I have completed my trek through the Transactions on Information Theory and the results are posted. I identified approximately 450 articles of interest, some for pure humor value, such as editorials and a paper in French that I can’t read, but most looked “pretty interesting.” I’m not sure what to do with the list now, but now it’s off my to do list. It productivity! Hooray productivity!

ISIT is a pretty huge conference — for every paper that I see presented, I miss 7 others in parallel sessions. Oftentimes they put very popular papers in small rooms, which only enhances the crowdedness I feel. Today is the last day, so things are thinning out a bit, which is nice.

A frustrating thing I’ve come to realize is that it takes me a woefully long time to figure out that a paper is pretty uninteresting. I spend a fair amount of time trying to really understand what is going on, often in spite of the presentation, only to have a conversation with another group member about it later on that makes it clear that the result was not that interesting. Of course, “interesting” is subjective, but perhaps it is best to go into talks with a healthy dose of skepticism to avoid the rollercoaster ride of excitement and disappointment.

A second problem is that the nametags are hung around the necks, so if you try to read the name of a female conference attendee you invariably look like you are ogling her chest. Given the gender ratio at this conference it must make it awfully uncomfortable for them.

My paper was rejected from Globecomm with a 2/5 rating (weak reject). And it was rejected for reasons that are entirely related to my poor exposition of the ideas. Nothing like a good heaping plate of blame and guilt to dull the sharp edge of summer.