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Academics, we need to talk

matt-welsh.blogspot.com

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Re: Academics, we need to talk

#111

Post by gluggymug »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #88
gluggymug wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the RISC-V work is a good example. It suffers from some of the problems that mdwelsh is worried about. It's aimed at a real world problem but their solution is not good. A couple of days ago, someone asked where the verification infrastructure was on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10831601 . So I took another look around and found it was pretty much unchanged from when I looked last time. There is…

That I recall, the RISC-V instruction set was created by looking at existing RISC instructions, industry demands, and so on. The result was a pretty good baseline that was unencumbered by patents or I.P. restrictions. From there, simulators and reference hardware emerged. Unlike many toys, the Rocket CPU was designed and prototyped with a reasonable flow on 45nm and 28nm. Many others followed through with variants fo…

The flow is not good IMO.

They haven't followed engineering practices which is one of the issues mdwelsh was talking about.

If they've synthesized to 45nm and 28nm, where's all their synthesis stuff - constraints etc.?

They have no back end stuff, very little docs, almost no tests, almost no verification infrastructure.

Re: Academics, we need to talk

#112

Post by dfc »

hackbinary wrote: post #99
hackbinary wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also care that academics are well-aligned with the problems we care about. That is not the point of academia, and indeed not the point of why academics are offered tenure with their institutions. Please consider Galileo and Copernicus and the Church of the 15th and 16th centuries. Please consider history. Google as a business may care about research being aligned with its business, or what 'society' or certain segm…

I would further add that Google, and similar technologica enterprise are some of the richest organisations of all time. I'm not sure about comparison to the Spanish Empire, however Google and 'Industry' can well afford to pay for their own research. If you have not been to Seville, and other major European Empirical cities, Rome, Paris, London, St Petersburg, Berlin, etc, then I recommend that you do a bit of travell…

You can edit your posts if you realize you have something to add after hitting submit.

Click "Threads" and you will be presented with a list of your recent comments. Anything that is still editable will have an "edit" link. I am not sure how long this link is available but its definitely longer than an hour.

Re: Academics, we need to talk

#113

Post by nickpsecurity »

gluggymug wrote: post #111
nickpsecurity wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That I recall, the RISC-V instruction set was created by looking at existing RISC instructions, industry demands, and so on. The result was a pretty good baseline that was unencumbered by patents or I.P. restrictions. From there, simulators and reference hardware emerged. Unlike many toys, the Rocket CPU was designed and prototyped with a reasonable flow on 45nm and 28nm. Many others followed through with variants fo…

The flow is not good IMO. They haven't followed engineering practices which is one of the issues mdwelsh was talking about. If they've synthesized to 45nm and 28nm, where's all their synthesis stuff - constraints etc.? They have no back end stuff, very little docs, almost no tests, almost no verification infrastructure.

Hmm. Im clearly not an ASIC guy so I appreciate the tip on this. News to me. Ill try to look into it.

Any link you have where people mention these and any other issues?

Re: Academics, we need to talk

#115

Post by gradstudent »

mdwelsh wrote: post #53
cushychicken wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's a big deal if a bunch of academics are spending time working on the wrong things At the risk of sounding a little prickly with my comment - isn't it a little presumptuous to write off a certain amount of research as "wrong"? There are plenty of examples of research that didn't have a clear purpose leading to breakthroughs - safety glass, microwave ovens, and Teflon all spring to mind. Also, focusing on efficien…

That's a fair point. I'm trying to draw a distinction between "speculative" research (which might pan out long term) and "industry-focused" research (which tries to solve problems we have today). My concern is not with speculative research -- that's great -- but rather flawed industry-focused research: making incorrect assumptions, failing to deal with the general case, not considering real-world constraints.

> but rather flawed industry-focused research: making incorrect assumptions, failing to deal with the general case, not considering real-world constraints.

I find this point rather condescending. What you term "incorrect assumptions" are often necessary simplifications that reveal the core of the problem at hand. The point is to try and understand what makes problems hard and to develop new ways of solving them; not to deliver to companies like Google ready-made solutions that cater to their every operational need. Don't like that? Too bad. Fund your own research.

Re: Academics, we need to talk

#116

Post by willis77 »

jdmichal wrote: post #28
willis77 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cornell? It's pronounced "colonel" and it's the highest rank in the military.

Just to clarify the downvotes: http://www.cornell.edu/

It was a joke that nobody found funny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSxlfLTZu0k

Re: Academics, we need to talk

#117

Post by dluan »

hackbinary wrote: post #106
hackbinary wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also care that academics are well-aligned with the problems we care about. That is not the point of academia, and indeed not the point of why academics are offered tenure with their institutions. Please consider Galileo and Copernicus and the Church of the 15th and 16th centuries. Please consider history. Google as a business may care about research being aligned with its business, or what 'society' or certain segm…

In other words, academic research is a punt in the dark. Much of it will not yield all that much, but some of it will. It is kind of similar to what YC and VC's do: give a little bit of funding to a small number of businesses, but hope a (very) small number will pay off big. Academia is a small investment to a number of ideas, with the hopes of big pay-offs in a very small number. The technology behind the Web was in…

That's not true that they come from the brightest people, I'd say that's very much a bias.

Much like how YC often says that the best startup founders aren't necessarily the smartest people in a room. Occasionally, being the very brightest can even be counter-productive because in the end the people who are less smart and realize it will strive to work harder.

And that's what research really is, really hard laborious work. Not this fantasy of someone bright sitting in a chair thinking up discoveries. That's why research is hard.

Re: Academics, we need to talk

#118

Post by jonsterling »

Who gives a damn if academic research is relevant to industry? Almost anything that could possibly be relevant to industry is highly uninteresting.

Imagine being someone who thinks that Capital could decide what is a good problem to work on...

Re: Academics, we need to talk

#119

Post by andrepd »

ddingus wrote: post #100
PaulHoule wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an attitude of entitlement here. Students spend their money and time to learn something and frequently they get worked like a racehorse and nobody cares about if what they learn is transferable after the academic system no longer needs them. If you are not going to be relevant to society the only thing I can do is vote for somebody who is going to cut your research budget.

As would others vote to continue it. Relevance is a very broad term, with industry a subset.

>Relevance is a very broad term, with industry a subset.

That's very insightful. It's easy to lose sight of things and be reduced to a particular worldview. The Higgs boson doesn't have to have commercialization potential for us to justify spending a few billion and a few decades discovering it. :) It's an end in itself.

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