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?...

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....

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....

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....

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....

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....

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....

When an AI server says “I’m here to help!"—they aren’t here to help you—it’s there to tire you out until you accept your fate or log off in frustration. Companies today, in their never-ending quest to cut costs, have increasingly turned to AI-powered solutions for customer service—so they (i) hire fewer human agents, and (ii) make it frustratingly difficult for you to reach an actual person. Back in the old days, AI customer service was nothing more than keyword-triggered auto-responses and simplistic, rule-based bots....