Of Gods, Games, Linux and more

[tcpip]

This is a particularly long post, given my astounding neglect of livejournaldreamwidth for the past fortnight. I am feeling rather harsh on myself with a lack of sufficient 'blogging (with the dozen or so that I contribute to). Particular recent events included attending the Melbourne book launch of Life Without Money, from Frans and Anitra, a proposition which I think is a economically unsound with the book unavailable as downloadable PDF under a Creative Commons license (for example). The Unitarian Philosophy Forum met last Sunday with an excellent attendence to hear Roger Boyce provide an introduction to Buddhism and the question on whether it is a religion or philosophy. Finally, big social event of the fortnight was recumbenteer's fortieth birthday party, an excellent evening with fine food, wine, conversation a good jazz-funk fusion band (a rare form of jazz - actually tolerable) and with Jasper visiting from Perth.


Went to an small fundraising dinner run by the Progressive Atheists association, specifically for the One Law for All group. There is a very real concern that religious law is been introduced to secular countries under the guise of multicultural policy - and many members of the nominal left are utterly failing on this level, falling into relativism rather than universalism. Being sensitive to cultural contexts does not mean being entrapped by them; universal rights transcend any cultural particulars. Today's presentation at the Unitarians, by Ralph Catts, member of the Glasgow congregation, also touched upon the issue. On a related issue next Saturday the Victorian Secular Lobby is holding a meeting on "Religious Education in Public Schools: What Can We Do?"; RSVP here or via the Victorian Secular Lobby's Facebook page. The speakers for this event include Mike Stuchbery and Stephen Stuart of the Victorian Humanist Society. The Humanists have tried to introduce a secular values class for replacement for compulsory religious instruction in public schools. I also had the good fortune to hear Mr. Stuart speak last Sunday at the Unitarian Church as he gave a report on last year's World Humanist Congress in Oslo.

Much of the past fortnight has been spent putting the final touches on RPG Review 13 and 14, a 128 page special double issue on D20 games and Planescape. A very late interview from Crafty Games came in, requiring a fair bit of reformatting, plus I needed to finish a 20 page article which tries to convert the stats given in Horror on the Orient Express and the Masks of Nyarlathotep, two of the greatest Call fo Cthulhu adventures, to D20 Call of Cthulhu. The experience, a damn difficult one, illustrated to me that the two systems are not as obviously convertible as one may think. The next issue of RPG review will be dedicated to independent games, the punk fanzines of the gaming community, with an interview with Liz Danforth. An interesting temporal and structural correlation will be be between independent systems and narrativism. For the last fortnight, games I've played or run include Agon, which worked very well, Pathfinder Planescape and Pendragon. Looking forward to GURPS Korea today and Best Friends next Thursday.

Last Tuesday was the first meeting of the year for Linux Users of Victoria; Andrew Chalmers gave a well-received presentation on micro-kernels and the GNU Hurd project in particular. In lieu of a second speaker there was edited compilation of the keynote speakers from Linux Conference Australia; the full collection of video presentations are readily available (with yours truly acting as MC in a number of speeches). A couple of recent public pieces of work from yours truly include brief remarks on how to add content the body of Drupal nodes and more importantly (and one I neglected previously in a previous post), a response from an otherwise good site, clients from hell for en masse conversion of documents to PDF. Looking forward to Multicore World in New Zealand next month, where I'll be taking up MC duties again.

Comments

[mellotron_breakfast]

It's nice to hear from you that things continue to go well.

[tcpip]

Thanks! I do feel a little embarrassed not posting as often as I should. Long posts really do lack the "this is an update" feel to them.

Mind you, I've seen people post annually.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fustian/]

how to add content the body of Drupal nodes

Dude! hook_nodeapi/hook_node_view. (You could even do it in node.tpl.php, if you're not going to be switching themes.) Otherwise you've just created an ongoing maintenance issue.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Intriguing, I asked on the Drupal support list what would be the best way to do this before going down the SQL path and didn't receive this suggestion. One member of the list did end up writing a module, all of all things, that did the same task as the one line of SQL...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fustian/]

It might have been the way you phrased it. My suggested solutions don't actually alter the body text of the nodes in question in the database (rather, only during display), so they would not retain the additions if the nodes were, say, exported somewhere else. To actually change the text of current nodes, SQL probably the simplest solution (although it's not the Drupal Way, which would be to use node_load/node_save in a module or PHP-filter page)—although you'd also want a solution (eg. a module which uses hook_nodeapi/hook_node_presave) to auto-append the same text to any new nodes.

Also, modules are surprisingly simple to write. I feel it's good practice to routinely create a catch-all custom-features module for each new Drupal install, so little bits of functionality like this can be implemented quickly and easily. (Coincidentally, I'm hacking on exactly such a module right now—or would be, had I not taken a break to read some social media. :)

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

"a rare form of jazz - actually tolerable"
How square can you get !
Louis Armstrong's Hot Five , Duke Ellington , Charlie Parker , John Coltrane , etc .

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I've never liked jazz, nor most of its subgenres. To me it sounds like a type of aural wallpaper.

Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane... yeah, I've listened to them, but it's not for me.

I've been called many things but 'square' is probably not very appropriate.

The short list is:

I like baroque and gallant, gospel, chanson réaliste, psychedelia, afro-beat, progressive, punk, funk, minimalism, goth, acid house, industrial, trip-hop, electronica.

I don't like blues, nearly all forms of jazz, soul, ska, brass, folk, disco, adult contemporary, country, western, pub rock, and rap.

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

Chacun à son goût !
I also like Bach , Händel , Mozart , Stravinsky , Indian Ragas and Chinese and Thai classical music .

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I do confess a liking for regional classical music (especially Javanese and Balinese) but consider myself insufficiently experienced to make an opinion on the matter.

And yes, taste does vary a great deal. Such is the subjective...

Wow ...

[nvcarnie.livejournal.com]

Wow, I had no idea about the religious instruction in schools. For whatever reason, that seemed like a wholly American problem. I don't know whether to fee relieved that others argue & fight about it too or be disappointed that the rest of the world isn't ahead of our stupid bickering over this.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Religious instruction didn't exist in public schools for a long time in this state. I cannot fathom what was in the minds of the politicians when they made the decision to introduce it, but it is screamingly obvious that it must be reversed.

Obviously, I don't have any problem with references to religion in history or even, if it has sufficient merit, literature. I would even be happy with reference to religious traditions in a secular ethics and civics class.

In this particular case the U.S. I believe is ahead of what is happening in Victoria. I specify Victoria rather than Australia, because of the particular localisation we have here. Oddly enough, it was Victoria which had the slogan "free, secular and compulsory" for over one hundred years as its absolute foundation.

[nvcarnie.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree. This would never happen in the US; although, I think that there are probably some rural counties in rural states that still teach creationism, evolution as a 'theory', etc. There are definitely southern state sports teams which have prayer as a central part of their ritual.

It sounds completely crazy that the law passed in Victoria. :-/

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering how it happened as well (and I was here at the time!).

From what I can reconstruct..

a) there were big petitions by the religious groups to introduce it as a voluntary system.
b) there was disquiet but no organised opposition from the teacher's union et al.
c) it was proposed by a left-wing minister for education
d) the department legally interpreted "may" as "must"
e) now it's actually implement the unions et al are kicking up a fuss.

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

Australia bears a strong resemblance to ancient Athens in the times of Plato and Aristotle .
In the northen hemisphere it's more a case of "O tempora , o mores !"

[orionii59.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6M_6qOz-yw

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

A causa é boa, mas o comportamento é errado. Não para "spam".