Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 29/09/2026I really appreciate the report from the Simons Institute's AI + TCS working group (simons.berkeley.edu/ai-tcs-worki...), even though I don't agree with all of its recommendations. The central thing that I'm wary about is 3.1/3a as a blanket policy. 1/2 161
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Wow does the post title bury the lede! I particularly like the pictured comment. 35715
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Congratulations to PNW running/mountain friend Jess (and her esteemed pacer Colin) on outright winning the Mountain Lakes 100-mile race in Oregon! She was 50 minutes ahead of #2 (also a woman) and ~78 ahead of the first man. Fun fact: 100% of my volcano summits have been with Colin and Jess! 050
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 02/08/2026First, why is this interesting? Here's an image from eccc.weizmann.ac.il/report/2022/... about the related problem SVP with varying approx factors. The middle regime says that if γ-SVP is hard for a large enough polynomial gamma (say, γ~=n^2) then lattice-based cryptography is *provably* secure. 2/ 122
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 24/07/2026I enjoyed reading that Yu Deng almost became a professional Go player. Go is a fantastic game, which I used to play quite a lot. Here's a picture of playing Go and chess simultaneously with my Go BFF John (www.chungenliu.com; now a full professor of sociology!) when he visited Boulder recently. 3/3 151
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 11/05/2026What I get as the top hit for "CS Theory" on Google search. Turing Machines just look so much shinier with that Matte Finish. 140
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 28/04/2026One great thing about CU Boulder is that it has a Grammy-award-winning string quartet in residence: the Takács Quartet. Last night, I got to see what was founding cellist András Fejér's last performance with the group after 51 years. He had been the only remaining founding member. 1/2 120
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 23/04/2026One of my favorite New Yorker covers (cf. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/t... and related stories). 131
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 14/04/2026I was lucky to get to run the Corvallis Half Marathon over the weekend in Oregon! A couple of weeks ago, I was part of a theory Ph.D. thesis defense at U. Colorado where I enjoyed realizing that all of the other faculty on the committee were also runners (and that 3 of 4 are faster than I am). 130
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 02/03/2026Emphasis on the attack not coming close to the security claimed by Dilitihium. Dilithium claims 123, 186, and 265 bits of security for classical unforgeability; the attack gets running times of 202, 289, and 400 (for L2, L3, and L5, respectively). (Ref: pq-crystals.org/dilithium/da..., Tbl 1.) 040
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 01/01/2026Otis Peak (12,486') and Hallett Peak (12,720') in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. Spot the ptarmigan! 4/4 140
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 01/01/2026Mount Whitney (14,505'), the highest peak in California and the entire continental U.S. Roughly 6,300 feet of elevation gain and 20.75 miles. Done with @ilyaraz.bsky.social, who provided much-needed energy at the end. 3/4 150
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 01/01/2026Mount Adams (12,281'), the second-highest peak in Washington State and one of its five volcanoes. Roughly 6,800 feet of elevation gain and 12.25 miles. Yes, TSA allows ice axes in checked baggage. 2/4 130
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 01/01/2026To kick off 2026, here's a quick thread on a few mountain ascents from 2025, starting at home in Boulder, Colorado with Mount Sanitas (6,798') at night. 1/4 2101
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 29/07/2025Ah, yes, the Baker-Gill-Solovay Theorem is my favorite old timey TV program. What an age of internet search we live in. 180
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 22/06/2025I'm in Ann Arbor for the week for ISIT (presenting eprint.iacr.org/2025/187). If anyone else is attending or around, please say "hi"! 040
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 17/06/2025"Huh?!" of the day from NSF award reporting: They allow you to upload a .bib file to report your relevant publications (great call!), but in general disallow using "article" as a publication type because of public access requirements. 1/2 120
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 22/04/2025Happy Earth Day 2025! The Enchantments, WA // Grand Canyon, AZ 170
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 01/04/2025It's always good to have back-up plans, and now I have a plan for what I'm going to do if I don't get tenure: start a coding-theory-themed comedy club. 1100
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 19/03/2025The reduction/proof that ChatGPT gives is garbage (see screenshot), although it's syntactically close enough to a correct answer that someone might be confused. 4/ 220
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 04/03/2025It was my pleasure to join a jubilant and well-attended rally against the current administration's assault on science in Boulder today. Besides the University of Colorado, Boulder and the surrounding area are home to many national labs, including NIST, NOAA, NCAR, and NREL. 1/2 1152
Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 14/11/2024This morning, we saw a new preprint from the same author (arxiv.org/abs/2411.073...) again claiming a construction of exponential kissing number lattices. We sent him the following email. 3/ 100