{"id":267,"date":"2007-08-31T20:44:58","date_gmt":"2007-09-01T00:44:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=267"},"modified":"2021-10-12T20:32:19","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T01:32:19","slug":"whats-going-down-in-aartown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=267","title":{"rendered":"What’s going down in AarTown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taking a cue from the Pontiff<\/a>, I thought I’d provide three quick updates on my personal life (no, not my personal<\/em> personal life; that’s none of your business).<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Last week I bought and moved into a condo in East Cambridge, a 10-minute walk from campus, with lovely views of Boston, the Charles River, and the Red Line T going over the bridge:

    \n    <\/a><\/a><\/center>
    \n(That’s mom on the sofa.) I can’t stress enough how fundamentally my life has changed now that I’m a homeowner. For example, instead of paying rent each month, I now pay something called a “mortgage,” and instead of going to a landlord, it goes to a bank. Also I get a massive tax break for some reason.<\/li>\n
  2. The students showed up this week, and the semester is here. No, I’m not teaching this fall, but there’s still plenty to do, from organizing a theory lunch to deciding what kind of whiteboard should go in my office. (With a border or without? How big a tray for pens? These are serious decisions.) On Wednesday I went to an orientation for new MIT faculty, at which I got to tell President Susan Hockfield<\/a> about quantum lower bounds, the prospects for practical quantum computers, and how her fine institution rejected me twice. Along with the usual pleasantries, Hockfield said one thing that deeply impressed me: “I know it’s gone out of fashion in many places, but you’re still allowed to use the word ‘truth’ here.”<\/li>\n
  3. Besides<\/em> moving, besides<\/em> getting oriented, I’ve also<\/em> been distracted from my blogging career by involvement with some … what’s it called? … actual research. Sorry about that; I assure you it’s just a temporary aberration.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Taking a cue from the Pontiff, I thought I’d provide three quick updates on my personal life (no, not my personal personal life; that’s none of your business). Last week I bought and moved into a condo in East Cambridge, a 10-minute walk from campus, with lovely views of Boston, the Charles River, and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures-in-meatspace","category-procrastination"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5978,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions\/5978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}