I always laugh when I see online postings that end with some variation of “Serious people only! No scammers/trolls please!” as if by some miracle, the scammer viewing the post will go through some introspection and realize “Oh, I’m a scammer. Well, they said no scammers, so I better not reply!”

Crossposted from Capricious Me.

On our way back from the Berkeley hunt, I was in the car with some veteran puzzlers who had some great anecdotes about The Game(s) of yore. One thing that surprised me was the wish for car time that was purely driving and anticipation. In all the driving hunts I’ve done (mostly Decathlons and Dr. When) we’ve always had something to do so time/ ( Read more... )

The password for the posts that require a password is “omgwtfbbqwartron!!!” and I only did that to prevent accidental spoilers in case of future recasts.

Avoid reading anything with spoilers if you want to play this in the future, as a recast is being planned for the Boston area.

I had a fantastic time at Wartron. This was my second overnight game ( Read more... )

I played the Berkeley Mystery Hunt this past Saturday. This year’s been really great for puzzling and I’m really looking forward to Wartron!

There’s one face-palm moment from the mystery hunt that makes me go “AUGH!!!” at my own stupidity. It really should be a Pavlovian response by now so that FLAGS should always make me think SEMAPHORE ( Read more... )

My poor neglected blog… it’s been months!

I am now working at Google on (anti) webspam. If you know me and my research interests, you’ll know that webspam has been and is a huuuuge obsession since I started in grad school, so I’m incredibly happy I get to work in this area again!

Webspam, by the way, is the stuff that you hopefully don’t see much ( Read more... )

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I decided to make some tea eggs using quail eggs because, well, I love miniature food.


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I’m done. All the paperwork and all that - DONE. I’m officially Dr. Niu now, but not the useful kind of doctor who can save your life. I’m the kind of doctor that could possibly help you troubleshoot your computer problems.

So I’m off to China on the 14th before I start the next stage of my life - employment with Yahoo. This academic year’s been ( Read more... )

Got one signature on the cover sheet already.
Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have two more.

And then, on Thursday, I’ll hear that bell ring!

Crossposted from Capricious Me.

Ok. I’ve finally done something with the cr-48. I’ve installed ubuntu on it. Why do I do this? It’s not as if I don’t already have a laptop and computer running linux. Well - here comes the exciting bit: In april, I shall be going to India for my friend Balaji’s wedding. To minimize the weight that I’ll be carrying, I’m going to bring the cr-48 ( Read more... )