MCS

Year: 2006

  • Experiences at Berkeley

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    tpotter

    I thought I’d update the math department on life as a grad student at Berkeley.  First of all, I am living in the same apartment (maybe even room) as David Wolfe did when he was at Berkeley, and with one of the same roommates.  Some bad news is that I failed the preliminary exam, but the…

  • Alumnus and Prof Publish

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    max

    Class of 2004 math alumnus Tim Dorn joined together with Professor Tom LoFaro in coauthoring a recently published paper with Hamish Spencer of the University of Otago.  The article appeared in the August, 2006, issue of Genetics and is entitled “Population Models of Genomic Imprinting. II. Maternal and Fertility Selection.“

  • Alumnus Reflects on Intro to Comp Sci

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    max

    I received an interesting email from Phil Miesle, a Gustie Physics major from class of 1995 who took the introductory computer science course back in spring of 1993. In the meantime he’s found himself in the software industry, working for Oracle as a “Principle Performance Architect,” and took some time to reflect upon the computer…

  • Internships in North Mankato

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    max

    One of the perennial limitations in the way our students take advantage of internship opportunities is that most seem to only look for full-time summer internships, rather than also considering part-time internships during a semester.  There are some good reasons for that, one of which is that most internship opportunities are so far away (e.g.,…

  • Network Neutrality: A 25-Year Perspective

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    max

    I turn 25 tomorrow—not 25 years on this planet, but 25 years on the net. It was on August 27th, 1981, that I first used a computer connected to the Arpanet, which was just then morphing into the Internet, a process completed 16 months later. That transition from Arpanet to Internet was the first of…

  • Fields Medals and ICM 2006

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    mmcdermo

    An article is already published in the NYT (link will probably die soon), but two Gustavus faculty (Holte & McDermott) were present to hear the announcement of the Fields medals presented at the ICM 2006 in Madrid. The Fields medals were awarded to Andrei Okounkov, Grigori Perelman, Terence Tao, and Wendelin Werner. There had been…

  • Prof. Holte Publishes on Fractal Dimensions

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    max

    Prof. John M. Holte, who has been on sabbatical leave from the department during the 2005-2006 academic year, published an article, “Fractal Dimension of Arithmetical Structures of Generalized Binomial Coefficients Modulo a Prime,” in The Fibonacci Quarterly, Volume 44.1, pp. 46-58, February 2006.

  • Summer Reading: Who Controls the Internet?

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    max

    For my first book of summer, I fell into one of my usual genres: analysis of the relationship between information technology and social, political, and legal issues. As a result, I can warmly recommend Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World by Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu (Oxford University Press, 2006). Anyone who…

  • Reductio ad Absurdum

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    max

    The security expert Bruce Schneier published a Commentary in today’s Star Tribune claiming to show why the NSA’s gathering large amounts of phone call records is useless, rather than merely spooky. (This op-ed is largely self-plagiarized from an earlier publication in Wired News.) The thrust of the commentary is to imagine one possible use for…

  • Four MCS Professors Honored for Century of Service

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    max

    OK, so it is both corny and bogus to add up years of service.  Sue me.  On Thursday, May 18th, 2006, the Gustavus Alumni Association honored faculty members and administrators for their years of service.  The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science was well represented: David Wolfe was honored for 10 years, Jeff Rosoff for…