Working Democracies, Working Activities

In a working democracy, new and minority opinions can sometimes make an impact. Sometimes this isn't such a good thing; in Australia (due to some amazingly crap preference deals by the Labor Party) we ended up with Stephen Fielding who not only turned up to parliament when it was possible he had swine flu, but also tried to tell Al Gore that global warming wasn't real because mean temperatures over the last 15 years had not increased at the same rate as carbon content. In other instances, the effect however can be very good; such as the recent successes of the Swedish Pirate Party. As a working democracy develops there are bifurcations; in this comparison reactionary and radical, but because the latter have determined more appropriately what the middle ground should be in accord to technological changes their general success is more likely.

There have been some significant work changes in the past couple of days (nota bene: thanks to those who posted in the f-locked entry). The operations manager in the systems team has decided to take up a secondment role at VLSCI, a planned high-performance computing facility which will be one of the most powerful worldwide. Having spoken to the members of the staff I have decided to apply for vacant position that will result. On a related work-issue, spent yesterday at Deakin University's Waurn Ponds Campus in Geelong; somewhat isolated, the place had all the characteristics of a high-tech research institution in serene and beautiful surrounds. Purpose for the visit was to teach bioinformatics post-graduate students how to use Linux and scientific computing on our clusters. Class was very well received with the main complaint being that they wanted more. Afterwards had a late lunch with Christophe Lefèvre.