Now that I have got a new position, I will not be jealous if someone uses the same CV template as mine 🙂 Therefore, I decided to publish my CV template as open source. I call it Adaptive CV.
Adaptive CV allows compiling different variants of a CV (e.g., a résumé and an extended CV) from a single LaTeX source. It is particularly suitable for academic CVs but flexible enough to be used with any CVs.
I love food and wine, and I enjoy trying new restaurants, often picking them on the Restaurant Guide from Aftenposten or the Michelin Guide. In over ten years in Oslo, several people have asked for my selection of restaurants in town, so here it is (last updated October 2023).
My favourite restaurants:
À L’aise: French inspired, local products, one Michelin star
Tim Wendelboe: Internationally recognised coffee roastery and espresso bar—probably the best coffee in Norway
As you may have noticed, I have not included many Italian restaurants in my selection. This is because the best Italian restaurant in Oslo is my place, of course 🙂
I am excited to announce that I have accepted a position as Senior Advisor at EVRY Cloud Services in Oslo. EVRY is the largest IT company in Norway and among the largest in the Nordics with almost 10 000 employees. Cloud Services is a new business area of EVRY that offers advisory and consulting services to assist customers with designing the cloud solutions that best fit their requirements. I will start on the 1st of March, and I am looking forward to it!
I would like to thank SINTEF for four rewarding years with the organisation; I will try to be a good ambassador for SINTEF in the future.
If you have co-authored at least one document in your life, you have probably experienced the pain of merging changes manually, especially when these changes are sent as email attachments.
Nowadays there are multiple collaborative editing solutions that enable merging changes automatically. Unfortunately, many professionals are not aware of the capabilities offered by these solutions and keep sending changes as email attachments and merging them manually. Believe it or not, these professionals include software engineers and computer science researchers.
I think we can do better than that…
In this post, I aim to clarify the confusion around collaborative editing solutions by comparing the state-of-the-art:
Support for OOXML format (DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, etc.): unfortunately, this proprietary format from Microsoft is still the most used document format
Support for OpenDocument format (ODT, ODP, ODS, etc.): this ISO standard format is used by many public institutions
Terms of service
Google Docs + Drive
Google Docs + Drive is probably the most used collaborative editing solution. It was released in 2006.
Pros
On-line co-authoring in the browser
Version tracking
WYSIWYG editor
Cons
Off-line co-authoring in Chrome only
Minimal formatting capabilities
Read-only support for OOXML format
Read-only support for OpenDocument format
Google Terms of Service
Unfortunately, the contras of Google Docs + Drive outnumber the pros.
The read-only support for OOXML and OpenDocument formats is particularly annoying. When you first edit a file in OOXML or OpenDocument format, Google Docs automatically creates a copy of the file converted into Google Drive format (GDOC, GSLIDES, GSHEET, etc.) without notifying you. For instance, this means that when you first edit a DOCX file, you will not edit this file as you would expect, but its GDOC copy, and you will end up having two copies of the same document in Google Drive. This may confuse you and your co-authors since you will be unsure about which copy of the document is the latest one. Moreover, this may compromise the formatting since format conversions are not always lossless.
Besides, the Google Terms of Service are particularly alarming. I am not a legal expert, so take my judgement of the terms of services with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, the Google Terms of Service (see the excerpt below) are most likely not suitable for co-authoring confidential documents.
“When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.”
Microsoft Word + OneDrive/SharePoint
Microsoft Word + OneDrive/Share Point is Microsoft’s answer to Google Docs + Drive. It was released together with Office 2013.
Pros
On-line co-authoring in the browser with Word online
On-line and off-line co-authoring with Word 2016 for Windows
Off-line co-authoring with Word 2013 for Windows, Word 2016 for Mac and Word for Windows Phone, Android, and iOS
Version tracking
WYSIWYG editor
Sufficient formatting capabilities
Support for OOXML format
Cons
No native support for OpenDocument format
Microsoft Services Agreement?
Microsoft Word + OneDrive/Share Point is superior to Google Docs + Drive by any criteria. I could not find any paragraph in the Microsoft Services Agreement that looks as scary as the one from the Google Terms of Service. Nevertheless, I am not willing to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt, so I keep this agreement with a question mark in the list of contras until a legal expert proves me that it is suitable for co-authoring confidential documents.
Overleaf
Overleaf is the ultimate collaborative editing solution for LaTeX enthusiasts. It was released in 2013 (then called WriteLaTeX).
Pros
On-line co-authoring in the browser
Off-line co-authoring with Git
Version labelling
LaTeX editor
Maximal formatting capabilities
Cons
Steep learning curve for non-academics
No support for OOXML format
No support for OpenDocument format
Overleaf Terms of Service?
Similar to the Microsoft Services Agreement, I could not find any paragraph in the Overleaf Terms of Service that looks as scary as the one from the Google Terms of Service. Nevertheless, I keep these terms with a question mark in the list of contras until a legal expert proves me that they are suitable for co-authoring confidential documents.
Summary
The following table summarises the features offered by each of the compared collaborative editing solutions.
On-line
Off-line
Versioning
WYSIWYG
LaTeX
Formatting
OOXML
Open Document
Terms
Google
✓
✗
✓
✓
✗
✗
✗
✗
✗
Microsoft
✓
✓
✓
✓
✗
✓
✓
✗
?
Overleaf
✓
✓
✓
✗
✓
✓
✗
✗
?
Is there a clear winner? I do not think so.
If you are a perfectionist in formatting and prefer working with LaTeX, Overleaf is the solution for you. If you are not too concerned with the formatting and prefer working with WYSIWYG editors, I recommend you to choose Microsoft Word + OneDrive/SharePoint.
I belong to the first category, and I co-author scientific papers using Overleaf only. However, I have to admit that Microsoft has done an excellent job with its collaborative editing solution, and I do not mind co-authoring other documents such as project deliverables in Word anymore if my colleagues ask me to.
Back in 2010, I found myself explaining why the Italian chocolate-hazelnut spread Nutella1 is better than its Norwegian imitationcompetitor Nugatti to my colleagues at the University of Bergen. Yes, like most Italians, I often brag about Italian food.
One of my colleagues challenged me: “I bet what you want that if I give you a slice of bread with Nutella and another one with Nugatti, you will not recognise the difference.”
I answered: “I bet what you want that I will recognise the difference between Nutella and three other spreads, while blindfolded.”
A few weeks later, I ran the first chocolate-hazelnut spread test at the University of Bergen. The test aimed at verifying if it is possible to recognise chocolate-hazelnut spreads while blindfolded.
28 Oct 2010: Me tasting one of the four chocolate-hazelnut spread samples. Photo by Federico Mancini.
Here is the structure of the test:
3 participants
4 chocolate-hazelnut spreads, known to the participants
Each participant tasted each spread in random order, while not blindfolded
Each participant tasted each spread again in random order, while blindfolded
After the second taste, each participant matched the spreads in the first taste with the spreads in the second taste (e.g., the third spread in the first taste was the first spread in the second taste)
And here are the results:
The participants correctly matched the spreads 10 times out of 12 (i.e., 83,33% of the times).
Galvanised by the results, I grew a passion for chocolate-hazelnut spreads. Before the test, I thought that the chocolate-hazelnut spread was Nutella and that everything else on the market was just an imitation. After the test, I tasted more than 20 different chocolate-hazelnut spreads and completely reconsidered my opinion on Nutella and everything else on the market.
2 Oct 2015: My collection of chocolate-hazelnut spreads
My enthusiasm for chocolate-hazelnut spreads quickly became known to my friends and colleagues. Last year (i.e., five years after the first chocolate-hazelnut spread test), I was introduced to a new researcher at the University of Oslo, who told me: “Wait a minute; you must be the Nutella guy!” I was not sure if to be proud or depressed by the fact that my input to the field of chocolate-hazelnut spreads got more attention than my contribution in the field of software engineering 🙂 Nevertheless, I decided it was time to replicate the chocolate-hazelnut spread test, turning it into a full-blown experiment.
Eventually, two weeks ago, I ran the chocolate-hazelnut experiment at SINTEF. The experiment aimed at ranking the best and worst tasting chocolate-hazelnut spreads, in addition to verifying if it is possible to recognise chocolate-hazelnut spreads while blindfolded. I know, this is not the kind of experiment you would expect from a researcher in software engineering… But it is serious research nevertheless 🙂
24 Feb 2016: Me presenting the historical context of the experiment. Photo by Einar Broch Johnsen.
24 Feb 2016: Participants tasting chocolate-hazelnut spread samples. Photo by Einar Broch Johnsen.
Here is the structure of the experiment:
12 participants (9 males, 3 females) from 7 countries (4 from Norway, 3 from Italy, 1 from Bulgaria, 1 from France, 1 from Russia, 1 from Sri Lanka, 1 from Ukraine)
Each participant tasted each spread in random order, while not blindfolded
After the first taste, each participant chose the best and worst tasting spreads
Each participant tasted each spread again in random order, while blindfolded
After the second taste, each participant matched the spreads in the first taste with the spreads in the second taste (e.g., the third spread in the first taste was the first spread in the second taste)
And here are the results:
7 participants ranked Venchi, 3 participants ranked Merenda, and 2 participants ranked Nutella as the best tasting spread. No participants ranked Nugatti as the best tasting spread.
8 participants ranked Nugatti, 3 participants ranked Merenda, and 1 participant ranked Venchi as the worst tasting spread. No participants ranked Nutella as the worst tasting spread.
The participants correctly matched the spreads 33 times out of 48 (i.e., 68,75% of the times).
6 participants correctly matched all spreads, 3 participants correctly matched only 2 spreads, 3 participants correctly matched only 1 spread.
3 women out of 3 correctly matched all spreads.
3 men out of 9 correctly matched all spreads.
To summarise, the participants ranked Venchi as the best and Nugatti as the worst tasting spread; they correctly matched the spreads more than two-thirds of the times; women were better than men at correctly matching the spreads.
Can we conclude that my colleague at the University of Bergen lost his bet? Can we also generalise the result, and propose a generic framework for blind tasting foods and beverages? Comments and questions are more than welcome 🙂
Special thanks to my friends and colleagues who participated in the experiment.
Update 20 June 2018
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of replicating the experiment at EVRY.
Here is the structure of the experiment:
9 participants (6 males, 3 females) from 5 countries (5 from Norway, 1 from Ireland, 1 from Italy, 1 from the Netherlands, and 1 from Sweden)
Each participant tasted each spread in random order, while not blindfolded
After the first taste, each participant chose the best and worst tasting spreads
Each participant tasted each spread again in random order, while blindfolded
After the second taste, each participant matched the spreads in the first taste with the spreads in the second taste (e.g., the third spread in the first taste was the first spread in the second taste)
And here are the results:
3 participants ranked Nutella, 2 participants ranked Nugatti, 2 participants ranked Nøttepålegg, and 2 participants ranked Venchi Crema Suprema Fondente as the best tasting spread.
5 participants ranked Nøttepålegg, 2 participants ranked Nugatti, and 2 participants ranked Venchi Crema Suprema Fondente as the worst tasting spread. No participants ranked Nutella as the worst tasting spread.
The participants correctly matched the spreads 17 times out of 36 (i.e., 47% of the times).
2 participants correctly matched all spreads, 3 participants correctly matched only 2 spreads, 3 participants correctly matched only 1 spread, 1 participant did not correctly match any spreads.
0 women out of 3 correctly matched all spreads.
2 men out of 6 correctly matched all spreads.
To summarise, the participants ranked Nutella as the best (although it was not a clear winner) and Nøttepålegg as the worst tasting spread; they correctly matched the spreads less than half of the times (contra more than two-thirds in the 2016 experiment); men were better than women at correctly matching the spreads (contra the opposite in the 2016 experiment).
To be honest, these results are disappointing. First, although dark chocolate may not be everyone’s taste, I expected the Venchi Crema Suprema Fondente to be ranked as best. Second, I expected the participants to match the spreads correctly at least two-thirds of the times. Finally, since it is scientifically proven that women have a better sense of smell than men, I expected women to be better than men at matching the spreads correctly. But… Data is data, and these results encourage me to replicate the experiments once again in the future.
Special thanks to my friends and colleagues who participated in the experiment.
Footnotes
If you have never heard about Nutella, or if you thought Nutella was German, you should read its history. ↩
Note that the Venchi spread used in the 2018 experiment is not the same as the one used in the 2016 experiment, but the dark chocolate variant ↩
