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tcpipThere has been much media coverage of Victoria's earthquake a couple of days ago, the largest in the state since European settlement. At 5.9 on the Richter Scale and not too far from the town of Mansfield, some 200km from Melbourne, it was a huge issue for us city dwellers much less than the media made of it it. A lot scarier for the miners that were in Mansfield itself when it struck. Interestingly, I felt tremors a couple of weeks ago vibrating through the desk of my study. I suspect it may have been a smaller quake off Cape Otway whose effects made their way along the coast, through the bay, and up the river. Of course, this is entirely speculation on my part. My knowledge of earthquakes is pretty minimal at best.
Of far greater significance has been the anti-vaccination and anti-lockdown protestors that have had their "democratic space" (in breach of health orders) in the city over the past few days. A good proportion, I suspect. were simply to have a punch-up with the local police and hundreds have been arrested and fined. Unsurprisingly, the extreme right has been involved in infiltrating the movement; after all they'll try to place blame for their inconvenience and misfortune to everyone else except their own behaviour. Turns out that at least one of the protestors has tested positive for COVID-19 Delta. In better news, it turns out that we can definitely say that vaccination also reduces transmission because the virus dies out quicker in the vaccinated. I am waiting for someone to try to argue that the reason that the vaccinated are (mostly) protected from the virus is "part of the plan".
For the past two days I've been attending the University of Otago Higher Education Development Centre (HEDC) Symposium for 2021 with various postgraduate students giving presentations on their research. As can be imagined there is a lot about how the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has affected the university sector, primarily from an experiential basis. I quite liked Jasbir Singh's presentation on a software tool for the authorial voice, although there really needs to be a command-line version for scripting and batch processing, along with Tony Harland's presentation on the development of the HEDC and Kerry Shephard on the future of academic development, especially community engagement. My own presentation, "In The Long Run We Are All Dead", examined the demographic and economic pressures to public funding of universities, but pointed out the benefits of positive externalities suggesting that we're underfunding the university sector.
Of far greater significance has been the anti-vaccination and anti-lockdown protestors that have had their "democratic space" (in breach of health orders) in the city over the past few days. A good proportion, I suspect. were simply to have a punch-up with the local police and hundreds have been arrested and fined. Unsurprisingly, the extreme right has been involved in infiltrating the movement; after all they'll try to place blame for their inconvenience and misfortune to everyone else except their own behaviour. Turns out that at least one of the protestors has tested positive for COVID-19 Delta. In better news, it turns out that we can definitely say that vaccination also reduces transmission because the virus dies out quicker in the vaccinated. I am waiting for someone to try to argue that the reason that the vaccinated are (mostly) protected from the virus is "part of the plan".
For the past two days I've been attending the University of Otago Higher Education Development Centre (HEDC) Symposium for 2021 with various postgraduate students giving presentations on their research. As can be imagined there is a lot about how the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has affected the university sector, primarily from an experiential basis. I quite liked Jasbir Singh's presentation on a software tool for the authorial voice, although there really needs to be a command-line version for scripting and batch processing, along with Tony Harland's presentation on the development of the HEDC and Kerry Shephard on the future of academic development, especially community engagement. My own presentation, "In The Long Run We Are All Dead", examined the demographic and economic pressures to public funding of universities, but pointed out the benefits of positive externalities suggesting that we're underfunding the university sector.
