I’ve blogged about Mendelssohn’s Scherzo from a A Midsummer Night’s Dream previously (two interesting Mendelssohn paraphrases—Rachmaninoff’s genius piano transciption of Mendelssohn’s incidental music). But today let’s talk about the piece itself, in its most authentic orchestral form. Mendelssohn is a big fan of Shakespeare and particular the Midsummer play. The composer’s sister Fanny explained it this way. “From our youth on we were entwined in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Felix [Mendelssohn] particularly made it his own. He identified with all the characters. He re-created them, so to speak, every one of those whom Shakespeare produced in the immensity of his genius.” ...

My undergraduate advisor Pinyan Lu has published a special introductory column for theoretical computer science in the Communication of CCF (China Computer Federation). The Chinese version is available here. TCS field is not only home to many powerful tools (and brilliant minds), but it also boasts a beautiful, elegant philosophical methodology—a way of thinking that is deeply fundamental. Snippets from the article: [TCS has] its unique internal way of thinking. I believe that most work in theoretical computer science follows a three-step pattern: ...

See previous post for the idea: My Ex, Apple PR, and the Economics of (Not) Buying an iPhone — for iteratively updated products like iPhone, do consumers strategically decide on Wait-to-Buy? It turns out that the market does anticipate upcoming product and update expectations w.r.t. new information. When Trump first announced the Tariff raise, Apple Pro Fans quickly reacts and adjusted their policy for iPhone Purchase: Should you buy an iPhone right now? Chance Miller 9to5mac ...

Companies react strategically to tariff raise: Apple transported five planes full of iPhones and other products from India to the US in just three days during the final week of March. The urgent shipments were made to avoid a new 10% reciprocal tariff. Gadgets Now Although Apple’s headquater is in California, iPhones are manufactured overseas—China, India. Apple currently assembles the entire iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 lineups in India as well as China. A 10% baseline tariff on all imports into the United States kicked in on Saturday. On April 9, the tariffs that Trump has falsely labeled as “reciprocal” will kick in. This will raise the tariff rate on imports from China to 54% and imports from India to 27%. ...

I always like attending job talks. You learn something, be awed by cutting edge research, and from time to time, reflect on skills of academic presentations… Today’s topic is Multi-Objective Optimization (MOO). When sometimes for an optimization problem there are two or more conflicting objectives (e.g. fairness vs. efficiency), it is not guaranteed that a single solution simultaneously optimizes each objective. Naturally, we consider Pareto Efficiency as a major concept for solution—a solution where none of the objective functions can be improved in value without degrading some of the other objective values. By the way, quick overview for Pareto: ...

When will we get a “XXX is all you need” paper published in an economic journal? (This comes from an ML paper ‘Attention is All You Need’, which introduced ‘Transformers’—the tech behind ChatGPT. Since then, there’s been a flood of papers claiming ‘X is all you need’ especially in computer science papers… ) source: Types of Machine Learning Papers Reddit

PhD in different fields is vastly different. A very successful computer science PhD students is often expected to graduate with at least 10 papers, while economic PhDs need only one. Math PhDs can even do without a paper. For anyone who is applying for or considering a PhD in economics, this book is a good start: Getting a PhD in Economics by Stuart J. HillmonConsidering a graduate degree in economics? Good choice: the twenty-first-century financial crisis and recession have underscored the relevance of experts who know how the economy works, should work, and could work. However, Ph.D. programs in economics are extremely competitive, with a high rate of attrition and a median time of seven years to completion. Also, economic professions come in many shapes and sizes, and while a doctoral degree is crucial training for some, it is less beneficial for others. How do you know whether a Ph.D. in economics is for you? How do you choose the right program—and how do you get the right program to choose you? And once you’ve survived years of rigorous and specialized training, how do you turn your degree into a lifelong career and meaningful vocation? ...

Economic is a very broad field. But this might be the most chic way of being an economist in 2025: a designer. Presidential Address: The Economist as Designer in the Innovation Process for Socially Impactful Digital Products Susan Athey | American Economic Review, April 2025 This paper provides an economic perspective on data-driven innovation in digital products, focusing on the role of complex experiments in measuring and improving social impact. The discussion highlights how tools and insights from economics contribute to each stage of the innovation process. Key contributions include identifying problems, developing theoretical frameworks, translating goals into measurable outcomes, analyzing historical data, and estimating counterfactual outcomes. The paper also surveys recently developed tools designed to address challenges in designing and analyzing data from complex experiments. ...

Today is the Qingming Festival (Tomb-Sweeping Day)—it’s a celebration of spring and memory. During Qingming, families visit the tombs of their ancestors to clean the gravesites and make ritual offerings to their ancestors. Or just go out for a spring hiking in nature. At the Orchid Pavilion at Shaoxing City I’m not a big fan of classical Chinese literature—I know it’s deep and awesome but please that’s just not my thing. But gladly if you went through high school in China and passed the college school entrance examination with the 10 million students every year, you are able to recite well the Orchid Pavilion Preface (and a few other very famous classical Chinese literature pieces). ...

18 Ariana Grande studio acappellas—it’s like listening to the angel sing for 90 minutes straight!!! Buy it. But it. Link to official website for the album. Ariana Grande recently released an official a cappella version (e.g. vocals only, no instrumentals) of her whole eternal sunshine deluxe album. Ariana is known for her vocal stacking—on her previous album, Sweetener, the track “get well soon” famously maxed out Pro Tools’ limit of 256 vocal layers. Her producer was like, “Sorry, we can’t add another harmony—you broke the software.” Her new a cappella album is available digitally on her website for just $9.99, which honestly is a pretty reasonable price for such a meticulously crafted vocal showcase. Highly recommended for music geeks. ...