On a productivity down
3 minutes read | 615 words by Ruben BerenguelA week without writing here. A week with little thesis related work done. But it has also been a week with ideas and things and such. You know, two weeks ago I was in Dresden for a conference. Lots of parallel sessions, and quite a few time to think. This post is mostly a digest from my life bookmarks for these two weeks.
Several complex dynamic ideas: Unrelated to my thesis, but I’ve been thinking about them these days. I even rewrote a program to test an idea, and did some calculations yesterday. Looks like it will work out, and I will be able to finish some things.
Heard a few interesting plenary talks: Cloaking, invisibility and inverse problems by Gunther Uhlman, who talked about theoretical solutions for creating invisible objects, as well as some real life applications like a cloaking system against tsunamis (by making an island invisible to water waves). Recovery of Data Matrices from Incomplete and Corrupted Entries by Emmanuel Candes was really interesting. He talks about a method (and related theorems) for recovering a full matrix from a very small sample of it (one of his examples was a 30000x30000 low rank matrix, where he only sampled 0.4% of its entries, and recovered the full matrix with a very low error. Really interesting! You can read the preprint in ArXiV.
Heard also a few interesting short talks: partial differential equations related talks, mostly, also one about neuron networks. Had an idea about the wake-sleep cycle problem as a synchronization problem.
Ate interesting things: I didn’t remember spätzle were that good. Should cook some day. Also tasted Pho bo soup in a Vietnamese place, and it is really a wonderful soup.
After coming back, I have also done a few things, but not so much related to my thesis
Installed Debian on the Ben NanoNote: Now I use emacs and org mode to keep my life bookmarking. In the nanonote you need emacs23-nox, emacs22-nox complains about little memory, don’t really know why (it only uses 7mb, there are still a lot left!). Also, if you happen to find a bus error while reading the aptitude package list (which will appear as Bus errorackage list 0% in your console), first try to delete /var/cache/apt/*.bin (or /var/apt/cache/*.bin) and apt-get update. If it does not work… I advise you to reinstall your debian system. I was not able to solve it, and ditched Lenny for Sid, then it worked well. But if you Ctrl-C while apt-getting something, you’ll find the bus error again, which can be solved by removing all these bin files.
Ordered, got and tried a pair of Fivefinger KSO’s: These are a barefoot-like running shoes. You can buy your pair from Amazon
Had some origami ideas: It was really long since I created something. Have a few ideas, or at least, a few things worth sharing.
Decided to finish unfinished things: I have one lemma left since my DEA (advanced courses) days. I need to finish its proof. I am also considering having another look at my previous thesis topic. I don’t feel like keeping things undone is good for my mental health.
Discovered an interesting site: CreateSpace.com for self-publishing and selling in Amazon.
Baked an interesting dish: Very close to Aeblekage, a Danish recipe I like a lot. Ate it today for breakfast.
I don’t know when I will be able to post this coming week… I used to write my posts in advance (usually one Friday and two Saturday), but this week I have none! But don’t think I am not here, this is just being out of sync.