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Thursday, July 03, 2008
The Great Procrastinators
Posted by Lance
A chemist earlier this week called computer scientists famous procrastinators with our uncanny ability to put off to tomorrow what we could have done today. I'd feel insulted except that he's absolutely right. For those who disagree, aren't you supposed to be working on your SODA papers now?Why is procrastination seemingly part of our culture? Much has to come from our deadline-driven conference and grant system. If deadlines motivate us highly then not having a specific deadline for a task (say writing or refereeing a journal paper) tends to push that task down to later when we'd rather be doing something else like research.
Sometimes people take it to the extreme: One time someone decided to skip a workshop months in the future because a STOC deadline was at the end of the same week. I convinced that person to sign up for the workshop by tricking them into thinking the deadline was one week earlier. Maybe I lied but wasn't everyone better off for it?
And then, of course, as computer scientists we are always on a computer with access to the web, the great distractor. It's just too easy to catch some videos, catching the latest political news, reading and writing email and blogs…OK, back to work for me.
Enjoy the 4th everyone and we'll be back on Monday.
9:09 AM #
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
A NEW Blog in Town-kdphd
Posted by GASARCH
(***SORELLE*** requested and approved this message, though I wrote it.)
There is a new theory blogger on the scene and as you read that sentence you may be wondering `oh, who is he?' That would be the wrong question.
Check out kdphd.blogspot.com a new blog by a ***SORELLE*** a female theorist. Her first blog is a short intro to herself. The second one is about a women-in-computing workshop she went to.
What will ***SORELLE*** blog about in the future? She says it will be women's issues (a term she doesn't like- perhaps she'll blog about what to replace it with), computer science, grad school, politics, the politics of computer science grad school, and whatever else comes up. She is multi-dimensional and so I assume her blog will be too.
She is a Comp Geometry student from The University of Maryland. I am happy to say I have had no influence on her whatsoever. She is her own women.
Why is her name ***SORELLE*** ? Because I was once asking people what their stage names would be if they had one. Sorelle is one of those people like MADONNA and CHER and others celebs that have one word names. Hence she will always be ***SORELLE*** to me. Actually, I don't know her last name.
A pointer to her blog can now be found on our blog under `Sorelle'. (Lance is not big on asterisks and capital letters.)8:21 AM #
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
NSF and CACM
Posted by Lance
I received two "Dear Colleague" letters over the weekend. Jennette Wing, current head of the Computer & Information Science & Engineering directorate at NSF, describes the restructuring of CISE including a new Algorithmic Foundations program, of interest to many readers of this blog. Many program solicitations have already been posted with deadlines much earlier than in previous years.Moshe Vardi tells us that we all ought to join the ACM, partly to help support the main computer science society, but also because now you will receive the new redesigned Communications of the ACM under Vardi's editorialship.
ACM serves two very different communities, academic computer scientists and practicing computer professionals. The flagship magazine, CACM, has to cater to both groups to succeed. The old CACM mostly had articles around some common topic written by academics, aimed at practitioners and not fitting the needs of either group.
So how is the new CACM? The first redesigned issue (July) just came out and is available online. It hasn't reached the full vision but does give a taste with some opinionated pieces on topics from XML to quantum computing. It also has interviews with Donald Knuth and the Turing award winners.
Definitely an improvement but I didn't find any articles that truly excited me. If CACM hopes to become the "first magazine I want to read each month," it will have to take more risks, producing articles that give new perspectives to up and coming topics in computer science and lead the field instead of just reporting on it.
6:32 AM #
Monday, June 30, 2008
The Special Issue Debate
Posted by GASARCH
A commenter requested a written post on the special issue debate (our podcast already has it but he or she and others may have a hard time accessing our words of ... wisdom(?)). Here are all the opinions that I heard at the meeting and later. I do not attribute them since we are not yet at the point where making a good point at a meeting is something to put on your resume.
- Background: The special issue for CCC (and most theory conferences) had been JCSS (Journal of Computer and Systems Sciences) for many years. When prices began going up many theory conferences switched to non-commercial publishers, some affiliated with societies like SICOMP. CCC went from JCSS to CC (Computational Complexity) which is owned by Springer, a commercial publisher. Laci Babai has been running Theory of Computing: An Open Access Journal and he wants us to switch to his journal or to have some kind of rotating system. von zur Gathen who is the editor of CC wants us to stay at CC. The steering committee wants to DECIDE and STAY with someone for the next 5 years so we don't have to keep having this debate.
- The goals of a commercial publishers are at odds with the goals of the community. We want our work out there and available. In particular we want out work to be available free online or at a cheap price on line. They want to make money. Therefore we should switch to a non-commercial publisher, as many other theory conferences already have.
- The distinction between commercial and non-commercial is silly. There are some non-commercial publishers that are not very good (IEEE was brought up). Nobody seemed to be able to bring up the other kind of counter example- a commercial publisher that was very good. von zur Gathen says that CC is reasonably priced but he admits that Springer does overprice other journals.
- CC is not free online. However, if we go with them they will put the special issue free on line after a year. And they will (as they did this year) provide us with free copies of the journal at CCC. Should we threaten every year to get more and more out of them? One participant told von zur Gathen directly: You make the entire journal free online 6 months after it appears and I will vote for CC.
- There is something about paper that feels more permenent then just being online. Formats change but paper lasts forever. Then again, Google Caching also lasts forever.
- Does Theory of Computing: An Open Access Journal have sound financial backing? Laci claims that even if Univ of Chicago blew up tommorow the journal would keep going. However, the journal has not set up the proper paperwork to accept donations.
- Will Springer raise the price of CC? So far they have not and they regard it as a prestige journal so they are willing to break even. Will this last forever? But even in its current state, there are schools that do not have access to it, while all people have access to TOC:AOAJ.
- ACM has a new journal Transactions on Computation Theory. This would seem to be a good place to have the special issue. Non -commercial, sound business model, ACM support. But it has not produced a single issue yet. The editor, Lance Fortnow, said he is not seeking the special issue. Since this is an election year it is not clear what that means.
- The Special Issue of CCC is 1/4 of CC's issues. We are making them prestigous, not vice versa.
- Rotating seems complicated; however, if we can just have on the CCC website to click here or there to get that years special issue, that could be okay.
- When the editors raise prices we don't like it. But when the lower them or agree to put things online, thats a bribe. They can't win. Well- if they just put EVERYTHING online and cheap then we will stop complaining and threatening. If they can't find a way to do that and make a profit they should not be in the business.
- There should be a special issue to honor the good papers and also (and this is a topic for another day) make sure that conf papers get into journals- our field has been bad about that.
- At the meeting there was a ranked vote: You could vote CC, TOC:AOAJ, write in (likely Transactions), or to rotate. If you voted rotate then you had to say which journals. (E.g., Every year that is a Fiboacci Prime, we got to CC, Fib non-prime TOC:AOAJ, all else: TRANS.) The results of the vote will be posted online.
- Laci gave his presentation on overheads.
10:43 AM #
Friday, June 27, 2008
Complexity Conference Wrap
Posted by Lance
In the second half of our podcast (22:34, 20.6 MB), Bill and I talk about the debate over special issues at the business meeting between Joachim van zur Gathen, editor-in-chief of Computational Complexity (a Springer journal that serves as the current home of the conference's special issue) and László Babai, editor-in-chief of Theory of Computing (an open-access electronic journal). Watch this space for the results of the vote taken after the debate.Bill and I also talk about Richard Beigel's report on the not-too-bad state of theory funding. An important warning: Regular theory proposals will have a fall deadine, well before the deadlines over the previous few years.
Evan Golub set up a Flickr group for pictures from the conference and uploaded some he took from the business meeting. Feel free to upload your own pictures from the conference.
I really enjoyed the conference for several reasons. For the first time since 1995 I didn't attend the conference steering committee dinner or have any other major responsibilities. I did serve on the PC and hosted the first session, but pretty much I could just relax and enjoy this meeting. Also for the first time since Amherst in 2004 we had the conference by ourselves on an American college campus allowing a very relaxed atmosphere. I really had a chance to talk over some neat research problems and catch up with old friends including a very large presence of former Chicago students. No new theorems for me this week but plenty of neat problems to think about.
Now I go home, switch hats, and get ready for the upcoming Electronic Commerce Conference in Chicago.
See you all at next year's Complexity Conference in Paris!
10:40 AM #
Thursday, June 26, 2008
On being local on the local org comm.
Posted by GASARCH
Comments on being on the local arrangements committee for CCC 2008.
- The local arrangements comm. was a joint effort with Richard Chang and Marius Zimand. Always good to have people checking each other.
- Lisa and Allison from the Conference and Visitor Services did alot of the nitty-gritty work like reserving rooms, buses, setting up websites, and being around. They have my sincerest thanks. The two student volunteers, Martin and Nicholas, were also helpful.
- Pierre McKenzie (Steering Committee Chair) and Paul Beame (Program committee chair) made alot of the decisions. This was Great!.
- Before, during, and after the conference I kept wondering is there something I should be doing?. The wondering was tiring, so if I fell asleep during your talk, thats why.
- There were many decisions that had to be made. Where on campus to have it? What layout should the room have? Bagels at Breakfast? What should go in the tote bag? What should be the logo on the tote bag? On the name badges? What hotels to use? What time should the shuttle bus be? What time should the business meeting be? Some were important. Some were not. but it drove me nuts and it never seemed to end.
- The hardest thing was making up the budget. It has to be based on how many people we think will come. Past attendence is some guide, but hard to say how good. (We got 81 which was good.)
- I got to go to the steering committee meeting this year and last year. I saw the corridors of powers! Alot of thoughtful (i.e. long) discussions on alot of issues- major and minor.
- Instead of saying `Sasha, congrads for winning the best student award!' I said `Sasha, make sure you fill out the forms to get your money!' Being local arrangements people changes your viewpoint.
- I am happy nothing went wrong. Before the conference I thought What if we have a loss? What if we have a profit? What if I go to jail--doing a nickel for being falsely accused of ripping of a conference..., Will the room be good?, Will the dorms be good? Will the hotels be good? and of course Will there be enough bagels?.
- Pierre, Paul, Lisa--Is there something I should be doing?
12:44 PM #
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Podcasting from the Conference
Posted by Lance
Bill and I revived the Complexitycast by talking about the Complexity Conference. The discussion ran long so we will post the podcasts in parts. In Part I (18:33, 16.9MB) we talk about the award winning papers:and the beginning of the business meeting including future Complexity Conferences in Paris (July 7-10, 2009) and Cambridge, Massachusetts co-located with STOC in 2010.
- Ronald V. Book Best Student Paper Award: Alexander Sherstov for Approximate Inclusion-Exclusion for Arbitrary Symmetric Functions
- Best Paper co-Winner: Ran Raz and Amir Yehudayoff for Lower Bounds and Separations for Constant Depth Multilinear Circuits
- Best Paper co-Winner: Emanuele Viola for The Sum of d Small-Bias Generators Fools Polynomials of Degree d
8:14 AM #
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
FOCS Accepts
Posted by Lance
Accepted FOCS papers posted.4:22 AM #
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