Rally, Service/East Timor, Stackers, Work, Gaming, , New Zealand!, IDF Madness...

[tcpip]

OK, I know I've already mentioned it, but please circulate to the usual suspects...

---

Troops out of Iraq -- rally
Part of the global weekend of action against the occupation of Iraq
Friday, March 18, 5.30pm
State Library, corner of Latrobe and Swanston streets, city

Speakers include:
Andrew Wilkie -- Australian Greens
Kevin Bracken -- state secretary, Maritime Union of Australia
Lev Lafayette -- president, Labor for Refugees

Contact the Stop the War Coalition: melbournestopthewar@yahoo.com.au.
Phone Margarita 9639 8622; James 0438 869 790; Mick 0413 932 435.

---

Next Sunday Deb Salvango from East Timor Women Australia (hmmm... doesn't work under Firefox, div is left hanging) is giving a presentation at the Melbourne Unitarian Church (yes, I know, website under development, OK?) on community to community development in East Timor. I'll be giving the service which means I'm going to have to find some relevant readings.

Branch stacking in the ALP is hitting the headlines again and real members are pissed off. Several years back I circulated a very detailed proposal to State Conference and to the Administrative Committee which would have seen the reintroduction of the attendence rule and would have amalgamated branches on a state seat-by-seat basis. I still reckon those changes would have elimated branch stacking, and would have encouraged local democracy, unlike the largely cosmetic changes that were eventually adopted by the Dreyfus report. The problem is that branch stacking works in favour of the most powerful figures of the ALP, so it's not in their interest to combat it.

About a month ago, my leisurely pace of employment changed from about twenty-five hours per week to about sixty. Seeming that I already had enough "other" things on my agenda (e.g., IT e-zine, systems research, PhD thesis, etc), this has proven to be quite an interruption to my life. As severina_242 says, "you won't be on your death-bed wishing that you'd spent another hour working overtime!". Too right; so I'm planning to finish up at my work at Borderlands within the next three months or so, with the exception of managing their website. The problem is finding a replacement sysadmin who'se prepared to work for the peanuts (# of hours and financial compensation) a community research organisation offers, who is prepared to put up with a low level of IT literacy, weird staff/volunteer/contractual arrangement, dodgy equipment and quirky software. Make it sound good, don't I?

Most interesting social event of the past fortnight was attending Peter and Chrissie's housewarming in Flemington, an excellent example of "in character" development to old pre-deco building. Have also managed to get Peter into the Ten Thousand Islands game, which is now has seen the completion of scene six (with combat no less!) and half-way through scene seven. The game is going on a bit of a mythic tangent of late; the party is on the way to krakatua to find a garuda chick. Game design issues are proving interesting with a redeveloped means of rewarding player abilities. I'm still struggling on skill classifications however. I think I need to differentiate between "skill" and "knowlegde".

On a related note, I'm also mulling over computer game design issues. One of the required features of any decent sim design is that it should integrate well on this level (otherwise your game - and any computer replication) will be like an arcade game. I'm feeling plot-inspired as well, having been reading through a lot of Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest material. Some preliminary research has been done on the programming side as well, especially the "debate" between DirectX and OpenGL, which unfortunately is still an issue. Personally, I was happy with something like Nethack.

Next fortnight off to New Zealand with caseopaya to go to the ANZUA conference. After that it's "hit the north" as well go from Christchurch to Wellington, through Palmerston North where I'll make the requisite stop to visit mama, and then to Auckland... Better tee up meetings with those lovely NZ el-jay people, eh?

Brain-breaker of the week goes to bipolypagangeek (who ever thought there was such a community?). Israeli Defense forces thinks D&D players are unfit for security forces. "The game indicates a weak personality" apparently! Yeah, gamers are so easy to manipulate and accept whatever they're told without questioning... Hmmm...

A big biker with wild hair and a cheery smile called Bruce just dropped around. I bought a stack of Clash records off him from ebay. He provided, gratias, a whole stack of other punk records, including The Stranglers, Nina Hagen, the Plasmatics and the Dead Kennedy's. Sweet.

Comments

[beagl.livejournal.com]

Bing!

Come say hi in Wellington. I've moved to the 'burbs and even have a spare bedroom now if you need one. Comes with guest laptop and internet. :-)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

We are so there! Will post an email once I've sorted out the itinery... Thanks!

[paula-angela.livejournal.com]

The problem is finding a replacement sysadmin who'se prepared to work for the peanuts (# of hours and financial compensation) a community research organisation offers, who is prepared to put up with a low level of IT literacy, weird staff/volunteer/contractual arrangement, dodgy equipment and quirky software. Make it sound good, don't I?

Well, with a challenge like that, I'm sure you'll get offers coming out of your ears!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

It's a labour of love for the good of the cause ;-)

people giving you extra bits of vinyl just for the hell of it.

[splodgenoodles.livejournal.com]

...if the rest of those records need a home I'm sure I could help...

You lucky bugger!

Re: people giving you extra bits of vinyl just for the hell of it.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I was overjoyed to discover the Plasmatics. Phwoar. They were one naughty band. My introduction to punk (at 12). Of course, The Clash were my main beau during my teen years.

I'm getting very tempted to expand my business to include multimedia services (e.g., vinyl to CD).

You know, I might be able to help you out with a couple of those records... I'm pretty sure I've ended up with multiple copies of The Clash's Combat Rock and The Stranglers Aural Sculpture... I'd have to check first tho'...

[fryboy.livejournal.com]

Well I'm after a new job...
Any more information? :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well, let me approach their directors first about my "retirement plans". I'm not in the position to give anything away as it were, but they'd certainly want to hear my advice.

The downside is that it's a paltry $20 ph, 5 hrs pw on contract (i.e., no holiday pay, no sick leave etc). I was doing it with a hefty modification to my base rate because I kind off like the people there. It a Windoze-based LAN, but with an annoying Mac and a (single) Linux box which people don't understand and don't want to understand :/

[mittimus.livejournal.com]

'The problem is that branch stacking works in favour of the most powerful figures of the ALP, so it's not in their interest to combat it.'

I can't see how it will ever be resolved :(

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The only way it can be combatted is by ordinary members fighting against it and against factional allegiences.

Smaller factions obviously have something to gain by weakening the power of the bigger factions. Smaller operators within a big faction have something to gain by weakening the power of factional warlords.

It will be solved by a cross-factional, not multi-factional, alliance.

Two of the key bodies to fix up is the Membership Committee and the Disputes Tribunal. Having been on both they need to member-controlled rather than being derived from appointees.

(My submission on the Disputes Tribunal recommended a jury from the members - it was reckoned that would flush out a few stacks in its own right!)

[beagl.livejournal.com]

Labor Party fades into irrelevance and some other better leftist party takes its place?

I find it hard to believe people can bring themselves to vote for them at all. (I say this as an NZ Labour party voter).

[slowlight.livejournal.com]

Have fun in NZ ...!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I love the place, I must admit. It's just damn beautiful.

Shame about the ratty taxation regime and low wages. :/

[greylock.livejournal.com]

He provided, gratias, a whole stack of other punk records, including The Stranglers, Nina Hagen, the Plasmatics and the Dead Kennedy's. Sweet.

That is sweet.
Hey, do you know Jose Tiexeria from Timor-Lestse?
(I thunk I spulled that rung)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know Jose´ but not that well... Secretary of State, iirc. Met him a couple of times... What's news with him?

[zey.livejournal.com]

East Timor Women Australia (hmmm... doesn't work under Firefox, div is left hanging)

Yep. Doesn't work in Firefox... and one of those "Timorish" gTLDs I was ranting about the other day ;-). *boots Connect.ie and TL MFAC up the bot for not getting their ccTLDs right*

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

ETWA is hosted in Victoria. It's a small, really small outfit, and are hosted pro-bono.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

maybe I just move in different circles - I have multiple bipolypagangeeks in my friendship group, and many who fit at least 75% of that descriptor (probably including me, come of think of it).

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I think I left off my sarcarm tags ;-)

What amazes me is that I hadn't found it sooner.

What do you think Dave... As a gamer, do you have a personality too weak for the IDF?

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

(you get separate comments because you lump so many different subjects together in one message)
You sound surprised that your proposal for radically changing membership requirement and organisation of ALP branches, which worked to the disadvantage of the incumbents, had some proposals radically different to expected practice, and had practical problems (I note you are actually touting the practical problems with a jury system as an advantage). I think anyone who put forward such a proposal with any expectation of adoption would be verging on megalomania.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ahh, the only meglomaniacs are thos who think that being an MP is a big deal and they somehow should receive special treatment.

It was an interesting excersise however to see which people thought that the ideas were good and who didn't. Kind of made people show their cards..

I must find that document and send it to the current State Secretary...

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

And I still find your ideas on game design mostly charmingly old school. But hey, going back to the '80s can make for some great musical listening, why shouldn't it apply to game design?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Baby steps Dave, baby steps ;-) I want to get the 80s part right...

Actually, when I think of it, very broadly abstracting, seventies rpgs were gamist, eighties simulationist and nineties were narrativist... I think the noughties should be a balanced combination thereof..

I reckon CoC did it right with SAN/Mythos. That was a brilliant combination of simulation and narrative in the one game rule. It also ended up causing an interesting gamist approach - the best way to "win" was to defeat the otherworldly monsters but not to realise how you did it!

[pinque.livejournal.com]

If you are in Auckland for a while I wouldn't mind catching up:) I say a while as it can be difficult planning meetings using public transport;)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Sure that's fine... As per the beagl, I'll be getting an intinery together closer to the departure date. You're near the airport, right?

[cardinal-sodom.livejournal.com]

I am currently writing a roleplaying system based on "historical fantasy"

FATAL? www.fatalgames.com

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks for the link. Thanks a lot for the link. This is the sort of thing that I'm interested in.

Thoroughly off-topic

[bellaforte.livejournal.com]

Thought I'd let you know that I went ahead and dropped [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]. It hit the point where I wasn't enjoying the community because of all the drama. Maybe next time :) I hope you don't mind if I keep you on my friends list.

Re: Thoroughly off-topic

[bellaforte.livejournal.com]

BTW- Bi-poly-pagan-geek is a pretty good description for me ;)