arxiv

the arxiv is the place people get the latest research papers.

the submission is a bit tricky, as if you want your paper to be at the top of the daily list of newly submitted papers, you have to submit it right after 4pm eastern time. first, there's the submit form, at the bottom of which there's a "submit" button. clicking it you enter the second page, where it displays the info you just typed, as well as the "check the status" button. only by clicking this button the submission process is done. and therefore, you should click this button right after 4pm. however, what's gonna happen may be uncertain, as the arxiv may reject your submission (with reasons such as "square brackets cannot appear inside the authors/affiliation section"!). if that happens, you have to use the back button of your browser to go back to the submit page to do it over again, and you may lose the precious top place of the listing to others!

it seems that, one can proceed to the 3rd page (ie by clicking the two buttons) before 4pm, say 3:58pm, making sure everything is fine, then go back to the first page (submit form) with the browser's back button, submit at 3:59pm, and click "check the status" at 4:00:01. this will pull one's original submission from among the previous day's last ones to the first one(s) of the next day's.

this is just my conjecture; hope it works...i will try it next time.

we are not like them!

in 1968, realizing the unpopularity of the communist party in czech, the leader of the party decided to reform itself, creating more freedom in czech. the movement is known as the prague spring.

however, it was quickly shut down by the soviet union, with the invasion of czech by more than 200000 troops.

starting from 1985, with gorbachev's coming to power, things started to change. in '88, the 20th anniversary of the prague spring, there was large demonstration. in november '89, in response to the collapse of the nearby communist party's regimes, college students in prague initiated a peaceful demonstration, which was ended by violence from the police. large scale strikes led by the students ensued, whose culmination was a demonstration of 0.5 million citizens of prague. the parents all backed up their younger generation. on that occasion, vaclav havel, in an attempt to calm the crowd, told them "we are not like them", and the demonstration remained peaceful.

on 11/28/89, the party gave up the power, and a new era began.