Andrew McGregor

Professor at UMass working in theoretical computer science. Sometimes I care about constants but mainly in the exponent.

[Andrew McGregor @polylogblog]

@hadi_hoss @penn_state Congrats!!

[Ranjit Jhala @RanjitJhala]

I always enjoy talking about "How to design talks"; thanks to @PLMentoring @PLDI for the chance to do so this year -- maybe you'll find the slides useful!

[Andrew McGregor @polylogblog]

@MAliakbarpour @RiceCompSci @RiceUniversity Congrats to Rice and congrats to Maryam!

[Andrew McGregor @polylogblog]

@TonyWirthPhD @MathsBirmingham @chitnis_rajesh You should get a tour t-shirt printed!

[Andrew McGregor @polylogblog]

@geomblog Asymptotic faculty?

[Andrew McGregor @polylogblog]

I’ve just had a scary thought that should strike fear into the heart of every mathematician and theoretical computer scientist: With loss of generality would also be abbreviated wlog. And you’ll never know what the author of the proof intended.

[Andrew McGregor @polylogblog]

@ShriramKMurthi @MoldyBasil They give the scale for width so I don’t think it’s ambiguous how to read the plot. I agree the change in volume with time could mislead though.

[Andrew McGregor @polylogblog]

@thesasho I could imagine writing “While I place little value on h-indices, I note in passing that X has a surprisingly high h-index of Y.” I.e., I don’t want to contribute to normalizing h-indices but also want to help the student’s application however I can.

[Andrew McGregor @polylogblog]

Are there any results on scheduling that would dictate whether my next task should be the one that has a) most recently became overdue or b) been overdue the longest? Needs to be robust to "not strict deadlines" and "forgetfulness that others".

[Cameron Musco @CameronMusco]

UMass Amherst is hiring in Theoretical Computer Science: https://t.co/GhpZFrpCfa. Apply to join our great theory group! It’s an amazing place to work, and Western MA in general is an amazing and beautiful place live. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

[Andrew McGregor @polylogblog]

@ShriramKMurthi Well, not an explanation but I don’t think the specific incorrect time was a coincidence. I’ve seen 9:41 showing up when various colleagues have shared their iPad screen over zoom. No idea why.

[Andrew McGregor @polylogblog]

When I drink decaf coffee in the evening, my body takes about half an hour to realize it’s being duped. But until that happens, it’s all hands on deck trying to get some work finished.

[Tony Wirth (he/his/him) @TonyWirthPhD]

At @cis_unimelb, we’re hiring a theoretical computer science academic (aka faculty member). Happy to tell you more about the role! https://t.co/uxZyiZcoIy

[Andrew McGregor @polylogblog]

Failed to convince my 8 y/o that John Lennon had a whole song about giving peas a chance. Also failed to get him to eat peas, but that’s secondary.

[Andrew McGregor @polylogblog]

@mahdi_tcs I agree. I was just arguing that the fact we were fine when the population was lower in the past is insufficient to argue that we could return to that population without negative consequences. Personally I’m also more concerned by climate change though.

[Andrew McGregor @polylogblog]

@mahdi_tcs The original comment may or may not be nonsense but I don’t think it’s trivially nonsense since the derivative of the population size impacts the age distribution of the population and that can have economic ramifications.

[Andrew McGregor @polylogblog]

@nutanlimaye Because we can’t just treat all the values as O(1)?

[Cameron Musco @CameronMusco]

Congrats to @raghav_addanki for successfully defending his Ph.D thesis yesterday! @polylogblog and I were very lucky to have you as an advisee. @hunglvosu