Back from vacation
I’m told that the first rule of blogging is: “never, ever apologize for the long delay in updating your blog.” As it turns out, I have no need to apologize. You see, for the past ten days, I’ve been on an intense, meeting-packed, emotionally-draining sightseeing vacation around the United States. The places I picked to see on my vacation — more-or-less at random — included Princeton, New Jersey; the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago; and the southern riverbank of Cambridge, Massachusetts. To get the most out of my vacation, I made sure to wear my best nerd attire everywhere I went, and to sample all the fine restaurants, seminar rooms, and offices of computer science department chairs and deans. And since I still haven’t had enough R&R, in April I’m going on a second vacation — this time to Pasadena, Palo Alto, and other exotic locations on the west coast. As with everything else about my personal life, you can be sure to learn all the juicy details, in real-time, right here on this blog.
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Comment #1 March 14th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Does this mean you’ll be giving another talk (or two) at Caltech?
Good to have my daily dose of quantum complexity theory back in the RSS aggregator…
Comment #2 March 14th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Domenic: Yeah, I’ll be back at Caltech April 18-19, and will be talking in the CS department. I’ll link to the talk announcement from the sidebar once I have it.
Comment #3 March 14th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Seriously, you ought to do a “health of the S&T ecosystem” post when your travels are all done. A cross between Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and Twain’s A Tramp Abroad would be just about right. 🙂
Comment #4 March 14th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Was it really the southern riverbank and not the northern riverbank of Cambridge? The southern riverbank isn’t even in Cambridge.
And what about a certain storied town in the East Bay? Ithaca, NY, where you once lived? Pittsburgh? Is your vacation tour really complete?
Comment #5 March 14th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Did you think about complexity when in vacantion?
Comment #6 March 14th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Was it really the southern riverbank and not the northern riverbank of Cambridge?
southern riverbank of Cambridge = southern part of Cambridge, which also happens to be a riverbank = northern bank of the Charles River = MIT
And what about a certain storied town in the East Bay? Ithaca, NY, where you once lived? Pittsburgh?
Alas, all the bed&breakfasts in Ithaca and Pittsburgh seem completely booked — or even if they have vacancies, they don’t accept my kind. (Would it drive away the other guests?) Still looking for an available room in the East Bay.
Comment #7 March 14th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Did you think about complexity when in vacation?
On a normal vacation I would, but on this one I didn’t have a spare second!
Comment #8 March 14th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
^.^
Comment #9 March 14th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
so what’s the point of this blog if you’re not going to dish the dirt on all the departments where you interview? did you really feel pressured to publish a paper even during your two-day interview at MIT? did you nearly starve to death while searching for an edible morsel somewhere in princeton? how many gunshots did you have to duck on the south side of chicago? we’re on the edge of our seats.
Comment #10 March 15th, 2007 at 9:06 am
we’re on the edge of our seats.
Good! Stay there.
Comment #11 March 15th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
boooooring….
Comment #12 March 16th, 2007 at 7:50 am
[…] So I propose we perform this artistic measuring with a quantum versus classical exponent SMACKDOWN! (the exclamation mark is a part of the word.) Consider, for example, the recent quantum algorithm for evaluating a NAND tree (here and here with an explanation by the traveling complexity theory salesman here. Also the awesome NAND formula paper here) This quantum algorithm has a running time of . Now compare this with the best and optimal classical algorithm for this problem. The result? where . Bleh. Round One of the Quantum Versus Classical Exponent SMACKDOWN! most certainly goes to the quantum world. One half is certainly better than something which is has both a logarithm and a square root of thirty three! […]
Comment #13 March 19th, 2007 at 10:43 am
“Caltech April 18-19, and will be talking in the CS department…”
I strongly suggest that you notify the Math Department as well. Of course, one of my early degrees (1968) was from that department, and I visit at least once a week from my home less than 5 miles away, but Caltech’s Math Dept was also filled with people VERY important to the development of Computer Science.
John “Jack” Todd, to begin with, still around as professor Emeritus, aged 93, and who attends some talks.
http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/Todd/biography/
Dr. Todd was the man who first interested John von Neumann in computers!
And, of course, the department’s Chairman Barry Simon is the IBM professor of Mathematics and Physics.
Oh, and Caltech math executive officer Gary Lorden is the Math Advisor to the hit CBS-TV show NUMB3RS.
Give me a call or email if you need any personal introductions, as your Pasadena logistics converge, although I’m sure that your fame preceeds you.
Comment #14 March 19th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
I know it’s a little early, but any offers yet from your first batch of interviews?
Comment #15 March 19th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Yes, but this is really not the place to talk about it. Sorry, dude… 🙂
Comment #16 March 22nd, 2007 at 8:15 am
Scott Aaronson for President. He needs the job.