OLDaily

What’s behind the Intel design flaw forcing numerous patches?
Peter Bright, Ars Technica, 2018/01/05

This is probably the best technical description of the newly-discovered security problem in Intel chips ('newly discovered' in this case meaning 'discovered in November'). The problem has to do with the "speculative execution" of code by the chips (for example, in an expression "If A then B", the expression B will be evaluated only if the expression A is true, but the chip might begin executing B even before it knows that A is true, storing the data in a cache, just in case). Meanwhile, how did Intel's CEO respond to the news? By selling stock before it leaked to the public. Meanwhile the patches to fix the flaw are expected to slow computers by as much as 30%. More individual users won't feel the impact so much but cloud server farms are expected to be impacted

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HESA and Jisc collaborate with the Guardian and the Times to produce interactive higher education league table dashboards
JISC, 2018/01/05

Jisc has done a lot of useful things over the years. This isn't one of them. The enterprise is to "publish interactive dashboards of rankings and measures drawn from their higher education (HE) league tables." The use of thee term 'league tables' suggests that universities are like football teams, locked in struggle against each other. And how is this for douybletalk?: "Although league table position does not drive our activities, we are nevertheless conscious that they are one of the primary ways in which potential students and other members of the public form opinions about different providers.

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Libraries and Librarians Aren't About to Disappear
Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed, 2018/01/05

This post is a response to recent reports that "libraries and archives to be among the fastest-declining industries in America." At frist glance the numbers are significant. "Employment change in libraries and archives from 2007 to 2016 was -80.3 percent, with a current employment total of 33,033." But is the decline that dramatic? "The RSL Research Group, which reported in 2015 that there were 139,213 full-time employees at public libraries, 44,623 at school libraries and 85,752 in academic libraries." This would mean employment was more-or-less stable. Still, the perception persists and the story continues to be printed. 

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Living and Learning
Emmett Hall, L.A. Davis, Connexions, 2018/01/05

Subtitled "The Report of the Provincial Committee on Aims and Objectives of Education in the Schools of Ontario" this document dates from 1967 and was mentioned in a post from Doug Peterson today. In 1967 I was in school would move to Ontario the following year. So I am the outcome of this policy, to some extent. So it's no surprise to read things like "The underlying aim of education is to further man's unending search for truth... wisdom and understanding, sensitivity, compassion, and responsibility, as well as intellectual honesty and personal integrity, will be his guides in adolescence and his companions in maturity." Or this: "slogans such as 'unity in diversity' and 'the bifurcation of Canadian culture' are used to describe the national and cultural identity of Canada." Read more.

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