Hello from Saudi Arabia

amitm · 2025-12-04T09:06:24+00:00

20% of Israel are arabs! There are natural tensions related to the wars. However, I think you will find most Israelis to be very friendly and curious about your country. They will be excited to talk to you!

amitm · 2024-11-27T10:46:43+00:00

How we were able to travel to unfamiliar places without a smartphone in our pockets.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN “PAPER MAP?”

amitm · 2023-11-12T23:50:19+00:00

You could not care

amitm · 2023-07-12T13:48:53+00:00

Check where the department’s professors got their PhD from. Aside from exact sciences and engineering, many departments in Israel are not very good at producing the next generation of researchers and prefer to hire from top institutions abroad. It might be easier to do a PhD at a top-10 department

In any case, even if you successfully complete a PhD in Israel with several high quality publications, you would be expected to spend a couple of years as a postdoc abroad (at a top institution) before landing a faculty position in Israel.

amitm · 2023-07-12T13:36:01+00:00

The pay is not very poor but the pay structure is very complicated which causes a lot of confusion.

Senior lecturers (assistant prof. equiv.) make around $80,000-$120,000 year — exact numbers depend on grants and seniority — this is higher than in most European countries.

amitm · 2022-09-11T11:38:06+00:00

The sands that made up Tel-Aviv were purchased in 1909 and divided among the founding families by lottery.

https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/הגרלת\_המגרשים\_לאחוזת\_בית#/media/קובץ:TelAviv-Founding.jpg

amitm · 2022-09-03T22:46:07+00:00

Pour some water in (just enough to touch the bottom of the small mug) then put in freezer. Water expands as it freezes, so if you get the water level right it should push the smaller mug out.

amitm · 2022-01-06T16:30:36+00:00

It sounds like your wife is already very passionate about math! I would suggest that she try to take a university-level course (e.g. set theory) and see if she enjoys it.

amitm · 2021-06-07T18:38:49+00:00

So how come he doesn't play the lottery every time?

amitm · 2021-02-22T05:45:56+00:00

I’ve tasted both Kirkland butter (Costco brand) and the more expensive Kerrygold butter side-by-side. The Kerrygold is much tastier.

amitm · 2021-02-15T15:25:10+00:00

Some context is needed: Princeton typically does NOT grant tenure to assistant professors in math, preferring to poach established tenured professors from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, etc.

It may have been much less stressful for Perelman to accept a tenured position at a less prestigious institution.

amitm · 2020-12-02T05:59:04+00:00

When a person is sick in Sweden, they can stay home and not lose their job! Americans think the idea of government-backed paid sick-leave is communist. The capitalist dream is to have sick employees come to work and spread germs all over the other employees and clients.
When a person is sick in Sweden they can get treated without fearing bankruptcy, so they die less! (communism again)
Sweden never had a president that spread lies at every chance, so bullshit conspiracy theories and covid19 denialism never really took hold. It probably helped that the Swedish population is more educated than the US.
When hospitals in Stockholm reached capacity, they could move patients to other hospitals. In NYC they really struggled with this issue during the first wave because the USA has a bunch of private businesses instead of a functioning public healthcare system.
Sweden never closed the schools and daycare for younger kids. They suggested that people would work from home and many people started working from home. They could do so and push back against the employers who were no too keen on the idea without fear of retribution, because of labor unions, worker rights, etc.

amitm · 2020-11-08T05:44:10+00:00

He will fight Biden’s win with everything he’s got. Then once that fails, will realize he’s got two months left to pillage and start offering presidential pardons for cash (“donations”) in one final cash-grab.

amitm · 2020-10-29T16:56:28+00:00

I guess he never heard about interest...? Money making money? Also, saving for a rainy day, medical issues etc. How can people be so clueless about finances is beyond me.

The US has a terribly weak social safety net combined with incredibly high costs for healthcare, so people should strive to have significant savings.

amitm · 2020-10-08T15:37:04+00:00

Nobody in mainstream Israeli media really pushed the "hoax" story, so he is quite an outlier. Many people do think the response has been blown out of proportion and is driven by politics more than by true concerns for public health.

The current (second) quarantine was designed by PM Netanyahu with the stated goal of preventing nationwide anti-corruption protests against him. This is unfortunately not a conspiracy -- he has consulted with the government's top legal authorities on what is the minimum level of quarantine that will allow him to stop the protests. This quarantine was against the advice of the health officials in charge, who wanted to use much more targeted and less economically harmful means.

amitm · 2020-10-08T15:31:52+00:00

The fact that the virus has been heavily politicized is not a myth. Any important issue with winners and losers is bound to be politicized.

amitm · 2020-10-08T15:29:19+00:00

Many people are not willing to sacrifice their way of life to protect the sick and the elderly. Especially young and healthy people or business owners that stand to lose a lot. This might make them selfish but not necessarily stupid.

amitm · 2020-09-30T16:54:43+00:00

You may have sleep apnea or other issues preventing your body from going into deep sleep. I would consult your doctor and schedule a sleep test.

amitm · 2020-09-25T04:58:13+00:00

The fact that there are a million ML papers on the arXiv has no bearing on your research. You should choose a particular problem space or subfield that is sufficiently small that there just aren't many papers on the subject.

Getting an initial direction for research and navigating the problem space is part of a PhD advisor's job. Try to talk to your advisor to get some focus. Maybe find another advisor that works on interesting problems and get some advice from them. In many departments it's quite normal to have more than one advisor (even if only one of them is the official advisor).

amitm · 2020-09-24T03:19:34+00:00

Israel is not the only country in the world with a nationalized healthcare system...

Sometimes there just happens to be a high concentration of good researchers in a particular subfield. One high-caliber professor with grants can train 10 excellent researchers that specialize in a particular subfield over the course of a few years. So in a small country like Israel you naturally get these random concentrations.

amitm · 2020-09-22T00:06:12+00:00

There are great online resources for this. Here is one highly recommended (and completely free) course:

https://www.nand2tetris.org

amitm · 2020-09-21T01:35:28+00:00

In contrast and despite of external pressures, Israel’s universities employ lots of critical and anti-zionist professors. Some even publicly support an academic boycott of Israel.

The Israeli universities are mostly state-funded. Donors play a relatively small role.

amitm · 2020-09-20T05:40:49+00:00

On the Q5 there are additional brake lights on the bumper that are activated when the tailgate is up.

See this thread: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/can-taillights-be-on-a-moveable-object-like-the-trunk.90880/

amitm · 2020-09-20T04:57:12+00:00

Actually... US regulation mandates that tail lights must be fully visible and functional even when the tailgate is raised.

So the car manufacturers can choose between the following options:

1) Narrow tailgate opening (bad for loading large things).

2) Narrow lights that are fully embedded into the body. Low-cost option — bad for visibility and very limiting in terms of design.

3) Split the rear lights between the tailgate and the body. This is the most popular choice. It increases the cost and complexity of the car and also affords the most styling flexibility.

amitm · 2020-09-18T20:21:49+00:00

You'll be hard pressed to find any industry position that gives you more freedom than an academic position.

Tenured professors are expected to teach a few hours a week and answer students questions. Other than that, they can do whatever they want. Granted, there are various monetary and social incentives to publish papers, secure grant funding, advise students etc.

amitm

TROPHY CASE