Linux and Work, SF and Social Events, Race Conditions

[tcpip]

Attended the LUV Beginners talk today at InfoExchange with Andrew Pam giving a good presentation on the history of version control with supplementary contributions by Mike Hewitt. Have volunteered myself to give a talk at the main meeting in a fortnight's time on UNUMS - how to do computation without error. Apropos, recently a small GPU cluster illustrated its power in cracking passwords. This has implications for some institutions, including a certain university I have taught at, which had a terrible password policy. I could not help but write a few words about it. Work this week included preparation for upcoming conferences (OpenStack Australia, QuestNet), the lecture I'm giving for Cluster and Cloud Computing, creating more space on the Edward cluster, and organising weekly research training sessions.

On Monday we went to visit hathhalla and ser_pounce for the regular cheesequest and played Journey : Wrath of Demons, which went very well, although I do note that many of this big, expensive cooperative boardgames are very much in style of traditional battle scenes from traditional tabletop roleplaying games. Also enjoyed the company of their new household ferrets, very silly creatures. Friday night was another session of the Eclipse Phase Mars storyline where we smuggled weapon-grade uranium to the social democrats (I'm sure they'll use it responsibly). On other science fictions interests now have a copy of The Booger Peril courtesy of an invitation only book launch, and have also received responses and published an interview with John Snead, on of the most prolific writers in the RPG world.

Over the past week I've been thinking intensely on race conditions, but not in computer science. Rather, I've been thinking about them in terms of the sociology of crises, for example, the ability of disparate world political systems and interests to engage in effective unified action on global warming before a critical point is reached - in other words following the metrics of the Doomsday Clock, and noting that we're now in the same 'time' as we were globally as 1984.

Comments

[castleclear.livejournal.com]

Just sayin' Hi, Lev, because you are one of the LiveJournal friends I've missed the most.

[castleclear.livejournal.com]

PS. Have you yet had time to have put your ideas on the sociology of crises into some written format? I would love to either share ideas or simply learn from you. Thanks for being such a good friend thru the years. Aloha

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I would be hard put to beat a classic like Jurgen Habermas' Legitimation Crisis which is a brilliant (if incredibly dense) book, which systemically goes through potential crisis situations with care and objectivity. I haven't written a contemporary analysis in the same style, but as you can tell, it's high on my mind.

[castleclear.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much! I found a copy for download and reading here https://www.uploady.com/#!/download/Uw3KYytBZDw/RwAIj70Q3fgRpPFg I am looking forward to "wrapping my mind" around Habermas' ideas. About as far as I have gotten with the global crisis in my own thinking is that whatever is to be done is optimally done with Gentleness, clarity and forethought. In my naivete, I thought I'd just web search for examples of self-regulating species which here in the U.S. led me to wikipedia's article on Gaia principle as well as to no concrete examples. So I guess my models are going to have to be self-regulating individuals including single-cell organisms and plants. Here's the silver lining in what I perceive as a global conundrum: human beings have the opportunity to become the first self-regulating species on the planet!

Pardon my enthusiasm and, yes, perhaps I did read too much science fiction as a kid, but growing up watching original series Star Trek I really do want to see humanity get to the point where we are able to explore the cosmos, mature past war and other limiting social ills, and exist in the most positive way imaginable by living up to our individual and species potential. Surely a loving God would want Mankind to "live long and prosper" in the Vulcan sense, and perhaps a good deal more.

P.S. could you send me a link, if there is one, to your collected sermons? I read the merest bit about Unitarian doctrine when reading The Essential Elias Hicks. As a Buddhist-Quaker who is still learning Christianity and pondering the mystery of the Living Christ, I find myself this season of Easter contemplating Bodhicitta as a personal goal and the ways in which one might develop "the mind that strives toward awakening, empathy and compassion... " With all love & peace to thee and thine from this side of the great Pacific pond. Namaste.