Excellent Birthday Treats

I received some excellent, and unexpected, birthday treats this year. Along with having two good friends in town visiting, we had a great party this weekend, all of which was very enjoyable.

The most impressive gift was a box. The box contained the complete X-Files (a gift from many of my friends here which I’m quite excited about), but the box itself was a work of art by my office-and-housemate, Ed. Carrie gave me a nice knife (a gift that keeps on giving; I enjoy cooking a great deal, and a good knife helps make it more enjoyable). Alex (visiting from IUB) brought St. Petersburg, a fun game with an excellent dynamic, and it plays well with two people. Beth (visiting from Bangor) gave me a box of pirate appendages (hooks, eye patches, inflatable parrot), of which “Humphrey” (the inflatable parrot) was put to immediate use during the party.

On my actual birthday (yesterday), several friends and housemates invaded CSCS, and delivered cakey-goodness, a rude card, and a rude poster. Chloe (who was not part of the invasion) sent along a pair of swimming goggles, which I can put to good use this evening when I go swimming with her and Christian!

All-in-all, I think what I like most is that the gifts were all appropriate. I mean, even the rude birthday card about pooping was quite good. Which reminds me… Karina sent along good birthday wishes, pointing me to this paper pertaining to penguin projectile pooping. Published in the journal of Antarctic Biology, you’ve really got to wonder.

20051012 | | Tags: , | Comments Closed

Role confusion

When developing a software product, do you want to hire someone with expertise designing, developing, and maintaining software? Or, do you want to hire someone with domain expertise?

Consider this advert from jobs.phds.org:

I’m looking for a C++ expert who has in their previous experience undergone a PhD or numerical/mathematical research and seeking to build their career into this space as a Jr Quant Developer. This role needs an individual who has spent the last 2-4 years of their experience applying advanced C++ ideally within a mathematical programming framework. You will go beyond pure development and be involved in enhanncing functionality, design and research of an option based pricing system. You will join a small team of individuals with the expectation of growing into the role and potentially creating your own pricing tool/library for the business in the long-run. PhD disciplines will include Physics, Applied Mathematics or related courses with a heavy C++ slant to your experience. Knowledge of derivatives pricing will assure an excellent stepping-stone into the field of financial mathematics. Sound like you? … This role can be based either in London or New york.

(emphasis mine)

The advert clearly states that they want a hard-core C++ developer to develop numerical software. However, it also implies that the developer will be responsible for larger pieces of the software development cycle: research, design, and product evolution, with an eye towards creating a library or application with a reasonably long shelf life. That, to me, sounds like something an experienced software engineer would be challenged by, and a C++ hack would do a really, really awful job at… simply because most physicists who are C/C++ hackers “on the side” write really foul, ugly, unmaintainable code. (No, RB, I’ve not yet read your code.)

But this is where the CS discipline is going: domain experts learning to hack, instead of expert designers and developers working with domain experts to capture their knowledge in code. A dangerous, error-prone future lies ahead of us. Remind me not to trust the quant software from that company.

20051004 | | Tags: | Comments Closed

Skype Groups

I can’t make a phone call out of my office. Actually, that’s a lie: I can call other phones on campus. As a third-year PhD student, I can’t call down the hill to order take-away. I can’t even dial a toll-free number; to do that requires me to call the switchboard, request an 0800 number, and then get connected. This means that I cannot use a calling card to call off-campus after, say, 4:30 (or whenever the switchboard operators decide to go home).

Other than being incredibly backward, the University of Kent is unlikely to make changes to their telephone infrastructure anytime soon. This kind of “lack of access” for their students, undergrad and graduate alike, is endemic, and part of an institutional inability to see that you can only enable great things and good work by enabling communication and collaboration. Blocking toll-free numbers is ridiculous. Generally speaking, this means I cannot call California, during PMT business hours, from my office, as it is physically impossible to use the phone to make the call.

Enter Skype Groups. My department could, in theory, provide Skype credit for every member of faculty, staff, and postgrad in the department. Granted, I have routinely had Skype crash or otherwise die in the middle of a SkypeOut call (once to the Home Office, trying to work through student visa issues), but at the least it would be a start. As it stands, I pay for this myself, and pay for all my own phone calls to colleagues elsewhere in England or abroad. This, at least, would provide a cheap, and convenient, framework for us to make calls locally and internationally.

20051003 | | Tags: , | Comments Closed
Newer Entries »