Tuesday, December 12, 2006

You Ask, We Answer

In the ninth Complexitycast, Bill Gasarch and I answer reader's questions. MP3 (25 minutes, 4.3MB)

In the podcast we mentioned posts on finding jobs and the tradeoff between working on reasonable versus difficult problems.

7 comments:

  1. for foreign listners like me lance is a lot better understandable than bill gasarch who seems to be mumbling (or is it a dialect ?).

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  2. That's how Bill talks.

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  3. It sounded also like a poor connection.

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  4. Sorry for the sound quality. I tried something new, a Skype call to Bill's phone. I'll work on ways to improve the audio in future podcasts.

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  5. Bill was mumbling
    AND
    thats how Bill talks
    AND
    it was a poor connection.

    Not a dialect- but usually the complaint
    is that I talk to fast, not that I mumble.
    Might amount to the same thing.

    On a different note- Phone is diff than in
    person since you can't read visual cues
    from the other person. Maybe we'll try
    a video and phone hookup next time.

    bill g.

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  6. On the topics of jobs and the size of the community: Many advisors at the better departments (where most theory reserachers are trained) do a poor job preparing their non-star students for the job market at the not-so-good departments where they will eventually have to find employment. In the less-than-good departments, theory candidates often have to compete with systems candidates, and the academic depth of their research is but one consideration. I know we have lost opportunities to hire theoreticians because of this.

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  7. From #5:


    does it mean

    you talk to fast (not eat)

    or

    you talk (and type) too fast

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