Secret supporters of Sage?
rjf
in graduate school, my advisor apparently asked the CIA for funding
(he worked on translation of natural languages). When this was made
public, students were aghast. His response was a shrug, and a comment
that they didn't agree to support it. Ultimately no one appeared to
care.
In another thread I mentioned what I consider to be an oddity, which
is that Sage appears to have an anonymous sponsor. This could be
1. William Stein's Rich Uncle who would prefer not to be identified.
2. A US government agency that dares not speak its name.
3. A non-US government agency (uh, the secretive Libyans?).
4. A (privately held) company that would prefer to keep its donations
secret.
5. A public incorporated company (stockholders uninformed??).
6. A US government agency that does not ask for anonymity but William
is embarrassed by, and so William doesn't speak its name??
I bet on #2, since William has obliquely mentioned US defense
department, yet when I poked around I did not find any of the usual
suspects (some of whom have sponsored me.. e.g. Air Force Office of
Scientific Research, Army Research Office, DARPA/ARPA). It is
traditional and maybe even required by those agences as well as DOE
and NSF or private companies to include published acknowledgment.
There is no inherent conflict between "open-source" and "secret
sponsor". If some agency offered to sponsor research on condition
that the funding source was keep secret, but with the research results
being made entirely public, that might past muster at a research
university. But odd.
Opinions?
Ondřej Čertík
Why don't you ask William privately?
Ondrej
Tom Boothby
mention it because it didn't seem important.
On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 8:16 AM, rjf <fat...@gmail.com> wrote:
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>
William Stein
> We're actually supported by PepsiCo. I guess we just failed to
> mention it because it didn't seem important.
I was going to post "sssshhhh... .nobody tell him", but I guess it is too late.
-- William
--
William Stein
Professor of Mathematics
University of Washington
http://wstein.org
Bill Hart
On Monday, 29 August 2011, Tom Boothby <tomas....@gmail.com> wrote:
> We're actually supported by PepsiCo. I guess we just failed to
> mention it because it didn't seem important.
Anyhow, does Richard really not know who the mystery sponsor is. He's just toying right? I mean how did you keep it a secret from him given that just about everyone else in the world knows?
Richard, it's not number 2. In fact, it's not given in your list.
William Stein's uncle supports Mathematica.
All US govt agencies love the sound of their own name. Especially when funding is concerned.
Libyans aren't using sage for anything secretive. The only secret they have now is where Gaddafi is and what he is using sage for.
A private company would beg to have Sage mention it's donation.
William is not embarrassed by US govt agencies that fund Sage.
But you were close though. Real close.
I have to admit though, this is all a nice change from the claim that William just lies about his connections.
rjf
On Aug 30, 6:21 am, Bill Hart <goodwillh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > We're actually supported by PepsiCo. I guess we just failed to
> > mention it because it didn't seem important.
>
> I don't believe you. Prove it to me.
and highly salted fatty snacks (Frito-Lay). Thought by some to be
misleadingly advertised. Sold to people (e.g. children) who don't know
better. It would be a fit, but I don't see why or how a company that
is responsible to its stockholders would make an anonymous donation to
math research, or why it would do so.
There are instances of pharmaceutical companies sponsoring "medical
research" or paying off authors, or even ghost-writing research papers
and trying to conceal it, but this has come under close scrutiny. I
think most math researchers would be happy to be paid off as
"consultants" to give lectures at $50,000 a pop in Hawaii during math
conferences, where they touted the efficacy of some expensive drug
that hardly works better than some cheap generic.
But Sage isn't expensive, at least monetarily.
>
> Anyhow, does Richard really not know who the mystery sponsor is.
> He's just
> toying right? I mean how did you keep it a secret from him given that just
> about everyone else in the world knows?
>
> Richard, it's not number 2. In fact, it's not given in your list.
>
> William Stein's uncle supports Mathematica.
>
> All US govt agencies love the sound of their own name. Especially when
> funding is concerned.
>
> Libyans aren't using sage for anything secretive. The only secret they have
> now is where Gaddafi is and what he is using sage for.
> A private company would beg to have Sage mention it's donation.
contraction for "it is", not possessive, at least in conventional
English.
Begging is usually not required.
Academic researchers are easy.
>
> William is not embarrassed by US govt agencies that fund Sage.
>
> But you were close though. Real close.
>
> I have to admit though, this is all a nice change from the claim that
> William just lies about his connections.
not because Sage is supported anonymously, but because they
know who the anonymous supporter(s) are.
So the question might be asked of those who do not know, and whether
it would matter. (Pakistani intelligence service? North Korean
nuclear agency? US National Security Agency?)
Does it matter to you?
Bill Hart
And as for the "secret funding", where does it say Sage has secret
funding? I just jumped into the middle of the conversation with no
idea of the context. I wonder if it is actually a secret. It could be
very damaging if Sage turned out to have secrets and someone exposed
the secrets and everyone was horrified. On the other hand, if it never
was actually a secret, then I guess it won't seem so sensational.
Everyone knows Warren Buffet only put 5 Billion into BOA to fund Rick
Perry's presidential campaign and that the real reason behind it all
is that Rick is going to campaign for the use of Sage in US schools.
Follow the money, that's what I always say.
Anyhow, the whole thing is silly. Sage is open source. They can use it
whether they fund it or not because it is open source. Presumably sage
gets funded by people who want it to happen faster. And that seems to
benefit everyone, not just them.
We could all make a big long list of things we don't personally want
Sage used for. But we'd have no way of preventing it from being used
for those things, and it would add conditions to the GPL making it not
GPL compatible. I used to write my own software license which
disallowed using the software for torture and a variety of other
things. No one actually disagreed with the sentiment. But it wasn't a
successful license.
So what things would bother you?
Bill Hart
the thread on open bug lists got hijacked. Sheesh! Took me a while to
figure out what you were all talking about.
Now that I know what you are talking about we can have a discussion
about it. Now I know you know and now that I've said it, you know that
I know that you know. It's important that we have this understanding
because I thought you were talking about something that I'm not sure
if you know. Actually I don't think I know either. I'm pretty sure I'm
not supposed to know. And I'm absolutely certainly you don't know that
I know. Had we been talking about that then we couldn't say very much
about it. But given that we are only talking about this, well, that is
something that I know you know about. And it's ok for you to know that
I know that you know, because, well, you know.
Bill.
rjf
Here is an acknowledgement page for Sage.
http://www.sagemath.org/development-ack.html
I see "US Department of Defense" for hardware and financial support.
As I have said previously, AFOSR, DARPA, ARO are not shy about which
place funded what. A link from the page above to the "Department of
Defense" web
site is, to say the least, vague.
That's why I assume it is really NSA, or maybe Homeland Security.
Even though that is not DoD.
Or it could be some black-hat DARPA project.
Most of the other acknowledged items (like discounts for hardware,
from Sun, or
money to run a conference) are probably small.
PepsiCo is not among the announced sponsors.
I agree that given the nature of open software, we cannot object if it
used
by North Korea to break password encryption. Though if you read the
department
of energy restrictions (yes there are) on Maxima, you might note that
Maxima should
not be exported to North Korea, Cuba, and some other places.
However, no one is under any
obligation to accept money from North Korea to work on this topic, and
I would
think that some people might be offended if the Sage project were to
be "money laundering" for
organizations that needed particular tasks accomplished and wanted
volunteers to do them.
If some US government agency were to request proposals from
universities to work on the nervous system that would more clearly
delineate the boundary between "enhanced interrogation" and "torture",
my guess is that some students and faculty in the neurobiology
department might not wish to participate. But if the money were big
enough, and the nature of the research sufficiently obscured, maybe
they would end up doing this.
As an actual example, there is a Gallo Institute (not at all
anonymous)
http://www.galloresearch.org/
whose original mission statement was, essentially, to find a cure for
alcoholism.
Because of effective lobbying, much of the money is now taxpayers, not
Gallo money,
and the research is done at Univ. of Calif. But the governance is
Gallo-ish.
Oh, by finding a cure for alcoholism, is not meant "preventing abuse
of alcohol", but
to allow someone to drink arbitrary amounts of alcohol, and (perhaps
by taking a pill)
avoid permanent brain damage (etc.)
Clever academics have taken such an impetus and used it as an excuse
to do basic research on fruit fly genetics, etc etc as you can see
from their web site. But fruit flies don't buy wine.
Note that although it is part of UC, it is separate from the UC
budget, and does not undergo peer review by UC. Presumably it
undergoes review by the Board of Directors, consisting of Joseph
Gallo, Mary Gallo, and John De Luca, head of the Wine Institute and
advisor to the Gallo company.
Now I assume there is nothing illegal about this arrangement. Just
strikes me as odd.
Analogy to Sage? If NSA were secretly funding cryptography because
they wanted to take
advantage of academics who would otherwise refuse to work for them?
No sarcasm in any of the above.
RJF
Tom Boothby
> Here is an acknowledgement page for Sage.
> http://www.sagemath.org/development-ack.html
>
> I see "US Department of Defense" for hardware and financial support.
Oh no! Our secret is out! Oh wait, it's not a secret.
Just like with your advisor so many decades ago, this is much ado
about nothing. Take a look at the following:
http://wiki.sagemath.org/days32
(down currently, so here's a cache)
and
http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/wiki/days32wishlist
cached
Our sponsor wanted
(insert evil drumroll of doom)...
(more drumrolling, with the sound of laughter and puppies getting kicked)...
sage to start up faster.
So, they rented us a cabin in Gold Bar, WA for us to get together and
do that (plus iron out other bugs). The entire Sage community
benefits from this, and we already wanted Sage to start up faster
(since this is one of the biggest complaints we hear from non-users).
So, be our sponsor the KKK, North Korea, NAMBLA or WalMart, we haven't
done any work that just benefits them. They've paid for it, but
everybody (including Iran, McDonalds, big tobacco, NSA, etc.) gets to
use it.
The big distinction in my mind is that we aren't doing work specific
to our sponsor. So, even if I despised them, I wouldn't flinch at
taking their money and using it to help their competitors.
I'm a bleeding-heart liberal who cares about little but your right to
privacy (and recently, legalization of recreational drugs; as a
budgetary concern and because the "war on drugs" fuels a war on
privacy). I don't like some of the things that our sponsor has been
party to, but they're paying for things to be done in Sage, which I
want to get done for Sage. I don't see any conflict.
More explicitly: I've had the opportunity to interview with the NSA
(not the sponsor in question), but I choose not to work for them
because of their behavior (warrantless wiretapping of civilians,
persecution of Thomas Drake, etc). If they were to fund a Sage Days,
I'd attend -- as far as I know, there haven't been any Sage Days
requiring security clearance. Everything that goes on is open to
public scrutiny (indeed, gets posted to a public wiki), and I haven't
been exposed to any secrets.
Our sponsor wishes to keep a low profile online, which I respect.
There's nothing sinister for you to uncover. Everybody I know with
clearance is an exemplary citizen, and as far as I can tell, very
trustworthy. I respect their desire for anonymity, as it's requisite
for their personal safety.
Tom Boothby
Our travel and lodging expenses are covered, and that's it.
rjf
On Aug 30, 3:01 pm, Tom Boothby <tomas.boot...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Here is an acknowledgement page for Sage.
> >http://www.sagemath.org/development-ack.html
>
> > I see "US Department of Defense" for hardware and financial support.
>
> Oh no! Our secret is out! Oh wait, it's not a secret.
thoroughly enough,
but the usual funding of academic research in the US DoD comes from
ARO, AFOSR, DARPA. I didn't see Sage. Indeed, NSF doesn't fund Sage
except
incidentally through funding of research on (e.g.) Modular Forms.
>
> Just like with your advisor so many decades ago, this is much ado
> about nothing.
whether it would
make a flap or not. I'm not sure I would take your assurance as
sufficient.
I did.
It does not refer to sponsor except incidentally via labels "not from
sponsor" on low priority
items.
>
> (down currently, so here's a cache)
>
>
> and
>
> http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/wiki/days32wishlist
>
> cached
>
> http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Z1dSFcCtiQIJ:tra...
> Our sponsor wanted
>
> (insert evil drumroll of doom)...
>
> (more drumrolling, with the sound of laughter and puppies getting kicked)...
>
> sage to start up faster.
nuclear program, should that program use Sage. Would it help other
people?
Sure.
>
> do that (plus iron out other bugs). The entire Sage community
> benefits from this, and we already wanted Sage to start up faster
> (since this is one of the biggest complaints we hear from non-users).
to
start up Sage? Is it like they complain because they are waiting to
get
on the computer to visit facebook?
>
> So, be our sponsor the KKK, North Korea, NAMBLA or WalMart, we haven't
> done any work that just benefits them.
anonymously,
would be odd, don't you think?
> They've paid for it, but
> everybody (including Iran, McDonalds, big tobacco, NSA, etc.) gets to
> use it.
military or industrial espionage.
>
> The big distinction in my mind is that we aren't doing work specific
> to our sponsor.
The current set of priorities seem (to me) relatively innocuous, since
so much
of pure math is, um, pure math. Fixing arbitrary precision numerical
integration
is on the list; it seems to suggest you don't know what you have,
since Maxima has
some such routines.
> So, even if I despised them, I wouldn't flinch at
> taking their money and using it to help their competitors.
responses.
> I'm a bleeding-heart liberal
> who cares about little but your right to
> privacy (and recently, legalization of recreational drugs; as a
> budgetary concern and because the "war on drugs" fuels a war on
> privacy).
> I don't like some of the things that our sponsor has been
> party to, but they're paying for things to be done in Sage, which I
> want to get done for Sage. I don't see any conflict.
>
> More explicitly: I've had the opportunity to interview with the NSA
> (not the sponsor in question), but I choose not to work for them
> because of their behavior (warrantless wiretapping of civilians,
> persecution of Thomas Drake, etc). If they were to fund a Sage Days,
> I'd attend -- as far as I know, there haven't been any Sage Days
> requiring security clearance.
to such activities.
At UC Berkeley it would be unacceptable for on-campus research.
NSA does apparently sponsor academic research, and one can find a
substantial
collection of information online by visiting their web site. The NSA
has in fact
promoted advancements in computer technology, secure operating
systems, cryptography,
etc. I would be surprised if any of the people I know who work for
NSA had any
policy-making role in either the Drake situation or wiretapping.
> Everything that goes on is open to
> public scrutiny (indeed, gets posted to a public wiki), and I haven't
> been exposed to any secrets.
it happened.
>
> Our sponsor wishes to keep a low profile online, which I respect.
> There's nothing sinister for you to uncover.
> Everybody I know with
> clearance is an exemplary citizen, and as far as I can tell, very
> trustworthy.
is mostly
about people with high security clearances who turned out to be spies.
What has that to do with the sponsor? If the sponsor is a defense
contractor, that happens also.
Companies including Boeing, Ford Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, IBM, ...
occasionally sponsor academics; others (maybe like IDA, SRI, RAND)
usually try to keep their research inhouse.
Though I was once funded by RAND for a while. These are not
disgraceful, and I'm surprised
(if it were any of them) that they would seek anonymity. There are
bunches of newer and smaller companies e.g. RSA (EMC) involved in
software, mostly.
I respect their desire for anonymity, as it's requisite
> for their personal safety.
your health?!?
I think I'll escalate from "odd" to "very odd". I suppose if it
became known that
company X was sponsoring Sage that some people might think that Sage
was being used by
company X, and that therefore one could look in Sage for
vulnerabilities.
Personal Safety!?! You mean like Defense Against the Dark Arts?
RJF
Tom Boothby
>> So, they rented us a cabin in Gold Bar, WA for us to get together and
>> do that (plus iron out other bugs). The entire Sage community
>> benefits from this, and we already wanted Sage to start up faster
>> (since this is one of the biggest complaints we hear from non-users).
> I assume you mean "users".
No, I wrote 'non-users' because I meant 'non-users'. I mean people
who have tried sage, but didn't like it.
>> So, be our sponsor the KKK, North Korea, NAMBLA or WalMart, we haven't
>> done any work that just benefits them.
>
> Generally true, but allowing North Korea to set priorities,
> anonymously,
> would be odd, don't you think?
Perhaps. I admit that it's a bit of a grey area, especially if you
aren't in the know.
>> They've paid for it, but
>> everybody (including Iran, McDonalds, big tobacco, NSA, etc.) gets to
>> use it.
>
> Except only some of us have a nuclear program, or are interested in
> military or industrial espionage.
I could give a shit less if our sponsor wishes to engage in military
or industrial espionage. It's spying on citizens that I take issue
with.
>> The big distinction in my mind is that we aren't doing work specific
>> to our sponsor.
>
> You are mistaken in thinking that setting priorities has no impact.
You are mistaken in thinking that I don't see the "big picture" behind
the request to make these tickets a priority. I see that big picture,
and it's actually hilarious.
> The current set of priorities seem (to me) relatively innocuous, since
> so much
> of pure math is, um, pure math. Fixing arbitrary precision numerical
> integration
> is on the list; it seems to suggest you don't know what you have,
> since Maxima has
> some such routines.
The utility of Maxima is either insufficient, or insufficiently
exposed in Sage. I don't know or care which of these is the case.
>> I'm a bleeding-heart liberal
>
> Actually you sound like a Libertarian.
>
>> who cares about little but your right to
>> privacy (and recently, legalization of recreational drugs; as a
>> budgetary concern and because the "war on drugs" fuels a war on
>> privacy).
>
> Very libertarian.
... a very socialist libertarian, as I support a very high tax rate to
pay for medical care, social security, and high quality education...
>
>> I don't like some of the things that our sponsor has been
>> party to, but they're paying for things to be done in Sage, which I
>> want to get done for Sage. I don't see any conflict.
>
> Aha; you leaked some information!!
Nuh uh, you did! Wait. What?
>> Everybody I know with
>> clearance is an exemplary citizen, and as far as I can tell, very
>> trustworthy.
>
> That's nice to know. You realize, of course, the history of espionage
> is mostly
> about people with high security clearances who turned out to be spies.
Um, duh? If spies didn't have high security clearance, they wouldn't
have access to secrets. I don't vouch for the fidelity or allegiances
of my friends with clearance. But, I generally think that they're
good people.
> I respect their desire for anonymity, as it's requisite
>> for their personal safety.
>
> Personal Safety!?! Wow. Funding mathematics can be dangerous to
> your health?!?
Foreign evildoers want secrets. Hence, to expose a person as having
top secret clearance online is to increase their risk of kidnapping
and torture. I wouldn't wish that on anybody I know... even you.
William Stein
> incidentally through funding of research on (e.g.) Modular Forms.
Fortunately, despite your wishes to the contrary, the above is not
true. See, for example, [1] or [2], among many.
[1] http://wstein.org/grants/sage-06/
[2] http://utmost.aimath.org/
William
rjf
with undergraduate education, $62k, and the first is for 3 workshops,
$140k. Such a grant in computer science at UCB would typically
support one graduate student for 2 years + some summer salary for a
PI. This would not be considered exactly a vibrant level of funding.
Perhaps math is different in this respect.
I missed those NSF grants in searching. The NSF site is kind of
counter-intuitive, but I was
able to find them. I didn't see them here
http://www.sagemath.org/development-ack.html
so maybe you should update that page!!
On Aug 30, 5:48 pm, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Indeed, NSF doesn't fund Sage except
> > incidentally through funding of research on (e.g.) Modular Forms.
>
> Fortunately, despite your wishes to the contrary, the above is not
> true. See, for example, [1] or [2], among many.
>
> [1]http://wstein.org/grants/sage-06/
> [2]http://utmost.aimath.org/
>
> William
to try to
second guess the NSF math directorate priorities with respect to
balancing the
use of computers vs the rest of their proposals. I assume that math
gets at least its
fair share of crappy proposals, whoever is doing the judging.
I would, most likely, rank the enhancement of Sage low on the NSF /
computer science or engineering priorities, and I suspect most
computer scientists would agree.
So I'd suggest you not submit it there.
Tom's claim that a donor wishes to be anonymous because the revelation
that he/she/it has a security clearance would lead to a personal
safety issue is, to me, amusing. Most everyone who works at any
number of places (Livermore Labs, Sandia, Los Alamos, ...) has a
security clearance.
I think people routinely put it on their CV. I used to have a DOE Q
Clearance (appx equivalent to Top Secret) and never thought I was
particularly in jeopardy.
Maybe I'm just easily amused.
RJF
William Stein
> You are right, both grants are fairly small; the second has to do
> with undergraduate education, $62k, and the first is for 3 workshops,
> $140k. Such a grant in computer science at UCB would typically
> support one graduate student for 2 years + some summer salary for a
> PI. This would not be considered exactly a vibrant level of funding.
> Perhaps math is different in this respect.
In case anybody is reading this, rjf is totally confused with his
numbers above. For example, he writes "the second has to do with
undergraduate education, $62k," but he is referring to a grant this is
for over a half million dollars. He says the first is "for 3
workshops", when it's actually a grant that funded a postdoc for three
years. Or maybe he's thinking of yet another proposal that NSF funded
for Sage that I hadn't mentioned (there are many). He might also be
confusing the amount awarded in the first year to one of many co-PnI's
with the total amount awarded... Who knows.
> I missed those NSF grants in searching. The NSF site is kind of
> counter-intuitive, but I was
> able to find them.
You were able to find something.
> I didn't see them here
> http://www.sagemath.org/development-ack.html
> so maybe you should update that page!!
That's a very good point. That list is incomplete at present.
Or maybe you're a fool.
-- William
>
> RJF
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-flame" group.
> To post to this group, send email to sage-...@googlegroups.com.
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>
>
--
Tom Boothby
> Tom's claim that a donor wishes to be anonymous because the revelation
> that he/she/it has a security clearance would lead to a personal
> safety issue...
I'd say "could", not "would". It's your perogative if you reveal your
clearance in a public place; but I wouldn't "out" a friend.
Bill Hart
> Tom's claim that a donor wishes to be anonymous because the revelation
> that he/she/it has a security clearance would lead to a personal
> safety issue is, to me, amusing. Most everyone who works at any
> number of places (Livermore Labs, Sandia, Los Alamos, ...) has a
> security clearance.
You must've listed 50 names of govt orgs. This game of guess-a-dod has
been fun. Unfortunately your score is still zero. Just goes to show
how their low profile attitude works.
Now, suppose you knew their name. What would you do with it? Google
it? And that would show up what precisely? Remember, they keep a
relatively low profile online.
I suspect I know why you personally want to know. You want to make
some comment about it being a very small organisation that does
nothing of consequence who don't really use Sage as such but someone
there probably has a fancy. Essentially you want to speculate that no
one of any import really cares about Sage.
So why not just go ahead. Why bother waiting to find out the
meaningless name of the not all that secret org who provided money for
speeding up Sage startup and to fix some bugs.
> I think people routinely put it on their CV. I used to have a DOE Q
> Clearance (appx equivalent to Top Secret) and never thought I was
> particularly in jeopardy.
From now on we shall refer to you as Q. Do you have a black suit,
cause that would be even more funny. I can be Big B (at least that is
what my friends call me).
Tom, who do you want to be?
This is so much fun.
Bill.
Bill Hart
>>> They've paid for it, but
>>> everybody (including Iran, McDonalds, big tobacco, NSA, etc.) gets to
>>> use it.
>>
>> Except only some of us have a nuclear program, or are interested in
>> military or industrial espionage.
>
> I could give a shit less if our sponsor wishes to engage in military
> or industrial espionage. It's spying on citizens that I take issue
> with.
Hear, here.
Tom you'd love the UK:
I expect the article to have a spin on it, and it may even be pure
fabrication. But so far I've not seen it refuted anywhere.
Bill.
rjf
On Aug 30, 7:36 pm, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > You are right, both grants are fairly small; the second has to do
> > with undergraduate education, $62k, and the first is for 3 workshops,
> > $140k. Such a grant in computer science at UCB would typically
> > support one graduate student for 2 years + some summer salary for a
> > PI. This would not be considered exactly a vibrant level of funding.
> > Perhaps math is different in this respect.
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1015114
which shows $140,000 awarded to date.
From the abstract:
"This proposal would further the development of Sage by funding a
series of three Sage Days workshops per year.
If this has funded a postdoc, it seems to me to be contrary to the
stated purpose.
I visited http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1020378
which shows $62,706.
From the abstract," The UTMOST Project (Undergraduate Teaching in
Mathematics with Open Software and Textbooks) is coupling the use of
Sage - comprehensive free open source mathematics software - with
existing free open textbooks, to make it possible for faculty and
institutions to more easily bring the power of mathematics software to
their students."
While one could suppose that this idea was somehow going to leak some
money into Sage development, the overall thrust is towards using
computers for undergraduate teaching in math. It's not clear that
there is anything novel in it at all except perhaps "open source".
There have been ongoing projects with such ambitions for decades,
using Maple and Mathematica, and I suspect Macsyma. As well as some
projects involving the teaching of modern algebra. It seems to me
somewhat implausible that the objective of such courses would be
reached because of open-source-ness, since the difficulties faced by
the other trials (at, for example, Univ. of Illinois, Univ. Waterloo)
has not really been related to either the cost of the software or the
non-availability of source code.
But experiments with computers+education+math tends to require a lot
of uninteresting work, like determining how much difference in
learning was evident between computer-oriented and non- students.
>
> In case anybody is reading this, rjf is totally confused with his
> numbers above. For example, he writes "the second has to do with
> undergraduate education, $62k," but he is referring to a grant this is
> for over a half million dollars.
He says the first is "for 3
> workshops", when it's actually a grant that funded a postdoc for three
> years.
> Or maybe he's thinking of yet another proposal that NSF funded
> for Sage that I hadn't mentioned (there are many).
There is an expired grant,
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0713225
For about $144k. That makes three grants from NSF.
He might also be
> confusing the amount awarded in the first year to one of many co-PnI's
> with the total amount awarded... Who knows.
distinguish
all years and all co-PIs, please tell me. I checked some other grants
that
were sort of applied math and saw grants that were 10X larger.
> > (RJF) I didn't see them here
> > so maybe you should update that page!!
>
> That's a very good point. That list is incomplete at present.
rjf
On Aug 30, 10:02 pm, Bill Hart <goodwillh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> > Tom's claim that a donor wishes to be anonymous because the revelation
> > that he/she/it has a security clearance would lead to a personal
> > safety issue is, to me, amusing. Most everyone who works at any
> > number of places (Livermore Labs, Sandia, Los Alamos, ...) has a
> > security clearance.
>
> You must've listed 50 names of govt orgs. This game of guess-a-dod has
> been fun. Unfortunately your score is still zero. Just goes to show
> how their low profile attitude works.
>
> Now, suppose you knew their name. What would you do with it? Google
> it? And that would show up what precisely? Remember, they keep a
> relatively low profile online.
in funding computer algebra (or whatever you want to call it).
I believe the last major funding for Macsyma came from Landon Clay,
and no one has funded Maxima development.
I would also be curious as to whether they were truly interested in
(say) computational geometry, modular forms, .... or such mundane
things
as scientific computing, plotting functions, applied stuff...
> I suspect I know why you personally want to know. You want to make
> some comment about it being a very small organisation that does
> nothing of consequence who don't really use Sage as such but someone
> there probably has a fancy.
then he died.
> Essentially you want to speculate that no
> one of any import really cares about Sage.
If there is nothing nefarious about the anonymous funder, that's
great.
If he/she/it merely gives you money, who cares if he is small
potatoes,
or nuts. I had one such funder for work at Berkeley, the System
Development
Foundation.
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf429003m4/
The director was, in my view, peculiar, but his checks cleared.
I found the coy references by William to be annoying, though.
>
> So why not just go ahead. Why bother waiting to find out the
> meaningless name of the not all that secret org who provided money for
> speeding up Sage startup and to fix some bugs.
>
education,
because "higher math" consists of rather few people doing things of
relatively low impact. And applications (engineering, biology,
finance) seem less
central to Sage.
> > I think people routinely put it on their CV. I used to have a DOE Q
> > Clearance (appx equivalent to Top Secret) and never thought I was
> > particularly in jeopardy.
>
> From now on we shall refer to you as Q.
http://www.openmarket.org/2010/07/19/854000-people-have-top-secret-security-clearances-huge-politically-correct-security-apparatus-expands/
854,000 people with Top Secret clearances. I am guess that that
includes Q clearances,
but maybe not.
This site
http://www.taonline.com/securityclearances/
says
"Experts project that a security clearance can increase your salary
anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000, and in some cases, even more."
> Do you have a black suit,
RJF
>
Bill Hart
>
>
> On Aug 30, 10:02 pm, Bill Hart <goodwillh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> On 31 August 2011 02:45, rjf <fate...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Tom's claim that a donor wishes to be anonymous because the revelation
>> > that he/she/it has a security clearance would lead to a personal
>> > safety issue is, to me, amusing. Most everyone who works at any
>> > number of places (Livermore Labs, Sandia, Los Alamos, ...) has a
>> > security clearance.
>>
>> You must've listed 50 names of govt orgs. This game of guess-a-dod has
>> been fun. Unfortunately your score is still zero. Just goes to show
>> how their low profile attitude works.
>
> Well, I'm personally glad that North Korea isn't funding you.
Oh, I didn't say that. We don't list sources like that publicly or as
"secret supporters".
>
>>
>> Now, suppose you knew their name. What would you do with it? Google
>> it? And that would show up what precisely? Remember, they keep a
>> relatively low profile online.
>
> Principally it would satisfy my curiosity as to who was interested
> in funding computer algebra (or whatever you want to call it).
Oh, is that all you want to know for. Well, sounds like we better tell
you then. We thought you wanted the information for something much
more nefarious.
> I believe the last major funding for Macsyma came from Landon Clay,
> and no one has funded Maxima development.
I'm sure they would have if it had been written in Python.
> I would also be curious as to whether they were truly interested in
> (say) computational geometry, modular forms, .... or such mundane
> things
> as scientific computing, plotting functions, applied stuff...
Well, now you hit on something really interesting.
What possible use could a military outfit have for modular forms and
algebraic geometry and algebraic topology, etc? I guess I could
vaguely understand an interest in Number Theory.
Regarding scientific computing, plotting and applied stuff. Do you
really think Sage is up to the task? Wouldn't there be other programs
that would be more highly sought after for that sort of thing?
Maybe they fund other mathematics software too?
>
>
>> I suspect I know why you personally want to know. You want to make
>> some comment about it being a very small organisation that does
>> nothing of consequence who don't really use Sage as such but someone
>> there probably has a fancy.
>
> the guy who bought Macsyma Inc, Andrew Topping, had such a fancy, but
> then he died.
Oh. Sad to hear.
>
>
>
>> Essentially you want to speculate that no
>> one of any import really cares about Sage.
>
> No, that wasn't the point.
> If there is nothing nefarious about the anonymous funder, that's
> great.
> If he/she/it merely gives you money, who cares if he is small
> potatoes,
> or nuts. I had one such funder for work at Berkeley, the System
> Development
> Foundation.
> http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf429003m4/
> The director was, in my view, peculiar, but his checks cleared.
>
> I found the coy references by William to be annoying, though.
>
Which coy references are you referring to?
>
>>
>> So why not just go ahead. Why bother waiting to find out the
>> meaningless name of the not all that secret org who provided money for
>> speeding up Sage startup and to fix some bugs.
>>
>
> If Sage is to have a "killer application", it might very well be in
> education,
> because "higher math" consists of rather few people doing things of
> relatively low impact. And applications (engineering, biology,
> finance) seem less
> central to Sage.
I get irritated by this topic myself from time to time. But I've found
precisely the same thing happens in computer science. There's a hell
of a lot of academics doing interesting stuff who are deliberately
obscuring their own work because they don't ever want it to be used
anywhere.
I strongly believe in making the scientific work I do accessible and
useful to the "real world". It's incredibly hard to do, and something
I have been altogether unsuccessful with so far. By and large, the
"real world" couldn't give a toss about anything academic, even if
they knew it could save their lives or answer the burning questions
they have.
In that sense, education would be a killer app for Sage.
>
>> > I think people routinely put it on their CV. I used to have a DOE Q
>> > Clearance (appx equivalent to Top Secret) and never thought I was
>> > particularly in jeopardy.
>>
>> From now on we shall refer to you as Q.
>
> It would be silly, especially since there are according to this:
> http://www.openmarket.org/2010/07/19/854000-people-have-top-secret-security-clearances-huge-politically-correct-security-apparatus-expands/
>
> 854,000 people with Top Secret clearances.
I find that completely impossible to believe. It doesn't look like a
particularly reputable news source.
I could believe 854,000 people have secret clearances. And I could
believe that you had such a clearance once.
I don't believe you had a Top Secret clearance.
> I am guess that that
> includes Q clearances,
> but maybe not.
>
> This site
>
> http://www.taonline.com/securityclearances/
>
> says
>
> "Experts project that a security clearance can increase your salary
> anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000, and in some cases, even more."
Whoopdidoo. Academics don't care about how big their salary is.
Sometimes I go to the shopping mall and look around. I can afford
absolutely anything I see. I always come home empty handed (unless I
need to buy new clothes because the current ones have holes in them).
Seriously, the things I really would like to have simply can't be
bought with money.
>
>> Do you have a black suit,
> and a neuralizer?
>
Yep. It's important we know. If you were given your clearance before
neuralisers became standard issue then we can't discuss anything with
you. It's kind of how we know whether we can trust you or not. I say
"we", but of course I mean "they". They and we are not completely the
same. They've refused to recognise certain groups that we recognise
and so on. We'd set them straight, but we don't know if we can trust
them with information that secret.
Bill.
Bill Hart
> On 31 August 2011 07:31, rjf <fat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Aug 30, 10:02 pm, Bill Hart <goodwillh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> On 31 August 2011 02:45, rjf <fate...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > Tom's claim that a donor wishes to be anonymous because the revelation
>>> > that he/she/it has a security clearance would lead to a personal
>>> > safety issue is, to me, amusing. Most everyone who works at any
>>> > number of places (Livermore Labs, Sandia, Los Alamos, ...) has a
>>> > security clearance.
>>>
>>> You must've listed 50 names of govt orgs. This game of guess-a-dod has
>>> been fun. Unfortunately your score is still zero. Just goes to show
>>> how their low profile attitude works.
>>
>> Well, I'm personally glad that North Korea isn't funding you.
>
> Oh, I didn't say that. We don't list sources like that publicly or as
> "secret supporters".
>
You should know that sources like that have 4 letter acronyms:
"Sometimes, four-letter code words are used, like GYRO, for instance.
Whenever you see a four letter code word, this usually means that the
information it refers to was obtained from intercepted communications
by top officials from foreign countries. Other four-letter code words
refer to mail openings and information obtained from foreign books."
rjf
On Aug 31, 1:35 am, Bill Hart <goodwillh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> > I believe the last major funding for Macsyma came from Landon Clay,
> > and no one has funded Maxima development.
>
> I'm sure they would have if it had been written in Python.
mathematicians
slaving away on classic math problems would be better spent than money
spent on
replacing mathematicians by computers.
>
> > I would also be curious as to whether they were truly interested in
> > (say) computational geometry, modular forms, .... or such mundane
> > things
> > as scientific computing, plotting functions, applied stuff...
>
> Well, now you hit on something really interesting.
>
> What possible use could a military outfit have for modular forms and
> algebraic geometry and algebraic topology, etc? I guess I could
> vaguely understand an interest in Number Theory.
math.
>
> Regarding scientific computing, plotting and applied stuff. Do you
> really think Sage is up to the task?
> Wouldn't there be other programs
> that would be more highly sought after for that sort of thing?
>
> Maybe they fund other mathematics software too?
>
>
>
> >> I suspect I know why you personally want to know. You want to make
> >> some comment about it being a very small organisation that does
> >> nothing of consequence who don't really use Sage as such but someone
> >> there probably has a fancy.
>
> > the guy who bought Macsyma Inc, Andrew Topping, had such a fancy, but
> > then he died.
>
> Oh. Sad to hear.
quitting.
for fun, search for his name in
http://www.maebrussell.com/Mae%20Brussell%20Articles/Watergate%20Deaths.html
>
>
> >> Essentially you want to speculate that no
> >> one of any import really cares about Sage.
>
> > No, that wasn't the point.
> > If there is nothing nefarious about the anonymous funder, that's
> > great.
> > If he/she/it merely gives you money, who cares if he is small
> > potatoes,
> > or nuts. I had one such funder for work at Berkeley, the System
> > Development
> > Foundation.
> >http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf429003m4/
> > The director was, in my view, peculiar, but his checks cleared.
>
> > I found the coy references by William to be annoying, though.
>
> Which coy references are you referring to?
>
>
> >> So why not just go ahead. Why bother waiting to find out the
> >> meaningless name of the not all that secret org who provided money for
> >> speeding up Sage startup and to fix some bugs.
>
> > If Sage is to have a "killer application", it might very well be in
> > education,
> > because "higher math" consists of rather few people doing things of
> > relatively low impact. And applications (engineering, biology,
> > finance) seem less
> > central to Sage.
>
> I get irritated by this topic myself from time to time. But I've found
> precisely the same thing happens in computer science. There's a hell
> of a lot of academics doing interesting stuff who are deliberately
> obscuring their own work because they don't ever want it to be used
> anywhere.
because
they don't know better, in my opinion. Just look at the substantial
inability of authors to present an abstract -- or even a title -- that
doesn't have words unfamiliar to insiders used in essential ways, yet
undefined in context.
>
> I strongly believe in making the scientific work I do accessible and
> useful to the "real world". It's incredibly hard to do, and something
> I have been altogether unsuccessful with so far. By and large, the
> "real world" couldn't give a toss about anything academic, even if
> they knew it could save their lives or answer the burning questions
> they have.
scientifically
literate people being quite unable to decipher a math abstract to
determine,
"could this possibly be relevant to something I do?"
>
> In that sense, education would be a killer app for Sage.
students, but it might.
Why do I doubt it?
It didn't work very well for
Macsyma
Maple
Mathematica
Axiom
Matlab
...
(to some extent it has worked, but not very effectively for large
numbers of students)
and what does Sage bring to the table?
(a) more computing because computers are faster now. But faster for
those other guys too.
(b) more cooks stirring the broth, but a fundamentally disorganized
broth.
(c) open source.
(d) its own version of PR
Now I have criticized Macsyma/Maxima for various failings; Sage has
not particularly overcome them -- it has incorporated them. Along
with everything else. The system design (the Python parts) do not
strike me as a contribution; the fact that programs are written in
Python and that language is easy to use by novices does not speak to
the design.
>
>
>
> >> > I think people routinely put it on their CV. I used to have a DOE Q
> >> > Clearance (appx equivalent to Top Secret) and never thought I was
> >> > particularly in jeopardy.
>
> >> From now on we shall refer to you as Q.
>
> > It would be silly, especially since there are according to this:
> > 854,000 people with Top Secret clearances.
>
> I find that completely impossible to believe. It doesn't look like a
> particularly reputable news source.
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/
I don't doubt it, myself.
>
> I could believe 854,000 people have secret clearances. And I could
> believe that you had such a clearance once.
>
employees at
Lawrence Livermore Lab who were working on their supercomputers.
> Whoopdidoo. Academics don't care about how big their salary is.
> Sometimes I go to the shopping mall and look around. I can afford
> absolutely anything I see. I always come home empty handed (unless I
> need to buy new clothes because the current ones have holes in them).
> Seriously, the things I really would like to have simply can't be
> bought with money.
college ($50k/year/kid)
after buying a house in Berkeley ($1 million). That is what faculty
at UCB face.
>
>
>
> >> Do you have a black suit,
> > and a neuralizer?
>
> Yep. It's important we know. If you were given your clearance before
> neuralisers became standard issue then we can't discuss anything with
> you. It's kind of how we know whether we can trust you or not.
> I say
> "we", but of course I mean "they". They and we are not completely the
> same. They've refused to recognise certain groups that we recognise
> and so on. We'd set them straight, but we don't know if we can trust
> them with information that secret.
>
> Bill.
rjf
On Aug 31, 1:47 am, Bill Hart <goodwillh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 31 August 2011 09:35, Bill Hart <goodwillh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
... At any given time, there are about 3 million people with security
clearances. In addition, there are about 1.5 million security
clearances in the hands of private contracting or consulting firms.
Contractors participate in what is called the industrial security
program administered by the Defense Industrial Security Clearance
Office (DISCO) which is part of the Joint Information Systems
Technology (JIST), a military agency.
One out of every thirty Americans has some sort of security clearance.
It has been estimated that one out of every thousand of these can be
expected to compromise the secrets they are entrusted with. Some need
money, some can be blackmailed, some are disgruntled and want revenge
and some are just sloppy. American industry is a prime target for
espionage as well as domestic terrorism and white collar crime.
....
So if there are 3 million with security clearances, 285,000 with top
secret seems credible.
I am occasionally reminded that there are lots of people out there
that we hardly ever notice (except at election time). Like half the
people who have below average intelligence.
Note that janitors etc need security clearances.
....
RJF
William Stein
>
>
> On Aug 31, 1:35 am, Bill Hart <goodwillh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> > I believe the last major funding for Macsyma came from Landon Clay,
>> > and no one has funded Maxima development.
>>
>> I'm sure they would have if it had been written in Python.
>
> No, some people apparently convinced Clay that giving prize money to
> mathematicians
> slaving away on classic math problems would be better spent than money
> spent on
> replacing mathematicians by computers.
The Clay Mathematics Institute has funded two Sage Days Workshops.
>> I get irritated by this topic myself from time to time. But I've found
>> precisely the same thing happens in computer science. There's a hell
>> of a lot of academics doing interesting stuff who are deliberately
>> obscuring their own work because they don't ever want it to be used
>> anywhere.
>
> I can't say I've noticed this, ever. Academics obscure their work
> because
> they don't know better, in my opinion. Just look at the substantial
> inability of authors to present an abstract -- or even a title -- that
> doesn't have words unfamiliar to insiders used in essential ways, yet
> undefined in context.
Usually it simply takes a while to learn the necessary background in
order to appreciate or understand something deep that another person
has done. This is not at all unique to mathematics or even academics.
For example, it is common in many forms of art as well.
-- William
William Stein
To anybody besides rjf reading this, I'm not going to waste my time
clarifying rjf's confusions below.
When I get the time, I'll update
http://sagemath.org/development-ack.html, and add some dollar
amounts at least for the grants that are directly for Sage.
-- William
rjf
On Aug 31, 8:27 am, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 31, 1:35 am, Bill Hart <goodwillh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > I believe the last major funding for Macsyma came from Landon Clay,
> >> > and no one has funded Maxima development.
>
> >> I'm sure they would have if it had been written in Python.
>
> > No, some people apparently convinced Clay that giving prize money to
> > mathematicians
> > slaving away on classic math problems would be better spent than money
> > spent on
> > replacing mathematicians by computers.
>
> The Clay Mathematics Institute has funded two Sage Days Workshops.
mathematicians is fine
with Clay. paying money to humans (programmers) to write programs to
do mathematics, not so fine. For a while, Clay supported the Macsyma
project, but was turned away from it by his friends in the AMS. So I
would be surprised if he came through with (say) support for a staff
of programmers.
> >> I get irritated by this topic myself from time to time. But I've found
> >> precisely the same thing happens in computer science. There's a hell
> >> of a lot of academics doing interesting stuff who are deliberately
> >> obscuring their own work because they don't ever want it to be used
> >> anywhere.
>
> > I can't say I've noticed this, ever. Academics obscure their work
> > because
> > they don't know better, in my opinion. Just look at the substantial
> > inability of authors to present an abstract -- or even a title -- that
> > doesn't have words unfamiliar to insiders used in essential ways, yet
> > undefined in context.
>
> Usually it simply takes a while to learn the necessary background in
> order to appreciate or understand something deep that another person
> has done. This is not at all unique to mathematics or even academics.
> For example, it is common in many forms of art as well.
feed upon
one another (or even themselves) writing papers addressing problems
that they
(or their friends) made up, without any attempt to relate to other
issues.
Theoretical computer scientists can do that too, sometimes.
RJF
rjf
On Aug 31, 8:34 am, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> To anybody besides rjf reading this, I'm not going to waste my time
> clarifying rjf's confusions below.
If they are mistaken because they are for one-year-only budgets or one-
investigator-only budgets,
that would be easy to point out. Is that the case?
> When I get the time, I'll update http://sagemath.org/development-ack.html, and add some dollar
> amounts at least for the grants that are directly for Sage.
Sage development, but for explorations of various conjectures. Perhaps
using Sage, but not necessarily.
If the NSF is truly interested once again in funding what I would call
computer algebra systems at a level that makes it worthwhile to write
proposals, a number of groups might be encouraged to try again. I
just haven't seen it happen.
RJF
Bill Hart
>
>
> On Aug 31, 1:35 am, Bill Hart <goodwillh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> > I believe the last major funding for Macsyma came from Landon Clay,
>> > and no one has funded Maxima development.
>>
>> I'm sure they would have if it had been written in Python.
>
> No, some people apparently convinced Clay that giving prize money to
> mathematicians
> slaving away on classic math problems would be better spent than money
> spent on
> replacing mathematicians by computers.
I'm sure their argument is bogus. No one can know which is better.
>
>>
>> > I would also be curious as to whether they were truly interested in
>> > (say) computational geometry, modular forms, .... or such mundane
>> > things
>> > as scientific computing, plotting functions, applied stuff...
>>
>> Well, now you hit on something really interesting.
>>
>> What possible use could a military outfit have for modular forms and
>> algebraic geometry and algebraic topology, etc? I guess I could
>> vaguely understand an interest in Number Theory.
>
> A military outfit like NSA presumably has an interest in some esoteric
> math.
I assume you have a punchline to this set up?
>
>>
>> Regarding scientific computing, plotting and applied stuff. Do you
>> really think Sage is up to the task?
>
> No, I think it is not.
Figures.
>
>> Wouldn't there be other programs
>> that would be more highly sought after for that sort of thing?
>
> Probably.
Figures.
>
>>
>> Maybe they fund other mathematics software too?
>
> Is that a hint as to their identity??
Are you talking about the people who fund Sage?
Do you know some other mathematics software that is funded by people
who keep a low profile?
>
>>
>>
>>
>> >> I suspect I know why you personally want to know. You want to make
>> >> some comment about it being a very small organisation that does
>> >> nothing of consequence who don't really use Sage as such but someone
>> >> there probably has a fancy.
>>
>> > the guy who bought Macsyma Inc, Andrew Topping, had such a fancy, but
>> > then he died.
>>
>> Oh. Sad to hear.
>
> That sentiment was probably not shared by the people he scared into
> quitting.
> for fun, search for his name in
> http://www.maebrussell.com/Mae%20Brussell%20Articles/Watergate%20Deaths.html
Looks like a page of information based on faulty statistics to me.
That's not what is going on. It's to do with time and the pressure to
publish. It's got nothing to do with their lack of savvy.
Academics deliberately obscure their work because it is what is
required to be successful. There is rarely an academic advantage to
writing an exposition of one's work, coding something up to release
standard and maintaining it or rewriting a paper so that it elegant
and beautiful.
>
>>
>> I strongly believe in making the scientific work I do accessible and
>> useful to the "real world". It's incredibly hard to do, and something
>> I have been altogether unsuccessful with so far. By and large, the
>> "real world" couldn't give a toss about anything academic, even if
>> they knew it could save their lives or answer the burning questions
>> they have.
>
> I'm not talking about "real world" ... I'm talking about generally
> scientifically
> literate people being quite unable to decipher a math abstract to
> determine,
> "could this possibly be relevant to something I do?"
So you think scientists take mathematics papers and apply them?
Who is doing that work for Computer Scientists?
>
>>
>> In that sense, education would be a killer app for Sage.
>
> I doubt that Sage would be the bridge between math education and
> students, but it might.
I don't really know. Ironically I hated computing in mathematics when
I was an undergraduate. In fact, I loathed it. And I was a nerd of the
first order. 99% in calculus. Maths olympiad. And I still absolutely
hated using computers in mathematics. I was obsessed with computers,
just like everyone else. I played lots and lots of games. I wrote in
assembly language and C++. Maths was interesting and computer
programming was interesting. There just wasn't any connection between
the two for me.
When I was exposed to my first CAS I absolutely loathed it.
> Why do I doubt it?
> It didn't work very well for
> Macsyma
> Maple
> Mathematica
> Axiom
> Matlab
> ...
> (to some extent it has worked, but not very effectively for large
> numbers of students)
Yes, I agree. I observe the same thing among my students, with a small
number of talented exceptions.
>
> and what does Sage bring to the table?
> (a) more computing because computers are faster now. But faster for
> those other guys too.
> (b) more cooks stirring the broth, but a fundamentally disorganized
> broth.
> (c) open source.
> (d) its own version of PR
Apart from (c) that is not the list I would make.
>
> Now I have criticized Macsyma/Maxima for various failings; Sage has
> not particularly overcome them -- it has incorporated them. Along
> with everything else. The system design (the Python parts) do not
> strike me as a contribution; the fact that programs are written in
> Python and that language is easy to use by novices does not speak to
> the design.
It speaks to the popularity.
I agree that popular is not better.
As much as there are few Computer Scientists genuinely interested in
developing languages that are actually usable by the masses, there are
similarly few people amongst the masses who genuinely care about the
technical and scientific breakthroughs made by computer scientists in
language design.
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>> >> > I think people routinely put it on their CV. I used to have a DOE Q
>> >> > Clearance (appx equivalent to Top Secret) and never thought I was
>> >> > particularly in jeopardy.
>>
>> >> From now on we shall refer to you as Q.
>>
>> > It would be silly, especially since there are according to this:
>> >http://www.openmarket.org/2010/07/19/854000-people-have-top-secret-se...
>>
>> > 854,000 people with Top Secret clearances.
>>
>> I find that completely impossible to believe. It doesn't look like a
>> particularly reputable news source.
>
> Here is a better source, the Washington Post, for the same info.
> http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/
>
> I don't doubt it, myself.
Then Top Secret does not mean what I thought it did.
>
>>
>> I could believe 854,000 people have secret clearances. And I could
>> believe that you had such a clearance once.
>>
> Uh, you are distinguishing between secret and top secret ?
Isn't there a distinction?
>> I don't believe you had a Top Secret clearance.
>
> No, I had a Q clearance, as did any of the summer student or faculty
> employees at
> Lawrence Livermore Lab who were working on their supercomputers.
>
>
>> Whoopdidoo. Academics don't care about how big their salary is.
>
> Uh, which planet are you talking about?
Their wives and kids care I guess.
>>
>> Sometimes I go to the shopping mall and look around. I can afford
>> absolutely anything I see. I always come home empty handed (unless I
>> need to buy new clothes because the current ones have holes in them).
>> Seriously, the things I really would like to have simply can't be
>> bought with money.
>
> Try sending a few kids through private school ($25k/year/kid) or
> college ($50k/year/kid)
> after buying a house in Berkeley ($1 million). That is what faculty
> at UCB face.
Tough life.
>
>>
>>
>>
>> >> Do you have a black suit,
>> > and a neuralizer?
>>
>> Yep. It's important we know. If you were given your clearance before
>> neuralisers became standard issue then we can't discuss anything with
>> you. It's kind of how we know whether we can trust you or not.
>
> I enjoyed the first Men in Black movie the most.
Yeah me too.
>
>> I say
>> "we", but of course I mean "they". They and we are not completely the
>> same. They've refused to recognise certain groups that we recognise
>> and so on. We'd set them straight, but we don't know if we can trust
>> them with information that secret.
>
> Uh, you've lost me.
>>
Oh you didn't read the right conspiracy theories.
Bill.
Bill Hart
rjf
On Aug 31, 9:40 am, Bill Hart <goodwillh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Aug 31, 1:35 am, Bill Hart <goodwillh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > I believe the last major funding for Macsyma came from Landon Clay,
> >> > and no one has funded Maxima development.
>
> >> I'm sure they would have if it had been written in Python.
>
> > No, some people apparently convinced Clay that giving prize money to
> > mathematicians
> > slaving away on classic math problems would be better spent than money
> > spent on
> > replacing mathematicians by computers.
>
> I'm sure their argument is bogus. No one can know which is better.
do, and Jaffee
seemed to feel that he knew.
>
>
>
> >> > I would also be curious as to whether they were truly interested in
> >> > (say) computational geometry, modular forms, .... or such mundane
> >> > things
> >> > as scientific computing, plotting functions, applied stuff...
>
> >> Well, now you hit on something really interesting.
>
> >> What possible use could a military outfit have for modular forms and
> >> algebraic geometry and algebraic topology, etc? I guess I could
> >> vaguely understand an interest in Number Theory.
>
> > A military outfit like NSA presumably has an interest in some esoteric
> > math.
>
> I assume you have a punchline to this set up?
>
>
>
> >> Regarding scientific computing, plotting and applied stuff. Do you
> >> really think Sage is up to the task?
>
> > No, I think it is not.
>
> Figures.
>
>
>
> >> Wouldn't there be other programs
> >> that would be more highly sought after for that sort of thing?
>
> > Probably.
>
> Figures.
>
>
>
> >> Maybe they fund other mathematics software too?
>
> > Is that a hint as to their identity??
>
> Are you talking about the people who fund Sage?
>
> Do you know some other mathematics software that is funded by people
> who keep a low profile?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >> >> I suspect I know why you personally want to know. You want to make
> >> >> some comment about it being a very small organisation that does
> >> >> nothing of consequence who don't really use Sage as such but someone
> >> >> there probably has a fancy.
>
> >> > the guy who bought Macsyma Inc, Andrew Topping, had such a fancy, but
> >> > then he died.
>
> >> Oh. Sad to hear.
>
> > That sentiment was probably not shared by the people he scared into
> > quitting.
> > for fun, search for his name in
> Looks like a page of information based on faulty statistics to me.
his own conspiracy theories.
> Academics deliberately obscure their work because it is what is
> required to be successful. There is rarely an academic advantage to
> writing an exposition of one's work, coding something up to release
> standard and maintaining it or rewriting a paper so that it elegant
> and beautiful.
reward for elegance.
>
>
>
> >> I strongly believe in making the scientific work I do accessible and
> >> useful to the "real world". It's incredibly hard to do, and something
> >> I have been altogether unsuccessful with so far. By and large, the
> >> "real world" couldn't give a toss about anything academic, even if
> >> they knew it could save their lives or answer the burning questions
> >> they have.
>
> > I'm not talking about "real world" ... I'm talking about generally
> > scientifically
> > literate people being quite unable to decipher a math abstract to
> > determine,
> > "could this possibly be relevant to something I do?"
>
> So you think scientists take mathematics papers and apply them?
> Who is doing that work for Computer Scientists?
them to get it to work.
>
>
> > Now I have criticized Macsyma/Maxima for various failings; Sage has
> > not particularly overcome them -- it has incorporated them. Along
> > with everything else. The system design (the Python parts) do not
> > strike me as a contribution; the fact that programs are written in
> > Python and that language is easy to use by novices does not speak to
> > the design.
>
> It speaks to the popularity.
>
> I agree that popular is not better.
>
> As much as there are few Computer Scientists genuinely interested in
> developing languages that are actually usable by the masses, there are
> similarly few people amongst the masses who genuinely care about the
> technical and scientific breakthroughs made by computer scientists in
> language design.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >> >> > I think people routinely put it on their CV. I used to have a DOE Q
> >> >> > Clearance (appx equivalent to Top Secret) and never thought I was
> >> >> > particularly in jeopardy.
>
> >> >> From now on we shall refer to you as Q.
>
> >> > It would be silly, especially since there are according to this:
> >> >http://www.openmarket.org/2010/07/19/854000-people-have-top-secret-se...
>
> >> > 854,000 people with Top Secret clearances.
>
> >> I find that completely impossible to believe. It doesn't look like a
> >> particularly reputable news source.
>
> > Here is a better source, the Washington Post, for the same info.
> > I don't doubt it, myself.
>
> Then Top Secret does not mean what I thought it did.
>
>
> >> I could believe 854,000 people have secret clearances. And I could
> >> believe that you had such a clearance once.
>
> > Uh, you are distinguishing between secret and top secret ?
>
> Isn't there a distinction?
>
> >> I don't believe you had a Top Secret clearance.
>
> > No, I had a Q clearance, as did any of the summer student or faculty
> > employees at
> > Lawrence Livermore Lab who were working on their supercomputers.
>
> >> Whoopdidoo. Academics don't care about how big their salary is.
>
> > Uh, which planet are you talking about?
>
> Their wives and kids care I guess.
thus..
William Stein
>
>
> On Aug 31, 8:27 am, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 8:01 AM, rjf <fate...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > On Aug 31, 1:35 am, Bill Hart <goodwillh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >> > I believe the last major funding for Macsyma came from Landon Clay,
>> >> > and no one has funded Maxima development.
>>
>> >> I'm sure they would have if it had been written in Python.
>>
>> > No, some people apparently convinced Clay that giving prize money to
>> > mathematicians
>> > slaving away on classic math problems would be better spent than money
>> > spent on
>> > replacing mathematicians by computers.
>>
>> The Clay Mathematics Institute has funded two Sage Days Workshops.
>
> Yes. paying money to humans (mathematicians) to meet with other
> mathematicians is fine
> with Clay. paying money to humans (programmers) to write programs to
> do mathematics, not so fine. For a while, Clay supported the Macsyma
> project, but was turned away from it by his friends in the AMS. So I
> would be surprised if he came through with (say) support for a staff
> of programmers.
This is a false dichotomy. *Most* time at Sage Days is spent
"writing programs to do mathematics".
William
William Stein
>
>
> On Aug 31, 8:34 am, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> To anybody besides rjf reading this, I'm not going to waste my time
>> clarifying rjf's confusions below.
>
> Anyone can read the NSF links and see the amounts of money.
> If they are mistaken because they are for one-year-only budgets or one-
> investigator-only budgets,
> that would be easy to point out. Is that the case?
"they" aren't mistaken, you are. I did point that out before.
>> When I get the time, I'll update http://sagemath.org/development-ack.html, and add some dollar
>> amounts at least for the grants that are directly for Sage.
>
> That page already includes a few proposals which appear to be not for
> Sage development, but for explorations of various conjectures. Perhaps
> using Sage, but not necessarily.
Nobody says it doesn't.
> If the NSF is truly interested once again in funding what I would call
> computer algebra systems at a level that makes it worthwhile to write
> proposals, a number of groups might be encouraged to try again. I
> just haven't seen it happen.
Sssh. Don't tell anybody...
-- William
Bill Hart
>> > A military outfit like NSA presumably has an interest in some esoteric
>> > math.
>>
>> I assume you have a punchline to this set up?
>
> eh, no. Do you?
No Such Activity?
Tom Boothby
4-dimensional and commutative over the reals? No Such (normed
division) Algebra!
Tom Boothby
>> If the NSF is truly interested once again in funding what I would call
>> computer algebra systems at a level that makes it worthwhile to write
>> proposals, a number of groups might be encouraged to try again. I
>> just haven't seen it happen.
>
> Sssh. Don't tell anybody...
Grant security through obscurity? Don't tell rjf that our secret
sponsor is the NSF...
William Stein
No Such Funder.
william
Bill Hart
rjf
On Aug 31, 10:34 am, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote:
>(RJF) So I
> > of programmers.
>
> This is a false dichotomy. *Most* time at Sage Days is spent
> "writing programs to do mathematics".
Scenario 1.
Clay Institute (or whoever) gives a grant which covers the salaries
of some number of professionally qualified people who form a team,
including presumably some management, designers, programmers,
specialists in documentation, debugging etc. [often people with
overlapping responsibilities if the team is small] to accomplish a
task. The task might be specific e.g. A native port of Sage to
Windows. Or less specific: Advance the Sage project in some
directions to be specified by management.
Scenario 2.
Clay Institute (or whoever) gives a grant to pay for food and hotel
rooms for some number of volunteer mathematicians to meet and talk
with each other, or at least sit in the same room and type on laptop
computers. Oh, the unpaid participants assembled a "to-do" list
beforehand.
After the meeting they all go home.
I do not see how these scenarios are the same.
Oh, just out of curiosity, what DID Vladimir Bondarenko contribute?
RJF
rjf
On Aug 29, 8:16 am, rjf <fate...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Does it matter to volunteers who supports Sage?
Apparently people are happy with the situation in the sense that the
anonymous
donor is either known to them and unobjectionable, or they don't know
and don't
care. Or the people who might object remain anonymous themselves.
Tom Boothby
As you predicted, and I agreed... much ado about nothing
rjf
this message below, which I probably should not have read, but I did...
In the time since Aug 31, 2011, it seems that Prof. Stein has updated the
link below (e.g. yesterday) but failed to update it as promised to "add some dollar amounts."
In fact I could not find any occurrence of a dollar sign followed by a decimal digit.
Instead I found this page
http://www.sagemath.org/development-ack.html
which mentions (for example) the NSF grant
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0838212
whose abstract does not mention SAGE nor William Stein.
A search in the dept of defense web site (link from that -ack page) finds no mention of
SAGE + mathematics.
Perhaps the (commercial) homeland security company SRA (Glenn Tarbox) has been counted as dept of defense.
oh well
Cheers.
RJF
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-flame+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
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>
>
Tom Boothby
supporting Sage set up the assassination of JFK, and managed the
burial of Jimmy Hoffa. I hear tell from other Sage developers that
they were behind 9/11 and the cancellation of Firefly. There was
something to do with vaccinations too, but I was fairly sleepy due to
a kool-aid sugar crash.
I voted that our secret supporter is McDonalds, but the Burger King
campaign got too much funding for that to fly. Better luck next
November!
>> > http://groups.google.com/group/sage-flame?hl=en.
>> >
>> >
>>
>> --
>> William Stein
>> Professor of Mathematics
>> University of Washington
>> http://wstein.org
>
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
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Bill Hart
Government initiative of the Obama government, all agencies have been
told to "open their doors" to the American people.
You can find out in detail where your tax dollars are being spent here:
http://www.data.gov/
But if you are unable to find what you are looking for, feel free to
file a FOIA request. It worked for the UFO nut jobs. How else do you
think we got the Apollo 18 documentary released at the cinema!
Bill.
>> > http://groups.google.com/group/sage-flame?hl=en.
>> >
>> >
>>
>> --
>> William Stein
>> Professor of Mathematics
>> University of Washington
>> http://wstein.org
>
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
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>
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