There was this intense Indian professor who had this air about him that was sort of condescending but more just dismissive. Ie, there was some pretty intense sttt he would routinely characterize as trivial or obvious.
The thing was, you were never sure whether he was trolling you or not. At a party or some event, supposedly somebody asked him what his research interest was. They were probably expecting to hear something like knot theory or PDE or whatever, but his research interest was "Mathematics", which I guess makes sense because that's what he worked on.
He liked teaching undergraduates but the department only let him do it once every four years or so, as the memories faded from the last time he did it. The year he taught the honors analysis class, it started in the fall with something like 32 students (and all of them by invitation at that) and ended with 6. And so the six survivors printed up T-shirts for having completed the course and wore them to the spring semester final. He's handing out the final and sees the shirts and says something like, "Don't be too confident about that."
Ok, there's really only a couple of stories I know of Eckhart hall but I should mention them before this gets too stale.
Most or every weekday, the faculty and other interested parties meet for tea at about 4PM in the tea room across from the library.
I was taking abstract algebra at the time and the professor was a fairly recent Phd. And, most or all UC undergraduates learn some familiarity with the categorical imperatives of Immanuel Kant. Somehow, the subject came up whether or not the idea of category theory (or at least the name) is in some way derivative of the categorical imperative.
The inventor of category theory was Saunders Mac Lane who was on the faculty. At tea one day our teacher asked Mr Mac Lane if there was any relationship between category theory and the categorical imperative.
Oddly enough the answer was yes, in an oblique way. This story would be quite a bit better if I remembered some idea of what the relationship was but unfortunately I don't. In any case it seemed pretty cool at the time.
Yeah, I'm thinking about that. I really like the idea of going to Austin but the reason I'm thinking of SF is because the software / data scene there is off the charts. A friend of mine told me yesterday it's like what Paris 1910 was for painters.
So, looking over at Houston there are all kinds of crazy datasets for both energy exploitation and energy trading. There's a thriving if quiet startup community, and a local private university of some note in applied math (Rice). It's pretty unpretentious, but that's the city--we are all about the bidness.
Besides, it's a chance to crunch numbers for something other than selling ads and cat pictures. :)
Would you happen to know how to find these companies? I know of a few (FlightAware, for instance) but figuring out who's doing what in Houston isn't as easy as the Bay Area. I've been trying to get in touch with some companies in Houston (I graduate in May) and I'd much appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction!
If you decide on Austin, lemme know. I know some folks at a privately owned high frequency trading firm that I believe are hiring, or numerous startups in the area depending on what exactly you're looking for.
Yeah, it's rgm. I'm good friends with 2-3 developers, friends with 1-2 and friends with their network guy and one of the sysadmins. All are really happy and enjoying it, and none of them are "like working for bigco" folks.
Edit: I see the discussion has passed me by. I'll add that I'm really enjoying working at RGM, and would definitely recommend it for anyone who does not have a strong preference toward living in SF or NY.
