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ACM Turing Award 2007

The Turing Award, the Nobel Prize of computing (but really how can we fault Nobel for not having a computing prize when computers for Nobel would have been people), has been won by Edmund Clarke (CMU), E. Allen Emerson (UT at Austin) and Joseh Sifakis (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/CARNOT Institute) for research on Model Checking. The citation reads

For their role in developing Model-Checking into a highly effective
verification technology, widely adopted in the hardware and software
industries.

The winners will share a $250,000 prize ($150,000 more this year due to the sponser ship of the Googlemonster.)

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Measuring Reviewers

I enjoy reviewing papers even knowing it sucks up too much of my time. I mean what better way is there to get out any inner angst than to take it out on the writers of a sub par paper? (That’s a joke people.) Reading Michael Nielsen’s post taking on the h-index (Michael’s posting more these days!), reminded me of a problem I’ve always wondered about for reviewing.
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Searching For Feynman

Blue Monday, which was January 21, of this year, is supposedly (and I say supposedly when I might have better said, erroneously) the most depressing day of the year. Now there are plenty of reasons given for this: you finally realized your New Year’s resolutions aren’t going to happen, you’ve just gotten your credit card bill for all that rampant consumerism you participated in over the holidays, etc. But, if you’re in academia, you know the real reason to be depressed during this time of the year. That’s right: it faculty search season. Since everyone else is talking about it and bringing me down, I thought I’d do my duty and continue the painful depressing discussion.
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8.7 Percent Less Likely

The CRA Policy Blog has the latest info on the impact of the underfunding of science in the budget. In particular

NSF will likely fund 1,000 fewer research grants in FY 08 than planned and the average award size will be smaller.

Sweet! Data to update my probability of employment. Oh wait. (Note for those playing along at home, I think the relevant total number of NSF grants is on the order of 11500.)

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A Many Worlds Puzzle of a Different Kind

Fortune has put out its list of the top 100 companies to work for. The Google Monster is number one. Washington state does pretty good, as it is in a tie for fourth in the total number of companies on the list with headquarters in the state. (Per capita it comes in third, losing to Delaware and D.C.)
Looking through their article on “10 fascinating Googlers” I found Wei-Hwa Huang. Hey, he was in my class at Caltech! Indeed Wei-Hwa was responsible for one of my favorite stories about the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory. Huh?
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