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William Umboh

@swumboh.bsky.social
419 followers 643 following 247 posts

Senior Lecturer in Computational Theory, School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne. Interests: Theoretical computer science and combinatorial optimisation, focussing on approximation and online algorithms. williamumboh.com

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Reposted by William Umboh
Thomas Dietterich @tdietterich.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Attention arXiv authors. Because of the exponential increase in submissions, arXiv is limiting the number of papers that a person can submit each month to two. blog.arxiv.org/2025/10/31/a...
blog.arxiv.org
Attention Authors: Updated Practice for Review Articles and Position Papers in arXiv CS Category
arXiv’s computer science (CS) category has updated its moderation practice with respect to review (or survey) articles and position papers. Before being…
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Dr Hannah M. Rowland @hannahmrowland.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Hope your day was better than Darwin’s, on this day 165 years ago
I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody &everything.

Charles Darwin
Letter to Charles Lyell
1st October 1861
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Carla Winston @carlawinston.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
In the midst of @unimelb.edu.au enterprise bargaining, this piece clearly identifies much of what I see as a union rep trying to improve working conditions. It's technically about firms, but might as well be about modern universities. @nteunion.bsky.social journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
journals.sagepub.com
Varieties of Firm Republicanism: Institutional Models of Workplace Governance - Sean Irving, 2026
Recent scholarship treats the firm as a regime of power in which workers are subject to arrangements analogous to those between state and citizen. Republican po...
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William Umboh @swumboh.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Training a Large Language Meowdel by osmosis
Cat sitting on textbook
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Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Preparing a lecture on the practice of research and was reminded of this lovely essay on the importance of being comfortable with feeling stupid: fermatslibrary.com/s/the-import...
fermatslibrary.com
Fermat's Library | The importance of stupidity in scientific research annotated/explained version.
Fermat's Library is a platform for illuminating academic papers.
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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 29/09/2026
A very important message from Omer Reingold to our TCS community, especially us (arg, already) senior researchers: "snap out of it." Please, digest, and share. theorydish.blog/2026/09/29/s...
As for depression: the next time you have the urge to lament, or even celebrate, being “the last generation of human mathematicians,” perhaps keep it to yourself. Contemplating the end of your profession from the relative comfort of an established, tenured career is a privilege, and it comes with responsibilities. Senior academics are not merely individual researchers; we are stewards of our field, and we owe our junior colleagues active leadership rather than abandonment.
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Brett Karlan @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Since I became a professor, the only movies I can sit through are dumb, loud action movies. Everything else I can't get through. Depressed ruminations about the human condition? Buddy, that's my day job! Now, Sandra Bullock keeping a bus going above 50mph so it doesn't explode? I'm interested..
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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 29/09/2026
The report from the AI + TCS Working Group held at the @simonsinstitute.bsky.social is out, including "twelve concrete near-term recommended actions." Currently reading it: while I have some reservations, but there is some good in it! Notably items 7, 8, and 11. simons.berkeley.edu/ai-tcs-worki...
7. Best works and technical talks in interviews.

- Emphasize quality over quantity. Evaluate candidates on no more than three  works of their choosing, with this fact explicit in the instructions for candidates and their letter writers.

- Test technical depth. Evaluate the depth of the candidates’ understanding of the aforementioned works more than was done normally until now.

8. Additional postdocs. Establish additional postdoctoral positions for the TCS community, a temporary measure that will be phased out after a few years.

9. Workshops for identifying new theory directions. First, organize a workshop (or several) with the goal of identifying a list of modern topics related to AI; and second, run a series of workshops on each of these topics to identify fundamental directions and establish foundations and agendas for future work.

10. “TCS in the Age of AI” series at the Simons Institute. Establish a recurring and widely accessible “TCS in the Age of AI” series at the Simons Institute.

11. Opportunities for training and evaluation without AI assistance. To ensure development of necessary skills for a successful career in academia, a PhD in TCS should partially include training and evaluation components where the use of AI is forbidden.
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 28/09/2026
Hey everyone remember how I was saying the AI X-risk criti-hype is a targeted project designed to kill regulations and further ensure an impatient rush on data centre contsruction www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09...
abc.net.au
OpenAI breach proves need for more data centres, major parties say
Labor, Coalition agree OpenAI's Medicare breach proves the need for Australia to secure "a seat at the AI table" by rolling out data centres nationally.
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William Umboh @swumboh.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Example of a bin packing that violates capacity constraints by a factor of 2
A cat with its bottom half in a box.
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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 27/09/2026
On the Theoretical CS job market? "The Algorithms and Complexity group of 🇫🇷 IRIF is seeking excellent candidates for postdoctoral positions in classical and quantum computing, with starting date in October 2027 (negotiable)." @irif-paris.bsky.social cstheory-jobs.org/2026/09/25/p...
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Steven Strogatz @stevenstrogatz.com · 23/09/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/09/22/s...
nytimes.com
Mathematics Isn’t Just a Game to Let A.I. Solve. History Shows Why. (Gift Article)
In our field of applied mathematics, the long, human process of trial and error — not just the solutions themselves — is often what has led to progress.
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depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
when i mention "claude" you can assume i'm talking about the albino alligator not the llm
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Liℤℤy Kodpuak née Acid Lich (can’t spell sheaves without she) @acidlich.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I feel like dragon ball Z is actually a great tool for teaching mathematics
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William Umboh @swumboh.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Yup definitely can relate to this
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William Umboh @swumboh.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Petition for a new type of leave from work: “My cat rarely wants to sit with me and is now sitting on me so I’m not moving until she moves”
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William Umboh @swumboh.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
A major conjecture in online algorithms has been resolved!
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Huck Bennett @huckbennett.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
💯. What a sad place we've ended up in. A year or two ago, we'd just be celebrating the results and the authors.
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William Umboh @swumboh.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Ok, who’s being going to Austria for kangaroos?
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Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
What he doesn't realize is if the yuri writers get replaced, their backup plan is to finish their papers on probabilistic approaches to nonlinear dynamics. So, it should all even out.
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Dr. Courtney Gibbons (she/her/xlookup) @courtneygibbons.phd · 12/09/2026
So do you think there's a Fields medalist group chat or what? I know this is not central to anyone but I'm just curious if they get a special Whatsapp invite or something, maybe a beeper? Do they have a red phone where someone calls 1 999 314 1337 to assemble them to defend mathematics?
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William Umboh @swumboh.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
@theonion.com was founded in Madison, Wisconsin and one of the best memories being at @uwmadison.bsky.social is watching the reactions of students unaware that The Onion is satirical.
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 10/09/2026
FWIW I don’t think that AI is an existential threat, nor on track to become one. I do however think that the leaders of the biggest AI companies, AI’s strongest boosters, and some of the folks who are most adept at using it to exploit others are actively hastening along OTHER existential threats.
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Grant @syncingsinking.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
This is just to say I have solved the open questions that were in your paper and which you were probably saving for your phd students Forgive me they were delicious so incentive-laden and followed so readily once your postdoc's drafts mysteriously found their way into my training data
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William Umboh @swumboh.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Explains why an Anthropic employee is using OpenAI Codex opusfived.dev
opusfived.dev
Opusfived
Make one button blue. Change nothing else. A short interactive comedy about agentic AI assistants that can never just do the thing.
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Petra Schwer @petraschwer.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
You aim to understand a mathematical text all by yourself? I finally made an English version of my users guide on "How to read math?" You might want to download it here: web.mathi.uni-heidelberg.de/media/How_To... #math #readingmath #mathematics #matheducation #science #mathsky
web.mathi.uni-heidelberg.de
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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 02/09/2026
"“All of us on the picket line today are here because we care so much about the education and research we do,” [Kurt Iveson, professor of geography at #USyd] said" www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
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William Umboh @swumboh.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Had an amazing week at the New Frontiers in Learning-Augmented Algorithms workshop at TU Berlin, co-organized with Franziska Eberle and Alexander Lindermayr. algorithms-with-predictions.github.io/workshop2026
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Sasho Nikolov @thesasho.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Nikhil Bansal and I wrote a book-length survey of algorithmic and geometric methods in discrepancy theory, and a draft of it is online arxiv.org/abs/2608.00140. This book has been years in the making, and I’m excited to share it. More 👇
arxiv.org
Discrepancy Theory: An Algorithmic and Geometric Perspective
Combinatorial discrepancy theory is a subject with roots in combinatorics, geometry, and number theory, and with numerous applications to mathematics and computer science. At its core, discrepancy the...
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karthikcs.bsky.social @karthikcs.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Video playlists from the recently concluded DIMACS workshops: • Algebraic Techniques in FGC (July 20–22): www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... • FGC of String Problems (July 23–25): www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... • FGC of Graph Problems (July 27–31): www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
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Thatchaphol Saranurak @eigx.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
The videos of DIMACS Workshop on Fine-Grained Complexity of Graph Problems are now uploaded: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
youtube.com
DIMACS Workshop on Fine-Grained Complexity of Graph Problems - YouTube
DIMACS Workshop on Fine-Grained Complexity of Graph Problems Start Date: July 27, 2026 End Date: July 31, 2026 Organizers: Zihan Tan | Thatchaphol Saranurak ...
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OPTIMA ARC Industry Training Centre @optima-arc.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
OPTIMACON 2027 (8-10 Feb) welcomes keynote speakers Prof. Kate Smith-Miles AO FAA, Dr Christina Burt, and Pascal Van Hentenryck. If you want to share your complex industrial challenge, or optimisation research you can submit an Abstracts for OPTIMACON: con27.optima.org.au/abstracts #optimisation #ai
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Sung Kim @sungkim.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Mathematics in the age of AI by Terence Tao An essay on how the mathematical community might respond to the arrival of AI tools that are capable of performing research-level mathematical tasks. arxiv.org/abs/2608.16753
arxiv.org
Mathematics in the age of AI
An essay, based on a public lecture delivered at the 2026 International Congress of Mathematicians, on how the mathematical community might respond to the arrival of artificial intelligence tools that...
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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 19/08/2026
Applications for SIGACT Community Grants, to "foster and promote the discovery and dissemination of high quality research in the domain of theoretical computer science," are now open! sigact.org/grants/community.html @acm.org #TCSky ⏰. Deadline: September 18
sigact.org
ACM SIGACT - Community Grants
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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 19/08/2026
Incredible art by Nathan Harms, made for #WoLA2026 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Workshop on Local Algorithms: www.harmless.ink/arts/local_a...
From the linked page, which explains the drawing and ita composition in detail:

"Fig. 2. Selected Elements of Local Algorithms. August 2026.

I made this poster for the 10th anniversary of the Workshop on Local Algorithms (WoLA 2026).

The drawing is intended to evoke a certain sense of mystery. If you cannot abide by this, then here is some explanation."

(A detail description follows)
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William Umboh @swumboh.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Serendipity played a big role in the first paper. When we were writing up the paper, we discovered that the original paper on TCP acknowledgment by Dooly, Goldman and Scott (JACM 01) has a theorem saying that the natural greedy algorithm is also 2-competitive for our generalization 😱
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Thatchaphol Saranurak @eigx.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
"Maximum Flow Without the Outer IPM" in 9 pages. This is fantastic! arxiv.org/abs/2608.17384 Although it assumes dynamic data structures, it still simplifies things a lot!
arxiv.org
Maximum Flow Without the Outer IPM
We show that the balancing weights technique of Li (2026) actually produces an approximate *pseudo-circulation* of a directed, capacitated graph in $m^{1+o(1)}$ time. Together with standard flow techn...
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William Umboh @swumboh.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
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William Umboh @swumboh.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
3 papers appearing in APPROX26 this week! 1. "Online TCP Acknowledgment under General Delays" with Sujoy Bhore and Michał Pawłowski arxiv.org/abs/2604.13428 2. "Online Matching with Size-Based and Convex Delays" with Junhao Gan and Xiao Sun: arxiv.org/abs/2607.00536
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The Random Sample @therandomsample.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
It's a question many early career researchers grapple with: academia or industry? Prof Roslyn Hickson's answer is simple: both. Roslyn is an applied mathematician with a joint appointment at CSIRO and James Cook University, where she serves as Science Leader for Emerging Infectious Diseases.
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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 11/08/2026
This is a rather thoughtful take, by Melissa Lee, about collaboration, research, what options exist and what agency we have these days. Also, short and easy to read! Disclaimer: Melissa is awesome.
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Gautam Kamath @gautamkamath.com · 10/08/2026
The significance & interestingness of most mathematical results can usually only be judged by a handful of experts in the area. Most people evaluating a result on social media can only do so via age of the problem and hype by the poster. Neither are great proxies for quality
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William Umboh @swumboh.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Game of thrones theme is an interesting music choice for a graduation ceremony
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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 10/08/2026
So many good points in this post by @nsaphra.bsky.social: only quoting a couple, to encourage you to read the others. "My colleagues and students adopt the writing quirks they read throughout the day, and their own writing becomes more like an LLM’s." nsaphra.net/post/uncanny/
To find a nugget of meaning, the user must sift through mounds of slop—and some simply won’t bother. They’ll serve the slop unfiltered to another party, who performs this interpretive labor themselves, only to discover that the underlying meaning does not exist. When someone expects me to perform their share of this interpretive labor, I get angry. Grice’s rules are, in essence, rules of etiquette—their unwarranted violation is rude.
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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 08/08/2026
I contacted the official team in charge of the petitions. Looks like if the Minister decides to ignore this process and not do their job, they... just can. (The office of a Senator I contacted, @mehreenfaruqi.bsky.social, agreed it was a shame; my local MP, Tanya Plibersek, never got back to me.)
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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 08/08/2026
David Pollard has a new draft, "Probability tools, tricks, and miracles" (last updated June 2006). Lots of good things in there, from a quick skim! And, if nothing else, worth reading for the quality of the writing and the exposition choices and notes. www.stat.yale.edu/~pollard/Boo...
From the first chapter of the draft {"How I chose material for this book"):

I strongly believe in the value of seeing how an idea can develop from
an initial brilliant insight (a ‘miracle’) to a ‘trick’ (a method known to,
and often developed by, a few experts) to a ‘tool’ (a method that is well
understood and can be applied in settings, even those unsuspected by its
inventors). Indeed, one of the great pleasures in my research life has been
the progression from first wondering how anyone could have such a clever
idea to the final realization that everything depended on only a few stunning insights.
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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 08/08/2026
Some good (simple, but useful) advice from @sophie.huiberts.me on how to make the most of the Internet while Google search is getting worse at an unfortunately steady pace: sophie.huiberts.me/blog/2026/in... @kagi.com "That one simple trick they make it increasingly hard to search for!"
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Grace @gracekind.net · 07/08/2026
Guess what two things I’ve been confusing
Law of truly large numbers

Not to be confused with Law of large numbers.
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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 07/08/2026
I'm (finally) reading the Australian Research Council (ARC)'s National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP) Policy Review, and... I'm no finance wizard, but if I had an investment scheme yielding 232% benefit, I'd consider investing slightly more in it? www.arc.gov.au/news-and-pub...
The NCGP represents 7% of the Australian Government’s total R&D spend and is an important driver of Australian university research. NCGP funding makes up more than a third of the Australian Government’s competitive research income received by universities1 and is a significant contributor to the calculation of Research Block Grant allocations. Since its inception, research funded through the NCGP has generated an estimated $3.32 for every dollar invested
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William Umboh @swumboh.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Exactly how i feel about writing myself semi-rad.com/2026/08/do-i...
semi-rad.com
Do It 14,000 Times Slower With This One Trick – Semi-Rad.com
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