Patrick Lam

(January and) February: photos post

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Oops, back to 2 years of backlog, though barely. Better do something about that.

January: teaching

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Yet more course prep, a trip to Pohara and Angelus, and Quebec for Christmas.

December: Wellington, Pohara/Angelus, and Quebec

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Yet more course prep, a trip to Pohara and Angelus, and Quebec for Christmas.

December: photos post

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Still less than 2 years of backlog, though January will be slower for sure, with 3 courses of teaching.

November: Wellington

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Time for course preparation, plus another paper submission.

Trip report: Angelus Peak Thrice in Three Days, December 5 to 9

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I lost my phone near the summit of Angelus Peak, but recovered it on the second try (oof).

November: photos post

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Less procrastination in November, though also no travel, so still a high number of photos processed. Notably, the oldest unprocessed set is now December 2023, so less than 2 years of backlog.

October: Wellington, Ontario, and Whitehorse

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Mostly NSERC Discovery Grant editing, plus a Wilderness First Responder recert and the Ontario Open.

Submission on the NZ Fast-Track Approvals Amendment Bill

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Back to the negative submissions about NZ legislation, this time about an underhanded attempt to modify the Fast-Track Amendment Bill by claiming it’s about supermarkets.

October: photos post

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In October I was working on my NSERC Discovery proposal, so I may have procrastinated sometimes by processing pictures. I selected way more pictures than in any recent month (1330 versus 846 in July), and the total number of pictures in the pool was 16% higher in July (3883 versus 2642). July did include a large collection of Estonian bird photos (710) and a walk up to Apostolidis (528). This month, on the other hand, I had lots of tiny sets, including in-transit days. Still, there were 13 over-100-picture days. (updated: spreadsheet error)

September: South Island and Auckland, as well as Wellington

Sat, 11 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Some domestic NZ travel (more skiing than usual) and then just work (research and service) as normal.

September: photos post

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

September was down again in terms of number of pictures processed, but I was not at a computer for many days in September. (I wonder if I could correlate the number of travel days with the number of pictures processed). There are only 9GB of new pictures from September, so maybe not adding too much to the backlog. Desperately trying to have less than a two-year picture backlog. Looking at the chronological order, there are some big trips in the backlog, like New Caledonia in November 2023 and the Travers Sabine in February 2024. It is challenging when there is a set of 400 pictures from a day.

August: Europe, Canada, then back to New Zealand despite an Air Canada strike

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Grenoble, Montreal, Beaver Valley, stuck in Ontario, and then Auckland. Master’s graduates +1. Lots of service and volunteering.

August: photos post

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I took some more pictures in August, but not as many as July. I also somehow had less time to process pictures. Plus, there are a couple of sets that I’m not posting here. I don’t know if I dug myself deeper into a hole. Caught up a bit with some May and July photos, as well as some August phohtos. Anyway, less than July but more than June.

More flight shenanigans: late August / early September with Air New Zealand

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Not out of the woods yet. Weather and other issues (but mostly weather) causing flight issues in New Zealand.

July: more travels and some scholarly outputs

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Mount Olympus (Greece), the Tour du Mont Blanc, and a VSTTE submission.

Trip report: Tour du Mont Blanc, July 21 to August 1, 2025

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Tour du Mont Blanc, 170km of walking around Mont Blanc (and some cable cars).

Trip report: Seven Summits Project, Mount Olympus, July 9 to 13, 2025

Sat, 23 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Attempted some summits on Mount Olympus. Got the big two: Stefani and Mytikas. But not the whole set.

Me and the Air Canada Flight Attendant Strike

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

How I managed to fly to New Zealand as soon as possible after the Air Canada Flight Attendant strike, oof.

Submission re: Amendment to the Devil's Glen Provincial Park Management Plan

Sun, 10 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Yay! A submission wholly in support of a government initiative (Ontario) which legitimizes climbing at Devil’s Glen Provincial Park (and hopefully others in the future).

July: photos post

Mon, 04 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Managed to do a lot of photos despite two big trips (Olympus, TMB) in July, including a quick turnaround on the bulk of the Olympus photos.

June: more travels and some scholarly outputs

Sat, 19 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Trips to Gold Coast and mostly Seoul (also Shanghai and Narita); submitted a paper.

June: photos post

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In June, more travel, fewer photos posted and lots of photos captured. Pictures from Montreal, Wellington, Estonia, Calgary, and barely Seoul.

May: exams and travels

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

First month of Spring term; off to Montreal, Estonia, Calgary, and New Zealand!

PLDI 2014 or 2024?

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

There are 10 paper titles which come from either PLDI 2014 or PLDI 2024. (Year drawn at random, then paper.) Can you guess which is which?

Trip report: Estonia, May 2-12 2025

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Research visit to Tartu, passing through Tallinn. First time back in Europe since 2019.

May: photos post

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Returning to normal service with lots of pictures processed in May.

April: exams and travels

Sat, 24 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Still had exams to give but was able to start moving on with my life this month.

Trip report: Lima (and Paracas), April 11-18 2025

Mon, 12 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Referee seminar in Lima plus a side trip to Paracas and Isla Blanca.

Review: Les Groseilles de Novembre by Andrus Kivirähk

Sun, 11 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Classics of Estonian literature: Days of our Lives for not-so-great feudal villagers.

April: photos post

Mon, 05 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

March was a doozy, so here are the two sets I processed in March, as well as April’s pictures.

March: last bit of the term (a doozy)

Fri, 18 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I guess it’s accumulated work catching up with me towards the end of the term, such that, despite having no trips longer than a weekend, free time was at a premium.

February: still teaching three courses, plus a hiking trip to Japan

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

OK, this month had a trip to Japan. Aside from that, I got to Toronto once, and to Kingston just at the end of the month. February is a short month, though.

February: photos post

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Moving right along, I’ve now posted the Around the Mountain Circuit from 2023, and the next big set is August 2023. I added to the backlog with 2000 pictures from Japan though.

Judo Québec Referee Stats 2000-2025

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

An analysis of referee retention for the Judo Québec provincial roster from 2000 through 2025.

January: a month of teaching three courses, and two trips

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Well, that was a whole month. Arrived in Canada on January 6. Teaching ECE 459×2 and SE 465, and had two weekend trips the next two weekends. A bit less busy now.

January: photos post

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Finished 2022 photos, but didn’t have much time to process more photos otherwise. One more January 2023 trip to do and then a huge step forwards in time.

December: Last month of sabbatical and two trips

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Back on the move, with a trip to the South Island and a trip to the Pacific Islands (French Polynesia), before returning to Canada to teach in the Winter 2025 semester.

An extremely smooth travel day

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

3 segments, 3 reservations, 3 checked bags, 2 countries, no hiccups.

Submission on the NZ Regulatory Standards Bill

Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Here we go again. The NZ ACT Party also has an under-the-radar Regulatory Standards Bill which is perhaps as bad as the Treaty Principles Bill but much more technocratic.

December: photos post

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Wow, I had a really active December 2022. Almost done with pictures from that month now.

Submission on the NZ Treaty Principles Bill

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The libertarian minor party, ACT, has introduced a divisive ‘Treaty Principles Bill’ which threatens to undermine the NZ constitutional order (founded on the Treaty of Waitangi). I submitted to the select committee against this bill.

Trip report: Gisborne, November 28–Dec 1 2024

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Three days in Gisborne, with cycling to wineries, stingrays, and walking at Cook’s Cove.

November: almost all in Wellington

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In a contrast from October, all but the last two days in Wellington.

November: photos post

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This month, I processed 50% more photos than usual (and produced other content as well). Easier to do when not travelling and not actively submitting papers.

Trip report: Overland Track, Tasmania—part 9 (day 6), Narcissus

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

All downhill from here; short day to Narcissus Hut and boat pickup.

Thoughts on the Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This last Tuesday, the Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti arrived in Pōneke/Wellington after setting off eight days ago from Te Rerenga Wairua / Cape Reinga (as well as on the South Island). Crowd size estimates for Parliament ranged from 42,000 to 55,000, undoubtedly the largest ever for this country. I’d characterize the mood of the hīkoi as ‘determined’. We wanted to send a strong statement that the Treaty Principles Bill should not be further considered. I should hope that the politicians are listening.

Trip report: Overland Track, Tasmania—part 8 (day 5), Bert Nichols Hut/Windy Ridge

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

‘Waterfall day’ on the Overland Track, with three waterfalls available plus a gap before reaching Bert Nichols Hut at Windy Ridge.

October: world tour continues with Flagstaff, Waterloo/Toronto, Pasadena, and Winnipeg

Sun, 17 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Two conferences with three presentations, three tournaments, and lots of hours in flights.

Trip report: Ontario, California, and Manitoba, October 16-29 2024

Sun, 17 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Wellington to Ontario to California to Manitoba to Wellington. On this trip, two tournaments and a conference; in all, 3 tournaments and 2 conferences.

Review: Epic: Adventures across Aotearoa, by Ray Salisbury

Sat, 16 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A collection of tales about going over, across, and around the motu of Aotearoa.

Review: How Infrastructure Works: Transforming our shared systems for a changing world, by Deb Chachra

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

An optimistic look at the role of technology (and specifically infrastructure) in the changes that will be needed in our society in the coming years.

Trip report: Rotorua, October 11-14 2024

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Appended to the Flagstaff trip, a visit to Rotorua for the NZ Judo Nationals.

Trip report: Flagstaff, October 5-9 2024

Sat, 09 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A whirlwind trip from Wellington, NZ to Flagstaff, AZ, USA, to present a paper.

October: photos post

Sat, 02 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Didn’t process nearly as many photos as in previous months, but got a few more sets in near the end of the month after travel was done.

Review: Takahē: Bird of Dreams by Alison Ballance

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Stories about takahē: re-discovery, conservation, and their habits.

September: final versions of papers, course prep, Auckland, and Japan

Sat, 05 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Mostly in Wellington except for a weekend in Auckland and a week in Tokyo (the start of a busy travel month). Finalizing papers, reviewing course notes.

September: photos post

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

About the same number of photos processed in September as in August, but that includes a doozy of a set from the Petrel Station.

Submission to NZ Crown Minerals Amendment Bill reopening gas and oil exploration

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Get with the program! The NZ Coalition of Chaos wants to reverse the oil and gas exploration ban. It is 2024, not 1984.

Comparing the Old Ghost Road and Paparoa tracks and their books

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Old Ghost Road and the Paparoa Great Walk cross similar terrain on the West Coast in New Zealand. But the Old Ghost Road was led by a nonprofit, while the Paparoa was the product of the Department of Conservation. Let’s compare them.

Review: Sunshine Nails by Mai Nguyen

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

More Vietnamese refugee content, this time a novel.

August: Camera-ready month, and some weekend trips

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Routine month with work finalizing accepted papers and trips to Rotorua and the Catlins, as well as helping with a Snowcraft course at Whakapapa.

August: photos post

Sun, 01 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A more selective August, with fewer sets processed but more pictures.

Review: Ru by Kim Thúy

Fri, 30 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Thoughts on differences between the book version and film version of Ru.

Case study: making air travel things complicated

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

‘Optimizing’ some flights to New Zealand.

July: A walk on the Old Ghost Road and a visit to Melbourne and Cairns, plus a workshop paper submission

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Travels continued with another tramp on the South Island and a trip to Australia. Research continues with a submission to HATRA and revisions of our paper on race freedom verification.

Trip report: Melbourne and Cairns

Mon, 12 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Our long-delayed trip to Melbourne, plus a side-trip to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef.

July: photos post

Thu, 01 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Treading water: processed a lot of albums in July, but took about the same number of pictures (in 11 sets) as I processed.

Trip report: Overland Track, Tasmania—part 7 (day 4), Kia Ora with Mts Ossa and Pelion East

Sat, 20 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

‘Mountain day’ on the Overland Track, through Pelion Gap with side trips to Ossa (Tasmania highpoint) and Pelion East, before reaching Kia Ora Hut during golden hour.

Trip report: Overland Track, Tasmania—part 6 (day 3), Pelion

Thu, 18 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Mud day on the Overland Track: down to Frog Flats and back up. Lots of fungi, a few birds at New Pelion, and two shovels.

June: an accept, two rejects, another paper submission, and a South Island walk

Sat, 06 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Some work, though mostly waiting and advising and not paper writing. More than half the month on the road, in Tasmania and on the South Island (again, not Cascade Saddle, but we did go on a boat in Doubtful Sound.)

June: photos post

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I sure did process a lot of photos in June. Here they are.

Trip report: Overland Track, Tasmania—part 4 (day 2), Windermere

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A much easier day on the Overland Track, slightly downhill overall, with a side trip to Lake Will, no waterfalls, a platypus, a wombat, and few birds.

Trip report: Overland Track, Tasmania—part 3 (day 1), Cradle Mountain

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Our first day of actual hiking on the Overland Track, up onto the plateau and atop Cradle Mountain to Waterfall Valley Hut, our first Tasmanian Hut.

Trip report: Overland Track, Tasmania—part 2, before the walk

Sun, 16 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Getting to Tasmania is pretty easy, but here’s how we did it, stopping by Melbourne and then to Hobart and Launceston.

May: waiting for reviews; Tasmania and South Island trips

Tue, 11 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Trip report: Christchurch/Lincoln, Queenstown, and Doubtful Sound

Thu, 06 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Not the Cascade Saddle, take 2. Canterbury Open (judo), Queenstown hikes (Ben Lomond, Welcome Rock) and bike trips (Gibbston), and Doubtful Sound for 2 nights.

May: photos post

Sat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Happy first day of winter (NZ)! I think I’ll continue with split photos posts.

April: Whanganui Journey, three papers submitted, and a trip to Tasmania

Mon, 20 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Another new place: Tasmania (recommended!). Between the two trips, I did a bunch of work, which I hope will pay off: three paper submissions. Just life as usual.

April: photos post

Tue, 14 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s try something different and separate the photos post from the summary post.

Trip report: Overland Track, Tasmania—part 1, Australia vs New Zealand, and overall impressions

Sat, 11 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Advertised as “Australia’s premier alpine walk”, we had six days with outstanding weather and scenery in Tasmania. In this part, I compare our Australian hiking experience with the New Zealand Great Walks.

March: more bad professional news from 2023 efforts, Canada trip, Wānaka climbing, and start of the Whanganui River Journey

Wed, 10 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In from Sydney, out to Vancouver, with a hike in the middle, and some research and service.

Trip report: Whanganui Journey—five days canoeing on the Whanganui river

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Great Walk #9: not a walk at all, but a 145km canoe trip down the Whanganui River, with gentle rapids. We got there using public transit.

February: Travers-Sabine; and, entering NZ at the start and leaving NZ at the end

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In from Sydney, out to Vancouver, with a hike in the middle, and some research and service.

Trip report: refereeing in Abbotsford, Edmonton, and a quick trip to Toronto/Waterloo

Sun, 10 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

March has two Canadian circuit judo tournaments: Pacific International and Edmonton International. I also stopped by Waterloo for two days and took care of some business.

January: Nelson, Wellington, other Nelson, and Sydney

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’m really not experiencing large blocks of unstructured time right now, particularly with all the reviewing I’m doing. But it is true that I don’t have any teaching to prepare, at least.

In any case, I haven’t had time to write the January report, or a report on all of 2023, having been in Sydney and then almost immediately onto the Travers-Sabine Circuit in early February. Well, February is only half over! Though at this rate I should start the March report.

Review: On Cold Iron by Dan Levert

Sun, 11 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

About the history of engineering: the Canadian Iron Ring Ceremony and the Quebec Bridge disaster.

December: taking all the courses

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Travel month with Wilderness First Responder and Avalanche Skills Training 2, and Christmas in Montreal.

November: almost entirely staying put in Wellington

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

PLDI submission and trip to New Caledonia. Just the routine.

Review: The Last Front Line by Brendan O'Dwyer

Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

How the sausage is made: Brendan O’Dwyer writes about building the Paparoa Great Walk on NZ’s West Coast.

October: NSERC Discovery Grant writing, and refereeing in Canada

Sun, 05 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Mostly working on a NSERC Discovery Grant application and travelling to referee in Winnipeg and Scarborough, with a stop in Waterloo.

Museum review: Canadian Human Rights Museum / Musée pour les droits de la personne, Winnipeg

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I found myself in Winnipeg for 3 days in 2023 (to referee at the Manitoba Open, which was great) and the museum is now open, so I went for a visit after lunch at the Forks. Human rights is an abstract concept, so I was interested to see how the museum would represent that in the form of exhibits.

Mount Hopeless attempt, August 25-27, 2023

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

We carried mountaineering gear 50km on a long weekend and had a nice walk in the fluffy snow, but no summit.

Book review: Wellington's Railways: Colonial Steam to Matangi, by David Parsons

Sun, 08 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

David Parsons. Wellington’s Railways: Colonial Steam to Matangi. 2010.

This book is certainly not lacking in detail. It covers the early development of Wellington region rail (different parts of New Zealand, and I guess many other countries, were quite isolated 150 years ago) until 1920; refinements from 1920 to 1970; and the changes from 1970 to 2010. Wellington rail did manage to mostly hang on through the global Reagan-Thatcher neoliberal era. It has relatively recently gotten through to Waikanae and perhaps will reach Levin.

Tourist guide to Wellington

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s some tips for visiting Wellington. It is true that living in Wellington one doesn’t necessarily see all the tourist things (true of any place), but we did spend some time touristing when we first came. (Hence many pictures here are from 2020…)

In central Wellington, everything is within walking distance. Wētā Workshop and the Skyline track are a bit farther out and would benefit from transit, though a few hours’ walk would get you there.

How to leave Waterloo/how to get to YYZ

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Yes, my Waterloo travel page is about how to leave Waterloo.

I thought I should have this as a top-level page instead of a blog post. Mostly, only the numbers have gotten bigger, but also I’ve added flixbus (for now). Past entries:

Here are various options for carless transportation from Waterloo in 2023.

To Pearson Airport (YYZ)

The taxi is the fastest option. Waterloo Taxi will drive you to the airport for $110 and from the airport at $130, both including HST, but not including tip. If I’m trying to stand by for an earlier flight to Toronto (Montreal-Toronto or an Air Canada Comfort fare), then I would call them once I’ve boarded the flight to Toronto, and that’s enough lead time for them. You go to the pre-arranged taxi desk at YYZ and they summon your taxi from the pen.
The option I take most often on weekdays is GO to either Square One (bus) or Weston or Bramalea (train) and then MiWay or UP Express or GO 94 to YYZ. The all-GO or GO and Bramalea Transit options are probably the cheapest possible way of getting to/from Pearson at $13. (That is surely cheapest in an absolute sense, including wear and tear on your car.) The Presto Card will work unless you have a GRT connection. The GO bus has started running on weekends now too.

I usually budget about 2 hours. The 25C (express to Square One) is fast if you are going when it is going. I just asked and Google Maps reported a 2h15 trip from the University of Waterloo to Pearson Terminal 1 at 10:30pm on a weekday; the fastest trip I can find is 1h41 from the Kitchener GO station to T1.
I haven’t taken Airways Transit for a while. Their prices used to be finely tuned to be competitive with other options but now they are not.
Flixbus runs between 0 and 3 daily trips from Toronto Union Station to Pearson to Kitchener to the University, priced at $13 and going up closer in with dynamic pricing. Good if they line up with your schedule. A bit tricky if you are flying into Pearson, since flights can be delayed.

Short-turn YYZ

Twice in 2019 I happened to be flying into YYZ on day N and flying back out on day N+1 or N+2. Renting a car can be a cheaper and faster option than public transit and taxis, especially if one has the quick-rental options at YYZ. Of course one still has to drive the car. I paid $36 and $60 all-in for the rental itself in October 2019, plus gas.

September: 'back to school' and yet more trips

Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’m starting to write this with 4 days of September left. This month has also flown by. Well, I did fly to Canada, which took a bunch of days. Have been back in Wellington for a week and a bit. Also two weekend trips in September: camping on Matiu/Somes Island and a trip that was meant to be mountaineering but diverted to Taupō due to the weather.

August: more trips

Sat, 16 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Lots of trips, not much work. August is OK to be a quiet month. August outdoors activities in NZ need to be winter-ish, i.e. you have to be aware of avalanches (or someone does; we went to ski resorts).

Review: Flight of the Huia by Kerry-Jayne Wilson

Mon, 04 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A review of a 2004 book about NZ ecology, ecosystems, and species endemic to NZ.

July: some small trips

Sun, 13 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Another usual non-teaching term month, with trips to Auckland, Turoa, and Wye Creek (Queenstown). New activity: ice climbing (to be used in the mountains). Paper submission and jury duty.

No zombies here: motions to postpone indefinitely are silver bullets

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

‘Postpone indefinitely’ is, as it turns out, a euphemism for ‘kill’.

June: back to normal non-teaching term, writing paper after paper

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A quieter month all around. Short visit to Gold Coast for Australian nationals, and just working on papers.

Atene Skyline Track, June 17, 2023

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Atene Skyline day hike in Whanganui National Park. A bit faster than predicted time. Well-formed if somewhat steep track. Excellent undercast views. Also, Bushy Park near Whanganui.

Graduate Students

Fri, 23 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’m always looking for excellent, motivated students who are interested in program analysis.

Current Students

Alex LeBlanc (PhD, Winter 2024 -)
Laurian Angelescu (MASc, Fall 2019 -)

Past Students

Vinayak Sharma (MASc, Spring 2025)
Mohammad Mahdi Abdollahpour (MMath, Fall 2024)
Mohammad Robati Shirzad (MASc, Spring 2023)
Sruthi Venkatanarayanan (MMath, Fall 2022)
Ali Iman (MASc, Spring 2021)
Qian Liang (MASc, Spring 2021)
Jon Eyolfson (PhD 2018)
Stephen Li (MMath 2018)
Jun Zhao (MASc 2018)
Zeming Liu (MMath 2018)
Felix Fang (MASc 2014)
Wenzhu Man (MASc 2014)
Gaurav Jain (MASc 2013)
Divam Jain (co-supervised with Reid Holmes) (MMath 2013)
Jeff Zarnett (co-supervised with Mahesh Tripunitara) (MASc 2010)
Aakarsh Nair (MASc 2010)
Hang Chu (MASc 2010)

May: another big month

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Much travel, especially on the West Coast of North America. Really did finish teaching.

West Coast Adventures: Thanks friends! May 2023

Mon, 12 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

All over the West Coast of North America: Eastern Sierras, Seattle, Vancouver (and Squamish), and Nelson. Both work and life, too: gave a talk at UBC and UW, and did a bunch of skiing and hiking. Also bike commuting.

Book Review: We, the Others: Allophones, Immigrants, and Belonging in Canada by Toula Drimonis

Wed, 31 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Toula Drimonis writes about immigrants and allophones (non-English, non-French mother tongue) in modern Quebec society, talking about integration of immigrants and how broader society evolves in response. Her story, as the daughter of Greek immigrants, overlaps with mine in some ways.

Book review: Before the Dawn by Tōson Shimazaki

Thu, 18 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A review of the Great Japanese Novel, which describes the life of village chief Aoyama Hanzō along a main highway through the opening of Japan to the world and the Meiji Restoration. Kind of the anti-It’s-a-Wonderful-World as he realizes that his efforts didn’t bear much fruit.

April: finally done with Winter term

Mon, 08 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Whew! Finished teaching for Spring term. Western Newfoundland; around Montreal; and Brampton. Home repair.

Western Newfoundland, April 6-9, 2023

Sun, 07 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Marble Mountain, arguably better than Tremblant; unarguably fewer lines. Gros Morne in the winter.

ChatGPT's Hot Takes on Programming Languages and Software Engineering

Sat, 06 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Prompt engineering by Lucas Wojciechowski. Thanks!

User

Give me 10 hot takes on how machine learning will affect programming language / software engineering in the next 10 years

ChatGPT

Sure, here are 10 hot takes on how machine learning will affect programming languages and software engineering in the next 10 years:

Machine learning will become an integral part of software engineering, with developers routinely incorporating ML algorithms and models into their applications.
Programming languages will increasingly support machine learning by providing libraries and tools for ML development, such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, and scikit-learn.
Developers will need to have a strong understanding of statistics and data analysis in order to effectively incorporate machine learning into their applications.
The demand for data scientists and machine learning engineers will continue to grow, as more companies seek to incorporate machine learning into their products and services.
Natural language processing (NLP) and speech recognition will become more prevalent, leading to the development of new programming languages and tools that support these technologies.
Machine learning will enable the creation of more personalized and adaptive user interfaces, leading to a more seamless and intuitive user experience.
As machine learning becomes more widespread, developers will need to prioritize the ethical implications of their work, such as data privacy, bias, and accountability.
Machine learning will enable the creation of more intelligent and autonomous systems, leading to new challenges in software engineering, such as how to ensure the safety and reliability of these systems.
Developers will increasingly rely on machine learning to automate software testing and debugging, reducing the time and effort required to find and fix bugs.
Finally, machine learning will enable the creation of new types of software applications that were previously not possible, such as self-driving cars, personalized medicine, and smart home automation.

User

Can you make the takes more controversial?

Montréal

Mon, 01 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

People always ask me what to do when visiting Montreal. I did grow up in Montreal. But, I haven’t lived in Montreal since 2007. Though I’ve been back pretty often, things have changed. I’ve tried to look up the current state, but I am definitely out of date on some things.

I have pictures of a lot of places now, because cellphones, but not so many of Montreal, because I mostly lived here before I had a cellphone. Still, I found some pictures from the archives, which I’ve included here.

Bouldering Gym Review: Backbone Boulder, Bromont, April 2023

Wed, 19 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Small but worthy climbing gym in Bromont. Also offers other services (café, terrasse, hammocks).

Japan part III: Two days in Hokkaido and one in Tokyo, February 2023

Sun, 16 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The last segment of our Japan trip: skiing and birbs in Hokkaido, as well as snowshoeing and katte don. Plus most of a day in Tokyo.

March: lots of good news

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Reasonable success this month, professionally (awarded grant, major revisions on a paper) and for refereeing (selected for Canadian nationals). Lots of work and also weekend trips.

Championnat provincial (Laval), March 24-26, 2023

Fri, 07 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

By special permission, refereeing at the Quebec provincial judo championships (biggest ever).

Edmonton International Judo Championship, March 10-12, 2023

Thu, 06 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Off to referee at the Edmonton International Judo Championship for the first time. Easier to get to than Vancouver for a short weekend.

Japan part II: historical (looking) buildings in the Japan Alps, February 2023

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Next stops: Matsomoto (a castle!), samurai district, historical houses, festival floats, and gardens. Plus, an 11 hour train ride.

COVID infodump, March 2023

Wed, 08 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

We have in fact been learning more about COVID recently, though it feels not as fast as in March 2020.

February: COVID, teaching, and a trip to Japan

Tue, 07 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

COVID didn’t throw too much of a wrench into things, thankfully. Second month of teaching for Winter 2023, including reading week and a trip to Japan.

Japan part I: cherry blossoms and part of the Nakasendo, February 2023

Sun, 26 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

First overseas trip since 2020, to Japan. Walking on a bit of the Nakasendō, plus some info on pre-trip planning, and early cherry blossoms.

January: teaching and extracurriculars

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Back to the classroom (teaching two courses), plus judo tournaments and some skiing. Before that, we hiked Around the Mountain (Taranaki) in New Zealand.

Around the Mountain Circuit (Taranaki), January 2 to 5, 2023

Sat, 04 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A walk around the mountain (Taranaki). Pretty chill except for day 3 which had super high winds and day 2 which had a short amount of muddy steep terrain.

December: start of summer / back to winter soon

Sat, 21 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

First conference (SPLASH) in three years (gave two talks) and South Island vacation. Also a bunch of service tasks, e.g. master’s thesis and PhD comprehensive exams. Submitted a paper!

Christmas on the South Island: Gillepsie, Mueller Hut, glacier kayaking, and rock climbing

Fri, 20 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Christmas 2022 trip. Like everyone in New Zealand and many people from overseas, we flew in to Queenstown. Got away from the huge hordes by going to Wanaka (small hordes) and Mount Cook Village (some visitors). Did many of the things we’d been planning: Gillespie Circuit, glacier kayaking, Mueller Hut. Also went rock climbing in Wanaka. Featuring many pictures of Wanaka grebes.

Book review: Can't Get There from Here: New Zealand Passenger Rail Since 1920, by André Brett, maps by Sam van der Weerden

Sat, 07 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A good (though detailed) read about the sad history of NZ passenger rail, with advocacy for a better future.

Places I've been in Aotearoa New Zealand

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Last updated: May 2024

I thought I’d put together a list of the (many!) places I’ve been to in Aotearoa New Zealand, along with capsule reviews.

Great Walks

We’ve so far done 10 of the Great Walks.

Tongariro Northern Circuit (February 2021): volcanic leftovers, maybe our favourite scenery of the Great Walks, easiest (cheapest, closest) access from Wellington of any Great Walk.
Heaphy (July 2020, post, pics): Long but relatively easy. Rainbows, one wet day, excellent last day, lots of birds even if we didn’t see takahe (sniff). Fourth day on the beach super-scenic even if we were rushing to catch the plane. Interesting to see mountain bikes.
Routeburn (December 2020, pics): Routeburn Falls hut is the best we’ve stayed at. Day 2 and Conical Hill have great scenery. Could be done in a long day, but Conical Hill and Key summit would be unwise detours on such a day, which would miss out on a lot.
Milford (December 2020, pics): Best overall quality. Mackinnon Pass is impressive, as are Sutherland Falls.
Kepler (November/December 2020, pics): We zoomed up the first day to Luxmore (flash hut). The day 2 traverse with the keas was the best; days 1 and 2 have substantial above-treeline parts. Saw a kiwi in the wild at Iris Burn Hut. Our days 3 and 4 could be combined for a not-that-bad Moturau Hut to carpark, or one could get a shuttle out of Rainbow Reach.
Paparoa (September 2021): exquisitely formed track, not boring to walk on like a sidewalk, but also no puddles. Whio sighting walking to Ces Clarke (super flash hut), then great views near the tops to Moonlight Tops and on to Pororari (long day). Eventually, impressive limestone walls near the Punakaiki walkers’ exit. Varied scenery. Used car relocation service, which required a bit of thought (where to get keybox? where was the car?), but managed OK.
Hump Ridge (January 2021): soon to be a Great Walk even if not yet. Excellent views, swimming with Hector’s dolphins, well-appointed lodges, muddy when we went (no pig cull last year due to COVID)
Rakiura (August 2020, pics): First day to Port William the best of the three. Otherwise perhaps our least-favourite Great Walk even without the bedbugs last summer (we were there before that problem). Not as many birds as we hoped for, though we did see kakariki on Ulva Island. Also Mason Bay was great, though not quite on this Great Walk. Day 2 is swampy.
Abel Tasman Coastal Track (September 2020): harder than it seems! First-class track all the way and many views of beaches, though not so much beach walking. Easy to get in and out even if not cheap, via Golden Bay Air. Most people don’t seem to do it end-to-end, and there are water taxis to facilitate partial trips. One can also have super tasty food at the Awaroa Lodge.
Whanganui Journey (March/April 2024): it’s not a walk, it’s a paddle! We got there on transit from Wellington, rented canoes from Taumarunui Canoe Hire, and paddled down the river from Taumarunui to Pipiriki. Heaps of welcome swallows on the first two days and far fewer after. Native forest. Cliffs along the sides. Bridge to Nowhere is worth walking to. Rapids were very Grade 1 on our trip and the 50/50 at the end was easy.

Remaining: Lake Waikaremoana (uh-oh)

Leaving Early: The Last Day of our South Island December 2022 trip

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A day in the life. Making and executing last-minute travel plans to get back to Wellington from the South Island.

November: winter is coming

Sat, 03 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Whirlwind Canada tour, where I refereed judo tournaments, served on PhD committees, met up with a ton of people, and did not get COVID. Lots of service, some research, and ignoring teaching. Failed to hike the Round-the-Mountain Circuit around Taranaki due to rain.

Throwback: Aspect-Oriented Programming

Fri, 02 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Aspect-Oriented Programming used to be trendy but never really got traction. Occasionally people talk about things where AOP would have helped.

Submission to Ontario's Proposed Amendments to the Greenbelt Plan

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Stop trying to mess with the GTA Greenbelt!

October: midway through Fall term

Tue, 15 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

More research, two multi-day hikes, and a judo tournament. Like a middle of a non-teaching term.

Trip Report: Judo Nationals in Christchurch, October 14-16 2022

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Finally, I make it to NZ judo nationals, taking 3rd. Designer Cottage was a great place to stay. Plus, Christchurch Tram.

Trip Report: Queen Charlotte Track, October 22-27 2022

Fri, 11 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Post-punted-paper-deadline trip to Queen Charlotte, plus a stay in Anakiwa. Occasional good views, a bit on the long side.

Trip Report: Banks Peninsula Track, October 3-4 2022

Wed, 02 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Back at Akaroa for the Banks Peninsula Track with great views of the hilly coast.

September: more research, some trips

Tue, 11 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Normal month in a non-teaching term. Making progress with research. Executing and planning trips, though not far afield (South Island).

Submission to NZ inquiry on inter-regional passenger rail

Sat, 17 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

NZ needs inter-regional passenger rail as an alternative to flying and driving for climate and other reasons. Here’s my submission to a Parliamentary inquiry, with comparisons to Canada and Switzerland.

Interactions with Immigration New Zealand

Thu, 15 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Getting residence. Quite a ride, and I know how to work systems..

August: staying in Canada longer than expected, for good reasons

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Was going to go to NZ on August 6 but finally went on August 21, after a judo grading. I hope that I’ve finished everything for Spring term teaching now finally, and can get back to research (and seeing more of NZ).

Reflections on judo grades

Fri, 26 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I graded for godan (5th dan) on the competitior stream recently. What does it all mean?

July: last month of classes for Spring, plus some trips

Mon, 01 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

5 weekends, 5 trips; now in Waterloo to close out the term (and do lots of marking). July less brutal than June.

June: better late than never; so much work.

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

More normal life. Lots of teaching, some paper writing, not much recreation except for an overnight car camping trip.

Trip report: 2022 judo Open Nationals

Tue, 07 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Good showing in seniors (2 wins) and veterans (3rd) at Canadian Open Nationals.

May: first month of Spring term, so much teaching, focus on judo

Mon, 06 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Mostly teaching. I got off the plane from New Zealand, took the taxi back to Waterloo, got up early the next morning, and went to an OAC event at Rattlesnake Point. Back to normal life.

plam's travel philosophy

Sun, 22 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

[Written March 2020. But it hasn’t been the best time to travel, so I’ve been waiting for a better moment. Now’s still not ideal, but maybe better.]

SE student Rachel asked me for travel suggestions. That’s a pretty broad topic; digging deeper, I learned that the question was about cultural experiences and going beyond sightseeing on family vacations. I’ll write about some of my best travel experiences so far. There is going to have to be flexing. Otherwise the answer would be generic and boring.

Three full days in Yellowknife

Sat, 07 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Checking off another territory from my Canada list; brief visit to Yellowknife (NWT) and successful aurora spotting.

April: between Winter and Spring; more travels

Sun, 01 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

End of term. Still avoiding COVID. Getting out of Waterloo while there is no teaching: travels to Yellowknife and New Zealand.

March: first and last full month of teaching in Winter 2022, and some trips

Fri, 01 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

People are pretending it’s back to normal, but the sixth wave has started in Quebec.

24 Hours in Saskatchewan

Sat, 26 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Saskatchewan is surprisingly scenic. About giant eggs and porcupines (in Alberta), another Blue Mountain, aurora borealis, and just one ditch.

February: with short escapes to Quebec

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Back to normal? Well, maybe, except that there are still a lot of cases out there.

Warm lights in the Airbnb bedroom FTW

Sun, 20 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes I’m ridiculous. Tales of swapping light bulbs.

January: a whole month in K-W

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Hey, I have a place of my own in Waterloo. Back to (virtual) school.

New Zealand Restaurants

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I looked up two years’ of dining history and collected all the New Zealand restaurants I thought were worth mentioning.

December: back in Canada and not loving it

Mon, 03 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Last monthly summary from 2021. Homeless during a pandemic, but fortunate enough that it’s just a small inconvenience.

Urban living (3/3): Wellington

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Part III: What about Wellington? An unexpected 2 years less a month in Wellington, NZ.

Urban living (2/3): Montreal

Sun, 26 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Part II: Ten days, a year, and 20 years living in Montreal.

Urban living (1/3): Kitchener/Waterloo

Sat, 25 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

OK, so what do I really think about living in Kitchener, Montreal, and Wellington in 2021? Part I: Kitchener/Waterloo.

There are six eggs

Fri, 24 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Christmas Eve content you wanted: egg sizes in NZ, Canada and the US.

November: last month in New Zealand

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

All things must come to an end. Last month in New Zealand, with one small trip around Timaru and Mount Cook that I’d had my eye on for a while. It was a rewarding last month in New Zealand. Ma te wa.

Leaving Aotearoa Part II: AKL-LAX, Los Angeles, and back on Air Canada to Montreal

Fri, 10 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Part II: from Auckland to Montreal (and Kitchener). Plus, how did we get here? Looking back at 2019.

Leaving Aotearoa Part I: WLG to AKL and on to NZ6

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Ma te wa—see you later, New Zealand. First half of my trip from Wellington to Montreal, covering travel from Wellington to Auckland and onto the plane to Los Angeles.

Travel during COVID times: NZ to Canada

Fri, 26 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Argh! How to get the necessary COVID tests to enter the US and Canada.

Trans-Canada Highway vs State Highway 1: Getting around (Central) Canada & NZ

Fri, 19 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Thoughts about how people get around in Canada and New Zealand.

October: Suppression in Auckland, elimination elsewhere in NZ

Mon, 01 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Waiting for the other shoe to drop and hoping that it doesn’t drop before vaccination rates are high enough.

Answers to NZ Government consultations on Adventure Activities

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Following the White Island eruption, the New Zealand Government is soliciting comments on the regulation of adventure activities. Here’s what I wrote.

September: Delta's Still Here (mostly in Auckland)

Mon, 11 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Outside of Auckland, life is almost normal (for now). Busy writing papers and travelling, as well as contributing to teaching a lab course.

Review: Emerald Hours in New Zealand Part II, getting around the South Island

Sun, 10 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Second part of my book review / transit comparison between 1905 and 2021. This time featuring the South Island and the Milford Track.

Review: Emerald Hours in New Zealand Part I, North Island (but really, transport in NZ)

Sun, 05 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Alys Lowth and her party toured New Zealand in the early 1900s and took a surprising amount of public transit. Here, I compare public transit in NZ in 1905 and today. Also: things that are the same (geology), and things that are different (not as much as one would think!).

August: Here's Delta

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The 1pm show starring Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Dr. Ashley Bloomfield is back. Really we could do without, but here we are.

My Photo Workflow, and Adventures in Hugo Development

Tue, 24 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I finally got around to adding links to my Hugo gallery sliders. Here’s how.

Cook Islands: international travel!

Tue, 17 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

What we got up to on the Cook Islands, and what we’d do differently.

Letter to Canadian ministers about reducing emissions.

Sun, 15 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I’m writing as a constituent to urge Canada to take action on climate change. The recent release of the IPCC report highlights the necessity of doing what we can to fix this human-caused problem. We need to take action now as a society, and the government needs to take a leading role: this problem requires collective action, and we as individuals do not have the power to solve it on our own.

July: to the Realm

Mon, 02 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This month’s highlights: three trips, including one outside of New Zealand; ten new restaurants; normal non-teaching term month.

June: non-teaching term month 2

Sun, 04 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This month’s highlights: SCAM paper submission; less successful tournament result at the Waikato Bays Open (Rotorua); rainy weekend trip to Masterton and Pūkaha National Wildlife Centre; COVID scare in Wellington (got lucky)

West Coast Again, May 21-25 2021: Days 4 & 5, Arthur's Pass, Springfield, and Christchurch

Mon, 28 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Cliffhanger resolved. We get back to Christchurch (a bit poorer) and thence back to Wellington.

On the Rollercoaster: What an Interesting Location

Fri, 25 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

NZ remains COVID-free, barely.

West Coast Again, May 21-25 2021: Day 4, Mount French

Thu, 24 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I suspected that the Mount French route would be slightly marginal for daylight, since it was posted at 6-7 hours and sunset is currently at 17:15. But I thought we could do it quickly enough. The weather forecast was excellent and there were only a couple of fluffy white clouds in the sky.

West Coast Again, May 21-25 2021: Days 2 & 3, Canterbury Open, Otira Café, Truman Track, Punakaiki Pancake Rocks, and Westland Petrel Colony

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Fought in the Canterbury Open, and then an action-packed day north of Greymouth.

West Coast Again, May 21-25 2021: Day 1, WLG-CHC

Sat, 12 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Last year Elliott and I went to the West Coast for the Queen’s Birthday weekend. Victoria Day is a bit earlier but the Canterbury Open was basically on the Victoria Day long weekend (not a holiday in NZ!) and I figured it would be a good chance to get out to the West Coast again, though coming from Christchurch rather than Wellington, and a bit further south than last time.

May: non-teaching term month 1

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Incremental progress throughout May; as usual, non-teaching terms are much less of a grind.

Holidays: Canada vs NZ

Sat, 15 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I know what’s when in Canada, but things are completely different here. Let’s try to figure it out.

Review: Ice Walker: A Polar Bear's Journey through the Fragile Arctic by James Raffan

Sun, 09 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Canadian content! This short work of creative nonfiction follows a bear, Nanu, as she raises her cubs near Churchill Falls (Manitoba) in contemporary times.

That Antipodal Life

Wed, 05 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve been in Wellington for the past year and a half (!). It’s never really cold or hot here. How does that compare to Canada?

April: end-of-term slog

Mon, 03 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

April has overall been a real grind, with an attempted paper submission and now grading. We had one trip to Christchurch, where our planned objective got rained out, but we still did a bunch of elevation gain (though not much distance, which means steep ascents).

Queenstown, Makarora, Wanaka, and not Gillespie

Fri, 02 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The planned logistics for the Gillespie trip were simple: rent a car, stay at the Wonderland Lodge in Makarora the night before, take a jetboat across the river, walk, and take a jetboat back from Kerin Forks. The jetboat avoids the biggest river crossings. Ironically, the day before we were to go, we got a call saying that there wasn’t enough water to run the jetboat. That’s fine, it should be easy to cross the river in that case.

March: finishing the Tongariro Circuit, climbing trip to Pohara, and hiking Wanaka

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Usually by this point we’d be getting close to the end of Winter term (was April 3 in Winter 2020), but we’ve stretched lectures out because of the pandemic (later start, additional scheduled pause, shorter exam period), so we still have 1.5 weeks of class left. I feel like the wheels are starting to fall off at this point, with all sorts of random life things happening to the students in my graduate course. Three trips: back from Tongariro; climbing at Pohara; and hiking around Wanaka.

Book review: The Ethical Algorithm by Kearns and Roth

Fri, 19 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Again wandering through a Wellington City Library branch, this time I picked up The Ethical Algorithm by Michael Kearns and Aaron Roth, from January 2020. It was an easy read for someone with a PhD in Computer Science and a BSc in Math/CS, and I finished it in about two hours. I didn’t pick up that much that was new to me, but I follow developments in this domain as an interested but technically-educated reader.

WLG-NSN

Fri, 12 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

An excellent opportunity to add to the walked-to-airports list! I’d meant to walk to NSN last July, but we actually only flew into that airport after the Heaphy; our flight to the start of the track was replaced by a van ride. Here’s my chance!

February: mostly work, plus Tongariro Northern Circuit

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Remote teaching has definitely been grinding along and keeping me busy this past month. The workload has been different for the fourth-year undergraduate course versus the graduate seminar. Aside from teaching and research, there was also returning from the Tuatapere Hump Ridge Track at the very start of the month, the Tongariro Northern Circuit at the end of the month, and the Jumbo Circuit in the middle. No new areas of NZ visited, but did re-visit old locations.

2020 (not travel)

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

My non-travel retrospective for 2020: work, life goals, and hobbies.

January: Back to School, and Hump Ridge

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Back to school! Classes started on January 11 and that’s been keeping me busy this month. More about that below.

Book review: Overload by Kelly and Moen

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I was wandering through a Wellington City Library branch and picked up Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What We Can Do about It by Erin L. Kelly and Phyllis Moen, a book published March 2020. I don’t usually read management books but I am interested in how people work in 2021; work-life balance was cited in Minister Navdeep Bains’s recent resignation, for instance (of course it always is for politicians), and discussed in a Globe and Mail Opinion.

Graduate Seminar Presentation & Discussion Tips

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Updated January 3, 2022 for Winter 2022 offering of SASE.

In which I share my opinions about what makes for a good paper presentation for a graduate seminar course, say ECE 750-T5.

Logistics

We’ll aim for talks of about 30 minutes. During the discussion period (Wednesdays), the presenter will kick off the discussion by summarizing their evaluation, and we’ll talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each paper and how it can inspire your future work (whether academic or industrial).

2020 Retrospective part 1: travel

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I was writing a 2020 retrospective but it was getting too long so I split it up. Here’s a retrospective on the travel that I’ve been privileged to be able to do. Other parts of the retrospective to come.

I should say up front that I strongly dis-recommend travel anywhere there is a pandemic. The safest thing to do is to limit contact with other people. Travel is not that. Definitely don’t go to St. Barthélemy, whether you are or are not the finance minister of Ontario. (I don’t think anyone reading this can afford that anyway. Let me know if I’m wrong!)

December: Christmas in NZ, 2.5 trips, a Great month

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

There’s a lot more concluding to do in the year in review post that I’ll do next. Let’s focus on December. I’m very fortunate to have been able to see more of the South Island this month, including basically all of the highlights of Fiordland now. (Looking at the Dusky Track which is definitely not type 1 fun.) Also around Dunedin, which doesn’t have high mountains, but does have a few rocks to climb, coastal scenery, and birds.

SE Student Support

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I gave a presentation about the Software Engineering undergraduate program at Waterloo.

I got a question which I took offline about student support at Waterloo. I think it’s worthwhile to post this here. I am adding some comments from Derek Rayside, current SE Director. Response follows.

Thanks for your question about study skills and student support etc. That could be a whole other talk!

As came up in the talk, we’re privileged at Waterloo SE to be able to be highly selective with respect to admissions. But, as I mentioned, we still have students, especially in first year, who learn things about themselves that maybe they hadn’t anticipated learning. (“Oh actually I’m much more interested in Psychology than Software Engineering!”) As well as previously-undiscovered mental health issues.

November: 1.5 trips

Thu, 03 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Making the most of my time in New Zealand, and visiting a new-to-me region, as well as re-visiting Fiordland and hiking some mountains. Left town twice this month: once for Auckland plus the ‘Far North’/Bay of Islands, and once for Fiordland, but that trip was half in December.

October: Wellington only

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

For the first time since lockdown, we didn’t get out of town all month. On Friday I am going to Auckland and then the Bay of Islands for the week. It feels like I did a lot of work in October but I’m not quite sure what I have to show for it. Certainly a talk. Thought about ongoing projects and working towards a new project (or at least a funding opportunity). Did travel planning for Auckland.

Onward! Essay: Putting the Semantics into Semantic Versioning

Sun, 01 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

From personal experience, I can attest that maintaining compiler infrastructure that builds on top of LLVM is hard over the long term. You try to compile something from a year ago with newest LLVM and find that it no longer works. The upstream LLVM developers make breaking API changes and it is the responsibility of downstream clients to fix their code accordingly.

I can only imagine the joys of keeping up with the JavaScript frontend and npm ecosystems, having mostly avoided that fun. A few months ago, I did get hit with a breaking Hugo update.

In this essay, we make a broader argument: there are opportunities in analyzing changes to software components and either certifying compatibility or detecting breaking changes. Furthermore, many programming languages techniques (formal verification through testing and of course programming language design) can contribute to the important problem of reasoning about upgrades. We survey the role of contracts and discuss how to best determine the exposed API surface of a component.

Living without a phone

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I dropped my phone last Thursday and got it back from the shop yesterday (Wednesday). Some reflections on not having a phone for a week (in the city).

Advice for Waterloo SE/CS/CE students about grad school

Fri, 23 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I wrote this in an email to a Waterloo Software Engineering student, but it’s worthwhile to put on the Internet more broadly.

Let’s take a step back and talk about graduate school vs undergrad. For a PhD essentially all of the action is in your thesis and very little is your courses. Of course you’re not signing up for a PhD at the moment but instead a Master’s, so it’s not quite the same.

Weird LaTeX error: File l3backend-pdfmode.def not found

Fri, 23 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

For the past few months, LaTeX had been completely broken on my computer. I’d been hoping it was something systemwide and that upgrading LaTeX would fix it. Nope. I’d tried mitigating using different engines. Turns out, xelatex produces different line breaks (!!) and lualatex was somehow incompatible with acmart 1.73 on my computer (metric data for lmroman10-regular not found). Computers are great.

Here’s the pdflatex error message:

! LaTeX Error: File `l3backend-pdfmode.def’ not found.

New-to-me bicycle

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Back in January I had spotted a garage sale in Paraparaumu. There were two bicycles. I got up early at the airbnb and walked to the sale at the Kāpiti Collective early Saturday morning and saw that there was a $20 bicycle and a $200 bicycle. [… Some months later,] I bought a new bike in Plimmerton and rode it back home. While walking to the seller’s place I noticed that his neighbour had a bunch of bicycles and a motorcycle, so I figured (correctly) that he would have a bike pump. […]

New Zealand Restaurants

Sat, 03 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I consolidated the list of restaurants we liked in New Zealand from my monthly summaries so far. Considering how few days we spent in Christchurch there are a surprisingly large number of restaurants from there. In general we’ve been doing a lot of cooking at home.

Wellington

Upesh Kitchen: Our favourite Kelburn take-out place, Malaysian and South Indian
Harbourside Market: Sunday market with food trucks
Best Ugly Bagels: Montreal-style bagels

September: Canterbury and Level 1

Fri, 02 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Spring in New Zealand

Once again, spent two-thirds of this month in Wellington. The other 10 days were around Christchurch and Kaikoura. Currently no trips planned until November 27, although perhaps Auckland for not-Nationals judo tournament in early November.

We are moving 700m down the street tomorrow though. The lease on our current place ended and so we looked around for alternatives (although a fun fact is that, like in Ontario, a fixed-term lease automatically becomes periodic upon completion in NZ and needs to be explicitly non-renewed 21 days before the end date). The new place should be nicer in many ways although the view might not be as good.

Long-Delayed Trip Report: Queen's Birthday Weekend in Charleston

Thu, 10 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The plan, then, was to get in some climbing on granite in Charleston for the Queen’s Birthday long weekend. Side note: In Canada [except Quebec], Victoria Day is the Queen’s Birthday (unofficial start to summer), scheduled for the last Monday preceding May 25, while in NZ, it’s the first Monday in June. Close but not quite, and the weather is different. Kind of like many things in NZ. It’s a different country.

Our First Great Walk: the Heaphy Track

Sat, 05 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Finally, part 1. Part 2: Pohatu Penguins. Part 3: Arthur’s Pass and the TranzAlpine. Part 3b: BreakFree on Cashel.

All the pictures: gallery

Introduction

As soon as the Great Walks bookings opened after lockdown, we thought we would sign up for at least one, to see what they were like. At this point I can’t remember why, but we chose the Heaphy Track as our first Great Walk. This is the longest great walk at 82km, and we would be doing it in the middle of the “winter”, sharing the track with mountain bikes.

Munging Global COVID stats

Fri, 04 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Previously (NZ stats); banner image from US CDC: https://phil.cdc.gov/Details.aspx?pid=23354.

It hasn’t been discussed in either the Canadian or NZ news from what I can see, but I’m vaguely aware that some countries are having a legit resurgence. I understand that people who are more closely connected to European countries have been talking about it more. Quebec is worrying about one but the Canada-wide numbers are still better than many European countries. Of course we should worry about what is going to happen when schools are back.

August: Back from a trip and into Level 2

Mon, 31 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In Wellington. Previous trip: Stewart Island; returned to Wellington August 11 (a day before New Zealand went back up to level 2 and Auckland to level 3 following discovery of a new cluster). Next trip: Christchurch, September 11, originally for the South Islands judo championships, now cancelled (oops).

Aside from that, it’s been a fairly quiet month. I hope to at least get all of the Heaphy trip posted and maybe some of the Rakiura trip before going to Christchurch in two weeks. Booked Kepler, Milford, and Routeburn tracks for later this year.

The TranzAlpine and a day at Arthur's Pass

Sat, 22 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s the third part of this South Island trip. Part 1: Heaphy Track. Part 2: penguins, Mount Sunday, and Christchurch. Part 3b: BreakFree on Cashel.

On my list of “things to check for re-opening” was New Zealand railway trips. So when I saw that the TranzAlpine was re-opening for $75 winter fares, I talked MP into a trip from Christchurch. Like the Heaphy, this trip leaves you far away from where you started, and on the wrong side of the Southern Alps. The train is logistically easier because at least you’re in a town, Greymouth. But that town is still remote enough that one can buy a starter home for $95k. The solution here is easier than for the Heaphy though: you just take the train back.

Racism: Canada and New Zealand

Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A few months ago, I found out that a former Ontario-based climbing partner was now in Auckland, just 600km to the north of where we’re staying in Wellington. One of the things that came up in our emails was his horror at casual racism among New Zealanders that he interacted with. This prompted me to think about my experiences in Quebec, Ontario, and Wellington. Of course, these are anecdotes and not data. I could speculate on broader politics but I won’t.

July, including a vacation

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’m between trips as I write this. Tomorrow morning we are flying to Invercargill at the end of the South Island and, if weather permits, continuing to Stewart Island/Rakiura. (I’ve learned, however, that we often need to be flexible with these plans, as weather can be from slightly to extremely unfavourable.) Two and a half weeks ago we came back from Christchurch and the West Coast.

I noticed that I promised a writeup for Charleston last month. It’s still to come. The backlog continues to increase.

Pohatu Penguins at Akaroa, Mount Sunday, and Christchurch

Fri, 24 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Our South Island trip had three distinct components, so it makes sense to post about them separately. This is part 2. Part 1: Heaphy Track. Part 3: Arthur’s Pass and the TranzAlpine. Part 3b: BreakFree on Cashel.

Full galleries at https://gallery.patricklam.ca/index.php?/category/1227.

July 10: French-themed day in Canterbury

More pictures from July 10

After a big day on July 9th, finishing the Heaphy Track and getting to the suburbs of Christchurch, we were scheduled to go see penguins in Akaroa with Pohatu Penguins. MP signed us up for their maximal experience, including getting driven up to the crater rim and enjoying the scenery of Akaroa Harbour, followed by walking down the last bit of the first day of the Banks Track, an evening penguin tour, and sea kayaking the next morning. Well, the maximal experience didn’t include food, but that was good for us. It’s nice to self-cater on trips.

BreakFree on Cashel (Christchurch): A Review

Wed, 15 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

tl;dr

Exceeded expectations. Great value-for-money.

See also Yotel: A Review, a stay in AMS Schiphol Yotel back in 2016 after a conference.

Staying near the bus stop

For our night between getting off the TranzAlpine round trip and taking the 7am-bus-then-ferry back to Wellington, we wanted a place close to the bus stop. The BreakFree was as close as you could get (3 minute walk), and also cheap, at C$63 (NZ$70) for an “Inner Urban Double”. More expensive than the Mount Somers Holiday Park at NZ$55, but way more posh, in a more central location, and in particular, with better mattresses. (A review on the Internet also mentioned the mattresses). Apparently cheaper than Yotelair Schiphol, but who can compare prices in these pandemic times anyway.

Level 1 June

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This month started in Charleston where I went climbing with Elliott. As I write this I’m going to the Heaphy Track tomorrow morning. We chose to delay for a day due to weather.

The number of active cases in NZ is now 21 but that is a misleading number; all of these cases are in quarantine “at the border”, i.e. found in returning New Zealanders in managed self-isolation. The number of known active cases in the community is 0 which has been a stable number for a while. As Victoria state in Australia shows, though, cases do seem to be capable of escaping at the border, perhaps through a cigarette lighter. But things are good here for now.

About sabbaticals

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

tl;dr: Sabbaticals are not an unpaid vacation but rather a chance to focus on longer-term scholarly projects.

Sabbaticals are an awesome feature of the academic job. I feel like they are often misunderstood by the world in general. This description is specifically about how sabbaticals work at the University of Waterloo; many North American universities are similar but not identical.

The normal distribution of work for tenure-track and tenured faculty members at the University of Waterloo is 40% teaching, 40% research, and 20% service. In my department, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 40% teaching means 3 one-semester courses per year: typically one term with 2 courses, one with 1 course, and one with no courses. For regular faculty members, service involves sitting on and chairing university committees (internal service), as well as participating in a research community by reviewing papers and being on committees (external service).

May, moving down the levels

Wed, 03 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s astonishing how quickly things have returned to almost-normal in this country. Since May 14 (3 weeks ago already!), we’ve been in Alert Level 2, where most things are open. Physical distancing, capacity controls and mandatory contact tracing remain for now, although there will be another decision next Monday, June 8. The number of known active cases is 1 and the last positive reported case was on May 22.

Haircuts

I had been planning to wait a few more days, but I was walking down the street and noticed a barber open with no line, so I’ve had reasonable hair since May 17. The Onward deadline was with too much hair, but the OOPSLA deadline had the right amount of hair. Very important when spending hours at the computer. Looking through the records, it looks like I feel like I need a haircut after 6 weeks and then wait another 2 weeks to actually get one: Sept 5, Nov 5, Jan 7, Mar 3, May 17. The 10-week interval was excessive.

A Locked-down April

Fri, 01 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’m writing this on April 30, a day after we were originally scheduled to leave Wellington. But that was no surprise to month-ago me.

Most of April has been under NZ Alert Level 4, although we’ve been in Alert Level 3 for a couple of days now. We’ve been in Wellington since March 20 and not in a car between March 25 and April 29, which is some sort of record for me. Usually I can go a week without a car ride, but 4.5 weeks is something. Also my last haircut was March 3, which is also a record. It looks like The Warehouse has a 2 week shipping time for clippers, so I’ll be going a bit longer still.

Leverage deadlines for action

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week’s tip is kind of a meta-tip. When you want someone (possibly yourself) to do something, set a deadline for it. Marketing experts know this. This is why there are “limited time offers”. People have intentions of doing something. But if they can do it anytime, sometimes they never do the thing.

The deadline for the survey is Wednesday, though I guess I could have been more explicit about that.

Moderate multi-pitch in New Zealand, March 11, 2020

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

On our previous trip to the South Island we stayed around Wanaka cragging and hiking. Although the Darrens were still washed out during our visit, The Remarkables feature some multipitch climbing. In particular, our borrowed Queenstown guidebook listed a dozen climbs above Lake Alta (aka Dimrill Dale). We’d go to Lake Alta and then up to Double Cone and find a moderate climb. To Lake Alta Alpine starts are well advised but difficult, especially after riverboarding the previous day, having dinner in Queenstown with Waterloo students on exchange, and getting back to our Frankton airbnb at 9pm.

An Exciting Trip to Mount Taranaki, March 17-18, 2020

Tue, 14 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Almost as if anticipating a lockdown, we had planned back-to-back-to-back trips for the middle of March. We’d just barely gotten back from Queenstown on Thursday, March 12 (but that’s another story), and had scheduled 4 days to climb Mount Taranaki, which I’d seen from the plane on the way in to Wellington back on January 1, 3 months and so long ago. Events would catch up to us and prevent our subsequent trip to Melbourne. At least we didn’t have to do a visa run anymore.

Be aware of boundary conditions

Tue, 14 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week’s observation is about boundary conditions. As programmers you have surely run into off-by-one errors. They’re hard to avoid! Somehow New Zealand systemically seems to fudge the issue, as you can see on this sign on Kapiti Island restricting access to the tower. Perhaps one can parse this as being “if you put eight plus one people on the tower it will fall down”, but that’s not consistent with the top display. (As an engineering exercise, you can also think about the safety factors built into the tower’s design).

Munging NZ COVID stats

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to know two things about the NZ COVID counts, which are released by the government at

https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current-situation/covid-19-current-cases/covid-19-current-cases-details#download

Here’s the result of my data analysis as of April 9.

How many cases had a big delay between return-to-NZ date and report date? (about 5%; up to three weeks)

To calculate this, I just added a calculation to the Google sheet:

A2-MAX(I2, H2)

and did standard analyses on the numbers. I manually fixed cases where the date reported was before the date arrived; in those cases it looks like the month was incorrectly entered.

Be an expert tool user

Tue, 07 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week’s tip is about tools. I’ve attached a picture of a replica of the ice axe that Sir Edmund Hillary used on his first ascent of Mount Everest. This was at the North Egmont Visitor Centre at the base of Mount Taranaki, a prominent cone-shaped ex-volcano in New Zealand. Sir Edmund’s original ice axe is in a museum in Auckland, and one can buy replicas of it on the Internet. [1]

The Longest Month

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

My notes say that I bought tickets to Athens on March 1. As if things would be normal in two months. The first nine days of March, which I wrote about last time, did seem completely normal. Then we went to Queenstown/Wanaka and Taranaki. As we were at Taranaki, things quickly became not normal. The last 11 days have been a whirlwind, and only in the past few days have I been able to get some research done.

Explore local

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Since I last wrote, New Zealand moved to alert level 4 on a 4-point scale. Only essential workers may go to work, and “essential workers” is narrowly defined here: mostly supermarkets, pharmacies, and gas stations. Since I’m not going anywhere, I thought I’d send a picture from the archives. I took this picture close to home, in Waterloo Park, September 2019. I have to admit that I prefer being farther afield, but that’s not always an option, for various reasons. But, one can always explore one’s backyard. (Please do so safely!)

Be intentional about your time

Mon, 23 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Derek’s been doing a great job of keeping in touch with you all. My specific schtick in these emails has been travel-related tips, and that doesn’t work great right now. But let’s start with a picture from the archives. From simpler times (February 15!), here’s a tuatara photobombing a kakariki (NZ parakeet) at the Otoruhangu Kiwi House.

Something useful I’ve been doing in NZ is coarse-grained daily activity logging. Being on sabbatical is highly unstructured and, before all the recent news happened, I was concerned that my year might just slip away; keeping track of what I’m doing is a way to introspect about my activities. I’ve also been writing and posting monthly summaries based on the logs. You might try it to see if there’s a gap between how you would like to spend your days and how you actually spend your days. You do not have to work hard every waking minute. Instead, be intentional about your time and do what you choose, while also being self-compassionate.

Get Natural Sunlight!

Mon, 16 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I was thinking of this tip even before things got exciting, but it applies even better now in these times of social distancing.

This week’s tip: get natural sunlight!

It’s easy to be a nocturnal Software Engineering student. I don’t recommend it. As human beings, we do benefit from exposure to natural sunlight and the resulting Vitamin D. In Spring in the northern hemisphere, the associated extended daylight hours would normally be making it easier to do this. Even now, though, regularly taking outdoor walks with your family should be a safe and healthy activity. It’ll help with cabin fever and is a welcome change of pace.

Second month (plus 10 days) in Wellington

Sun, 08 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve now passed the halfway mark for my time in New Zealand, even with an extra 3 days courtesy of Air Canada/Air New Zealand—they rescheduled my return flight from 29 Apr to 2 May and I didn’t notice until I got the seat change email. I’m totally fine with an extra 3 days in New Zealand.

Classes have started again. I guess it’s like September in the northern hemisphere. Days are only 13 hours now, on their way to 10.5 hours when we go back north.

Beyond Diet: on red pandas and doing better

Sat, 07 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week I was busy writing code for a research project I’m working on here in New Zealand, so no travel pictures from me.

Here is a red panda in the Wellington Zoo (photo credit: Marie-Pascale Desjardins, as well as for suggesting this tip).

It turns out that red pandas and giant pandas are not related aside from both being cute animals. Giant pandas have a 99% bamboo diet, while red pandas are at 85% bamboo.

You also have to descend

Mon, 02 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Following up on last week’s tip, here’s a near-data-disaster from Rollen D’Souza:

I decided when I started grad school that I would always keep track of my research and general course notes in repositories. This wasn’t entirely just for backup purposes. It turns out that when you want to work on three different machines — work desktop, home desktop, surface laptop — making sure they are all synchronized with your latest work is non-trivial without some automated or manual tracking software. I use Mercurial (distributed vcs) because then there is an entirely cloneable copy of all my work on every machine I work on. (Why Mercurial versus git? Another story.) I’ve gotten into the habit of pulling, committing and pushing whatever I have whenever I work on a given machine.

What's Your Backup Strategy?

Sun, 23 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week’s tip: have and execute a backup strategy for your data.

Here’s a picture of Mount Ngauruhoe (which stood in for Mount Doom). I’m sharing a picture from my phone (auto-enhanced by Google Photos) because the better pictures are on the camera that I spent an hour unsuccessfully looking for, and which my spouse was really unhappy about losing.

Devices get lost or fail all the time. While truly irreplacable data is rare, some data is inconvenient or expensive to replace. Maybe you can’t re-do the assignment in time for the deadline. Every so often this happens to someone’s PhD thesis, which represents years of work. Don’t let that be you!

Bring less stuff!

Sun, 16 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Happy Reading Week! This week’s life tip is, for now, most relevant to those of you not from the Greater Toronto Area, if you happen to be going home for the week. Experience shows that it will apply to many of you in the next few years.

Tip: Bring less stuff!

There is often a skill versus stuff tradeoff. With more skill you can often improvise for having less stuff. A technical example is being able to use vim versus having to use a heavyweight editor that is tied to a particular operating system. And I say that as an emacs user. But vim works in resource-constrained environments over flaky connections (use mobile shell, mosh, for such connections).

Rock climbing in Wanaka

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

MP and I joined a NZAC Wellington club trip which was planned in two parts: Wanaka sport climbing and Darrans alpine granite. We only signed up for the sport climbing part. The granite part got rained out and people did more alpine objectives around Queenstown/Wanaka. Thanks to Derek for organizing!

Driving

We spent almost 0 time in Queenstown, driving directly to the Pak’N’Save grocery store just outside the airport and then to Wanaka over the Crown Range (highest main road in New Zealand!). On the way back we stopped at the “The Argonath on the Anduin River” (Lord of the Rings) and also apparently the birthplace of bungy jumping.

First month in Wellington

Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Sabbaticals are a large block of unscheduled time. Time always passes. Have I done stuff in my time in Wellington so far?

Professional

I’ve started a number of collaborations with colleagues in Wellington, and am thinking of a survey paper and an essay in particular. I’m excited about contributing to these projects. I hope to have more to report in my February update.

In other news I have a climbing-related submission to the Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism (sadly an Elsevier journal) which got a revise-and-resubmit. Progress!

Look at the Details

Sun, 26 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week, we went to the Rangiwahia Hut for a walk (“tramp”) and then to some caves with glow worms. We have seen glow worms at night in Wellington but we were here four hours before sunset, so no glow worms for us.

Today’s tip: looking closely at things can reveal unexpected details.

Don't be a weka

Sun, 19 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Kapiti Island is a nature reserve from which the New Zealand Department of Conservation has removed non-native predators (possums, rats, etc.)

Weka is not just a machine learning toolkit, but also a vulnerable flightless New Zealand bird. The bird will steal your lunch that is right in front of you on the table and run away with it if you don’t chase after it.

Life tip: Don’t be a weka. Cooperate generously with people. Good collaborations go two ways: make sure that both parties get something out of the collaboration.

January 2020 Reflections

Mon, 13 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Bryan Cantrill (of dtrace fame) writes about engineering performance management.

https://twitter.com/bcantrill/status/1216491216356823040

He suggests the following five questions for engineers to answer twice a year.

What are you most proud of in the last six months?
What did you learn?
Where did you struggle?
What are you anxious about in the coming six months?
What are you excited about in the coming six months?

Most proud of

Having recently removed the se-director email from my Thunderbird, I realized that this role consumed a lot of time and energy. I am most proud of having completed my term and helping students, both in the moment (advising and leading the advising team) and through program changes.

Patrick Lam's Research Publications

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Refereed Publications

Alex Le Blanc and Patrick Lam. VSTTE 2025: Lessons Learned So Far From a Community Effort to Verify the Rust Standard Library (work-in-progress). [arXiv, bib]
Vinayak Sharma and Patrick Lam. SCAM 2025: Detecting Exception-Related Behavioural Breaking Changes with UnCheckGuard. [bib, artifact, slides]
Karoliine Holter, Simmo Saan, Patrick Lam, and Vesal Vojdani. TOPLAS, with presentation at PLDI: Sound Static Data Race Verification for C: Is the Race Lost? [bib, artifact]
Alex Le Blanc and Patrick Lam. HATRA 2024: Surveying the Rust Verification Landscape. [arXiv, bib]
Mohammad Mahdi Abdollahpour, Jens Dietrich, and Patrick Lam. SCAM 2024: Enhancing Security through Modularization: A Counterfactual Analysis of Vulnerability Propagation and Detection Precision. [bib, slides pdf, google slides]
Karoliine Holter, Juhan-Oskar Hennoste, Patrick Lam, Simmo Saan, Vesal Vojdani. Onward! 2024: Abstract Debuggers: Exploring Program Behaviors Using Static Analysis Results. [bib, slides]
Karoliine Holter, Juhan-Oskar Hennoste, Simmo Saan, Patrick Lam, Vesal Vojdani. DEBT 2024: Abstract Debugging with GobPie (Demo). [slides, video, bib]
Mohammad Robati Shirzad and Patrick Lam. Empirical Software Engineering, volume 29, issue 2, article 44. March 2024. A Study of Common Bug Fix Patterns in Rust (preprint). [bib]
Dakota Wong, Austin Kothig, and Patrick Lam. HATRA 2022: Exploring the Verifiability of Code Generated with GitHub Copilot. [presentation, bib]
Sruthi Venkatanarayanan, Jens Dietrich, Craig Anslow, and Patrick Lam. VISSOFT 2022 NIER: VizAPI: Visualizing Interactions between Java Libraries and Clients. [bib, dataset, demo]
David Carter, Garrett Hutson, Patrick Lam, Nate Furman, and Jeff Rose. 2020. Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism: The Self-Governance Challenges Facing Climbers, with Examples from Utah, Colorado, and Ontario (preprint). [bib, publisher site]
Qian Liang and Patrick Lam. ICSME NIER 2020: SiblingClassTestDetector: Finding Untested Sibling Functions. [bib, video]
Patrick Lam, Jens Dietrich, and David J. Pearce. Onward! Essays 2020: Putting the Semantics into Semantic Versioning. [bib, video, arXiv]
Jon Eyolfson and Patrick Lam. ICSE 2019: How C++ Developers Use Immutability Declarations: an Empirical Study. [bib, artifact]
Andrei Marian Dan, Patrick Lam, Torsten Hoefler, and Martin Vechev. OOPSLA 2016: Modeling and Analysis of Remote Memory Access Programming. [bib, artifact]
Jon Eyolfson and Patrick Lam. ECOOP 2016: C++ const and Immutability: An Empirical Study of Writes-Through-const. [bib, artifact]
Brian Demsky and Patrick Lam. OOPSLA 2015: SATCheck: SAT-Directed Stateless Model Checking for SC and TSO. [bib]
Zheng (Felix) Fang and Patrick Lam. PPPJ 2015: Identifying Test Refactoring Candidates with Assertion Fingerprints. [bib]
Quinn Hanam, Lin Tan, Reid Holmes and Patrick Lam. MSR 2014: Finding Patterns in Static Analysis Alerts: Improving Actionable Alert Ranking. [bib]
Jon Eyolfson, Lin Tan and Patrick Lam. Empirical Software Engineering, volume 19, number 4, August 2014. Correlations between Bugginess and Time-Based Commit Characteristics. [bib]
- Supercedes: Jon Eyolfson, Lin Tan and Patrick Lam. MSR 2011: Do Time of Day and Developer Experience Affect Commit Bugginess?. [bib]
Brian Demsky and Patrick Lam. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, vol. 22 no. 1, February 2013. Views: Synthesizing Fine-Grained Concurrency Control. [bib]
- Supercedes: Brian Demsky and Patrick Lam. ICSE 2010: Views: Object-Inspired Concurrency Control. [bib, source]
Jon Eyolfson and Patrick Lam. RV 2012: Detecting Unread Memory using Dynamic Binary Translation. [bib]
Eric Bodden, Patrick Lam and Laurie Hendren. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, vol. 23 no. 2, June 2012. Partially evaluating finite-state runtime monitors ahead of time. [bib].
Hang Chu and Patrick Lam. SOAP 2012: Collection Disjointness Analysis. [bib].
Patrick Lam, Eric Bodden, Ondrej Lhotak, and Laurie Hendren. CETUS 2011: The Soot framework for Java program analysis: a retrospective. [bib, slides]
Sebastian Fischmeister and Patrick Lam. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, vol. 6 no. 4, November 2010. Time-Aware Instrumentation of Embedded Software [bib].
- Supercedes: Sebastian Fischmeister and Patrick Lam. RTAS 2009: On Time-Aware Instrumentation of Programs [bib].
Eric Bodden, Patrick Lam and Laurie Hendren. RV 2010: Clara: a Framework for Partially Evaluating Finite-state Runtime Monitors Ahead of Time. [bib]
Jeff Zarnett, Mahesh Tripunitara, and Patrick Lam. SACMAT 2010: Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) in Java via Proxy Objects using Annotations [bib].
Jeff Zarnett, Patrick Lam and Mahesh Tripunitara. ICISS 2009: Method-Specific Java Access Control via RMI Proxy Objects using Annotations (Short Paper) [bib].
Eric Bodden, Patrick Lam and Laurie Hendren. FSE 2008: Finding Programming Errors Earlier by Evaluating Runtime Monitors Ahead-of-Time [pdf, bib].
Eric Bodden, Patrick Lam and Laurie Hendren. BCS 2008: Object Representatives: a uniform abstraction for pointer information [pdf, bib, slides].
Eric Bodden, Laurie Hendren, Patrick Lam, Ondrej Lhotak, and Nomair A. Naeem. Journal of Logic and Computation 2010: Collaborative runtime verification with tracematches [bib]
- Supercedes: Eric Bodden, Laurie Hendren, Patrick Lam, Ondrej Lhotak, Nomair A. Naeem. RV 2007: Collaborative runtime verification with tracematches [pdf, bib].
Patrick Lam and Martin Rinard. Next Generation Software Workshop at the International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium. Static Verification of Design Constraints and Software Correctness Properties in the Hob System.
Viktor Kuncak, Patrick Lam, Karen Zee and Martin Rinard. Transactions on Software Engineering, December 2006. Modular Pluggable Analyses for Data Structure Consistency [pdf, bib].
Thomas Wies, Viktor Kuncak, Patrick Lam, Andreas Podelski and Martin Rinard. VMCAI 2006: Field Constraint Analysis [pdf, bib].
Viktor Kuncak, Patrick Lam, Karen Zee and Martin Rinard. VSTTE 2005: Implications of a Data Structure Consistency Checking System [pdf, bib].
Patrick Lam, Viktor Kuncak and Martin Rinard. Tool Demo at CC 2005: Hob: A Tool for Verifying Data Structure Consistency [pdf, bib].
Patrick Lam, Viktor Kuncak and Martin Rinard. AOSD 2005: Cross-cutting Techniques in Program Specification and Analysis [pdf, bib].
Patrick Lam, Viktor Kuncak and Martin Rinard. VMCAI 2005: Generalized Typestate Checking for Data Structure Consistency [pdf, bib].
Karen Zee, Patrick Lam, Viktor Kuncak and Martin Rinard. SVV 2004: Combining Theorem Proving with Static Analysis for Data Structure Consistency [pdf, bib].
Patrick Lam and Martin Rinard. ECOOP 2003: A Type System and Analysis for the Automatic Extraction and Enforcement of Design Information [pdf, bib]. The slides are also available. ([ps] [pdf])
Viktor Kuncak, Patrick Lam and Martin Rinard. POPL 2002: Role Analysis [bib].
Viktor Kuncak, Patrick Lam and Martin Rinard. LCPC 2001: A Language for Role Specifications.
Vijay Sundaresan, Laurie Hendren, Chrislain Razafimahefa, Raja Vallée-Rai, Patrick Lam, Etienne Gagnon and Charles Godin. OOPSLA 2000: Practical Virtual Method Resolution for Java [bib].
Raja Vallée-Rai, Etienne Gagnon, Laurie Hendren, Patrick Lam, Patrice Pominville, and Vijay Sundaresan. CC 2000: Optimizing Java Bytecode using the Soot Framework: Is it Feasible? [bib] (I gave the presentation for this paper.)
Raja Vallée-Rai, Phong Co, Etienne Gagnon, Laurie Hendren, Patrick Lam, and Vijay Sundaresan. CASCON 1999: Soot: A Java bytecode optimization framework.

Posters and Presentations

Patrick Lam. Hot Takes on Machine Learning for Program Analysis. Invited talk at UCalgary, May 2025. [PDF]
Patrick Lam. Hot Takes on Machine Learning for Program Analysis (Director's Cut). Invited talk at UBC, May 2023. [video, PDF]
Patrick Lam. Hot Takes on Machine Learning for Program Analysis. Keynote at PNW-PLSE, May 2023.
Patrick Lam. Are Ownership Types Reaching the World Yet? Invited talk at 7th International Workshop on Aliasing, Capabilities and Ownership.
Patrick Lam. Static and Dynamic Analysis of Test Suites. Invited talk at 3rd Annual ETH Zurich Software Reliability Workshop. [video]
Patrick Lam. Test Suites and Program Analysis. Contributed talk at 2015 Google Test Automation Conference. [video]
Patrick Lam. Beyond Coverage: What Lurks in Test Suites? Contributed talk at 2014 Google Test Automation Conference. [video]
Patrick Lam, Viktor Kuncak and Martin Rinard. Hob: A Tool for Verifying Data Structure Consistency. Tool demo at Compiler Construction 2005.
Patrick Lam. Colloque du Département d'Informatique et recherche opérationnelle: The Hob System for Verifying Data Structure Consistency Properties. [pdf, handout front: svg, png, back: svg, png]
Patrick Lam. Québec Programming Languages Seminaire, Fall 2004: The Hob System for Verifying Data Structure Consistency Properties [sxi].
Patrick Lam, Viktor Kuncak and Martin Rinard. IBM Programming Languages Day, 2004: Modular Pluggable Analysis.
Patrick Lam. CRS Retreat, 2004: Modular Pluggable Analysis (overview). (How to bike to a workshop).
Patrick Lam and Martin Rinard. ECOOP 2003: A Typestate System for Simultaneous and Changing Data Structure Participation.
Patrick Lam and Martin Rinard. Eclipse Technology eXchange at ICSE 2003: A Type System and Analysis for the Automatic Extraction and Enforcement of Design Information.

Theses

Patrick Lam. PhD thesis, MIT, February 2007: The Hob System for Verifying Software Design Properties. [ps, bib]
Patrick Lam. MSc thesis, McGill University, August 2000: A Generalized Framework for the Flow Analysis of Concurrent Programs. [pdf, bib]

Other publications

Patrick Lam, Viktor Kuncak and Martin Rinard. Technical Report 933, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory: On Modular Pluggable Analyses Using Set Interfaces [ps, bib].
Patrick Lam, Viktor Kuncak and Martin Rinard. Generalized Typestate Checking Using Set Interfaces and Pluggable Analyses [ps, bib]. SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 39, Issue 3 (March 2004), pages 46-55.

2019 retrospective

Tue, 31 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

New year, new website! I hope to start breaking out of Associate Professor Purgatory in 2020 and what I’ve accomplished in 2019 will lay the groundwork for that.

Professional

I completed my 3 year 4 month term as SE Director. It’s been rewarding but work/work balance means that I’ve had less time to spend on research.

SE Director

I was thrilled that my students successfully nominated me for the Friend of EngSoc award. It was a great token of appreciation.

Optimal travel from Montreal to Waterloo

Sat, 28 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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

Thu, 26 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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

Thu, 26 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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

Mon, 11 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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

Sun, 08 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

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

Fri, 09 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Getting lucky with IRROPS enroute to Bagotville.

Yotel: A Review

Thu, 03 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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

Wed, 08 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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

Wed, 08 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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.

Lexicon

Wed, 08 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Lexicon

Here are some academic terms that I’ve invented.

Pre-battical. 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-battical 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.
Meeting spam. Presentations at meetings where the presenters feel that the participants should know about a topic, but where the participants' time cost exceeds the expected value to them.
Usage. "Gee, I sure didn't get much out of that meeting spam."

Letter to Minister Bardish Chagger

Thu, 28 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Letter to Minister Bardish Chagger

My parents

Dear Minister Chagger,

I am writing to you as one of your constituents.

I know that multiculturalism is important to you from your past involvement with the KW Multicultural Centre. Given yesterday’s deplorable news from the United States about a ban on Syrian refugees, we in Canada absolutely must take up the slack as best we can. I understand that we’re accepting a number of Syrian refugees already; way less than Germany, but more than the US, and that this number continues to increase and is slated to be higher in 2017 than in 2016. However, we’re not doing enough.

Two Views of Columbia Crest Crater (Mount Rainier)

Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Shot above (July 8, 2009): at 14,400 ft (route to summit: Emmons-Winthrop Glacier) with David Wentzlaff and Aaron Yahr; shot below (May 1, 2013): at 36,000 ft, from AC 545 flying from LAS to YVR.

Engineering failures in real life

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

So here I am staying in a hotel in Burnaby BC. Outside my window I can see a “Save-on-Foods”. Hmm. Let’s see. Save-on-Foods. Burnaby. Wait! I remember something from the Professional Practice Exam book! [edit 2020: This was well before the Algo Centre Mall collapse in Elliot Lake.]

OK, so is that the Save-on-Foods in question? Google Maps tells me that my hotel is 0.3km from the Save-on-Foods in Station Square, as described below.

Travel options from Waterloo

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Travel options from Waterloo

I’ve tried to figure out various options for carless transportation from Waterloo. Here’s what I’ve discovered.

To Pearson Airport

Airways Transit option 1, door-to-door: 1.5hr, $80 for one direction. You have to wait for everyone to get on and off. They do tend to drive at reasonable highway speed.
Airways Transit option 2, Airporter: 2 hours from the UW Student Life Centre, limited schedules (departs 6am, 10:45am, 1:00pm, 3:30pm; returns 8:15am, 1:30pm, 3:15pm, 6:13pm) and even less on weekends. $46 per direction.
Greyhound to Toronto ($22, 1.5 hours) and Pearson airport express ($20). About the same cost as the Airporter, but more hassle and more schedules available. Cheaper if you have a student card.
Get to Mississauga Square One (works if you can take the FEDS bus) and then take the GO service to the airport ($3.50). Can be extremely cheap, if you can make it work for you, and probably isn’t all that slow either.

To Buffalo Airport

All reasonable options cost about $65.

Academic Tree circa 2003

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Pull requests accepted!

https://github.com/patricklam/plam.new-webpage

Henry M. Foley (physics)
+--Joseph Frederick Traub (1959, from Columbia) [Columbia] (quantum)
                http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~traub/
   +--Hsiang Tsung Kung (1973, from CMU) [Harvard] (networks)
                http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~htk/
       +--Baudet, Gerard M. (78, from CMU)
       +--Cohn, Robert J. (92, from CMU)*
       +--Fisher, Allan L. (84, from CMU)
       +--Foster, Michael J. (84, from CMU)
       +--Hsu, Feng-hsiung (89, from CMU)
       +--Lam, Monica S. (87, from CMU) [Stanford]
          +--Michael Wolf, (August 1992, from Stanford)
             Thesis: "Improving Parallelism and Locality in Nested Loops".
          +--Michael Smith (November 1992, from Stanford) [Harvard]
             Thesis: "Support for Speculative Execution in High-Performance 
                      Processors".
          +--Todd Mowry (March 1994, from Stanford) [CMU]
             Thesis: "Tolerating Latency Through Software-Controlled Data Prefetching".
          +--Martin Rinard (August 1994, from Stanford) [MIT]
             Thesis: "The Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of Jade, 
                      a Portable, Implicitly Parallel Programming Language"
             +---Pedro Diniz (May 1997, from UCSB) [ISI]
                 Thesis: "Commutativity Analysis: A New Analysis Framework 
                          for Parallelizing Compilers"
             +---Radu Rugina (January 2002, from UCSB) [Cornell]
          +--Daniel Scales (December 1995, from Stanford) [VMWare]
             Thesis: "Efficient Shared Objects for Distributed Address Space Machines"
          +--Saman Amarasinghe (January 1997, from Stanford) [MIT]
             Thesis: "Parallelizing Compiler Techniques Based on Linear Inequalities"
          +--Jennifer Anderson (March 1997, from Stanford) [VMWare]
             Thesis: "Automatic Computation and Data Decomposition 
                      for Multiprocessors"
          +--Robert Wilson (December 1997, from Stanford) [Tensilica]
             Thesis: "Efficient Context-Sensitive Pointer Analysis for C Programs"
          +--Jason Nieh (December 1998, from Stanford) [Columbia]
             Thesis: "The Design Implementation and Evaluation of SMART: 
                      A Scheduler for Multimedia Applications"
          +--Shih-wei Liao (August 2000, from Stanford) [Intel Research]
             Thesis: "SUIF Explorer: an Interactive and Interprocedural Parallelizer"
          +--Brian Schmidt (August 2000, from Stanford) [Kealia]
             Thesis: "Supporting Ubiquitous Computing with Stateless Consoles 
                      and Computation Caches"
          +--Patrick Sathyanathan (June 2001, from Stanford) [HP]
             Thesis: "Interprocedural Data Flow Analysis--Alias Analysis"
          +--Amy Lim (September 2001, from Stanford) [Axis]
             Thesis: "Improving Parallelism And Data Locality With Affine Partitioning"
       +--Lehman, Philip L. (84, from CMU)
       +--Leiserson, Charles E. (81, from CMU)
       +--Oflazer, Kemal (87, from CMU)
       +--Pieper, Jon (93, from CMU)*
       +--Printz, Harry (91, from CMU)
       +--Robinson, John T. (82, from CMU)
       +--Song, Siang W. (81, from CMU)
       +--Sussman, Alan (91, from CMU)*
       +--Thompson, Clark D. (80, from CMU)
       +--Wu, I-Chen (93) 
   +-- Don Heller (PhD, 1977, from CMU)
+-- Joseph Sucher (PhD, 1957, from Columbia) [Maryland] (theoretical physics)
    Thesis: "Energy levels of the two-electron atom, to order 3 Rydberg."

* - Co-Chairman

Sources:

Couch

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

“That’s a nice couch in your office, Patrick.”

When I moved into Edgerton House I realized that trying to live without furniture soon becomes deeply unsatisfactory: the floor just isn’t that great to sit on. To avoid a repeat of that experience, I quickly purchased furniture for my new place.

I found ads for a coffee table set and a couch on craigslist, which were actually posted by the same person. Better yet, this person had a van and offered to transport the furniture to my place. She was selling the coffee table set and a couch set: a one-place, a two-place, and the above three-place couch. My place is small, so I negotiated with her to purchase just the one- and three-place couches, and I recruited Todd (thanks again!) to help me move the couch into and out of the van.

How to bike to a workshop

Wed, 05 May 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Epic bike trip in Massachusetts.

Concrete Atria are not Atria!

Sun, 21 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000

I was happy to leave my old office, NE43-632, at 200 Technology Square, and move to 32-G730 in the Stata Center. My two complaints about Tech Square were: (1) lack of sunlight; and (2) white noise. I always found the white noise to be annoying, but the lack of sunlight was not always a problem. When I had first arrived at MIT in 2000, we did have natural sunlight in my office.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Teaching

I am teaching the following course in Spring 2022:

SE490: Design Project 1
ECE653: Software Testing, Quality Assurance, and Maintenance [S22 webpage]

Here’s some of the courses that I’ve taught in the past.

[F21] ECE 198: Design Project Studio (syllabus)
[S19] SE490: Design Project 1
[W19, W17, W10, W09] SE465: Software Testing, Quality Assurance & Maintenance (sometimes under ECE 453/CS447 numbers) [github]
[W22, W21, W19, W18, W15, W14, W13, W11] ECE459: Programming for Performance [github]
[F18, F16] SE 101: Introduction to Methods of Software Engineering [F18, F16]
[W22, W21, S12, F08] ECE750-T5: Static Analysis for Software Engineering [W22 webpage] [W21 webpage]
[S11, W11] ECE155: Engineering Design for Embedded Systems. [S11 syllabus, W11 syllabus]
[F10] ECE 251: Programming Languages and Translators
[W08] ECE 493T3: Component-Based Software Engineering
[S06] COMP 302 (McGill): Programming Languages and Paradigms [syllabus]

About me

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

(Last updated January 2020).

Professional

I’ve been at the University of Waterloo since January 2008, now as Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. I’ve also served as Director and Associate Director of the Software Engineering program.

The goal of my research is to help developers state and verify key properties of their software; I apply static analysis techniques to software engineering problems.

In 2007, I was a postdoc at McGill University’s School of Computer Science, working with the late Laurie Hendren, Eric Bodden, and the Sable research group. For many years before that, I was a PhD student at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, working with Martin Rinard, Viktor Kuncak, and others.

ECE 453/CS 447/CS 647 Software Testing, Quality Assurance, and Maintenance, Winter 2023

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Course Information: ECE 453/CS 447/CS 647 Software Testing, Quality Assurance, and Maintenance, Winter 2023

Course Outline
Lectures from Winter 2022 offering
Detailed View of Grading Policy
Project Description (for CS 647)
PDFs
Discussion will be on Piazza; let me know if you have not been added.
Grades will be pushed back to your git repo.

Important Dates (may change, assignment descriptions are correct)

Date	Event
Jan 9	A0 out
Jan 13	A0 due
Jan 16	A1 out
Jan 30	A1 due
Jan 23	Fuzz out (see your handin repo, under the fb directory)
Feb 13	Fuzz due
Feb 13	A2 out
Feb 15	Quiz 1
Mar 6	A2 due
Mar 6	A3 out
Mar 15	Quiz 2
Apr 10	A3 due
Apr 10	Last day of lectures
Apr 10	Project due

SymEx Jupyter Notebook

Referred to in one of the videos from W22. SymEx.ipynb

ECE 453/CS 447/CS 647 Software Testing, Quality Assurance, and Maintenance, Winter 2023: Grading Policy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Grading Scheme

Graduate students taking this course have a project. Undergraduate students are not required to do a project, but may choose to do so after consulting me.

ECE 453/CS 447

Assignments: 35%
- Assignment 1: 10%
- Fuzz Battle: 5%
- Assignment 2: 10%
- Assignment 3: 10%
Quizzes: 20%
- Quiz 1: 10%
- Quiz 2: 10%
Final Exam: 45%

CS 647

Assignments: 35%
- Assignment 1: 10%
- Fuzz Battle: 5%
- Assignment 2: 10%
- Assignment 3: 10%
Quizzes: 20%
- Quiz 1: 10%
- Quiz 2: 10%
Final Exam: 25%
Project: 20%

Comments and caveats

All assignments, quizzes, and tests that are submitted online will be returned online. Submissions will be by pushing to gitlab.

ECE 453/CS 447/CS 647 Software Testing, Quality Assurance, and Maintenance, Winter 2023: Projects

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

ECE 453/CS 447/CS 647: Projects

There are two choices of project. Projects can be done in groups of 2. You must declare your project by the end of Week 8. All projects must be approved by the instructor. Talk to me. Sooner the better. Deadline for project approval is Week 10. Projects are due by the last day of class.

ECE 653 Software Testing, Quality Assurance, and Maintenance, Spring 2022

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

ECE 653 S22: Grading

Assignments: 35%
- Assignment 1: 10%
- Fuzz Battle: 5%
- Assignment 2: 10%
- Assignment 3: 10%
Quizzes: 20%
- Quiz 1: 10%
- Quiz 2: 10%
Final Exam: 25%
Project: 20%

All assignments, quizzes, and tests that are submitted online will be returned online. Submissions will be by pushing to gitlab.

Final exam will be in-person.

All quizzes are take home, open book, closed internet. Each online test will be time limited and must be completed within 3 days. That is, you can pick the best time to take the test, but once you start, you have to finish within the given time limit.

ECE 653 Software Testing, Quality Assurance, and Maintenance, Spring 2022

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

ECE 653, Spring 2022: Syllabus (deprecated version)

(based on a previous version by Prof. Arie Gurfinkel; thanks!)

(this version is deprecated; official version at [https://outline.uwaterloo.ca/view/nrvxsk]).

Course Description and Main Topics

This course will provide an introduction to software testing and quality assurance techniques. The students will learn a wide spectrum of techniques and tools that can be used to improve and evaluate software quality ranging from mature testing methodologies to cutting edge automated verification algorithms. Topics to be covered include: coverage criteria (graph, data-flow, and logic coverage), symbolic execution (static, dynamic, concolic), constraint solving (SMT), inductive invariants, automatic deductive verification, automatic invariant synthesis, and Software Model Checking.

ECE 653 Software Testing, Quality Assurance, and Maintenance, Spring 2022

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Course Information

Course Outline
Lectures from Winter 2022 offering
Detailed View of Grading Policy
Project Description
PDFs
Discussion will be on Piazza; let me know if you have not been added.
Grades will be posted on LEARN.

Important Dates (may change, assignment descriptions are correct)

Date	Event
May 3	A0 out
May 9	A0 due
May 10	A1 out
June 3	A1 due
May 26	Fuzz out (see your handin repo, under the fb directory)
June 13	Fuzz due (was June 10)
June 13	Quiz 1 out
June 14	A2 out
July 4	A2 due (first workday after July 1 holiday)
July 5	A3 out
July 5	Quiz 2 out
July 26	A3 due
July 26	Last class
August 5	Project due

SymEx Jupyter Notebook

Referred to in one of the videos from W22. SymEx.ipynb

ECE 653 Software Testing, Quality Assurance, and Maintenance, Spring 2022: Projects

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

ECE 653 S22: Project

The exact project deliverables depend on the project chosen. All projects must include approximately a 10 page report. The length of the report depends on the amount of code involved in the project (i.e., more code means shorter report).

Free Software

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I enjoy contributing to free software projects. Unfortunately, I somehow haven't had time to contribute anything recently. However, here are some of the projects that I've contributed to in the past.

Soot, a compiler framework for Java bytecode. I implemented the Grimp intermediate representation, which contains aggregated expressions (rather than the simple three-address code of Jimple). I also did general Soot hacking.
AbiWord, a free word processor. I contributed a number of bug fixes and the initial version of endnotes to AbiWord.
fontconfig, a font selection and configuration library for the X Window System. I implemented mmap-able caching for font information.
I developed a (GPL) formula viewer for MONA input files. It uses SableCC 3.0's ability to display ASTs using Swing.
I've written an o'caml backend for SableCC 3, available in diff form from Indrek Mandre's svn tree, at svn://svn.sablecc.org/developers/indrek/sandbox/sablecc-indrek/.

Posts Archive

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Research

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Research

My publications contain more technical descriptions of my research.

My research aims to develop tools and techniques to help developers produce more reliable software systems. In particular, I am developing (1) lightweight specification languages, which enable developers to state key properties of their software, and (2) static analysis techniques, which enable compilers to verify that these properties actually hold.

Technology. Static analysis determines properties of a program without actually executing the program; contrast this to dynamic analysis, which collects program properties by observing program executions. Optimizing compilers have used static analysis to eliminate unnecessary computations and thereby speed up program executions. In the software engineering domain, static analysis has been used, for instance, to find potential null pointer bugs and to verify that device drivers always respect API usage requirements.

Static Analysis for Software Engineering, Winter 2021

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Outline v1: pdf

Presentation tips

Papers list: google doc

Project suggestions: google doc

Week 1 video: https://youtu.be/1KeJZGZvfFQ

Final exam

Static Analysis for Software Engineering, Winter 2022

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Outline v3: pdf

Presentation tips

Lecture 1: How to science

Papers list: google doc

Project suggestions: google doc

Week 1 presentation by me

2021 Final exam, for reference

2022 Final exam