Adding it up

This year's Leaving Cert results are out and the post mortem has brought out all sorts of moaning about the state of mathematics in Ireland. The government reacted with the decisiveness that is to be expected of all politicians; launching an review conveniently handled by a subordinate so the Minister doesn't actually have to deal with the crisis du jour. While there is a high failure rate at Ordinary level, the rates of honours grades on the Honours papers is up presenting the mutually exclusive problems of a huge gulf in education standards or grade inflation.

There have been various causes and solutions proposed. The lack of qualified teachers is certainly a problem. The debate over the value of the Project Maths syllabus continues. The Minister is using the results to emphasise the importance of rolling out the new syllabus (despite results only being "marginally better"), but detractors say that reducing the course content is papering over the cracks and will make things worse in the long term.

I feel some actual analysis backed up with numbers has been missing from the discussion. First of all; let me start with there is no grade inflation. The percentage of students getting over 75 CAO points from mathematics has actually decreased over the past five years from 9% in 2006 to 7.5% this year. Overall the past ten years, the percentage of students getting over 75 points has ranged from 7.2% to 9%, so there isn't exactly a huge amount of difference there.

What is causing the appearance of grade inflation is that the numbers taking honours mathematics is falling. It dipped under 16% for the first time this year. This is down nearly 3% over the past 6 years. It will be very interesting to see how the bonus points for honours maths affect this next year and into the future. I'll go into why I don't think this is the correct solution in a later post. I don't know how it's affected applications for university courses; that data I don't have to hand. The mean amount of CAO points from mathematics is the lowest of the three compulsory subjects at 34.5, compared to 55.1 in English and 41.9 in Irish.

From the the Leaving Cert data it is clear that the rate of failure in mathematics is startling. However, any notion that this is increasing is unfounded, but that doesn't mean it's not an issue. Over the past ten years, an average of 15.88% of all students sitting leaving cert mathematics across all levels receieved a grade that netted them 0 CAO points. I count CAO points as a more meaningful metric as that's what matters for university applications and I didn't want to count pass grades in foundation. There is a weak downward trend over the last ten years, but this year's results left 15.48% without any CAO points from maths.

Interestingly enough, the failure rates, mean CAO points etc. in Irish are quite similar to mathematics. The only big difference is the much higher rate of students taking honours, but it is the statistics for Irish are bolstered by the growing number of students not taking this "compulsory" subject. 14.6% of students sitting the leaving cert didn't sit Irish, up 6% from ten years ago. From the coverage I've read the dire situation Irish finds itself in has been glossed over. In fact the press release from the Dept. of Education praises the increased proportion getting honours in Irish, ignoring the growing problem of students not taking the subject or its effects on the rate of success they're so happy to talk about.

So what does this all mean for mathematics in Ireland. This post is getting a little long, so I'll leave that for later. We need to ask ourselves some hard questions about what outcomes we want for those at the top, middle and bottom of the spectrum and does the current courses cater for all those needs. 

PREVIEW: I think major change is needed. I really mean major. So drastic that I know there is zero chance of either a risk averse government with zero cash to spend or the teaching unions would go for it. 

Patently Stupid

One of the most contentious issue in technology today surrounds patents. We've all heard plenty about how patents are causing problems in the pharmaceutical industry, but thankfully, the tech patent problem is a decidedly Western problem that shouldn't cost any lives. It's still a big problem; costing companies large and small many headaches and filling my RSS feed with new crap daily.

The problems are two-fold; patent trolls and patent wars between the major players. All of these things surround software patents. There are issues with software patents being granted for overly generic concepts in several cases where prior art exists. This has lead to a bevy of problems, with companies getting sued once they become big enough to be a target for violating a patent they didn't know existed. Essentially the root of the problem is with US law allowing such patents to be granted in the first place. That still leaves us with problems to be fixed though.

Patent wars is the easier one to talk about as it's less contentious. Essentially, the big tech companies have built up loads of patents over the years and have now decided to unleash the dogs of war i.e. the lawyers on each other. In some cases this is a defensive act, counter-suing in response to being sued. The result is chaos. Companies settle for licencing fees rather than pay for long and expensive court cases. Those that do go to court get dragged out, with appeal after appeal, and are often perused in several jurisdictions simultaneously (e.g. Apple's actions against Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 in most of the EU and Australia). You end up in a world where Microsoft make more money of a free, open source mobile OS (Android) than they do off their own, proprietary, licensed OS (Windows Phone 7). This is through suing HTC and extracting a licence fee from them for every Android phone shipped. Now they're going after Samsung too.

This is for patents referring to smartphones ONLY. It was produced in December 2010 so is a little out of date.

Is this a problem? Like, big companies fight all the time; in marketing, in product development, in hiring etc. Does this limit the innovation within these big companies? Probably not. What it does do is create a culture of fear; encouraging companies to build up large patent libraries as a defence. This translates into the company patenting any idea that gets thrown out there, just in case, thus inhibiting other companies who may be seriously developing something in that line. It also means obscenely highly priced auctions, and some rather convenient alliances forming (see the Nortel patent licence auction and the anti-Google alliance). These sort of manoeuvres may not be anti-innovation, but they almost certainly are anti-competitive.

How to solve it? The short answer is you can't. These companies would fight each other if all they had at their disposal were plastic spoons and half-rotten cabbages. We should tighten up patent issuing though, which will hopefully result in these companies only being issued with relevant patents and leave room for competitors to create something similar but different.

The other issue is much more serious. Patent trolls just sit on patents, do nothing with them and then sue the pants of anyone who encroaches on them. This has also led to the Eastern District of Texas becoming the Cayman Islands of patent litigation with several of these companies sharing their registered address in tiny offices here so that they can file in what is seen as a court favourable to patent holders.

They target anyone big enough to pay. App developers have been sued. Spotify got sued a mere week after launching in the US. They're simply parasites, sucking the lifeblood out of companies while claiming to protect innovation. This is what really annoys me. I've learned over the past year that having a good idea or having a good product is by no means a guarantee on success. It all comes down to work, marketing and more work. Without that, your product is going nowhere. Innovation without production is not worthy of protection. The only reason we issue patents in the first place is to protect companies, particularly small companies, from having their ideas copied by larger rivals. Patent trolls don't add anything of value to society. They don't ever do the work getting to the innovation in the first place either. Patents are usually purchased rather than investing in original research.

This has an easy solution though. Make patents dependant on commercial use. A straight forward "use it or lose it" rule. Give the licensee two years, and after that if they haven't done anything with it, void the patent. There's no commercial interest to protect, so all that patent is doing is stifling other innovation. I think it would work. I'm not a law-talking-guy though so I may be wrong.

Note: This post was prompted by an excellent post from Michael Mace on his blog Mobile Opportunity. Read it.

Note 2: As if to underscore my point, Google just spent $12.5bn buying Motorola Mobillity, mainly for their patent portfolio.

A new look

I've moved into a new place, and so it seemed like an opportune time to change things up a bit; give the ol' blog a bit of a refresh and start out again ahead of the new NFL and Premiership seasons and of course the Rugby World Cup. I will admit that the riots over here in London recently have kicked my from my laziness a bit as well, and so I want to start writing again. I don't think I'll be changing society, but I like having my soapbox.

An Open Letter to the ICC

Dear douchebags


That's probably not the best way to get your attention. Allow me to start again.

Dear ICC,

I must express my dismay at your recent decision to restrict the "World Cup" to the ten full members of the ICC. This is not just because I'm an Irishman, but as a fan of sport and egalitarianism in general. I thoroughly enjoyed the recent World Cup amid all the talk of the death of one-day cricket. However, I do feel that the lack of meaningful competition for the next 6 years or so for several countries (not just the Associate nations but Zimbabwe also) will only diminish the 50 over game further.

Not only that but the bridge for associate member and Zimbabwe to climb to get to test status becomes harder as many associations will now be forced to focus on T20 rather than ODI, as their sponsors will not provide (or only provide limited) support for teams with no World Cup TV exposure. With the emphasis squarely on T20, I think you'll find these Associate Nations will actually be weaker in 2019 than they are now. That will in turn lead to further calls to alienate the associate nations from ODIs, which will undoubtedly hamper the development of the game in these countries at all levels. If you look at the meteoric rise of Afghanistan in the past few years it is not an impossibility that they will be rank in the top eight in the World (with Ireland nine, naturally). Please explain how the World Cup deserves the name when these top ranked teams get excluded?

Oh, but games were one sided at the World Cup? So the answer to one-sided games is to cut out the weak side rather than develop them? Would Sri Lanka ever have reached where they are now if that attitude was taken in the 80s? Yeah, some matches will be dead-rubber, but you have those ALL major sporting events. It's part and parcel of what makes a World Cup; the underdog. The underdog story is always the best one in sport. It captures the imagination of everyone; not just their supporters. You claim that this resolution will provide financial security for the game; but I'm not sure how much extra money is added to the pot by having Zimbabwe involved.

Let's also of course mention that the people losing most out of all of this are the players. Many players, the ambassadors of the game in their countries, will be robbed of the chance to represent their country at the highest level. Whatever you say about T20, the snobbery surrounding cricket will mean that these players will never be taken seriously unless they can demonstrate their skills in the longer forms of the games. You are forcing people to choose between representing their country and pursuing their career to the highest level they can go.

The bleeding of players to full members that has hurt Ireland in particular will become much more seriously. I can't see George Dockrell hanging Dublin around playing T20 for eight years before the next World Cup. That is of course if that player would even get picked by a full member. Trent Johnson has already said that your decision effectively made his decision to retire after the T20 World Cup next year. Many others will also now be wondering what the point of all their work is if they cannot get the recognition for it.

This brings me to probably the most worrying aspect of this decision. The ICC clearly has no intention of granting full member status to Ireland at any point before 2015. That's at least six years since Ireland applied. With only a T20 World Cup in the interim, Ireland will find it difficult to get enough ODI matches to get the recognition needed for full membership. It then becomes again a vicious cycle with no clear path for associate nations to progress to full membership.

But you say, full membership is about more than international performance; it's about the local game, ensuring the game has support etc. Fine. Please explain how cutting teams out of the World Cup will help increase public exposure and support? The only times I have heard of Irish cricket on local TV is at the World Cups. Cricket was headline news for probably the first time ever when we beat England a few short years ago. Now, cricket was back in the headlines, but for all the wrong reasons. A wave of negativity has swept coverage of the sport. The elitism you showed in your decision entrenches the idea of the elitism of the game, that's it's not a game for everyone, only for the West Brits. The PR benefits of Ireland's performances in the World Cup are being wiped out in a matter of moments. Again, the game suffers.

So for all these reasons, I can only deduce that your decision lacks logic, foresight and the sportsmanship that your organisation is trying to promote in the youth of the game. Shame on you.

Yours,

Daniel Gleeson

The Price of the Exodus

This government has been a long time dying. Now that we finally are getting the general election that the country needs, I find myself unable to participate in that process. I don't know if I would have stayed in Ireland even if things had stayed all rosey, but the economic implosion that has happened over the last over the last couple years really pushed me out. Nonetheless, I find myself part of with will be a large unrepresented minority; the youth that were pushed out by the mistakes out our elders. 

So this all begs the question; should us ex-pats be allowed to vote. Oddly, enough I'm coming down on the side of the status quo and not having the vote for myself. There are a few very clear reasons for this:

1. Ireland has 3 million citizens living abroad compared to 4.5 million living in the State. This poses obvious problems.
2. The case has been made that as ex-pats vote in very small amounts, it's not such a big deal. However, it is a big deal when due to our arcane electoral system the final seats in many five seaters are decided by a mere handful of votes. This means that those few people voting from abroad can have an effect.
3. This has knock-on effects on the rest of things. As postal votes will be slow to come in, this will deplay the formation of any governments and could leave us government-less for much longer than usual.
4. There's the tired old arguement of "no taxation without representation" or more succinctly the reverse i.e. not able to pay taxes = no votes. That doesn't stand up to any logical scrutiny. 16 year olds can work and pay taxes yet not be able to vote. That's of course without even getting into the political minefield that would be unemployed people currently not paying taxes. There is a valid point underneath this though. Those without a stake in the country shouldn't be able to vote. The extent of the stake of emigrants is variable, but there is a clear line in the sand here. Not only do emigrants not contribute but we don't personally benefit from the welfare systems or other state services more than any other tourists would. This line has to be drawn somewhere and I'm fine with it being drawn here.

There's plenty of reasons to try to get people involved who are abroad, but in the end this can only end in controversy. Ireland's extremely high rates of emigration over the past 200 years of our history practically eliminates the idea. 

There are plenty of alternatives though. Michael Martin's proposal for single seat constituencies would help reduce some of my concerns, but a better option might be to either have the votes of ex-pats count in any list part of a reformed electoral system. (I know that's not what Martin proposed but it's an idea!) Alternatively, there could be seat(s) for the emigrant community in a reformed Seanad (similar to the University seats currently employed). One thing that I do feel should be allowed is emigrant voting in the Presidential election due to the nature of the position as the symbolic head of the Irish people. 

That's my two cents anyway. There'll be more of my musing on the first vote I'll miss as I try to vent my displeasure over the internet. Stay tuned. 

The Guilt of an Expat

The events of the last couple weeks in Ireland are nothing less than shocking. So much so that it's knocked me out of the blogging ennui that I found myself in recently. There's so much to say about the mess we've gotten ourselves into that I don't really know where to start. However start I must.

The one thing that has struck me is how negative everything is. Amid all this talk of bailouts, cuts and austerity measures; there has been nothing positive. No talk of spurring on the economy. No talk of rejuvenation. No talk of how to bring the economy out of its death throws and return it to prosperity. I understand that if there was any talk of such lofty ideals it would almost certainly have been drowned out by the cacophony of negativity coming from the media, analysts and commentators in the last few days. However there just seems to be a lack of anything positive to say.

All of this is having a particular effect on myself. Every time I read something about the state of Ireland's finances, there's this little pang of guilt inside me. So given that it's been on the front page of every (real) newspaper, it would be accurate to say that I've been feeling quite bad about abandoning the sinking ship when I did. I try to console myself and tell myself that logically, I saved the state money by moving as I was in receipt of Job Seeker's Allowance. I still feel though that I should be doing something.

What can we do? I have this idea. Unfortunately, I have no idea of how to make it happen or even if I did, I don't think I'd be the person with the most suitable skill set. So with that set of caveats out of the way I can get into the meat of it.

What does Ireland need? Ireland needs money, jobs, good news. In short Ireland needs entrepreneurs. Irish people creating our own jobs, our own success stories would do quite a bit to life the morale of people. The idea is to collect Irish expats together to form essentially a venture capital company aimed solely at sponsoring new Irish companies. In the current climate it should be easy to get the venture registered as a charity in various countries and then those charities are part owners of the company in Ireland.

Its an easy story to sell to people, to try to get people involved in; Irish people pulling together to dig ourselves out of this hole. Ex-pats doing something for the ol' sod and all that. More importantly, I feel that we've become a little too reliant on foreign direct investment. Not just to invest, but to make the jobs. I don't know many people whose response to unemployment is to take the bull by the horns and try to make something happen for themselves. We need to change that culture. Not only that but it's another way of channelling that much desired FDI through takeovers. Believe me, in the tech business; all you need is a good a idea and to know the right people to get the word out there; and Google (or Apple or some of the other big players) will probably buy you up.

I just wish I could make it happen.

Surreality

Cork won the All-Ireland.

For only the sixth time ever, Cork are the All-Ireland Senior Football Champions. No one can question that this victory was deserved. Cork were looking ragged and unimaginative after a dramatic opening few minutes. However a late burst in the first half set the stage for a more expansive second half. Cork's victory was assured due some spectacular points in the second half; Donnacha O'Connor's stands out but Kerrigan's left footed effort was nothing short of heroic. An impressive cameo from Nicholas Murphy helped secure the middle for Cork.

None of that would have mattered if it wasn't for mister consistency; Daniel Goulding. Nine points in total, seven from placed balls which kept Cork in touch when they were desperately needed. The goal in front of Hill 16 was clearly much more slippery than the Canal End. Down struggled to make any production at that end, while it the combination of Down's indiscipline and Goulding's accuracy made the difference in the end.

Goulding was rightly awarded man of the match for his efforts, winning my brother €50 in the process. This tops off what is always the surreal experience of watching Goulding play on the TV. A guy that I played GAA with for around 14 years just won an All-Ireland and was Man of the Match to boot. Growing up it was always obvious that Dan was a talent. I remember watching him play in an under 12 final where he scored all bar a couple points of Éire Óg's tally that day (with the very capable John Gleeson in a starring role at corner back too). Playing full forward with Dan in the corner was a dream; he was almost always available for the breaking ball or making intelligent runs Even though he was always the best player on the field, it's still a little weird to think that he is THAT good. Like, it's Dan; I've gotten the better of him a few times in training (few being the important word there).

In an added layer of hilarity; the Examiner did a pre-final special supplement which included a focus on Éire Óg as we had Dan and Ciarán Sheehan on the Senior team and Kevin Hallissey on the minors. It was written by Fintan O'Toole (not THAT Fintan O'Toole) who played with Goulding and myself on that same Éire Óg underage team!