Phillipe Flajolet passed away

Today I read on Lipton's Blog that Phillipe Flajolet passed away (1948-2011). Flajolet worked in Analytic Combinatorics. His book with Sedgewick on the field (see this review) practically defined the term Analytic Combinatorics.

Most of the math we use in Theoretical computer science is discrete math. However, analytical mathematics is also useful and I wonder if its potential has been fully tapped yet. Here) is an example: a paper by Flajolet that uses Complex Analysis to show that certain context free languages are inherently ambiguous.

I am teaching 30 students a course on Formal Language theory now and I suspect that less than 3 know any complex analysis. I suspect that in earlier times more would have. I do not miss those times; however, it means that results like the one cited above cannot be taught.

An unusual Voting Scheme

(I want to thank Bobby Kleinberg for bringing this to my attention.)

Consider the following voting scheme

1. Choose a random person A₁.
2. A₁ chooses a set at random of 30 people. Call the set A₂.
3. Choose a random set of 9 from the 30 in A₂. Call this set A₃.
4. The members of A₃ pick a set of 40 people. This is NOT random. In fact, every person they choose must be approved by at least 7 of the 9. Call this set of 40 A₄.
5. Choose a random set of 12 from the 40 in A₄. Call this set A₅.
6. The members of A₅ pick a set of 25 people. This is NOT random. In fact, every person chosen must be approved by at least 9 of the 12.
7. Choose a random set of 9 from the 25 people in A₅. Call this set A₆.
8. The members of A₆ pick a set of 45 people. This is NOT random. In fact, every person chosen must be approved by at least 7 of the 9.
9. Choose a random set off 11 from the 45 people.
10. These 11 chose a final set of 41. They do this by every member choosing a candidate which they may examine in person. The candidates with the most approvals are picked.
11. THESE 41 chose the WINNER - but the winner had to get at least 25. (It is not clear if any of them could be the winner.)

Which of the following is true?

1. This is a real scheme that was really used.
2. This scheme was part of a BREAKTHROUGH!!!! result.
3. This scheme is a counterexample to a conjecture about voting schemes.
4. This scheme (with parameters) is an example of a voting scheme that is NP-hard to manipulate.

I would have guessed that it is a contrived scheme to serve as a counterexample, but NO- this scheme was really used to pick the new doges of Venice from 1268 until roughly 1768. Why so complex? To avoid anyone rigging the election. You can read more about it here. I suspect it would be hard to manipulate, though I don't think it is known to be NPC to manipulate.

Why did this come up? Bobby Kleinberg gave a talk at UMCP where he brought it up to show that his results (about how randomness can help make mechanisms hard to manipulate) had a real world counterpart. See here for his paper, which has co-authors Jason Hartline and Azarakhsh Malekian.

How I'm Spending my Spring Break

This week I returned to Dagstuhl for the workshop on Computational Complexity of Discrete Problems. I come here so often that when I tweeted that I was om way Dagstuhl tweeted back that they want another typecast. But no Bill here so no typecast.

This has been a theory-friendly month for Dagstuhl. Last week the Geometers and two weeks before that Algorithms. One of the algorithms attendees thought he saw me at the Frankfurt airport on his way home but didn't think I would have any reason to be in Germany. But it was me returning from Porto.

Dagstuhl really gives me a chance to find out the latest and greatest of what's going on in complexity. No major breakthroughs but lots going on down in the low complexity range (low-depth circuits). Keep watching my Twitter for Dagstuhl updates.

There's a conflicting complexity seminar in Paris that's splitting our crowd. If you happen to be in Paris tomorrow, Avi Wigderson is giving a popular talk on P v NP.

Dagstuhl is expanding to have either larger or more seminars. There is also a new Dagstuhl-like seminar in Japan and the Banff center has new housing. Seems to be the model we are in: Big conferences to publish your papers, small workshops to mingle and collaborate. I love these small workshops but I do worry they silo us theorists even more.

Travel Support for Students going to STOC 2011

If you are a grad student and want to goto STOC 2011 there is travel support money that you can apply for. See here for details.

We are particularly interested in getting people who normally ARE NOT able to get to STOC (or FOCS or...) to go to this. SO, if you know some grad students who would LIKE to go to STOC if they had travel money, but DO NOT have travel money, then urge them to apply.

Update on 17x17 problem

UPDATE: Problem HAS been solved. See Feb 8, 2012 post. There IS a 4-coloring of 17x17 and also of 18x18. Can also see my arXiv paper on grid coloring.


Long time readers may recall that 17x17 problem that I posted on Nov 30, 2009 here. I am sometimes asked if the problem is still open. Alas it is. Is the bounty on it still available. Alas it is. Some thoughts and experiences

1. See this for a different take on it.
2. When I wrote the post not that many people tried it seriously. Because of the post and because Brian Hayes picked up on it (see here) many people have worked on it seriously. This is good in that I now know that its hard, but bad in that its still unsolved.
3. A High School Student wanted a formal contract before showing me his alleged solution. I told him that if he posted a comment with the coloring ON MY BLOG I would have to pay up and would do so gladly. His solution didn't work anyway.
4. Do I still think that 17x17 is 4-colorable? The problem is that this is a finite problem. The fact that nobody has found a 4-coloring MIGHT mean there isn't one. But it might just mean there are very few of them.
5. As a pessimist I think that 17x17 IS 4-colorable. Why is that? The following three problems are open: is 17x17 4-colorable? is 17x18 4-colorable? is 18x18 4-colorable? If 17x17 was NOT 4-colorable then the rest would NOT be 4-colorable with no additional work. We will not be that lucky. By the same reasoning I think 18x18 is NOT 4-colorable. (There are a few other grids where we do not know if they are 4-colorable but not many.)
6. Will future faster computers help? Maybe, but there needs to be a math breakthrough, even a small one, as well.
7. Will future Quantum Computers help? I doubt anyone will go to the expense of building a quantum computer for the 17x17 grid problem. And I doubt there will be general-purpose quantum computers.
8. The following problem is inspired by my problem but has not gotten that much attention: How hard is the following: Given (n,m,c) and a partial rectangle-free c-coloring of nxm, can it be completed to a total rectangle-free c-coloring of nxm. Should be NP-complete but I have not been able to prove this I also haven't tried that hard- Maybe I'll get a bright High School Student to do it and get some free lunches out of it (see here).
9. JohnPaul Adamovsky claimed that they had a proof that 17x17 was NOT 4-colorable and had comments on it on my blog here. I could not make sense of his proof. I suspect he no longer believes this since recent email from him describes an approach to finding a 4-coloring. He also made an offer that if I bought him some type of computer (he says which type) he will solve the problem. I have declined it; however, I offered to do a post on updated status of the 17x17 problem so he could make a comment on it offering it to others (I am doing that NOW). Note that if he posted on my older posts very few people would see it. He did not respond kindly to my offer; however, we'll see if he comments.
10. I gave a talk on grid colorings at an Algorithms and Theory of Computation Day that Zachos invited me to in New York. A the end I had the following exchange with Lane Hemaspaandra who had also given a talk.
    
    LANE: What does this have to do with Algorithms or Theory of Computation?
    
    BILL: I could make something up but I respect you and the audience too much for that. The answer is NOTHING.
    
    LANE: Then why are you giving a talk on it at Algorithms and Theory of Computation day?
    
    BILL: Because Zachos invited me. You could ask why he invited me, but I think it is because he knows my parents live in the area so I would be a cheap date- no housing costs.
    
    OTHER AUDIENCE MEMBER: Actually this material does have applications. This is part of Ramsey Theory and there is an entire website of applications of Ramsey Theory to Computer Science.
    
    BILL (Thinking- there's ANOTHER one aside from mine? I should take a look at it) OH- that's good to know- what is the pointer to it?
    
    OTHER AUDIENCE MEMBER: Its http://www.cs.umd.edu/~gasarch/ramsey/ramsey.html. Oh- that's you! (READERS- see here.)
    
    BILL: YES, Ramsey Theory has had applications to computer science and that's great! However, I am not going to make the following incorrect claim: (1) Ramsey theory has had apps to CS, (2) The Grid problem was inspired by Ramsey Theory. Hence (3) The Gird problem has apps to CS. That would be bad logic.

TAMC conference accepts are out/What does a name tell you about a general theory conference?

The TAMC conference list-of-accepts is posted here. TAMC stands for Theory and Application of Models of Computation.

For general theory conferences does the name tell you anything? I will consider FOCS, STOC, ICALP, TAMS, COCOON. (I am sure there are more general-theory conferences-- I invite you to comment on them and on if their name tells you anything.)

1. FOCS- Foundations of Computer Science. Are there more papers on the Foundations of computer science here than at STOC or ICALP or TAMS or COCOON? Since people speak of STOC/FOCS papers the question is- are they different?
2. STOC- Symposium on Theory of Computation. What is Theory? There are large parts of theory that are left out such as Semantics.
3. ICALP- International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming. AH- its a Colloquim not a conference. ICALP does has a different flavor than FOCS and STOC; however, I don't think the name captures it. By the name it could be more of a PL conference, and its not. Also- I had thought they changed the A to mean Algorithms. Is that one of those items they debate in the business meeting? Should they change it to Algorithms?
4. COCOON-Computing and Combinatorics Conference. Does this have more Combinatorics then STOC, FOCS, ICALP? Is this intended to be a general theory conference?
5. TAMC Theory and Application of Models of Computation. I don't think the papers are more on models than the other conferences.

The best way to tell what a conference is about is to look at the Call for Papers list of topics. The name does not tell you much.

Computer Science Takes Over

We live in our own research areas. I focus on computational complexity and marvel at what our field has accomplished over my over 25 years in the field as well as the simple problems we have failed to solve. But every now and then we should pull ourselves our of our forests and take a look around. The whole of computer science has dramatically advanced and as the Internet have changed the way we do almost everything, be prepared for a whole new change.

My daughter is about to get her driver's license. Her children won't need one as their cars will drive themselves. One issue I have as SIGACT chair is gathering information together from various old proceedings and newsletters. In a few years computers will do this for me as quickly as I can ask for them. Right now we have great tools for finding information on the web. In the future our tools will make sense of that information.  In the near future there will be no such thing as unstructured data. Where will all this lead us? I wish I knew--I could be a wealthy man.

Machine Learning has become a very mathematical and statistical-based research area yet the theoretical computer science community hasn't played the role in this area that we could have.

The New York Times have been running a series of articles about AI and its implications to society. A recent article talked about how legal firms save considerable money by using computer software for document discovery. Less money means less white-collar employees needed to sift through documents, a point Krugman pointed out in his column. Krugman also says

Conversely, jobs that can’t be carried out by following explicit rules — a category that includes many kinds of manual labor, from truck drivers to janitors — will tend to grow even in the face of technological progress.

I don't expect truck drivers will exist in 10-20 years either. Technology has so far tended to create more jobs than it destroys but will there be any safe jobs in the future?

STOC 1989

A student at Northwestern gave a presentation about a STOC 1989 paper. I've been to well over a hundred conferences and the memories of many just merge into each other. But some conferences stand out in one's life and STOC 1989 was definitely one of those for me.

I was just finishing my Ph.D. at MIT and took my first trip to Seattle for this conference. The Boston Red Sox were staying at the conference hotel and we saw them lose to the Mariners in the Kingdome, a stadium I do not miss. I gave a talk on a paper that we later had to retract.

But above all I remember going to this mid-May conference with no job offers for the next year. I had planned to spend the reception asking people about job opportunities but my heart wasn't in it and I started drinking instead. Janos Simon came up to me and told me that Chicago would be making me an offer. It took all I had to give a coherent response and not toss my cookies on him.

The student was a baby at the time.

Les Valiant wins the Turing Award

In a definite case of when not if, Leslie Valiant will receive the 2010 ACM Turing Award, the highest honor in all of computer science. Valiant has done incredible work in learning theory (he invented PAC learning), parallel and distributed computing and more recently holographic algorithms. Valiant's brilliant work in counting complexity, including the #P-completeness of the Permanent and his work with Vijay Vazirani that shows that solving NP problems with a single solution is as hard as arbitrary NP problems, have played a critical role in much of my own research.

Valiant will give his Turing Award lecture at FCRC in San Jose on the evening of Sunday June 5th, which will be a special treat for those of us going to STOC or the other FCRC meetings.

Three Questions that I think Watson would have trouble with

Here are two questions that were on Jeopardy (the shows slogan: Watch "Jeopardy!", Alex Trebek's fun TV quiz game show!) that I do not think Watson would have gotten right. I have added a third that I also think Watson would not have gotten right. What do you think?

QUESTION ONE: The FINAL JEOPARDY category was Computer Science. Here is the question. I mean the answer.

John Tukey coined this compound word in 1959 saying it was as important as "Tubes, transistors, wires, tapes ..."

Person A wrote WHAT IS A MOTHERBOARD. Wrong. Person B wrote down WHAT IS. Wrong. (This might have worked if the question was in philosophy.) Peron C wrote down WHAT IS WI-FI. Wrong. I got it right from reasoning not memory. I do not have the quotes of John Tukey memorized. Does Watson? I doubt it. I think he would have gotten it wrong. (The answer can be found HERE.)

QUESTION TWO: The FINAL JEOPARDY category was 1930's Films. Here is the... answer

In this classic film, one of the characters tries to quote the Pythagorean theorem, but gets it wrong.

Two of the contestants wrote Gone with the Wind. The third one wrote the correct answer which I will not reveal here in case you want to try it. (The contestant who got it right won the game.) I doubt Watson would know it--- too much to correlate. (The answer can be found HERE.)

QUESTION THREE: This was not on Jeopardy. I am asking it in the form of a question: What is unusual about the Jeopardy Slogan? (The answer can be found HERE.)

Greetings from Porto

Today we just finished the thesis defense of Andre Souto at University of Porto. Good News: He passed the defense so now we call him Dr. Souto. Better news: By law he has to be paid more in his current teaching job. Not so good news: They will fire him before they pay him more. First time I put someone out of a job by passing them in a Ph.D. defense.

His thesis was in Kolmogorov complexity. One particularly neat trick from his thesis: A PRG that under reasonable assumptions maps strings of length O(log n) to strings of length 2^O(n), a double exponential jump done by combining two PRGs based on Nisan and Wigderson.

I love doing these defenses outside the US. We got to dress like monks when quizzing the defendant. After the defense we had a wonderful lunch with Port Wine from Porto of course.

Andre the Defender

The Jury: Harry Buhrman, Luis Antunes, me and Armando Matos

A good article on how science is publicized gets the science wrong

(Guest Post by John Rogers)

I have just been reading the recently published book "Seeing Further". Edited by Bill Bryson, it contains essays commissioned for the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society. Among the contributors are James Gleick, Neal Stephenson, and Richard Dawkins. The last essay is written by Martin Rees. A cosmologist and science writer, he was president of the Society from 2005 to 2010. On page 476 of the U.S. edition, he writes on how today scientific results are publicized in ways different than even in the recent past:

A few years ago, three young Indian mathematicians invented a faster scheme for factoring large numbers - something that would be crucial for code-breaking. They posted their results on the web. Such was the interest that within just a day, twenty thousand people had downloaded the work, which was the topic of hastily convened discussions in many centres of mathematical research around the world.

As readers of this blog know, the result he refers to is the 2002 paper PRIMES is in P by Agrawal, Kayal, and Saxena. Now the point of the paragraph is how the web is changing the way scientific results get promulgated. Still, I thought it odd that he would mis-state the result. He does mention that faster factoring would have cryptographic import so he (or an editor?) has some knowledge beyond what was in the headlines.

My question is: Is it indeed odd that a scientist would not realize that this is a result about decision and not about search, that if a "faster scheme" had been found to solve the search problem then even a very quick literature search would have turned about up quite a bit more about the code-breaking implications?

Interesting Math related to the Unexpected Hanging Paradox

In a prior post I pondered if there was interesting MATH that relates to the Unexpected Hanging Paradox. At the time none of the comments really had any and, alas, I thought there was not. (Thought looking back at the comments, the first one by Jeffe may be relevant.) But recently Ran Raz emailed me a pointer to this paper by Kritchman and Raz: The Surprise Examination Paradox and the Second Incompleteness Theorem. See also this post by Sam Alexander which explains some of the paper very well. The paper contains the following:

1. A new proof of Godel's incompleteness theorem that resembles the Surprise Exam Paradox. This is EXACTLY the kind of thing I was looking for.
2. An argument that suggests that Godel's incompleteness theorem can be used to resolve the paradox.

What does it mean to resolve a paradox? I resolve the unexpected hanging paradox by saying that the notion of Surprise is ill defined. The paper has a much more interesting viewpoint but that does not mean that it is correct. Which resolution is better the papers or mine? Not clear since it is unclear what it means to resolve a paradox. So what should YOU do? Read the paper and decide! Or just read it for the math.

What I Tweeted

Various thoughts not restricted to 140 characters.

Congrats to Mihalis Yannakakis for his election into the National Academy of Engineering as well as new Sloan Fellows Julia Chuzhoy, Rafael Pass, Chris Peikert, Mark Braverman and Anup Rao. TTI-Chicago gets no respect with TTI-C Prof Chuzhoy listed at University of Chicago but it should be fixed soon.

I called the Watson-Jeopardy match in 2009. The IBM segments during the show were great selling points for computer science. John Markoff wrote a nice wrap-up article for the Times but note the correction

An article last Thursday about the I.B.M. computer Watson misidentified the academic field vindicated by Watson’s besting of two human opponents on “Jeopardy!” It is artificial intelligence — not computer science, a broader field that includes artificial intelligence.

I skipped the various university viewing parties in favor of watching the shows with my daughter Molly. During current events in history class she went on a rant why everyone should think the Watson victory was "so cool". That's my girl.

Wolfram Alpha knows Computational Complexity. Pretty impressive but doesn't know everything. Jeff tweeted

When I ask "Is multiplication in AC0?" it tells me about the Ace of Clubs. Fail.

So we need Watson and Wolfram Alpha combined to make sense of our field.

Next week I'm off to Porto, home of Complexity 2012, for some Port Wine, a Francesinha and the thesis defense of co-author André Souto.

Aaron Sterling starts his own blog!

Aaron Sterling recently had an AWESOME guest post about Cheminformatics. That got such a great response that he has started his own blog Nanoexplanations. It shot to the TOP of our blogroll because we list thing alphabetically by first name. Kudos to Aaron's parents for seeing this day and naming him appropriately.

What will it be about? His guest post was on chemo-computing. More generally Aaron has been looking at nonstandard applications of theoretical computer science. That will be his topic.

A good blog should fill a need that is not being filled. His seems to be in that category--- I do not know of any blog covering non-standard applications. Not surprising- they are nonstandard! Is his goal to make these topics standard? At that point will he cease blogging? Only time will tell.

In the 2009 Year in Review post we noted that in 2009 we had annouced and added to our blogroll FIVE new blogs. In the 2010 Year in Review post we noted that in 2010 we had annouced and added to our blogroll NO new blogs. So blogging seemed to be in decline (granted this is a very small sample in a very small corner of the blogsphere). What is the trend? It is trendy to say that blogging is just so 2009 and that tweeting is the future, at least for the next 10 minutes. But to make predictions based on such little evidence is just so redonk.

Lincoln's Dog-Tail question (in honor of Presidents Day)

(Posted in Honor of Presidents Day.)

The following is NOT a trick question; however, I have heard two different answers for it.

How many legs would a dog have if we called the dog's tail a leg?

1. The answer is clearly 5- since 4+1=5. Duh.
2. Calling the tail a leg does not make it a leg. A dog has 4 legs. Duh.
3. I have seen people on either side not be able to even understand the other side's point.
4. This question has been attributed to Abraham Lincoln; however, just as Bogart never said Play it again Sam and Kirk never said Beam me up Scotty, Lincoln (likely) never said calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg (though he might have said Play it again Sam or Beam me up Scotty). See this interesting and serious post for information on what Lincoln said.
5. In our terminology Lincoln's point was that definitions should conform to reality and if they do not then it is the definitions that are wrong. I suspect he would not have liked the Banach-Tarski Pardox.

How would you answer the question? Do you understand the opposing viewpoint?

CCC 2011 papers- you heard it here first

The complexity papers for CCC 2011 are posted HERE. (They might not be at the official CCC site yet; however, I have permission to post here.)

1. Kudos to Omer Reingold- the notifications were sent out on TUESDAY, three days BEFORE the promised FRIDAY deadline.
2. Tuesday was also the ICALP deadline! I wonder if anyone took there CCC reject and submitted to ICALP. It would take rather fast turn around and they use diff formats.
3. I wondered why there was any delay between the notification to authors and the list being posted. Omer Reingold emailed me the following which explains it: ... it's important to make sure that authors provide updated information (updated title, list of authors affiliation) before posting
4. Some people have emailed be privately complaining that there is a bias towards complexity theory in CCC. I was at first skeptical (such talk was false for STOC 11), but after looking at the list of papers there seems to be some foundation to this concern. Of the 30 papers only 5 were on algorithms! If this conference is going to be that biased they should change the name from CCC to Conference on Computational Complexity.

If I tweeted here is what I would tweet

If I tweeted there is what I would tweet:

1. There was an interesting blog post that responded to Aaron Sterling's Chemoinformatics Post. See here for this interesting discussion.
2. See here for info on the Watson's performance on Jeopardy.
3. Why did Watson bet $937 on the Final Jeopardy question yesterday? (Tuesday) Zero would make sense. The max amount to guarantee victory even if he got it wrong would make sense. A nice round number to look more human would make sense.
4. The winner gets $1,000,000, second place gets $300,000, third gets $200,000. Ken Jennings and Brad Rutler have said they will give half of their winnings to charity. Watson said he would give all of his to charity. QUESTION: If you were on the show would you give 1/2 to charity? For Jennings and Rutler it isn't really hard to do since they already have lots of money from their prior Jeopardy appearances (though it is still admirable). But how about YOU?
5. Officially the authors of the CCC papers will be notified on Friday Feb 18. I have been told that this is an approx both ways. Could be earlier, could be later.
6. Some CCC notifications (all?) have been emailed. The list is not posted! At one time the quaint notion was that people should not find out if there paper got in or not by seeing someones telegraph message, website, or blog. Is this quaint-but-idiotic notion still in effect?
7. I got a copy of the complete Knuth Vol 4 in the mail today. How long have we been waiting for this? Knuth held a contest to name what we now call NP-completeness for use in this book.
8. Publishers have lists of people they send books to. As an editor for SIGACT NEWS I am on some of those lists. Today I got two copies of the exact same book. Both mailed to William Gasarch, SIGACT NEWS book review editor, Dept of CS, College Park MD, 20742. What was the book: Bijective Combinatorics.
9. CafePress.com emailed me a subject heading of gift of infinite choices. Alas, the actual letter said you can choose from 250 million styles and designs..
10. 12 days of Christmath (That is NOT misspelled.)
11. Also this one (I give two pointers in case one goes away.)

Can we Innovate without Producing?

On Friday I heard a speaker lament about how losing the manufacturing base in the US: "You can move a foundry easier than you can move an Internet company." An article in the New York Times has as its headline New York Times headline reads When Factories Vanish, So Can Innovators acknowledging the last metal flatware (think forks and spoons) plant to close in the United States.

On the other hand watch Austin Goolsbee explain Obama's National Wireless Initiative (via CCC blog).

Note the emphasis on job creation with almost exclusively service sector Internet jobs.

What's driven manufacturing overseas is not the Internet but the Box. Yet somehow we can continue to innovate,  with Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Groupon all US made and continue to employ most of their workers in the US. Apple has had great hits with its physical devices like the iPhone and iPad but they are manufactured overseas. Even the next great fork design could easily come from the US even if those forks are made in China.

Our economy won't be won by keeping inefficient foundries in the US rather by improving on what we do best. As Obama puts it in the State of the Union.

Our free enterprise system is what drives innovation.  But because it’s not always profitable for companies to invest in basic research, throughout our history, our government has provided cutting-edge scientists and inventors with the support that they need.  That’s what planted the seeds for the Internet.  That’s what helped make possible things like computer chips and GPS.  Just think of all the good jobs -- from manufacturing to retail -- that have come from these breakthroughs.

Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik, we had no idea how we would beat them to the moon.  The science wasn’t even there yet.  NASA didn’t exist.  But after investing in better research and education, we didn’t just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs.

This is our generation’s Sputnik moment.  Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven’t seen since the height of the Space Race... We’ll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology -- an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.

Today Obama releases his budget for 2012 that should have dramatic cuts in many programs but growth for scientific research. It's going to be interesting.

PROS and CONS of being on a Program Committee

What are the PROS and CONS of being on a program committee?

1. PRO: Looks good on your resume. Is this true at your school? This PRO may be more relevant for untenured and un-full-prof people. (My spellcheck wanted me to use unturned instead of untenured.)
2. PRO: You get to see what people are working on. This may give you ideas of what to work on or of what papers to look at. You absolutely cannot use the ideas you see until they are in the public domain; however you can learn things and look up some past work.
3. PRO: If there is an in-person meeting then you get to meet some new people. (If there is NOT an in-person meeting then its not the same.)
4. PRO: You get to see how the process works which may help you when you submit later. Or it may help you decide not to submit.
5. CON: It takes a lot of time.
6. CON: You may have to read papers that you don't care about. (This could be good for you.)
7. CON: You may have to read bad papers. Not clear though- if you can tell its bad early on then you can skim the rest.
8. PRO AND CON: IF you also goto the conference then (a) you will understand more talks (b) you will be bored at more talks. I tend towards (a) but others tend towards (b).
9. PRO AND CON: You get to help decide what papers get in. But you may see things not go the way you think they should.

I'm sure there are more PROS, CONS, and THOUGHTS- please share them!