Spending four years of undergrad in Shanghai feels like a kind of luxury. One big reason is how incredibly accessible and convenient transportation is. The city is deeply interconnected — a feature that, in many ways, makes up for a lot of the everyday frustrations of urban life. Shanghai has four major train stations the size of airports, plus two actual airports. I’ve visited all of them. But Shanghai South Railway Station stands out the most to me — especially in terms of design and aesthetics....

Here are three immensely useful tips my advisors gave me: Word Upperbound per Slide Aim for no more than three bullet points per slide, with six words per point. This isn’t a strict rule, but it’s a great standard and minimalistic ethos to follow whenever possible. Structure: Readability + Math This is a more advanced technique, but incredibly helpful for theoretical econ talks. Try to layer your slides with two different levels of information....

another episode of Youtube waltz watch

挥一挥衣袖，不带走一片云彩 (I wave my sleeves. Not even a wisp of cloud will I bring away) Chua Lam, the beloved food critic and cultural icon based in Hong Kong, passed away today. His deep love for food went beyond appetite—it shaped a way of living. A philosophy that was unique, profound, popular, and deeply worth remembering. Rest in peace. Wish heaven (or anywhere you’re in) have great food. I don’t think I can explain the essence of this wise man’s worldview in a single paragraph....

I designed a beamer latex template. Here’s the overleaf link and here’s the demo pdf. See the pdf for other pages of the demo. Design idea: Use the Poppins typeface — it’s a round, sans-serif font. (an open-source substitute for Google’s beautiful proprietary font Product Sans). (See Google Fonts: Poppins for details. Color: black text with pink accent on light-beige background. Minimalistic functions: I disabled navigation toolbar and the page that list references....

I’m graduating tmrw :) For this coda chapter, I really want to play this music for myself: Vivacious tempo, sparkling technique, bursting with joy, somewhat hidden, and adds a little bit obsession over details and perfection — this piece really best summarize my undergrad journey. What piece would you choose as your graduation day bgm?

The paper “Approximation Algorithms for Restless Bandit Problems” by Guha, Munagala, Shi (2009) designed a $2 + \epsilon$-approximation algorithm for a special class of RMAB (“Feedback MAB”, and generalized to “Monotone MAB”). The algorithm is fundamentally different to the classical Whittle Index. The paper’s analysis uses a duality-based algorithmic technique—it is vastly different compared with Weber (1988)’s proof for RMAB’s asymptotic optimality, hence the $2 + \epsilon$ approximation outcome doesn’t requires asymptotic....

There’s no gene for the human spirit. — Gattaca (1997) Vincent Freeman is born into a genetically engineered society but conceived naturally, deemed ‘in-valid’ due to a heart condition. Determined to defy his genetic fate and reach space, Vincent assumes the identity of Jerome Morrow, a former elite athlete, to join Gattaca’s space program. Gattaca is the stunning directorial debut of Andrew Niccol, who also wrote The Truman Show (1998)....

The visible world is no longer a reality and the unseen world no longer a dream (Kandinsky)

This is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!