Re: [ossig] Universities get RM11m boost from Microsoft

[Nur Hussein <nhussein@xxxxxxxxx>]

> there have been a number of complaints / articles saying that the
> universities do not produce graduates with the skill that the industry
> requires. also r&d work tend to be 'islands' of study.

Ha! I have more than a few words to mince with these arrogant business
asshats who think they can look down on academia and tell us what to
do because they think they're so big and important. Since when did
universities become free training grounds for corporate products? A
university exists as a place of knowledge, the usefulnes of some of
which might not be immediately obvious to some pointy haired bozo who
has the IQ of a doorknob.

Was it not Thomson at Cambridge University that discovered the
electron? Where would their precious electronics be without that
discovery?

Was it not Turing at Cambridge University who proposed the
computability of numbers via turing machines?  Where would their
precious computers be without that contribution?

Was it not Von Neumann at Princeton University who designed the most
fundamental architecture of the electronic computer? Where would their
precious PC manufacturing businesses be without that contribution?

I can name so many others... Knuth, Dijkstra, Wirth... where would
their precious e-commerce software be without them?

I can name so many others. Those computer scientists didn't become who
they were by reading "Learn ASP.NET in 15 Minutes" and "The Total
Moron's Guide To Getting An MCSE" which some bosses apparently hold in
high regard.

Sure, there have been many contributions by the computing industry as
well to humanity, but even then they were done by real scientists with
research training and a respect for knowledge, not some
"instantly-trained" imbeciles who knows which button to press in
Microsoft Word (those kind of people go into middle-management).

"What the industry requires". Pfft. What the industry requires is a
good swift kick in the ass if it thinks "university research is not
relevant to the real world". But as Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes)
says, people will pay for what they WANT, not what they NEED.

Yes, this has been a sore topic with me. 

-= Nur Hussein =-


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