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University Economics and the End of Large Classes
I’ve been stalled on a draft of this piece for some time, but Amy Bruckman’s recent post provided the catalyst I needed to finish it up. She hypothesizes that “the future of universities is excelling at everything a MOOC is not.” Clearly universities can excel at activities that require students to be near each other and…
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Of Course It’s an Interview
Arvind Narayanan wrote a mostly very good piece about some things that surprised him while interviewing for faculty jobs. One of them, “it’s not an interview,” was a surprise to me as well, since it’s wrong. There’s no doubt variation among individuals, but here are a few things I try to find out during a faculty…
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Economics of University Teaching
Today I wanted to ask a simple, specific question: How does my salary relate to the amount of teaching that I do? Let’s take a look: I’m paid $105,000 per year, so with benefits I probably cost $150,000. Sabbaticals increase my cost by about 13%. An in-state student will pay $6500 in tuition for 26 credit hours of…
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Modern Dataflow Frameworks Wanted
Dataflow analysis, or static analysis, is a way to compute properties that hold over all possible executions of a program. For example, if a compiler can conclude that an expression always evaluates to the value 5, this fact can be used to avoid computing the expression at runtime. The math behind dataflow analysis is probably…
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Capitol Reef Rock Art
Last weekend we spent a day poking around Pleasant Creek Canyon in Capitol Reef National Park, which contains a permanent stream and a lot of rock art. The art was left by the Fremont people, who lived in the area until about 700 years ago; it isn’t clear why they left (or died out) but…
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Book Review: The Shadow Scholar
Paying a professional to write an essay is probably one of the safest ways for a student to cheat, assuming the paid-for essay is not itself plagiarized. The premise of Shadow Scholar is that plenty of students are willing to pay for this kind of service and Tomar was happy to provide it—culminating in a…
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Certifying Compilers Using Random Testing
Before a tool such as a compiler is used as a critical component in an important software project, we’d like to know that the tool is suitable for its intended use. This is particularly important for embedded systems where the compiler is unlikely to be as thoroughly tested as a desktop compiler and where the…
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What’s Operating Systems Research About?
The other day at lunch I tried to explain to Suresh what operating systems research is all about, which got me thinking about this subject. As a quick glace at the OSDI 2012 program will confirm, the obvious answer “it’s about building operating systems” no longer applies, if it ever did. In fact, the trend away from…
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A Utah Salmon Run
Although it is apparently well-known, I only recently learned that several streams leading to reservoirs in Utah have salmon runs. I hadn’t even realized that salmon could spend their entire lives in fresh water. The kokanee salmon were introduced early in the 20th century and have thrived. Last Saturday, Sarah was out of town and the…