Hello! My name is 蔡醒诗 or Xing Shi Cai in English.
(See here if you want to know how to say my name.)
Welcome to my new home on the Internet! (Here is my old home.)
I am a mathematician/computer scientist who is interested in probability, combinatorics,
experimental mathematics and programming.
In recent years I also got interested in applying AI to research and teaching.
Recently, I moved Kunshan, China for a position of
Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Duke Kunshan University.
A Sun/阳光普照 (2019) tells the story a Taiwanese family with two late-teenage sons who are very different but equally troubling for their parents.
The film is gut-wrenching. (Tissues are advised for softhearted viewers.) It shows how difficult situations can be for parents whose beloved children did something horrible. In the film, the mom and dad face such problems quite differently. The mom offers carrots – she is forgiving, patient, tolerable and supportive, however bad things are. For her, whatever the boys have done, they are always just her little boys. The dad, on the other hand, give sticks. The motto he tried to drill into heads of his children is “Seize the time and take the direction.” When they failed doing so, he was burnt with rage. Yet, he also made great sacrifice for the boys. These two characters fell way to authentic. You must have must a few parents in real life.
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Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway (2019)
Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway (2019) is perhaps one of the absurdest films which I have ever watched. Yet it is also one of funniest films I have watched.
The film is absurd for several reasons. First, it looks very much like a low-budget film from the 1970s. So the set and the ascetics looks ridiculously rough. Second, the actors are far from what we are used to see on screens. Third, the acting are horrible by normal standard. Actors play their part with seriousness as if they do not know that they are in a very “bad” bad film. And they either speak English with ludicrous accent, or with an monotonicity as if the film was poorly dubbed. Fourth, the plot does not make any sense and mixes tropes from James Bond, cold-war thriller, Science fiction, romance and Kong-Fu films. I can go on for a while, but you get the idea.
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Murals in Montreal
Every time I come back to Montreal, I am always impressed by its murals. Here are some of which I like.
Finding An Academic Job As a Mathematician
I started searching for a permanent position academic position since last July and eventually got an offer in February. Here are some of my thoughts about the process.
Tips There is very high competitions in academics. Be ready to leave for the industry at any time. Learning some practical skills that can help you get a job outside universities.
Apply early. The pandemic slows things down a lot.
Do not apply for too many jobs. It is a waste of time. Only apply for positions that you have an obvious advantage.
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Install latexindent on Ubuntu Linux
latexindent is a perl script that can help you format LaTeX files. It is shipped with texlive (at least 2020 version). To use it you have to install some other perl packages.
@@colbox-blue Warning!! Don’t try to install latexindent in a conda environment. It does not work at the moment of writing. Some perl packages cannot be installed. @@
Step 1. Install perl
sudo apt install perl Step 2. Install the perl package management tool cpanm.
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Using VIM to Write LaTeX in 2021
I have been using VIM (actually GVIM) to write papers with LaTeX for almost a decade now. My setup for this has not changed for most of the time. One advantage of using VIM is that once you have learned it, you can expect to use it for a life time.
That been said, a decade seems to be a good time to have an update. So here’s my new VIM setup for LaTeX in 2021 and perhaps for the next decade.
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