Whatever we think of CS conf rankings, they are used by hiring committees, etc. The sub-domain bias is pretty striking on CORE. The few integer optimization conferences are now all rank B I believe. Searching for computer vision gives me a bunch of A* ones.

So have we reached the "Freedom Waffles" stage on every US menu already?

@proton.me I haven't found a definitive answer on the various forums, is there a way to "send as" in proton from another email (a professional email)? For academics that have 3+ email addresses this is essential

For academics organizing workshops: EasyChair or ScienceConf? I could cope with making a website separate from the CFP if needed.

The blanket requirement of ML conferences on ethics and impact statements, regardless of the contribution, and without any training in ethics, is really just clutter on papers and additional noise, with the same empty paragraphs slapped in all of them.

For people speaking languages with a distinction of formal and informal "you", are you also looking up through piles of emails to see if you're on an informal basis with someone?

I'll be at the jump.dev workshop and SIAM OP26 in Edinburgh! Come say hi to chat on computational optimization, constrained first-order methods, or hunt down the best specialty coffee and bouldering gyms in town!

Pretty late to the party, but I was honored to receive the Robert Faure prize 2026 from the French Operations Research Society! matbesancon.xyz/post/2026-04...

Robert Faure Prize 2026 | μβ

I’m proud and honored to have received the Robert Faure prize 2026, alongside two fantastic peers Salma Makboul and Julien Grand-Clément. The prize is awarded by the French Operations Research Society...

matbesancon.xyz

Yeah sure AGI but when will train platforms apply reduction cards correctly on a trip?

Inria (sadly not here yet) will be preparing candidates for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Program scholarships. The institute also centralized a whole list of hosting teams (including GHOST, mine!) with potential topics: www.inria.fr/en/marie-skl...

Les Grenoblois quand les Lyonnais viennent en rando en chaussures bateau et chino

France Culture@franceculture.fr · 6mo ago

Vous pensez que la peine s’arrêtait à la mort. Au XVIe siècle, à Grenoble, les exécutés restaient suspendus des semaines au gibet, exposés pour rappeler à tous qu’un crime de sang ou un acte de rébellion envers l’autorité du roi se payait au prix fort. ➡️ https://l.franceculture.fr/yYY

Don't get me wrong I have nothing against doing that theoretical upper bound research. The drama is that I struggle to find real improvements to maxflow (or more generally flow?) algorithms that came from this theoretical progress. Isn't that one role that theoretical algorithmic should fill?

Mathieu Besançon@matbesancon.bsky.social · 6mo ago

And yes, this is brought to you by maxflow

<academic rant> I am always amazed and annoyed at the same time that there is a research field of "algorithms" in which you need to spend an enormous amount of time to understand if any new method has a slim chance of ever being run

Early Christmas for MIP folks!

arxiv math.OC@arxiv-math-oc.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Christopher Hojny, Mathieu Besan\c{c}on, Ksenia Bestuzheva, Sander Borst, Jo\~ao Dion\'isio, Johannes Ehls, Leon Eifler, Mohammed Ghannam, Ambros Gleixner, Adrian G\"o{\ss}, Alexander Hoen, Jacob von Holly-Ponientzietz, ... The SCIP Optimization Suite 10.0 https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.18580

The SCIP 10 optimization suite has many new interesting features and is fully open source. For binaries and downloads, check www.scipopt.org/index.php#do...

arxiv math.OC@arxiv-math-oc.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Christopher Hojny, Mathieu Besan\c{c}on, Ksenia Bestuzheva, Sander Borst, Jo\~ao Dion\'isio, Johannes Ehls, Leon Eifler, Mohammed Ghannam, Ambros Gleixner, Adrian G\"o{\ss}, Alexander Hoen, Jacob von Holly-Ponientzietz, ... The SCIP Optimization Suite 10.0 https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.18580

I got hyped and then read the last line 😑

Probably my lazy french brain but some journal allowing delays in paper reviews for "exceptional personal circumstances (e.g. vacation)" gets my teeth grinding hard 😬 Of course with 3 vacation days per year I guess that falls into exceptional

Barely have a permanent position and already called old by the new generation, academia is brutal

Guillaume Dalle@gdalle.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Bold move from someone who couldn’t even display a title

- Mixed-integer optimization is so second-nature to us operations researchers, it's easy to forget most people approach their combinatorial problems through polyhedral relaxations - and conic formulations, of course - of course

Julien Bobroff @julien-bobroff.bsky.social · 9mo ago

The problem with experts... imgs.xkcd.com/comics/avera...

I don't know if there is a North-South divide on that, but have to say that the train in Italy has been one of the best 🚆 experiences for me this year (on the Torino-Bologna-Rome line)

I know what I'm reading on my train trip this week! Sophie and Eleon bridging the gap between analysis of algorithms and real-world computational optimization 🎉

Sophie Huiberts@sophie.huiberts.me · 9mo ago

The simplex algorithm is super efficient. 80 years of experience says it runs in linear time. Nobody can explain _why_ it is so fast. We invented a new algorithm analysis framework to find out.

My usual system, inspired by my PhD advisors, is first author (quite often a younger scholar), and then the rest in alphabetical order. This means I'm typically the second author, minimum contribution according to Google Scholar it is 😑

Lara K. Mahal@glycocode.bsky.social · 9mo ago

🧪For those of us who do complex collaborations with multiple corresponding authors this is terrible . I suspect it will also hit female authors disproportionately as they tend to have more collaborations across fields…https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03281-4

Very clear and bold welcome speech by Prof. Laudani from the city of Bologna council at #ECAI25!

Gosh I hit the second root

PHD Comics@phdcomics.com · 10mo ago

Enjoy it while it lasts

Life goal: being so good at extreme irony-ing you get second degree burns

Christian Wolf@chriswolfvision.bsky.social · 10mo ago

TIL: 🤔 Extreme Ironing is an extreme sport in which people take ironing boards to remote locations and iron items of clothing. "the latest dangerous sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme...

Authors generating pieces of their paper with LLMs: this is saving some research time in the same way throwing garbage out the window is saving home chore time. And yes the comparison is exactly my feeling after the tenth useless adjective and repeated sentence.

BTW if you're at the conference and looking for your next research adventure in computational optimization, come say hi!

Mathieu Besançon@matbesancon.bsky.social · 10mo ago

My first @juliacon.bsky.social in too many years, very excited to see what people are building, using, combining, experimenting

My first @juliacon.bsky.social in too many years, very excited to see what people are building, using, combining, experimenting

Guillaume Dalle@gdalle.bsky.social · 10mo ago

JuliaCon Local Paris starts tomorrow 🤩 Which part of our amazing program are you most excited about? #JuliaLang @juliacon.bsky.social @julialang.org

Apercevoir @edwyplenel.bsky.social à la gare, le trajet est déjà une première classe 😱

Academics: I'm preparing an informal talk to junior scholars on preparing for the faculty job market. What are things nobody told you and that you wished you knew?