Speeches
Words written to be spoken, which turns out to be a rather different engineering problem from writing things that will be read. Some began with an invitation; others with the realization that I had already said yes and would eventually have to stand up in front of people. I keep them here because a speech is tied rather strongly to a place, an occasion and an audience, and because once spoken it acquires a life that the written text did not quite have beforehand.
- A rhapsody in multiple dimensionsEnglish Remarks at SIMA 2026, the conference in honor of Alfred M. Bruckstein: how one idea from Freddy’s school, multidimensional scaling, kept returning for twenty-five years
- La banalità del BeneItaliano · original · The banality of goodEnglish Remarks at the Garden of the Righteous in Cagliari, Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27 January 2026
- Introducing MichaelEnglish Introductory remarks at the inauguration of AITHYRA, the Research Institute for Biomedical Artificial Intelligence, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna