Male-optimal, female-pessimal

The moral of the story regarding Stable Marriage Algorithm: In Gale-Shapely's solution (thanks Garret) women are almost always screwed in relationships. Gil and I had a debate last Tuesday regarding whether Gale-Shapely favored the female or the male. I remember my algorithms professor, Piyush Kumar, went over the proof in class last semester but I had forgotten how he did it. So I went over the proof again a few minutes ago. The algorithm SEEMS male-pessimal, but when you work out the details, you realize that women have very little say in the whole process. Here's a wikipedia entry on the subject.

The jist of the Gale-Shapely algorithm is as follows:
1.) Let there be an equal number of males and females.
2.) Each male has a preference list ranking the females that he would like to be with. Each female likewise, has a preference list for the males.
3.) The male proposes to the female who ranks highest on his preference list. If she is single, she HAS to accept.
4.) If upon asking, the female is NOT single, but prefers the man asking her out than the man she is matched with, she can leave her husband for the new guy.
5.) On the same scenario, if the female is NOT single, and prefers to be with her husband, she can stay with her husband.
6.) The male continues down his list until he is paired up.
7.) The male cannot divorce his wife. Only the female can leave her husband.

If you've noticed, the male is the only one who can propose and the female can only accept or reject his proposal. It looks like the female can reject anyone until she is paired with her optimal husband...BUT WAIT! Here's the scenario that makes Gale-Shapely a bit evil:

1.) Let's say there exists a female who is already paired with someone who is ranked pretty low on her preference list.
2.) However, the man whom she does favor over her husband is already paired up with another female.
3.) In order for her to be with the male she wants, the male had to have her ranked higher than the wife he is with.
4.) But since he doesn't (because otherwise he would have asked her out first, and she would have promptly accepted)...she is stuck with her current husband.

F***ing chauvenists...

"Scientific" Papers

The most annoying thing about research paper that I found is the fact that you can hide incompetent writing by burying it in a vat of ambiguous and techno-centric terms. Not only can I not read them without the aid of one of those contraptions from Clockwork Orange, but when I finally got through the paper I promptly forgot what I read.

A few gripes include:
1.) Authors like to abbreviate everything into a footnote, which though it is convenient, makes the paper REALLY hard to understand. A good example is: "Several recent studies, such as [1] have examined I/O patterns for commercial applications or desktop environments." If it is a 20 page paper, you have to flip to the very end of the paper each and everytime those annoying numbers in square brackets come up.

2.) If I notice grammatical error in a paper, then it must be REALLY badly written...because my grammar is awful. An example: "CDN more efficient."

3.) Equations. Equations. Equations. When in doubt, populate the paper with cryptic greek symbols. Then the conference committee will believe your paper is very important and worthy of presentation.

4.) Dedicate the last few pages to references. The more pages to your research paper, the more "substance" it has...superficially.

Ah, the dark side...

On another note, Steve Wozniak recently related Star Wars to Microsoft in this Slashdot article.

Bubble Tea!

I really miss Taiwan because of the wonderful food over there. I especially miss bubble tea and bentos. If you would like to make your own, here is a site that specializes in bubble tea supplies.

A Pic of Neil!

I found this picture of Neil Girling that I drew one Monday night when we hung out at the Glas Kat in San Francisco. Neil was one of two people at Apple I knew who are into the dark culture.

I met a gentleman who dressed up like a duke every event named Alastair, and called me "my lady", which was really funny. What I really liked about the clubs in SF is the fact that smoking is NOT allowed. When I came back to Florida and went to the Castle for New Year's Eve, I found myself missing the atmosphere of the Glas Kat...breathable air.

Genetic Phenomenon

Here's an interesting wikipedia entry on chimera.

A Visitor From Cupertino

Yesterday had the honor and pleasure of hanging out with a cool Apple engineer that I briefly met last summer. Jonathan Deutsch came to Tallahassee to interview at FAMU. He was an iBuddy of Zack Mahdavi's roommate, Josh Benjamin. Of all the places in the US we are graced by Apple at this humble abode aka "Talla-Nasty". I love looking at the Campus Events on Apple's website. FAMU is crunched between unknown colleges such as MIT, Stanford and Carnegie-Mellon.

Mur and I took Jon to a restaurant right next to a giant mattress warehouse (pretty much all the good things Tallahassee has to offer is hidden between junk shops and forests) called Clusters & Hops. We had a really good meal there, with a very nice waiter (who, thankfully, was a good sport) and learned that the difference between "old" and "ancient" is about 20 years (regarding a type of wine). Jon being the more classy of us three, did the "connoisseur" thing and tasted the wine with much swishing of glass and such. I had duck slices with fois gras, top with tender asparagus and carrot with wine soaked cranberries and twists of chocolate decorating the plate. From someone who has been eating canned sardines with Louisiana Hot Sauce for the last few years, this is heaven.

Today...met with Northrup Grumman. I don't really think I want to move to Melbourne, but I can't make that judgement until I've actually been there. They're flying me over on the 3rd of March for some orientation. I will have to fill out a formal application, and meet with some engineers, possibly for a series of interviews. I will finally meet up with some of the FSU graduates who are working there now. Part of me is thinking that if I was given this job, I should just accept it and learn as much from it as possible. The other part of me is saying that I can do better. I'm trying to meet up with Dr. Baker and ask him for his advice on this. I can always count on him to be sensible.

One of my minor regrets is that I start everything late. I'm not talking about procrastinating...I just go into a field much later than other people and I take a long time to catch up. This can be applied to anything I do...music, computer science, visual art, etc. Most of my CS peers had some sort of side project going when I was barely understanding data structures. I started piano lessons formally much later than most of my music major peers. I start late and I never finish. It's a nasty habit.

Well, I shouldn't complain... The fact I have a choice is a luxury as it is.

Always Behind...

I'm new to blogging. Was never much of a livejournal user. But I used to write a lot in my journal. When I realized that I was getting writer's cramp I decided to switch to the media where I can get carpal tunnel. After all, you have to pick and choose your poison. At least my handwriting is neater this way.

My greetings to the world, and apologies as I add more verbal diarrhea to the web.