3 ms·

Meet the 2012 MacArthur Fellows

31 points by clbrook 14y ago

stephengillie 14y ago
Are any on HN?
- untog 14y ago
  I very much doubt it. HN's audience is actually really very specific.
  - jcoder 14y ago
    Literally actually really very specifically specific.
    - zachrose 14y ago
      Literally, a veritable niche of actual specificity.
      - taliesinb 14y ago
        Is it me or are these Reddit-like joke nests a new phenomenon on HN?
Codhisattva 14y ago
Chris Thile is the Beethoven of his generation. [Edit to fix my silly typo]
- zwieback 14y ago
  Wow that's going a bit far although I admit he's a pretty great mando player albeit a bit showy. I saw him live with Edgar Meyer and my ears almost fell off.
  - moultano 14y ago
    Have you listened to The Blind Leaving The Blind? It's pretty incredible. I don't think it's canonical-piece-of-culture-after-300-years incredible, but still, pretty incredible.
    - zwieback 14y ago
      No, but I will now. Thanks for the tip.
- msg 14y ago
  Theil => Thile, rhymes with "mealy" Him and the band playing Bach on bluegrass instruments. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1NNBf7uVQ4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1NNBf7uVQ4 Him and the band playing Reptilia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qayc6yJXG-8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qayc6yJXG-8 Covering Radiohead, then transition into a Gillian Welch song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igbbbWqDVbM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igbbbWqDVbM And there's a lot of original compositions as well. Pretty unstoppable.
dude_abides 14y ago
The only person on the list whose work I'm somewhat aware of is Dan Spielman. His works, especially smoothed analysis, is definitely something that HN folks will appreciate. Smoothed analysis answers the question why many popular algorithms have exponential big-O time but still work so well in practice. Average case complexity also answers that question but computing it requires us to know the probability distribution of the input space in advance. The idea of smoothed complexity is simply to add random perturbation to the input and then measure the worst case. Eg. simplex method has exponential big-O complexity but polynomial smoothed complexity.
yskchu 14y ago
For the computer science entry: Daniel Spielman, Yale University Professor http://www.macfound.org/fellows/877/ http://www.macfound.org/fellows/877/
nancyhua 14y ago
Junot Diaz was my writing teacher at MIT. "Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." He's really into comic books, the apocalypse, Dominican immigrants, New Jersey.

31 points by clbrook 14y ago

stephengillie 14y ago

Are any on HN?

untog 14y ago
I very much doubt it. HN's audience is actually really very specific.
- jcoder 14y ago
  Literally actually really very specifically specific.
  - zachrose 14y ago
    Literally, a veritable niche of actual specificity.
    - taliesinb 14y ago
      Is it me or are these Reddit-like joke nests a new phenomenon on HN?

Codhisattva 14y ago

Chris Thile is the Beethoven of his generation. [Edit to fix my silly typo]

zwieback 14y ago
Wow that's going a bit far although I admit he's a pretty great mando player albeit a bit showy. I saw him live with Edgar Meyer and my ears almost fell off.
- moultano 14y ago
  Have you listened to The Blind Leaving The Blind? It's pretty incredible. I don't think it's canonical-piece-of-culture-after-300-years incredible, but still, pretty incredible.
  - zwieback 14y ago
    No, but I will now. Thanks for the tip.
msg 14y ago
Theil => Thile, rhymes with "mealy" Him and the band playing Bach on bluegrass instruments. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1NNBf7uVQ4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1NNBf7uVQ4 Him and the band playing Reptilia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qayc6yJXG-8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qayc6yJXG-8 Covering Radiohead, then transition into a Gillian Welch song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igbbbWqDVbM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igbbbWqDVbM And there's a lot of original compositions as well. Pretty unstoppable.

dude_abides 14y ago

The only person on the list whose work I'm somewhat aware of is Dan Spielman. His works, especially smoothed analysis, is definitely something that HN folks will appreciate. Smoothed analysis answers the question why many popular algorithms have exponential big-O time but still work so well in practice. Average case complexity also answers that question but computing it requires us to know the probability distribution of the input space in advance. The idea of smoothed complexity is simply to add random perturbation to the input and then measure the worst case. Eg. simplex method has exponential big-O complexity but polynomial smoothed complexity.

yskchu 14y ago

For the computer science entry: Daniel Spielman, Yale University Professor http://www.macfound.org/fellows/877/ http://www.macfound.org/fellows/877/

nancyhua 14y ago

Junot Diaz was my writing teacher at MIT. "Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." He's really into comic books, the apocalypse, Dominican immigrants, New Jersey.