Tuesday 11 September 2007 @8:59
I was in denial about it for as long as possible, but yesterday my classes began. I can’t pretend it’s still summer anymore. Although the summer wasn’t nearly as productive as I planned back in May (I believe in aiming high; realistic goals are for weak minds 
), I did get two papers accepted and I made progress on a new manuscript that I’d like to submit by mid-October.
I also sharpened my tools, battled a web-spam invasion, built a new home computer, and changed my web host. Didn’t travel very far this summer, but we hit Block Island (RI) in May, and Boston and Montréal for a few days each in August. In the coming weeks and months, I plan to finish final revisions on my RNGzip paper for JCP, pound out the new manuscript with Stefan, organize my coursework ideas for AI and write something about that, and, of course, submit my tenure portfolio. Oh, and I’ll be going to Germany for ICFP.
Sunday 1 April 2007 @17:51
When it rains, it pours: I’m attending three conferences within the span of just about five weeks! Early in March, I presented at a conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory, and Computing in Boca Raton, Florida. The talk was about a certain kind of subgraph for extracting test sequences from a formal protocol specification. It was mostly the work of a colleague at LIU — I joined the project fairly late — but he wasn’t available to present it, so I went. We intend to submit the work to a math journal sometime in May.
Model checking, type theory, and testing all have similar aims — improving the correctness and reliability of software and hardware systems — and yet the techniques seem to come from different communities, with different vocabularies and outlooks. I know of a few papers that have tried to build bridges between these areas, but I’ve worked in all three and I’m still not sure how they relate!
The second conference was the IEEE Data Compression Conference, this past week in Snowbird, Utah. I presented our work on type-based compression of XML. This was strange, being in a completely different community, and yet I found another person — a functional programming guy — who was in the same situation! The conference went reasonably well, and I did learn a lot. I learned that I have no understanding of (or affinity for) image compression, with its wavelet transforms and peak signal-to-noise ratios. Text compression just makes much more sense to me.
I saw very little of it, but Utah was indeed beautiful. The constant backdrop of mountains around Salt Lake City was breathtaking. I imagine if you live there it’s easy to lose sight of them. Just like how we never noticed how often the twin towers appeared in the background of movies filmed in pre-9/11 NYC — until you watch them post-9/11 and they suddenly stand out.
A ski resort is probably not my ideal conference location. I don’t really ski; I’ve been against it since grade school, when I observed the regularity with which my skiing classmates returned from trips with all manner of broken limbs and sprained joints. No, I tend to like urban settings, preferably foreign ones, where there are lots of other things to see and do, and not everyone stays at the same conference mega-hotel. Other recent conferences I’ve attended were in great cities such as Glasgow, Warsaw, Nice, London, Vancouver, and Paris.
Finally, tomorrow is the start of the Trends in Functional Programming conference here in New York City. I’m not presenting at this one, but since it’s in town it seemed worthwhile to go. I’ll have to miss most of Tuesday’s events because of my teaching schedule, but half of the day is reserved for a city tour, so that’s not a big loss for a NYC resident! 
Wednesday 12 July 2006 @12:16
I just returned from a week in Montréal. This was an opportunity to visit (the tail end of) the Jazz Festival, and to reconnect with my friend, co-author, and former office-mate.
Unfortunately, getting there turned into a nightmare. We argued about whether to go by car, train, or plane, but we ultimately found a reasonable fare on Priceline, so we flew. It was US Airways, with a longish layover in Philadelphia. Shortly after landing at PHL, we learned that our Montréal flight was canceled, due to traffic congestion. So we rerouted through Boston. But then one leg or the other of that trip was delayed. And at the airport — as in the city itself — restaurants start closing at 8:00.
Anyway, here’s the Reader’s Digest condensed version: we left home at 10 in the morning, and got to my friend’s house in Montréal at 1:00 the next morning. By my reckoning, we could have driven there and back in that time.
Coming home was slightly better, although there was another moment of panic at PHL when the monitor listed our flight to LGA as delayed until half past midnight. It turned out to be a fluke. Still, we left my friend’s house at 3 in the afternoon and got home at 1 in the morning.
Sad, but true: the overhead of getting to/from the airport and the risk of being delayed or canceled are too high to justify flying anywhere within a 10 hour drive. (Non-stop flights minimize the risk, of course.)
Just as I started to write this post, iTunes shuffled its way onto Glenn Gould playing Partita #6 in E minor. So I chose a suitably Canadian (though not specifically Québécois) title for this post.
More on the trip later.
Sunday 21 May 2006 @14:11
Last week we took several days off to visit the Outer Banks and Cape Hatteras, in North Carolina… a short but welcome getaway after the semester. My parents rented a house there for a week, to celebrate their anniversary. The drive was just about ten hours, down the eastern shore of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, and over the Chesapeake Bay bridge/tunnel.
Before this trip, I guess I had never looked too closely at a map of NC. The cape sticks rather far out into the ocean, and is shockingly narrow. We drove through Kitty Hawk and Nag’s Head on the way, and Hatteras is very close to Roanoke Island, the site of the (lost) first English colonization effort in the Americas (in 1585).
We split time about evenly between sight-seeing and just relaxing. I brought the laptop and some papers to read, and actually had a chance to do some work. I don’t necessarily believe in the dichotomy of all-work weekdays and all-play vacations. My work and leisure are largely intertwined; I think that’s typical for academic careers. But it’s always nice to work in a beautiful and peaceful setting, of course.
The house was cute, with two full baths, three bedrooms (one with a pile of bunk beds for kids), a large kitchen and living space, a loft with futon, balconies, and partial views of the ocean to the east and the sound to the west. Most of the house was up one floor on stilts, as is typical (and sensible) in this region. In fact, the ground-level foyer even smelled a little musty from previous flooding.
The first thing we did was walk up the Hatteras lighthouse. There are many lighthouses on the cape, of course, but this is probably the most famous. Just do a Google image search for “hatteras” and you’ll see what I mean. It was a piece of cake compared to all the cathedrals we ascended in Paris last year, with their uneven, worn stone stairs. Just remembering them makes my ankles ache again.
We also visited Roanoke Island, where we saw a silly play featuring Queen Elizabeth I and her half-sister and predecessor Bloody Mary Tudor. The idea is that they emerge from their tombs at Westminster Abbey every night and continue to pick on one another. The actresses played well off of one another, and the dialogue was fun, with a few nuggets of history thrown about.
Anyway, now I’m back in New York, and ready to contemplate some research problems with increased vigor.
Tuesday 25 April 2006 @19:41
In May 1998, I went with my family for a two-week vacation to England and Ireland. Ireland was particularly beautiful and—I hope you agree—quite photogenic. Here are the photographs I brought back, accompanied by text from a journal my brother Ben kept during the trip.
This story was originally published on the web in August 1998, and ported to the new site format in April 2006. Not all of the photos are shown in this post. Click one, and follow the arrows to see all of them.
More…
Monday 24 April 2006 @9:52
Tower bridge
In May 1998, I went with my family for a two-week vacation to England and Ireland. Here are the photographs I brought back, accompanied by text from a journal my brother Ben kept during the trip.
This story was originally published on the web in August 1998, and ported to the new site format in April 2006.
More…
Saturday 15 April 2006 @11:51
This was originally published on the web in spring 2001. Click on the photos to enlarge them, and to find links to additional photos from this set.
In August 1996, I took a solo trip to New Orleans. Although it was my first visit, I felt like I already knew the French Quarter and the Garden District, from reading Anne Rice novels—especially the Witching Hour series and The Feast of All Saints.
This trip was also a kind of personal coming out experience. Not that I did anything wild—I managed to miss Southern Decadence by a week—but it was a chance to explore a gay community on my own, far away from home. One hot afternoon, I stopped for a drink at a gay bar (Oz, shown here) and wrote coming out letters to a few of my old friends.
The first place I stayed, Lafitte Guest House (1003, rue de Bourbon) was charming and elegant: beautiful rooms with antique furniture; breakfast on a silver tray. I’ve been dying to return there for some special occasion. I stayed for three weeknights, as the weekend rate was a bit out of my price range. For the weekend, I moved to Ursuline Guest House (708, rue des Ursulines), which was comfortable but not nearly as elegant.
This post highlights the architecture, ambiance, and music of the French Quarter and adds a few scenes from the Garden District and Algiers Point, across the river.
During my trip, I walked the streets of the French Quarter day and night—I had most of the street names memorized! I loved the feel of the place, especially the painted houses, shutters, and balconies. New Orleans, especially the French Quarter, is one of the greatest places I’ve been to linger over a delicious meal, wander down to the river at dawn, or just sit in the park and watch the people. Bar-hopping is easier on Bourbon Street than anywhere else because each building has so many entry-ways (when all the storm shutters are open).
Great music is everywhere; linked here are pictures of just a few of the street musicians I ran across. There is always someone playing in front of Cafe du Monde, it seems.
“Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
And miss it each night and day…
“Miss the moss-covered vines, tall sugar pines
Where mockingbirds used to sing
I’d love to see that old lazy Mississippi
Running in the spring
“Moonlight on the bayous
Creole tunes fill the air
I dream about magnolias in June
And I’m wishin’ I was there”
Twice, I took the streetcar to the Garden District. Mostly I stared longingly at the mansions, but a visit to Lafayette Cemetery was also a must. The Garden District Book Shop carries many autographed Anne Rice books.
Say No to Extra credit
Neeraja
Sauerkraut
Rob
Rumble
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