Wheatlands News

On Wednesday I interviewed a professor at the University of Cape Town. Prof Mike Inggs celebrates his 21st year in the Engineering faculty this year, and he has been studying various aspects of radar technology for most of that time. He told me many things that were really interesting, but he may be surprised that the one comment that really stuck in my mind was when he that he didn't know if the study of radar would continue after he was gone. (The picture of radar here is pretty misleading in this context, but it is pretty. And nothing says radar more than a green screen. With blips. The kind of radar that Prof Inggs and his team works with does far more. More about that another time.) "Often when a professor retires, that's the end of it," he said. "New people come in with new interests and ideas, and knowledge is lost." Guest writer Skoorby has written today's post, and he has some really interesting things to say about transitions and how they can h...

Whenever I had a break yesterday, I watched a snippet of Barack Obama's campaign advert. It's 30 minutes long and I just didn't have a 30 minute chunk of time in my day. But I did have time for five minute snippets. And I'm so glad I did. What really impressed me was that he appeared to have a real understanding about what ordinary people are experiencing, and he seems to be coming up with measured, logical solutions to the problems rather that a whole lot of mud slinging and rhetoric. If I were dictator of this country, I'd make all our politicians watch this just so they could see what a real statesman sounds like. Time will tell if he lives up to his promise and his promises, and after today we'll know if he'll be given the chance. One thing I did pick up on was that he only spent time with his Kenyan father once, for a month. I wonder if that will make him as inclined to be pro-African as so many people on this continent are hoping. When I was in Uganda ...