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Yesterday posted a review about the first international meeting of The Sunday Assembly on request of a co-organiser. Today, gave an address on The Successes and Failures of Contemporary Unitarian-Universalism at the Melbourne Unitarian Church which looked at the rise of religious rationalism as a positive and organisational issues as a negative. Basically, Unitarian-Universalism is well-suited as a religious ideology in a post-theological world, but poorly designed organisationally to take advantage of the same. The presentation was followed by David Miller, organiser of the Melbourne Atheist Society, the Melbourne Agnostic Society, and the Melbourne Existentialist Society (a busy guy) on "Secular Religion: Is it really a contradiction in terms?" which presented an argument not too different to that of Feurbach's; that stripped of its supernatural claims, religion represents the higher values and aspirations of human beings. These values, both the positive (truth, justice, freedom) and negative (ideology, nationality, race) become "Gods" to the subject. In on a related secular religion issue, received three booklets from the Freemason's Library in New Zealand concerning our South Pacific base. Will scan them over the next week or so, but have already done so of an old image of our hall.
Briefly attended two May Day events this week; a small one organised by the local anarcho-syndicalists that is actually held on May 1st, and a wreath-laying ceremony the following day for workplace injuries and fatalities (an issue which has particular resonance). Both were held at the Eight Hour Day monument. The evening was the Kooyong-Higgins Quiz Night for ALP candidates in two very safe Liberal seats. Was a financial success and socially enjoyable, but a long way from the advertised theme. On Isocracy-related political matters, I did the writing for a submission to the United Nations Secretary General on the Responsibility to Protect, which was followed up a few days later with an interview with Cham Shareef, an activist Damascus about the situation in Syria. Shareef makes the excellent rhetorical point that if the international community doesn't exist to protect lives, what does it exist for?
On a somewhat more local level, conducted two courses on Monday and Tuesday of this week, Introductory and Intermediate High Performance Computing Using Linux. Class sizes were down due to a University of Melbourne budgetary decision at the 11th hour, which is deliciously contradictory. They want more people to use scientific applications, so they can have more research completed quicker. But of course, to do that scientists have to be trained - they just don't use HPC systems that often. Still haven't finished the material for the advanced course, and more researchers are requesting online material as well, so my work has been cut out for me. Apropos adult and higher education and as part of the multitude of material submitted in my continuing quest for a fourth degree, my short thematic paper on Course Objectives, Flow States, and Learning Outcomes, seems to have been well-received.
Briefly attended two May Day events this week; a small one organised by the local anarcho-syndicalists that is actually held on May 1st, and a wreath-laying ceremony the following day for workplace injuries and fatalities (an issue which has particular resonance). Both were held at the Eight Hour Day monument. The evening was the Kooyong-Higgins Quiz Night for ALP candidates in two very safe Liberal seats. Was a financial success and socially enjoyable, but a long way from the advertised theme. On Isocracy-related political matters, I did the writing for a submission to the United Nations Secretary General on the Responsibility to Protect, which was followed up a few days later with an interview with Cham Shareef, an activist Damascus about the situation in Syria. Shareef makes the excellent rhetorical point that if the international community doesn't exist to protect lives, what does it exist for?
On a somewhat more local level, conducted two courses on Monday and Tuesday of this week, Introductory and Intermediate High Performance Computing Using Linux. Class sizes were down due to a University of Melbourne budgetary decision at the 11th hour, which is deliciously contradictory. They want more people to use scientific applications, so they can have more research completed quicker. But of course, to do that scientists have to be trained - they just don't use HPC systems that often. Still haven't finished the material for the advanced course, and more researchers are requesting online material as well, so my work has been cut out for me. Apropos adult and higher education and as part of the multitude of material submitted in my continuing quest for a fourth degree, my short thematic paper on Course Objectives, Flow States, and Learning Outcomes, seems to have been well-received.
