Give me a job!

At long last, my job application is done.

The file contains CV, research and teaching statements. If you're in a research lab, ignore any mention of how I like to teach ;)

Travel pictures (2): Kakamega Rainforest

Look at me, I can fly!

Pensative blue monkey:

Another blue monkey:

The eternal fight for food (the monkey climbed on Mira, bit her hand, and got the banana -- but I didn't quite have time to set up for the photo):

Black and white Colobus monkey:
The red-tail monkey:

Romanians are close descendents of monkeys:


I have a big telelens:

Many many ants:

Travel pictures (1): Kenya life

The dead was a rich man, he could afford a coffin. (I am told poor people pick their dead from the hospital wrapped in a mattress).

I live in the Romanian hut on the volunteer camp:

The medical clinic, and "the mobile clinic" (the van):

Inside the clinic: Dr. Mira and assisting clinical officer Belinda.

Medicine, Kenyan style (writing on the first jug: "Paracetamol")

On most days, the mobile clinic travels to remote villages to see people there. They set up in local churces, such as the following Catholic church:

If they are lucky, the curch has a separate room which becomes "the examination room":

Non-post

I made it to the Internet in town after a 10km walk. As Piotr had so wisely predicted, I am now a bit tired and not really feeling like writing a blog post. :)

Instead, let me point you to a recent comment by Kamal Jain (addressing my post about his talk), which is long enough to serve as a blogpost in itself :) Reply on that thread if you want to say something.

Away

An excellent tradition in the US academic world is the sabbatical: roughly every 6 years, you take a year off (with some pay). People typically travel around the world, spend some time at other universities, interact with industry etc. I think this is a great idea for maintaining your creativity and breadth, and it's a shame that companies which require serious thinking don't have a similar benefit.

In my own case, I have started doing research about 5 and a half years ago. And, the eager person that I am, I decided to take a sabbatical a bit early. Of course, since I'm still on MIT's payroll as a student, this is a bit unofficial :) But the basic idea is the same.

This is mostly plan-as-you-go, but here's the rough idea:

• first week of December: London.
• 6 weeks in a rural location in East Kenya, with a small detour to do white-water rafting in Uganda (at the source of the Nile)
• 1+ weeks climbing Kilimanjaro and taking a safari (Tanzania).
• 3 weeks in Romania (yes, I will gladly give talks!)
  
• 1 week in Dagstuhl (session on data structures)

After that I'm coming back to the US to hopefully interview for some faculty / research-lab positions. In the summer, I plan to go to some other exotic locations and write my thesis.

My main goals on this trip are to (1) relax and enjoy the life experience, (2) think about some really long-shot problems, (3) think about some diverse fields of research that I have not considered before. I feel a great danger for researchers is to get stuck improving a field that they have revolutionized earlier. One needs to spend time targeted at starting new revolutions, not on your old business-as-usual research.

So, going with the plan, I have spent the past week in London, minding the gap and trying not to get killed by all those maniacs driving on the wrong side of the road. (This skill proves useful, since they are also at it in Kenya.) London is a nice city, but I feel it has lost some of the European charm that I find in many cities on the continent. Or maybe I'm desensitized by prolonged exposure to American culture, a close descendant of the British culture.

The most durable thing about visiting London is the hole in your wallet. Roughly speaking, all prices look like the right number, except that they have this funny pound sign instead of "$". With an exchange rate of $2.2 for a pound, it feels like your pay-check comes from a third-world country. Unfortunately, dark days seem to lie ahead for all of us relying on this collapsing economy...

Today, I am in Nairobi catching up with things, and tomorrow I will be enjoying a 9-hour bus ride to the other end of Kenya. I will try to post once in a while depending on Internet connectivity (they say there's a post office with an Internet connection, at a convenient 10-mile run). But of course, if I happen to solve P vs NP I will make an effort to post about it.

Theory Channel Line-up

Via Muthu, I hear about the Aggregator. Here's the deal: most people use RSS readers (which they should be, for example reader.google.com is wonderfully easy to use). But if you're among those people who deliberately avoid readers, you find yourself navigating to all the webpages for various blogs. The aggregator can save you some clicks, by merging all Theory CS blogs into one page. So if you're a theorist and reader-hater, bookmark this page.

PS: Yes, the picture of me on this site (left side below) has great nostalgic value. But a few restless years later, I look more like on the right side...

May'04 ---??--> Oct'07

Death to intellectuals

Ion Iliescu, former president of Romania (1990-1996, 2000-2004), now has a blog. Of course, after the ever ridiculous Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got his blog, this may not sound so shocking. But, trust me, this 77-year old Romanian blogger really is special.

To my international readers: if some stories (in particular, the miner story) seem just too much to be true, let me assure you -- they are entirely true, and accepted history.

Communist years. Iliescu got his political training in Moscow during the first years of Romanian communism, and compensated for being homesick by contributing editorials to the Romanian state-run newspaper (Scânteia) . The topic was of course the contrast between the primitive capitalist imperialist cannibals, and the new glorious communist society.

Back to Romania, he quickly advanced in the nomenclatura to be a minister. In the 70s he was seen by everybody as Ceauşescu's heir, which began to freak out the dictator. As a result, Iliescu was sent to be prime secretary in various remote counties.

The revolution. The Romanian revolution is a unique event in European history. Unlike the velvet revolutions in other communist countries, this one was not about throwing three stones and breaking two windows: at the end, more than 1100 people were dead, and 3300 wounded. We know who these people are: demonstrators who were assailing government buildings. But unlike other bloody conflicts in recent memory, we have no idea who shot these people and why. The official reports indicated that "unidentified terrorists shot the demonstrators." (rather sensitive choice of a word, isn't it?)

One must find it truly remarkable that to this day we have no plausible explanation. In similar cases, we always have a very plausible official version (say, Bin Laden), which conspiracy theorists choose not to believe. Personally, I seldom count myself among conspiracy theorists, but faced with the lack of an explanation, I have to become one.

Many (most?) Romanians have suspected that Iliescu and other leading party members seized the opportunity of public unrest to stage a revolution, and seize power. The secret service was ordered to shoot enough people to make the revolution credible, without actually stopping the demonstrators. NB: it seems clear that a militaristic communist state had enough bullets, grenades and tanks to keep demonstrators out of the presidential palace, especially with several days' notice.

Conspiracy theory aside, the fact is that high-ranking communist officials, led by Iliescu, emerged as leaders of the anti-communist struggle (!!), and obtained control of "revolutionary party." In the days after the revolution, Iliescu was an inspiration to democracy fighters with statements like:

• Let's build a Communism with a humane face! (eternul "comunism cu o faţă umană")
• Ceauşescu tarnished the noble ideals of Communism ("a întinat nobilele idealuri")
• The multi-party system is a backwards concept ("sistem retrograd")
  

Hooligans. When the communist turned-revolutionary party (FSN) announced that it would participate in the elections it was organizing, this was too much for politically-aware Romanians. Bucharest intelligentsia, led by professors and students, took the streets, and occupied one of the main squares in Bucharest (hence, the movement was soon known as Piaţa, "The Square"). They staged a sit-in that lasted several months, featuring some hunger strikers, and, rather uniquely, lots of singing. The demands were that former communists not run in an election they were organizing, and that national media be granted political independence.

The authorities (aka the revolutionary party) turned the propaganda machine against the demonstrators, aided of course by control of the media. On some days, Iliescu would call the demonstrators worthless hooligans, who might as well remain on the streets. On other days, the demonstrators were fascists, probably infiltrators from the West. A remarkable quote by another leading party member (Brucan) was "Of course we will not talk to them; how can you talk to someone who doesn't eat? My only advice is that they should have a steak."

The response of the demonstrators was to proudly adopt the name hooligans (esp. in the Romanian form golani). A song of those days, which over the years has gained moving overtones, proclaimed that "I'd rather be a hooligan, than a party activist/ I'd rather be dead, than again communist." Song on YouTube.

Miners. Unable to address the Piaţa problem, Iliescu decided to take drastic measures: he called the miners from the Petroşani region to "protect the democracy." Armed with identical fighting clubs and a mob mentality, some 12000 miners boarded special trains for Bucharest. Stopping briefly in Craiova (where I lived), they managed to trash a neighborhood in half an hour, with apparently no good reason.

Reaching Bucharest, they immediately attacked the demonstrators, shouting two infamous slogans:

• Death to intellectuals! (Moarte intelectualilor)
• We work, we don't think! (Noi muncim, nu gândim) -- in line with the standard communist doctrine that the working class is the only legitimate ruler of a country.
  

The attack was extremely violent, despite the fact that the demonstrators were defenseless. Official counts of the Iliescu regime put the number of victims at 8 dead. Since then, the numbers have been revised to 200-300 dead and thousands wounded. Several mass graves have been discovered, in which a crushed skull is the common cause of death.

That night, students wrote on the university wall adjacent to the square "TianAnMen II."

In the following days, the miners roamed the streets looking for potential revolutionaries (i.e. beating up people with a beard or long hair). To encourage democracy, they also trashed all opposition parties, making a famous report that they had found intoxicating drugs that the opposition was going to use to influence voters, capitalist propaganda materials, "and a typewriter."

At the end, Iliescu came down among the miners and (in a live broadcast on national TV) thanked the miners "for being a strong force, one with an attitude of high civic conscience."

Years later, Iliescu denied that he had anything to do with the violent actions of the miners. In another remarkable quote, he said "I had called the miners to plant pansies in university square" (să planteze panseluţe) after the demonstrators retreated.

Here is a video capturing key moments of those days. It should make sense even if you don't speak Romanian.



Then, Mr. Former President, I can only suggest that you decorate your new blog with pansies. Welcome to the blogosphere, where I can assure you that your feelings towards the intellectuals are entirely reciprocated.