Optimal travel from Montreal to Waterloo

28 Dec 2019

The plan was to leave our stuff at our friends’ place in Toronto, go to Montreal and the Eastern Townships for the holidays, leave our car at my parents’ place, and then get back to Waterloo, clean the house and execute last-minute tasks, and then get back to Toronto, pick up our 5 checked bags and bring them all to the airport.

Let’s talk about getting from Montreal (well, Brossard) to Waterloo on December 28.

Travel options from Waterloo

26 Dec 2019

2019 Travel options to/from Waterloo

A lot has changed from the last time I wrote this in 2008. The options for getting to Toronto and Pearson are much better. I went to BUF a few times a while ago but now there aren’t good Star Alliance options from BUF and they’re not that much cheaper, so I haven’t done it for a while.

Here are various options for carless transportation from Waterloo in 2019.

YOW - downtown Ottawa, December 2019

26 Dec 2019

One of my strange hobbies is walking to or from airports. In the ideal case it is walking between the airport and the place I am sleeping. I flew into YOW in December 2019 and had the opportunity to take a 13km walk.

Complete gallery: https://gallery.patricklam.ca/index.php?/category/1209

Itinerary

From YOW, out on Paul Benoit Driveway past the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club, to Riverside Dr, meeting the Rideau River at Mooney’s Bay and “civilization” at Billings Bridge, then across the Rideau on Bank through the Glebe and Centretown to Albert St and my destination.

Recommendation Letter for Laurie Hendren

11 Nov 2019

Recommendation letter for CS-Can Lifetime Achievement Award

I am writing to strongly endorse the nomination of Prof. Laurie Hendren for a posthumous Award for Lifetime Achievement in Computer Science. I’m honoured and also sad to be writing this letter. I’ll get back to it later, but no mention of Laurie would be complete without discussing her infectious laugh, which somewhat offsets the sadness.

Laurie has been an inspiration and role model for me from 1998 through 2018 as an undergraduate student, postdoc, faculty member, and administrator. I hope that in my own career I can continue Laurie’s outstanding legacy to some extent. I’ll mostly describe my perspective on her teaching and research, which were parts of her job that she obviously loved.

Biking to Amqui

8 Apr 2018

An epic trip from Waterloo, ON to Amqui, QC and back via Campbellton, NB, to referee in the judo provincial championships. Trains, bikes, planes, buses. We’ve got it all!

Bagotville

9 Feb 2018

Getting lucky with IRROPS enroute to Bagotville.

Yotel: A Review

3 Nov 2016

Capsule Review

Markets itself as “luxury”. The hard product is comparable to business class on a plane (which is much easier to provide since a Yotel doesn’t have to fly), but not comparable to 4* accommodation on land. Is fit for purpose. Comparable to a Hampton Inn with 10x less space. Beats a hostel or a, say, America’s Best Value Inn/Super8, by far.

More Words

A couple of days after arriving in Amsterdam, I realized that the first of my returning flights departed at 7AM. Working backwards, I’d need to leave the hotel before 5AM. Yikes! I looked at various hotels near the airport, but the required shuttle negated many of their advantages; it doesn’t take long at all to reach Schiphol from Centraal (but long enough, if aiming for a 7AM flight).

Kitchener-Waterloo Restaurants

8 Sep 2016

In which Patrick Lam pretends to be a restaurant reviewer.

• Afghan: Chopan Kabob has generous and tasty servings.
• Asian Fusion: Have only been to Bhima’s Warung once, I think. Was good.
• Bahn Mi: Givral Deli near Kitchener Market has excellent banh mi with crispy bread and the right fillings.
• Dim Sum: had one (of one) good experience at Sam’s Chinese Kitchen on Victoria. We prefer carts, but they’re rare in Ontario. Nevertheless, it was good, had as many Asian-looking patrons as one might hope for, and has much less of a line than Cameron (which is fine, but popular. And who wants to wait in line?).
• Pho: at my place; or else at Pho Dau Bo, two locations
• Other Vietnamese: Wooden Boat Food Company [Jan 2021]
• Sushi: Watami in uptown Waterloo is good; Kinkaku in downtown Kitchener used to be really good izakaya but got AYCE’d :( [edited Jan 2021]
• Thai: Northern Thai excellent
• Indian: Empress of India; Amaya Express; haven’t been to Masala Bay in a long time but it was good.
• BBQ: Hog Tails (out west) / Lancaster Smokehouse
• Caribbean: Rainbow Caribbean Cuisine; plus a place at the Kitchener Market has the best Jamaican patties ever [Jan 2021: ha, now I’ve made some which are good too]
• Salvadoran: Guanaquita excellent
• Bagels: no endorsement of Woodfire Bagels but it looks promising
• Croissants: Ambrosia—they won a taste test (but opening hours are restricted) [edit Jan 2021: last I’m aware they had moved to being Ambrosia Bakery near downtown Kitchener and were no longer making croissants; try Ghost Light Cafe]
• Catch-all: we liked Hungry Ninja; Uptown 21 was good; Taco Farm used to be really good but I had a so-so experience there recently (unripe avocadoes).

Good Talks

8 Jun 2016

In my Static Analysis for Software Engineering graduate course, each student is expected to present 2 papers to the class; Software Engineering undergrads also give talks as part of their Capstone Design Project. Here are some recommendations on how to give a good paper presentation.

• Avoid bullets. When appropriate, diagrams are way better than bullet points for explaining concepts. Just because PowerPoint (or clone) makes it easy to write bullet points doesn’t mean that you should use bullet points.
• Go concrete, not abstract. In fact, if you can explain the main idea of a paper with an example, focus on the example first and then summarize the key ideas. (This works better with concepts, not experimental results.)
• Be choosy. You don’t need to present the whole paper. Just present the most interesting ideas. There’s no need to be exhaustive. The paper contains everything, after all. You’re just going over the highlights.
• Think about charts. Try to make charts that tell a story and choose the charting technology that best supports that. (See Edward Tufte’s books.)

Also check out the Lessig style of giving talks.

Lexicon

8 Jun 2016

Lexicon

Here are some academic terms that I’ve invented.

• Pre-batical. A one-year postdoc taken straight out of one's PhD, after obtaining a tenure-track Assistant Professorship, but before starting said professorship.
  Usage. Her pre-batical at UW turbocharged the start of her independent research career and let her branch out into that up-and-coming field.
• Associate professor purgatory. The period a few years after returning from one's post-tenure sabbatical where one is no longer protected from service but still expected to constantly ramp up research productivity.
  Usage. Joe's swamped with grant proposal writing and committee meetings in his associate professor purgatory.