Classes

[mdinitz]

This semester I'm signed up for two classes, Machine Learning Theory with Avrim and Approximation Algorithms II with Anupam and Ravi. I'm also sitting in on Theoretical Cryptography with Manuel and Steven Rudich. I took a theoretical crypto class my junior year at Princeton taught by Amit Sahai, and the syllabus for this class looks pretty much

Comments

[danpeng]

Rofl. You have indeed crossed the line into irredeemable geekhood. Though it is a good show, I admit. :)

I beat you

[danpeng]

I have achieved irredeemable geekhood. I just watched an Integration Bee at MIT for 3 hours. Like a spelling bee, but contestants integrate instead of spell. Strictly limited to single-variable integration.

One contestant had a whole cheering squad, replete with shirtless drunk guys, face paint, and shouts. One shirtless drunk guy had triple-integral on one side (∫∫∫) and closed-loop integral on the other side (∮). The contestant came in third.

These integrals were hard. ∫sin(log(x))dx and ∫log(sin(x))dx were both there. The contestants had 4 minutes for each integral. The tournament was elimination style. It wis really amazing. This is why MIT is great.

Next year, I will achieve geekhood divinity by winning the integration bee. :-P

Re: I beat you

[mdinitz]

Wow. That's amazing. Winning that would definitely result in geekhood divinity. Speaking of strange but awesome events at Harvard/MIT, apparently the math department at Harvard has a big pie eating contest on 3/14 -- a friend of mine won it a few years ago. You should definitely enter :-).