The Department of Informatics (IFI) at the University of Oslo (UiO) is working on a “Strategy and action plan 2023-2026” and asked their students and employees for comments. This is a slightly modified version of my comment from November 15th, 2022. I’m publishing it, because the problems and solutions I outline can be of general use for universities. Very little of what I say here is specific to…
Having attended a great conference and scientific networking event last week, I came to realize again the dysfunctional, scattered nature of today’s communication infrastructure that even scientists can not escape from. Let me map out the current reality of sending each other messages: We were invited to a conference with over 200 researchers. To maintain communication among the participants…
Just a bit over half a year ago, I started my PhD in Quantum Computing. Even though I basically didn’t have any previous knowledge about it, I thought Quantum Computing was an interesting challenge to get into. What should I say? Quantum Computing is really cool, indeed! Having a background in Theoretical Informatics, new complexity classes (BQP and friends) are exciting to work with. Also,…
This post is primarily a note to myself and collaborators, to avoid explaining and looking this up and over and over again. What is the modern way of making use of a .bib file in a document compiled with XeLaTeX and why? Let me highlight the main point from this detailed explanation from the SO thread about the differences bibtex vs. biber and biblatex vs. natbib : The biblatex package is being…
Living in a Scandinavian city has its perks. Like finding two perfectly fine speaker boxes on the street. Unfortunately, the amplifier was already gone. No problem, I’d just order a $10 bluetooth amp from aliexpress and have a nice stereo at home. I thought. Well, turns out there is a couple of ways they can suck. The amplifier chip Of course I watched a youtube video titled something like “The…
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to delete my AirBnB account. I had only used it two times in some years anyway and – while their platform is certainly comfortable to use – I prefer not to externalize my cost of traveling to those who need a place to live in, as I do in my own hometown. Turns out, deleting your account is easier said than done. While I was writing this article, I even found out…
Most video conferencing systems generally assume the same physical usage scenario: We have n users who sit or lie around in distinct physical locations, each of them having a client device to participate in an n:n video call, i.e. everyone can talk to everyone. Even though some platforms came up with a designated presenter or breakout rooms, I haven’t seen the assumptions of the physical…