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Reflecting on CS Graduate Admissions

I was just indulging in my favorite bad habit (reading hacker news), when I came across a discussion about  prestige in faculty hiring  - namely, the fact that the majority of CS professors across the US come from the top 18 or so universities, and that even within that, there's bias.  The HN discussion turned to Ph.D. admissions, with a commenter noting: " I'm not sure, but I'd bet that the best institutions actually don't care where their applicants come from. They can afford to just choose the best. It's the so-so places that have to signal their quality by 'hiring the best'. I've seen this in graduate school applications - students with poor marks often stand a better chance of admittance in a top program than a so-so one. " I just finished chairing the CMU CS Ph.D. admissions committee, so I thought it might be worth writing down my experience in doing so.  With two very important notes: I'm not doing it next year, so please don...
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Chili Crisp Showdown: Laoganma and Flybyjing

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I've been on a bit of a chili crisp mission lately.  The Internets -- and my friends -- appear convinced that the best chili crisp is Laoganma .  Or Flybyjing .  Certainly one of them.  But which? My answer, alas, is that you might want a bottle of each.  Or five bottles of each.  Let's jump in: Laoganma on the left, Flybyjing on the right.  The famous slightly disapproving face of the old grandmother stares at us, contrasted with the apparently very-hard-to-print rainbow label of the newer entrant.  Opening up the containers, one is immediately struck by the color and texture differences: Laoganma, on the left in both photos, has more "crunchy bits", but also has fewer suspended solids in the oil.  The bottle is about 3/4 full of the solid crispy bits.  The flybyjing bottle is only about 1/3 full of crispy bits. This difference flows through to the spoonfuls below -- much more crispy stuff in the laoganma, but its oil...
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Finances for CS Ph.D. students

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This post is based upon a few recent conversations I've had with my own Ph.D. students.  Its intended audience is Ph.D. students at mid-to-upper-end computer science programs in the United States, who are either US citizens/permanent residents, or plan to remain and retire  in the U.S. In graduate school, you too can dress better than a professor! Welcome to graduate school in computer science, where not only do we not charge you tuition, but we shower you with so much money that you can afford to eat, have a house over your head, and wear shirts that have fewer than five holes in them! In fact, you can probably do better than that, and get a nice boost to being financially independent.  But it takes some advance planning. Why Bother? Mostly, because flexibility -- or, more crassly, "FU Money."  (You can google that in case the meaning isn't obvious.)  Getting started early on the path to financial independence lets you  be in charge of you...
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