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tcpipThe past few days have been particularly productive, work-wise. I managed to craft two abstracts for potential presentations at eResearch Australasia, one on the recent architecture changes to Spartan, and another on curriculum development for the international HPC Certification Forum. Another activity that has taken a modicum of time has been installing the main components of the Genome Analysis Toolbox with de-Bruijn graph (GATB) software suite. The specific component that a researcher wanted was annoying to say the least, with hard-coded dependency paths and assumptions of where other software was installed on a system. It is a rather unfortunate and common situation to encounter otherwise excellent software but which nevertheless shows insufficient consideration for system operations.
It is not all work and no play, however. Friday night is the start of "uncontrol day", and it began with the cocktail of the week, this time Espresso Martini, and watching The Magnificent Seven (available on Youtube). To be honest, I rather over-indulged on the martinis and have been rather worse for wear today. A walk around the bat colony on the Yarra River and a cycle up to Darebin Creek has helped clear the head somewhat. In other entertainment, I've knocked over The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a young-adult novel of a clever youngster with "some behavioural difficulties" (i.e., Asperger syndrome, although not specified as such in the novel). It was a rather charming read, and gave good insight from a first-person perspective to the mind of those with such conditions and have met with approval from medical experts.
In just over the past year, my weight has dropped some 25kgs; since April alone, some 18kgs. I still have a few more kgs to shed (around 3-5 will be enough), but I am now concentrating on building muscle mass, which has meant a change in diet to being more protein-rich. It seems to be working so far. All of this has been quite a year for me to learn about nutrition. But I've also learned a great deal about the operations of the mind, and I have been particularly taken of late by an article on the ABC featuring comments by several neurologists on what is happening to our mental states under various levels of movement restrictions; our executive functions skills are poor, we're sleeping more but poorly, and our dopamine levels are not being fed through social activities. Being mindful of all this should help us in our own thought-processes and reflections on our moods, which of course includes my own. Communication that is both deep, serious, and carefully-considered can help train the mind to control the circumstantial moods of the brain; and that is something which I think we can all benefit from.
It is not all work and no play, however. Friday night is the start of "uncontrol day", and it began with the cocktail of the week, this time Espresso Martini, and watching The Magnificent Seven (available on Youtube). To be honest, I rather over-indulged on the martinis and have been rather worse for wear today. A walk around the bat colony on the Yarra River and a cycle up to Darebin Creek has helped clear the head somewhat. In other entertainment, I've knocked over The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a young-adult novel of a clever youngster with "some behavioural difficulties" (i.e., Asperger syndrome, although not specified as such in the novel). It was a rather charming read, and gave good insight from a first-person perspective to the mind of those with such conditions and have met with approval from medical experts.
In just over the past year, my weight has dropped some 25kgs; since April alone, some 18kgs. I still have a few more kgs to shed (around 3-5 will be enough), but I am now concentrating on building muscle mass, which has meant a change in diet to being more protein-rich. It seems to be working so far. All of this has been quite a year for me to learn about nutrition. But I've also learned a great deal about the operations of the mind, and I have been particularly taken of late by an article on the ABC featuring comments by several neurologists on what is happening to our mental states under various levels of movement restrictions; our executive functions skills are poor, we're sleeping more but poorly, and our dopamine levels are not being fed through social activities. Being mindful of all this should help us in our own thought-processes and reflections on our moods, which of course includes my own. Communication that is both deep, serious, and carefully-considered can help train the mind to control the circumstantial moods of the brain; and that is something which I think we can all benefit from.
