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How the “Frontier” Became the Slogan of Uncontrolled AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been billed as the next frontier of humanity: the newly available expanse whose exploration …
From Computational Complexity
Ph.D. Attrition
Leonard Cassuto writes in the Chronicle an article Ph.D. Attrition: How Much Is Too Much? He presupposes the answer with the subtitle "A disturbing 50 percent of...
From Computational Complexity
AltaVista versus Google
Today Yahoo is closing AltaVista, the best search engine before Google. The news caught me by surprise, AltaVista still existed? A number of commentators attribute...
From Computational Complexity
Computability in Europe
Bill and I are both in Europe this week. I'm in Milan at Computability in Europe and Bill is 500 miles away in Budapest for the Paul Erdős Centenary. The US 4th...
From Computational Complexity
Friends Don't Let Friends Carpool
The AAA foundation measured cognitive distraction while driving and reported that having a passenger in the car is as dangerous as using a cell phone. On a scale...
From Computational Complexity
Automate Me
An economist friend asked me if there were still productivity gains to be had for office workers (like us). After all, we have email, social networks, skype and...
From Computational Complexity
The Internship
Last weekend I took my teenage daughters to see The Internship, the Vince Vaughn-Owen Wilson vehicle where they play two forty-year old interns at Google. It basically...
From Computational Complexity
Complexity Typecast
Lance: Welcome to another exciting typecast coming from sunny Stanford University. I'm with Bill at the 28th Conference on Computational Complexity. Hi Bill, IBill...
From Computational Complexity
STOC is Burning
Bill and I are in Palo Alto this week for the co-located meetings of STOC and Complexity. In a new ACM policy, the STOC 2013 papers are freely downloadable by all...
From Computational Complexity
The High Quality Research Act
Lots of talk, mostly negative, about the proposed High Quality Research Act. Prior to making an award of any contract or grant funding for a scientific research...
From Computational Complexity
Theory Jobs 2013
Time for the annual spring jobs posts. Like last year, I set up a Google Spreadsheet that everyone can edit so we can crowd source who is going where next year....
From Computational Complexity
Quantum Computing Fast and Slow
I just read two very different science books, Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow and Scott Aaronson's Quantum Computing since Democritus. Not much to connect...
From Computational Complexity
The MOOCs Degree
Earlier this week Georgia Tech announced the Online Masters of Science in Computer Science, a MOOCs-based degree with a total tuition of about $7000. This degree...
From Computational Complexity
GPU Computing
Back around 1980, I used to write computer games for the Apple II. Plotting a point on the Apple II screen required dividing by 7, a lengthy process for the 6502...
From Computational Complexity
Map Coloring Revisited
Following the coloring theme from Bill's last post, a few years ago I asked you readers for natural examples of maps that were and were not three colorable. Chris...
From Computational Complexity
Ideas in Search of a Blog Post
I keep a list of ideas for blog posts, but some will never turn into posts. So here are a few random thoughts from that list. Some people like to write prose,last...
From Computational Complexity
The Golden Ticket
Today is the official publication date of my first book The Golden Ticket: P, NP and the Search for the Impossible by Princeton University Press, though the book...
From Computational Complexity
Technology and Jobs
Entertainment Weekly reported last month on the bankruptcy of the special effects company Rhythm and Hues and the troubled industry. I remarked five years ago that...
From Computational Complexity
Gary Miller to Receive the Knuth Prize
The 2013 Knuth Prize will be awarded to Gary Miller at STOC (ACM Press Release). The Knuth prize is now given yearly for outstanding contributions to the foundations...
From Computational Complexity
A Century of Erdős
The great Hungarian combinatorialist Paul Erdős was born one hundred years ago today. The big celebration will happen in Budapest in July. It's hard to say more...
From Computational Complexity