One of the reasons we suggested not using Python for apps meant to be distributed directly to end users is that libpython has an ABI that varies between distributions, causing failures for apps that include any custom C code or bindings.
I just posted [an outline of a possible solution](http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.autopackage.devel/5212) to the mailing list, though I don’t have plans to implement it anytime soon.
Incidentally, I’ll be going back to technical articles soon. Lately I’ve just been posting random stuff I found whilst avoiding revision – now that’s over I’ll go back to writing more original content.
Do I have any regular readers? If so, anything you’d like to see a mini article about?
The UK higher education system has recently been deadlocked by lecturers engaging in industrial action in a dispute over pay. I’ve read a lot about it, as it affects me personally, and thought I’d summarise the issues. I will try and keep this article updated as things change. I’m aiming for this to be a collection of facts rather than opinion, though obviously I have one myself. Please call me out on bias. If you find this post useful please link to it and point others here. The comments section can be used to continue the debate.
Q: What is current situation?
The “action short of a strike” has been suspended pending a vote (which is likely to be accepted) by the unions members. The universities have offered 12.5% over three years, with a committee to look at the issue again at the end of the period. Any pay docked by employers during the dispute is being returned.
The two academic unions, [AUT](http://www.aut.org.uk/) and [NATFHE](http://www.natfhe.org.uk/), demanded a 23% pay rise and the universities claimed they cannot afford that unless jobs are cut. Negotiations occurred under the auspices of [Acas](http://www.acas.org.uk/) ([ref](http://www.aut.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=1669)) (an organisation dedicated to employment dispute resolution). Exams were cancelled or postponed in 19% of universities ([ref](http://education.guardian.co.uk/specialreports/lecturerspay/story/0,,1781619,00.html)). According to a survey of 85 institutions by the Press Association, 39% have been affected by the AUT and Natfhe unions’ marking boycott ([ref](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5004210.stm)).
The original offer from the universities was 13.1% over 3 years ([ref](http://education.guardian.co.uk/specialreports/lecturerspay/story/0,,1786764,00.html)).
The AUT and NATFHE unions have merged to form a new union, the UCU.
Q: They originally wanted a third of the topup fees, doesn’t this mean they are now asking for less?
No. The universities are claiming a 23% global pay rise across the sector is equivalent to nearly all of the top up fees. The unions dispute that and say it is affordable. The universities say they have already offered to commit to more than a third of the topup fees, which is their current best offer of 12% and that the unions have since increased their demands.
Q: What do the universities say?
1. They cannot afford a higher offer than the 12% already given. Any higher would lead to potential insolvency and job cuts. (note that despite this a new offer of 13.1% was made at the end of May)
2. They never promised to spend a third of the topup fees on wages anyway. They attribute this claim to Alan Johnson (a government minister) and not them. Alan Johnson has told the London Student that he was advised of this by [Universities UK](http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/) who he believes speaks for all universities ([ref](http://www.aut.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=1495)).
3. The rest of the new money is needed to hire more people (reducing class sizes was one of the justifications for the topup fees).
4. The AUTs claim of a “meltdown” is exaggurated and most finalists are unaffected by the boycott ([ref](http://www.ucea.ac.uk/index.aspx?ContentId=78&bc=Consultations&p=Consultations)).
Q: Why are they boycotting marking?
The lecturers are claiming they have suffered wage reduction equivalent to 40% in real terms over the past twenty years, and that using the threat of disruption to students as a negotiation weapon is the only way to make the universities commit to the pay rise they want.
Q: How much do they actually earn?
The average salary for lecturers is £35,000/yr. New lecturers start at about £20k-£25k. Exact figures vary, UMIST gives £23,643 ([ref](http://www2.umist.ac.uk/staff/personnel/salaryscales/academic.htm)) and SALSA gives £26,187 ([ref](http://salsa.susu.org/)). Professors can get in the region of £50-£60k/yr ([ref](http://www.acu.ac.uk/policyandresearch/chemsurveys/1062164120.pdf)). According to the Guardian pay has consistently risen above the rate of inflation for the past 20 years. Academics are given annual pay rises under the terms of the current pay agreement.
According to the AUT, academics have had a 9% pay rise sinced 2001. The universities claim that between 2001 and 2005 academics would have had a 25% pay rise ([ref](http://education.guardian.co.uk/specialreports/lecturerspay/story/0,,1689437,00.html)), using statistics from the [National Statistics Office](http://www.statistics.gov.uk/). The unions dispute that claim using statistics from the [Higher Education Statistics Agency](http://www.hesa.ac.uk/). The average graduate starting salary is £20,000, though as the qualifications needed are different this is not directly comparable.
Academic pay in the UK is roughly the same as in Europe ([ref](http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/152/F0/ACF616.pdf)). The numbers of professors becoming millionaires through commercialisation of their research is rapidly increasing ([ref](http://www.thes.co.uk/story.aspx?story_id=2027316)), though obviously this is a minority of academics.
Professor Richards, an unabashed multimillionaire, said: “Academics are making money on an unprecedented scale. I can think of 20 millionaires in Oxford alone. It is catching. My young colleagues can see that I have made a lot and yet I do normal work and haven’t sold my soul. This is also now accepted by academic peers.”
Q: Where does the 30% pay decline/40% pay rise figure come from? Who are they comparing themselves against?
This statistic is oft quoted but is the source of quite some confusion. The decline being talked about is relative – they claim pay has increased, but not as fast as it has for everybody else. The unions claim that when pay rises in professions of equivalent skill are taken into account their pay has therefore “declined”. The value given is a 30% decline, therefore a 40% rise would be needed to get back up level as 30/70 = ~42% ([ref](http://plan99.net/~mike/blog/2006/05/23/lecturers-pay/#comment-1504)).
The earliest this statistic appeared was an AUT press release from 1998 ([ref](http://web.archive.org/web/19991009114730/www.aut.org.uk/news/press98/pr98055.htm)). The figure re-appeared in 1999 through “the Bett Report”, a white paper issued by a committee set up to investigate pay in higher education. It is named after Sir Michael Bett, the chairman of the committee, which was comprised of 5 union members, 5 university members and 5 independents ([ref](http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:QCPYdxLxTdIJ:www.uwic.ac.uk/sll/assignment/The%2520Independent%2520Review%2520Committee%2520on%2520HE%2520Pay%2520and%2520Conditions%2520%E2%80%A6.pdf+bett+committee&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=6&client=firefox-a)).
Unfortunately this report costs £235 ([ref](http://www.tsoshop.co.uk/bookstore.asp?FO=1159966&Action=Book&From=SearchResults&ProductID=011702435X)) so I can’t give more details on how they arrived at this figure. I have only been able to find one reference to how “equivalent skill” was determined, what professions were included, whether this includes professions with unusually high salaries like CEOs etc. A report by The Times indicates the comparison was made to top public sector and civil service jobs such as police chief superintendent, and not to the equivalent private sector jobs for each subject ([ref](http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx?story_id=2029892)). One of the authors of the Bett report is quoted as saying:
“The last figures I looked at for mainstream levels [lecturers A and B] show they are not far off the middle of the general market in both the public and private sectors. Senior jobs were a long way off the market [at the time of the Bett report] and probably still are.” He added that there was no doubt that some of the more generously funded parts of the public sector “have very good salaries by comparison”.
The [SALSA](http://salsa.susu.org/) (Students Against Lecturer Strike Action) website gives the following table:
April 2001 April 2005 % Increase
| HE Teaching Professionals | £33,758 -£40,607 20.3% |
| All Professionals | £31,309 £36,795 17.5% |
| All Employees | £23,384 £26,884 15.0% |
It is based on statistics from the “Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings” report by the Office of National Statistics. The raw data collected by the ONS can be viewed [here](http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=14203).
Q: Why can’t academics who want better pay just move to a different university?
Salaries in academia are decided by national negotiations between the unions and UCEA. Academics are not paid relative to performance, so better lecturers cannot simply move somewhere else to earn more. Attempts to introduce performance related pay have met with failure due to union opposition ([ref](http://www.aut.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=403)). Instead pay is mostly determined by length of service ([ref](http://www.haygroup.co.uk/News/Press_room/downloads/pay_in_HE_time_for_change.pdf)).
Q: What are the alternatives to marking boycotts?
A variety of alternatives exist:
1. A research boycott
2. Getting a job outside of academia (in those cases where better pay actually exists)
3. Announcing a refusal to teach a new years intake before they arrive
4. Boycotting administration work
Q: I heard something about a merger …. ?
AUT and NATFHE have agreed to merge some time ago and the merger will complete in June/July. AUT has a reputation for being much less militant than NATFHE, some have theorised the action was triggered by the internal politics of which organisation is most influential in the new conglomerate ([ref](http://education.guardian.co.uk/specialreports/lecturerspay/story/0,,1724852,00.html)).
Q: What do graduate employers say?
The Association of Graduate Recruiters has advised employers to assume graduates get their degree, or delay the start of jobs. They have asked employers not to discriminate against the graduates of 2006 because their degrees may have been awarded by a different means to normal. You can read the [full letter here](http://plan99.net/~mike/agr-email.txt).
Q: So will I graduate on time?!
AUT has instructed its members to not mark exams at all until the dispute is resolved, NAFTHE has adopted a “mark and park” policy meaning results will be released as soon as the dispute is over. Unionisation differs widely between departments and universities, how affected you are is basically pot luck.
Q: More info please?
Look at [the AUT Boycott Petition](http://www.aut-boycott.co.uk/), [official AUT website](http://www.aut.org.uk), the [Guardian Coverage](http://education.guardian.co.uk/specialreports/lecturerspay/), or [UCEA - employers association](http://www.ucea.ac.uk).
Got something to say? Leave your comments below!
(here is a backlink to [lecturers pay](http://plan99.net/~mike/blog/2006/05/23/lecturers-pay/) for google)
Done forever, wheeee!
OK so I haven’t actually graduated yet, and due to the lecturers industrial action (more on that later) I don’t know when or if I will. But at least the exams are over.
Life began yesterday at 5:30, and it began with lots of beer 
* [The Oil Drum](http://www.theoildrum.com/) is a discussion forum for debating the issues surrounding [peak oil](http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/). Peak Oil is perhaps one of the most important forces that will impact our future in the next 20-50 years – if the worst case scenarios come true, being prepared for it could literally be the difference between life or death
* I already plugged [DamnInteresting](http://www.damninteresting.com) – it’s a blog where they post well written, well researched and always interesting mini articles about stuff. They’re the sort of thing you can read in 5 minutes before lunch. Highly recommended.
* Money is so ubiquitous it’s easy to think of it as Just The Way Things Are, kind of a natural consequence of the universe existing. But it’s actually a tool, one that can be designed to achieve certain effects. In his most excellent book, [The Future of Money](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0712699910/qid=1146174717/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/203-8768272-2530346), Bernard Leitaer talks about how money works, and how to design complementary currencies to achieve various social goals (like increasing care for the elderly). Now I found [the International Journal of Community Currency Research](http://www.le.ac.uk/ulmc/ijccr/), which publishes articles on this topic and also runs a mailing list. The latest volume includes an article by Mr Lietaer (a well known banker) himself.
* The [AppArmor vs SELinux debate](http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/399437/focus=399437) trundles on. [Joshua Brindle summed it up](http://securityblog.org/brindle/2006/04/19/security-anti-pattern-path-based-access-control/#comments) and I responded in the comments section (unfortunately the formatting got a bit mangled at the start there…..) – in short, the argument revolves around the fact that AppArmor restricts access to paths, and paths can be ambiguous (eg chroots/hardlinks/namespaces). The AA guys claim these features are exotic and rarely used and that the usability improvement is worth it, the SELinux guys claim that AA is “broken” because an unconfined app could help a confined app escape, the AA guys claim that wasn’t a part of their threat profile anyway, the SELinux guys say it’s broken again and so around we go. I’m reminded of some of the autopackage debates here ….
* The judge who ran the Da Vinci Code case has [embedded his own code into the judgement](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4949488.stm)
* Will our cars one day be powered by flywheels spinning at 10,000rpm? [This guy thinks so](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.05/flywheel.html).
* Despite having a completely custom captch on our web forums, they’re still getting spammed. Ideas for how this is happening welcome. The only one I can come up with are that when a bot finds a forum it can’t post to it calls a human for help. Possibly making the post fail silently so the bot thinks it posted successfully but really didn’t would help.
* I finish full time education on Monday!! Not long now! OK maybe that’s only interesting to me ….
Well, amusing if you’re a student anyway …
["Horim"](http://www.echoesintime.com/catalog/s.cgi?sf=det.setup.cgi&item=NGTY001Z&submit_search=yes) are the sole form of clothing worn by men in some primitive mountain villages of Papua, New Guinea. What we might call nearly naked, they consider fully and fashionably clothed. They are also used as pockets to hold cash, cigarettes, and other items. This cool and practical tropical garb offends the government of Indonesia, who tried to ban it:
[According to Google](http://www.google.com/trends?q=porn&ctab=0&date=all&geo=all) the London suburb of Brentford is the 3rd most common source of searches for porn, beating out Delhi, Chicago and San Diego. But us Brits have limitless ambition – the first and second horniest cities are (drumroll …..) Birmingham and Manchester. Anybody familiar with these areas will understand.
Brought to you by [the infinite cat project](http://www.infinitecat.com/) ….
… scientific proof of what has long been suspected; some people have way too much time on their hands
[If you haven't already watched this, watch it now](http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/ultimate+showdown/)
And finally [Chuck Norris comments](http://tvsquad.com/2006/01/12/chuck-norris-on-chuck-norris-facts/) on the [Chuck Norris fact generator](http://4q.cc/index.php?pid=fact&person=chuck) …
… and then round-house kicks you in the face.
Google now make statistics on search queries available to web masters. The verification process is easy and fast, and once completed you can see what Googlebot is doing on your site, what the top keywords are and most interestingly where it ranks in various popular queries. Here’s the output for plan99.net:
Top search query clicks (ie what people actually went to the site to see):
1. “shared library” — average top position: 10
2. “mike hearn” — average top position: 2
3. “disadvantages of gcj compiler” — average top position: 6
4. “C++ Hacks” — average top position: 1 (lol)
I’m kind of surprised people are actually searching for the disadvantages of GCJ. Doubly surprising my blog ranks on it – whilst it’s not perfect I like GCJ a lot.
Other search terms we rank highly for but aren’t clicked on ….
“gtk windows” (why??)
“autopackage” (no surprises there)
“linux problems” (hehe)
“chat soi” (it’s matching on some symbol names in a JPEG dumper program I wrote)
“xcomposite get window pixmap” (yay, dumping knowledge tidbits into a blog post works!)
“modern day knight” (this is the title of Curtis’ blog)
“ninja stuff” (nuff said, we are at 11 on this …. more ninja stuff needed clearly)
“files” (we rank at 38 here ?!?)
“uni saarland” (go Hongli!)
“gl ext texture from pixmap” (at position 3)
Just bought Sashas “Airdrawndagger” album. I love it. It’s the best revision music you could want.
From May 2nd New York Times:
HARARE, Zimbabwe, April 25 — How bad is inflation in Zimbabwe? Well, consider this: at a supermarket near the center of this tatterdemalion capital, toilet paper costs $417.
No, not per roll. Four hundred seventeen Zimbabwean dollars is the value of a single two-ply sheet. A roll costs $145,750 — in American currency, about 69 cents.
The price of toilet paper, like everything else here, soars almost daily, spawning jokes about an impending better use for Zimbabwe’s $500 bill, now the smallest in circulation.
