Donkey Carrying Books - Beyond the Black Box

Recently arXiv limits the catchup section to be only available for the last 90 days. Before this, the catch up section allows up to previous whole year. Suddenly, it was changed a few weeks ago. So, I thought I continue what I have been doing, but now another problem arises when I scoured more recent catch-up materials. My (quick) browsing of links probably has automatically triggered something that arXiv reported back 'rate exceeded'. This makes me reflect more on why I'm doing this.

When I was in Singapore years ago, I remembered an academic staff there saying 'what a waste of time' on seeing me archiving links for my own use. I was startled by the comment and in some way felt offended. I tried to rationalize my behaviour as trying to be on top of scientific topics that I have some (vague) interests in it. Indeed, because of this, I have accumulated a lot of (hard-copy) materials (see pictures below) and perhaps even more of soft-copy materials.

Part of this behaviour is perhaps can be traced to my personal insecurity for being a member of a community that has been looked down upon (negative stereotypes) by others. I was brought into a culture that often looks up to others (particularly the West) with a form of inferiority complex. I wanted to be better and if possible prove these stereotypes being wrong. Having spent my time abroad, I saw this mindset being erroneous; one could be as good as others (if not better) as long as we put the work in it. Besides that, there will always be a better person somewhere and one is not really doomed by whatever stereotypes are there. A motto I had once was being a counterexample is (perhaps) more important than being an example.

Perhaps another strand of influence is from the family. I do remember my dad used to collect magazines, comics and books. On such collecting behaviour, I do notice that it runs in the family. One of my brother likes to record sports events, personalities etc. My musician brother tends to keep discographies of musicians, music magazines and of course audio materials. My own book-collecting behaviour perhaps started after I had some form of financial independence after joining UPM as a tutor. Before that I had quite a large music collection, pursuing the same interest as my musician brother. So one could guess where all my savings go.

I remembered one of my head of department saying that one sometimes needs to be a little crazy alluding to my behaviour of accumulating so much academic materials. A colleague in the Maths Institute once reminded me indirectly not to be like 'a donkey carrying books' (see Al-Jumu'ah verse 5). I was puzzled by this and reflected deeply on the matter until now. Another younger colleague commented on my behaviour of having too wide of an interest as probably set up as an excuse for not finishing one particular job. This remark too, I carried it in my mind until now. I certainly want to improve myself and not carry any form of disorder and behaviour that is adverse to my (mental, spiritual) growth. I make do'a almost every time in my prayers that I be granted beneficial knowledge and wisdom, and not to be lead astray.

This 'disorder' has sometimes 'paid off' particularly when interacting with international friends and visitors. Some expressed surprise of how much I know and some showed mutual respect. I'm saying this not to be egoistic but just the basic comfort of feeling good and at times feelings of achievement just enough for me to move on and grow.

At this old age, many times I felt I should stop and prepare only for my next life. However I still have to work and thus there is the need to be updated with new knowledge. A dream would be to discover something significant in my field but this is slipping away from me. I'm contented, however, knowing that I have tried my best and help develop theoretical physics here. Particularly, I wish to change our academic environment to be more technical in the mathematics being used. If there is a theme for this wish is to experience mathematics beyond a black box. For now on the archiving process, I will probably just limit myself to new arXiv listings, which requires me to browse daily (though there is the risk of some of these listings may be retracted or modified later).

Printer Desire Give-In, Fitting In, and the Nobel Surprise

In my last post, I mentioned about suppressing my desires to buy my personal stuff to conserve savings for unexpected expenses. This includes getting a new printer for my (teaching) job, hoping that my old printer momentarily shows signs of life (unfortunately, it did not) and at worst, I will have to send my printing jobs to a nearby shop (note: even the nearby stationery shop showed signs of closing down as sales plummet after the pandemic). By Sunday, I had this thought of giving in to the desire of buying a new printer (I don't know why). Thus, I've ordered a new multi-function printer online (usually cheaper than buying a new one from a local store). The only thing is that I won't get the printer there and then. To my surprise and delight, the new printer arrived in late afternoon yesterday. I did not do immediately the unboxing as I was too tired after coming back from work.

Later in the night, my youngest son help me do the unboxing and do the installation of the new printer. Initially, we could not get the printer to communicate with the laptop despite several attempts on the printer configuration. Luckily, I thought that it might not be the problem of the printer but possibly due to my laptop. Indeed, it only worked after rebooting the laptop.

So, I will now bid farewell to my old printer (due to be 'thrown' on Saturday when the local city council comes to collect recyclable goods).

Incidentally, sometime yesterday, I was told to print quiz questions to bring to my Monday class, which has 72 students. So, the new printer arrived at the right time for me to do this. On my current teaching job, I have gotten used to the system a bit more, doing more messaging through Microsoft Teams including booking venues for my replacement classes. On this, I must say doing replacement classes is a bit of a challenge given the large size of my classes. My smallest class has 72 students (the other two classes have 91 students and 111 students). Due to my past experience with not so good student evaluation in the past, I became more sensitive with students' grievances. So last Monday, when students were divided about my extension of the 3-hour class to four hours (since there is no class after my class), I took it seriously. I suggest to the students again to participate in the forum created in Moodle to find more suitable times for them (I saw one of them has responded and will no longer push for a 4-hour class). I must say, it will be almost impossible to satisfy every student's request given such a large number and hope that they understand this.

After my class yesterday (Tuesday), I met Dr. Foong See Kit who continued to teach part-time in Physics Department. I told him that I have crossed over to Maths Department after its HoD contacted me sometime before the semester starts. We also talked about roles of a part-time instructor in comparison to a full-time staff and shared some thoughts. The main thing is that we are there to facilitate with the teaching needed there and much of this stemmed from our desires to stay active and our love for teaching (of course, the money helps). In any case, I hope I can fit in better this time round and will go through the current semester successfully.

Trying to fit in is somewhat a story of my life, being a mathematical physicist of some sort. While in Physics Department, I had some trouble fitting in; while in Institute for Mathematical Research, found myself like an outsider as well (probably just my feelings then). There is a cliche saying of "To a physicist, I am a mathematician; to a mathematician, a physicist" (see this post). Perhaps a healthier (more positive) outlook is to say "With physicists, I would like to think like a physicist. With mathematicians, I would like to think like a mathematician." This saying is attributed to Sir Michael Berry but I could not find where precisely he said this (I remembered reading it). Searched the internet and found this interesting interview instead; putting it here for my reference. While in this topic of what fits what, yesterday, was the announcement of 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics. It went to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton for the work on neural networks. It was certainly a surprise for me but some say that they lay the foundations of artificial intellige.nce, the current rave today. I know the name Hopfield through the Hopfield model in neural networks but was unaware of the name Hinton. I remembered borrowing books from my late eldest brother on theory of neural networks and neurocomputing; sadly I was not able to salvage them. Given the announcement yesterday, it spurred a lot of discussion about whether it should have been an award for physics or not. The Nobel Laureate Giorgio Parisi had this to say in a comment to Sabine's post:

"I think that the Nobel prize in physics should continue to spread into more regions of physics knowledge: physics is becoming wider and wider and it contains many areas of knowledge that did not exist in the past or were not part of physics. In the nutshell, physics is that part of science that depends essentially on mathematics and it is in a huge expansion both for conceptual reasons and for the incredible power of modern computers."

For me, in some ways, labels have become less important to me as I have a very wide interest in many subjects (though AI particularly NN, has yet to become one apart from Nature Language, which I have substantial interest) and whatever differences are there with respect to these labels do not form an interesting topic for me. I will certainly not say (at least in public) that the award should not be for physics (I'm very sure that the committee has thought a lot and debated on this). In any case, Howard Wiseman had this to say (paraphrasing), 'Now we know how chemists feel when physicists won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry'.

String theorist Ooguri in someone else's post, pointed to this article by Hopfield showing how much a physicist he is (doing solid state theory), before venturing out in biological physics and later to neural networks. Of course, some would still argue whether the results that he was cited for the Nobel Prize can be categorized as physics. For me, it is perhaps the physics-oriented thinking that one should look at. I still remember when we (Dr. Chan and me) started complex networks research in Institute for Mathematical Research  and published some local papers, Dr. Chan was uncomfortable with the question of whether the area (with applications to social systems) is really physics, I replied that part of complex networks fundamental work are being looked through the lens of statistical physics and hence should not worry too much. Much later, in a different setting, I quipped, if there is a 'Fizik Tulen', then the rest must be 'Fizik Tiruan'. This is meant to be a joke. Much of recent years, I have become more and more interested in condensed matter theories when topological and geometrical techniques find their way into condensed matter in a rather non-obvious way and in fact realizing abstract features normally found in more fundamental physics. Thus, I appreciate the evolution of Hopfield's research morphing from one area to another.

By the way, despite the Nobel Prize announcement yesterday, I have resisted the temptation to post anything on my FB. Perhaps (much) later, I will break this hiatus with some silly cat posting.

Silencing Myself

It has been more than a week since I have posted anything on FB and I guess it will be that way for some time.

There are many reasons why I'm doing this and some I can't understand why. At times, I responded to some posts, some I felt good about it, while at other times, I regretted doing so in a way. My own posts tend to be something I want to remember, be it family or personal events, academic materials or even music videos (due to my musical interests) and I can recall them back some time in the future, if needed. One thing I have noticed when my posts or replies get to be 'popular', there will be a wave of friend requests. Many times I will simply ignore them but occasionally I do accept them, thinking that the individuals may share similar interests. So recently I accepted a friend request, thinking that the person may be interested in what I post. I do check their profiles before accepting requests (some locked their profiles and then I look at who are their friends), and for the said person, I saw that the person is having health problems but probably the person has scientific interests. However, later the person started to message me in messenger, asking for some financial help. Like many messages from people I do not really know, I ignored it. At the time, I have already tried to shy away from FB. Later, probably out of desperation, the person began to comment on my posts, asking for financial help rather publicly. That caused me to stop doing any further posts. In fact, the first few days after that, I logged out from my FB account.

While I may sympathise with whatever difficulties the person is going through, I do not really know the person and my priority is to help whom I know and those who are closer to me. Even then I have my limits, I can only help when I am abled to do so. I remembered helping somebody and then the person kept asking for more help and turned out to be a nuisance. Given so many commitments that I have, I have only finite resources, and can only help when I have surplus. If I don't, I even suppressed my desires just to make sure my family is well-fed and in emergencies, I'll be able to sort problems out. As expenses tend to soar in recent period, even this possibility seems to be at risk. Right now, I even defer purchasing a multi-purpose printer (which I really need for my job), because the old broken printer can be found to work intermittently after switching it off for a long time. However I'm getting desperate because it doesn't work when I wanted it to. Such is the condition of the (only) printer I have and my laptop too is having problems, particularly the battery. When I asked Prof. Teo to help with my MS Teams problem weeks ago, she asked how old is my laptop. I guessed it was about seven to eight years old. Indeed, I would really like to have a new laptop but this would be among the last in my list at the moment.

Back to my silence in FB, it may go on for some time since many times I don't like what I'm seeing or reading in FB. I can understand that people write things on social media to make themselves feel better but they don't need to put down others (disappointingly). Perhaps, I see such attitude have similarities with those causing fasad in this world at this moment (some form of supremacy).

Teaching at XMUM, Commitments and Quantum Furore

I have started teaching part-time at XMUM but now in the Maths Department and we are now about to go in Week Three. Week One had Malaysia Day and the birthday of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and the university has the policy of replacing lectures that fall on public holidays. I haven't done mine yet since I have large classes and it is difficult to find a common time for all. My Linear Algebra class has around 70+ students from largely Computer Science School, while my other two Quantitative Methods and Data Analysis classes are 90+ and 100+ students, largely from Finance and International Business programs. To help me prepare these classes, I bought two books that burned a hole in my pocket with a cost of around RM1300.

I had to buy them so that I can get details out from the common lecture notes of the courses. The books are expensive because they have coloured pages printed on glossy paper and each book has around 600 and 800 pages respectively.

So, even before I can earn money from this part-time teaching, I was already spending quite a lot (including the air-conditioning unit mentioned in this post for my comfort working at home). I hope this will pay off in the long run. So here are my two classes for the finance and international business students.

The facilities there are good, with projectors on both sides of the room. For my Linear Algebra class, the lecture room is smaller and flat-leveled and it had only one projector (I guess, less business-like).

As a part-time staff, I do not have a room to work in. So instead, I work in the library or in some public spaces, together with students. For privacy, I tend to prepare most work at home, usually in the early morning hours. Here is a pic of the lobby of the administrative building and a pic of me in the library.

I took up the job to help me with my growing expenses. I have to make sure that my own family is well cared for. Usually, it is the unexpected expenses that dry up my savings. Another commitment I have made is a conference in Krabi and this will add further to my expenses.

I was surprised to get the invitation from Areeya (on behalf of the committee of SQST 2024). Knew her when I was trying to organize an EQuaLS event (that coincided with the Covid outbreak). That was years ago and she did not know that I have retired. I told her about my retirement but I'm about to take up a part-time job at XMUM. However, part-timers in usual circumstances are not allowed to go on leave. So, I had to consult the Head of Department and after getting the green light (verbally), I confirmed with the organizers about me giving an invited talk. Thus, the picture. When I posted the pic in my FB page, I was not trying to brag. I am very much aware of the other listed invited speakers are well-known and better researchers in QS&T. In fact, it took me a while to decide what to talk on. I toyed with the idea of giving a talk on ZX-calculus and QEC, but these are topics that I'm still picking up details on. Finally, I settled on a topic perhaps less close to the topics in the conference, a problem I have left to my ex-PhD student before I retire and how it should be developed further.

The main reason I accepted the invitation to the conference is to be able to represent Malaysia in the field. There is also another Malaysian invited speaker on the list, namely Dr. Yap Yung Szen who is an experimentalist. So I guess, I represent the theorists here. There is some sense of importance of being there (and it is not about me); if ever an ASEAN collaboration is to be realized in the future, ground work has to be done earlier and that we (Malaysians) tend to support each other's events. Next year, I was told that we are hosting an event and thus we need their support as well. I don't have a grant to support my travel and accommodation and thus the committed expenses from my own budget. The organizer has waived my registration and they will support local travel. I hope to bring my own family there and they can get to visit Thailand for the first time but I will be with the conference to honour the organizers.

Currently the topic of quantum computing is in the air waves in Malaysia up to the point of our own PMX mentioning it in a public discussion (see video around minute 10:40) Being surprised, I asked my junior colleagues what is going on. The person(s) explained to me of events that have happened in the background. There seems to be three different independent initiatives that have started. I think this is fine as long as all initiatives have national matters at heart. In fact, the more opportunities opened up by these, the better because we want to ensure better probabilities of successes. I'm a bit old for all the push and it is time for the younger ones to shine. Nevertheless, if I can serve a good deed along the way, I'll be happy and hope it counts for the hereafter. My attitude has always been, I will entertain those who are seeking help or advice. But if there is none, that is fine as well, but more importantly, I do not want to get involved with hidden personal agendas. For me, the realistic picture is that we are latecomers to the field and we have yet to make a proper mark in the international arena.

Surrounding Malaysia Day and a Birthday

Back to updating this blog with first, a matter that happened after our Melaka trip. After coming back, we found that the air-conditioner in our room stopped working. We wondered what had happened though we knew it had problems before this but not to the point of stopped working totally. We initially called someone to figure out what had happened. The person told us that the circuit board was probably damaged and getting spare parts is problematic. We went on a few days without the air-conditioner and it was a bit unbearable working in warm conditions (sunlight coming through the glass separating the room and the balcony). So, we decided to get a new air-conditioner though the matter could have come at a better time - more expenses. So, we got our new air-conditioner on the Saturday before Malaysia day.

Just two days before, I have started going to XMUM for briefings. A scary thing happened while driving to XMUM on Friday for a departmental briefing  by Prof. Teo Lee Peng. I had chest pain that I have never felt before. I wasn't sure if I should stop driving. I carried on until I reached Serenia toll and pulled to the side to rest and took nitroglycerine tablets which I had in my computer bag. The pain subsided and I continued my drive to XMUM, in time for the briefing (almost wanted to cancel it). I consider this as a warning that I should make the most of my time left. Met  Prof. Teo during the briefing and she later helped out with my MS Teams problem as well as my email. That afternoon, I went to Surau Al-Hijrah in Kota Warisan for Friday prayers (first time there).

On the way back, I lost my way and missed a meeting with course coordinator Dr. Goh. I later joined the departmental meeting online (wasn't sure of going since I'm part-time staff.

Come the weekend, both of my sons Ihsan and Izhar came back home and we had the whole family in the house. The morning of September 16 (Malaysia day), we had breakfast together at a restaurant near Aeon.

The rest of the family went to MAHA thereafter while I stayed at home preparing for forthcoming lectures. Here are some pictures of them there.

That night we again had dinner together at a restaurant outside.

I cherish these moments together and I always asked my sons to take photos (sometime to their embarrassment). Izhar went back the next day while Ihsan stayed longer at home until my other half's birthday.

We also had a special lunch together at Belqis restaurant just before Ihsan went back to JB.

Finally, I just want to put this up to show that I'm still active. Before anyone say anything, I do feel small despite being put alongside more well-known researchers (more about this later).

A Weekend in Melaka

The past week had me going to a series of ups and downs (more of the latter). First, my other half complained about some chest pain after jogging around City Park. So she did some check up at the nearest Klinik Kesihatan near City Park twice, one for the ECG and another for blood test. The results problematic ECG and high cholesterol levels; so there is a fear of diseased heart.

She was advised to go for an echocardiogram. Appointment with the public hospital may take ages. Coincidentally, last weekend she had to go for a conference in Melaka organized by Pantai Hospital. So we decided to go a day earlier and have her echocardiogram done at Pantai Hospital.

After spending almost a day there, we finally checked in at Holiday Inn in Melaka, where the conference will be held (the next day). For that day stay, I had to book the room out of my pockets; for some reason, it was charged in US dollars and it costed more than it should. Pantai Hospital only sponsor one night stay there (Saturday) but the conference went on until late Sunday afternoon. We negotiated with the organizer and the hotel to stay in the same room. We decided to stay an extra Sunday night there, which is to be charged on our expenses but fortunately at a discounted rate. 

That Friday night, we went out to walk around. There was a free hotel shuttle to Taming Sari tower and Dataran Pahlawan. We stopped at the tower to get dinner. There seems to be plenty of 'asam pedas' eateries. We randomly chose one.

We took some pics from our room in the hotel hoping to see some spectacular sunset or sunrise but the clouds won't let us.

The last pic of my other half is at Dataran Pahlawan (on Sunday night) for our dinner.

One of our main concern when we are away are our cats. We can't afford to put all our cats at the cat lodging; we only do that for the problematic cats. Good enough, my eldest son installed a cctv to watch how the cats are doing.

End of Industrial Training, 31st Anniversary and Conference Invitation

The previous Friday, we picked our youngest from UniKL since it is his last day of industrial training there. He was happy to get home, after two weeks of not coming home, helping with student registration there.

Last Monday was also our 31st anniversary. The day was 'celebrated' by me going to the Health Centre in UPM, hoping to do my regular check-up and get a fresh supply of meds (we thought that we will go to the IOI Mall thereafter). This time I was sent to Room 3, seeing a different doctor. She was quite particular, checking my medical records. On checking my blood pressure, it was on the high side. She asked to do blood tests and even an ECG. So this took up the whole morning. Due to the increase in blood pressure, she prescribed me a new med with higher dosage.

Since I was told to get the blood test results the next day, we cancel the thought of going to IOI Mall. Instead what I did was just to buy a cake in Seremban to celebrate.

On that day too, I got one of the books that I have ordered from Amazon Singapore, which I need for my teaching.

So, the next day, we went back to get the blood test results; it seems that the results are better than the ones last checked apart from the blood pressure. Was happy with that. Thereafter we went to IOI Mall to buy things and have our 'special lunch' at NY Steak Shack.

On Wednesday, Ihsan came back home from JB. We brought him to the new Mee Tarik eatery that we have gone to in the last weekend. This evening, he drove back to JB.

Perhaps the most surprising thing that happened to me was the invitation to SQST 2024 and it was Areeya who wrote the e-mail on behalf of the committee. (Note: I reached out to her for EQuaLS during the Covid year.) Seriously, I thought my conference days are over after my retirement. I could not give a straightforward yes then because I will be at that time doing part-time teaching in Xiamen University Malaysia. I wrote to the head of the department and sometime this week he gave the green light. Today, I confirmed with Areeya that, God willing, I will be going and they immediately send me the invitation letter.

Well, now I have much work to do ....