There has been some buzz recently about a deal between Berkeley, Microsoft, and Intel. It was officially announced today by the Newscenter:

The University of California, Berkeley, is partnering with Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp. to accelerate developments in parallel computing and advance the powerful benefits of multi-core processing to mainstream consumer and business computers.

Microsoft and Intel announced today (Tuesday, March 18) the creation of two Universal Parallel Computing Research Centers (UPCRC), the first at UC Berkeley and another at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The two centers comprise what is considered the nation’s first joint industry and university research alliance of this magnitude that is focused on mainstream parallel computing.

I read in a different source some of the research would be make available to the public via open source licenses.

Over the next five years, Intel and Microsoft expect to invest a combined $20 million in the two university centers, with each center receiving half. Researchers at the UC Berkeley center have also applied for a UC Discovery Grant, a matching grant mechanism that uses state and university funding to leverage industry investments in UC research.

People will probably say this is another example of the University selling itself out to corporations as they said about the BP deal. As I said for the BP deal, I will repeat. The University is not selling out. Berkeley is getting the prestige and funding to do cutting edge research. Professors and students are gaining invaluable experience and creating the next generation of technology. This is a win-win situation.

If Berkeley said no to this and every other deal that came up with corporate funding, the money would simply go to other universities. First the money would leave, then the research, the professors, and the students would follow it elsewhere.

I can’t wait to see the hippies in the trees make signs saying, “Stop Microsoft and Intel.”

On Tuesday Jerry Falwell died. When a person dies, what would you do? Pray for him, have a moment of silence, talk about his views, or ignore him? The other choice is to make a facebook group. Both fans and critics of Falwell have taken the fight online; I did not know people cared this much.

Some of the groups, like
Ann Coulter and Jerry Falwell had a baby and named it Satan were around before his death, while others with names like Burn in Hell, Jerry Falwell
are recent additions. There are many variations in names involving Falwell, hell, and burn. However, there are only a few stock pictures of him from google. There is also a Berkeley based group An Anti-Tribute to Jerry Falwell.

From the profile:

Death is never a nice thing — that’s just one issue on which Falwell and we differ. Still, the world just might be a better place with Jerry in the grave. Here’s hoping that he understands the extent of his depravity after a quick chat with St. Peter in front of the pearly gates.

And — here’s hoping that if he gets into heaven, we don’t.

For whatever level of respect or hatred you have for Falwell, there is a facebook group for you.

I have not followed everything Falwell has said and done, but some of his comments are over the top. I would have hoped the people who disagreed with him would know better then of any us that you don’t change anyone’s mind or get anywhere with negative rhetoric. Lets be better people, even if Falwell was not.

So, for a Berkeley-related entry, I saw a reference to us and the BP deal on Fox news just a few minutes ago. It was a short clip quoting your average righteously-indignant Berkeley student and a faculty member I believe named Kamman. (How hard do you think they had to look to find a student who wasn’t apathetic on this deal?)

So, Claudia Cowen reported on BP offering Cal $500 M to do fuels research. Birgeneau commented about translating research interests into the marketplace. And of course, the students camped out in the redwoods (that I photographed here) got an interview saying the corporations were benefiting. Professor Patzek said public research is a good, “they have the cash, we have the researchers, let’s put two and two together”.

It’s always nice to see Cal on tv!

I received a tip from a fellow Cal Patriot blogger that an error in Tele-BEARS has caused people to be dropped from waitlists for classes for next semester. I checked and the class I was on the waitlist for no longer appears on my Fall 08 schedule. There are also people having issues with this on livejournal so be sure to check your courses for next semester.

My friend Andrew inspired this post. It started earlier this week from the Berkeley Newscenter:

Global energy firm BP announced today (Thursday, Feb. 1) that it has selected the University of California, Berkeley, in partnership with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to lead an unprecedented $500 million research effort to develop new sources of energy and reduce the impact of energy consumption on the environment.

A private company is giving money for research because the company will benefit from it. They are doing this for their own self interest and were not forced by any governmental agency to spend this money.

I remember when bond measures like Proposition 71 which allowed $3 billion in bonds (which will cost $6 billion by the time they are paid off) to publicly fund research came up. There was a cry that if the state did not sell bonds research into new fields would be too slow or go to other places. The private sector, especially medical science and oil, is awash with money. The government does not need to take out huge loans; private companies will give money to research.

The next time a bond measure or government expenditure comes up for debate; ask “Is this effort already underway with private funds? Can this be done without the taxpayer’s dime?” If it is clearly in the interest of one of the hundreds of companies out there the answer is probably yes.

I realize that the topic of internet piracy/intellectual property has probably been hashed over on CalPatriot blog already, I’ve probably even read about it. But I have two cents to add!

The discussion about piracy was inspired by a discussion with my father. I’d asked him to email me a song (”Another Day” by Paul McCartney’s Wings) as an attachment for iTunes. His reply was suprise that the email “let him do it”; he assumed that he would be unable to export the mp3 that he had uploaded from a CD. Like some DVDs are rip-protected from copying, he thought CDs would be protect too, under copyright law as intellectual property. The debate ensued.

Piracy of music is similar to other copyright law violations, but they each have their dimensions. Software comes with a liscense, an explicit agreement not to copy it. Use of written material from books requires citation to prevent plagarism, movies and TV require permission to show elements of their broadcast material. Musical lyrics� should be� cited too, similarly to books. Copyright law also protects from stealing musical matieral by other artists, case in point the Beatles being sued by the Supremes for having similar musical riffs. My take on all of this is that� these media need to be considered separately especially regarding internet use, while protecting intellectual property.

First off, if someone buys a CD and burns me a copy, is that a gift or illegal? Is that different than making a mix-tape by recording from radio or other media? I realize that the intended use of the reproduction is also key. Using the music as personal entertainment is different than selling copies on the street corner, and I think they ought to be treated differently. If� a listener� is not selling or profiting or stealing components from music or other intellectual property, should they be dealt with differently? Is there a difference between downloading music from a torrent or other program and getting it from someone who has purchased the material?

There is a caveat for the purpose of education, which� I support, that material exclusively used for education doesn’t need permission to be used. There is the understanding that money is not being made from it. But what about our class� readers? Does every professor get permission from the publishers before copying their texts? Because they are sold by copy centers and not the professors themselves, does that maintain the integrity of their use “for education”? (Because I would certainly love to get free readers!) My mother ran into this issue. As a nurse, part of her job is to educate her patients. However, since they are paying for the service, we discussed whether or not she could defend giving them photocopies of written material as a reference.

But back to the internet. The internet and digital communications are certainly the future of technology, so I see no reason why entertainment shouldn’t follow. (For the record I support “obsolete” media for it’s own sake, I don’t want you to throw away your vinyl). Programs exist like iTunes where you pay for your music, ringtones, movies, etc, and that makes sense. However, nothing compels music users to obtain their music legally at this point, at least, no regulatory feature of the internet like the one my dad expected to encounter in his email. Should the internet have regulation of property built in? Should all downloaded material charge a fee to our monthly internet bill? Is it even possible to enforce?

These questions are all reasons I support looking at piracy and copyright laws with regard to the internet, and not just because I don’t want to pay $20 for a CD.

There’s an interesting discussion going on right now on Slashdot about college podcasts and webcasts. Some of the highly rated comments:

If a kid chooses to not attend class but still listens to all the professors lectures, why prevent him from doing so? He is learning the material, no different from attending the class.

As long as he is learning, I see no reason why you should try and hide lectures from kids who choose to learn in a different way. (audio as opposed to sitting through class) Listening to all of them the day before an exam is no different from cramming the night before.

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I can think of a few possible reasons that might go through instructors’ minds:

It would be very difficult and/or painful to try to fully test students on every detail you’d like them to know after taking a course. So having them there in person adds two ways to build the instructor’s confidence in the student’s knowledge:

• Knowing that the student is physically present and maybe even listening to the lecture/discussion makes it a little more likely that the student learns that day’s course material than if the student simply played frisbee on the quad.
• Especially in smaller classes, the instructor can gauge the student’s level of knowledge based on how he handles class discussions.

In some classes it can be valuable to have input from many students during a class discussion. This is sometimes true in technical courses, but perhaps more often true for hippie touchy feely liberal arts courses where no one is wrong and diversity is valued.

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In my day, we had to walk through 6ft of snow and sit on stone benches in unheated lecture theatres. We wrote with goose-quill pens and had to keep ink bottles under our clothing to stop it from freezing. We did all our calculations with tables & slide rules. Ever since calculators and ball-point pens came in, students are getting soft. Half the reason to come to university is to build the moral fibre needed to be a a leader in industry. We had to sit through lectures and so should the kids of today….. blaah, blaah blaah.

That’s basically what this all boils down to.

Which brings me to a blog I stumbled upon just a couple of days ago. Here is Obadiah Tarzan Greenberg’s blog. He’s in charge of webcast.berkeley.edu, where all of UC Berkeley’s webcasts and podcasts are available. He also has a lot of cool blog posts like: 10 ideas for using blogs in higher-ed PR, On coursecasting and attendance issues…, and Spotlight on Berkeley audio/video. Check his blog for more, if you’re interested. Or even if you just want to say thanks to the guy who makes sleeping in past your 8 o’clock class possible…

There have been plans to establish wireless networks in many cities. The Daily Cal just had an article about plans for Berkeley. There were also plans last year for a free network for San Francisco I don’t think this is a good idea.

First, the government has no business funding a public use wireless network. If a corporation wants to build a citywide wireless network with their own money like Google is in San Francisco they are welcome to. However, I am not paying taxes so the city council can put in wireless internet.

Second, this is an unnecessary duplication of an existing service. Everyone I know who has a computer, even my Grandma who has a pathetic machine that can only go online, has internet access. This is not bringing anything new to anyone.

It is claimed a wireless network will help low income residents. If you really are in a dire situation then you probably have more pressing concerns then what sites to visit or which blogs to read. If you can afford a computer and have time at your disposal to use it, then you can pay for internet access. If getting online in some scenario is a life and death matter, there are libraries where it can be accessed.

Wireless internet access is not a right. I can feel the day coming when someone will claim “free” wireless internet access is a human right. The internet is a luxury that the government has no right or reason to dispense.

You know those little “puzzles” you have to figure out before signing up for a site or posting a blog comment? Techies term the feature “CAPTCHA,” while everyone else calls them “annoying.” Anyway, some hackers have added a new twist to the formula: Demonstrate that you are a real human by picking the three hottest girls (or guys) from a grid of nine. It’s an entertaining use of the HOT or NOT database (UC Berkeley’s cherished contribution to the dotcom world).

Check it out, it’s a lot of fun. For added challenge, try the Male version. My roommates and I tried it tonight. There’s nothing like three straight guys having a good time trying to pick out the hottest guys on the Internet.

(HT O’Reilly Radar)