Simpler is Better than Faster...

so there i was, going to deposit an insane amount of coins at a standard bank branch at eMpangeni a week or so ago --- pity one cannot do this sort of transaction over the wire (or is it air these days?) anyway, it was interesting to see the distinctions that the bank has progressed into. there are normal tellers as you would expect, and then there is a 'coins deposit' teller (which does a deposit of coins --- even if it's five cents, and the rest of the money) note that other normal tellers do not take coins at all, they simply refer you to this particular teller. and then there is a business side. it states 'business transactions by prior arrangement' --- imagine how many people are prepared enough to do this sort of arrangement before hand. oh, and there is a 'blue bags only' teller --- these are the bags that you dump everything inside and hope that the counter will do correct calculations.

so, where do all these distinctions leave illiterate people? consider this scenario: an average illiterate person (not sure what that is exactly) will walk into the bank to deposit some cash (R27,25) for his nephew at, say, 10h07, yeah? will stand in a queue to 'enquires/imibuzo' until met by a service person at 10h21. the person will then be told to go and furnish a deposit slip and stand in a separate queue. at 10h33 the person will be done filling in the darn slip and will be in a queue until a teller meets him at 10h51. this teller will take one look at this man's deposit slip and do some random scribblings on the slip, telling him that the slip has been incorrectly filled in. after struggling to correct the slip, the man falls in the queue again at 11h01. meets a different teller at 11h09 who tells him that he needs to go to the 'coins deposit' and gestures the location of the 'coins deposit' teller with her hand. doing exactly that, the man is relieved at seeing that there is only one person at the coins deposits, but his excitement is short lived upon realising that the only person in that queue holds coins to the sum of about R5000, yet to be counted. at 11h32, the man finally makes it to the teller who then tells him that the coins that he is here to deposit are not sorted and the man must therefore do the sorting and stand the queue again.

the man finally completes his banking at 12h04. now, if there was a tiny flavour of simplicity in this whole scenario, the man would have been out of the bank and smiling 20 mins after he walked in. trust me, these scenarios DO exist.

AIM meetings are a waste of time...

AIM [Advanced Information Management] is a research laboratory that i am currently part of. it is 1 of 3 (soon to be four) research laboratories in the Computer Science Department, at the University of Cape Town. every wednesday, there is a meeting which all the members of the research group attend (or are supposed to attend). more often than not, we usually do a round-robin, each introducing ourselves, our research as well as our supervisors (of course, for the benefit of all the attendees that are setting foot for the first time in the AIM meeting or for visitors --- yes, we usually have those) . a crucial element of the meeting though is that each of us, still in a round-robin manner, need to report back on what it is that we have been doing since that last AIM meeting (the previous wednesday) --- this is where most people fabricate their doings, trying to save face.

now coming to my point, in all that i have said above about the AIM meetings, is there an obvious redundancy? (besides the AIM meeting as a whole?) there is only one reason i attend these meetings: the group is headed by my supervisor and he is always there meaning that it is only logical that i too be there, for if i am not there, he will ask me "why were you not in the AIM meeting?" during our meeting which coincidentally falls directly after an AIM meeting.

maybe it's all the anger of doing one thing for two years (a MSc degree) coming out, i'm not sure, but i do know that AIM meetings are weak!

uSathadeyi

it was an interesting Saturday morning, [17.9.2005]. at about 09H23 (mind you that at this time, i usually am still asleep suffering the repercussions of the preceding Friday), i received a call on my mobile from TMR whom i had promised that i will be joining a group of rather mundane male creatures with a primary intent to attempt to kick a spherical object (somewhat resembling a soccer ball), poorly simulating what is commonly known as 'playing soccer'. well, off i drove. the destination was a cricket-turned-soccer field opposite my former place of dwelling during the early years of me at UCT, a.k.a. Kopano. i arrived first and as i was thinking that i was late and it was all over, the majority of the gang pulled off.

after kicking the darn spherical object around for a while, we concurred that we should maybe separate into two teams and play this soccer thing, and because there were a handful of us (six to be precise), we settled for a ‘small poles’ game in a 75 square meter piece of land. whether what we afterwards called first half went by in a flash or i simply passed out after the first minute, i am not sure. what i am sure of though is that a few mysterious gentlemen (was it three of them?) arrived in a mysteriously looking black (eclipse-black) automobile, all dressed up in an irrelevant genre considering the occasion we were so eagerly gathered there for.

after these gentlemen assured us that they were indeed hither for the same cause as we were, we decided to begin what we then termed ‘second half’ in a space more elaborate than the former piece of land. this second half saw a team of five vs four (of which i was part of the four). the rest of the happenings of this half are much rather left untold, although i can quote someone describing something mimicking a “A MAN-SIZE RUGBY BALL ROLL DOWN A FLIGHT OF STAIRS”, i'm not quite sure what that was…

‘third half’ was a breeze, it was about 20 minutes long, with an avalanche of goals and perchance one-sided.

all in all, Saturday was good. i think it was a beginning of something good. as someone has already stressed this point, summer is before us and we need to welcome it without the blubber that has accumulated over the winter period and beer drinking sessions.

Jacob Zuma (Jay Zee) Joins NADECO

former president of the Republic of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, has, at the eve of the culmination of the floor crossing window which opened on 1.9.2005 and for 15 days since, joined the infant of the political movements in South Africa, NADECO (National Democratic Convention). Jiyane, former IFP chairperson, founder and president of this two-month old was quoted saying "NADECO is no more based on three pillars, but three pillars and Jay Zee and his [Jay Zee] actions could not have come at any other revolutionary time than the present in the politics of South Africa." the president of the Republic, Thabo Mbeki, was not available for comment as he is away trying to solve the problems of poverty in the African continent with the president of the United States and the British prime minister, however, presidential spokes person said that "this [Jay Zee's crossing over] will take a lot of stress off the president's shoulders which will enable him [Mbeki] to take more calculated decisions about the future of this country."

...welcome!

finally i have decided to start with this blogging thing. i am not yet sure what it will be blogging about, hence the somewhat general topic [Life, Work and Everything Else (Lwee pronounced loo-wei) --- it is so cool to acronymise everything by the way]. yah, sometimes i will comment about the weather and sometimes about being broke. sometimes about the politics of my country and about the stuff i heard on the radio. so, brace yourselves, whoever you may be.