Ernie's 3D Pancakes

"Ian"? Not!

Anyone who's taken an algorithms class from me has seen me do this. It's a mechanical procedure, it's unfamiliar, it's more efficient, it's takes practice, it's flashy, blah blah blah.

I learned to tie my shoelaces this way in 1984, my sophomore year in college, from my friend Paul. Two days after I learned this method, I had completely forgotten how to tie my shoes the old way. Paul said he learned it from his dad, who learned it in the Chinese navy twenty years earlier. Since then, I've run into a handful of people who know the trick but aren't shoelace-dharma heirs of Paul's dad. Obviously there were several independent discoverers.

Looking at Ian's instructions makes my hands start to cramp. The trick (if you're just starting out) is to make a big letter N with the laces; none of this delicate fingertip stuff.

Who lives in a pineapple up in a tree?

Hyperbolic arboreal squarepants!

This is a fib.

A
Short
Poem,
Expanding
Exponentially,
Syllables accumulating,
Reproducing like Fibonacci's horny bunnies.

(Gregory proposed it (but not first); Suresh and others have written more examples.)

Another huge sadneess

Submissions from both academia and industry are encouraged. Research papers, case studies, lessons learned, status reports, and discussions of practical problems faced by industry and user domains are all welcome. [We'll take anything. Really. Write us a story about your pet parakeet, and we'll publish it.]

Why are these toys not like other toys?

“Ages 3 & up Keeps the kids entertained during Passover. This plush yellow plagues bag contains representations for all of the plagues (not necessarily in the correct order):”

“If you want to receive this item before Passover you must pick Overnight shipping.”

SODA 2007

The call for papers for SODA 2007 has been released; the submission deadline is July 5, 2006 at 4:59PM Eastern Time. Pankaj, Timothy, Sándor, Igor, and I are the geometers on the program committee.

This is a busy year for me.

We're number 13!

US News recently released its latest beauty context results rankings of computer science graduate programs, including specialized rankings in subdisciplines. UIUC came in 5th overall (tied with Cornell and behind the Big Four—CMU, MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley—who all tied for first), 8th in artificial intelligence, 8th in programming languages (tied with my undergrad alma mater Rice), 5th in systems (after the Big Four), and 13th in theory. Here is the full theory list.

1. MIT
2. Stanford
3. Berkeley
4. Cornell
5. Princeton
6. CMU
7. Harvard
8. Columbia
9. Georgia Tech
10. Washington
11. Texas
12. Chicago
13. UIUC
14. UCSD
15. Yale
16. Brown
17. Wisconsin
18. Caltech
19. Duke, Penn (tie)
20. Rutgers
21. Maryland, Michgan (tie)

UIUC also ranked 5th in computer engineering (behind the Big Four) and 5th in engineering overall (behind MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and Georgia Tech, and just ahead of Purdue).

In mathematics, UIUC was ranked 17th overall (tied with Minnesota and UPenn), 10th in the bizarre category of algebra/number theory/algebraic geometry, 9th in discrete math and combinations (sic), 3rd in logic, 15th in topology. UIUC was not listed in the rankings for statistics, applied math, or geometry.

What do all these numbers mean?

Almost nothing.

Sure, the US News theory ranking is a small-constant-factor approximation of reality, where "reality" is defined as "my opinion". (In particular, UIUC's #13 ranking in theory is pretty accurate.) But they should be taken with a heaping pile of salt. Some excellent students would be much happier and more successful at Harvard instead of MIT, or at Columbia instead of Cornell, or Caltech instead of Georgia Tech, despite the disparity in rankings. The most obvious factor is the compatibility of research strengths and interests. For example, UIUC is one of the best places in the country to study computational geometry, but it's not a great place for complexity theory; Chicago is exactly the reverse. Other reasons include departmental culture, course options and requirements, availability of good (effective, productive, and/or well-known) advisors, funding, success at faculty placement, cost/ease of living, off-campus social/cultural life, family issues, etc., etc. Students ain't robots, nor brains on sticks, neither. One size does not fit all.

All else being equal, MIT and Berkeley are the best places in the country to study theoretical computer science. Alas, ceteris is never paribus.

A discussion on Lance's blog hits all the major points.