England is out

So finally, England is out. It would be a miracle if a team like this can get the World Cup. The primary reason, of course, is Sven-Goran Eriksson:

1. Four strikers. Chose only four strikers, including one who was injured (at that time), one just recovered from injury (at that time), one who can do anything except scoring, and one Eriksson himself don't dare to use. (More about strikers below.)

2. Theo Walcott. I become more or more believed in the joke that Eriksson lost a bet with Arsene Wenger on something and therefore has to bring Walcott to Germany. If you don't dare using him, why bring him there?

3. Crouch, Lampard and the formation. There was the 4-4-2 vs. 4-5-1 issue. I don't have a problem with switching between formations; however, it switched just because of who is available and who is not.

First, people keep on saying Crouch is rubbish. In terms of scoring he is, and you better pick someone else in the first place, but given that no other strikers are there, I think he should play along Rooney. BBC showed an analysis where no England player is within 27 metres of Rooney... how can anyone play in such case? You need someone to support Rooney. And Crouch did hold the ball for some time.

Then, if you play Crouch (or anyone else in a 4-4-2) then someone from midfield get to be sacrificed. I always believe they need a holding midfielder, whoever that is. You just can't play Cole-Lampard-Gerrard-Beckham. Given that Lampard is not performing well, and the Lampard-Gerrard problem that so many people have discussed, I think Lampard should be dropped. But this is not something that Eriksson would do.

4. Penalties. "We practised penalties so much, I really don't know what more we could do about it." said Eriksson. And this completely misses the point. Penalties is not about practice. That's why they will never win a penalty shootout - they simply don't believe they can. Ironically, the only one to get the ball in is one who is least British. But this is not something that Eriksson can solve, I suppose.

Having said all that, I hope Portugal won't win the World Cup. If every team played like them - just imagine a scene where players are all covering their face, rolling on the pitch every minute. It is claimed that it has something to do with Scolari (as in Brazil 2002). I wonder what would happen if Scolari is England coach. Gerrard holding his face rolling on the pitch when he is slightly touched in his chest... so funny just to think of it.

World Cup: three second-round knockouts

The Holland-Portugal match is a shame on football. They are doing everything except playing football: kicking players, diving, rolling on the ground pretending to be injured, stealing the ball that should be given back to the other side, or simply fighting. People say the referee is crazy. I disagree. Obviously he made some wrong decisions, just as all other referees we have seen in this World Cup; but if the players are crazily fouling, there is not much you can do other than crazily giving away cards. In fact, I think he is too lenient, he should give away more cards. (Perhaps both teams should be disqualified and then England go straight into the semi-final...)

The Italy-Australia match is decided by a, well, dive again. When can they use instant-replay or other technologies to aid referee decisions? Until then, there is no way to stop players diving or acting. And stop the "wrong decisions by referee are part of the game" nonsense: so correct decisions are not part of the game? Diving, acting, fighting are part of the game?

And I just don't understand what the Swiss are doing. So they decided to play 120 minutes defensive football to hold onto a 0-0, which they did successfully, but didn't practice penalties? The first team ever to go out without conceding a goal... and refuse to kick in all 3 penalties...

World Cup: 有今生冇來世

正如某講波佬所講，今屆世界盃真係「有今生冇來世」。大量球證錯判本來就司空見慣，冇乜特別，但今次特多一場八張黃牌，三張紅牌等，更在同一場賽事出現「三黃一紅」，「入球前一刻吹雞完場」，「禁區內欖球式防守合法化」等，令人嘆為觀止。

我認為歸根究底都係因為 FIFA，每屆世界盃前都「公佈」一 d「嚴打」項目，(平時就唔理架咩?) 令 d 球證無所適從...

meeting week

This is the week of meetings. In each such meeting, most of the teaching staff gather together for several hours, and at any point in time, 90% of people have absolutely no idea about the module or person being discussed. As usual, there are endless discussions about arbitrary adjustments of some numbers. Even worse, different people seem to be supplied with different versions of spreadsheets full of numbers, adding more confusion to what we are really talking about...

World Cup: all teams appeared

話咁快三十二隊都出晒場了，今屆又有咩睇呢：

1) 英格蘭到目前為止都仲有d 運行，繼熱身賽後再有對方幫佢入波，同組另一場仲要和埋。(不過千里達確係打得好好。)

2) 我一向都好鄙視南韓主辦賽事嘅「所作所為」，好想睇佢地今次點死，不過抽到咁嘅組，又遇著咁「強」嘅法國，話唔定又首名出線了。

3) 五隊非洲球隊幾乎全部輸晒。佢地最大嘅問題係根本就唔多想贏，行行企企咁，完全唔似輸緊，你唔知仲以為佢地兩球在手。

4) 大部份強隊都表現不錯或至少三分在手，十六強起應有頗多大戰...

World Cup 2006 kick-off

去年今日，我糊裡糊塗來了這裡 interview，如果唔係，我今日就唔會係到同大家講呢番說話... (請默哀一分鐘...)

So, today is the World Cup opener. Isn't it always the defending champion play the first game? Why the host this time?

First two rounds of group games start at 2:00, 5:00, 8:00 pm... reasonably convenient time. The 5:00pm game means I have to get off work a little bit earlier...

Germany and Costa Rica together played a very entertaining game. I mean, with defence like this from both teams, attackers can wander around anywhere they like, without worrying how to get past defenders or avoid offsides.

Chief Invigilator

Perhaps they think people in CS department will not be on strike? They almost assign every exam session with CS papers to use CS staff as chief invigilator. Obviously it isn't a good idea for me is it? Last time people thought I'm a student...

Nothing important happens in today's exam session, though, except people sit wherever they like...

未解決

蜜蜂事件還未解決，據說發現了另一個蜂巢，我成日行唔安坐唔落，真係好大壓力...

PS. 請勿再 forward 巴士大叔事件 給我了，我唔係你地諗得咁 out... 我成個月前已經睇過段片...
(請注意，以上 link 及其整個網站均充斥粗口，鹹野，人身攻擊，個人私隱等等，總之十八歲以下或不喜者勿入)

More bees

After a seemingly peaceful night, this morning there's no bees inside. I got out, it's raining, and I didn't see anything suspicious around the house.

In the afternoon when I returned, sky was clear; I looked at the second floor when I was still on ground floor, and - oh gee - bees flying around my flat, and in particular they seemed to get in the ventilation between the ceiling and the roof of my flat - a beehive or something inside. I was standing there looking, thinking what I should do, talking to a neighbor, and then the neighbor who's living next to me appeared (yes, the one mentioned here before). She said she has the same problem with bees, called the city council to treat them, thinking that's her problem when in fact the bees have chosen my flat. The council people told her the bees would still be mad for a few hours - although they didn't appear too mad to me; I think they are flying quite happily?

Back inside the flat, there are, well, bees. Not as many as before - yesterday's 60, today's 15, an "improvement"... I think that's because I sealed many of the spaces in the ceiling/ventilation.

So now, (1) I know where the problem is, (2) I have stopped some of their ways to get in, (3) the root of the problem is supposed to be solved. But it remains to see whether their treatment is effective. And being effective for this time does not prevent the problem re-appearing later...

And there is still a mystery. The bees inside the flat yesterday were like today's - dying. Why's that? Who treated them yesterday?

救命呀!!!!!!!

媽呀！救命呀！！！！！！我今日一番到屋企，就見到幾十隻蜜蜂係間屋到... 我間屋明明係密室，所有窗閂埋晒... 但個假天花唔知點樣出到屋外面，佢地就係咁樣飛入黎... 唔知點解佢地大都已經死剩半條命... 但我仍然很驚，搞左一大輪先殺晒... 點解？點解？今晚訓訓下又飛幾隻入黎點算？聽日返黎又有幾多隻？我洗唔洗報警？！

仲有上兩個禮拜，我 office 窗只開一條 "lar"，但還有一隻蜜蜂死都要捐入黎...

Mark our work! Mark our work!

本學系今日上電視！一眾學生抗議 lecturer 罷工唔改卷，不知何故選擇在本學系對開空地集會示威...
East Midlands Today 6:30 News (video: will not remain here for too long)
BBC News (webpage)

Matrix (again)

One or two weeks ago the TV was showing the film Matrix. Then in some (Hong Kong) forum I saw people talking about the price of the ultimate Matrix collection being expensive. And then for some reason colleagues talked about movies and mentioned a bit about Matrix. Finally, yesterday I walked past the HMV; I simply felt there's something not quite right, so I decided to go in and see - and the first thing I noticed is that they are having a sale on the ultimate Matrix collection, at 19.99 pounds - that is 2 pounds a DVD!

fire drill

We had a fire drill yesterday, when "the building must be empty within 90 seconds". From this you can conclude how large the building is. But it finished equally quickly - you don't need to stand in Haking Wong podium for 20 minutes doing nothing...

A miraculous comeback

Almost, that is.

A crappy session by both at 4-4; then both have played better and Ebdon led Fu 9-7; then in third session Ebdon played so well that no one can stop anyway, but Fu was not in form and lost to 9-15. When no one expected he could make it, Marco Fu came back from 9-15 to 15-15 and marginally losing at 16-17 in the final session. Hope he plays better in the future, especially don't start to miss pots when close to reach a safe line...

Marco Fu v Ken Doherty

So Marco Fu finally got past Ken Doherty. Given that Ken Doherty is such a tactical player, this means there is now a genuine chance for Marco to win anyone. In particular the mental strength of Marco is impressive as they played very time-consuming frames, and the 19th frame is "stolen".

Now with Peter Ebdon, however, things can only be worse and reportedly (no i didn't watch it) the 4:4 tie up to now is full of crappy play...

"busy" with various things

These days I have been rather busy with things like:
1. watching Marco Fu and others playing snooker. It seems that Marco is in very good form...
2. and watching too much snooker makes me almost forget the Chelsea-Liverpool FA cup match (only realizing it 5 minutes before kick-off);
3. counting my newly-acquired (yes, again) hard-plastic pieces. It looks like I never get the complete set of pieces in the first instance whenever I get large sets off ebay;
4. looping 傷信 and 1874 (new concert version);
5. and finally on the more serious side, doing assignment. Massification. Commodification. Constructivism. Can you make sense out of these? I was very disappointed when they resolved that "staff development courses" should not be affected by the industrial action...

An interesting MPhil application

Some time ago we received an MPhil application. That actually has nothing to do with me, but somehow it get circulated around. Based on my very limited knowledge about that area (well I did teach that, but that does not mean I know enough), I determined that the "research proposal" is cranky. (The bell starts ringing whenever you see "equations" of algorithms can be "incorporated" together. He already had an algorithm, and a "theory" of the same name. Also plans to have "month by month expansion" of algorithms.)

Then one day I was hoping to get some fun when reading the "proposal" again, and this time I googled the applicant's name. Assuming it is not a name collision, this person had written a software that is claimed to be many times faster than existing products, and hence got an award from a nearby country, and made his name on BBC, Slashdot, etc. This is followed by criticisms about the validity of the speed claim. He claimed the software would be commercialized soon, but of course it is nowhere to be seen now.

He may be a good programmer, but there are many people who are good at one thing and completely cranky on another related thing...

Fake conferences

I come across this web site on fake conferences a bit too late - just a few days before its closure, and when I want to visit it again it is already closed. I then come up with the idea of doing one myself, listing all those "prestigious" conferences that everyone knows, posting their emails with my comments. Unfortunately, someone has already done that (at least on this latest email)...

RAE

Our department head's old April fool joke about RAE become a reality. It is as if after the RAE is scrapped the "burden" on academics will disappear. Like replacing 學能測驗 with... (what's the name?) automatically makes everyone happy. And a metrics-based system - count your papers, impact factors, acceptance rates...

(1) 質量顛倒：學問不是豬牛雞鴨，不適合論斤計件，但是，行內眾所周知，眼前的學術政策恰恰就是要論斤計件：重量不重質。
...

(3) 皮肉顛倒：我們有時會把書籍的封面叫做「書皮」，把書籍的內文叫做「書肉」。一本書的優劣，取決於書肉，而不是書皮；取決於書肉的內涵，而不是書皮上印着的出版社字號。

奇怪的是，現今所謂學術評審，只着重書由哪家出版社出版（或文章在哪個刊物登載——問題的本質一樣，不贅），而不着重書籍的內容；不但不着重，甚至完全不看內容。儒林笑話，無勝於此。

李天命，《從思考到思考之上》

April Fool's day at London

On April Fool's day I went to London. For no particular purpose. I mean, unlike in HK where you might go to some rural places in holiday, here I need to go to some place which look more like a city.

I happened to walk into the British museum, hoping to look at some stolen Chinese antiques...(?) I don't know what they are, anyway, except some... 利是封. With hello-kitty. I never thought that could be in a museum. Then I went to the Chinatown to look for some Chinese food. I ended up at a Hong-kong style 茶餐廳. I'm sure that's very Hong-kong style, not only the food but also hygiene and service. After that, I walked around, e.g. to look at the pool of ducks in front of the Buckingham place.

Silly enough, huh?

The end of teaching

So, teaching is over. Quick, er?

Here we also have module review, the equivalent of course evaluation. The different thing is that it is me to collect the completed questionaires. I just keep on wondering, why don't I throw away some bad ones and make some good ones myself. But in any case, there are too few students to make any statistical significance of the results. Is it a miracle that some Arts students find "relational algebra" and "third normal form" interesting?

中國「語」「文」

據報聯合國將劃一使用簡體字。 這又使我想起：孫國父與毛主席兩大偉人，一個把外族語言拿來當國語，攪到 d 人以為唐詩宋詞以至古裝電視劇應該講「普通話」；一個發明了簡體字，以至乾炒牛河會譯成 fxxk fry cow river。短短幾十年就把中國幾千年文化廢了，對中國語言和文字的貢獻實在太大了一點 ...

1/4 + 1/2 = ?

英國學生嘅數學水平，比香港更高...

話說呢到有個 Game theory in Computer science 嘅 MSc course, 聽眾一般包括 Reader, Lecturer, PhD 學生, MSc 學生及 "Notetaker" 各一名。某日有條數最後係 1/4 - 1/2 + 1, 正當那 MSc 學生要開計數機，那 Lecturer (教的那個, 不是聽的那個) 忽然喝止，於是佢地只好用紙筆計數。雖然那 Lecturer 已說明係等於 1/4 + 1/2, 不過佢仍然攪了半分鐘，仲同隔離對埋，才肯定佢嘅答案: 6/8.

Prudence's visit

Yesterday Prudence came to give a talk. I believe there is a more than usual number of people in the audience, including quite some people that has never appeared in any "algorithm" talk.

The dinner was in a south Indian restaurant. While I do not particularly enjoy Indian food, I'm ok with it and the dosa taste quite good. The starter is too "plain" for me though...

I drank more than usual amount of beer in the whole day, but that has nothing to do with the talk, or the St. Patrick's day.

Algorithms course

由於最高指示下年要整個新嘅三年班 Algorithms course，我走去睇吓佢地一年班嘅課程。有一科叫做 Algorithms and data structures，內容十分別開生面，包括 Exceptions, Inheritance and Polymorphism, GUIs and event-driven programming, applets 等等。唔，三年班學 sorting...

我就唔係好認為佢地識 Inheritance and Polymorphism 呢 d 嘢。佢地好似連 variable 係有 scope 嘅都唔係好知。其實老細改革課程都好不遺餘力。例如佢地終於 compulsory 要學 semaphore, thread, socket 同 TCP/IP layers 了...

罷工

罷工咁好玩都唔早 D 通知... 不過都係無我份... 但以下呢句野真係呢:

The AUT said many students had also shown their backing for the strike by not attending lectures and classes.

其實學生長期都很支持我地，佢地不嬲都唔係點上堂的...

殺校

閱報得知 N 年前就讀的小學遭殺校。據阿媽說，學校早前想聯絡我，大概都係關於呢件事咁話。其實撻我個朵出來都係無濟於事，不過如果有乜野可以幫到手嘅，我係好樂意做 的。間學校好好係講唔上，但總算係生活左幾年，留有回憶嘅地方，盡下人事都好的。其實佢地捱到今日都算係咁了，不少同學的小學早就倒閉了...

Bioinformatics, English department, and matrix

話說因為別人家有急事，我早幾日幾乎被召去代課教 database，即係我教緊既嘢 ─ 不過要頂既係 MSc Bioinformatics 既。喺 LG101 混了幾年聽返嚟既幾乎有用到既一日。不過最後唔洗，於是可以繼續去教英文系學生...

不過，結果今日都係頂左一堂。同三年班學生溫習 matrix multiplication。我都唔知點解 2x2 既 matrix 乘數都可以講到四十分鐘...

TV

As if my research isn't bad enough, I finally got (after being here for several months) a mind-distracting machine from a colleague.

I don't really understand how they come up with this system of paying a "licence fee" to watch TV. I think we can guess how well the system is working when letters are continually delivered to the ex-tenant here (or ex-ex, or ex-ex-ex...) asking him to pay. "Sophisticated equipment" to detect whether you have a TV. Sounds quite interesting...

Miscellaneous

(1) One day I was flipping through an MSc application. It says the applicant has a term with GPA 4.0 in MIT, but clearly he has never studied outside of his third-world home country. After 5 seconds I realized that MIT stands for "Master in Information Technology"...

(2) Alan Smith:

When I looked, the leg was lying one way and my ankle
was pointing towards Hong Kong so I knew I was in
serious trouble

(3)
【明報專訊】就特首曾蔭權任用民主派出身的劉細良為中央政策組全職顧問，民建聯行政會議成員曾鈺成與立法會議員鄭經翰展開罵戰，曾鈺成日前在報章批評鄭經翰﹕「主人都未出聲，狗唔需要吠住﹗」

不唔係通常主人未叫，狗就吠定先，要主人喝止架咩...
就好似你咁，上面都未出聲，你就...

Exam meeting

We have the exam meeting today. No, I'm not going to tell you anything. Except that I possibly over-worried - our module (i.e. course) is perhaps the only one among third year modules that does not require the application of some continuous bijective mapping from a compact set to itself. These mappings are not arbitrary, e.g. they must be piecewise-linear, and have at least two fixed points, one more than the theoretical minimum. We discussed how to design mappings that optimize different objectives, e.g. the power mean of order 1, or the difference from the required statistical distribution.

Yum Cha

Today I go to Yum Cha with Thomas, his wife who is from Hong Kong, his daughter, and Rajeev.

We have it at Peking restaurant. I know it but have never been there since it is an expensive place. It looks like all staff there speak Cantonese. And for the food, it is very close to Hong Kong standards except maybe the Har Gow which tastes a bit strange.

Thomas's wife is an alumni of HKU. She lives in a very different spacetime from me: she asks "Is 黃麗松 still the vice-chancellor?" I list out all the vice-chancellors after 黃麗松, none of which known to her, and I keep on wondering "did I miss someone?"

becoming a student again

Today we have the first regular meeting of the course Postgraduate Certificate in whatever blah blah blah. I am given a student card. That's perhaps a good thing since there is no such thing called "staff card" here and I always wonder how people prove themselves to be a member of staff. And perhaps I will finally remember to purge the HKU student card, Octopus card, etc. out from my wallet.

The meeting turns out to be a discussion where participants complain about universities turning into vocational-training factories, business-oriented management of universities, taking more students and thus lowering the quality, and continental Europeans complaining the spoon-feeding system here etc etc. The instructor hopelessly, repeatedly mention something like "well that's very much a double-sided sword" etc. After all, isn't that the whole point of the course - to transform us into whatever they want us to be?

Chinese new year

大年初一，正值星期日，應節食品包括年糕與走私臘腸。節日活動則有「新春發財跑」及「同電腦打麻雀」...

Chinese restaurant review: 東方酒樓

今日年廿九，我黎到呢間「東方酒樓」試試... 本來我諗住黎食叉燒飯，不過我見佢 buffet 都有叉燒，又有飯，咁就 buffet 把啦。

呢間只須4.2鎊，一星期七日都係呢個價錢。也是市中心，裝修很正常。侍應很兩文三語...

食物方面呢，都係咁上下嘅嘢，未來來去去都係 D 豬肉牛肉瓜瓜菜菜咁。比起上次，種類較少，無點心壽司，不過就好食 D ，同埋 D 春卷個樣好好多。 D 食得飽嘅炒粉麵飯反而有成四五款。D 叉燒... 好鹹。其實其他嘢都係。又其實上次個間都係。

總結黎講幾好，應該多 D 幫襯。

Exam results

我想問吓當年 Isaac 嘅 OS 試卷平均分係幾多呢... 話唔定我可以超越 Isaac，甚至迫近當年 HB 佬嘅 Solid state...

好在我只係出咗半份卷... 不過我已經可以想像，遲 D Examiner's meeting 俾人插嘅情形：「點解同一班學生, 做人地個三題好地地，做你個三題就咁差，你點出題目架？」

Exam

So my students have their exam today. I am invigilating another exam in the same timeslot, so I don't know how they are doing it. It is not a bad thing, though, to invigilate a lot of students taking "Renaissance poetry". (You know what I mean, right?)

Talking about my own exam, I think it is a easy paper. This is to be understood together with the fact, if you don't know it, that almost all tests and quizzes I have set in the past are believed to be of reasonable difficulty by me but not so by students, and sometimes proved to be deadly.

In the days before the exam there are students troubling, of course. I particularly dislike guys who keep on asking for hints. I mean, why do you think I would give hints to you? You ain't pretty gal, huh? (And even that won't help, of course...)

But at least I was out of office for the whole day before the exam, which possibly avoided some trouble. That is to attend an introduction session of a course on postgraduate certificate in higher education, or something like that (I never remember the name). I thought only HK secondary school teachers need to take a PCEd. A year's work to come. A probation requirement. Pooh...

epidemic

From here:

The death rate among aunts and grandmothers of college-age students is phenomenal, far beyond anything actuarial. It is biased toward exam time. A death in the family is the standard excuse for missing classes and examinations. Although some students are remarkably inventive in concocting stories, most are not. Faced with such an excuse, be aware that the student may be working you. These things are also cyclical. If one student gets away with it, others follow and you have a veritable epidemic among your students’ relatives.

AAIM'06

I think I ought to advertise this conference: my ex-boss is a co-chair, and the PC members include my current boss, my PhD examiner, 4 of my co-authors, HKU-related people, and many online algorithms and scheduling algorithms experts.

And I am not submitting a paper there.

Chinese restaurant review: Flame

由於各位對我咁耐都未幫襯過呢到既中國餐館感到十分驚訝，今日 lunch 忽然諗起，於是去了幫襯一間叫 "flame (焰)" 的，自助餐，每位五鎊 (只限 weekday lunch，weekend 要九鎊)。

這間餐館位於市中心，裝修很 "in"，紫色燈光(!)，外表横看豎看都不像中國餐館。

先說小食，除了那些蝦片沒有蝦味，與及春卷很蚊形(當然唔脆)外，大致上都OK的。

至於熱盤，有十多款普通過唔普通的，例如炒西蘭花，甜酸雞之類，部份菜式有點怪味，但大致上唔算難食。

這裡還有點心和壽司。點心共三款，分別貌似牛肉，燒賣與餃子，不論外表與味道都是公仔點心那個水平。壽司也無謂多說了。(五鎊你想有乜你食?)

最後是甜品，那西米露很啱我胃口，而諷刺地，全店最好食的似乎是那個西式的 cake。

總的來說，味道過得去，五鎊任你食，食乜都抵啦，算係唔錯。如果九鎊就可免則免了。

back to UK

I've come back to UK after this very short vacation (oops, no, should be research visit). Boarding the flight with no problems after a quick recovery from a fever the day before. For the first time, some officers appeared in the customs, although I still regret for not smuggling a lot more things...

People at tube and rail go strike causing the King's Cross St. Pancras station closed, and I need to go to the nearby King's Cross Thameslink station to take another train and involve a change in Bedford in order to get back. I have been around King's Cross for an enough number of times so that isn't much of a problem, fortunately.

A modern civilization

Yesterday I stay in school all day to have research collaboration, that is, looking at a figure I drew several months ago trying to recall what it means.

Today afternoon I walk to the Peak. In East Midlands it is exactly what the name suggests: a piece of flatland, with no mountains, no other interesting landscapes. Hong Kong, on the other hand, is a very strange place where there are so many tall buildings while at the same time there are mountains, seas, and everything else. Looking at all those buildings from the peak, I heard a tourist saying, "a modern civilization".

return from ISAAC

Today in the morning we have the flight back to HK.

Other than the "tour" and the weather, this ISAAC is generally well-organized. In particular, the hotel has free wireless Internet access (although there are many sites you can't go in mainland). The hotel staff can understand my standard of putonghua (!) and their general English level is quite good: at least better than some of the speakers in the conference, I believe.

Back to HK I relax in the bright sunshine that I didn't have for several months. Even in this day with the shortest daytime of the year, the sun is much brighter than that in UK. (Can I really call that thing in UK "sun", when it only hangs at 30 degrees above horizon even at noon?)

ISAAC day 3

今天大清早便要俾talk。我還以為咁早冇人聽，點知越講越多人。後來我才知道另外一個做同一problem的人 (而我們的paper cite了他們的 result) 竟然在場。幸好我的拉布戰術成功，冇時間俾人問嘢。

午飯後，沙達散博士可能真的太想去那天涯海角，也可能對昨日的節目「回味無窮」，大家決定去那天涯海角。結果每人付了六十五元入場費，看了兩舊石頭，以及以海南島天然雨水洗頭。我相信沙達散博士對祖國的「旅遊景點」一定加深了認識；不知此行令他後悔多少世？

回程時，王太被一樓盤吸引，參觀示範單位幾乎成為了本旅行團行程一部份。

ISAAC day 2

我不是得閑無事回香港的，而是要去 ISAAC.

主辦單位安排了今天下午有一個"tour"。行程包括三個半小時的車程和兩小時的「參觀」。

本來沙達散博士與宋博士打算不跟團，改往名景點「天涯海角」參觀。後來潘博士覆述王太之理論，表示天涯海角「唔去就後悔半世，去就後悔一世」，於是眾人決定還是隨團出發。

行程的第一站，各團友就被安排往某咖啡廠「參觀」及購買手信。之後我對明年將主辦 AAIM 之潘博士說，可安排團友到位於紅磡的金至尊買金，貢獻香港經濟。

行程的第二站，也就是最後一站，我們到了國家4A級旅遊景點「興隆熱帶植物公園」。

我們用了一小時半的時間，參觀了很多椰樹，蕉樹，其他樹，與及更多的椰樹。沿途碰巧遇到心情好的職員，便講解幾句，心情不好的職員更會互相吵架。我們還可看牌上的中文字，外國的團友們便只可專心觀樹。

各中外團友們對於OC竟然能安排如此節目，無不感到十分驚奇，臉上不由自主的流露出奇特的笑容。由於節目過於「精采」，潘博士與宋博士在途中研究「紅豆生南國」的下一句是什麼。沙達散博士更情不自禁，表演拋樽雜技。

回程時王太再發表理論，指這些節目唔係幾好，「雖然天涯海角只係兩舊石頭，但都係呢到景點，第二到冇得睇」，眾人大表同意。王太又表示此行也有好處，就是「得到人生經驗, 以後冇咁易俾人揾笨」。

晚上的 BBQ，我也不想多提，除了有表演以走音 (?) 的民族樂器 (?) 奏出「有隻雀仔跌落水」...

back to Hong Kong

終於，回到香港。

不知是因為我搭BA/CX終於夠多，還是訂票時擺了 DR. 出來，還是我靚仔了，我竟然被 upgrade...

晚上到了別人的婚宴，也聽到了一些消息。本學系師生戀的傳統，有各位師兄弟薪火相傳，我實在感到十分欣喜和羨慕。

light bulbs and electricity

Another light bulb blows itself, the second one within two weeks. Added to the fact that the auto-switch-off "feature" of the electric shower seems coming earlier and earlier, I really suspect there's something wrong with the electricity in this flat...

ebay

I better stay away from ebay for some time, after spending a ridiculous amount of money buying "hard plastic" (which is my favourite toy)...

phone line problem seemingly resolved

Last week the phone line problem re-appeared, and the biggest problem is that I can't get online. This time I found a neighbor to phone me to "trigger" the phone line to work. This happened for two consecutive nights and she must be very unhappy about that. After I reported to BT (British Telecom, not bit-torrent) now it appears to be working properly, and in any case I (finally) got a mobile to "kick" the phone line should the problem comes back again.

And it is good to know that, while many neighbors here are old people, the one closest to me is a young pretty gal...

Snow

The worst is finally here. Snow. This is the first time I see snow falling. While students generally look very excited, skiing (with normal shoes) around and throwing snowballs to each other, I really hate this weather...

broadband!

Hurray! I finally got broadband at home!

hk-place

I'm not updating here recently; for one I'm very busy, for another I have no Internet connection at home yet...

Meanwhile I'm looking at the photos of this site. It's so good that someone takes a picture of everything in HK... This is the train station just outside my Ma On Shan home, and this is where I live before I move to MOS...

The new flat

There are of course "features" of the flat that you only discover after you move in:

1) A phone line is set up last Friday, and it was working properly. Then the next day it didn't work, giving no dialling tone when you pick up the phone. However if you try to call that number (and no one picks up the phone) it appears normal - you hear ringing tone. Then I asked a colleague to phone me, I pick up the phone, it works, and immediately after I put down the phone and pick it up again, the dialling tone magically appears! And now I can make calls...

2) Apart from the fact that everything in the bathroom is operated by cords hanging from the ceiling, which I was well informed, the electric shower automatically triggers the fuse after a certain (small) number of minutes, so it helps you save water, save electricity, and save time. What a wonderful "feature"...

First lecture

I had my first lecture on this Monday. Actually, two lectures, separated by an hour. It went not too well but also not too badly - I just keep on talking and talking, and there's very few interruptions from students, at least much fewer than a first-year class I have seen. Maybe it's really too boring so in the second lecture a significant number of people did not appear. (No, there must be other reasons, like they didn't appear after getting the lecture notes...)

Will be moving...

Assuming everything works out, this will be my last night in Opal Court.

Opal Court is certainly very good: in a very convenient location to university, city centre, rail station, ... everything. And you have a nice view of the city in 14/F when everything else is only two or three storeys high. A bit noisy since it is just beside the railway and a fire station, but I don't mind that. Also a lot of fun to have earthquake experience, like watching the lamp swinging, when wind blows... It would be good if I can stay there indefinitely. But I have to move to somewhere in a worse location, less secure, and, well, more expensive...

However, moving to some place without Internet (yet) is perhaps good for a lecturer who have a lot of work to do, like setting examination paper before he starts teaching...

Firework

Lots of fireworks today (actually, starting a week earlier or so), which I can view clearly from my room window.

some photos

Now, if you care to view, here they are. I hope I'm going to continually add more...

flats going away even more quickly

All flats that I'm interested in are gone within 3 days after I viewed them. Or before I view them. Except one that no one takes. So I'm trying my luck on this rather insecure flat - everyone can freely walk to the front door, and that's the only door you have to break to get in... even worse than public housing estates in Hong Kong which have 鐵閘. And in a place with this crime rate...

photo hunt

我覺得實在太好笑了...
http://forum.hkgolden.com/view.asp?message=530564
http://forum.hkgolden.com/view.asp?message=530047

講開又講, 我其實一早就應該問... 點樣免費睇生果報呢...

weather, buildings, and toys

(1) I've all heard about it. These days I have a chance of really seeing how bad the weather in UK could be... strong winds, raining all out of sudden, ...

(2) 英國D樓係咪紙紥的... D 牆除了薄至可聽見隔離講嘢外, 仲滲水的...

(3) I like Argos! They are having a sale on (one item of) my favorite toy! Saves me quite a lot of money even comparing with the price at HK... So, finally, this huge box is sitting in front of me...

flats are going away quickly

Tuesday: there is a flat for renting that seems too good to be true.
Thursday: after viewing it I think it is just so-so.
Friday: it's gone!

The Italy trip (3)

Visiting Siena and Pisa.
I should have been leaving early on the day after my talk. For some reason difficult to explain here, I'm forced to stay one more night. I stayed in Siena for a night. The hotel again want to get hold of my passport, at least for 10 minutes, the reason being that they need it for registration. This time my face must look real bad (on top of the usual bad, that is) and they make a photocopyinstead.

In the next day, before going to the Pisa airport, I managed to squeeze just enough time to go to the leaning tower of Pisa, only to discover later that - yes, again - the flight is delayed.

[to be continued]

The Italy trip (2)

The talks.
My talk does not attract a lot of people, as expected (within there I'm considered very "practical"). I was told that in the last session of the first day there are only 7 people in the room. Obviously there are more people than that in my talk.

Some of the talks I understand describe results that seem too good to appear in this conference...

Questions in Dinners.
Pretty much the same set of people are in my table every meal, and they discuss these questions.

(1) 100 ants are placed at different positions along a 1-metre-long rod. At time 0 they all move, in either left or right direction, with a speed of 1 meter per minute. An ant reaching either ends of the rod simply falls off, while if two ants meet, they immediately reverse direction and continue moving with the same speed. When will all ants fall off (with the adversarial, i.e. worst starting configuration)?

I haven't heard about this before, and the solution is so trivial that makes anyone needing to think about it appear so stupid. I barely manage to figure it out while the solution is being spoken out...

[to be continued]

The Italy trip (1)

Transport.
I fly from Gatwick to Pisa, and I change trains at King's Cross again, this time walking along those streets where you see on TV several months ago.

I could have saved the department some money since Ryanair had offered free flight tickets from Stansted to Pisa, but perhaps I'm a few days late and it's all sold out. Well actually there were some left at awkward times which you have to sleep in airport, etc...

Looking out of the plane window and watch a sea of bubble clouds is always fun. And I can look at the Alps, this time the real thing rather than on Google Earth.

I need a train from Pisa to Siena, with a change in Empoli. The trains are such that it doesn't have any announcement of what is the current/next station, and even you look out of the window it is not always easy to see which station this is.

Location.
ICTCS this year is held in Siena, Italy. Or more precisely, somewhere near Siena. My department head's description is probably the most accurate: "fancy ex-monastery in Tuscany". Basically, it is in a "certosa", some university accommodation for conference by the Universita di Siena, converted from a several-hundred-year-old ex-monastery. It is in a mountain area where you don't see anything other than grass within visible distance, and it takes at least a 20 minute drive to somewhere else that is a bit more interesting.

The conference organizers are well aware of this trouble, and someone (that is, one of the organizers himself) drive people from the train station to the certosa.

Accommodation.
I don't appreciate old buildings. In particular, it looks rather like a ghost house at night.
The worst thing they do is to keep my passport while I stay there. I don't see any reason they want to do this, and I don't feel safe without my passport. (OK, I have another one...) The reason that they keep it will become clear when you read on...

Food.
Obviously, at such places you can't expect people to find food themselves. The conference therefore arrange all meals for you. I have to say the food quality is reasonably good... And we have wine made by Universita di Siena. So we know what universities in Italy do. Hmm...

[to be continued]

I'm back

I mean, I come back from Italy. That's certainly not a very nice trip - perhaps its only purpose is to give me a home feeling to Leicester. There are dozens of important stuff waiting me to be done so I will only write about the trip later.

accommodation, and where to buy things

I am currently living in a student hall called Opal Court. I am in the better rooms where basically it is like a hotel room with a shared kitchen.

While I was checking in for that I met a student from Hong Kong - we stared at each other for quite a while before she finally whispered "香港黎架?". She said she's from HKU software engineering and she recognises me. I suppose that means she's not my student. I didn't recognize her, though. We ended the conversation with the very "hong for" sentence "let's contact later" when we don't really have contacts of each other. So, 尋人啓事: if anyone knows how to contact her please tell me.

In Tuesday afternoon I got out to walk around. I've heard about Queen's Road which is not far away from the university, and there are some cheap stores. There are also some lettings agencies, but I didn't go inside them yet. I don't really know when I should start finding accommodation... I don't have much time, they booked Opal Court for 2 months for me, and next week I will be out to Italy for a conference...

In Wednesday after school Shengxiang got me to a Chinese grocery store, not far away from where I'm currently living. Actually I heard about it and know where it is, but didn't have the time to really go there. My only worry about it was removed when I know that the shop owners speak Cantonese... I bought some rice, 出前一丁 and other things...

The first few days

My arrival date collide with the start of the term, with tons of students doing their registration. And as a result things didn't work out very smoothly for me.

Office. Supposingly I have an office, but they have problems with replacing furnitures and such. I am therefore working in an RA office with some other people.

Computers. Machines here are always Win/Linux dual boot and have severe restrictions on what you can do on the machines. Some people here probably use a lot of Linux, their Windows partitions are not working properly without being noticed. For example, my PC in the RA office misses some DLLs (?) and you have to use a trick (?) of executing arbitrary programs out of a blank blue screen, in order to do something useful. It is not stable anyway.

Networks. It's probably the machine problem, but the network is extremely slow for doing things like logging in. They forces everyone to use Outlook, and syncronizing things to the network hangs up those problematic PCs for some time. Now that they give me a new PC (in an office without a table, that is) things are getting better. Getting my laptop onto the Internet should be simple, but the person responsible for this is too busy dealing with student registrations, so I only get this done in the second day. Now I have the buggy PC and my laptop in the RA room, and there are two network sockets, but only one of them works, so only one of the machines can be online at one time...

still alive

Just to say that I'm still alive.

As you can expect, I don't have much time to write things here. I'll update some bits whenever possible, probably in some random order; so don't just read the newest blog entry.

萬語千言

余家貧，本欲於大學蒙混數年後，留港建港，投身教研，作育英才，等等等等。奈何吾等理論派，被目為異見分子，至流亡海外，實非吾之所願。猶記得曾幾何時，余遭一眾女生圍著發問，自我感覺良好，至誤入歧途。俱往矣，今學生評分每況愈下，只盼能誤人子弟，破壞大英帝國之IT教育，以曲線愛國。今往西方苦寒之地，臨別在即，萬語千言，不知從何說起...

予父母：吾以往之不孝，毋庸多言。今遠赴番邦，不孝尤甚。小兒自當發奮，盼能早日歸來。會多喝水。會多笑，多說話。

予吾師：劣徒過往研究馬虎苟且，不求甚解，且資質愚魯，致無甚所出。"very proud of you" 云云，愧不敢當。今後當改此等陋習，以求不負所望。另城大ck，養余數月，無 paper 以報，實使吾無地自容。

眾師兄姐，多所指點，感激不盡。尤有已投奔大英帝國之師姐，如非彼先行一步，以身作則，余必不赴此行也。今後尚有多所叨擾，還請多多包涵。

眾師弟妹，今後痛失「逢打必輸」之麻雀腳，必感可惜。余過往無甚規勸諸位，現謹贈兩句，盼互勉之：
「今夕吾驅淪異土 他朝君體也相同 」
另有似不大在意溝女者，請從速進行，免後悔莫及。

眾靚女 (請自行對號入座)，吾本應追之逐之，但我始終未盡全力；可惜即將在各一方，於今有心無力矣。

余拙於辭，今當遠離，謹此致謝，餘不盡言。臨表涕零，瘋言瘋語，不知所云，還請見諒。

countdown 72 hours

我真係一個白痴... 連 pack 兩箱野都唔識... 甚至黐膠紙都唔掂...
Anyway, 今朝已經寄咗出去...

countdown 134 hours

Looking at the piles of stuff in CityU and at home...

work permit

So my work permit has fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally arrived. Let's see whether there are problems when getting it to the consulate general...

They are also announcing the new lecturers. I must emphasize that it is NOT the case that they recruited three people out of the four interviewees I mentioned before... The other two lecturers are from a later round of recruitment.

CityU canteen

各位同學，開學已經兩星期了，你地唔係咁勤力日日返學下話... 俾個寛敞少少o既 canteen 我食下飯好唔好呢... 你地仲後生，來日方長... 我時日無多了...

Flying Spaghetti Monster

I like the Flying Spaghetti Monster "religion". Actually, not that much, but given the fact that Intelligent Design seems to get its way into "science" education under the Bush administration, there seem no other, more logical ways to protest it. (For those who don't know, Intelligent Design is some pseudoscience that is created with the hope of blurring the line between rigorous scientific process and religious faith, and a eventual goal of replacing Darwinian theory of evolution.)

I still like the made-in-Hong-Kong 田雞真神教會 more. (Warning: part of that site is very offensive to some people and actually unfair to the religion it is criticizing; however, there are some good points.)

恐怖分子闖廸士尼 米奇老鼠大開殺戒

[本報訊] 一批恐怖分子於昨日闖入香港廸士尼樂園，挾持大批遊客。警方接報後派出大批飛虎隊到場，應樂園職員要求，極速換去制服，戴上米奇老鼠面具，與恐怖分子駁 火，最後將恐怖分子全數殺死。數名兒童被持鎗米奇老鼠嚇怕，事後表示不會再喜歡米奇老鼠，改為支持 Hello kitty...

奇文共賞(四)

唉, 又係你:

近 年 來 在 下 所 推 斷 的 事 十 有 九 中 ， 唯 一 不 中 的 是 曾 斷 言 曾 蔭 權 不 可 能 當 特 首 ， 現 在 證 明 在 下 是 錯 了 。 不 過 在 下 仍 認 為 錯 不 在 我 ， 而 是 因 為 當 中 必 定 有 難 以 為 人 所 知 的 內 幕 ， 很 可 能 ， 曾 蔭 權 回 歸 前 已 投 靠 中 國 ， 成 為 中 國 政 府 安 排 在 港 府 的 線 人 ， 否 則 ， 他 是 不 可 能 當 上 特 首 的 。

曾 蔭 權 當 上 香 港 的 特 首 絕 對 是 一 件 好 事 ， 因 為 他 的 確 能 幹 ， 如 果 他 是 共 產 黨 的 線 人 則 更 好 ， 這 可 以 保 證 香 港 的 治 權 不 會 落 在 不 愛 國 的 人 手 上 ， 他 出 過 這 樣 大 的 力 ， 更 應 該 好 好 酬 謝 他 。

不 過 無 論 如 何 ， 愛 國 的 左 派 人 士 應 該 視 他 如 自 己 人 。 毛 主 席 也 曾 說 過 ： 「 我 們 應 該 相 信 黨 ， 我 們 應 該 相 信 群 眾 。 」 曾 蔭 權 是 黨 選 出 來 的 ， 他 絕 不 會 是 港 英 餘 孽 ， 相 信 我 的 判 斷 吧 ！

(梁立人, 東方日報 03/09/2005)

拿, 又泄露國家機密啦...

Student Lab Policy

鬼佬真係唔同, 明文規定可以打機:

The playing of computer games will only be tolerated:

• if the lab is NOT booked for a formal lab session;
• does not deprive another students of access to a machine to undertake private study;
• if you do not disturb other students working in lab

開學

1. 開學。 不原來有咁多學生架咩...

2. 係通往又一城的隧道內, 一班被玩的freshman在做一些低能動作, 被一名幼稚園女生恥笑。與此同時, 一名就走的職員慘遭攝入鏡頭...

3. 各位同學, 課室在五樓, 唔好係六樓頭岳岳...

New staff in CityU CS

Go to the CityU CS academic staff list page and you can see some new staff there. They are very easy to recognize, just those without pictures...

Well, this is not entirely correct. Except that the Instructor I seems to be new (who comes from HKU), the two assistant professors are relocated from the department of computer engineering and information technology, which is going to "fold up". It was splitted from EE and CS departments some years ago, but then they decided it is better to revert to the original state. (Of course, this is a much bigger change than renaming a department and then renaming it back again.)

The highest efficiency

對於英國人的辦事效率, 我早有所聞, 不過都係親自體驗下好...

1x-JUL: we will shortly begin preparing the paperwork to apply for your workpermit
2x-AUG (經催促後): The application will be processed shortly (即係唔問佢係唔會apply...)

minutes

我啱啱睇過佢地以往嘅 departmental meeting minutes, 睇完都好驚吓... 包括收生情況, league table position, 財政狀況以及教職員流失率等, 都俾我想像中嚴重... 點算呢...

Cable TV on KCR

OK, so we have TV everywhere, now on KCR also. But could they make sure they are working properly? For the second time I'm forced to listen to two channels superimposed (actually the same recorded programme but unsynchronized). I think I'm basically a macroscopic object and not like to be in two quantum states at the same time...

HSBC

Today I go to the British consulate to collect my renewed passport (using 5% of the time to get it and 95% of the time queueing outside just to get in). Then I go to the HSBC headquarter to open a UK bank account. Actually, I never go up there before; and I am wondering, if only I had joined this company many years ago, I will not be here opening this account...

The process is fine, except that (i) it seems that every customer service officer in HSBC sells insurance, and (ii) she casually asked a question which I have been asked a thousand times and still unable to answer, namely "for how long will you be working there?".

I would really like to know an answer to that question.

Google Earth

呢個就係我屋企個景了(即係將前面D 樓壓扁左之後)... 遲D 冇得睇了... 唉...

I like to use google earth to fly slowly above HK. It is beautiful - thanks Google. Maybe they could add a bit more controls to make it a real flight simulator.

the link is going to disappear

If you care to read, the blog entries about the UK trip is now finalized. I thought I would add a lot more, but things seem not very interesting by now, so this is only a slight update.

And, for those who insist to go through my CS homepage to here (yes I know someone is wasting an extra click every day): you better bookmark this page now, as the link on CS homepage to here would gradually fade out and eventually completely disappear. It is a randomized link with a certain probability of appearing, and this probability will be decreasing...

越黎越渣

A professor and his three students A, B, C (in descending order of age) are having lunch to be paid by B, supposingly to "celebrate" B finding a job. Somehow the conversation includes something like:

C: 我比B 教過的
B: 我都比A 教過的
Prof: 而家D 學生越黎越渣
A,B,C: ...

where am I going?

So... what do all these mean? Will I be teaching in a second Iraq?

no title

So, it's done. After a week's struggle - you probably don't understand. A move for someone who never left HK any longer than 2 weeks. A decision that certainly affects my career, possibly whether I can chase girls, and perhaps where I will live in the rest of my life. I don't know why I do it, I don't know whether it is good to do it. But anyway, it's done. The first one to leave HK for permanent academic jobs while remaining single in the theory group, as far as I know. An embarassing dishonour.

You know what this story tells you, right?

成功乞食

恭喜霍會長成功乞得唔之咩項目主辨權... 真係令我無面見人...

King's Cross St. Pancras

Exactly one month ago, at the same morning rush hour, I was in this station on my way to Leicester... and it is the location having the largest number of people killed in this attack. (Is that a warning that I should not go? ...)

Last year I was in Paris and two months after I left, the roof of a terminal of Charles de Gaulle airport collapsed... For people's lives, perhaps I should not go to anywhere else...

芝加哥之死

吳漢魂，中國人，卅二歲，文學博士，一九六零年六月一日芝加哥大學畢業──

白先勇，《芝加哥之死》

點算？

點解？點解？你叫我而家點算？我唔想走呀！我真係唔想走......！夠了，唔好恭喜我......
:(
有冇人可以俾的鼓勵我唔走嘅意見/理由...唔該...

新的特首

So we finally have our 新的特首. And could all those people on TV stop keep on saying the word 的 when talking about this 新的特首 ? Yeah I know they interpret the law again to say this is a 新的特首 , not 新任特首 ... but can't you just skip the 的 ? Isn't 新特首 fine? Or 新嘅特首 is also fine, right?

Anyone still want to do algorithms?

Job finding can be particularly frustrating when you know that universities in Hong Kong do recruit people, but only those doing databases like him and him...

Every country needs CS faculty...

I better take back my words around two weeks before. I hope what I heard is not true: well, a visiting/guest is finally moving to T... anyway, not a country I'd like to go. (You don't have the European Champions League Final at the same country every year, do you?) But it seems he has some connections over there before.

What makes me more worried is with his "background", the "shine" he got is still not enough to allow him to stay here (?). As for his ability, on one hand he has been PC member for some conferences; on the other hand you can know how "good" his teaching is by googling...

UK trip day 4

This is supposed to be a free travel day, but actually not much is done. First, a 3-hour train from Liverpool back to London occupies the whole morning. Before going to the airport, I have only around 2 - 3 hours in London. I only go around Westminster, the Big Ben, and the London eye. This is a Saturday and there is a lot of people everywhere. I could have gone to a bit more places, but the admin people of the underground decided to close two lines on weekends, which are exactly those that passes through some tourist attractions. Another line is having "severe delay".
I end up travelling along almost the same path returning to the starting point. Then I reach the airport only to know that the flight is delayed by an hour...

UK trip day 3

In the morning I took a 2-hour train to Liverpool. It needed a change, and the first train was small and crowded, but the second train was fine. When I arrived, Prudence was already waiting me at the train station. She took me to have the famous "fish and chips" as lunch. According to what she said, that is a better one around there and I find it acceptable, too!

We walked up to the campus. Her office is situated in the same floor as some radioactive laboratories. And the building has a real lot of doors - every now and then you open a door and get into a very small closed area with three other doors at the three other sides...

And the talk itself. There are exactly five people including Prudence in the audience. That's good, as I didn't have even a bit of preparation for it. And one of them made the important observation that the "motivation" of the research has absolutely nothing to do with the scheduling problem being studied!

After the talk we walk around the city, in particular going to the Liverpool football club souvenir shop. And it is exactly on this day that the UEFA announced that Liverpool can defend their European Champion title. See I bring good luck here, shouldn't they give me some free souvenirs?

UK trip day 2

This is the day of formal interview. In the morning it is the talk. There are a total of 4 candidates, and they do it in alphabetical order of surnames. Still, having a surname starting F, I'm the third one to give the talk.

The talk itself is not too bad; at least this is what I think. They do it in a lecture theatre, which is not something I expected. Around 10 - 20 people there. They ask quite a number of questions, some of which I'm not entirely clear as to their relevance, like "where do you do this research"...

They take us to lunch in a staff restaurant. As usual, I don't speak in lunch...

In the afternoon there is a formal interview. Interview panel 有五個人：chair 的是個比美國國防部長拉姆斯菲爾德面口稍為好一點的 pro-vice-chancellor. 一個是 CS dept head, 另一個也是 CS faculty staff, 一早見過的。還有貌似聯合國秘書長安南的 law department professor, 與及貌似愛恩斯坦的一位 structural biologist. 至於 interview 的慘況就不要提了... 正當我 nervous 得答非所問，張口結舌之際，我眼尾望到阿秘書小姐係到向我扮鬼臉... 之後似乎答得好左dd...

After the interview I go back to the city centre... and like many other places in Europe, shops close at exactly 5 pm. At 6 pm or so I'm buying food from a KFC which, well, is only semi-operating... Along the way I also heard some Cantonese for the first time here...

UK trip day 1

[So I've finally come back from UK. I have very limited internet access over there and hence not blogging; but to make it more clear what's going on, let's pretend I'm writing this every day during the trip... (12/6/05)]

I arrive London early in the morning. Since I'm not the one to pay, an expensive airline is chosen. But expensive is not always the same as good: the flight is the coldest I have ever taken, one of the toilet is closed for repair, my screen is basically not functioning, etc.

Anyway, after that I took the underground and then a 75-minute train to Leicester. I had a short walk around the city centre for a while, before going to the university in the afternoon to visit the faculty "informally". It's really sunny over there and I feel it even hotter than Hong Kong...

As reported in this page there are lots of Indians there. Not much Chinese in the city, but quite some Chinese students in the campus, although the campus is within walking distance to the city centre. The first four Chinese characters that I see in the city is 專業剪髮 ...

I meet with four faculty staff and a PhD student, all in the Algorithms and Complexity group. Perhaps the most important observation is that one of them has a wife from mainland China, another has a Taiwanese wife, yet another has some connections with Chinese that I don't remember...

free trip (2)

For several years I've been trying to hide myself from the truth. Now that a free trip is really put in front of me, I'm finally forced to think seriously about the cruel reality of the world. Am I really prepared to go away??? Why can't I be like some people who seem to hang around as visiting or guests forever?

Anyway. I'll be going here first, and afterwards have a visit to Prudence.