iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 17/09/2026

An intense 1st EuroTDP workshop has concluded, with many great talks, interesting posters and more colleagues to talk to than time would allow. Looking forward to the next time we can gather the privacy community in Europe!

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 08/05/2026

We also found out that it is possible to post-process the output of the discrete Laplace mechanism to exactly recreate the Laplace mechanism, using additive noise. So for integer data, adding discrete Laplace noise is strictly more general that Laplace noise (and the variance is better).

Illustration of the transformation from discrete Laplace mechanism to Laplace mechanism

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 29/04/2026

This is such a fun idea: An LLM trained only on data from before 1930. You can try it out here: talkie-lm.com/chat

User: Didn't Babbage try to mechanize computers?

Talkie-1930: Mr. Babbage did make an attempt to construct a calculating machine, which should perform arithmetical operations; but the project was ultimately abandoned. Computers are, consequently, still necessary.

User: Would it be feasible to continue Babbage's project?

Talkie-1930: It would be possible to continue Mr. Babbage's project, but very improbable that it would ever be made practically useful. The great expense of such a machine would be an insuperable obstacle to its general adoption; and the probable errors to which all calculations must be liable, when performed by machinery, instead of by intelligent beings, would render the results unreliable.

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 03/02/2026

According to Google Search, my primary contribution to human knowledge is the collection of database exams (with answers) that I developed in 2003-2012.

A screenshot of a Google-style analytics card titled “How do people find you?” showing “Top growing queries compared to previous month.” It lists three search queries: “database exams” (+5 clicks), “database exam questions and answers pdf free download” (+2 clicks), and “sql database exam questions and answers pdf” (+2 clicks).

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 15/01/2026

Of course, physical and economical limits stopped the growth of, which has in fact been zero since 1969. Extrapolation of trends has limits, something we should remember when someone points at data that seems scary.

Maximum speed achieved by humans 1900 to 2026

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 10/10/2025

Getting ready to celebrate 150 years of women at @ucph.bsky.social with the Wave workshop, focusing on algorithmic research barc.ku.dk/wave-confere...

Auditorium with projector showing:
Wave | women in algorithms venture into exploration

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 07/10/2025

In anticipation of this week’s Nobel prizes? Sign next to UCPH Nobel prize reserved parking says ”Beware of crossing traffic”

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 06/10/2025

My run yesterday passed by Malmö Stadium, where West Germany defeated Argentina 3-1 in the 1958 soccer World Cup, after an early Argentinian goal. Sadly the stadium will soon be demolished to make room for new sports facilities.

View of Malmö Stadium from above, Öresund in the background

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 22/08/2025

Space flight as a normal technology

Largest distance from Earth surface reached by humans. Shows exponential growth between 1905 and 1970, then growth stops.

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 26/06/2025

Finally a workshop on Differential Privacy in Europe! Organized by Monika Henzinger at IST Austria next year in September, so reserve the date! Monika’s STOC keynote, where the workshop was announced, was about the intersection of privacy and dynamic algorithms. Lots of questions in this space!

First European Workshop on Differential Privacy
September 17, 2026
At IST Austria

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 13/06/2025

Jonas Klausen hashing out the details at his PhD defense at BARC yesterday. Congratulations to Jonas for a successful defense!

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 05/05/2025

With apologies to Gary Larson

Scientists standing in front of a bunch of p-values, most large but one smaller than 0.05.
Caption: It's time we face reality, my friends... We're not exactly rugged scientists.

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 12/02/2025

ChatGPT 4o's XeTaL abilities (going from a PDF to LaTeX source) are not perfect but pretty impressive and useful!

Prompt to produce LaTeX code for recursive matrix multiplication

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 18/01/2025

Seen in Google Maps. I want this as a sign on my office door!

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 09/01/2025

New dramatic development in digital currencies! Did you know that you can mine your own NaN by simply dividing with zero?

Pricing for Ultimate WeTransfer stated as 195 NaN /month

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 07/01/2025

New indispensable tool at BARC

The BARC Bell

To be used for announcing food, getting ereryone's attention and for emengencies

Imported from Austria in 2024

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 21/12/2024

We have reached a turning point - towards a brighter 2025

Sunset for Malmö, Sweden, is at 3.37 PM today, 7 hours after sunrise

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 13/12/2024

I am not much of a collector but fell for this 300 year old map of Denmark. It is hanging in my office as a reminder of how approximate, and sometimes distorted, our understanding of the world is compared to what will be known in a few hundred years.

Map of Denmark, ca 1720, by German cartographer Johann Hübner

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 10/12/2024

@demishassabis.bsky.social, looking sharp in that white tie plus tails!

Nobel Prize ceremony participants on the stairs of Stockholm town hall

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 06/12/2024

If my computer is one day equipped with an AI co-professor the first task I will delegate is proofreading.

Tweety reading a paper full of equations

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 04/12/2024

Keyboard connoisseur - ha! - did not see that one coming, but the LLM has spoken. blueskyroast.com

Rasmus Pagh: Algorithm Enthusiast and Keyboard Connoisseur

Balancing cutting-edge computer science with a love for context-sensitive keyboards.
"
Imagine a professor who teaches algorithms while nervously critiquing your iOS keyboard preferences—this is Rasmus Pagh.

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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 28/11/2024

When I was in high school more than 30 years ago I liked math and thought computers were fun, but did not know how well these topics went together until I read this book: Algorithmics, the spirit of computing, by David Harel. Still a fan today!

Rasmus Pagh holding a copy of "Algorithmics" in the Dagstuhl library

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