My FOCS PC work slows down the flow of stories (but feel free to send me your stories without all the redundant arm twisting, you know I’ll get to you at some point anyway 😉 ). In the meanwhile, here are two pointers that are relevant. First, People of ACM has some great stories. In particular, … Continue reading Craving for Stories
On the Importance and Risks in Using Sub-Reviewers
I promised to post from time to time about the FOCS 2013 PC work (to demystify the process). So here is a quick update: We got 280 submission (well, 281 submissions but one was just a bad joke). This is up (by more than %10) from FOCS 2012 but on the other hand our PC … Continue reading On the Importance and Risks in Using Sub-Reviewers
On the importance of the alphabet
In my last post, we saw that the problem of learning juntas, hard as it is over Boolean inputs, seems even worse over other alphabets. Coding theory happens to have a inexhaustible supply of such problems. Some of these are long-standing open problems, others are of a more recent vintage. More of these problems seem to crop up … Continue reading On the importance of the alphabet
Reasons to care: In honor of Scott Aaronson
Update (5/7): This post earned me a spot on the not-so-exclusive club of people called names such as a "narrow-minded" "biased" "religious worshiper" "who doesn't want to learn something difficult and new" by Luboš Motl. Interestingly, he mostly takes issue with my discounting the possibility that the complexity of SAT is something like $latex n^{1000}$ or $latex … Continue reading Reasons to care: In honor of Scott Aaronson
The New Yorker on P vs NP
A new review is out for Lance Fortnow's new book "The Golden Ticket: P, NP and the Search for the Impossible". In another piece of news: congratulations to new members of the National Academy of Science Éva Tardos and Avi Wigderson!
Research Life-Stories: Erin Wolf Chambers
Next story on our project from Erin Wolf Chambers: ------------------------ I spent most of my first couple of years of graduate school unsuccessfully trying to figure out what "research" meant. I read papers and had plenty of meetings, but somehow had no luck really making new progress on any of the problems I looked at. … Continue reading Research Life-Stories: Erin Wolf Chambers
History Repeats Itself in the Notices of AMS
Before Communications of ACM became cool again, I’ve been a regular reader of the Notices of American Mathematical Society. I still check it out occasionally to keep tabs on the mathematical community. This month’s issue featured a lengthy article with a lofty title “Mathematical Methods in the Study of Historical Chronology”. It covers the work … Continue reading History Repeats Itself in the Notices of AMS
On intellectual passion and its unfortunate confusion with sexual passion (and how it may relate to issues of gender)
The following is a post by Oded Goldreich which I found very interesting. It is based on a brave and important Hebrew post/essay, and I'm grateful to Oded for bringing it to my attention, translating parts of it and allowing me to post it here as well. I think that this is exactly the kind … Continue reading On intellectual passion and its unfortunate confusion with sexual passion (and how it may relate to issues of gender)
STOC Poster Session: Deadline approaching
Just a gentle reminder that the STOC 2013 posters submission deadline is a few days away. The STOC poster session is a great way to share your work with the TCS community, be it works appearing at other venues, your STOC papers you want to talk more about, or even your FOCS submissions that you … Continue reading STOC Poster Session: Deadline approaching
Research Life-Stories: Ilya Mironov, or The First Problem I Solved
Some memories have staying power, and feel vivid and fresh like they happened yesterday. In this post I want to reminisce about the first problem I remember solving and give some context to it, which hopefully would be more interesting than the problem itself. I was truly fortunate to begin my mathematical education in the … Continue reading Research Life-Stories: Ilya Mironov, or The First Problem I Solved
Windows On Theory 