Ernie's 3D Pancakes

Money money money

As LanceLance points out, the CISE Theoretical Foundations cluster at NSF has finally released its long-anticipated call for regular grant proposals. The submission deadline is May 25, 2006. The solicitation invokes three overlapping themes: scientific foundations for computing, scientific foundations for communication, and scientific foundations for Internet's Next Generation (SING). The first two themes were in the previous call for proposals, although the list of topics solicited under first theme has been expanded a bit. SING is part of NSF's GENI initiative, although the name conjures images of Michael Palin and Wil Wheaton belting out The Lumberjack Song on the bridge of the Enterprise-D. (Hello, my name is Jeff, and I'm a geek.)

The budget in the current solicitation is about the same as the last one. Between the expanded list of topics, the expiration of several ITR grants, and the 18-month wait since the last regular grant deadline, competition for these grants is going to be particularly fierce.

Also, as an extra special treat, simple proposals can be submitted from non-standard computers (where standard = UNIX) via grants.gov instead of Fastlane. Joy!

PureEdge recognizes that Macintosh is a popular operating system and that support for the Mac is often required by our customers. In most cases, this means offering support for the PureEdge Viewer on the MacIntosh platform.

With this in mind, PureEdge is offering support to MacIntosh users by embracing recent developments in Microsoft’s direction. With the release of Office 10 Professional, Microsoft has begun bundling Virtual PC for Mac with their office software as well as providing it as a separate product. Virtual PC is a Windows emulator that allows users to run PC software on a MacIntosh platform.

By bundling Virtual PC with it’s Office software, Microsoft has ensured broad distribution of the Virtual PC emulator, since most users rely on Microsoft Office to meet their day to day needs. Furthermore, it is clear that Microsoft will continue to support and update this product as needed.

Given this large install base and on-going development by Microsoft, PureEdge has decided to adopt the Virtual PC emulator as it’s primary means of providing support for MacIntosh computers.

What about Linux? Haven't these people heard of platform independence? You know, like HTML? And what's a "MacIntosh"? What does "embracing embracing recent developments in Microsoft’s direction" even mean? Did they really write "with it's Office software"? Who are these idiots?!

Teaching styles

One of the professors in my department was recently asked by a student if she was using a European teaching style. The prof had no idea what the student meant, so she asked for clarification. The student apparently found it strange that he was expected to read a book.

...because it's actually fun and no one tells you to be lousy on purpose.

John “Spümcø” Kricfalusi has a blog.

Bernard (almost) gets it right

Theoretical computer science would exist even if there were no computers. Computer science is not bound by the laws of physics; it is inspired by them but, like mathematics, it is something that is completely invented by man.

Not true! Long before Australopithecus or even Dilpodous walked the earth, ages before the primoridal slime dreamed of phtosynthesis, eons before the sun coalesced from the scattered ashes of its garishly suicidal parents, 2+2 was 4, π was transcendental, any formal system powerful enough to include arithmetic admitted true but unprovable statements, and comparison-based sorting algorithms required Ω(n log n) time. These are not mere human inventions, Bernard, but deeply humbling discoveries. These are necessary truths, in a far more fundamental sense than the so-called laws of physics.

Scott gets a little closer:

The first lesson is that computational complexity theory is really, really, really not about computers. Computers play the same role in complexity that clocks, trains, and elevators play in relativity. They're a great way to illustrate the point, they were probably essential for discovering the point, but they're not the point. The best definition of complexity theory I can think of is that it's quantitative theology: the mathematical study of hypothetical superintelligent beings such as gods.

Update (Feb 19): Bernard graciously points me to his longer essay, in which he not only hits the target smack in the center, but fires several arrows directly into their predecessors' feathery back ends. Load up your iPod with verlan-laced rap, or perhaps some vintage Wesley Willis, and read the whole thing.

An algorithm is, in essence, a work of literature.

A bra made of algae? Eww!

Here's the thing, Gabriela: You will never need to know algebra. I have never once used it and never once even rued that I could not use it. You will never need to know -- never mind want to know -- how many boys it will take to mow a lawn if one of them quits halfway and two more show up later -- or something like that. Most of math can now be done by a computer or a calculator. On the other hand, no computer can write a column or even a thank-you note -- or reason even a little bit. If, say, the school asked you for another year of English or, God forbid, history, so that you actually had to know something about your world, I would be on its side. But algebra? Please.

Gabriela, sooner or later someone's going to tell you that algebra teaches reasoning. This is a lie propagated by, among others, algebra teachers. Writing is the highest form of reasoning. This is a fact. Algebra is not. The proof of this, Gabriela, is all the people in my high school who were whizzes at math but did not know a thing about history and could not write a readable English sentence. I can cite Shelly, whose last name will not be mentioned, who aced algebra but when called to the board in geography class, located the Sahara Desert right where the Gobi usually is. She was off by a whole continent.

Let's see now. Richard Cohen's column displays some obviously bad reasoning. Not everyone can run a four-minute mile, make creme bulee, or sing the second verse of the national anthem, but that doesn't imply that running, baking, or FranceScottKeyology is “the highest form of reasoning”. Not formally, not intuitively, not even rhetorically.

Elsewhere in the column, Richard reveals that he did not pass algebra.

Coincidence? Or satire?

Fifty-four sausages, but not yet

Fifty-four papers were accepted to SOCG this year, five more than the previos record. Looks like we're going to have a day of parallel sessions.

I don't know yet how many papers were submitted, but if other conferences are any indication, probably not significantly more than last year. So the acceptance rate is probably also up. That's good news, unless you're relying on SOCG papers for your tenure case.

Lots of papers on computational topology; lots of papers on embeddings; lots of papers on well-analyzed or improved heuristics; lots of papers on algebraic computation; lots of papers by Micha Sharir; but very few papers already on the web. Shame, shame, shame.

Very mature.

Rate Your Students appears to have been hacked to death.

Call me crazsy, but I'm thinking it wasn't by a tenure committee.

It's a small Wikipedia, after all.

Six degrees of Wikipedia

Slow natives

• Elephants (A Play in One Scene) by Dean Dad

• Pink Elephants by Sun Ra and His Arkestra
  

Well, that was fast.

One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

I guess it depends on what "is" is.

Bush's verbal sloppiness is actually encouraging in one respect. Recall his oft-repeated promise to "double the federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs in the physical sciences over the next 10 years". When I heard that, I felt the disappointing sssshhhWMP of a large bag of money falling into somebody else's pocket—sure I do basic research, but in mathy computer science, not in any of the physical sciences. Close, but not quite. But now that the White Houwse has clarified that Bush didn't mean exactly what he said on Tuesday, now I can relax. My future funding is secure.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy some pony chow.