There can be no excuses

"There can be no excuses", said McClaren for so many times. Indeed, someone else threw such a lifeline at you and if you still lose, you can't blame anyone else. I don't know where to start writing about all these; in fact I am usually reluctant to write too much since it often appears that what can be said have already been said, in a better way. But since they won't play for quite a while, here is still something.

Formation. 4-5-1? (or 4-3-3, it doesn't matter) It has been proved so many times that England can only play 4-4-2. If someone is injured, just replace with someone else of the same position; don't mess with the formation to squeeze your star players in. But we all know this is exactly the thing that McClaren (and Eriksson) does. Comes to my mind again is the old joke that if McClaren has 11 star goalkeepers then he will put 11 goalkeepers in the starting lineup. (Or maybe this is a good idea, just for this match...)

Starting lineup. I actually think using SWP and putting Beckham on the bench is the right thing. Not too many people dare to recall Beckham just to put him on the bench. I think he is good enough as a substitute but perhaps not good enough to start.

Then the match started, and McClaren was holding an umbrella. At that moment, I knew it certainly isn't right, but I couldn't put it in words, until newspapers and others have now done. He isn't even prepared to get his hair wet? Afraid that fans throw objects at him?

After 7 or 8 minutes we have this, Scott Carson. You can't really blame him too much, he is so inexperienced, and it is this McClaren who put him out all of a sudden. I agree we should let go of Robinson, much earlier in fact, but I think James is a better choice. At least, he is used to these embarassing errors and will not be too shakened by them. Carson on the other hand is visibly shakened for the entire first half.

Wayne Bridge. No words are enough to describe how awful that is. Keep attacker onside for the second goal. Slow, slow, slow. Numerous errors. The other defenders ain't too much better either.

Tactics, if there is any. Peter Crouch alone up front, with everyone aiming the ball at his head. Again, it has been proven so many times that it does not work. It looks like nobody noticed he has two feet. Using Crouch is not that bad an idea, despite he is constantly being criticized. Alright, he is not a world-class striker - he will probably never be - but he can do something different. (Like bending the body and strike at unusual angles...) That is, as long as you pass the ball on the pitch. The next thing that happens after someone kicks the ball high up the air to his head is that they lose possession. You can blame the pitch, but Croatia is playing at the same pitch and they are passing the ball around.

The half-time substitutions are understandable - not much else he could do by that time.

Then somehow, they cheated a very soft penalty. The slightest shirt pull and Defoe fell down dramatically. Anyway, now back in the game, huh?

Next the Beckham-Crouch goal; this is more like it. I told you before, Peter Crouch has two feet. (And the ball is towards his chest, not his head.) Everyone says "see, Beckham is so important". Ok, you're right, but only because the other midfielders are so underperformed. Gerrard for example has been performing rather poorly for quite a while.

Then you lose one more goal, and then here comes Darren Bent. At that point there were completely no tactics - how are the three forwards supposed to do? Just randomly runs around and hope that something happens?

The next day, sacking of McClaren. Of course this is the right thing to do. But he is fired by the same set of people who recruited him, which from day 1 everyone knows that this is not the first choice. Why no one ever ask the people in the FA to take responsibility and resign?

淪陷區

果然不出所料，本人 (喺香港) 住嗰區，由於少了本人關鍵一票，喺今次區議會選舉中正式淪陷... 講吓啫，差成幾百票咁多。唔輸先奇，上屆只係 "fu look" 而已，人地 N 咁多年前，已混入業主立案法團做主席了，咁深謀遠慮，你跟本唔係嗰皮。人地仲有無限金錢屈機，政府偏袒，傳媒支持 (公信力第一??)，所以長線我係好悲觀的...

(另見一個熱血青年的一堆評論)

Euro'08 Qualifying

Poor Scotland. They played very well and could have qualified in any other group. Like the one where you need to rely on Isreal to beat Russia in order to have any hope...

And the freekick which gives Italy the last-minute goal - it is completely ridiculous.

權威字典解錯英文

唔記得邊度睇番黎:



我都唔知香港幾時開始變成咁樣。點解用 press for 咁客氣？ 施壓有乜唔啱？我十分贊成的。杯葛也冇咩大不了... 其實施壓，促請，游說，實際上都冇乜分別，不外乎都係威迫與利誘而已... 唔通真係「曉以大義」咩？

Snooker grand prix 2007

Congratulations to Marco Fu for his (finally) first ranking tournament title!

Still, his playing can at times be rather embarassing to watch. Last year someone in the audience shouted "it's like watching paint dry" when both players keep on missing balls. It's not too different from that in the semi-final two days ago, against a rather unheard-of opponent. Yesterday's match with O'Sullivan was completely different. It looks like he really need to play against the top players to play well...

And this completes the football - rugby - racing - snooker disaster week for British sports.

Ig, Excel and Ricoh

The Ig nobel prize is out again. (So it's another year already!) Bizzare things seem to happen more often around this time, from Excel believing 65535 = 100000 to quantum mechanics in a printer ad...

The Excel issue is rather puzzling to me. We all know about 65535 but why would it become a nice number in base 10? Btw, you would expect people who post on the MSDN blog know what they are saying, but there are a few who apparently do not know what floating point numbers are...

The quantum mechanics ad is even more weird. Ok you like some deep-science-sounding stuff, but that particular quotation, or anything remotely similar to it, is not something you can find in a common quantum mechanics textbook. Do the ad producers actually know about Scott Aaronson and his lectures?

Scheduling algorithms for procrastinators

This is the exact wording of the first paragraph of a journal paper:

We are writing this sentence two days before the deadline. Unfortunately that sentence (and this one) are among the first that we have written. How could we have delayed so much when we have known about this deadline for months? The purpose of this paper is to explain why we have waited until the last moment to write this paper.

各位同學，你地交左學費未？

我唔係校長，暫時也未光頭，更加冇燒臘鋪，但唔知點解我呢幾日問左好多次...

On a funny thing

I am a member of a certain thing, and just looking at the location of that thing you can already expect to receive quite funny things. If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's perfect; you are not supposed to understand this. Obvious ethics do not allow me to say anything. I have effectively reduced my workload by 20% by picking a couple of things that anyone can make the required decision within 5 seconds. But they are so interesting you will keep on looking at them. Are there anyone out there who want to have some revision with their A-Maths? Actually, there is a tragic part of the story, so I shouldn't make fun of it. But still, A Maths is A Maths (or maybe Pure Maths at most); things should go to places appropriate for them.

They're not using Windows, are they?

不 過 ， 據 田 小 姐 所 指 ， 機 器 屏 幕 確 曾 如 賭 場 方 面 指 突 然 變 了 藍 色 ， 但 卻 有 一 列 英 文 字 。 她 雖 不 懂 英 文 ， 但 其 友 人 看 過 後 ， 指 字 句 大 意 是 「 中 了 獎 ， 但 金 額 超 出 上 限 ， 請 聯 絡 職 員 」 ， 下 方 則 印 像 中 出 現 「 42,900,000 」 （ 她 前 晚 稱 是 $40,000,000 ） 的 銀 碼 ， 該 畫 面 在 賭 場 技 術 人 員 第 一 次 開 機 後 ， 畫 面 上 顯 示 的 字 句 便 變 了 ， 且 銀 碼 亦 消 失 了 。

Blue screen... 32-bit address?... 超 出 上 限 (overflow)? Umm...

More bad luck and a complexity question

Given that the number of page hits of this blog is proportional to the amount of bad luck described here, perhaps I could continue. Alright, not that bad. When I went back to my home in UK, immediately when I tried to switch on the light, the bulb blew and also catching the circuit breaker. Ok, at least that wasn't a fuse so I only need to switch the circuit breaker on again. I have become well prepared with this, and torches and so on are always ready.

The notebook finally had Windows reinstalled and things are almost alright now. The DVD drive isn't too willing to read discs (yet another different problem!), but I could bear with that.

So far so bad. Let's switch to a different topic. I have been wondering about a very important complexity question arising in airports. What is the time complexity T(N) of a group of N people to check-in at the airport check-in desks? Surely it is super-linear, but how bad is it? It always look like it takes forever for a group of 5 or so people to check-in...

Bad luck series 5: Computer problems

When I was back in HK, I tried to repair the notebook. As soon as I put the plug of the power adapter into the socket, the fuse blew. After messing around for some time, I found another fuse from an unused plug, so I swapped the fuses. Then it worked.

Ordinary methods did not work (safe mode, recovery console). At the end I realized registry editor can actually edit "other" registries (e.g. on a different harddisk). The login problem was then fixed.

Next day when I put the plug in again, it again blew. I bought some new fuses but it still didn't work. And it turned out that the power adapter itself was out of order...

I have repaired some problems of the notebook (at least, I can now control network connections), through modifying many things in the registry. It looks like it is not virus or similar, but some disk or file system error which leaves tens or hundreds of registry errors scattered around, one for each problem.

I hope this is the end of the series...

Bad luck series 4: Hotel

After some time, the airline arranged a coach to take us to the hotel. Then all the people queued up all the way to the outside the hotel waiting for check in. People driving on the road was looking astonishingly at us; in at least one instance the driver actually wanted to shout and ask us what happened. (What would you think if you see a hundred or so people queueing up outside a hotel in Nathan Road, say?) To their credit, the hotel staff gave free cold drinks and ice lollies to those at the end of the queue (which includes me, of course), after we had queued for, erh, half an hour?

I thought I had enough of Calgary and decided to hide myself inside the room for the whole evening. They gave me a very large room - actually an entire "flat" with 2 bedrooms, kitchen, etc... probably because these are the rooms which won't usually be booked.

And then I discovered they have wireless Internet. So I used it happily. Until...

Next morning I wanted to check email before setting off to the airport again. I was surprised that the XP welcome screen becomes the classic Win2k login screen. And then I was immediately logged out after logging in. I thought I won't be able to fix it until I got back to get some tools...

Bad luck series 3: Flight delay

After the "fun day on your own" the day of departure finally arrived. If not for that fun day, I could have left earlier and all the following will not happen...

Anyway, I was picked up by an airport shuttle. The driver asked me which airline I was flying with. "Thomas Cook airline", I replied. You know, those budget airlines. He said, "They are not flying today! You have to wait till tomorrow". I was puzzled but then he laughed.

I arrived the airport and while there's a bunch of people around the check-in counter, no one is really checking in. Finally I asked a member of staff. He replied, with his nose pointing to the other side, that we would be delayed "for a while". At that point I was already fully prepared for a 24-hour delay. Although I couldn't quite understand how the driver knows that at least 5 hours before departure.

Eventually we were informed of a "mechanical problem" which they had "successfully" identified, and we "only" need to wait for the parts. You see, typical budget airline problem. We were then promised overnight hotel stay and breakfast, etc. My next flight to Hong Kong is no more than 48 hours after I return UK; should they delay more then I better go from Gatwick to Heathrow directly...

My bad luck didn't stop here and actually, it affected other people as well. While I was sitting in the airport, a man sitting back-to-back with me fell to ground suddenly as if he had a heart attack. After a few minutes he woke up and appeared ok, though.

Bad luck series 2: The conference

Actually, what happened in the conference isn't bad luck, but for continuity we will keep the same title. These are just complaints, although I am not the only one to make them.

The first thing is that I must have submitted to the wrong conference. I didn't notice that Banff is another national park (after Yellowstone in 2003). It all felt like a family retreat. In a very expensive hotel/conference location. There were no air conditioning in your room at over 30 degrees Celsius. Some people paid 120 canadian dollars for an extra banquet ticket which actually is nothing more than a common buffet. And so on. (By the way, they had a "game" or lottery during the banquet, which (1) is a bit too silly to describe here, and (2) no one understood it at first, and (3) no prize was given out at the end as if it never happened.)

But the real interesting thing is this. Usually in these conferences the organizers will arrange some tours or things like that. This time, they listed a "conference fun day" in the programme. A whole day in the middle of the conference without talks, but they never mentioned what it really is. Last time the experience in Sanya was already very "memorable". This time you simply can't complain about the tours, because there was nothing as such. It is a "fun day on your own". And no one told us so (well, until you ask). Come on, people who want to have fun at the national park can choose to stay behind by themselves after the conference. Why on earth do you want to put it in the middle of the conference? Haven't we wasted enough money already?

Coming up: What would you feel if this happens to you? While you are taking a shuttle to the airport, 5 hours before the flight departure time, the driver of the shuttle semi-jokingly tells you that your airline is not flying today...

Bad luck series 1: Calgary

Now then, perhaps I can finally write what's happening from the beginning...

I went to COCOON'07, this time in Banff, Canada near Calgary. For various reasons I was forced to arrive one day earlier and stayed in Calgary. On the flight I somehow managed to lose a still-usable HK mobile SIM card... (I just couldn't understand why I brought that to Canada and took that out on the plane...)

Anyway, in Calgary. Not knowing what to do, I went to the Calgary tower, which has a glass floor observation deck. It is not as impressive as it sounds, though. Well, in fact, I think they could do some cleaning to the glass...

I also went to the Calgary stampede. I am not interested in these things, but since it happens to be in this time of the year, I went in. I didn't watch the rodeo stuff and therefore effectively just "walked around"...

Light at the end of the tunnel??

The problem with my notebook is the immediate-logout problem. In theory you only need to change one or two entries in the registry to fix it. However you need to get to regedit first... Using the remaining battery on the notebook, I boot it using another harddisk, and fix the registry on the original harddisk.

Then I bought a new power adaptor for the notebook. I don't know they are that expensive; perhaps I should actually buy a new notebook instead (the current one is rather old anyway). With power supply, I can finally run the machine a bit longer. Although I can now log in, it still has numerous mysterious behaviour, such as disappeared recycle bin, disappeared control panel items, missing filetype-application associations etc. It looks like somehow it is not reading from / writing to the registry even when you ask it to.

But I can tolerate this, as long as it is stablized. Moreover, I get wireless access from my neighbor... Actually I can't stop it even if I wanted to, because anything about network connections in the control panel (or anywhere else) disappeared... It looks like there is no fix without reinstalling everything, which I would only do later...

Could it be worse?

Health problems. Lost mobile phone SIM card. Flight delay of 24 hours. Notebook got a virus and cannot boot. Fuse in power adaptor of notebook blown. Then the adaptor itself. I don't even know where to start blogging all these. Maybe not until I get some reasonably-working computers. I mean, this one I am using in the office is populated with 7 viruses and has some other strange problems...

terrorists in arithmetic progression

Forget about the years for the moment:

30/6 Glasgow airport
7/7 London (tube and bus)
14/7 ?
21/7 London (failed)

What happens in 14/7? Nothing important except that I will be flying...

Scaling down the marks?

For the other modules I gave in the past, the problem of exam marking is to give out as much marks as possible. This time however, the cryptography module has an average that is so so high and we almost have to scale it down. Although, at the end, it was not done. I really don't know why the marks are so high. (Can I just say my teaching is very good?) I don't think the exam paper is too simple. If the same paper is given to the batch of students last year, I'm pretty sure the situation would be entirely different...

annoying project reports

I was reading the pile of project reports, and I'm getting more and more annoyed about their English. Perhaps as a non-native speaker myself I shouldn't complain, but they are just... almost disgusting. Unlike many HK students who write things overly formally, sometimes to the point of being ridiculous, the most common situation here is they write in a very chatty way - not complete sentences, going on and on without even a comma when it should have 3 full stops, wrong spellings of similarly-sounding words, etc. These are the relatively better ones. The worst ones are simply incomprehensible. I believe many of them are, although not ethnic-British, born and educated in UK. How they survived the exam system I don't really understand. Does GCSE test any writing skills?

Speaking of the projects, some of them are just way too weak. It is as if the students only spent half a day doing it. They have "successfully" implemented things like a seat booking system for a football stadium allowing you to book the same seat (for the same match) an infinite number of times, or a webshots-like photo sharing system where the owner/uploader is the only person who can view the photos, etc. In fact, the front webpage of the project is a template with words like "put your company name here" and "this is some dummy text"...

What you can do in ten months

We have been experiencing a severe shortage of secretarial support for some time. As if that's not enough, two of the secretaries somehow coordinated themselves into getting pregnant at roughly the same time. So they are off for ten months of maternity leave. Ten months!

Chicken

The infamous chicken paper now comes with a talk...

MSN

Ok, I finally gave up my insistence on not using msn. Perhaps I've been asked just once too often about this. In case you care to know, the email is a gmail account. The rest should be pretty obvious.

new home

This new place appears to be better than I thought. However, as regular readers of this blog will know, I am quite negative and only look at bad things. The main problem is with the shower heater. Ok it doesn't "burn" the fuse this time (I mean, hasn't). But the product of rate of water flow and the temperature of water is a constant, which is not a problem by itself, but this constant is just too small...

moved

So I finished moving house, and came off the days without Internet at home a bit sooner than I thought!

Snooker championship 2007

Time runs so quickly and it is another snooker championship already. Not unexpectedly, Marco Fu loses pretty quickly. Whenever you have any expectations on him, he will not perform. In fact, his mistakes are sometimes so embarassing to watch.

It is the second time that I watched a O'Sullivan-Ding match. This Ding Jun-hui simply doesn't look like wanting to win. Whenever a few frames behind, he will behave like this so that, like some school students, he can subconsciously give himself the excuse "it's not my standard too low, it's only I choose not to perform".

to view and be viewed

Yesterday a (continental-European?) couple viewed my flat. I don't know whether it is obviously too good or obviously too bad, but they spent less than 2 minutes here.

Today I viewed another flat, although I'm supposed to have committed to the one I mentioned last time. It is a brand new flat, the interior of which is furnished to the highest standards. What's more, the rent is exactly the same as my current one. On the down side, it is immediately next to a construction site, and the building (or group of buildings) itself is not completely finished, so you feel somewhat living in a construction site. But other people are apparently rather happy with it. This is also a bit too far from the university, which means extra travel costs. If not for this I would be very happy to take this...

Moving house?

My current tenancy contract is about to expire and I want to find some cheaper place to live. (Actually, the real problem is this. There are still some unexplained ways for them to possibly get in. And rumour is that they have the same problem two years before. Another rumour is that there was even wasps...) So I viewed a couple of flats.

The first one I viewed was a complete joke.

I was advised long ago that "the other side" of London road is not as safe. Wondering why just the other side makes a difference, I arrived and noticed that, just a few blocks off the road, it clearly is a poorer part of the city.

When I found the house, the first thing to notice is that the house next door had its windows smashed. For the flat itself, there was still someone living and was in a mess, but let's forget about it. When I walked into the bathroom the biggest surprise came: one of the walls was only halfly built. The other side of the wall opened to the next flat, which was then visible from outside the house. The landlord said this is "renovation" and "will be finished within days". Then why don't you just wait a few more days before letting people view it? It's a complete waste of my time. And the most bizarre thing is that, as mentioned above, there was still someone staying there, although he was going to leave in a few days... I just wondered, how on earth does he use the toilet these days?

The second flat I viewed is much more reasonable. Its on the busiest road, near the train station, and directly above a restaurant, and should be very noisy. Other than this, it looks a reasonable place, but certainly not as good as the one I am living. The furniture etc. are not as complete/good and I will need to spend some money. I am actually looking for something with smaller area but similar quality (comparing with my current one), but it looks like all available out there is similar area but poorer quality.

I have some psychological struggle to move to a clearly worse place. I need to keep on reminding myself, "imagine a hundred wasps all burst into your flat through the ceiling!"...

LSD 2007

So I went to London again, this time for the LSD 2007...

(1) Obviously, you can't expect stringology people to be interested in online scheduling algorithms. Not much happened in the talk.

(2) It was announced that I made an important discovery. No, I didn't prove any important theorems. It was only about "discovering" a new toilet...

(3) We went to Chinatown again. Most stuff there are more expensive than those in here (the only problem here is that brands and choices are rather limited), but it turns out that instant noodles are cheaper.

Matchings, algorithms and problems

Some time ago I heard a presentation of a final year project. Somehow the student believed the project involves stable matchings. It is good that they attempt these things, and at first sight it appears to make sense. But when you think about it for a bit more you will realize that it actually does not make any sense to use stable matching in that problem. I won't go into the details here, but basically, the input arrives online rather than a batch, and only perhaps one side has preferences (and even that is arguable).

But this is not the point I want to make. The student did not understand the difference between a problem and the algorithms that solve the problem. His presentation showed a stable matching algorithm, but did not say anything about stable matching itself. So I asked, "So what is stable matching?" Then he showed that slide with the algorithm and is about to explain, when I interrupted and asked the matching itself, not the algorithm. He couldn't answer, and at the end said "a matching that everyone is happy". Other students there, even though they also don't know what a stable matching is, can at least appreciate that this answer cannot be correct.

And of course, he is not the only student with similar problems. Last year I had a project student whose project involve matching papers to referees, and the problem is to find a maximum matching. He just proceeded directly to invent some algorithm to find a "large" matching. I attempted to explain but he couldn't understand that there is a "maximum" matching independent of what algorithm you might what to use.

More recently, a student is doing a project on timetabling. I have nothing to do with his project, but anyway he came to ask me how to find the "optimal solution". I asked, "So what is the optimal solution you want to find?" and he wanted me to tell him what is the optimal solution. He has no idea of different "objective functions".

And I wonder, is all these because of me teaching too badly, or are they simply impossible to be understood by some people?

Almost an issue 3

Within less than 6 months I lost it again! Except this time I discover it within 10 minutes, so rushing back to the supermarket to get it back...

I will now seriously consider not to use it in supermarkets, at least not in Sainsbury's.

Algorithms exam

At St. Valentine's day we had a dreadful meeting about the arbitrary manipulation of some numbers that are important to students (many of whom I don't know) in modules (many of which I don't care). I think it is now time to say something about the algorithms exam paper.

The exam paper has 6 questions and students answer 4. (I don't have any say about this.)

(1) I think I did an ok job of getting an average mark close to whatever number they want. You can easily estimate marks of students on different questions: if you want them to know how to answer, you must give them the exact same question beforehand, with only different numbers. This is the only way they know how to do something. Changing anything else would result in a very low mark.

(2) I included several straightforward (i.e. non-tricky) true/false questions, which are answered satisfactorily. (Never do tricky questions: the correct rate would be far lower than 50%).

(3) You might think that questions asking for simple counterexamples are easy, but they are not. I think this holds true for HK students as well.

(4) I believe no students can ever understand what "lower bound" means. Majority thinks "If the fastest known algorithm of a problem runs in O(n^2) time then the problem has a lower bound of Omega(n^2)" is a correct statement.

(5) There is only one dynamic programming question that you can expect people to do it correctly (and hence I put it in the exam paper) - working out longest common subsequences. They are fairly competent in filling in the tables, perhaps without knowing what they are actually doing.

(6) The divide and conquer question is a "difficult" one and as expected very few people do it. In an earlier assignment they did a question which has similar flavor - the standard maximum-sum contiguous subarray problem - and almost no one can get it correct. In fact, many do not even attempt to do it. It looks like if they decide that a question is difficult, they don't even bother to plagiarize - just leave it blank. I must say that I don't quite understand why they consider this very difficult, as I think this is a rather "natural" D&C problem - even when I first saw it in my first DAA assignment. Having said that, interestingly, a few actually accidentally discovered the linear-time algorithm.

LAW 2007

I went to the London Algorithmic Workshop, held at King's College London a few days ago. The main purpose is to see people, and to have some feeling of being in a city. (I don't expect to understand things like counting runs in a string using automata and such; although there is a talk about my ex-boss and his student's previous work.)

For all sorts of reasons, the cost of going there had increased considerably from the original estimate.

One thing is that I ended up staying at a hotel. Finding a cheap hotel in central London is like 買大細, for you never know how bad it can be. There are always terrible comments on the web for whatever hotel you pick. At the end, I picked one which seem to have not-too-bad comments. When I arrived I was relieved - it was very small as expected, but tidy and clean. From outside, the room is like a storage room or so at a turn of the stairs, but as long as you shut yourself inside it feels alright. There is no toilet/bathroom inside - have to use the shared ones outside. Apparently, this is the default for cheap hotels.

The return trip coincided with the heaviest snow of UK in 10 years (or something like that). You look out of the train window and it is white everywhere. But while the weather was bad enough, the train was very accurately on time.

Gaim Internet messenger

On the school linux computer I am using Gaim as the ICQ client (I don't have much choices). Somehow it doesn't look like they can block people not in your contact list. And so every day I receive dozens of authorization requests or even direct messages from Russians... and also, HK people. And this does not happen with my Windows ICQ (which is a very, very old version). I think no one uses ICQ anymore these days and perhaps they connect through other protocols when I use gaim...

Chinese food at co-op

I don't really know when these all started but the co-op at the student union here start selling many Chinese food, including all varieties of instant noodles, vitasoy milk, and even 王老吉. I suspect this might be something one-off as I don't think the Chinese student population here is large enough to support it...

(PS. I know, I haven't blogged for some time. But I promise some interesting stuff are coming. Like a detailed analysis of the course evaluation. Only that it takes some time...)

Christmas holiday

Alright, I was back in HK once again. Somewhat too frequent is it, when there is no particular reason to go back...

At Heathrow, it is very fortunate that the plane could actually take off with all the fog. I looked out the window at the airport, saw a plane and couldn't saw the next one. Other than the fact that they had no personal TV, I was quite happy with the airline.

In HK I went to a hospital to visit someone. Also I witnessed the last day of Hardee's. I should say that I'm not a big fan of it. However apparently quite some people do, and lots of people were gathering inside or taking photos.

And about the earthquake, I didn't sense anything at all. At that time I was probably staring at a bunch of equations...

Finally. It was not 5am or so at Heathrow, but still there was absolutely no one whatsoever in the Customs, again. Next time I will bring some "white powder"...

Some thoughts about star ferry pier incident

關於市民反應：

來來去去都得小貓三幾隻去反對，可見大多數市民都唔 care 的，傳媒也不怎麼報導。如果有幾十萬人去包圍，難道還能拆嗎？看來我不得不相信某才子的「民族 DNA」說法，中國人就是喜歡拆拆拆，是不配有古蹟的，要看去外國看好了...

關於政府反應：

本來市民唔 care，政府理應好辦事，但它大概自己心虛，於是有調虎離山、摸黑拆樓、快刀斬亂麻等行為。到星期一甚麼立法會，專家會議云云，還開個屁。這些「懶醒」戰略，使人十分反感...

關於爭論本身：

那些反對人士大概自己也不清楚想怎樣，是反對填海呢，還是反對拆碼頭呢，還是只反對拆鐘樓呢，...

至於親政府陣營，則再一次示範中國人的醜陋，以「只問動機，不問是非」的思維方式，不斷質疑別人「遲唔反對，早唔反對」，是「有陰謀」。別人有沒有陰謀，跟應不應該拆鐘樓有甚麼關係？

關於填海：

據說拆卸鐘樓是為了填海建馬路以解決交通擠塞問題云云。這等廢話早有人駁斥。填了海自然要起樓， (你不是以為真的填海來起公園吧？) 起了樓自然有更多交通流量，之後交通擠塞，然後又要填海，如此循環不息... 直至維港填平了為止。那之後怎解決交通擠塞？

其實大家只要看看地圖就可以了，會展一頭突了出來，IFC 在另一邊突了出來，中間豈有不填之理？早有預謀的了...

關於拆下鐘樓的下場：

據說拆下的鐘樓已運往堆填區。這我又不明白了，眼前不就有一個「中環三期」填海工程嗎，幹嗎不「原地拆卸，原地堆填」，方便快捷呢...

關於「三維立體」激光掃描技術：

「土木工程拓展署也已採用了先進的「三維立體」激光掃描技術，把整個碼頭的資料，以電子數碼方式詳細地保留下來。」

「發言人說，當局會研究如何把鐘樓及碼頭的特色部分融入新海濱的設計，政府早前已用「三維立體」激光掃描技術，保留碼頭資料。據悉，當局有不同構思保留鐘樓，包括在新碼頭重建、與九倉舉辦大型展覽讓市民憑弔、或把設計融入新中環填海區。」

以上文字的荒謬程度，實在很難以筆墨形容，唯有引用某討論區的說法：

市民也準備採用先進的「三維立體」激光掃描技術，把整個孫明揚的資料，以電子數碼方式詳細地保留下來。之後，孫明揚將被拆毀。有關人士稍後將會研究仿製一具孫的屍體，樹立於中環舊天星碼頭舊址供市民憑弔*。

(*: 在原文中，「弔」字被改為某粗口字)

關於新碼頭：

我只想說，那個新碼頭「很膠」...

International Conference on Junk Emails 2006

This looks like a very interesting conference. For one, it is held in Hong Kong Productivity Council, which is certainly appropriate since it relates to the productivity of everyone. Also, some talks look particularly interesting:

How AMD Opteron processor architecture well fit into Email marketing?

Poor processor designers. Do they have special instruction sets for sending spams?

又來奇文共賞

沒有甚麼值得怕的 ~ 梁立人

29/11/2006

近日食物安全中心接二連三公布有淡水魚含孔雀石綠，內地淡水魚商會為報復本港的行動，宣布暫時中止所有淡水魚輸港，香港人食無魚的日子即將到來。

其實豈但食無魚而已，如此下去，香港將會失去內地的食品供應，需要完全依靠其他地區進口，生活指數定會瞬時飆升，社會不穩定的情況必會加劇。

政 府呼籲內地淡水魚商會要理性行事，但雙方是否能達成諒解那是後話。其實內地食品超過安全標準並非一朝一夕的事，近幾十年來我們都在吃這些有毒食品，但為甚 麼現在才開始警醒，才開始害怕呢？再說，即使香港完全不再進口內地食品，難道每天十萬八萬的人進入內地，這些人所吃的食品就沒有問題了嗎？可以說，只要香 港和內地的關係切不斷，有害食品就無法根除，面對這種現實，我們只有兩種選擇：

一是移民到外國，遠離內地有害食品的威脅；二是習以為常，繼續若無其事的吃下去。

我會選擇後者，因為一來走到全世界都有內地供應的食物，二來使用化學藥品先進國家比內地更內行，只是毒性沒有殘存在表面而已，誰敢保證他們的食物會比較安全呢？

其實，我們吃這些有害食物已經有數十年之久，身體早就適應了，香港人的人均壽命已是世界之前一二名，我實在不明白人們還害怕甚麼。我會毫無懼色的繼續吃這些有害食物，就像我會繼續吸煙一樣，而且相信，自己會活得比那些怕得要死的人更加長久！

消滅香港

消滅香港是香港城市規劃的唯一目標

消滅香港的歷史
消滅香港人的集體記憶
消滅香港人的社區
消滅香港人的家庭
消滅香港人的個人意識

消滅海港
消滅街道，消滅街市
消滅小販，消滅大排檔
消滅老商店，消滅戲院
消滅樹木

香港成為了一座八百萬人的石屎監獄，不是石屎森林
全香港佈滿著一式一樣的大型商場
一式一樣的樓貼樓大型樓盤大型豪宅
香港不需要社區，不需要鄰居，不需要家庭，不需要有個性的個體
需要的是更多的消費，更多的信用卡，更多的名牌，更少的人情味，更少的清新空氣
街道佈滿的是巴士，更多的巴士，比火車地鐵還要長的巴士鐵路
香港的春夏秋冬都是冷氣，室內四處都是冷氣，室外四處都是廢氣
小市民不可在街作小販，大企業可以在街邊推銷信用卡，推銷寬頻，推銷樓盤
不正常的在香港成為正常

香港只可以有現在，沒有未來
租金可以無止境的上昇
投資只可以是投機
沒有人會安分守己
沒有人會腳踏實地
沒有人會做好學問
沒有人會相信未來，相信理想

香港已經不是以前的香港
對於現在的香港人，人情味是笑話
認真是一種謊言
狗仔隊是神是真理
香港人沒有人相信人可以是好人
憎人富貴厭人窮
講權利但不相信義務
假道學成為主流

城市的規劃影響著我們的價值
個人的價值
家庭的價值
朋友與朋友之間的價值
社區的價值
人類存在的價值

以金錢為唯一指標的香港規劃政策
令短期金錢效益成為香港成功的唯一指標
香港成為了一個沒有賭場的賭城
短視
功利
投機
膚淺

造成這種以錢為本的價值
是香港政府的責任？
是香港政黨的責任？
是香港傳媒的責任？
是香港教育界的責任？
是香港文化界的責任？
是香港學者的責任？
是香港市民的責任？

這是香港人的命運？
還是中國未來的命運？
命運可以改變嗎？
我們會認命嗎？

《 香港風格 2 ─ 消滅香港 》 胡恩威

Halfway through the algorithms module

In the classroom:

Me: Are there any questions about the assignment?
Student X: We want extension.
Me: That's not a question. Actually, some of you told me that the assignment is "too easy".
Student Y: Who's that?
Me: Yeah, who's that? Do you know? I don't remember...
Student X: (pretending to be looking around) ...

***

The old problem of "Find an efficient algorithm for returning the n copies of assignments to n students" arises again. Although we clearly know there is an O(n) time algorithm, in practice no one (including the teacher) like to use it and end up with the O(n^2) time algorithm.

***

Teaching algorithms has the advantage of you really know what you are talking about, so you don't need too much preparation, don't need to look at the screen every second, etc. The feeling of my best year of DAA teaching, where I have the freedom to say almost anything I like, seems to have come back.

***

However, too little preparation and relying on memory can be a problem. The lecture notes on quicksort and order statistics - I just don't remember how many bugs have been fixed during or after class. I would blame the CLRS again - I'm not fully aware that a different Partition() algorithm in its second edition affects that many things.

DSA and Gantt charts

So, I think I have almost covered the first-year Data Structures and Algorithms part in a third-year module. (I mean, the absolutely essential part. Sorting is n log n, etc etc. They will never know what a "binary search tree" is.) Sometimes I don't really understand their math thinking. OK you don't know geometric series, or have forgotten logarithms, or never really know what is induction. But given the recurrence T(n) = 2 T(n/2) + 1, say, isn't it "immediately obvious" that T(n/2) = 2 T(n/4) + 1?

On a completely unrelated thing, in final year projects, I think I have seen 10 different spellings of "Gantt chart"...

25th anniversary

A prospective applicant asked "when is the department established". (You see here the time of an academic staff is spent on these things.) Fully confident that not more than three people in the department could know the answer, I sent a broadcast email to ask. This led to the discovery that the department is (depending on how you count it) having its 25th anniversary. No one notice that before...

Algorithms textbooks

CLRS has been the standard algorithms textbook for quite many years. Yet in the last minute I decided not to list it as an "essential" textbook. The simple reason is that they refused to give me a free copy (or more precisely, ignored my request). The one I have is a first edition. It's a bit embarassing to fight with students to borrow the library copies, isn't it?

Debit card, issue 2

I never really forget about my personal belongings - haven't even lost a key before. (With a slight exception, that once at a US airport I left behind a bag containing passport and other important things, and walked away only to realize that after two minutes. I rushed back and it's still there. But that's the result of very insufficient sleep.) But within 1 year in UK I've lost my debit card! I think I must have left it behind after paying with it in a supermarket. And I only realize this after a few days. Actually, I felt my wallet being thinner those days, but I just thought it's because "I have no money".

Anyway, the card replacement process is quite smooth and I got my new card today. Except that when I ask the card to be sent to the university branch, they sent it to the city centre branch...

CX 60th anniversary

CX 今年六十週年，我都同佢贈興一下。圖中所見既並唔係個別事件，我一年前就已經親眼見過(雖然唔係呢班/呢架機)，之後亦聽人講過。不佢地成年都唔理個問題，任佢漏水的嗎?

ALGO'06

ALGO'06 is in Zurich, Switzerland this year. An incomplete list of what happened:

(1) It is essentially impossible to get to a flight on time in Heathrow Terminal 4. You go early enough and they won't tell you where to check-in. Self-service check-in machines are hidden behind the fast bag drop queue, which in turn is hidden behind another queue. Before going to security you need to wait outside the airport building. And of course you know the security itself. I went to the gate at 15:52 when the flight was supposed to depart at 15:50. Of course, I could still catch the flight. Half of the people would have missed it if they didn't wait.

(2) Switzerland probably has the most expensive McDonalds among the places I have been to.

(3) As everyone knows, people don't really listen to talks. So they designed something to keep you busy.

(4) Just before my talk, someone looked at my first slide which was already shown on the screen, and asked me "Is Fxxxxxx Cxxx the wife of Andy Yao?"

(5) In a reception, some girls asked me where is the "boy" that was with me. They were referring to Txx-Wxx Lxx. When they knew that he is already a professor, they couldn't close their mouths for a few seconds.

(6) As far as I can remember, I have never been to a conference together with the professor mentioned in (5) above. I should try to do it more in the future. You just hang around with him and some girls will appear and talk to you. I mean, it never happened like this before and it couldn't be me getting more handsome, right?

(7) How many more times do the officers in passport control in London airports like to ask this: "What do you do here?" "Lecturer." "Lecturer! What do you lecture?" How could they sound like surprising when the thing is written on both the visa and the landing card? And should I say "algorithms"?

more applications

Some more interesting applications:

1) A long, long time ago, I told you when you copy assignments, don't put the two copies consecutively into the assignment box. The same holds when you apply to universities. Even when you are applying to different departments.

2) And there is a reason why the Ig Nobel Prize in Literature 2005 is given to people in this country rather than some others.

3) Can anyone tell me how Thailand's calendar works? Is their "September" the 8th month of the year? I don't feel all that comfortable looking at something from future...

香港 vs. 烏茲別克

香港隊做乜忽然咁叻仔，竟然主客兩場都逼和烏茲別克... 雖然出線機會都係好微，但和總好過輸... 范俊業好野!

A new problem in my linux every day

I am using Linux in most of the time with my office PC, and it has just a bit too many nasty problems. Typically they come with no reason and disappear by themselves after several weeks (or months). The PCs are centrally administered and I suppose the technical support people change things every now and then and therefore problems come and go.

The newest invention is that the attachment bar in the bottom of Thunderbird becomes so thin that I can't see and click any attachment in it. And the little plus/minus sign that allows you to expand/collapse the viewing of the complete subject/from/date headers does not work. Well actually it only fails to work for mails with attachment.

Some other problems that get solved by itself included:

1) Chinese characters were displayed normally, then one day all become strange symbols, and then another day the characters came back - with a much better font!

2) Gnome refused to work properly; after the machine was up for a while then gpdf, ggv, gedit, g-whatever all cannot get started. So the very first thing I did after the machine was booted up was to open some pdf or ps files... then it would stay fine.

3) On a few occasions the clock was fast by exactly one hour. Although this one goes away easily (just a reboot).

Bank holiday

OK, I know this is bank holiday, but it is not the only bank holiday, huh? everyone is away this two weeks? The HoD, ex-HoD, ex-ex-HoD, my research mentor, teaching mentor and basically everyone directly "above" me are away...

DODOON 2006

(1) COCOON 主辦單位安排的 tour 其中一站是參觀故宮博物院。Prof. Dxxx Xxxxxxx 在某個商周時期的鼎內刻著的古代文字中，發現了一個「D」字，即場向工作人員詢問相當於今天的那一個字...

(2) 晚上的 conference banquet 變成了唱 K 大會，或者正確點說是 Dr. D X Xxx 的個人演唱會... 另有笑話指某 postdoc 靠唱歌揾到工...

劉江華

左口左面嘅劉議員大發偉論，表示「你話係走狗又好，係朝廷鷹犬又好，係維護香港治安穩定嘅警犬也好，我地始終係一隻狗，就係一塊狗餅都唔可以放過，就係唔可以俾反對派破壞狗糧供應得逞。」發言時個樣型到哩...

其實佢以前係我個區嘅區議員，我冇選過佢，因為佢次次都自動當選。後來唔知黐左邊條線走去空降挑戰某師奶，點知輸左。仲有人整張 banner 賀佢...

「三」號風球

天文台次次掛風球都俾人插，但今次實在太過份，我適逢其會都要鬧埋一份。我唔知天文台風力幾強，我剩係知馬鞍山風力俾好多次八號風球都要強。唔該阿天文台台長唔好係到 X up, 自己行出去睇吓，冧左幾多棵樹，海陸空交通受幾大影響。咁既天氣點可以安全返工返學？根據佢地既解釋，「維港風力怎樣怎樣．．．」而家咁多高樓大廈擋晒 D 風，應該以後都唔會有八號風球．．．

睇黎確保恐怖極權偷聽法例順利立法似乎係唯一合理解釋．．．

另請看你知道天文台欺騙了你嗎？

Coming back

After surviving the heat without air conditioning, I'm on the way back. The train strike is supposed to be cancelled, but still my train is delayed somewhat. At the airport, they are overbooking and can't give me a seat until the very last minute. Just too many people are travelling in the summer... An aisle seat, it turns out.

The aircraft just waits and occasionally moves around on the runway for a whole hour before it finally takes off. But then it arrives half an hour earlier than scheduled...

The purpose of a library

I seldom go to the library here. It has practically none of the books that I want (for example, no book about online algorithms). Last time the department is soliciting book requests for the library to buy, and I managed to trick them to buy some, although they did it just a bit weirdly - now a module has more copies of a reference book stocked than the main text, and an online algorithms book with a chop "received 1998" appears when I'm absolutely sure it wasn't there before.

But this is not the point of this post. This library is among the few places in the campus to have air-conditioning. Looking forward to a 35 degrees Celsius tomorrow, the library suddenly becomes a very nice place.

network rail

I don't know what I did wrongly, but the people at Network Rail simply don't like me and always choose to have a strike only when I need it. Last time the tube was also on strike but it was better - no one collected money for the Heathrow-London Central journey...

So it finally ended

今屆世界杯真係一個字：精采，包括：三黃一紅、批「爭」爆缸、眼底「紅卜卜」嘅 C 朗拿度對你單眼、大量演技粗糙嘅插水與痛苦表情、大陸評述員「偉大的意大利左後衛」事件、葡萄牙荷蘭表演暴力足球、瑞士十二碼全部唔入、巴夫斯排球 手...... 當然重有「施丹鐵頭功」。唔講都唔知世界杯原來係踢波嘅......

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.