work

I thought my meetings this week went well! I had a first meeting for a couple of new projects that I'm really excited about. I also canceled some unnecessary meetings, but despite canceling, the projects were still pretty productive. I made some plans and also better understood some papers too. Overall, it was a really great week for research; although, I'm starting to feel like I might have too many projects going simultaneously. I feel a little stretched thin, which is good because I have so many things I can think and learn about, but comes at the cost that almost every week there's some project that is getting neglected. I'm still optimistic that I can coordinate and contribute across the projects to keep them moving, and I just need to prepare for my vacation and the semester as the looming walls that I might have to hit.

Unfortunately, during this productive research, I should have been reviewing more papers. I'm a bit behind on my TCC reviews and just got a first wave of S&P review to do. I still will be able to meet the deadlines, but I'm not doing future-me any favors right now.

non-work

This week outside of work has been fun! Last weekend my partner and I last minute decided to go to a Jazz festival at The Shell and try out a new Mediterranean place. It was a really nice day and evening to relax, walk around, and eat some good food. Then, later in the week, we went with some of her co-workers to see Measure for Measure at Balboa Park! I had never seen that Shakespearian play before, so it was a cool new experience for me. Although, I really have to pay attention to follow the language in those plays, and I think it's always a little awkward for actors to know the "appropriate" cadence for speaking them. I still had a lot of fun at the outdoor theater there, though!

This long weekend, my partner and I tried out a new Dim Sum place (yesterday), are hiking in the mountains today, and going to the beach (tomorrow)! It's really action packed, but very fun. The Dim Sum was the most authentic place I've been to, despite being located in the parking lot of a Grocery Store. And, this is the first major hike we've been on since she moved to San Diego, and it was really beautiful. I'm glad we'll have more chances to do it in the future too.

Reading-wise, I started Stench: The Making of the Thomas Court and the Unmaking of America! The prologue was scathing and well written, so I'm optimistic about the rest of the book. I'm only a quarter way through it, and I've learned a lot about the history of the legal system. It's definitely not a hopeful book, but very enjoyable.

questions

• What is the best model for semi-honest quantum adversaries?
  • I've seen the "specious" model as well as some "anchored privacy" models, but neither seems to map on quite well.
  • From a crypto perspective, semi-honest was always a little weird, so maybe this should just serve as motivation to show security against malicious adversaries in the quantum world.
  • There are also "honest" models, but these seem really pretty bad to me.
• Which oblivious data structures are more efficient than their best data structure composed with an optimal ORAM?
  • I recall a paper from about 10 year ago showed that one could build things like priority queues faster than composition with PathORAM, but which of these results hold up with more optimal ORAM?
  • This answer might also depend on how you cache out efficiency (e.g., storage, bandwidth)

Thanks for reading to the end! Here's a picture from the jazz festival and the hike we just finished up!