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As mentioned in the past, the only thing that could slow down my writing this year is gainful employment. Well, it appears I have landed just that - with the Boderlands Coooperative, a fairly well organized association of several community organizations sharing administrative and technical resources. Their superb library is enormous! My task (quelle surprise) is systems adminstration and web development. Whilst only a couple of days a week, it does mean reworking my previous plans for written output.
Speakiing of such things In the meantime, I should have section 4-1 of my thesis completed today. I've raised the possibility that the printing press, or specifically the movable type printing press with ideographic script, is perhaps the most revolutionary invention of modernity. No Protestant reformation, no scientific advances, no consolidation of trade and plunder without it. All I have left to do is the section that questions the prospect of modern to postmodern transorfmations. Seeming that I have already written it, this should be pretty easy.
I'm now a confirmed speaker at the System Administrator's Guild of Australia 2004 Conference. I've also pitched an application (albeit late) for the QuestNet conference. So Brisbane/Queensland people can expect to see me later in the year.
In the meantime, I've been doing so unpaid national sysadmin for East Timor (again). There were several frantic emails this past fortnight as ConnectIE changed offices and IANA required notification from Xanana Gusmao to accept the change of national authoritative domain hosts. This proved to be a lot more difficult than it should have.
To keep with a theme of a new recipe per post, here's an aussie mullet I cooked up recently.
( Read more... )
Severina_242 and I are off to New Zealand! We're leaving Melbourne on May 12 and returning on the 18th. We'll start in Christchurch, follow the east coast to Dunedin, then onto Invercargill (my birthplace, awww!) and then up to the crazy locale of Queenstown and then back to Christchurch. Should be fun to say the least, although I suspect it's going to be bloody freezing.
Recent attempts to rewrite history over East Timor is pissing me off. Let's state some facts. The Australian government knew that there was going to be milita violence prior to the August 1999 referendum. Not only that, but the Australian government knew that there was a direct link between the militia and the highest levels of the Indonesian military. The Australian government refused to share this information either with the United Nations or the United States, let alone the East Timorese. The Australian government refused to establish a multilateral peacekeeping force prior to poll, despite being invited to do so by the United States. The Australian government adopted a "defeatist" strategy, and was quite happy to have a thousand people killed, 85% of the infrastructure destroyed and 250 000 forced from their homes if that meant that relations with Jakarata remained undisturbed.
It was mass protests and union action (and a very disappointed United States) that eventually forced the government's hand. Within four days the Indonesian government capitulated and let in a multilateral peacekeeping force. Something that Australia deliberately resisted for months.
Baralier brings to me attention that Dungeons and Dragons is now thirty years old. Not only have I been playing for twenty three of those thirty years, I also own an original "white box" set. Ahh, where the joys nerdom and an interest in history meet.
On a related theme of bending-minds, David Cake (who I can't find on LJ..) has provided me a link to a very, very gothic garden - full of psychedelics and poisons. Whilst remaining on a natural theme, the poor residents of the exclusive Melbourne city of Kew are getting their knickers in a knot over bats. Just as well they managed to get the indigenous humans out of there a long time ago, eh?
In a terribly unnatural manner, caseopaya wins the award this post for breaking my brain. Giant mobile bunny slippers!
Finally, just to pull our relative wealth into a global perspective... How rich are you?
How rich are you?
Speakiing of such things In the meantime, I should have section 4-1 of my thesis completed today. I've raised the possibility that the printing press, or specifically the movable type printing press with ideographic script, is perhaps the most revolutionary invention of modernity. No Protestant reformation, no scientific advances, no consolidation of trade and plunder without it. All I have left to do is the section that questions the prospect of modern to postmodern transorfmations. Seeming that I have already written it, this should be pretty easy.
I'm now a confirmed speaker at the System Administrator's Guild of Australia 2004 Conference. I've also pitched an application (albeit late) for the QuestNet conference. So Brisbane/Queensland people can expect to see me later in the year.
In the meantime, I've been doing so unpaid national sysadmin for East Timor (again). There were several frantic emails this past fortnight as ConnectIE changed offices and IANA required notification from Xanana Gusmao to accept the change of national authoritative domain hosts. This proved to be a lot more difficult than it should have.
To keep with a theme of a new recipe per post, here's an aussie mullet I cooked up recently.
( Read more... )
Severina_242 and I are off to New Zealand! We're leaving Melbourne on May 12 and returning on the 18th. We'll start in Christchurch, follow the east coast to Dunedin, then onto Invercargill (my birthplace, awww!) and then up to the crazy locale of Queenstown and then back to Christchurch. Should be fun to say the least, although I suspect it's going to be bloody freezing.
Recent attempts to rewrite history over East Timor is pissing me off. Let's state some facts. The Australian government knew that there was going to be milita violence prior to the August 1999 referendum. Not only that, but the Australian government knew that there was a direct link between the militia and the highest levels of the Indonesian military. The Australian government refused to share this information either with the United Nations or the United States, let alone the East Timorese. The Australian government refused to establish a multilateral peacekeeping force prior to poll, despite being invited to do so by the United States. The Australian government adopted a "defeatist" strategy, and was quite happy to have a thousand people killed, 85% of the infrastructure destroyed and 250 000 forced from their homes if that meant that relations with Jakarata remained undisturbed.
It was mass protests and union action (and a very disappointed United States) that eventually forced the government's hand. Within four days the Indonesian government capitulated and let in a multilateral peacekeeping force. Something that Australia deliberately resisted for months.
Baralier brings to me attention that Dungeons and Dragons is now thirty years old. Not only have I been playing for twenty three of those thirty years, I also own an original "white box" set. Ahh, where the joys nerdom and an interest in history meet.
On a related theme of bending-minds, David Cake (who I can't find on LJ..) has provided me a link to a very, very gothic garden - full of psychedelics and poisons. Whilst remaining on a natural theme, the poor residents of the exclusive Melbourne city of Kew are getting their knickers in a knot over bats. Just as well they managed to get the indigenous humans out of there a long time ago, eh?
In a terribly unnatural manner, caseopaya wins the award this post for breaking my brain. Giant mobile bunny slippers!
Finally, just to pull our relative wealth into a global perspective... How rich are you?
How rich are you?