tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post3973081886428381429..comments2024-03-28T18:17:00.135-05:00Comments on Computational Complexity: Conferences AbroadLance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-55946221054174329392009-01-17T22:14:00.000-06:002009-01-17T22:14:00.000-06:00Regarding boycotting Israel - without debating who...Regarding boycotting Israel - without debating who's right in that conflict - do you have any idea how many innocent civilians were bombed in Afghanistan? <BR/><BR/>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_of_the_War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%93present)<BR/><BR/><BR/>Do you think STOC / FOCS should not be held in the US ? I find such reactions to be very hypocritical.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-44310158817840610372009-01-15T02:38:00.000-06:002009-01-15T02:38:00.000-06:00I can't tell if Paul's second paragraph in #35 is ...I can't tell if Paul's second paragraph in #35 is meant to be for or against having STOC/FOCS in Las Vegas.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-35802370887513767542009-01-12T23:52:00.000-06:002009-01-12T23:52:00.000-06:00" ... I think academics should do something to rev..." ... I think academics should do something to revert the course of history. Political leaders are too corrupted to do any thing to stop genocide in Gaza."<BR/><BR/>Not every politician is corrupt. The UN human rights commission has (justly) condemned this violation<BR/>by an overwhelming vote. With an American veto in the UN security council not much more can be done at the moment.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-36904604427226049012009-01-12T17:40:00.000-06:002009-01-12T17:40:00.000-06:00Some persons are talking about Israel as if nothin...Some persons are talking about Israel as if nothing is happening at this moment. Don't you see the Children and women of Gaza killed under the tons of American bombs dropped by American F16 jets. I think academics should do something to revert the course of history. Political leaders are too corrupted to do any thing to stop genocide in Gaza. What is happening there if far more important than any other thing. Until now there were more than 4000 wounded and more than 900 killed. How many innocent people should be killed before people begin to act to stop the tragedy. The average American people are mis-informed about what is happening as large medias are largely pro-Israelis, but you academics are more informed than average Americans and you have the duty to do something about it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-53263198053589513822009-01-12T09:47:00.000-06:002009-01-12T09:47:00.000-06:001) Conferences should try to be at a place where t...1) Conferences should try to <BR/>be at a place where there<BR/>are people interested in<BR/>going LOCALLY who often<BR/>do not get the chance.<BR/>(e.g., COMPLEXITY in Prague<BR/>attracted 12 people from<BR/>Prague). <BR/><BR/>2) Complexity does Europe<BR/>every 3 years. This makes<BR/>sense since there is no other conference covering<BR/>the same material and there are complexity theorists in Europe.<BR/><BR/>3) IF SODA and ESA cover the same material then there would seem to be no<BR/>reason for either to change<BR/>locales. If they overlap but there are some differences then a swap might be reasonable.<BR/><BR/>4) ICALP and STOC are diff enough that a swap might<BR/>be reasonable--- though<BR/>if GREECE STOC did badly<BR/>then we should find out why to avoid what they did wrong (if we can)<BR/> OR to scrap the idea<BR/>(if we can't). <BR/><BR/>5) Side note- Co-locating<BR/>is a good idea on a small level- COLT and ML have done it, STOC and COMPLEXITY have done it.<BR/>This is diff then FCRC<BR/>that has other pros and cons.GASARCHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06134382469361359081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-46530832096021701022009-01-12T08:10:00.000-06:002009-01-12T08:10:00.000-06:00KDD 2008 was held in Las Vegas, so soda/stoc/focs ...KDD 2008 was held in Las Vegas, so soda/stoc/focs organizers can contact KDD organizers to see how they got around the negative points of having a conference at the sin city.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-17641196377819677452009-01-12T06:04:00.000-06:002009-01-12T06:04:00.000-06:00We should note that LV and New Orleans both have c...We should note that LV and New Orleans both have certain undesirable aspects. I was told by several people that New Orleans is not very safe any more (post Katrina) and to stick to the main touristy areas. However, the main touristy area (Bourbon St.) is <BR/>quite tacky to say the least. <BR/><BR/>I suspect that the women at the conference would find both locations quite unpleasant. Maybe LV has areas that are away from the <BR/>"shady" areas. From that point of view, SF, NYC and DC are all better options. LA has been suggested several times, but never won a vote. The weather there in Jan is quite nice, but perhaps its expensive there? CA has other nice towns, like Santa Barbara, but<BR/>someone would need to organize a bus service from LAX for attendees to get there easily. If we could get a local organizer, the shuttle service cost can be rolled into reg. fees. After all, people get to Dagstuhl as well!<BR/><BR/>Israel: given the density of theory people there, I am surprised that a major conference did not emerge there. ISTCS started many years back, but then appeared to die out. I am not sure why. It had the potential of becoming a major theory conference. The weather in Tel-Aviv is quite nice all year.<BR/>(There was an ESA there recently, and I am sure Eilat has hosted other conferences as well.)samirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12398855828681012949noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-82552313881812705352009-01-12T05:55:00.000-06:002009-01-12T05:55:00.000-06:00Was STOC / FOCS / SODA ever held in Israel?Was STOC / FOCS / SODA ever held in Israel?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-88524461651153806352009-01-11T19:40:00.000-06:002009-01-11T19:40:00.000-06:00With the SODA model of paying SIAM to organize the...With the SODA model of paying SIAM to organize the conference, Las Vegas should work well and there are non-stop flights from lots of places. The exact timing is critical for getting those cheap rates, though. There are few local people in the field. For FOCS/STOC Larry Larmore has organized things twice in Vegas but how many times can we ask him to do this (given some unwillingness to pay the extra $75-$100 per person for professional organizers)? <BR/><BR/>The last time FOCS was in Vegas in the Tropicana we were right beside a lingerie show - there was very little space outside the rooms and the models walked from the elevators through the crowd at the break and I still recall the "and now #235, a white lace teddy" blaring out louder than the conference speaker during one of the talks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-13744097944708222222009-01-11T17:54:00.000-06:002009-01-11T17:54:00.000-06:00Is it a problem with pride/status/prestige that ac...Is it a problem with pride/status/prestige that academics don't want to be associated with the sin city? Might there not be a chance that this conference location could inspire new research problems in game theory?<BR/><BR/>One vote for Vegas!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-35413721190882427882009-01-11T17:02:00.000-06:002009-01-11T17:02:00.000-06:00Reading the comments of many of you: perhaps Las V...Reading the comments of many of you: perhaps Las Vegas is the most reasonable location. Flying there is rather cheap, lots of flights, accommodation is inexpensive (for example, for the next week I found even a few good hotels below $100), and since many of you don't care about the location ;-) we should do it every year in Vegas. Still, whenever Las Vegas is brought as one one of the locations, most of the potential participants complain!<BR/><BR/>As for Europe: I don't believe one should do SODA/STOC/FOCS in Europe very often, but doing it once every few years wouldn't hurt anybody and could help the community to reach over to Europe. Same can be said about Asia. Even if most of the community is in North America. Note that SoCG, SPAA, PODC, WWW, SIGMOD, etc, all have non-North American locations every few years.<BR/><BR/>As for STOC in Greece: if they have some losses, then it's mostly because they had huge local overhead (eg hotel registration was arranged through some Greece travel agent - made it more expensive). However, they did it together with ICALP and SPAA, and they ended up with very good attendance.<BR/><BR/>As for FOCS in Italy: it has very low attendance. It was considered to be very/over expensive.<BR/><BR/>However, both these conference (STOC/FOCS) have typically very low attendance from Europe; SODA is different and there is larger interest in algorithms in Europe.<BR/><BR/>For those saying that one could do it cheaper on the campus or using help of academics: many conferences do so, but then there is often a problem how to find volunteers to organize it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-867790261059051552009-01-11T12:08:00.000-06:002009-01-11T12:08:00.000-06:00Why do we pay so much attention to the venue where...Why do we pay so much attention to the venue where a result is published, and less so to the utility of the result itself?<BR/><BR/>If the main point of the conference is to inform people of ongoing current research on a topic and what the new ideas are, then if funding is tight its perfectly fine to publish your work in whatever conference happens to be easier to get to: ESA/ICALP for Europeans, <BR/>STOC/FOCS/SODA for US/Canada etc,<BR/>LATIN for S. Americans, ISAAC for E. Asia. For those with more travel money, there are more options to submit and they have the luxury of interacting with people all over the world.<BR/><BR/>The other option would be to have ONE big meeting (like the Math. Programming Symp) that we have once a year, and move it around. The meeting should be large enough that anyone wanting to present their work should get the opportunity to do so (with some basic filtering so that the results chosen are reasonably interesting). The conference could have many parallel sessions - MPS does have that feature. It could last one week. Instead we have actually splintered our community by creating a large number of new meetings -- SODA, APPROX/RANDOM, SoCG, PODC, ESA, SPAA, WAOA, WADS, SWAT, CAAN etc. These are all conferences on algorithms.<BR/>The number of edges in the interaction graph are a lot more when we have one large clique, rather than several little cliques.samirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12398855828681012949noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-48328387379958912042009-01-11T07:33:00.000-06:002009-01-11T07:33:00.000-06:00why didn't all these stars (as well as those from ...<I>why didn't all these stars (as well as those from India or other places) choose to work in Germany, Britain or France instead of the US?</I><BR/><BR/>Actually, I think that the most striking example is Italy. There are plenty of very strong Italians in TCS, but almost all of them work in the US. This may have something to do with the salary system in this country: the salaries at the beginning are extremely low (below the poverty line), and then just "automatically" grow with time. This is attractive only if you are old. As a result, the country is strong only in the fields that went out of fashion 30 years ago...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-57044447830246126592009-01-11T00:49:00.000-06:002009-01-11T00:49:00.000-06:00There is another factor to consider before moving ...There is another factor to consider before moving conferences outside of the US - the jet lag. It is hard to concentrate on a talk or a discussion when all you can think of is a nice comfy bed. And the issue is not symmetric: going East (as in US ->Europe) tends to be tougher than going West. <BR/><BR/>PiotrAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-54064415160352065392009-01-10T15:28:00.000-06:002009-01-10T15:28:00.000-06:00Isn't the perception about the poor level of theor...Isn't the perception about the poor level of theory in Europe due at least in part to the fact that not the same areas of theory developed as in the US ?<BR/>I can imagine my European colleagues musing about the sorry state of lambda-calculus and linear logic in the US...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-61492253687448192302009-01-10T13:51:00.000-06:002009-01-10T13:51:00.000-06:00Luca asked: Mihai, do you really think that writin...Luca asked:<BR/> <BR/><I>Mihai, do you really think that writing "European theory research is so weak" gives a fair picture of theory research in Europe?"</I><BR/><BR/>Unfortunately the answer is yes -- CS theory in Europe is not comparable in any way with that of North America. Of course there is some good work going on in Europe, but not nearly as much as you would expect by its size, economic strength, or past accomplishments. <BR/><BR/>Such a statement is certainly a matter of judgment, but the effect is so strong that it is hard to not see: you may try to count various things (citations, papers in top forums) or just think of your favorite results from the last 10, 20, or 30 years, and see where they came from in terms of Geography. <BR/><BR/>Interestingly, many of the important North-America results are by European nationals (British, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, and so on). This is not just a matter of standard of living: why didn't all these stars (as well as those from India or other places) choose to work in Germany, Britain or France instead of the US?<BR/><BR/>Maybe here would be a good forum to discuss why this is so and how it can be amended?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-42955160238818788072009-01-10T12:29:00.000-06:002009-01-10T12:29:00.000-06:00FYI, I have it on good authority that the ICALP st...<I>FYI, I have it on good authority that the ICALP steering committee is seriously considering bringing ICALP to North America.</I><BR/><BR/>I can confirm this. The EATCS Council is seriously considering this possibility as well as the option of having an ICALP in Far East Asia in the next few years. <BR/><BR/><I>There are many causes why most of the European theory research is currently so weak, but the poor quality of conferences like ESA, SWAT, ICALP, etc seems to be one of the leading ones.</I><BR/><BR/>Mihai, do you really think that writing "European theory research is so weak" gives a fair picture of theory research in Europe? For what it is worth, I believe that there are many very strong researchers in TCS in Europe, just like basically anywhere else in the world. We are lucky to live an era in which high-quality research is being carried out throughout the world. We have Europeans working in North America (you, for instance), Asians working everywhere, Americans working in Europe etc. This is what makes research a truly international enterprise. <BR/><BR/>Also, several of the readers of this blog served on the PC for ICALP 2008. It would be interesting to hear their opinion as to how weak the programme for the conference was.Luca Acetohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01092671728833265127noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-89985954989021719992009-01-10T07:03:00.000-06:002009-01-10T07:03:00.000-06:00I feel the pain of the person in New Zealand. Howe...I feel the pain of the person in New Zealand. However, that is the reason many regional theory conferences started - FST&TCS (India), ESA (Europe), ISAAC (Japan/HK/Korea...), CATS (Australia/N. Zealand). I view<BR/>SODA as the N.America regional meeting. Where should our students go if SODA were to move far away?<BR/><BR/>In the 80's there was FOCS and STOC in the US, and ICALP in Europe. SODA is about 20 years old and ESA is 17 years old so both have had time to establish themselves.<BR/><BR/>I too have the impression that<BR/>STOC in Crete lost a lot of money<BR/>(confirming what Paul said). <BR/>BTW, FOCS 1991 was in Puerto Rico<BR/>and my impression is that the attendance was low (much much lower than FOCS 1990 and FOCS 1992). I was not there, so am not 100% sure.samirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12398855828681012949noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-56832428046789384042009-01-10T04:09:00.000-06:002009-01-10T04:09:00.000-06:00Contrary to Nicole's comment, neither STOC/FOCS in...Contrary to Nicole's comment, neither STOC/FOCS in Greece/Rome had remotely close to record attendance. The records for both conferences were much higher - over 500 for both (see <A HREF="http://sigact.acm.org/stoc/past.html#attendees" REL="nofollow"> some old STOC numbers</A>). Both of the European FOCS & STOC conferences did not do well financially - I believe that STOC lost money. <BR/> <BR/>One issue that used to be the case (but may no longer be true) is that USA->Europe->USA airfares were substantially greater than Europe->USA->Europe airfare for the same flights.<BR/><BR/>Being held in January when at least a few North American academics do not have classes means that moving SODA to alternative locations may create less conflicts than moving FOCS/STOC. Paris in January? Why choose a location whose residents would prefer to be elsewhere at that time of year? Either skiing or sun at that time of year seems far preferable in choosing a location.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-41583877707284093822009-01-10T03:55:00.000-06:002009-01-10T03:55:00.000-06:00When you're a grad student in New Zealand, virtual...When you're a grad student in New Zealand, virtually every conference is in an "exotic" and expensive location... :-(Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-88436101179376363102009-01-09T23:55:00.000-06:002009-01-09T23:55:00.000-06:00Unless we're willing to rename SODA as ASODA, I do...Unless we're willing to rename SODA as ASODA, I don't see how to convince ESA to come to the US. <BR/><BR/>As someone who's organizing a major theory conference in two years, I can tell you that it's a thankless job, and if I had been at SODA, I would have continued to support letting SIAM do the organizing. <BR/><BR/>It's worth pointing out that SODA had an approximately fixed east coast/west-coast plan for a while. It's not NY/SF, but the intent was the same (ensuring that people from both sides, and Asia/Europe) find it easier to attend. <BR/><BR/>I agree with Samir's point about having no time to do "sightseeing" during a conference: since SODA is more often than not during the start of spring semester (or winter quarter), it's not like we can take extra days off and cavort around. I don't think there's any harm in thinking about nicer locations, but it's not realistic to choose locales like the Virgin Islands, or even Puerto Rico.Suresh Venkatasubramanianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15898357513326041822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-10448852427926759032009-01-09T21:47:00.000-06:002009-01-09T21:47:00.000-06:00FYI, I have it on good authority that the ICALP st...FYI, I have it on good authority that the ICALP steering committee is seriously considering bringing ICALP to North America.<BR/><BR/>Several folks at SODA said that they would only vote for SODA to go to Europe if ESA comes to the US. Seems like a fair compromise to me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-41326370418011983332009-01-09T16:09:00.000-06:002009-01-09T16:09:00.000-06:00I like the idea of holding STOC/SODA/FOCS outside ...I like the idea of holding STOC/SODA/FOCS outside the US once every few years, it helps to better integrate the theory community inside and outside the US.<BR/><BR/>How about asking for some European conferences (e.g., ESA) to be held in the US in those years?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-66379076700130723282009-01-09T15:42:00.000-06:002009-01-09T15:42:00.000-06:00Yes, thanks. I was thinking of cost of living in g...Yes, thanks. I was thinking of cost of living in general, which would drive up the conference cost for both participants and hosts. Why pick an expensive city?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-49752001675240063722009-01-09T15:18:00.000-06:002009-01-09T15:18:00.000-06:00SF, NY, and Boston would cost you more (unnecessar...<I>SF, NY, and Boston would cost you more (unnecessarily) for 1 and 2.</I><BR/><BR/>Did you mean for 2 and something else? For 1, all of SF, NY, and Boston have cheap public transportation to and from the airport and central city.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com