2021
03.01
Category:
Poetry /
Tags: no tag /
I have only known how to tell of myself.
My world is like the ant’s, my pack
just as much burden to me,
to heavy for my frail back.
My way, like her way to the top of the tree,
is a way of pain and struggle, mocked
by a contemptuous giant hand
and maliciously blocked.
All my paths twists, are wet with tears
because of my fears of a giant hand.
Distant beacons, you have deceived me.
Why did you beckon, miraculous land?
by Rachel
For more information about Rachel, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Bluwstein .
2021
01.12
If you are formatting a paper for lipics, but don’t want all their files in the paper directory, add the following to the top of the main latex file:
\makeatletter
\def\input@path{{lipics/}{../lipics/}}
\makeatother
\documentclass[a4paper,USenglish,cleveref,autoref,thm-restate]%
{socg-lipics-v2019}
This is under the assumption that lipics/ subdirectory contains the .cls file.
2020
12.03
It is possible to submit a paper with biblatex to the arxiv, but you need to include the relevant biblatex files in what you submit. Fortunately, there is a script that seems to work, and collect all these files:
https://github.com/djsutherland/arxiv-collector
2019
09.26
In addition to the hiring in theory I mentioned earlier, we are also, independently, looking for people working in Quantum Computing. In particular, we might be able to hire several people doing QC this year. So, if you are in QC and interested, then you should apply!
2019
09.25
UIUC CS is hiring faculty this academic year in all areas. All areas include theory. So please apply if you are doing CS theory.
Job ad:https://cs.illinois.edu/about-us/faculty-positions.
2018
09.23
UIUC is looking for quantum and not necessarily quantum people to hire. See here for details.
The advertisenent on cstheory-jobs.
2017
11.25
In Radon’s urn there are \(n\) balls — \(r\) of them are red, and the rest are blue. In each iteration of the game is as follows:
- The player picks \(t\) balls out of the urn (\(t\) is a small constant, say \(4\)) [the picking is done with repetition], and let \(s\) be the number of red balls in the sample.
- The player returns the sample back to the urn.
- The player picks a random ball from the urn and replaces it with a red ball if \(s \geq 2\) and by a blue ball otherwise.
As such, the number of balls in the urn remains the same throughout the game, and we are interested in the event that all balls become blue (or all red [but that would be bad]).
Let assume that \(r\), the initial number of red balls, is quite small – say \(r \leq n/(4t^2)\).
Several questions:
- In expectation, how many iterations of the game one has to play till all the balls in the urn are blue?
- Same as above, but we want the probability of failure to be smaller than some parameter \(\psi\)?
- What happens if the initial number of red balls is larger, say \(r \geq 8n/t^2\)?
This problem is inspired by a similar process analyzed in the following paper (by Clarkson, Eppstein, Miller, Sturtivant, and Teng) – where Radon’s point makes a surprising appearance. (As pointed out by David Eppstein, a free version of the paper, unfortunately without the figures, is available here.)
2017
07.12
Recently UIUC had started requiring using vpn to ssh into computers in UIUC. After some time spent on this, here is the easiest way to work with this under linux (from my own experience – YMMV). It does not seem to require root permissions (except for installing the relevant packages).
- No need to use the cisco stuff. openconnect works well. Another package that is quite useful is ocyproxy. Assuming you have debian/ubuntu system, first do the following:
sudo apt-get install openconnect ocproxy
- Next, you create a proxy socks port on your local computer which goes through the vpn (run this from a terminal/shell script/etc):
echo "your_netid_password" \
| openconnect --script-tun --script "ocproxy -D 9052" \
--authgroup=SplitTunnel -b \
--user=your_net_id --passwd-on-stdin \
vpn.cites.illinois.edu
- You need to let your ssh setup know to use this local port for ssh into your remote UIUC machine. To this end, add to the file ~/.ssh/config the following lines:
Host yourhostname.cs.illinois.edu
ProxyCommand nc -X 5 -x 127.0.0.1:9052 %h %p
- And thats it – you should be in business. Doing
ssh yourhostname.cs.illinois.edu
should happily connect you to your uiuc host.
2017
06.01
I posted some new class notes on planar graphs. Naturally they contain typos etc, but hopefully they would be useful for somebody out there (or not). Anyway, they are available at the bottom of this page. The notes currently cover (i) planarity checking, (ii) grid embedding, (iii) circle packing theorem, and (iv) planar separator.
2017
05.26
Once you have eliminated all candidates, whoever survive would be king. That is my conclusion from reading a book on the war of the roses. A positive conclusion is how rarely democracy elects incompetent people to be head of states, while the war of the roses was caused to a large extent by having several incompetent kings. Henry VI was an infant when he became a king and was never competent. Other turns to the worst were caused by kings dying in inconvenient times. Which is another important feature of democracy – the ability to withstand a change of head of state without much turbulence
As this long and complicated sequence of battles and intrigues in a civil war unfolded, one can only wonder what the regular people thought – as all of this struggle involved only the ruling class. They lived and died just like their rulers.
The book is “The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors” by Dan Jones. I recommend it if you like reading history books.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20821029-the-wars-of-the-roses
2017
03.02
There is a cute video on YouTube on conflict free coloring. See here…
2017
02.23
Category:
Quotes /
Tags: no tag /
One day he arrived at Senez, which is an ancient episcopal city. He was mounted on an ass. His purse, which was very dry at that moment, did not permit him any other equipage. The mayor of the town came to receive him at the gate of the town, and watched him dismount from his ass, with scandalized eyes. Some of the citizens were laughing around him. “Monsieur the Mayor,” said the Bishop, “and Messieurs Citizens, I perceive that I shock you. You think it very arrogant in a poor priest to ride an animal which was used by Jesus Christ. I have done so from necessity, I assure you, and not from vanity.”
2016
12.30
Category:
Tweet /
Tags: no tag /
2016
11.25
​Discrete Geometry and Convexity
BÃRÃNY 70
Budapest, June 19-23, 2017
http://www.renyi.hu/conferences/barany70/
2016
11.23
The abstract deadline for SoCG 2017 is coming up: abstracts (at most 300 words). The submission itself is due on December 5.
May the seasoning be with you!
2016
10.27
UIUC CS department is hiring this year in crypto. This is for a security-focused slot with interest in crypto people (both theoretical and applied). See here. Apply now while supply lasts!
2016
08.06
Category:
Quotes /
Tags: no tag /
Then the hard, dry Spaniards came exploring through, greedy and realistic, and their greed was for gold or God. They collected souls as they collected jewels. They gathered mountains and valleys, rivers and whole horizons, the way a man might now gain title to building lots. These tough, dried-up men moved restlessly up the coast and down. Some of them stayed on grants as large as principalities, given to them by Spanish kings who had not the faintest idea of the gift.
2016
07.05
Konstantinos and Chao have a new version of their subset sum paper on the arxiv. They speed up the classical subset sum algorithm by a factor of sqrt(n) using clever divide and conquer strategy. This version is reasonably well written and is quite elegant. A nice paper!
2016
06.25
Category:
Quotes /
Tags: no tag /
“I do not understand why the British government needs until October to decide whether to send the divorce letter to Brussels,†Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, told German television.
http://nyti.ms/293Hp1m
2016
06.24
Category:
Tweet /
Tags: no tag /
Whatever the cost may be, we shall leave on the beaches, we shall leave on the landing grounds, we shall leave in the fields and in the streets, we shall leave in the hills; we shall never stay, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were bored and without internet connection, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the leaving, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
2016
06.19
Category:
Tweet /
Tags: no tag /
Naturally everyone answered in the affirmative, shouting out in their respective tongues, but, unfortunately, says Poitiers, the guards outside the church thought that this loud clamour was some sort of last-minute English treachery, and responded by setting fire to the nearby houses.
2016
05.29
Category:
Quotes /
Tags: no tag /
Describing his unhappiness over the shogunate’s signing treaties with barbarians, a development for which he had no excuse to offer the gods or his ancestors, he mentioned his reluctance to send Kazunomiya, the daughter of an emperor, to a part of Japan where foreigners roamed.