Coldplay

I went to the Coldplay concert last night.

I left work early and I went with Suor to Roti, an Indian restuarant, in LQA for dinner. I had the chicken saag, which was pretty good, but spicy. They were kind of slow bringing us the bill after we were done, which was a little funny, but we had some time to kill, so it wasn't too bad. Then we walked to Key Arena (via Easy Street Records) to meet Nabeel.

The opening act was Fiona Apple. She was okay, but not very memorable. Perhaps that's because I don't really her music that well. (I only recognized one song). I should also say that she seemed a bit eccentric and fidgety (like she has ADHD or something).

Coldplay started out with Square One, Politik, and Yellow, for which big yellow ballons, containing gold sparkles, were dropped from the ceiling and used as beachballs by the audience in front of the stage. They played most of their new album, X&Y, (i.e. Speed of Sound, Talk, etc.) as well as their older songs that you would expect, such as The Scientist (my favourite Coldplay song), In My Place, Clocks (perhaps the best song of the evening), God Put A Smile Upon Your Face, and Trouble. (The only older song that comes to mind that they didn't play was A Rush of Blood to the Head). In the middle of the set, they had a brief "tribute to Johnny Cash" that were three songs (two Coldplay songs + Ring of Fire) that they played without any of the flashing lights, video, etc. Chris Martin didn't talk a whole lot, but did like bringing up the Superbowl and the Seattle Seahawks occasionally. The set seemed quick, but was probably about 70 minutes long, so I suppose that is compliment (i.e. time flies when you're having fun). They came out for a three-song encore, which ended with Fix You, another good song.

Craziness & Irony

Crazy things pop into your mind when the fire alarm goes off. I'm chilling in my apartment watching Revenge of the Sith. It's the middle of the duel between Mace Windu and Chancellor Palpatine when suddenly a loud screech begins coming from my bedroom to retreive my pager. Who the f**k is paging me at this hour? I'm not on-call. And I starting walking to my bedroom. Wait. I turned off my pager earlier, so this wouldn't happen, what the hell is making that noise? ... Crap. That's the fire alarm (again). So I start to leave my apartment. Why is the fire alarm going off in my bedroom? So I turned back my bedroom. No fire. (I have no idea why I thought it was necessary to check). And I grabbed my keys and leave.

The people in my apartment go to be early or something. It was only 10.45 pm and a bunch of them were in their pajamas. Which sucks for them, 'cause it was nice today, but it got cold fast this evening.

Last time I commented about the firefighters. This time, the police officers caught my eye. There were four of them loitering around the apartment's entrance before the firetrucks even arrived. [Aside: I thought the Starbucks downstairs was closed at this time of night]. Everyone else was loitering around the entrance too. After a few minutes (and the firetrucks had arrived), the police decided they should actually do something besides chat to each other, so one of them told another one to shoo everyone away from the entrance. After (jaywalking) to the other side of the street with everyone else, I sat and watch the police officers loiter around the entrance still. Which was kind of ironic. :-)

How to Do What You Love

How to Do What You Love is an thought-provoking essay by Paul Graham. [Via Funkaoshi].

Finding work you love is very difficult. Most people fail. Even if you succeed, it's rare to be free to work on what you want till your thirties or forties. But if you have the destination in sight you'll be more likely to arrive at it. If you know you can love work, you're in the home stretch, and if you know what work you love, you're practically there.

Right now there are things I like about my work, but there are also things I really hate. So I don't think I'm doing what I love. I'm not even sure that my destination is in sight yet. I guess this is something else that I'll need to reflect upon. (e.g. If I decide to go to grad school, applications for fall 2007 are more or less due this fall).

Dancing Links

One of my co-workers forwarded me a copy of Dancing Links by Donald Knuth. In the paper, Knuth describes a backtracking algorithm, DLX, for solving exact cover problems using a doubly-linked-list type data structure. As the algorithm recursively searches for possible solutions, the links in the lists that represent the problem "dance" as they are updated from previous candidate solutions to reflect the candidate solution that is currently under consideration.

What is the exact cover problem? Given a set of elements U and a collection S of subsets of U, an exact cover C of U is a subset of S so that each element of U appears in exactly one of the subsets in C.

For example, suppose U = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 } and S = { S₁ = ( 1, 5 ), S₂ = ( 1, 2, 4 ), S₃ = ( 2, 3, 5 ), S₄ = ( 2, 4 ), S₅ = ( 1, 4 ), S₆ = ( 3 ), S₇ = ( 4 ) }. Then an exact cover of U is { S₁, S₄, S₆ } since together these three sets have all of the elements U = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 } and no elements appears in more than one of S₁, S₄, S₆. Similarly, { S₃, S₅ } is another exact cover. On the other hand, { S₁, S₃, S₇ } is not an exact cover because 3 appears in both S₁ and S₃. Likewise, { S₂, S₆ } is not an exact cover because neither S₂ nor S₆ contains 5.

Suppose you are given a chessboard (an 8 x 8 grid) and 32 dominos (2 x 1 rectangles), which have squares of the same size as the chessboard. Can you place the dominos on the chessboard so that each square of the chessboard is cover? Yes; and it should be straightforward to do! (e.g. Make a row of four dominos that are horizontal. That will cover one of the ranks of the chessboard. Simply repeat this seven more times). Now, what happens if I give you 31 dominos and cut away the top left (a8) and bottom right (h1) squares of the chessboard (so it has 30 white and 32 black squares). Can you cover this modified chessboard with your 31 dominos?

If the domino and chessboard example still sounds too contrived then consider how you would write a computer program that can solve Su Doku problems. [Hint: Dancing Links!]

Vacation Planning

In my spare time I've been slowly perusing info about Europe. I'd like to visit there again for my next vacation. When I visited there two years ago, I didn't make it to Scandinavia so I'd like to spend some time in Denmark (in and around Copenhagen) with maybe a short detour to Sweden (e.g. a day in Malmo). I'll probably spent a few days in London too because my cousin lives there. But I'm not too sure what else to do. (The "masterplan" is to go for about three weeks).

A few of my ideas are:

• Scotland (or the UK in general).
• Stop for a few days in various places between London and Copenhagen, such as Paris, Brussels/Brugge, or Amsterdam.
• Spend about a week in Berlin, or some other part of Germany.
• Tour a few places in Eastern Europe such as Budapest or Prague.
  

Like Denmark, Scotland is another place I'd like to visit, but didn't make it to on my earlier trip. The pictures of the Scottish countryside are always so scenic. I'm not too sure what specific things there are to see and do though.

Stopping along the way between London and Copenhangen would be convenient and I don't think you can run out of things to see and do in Paris. However, I've visited Paris and Amsterdam (and London) before, so half of places on the trip would not be "new".

Last time, we only spent a day in Germany and it was in a village along the Rhine, so Germany would be "new" and I think there are lots of famous sights, museums, etc. in Berlin.

I haven't been to Eastern Europe before, so that idea is appealing. If I can't find anyone to go with (which seems likely), I would be tempted to go on a short tour of Eastern Europe. Contiki, has a few tours to choose from: Berlin - Prague (8 days), Berlin - Prague - Vienna (10 days), Berlin - Prague - Vienna - Budapest (12 days), as well as Berlin - Prague - Vienna - Budapest - Krakow - Warsaw - Berlin (14 days).

Any thoughts or suggestions?

M & M's

Six photos of M & M's in a bowl.

Data Mining

Business Week has an article, Math Will Rock Your World, that discuess data mining and using mathematics to model and improve business processes (e.g. supply chain optimization).

... This mathematical modeling of humanity promises to be one of the great undertakings of the 21st century. It will grow in scope to include much of the physical world as mathematicians get their hands on new flows of data, from atmospheric sensors to the feeds from millions of security cameras. It's a parallel world that's taking shape, a laboratory for innovation and discovery composed of numbers, vectors, and algorithms. "We turn the world of content into math, and we turn you into math," says Howard Kaushansky, CEO of Boulder (Colo.)-based Umbria Inc., a company that uses math to analyze marketing trends online...

Monday

Without a doubt, Monday is worst day of the week. I was woken up this morning by the fire alarm. After quickly throwing on my clothes, I went out of my apartment to be greeted by the delicate aroma of toaster-challenge neighbour. Naturally, it was raining too. No sleep + no hot shower + no breakfast + standing in rain = unhappy.

The firefighters didn't seem too enthusiastic either. (Is it bad karma to say that?) Two trucks came. One firefighter slowly got out and went inside the building and then back. Then another firefighter came out after another little bit and they both went into the apartment building. A few minutes later a couple more got out of the other truck and joined them and they all came out a few minutes later. Then the huddled, wet masses went back inside.

I had a 9 am phone interview to do too. I'm really more of a "the work day starts at 10 - 11 am" kind of person. It's always frustrating when the candidates can't answer simple things. I don't like to start my week frustrated. And there was the suggestion to change one of the on-call schedules again so I could be on-call again. No thanks. I'm just getting off on-call. I've already been on-call for 11 days this month. (And, yes, I know it's only the 9th of the month). And why does the on-call schedule need to change every other business day. What was wrong with the previous three versions?

I hate Mondays.

Christmas Photos

I posted some photos I took of my family at Christmas on Flickr.

Best Movies of 2005

I figure that I watched about 80 movies in 2005, mostly from Netflix, but some I saw either in the theatre, on TV, or from DVDs that I bought or borrowed. Here are the best (and worst) movies that I watched in 2005. [All links below go to IMDB].

The Best Movie was The Count of Monte Cristo. An adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' novel, it's athriller/action/drama movie. A good story, good acting, good cinematography and sets/costumes. (It takes place in Napoleanic France). Amélie, Good Will Hunting, and A Beautiful Mind were also great movies.

The Best Dramas were Good Will Hunting and A Beautiful Mind. Both are about mathematicans. In Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon plays a troubled young man who lives in Boston. He's working as a janitor at MIT and is "discovered" as a math prodigy by a professor there. A Beautiful Mind is a biography of John Nash, a mathematican who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994, but the story focuses on his struggle with schizophrenia. (Although, the film has been criticized for inaccuracies and omissions). Both films are deserved winners of Academy Awards. A notable mention goes out Clint Eastwood's critically-acclaimed Million Dollar Baby.

The Best Thriller was The Village. M. Night Shyamalan rocks. I can't wait for his next movie. His cinematography and sets are awesome and his stories are gold. Denzel Washington's John Q and The Manchurian Candidate were also good. Collateral, starring Jamie Foxx as a taxi driver, who picks up an assassin played by Tom Cruise, was also entertaining.

The Best Foreign Film was Amélie. It's a French film by director Jean-Pierre Jeunet which stars Audrey Tautou. The film is a comedy/drama. The story is very good and I love the cinematography/sets. The Brazilian-film City of God about an aspiring photographer who lives in a gang-infested slum of Rio de Janiero was solid.

The Best Comedy I watched was The Whole Nine Yards. Matthew Perry plays a dentist who gets caught up with a hit man played by Bruce Willis. The characters are good, the story keeps your attention, and it was funny. [Sadly, its sequel, The Whole Ten Yards is just plain bad. They must have had a different writer or something]. Notable mentions go out to Ben Stiller's Meet the Fockers and Meet the Parents.

The Best Documentary was Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. It's a critical examination of the Fox News TV channel. i.e. Fox News claims to be "Fair and Balanced", but in reality it is a right-wing tabloid with little substance or informative value.

The Best Science Fiction film was Revenge of the Sith. I thought the final installment of Star Wars had good pace, a decent story, and it exceeded my expectations. [To be fair I am a sucker for Star Wars though]. A notable mention goes out to I, Robot where cop Will Smith chases a robot he suspects of murder in a futurist Chicago. [It also stars Bridget Moynahan, who is hot].

The Best Action Movie was The Last Samurai. Set in circa 1870 Japan, US Civil War veteran Tom Cruise goes to Japan to train and modernize their army, but is captured by rebel samurai. It is, perhaps, a bit too much of drama to be considered an "action" movie, but I don't think I saw any "pure" action movies this year that were great. (All the good action movies I saw could arguably belong to the sci-fi, drama, or thriller genres).

The Best Crime Film was The Untouchables. Kevin Coster plays Eliot Ness as he battles Al Capone (Robert De Niro) in Chicago during Prohibition. Sean Connery earned an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. A notable mention goes out to The Usual Suspects, which has a great story about what happens after five criminals are brought together.

The Best Superhero Film was Batman Begins. Fantastic Four was also entertaining (but lacking in substance).

The Best 'Family' Movie was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

The Best Unoriginal Movie was National Treasure. Nicolas Cage is treasure hunter in a hokey, but entertaining story. (It's unoriginal because it's a cross between Indiana Jones/Lara Croft and the Da Vinci Code). After The Sunset was also a decent movie (but reminiscent of The Thomas Crown Affair and Ocean's Eleven).

The Best 'B' Movie' was The Day After Tomorrow. Global warming causes the ice caps to melt. Hence, the ocean's currents radically change (no longer warming the nothern hemisphere) and an instant ice age ensures. Dennis Quaid must rescue his son, who is trapped in a frozen New York City.

Some movies that exceeded my expectations were The Fifth Element, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and Phone Booth. None of them is great and perhaps neither good, but they were decent.

The Most Disappiointing movie I saw was Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I learned that all Spielberg movies are not masterpieces. (A.I. Artificial Intelligence also sucked). Spiderman 2 also sucked horrendously. I expect sequels to have the same characters and similar stories as their predecessors, but this was crappier remake of Spiderman. I don't think they bothered to come up with a script, they just made a couple changes Spiderman's story. Braveheart (too long and too over-the-top) and The Terminator (too lacking in story, characters, and quality of cinematography) also were disappointing.

The Worst Movie was Daredevil. This was a difficult choice since, in addition to the above disappointing movies, Alexander, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Elektra, and The Truman Show lacked any redeeming qualities and were among the movies I saw in 2005 that warranted a single-star.

A few other good movies I saw that aren't mentioned above include Catch Me If You Can, Chocolat, Garden State, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Terminal.