Philosophy of Music and More, Rodent Concerns, Training and Papers 2015

[tcpip]

Last Sunday gave a presentation at The Philosophy Forum on The Philosophy of Music, which gave a definitional, ontological, and epistemological overview of the subject. I admit to being particularly vexed with the issue of musical criticism, and over the week thrashed the ideas out in my mind, eventually writing Notes on the Accounting of Musical Taste for Rocknerd. It was the second item I provided for said site this week, the first being a review of the latest album by Skinny Puppy, albeit some months late. Another item of musical note was the arrival of The Definitive Missing Link Recordings of The Birthday Party, which I found after some time and expenditure for caseopaya, who had said collection stolen from her many years ago.

Our neighbour's rat, Suki, whom we look after whilst she is overseas is not doing well. She's an old girl and has always been a little on the thin side. But now she's probably about three years old and is suffering from serious respiratory problems. Over the past few days she been eating very little, and her breathing has been quite laboured. After a couple of gasping and panic attacks, so we've done the right thing in terms of medications; she's spending time in steamy rooms, is now on an aggressive course of anti-biotics, and most recently we've been applying asthma medications. She also seems to enjoy spend the night sleeping on my chest. It is probably as much as we can do for the time being; her owner comes back next week and hopefully she'll be still be around for that.

A few posts ago, I suggested that I was off to Macquarie University to do high performance computer training for users. That has been delayed until January 2015. At the same time it is slated that I'll be running similar courses at the University of Sydney. In February I will be attending the wedding of caseopaya's niece in WA, and will be running a course at the University of Western Australia. For March I have just submitted a paper for eResearchNZ, and for May I have a paper in for THETA. Nothing for April thus far. All of this, of course, is in addition to the training courses conducted in Melbourne.

Comments

[ratfan.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you're looking after Suki amazingly well, even to letting her sleep on you at night! I know that the human rarely gets a good night's sleep in such an instance. Three years old is doing very well. I'm amazed by the tenacity of my old bloke Finn, who is about 2 yrs eight months, has HED and a horrible tumour on his abdomen and remains cheerful and imperious. He can't have an op due to his other health problems including lung scarring, but nothing fazes him.

Best wishes to Suki

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

It's true that I usually let her make her way back to her carry case ("the rat hospice") at some stage in the night, although you're quite right about the interrupted human sleep!

Despite her age and very obvious illness there is still a bit of strength in her. I cannot say that I am overly optimistic about her prospects for recovery. She's an old girl and her number's up, I'm afraid. We're just doing opening that somehow she'll pull through.

Finn sounds like an amazing lad. Sometimes even the worst of circumstances they seem to know how lucky they've been.

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

so what's this about Skinny Puppy music being used to torture folk at GitMo?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Apparently it was used for sleep deprivation, a tactic that has been used in the past.