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Wattstax, Academia, Computing
Jan. 15th, 2008 02:43 pmLast thursday night went to ACMI with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
a_carnal_mink and caseopaya to see Wattstax. Prior to the film spent some time in the ACMI Gaming Lab and played some Castle Crashers, and visited Chloe's Bar (doc file). The film itself included Rev. Jesse Jackson's famous "I am Somebody" speech and hilarious commentary by Richard Pryor with music from numerous gospel, blues, soul, and funk performers including the deep beauty of Isaac Hayes (aka Chef from South Park), the humour of Rufus Thomas, and the glam of the Bar Kays (YouTube video from the film). A very enjoyable evening to say the the least.
I have started an online version of the course at the University of Texas on Marxian Economics, which looks reasonably comprehensive judging by the course notes and have contributed significantly to the initial discussions, including a paper on qualitative transformations due to quantitative change (even if the course coordinator thinks I'm from Melbourne, Florida). On a somewhat related topic, I do take the opportunity to express annoyance that the political right always seems to claim the ground of being the better economic managers. Yet, "the last three months of the Howard government produced the worst three months of trade deficits in Australia's history." This is not an isolated incident. In a U.S. context, as a proportion of GDP, gross federal debt is almost entirely the responsibility of Reagan, Bush and Bush Jnr, and similar comments can be made about the national debt.
In computer-related VPAC news, I am pleased to announce the succesful HPC installation of the egs in the hen house which can now beam. If you're confused by that it means that EGSnrc, a Monte Carlo simulation of coupled electron-photon transport, has been installed on Tango, along with its close friend and ally in radiation source simulation, BEAMnrc. Next is CCP4 Phaser ("these are the voyages..."). I should also make at least passing reference that a certain computing company, famous for their search engine, contacted me last week with the view of possible employment. I'd dearly like to keep a foot in that door, but I rather feel quite a lot of loyalty to VPAC.
a_carnal_mink and caseopaya to see Wattstax. Prior to the film spent some time in the ACMI Gaming Lab and played some Castle Crashers, and visited Chloe's Bar (doc file). The film itself included Rev. Jesse Jackson's famous "I am Somebody" speech and hilarious commentary by Richard Pryor with music from numerous gospel, blues, soul, and funk performers including the deep beauty of Isaac Hayes (aka Chef from South Park), the humour of Rufus Thomas, and the glam of the Bar Kays (YouTube video from the film). A very enjoyable evening to say the the least.I have started an online version of the course at the University of Texas on Marxian Economics, which looks reasonably comprehensive judging by the course notes and have contributed significantly to the initial discussions, including a paper on qualitative transformations due to quantitative change (even if the course coordinator thinks I'm from Melbourne, Florida). On a somewhat related topic, I do take the opportunity to express annoyance that the political right always seems to claim the ground of being the better economic managers. Yet, "the last three months of the Howard government produced the worst three months of trade deficits in Australia's history." This is not an isolated incident. In a U.S. context, as a proportion of GDP, gross federal debt is almost entirely the responsibility of Reagan, Bush and Bush Jnr, and similar comments can be made about the national debt.
In computer-related VPAC news, I am pleased to announce the succesful HPC installation of the egs in the hen house which can now beam. If you're confused by that it means that EGSnrc, a Monte Carlo simulation of coupled electron-photon transport, has been installed on Tango, along with its close friend and ally in radiation source simulation, BEAMnrc. Next is CCP4 Phaser ("these are the voyages..."). I should also make at least passing reference that a certain computing company, famous for their search engine, contacted me last week with the view of possible employment. I'd dearly like to keep a foot in that door, but I rather feel quite a lot of loyalty to VPAC.