The Illinois Open is going to be on February 25 and 26. You can preregister at Ask Fred.

This is the first book I read from Amélie Nothomb (translation here). Daughter of a Belgian ambassador, she was born in Kobe, Japan. The book is an auto-biography of a western girl born in Japan. It fascinated me that it only covers her early years. I felt for her easy fluent, sweet, and charming writing. A fascinating description of the magic Japan she was born in through her young innocent eyes. I cannot erase two episodes from my mind: the struggle to decide the first word to pronounce, and her sadness when she learned that May 5 is Tango no Sekku (the Boy’s festival) but there is no girl’s festival at all. You can find more information about her books here. ...

Yes, today is the deadline for the ACM 2006 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference. Submit your paper here, you have time till 10pm Pacific time.

Teo is the main character of a collection of books for kids. It is amazing how Teo’s illustrated books by Violeta Denou are ageless. I still remember spending hours reading again and again “En Teo va en avió” (Teo catches a plane).

Yes, today is the deadline for the IEEE 2006 Conference onf Evolutionary Compuations. Submit your paper here. Tomorrow is the deadline for the ACM 2006 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference. However, the submission server will remain open for two weeks after that date, and many of the special sessions have already extended the deadline accordingly.