Epic Fail
My big plans to write a proof of the day already tanked! On day #1. In my defense, I’ve been writing proofs all weekend and didn’t feel like writing another one for the blog. Primarily they have been proofs about linear algebra, algorithmic game theory, and microeconomics. I think I have a good one on supermodularity coming later this afternoon. This is an econ concept that, for all I can tell, is not used outside of economics.
In other news, there is a really great post on the Lovasz Local Lemma over on Lance Fortnow’s blog. I have to admit, I have had three different classes and own two books that talk about the local lemma. However, I still have no idea what it means. The blog post is a bit more insightful and I feel like I’m getting closer to full understanding; but still not there yet. The LLL is like this pinnacle of academic achievement for me. If I can understand the lemma, then there is nothing stopping me from conquering all of discrete mathematics.
In another epic fail moment, this blog has started getting hits for the search term “paul milgrom sucks”. For those who don’t know, Paul Milgrom is a famous economist and researcher of auction theory. He’s one of the fathers of the modern day FCC spectrum auction and wrote much of the auction literature that exists. He was given an award here at Northwestern, which I blogged about at the time. In a later blog post, I mentioned that “Windows Vista Sucks”. Google’s algorithm connected the terms and now I get hits for that search query. So, I would like to clear the air here; I don’t think Paul Milgrom sucks, in fact, I own several of his books and think he is an excellent writer. His work on the FCC auctions is phenomenal (I think the companies he consults for probably agree) and he is a good speaker. In fact, I would argue that he is probably a good candidate for a Economics Nobel some day.