Conservative politicians keep going on about "values" which they don't in practical terms seem to care about. They aren't the only ones with values.
Check it out. Feel free to discuss here or there.
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Green Values Brisbane |
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Sunday, 3 June 2007
Green values
I've just set up a Google group to discuss green values.
Conservative politicians keep going on about "values" which they don't in practical terms seem to care about. They aren't the only ones with values.
Check it out. Feel free to discuss here or there.
Conservative politicians keep going on about "values" which they don't in practical terms seem to care about. They aren't the only ones with values.
Check it out. Feel free to discuss here or there.
Tuesday, 29 May 2007
Computer Science in South Africa
In 2002, the South African government announced two things: a change in the university funding model which cut funding per computer science student by 40%, putting it below pure maths, let alone comparable subjects like physics or electrical engineering.
Around the same time, the government announced that it wanted to found an “ICT university”.
Clearly, the government thought the universities were doing a lousy job: it cut the funding in an area so important, the president thought there should be a dedicated university in the area.
Let’s look at publications and citations for the top 4 universities in the country, according to the Times Higher Education Supplement international ranking (available through Top Universities), from best down: Cape Town, Witwatersrand (Wits), Kwazulu Natal (merged from Natal and Durban-Westville) and Pretoria.
The following are all searches on the combined indexes, Science Citation Index Expanded, 1900-present; Social Sciences Citation Index, 1956-present; Arts & Humanities Citation Index, 1975-present (all searches done on 30 May 2007).
As you can see, all of the results show some level of research activity with some citations – but nothing brilliant (click on the pictures for larger versions).
Cape Town: 59 publications, 139 citations, 2.36 citations per item.
Wits: 46 publications, 58 citations, 1.26 citations per item.
Natal (includes Kwazulu Natal): 86 publications, 238 citations, 2.77 citations per item.
Pretoria: 84 publications, 151 citations, 1.80 citations per item.
The Natal results are skewed by the fact that there was a period when computer science was combined with geology, so these results aren’t an accurate basis for comparison and I will not consider these further. The others though present a consistent picture. The higher ranked universities have a higher publication count per academic (Pretoria has a much higher head count that Wits and Cape Town), but the general numbers are in approximately the same ballpark. The Wits figures should be considered in the light of the university having badly fumbled the ball on the management of the subject. The School of Computer Science there in recent years has collapsed from 12 academics to only 5, and recruiting is a shambles.
In any case, the government clearly didn’t think all this was so great. The ICT university idea however was replaced by creating a research institute, the Meraka Institute. Meraka has a few new people but is mostly comprised of the CSIR’s ICT division, Mikomtek, which has been rolled into Meraka.
Why, you may wonder, did the CSIR get this funding boost, rather than placing Meraka in a university? Clearly, if the universities are no good, the CSIR, and in particular, Mikomtek, must be a whole lot better. So let’s look at their numbers.
Mikomtek: 6 publications, 2 citations, 0.33 citations per item.
Meraka: 2 publications, 0 citations, 0.00 citations per item.
Now here is an interesting challenge for the reader: explain why the combination of Mikomtek and Meraka is so much better than any university in South Africa, to the extent that the CSIR has been made the sole custodian of this new bucket of money. Of course Meraka is in its infancy and could do better in future. It has after all only been going since May 2005. However, in 2 years, I would have thought that a well-funded institute would have recruited high fliers who would have published more than 2 papers that have made it into the top research indexes.
Perhaps the CSIR’s outputs are in other areas than publications. They generate a large number of press releases, for sure – and those are not listed in things like the science citation index. But that obviously counts for a lot in winning political support.
What about impacts on the economy which can’t be measured by publications?
The universities named here (and of course there are others) have produced thousands of computer science graduates between them. An organization which is not degree-granting like the CSIR has to do a lot to match that scale of contribution. One would expect many publications (oops) and other measurable impacts, such as commercial spin-outs.
For the latter point, let’s consider the case of commercializing the Internet.
In the 1990s, when the technology wasn’t commonplace, many small startups sprang up, touting the concept to business. The CSIR jumped in rather late and despite its massive government subsidy, it wasn’t able to compete. The top service provider in South Africa today, The Internet Solution, was one of those small startups, and was started by Wits computer science graduates.
Commercializing the internet is but one example; I believe it is up to the CSIR to make a case, rather than for me to tear them down, because the case for better funding for the universities is so clear. Universities produce graduates; the CSIR consumes resources. They need to demonstrate that they do so to useful effect.
Around the same time, the government announced that it wanted to found an “ICT university”.
Clearly, the government thought the universities were doing a lousy job: it cut the funding in an area so important, the president thought there should be a dedicated university in the area.
Let’s look at publications and citations for the top 4 universities in the country, according to the Times Higher Education Supplement international ranking (available through Top Universities), from best down: Cape Town, Witwatersrand (Wits), Kwazulu Natal (merged from Natal and Durban-Westville) and Pretoria.
The following are all searches on the combined indexes, Science Citation Index Expanded, 1900-present; Social Sciences Citation Index, 1956-present; Arts & Humanities Citation Index, 1975-present (all searches done on 30 May 2007).
As you can see, all of the results show some level of research activity with some citations – but nothing brilliant (click on the pictures for larger versions).
Cape Town: 59 publications, 139 citations, 2.36 citations per item.
Wits: 46 publications, 58 citations, 1.26 citations per item.
Natal (includes Kwazulu Natal): 86 publications, 238 citations, 2.77 citations per item.
Pretoria: 84 publications, 151 citations, 1.80 citations per item.
The Natal results are skewed by the fact that there was a period when computer science was combined with geology, so these results aren’t an accurate basis for comparison and I will not consider these further. The others though present a consistent picture. The higher ranked universities have a higher publication count per academic (Pretoria has a much higher head count that Wits and Cape Town), but the general numbers are in approximately the same ballpark. The Wits figures should be considered in the light of the university having badly fumbled the ball on the management of the subject. The School of Computer Science there in recent years has collapsed from 12 academics to only 5, and recruiting is a shambles.
In any case, the government clearly didn’t think all this was so great. The ICT university idea however was replaced by creating a research institute, the Meraka Institute. Meraka has a few new people but is mostly comprised of the CSIR’s ICT division, Mikomtek, which has been rolled into Meraka.
Why, you may wonder, did the CSIR get this funding boost, rather than placing Meraka in a university? Clearly, if the universities are no good, the CSIR, and in particular, Mikomtek, must be a whole lot better. So let’s look at their numbers.
Mikomtek: 6 publications, 2 citations, 0.33 citations per item.
Meraka: 2 publications, 0 citations, 0.00 citations per item.
Now here is an interesting challenge for the reader: explain why the combination of Mikomtek and Meraka is so much better than any university in South Africa, to the extent that the CSIR has been made the sole custodian of this new bucket of money. Of course Meraka is in its infancy and could do better in future. It has after all only been going since May 2005. However, in 2 years, I would have thought that a well-funded institute would have recruited high fliers who would have published more than 2 papers that have made it into the top research indexes.
Perhaps the CSIR’s outputs are in other areas than publications. They generate a large number of press releases, for sure – and those are not listed in things like the science citation index. But that obviously counts for a lot in winning political support.
What about impacts on the economy which can’t be measured by publications?
The universities named here (and of course there are others) have produced thousands of computer science graduates between them. An organization which is not degree-granting like the CSIR has to do a lot to match that scale of contribution. One would expect many publications (oops) and other measurable impacts, such as commercial spin-outs.
For the latter point, let’s consider the case of commercializing the Internet.
In the 1990s, when the technology wasn’t commonplace, many small startups sprang up, touting the concept to business. The CSIR jumped in rather late and despite its massive government subsidy, it wasn’t able to compete. The top service provider in South Africa today, The Internet Solution, was one of those small startups, and was started by Wits computer science graduates.
Commercializing the internet is but one example; I believe it is up to the CSIR to make a case, rather than for me to tear them down, because the case for better funding for the universities is so clear. Universities produce graduates; the CSIR consumes resources. They need to demonstrate that they do so to useful effect.
| Disclaimer: I applied for a position at Meraka in June 2006, and am still waiting for a definite response. I applied for a Wits position too, and am awaiting the promised feedback (no word for almost 3 months), so you can see that I am trying to curry favour. For the record, here is my publication record by the same measure:  19 publications, only 1 citation – fair, not great. Not quite 3 times the entire output of Mikomtek plus Meraka combined. (My actual output is significantly higher than this – but to compare like with like, I am using the same measure throughout.) Then again, if I google on my name, I only get 28,500 hits; Meraka gets 160,000 [counted 14 June 2007] – those press releases really work. I should try that. |
Thursday, 15 March 2007
Stupidity
Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain
- Friedrich von Schiller
With that piece of advice from the great German writer, who am I to try?
I must be pretty stupid to ignore Schiller, which means I outclass the regular idiot. So I will contend with them.
The particular stupidity I have in mind is the extreme reluctance of society – especially major opinion-formers like the press and political leaders – to accept scientific consensus when it flies in the face of tradition. Especially when that tradition has mega-bucks behind it.
Let's contemplate a few examples.
1. Free or Open-source software
In South Africa, c 2000, I was involved in writing a report for the governement on why free software represented a big opportunity to South Africa. Not only would there be massive savings in government costs in software licensing, but a small fraction of that saving could be diverted towards developing local software development talent.
While there are divided views on this subject, there is a growing consensus in acadamia and industry that at least some areas of software development are best done on a free license basis. For example, Sun has opened their Solaris operating system, Apple's Darwin core of Mac OS X has been open for years, and IBM has embraced Linux.
So the report I was working on wasn't particularly prescient: it was informing government of a trend they could tap into.
The consequence?
Very little happened immediately but about 2 years later, the government recalibrated funding per discipline for undergraduate degrees, and dropped computer science to a category below pure mathematics, an overnight drop of 40%. Why? No one has been able to give me a satisfactory answer, except that the government based its figures on data from universities, which have traditionally underfunded computer science, as a cash cow for less popular subjects like physics. Another explanation: some of the crap universities were teaching basic computer literacy as "computer science", and this is very cheap to teach. Put 1,000 students in front of a lecturer who has the class memorise the menus on Excel.
Do I need explain more how idiotic this is?
Maybe just a bit.
Computer science, if taught properly, needs two things which are expensive: a good ratio of equipment to students, and a good student:staff ratio. Without the first, programming is hard to teach at all unless a lot of the students can afford their own equipment. The second is important to have quality time to get in the deeper concepts.
Add in the imperative to teach "currently useful" stuff, and the fact that someone who can look after a large computer network has skills in high demand in industry, and you have a high recurrent cost. You need to turn over your labs at least once every 3 years, and you need relatively highly paid technical staff to maintain them.
If you compare this against teaching physics, the same student:staff ratio argument applies. The equipment one does not apply to the same extent: undergrad physics can on the whole be taught with relatively inexpensive equipment which does not go out of date fast. And you can train up a physics lab technician with skills not much in demand in industry.
Finally, a really big difference between computer science and physics is that much of the most advanced CS research is very inexpensive. Commodity PCs can be used in many cases, even borrowing from the undergrad labs if necessary. Whereas a subject like physics becomes really expensive once you start wandering off pure theory.
This last point brings me back to my starting point.
A free software movement in South Africa would require very little funding to get going compared with almost any industry associated with advanced physics research. The skills developed could affect many areas of society, in delivering more efficient services, briding the digital divide, and providing a base for exports.
2. More
That's enough for this time. Further topics: tobacco control; climate change.
Watch this space.
Thursday, 14 December 2006
iTunes tracks per iPod
Some “analyst” bunch styling themselves as “Forrester Research” has produced a report with doubtful statistics showing that sales of iTunes tracks has plummeted. To be fair, they have not used those terms themselves and have complained that the press focused on one aspect of their report.
But Forrester’s analysis is idiotic on another score: counting cumulative iTunes music sales vs. accumulative iPod sales. Dividing cumulative iTunes tracks by cumulative iPods sold makes it possible to make a statement like “Apple is only selling 20 iTunes tracks per iPod”. This statement is true but stupid.
As some have pointed out elsewhere, this calculation does not take into account dead or stolen iPods, and multi-iPod users. If a dead iPod is replaced, you use the same music. If the ratio is remaining more or less constant on Forrester's measure, then a more reasonable measure would show an increase in iTunes tracks per iTunes library.
This idiotic calculation is not unique to Forrester. If you do a google search on “iTunes per iPod” you get several pages of hits with variants on this idiotic “analysis”.
Let’s try another example.
Let’s count the cumulative number of copies of Windows preinstalled on PCs, and divide by the cumulative number of PCs ever sold. Microsoft’s market penetration has been increasing a tiny amount since 1995, when it spiked dramatically. In fact, the ratio has been almost static in recent years at about 0.9 per computer sold.
Clearly Microsoft is doomed.
And I told you this free of charge.
Next time you see someone offering a “research” report for $250, let me know.
I can write one just as good in half the time for only $100.
I could sell you a nice bridge as well if you ask nicely.
But Forrester’s analysis is idiotic on another score: counting cumulative iTunes music sales vs. accumulative iPod sales. Dividing cumulative iTunes tracks by cumulative iPods sold makes it possible to make a statement like “Apple is only selling 20 iTunes tracks per iPod”. This statement is true but stupid.
As some have pointed out elsewhere, this calculation does not take into account dead or stolen iPods, and multi-iPod users. If a dead iPod is replaced, you use the same music. If the ratio is remaining more or less constant on Forrester's measure, then a more reasonable measure would show an increase in iTunes tracks per iTunes library.
This idiotic calculation is not unique to Forrester. If you do a google search on “iTunes per iPod” you get several pages of hits with variants on this idiotic “analysis”.
Let’s try another example.
Let’s count the cumulative number of copies of Windows preinstalled on PCs, and divide by the cumulative number of PCs ever sold. Microsoft’s market penetration has been increasing a tiny amount since 1995, when it spiked dramatically. In fact, the ratio has been almost static in recent years at about 0.9 per computer sold.
Clearly Microsoft is doomed.
And I told you this free of charge.
Next time you see someone offering a “research” report for $250, let me know.
I can write one just as good in half the time for only $100.
I could sell you a nice bridge as well if you ask nicely.
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