I write about my everyday life as optimization expert, where I translate business requirements to mathematical formulars, then to software -- and all the way back again.
A drunk-husband-puzzle, and why optimization professionals won't be layed off
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Hello Reader! with wind and rain becoming ever-present, summer has officially given way to autumn. In this episode of Bluebird Briefings I'll give you a little summary of what happened in the world of optimization over the summer of 2025: Major Industry NewsGurobi released the State of Mathematical Optimization 2025 report. It contains results from what's probably the biggest survey among optimization practitioners. The findings are impressive. They attest to the growth of optimization as THE decision-making tool. The report cites optimization as having critical business impact, mainly for cost reductions. It shows that optimization professionals are resilient against layoffs, even in a year where this happens everywhere else. It also documents the growing trend of utilizing Machine Learning and Optimization together. My favorite result is on page 19. Over 60% of respondents plan to increase their use of optimization in the next 12 months. You can request the report for free here. A fun collection of optimization problemsTony Hürlimann updated his book Puzzles and Games — A Mathematical Modeling Approach. If you're looking for fun applications of optimization, this is for you. It's available as a free PDF here: I recommend starting with Problem 2.1, where a "drunk husband" spent $2,000 on wine in a single week. ;) Pair this with an equally tongue-in-cheek take of mine for a twist on bottled beverages. NextMV on Real-World Optimization PracticeNextMV holds a special place in my heart for how they bring testing and deployment to the world of optimization. Now they're extending an open invitation to a tech talk: What to know about practicing operations research and decision science in industry. When: Next Wednesday, October 22 — 8:00 AM PDT / 11:00 AM EDT / 5:00 PM CEST, get your spot here. About the session: Translating academic studies into real-world business practice can be daunting in any discipline, including operations research and decision science. What skills should you have? Where can you get exposed to meaningful experiences? How do you put learning into practice? Bottom line: What do you need to know? Join this session to hear perspectives and conversation on these topics from Ryan O’Neil, Nextmv CTO, and Thiago Serra, Assistant Professor of Business Analytics at the University of Iowa — two OR PhDs with varied experiences in industry, software engineering, and more.
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Bluebird Briefings
I write about my everyday life as optimization expert, where I translate business requirements to mathematical formulars, then to software -- and all the way back again.
Hello Reader! For a little while, Trevor Miles and I turned our tiny corner of the internet back into a place of productive, civil debate. Remember the early days of social media? No algorithm decided what you saw. You saw what the people you followed posted. And the content had more depth. Trevor and I brought that back, quite organically. From an intriguing metaphor to a full debate I saw a post from Trevor that put AI into Daniel Kahneman’s famous framework of System 1 and System 2. The...
Hello Reader! Who profits when nobody checks? I've been asking myself that since an envelope landed in my mailbox, and the answer applies to far more than my mail. The Solver Always Does What You Pay It For When a client's model returns a strange plan, people often suspect a bug. Sometimes it is one. More often, the solver did exactly what the objective told it to do. If the objective rewards low cost and nothing else, the solver will happily run the inventory down to zero, keep one machine...
Hello Reader! Right now, across the United States, Canada and Mexico, millions of people are behaving in ways they would never admit to at the office. Norwegian fans are rowing on an escalator like it's an Olympic final. Dutch fans are doing 'naar links naar rechts' in the street, a whole crowd swaying left, then right, as one. Egyptian fans are dancing through the streets of Vancouver after Egypt's first ever World Cup win, Mo Salah and the whole squad right there with them. This is the...