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A Quieter Week and Elections
Nov. 16th, 2018 10:06 pmThe week after the RuneQuest-Glorantha Convention has, unsurprisingly been a lot less exciting, but still with a fair bit of gaming activities after hours including a session of Megatraveller last night, and some tinkering on Papers & Paychecks. I've also sold off a good half of my Cyberpunk 2020 collection which is well over fifty books. I've also picked up Mark Morrison's latest gem, Reign of Terror which is surprisingly short (96p) although the production qualities are very impressive. Clearly, because we haven't done enough RuneQuest in recent weeks this Sunday we'll have another session. Actually I'm also planning a RQ session with nephew Luke; last week was his birthday and we went out to a local Thai restaurant (as we did last year, being creatures of habit).
Apart from that it's been plodding along with Duolingo with various "German to X" lessons. I'm finding myself quite stuck on Das Gerundium. I completed French-to-German recently, albeit with some difficulty, but I'm finding it a lot harder in the other direction. Pourquoi? Ich wisse nicht. In addition, I've made a start on my MSc assignment, specifically on suggested improvements to the Square Kilometre Array sensor systems. Workwise, there has been a lot of software installations this week particularly in the realm of various R and Python packages, neither of which are really enjoyable in the HPC space for reasons of sanity (an issue I have raised in the past). Today I spent a good portion finding out which projects were over-quota, or had a special quota, and applying a script to set a normal quota for the rest.
Election fever is in the air, and of course in the United States, the election-night pundits have proven to be more than a little wrong with the "blue wave" actually being quite real as the weeks have worn on. Here, the Victorian state election is coming in up just over a week, and whilst current Premier Daniel Andrews should win in a canter (popular, socially progressive, economically successful), the opposition under Matthew Guy has made undeserved mileage out of law and order issues even though offense rates per capita are roughly the same as four years ago and are declining. The matter wasn't helped by a lone-wolf madman. Among Liberal leaders of the past, Guy really is of the hard-right variety, the party now thoroughly controlled by religious nutters. It would be an absolute disaster if he was to be elected. Hopefully, Victorians will have the good sense to give Andrews a second term.
Apart from that it's been plodding along with Duolingo with various "German to X" lessons. I'm finding myself quite stuck on Das Gerundium. I completed French-to-German recently, albeit with some difficulty, but I'm finding it a lot harder in the other direction. Pourquoi? Ich wisse nicht. In addition, I've made a start on my MSc assignment, specifically on suggested improvements to the Square Kilometre Array sensor systems. Workwise, there has been a lot of software installations this week particularly in the realm of various R and Python packages, neither of which are really enjoyable in the HPC space for reasons of sanity (an issue I have raised in the past). Today I spent a good portion finding out which projects were over-quota, or had a special quota, and applying a script to set a normal quota for the rest.
Election fever is in the air, and of course in the United States, the election-night pundits have proven to be more than a little wrong with the "blue wave" actually being quite real as the weeks have worn on. Here, the Victorian state election is coming in up just over a week, and whilst current Premier Daniel Andrews should win in a canter (popular, socially progressive, economically successful), the opposition under Matthew Guy has made undeserved mileage out of law and order issues even though offense rates per capita are roughly the same as four years ago and are declining. The matter wasn't helped by a lone-wolf madman. Among Liberal leaders of the past, Guy really is of the hard-right variety, the party now thoroughly controlled by religious nutters. It would be an absolute disaster if he was to be elected. Hopefully, Victorians will have the good sense to give Andrews a second term.
