883 Island Dr. #C-2. Angelfish is supposed to be the Alameda’s big secret — a sushi place hidden away in a strip mall near a golf course in the outter reaches of the city. The fish was excellent, and that is the number one reason to go here. That being said, I was little underwhelmed by some of the things we got and the overuse of mayonnaise on the menu (mayo in maki seems unnecessary to me…). The black cod appetizer was a nonstarter with me — the whole flavor of the thing was off and the mayo-ed potato salad put me off. The fresh octopus was smothered in mayo as well. We had a sashimi plate and a bunch of a la carte nigiri and maki as well. There were a lot of those rolls that I don’t like as much — tempura things with avocado and so on. Next time I go I’m going to stick with the fish, since the sashimi, by itself, was excellent, especially the tuna and salmon. For that quality, the price can’t be beat.
East Ocean
1713 Webster near Pacific. I think East Ocean may be my new favorite place for dim sum. Rather than hunt for parking near Legendary Palace in downtown Oakland, we just drove through the Webster tube and into Alameda. We showed up at around 11 and were seated in under 5 minutes, which is almost unheard of when going for dim sum. The food itself was pretty good — I’d rate it almost better than Legendary Palace, and certainly less greasy. The place is small compared to Legendary Palace — more the size of Yo Ho — so the dishes come out still hot. We had a small group so I didn’t get to try that many things, but I did have most of the old standbys. The only disappointing dish to me were the Shanghai dumplings, which were a little dull. I didn’t see a lot of specialities on offer, so I can’t evaluate how much a connoiseur would like it, but as long as you’re not looking for something fancy, this place can’t be beat.
something I miss
What happened to Fafblog?
An autobiographical limerick
A student once scheduled a qual,
To be on a Thursday in fall.
One member jumped ship,
Just the day before — zip!
Can he find a replacement? Tough call…
UPDATE : Things are not looking good for our hero.
UPDATE II : It’s off. Time to play the dance of rescheduling again.
The classics make a comeback
Colombian gangsters face sex ban:
Wives and girlfriends of gang members in one of Colombia’s most violent cities have called a sex ban in a bid to get their men to give up the gun.
LYSISTRATA
Now tell me, if I have discovered a means of ending the war, will you all second me?…if we would compel our husbands to make peace, we must refrain… We must refrain from the male altogether…
Harvard ends early action
Harvard is getting rid of early action — This strikes me as an all-around good thing. The early-action system is a bizarre opt-in system whereby wealthy, reasonably bright high school students voluntarily enter a meat-market of academic recruiting. In my view, a lot of the psychotic behavior you see from these applicants and their parents (harassing admissions offices, spending thousands of dollars on prep courses, and worse) comes from the fact that it really is a buyer’s market out there. The applicant has no real power, which leads fo a kind of desparation on their part. The universities love it, however — they make out like bandits. All this crap about how “doing away with early action won’t help diversity” is just their way of trying to keep the status quo, which I would argue is a morally indefensible position.
The grad school application process is completely different at the top, from what I gather. There are a few top applicants in each year for a given program/area, and it’s a seller’s market, with the student having all the decision power and the universities trying to come up with attractive fellowship packages. Perhaps that is just as pathological, but the scale seems so much smaller…
unqualified fear
Posting has been nonexistent since I was out of town helping a certain someone move to Madison followed by furious preparation for my qualifying exam (a thesis proposal defense), which is on Thursday. At the moment, I am in a bit of a panic since I have to read and understand about 10 more papers that I had been hitherto unaware of to see how they might relate to my thesis proposal. Joy.
Messy explosion averted
I’m really glad I don’t work with anything more dangerous than a paperclip. Also, I’m glad I don’t work in LeConte Hall.
Three classic results on the AVC
I wrote a summary of three classical results on arbitrarily varying channels that I think make a nice story. The first is the original 1960 proof by Blackwell, Breiman, and Thomasian. The second is Ahlswede’s elimination technique. The last is the symmetrizability result of Csiszár and Narayan. Together, these three results settle some basic questions regarding arbitrarily varying channels, and I tried to make the exposition self-contained and readable by people who have had a basic course in information theory.
Macaca and George Allen
Senator George Allen (R-VA), in reference to an American-born citizen, S.R. Sidarth :
This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is. He’s with my opponent… Lets give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.
This casual racism gives lie to the claims of “non-racism” made by so many people in the US. In the case of the American who has never met a person of South Asian descent, such bigoted remarks may best be explained by ignorance combined with immersion in a culture that resists difference. But for an elected representative who cannot possibly claim inexperience, it reveals a deliberate and ingrained racism that colors every decision. Maybe he hasn’t really outgrown his high school years, when he sported the confederate flag. Via TPM.
Update : Video.
An Ergodic Walk 