Seminar skills

I gave a seminar today, entitled "An introduction to Kolmogorov complexity." The abstract I provided:

This week, I'll cover some introductory Kolmogorov complexity (including how to pronounce it!), definitions and applications to complexity theory,
including the relation of Kolmogorov complexity to the halting problem, and defining resource-bounded computational hierarchies from Kolmogorov
complexity. No background knowledge of Kolmogorov complexity is required; this seminar will be self-contained.

General consensus? It went very well. There was a lot of audience participation. Perhaps too much, since it got a bit derailed with people trying to explain each others' questions and answer them. Afterwards, more senior grad students offered me this advice:

• Never admit you are wrong. Never erase and edit what you've written on the board. I wrote one thing wrong and then 10 minutes were wasted fiddling with it. Relatedly,
• Don't answer all the questions. Make sure everyone has a basic understanding. If the question is about details that won't improve a basic understanding, postpone it until after the seminar is over.
• Proof by assertion. Related to the above two points. If there are too many details, or you don't quite remember how to prove it, or it's too hard, or whatever, then just say, "Obviously, ..." and move on before anyone derails you.
  
• Don't let audience members talk amongst themselves.
  

Obviously some of these should be applied judiciously. I'll have to work on these points, now that I seem to have the basics down.


This post's theme word: expatiate, "to speak or write at length" or "to move about freely."

Project Simplify

It's been awhile, but Project Simplify continues. I have culled more clothes and shoes that have reached the end of their (enjoyable) lifetimes with me. I sold some books to the secondhand bookstore (only to have them replaced with birthday-present books on my shelves! how exciting! new books to read!).

Mostly, I find myself thinking, "Do I need this? It will just clutter my life" with respect to paper. I am inundated with paper, and so my strategy is this: if I need the original copy (receipts, health insurance costs) I file it away neatly. If I need a copy, then I scan it and recycle it: bits take up much less space than physical documents, and are more easily indexed, sorted, and searched! In the end, nearly all the paper I get handed is recycled, which makes me feel honest when I'm around my vegan-eco-hippie friends.

The one thing I can't seem to cull is electronics. I use a lot of them -- many computers and peripherals and gadgets and toys -- and don't want to throw away the less-frequently-used ones, lest they be the missing link in some sort of migraine-inducing file/signal-conversion protocol. (I plug the output of my DS into my laptop, and string the audio from that into my desktop so I can process it with some software there, but send the video through a series of cables to the monitor...)

I recently happened across Eleven Myths of Decluttering and agree heartily with this: "If you get rid of everything you don’t need, you may not need any fancy containers." Of course, a sort of reverse process is happening in my kitchen, where my collection of containers of spices has expanded from by basic post-graduate {salt, pepper, garlic} to a much more sophisticated set.


This post's theme words: avenaceous, "relating to or like oats" and spurtle, "a wooden stick for stirring porridge." Yay goopy, warm autumn breakfasts!