Hi, I'm César

Surviving the AI Revolution as a Software Engineer

Is there still any hope?

Posted on September 17, 2023

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Dear software engineer, as you may already know, AI is here to stay. It’s inevitable, and it changes everything. If you are worried about what OpenAI’s ChatGPT can do, hold on because it’s just the beginning. The next wave of extremely powerful and specialized AI models is coming faster than...

A Prime on Public Key Infrastructure

How do we trust each other in the digital era?

Posted on August 13, 2023

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The whole internet is secured by the power of symmetric and asymmetric cryptography. Each time you visit a website, a cryptographic handshake occurs between your browser and a web server located somewhere on Earth. The authenticity of this connection is verified by a technology known as Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)....

My PhD as a Comic

The time when I became a superhero

Posted on July 10, 2023

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Doing good science is hard. Communicating science is even harder because it requires a larger doses of creativity. I learned during my 5 years as a PhD student that art visuals and stories are excellent ways to communicate scientific ideas and results. But using art as a form of expression...

How to Give a Great Technical Presentation

Here's what I've learned

Posted on June 22, 2023

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Public speaking has never been my forte. As a child, I often preferred blending into the crowd rather than standing out.1 However, I’ve since realized that in the pursuit of professional excellence, there is no way to avoid the public eye. Talent and hard work doesn’t really matter if I...

Let's Face It: Paper Figures Are Always Subject to Change

The story of a single figure

Posted on March 10, 2023

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There is one painful truth about the process of writing research papers that I haven’t heard anyone talking about during my years as a PhD student: Figures keep changing until the very last moment! It seems that the journey of figures (and other kinds of visualizations) in research papers is...

Securing a Permanent Job in Sweden Before Completing My PhD

My personal experiences and tips

Posted on February 14, 2023

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For better or worse, a PhD is a time constrained endeavour. For me, this represented almost 5 years of full-time research in Computer Science at KTH. When approaching completion, the decision of whether to pursue a career in academia or explore other paths lay before me. After some key considerations,...

Data Serialization/Deserialization in Java With Apache Avro

Getting started

Posted on January 20, 2023

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When working with data processing in Java, choosing the right file format for storing and transmitting the data is crucial. Each format (such as CSV, JSON, or Parquet) has its particular advantages and disadvantages, as they are specifically designed to cater to different use cases. In this article, I’ll focus...

How to Write a Good Cover Letter for a Research Paper

Quick an easy

Posted on November 23, 2022

Submitting a research paper is probably one of the most happy moments in the working life career of PhD students. You’ve been dealing with a research paper for months, maybe years. And you know, clicking that “submit” button represents such a moment of relief. You just want it to be...

The True Value of Attending Academic Conferences

It's not only about the technical content

Posted on November 19, 2022

I recently attended the 29th edition of ESEC/FSE 2022 in Singapore. ESEC/FSE is one of the most prestigious conferences in the Software Engineering field.1 This was my first time participating in an academic conference (in person). I went there to present two papers. But let me admit it, I had...

The Execution Lifecycle of a Java Application

Or... what happens when you run a Java program?

Posted on October 20, 2022

If you are reading this post it’s likely that you already know how to write Java code. That’s very good for you, I think everyone should know how to code these days (in the same way everyone should know about basic math operations such as +, -, *, and /...