Category Archives: Uncategorized
Surge pricing (at Uber)
When prices vary in a programmed way on the basis of time, demand, or resource scarcity, this is typically done in the form of a rebate or discount factor: the high price is taken as a reference, and the price … Continue reading
E-mail spam: the fun side of it
All of you experience the daily strain of having to remove tons of e-mail spam messages, talking of vacant successions, ousted rulers, remote relatives you didn't know of, etc. The one advise is NOT to answer any of these messages, … Continue reading
Two days in Rennes (at Télécom Bretagne)
Some days ago, I was in Rennes for two days, serving on a PhD committee at Télécom Bretagne. As you may know, Télécom Bretagne is the name of the engineering school that was formerly known as the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des … Continue reading
Oh, it's so boring...
While attending the PODC conference in Paris, I had an interesting phone conversation with M., a long-time dear friend of mine (Though she will probably never read these lines, I prefer sticking to the initial of her name, just in … Continue reading
Data protection ant IT security after Snowden
This was the title of the keynote speech delivered by Peter Schaar at the Annual Privacy Forum 2014 held in Athens. The speaker is presently the Chairman of the European Academy for Freedom of Information and Data Protection (EAID), after having … Continue reading
Browsers
My friends, my colleagues and students alike know my passion for Apple products (and my parallel dislike for Microsoft ones). My only deviation from total devotion to the iPod-iPhone-iPad-Mac range is due to the iPhone not having a large enough … Continue reading
How to run a paper mill
Many years ago, while sifting through the shelves of one of my favorite bookshops (Foyles at Charing Cross Road, London), I found out a nice booklet that seemed to be out of place. The book was "How to run a … Continue reading
Speed limits for translation
Last week, I was giving a class in my course on Computer Science for Foreign Languages, when, to justify the use of translation memories as an essential aid for the professional translator, I had to provide some figures about the related … Continue reading
In the beginning it was the Impact Factor
When I started my career as a researcher (very late 80's...), I was told to publish on international journals of good reputation. And in those days good reputation basically meant journals with an Impact Factor as high as possible (i.e., … Continue reading
I'm on Academia
I've just created my profile on Academia. Now you can follow my work (and inform me about yours) on the Academia website as well.
