Work

My pass

I am a visiting academic at the University of Cape Town. See, it even says so on my identification card. Access to buildings on campus is tightly controlled with these cards. I assume it has some sort of RF ID chip, in addition to a magnetic strip on the back.

Jameson Hall

The University has about 23,500 students. Founded in 1829, it is South Africa's oldest college. I am finding it to be much the same as other campuses I've been on. Walk around and you'll see 18-25 year old people, out in courtship display. The campus has a bar; one of those impossibly grown up things we don't have on American campuses anymore. Some of the major halls are named after characters of dubious integrity. Like the centrally located Jameson Hall (right). At Cecil Rhodes' instigation, Jameson led a military fiasco to take the gold mines of Johannesburg from the Boers. It seems that Rhodes and company were so used to stealing from African tribes, they couldn't imaging that looting one more would be much trouble. Even if it was a tribe of Dutchmen. Look at the stairs. The campus is built on a hill side, I counted 291 stairs on the way to my office.

Smuts Hall

Then again, some buildings are named after people I like, such as Jan Smuts. In my opinion, he was a fair, intelligent, and resolute man. He was among the first of the Afrikaners to recognize that Africans were a fact of African life, and ignoring or denigrating them was not  helpful.  He also humiliated the British military machine during the second Boer war. To the left is a picture of his hall. Typical of many of the buildings, with a courtyard and ivy covered walls.

CERECAM

I am working in a place called 'Center for Research in Computation and Applied Mechanics', or CeReCAM. Folks here know a lot about the finite element method, and non-linear materials. Two things that are useful in my research. CERECEM has a special (access controlled) door; very professional. I feel like I'm  part of something good working here. Much of the center's activities are in service of engineering goals, which lately appeal to me. I'm not sure I'm going to determine what sea level will be in 100 years, but darn it, I probably could have figured out a better angle to graft a vein at for a bypass, or separate good from bad mine tailings. Ah well, if I never managed a 'misspent youth', I definitely have a leg up on the 'misspent career' thing.

A place to call "the office", I need that in my vocabulary.

Here is my office, and me. Even though it's spring here, I'm growing my fall beard. I suppose I'm confused. You can't see it in the picture, but that internet cable admits only the thinnest trickle of internet stuff. This is a problem.

Bad ice sheet model.

And here is a picture of what I've been working on. As the ice flows into a region where there is melting, the surface should lower. That's what melting does to glaciers. In my model, large amounts of melting can lead to the surface crossing over the bed.  That's bad, it crashes the model, and I'm trying to stop it. Finding a solution is taking longer than I'd like, but at least I know what I'm trying to accomplish. Nothing takes the amount of time I'd like it to. Not even in South Africa.