P. Oscar Boykin

If one considers the channels of communication available to humans today one might make the following list:

1. face-to-face
2. videoconferencing
3. real-time voice
4. voicemail
5. Instant message/chat
6. text message
7. email
8. postal mail

The above list is ordered from most to least “occupying”. Efficiency suggests that we should use the least occupying method that will do the job. Doing the job usually consists of meeting two goals: deadlines and interactivity. In the above list, the first five channels are synchronous (both parties communicate at the same time) and the last three are asynchronous (one sends a message, later the other party receives it).

The asynchronous channels generally have a problem of reliability; it can be hard to tell if a message was lost or just ignored. Indeed, with spam being an ever growing problem, email has become less and less reliable as messages are sometimes mistaken for spam and never read by their intended recipients.

My guideline for picking a mode of communication is to start at the bottom of the above list and keep going up until you hit the one that can do the job. Postal mail would probably only be used for packages or messages where the physicality of receiving something would be meaningful.

There has been some coverage in the news of the claim that email is for old people. I think part of the issue is that older people (or rather people in the work force as opposed to students) are generally dealing with a larger volume of messages which would not be workable over IM. The people you need to communicate with are not always available to communicate with you at that time, in such cases asynchronous communication (like email works best).

Update 12/4/2007: I found this post on communications channels by Tim Bray. He extends and quantifies some of the issues above.

Lots of things happen once a year on various dates in September. I’m one to reminisce so it’s a good month for me. I get a string of dates this time every year: 9/9: Mother’s birthday and friend’s anniversary, 9/10: Brother’s birthday, 9/11, 9/12: friend’s birthday.

There are lots of such dates this month: 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 26, 28, 30. They include births, anniversaries, and tragedies.

To those celebrating a birthday, I hope it is a warm and glowing one. To those celebrating an anniversary, may the reminder of this day strengthen your love. As for tragedy, let’s remember we’re built for the climb, and our defeats give meaning to our triumphs.

The lecture I recorded on Friday to be shown today (while I am away at an NSF workshop), is now online.

You can watch it here.

Update 9/12/2007: If the quality of the above is not crappy enough for you, I made an mp4 version which you can put on your ipod. I recommend following the slides with the pdf version posted to the forums. Also, the real time use of the python interpreter is very hard to follow in the video (due to the low resolution), that’s why it pays to come to class.

I’m back in Gainesville. Let me say, the security at Ben Gurion is tight. They totally turned me upside down for about an hour, LITERALLY. They emptied everything from my all my bags, x-rayed every device I had separately, wiped the little bomb-detection swab over every square inch of all my luggage, inside and out. It was totally insane.

I noticed something interesting; all the people doing the screening were attractive young women. Maybe it’s a coincidence (but there were five of them), but I wonder if there is some psychological aspect that would address. Perhaps people are more comfortable with women going through their bags, perhaps people are more compliant, who knows. Finally, after all of this, they did escort me through the metal detectors so I wouldn’t have to wait in line. That was nice of them. Of course, by that time, we were old friends. We were having discussions on the universities of Israel, history of Israel, the new terminal, what discounts they got when flying, how often they find embarrassing things in the bags (every single day, usually more than once), etc…

After twenty four hours of travel I arrived just in time to teach my two hour class today. And still, I had nothing but unbridled enthusiasm for our young minds of tomorrow. That’s the kind of dedication and commitment to excellence for which I am known (in addition to my staggering humility).

Update: they did not literally turn me upside down. They searched me for literally one hour. Thanks to Arijit Ganguly for pointing out this humorously imprecise language.

I leave Israel tonight and will arrive in Jacksonville, FL tomorrow at 8am. It’s been a wonderful trip.

Thank you Yossi Weinstein for helping me get around Haifa.

Also, a very big thank you to Tal Mor for supporting my visit and for the invitation to the workshop.

I look forward to my next trip back to Israel.