35 librarians- ah, now for lunch.

Members of the Tertiary Education Union at the University of Canterbury have reacted with anger and dismay to the latest change proposal in which fifty-eight staff positions are targeted for disestablishment.
Thirty-five of these positions are in the university's libraries.

It is the opinion of members that the roles proposed in place of those marked for redundancy do little to consolidate the expertise and institutional knowledge that are a hallmark of the work done at this university. The proposed replacement of the professional librarians who lead the university's libraries with Centre Manager roles is of particular concern, as is the Vice-Chancellor's as-yet-untested claim that the ongoing employment of senior librarians would occur at the cost of academic jobs elsewhere in the university.

The Tertiary Education Union has represented its members throughout the submissions process associated with the multiple change proposals under Project STAR. It has worked not only in defence of members' positions but also of members' own vision for the university. Its views are informed by the deep expertise and experience of its members, from new staff who have joined the university from other institutions to those who have served the Canterbury community for many decades.

It is the view of the union that the labour force of a large public institution such as the University of Canterbury is an asset, not a liability, and that positive outcomes for the future are best achieved by treating it as such.


This from the president of our local UC branch of the tertiary education union.
And so it is: the barbarians are not at the gate, they are at the helm at the University of Canterbury.
The library is the core of a university: heart and brain. You cannot hack away at it without damaging the institution.
I could go on at length about what a complete farce of inHuman Relations uncompetence and Managerial Flatulence the whole "Project Star" has been. (And I started out as being modestly in favour of it: the University does have some odd management practices, and there was- and will be- plenty of siloing, excess of managers and duplication of services.)
But... usually when you cut services you have a vision of how to better provide them. Usually you know what people do (or what 'functions' they 'fill' in the Inhuman Relations Vision) before sacking them.
I can- and, sigh- do!- vent about 'project star' for hours (they spelt the name backwards, a local wit proclaimed). And that wouldn't touch on the debacle at the College of Education.
I seem to need to vent because I feel powerless. There is some fight-back (the Academic Board gave a solid push) but we are divided, herded into seperate corrals,and there is little opportunity to take a public stand.
And while real damage is being done to a major public institution- that feels wrong too.

Merry Christmas!

Oscar has taken to sleeping under the tree.

More time lapsing

Bones healed, more-or-less. Dell laptop dies, and then so does the HD of replacement thinkpad T42, along with some parts of "Seasons of the Boat".

Summer hits. A rare night at the world's best bar= the wunderbar, Lyttelton.

More time, more short short summer nights.

Less time alive.

Timelapse experiment 1

While charging around one night, head fizzing with picture and timelapse ideas, I stood in a shadow and broke a bone in my foot. This has put a damper on any timelapse experiments- and thrown the standard daily round here into a strange perspective.

Hobbling about, and limited to a 16Mb card on the camera, the first few attempts at timelapse have been fun, anyway.

Playing with a new toy: a 'powershot' A460 canon digital camera- plus CHDK (the canon hack development kit)

Been wanting to do some timelapse photography since last winter. I have a few projects in mind, including one of Awakeri at anchor, titled by cyber-friend Merc "The Season of the Boat." Ideally it'll be tide in, tide out- and, ahm, again. In all sorts of weather, with a lot of fast-moving clouds and some mood music. It may never work out, but things are looking better than last year. Last year, after extensive research, I bought a Nikon 'coolpix' 8400- which turned out to have dropped the timelapse feature of the 8000. Poppy is enjoying the Nikon... And I'm fascinated with the A460. CHDK is a sprawling project that uses software hacks to tap the full potential of cheap canon 'point-and-shoot' cameras. It's been developed by an unruly collection of enthusiasts- there are gaps and maddening frustrations- but also a remarkable collaborative success. So 'raw' unprocessed picture data is possible- all manner of bracketing- and the ability to over-ride, tweak and automate a whole range of features. Mostly I'm intrigued with the possibilities of time-lapse, and very long exposure times at night. But very fast exposures- and motion-detection quick enough to capture lightening- sound cool.

The Dankest Winter in Living Memory

We are beset with under-runners and foul weather. Only the hope of a week or two living on hard-tack and hiding out from swine-flu keeps our spirits up. Awakeri has an itchy bottom, due to an infestation of crabs (and barnacles.)
There's now an 'add video' button on blogger: this seems dangerous.
I'm going to try it...

this is a video I made recently. Compressed in the fancy-schmancy h264. Hey ho- it seems to work!

Summer at Windward Farm

Took one of the HD cameras from work home and got a chance to shoot a few scenes round the farm.

Blogger won't let me embed it- or I don't know how to get the html right. But it's here: Windward