Lev Lafayette's journal

Although the trip to South America and Antarctica for Kate and me is two months away, there have been a few progressive and positive changes as that date nears. The first is a very recent decision from Chile that Australian passport holders no longer require a tourist visa for stays up to 90 days. That is quite beneficial, as there are a couple of visits to said country on the itinerary, including the capital, Santiago, and Punta Arenas in Tierra del Fuego. The second was a visit to the Travel Doctor-TMVC for a few various vaccines and boosters in preparation for the trip, of which the Yellow fever vaccine was most notable. I still had my WHO vaccine card from the last time I visited said clinic over twenty years ago for my first trip to Timor-Leste, and have carried it around with my passport ever since!

A third update is a decision by yours truly to flesh out the itinerary for various cities and towns that we're visiting that's not part of the standard tour. Unsurprisingly, this will include over fifty museums, art galleries, theatres, historic buildings and the like, which this lover of art and beauty cannot ignore, no matter what country I visit. Said locales include Santiago, Lima, Cusco, Buenos Aires, Punta Arenas, Ushuaia, Stanley, and Montevideo, so if any readers have recommendations they are very welcome. What I haven't done yet is work out what to do on the several days on the cruise ship from Buenos Aires to Antarctica and return, which I suspect will be quite boring, and I'll end up spending most of my time either in the theatre, gym, or dining. Fortunately, a deck plan is available.

Finally, with some prior learning and a great deal of recent interest, I have spent a good amount of time building my Spanish language skills in recent months to the point that I feel fairly comfortable with B1 CEFR level communication. Most of this has been through Duolingo, as always. However, being of a certain age, I have also joined and enrolled in the Spanish language and literature classes conducted by the Melbourne city University of the Third Age. I must confess I prefer the current French title (which the concept originated in 1973) as "Union Française des Universités de Tous Ages". Still, each body is independent and makes its own rules, and I rather suspect I'm going to enjoy this environment.

In the past three evenings, I have found myself attending three China National Day events, even though all these celebrations are a week early, as the National Day is actually October 1st. The first was organised by a consortium of Chinese community organisations and was attended by some five hundred people, all crammed into a reception centre in Tottenham. As I have mentioned previously, the Chinese in Victoria really know how to hold amazing functions, and this was no exception, with a truly impressive program of dancers, singers, and performances. There were, of course, speeches by several guests, including the chair of the National Day Celebration Committee, the Consul-General, the Multicultural Commissioner, a few state members of parliament, and myself, courtesy of my role as president of the Victorian branch of the Australia-China Friendship Society. It seemed to be received well, as I injected a bit of passion into the idea that multiculturalism requires respect and understanding, along with celebrating the economic and technological successes of the country; Lǜ shuǐ qīngshān jiùshì jīnshān yín shān ("Green mountains and clear waters are worth more than mountains of gold and silver").

The following evening was an event in East Melbourne hosted by the Consulate and attended not only by various leaders of Chinese organisations in Victoria, but also by political leaders from Victoria, again with about five hundred people in attendance. The Consul-General, Fang Xinwen, gave a speech that was as diplomatic as it was poignant, expressing the country's commitment to economic leadership and being a global citizen. The premier, Jacina Allen, having just returned from a very successful trip to China, spoke of the objectives for tourism, trade, education, technology, and especially the need to develop people-to-people connections. Speeches were also given by the state leader of the opposition, and by the Federal member for Chisolm, Dr Carina Garland.

Then, the evening after, a smaller (about 60 people) but incredibly enthusiastic dinner was hosted by the Fujian Association of Victoria in Docklands for a visiting delegation from said province. The head of the delegation, the Deputy Director-General of the Foreign Affairs Office, gave an impressive speech in content and the fact that it was lengthy and entirely off-the-cuff. The nature of this gathering afforded a lot more time for socialising and networking, which I thoroughly enjoyed, especially given that it was now the third evening in a row that I had spent with some of the attendees. A real personal highlight for me was meeting Dr Guo Xiaoping, president of Quanzhou University of Information Engineering. We are already engaged in some correspondence on a project of personal interest, but further elaboration on that will have to wait for another time.

The past several days, courtesy of my great book giveaway, I've had several bookish visitors gracing my abode. The sort of person who is interested in my academic books tends to be a person with a vibrant curiosity, so it has inevitably led to long and fertile discussions across the arts, the sciences, and the laws (to use the contemporary trivium). This has included Elliot B., Marc C., Liza D., Kate R., and, as interstate visitors, Dylan G., and Adrian S. It's been several years since I last saw Dylan, a former co-worker from VPAC days, so that was an excellent evening. Inverting the style, I visited Brendan E.'s new abode in Northcote, where he gifted me a first print copy of Wired magazine, which now, appropriately, sits next to my Mondo2000 User's Guide; cyberpunk forever. I have further updated my free book giveaway, this time with a small mountain of texts in computer science.

Other interstate visitors cam the week previous in the form of Lara D., and Adam B., from the Territory, and we had a glorious time at the French Impressionists at the NGV, after joining Anton W with a visit to the State Library where there is an excellent and highly recomended Misinformation exhibit. Of course, the works of the famous artists were at the NGV; Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, et al, but the one which really caught my attention was Fantin-Latour, whose simple subject matter made his skill in texture all the more clear. A few days later I would visit the NGV at Federation Square with Liana F., which always has excellent indigenous artworks, and the evening previous Liza D and I ventured to the Northcote Social Club (fine venue) to see Guy Blackman from Chapter records perform for his first album in "quite a while". His lyrical talent is really quite special, and his stage presence curiously enticing, and the self-deprecating humour pleasing. Certainly, this will be worthy of a Rocknerd review.

Going further back, I was thoroughly charmed to attend Nitul D's family gathering for Ganesh Chaturthi Puja, and a few days later, I would join him again, attending the 2025 Hugh Anderson Lecture by Marilyn Lake "Rapprochement with China" at the Royal Historical Society. Dr Lake was able to give some impressive history, a great deal of regional context and, of course, had a few words to say about AUKUS. It was the first time I'd been in the RHS building, a late-deco establishment and once a military hospital. Another one of Melbourne's hidden gems. On similar subjects, I must mention Dr Wesa C's birthday gathering last week at Vault Bar, a delightful little place and, as the name suggests, a former bank vault. It should be mentioned that Wesa is a bit of a hidden gem herself, and I had no prior knowledge of her singing talent!

In the next few weeks, I will be speaking on two very different topics. The first on September 13, hosted by the Melbourne Agnostics Society, will be on "Stoicism, Taoism and Apathy", where I'll be wearing my hat as the University Outreach Officer for the International Society for Philosophers (yes, there is such a thing). I promise that the presentation may be quite different from what one might assume from the title! I am not giving too much away, however, in previewing that there is a great deal of similarity in what could be called the psychological versions of Stoicism and Taoism, although even this touches upon a common physics and even metaphysics that correlates with the two: the Logos and the Dao.

The second presentation is part of the "New Zealand Research Software Engineering Conference" on September 23-24. Despite my deep wish to have another excuse to return to the home country, this conference is being held entirely online. My presentation, with the truly riveting title "Programming Principles in a High Performance Computing Environment", will provide both an overview of the current postgraduate cohort's programming experience, their needs, and the relevant training courses that I conduct at the University of Melbourne, especially in relation to high performance and parallel code. It will dovetail quite well with recent workshops that I conducted last week on "Regular Expressions with Linux" and "GPGPU Programming", along with near-future workshops on "Mathematical Applications and Programming" and the ever-popular "High Performance and Parallel Python".

Finally, on a related note, many would have seen from photos on Facebook that I am giving away a number of academic and general books, spanning my rather diverse interests; about five hundread in total and a shared Google Drive folder has been created for those who wish to peruse, with more (especially from business studies and computer science) forthcoming. I suspect after this, the next giveaway will be from my fiction books and then from my rather vast music collection. All of this is in aid of finding happy homes for various useful things that I don't have a strong emotional attachment to, creating more space within my abode, and, ultimately, thinking of where I will live for the next chapter in my life. But that is in a couple of years at least; nobody has ever accused me of acting with only short-term in mind.

Darwin is not exactly known for being the cultural centre of Australia, but it does its best during its Festival and Fringe Festival. It's a particularly good time to visit in the dry season, where every day is 30 degrees, blue skies and a cool morning breeze, especially as a break from Melbourne's wintery touch (which I also love). The past several days have been in the fine company of Lara and Adam at MrBlueSky, where I also had the delight of catching up with Gary, Mon, Jac, and Shu on different occasions, and every evening there was an opportunity to soak up some fine entertainment.

A personal highlight was "John Schumann & The Vagabond Crew" performing the songs of Redgum. It's not my usual style of music, but they are the most notable radical Australian folk band that has ever walked in the country, and the musicianship was utterly superb. I felt like a teenager getting John to sign my copy of "If You Don't Fight You Lose", but I justified it on the grounds that I have been listening to this album since my teenage years; this will be a Rocknerd review. Another event also worthy of special note was "Duck Pond", a fusion of acrobatics, ballet, and theatre and a fusion story of Swan Lake and The Ugly Duckling. Understandably, I couldn't help but think of the RuneQuest scenario of the same name. Further, there is the excellent musicianship and storytelling of Fred Leone, whose self-taught upside-down southpaw guitar-playing is just a small testimony to his abilities.

Other events included a visit to the Northern Territory Art Gallery and Museum (MAGNT) which was hosting the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA), the video artistry of Shundori", the impressive and moving Zhangke Jia film Caught by the Tides, and the impressive aerialist performance of "La Ronde". In contrast, I was less taken by Bangarra Dance Theatre's "Illume", mainly because it didn't provide what was said on the tin, or the Sydney alternative-improv "Party Dozen", although kudos to the young punk local support act "Tang" who had plenty of energy and style.

The time seemed to go quickly, and the view of the Darwin harbour from my co-owned apartment always gives the opportunity for reflection, consolidation of thoughts, and quiet strategic preparation for the future. It is, without a doubt, one of the finest places for a short visit, and I can certainly understand why some people feel the desire to move on a more permanent basis, although I am a long way from such considerations myself. I will, once again, take this opportunity to thank Lara and Adam for their absolutely superb hosting and care of this Southerner's visit and for showing me many highlights of their home town. Doubtless, I will return again soon.

I've boarded the silver bird and landed in Darwin, where I'll be staying in Mr Blue Sky in Darwin City, which I still have to remind myself that I am a co-owner. Co-owner Lara and tenant Adam have been wonderful hosts to me, with Cocoa rabbit, the 11-year-old spritely dwarf, providing great entertainment as always. The weather here is of magnificent quality; consistently in the high twenties, clear skies, and gentle cool breezes off Darwin harbour with delightful views across to the National Park. From this vantage point, it's all rather idyllic.

There are nominal household matters to sort out, but it is a convenient time for the Darwin Festival. I have a lifelong interest in aesthetics, which I have to grudgingly accord myself a modest analytical ability. From metaphor, referentiality, creativity, technique, persistence, and connections, I must also confess some apparent predictive skill when evaluating the future success of self-proclaimed artists. Darwin's contribution to the fine arts is not exactly famous, being small and distant, but there are plenty of opportunities in the programme which will receive a fair review in the week to come.

In the meantime, I was blessed yesterday with a second opportunity to visit to the Menzies School of Health Research (Charles Darwin University) (not to be confused with the Menzies Institute for Medical Research (University of Tasmania), let alone the Menzies Research Centre of the Liberal Party. The Darwin Menzies centre particularly interests me as they have a small high performance computing system, which has a few file system and management issues, but nevertheless great to see that it's there! I was hosted by Anto Trimarsanto, a medical researcher in malaria (specifically Plasmodium vivax), who also dutifully informed me that Menzies has an outpost in Timor-Leste. My brain is now working on how to combine these multiple interests.

I find myself in the situation where I have a number of "almost finished" diverse projects nearing completion and several social activities worthy of mention, but without a common and unifying theme. The first involves an essay I'm composing out of pure love following several Shakespearean events which my mind raises the question: "Why Shakespeare?" After all, there were many excellent playwrights and other artists during the English Renaissance, but here we are still looking toward The Bard almost five hundred years later. It is an extraordinary achievement by any measure, and I have a few thoughts on the matter which I will circulate in the near future. Also in the "coming soon" category is a review of "Bleak Squad" at the Queenscliff Town Hall, a sort of 90s supergroup made up from members of Dirty Three, The Bad Seeds, Magic Dirt, and Art of Fighting, which I attended with Kate R., who rather delightfully took me out to see them and spend an evening at the 19th century Vue Grand Hotel (their website is so bad I won't link it). Band member Mick Harvey was also present at the lodgings, and I took the opportunity to mention how much I liked his work in "The Birthday Party". The overnight stay was also an opportunity to visit my old friend Lyle A., who now lives in the region, and also to see the famous "Black Lighthouse", apparently one of only four in the world to have such a hue.

On the RPG side of things, I notably joined Liz, Karl, Gavin, Phil, and Dan for an in-person session of "Dragonbane" on Sunday. This game is derived from the almost-mythic "Drakar och Demoner" Swedish RPG from the early 1980s, which itself was "very heavily" derived from Chaosium's Magic World booklet from Worlds of Wonder. The latest incarnation still shows these roots, albeit with some newer innovations, but still with a great deal of style and design elegance. The day previous, my dear friend from Ningxia, Dr Yanping, graced my home for lunch with Kate R., and Mel S., as well (why am I always surrounded by such fabulous women?), where I experimented with an Italian-Chinese fusion cuisine. Yanping has been away from Australia for over a year, so it was a real delight to see her again, and I'm very pleased that she'll be here for an extended period, having acquired some gainful employment at Monash University. Somehow I neglected to mention attendance at Brenda L's birthday gathering in recent entries where I played the role of waiter and provider of cocktails; especially excellent conversation with Brenda, Fiona C., Matthew C. and others. This all does sound like an extensive social life, and to be fair, that has taken a good portion of the past several days. Journaling does provide a gentle reminder that I do have other serious ("boring but important") work to catch up on; the batteries have been recharged.

The past couple of weeks have resulted in some rather pleasing work-related events. The first followed a meeting with representatives of the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Western Australia which has resulted in me acquiring a test account and becoming the responsible person for approving projects that are seeking to upgrade from UniMelb's Spartan to systems like Setonix, which is the most powerful in the country and number 59 in the world (this time last year it was 28 - the landscape moves quickly!). The architecture is somewhat different to what I am used to (HPE Cray OS, HPE Cray MPI), so I'll be doing some additional learning myself and some hand-holding for researchers as they navigate and migrate data and code to this system. At the other end of the scale for the newcomers on Spartan I conducted two introductory workshops last week with some fifty attenedees. Quite a few times now, I have met researchers several years after taking my introductory courses who express their significant gratitude that I led them on the path of using high performance computing to process their data with efficiency, and hopefully, there will be a few of that nature from this cohort.

I often make the point of how supercomputers are utterly critical for current economic development with an ROI of 7:1 almost all through positive externalities, and literally save millions of lives. Could you imagine COVID-19 vaccines without HPC systems to do the simulations? We'd still be living under lockdown. Well, on a smaller scale, I was very proud to organise a researcher presentation last week for Research Computing Services (RCS) and Melbourne Data Analytics Platform (MDAP) with Dr Debjyoti Karmakar who is developing a non-invasive fetal monitoring device to prevent perinatal asphyxia for high-risk pregnancies. Dr Deb's presentation was very well received, even if he had to take a brief emergency call in the midst of it! He has been making extensive use of both the Spartan supercomputer and our Mediaflux-based data storage system, which dovetailed quite nicely with a virtual meeting a few days later with several representative from Princeton University who also are interested in integrating the HPC systems with Mediaflux, which is not as simple as it should be, but that is the nature of our work.

In my own research, I am still making good progress on studies in the psychology and sociology of climate change denial and have recently made contact with a long-standing member of the UNFCCC Accreditation Panel of Experts and Methodology Panel of Experts who shares this interest. Over the next two months or so, I am hoping to elaborate from this member's own interest on the psychological need for "belonging" and "club membership" which leads to climate science denial being strongly correlated with ideology rather than scientific evidence, and to draw a stronger correlation between this and vested interests in political economy. Ideological positions are usually strongly associated with political economy, so it should not surprise me to find such a connection, and when it comes to the damage done, there are those who are responsible, and one thing we do know from institutional and individual analysis, very few people like to take responsibility.

Several years ago, I was visited by John August of the Pirate Party as I was hosting a special dinner for visitors, and he watched with keen interest as I put together a four-course French dinner with paired drinks, music, and a multi-layered laminated menu. "You have a very organised mind", he observed kindly. Cue last Friday, and I find myself in the company of Liza D., at a multi-narrative arthouse theatrical production, "Art, War, and Other Catastrophes". It was quite an interesting show, with unexpected convergence of the past (hello Helen!) afterwards, with our discussion venturing to a slightly wayward younger friend and my consistent efforts to encourage their intellectual insight. "You would make a good father", Liza remarked, which is probably one of the nicest things that one could say to a man of my vintage. Between the two events, a moment burned in my mind is Karl B., discussing life-skills referred to what he called "shit-togetherness", the ability to manage everything from one's own mental states, to personal and household budgets, to community groups, and beyond. Karl was expressing some concern that many don't seem to acquire this skill and knowledge until their thirties, if at all.

I suggested to Karl (inspired by the skill in the Pendragon RPG, no less) that the most appropriate term was "stewardship". The word, from Old English (stigweard) itself, originally means "hall guardian". It has semi-religious overtones as well, an trend in the Judeo-Christian tradition that represents an active and responsible engagement with the environment, a point I strenously made in an address to the Unitarian Church some eight years ago, and one which our political and economic leaders have manifestly failed; we are supposed to "serve the garden in which we have been placed" (Genesis 2:15). There is a grim irony that an rational atheist and emotional pantheist finds himself appealing to Biblical verse when our nominal leaders profess a faith that they do not seem to even aspire to practise. But of course, there are very profound secular reasons as well why stewardship is the right noun to describe human interaction with our environment, rather than a protectionist laissez-faire or indifferent exploitation.

Stewardship most of all entails a sense of responsibility. Starting from oneself, it entails a sense that one will not engage in self-sabotating behaviour and put effort in making the best use of one's mind ("the mind is a terrible thing to waste") and time ("Life is short, death is long, use your time wisely"). Extended to households, whether shared or singular, it means being responsible for creating an home that is both stimulating and a sanctuary, and extended to the social world, to paraphrase Hannah Arendt, it is engagement in the public realm where social freedom, through action and dialogue, becomes manifest, within the context of the natural world as a whole. Ultimately, stewardship is the responsible and ethical planning and management of resources, whether personal, social, or environmental, and as Lamb pointed out, the greater the power, the greater the responsibility. How careless are our rulers! As Frankl remarked, without responsibility, freedom degenerates into arbitrary whims, these rampaging childish pathological monsters who crush others underfoot with their indifference.

Yesterday was the aphelion when the Earth reached the furthest distance from the sun at 157 million km (the closest distance, the perihelion, is 146 million km). It seemed appropriate on that day to describe the relatively flat shape of the solar system and how "flat earthers" need to think bigger. Interestingly, the aphelion and perihelion change with some regularity measured as Milankovitch cycles, which is a driver of long-term climate change. On that topic, I had an interview this week concerning my doctoral progress and grades to date ("mention très bien", to use the Université de Paris system). The next part of my studies is "Climate Change Denialism", which I am sure will be absolutely fascinating, having missed out on doing climate change psychology at the University of Wellington. Speaking of which, I attended a University of Wellingto alumni event on during the week with a Professor of Statistics, Peter Smith, talking on "Fluids in your phones?", about the development of liquid antenna for the next generation of mobile devices. And, to continue the theme, I have been recently offered the role to coordinate alumni events for Murdoch University here in Melbourne.

The week has also witnessed some activities in the aesthetic dimension as well. With an early submission made for Midsumma Festival, I have officially become a producer with my inaugural effort being for Liza Dezfouli's comedy-cabaret "Binosaur". Also, I have ventured out locally with Kate R., twice with aesthetics in mind, once was for Lightscape at the Botanic Gardens, which was beautiful, but rather low numbers due to drizzle, and today for a visit to the National Gallery of Victoria. This evening, I attended the awards ceremony for the Melbourne Poet's Union International Poetry Competition, which featured a marvellous and insightful speech by the well-known anarchist poet, Pi O. Finally, last night I visited ACMI for millihertz producing a rather raw and politically challenging audio-visual production with the descriptive title "Cruise Missile Intersectionality".

To finish the alliterative headings, I will conclude with some reflections on "athletics". Last week, I posted an announcement and a couple of photos of my significant weight loss over the past year (117 to 82 kgs), along with a descriptive essay on how I achieved it. I will point out that I'm not planning to lose anymore, although body composition still has room to change. I've had to hunt through my high school records - four decades in the past - to find when I had a similar weight and, in the process, have discovered my athletic records of the time, which were "quite good". I was among the best in the school for medium and long-distance running, plus I played cricket, rugby, football, and volleyball at an interschool level. But ultimately, I couldn't stand the aggressive competitiveness and the yobbish fans, and dropped out of all those activities. I hope that I can avoid all that in this rejuvenated period of my life.