Just finished my marking after a few grueling days for each subject. As a result, had another bad episode of back pain. I ended up not using my Samsung Galaxy tablet for the marking but used my Huion tablet attached to my laptop instead. Perhaps I will find other uses for the Samsung tablet later (still paying through installments).
Few pieces of news. First, we were told that despite the CSM-INSPEM collaboration did not get funding in the recent budget, efforts to get the funding will be continued in the following years. I believe the research group is also trying to get funding by other means. I guess we just have to keep trying and realise that nothing comes easy. Quantum technology will be here to stay even if we decide to ignore it and such a decision will only make the technology gap wider for future generation of science here. Some may decide to call it fad but let us see what happens in the future. Often the case, our crystal ball is neither big enough nor of higher resolution by choice.
Next, the CMCO has been continued in operation for most districts in Selangor and for Negeri Sembilan, Seremban and Port Dickson, until 20 December 2020. The travelling restrictions have been relaxed a little. The number of new infections each day is still in four digits. Seremban saw a big spike two days ago due to new cases in the local prison. Hope the recent news of available vaccine will help make the situation better in the near future. Fatigue.
EQuaLS2020 has been over for more than a month. Things have now returned to (new) normal of visible inactivity. The event did not quite receive the publicity that I thought it should have. Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise, given the setback in the quantum project. In any case, I decided to post up Kwek's public talk in my YouTube channel, so that more people can have access to it (see below). For future EQuaLS, I will leave this to the younger colleagues; I will probably be retiring from UPM then. Let me however say that it is not as easy as some people think, to bring experts here. It is not the lure of travel or honorarium one is willing to pay, but it is their willingness to share, the kind of intellectual environment of an event that we can put up is more of the thing that they looked into. They won't come simply for the sake of an event with no real follow-ups (given now it is worsened by predator events) of what we will be doing, the tradition that we will build. I had invited many well-known scientists who said no and some did not even bother to answer, particularly if we are 'nobody'. I can only imagine that with the Covid-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions, it is only going to get worse (the difficulty to organise events) in the future. So do create traditions and perhaps we have to be a bit more specialised and we are known to at least some circles. So here is Kwek's public talk:
Another video that I have uploaded there is the recent talk by Microsoft Malaysia National Technology Officer, Dr. Dzaharudin Mansor on "The Fourth Industrial Revolution: The Central Role of Mathematics". This is probably one of the few local talks that I have attended with considerable interest. Some of the things he highlighted in the talk reconfirms what I have seen over the years: the lack of learning culture perhaps leading to lesser adaptability which would be problematic in the fast-changing times we are facing now. He alluded to two references, which I will look them up: (i) Digital Economy Report 2019; (ii) Platform Revolution. Even when he mentioned about adaptability and the fast changes we see now, I quite liked the fact that he stressed that one should be grounded good in the (abstract, as opposed to practiced) fundamentals. Below is his talk:
I am now counting months to my official retirement (if it is not earlier). I hope some of the things that I do so far, will be continued by my younger colleagues and students. One has to promote our theoretical work because no one else will do this for us. We either rise or sink (be absorbed into other areas). There is a call for me to write something for the public. I'm hesitating partly because I'm not a high flyer or star-studded researcher and some even see me as deadwood (from what I've heard). There is a worry of backfire in a sense. But what do you think? Should I continue or just let me rest?
No comments:
Post a Comment