server setup with a bit of lazyness

Sat, 07 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Step-by-step guide to set up an Ubuntu server with the root partition on btrfs raid1, encrypted with luks, and automatically unlocking on boot via a mandos server running locally.

Git commits and how to craft them

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A set of rules, their rationale and a short practical guide to creating useful git commits.

Email in the terminal: a complete guide to the unix way of email

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Reading emails in your terminal is fast, highly customizable, productive, and fun. Unfortunately, it can be frustrating to set up. This is a complete guide to take the frustration out of the process.

More keyboard, less mouse: my Regolith + tmux + vim based workflow

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 11:32:01 +0000

Keyboard centric tools: Regolith, tmux and vim + benefits of using text files (markdown and LaTeX with git).

Naming chaos in statistics: bring order by thinking in mathematical models

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 13:23:38 +0000

Ever got confused by difference between the two GLMs? With why ANCOVA and GLM do the same thing? Ever had trouble remembering assumptions? Stop thinking in tests and start thinking in mathematical models, and everything will be much clearer.

Ethorobotics and the first bio-robot

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 12:18:59 +0000

The dog can be considered the first bio-robot “built” by humans, and we’re only slightly joking with that statement. Let’s explore the concept of ethorobotics to understand why.

Why guitar frets work (and why violins don't have them)

Sat, 06 Apr 2019 22:05:26 +0000

Obviously, you squeeze the string to the fret, which shortens the string making a higher sound. But it occurred to me, that it’s awfully convenient that you need one in the same place for all the strings. And if it’s so awfully convenient, how come violinist put up with having to find the exact place to hold the strings, rather then getting frets?

Fastest and smallest way to set up R with jupyter on Windows

Thu, 22 Nov 2018 21:49:24 +0000

This tutorial will show you the fastest (and smallest) install of Jupyter Notebook if you only want to run R with it.

What's the difference between a graph and a network?

Sun, 27 May 2018 18:12:00 +0000

Nothing.

Or let’s be precise: not much. Both are things (nodes, vertices) connected by other things (links, edges) and any distinction is pretty much nothing but tradition.

My PhD dissertation has a network science part. When I started writing about Erdős-Rényi graphs in this part I realized I had to clear up the relationship between the networks and graphs. After some research I tentatively wrote “Networks are essentially graphs”. Unfortunately, this statement did not resound well with one of my opponents, so I had to dig deeper.

Projects

Sun, 27 May 2018 18:01:54 +0000

Ethorobotics

Your robot doesn’t have to behave like a human, for it to be socially acceptable. Your dog and cat doesn’t, and you still love having them around. See more here. I used to lead the development of the Biscee, but now I’m mostly just a consultant.

Teaching

Sun, 27 May 2018 18:01:47 +0000

Collected materials

Classes

Numerical methods in physics (Physics BSc, ELTE, 2021)
Python programming and Linux basics (Biology MSc, ELTE, 2020 - 2021)
Biometry, advanced biostatistics (Biology MSc, ELTE, 2018 - 2021)
Modern Physics Laboratory (Physics BSc, ELTE, 2012 - 2014)

Students (finished degree or scholarship)

Péter Telkes (Mechatronics MSc, BME, 2023)
Ákos Móri (Computer Science BSc, ELTE, 2023)
Erik Neczli (Mechatronics BSc, BME, 2023)
Máté László (Mechatronics BSc, BME, 2023)
Márton Wernigg (internship, Computer Science MSc, BME, 2022)
Paula Perez (Cooperative PhD program, 2022)
Balázs Kozma (Mechatronics BSc, BME, 2022)
Amri Katalin (Biology MSc, ELTE, 2022)
Balázs Morvai (Mechatronics BSc, BME, 2022)
Fülöp Pelle (Mechatronics MSc, BME, 2022)
Lehel Horváth (Mechatronics MSc, BME, 2022)
Lukas Schüler (DAAD RISE, 2021)
Ábel Rozmán (Biology BSc, ELTE, 2021)
Mohamad Zatar (DAAD RISE, Engineering BSc, Hamburg University of Technology, 2021)
Zoe Farkas (Biology BSc, ELTE, 2020)
Aayush Yadav (DAAD RISE, Electrical Engineering BSc, Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt, 2019)
Kata Iklódi (Animal Husbandry Engineer BSc, SZIE, 2018)
Levente Pál (Physics BSc, ELTE, 2017)

Publications

Fri, 09 Mar 2018 08:34:56 +0000

Google Scholar
ORCID
MTMT

Book chapter

Ferdinandy, B., Telkes P., Abdai, J., Miklósi Á., An introduction to robot construction in Abdai, J. and Miklósi Á., An Introduction to Ethorobotics : Robotics and the Study of Animal Behaviour, Routledge (2024)

Contact

Fri, 09 Mar 2018 07:40:52 +0000

bence@ferdinandy.com

About

Thu, 08 Mar 2018 19:32:23 +0000

I am Bence Ferdinandy, a Hungarian physicist based in Budapest, with a PhD in biological and statistical physics. I currently work as senior data scientist at Signifyd. In my free time I dabble in robotics and animal behaviour recognition as a volunteer at the Department of Ethology, Eötvös Loránd University, and like to fiddle around with open source utilities. I also occasionally work for the family R&D company Pharmahungary Group where I am the sysadmin and general IT guy. I'm married and a father of two.

Materials for git

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

See my dotfiles for configuration tips.

General git

interactive tutorial for git
my post on writing good commits with a practical guide included
a workshop I held (it currently lacks some context, but has all the commands used)
the git book: especially chapters 1-3, 5.1, 5.2, 7.2
git rebase, i.e. how to rewrite git history: https://git-rebase.io/

Git over email

tutorial for contributing with git over email: https://git-send-email.io/
tutorial for reviewing with git over email: https://git-am.io/
my post on setting up terminal email

Workflows / governence

alternative to the forking model

Tools for git

vim setup: fugitive.vim, vim-flog, vim-gitgutter
lazygit (TUI)

Notes

The functionality of checkout has been split into switch and restore in more recent versions, it’s better to use those.

Materials for linux and terminals

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

See my dotfiles for configuration tips.

tutorials and resources

tools

tmux (split terminal, keep alive remote ssh session)
fzf (fuzzy finder for everything)
ugrep (much faster grep)
fd (better find)
bat (better cat)
terminal editors (know how to change a word or two in a file):
- vim or neovim (harder, but better long term):
- nano (easier)

Materials for python

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

See my dotfiles for configuration tips.

tools

Black and ruff play nicely together if ruff is configured with line-length=88.

Materials for ROS and robotics

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bence Ferdinandy

Don't abuse Co-authored-by for marking AI assistance

Secure and redundant server setup with a bit of lazyness

Git commits and how to craft them

Email in the terminal: a complete guide to the unix way of email

More keyboard, less mouse: my Regolith + tmux + vim based workflow

Naming chaos in statistics: bring order by thinking in mathematical models

Ethorobotics and the first bio-robot

Why guitar frets work (and why violins don't have them)

Fastest and smallest way to set up R with jupyter on Windows

What's the difference between a graph and a network?

Tags

Projects

Ethorobotics

Teaching

Collected materials

Classes

Students (finished degree or scholarship)

Publications

Book chapter

Contact

About

Materials for git

General git

Git over email

Workflows / governence

Tools for git

Notes

Materials for linux and terminals

tutorials and resources

tools

Materials for python

tools

Materials for ROS and robotics