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This morning submitted a chapter proposal with co-workers entitled Monitoring HPC Systems Against Compromised SSH for a new book; will continue during the current week on Processing Large and Complex Datasets for Maximum Throughput on HPC systems proposal in a second publication Technologies and Applications for Big Data Value. Last night attended TERATEC a French HPC conference, normally hosted just south of Paris, but alas only in the virtual form this year. Unsurprisingly there was a significant focus on HPC and the health sciences this year; will continue day two of the conference tonight. In addition to this have continued with taking the lead with developing the department's mission statement with an all-staff (virtual) meeting at the end of the month; I really should compose something over the next few days on the process and reasons for public consumption that is more generic. The end of this week will witness a training day on Australia's number one supercomputer, Gadi.
A good portion of the past week has been looking at higher education funding as the final coursework assignment for my MHEd. In the Australian context it is interesting to see how up to the late 1980s student fees and contributions accounted from between 31.7% of Univerity income (1939) to 0.0% (1981) (Jackson, 2003), the latter representing a mid-point from the abolition of fees (1974-1986), whereas public funding from state and commonwealth governments varied from 44.9% (1939) to 90.1% (1981), falling to 42% in 2010 (McPhee, 2014) and continuing to decline. Of course, there are personal benefits to a university qualification but there are also social benefits, represented as positive externalities, which should be calculable through regression analysis. Unfortunately, this runs contrary to the recent fee changes announced by the Federal government, which has critical flaws even to its own objectives. It all rather overlooks the significant contributions that Australia's higher education sector made to economic recovery after the world wars and the last two recessions. But hey, who needs smarts when you can dig a bigger hole in the ground, right?
With the continuing monotony of The Plague and movement restrictions, there has been a turn to appropriate aesthetic choices, at least in small doses spread out over several weeks. Appropriately enough, have watched Ingmar Bergman's classic The Seventh Seal, set in the Great European Plague period, and kindly provided on Youtube. In addition have smashed our way through the classic 1960s psyops series, The Prisoner, also on Youtube. In a more contemporary sense (but with the best settings of yesteryear) I was quite impressed with Ratched. Next will probably be Tales from the Loop. Two things come to mind; firstly I am impressed that there is still great art being produced in the age of the Internet as contemporary artists compete not only geographically but also temporally; the level of supply is very high. Secondly, I appear to have come to peace with myself for spending under an hour a day watching visual entertainment.
A good portion of the past week has been looking at higher education funding as the final coursework assignment for my MHEd. In the Australian context it is interesting to see how up to the late 1980s student fees and contributions accounted from between 31.7% of Univerity income (1939) to 0.0% (1981) (Jackson, 2003), the latter representing a mid-point from the abolition of fees (1974-1986), whereas public funding from state and commonwealth governments varied from 44.9% (1939) to 90.1% (1981), falling to 42% in 2010 (McPhee, 2014) and continuing to decline. Of course, there are personal benefits to a university qualification but there are also social benefits, represented as positive externalities, which should be calculable through regression analysis. Unfortunately, this runs contrary to the recent fee changes announced by the Federal government, which has critical flaws even to its own objectives. It all rather overlooks the significant contributions that Australia's higher education sector made to economic recovery after the world wars and the last two recessions. But hey, who needs smarts when you can dig a bigger hole in the ground, right?
With the continuing monotony of The Plague and movement restrictions, there has been a turn to appropriate aesthetic choices, at least in small doses spread out over several weeks. Appropriately enough, have watched Ingmar Bergman's classic The Seventh Seal, set in the Great European Plague period, and kindly provided on Youtube. In addition have smashed our way through the classic 1960s psyops series, The Prisoner, also on Youtube. In a more contemporary sense (but with the best settings of yesteryear) I was quite impressed with Ratched. Next will probably be Tales from the Loop. Two things come to mind; firstly I am impressed that there is still great art being produced in the age of the Internet as contemporary artists compete not only geographically but also temporally; the level of supply is very high. Secondly, I appear to have come to peace with myself for spending under an hour a day watching visual entertainment.
