Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Trip report + misc.

Back in Israel; it's good to be home. Now that the travels are over, I can look back and say "it wasn't that bad" -- but that's not what I would've told you when I was within a hair of getting arrested for refusing to give up my toothpaste at an airport security screening.

My submission got a "distinguished contribution" award at MLG (in lieu of "best paper" since these are extended abstracts). The analysis and probability workshop at Texas A&M was very intense, reminding me yet again how little of my so-called field I know.

"Meaty" content has been sparse here but I have a good excuse. I'm trying to switch gears from a problem-solving to a paper-writing mode. This requires less creativity and more discipline, but is absolutely indispensable -- both for one's career and for keeping oneself honest.

There's no shortage of high-quality, educational and entertaining material on the web (check out the links on the right), thus I feel no pressure to "deliver" to any readership. Speaking of which, if you're a regular reader of this blog, how about leaving a comment? Just so I know the blog has regular (or any) readers. [Not that a lack of readers has ever discouraged me from writing.] Also, feel free to use the comments to make suggestions regarding what you'd be interested in seeing here. Well enough chit-chat. Back to work.

13 comments:

asarwate said...

I'm a regular reader (via the RSS feed, of course).

Anonymous said...

You're on my Google Reader subscriptions.

Aryeh said...

Thanks guys! If I recall correctly, asarwate is from An Ergodic Walk. It'd be good if anonymous commenters at least vaguely identified themselves. What about suggestions? What kinds of things would you like to see here that you don't see elsewhere?

Anonymous said...

An undergraduate at CMU (CS). Don't remember how I came across this. How about some advice on how to be successful in research, and how to find your niche.

Daniel said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Daniel said...

I am a regular reader, but I think you know it.
Welcome back,
D.

P.S. Suggestion: Since most of the readers can only comment existing threads and cannot open theirs, may be you can once in a while open a "guests problems thread" in which interersted readers will post their research problems which can be discussed within that thread?

Aryeh said...

To the CMU undergrad: I only wish I knew how to be successful in research! I do however have a couple of pointers which (even given the gigabytes of advice to novice everythings) I believe are both original and useful; I'll be making a post on this shortly.

Danny -- good idea! I'll do this very soon as well.

Keep the comments and suggestions coming, folks!

Unknown said...

Your blog is in my bloglines subscription, and I read it regularly.

Anonymous said...

I'm a CS grad student from UW. How about a series of posts introducing some of the ideas from your thesis?

Aryeh said...

Good idea, I'll try to do a series of posts on my thesis...

Maxim said...

I'm surprised that I'm not the only Maxim who regularly reads this blog :) I know you know that I read this, Leo, but it's worth a post.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I'm not a regular reader but on occasions like today I tend to read through your posts. :) (Well the non-technical posts that is. The 'technical' ones just go whoosh over my head you see- I've only just finished my first year!)

Is there not a way in which you get an email when someone comments? That is what I have set up on my blog, so if old posts do get comments I know about it. This is in reply to your post above, but how does that comment thing work again? :o

Anonymous said...

I'm a regular reader. I like convex geometry and optimization. I like your more technical posts. So I guess I cancel out the previous comment.

--Carl Feynman