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Thursday, March 11, 2004
Publishing Papers from IranA Chicago Tribune editorial describes an incredibly bad restriction on publishing from Iran. The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is warning publishers that they may face serious legal repercussions for editing books, papers or manuscripts from Iran or any other country that is under economic sanctions, on the grounds that such editing amounts to trading with the enemy.
Academics have always led the way in establishing relationships between politically antagonistic countries. Scientists often have the same research goals even if their politics or the politics of their countries differ. Preventing publication of their work (or in this case editing of their work) will unnecessarily restrict the communication between scientists and make opening these doors between countries harder.
More from the IEEE Spectrum.
9:05 AM # Comments []
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Outsourcing and the Future of Computer ScienceHow will the trend in outsourcing programming work affect computer science departments in America? In the short term not good. A lesser need for programmers and continued slow growth in the technology sector will keep undergraduate enrollments down and CS departments will have less expansion. We are still a decade or two away from large retirements of the first wave of computer scientists so for the most part new faculty get hired mostly on CS department expansion.
In the long term outsourcing will lead to much stronger computer science departments. Programming skills alone will not necessarily lead to success and technology professionals will need a deeper and broader view of the tools and ideas in computer science. CS departments will have to provide courses that cover these concepts requiring a faculty that covers many areas and knows them well. Departments will have to expand to meet these growing needs with active researchers in a broad range of expertise. As a result we will see many more universities with a strong and vibrant research-oriented CS department.
10:17 PM # Comments []
Monday, March 08, 2004
Seeing the Same People in Different PlacesThis week I'm visiting the University of Calgary and although I have never been here before it seems like a homecoming. They have a strong quantum computing group with several people out of my past.
Seeing the same faces in different places. Yet another oddity of the academic life.
- Richard Cleve - I first got interested in quantum computing when Cleve had a short visit to CWI in Amsterdam during my sabbatical there in 1997. But our true bond comes from being stranded together in Tokyo after 9/11.
- John Watrous - The reason I drink my coffee black.
- Peter Høyer - Cleve and I were the foreign committee members at Høyer's Ph.D. defense in Denmark.
- Hartmut Klauck - Klauck had a postdoc at IAS while I was at NEC nearby.
- Hein Röhrig - A new postdoc in Calgary fresh from his defense in Amsterdam. Röhrig also was a summer intern at NEC.
9:17 AM # Comments []