This is why I hate writing personal statements.

So I guess my personal statement for my transfer app to Scripps Institution of Oceanography sounded arrogant. I guess that's not terribly surprising considering me, although it's fairly interesting to examine the reasons this time around.

I had similar problems in high school, though at that point it was more of a defense mechanism centered around low self-esteem rather than any sort of valid belief that I was better than anyone else. Yes, I was an attention-grubbing academic overachiever like so many others.

I would like to think that learning about psychology has broadened my perspective. Certainly I used to share the not-uncommon belief that only effort was needed to increase socioeconomic status. However, I think we often attribute behavior and status with innate traits rather than as a result of external forces. Once one gets over that misconception and develops the sort of empathy with the various situations that may have brought about current behavior, I think one develops a better understanding of how the world works.

Anyway, I guess I sometimes have difficulty in walking the line between being completely honest and maintaining social graces. I think trying to be humble can play a big role in getting people to like you. On the other hand, there's a lot of advice to the effect of selling yourself. It probably doesn't help that I have strong opinions about a lot of things. Undoubtedly this leads to situations where I end up as a bit of an arrogant prick. Sure, my background in math competitions is probably a great asset for creative problem solving. However, I think it's a lengthy explanation for why I think creative problem solving is a vital skill in today's society, and from first impressions, it definitely sounds like I'm bragging about previous achievements.

Hopefully the rest of my interviews will go well tomorrow, as it appears that I am competing with other prospectives for funding for the ocean biosciences program. The situation does make it painfully clear that I should have applied for fellowships, as well as the role of politics in science. Hopefully the day will come around when defense contractors, and not scientists, have to worry about funding.

Yum Yum 3 or (Yum Yum Yum Yum Yum Yum)

These restaurant posts are no longer in chronological order, but what do you care? They're 2 months late anyway!

So I was in NYC and called up some friends to have lunch. Due to various miscommunications, sicknesses, etc., it ended up being a cozy lunch with two Techer friends, E and Y. Luckily, Y. knew his way around and took us to Yum Yum 3.

It made us wonder about the status of Yum Yum 1 and Yum Yum 2. *shrug*

Anyway, we got the lunch special, which consisted of a choice of soup, an entree, and a dessert or drink.

I went with the Thai Iced Tea

the coconut soup (Tom Kha Gai?):

and the Spicy Basil Noodle:

while E had the Pad Thai:

and Y had some sort of spicy stir-fried chicken with green beans (Pad Prik King?):

The food was okay: the Thai Iced Tea was very sweet: much sweeter than I am used to, so it was a bit surprising at first. I gradually got used to it, since I don't have any particular aversion to sweet drinks while dining. (Probably the ice melting helped to dilute the sweetness a bit.)
The coconut soup was rather sour for my tastes. It masked any flavor that might have been apparent in the broth. For this type of light soup, I think there should be a strong broth flavor with subtle hints of other flavorings (maybe lemongrass, leek, etc.), and then any flavorful component should be a solid object, like the mushroom or chicken.
The noodles were good. It wasn't overly greasy, and I am a big fan of spiciness, basil, and broccoli (either separate or combined).

Overall, I would say this is a decent place for a quick and cheap Thai meal, although one would think it rather upscale from the plating. However, the flavors, as a whole seem rather muted; neither the in-your-face goodness of homestyle cooking but not the fanciful combinations of a high-end place. It felt very much like some sort of Americanized Thai food, though the chef apparently was born in Thailand (but emigrated here at 20).

Anyway, I don't remember the exact price of the lunch special, somewhere in the $6.95 ballpark. I think you can get a pretty good indication of the restaurant by the last line in the "Story of us" page on their website: "Our special is a five-course prix-fixe meal for $13.95."

Apparently those five courses (dinner, of course) are:
Soup
Spring Roll
Salad
Entree
Dessert

I wouldn't exactly call that a prix-fixe so much as the dinner special, but hey, whatever floats your boat. I should suggest to Sammy that he call his bento a seven-course prix-fixe:

1. entree
2. california roll
3. miso
4. rice
5. tempura
6. salad
7. ginger

Yum Yum 3 Thai & Vietnamese Restaurant
658 9th Avenue (corner of 9th and 46th)
New York, NY 10036

Television again!

Ok, last post about inconsistencies in the new Terminator show, seriously.

Conversation between John, Sarah, Cameron, and Charlie.

Charlie: [about Derek Reese] He needs a transfusion.
Cameron: Sarah's O-, the universal donor
Charlie: It doesn't matter, he needs at least 3 units of his own type, AB- [...]
[...]
John: Test my blood. Test me.
[...]
[Later we see, John donating blood to Derek]

Yes, as someone with O-type blood, Sarah can't be the mother of John, who has (apparently) AB-. Unless of course, some weird mutations are involved. Which wouldn't be THAT surprising, considering that John's father was a time traveler.

Speaking of time travelers, the newest Doctor Who series on BBC is fantastic. Especially the 2nd series finale with a particularly hilarious conversation between the Daleks and the Cybermen:

Dalek: Identify yourself.
Cyberman: You will identify first.
Dalek: State your identity.
Cyberman: You will identify first.
Dalek: Identify.
Mickey: (aside) It's like Stephen Hawking meets the speaking clock.
Cyberman: That is illogical. You will modify.
Dalek: Daleks do not take orders.
Cyberman: You have identified as Daleks.
Dalek: Outline resembles the inferior species known as Cybermen.

[...]

Cyberman: Our species are similar, though your design is inelegant.
Dalek: Daleks have no concept of elegance.
Cyberman: This is obvious.

[...]

Dalek: You propose an alliance?
Cyberman: This is correct.
Dalek: Request denied.
Cybermen: Hostile elements will be deleted.
[They fire, Dalek's shield holds up.]
Dalek: EXTERMINATE!
[Dalek fires, Cybermen fall.]

Cyberman: [...] Daleks be warned. You have declared war on the cybermen.
Dalek: This is not war; this is pest control.
Cyberman: We have five million cybermen. How many are you?
Dalek: FOUR.
Cyberman: You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?
Dalek: We would destroy the Cybermen with ONE Dalek. You are superior in only one respect.
Cyberman: What is that?
Dalek: You are better at dying.

I get comments. seriously!

I generally don't expect comments on my blog, for a number of reasons:

1. I'm too lazy to post regularly.
2. I'm too lazy to format everything to look pretty.
3. Have you seen the breadth of topics that my posts cover. Not just strange popular culture, but really really obscure references, technology discussions, rants about education, and restaurant "reviews".

Nevertheless, I was wondering why some recent posts didn't make it online, and it was because I hit "save now" instead of "publish post". So I went ahead and published some posts that had been sitting there.

and that's when I noticed that I actually had comments.

The first is from Kirk who thanked me for linking him. Not that it matters; I assume my pagerank is so anemic as to really do nothing for his. Still, one has to admire his dedication as a food blogger. I did some cursory searching for a similar-level of food blog in other major metropolitan areas (so I could find good places in LA, DC, and NYC on my visits there), but didn't have any luck. I guess that naturally raises the question of whether having a local food blogger count as an incentive to move to an area. *shrug*

The second is from my post on my USPC 2007 results:
"I love this blog. I myself have a special interest in Web Suduko"

It looks fairly normal, until you realize points 1-3 above. Also, running around the linked website reveals that it is probably some sort of phishing/scam site. The same content regurgitated across multiple posts with images and links to fishy places... My favorite part of the linked post has to be this section:

free online web sudoku

free web soduko

free web sudoko

free web sudoku

free web suduko

which is clearly designed to get more search engine hits. I guess the fact that the comment was located on that specific post should have been a dead giveaway. The only person who I could imagine having some interest in my USPC performance is J, and only because we discussed the competition afterwards.

EDIT:
And this time, I got spam about increasing your pagerank, etc., etc. To quote Strongbad, "DELETED!".

sudoku strategies

First, since it comes from a shortening (the Japanese people love shortening words - it's like some sort of abbr. obsession) of the phrase "数字は独身に限る" into "数独", can we please use the correct romanization of "sudoku"? It's not that hard, and yes, correct spelling and grammar do improve readability. Also, using non-convoluted sentence structure and refraining from using long words. See "Consequences of erudite vernacular utilized irrespective of necessity: problems with using long words needlessly".

Now that Tom Snyder is putting up videos of both his solving and discussion of various sudoku, the issue of sudoku strategies has resurfaced to my attention. For a while, I had been plugging away at the sudoku in various books. But after watching some of Tom's videos, I seem to be doing slightly better. I'm not sure that I got any really useful advice from the videos, since they are not geared towards the difficulty level I am working at, but I think it has allowed me to make more use of geometry that I hadn't really thought of before.

I do find it amusing that there are all these videos and websites about sudoku strategies, that are really sort-of brute-force:
here are a list of strategies that may be used under very specific and complicated circumstances, when in doubt, just cycle through them until you find one that works.

However, I think Tom has hit the nail on the head by outlining some key principles to "good" sudoku solving:

1. each number written down provides information that may lead to the next number:
- that digit can no longer be present in that row, box, or column
- there is less space for the remaining digits in that row, box, or column

2. fast notation can help immensely (this seems to be quite useful for me)
- marking cells in a box when a single digit can only be present in two or three cells doesn't help immediately, but it can under the following cases:
- filling in the same digit elsewhere narrows down the choices
- noting that another digit or two must be in the same set of cells "traps" those digits to those cells. often this allows one to bruteforce the remaining digits in the cell by comparing across rows or columns

3. flexibility is key
- switching from strategy to strategy speeds up solving immensely, but requires that one be able to recognize a viable angle of attack that may yield good results

I think my math team training is fairly useful for 3, as time constraints on problems forces the development of rapid analysis of what strategies to pursue next and when brute force should be used to open up new angles of attack.

Anyway, one of these days, I will probably develop a better discussion of sudoku strategies in my editorials section. I think it could be useful to formalize strategies (and not just for sudoku; I seem to have improved a lot with killer, wacky, and diagonal variations recently, too.)

Not that I think I will ever be good enough to make the US team or anything, but I would like to think I'm improving overall. After last year's debacle with the US puzzle championship, I'm hoping for a stronger showing this year. Don't forget to register! Techers represent! (Wei-hwa and Tom are both caltech alums)

stolen ideas!

two examples of video games stealing my ideas:

1. When they announce the capabilities of the Wii controller, I immediately told James that there should be a cooking game. A couple months later, Taito announced Cooking Mama: Cook Off. James later rented it; our impressions? the best part was the accent when you did well, and mama says: "better than mama". Yeah, the controls were kinda off.

2. Long ago, I had the idea for software that outsourced mathematical problem solving to India instead of developing an actual algebraic computer system. I even parodied Maple's old slogan of "Harness the brilliance of a thousand mathematicians" by inserting "Indian" into it. At some point, Maple changed their slogan, which forced me to dig around for an old copy for one scene in my lloyd video masterpiece: ACM 95a emergency procedures. And then, someone comes out with a math drill game for the DS that features some Indian guy (I wouldn't have a clue how to convert back the katakana into an Indian name...).

Strategies for CLUE

So I was in the shower, thinking about game theory and wondering what some strategies might be for the board game known as CLUE.

For those who are unfamiliar or may need a refresher, the game involves guessing a specific combination of person, room, and weapon to solve a murder. Players are distributed equal proportions of the unused cards, so they can immediately cross off certain persons, rooms, and/or weapons off the suspected list. This information, is obviously private and distinct for each individual. Play begins with players navigating the board and making guesses after entering room (the guess must use the room that the player is in, so there is some navigational trickery involved). After making a guess for a combination, the person to the left is given a chance to disprove it by revealing a card to the player who made the guess. If the person has one of the cards that is part of the guess, they must show a card, but they may choose which card if multiple cards can be shown. The card is shown only to the player who made the guess. If the person to the left cannot disprove the guess, then the next person to the left is given the opportunity to disprove the guess. If no one disproves the guess, the player who made the guess is then given the option of making a formal accusation, at which point he looks at the hidden cards for the actual person, room, and weapon and reveals if he was correct or not. In the case of an incorrect accusation, he is prevented from further play but must still participate in revealing cards.

Now, the information that is available to each player can be divided into several levels:

1. direct information
- Each player can cross off the cards they hold in their hand as they cannot be part of the murder trifecta.
- Each player can cross off the cards that are revealed to them in the course of making guesses and having them disproven.

2. indirect information [this is probably key, since it can expand the amount of information known since you can learn something new with every person's guess, and not just your own.]

- When making a guess combination (such as Mr. Green, Kitchen, Candlestick), any person that doesn't reveal a card to disprove the guess (when given the opportunity) cannot have any of those cards in hand.
- The same is true when other people make guesses, you are given information about what cards are not in a person's hand if someone does not reveal a card to the player who made the guess when given the opportunity. Also, any reveal tells you that the person who revealed has one of the cards in the guess, keeping track of this can reveal what card is revealed if one knows where the other cards in the guess are located.

I also considered one strategy of using misleading guesses to throw off the other players, but doing this successfully requires not just keeping track of what one knows, by modeling the available information everyone else knows, so that they won't KNOW that you are misleading them. I'm also not entirely sure what you gain by misleading guesses, since if you make a guess that is composed solely of cards in your hand, it will be apparent if other players have seen specific cards in your hand. Given the amount of effort required to model everyone's information, I don't think misdirection is a really viable strategy.

Oriental East

Somehow, I made it all the way to February and still have quite a few posts I need to make regarding East-coast food. Luckily, it looks like I might have some free time this weekend to churn this stuff out.

We used to go to Oriental East a lot when I was younger and we went to church in Silver Spring. I'm not quite sure what the correlation is between going to church in the area nearby since you can't really time dim-sum to be before or after church when there is lunch service and then Chinese school in the afternoon, but whatever.

The main problem with this place is the horrible parking, there's a tiny lot right in front where people triple park and block you in, so usually it's better to go to the side lot if there is space there.

Anyway, this place apparently does a lot of business, so one would expect the food to be quite delicious. As it turned out, I felt kinda queasy afterwards; I think the amount of grease combined with just arriving after a red-eye flight got to me. Either way, the food was not bad: overall, it was above average, I just felt like there was a whole lot of grease to it.












































Oriental East Restaurant
1312 East-West Highway
Silver Spring, MD 20910
(301) 608-0030