Alon’s Blog

We are the finalists!

Today I participated in the Israeli English Open Debating Championship at IDC in Herzliya. In a British Parliamentary Style debate four teams of two debaters represent two opposing opinions. The adjudicators then rank the teams according to how convincing they were and based on some rules.

In today’s tournament, me and my partner Mark broke to the finals, which means we were one on the four top ranked teams out of 20. We won two of the three preliminary rounds, and came third in the other round. We were the highest-ranked team of the three Technion teams.

The final was between us, two teams from IDC, and a legendary team of two very experienced debaters. The motion for the final was “This house believes in immediate withdrawal from Iraq”. We were first opposition. We did not win. However, all finalists got a medal, and so did I.

July 20th, 2007 at 01:52 Posted by epsalon | Debate | 3 comments

Handbag Only

Last week I flew back home with no luggage, with only a handbag. This was due to the fact that I left my luggage at my brother’s house in Saarbrücken. I will pick the luggage up when I return to Dagstuhl (and my brother) in October.

However, then I will be flying from the US and back, and thus will be able to carry the luggage left at my brother’s house in addition to whatever luggage I fly with to the US.

So, how do you fly handbag only? I checked in for my flights the day before and printed out an electronic boarding pass. I then used this boarding pass to go directly to the gate and board the flight without even passing the checking counters. Even my Silver status was mentioned on the boarding pass, so I got to use priority boarding as well.

In the Amsterdam - Tel Aviv leg I was assigned a whole row, but shortly before departure the flight attendants had to move two children who sat near the emergency exit to my row.

Upon landing at Ben Gurion airport, I head directly outside and wait for a shared taxi that (after three hours) brought me home.

July 16th, 2007 at 13:08 Posted by epsalon | Frequent Flyer, Germany, Travel | 3 comments

Things to do before I leave 2: Academic obligations

Part two of my to-do list include academic, teaching and research obligations. Not all of these stuff HAVE to be done before I leave, but optimally they should:

• Submit initial draft of thesis.
• Finish all obligations for PhD, including exam and final submission of thesis.
• Review paper for JET.
• Revise paper for JAIR and submit.
• Complete guiding Avivit in writing journal version of our joint paper.
• Guide Ohad Lutzky in conducting experiment and then writing a paper for AAMAS 2008 (deadline: October).
• Write journal versions for two additional papers.
• Write, supervise, and check second exam in Electronic Commerce.
• Check final project in Electronic Commerce course.

Stay tuned for part 3, which will include preparations for arrival at Stanford, and part 4 which will list the stuff that need to be done upon arrival.

July 14th, 2007 at 05:31 Posted by epsalon | Academia, USA | 2 comments

Things to do before I leave (part 1)

One of the things one can do to reduce the stress of an uncertain situation is to prepare, and the way to prepare is to make lists of things that need to be done. It’s much easier to cope when you know what you need to do, and even easier when you have a plan on when to do what.

So, here’s my todo list for my trip abroad. If you have any tips or comments about this list, feel free to comment or e-mail me.

Part 1 of the list is stuff related to leaving the country. Striked off items have already been done.

• See a doctor.
• See dentist.
• Close bank accounts and cancel credit cards.
• Find place to host new server.
• Move all services to new server.
  • Blog
  • Course websites
  • Debate club website
  • Fisheye scripts website
  • Tab system (gentab)
  • Taki game
  • Main server and short link generator
  • Move default subdomain
• Make a notraized power of attorney document.
• Clean up and evict dorms and office.
• Organize my room and stuff to be left behind, gather documents that need to be with me.

Today I striked off the first item on this list and went to see a doctor, and scheduled blood tests to ascertain my medical situation and to deal with some non-urgent problems.

Stay tuned part 2 of this list — preperation for living abroad.

July 12th, 2007 at 21:28 Posted by epsalon | USA | one comment

Accepted

I’m happy to tell you all that my paper was accepted to the Journal of Artificial Intelligence research. This means I will soon have a journal publication from my PhD research in one of the most important journals in AI.

The acceptance was conditional on some revisions being made, or to quote the editor:

After some deliberation, I have concluded that the paper should be ACCEPTED, with the very clear proviso that the comments below MUST be addressed in the revised version of the paper. If any of the reviewers feel that no serious, wholehearted attempt has been made to address the issues, then the paper WILL be rejected, without any further possibility for resubmission/revision.

This gives me yet another thing to work on in the time being. This work is in addition to a paper I was asked to review and two other papers I’m in the process of writing, not to mention two additional journal papers that I should write.

July 9th, 2007 at 16:18 Posted by epsalon | Academia | 6 comments