Thursday, April 05, 2007

Complexity 2007- BE THERE!

The website for Complexity 2007 is up now (its been up for while) CCC08. In 2007 it is part of FCRC, a set of conference including STOC. Should you go? YES if you can. Should you also go to STOC or part of STOC. YES if you can. Advice:
  1. Register and book hotel early and try to stay in the conference hotel.
  2. Air travel: There used to be some rules-of-thumb like `fly over a weekend for a better price' or `book early or `book late' or `fly airline XXX' or ... None of these seem to be consistent anymore. One rule-of0thumb- if you see a good price grab it since it may go away.
  3. DO NOT CHECK BAGGAGE. Saves time on both ends and saves the time and hassle when they lose it.
  4. Look at the program ahead of time and download and read some of the papers ahead of time. This way you can follow those talks pretty well. (Papers likely on authors websites or EEEC but not necc.)
  5. Bring a notebook and a clipboard OR a labtop so that you can take notes on talks and things you hear in the hallways.
  6. Its a cliche to say `you learn more from talking to people in the halls then at the talks' While you certainly learn alot this way, the talks are also valuable. Not so much because you will learn the latest results and their proofs, but so that you'll know whats out there.
  7. How many talks to go to? Going to all of them is tiring and leaves less hall-time. Pick talks that you already have some very basic knowledge of OR want to get into. IF you are looking for things to work on, go to more talks. If your plate is already full, go to less talks.
  8. The following is typical and should not be underated: You only understand the first 3 minutes of a talk BUT you get awareness of a new area and some references to look at.
  9. When you get home follow up on the topics that peaked your interest.

11 comments:

  1. piqued, not peaked.

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  2. Oh well, if we're going there:
    * A "labtop" sounds really huge and scary to lug around.
    * you learn more [...] *than* [...].
    * "a lot", not "alot"
    * "It's a cliche" not "Its a cliche"
    :)

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  3. Also: ECCC instead of EEEC, underrated instead of underated, and some other trivial spelling mistakes. But anyways, a very informative post. Thanks!

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  4. Regarding airfares, does anyone have experience with farecast.com for airfare prediction?

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  5. I want to suggest a ground rule for comments on this blog under its new management. Let's agree not to correct bill g's grammar and spelling. Those who know and love him are aware that it's like carping at e e cummings for not using capital letters. Fuggedaboudit and just read the damn blog and enjoy it.

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  6. In his post, Bill links to the Complexity conference web page. I am responsible for posting and maintaining the information found there and I'd like to ask the people who use that page to send me suggestions on its usefulness, layout, and so forth. Is the information you need to know about the conference easy to find? Is anything missing?

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  7. Actually, I like both "peaked" and "labtop"---I've certainly used my notebook computer as a lab.

    All the best, Bill, on this blog!

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  8. Hi John Rogers,
    My suggestion would be to make available the cost to attend before entering in all one's information. (Can you guess I'm on a grad student budget?)

    I also would like to second the "Leave grammar alone" vote.

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  9. To anonymous 9: Yes, the fees should appear sooner in the registration process. Unfortunately, I don't administer that web site (which is only for CCC 2007 registration). I take care of the permanent conference site at computationalcomplexity.org. But I will pass your suggestion along.

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  10. For those commenting Bill's spelling, please stop that shit!!

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  11. bill seems to have fixed the redness caused to comments by hovering over them, well done..

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