Home on vasileios balntas

When to Pick: The Statistics of Grape Harvest Timing

Sat, 15 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Savatiano grapes before veraison. Athens, 2024.

Every winemaker faces the same question each autumn: when do I pick? Pick too early and you get thin, acidic wine. Too late and you lose freshness, structure, and risk rot. The decision usually comes down to a single number: Brix.

The problem is that measuring Brix from a handful of grapes at the edge of your vineyard will mislead you. Sampling a vineyard properly is a real statistical problem.

Linear B: Deciphering the Earliest Known Written Greek

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Tablet PY Ta 641 and its transcription. National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Photo: Yair-haklai, CC BY-SA 4.0.

These clay tablets are 3,200 years old. They predate Homer by 600 years and the Greek alphabet by 400. They are the oldest known texts in any European language.

In 1952, a 30-year-old English architect named Michael Ventris announced he had deciphered the script on them. The language turned out to be Greek.

The Chemistry of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Olive groves in Methoni, Greece. phaos.farm

What makes an olive oil "extra virgin" and higher quality than others? Tip: It's not marketing, but chemistry. Two numbers tell most of the story: acidity (how degraded the oil is) and phenolic content (how protective and flavorful). Once you know what to look for, you can spot quality yourself.

Acidity: The Damage Meter

Olive oil is mostly triglycerides: three fatty acid chains attached to a glycerol backbone. About 70–80% of those chains are oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat (omega-9) that's more resistant to oxidation than the polyunsaturated fats in seed oils. This is partly why olive oil is more stable and resistant to going rancid.

About

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

I am an Honorary Research Associate at Imperial College London.

I run Ifestos.ai, a robotics research consulting agency.

Previously I was a Senior Research Science Manager at Meta Reality Labs Research, Head of Research at Scape Technologies, and a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford.

Area chair and multiple outstanding reviewer awards at CVPR, ICCV, and other computer vision conferences. Young Researcher Travel Award at CVPR 2017. BAE and Thales MSc awards, 2009.