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Academia, Linux and HPC, Studio Ghibli
May. 17th, 2020 09:58 pmHaving reached the half-way point in my Masters in Higher Education, and have selected research interests for the dissertation next year (online education, andragogy, and the economics of higher education) - with my own researcher page at the University of Otago, I have also been allocated a supervisor, Associate Professor Joyce Koh, who seems pretty close to perfect based on their research profile. Meanwhile, I have received the examiner's comments for my Master of Science dissertation, Is the Future of Business Software Proprietary or Free and Open-Source? A Macroscopic Information Systems Investigation, from the University of Salford. Whilst I do not find out what the final grade is for a few weeks, the comments themselves were sufficiently glowing that I can be quietly confident that I've done quite well.
Apropos matters concerning proprietary and open-source software I have recently that the opportunity to install Ubuntu Linux as a virtual machine on MS-Windows 10 systems with VirtualBox as the hypervisor. This is, of course, not a path I would normally take (in the Nectar research cloud the reverse is far more common), but circumstances being what they are I've taken the opportunity to jot down a few notes on the procedure, just in case I need to do it again, and just in case somebody else out there needs to do it as well. I have been contacted a number of times in the past that the notes I leave out there in on the public Internet have helped quite a few people with technical tasks, university assignments, and personal research, so I see no point in stopping that now. Further, for next week, I have a day-class to teach on Monday, Linux and HPC for Mechanical Engineering, followed by a workshop on Wednesday for the HPC Certification Forum with the snappy title, Training and Curriculum Development for International HPC Certification.
In the aesthetic dimension, in recent weeks I've made some effort to fill in the blanks of Studio Ghibli films that I had not previously seen, as I am terrible uninformed of popular culture (it is difficult to be an aficionado of high culture and pop culture simultaneously unless it's a full-time occupation). Specifically this includes Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, Only Yesterday, Pom Poko, Whisper of the Heart, and My Neighbors the Yamadas. There are certainly some common thematic contents across the range, including the fantastic, environmental issues, coming of age stories, and romance (especially from the female perspective), and the virtues (and problems) of common people in contrast to the use of heroic characters. I think of the set I prefer Castle in the Sky most of all as it includes all the aforementioned elements and executes them well, and My Neighbors the Yamadas least, which struck me more as a first draft rather than a finished product.
Apropos matters concerning proprietary and open-source software I have recently that the opportunity to install Ubuntu Linux as a virtual machine on MS-Windows 10 systems with VirtualBox as the hypervisor. This is, of course, not a path I would normally take (in the Nectar research cloud the reverse is far more common), but circumstances being what they are I've taken the opportunity to jot down a few notes on the procedure, just in case I need to do it again, and just in case somebody else out there needs to do it as well. I have been contacted a number of times in the past that the notes I leave out there in on the public Internet have helped quite a few people with technical tasks, university assignments, and personal research, so I see no point in stopping that now. Further, for next week, I have a day-class to teach on Monday, Linux and HPC for Mechanical Engineering, followed by a workshop on Wednesday for the HPC Certification Forum with the snappy title, Training and Curriculum Development for International HPC Certification.
In the aesthetic dimension, in recent weeks I've made some effort to fill in the blanks of Studio Ghibli films that I had not previously seen, as I am terrible uninformed of popular culture (it is difficult to be an aficionado of high culture and pop culture simultaneously unless it's a full-time occupation). Specifically this includes Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, Only Yesterday, Pom Poko, Whisper of the Heart, and My Neighbors the Yamadas. There are certainly some common thematic contents across the range, including the fantastic, environmental issues, coming of age stories, and romance (especially from the female perspective), and the virtues (and problems) of common people in contrast to the use of heroic characters. I think of the set I prefer Castle in the Sky most of all as it includes all the aforementioned elements and executes them well, and My Neighbors the Yamadas least, which struck me more as a first draft rather than a finished product.
