Perth, HPC Conference, Socialism
Aug. 2nd, 2017 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcpipI've been in Perth for the better part of five days now and will be staying a few more days to attend Erica W's unexpected funeral. My original plans were to stay at the Old Swan Barracks for historical reasons, despite some pretty dire reviews. Astoundingly, I was refused entrance on account of not having a passport, driver's license, or proof of age card. Instead, I've been at The Nest on Newcastle, which has been trouble-free. To their credit, booking.com have assured me that the Old Swan will now be required to advertise their ID requirements on their website. I'll be checking out today and will be spending the next few days in the company of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
strangedave in nearby Mount Hawthorn. Most of the first day was spent in the company of my old friend Andrei N., before heading off to Fremantle for a family dinner at Don Tapa, and a visit to caseopaya's mother the following day, who was pretty surprised to see me. That evening I was hosting a dinner of old friends in Maylands at Amore Mio. They certainly do good food, and catered quite well for our large (c15) crowd, although I take the point it is very noisy. An excellent meeting was also held with Daniel R., convenor of the Final Frontiers RPG group.
As for the HPC Advisory Council conference itself, that was a two day affair at the Pan Pacific Hotel. It was another opportunity to catch up with John Gustafson who delivered the keynote on the first day. Whilst all the talks were of a particularly high standard, I was also particularly impressed by the presentations by Tim Pugh from the Bureau of Meterology and Ashrat Ambastha from Mellonox. As for my own presentation on Architecture Diversity, the timetable was a getting a little out-of-sync but the time it was my turn; I personally felt it was somewhat rushed, but others tell me that it was good. Well, they're the audience so I'll trust their judgment. The conference also had two well-catered sundowners, one at the Pawsey Supercomputer Centre and the other at Down Under Geosolutions; I was very impressed with their data centre with oil immersion server cooling. Post-conference a number of us ended up at Bar Lafayette, which is probably Perth city's best cocktail bar (not that I'm biased); the night ended with the visit from the absinthe faery.
When I return to Perth The Philosophy Forum will have presentation by Don H., on Capitalism and Socialism, which dovetails quite well with a recent publication on New Matilda on the distinction, although said article is a little light on some of the more difficult questions on economic calculation. Appropriately however the annual general meeting of the Isocracy Network is coming up on August 23 at Loi Loi resturant with Kos Samaras, assistant state secretary of the ALP speaking on the state of working class politics. On topic, the Network has taken up publishing a flurry of material from Wes Whitman whose "libertarian social democracy" approach is certainly worth a review. On another related piece, congratulations must certainly go toreddragdiva with his publication Attack of the Fifty Food Blockchain, a critique of bitcoin and other crypto-currencies (short version: they're not money, they're collectable hashes).
strangedave in nearby Mount Hawthorn. Most of the first day was spent in the company of my old friend Andrei N., before heading off to Fremantle for a family dinner at Don Tapa, and a visit to caseopaya's mother the following day, who was pretty surprised to see me. That evening I was hosting a dinner of old friends in Maylands at Amore Mio. They certainly do good food, and catered quite well for our large (c15) crowd, although I take the point it is very noisy. An excellent meeting was also held with Daniel R., convenor of the Final Frontiers RPG group.As for the HPC Advisory Council conference itself, that was a two day affair at the Pan Pacific Hotel. It was another opportunity to catch up with John Gustafson who delivered the keynote on the first day. Whilst all the talks were of a particularly high standard, I was also particularly impressed by the presentations by Tim Pugh from the Bureau of Meterology and Ashrat Ambastha from Mellonox. As for my own presentation on Architecture Diversity, the timetable was a getting a little out-of-sync but the time it was my turn; I personally felt it was somewhat rushed, but others tell me that it was good. Well, they're the audience so I'll trust their judgment. The conference also had two well-catered sundowners, one at the Pawsey Supercomputer Centre and the other at Down Under Geosolutions; I was very impressed with their data centre with oil immersion server cooling. Post-conference a number of us ended up at Bar Lafayette, which is probably Perth city's best cocktail bar (not that I'm biased); the night ended with the visit from the absinthe faery.
When I return to Perth The Philosophy Forum will have presentation by Don H., on Capitalism and Socialism, which dovetails quite well with a recent publication on New Matilda on the distinction, although said article is a little light on some of the more difficult questions on economic calculation. Appropriately however the annual general meeting of the Isocracy Network is coming up on August 23 at Loi Loi resturant with Kos Samaras, assistant state secretary of the ALP speaking on the state of working class politics. On topic, the Network has taken up publishing a flurry of material from Wes Whitman whose "libertarian social democracy" approach is certainly worth a review. On another related piece, congratulations must certainly go to
reddragdiva with his publication Attack of the Fifty Food Blockchain, a critique of bitcoin and other crypto-currencies (short version: they're not money, they're collectable hashes).
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Date: 2017-08-02 10:38 am (UTC)Last time there was about five boxes of eighties and nineties roleplaying game nostalgia stored in a garage in Perth.
I recall theres' a disturbing amount of 'Vampire: The Masquerade' rule books waiting to head East.
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Date: 2017-08-03 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-02 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-03 02:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-03 03:05 am (UTC)"So they will yammer on about how great and glorious it is to own this vaporous currency, using their heady, convoluted synthesis of technological jargon and libertarian wheedling, and whenever real dollars go into the marketplace - at ANY rate of exchange - they will claw for them like pigeons clawing at a dropped sandwich.
Oh they may manage to claw back some real money before the whole system collapses, but the real profiteers will be the exchanges - just like the original banks were, the ones that assembled the toxic loans and shipped them off to their overly trusting peers.
Glorious! Boom and bust, and in the meantime, fugly modern-art installations of outdated PC hardware grow in dark basements all over the world like little tumors, sucking electricity and emitting NOTHING."