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For the past few days I've been almost entirely buried in the last pieces of assessment for "The Physical Basis of Climate Change" and "Environmental Law", which wraps up trimester one of my MCCSAP degree. In the end, I am quite happy with what I submitted for both, although in the latter I did veer in the direction of critical legal studies. The more I studied the re-interpretations of Aotearoa New Zealand's ill-fated Resource Management Act as new legislation comes in after thirty years, I could only conclude with the Maori Whakataukī (proverb): "Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua" ("I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past"). As for the former, the grim and factual reality of stubborn physics and the relentless and tragic march of mathematic projection leads me to echo the words of Kate Marvel; "As a climate scientist, I am often asked to talk about hope. .. Climate change is bleak, the organizers always say. Tell us a happy story. Give us hope. The problem is, I don't have any... But the opposite of hope is not despair. It is grief... We need courage, not hope."
At the end of last week I also ran two days of Linux and HPC workshops for a range of bioinformaticians mostly from the veterinary and agricultural Sciences, but quite a few from health sciences and the attached medical centres as well. They were a good lot, with some excellent questions, and it pleased me a great deal that I was able to work my usual content to fit more precisely to the software that they use, including the several steps of a genomics workflow including sequencing data, quality control, alignment, and variant calling with everyone's favourite E. Coli. The process led me to discover a couple of applications that we didn't have installed, specifically the FASTX-toolki and Seqtk, both of which can be slotted into my regular expressions workshop.
The weekend also witnessed being host to the visit of one James H., with whom I share interests in roleplaying games and indigenous affairs, both fields in which I consider him to be more expert than I. Through James and Alison B I was taken to the 50th birthday of Caitlin H, which had a "Doctor" theme on account of the number of people present who had both PhDs or were science fiction fans; there were quite a few attired in a Dr Who style, for example. It was quite a delightful evening with some 50 people crowded into the Understudy of the stylish Bar 1806. For my own part, I went as the son of Dr. Merkwurkdigliebe, who some would know as "Doctor Strangelove", and I continued his message, albeit with a climate disaster approach. The following day James hosted an RPG session with the Futurama-like Farflung, which generated a story that was dramatic, hilarious, and wild. Plus it cleverly used the six quarks (up, down, strange, charmed, top, bottom) as attributes. I will be giving that another look in the future. For now - a moment's break! I think I deserve it.
At the end of last week I also ran two days of Linux and HPC workshops for a range of bioinformaticians mostly from the veterinary and agricultural Sciences, but quite a few from health sciences and the attached medical centres as well. They were a good lot, with some excellent questions, and it pleased me a great deal that I was able to work my usual content to fit more precisely to the software that they use, including the several steps of a genomics workflow including sequencing data, quality control, alignment, and variant calling with everyone's favourite E. Coli. The process led me to discover a couple of applications that we didn't have installed, specifically the FASTX-toolki and Seqtk, both of which can be slotted into my regular expressions workshop.
The weekend also witnessed being host to the visit of one James H., with whom I share interests in roleplaying games and indigenous affairs, both fields in which I consider him to be more expert than I. Through James and Alison B I was taken to the 50th birthday of Caitlin H, which had a "Doctor" theme on account of the number of people present who had both PhDs or were science fiction fans; there were quite a few attired in a Dr Who style, for example. It was quite a delightful evening with some 50 people crowded into the Understudy of the stylish Bar 1806. For my own part, I went as the son of Dr. Merkwurkdigliebe, who some would know as "Doctor Strangelove", and I continued his message, albeit with a climate disaster approach. The following day James hosted an RPG session with the Futurama-like Farflung, which generated a story that was dramatic, hilarious, and wild. Plus it cleverly used the six quarks (up, down, strange, charmed, top, bottom) as attributes. I will be giving that another look in the future. For now - a moment's break! I think I deserve it.
