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tcpipOK, 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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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 withcaseopaya 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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-13 06:05 pm (UTC)I can't see how it will ever be resolved :(
no subject
Date: 2005-03-13 07:36 pm (UTC)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!)
no subject
Date: 2005-03-14 12:44 am (UTC)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).
no subject
Date: 2005-03-14 02:40 am (UTC)Hmmm... You're largely correct there. Even faced with a savage populist press, especially over their economic policies, the Greens still managed to gather 7-8% at the last Federal election. On a TPP basis, the Labor Party remains within striking distance even tho' it's primary vote has collapsed...
Advantage of a preferential voting system. Although from what I understand the combination of FPP and PR in New Zealand has led to smart voters to put their first preference in the PR column, and their "most likely to win" vote in the FPP column. Interesting.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-14 01:20 pm (UTC)There are edge conditions - you need 5% PR support to get any seats, unless the party wins an electorate seat... So for the small parties, it's very important for them to either win a seat or get 5%.