Odds and Ends

Glencora Borradaile makes her recommendations for FOCS videos to watch (can we have all our conferences do videos, please ? My 40 minutes on the bus will take on a whole new dimension). I like the idea of starring speakers who do a good job: might increase the competitive pressure. Come to think of it, here's another perk of having videos for conferences: sheer embarrassment will make sure that speakers improve their presentations.

The cstheory Q&A site rolls on. Those of you at FOCS might have noticed the little sheets in your registration packets, but I don't know if it actually encouraged new people to visit. If you're one of them, do drop a note in the comments. Three points of interest:

• We have a collaboratively edited article that we just submitted to SIGACT News (you can read the draft here). The article highlights some of the recent fascinating questions, answers and discussions on the site - do check it out
• This is purely anecdotal, but I've been hearing both at FOCS and on the site that people are having to avoid visiting the site because it's so addictive ! Don't worry - it isn't that bad - as a matter of fact I only spent 6 hours last night ! down from.. (never mind)..
• Another sign of catastrophic success: our first incident of undergrads in a theory class systematically trying to get their homework questions answered by posting on the site. Many alert users were able to close down the questions, but occasionally answers slip by. If you're an undergraduate and read this blog (HA ! blogs are for old fogies !), be warned...

Finally, because I'd be remiss not to do so, some neat questions (and answers) to chew on:

• What's the real complexity of computing the GCD of two numbers ?
• How hard is it really to compute the eigendecomposition of a matrix ?