Mahli’s Musing

If you like formal methods and software engineering (notice the conjunction), you’ll probably want to apply for a place at Marktoberdorf Summer School this year. I’d like to come again given the wonderful experience I had last year, but I already have other plans. So yeah.

In this article, I focus on how IOI team selections are done in participating countries (so candidates who don’t like how the selection is run in their country can look for a country where they’d fit well ). I’ve been reading all papers from Olympiads in Informatics journal and there have been in total of 16 countries whose information of their selection process is available. Here I try to provide a summary of all that information and add some more info based on what is found on the net. As always, feel free to update me on the evolution of the selection process of any countries by posting a comment. Don’t hesitate as well if you have suggestion to refine this post. Continue Reading »

Maybe the ones living in the States have more interest on this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXAZ_7JO7EA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCFnx2W6CvY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ii9ARL4EGg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-ouf_gmA5o

Quite frightening, I’d say. I wonder how’s the situation in Indonesia…

Edit: adding the last one. I already have little motivation to go to the States, and now I’m becoming even more reluctant.

In a country as advanced as Germany, it is somewhat unbelievable that there are people at the university who are foreign to the technology called toilet flushing. How is it like at your place?

Hmmm 2010 is here. Empty accounting sheet… Everything is 0.

I wonder how this page will be filled. A typical monthly expenditure for me is like below. And I wonder if it’ll change…

P.S. Playing with SVG is fun.

>1 p, 1 b
~75, <15%, 40, 95, 85, 65, 40
>16000, <600/m
1x Jun?, <800, 3w (+2d @S)
4 G+S+B
C1
27,8,5 (+1 -> Apr)
>0 e

Let’s see how many of those above i can successfully achieve this year.

One of the crucial points in writing is presentation. The better you present your stuff, the better you can sell it (assuming you have something to sell, of course). The thing is, this is something you can only learn up to a certain level by reading materials on writing techniques. Afterwards, they can only be gained by reading what others have written and putting a lot of your own effort into writing.

In the first 5 months of my PhD, I have read a few papers (and still have tons more to read) from different authors and I noticed that some authors present their ideas more attractively than others. Other authors also have good command of English, and present their ideas well, but they are not so engaging to read. So I can say it’s not always about the English.

Key ingredients (apart from the obvious, such as no typos) that I find important are:

• The main idea is presented in 1-2 short sentences. That is, short, but precise.
• Notations (and, if space permitting, conventions) are explained without ambiguity.
• Examples are always good. A running example from start to end is even better.
• No fancy words (I can make a blog entry just on this topic).
  For example, does one really need to use the word “lacuna” when “missing gap” is sufficient? I mean, the content is already difficult. Why make it even more difficult for people to follow?
• The flow is clear. Everything is built step by step.
• Good layouting always helps

Well, I mention examples are good, so here is a(n incomplete) list of authors whose papers I found pleasant to read:

• E. W. Dijkstra
• C. A. R. Hoare
• K. Rustan M. Leino
• Leslie Lamport

Of course this is only a very small subset of good writers out there, and I have yet to read many more papers. I just hope I can be as good as them some day.

This may become handy to some: http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/index.html

“Whenever a kiwi moves to Australia, it lifts the average IQ in both countries.” )

hmmm.. Boot time increased from ~1:00 from grub page to ready for use (incl. login) to ~1:30. Anyone knows any way to revert back to Ubuntu 9.04?

Note to self: Never ever trust the truly shitty version update service offered by Ubuntu. It only gives one a disservice. Fresh install all the time… -_-# Update: even fresh install doesn’t solve the problem (http://georgia.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1307021)

Ah and yes, the time is also messed up by the update (diff. by an hour thanks to incorrect DST settings). Just realised now! (9 hours after the update)

Problems with the mike too (http://georgia.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1317060), just detected when I tried skype.

I’m not recommending 9.10 to anyone.