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dateMore Than a Year Ago
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From Computational Complexity

Freedom of Speech

Bill and I have always strongly believed in the principle of freedom of speech, guaranteed to us by the constitution of the United States.  The government block...

From Computational Complexity

Fixing the Academic Job Market

Last month I posted about the craziness of the computer science academic job market due mainly to the decentralized nature of our field. Here are some ideas ofSingle...

From Computational Complexity

A Few Interesting Computer Science Papers

Probabilistic Rank and Matrix Rigidity by Josh Alman and Ryan Williams Leslie Valiant outlined an approach to proving circuit lower bounds from matrix rigidity...

From Computational Complexity

Music Theory for Theorists

I fully completed and passed my first MOOC, Fundamentals of Music Theory, a Coursera course out of the University of Edinburgh. I played the tuba in college and...

From Computational Complexity

Computer Science Academic Hiring

My faculty recruiting season in 2016 never stopped. The spring recruiting season bled through summer right into various fall recruiting activities. How I envy my...

From Computational Complexity

Our Role and Responsibility

It's Trump but not just Trump. Brexit. Right-wing politicians gaining power in France, Netherlands, Austria and beyond. We worry about the future of our country...

From Computational Complexity

Do We Still Need Great Minds?

An anonymous comment on a recent post on alternate histories. As far as science is concerned I don't believe that the great minds are needed anymore. They only...

From Computational Complexity

Get Ready

My daughters, now in college, never knew a time when they couldn't communicate with anyone instantaneously. Molly, now 18, takes pride having the same birth year...

From Computational Complexity

Alternate Histories

Imagine if we had a machine that let us change some earlier moment in history and see what developed. We wouldn't actually change history--that would lead to paradoxes...

From Computational Complexity

2016 Fall Jobs Post

The weather cools down, the leaves change color and you start thinking about what you plan to do after you graduate. As a public service every year about this time...

From Computational Complexity

Typecasting from Avi's 60th Celebration

Lance: Live from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, Bill and I are doing a typecast from the Avi Wigderson 60th Birthday Celebration. Hi...

From Computational Complexity

Who's Afraid

The playwright  Edward Albee passed away earlier this month at the age of 88. I had never actually seen any of his plays so I took the opportunity to watch theWho's...

From Computational Complexity

Boris Trakhtenbrot (1921-2016)

I woke up this morning to two pieces of news. Subhash Khot has just been named a MacArthur Fellow, the "genius" award, for his work on unique games. But I also ...

From Computational Complexity

Academic Rankings Foster Competition

This week US News and World Report released their undergraduate rankings earlier this week. A time for schools to brag. US News and World Report used to publish...

From Computational Complexity

Noam Nisan wins the Knuth Prize

Noam Nisan will receive the 2016 Donald E. Knuth Prize, the highest honor in theoretical computer science, for his work in computational complexity and algorithmic...

From Computational Complexity

Why I Don't Believe in ET

Is there life on other planets? The naive answer is "of course, why should Earth be special." What makes a lottery winner special? We could have just won the life...

From Computational Complexity

The Letter

Guest post by Molly Fortnow, incoming member of the University of Chicago class of 2020. On January 24, 2011, a miraculous thing happened. I was published on the...

From Computational Complexity

1956 Was a Fine Vintage

Bill sends me an email last week with the subject "Our field is getting old!" and talks about upcoming 60th birthday/retirement conferences he's invited to, all...

From Computational Complexity

Predicting in Changing Environments

The New York Times yesterday ran a story connecting climate change to the Louisiana flooding. The National Weather Service reports that parts of Louisiana have...

From Computational Complexity

Robin Hanson's Ems

Robin Hanson an economist at George Mason and author of the Overcoming Bias blog, has a new book The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth.White...
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