HACkers blog

Going to the gym is risky business. Conversations inevitably turns towards bandwidth, but recently there has been a new complaint - Skype! Or, more accurately, the unavailablilty of Skype.

For those who're not familiar with it, Skype offers free computer-to-computer telephony, online chat, and file transfer, among its benefits. It also allows, via SkypeOut, for calls from computer to telephone *anywhere in the world* for the cost of a local call (the destination's local rate, not ours - so it does work out pretty cheap!)

Immediately those of us accustomed to working in a climate of financial constraint begin to see the attractiveness of Skype, and begin to understand why it has such a large installed base at UCT. Where one's phone account is limited to R30 per month - beyond which one becomes personally liable - the ability to phone colleagues in HE insitutions overseas with whom one is collaborating on a project, or whom one is trying to persuade to externally examine a thesis, or whom one wishes to visit during one's sabbatical, or whatever else, for _free_ becomes more attractive than even the Daily Vice page 3 girl.

Synchronous chat alongside voice - particularly during those multiparty conversations that can get a little confusing - is a useful tool, but more useful is the file transfer tool. Given the limits on the file size one can send, and receive, with email, and given that UCT's FTP server last worked when the dinosaurs grazed on the rugby field, many of us have taken to using file splitters to break large files into small chunks which we then spend all morning sending, hoping they all arrive so that they can be reassembled into what they once were. It's not infallible, and it's massively time-consuming. The alternative is to use one of those "free" FTP sites which raises its revenue through the online porn industry. All over the planet, academics at prestigeous HE institutions are shaking their heads sadly as yet another UCT colleague asks them to download the file they're after from one of these dodgy sites, complete with the kind of ads that might make even Paris Hilton blush. It does wonders for our reputation, really. Little wonder that we preferred the Skype file transfer tool while we had it.

Skype has been blocked. The word from the Helpdesk is that is should never have worked - although the large user base attests to its very successful use until recently. It's a pity, really, because the impact on the academic project will be sorely felt.

The press reports that a black member of Council at Tuks has resigned in protest at the lack of transformation after the incumbent VC's contract was extended - after a hung vote, with the Chair casting the deciding vote in favour of the status quo.

12 out of 28 members of Council are black. Assuming - and one cannot assume these things, safely - that all 12 black members voted in favour of a black VC, two further progressive votes were found among white members of Council. Which means, out of 16 white members of Council, fully 12% are prepared to consider the possibility of a black VC. I suppose after 11 years of a black president running the country, the idea has become sufficiently conceivable for two of these white members of Council - neither of which is the Chair.

On the other hand, perhaps the assumption of black Council members voting progressively is flawed. After all, the Matanzimas, the Buthelezis and the Mangopes were also at least superficially black. And, here at UCT, we had a black VC who brought about arguably the most reactionary intervention of all - the outsourcing of "non-core" services like cleaning, gardening and security.

The report is silent on whether the vote was between two candidates, one white and one black, or whether it was on the principle of a contract renewal for the incumbent white VC (thereby excluding the possibility of a black VC) and so perhaps one should be wary of reading too much into what is presented. But it does raise interesting questions around the transformation of senior leadership in the Higher Education sector in SA - a debate of much interest to us here too, particularly in the light of the fora concerned with these matters not yet having had sight of an employment equity plan for our own Senior Leadership Group.

Passages all over this end of Campus were still buzzing this morning about the discussion in Senate yesterday. Everyone had an opinion, and everyone's opinion was firmly held.

Process issues were big on the list - the reconstitution of the task team, and the suspected ulterior motives behind that; the rush to get something through by year end without proper debate and sufficient consensus; the prominence of Certain DVCs and the lower visibility of others...

But issues of principle were also heatedly argued. Should the Admissions Policy seek to redress past inequity - using "race" as a proxy; or should it seek to address current disadvantage - which would foreground class?

Which all seemed to fall back on understandings of The Role Of The University. And, what sort of University we should strive to be. And whether our response should be based on compliance with legislation, or some moral position of our own - whether or not that happened to be consistent with the legislation of the day.

Few people seemed to agree on everything, though all argued strongly for the need for proper debate - however unlikely the prospect of consensus, or even sufficient consensus, being reached. The debate for its own sake needed to be had - most of those voicing opinions had a fairly cynical view that The Executive was going to (re)present Senate's view in a particular way, in any event, and Council would make the call informed, for the most part, by their own particular views, prejudices and opinions and not those of the Senate.

And then of course there was the whole issue of gender....

Julius Caesar was slain in the Senate. I'm beginning to understand why.

During the two hours and forty-one minutes for which it stretched, the Senate considered the ten items on the agenda. Or rather, ten agenda items were ticked as "done" with intermittent engagement of the braincells gathered in the room.

I suppose one should expect it, really, when the documentation - 3kg of paper - only arrived the day before the meeting, in a language not recognisable as English and not following any of the conventions commonly associated with what we know as "grammar", but nonetheless those of us who still cling to archaic notions of the University as a place of debate and critical engagement shuffled down the Hill and filled our seats. A bit like children still pretending to believe in Father Christmas in the hope that he still believes in them enough to continue with the presents...

The Campus Guide Plan was presented, sort of. A couple of bad overheads were put up, and the point made that we're moving from a "suburban" model to an "urban" one, which seemed the thrust of it. Everyone around me bristled, and none of the noises I heard were good, but this somehow translated into Senate support for the initiative, which now goes to Council for more support. In the absence of a vote, I'm not entirely sure how the Chair could distinguish positive grunts from negative ones, but perhaps the idea of high-rise buildings, increased smog and street children huddled in our doorways appeals on an emotive level to allow him that interpretation. The good news, though, is we're unlikely ever to be able to afford any of it, so for now it's business as usual.

The Admissions Policy proposed by a task team which was not the task team as constituted, nor chaired by the appointed chair, for 2007, was also debated. In a curious sequence of events, the policy was presented, a proposal made by the presenter for its adoption, and a seconder sought before any questions of clarity or debate was allowed. But once that can of worms was opened, it became abundantly clear why - the longer debate was allowed to run, the more issues were raised and the stronger the lobby for rejecting it grew. After several aeons, and some panic about What To Do On 1 Jan When Faculties Needed Guidelines To Work With, the thing was squashed and the status quo ante invoked. Whoever constituted the task team that wasn't the constituted task team must now be slitting their wrists over the time wasted on the activity. One can only hope their line managers, during their performance appraisals, are more generous.

By the time the last few items were discussed, there were few survivors. When it came to thanking the outgoing Dean of Science for his contribution, they had to be wakened to participate in the standing ovation. As the meeting was closed and people fled out of the doors, the universal sentiment expressed was "now I remember why I never go to these things!".

It also sheds light on the policy of no weapons on Campus....

I saw an article in a weekend newspaper about the ongoing debates about language of instruction at Stellenbosch "University". Having been a quota student there in the 80s, I was wondering what all the fuss was about.

It appears that that "liberale / linksgesinde" ("liberal / left-leaning") Rector, Chris Brink, is considering instituting a language policy which provides for dual, or possibly parallel, medium instruction. English will be allowed to tiptoe into lectures, quietly, so as not to disturb the ghosts of the Apartheid luminaries after whom most of the campus buildings are named.

Apparently, a band of intrepid academics, with Herman Giliomee in the vanguard, are terrified that this will corrupt the character of Skelmbos. "Stellenbosch," we were told as newbie undergrads in the 80s, "staan vir 'n idee". (Stellenbosch stands for an idea.) The one and only ever protest march on that campus, back in 1985, was widely decried and future protest action banned on the grounds that it was "incompatible with the nature and function of [that] 'university' ". The _kind_ of idea for which Stellenbosch stood was thus firmly cast as conservative at best, reactionary in the minds of many, and downright racist as experienced by the dozen or so black students who studied there under sufferance at the time.

Might this "idea" be corrupted by allowing English into lectures? Please god, were it so simple... If using the language of Shakespeare meant one fewer pellet in the leg of a passing woman outside Bekfluitjie hostel, one fewer student beaten up in res on suspicion of being gay, one fewer nervous breakdown of a firstyear during "doop" (initiation), then bring it on! If speaking English could have that kind of civilising effect, we'd probably be worshipping at the statue of Rhodes instead of wanting to deface it.

But my bemusement has less to do with the groundlessness of "Rooinekgevaar" sentiment being bandied about than with images of stable doors and horses and bolting... Rather like the Afrikaners' quest to legislate "racial purity" some hundreds of years after their antecedents had been doing their damndest to advance the cause of "miscegenation", this is all a bit too hysterical, a bit too late, a bit too pointless.

English has always been allowed - i always had class tests and exams presented to me in English, athough I preferred to write in Afrikaans; the option to submit assignments, theses or other work in English was always guaranteed. While presribed textbooks were always Afrikaans (written by the lecturers themselves, in a burgeoning cottage industry) there were always far better ones in English to be swiped from the KGB (Koos Gericke Biblioteek - the Library) and, with the rise of the Bloeiende Afrikaner (Bleeding Afrikaner) in the 80s, increasing numbers of students were choosing to converse in English, to hang out with the 13% of tolerated "andertaliges" (English Speakers) and even to dally with centre-left politics by launching a NUSAS branch.

But perhaps more significantly, English has always had a presence in lectures. Not just from students asking questions - many lectures were presented, and accepted without murmur, in English; many lecturers were not conversant, or fluent, or lacked the discourse, in Afrikaans - as one would expect if scholars were really drawn from an international community rather than a local inbred one, though this was the reason in only a small number of cases.

Why the outcry over what is merely the formalisation of a situation that has existed, de facto, for at least 25 years? Is symbolism really so much more important than substance?

It's the time of year when parents of prospective students from the polite suburbs are muttering to each other over civilised sundowners about their children's chances of acceptance for the course of study of their choice. Most times, the overheard conversations run along these lines:

"Jessica is doing really well and looks set to get at least 7 As. What a pity her chances of getting into Law / Medicine / Film and Media are going to be thwarted because, well, she's not an affirmative!" At which point all sets of eyes swivel towards Sipho, hanging out with Jessica a little distance off. Her classmate, with marks nowhere as good as hers, whose future beckons bright and shiny like so many ripe apples on the tree, hoping to be picked by his blessed hands. Tongues click, heads shake in disbelief at the unfairness of life, and eyeballs silently ooze sympathy for Jessica's mother and the short straw she drew by giving birth to a child with a white skin.

In amongst the dinnertime debates on the evils of affirmative action, the memory of their own benefit seems to dissolve like the grease on the plates Mavis is washing in the kitchen. But for some of us, for whom the past is perhaps more recent, that reality can't be denied - we were beneficiaries, in our time, of affirmative action. We carry those benefits with us still, and the cultural capital we pass on to our children ensures that they are still relatively advantaged, even without the legislated benefit of affirmative action to underline it.

I attended a white school. It was a dreadful school, with a deeply flawed understanding of "education", but it had sportsfields and photocopiers and OHPs in all the classrooms - as well as windows, working toilets and a full complement of qualified teachers. Many of the pupils went on to university - mostly here - financed through teaching bursaries or bank loans. The scholarship which paid my way would not have been available to me had I been black - nor would the university place, the residence place or, in all likelihood, the A-aggregate which won me the scholarship. In all respects, I was an affirmative action student.

Nor did it stop there. The benefits of having had a university education provided me with work, a social circle of engaged and interesting people, the theoretical tools to locate the struggles we forged on the political front, the cultural capital... Like my grandfather, picked up from the cul de sac of the Great Depression and dusted off and set to work on the Railways - which in turn took in my father too - I can see in very direct ways how I benefitted from the legislated affirmative action of my day. Through the private schooling it has enabled for my son, I can see how it continues to benefit the next generation, despite the removal of that legislated benefit from his "due".

Jessica's mother and her clutch of clucking cronies don't. They see only the removal of that unfair privilege, and they see it as unfair. And so, over the next few weeks as marks become available and places get assigned, the phones will start ringing in outrage as the historically advantaged demand the perpetuation of that advantage, steadfastedly refusing to see the bigger picture, the structural dimensions, their place in The System... and forgetting everything that they once learned at university, when they were affirmative action students too.

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Like everywhere else, we have problems with cheating. I suppose anyone who's clever enough to get into university is clever enough to get out of it, but some of the strategies employed really leave one wondering. I referred elsewhere to the mind-boggling act of not referencing quoted works, and then faking non-existent others, but it seems students are now faking themselves in exams.

Instead of simply resorting to the time-honoured practice of spotting, students are now dividing their work up into chunks and getting friends - themselves students or past students - to take on a chunk, smuggle themselves into the exam venue with fake student cards, and help their friends out. I suppose they reckon if the University can outsource those bits of its operations it would rather not dirty its hands with, that principle can be applied to their "learning" too. There are even rumours of prospective students cheating on PTEEP tests by getting others to write them for them.

Aside from the obvious question of "how do they get caught?" - after all, I've yet to meet anyone who even vaguely resembles the picture on their student card, even after a really heavy night out - the other question that won't be silenced is... at what point does one stop faking, once one realises it's a strategy with a fair chance of success?

We've seen prominent academics exposed for dressing up their CVs, and recruitment agencies now routinely check up on certificates and written testimonials, and a whole industry of women's magazines has been spawned on the practice of faked orgasms and faked relationships. The fashion industry trumpets "faux fur" and the food industry has since forever faked things like butter, banana flavour and whipped cream, pop groups lip synch and tv evangelists even fake religion. Is there anything appropximating an Authentic Existence still around for these confused students - who, after all, are only cheating themselves, in the end - to aspire to?

"A change is as good as a holiday", they'd have us believe, but most of us would prefer the holiday. On the other hand, life without change would be so unspeakably boring, we'd all develop such rich fantasy lives to compensate for the paucity of our real ones and deny the great novelists, auteurs and artists income from amusing us.

With this in mind, Humanities Academic Computing was presented with yet another line management change. In the regular game of Deputy Dean Draughts - which sometimes more closely approximates Lightning Chess - portfolio switches led to the current Deputy Dean:IT becoming the outgoing one, and one of the others becoming the incoming one, with much nodding and hand-shaking and secret sympathies exchanged all round.

The incoming Deputy Dean:IT has an advantage over previous incumbents, however: He is at least familiar with the area, having served on HUMANITEC since its inception, and is thus not faced with the same steep learning curve routinely served with acquisition of this portfolio. We're not booking him into Kenilworth Clinic just yet, as a result.

But it does rather prompt the question: what wears incumbents out so fast? The frequency with which I seem to change line managers is starting to approach the ferquency with which I change lovers, and that is truly alarming. At an average of one a year since the Faculty's inception, tenure in this position does seem disproportionate to the longevity of, say, the outgoing Deputy Dean of Finance (held by a single person since 1999) or the paltry couple of incumbents handling space, or staffing, during that period.

Perhaps a clue is to be found in the rapid rate of change within the area itself. In 1999, large numbers of staff were still without even a working PC on their desks. The erstwhile Social Science, and Arts, Faculties had decent computer labs at undergraduate (shared between the two) and post-graduate level, while Education had an ageing one, Hiddingh Campus was blessed with a cursory one and Music had a small handful of Bondwells running a DOS application with difficulty. Arts had a single staff member running the Language Lab, and Social Science had three staff members with various roles. Integration of ICTs into the curriculum varied from exciting things happening in Psych II to outright hostility in other departments.

Since then we've come a long way. Via a detour through the Valley of Outsourcing, the Humanities Academic Computing team has grown to five official members, dotted-line relationships to a number of others located within departments in the Facullty, and an area of operation stretching over several campuses, a rich and changing canvas of disciplines and has acquired a respectable budget now comfortably measured in millions rather than tens of thousands, with a brief that has morphed from operational to strategic.

The plodding plan-implement-monitor-review linear approach has dissolved in a flurry of constant change and growth, with the team rising to new challenges moment by moment and information ageing and becoming redundant almost as soon as it is passed on. And while we, as Humanities Academic Computing, perch on the exciting interface of technology with teaching and research, for those who opted for the quiet, considered life of an academic, it can all be a bit much.

The media recently reported the no-show of e-tv and the Daily Vice at a hearing on "the scourge of pornography" of the portfolio committee on home affairs.

One can well imagine _home_ affairs regarding pornography as a "scourge" - affairs elsewhere are far more likely to take a more enlightened view, unburdened by domestic drudgery - but the mind boggles at the thought of all the broken roads, run down schools, underpaid nurses and choked bandwidth, while money is spent convening special hearings (this, apparently, was not the first) on pornography. I have no idea how many people sit on this committee - three people are quoted in the article - but their time is presumably not cheap. And, while matters of national import topple off the bottom of an ever-increasing to-do list, they sit and froth about e-tv showing some steamy movies at a time when only the most hardened insomniacs would be likely to be watching.

Personally, I'd also like to put e-tv on the carpet for showing Emanuelle MMDMXVIII or Butterscotch - The Invisible Alien Stochastic Ooze Lover Who Came In From The Cold, but on the grounds of the (appalling lack of) artistic merit in these films rather than because of any silicone-enhanced flesh wobbled before our eyes. There are plenty of films which are both erotic and watchable, but I suppose they would cost rather more, and since only the truly desperate would be watching at 2am, Marcel Golding must be asking himself, what would the point be?

But, perhaps, to approach a point, rather than simply wheeling yet another hobbyhorse out of the stable to take the air - what does any of this have to do with us, here in our sun-drenched ivory tower? Well, perhaps more than we think. The grapevine is thrumming with stories of a staff member recently disciplined for downloading pornography during work time, the "crime" I suppose being that he was "wasting" the bandwidth on streamed footage (or whatever body part comes to mind) of sex rather than cricket, as is the institutional norm. And, as we know, despite our Statement of Values calling for us to love, and enjoy life, this doesn't stretch to enjoying anything corporeal, and most certainly not anything carnal. This man's crime was that he not only enjoys sex, but he refuses to hide the fact and pretend, like everyone else, to prefer cricket.

It's officially cheaper - and probably faster - to fly to Hong Kong and download 100GB of data than to do it from here. Which is something most of us at UCT will readily identify with - it's often faster to run around the passages using good old fashioned TekkieNet than to rely on the Mailman listservs. And most people will tell you that they get better bandwidth from dial-up at home than from inside UCT.

Which is why the incoming Deputy Dean:IT in this august Faculty plans to fly to the UK with a bag full of blank CDs to download and copy the large quantity of PDFs needed for his research. Doing it from within UCT just isn't viable.

I spent much of yesterday trying to download files from my GMail inbox - 5MB in size, on average. Yes, it was "research-related" - legitimate, completely above board. The fact that they'd been sent to my GMail account rather than UCT was, well, they'd not been delivered by late morning (having been mailed early morning) and the sender dispaired of them ever arriving and sent them to GMail instead. (The first couple have since arrived. Today.) But while I could see them sitting in my inbox on GMail, I couldn't do anything with them - trying to download them timed out each time, until I got home and fell back on good ol' dial-up.

A previous attempt, involving ever-greater numbers of ever-smaller bits of split files, eventually led to a near nervous breakdown and the mailing of the files to me on CD. First class mail from the UK costs more, perhaps, for the sender, than email, but at least it gets here in a usable format. No wonder academics from foreign climes continue to arrive here expecting lions in the streets...

An interesting postscript to my recent blog about Human Capital unfolded during a recent conversation. Imported for a week's brain-picking and pearl-casting, The Expert had arrived a week early and headed out of Cape Town for some recreation.

A relaxed week later, he embarked upon what he'd been imported to perform, and set about a week of workshops, seminars, discussions, consultations and presentations, collapsing every evening into a well-earned beer at Quay 4.

During one of these debriefs, he asked me about a colleague who'd been at one of the workshops. Enthusiastically engaging after the session, she mentioned to him that had they known he was out, they'd certainly have "used him" earlier.

Which was, after all, why we kept his being here so quiet. Why we left Cape Town in the first place. His last visit involved lots of "using" and altogether too little recreation, we'd agreed at the time, and set about ensuring that the same didn't happen this time.

Perhaps it's selfish, when one is An Expert, to walk around holding on to your incisive mind, sharing your insights and wisdom over whiskeyed candle-light with an audience of one, when the rest of Cape Town is crying out for the opportunity. Perhaps it's selfish, as an audience of one, to want so much access, knowing there are so many others also in the queue. But in the hierarchy of claimants, who assigns ranking, proportion or even any right of access? Who "owns" the "Human Capital" and has the "right" to dispense it? And at what point can An Expert assert the right to be more than their intellect, to have needs and desires and interests that are aesthetic, sensuous, culinary, tactile, carnal or just plain slothful, without feeling somehow that they have stepped outside their brief?

"fedup" commented on my "Return of SNAFU" posting that there had been some expectation upon those of us located at the coal face to assist with the roll-out of ICTS projects. While - as I responded in my reciprocal comment - this had neither been communicated to me, nor agreed by either myself or my line manager, it does serve to illustrate the broader principle at play. Which is the increasing trend for The Centre to "devolve" down to Faculties or Departments tasks and responsibilities, but not the resources with which to do these.

In reality, of course, this has nothing to do with _real_ devolution, and everything to do with passing the buck. Real devolution would see Faculties empowered to set their own agendas, their own budgets (both sides of the balance sheet) and their own timelines, and use their own resources and their own lines of accountability to achieve these ends. But hey, let's not get technical here - devolution sounds far sexier, so let's just pretend that's what it is.

A question one often hears in the passages of Toad Hall is, "Has devolution gone too far", usually in the context of suspected non-compliance with some directive that Deans or HoDs didn't particularly prioritise over the myriad of other directives being issued from other bits of Toad Hall all competing for the same resources (human, budgetary, time) with which to "do" them.

Deans, and in turn HoDs, are caught between a crock and a hard place. They can attempt compliance, spreading the love as their Faculty / Departments become increasingly hostile and ill-disposed to their uncritical rolling down of more and more and more demands... shrinking their social circles, their "free" time, their medical aid benefits - or they can resist, actively or passively, and run the risk of displeasure from above. Usually these strategies are employed in combination - their are few people brave enough to wave the fingers either at Toad Hall, or at their constituents. Humanities - and its component former Faculties - for one has a proud tradition of getting rid of Deans we don't fancy, the legends a central part of Faculty culture.

The expectation is increasingly on Deans and HoDs to act as agents of The Centre in ensuring compliance with policies, procedures, pen-pushing, and performativity expectations rather than to act as the Academic Leaders they thought their positions entailed (and still, at least among the more newly appointed, like to think they should). Which rather makes one wonder why the necessity for the glowing academic CVs required of appointments which are increasingly managerial and administrative in nature, and decreasingly even tangentially concerned with Real Academic Matters. Perhaps the next Dean of Commerce will be recruited from Old Mutual, the next Dean of Health Sciences from Afrox Private Hospitals, the next Dean of EBE from the Department of Works.