In 2020, Simon Peyton Jones gave an “Ask Me Anything” session at (virtual) PLDI, in which he made a throwaway remark something like this. “I've recently achieved a life goal: I turned 60 and still have nobody who reports to me!” In other words, he doesn't manage anyone and he's happy about that. I'm sure I'm not the only researcher with whom this resonated. It seems pretty clear Simon didn't mean that he doesn't like working with people; he's a prolific collaborator. He also didn't me...| Rambles around computer science
The cartoonist Dick Guindon famously wrote as follows. Writing is nature's way of letting you know how sloppy your thinking is. The number 1 prefixing that is my addition. Programmers and sometime-mathematicians also know that there are further stages of the same idea. Programming is nature's way of letting you know how sloppy your writing is. Mathematical proof is nature's way of letting you know how sloppy your programming is. Machine-checked proof is nature's way of letting you know how sl...| Rambles around computer science
[It's over a year since we lost Ross Anderson. Last month I very much appreciated the RossFest event organised in his memory. So it's about time I posted the following reminiscences, most of which I wrote pretty soon after he died.] Although Ross lectured me when I was an undergraduate, and did so very memorably, our first interactions came when I'd joined the Lab. We would both frequent the “fishbowl” common room to read the newspapers there. This was probably 2006 or 2007. I was a green...| Rambles around computer science
[TL;DR: I'm starting to suspect my work is incompatible with holding a full-time academic job at a present-day university, at least in the UK. I plan to drop my academic duties to some part-time percentage, to make time to pursue projects I care about and for other income streams. That could be contracting, but could also be crowdfunding from supporters. A little support could free me up to do significantly more writing and programming—and thinking, more importantly. These are things I've s...| Rambles around computer science
I've found myself using “serious” as a mental shorthand for what I recognise as “things done right” in an academic department, which in my case means computer science (CS) departments. I thought it would be interesting to make a list of these things, so here it is. They are somewhat subjective. Also, they are a function not only of organisational maturity and wisdom, but also of wealth and privilege. My current and past departments' achievement of them has been patchy. Failing at some...| Rambles around computer science
About four years ago, when I had spent a year at the University of Kent in my first job as a lecturer (or “Assistant Professor” for North American-style readers), I had to fill in a probation review form. One question asked me to reflect on my teaching load over the previous year, which had consisted of 1.4 courses or “modules”. One module lasts for a 12-week teaching term, with one reading week, and students typically take four modules at a time. I said that in my view, 1.4 modules h...| Rambles around computer science
(I thought about calling this “Never Mind the Bullshit Jobs”... but that would apply better to a future part.) Various rhetoric about government-funded academic research here in the UK seems increasingly to use the word “prosperity”. For me this has become a major red flag. Despite the positive-sounding line that “prosperity” exists as an easily recognised and obviously good thing, it is often invoked by interested parties attempting to whitewash issues that in fact are subtle and...| Rambles around computer science
I was recently successful in my first non-trivial grant application, for a New Investigator Award from EPSRC. Great! Well, sort of. It's great because it will hopefully enable a talented person (who isn't me) to spend a few years doing some interesting research. In other ways, it's not so great. I have been grimacing at every well-meaning “congratulation” I've received. The process is a horrible, contorted mess that makes me sad, angry and anxious. I hate it and it is literally making me ...| Rambles around computer science
[I wrote this back in April, at a point when my time at Kent was drawing to a close and the overload factor had been high for a long time. My current situation at King's is radically different! Whether that will last is less clear.] As a graph theorist might put it, my in-degree is too high. My time and (especially) head-space are scarce resources. Access to me needs to be limited. Ironically, it requires a certain amount of big-headedness to say this. Big-headed it may be, but failing to att...| Rambles around computer science
Sorry for the pun. Yes, it's supposed to be about rolling the dice. I've recently(-ish) handed in my notice here at the University of Kent. In July I'll be starting a new job (the same job, but) at King's College London. The reasons for the move are primarily personal. Of course, that doesn't mean they are unrelated to work... in academic jobs especially, work is personal. The move is not a promotion. In terms of accumulating money and status, if anything it will probably slow me down. So, it...| Rambles around computer science
In early 2018 I was at a crossroads in my career: academia, industrial research, or somehow go it alone? I was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge, but feeling some pressures to move on. This post is a (somewhat edited) time capsule containing some notes-to-self I made about that decision. What happened is “history”, of course: I became an academic at the University of Kent. However, you wouldn't necessarily have predicted that from reading these notes. I'm still not ...| Rambles around computer science
[This post follows a previous post discussing changes to UK government research funding, which was itself a follow-up to my earlier “Postdoc myths” piece.] In my last post I finished by mentioning Alan Kay's favoured dictum that we should “fund people not projects”, and that this has reached the attention of Dominic Cummings in his plans to create an ARPA-like research agency for the UK. In fact the dictum is itself borrowed from J.C.R. Licklider, an early and influential divisional ...| Rambles around computer science
[I'm on strike again at the moment, just as when I wrote my last higher-ed piece, to which this is a follow-up.] My last higher-ed piece, about postdoc myths was read rather more widely than I expected. (Thanks for reading!) That has left me with a few things to clear up, and a few follow-up thoughts which I didn't get on to last time. Firstly, let me qualify: my take on postdoccing is more than a little UK-centric, and certainly doesn't generalise in all possible directions. However, I do be...| Rambles around computer science
[I'm on strike at the moment, largely in solidarity with my more precariously employed colleagues, whether hourly-paid or fixed-term or never-endingly “at risk of redundancy”. So it seemed a good time finally to finish and publish this post. I wrote most of it during the final couple of years of my seven as a postdoc, which ended in 2018.] Lots of things are said, written and believed about postdoctoral researchers that are simply not true. This matters because real policies, initiatives,...| Rambles around computer science
(Those who follow me on Twitter may have a sense of déjà vu about this, but I thought it worth elevating to blog level. I wrote most of it over a year ago... must get better at timely blogging.) Back in September 2017 I attended the UK's inaugural National Postdoc Meeting organised by the Postdocs of Cambridge (PdOC) Society. We were fortunate to receive a flying visit from Borys, a.k.a. Professor Leszek Borysiewicz, at that time the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. This was...| Rambles around computer science
From December 2015 until October 2017 I served on the University of Cambridge's Board of Scrutiny. This is a high-level governance body that is “the University's chief internal mechanism for ensuring transparency and accountability in all aspects of University operations”. The role of the Board is to “examine the way in which the University is run and to comment on this to the University's governing body, the Regent House”, taking its lead principally (but not necessarily exclusively)...| Rambles around computer science
Higher ed has considerable power to positively influence the tech ecosystem, not by moaning about capitalism, or waiting to see what happens. We have to do it by quickly identifying and aggressively advancing innovative and progressive use cases. So when do we start?| Matthew Moran
AdvanceHE fellowships are everything that is wrong with HE: boring, retrogressive, pompous, opaque, unfair, inconsistent, gate-keepery, narcissistic, self-congratulatory (except in my sad-ass case), elitist, self-serving, and entirely dismissive of the student voice and real measures of impact and value.| Matthew Moran