NY Area Theory Day 09

NY area theory day was held at Columbia Univ on May 22, 09. I gave a talk on 3 problems in internet ads, here is the pdf of my talk. The talk describes a recent result with Jon Feldman, Aranyak Mehta, and Vahab Mirrokni that I am excited about in which we improve upon the 1-1/e bound for online stochastic bipartite matching. The 1-1/e bound is a monster in online algorithms, and anytime you are able and break past it, there is a story. Baruch Schieber who introduced me, dug up an old bio of mine, and pointed out how I "resented" my work. I dont know if he realized that the mike he used to introduce me was connected to the unit I held in my hand and I could have pulled the plug anytime. :)

The day was great. There were three talks before me. Dana Moshkovitz and Mark Braverman gave incredibly cogent talks on difficult material. Craig Gentry gave a talk on fully homomorphic encryption scheme with a lot of applications. During drinks later, people were still talking about it, wondering if it can all be implemented.

ps: As many pointed out, I really need some pictures in my talk. That will happen soon.