While this blog is mostly about theory, today I would like to talk about a real auction and how it relates to theory. I’ll focus on a fundraising auction for my child’s elementary school. As is common around here, the school has an annual community event called a “Walk-a-Thon” in which donations are collected towards … Continue reading Walk-a-Thon auction design
Category: Uncategorized
Balls-and-Bins made simpler
In this post I’d like to report a new and simple proof we found for theorem by Berenbrink, Czumaj, Steger, Vöcking on the imbalance of the balls-into-bins process known as the multiple choice scheme. Full details could be found in the paper. Probably many are familiar with this process, Kunal blogged about some variations of it a few months … Continue reading Balls-and-Bins made simpler
FOCS 2013 is over
FOCS 2013 is over, and as predicted here it was very successful. I am happy to have taken part in its success (though all of the credit goes of course to the authors). I also predicted that "A significant fraction of the community will think the PC messed up badly." Naturally, most of the people with … Continue reading FOCS 2013 is over
Sanjeev Arora: Thoughts on Paper Publishing in the Digital Age
In this guest post, Sanjeev Arora will share some thoughts about the future of scientific publishing in our community. This is not unrelated to our last post, and is also aimed at initiating discussion towards FOCS 2013 that is starting in the coming weekend. As always, comments are most welcomed with the reminder that WindowsOnTheory … Continue reading Sanjeev Arora: Thoughts on Paper Publishing in the Digital Age
Umesh Vazirani: should publishing in STOC/FOCS and Science/Nature be mutually exclusive?
The business meeting of STOC/FOCS is usually rather tedious, but it is also an opportunity to raise and debate issues that the community should be concerned about. One such issue is the inconsistency between our publication norms and the norms of other communities. This is becoming more and more important as TCS megalomaniacally adopt the … Continue reading Umesh Vazirani: should publishing in STOC/FOCS and Science/Nature be mutually exclusive?
FOCS 2013 Registration
FOCS 2013 registration is open with an early registration deadline of October 4th 2013. In a few days, I hope, the program would be posted as well, but as the list of accepted papers indicates - its going to be very interesting!
On Moody Rd
One of my favorite quotes is “the work of the righteous is done by others.” It comes in handy whenever someone does something I could/should have done, and especially when this someone executes it better than I would. Based on its first few posts, I have the feeling that Moritz Hardt’s new blog, Moody Rd, will give me … Continue reading On Moody Rd
CRYPTO: Day 4
On the last day of the conference I paid a visit to the friendly workshop next door – CHES (Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems). It was all foreign to me – a different mix of people, posters outside the lecture hall. After this year’s CRYPTO compressed talks, 25 minutes felt like an eternity. Actual food … Continue reading CRYPTO: Day 4
CRYPTO: Day 3
The highlights of the third day of CRYPTO were known ahead of time and yet did not disappoint: invited talk by Adam Langley on TLS, presentation of the best paper award, the business meeting followed by the beach barbecue. Adam Langley, known for his work in Google on TLS and HTTPS, addressed the joint session … Continue reading CRYPTO: Day 3
CRYPTO: Day 2
First, I’d like to thank my co-authors (Omkant Pandey and Ananth Raghunathan) for preparing and delivering two excellent talks this morning. It is due to their decision to step up to the plate that I get to do the fun stuff like blogging from the conference. The big topic of the afternoon session were multilinear … Continue reading CRYPTO: Day 2
Windows On Theory 