Steven’s Second European Saga
~
Version 1.0 (released on 25 October 2006, 2.00am)
Version
1.1 (slightly revised on 25 October 2006, 9pm)
Version 1.2 (several grammar/typo errors are fixed, plus a funny writing about Chasing Souvenir on 27 October 2006,
2pm)
Version 1.3 (final, last updated on 13 November 2006)
Disclaimer
This document was partially created while I was
still in
The purposes of this public diary are fivefold:
1.
To share God’s
blessings and God’s wonderful creation that I experienced/saw throughout my
journey.
2.
To tell my
families and friends the details about my trip in one go, so that I don’t have
to repeat the same story more than once.
3.
To be a source
of interesting information about
4.
To improve my
writing skill in English… I need to write long documents in English anyway
(e.g. PhD thesis), so this will be another training ground for me :). I’m sorry
that I don’t write this diary in Indonesian language this time, and I guess I
won’t have time to translate it…
5.
To record my
own life history that I will read again someday in the future. I like to keep
past travel blogs… You can view them here.
In this document, you will see various writing
styles, for example: “blog-like” public diary,
informative writing, and scientific writing on several interesting stuffs. One
thing in common: I have tried my best to avoid not constructive statements in
this document so that (hopefully) no one will be offended (it still fail in
certain cases especially my section about PhD wives
he he, but I have updated it). I also decide that all
person names be replaced with their initials to help me achieve the
abovementioned objective.
This document contains a lot of thumbnail photos
(total 12mb)… While the documents are being loaded into your Internet browser,
you can start reading the text :)…
PS: You/Your in capital ‘Y’ refers to
God/God-related stuffs.
Table of Contents
I am really aware that this document is very
lengthy. It will be quite tiring to read them all and of course it is even more
tiring for me to type all these sentences :)… But hey, I like to keep
precious memories…
If
you want to directly jump to a specific section, you can use the links below.
If you want to read all, just read the articles in sequence :).
Day
1, Friday, 13 October 2006
Day
2, Saturday, 14 October 2006
Day
3, Sunday, 15 October 2006
Day
4, Monday, 16 October 2006
Day
5, Tuesday, 17 October 2006
Day
6, Wednesday, 18 October 2006
Day
7, Thursday, 19 October 2006
Day
8, Friday, 20 October 2006
Day
9, Saturday, 21 October 2006
Day
10, Sunday, 22 October 2006
What
Makes This Trip Possible?
The
Symposium of User Interface Software and Technology 2006
The
Good and Bad of Traveling Alone
Transportation
System in Swiss
So,
is the Expensive Swiss Youth Pass Useful?
What
to Bring if you want to go to Europe?.
Prologue
Last year, when I returned from my first European
Saga (from Austria/UK back to
1 year and 2 months later, I’m back to
Day 1, Friday, 13
October 2006
God. Thank You. Finally, this day has come. Thank You
for giving me this idea of using anchor points to explain local search last
year. This idea has now evolved into a visualization tool Viz
as what I have today. This idea brings me to
I spend some time in MRT from my house (FP) to Changi and reflecting my year so far. I realize that this
year, my research work mostly revolves around the development of Viz, the visualization tool that I created to help me
diagnose local search behavior. I guess my research is still on track, but I
must remember that developing a (sophisticated, hm…)
GUI tool like Viz is just PART of my final PhD
thesis!! And I have yet to use this tool to maximum… This is a major homework
for me after I return to
After 10 months of (hard, is it to my full potential??)
work --- since January 2006, now this visualization idea and the tool itself
are going to be presented to the experts in the field of User
Interface/Information Visualization/Human Computer Interaction. They know many
existing techniques in this area. Will these experts buy my idea? Will they be
interested with this work? Last May 2006, the reviewers for our UIST paper
said that this visualization idea was good, but what will be the opinion
of the other audiences? Most of them will be UI/InfoViz/HCI
experts but not many knows the field where this tool
will be used, which is about Local Search/Optimization. I do hope that I get a
good response from the audience in general too :).
After
pondering a little bit more, I see that the objectives of this ((very)
expensive) trip are fourfold:
1.
To present my
10 months research work in not more than 25 minutes + demo session at Monday
night.
2.
To build a
network with many people, especially from Microsoft Research, Google, ILOG, MERL, etc…
3.
To see the
wonders of Your creation, especially the snow at the
famous
4.
To become the
representative of Your Kingdom there.
I’m fully aware that not many people will be able
to go overseas; especially to far away places such as from
Reflection over… So, what will it be like in
Swiss?? People said that the stuffs there are expensive. How expensive?? In the
next 24 hours, after loonnngg flight and series of
train rides, I will see this
Day 2, Saturday, 14 October 2006
I can’t sleep well last night; the seat in KLM
plane that I used is “smaller” than the seat from last year British Airways
plane. So I stuck there for around ~12 hours, occasionally stretching and
walking in the plane. Due to my experience last year, now I choose to sit near the
toilet :), so I didn’t have to wake others when I want to go to toilet. Those
who sit beside me is a couple, but since I’m not a
talkative person, I didn’t talk much with them during those 12 hours flight. On
board, I browse through few chapters from “Constraint-Based Local Search” book
--- quite interesting, and watch “The Devil Wears Prada”
--- average score in my opinion, and “Over the Hedge” --- average score too,
but nevertheless they provide me entertainment during the flight, thanks to
those who created these movies.
Arrive at
The KLM plane lands on schedule, 5.40am
I should have brought a jacket with me (instead of
putting it in inside the check-in luggage). It is quite cold in Schiphol airport and since my luggage is automatically
transferred to my connecting flight, I have to stay at Schiphol
airport for ~4 hours without a jacket. Luckily it is not that cold inside…
This Schiphol airport is
quite big. This airport is a mix of old and new. Kiosks, shops, etc are of
course modern, but some terminals/rooms still used 1980ies monitors, the big
CRT stuffs (maybe it is because they are still working fine so the airport
management decide not to replace it with new LCD screens now). I
don’t spend time too much browsing this airport as nothing much to see
except (expensive) shops anyway. I’m tired too and I want to start typing-in
this diary before I forget the details... Moreover, I forget to bring any money
in EURO. CHF (Confederatio Helvetica Francs/Swiss
Francs) is not accepted outside Swiss… So even if I want, I can’t buy anything
at Schiphol… Converting my CHF to EURO is a
considered a loss of money (double exchange is not good) so I decide not to do
it…
The new & flat LCD screens @ Schiphol.
In another part of this airport, the old, big, curvy CRT monitors are still
used…
In Schiphol, I SMS my
parents and my friend and they replied… So that concludes that my hand phone
can be used for roaming @ Amsterdam :). Good, thanks to the technology.
Arrive at
So, the next one flight is to
However, I misread my
The time is 1pm by the time I ready to explore
Map of
So I decide not to take a risk getting lost in
Geneva, but quickly switch to plan B, which is to go to Lausanne first (on my
way to the conference site at Montreux, I will need
to pass Lausanne) by taking the train (the train routes is much clearer than
bus routes --- a daring move, since the train is actually “empty” when I board it :p). Anyway, I can go back to
Empty train from Geneva Aeroport to
It takes around 30 minutes to arrive to
Lausanne Gare (Train Station) with the famous Olympic
logo.
A place called “Ouchy” in
I follow the instruction, but accidentally I don’t
know that I must alight at “Ouchy” bus stop, so the
bus actually tour around the city twice before arriving at Ouchy
(again) after the second pass. From there, I walk to Olympic Museum (This is
not the IOC office building. They have the main office somewhere else in this
city).
The stuffs inside the Olympic museum allows me to
learn more the history of Olympic, e.g. now I know that Pierre de Coubertin ---
the one who re-introduce modern Olympic is actually a French but at the end he
chose to move IOC to
At Olympic Museum
I continue my journey to Montreux, it is quite fast
too, in less than 30 minutes. Then I spend quite some time to find the Montreux Youth Hostel --- a not so expensive
accommodation for the youths who travel around
From sky (on the plane) I can’t really see Swiss
since the sky is covered by white clouds. But now I can see
Most of the time, this
After check-in to the hostel, I take the long
awaited shower, after one day traveling thousand of kilometers (the distance
between
Day 3, Sunday, 15 October 2006
I wake up very early, 6am, since I slept at 9pm
yesterday. Wow, around 9 hours++ sleep. My jet lag has been cured, but I’m very
hungry… So, I spend some quite moment alone at the ground floor of Youth Hostel
waiting for the breakfast buffet to start at 7.30am.
The breakfast session is SUPERB. Wow… It is
called “breakfast buffet”, which mean I can take anything that I want… GOOD.
I’m very hungry after skipping my dinner yesterday. Imagine this: lots of
breads, hams, cheese, jams, honey, milk, chocolates, small snacks, yoghurt, and
orange juice (you feel hungry too?? Sorry I can’t help :p)… Wow, I eat a lot
this morning. Thanks God :). Now I guess I can cut down my lunch cost by
purposely eating a lot during breakfast and just eat some light food in the
afternoon :) (if the “standard” lunch/dinner is around 15 CHF, having a lot of
breakfast for “free” at the hostel and changing my lunch into something around
8-10 CHF burgers/kebabs is a saving :)) --- the saving
can be used to buy more souvenirs...
I actually have another roommate last night, but I
didn’t talk to him until this morning. His name is P. He is from
The Anglican Church (
I attend Anglican Church at 10.30am, there is no
other English based church nearby so this one is okay. The church attendance is
not that many, but they are friendly. I was greeted by one of the lady in
church door. The church is an Anglican church, more like Catholic rather than
my home denomination: Presbyterian, but I’m very fine with these differences,
we are one body of Christ anyway. I only have some difficulties adjusting the
worship style, so the standard trick that I used is that I wait for others to
stand up/sit down/kneel before I follow them :). The service is about one hour.
After church they invite me for tea/coffee. One of the deacon is the manager of
the Youth Hostel :O (I saw him yesterday during
check-in). We talk about my origin (hey, “
I do self traveling (walking) around Montreux. The expensive 272
The Casino Barrierre de Montreux. The venue for UIST 2006.
Ehem… so by now I have indeed entered a REAL casino
during my lifetime…
Actually there is a “Doctoral Symposium” (which is
part of the UIST conference) today, but since I’m not registered for this
event, I’ll give this event a miss… Oh yeah the UIST 2006
conference will be held at a CASINO. A real casino!! Before I go to Swiss, I
know that the conference venue is called “Cassino Barrierre de Montreux”, but I
didn’t realize that this is a REAL BIG casino… So, I guess this will be my
first time spending few days going back and forth into a real casino (but for
the purpose of attending a scientific conference).
Beside
At around 4pm, I go back to the hostel, bring this
laptop and sit beside
When I return to the hostel room, I met another
roommate, JS from
Interestingly, during the conversations, the term “PhD comics” is
mentioned between us and it is not quite surprising to know that most of us
aware of the term “free food”, “procrastination”, “slackenerny”,
etc… Jorge Cham (author of PhD Comics), you surely have changed the life of
many PhDs :p.
At night, I check the UIST conference proceeding to
see how our paper looks like in print and to skim through at other people’s
works (Hehe, NUS
Day 4, Monday, 16 October 2006
So, my second scientific conference starts today…
The conference is opened by a Turing lecture by PN… For those who are studying
Computer Science, do you remember BNF (Backus Naur
Form)?? He is one of the inventors, hm... His talk is
about Computer versus Human Thinking, a new way to explain how human think. Not
yet published (or in fact not yet accepted by other researchers as it is still
quite provocative)… The talk is quite interesting…, especially I like his
comment, which is roughly like this: “so far no computer model can emulate how
human think” --- I will need this statement to hold at least until I have
finished my PhD hehe…
44 talks, I’m one of them..
My own presentation is at 2.55pm-3.20pm… So, after
10 months (or more if I count from the starting date of this idea, which is
early 2005) of research work of developing Viz from
scratch, I will explain it in not more than 20 minutes. Will it be a successful
one?? The answer is “not really”. There are several reasons… Previously I give
tutorials to 30-40 students. I’m quite confident for that (1 teacher versus 30
students). But now the number of audience is around 150 PhDs, Professors,
Researchers, Lecturers, etc… (1 newbie versus 150 experts) -_-‘’’. The session
is also video-taped :O, this is not told beforehand,
so I’m getting more nervous. At the end I need to wrap up my presentation
quickly nearing the last few slides as I’m running out of time.
Big room, around 150 people listening… and most of them are experts
:O
The talks are recorded…
The presentations before and after me are the most
relevant presentations for my research in this conference. The presentation
before is about “comparing slide presentation”, using the similar technique as
mine: “visual comparison”, the next presentation is about “direct manipulation
from information visualization” by TB. I will follow up their papers soon…
On the night, there is a demo session. Not many
people come to my booth but some people do attend and express their interest…
Anyway,
thanks God that I have completed my presentation and demo of my work to the
UIST audience. :)
Day 5, Tuesday, 17 October 2006
Since my presentation and demo is over, today (and
tomorrow), my job is just to listen to other researchers’ works, hopefully they
have something interesting that can be useful for my research. However, since
the other topics are mostly UI stuffs (which is not directly related to my
research), I listen to the talks without full concentration and actually spend
some time online, sending emails, chatting, and updating this diary.
Today, I really aware that I’ve just wasted around
~60 CHF by buying 8 days Swiss Youth Pass… Because on Sunday until Wednesday, I
didn’t travel that much around Montreux :S -_-‘, stupid. Miscalculation. I
should have bought 4 days
Chateau de Chillon (front)
Chateau de Chillon (side)
Miniature of Chateau de Chillon,
It is well known as the best castle in Swiss (is it??)
Time for social event. Sadly, I’m not that good in
interacting with new people… especially older people…
At night, we have a banquet inside an 11-th century castle… Wow…
At night, we have a banquet inside the
(legendary??) chateau/castle de/of Chillon. This
castle is great. It is bigger than the Kruzeinstein’s
castle near
Chocolate Fondant, very delicious…
You want it?? Erm, sorry, I can’t bring it back home… :$
Some friends: JS (US), me (Indonesian/Singapore), K (Japanese)
After the banquet, me and JS go back to the
hostel and then go to sleep…
Day 6, Wednesday, 18 October 2006
Today is the last day of three-days
conference… At the end, only few parts of the talks are interesting (read: related
to) my research. I’ve been trying to motivate myself to listen but at the end I
only manage to get some insights to improve my research work, which I’m going
to discuss with my supervisors later. The summary of what I got from this
conference can be found in this section here.
During lunch hour, I talk with TB about our
visualization works. Hopefully it can be interesting for the people in local
search research department in his company.
The closing of the conference is quite short. Just
the announcement of best paper awards (not for me of course), paper published
in UIST 10 years ago that still have impact until now (lasting impact award),
and quick introduction for the next year’s venue (US).
Vevey, the
neighbor of Montreux. Vevey
is slightly bigger than Montreux.
As it is just 6pm, I decide to visit Vevey, the neighbor of Montreux. The headquarter of Nestle (a big name in food industry) is
in Vevey. I pass through it, but didn’t react quick
enough to take a photo… Vevey is slightly bigger than
Montreux. I only spend less than 1 hour here and then
quickly go back to Montreux.
On the night, after packing my stuffs, I spend some
time to create a program to help me solve a Sudoko
game… Hehe.
Sudoku is quite popular here… Btw, now I realize that
there are many Sudoku games (and their variants)
available in the website… You can just download/play online, e.g. http://www.websudoku.com.
I will not continue my Sudoku solver program anymore :p.
Day 7, Thursday, 19 October 2006
Now, after the conference is over, it is the time
for my long awaited holiday :). I wake up early in the morning (6am) so that I
have more time for traveling today. JS is no longer in the room. I’ll email him
later. This time I also need to wake up quietly as there are other roommates in
the hostel. I check out from the hostel (skipping the breakfast this time) to
take the earliest GoldenPass line train.
CUTEEEE, CUTEEEE….
Cats Lover… Do you think this cat is cuteeee??
The GoldenPass line train
that I take ascent to the mountains, starting my journey to view the
Isn’t
I arrive in
Along the way in this Scenic GoldenPass
line, I sew (several) couples on honeymoon (I saw one of them flipping through
the Swiss Brochure about “honeymoon in Swiss”). Hm…
God, I wish I have someone with me now right here, I just can look at the
wonders of your creation but can’t communicate it with someone that I… (erm… fill in the blanks…). Btw, I
write more things about traveling alone.
Many cities in
As I still have time, I continue my journey to
Examine this photo closely, there are SOOO many tiny black dots, these are
INSECTSSS…
Finding the Bonigen/Interlaken
Youth Hostel is also another saga, I almost get lost beside the lake Thun, after 20 minutes walking (as indicated in Youth
Hostel website), there is still NO sign of Youth Hostel logo at all and no
single human seen in vicinity… Oh no… it is nearly 7pm and it is getting dark
(I pray to God so that I don’t need to spend the night camping beside
FINALLLYYYYYYYYY………, See that it is almost dark when I see this sign…
Day 8, Friday, 20 October 2006
Again, wake up at 6.30am and then eat my last
(free) breakfast in a youth hostel while I’m in
Btw… I’ve just
realized that this is the second last day of my holiday, so fast…
From Interlaken OST, there are two ways to reach Jungfraujoch,
my random selection brings me through the path via Lauterbrunnen.
The train that I took is getting closer and closer to the snowy peaks. The path
taken by the train is ascending up, I can feel it. Btw, along the way I realize
that the rail has something called “cogwheel” to help propel the train upwards.
Thank you for the inventor of Cogwheel…
Using this technique, the train can go UP…, which enables us (me) to see the
snow
without having to climb a snowy mountain by myself :)
The highest mountain in Europe is actually Mont
Blanc in
Due to their heights, we can see several layers of stuffs in the
below: the landscape;
middle, the trees;
above certain height: rocks,
topmost: snow…
Thanks to those who build this railway by digging
up holes in these mountains in the early 1900-ies, now I can use this train
service to see snow by myself without having to climb a snowy mountain :p, nor I have to go to countries with 4-seasons
during winter. Hm… maybe this is why many Asian
tourists come here, they want to see snow… like me… :O
To reach Jungfraujoch, we
must take the special (and super expensive) train… But that’s okay… I’ve come
this far, no way to turn back… I must go on… Btw, there is a TV programme in multilingual language inside the train to
explain the features of Jungfraujoch and the other
two mid-way stations (Engerwald and Eismeer/Sea of Ice) to the audience. And as expected, the
languages used are English, German, French, and… guess: ... Chinese, Korean,
Japanese language :)…
There are many Asian tourists here… Here is one of the proof.
Up there, I finally see real snow. Thanks God. Jungfraujoch is actually a very big complex… The series of
pictures below will be able to explain what I see there…
The first time I see, touch, feel the REAL SNOW!!
This is the environment on top of Jungfraujoch: We are actually ABOVE the cloud level, so we
can see sea of clouds slightly below us. And if the wind (which is very
strong/cold) blows the cloud to us, the environment becomes very foggy (this is
actually a cloud passing us), we can’t see too far. The sun is very bright and
when its light is reflected on a white snow, whoa it is very shiny… We can’t
open our eyes widely without wearing sun glass. I suffer “bright to dark”
sensation when I enter the Jungfraujoch region again
after going out to snow (scientifically said, both my cones and rods senses in
my eyes are “burnt”). I need to sit down, close my eyes for 1/2 minutes, before
I can regain my sight. The air is very thin, hard to breathe, I felt dizzy
after around 4 hours there. I also suffer freezing to cold sensation and vice
versa when go in/out. The temperature outside is around -4/-5 degree Celcius… Wow, this is the first time I’m inside such
environment…
What is so special about instant noodle??
If you bring this up to 3.500m where everything else is VERY cold,
then a hot (and much cheaper than other food) instant noodle will be very very delicious…
Again, what is so special about this mail box??
This mailbox is the highest mailbox in the world…
Isn’t it interesting to send a postcard from the highest post office in the
world?? Hehe
I don’t know him…, but my friend told me that he is a Korean-drama actor
However… what is he doing up here @ Jungfraujoch
(3.500m)??
Selling watch??
Yes, hehe, everything here has label “highest in the
world”…
This one is the “highest watch store in the world”…
Entrance to
These are all made from ICE, and kept frozen throughout the year…
Hm… again why there is a dog here??
This dog is INSIDE the
And actually, it goes out with its master to play with the snow outside too…
Dog lovers, take note that you can bring your dog to virtually “everywhere”
in
I can’t speak German (is it German??),
but I notice the word Psalm 150,
therefore the translation for the first line should be:
“Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!!”
Seeing the vast (and icy) mountains, clouds here and there,
the beauty of
what can we say other than praising the Creator…
Unfortunately, several paths outside are blocked
because of snow. So I can’t try my first real ice ski. My hypothesis for this
is that: ice is solid, snow is soft. If you ski over a snow, there is a chance
that you’ll fall into holes. In winter, many stuffs
are frozen solid so you can ski over it safely. In summer, there is less snow
but the permafrost (permanent ice) is there so you can ski over it too. But in
autumn, there are thick layers of snow so it is unsafe to ski there as there
are a lot of snows…??
Holes over the ice because it is actually snow… Unsafe to ski over this
surface…
I spent 4 hours up there in Jungfraujoch…
On my way back, I notice that even though we are going down, the train didn’t
go that fast… I finally understand that in this railway, going fast is very
dangerous… You don’t want the train to exit from the track and fell over
to the cliff, do you??
Back to
A snapshot of
Day 9, Saturday, 21 October 2006
Again, today I need to wake up very early in the
morning (this time 5.30am) and again I must discreetly pack my stuffs and move
away from my room. L is awake and helps me carry my luggage downstairs, thanks.
Hm,
so it has been one week that I sleep < 11pm and wake up <7am… Good way of
life :p but will I be able to maintain it once I
return to
As it is very early in the morning, I have to walk
20 minutes walk to the
On my way back to
I want to be in
I arrive in
Photo presentation of Handicap International by Jane Evelyn Atwood…
These images may be quite disturbing for some of you…
It is quite sad to see the victims of war…
In front of Jet D’eau @
This man-made water pump shots the water up to 100m (450feet) 24-7…
Hm… a bit crazy, money/energy wasting,
but hey, it is beautiful… and it becomes the major landmark of
UN (United Nations), see how many flags are there in
the background…
But, hiks… This place is
heavily guarded… I can’t get in…
UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund)
UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)
WTO (World Trade Organization)
Red Cross and Red Crescent. I just realized that Red
Cross have more than one logo
so that it is universally accepted by many nations in this heterogenic world.
A sculpture of Henry Dunant @
He was writing a book titled “Memory of Solferino”,
a book that becomes the basis of the foundation of International Red Cross
organization.
(PS: I buy the edited English version of the book.
Anyone wants to borrow it?? It is very touching).
My flight is on 2.55pm (actually the flight from
Geneva Cointrin to Amsterdam Schiphol).
That’s the end of my second European saga. Along the way I pondering, will I be
able to go back to Swiss one day?? Perhaps, who knows? Last year I ask whether
I can go back to
God, if possible, I want to maintain my record for
visiting one new country per year... :)
Day 10, Sunday, 22 October 2006
The tiring long flight again… I expect less serious
jet lag (due to time zone differences) this time because my flight from
Amsterdam to Singapore starts at 9pm and will last around 11.5 hours, so by the
time we are in the mid-air, I will be very sleepy and should be able to sleep…
My travel diary is closed here…
What Makes This Trip
Possible?
Being religious, I believe that God has helped me
along the way to make this trip possible.
Anyway, here is the background story.
Last year, I was doing a visualization tool to
analyze Tabu Search behavior. That tool was still not “good enough” and I’m
seeing the limit of how to improve it any further. However, thanks to WWC, he
pointed to me that there is a possibility of doing “offline” analysis, and I
tried that. And yeah... doing offline enables me to present the visualization
data in a better way (I’m not going to elaborate this in details, you can read
my thesis draft if you want to find out). Early January 2006, I got another idea
of using “abstract 2-D space” to layout points found in the search. From there,
it evolves to what I called “Search Trajectory Visualization/ST Viz” now.
We wrote a paper for ECAI 2006 (submitted early
February 2006) and then along the way, Dr RY asked me to “rewrite” the paper in
a more HCI like and submit it to a HCI conference… Probably this is the first
HCI conference for Dr RY too. Initially I want to try IEEE VAST conference at
Just before the submission date, we received a “not
so good” response from the reviewer of our ECAI 2006 paper. Mentally I was down
and almost decide not to submit this UIST paper since people at ECAI doubted my
ST Viz idea. But Dr RY keeps on asking me to submit
and looking at his eagerness to edit my (not so good) English plus some
reorganization and new ideas to the paper, we rush the UIST paper up to the
last few hours before submission deadline. At that time, Dr RY was in US for
some (other) conference and he called me late at night to verify stuffs. So hardworking :). I’m quite glad that this paper can be
finished too (including the video demo, edited using a
on-screen recording tool called CAMTASIA, this is the first time I use this
tool), after just one month of writing.
This UIST conference is well known for its very low
acceptance rate and I’m quite surprised that during my birthday week (end of
May), we got very positive reviews from the 4 reviewers. They said our tool is
quite interesting and they vote to accept this paper. But they have some
feedbacks of course, which I addressed in my revision. Surely the referee
reports from ECAI, UIST, information from books, some talks here & there,
and discussions with my supervisors Dr RY, Dr LHC, my friend WWC, and others,
have shaped my thinking about Information Visualization which I put inside Viz program.
After few more rounds of editing. It is done… And
when I asked my supervisors who will go to present this paper. They said that I
should do it :). That means, my second European saga
will be a reality.
So, practically, in the year 2006, I have shifted
my research focus from “tuning local search” into HCI and Information Visualization
issues: “for explaining local search behavior”. I did numerous UI tweaks
to transform Viz from its plain state into something
that is more user-friendly and useful. I still have a lot of ideas for Viz, but I have to reserve them for a while. After this
conference is over, it is my time to shift my focus back to tuning local
search, perhaps by creating a lot of local searches via COMET (a tool to help
us creating a lot of local searches “easily”) or maybe using other local search
solvers?? This visualization tool Viz will be my aid
for my actual research, NOT the focus of my research…
Prior to the flight to Swiss, I also need to thank
my family and friends for their support. For my friends (special thanks to TMP
& KP), I delegate many tasks to them during my absence. Thanks guys/gals.
The
Symposium of User Interface Software and Technology 2006
The people that I met there are mostly experts in
User Interface technologies. I already expect that this conference will not be
too related to my actual research on local search. But hey, I also like UI and
HCI stuffs since the first time I learned Visual Basic 4.0 in 1995. So, some
other parts of this conference will still be interesting for me too :).
Me
(Indonesian/Singapore), K/HT/F (Japanese) @ Banquet.
J (Taiwanese/MIT), DH (Vietnamese/MIT) @ Banquet
Conferences like this is a cultural melting pot, right?
The Good and Bad of Traveling Alone
Coin has two... There are always good and bad
things about (any) situation. In this case, I want to share with you all, the
good and the bad of “traveling alone”.
I’ll start with the bad part first, so that this
section is closed with a positive tone :)
1.
Can’t take
full-body/half-body photos. Most photos above that have me inside are
self-taken photos using one hand from distance about 1 meter... -_-‘
2.
Can’t talk
during the journey (except praying to God)… Sometimes you can become bored even
though you are actually watching very beautiful scenery… No one to share the
joy with you directly… SMS-ing/calling someone that
you know in your home country (which means an addition of hefty roaming cost to
your hand phone bill) is actually not a good option…
3.
Very
tortured (especially me) if you see several couples are very nice to each other
in front of/beside your seat on the train… If you have girlfriend/wife at home,
it maybe not that torturing (is it??), but if you are single and actually
“looking”, I guess you will have this problem…
4.
If you are
lost in a new area… that’s it, you are lost alone… no one to discuss plan B…
Now for the good side of
traveling alone :)
1.
Of course
traveling alone is cheaper. If you travel with someone else, the overall cost
that you must spend is about twice (slightly less than twice since you can
share, for example: hotel room) the cost of traveling alone…
2.
You have the
freedom of choosing your travel direction :). Some (small) quarrels happen if
you travel with somebody else, and even more problematic if you travel in a
group where everyone must agree on a decision before you can move on...
3.
You can save
the precious waiting time… For example… you don’t need to wait your companion
if they want to go for… shopping in a
If you have any suggestion on how to improve this
section, please e-mail me at stevenhalim at gmail.com
Transportation
System in Swiss
The train schedule is VERY precise. If it said:
train A leave platform P by 7.50, then train A will
definitely leave at 7.50 from platform P. If train A is scheduled to arrive at
destination D by 8.20, it will definitely arrive there at 8.20
:O…. As I don’t know where I am in this new country, I can actually use
this fact to know WHERE to alight :). For example: Montreux
(depart 7.50am) to
In Swiss, there is no gate in the train station.
You can just hop into any trains… But inside the train, your ticket will be
checked occasionally by the train conductor, especially in the scenic routes
like GoldenPass line or Jungfraujoch.
For buses, as you board from front, you will need
to show the bus driver a valid ticket…
The train schedule @ Lucerne
To assist the travelers, there are lockers at train
stations (quite expensive actually, but it is worth it…) Thanks to these
lockers, I can travel all around
Lockers @ Train Stations throughout
Swiss
and Austria
Last year (2005) I went to
Similarities:
§
There are many
dogs (some have cats) seen here and there, in trains, in cars, along the
streets etc. People here are dogs lover…
§
Transportation
system is similar
§
Left sided driving, reverse system with what we have in
§
Old folks are
seen strolling around, drinks at café.
§
1 liter of
milk is cheaper than 1 liter of mineral water.
§
Similar like
§
Not many
people attending Churches even though the census shown that there are 40%
Catholic and 40% Christian in these two countries.
Differences:
§
More people
can speak English in Swiss.
§
There are many
more lakes and mountains in Swiss than in
So, is the Expensive Swiss Youth
Pass
In overall yes… even though I can actually save a
little bit more if I was a little bit more careful… Actually, on Sunday until
Wednesday, I didn’t travel that much using public transport as I will be mostly
walking along
However, I do a manual calculation on how much I
actually have to pay if I buy all the train/bus tickets individually. It
actually ends up around ~350 CHF, so, paying 272 CHF for 8 days
everywhere-you-can-go Swiss Pass is still a good buy, and it saves me from a
lot of trouble from buying individual tickets at train stations/bus stops every
time I need to take a train/bus.
Chasing Souvenirs
Hehe, is it difficult to chase for correct souvenirs
which is not too expensive but can please your families and friends.
As someone who likes to plan a lot, actually I
already have some plan on what to buy @ Swiss. The plan is roughly as follow:
1.
To save money
and to satisfy many people, I will buy a lot of small Swiss chocolates (I
cannot buy cheese. I can’t bring cheese safely to
2.
However, for
my close families, my supervisors, and my friends, I have to buy special
souvenirs…
Some of you may be interested on what I have bought
and who get what souvenir… However, after some consideration, I guess I will
leave this information hidden… it is too sensitive :)…
Rather, I will tell you something about the theory
of buying souvenirs…, bear with me as I’m going to use my research terms to
explain this :p
The model:
You
carry a limited amount of money: M CHF
You have a limited budget for buying souvenirs: B CHF
You have other budget for other stuffs, e.g. food, accommodation, which is: M-B
CHF
There are a N cities that you are going to visit: C1, C2, Ci,
…, CN
In each city i, there are K souvenir shops: Si1, Si2,
…, SiK
There are L different types of items for souvenir: I1, I2, … , IL
The item x sold at price p at souvenir shop j is indicated as pair (Sij, Ix, p)
You have M friends: F1, F2, …, FM
Each friend wants/requests for/probably like set of items (F1,I1,I2), (F2,I10),
… (FM,I2)
The “Chasing Souvenir Problem” is then defined as a
multi-objectives optimization problem (my research). Maximize the number of
friends that is satisfied, that is maximizes the number of pair (Fi,Ij) --- (read: a friend get a
souvenir of his/her choice/preference) but at the same time, minimize total
cost, which should be < B by carefully selecting the appropriate souvenir
shop. Note your sequence of visitation of each city, as not all souvenir shops
sell the same items. Total cost < M is a hard constraint, but Total cost
> B as long as Total cost < M is still acceptable, which can be done by
reducing other budgets (M-B).
PS: This model and problem formulation of “chasing
souvenir” is very likely not precise. I don’t have intention to solve it
“optimally” anyway :p
What to Bring if you want to go to Europe ?
I’ve
been visiting Europe two times now, so what you (or I, if I go to
·
Jacket/Winter
clothing, it is very cold here; the weather is not friendly for people who are
living in tropical countries…
·
Lip gloss, the
weather is funny, your lips can be very dry and cracking…
·
Money… and
some EURO, even though you didn’t go to the countries which use Euro (e.g.
Swiss), but sometimes when you transit, you still need to eat/call someone from
the airport…
·
Personal
medication…, sometimes you are in need of, for example: a cough syrup, but you
don’t know the term in… German, and you stay @ Swiss, dunno
where the nearest pharmacy store is, etc…
Epilogue
Thanks God for the trip.
Thank you for reading this long document too :)
I hope this document has been a blessing to you and
a source of many insightful information about