Research Ranking of Romanian Universities 2011

The “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University from Iaşi scored second in the 2011 Computer Science scientific results ranking:

1. Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai, Cluj Napoca
2. Universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Iaşi
3. Universitatea Valahia, Târgovişte
4. Universitatea Bucureşti, Bucureşti
5. Universitatea Politehnica Bucureşti

As always take this ranking with a big grain of salt.

Expi2Java 1.6 Released

Alex Busenius and me are pleased to announce that Expi2Java 1.6 was released two days ago. And by the way, Alex has recently finished his MSc and is looking for a job in industry. If you know anything interesting in a German or English speaking country, please let him know.

Expi2Java 1.6 was released yesterday (11.05.2011)

The highlights of this release are the new symbolic library and a mechanized formalization in Coq.

The symbolic library abstracts away cryptographic primitives as symbolic terms and networking as pi-calculus-like channels. It is designed to be sound and simple enough to simplify proving the transformation secure. Both the symbolic and concrete libraries can be used interchangeably with all provided examples.

We have formalized the transformation from Expi Calculus to a subset of Java performed by Expi2Java using the Coq proof assistant and proved the symbolic library and the produced Java code to be well-typed. The formalization and all proofs can be found on the project homepage.

The full list of changes:

Inside Job

Inside Job, a great documentary about the financial crisis by Charles H. Ferguson. The film won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature yesterday.

Despre “Alianța Grivco” și necesitatea unei alternative reale

Nu mi se pare deloc justă retorica de sorginte mogulistă conform căreia actuala putere este singura vinovată pentru toate problemele actuale, mai ales cele economice^1, iar coalizarea opoziției actuale reprezintă singura salvare de la acest dezastru^2. Ideea eu o consider complet greșită, pentru că opoziția actuală din Parlament nu e cu nimic mai presus decât actuala putere, ci dimpotrivă, ambele sunt un dezastru pentru România.

Crises of Capitalism

Here is a cool animated talk about the Crises of Capitalism. While the talk gives a quite surprising perspective on the current crisis, it starts with a very cool review of the explanations others have given for it.

Bert’s Fish Soup (Bouillabaisse-like)

Ingredients:

• Vegetables: paprika, parsley, fenel, celery, leek, chives, garlic
• Fish stock (you can find it in French supermarkets, fr. Soupe de Poissons)
• Rouille (you can find it in French supermarkets)
• Fish, mussels, shrimps (e.g. fr. Dos de Cabillaud, Filet de Merlan, Filet de Plie, Noix de Petoncles, Crevettes)
• Croutons and grated cheese (e.g. Emmentaler)

Preparation:
Wash, cut and boil the vegetables in a big pot with not too much water. When the vegetables are boiled, dissolve the Rouille into the pot. Fry the mussels and fish with butter in the pan and add them round after round to the pot. Add the shrimps directly to the pot (they don’t really need cooking). Add the fish stock to the pot, and make it hot but without boiling it. Serve hot with croutons and grated cheese.

Here are more photos.

The Saarbrücken Graduate School in Computer Science

• An integrated program from BSc or MSc to PhD
• Top-notch academic and research training in computer science
• Unparalleled concentration of computer science research expertise in Europe
• International program run entirely in English
• Scholarships and other forms of financial support
• Next application deadline: 29 April 2011 uptake Winter Semester 2011/12 (October)
• More information at
  http://frweb.cs.uni-sb.de/index.php?id=7&L=0

The ICFP 2010 talks are online

The ICFP 2010 talks are online for some days … hours and hours of home entertainment! Here is the presentation of my favorite ICFP 2010 paper:

And here is my own stressed and tired talk (for a less stressed version see this):

It’s amazing how much you can learn from a video of your own talk. So many times your impression as a speaker about what the audience got out of your talk are completely off. I wish more conferences would record talks, then maybe the talks would get better.

Four Quotes

“I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity, and I am more invulnerable than Archilles; Fortune hath not one place to hit me.” – Sir Thomas Browne (1642)

“My Coq proof scripts do not have the conciseness and elegance of Jérôme Vouillon’s. Sorry, I’ve been using Coq for only 6 years…” — Xavier Leroy (2005)

“You never really misunderstand something until you try to teach it…” – Anonymous

‎”Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death.” – 1984

Stumbling on Happiness

Read Dan Gilbert's “Stumbling on Happiness” with Beate about a year ago. We both found it found very insightful and enjoyed it a lot. Tonight I saw Gilbert's TED talk and remembered once again how nice his book is

A funny quote from the TED talk:

Okay. There’s something important to be learned from these people, and it is the secret of happiness. Here it is, finally to be revealed.

1. accrue wealth, power, and prestige, then lose it.
2. spend as much of your life in prison as you possibly can.
3. make somebody else really, really rich.
4. never ever join the Beatles.