Extended Vectors
Sep. 5th, 2023 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcpipThe past several days have been full of activity, even more so than usual, and, as a result, I have been quite lax in putting finger to keyboard in the regular act of reflective correspondence. The outage of the Spartan supercomputer and upgrade of the operating system is going well, as is the testing and documentation that follows the application suite rebuilds and I've even managed to add a few new tutorials according to need (e.g., scikit-learn). I also had a meeting with the good people at the Australian Institute of Marine Science to conduct a week of HPC teaching for them early next year. Study-wise the second half of the trimester has started with a deluge of assignments; one has consisted of a review of three vulnerability assessments (Auckland, Baden-Wuerttemberg, and the Bishnupur forest of Nepal. Fortunately, there is an extra week for the paleoclimatology paper.
The study of the vulnerability assessments has highlighted to me the importance of the Voice referendum, and the importance of a body that has the ability to ensure the parliament and executive listen (at the very least). Examples of injustice, even to this day, are well-known to those who care to look. As much as one delights in the frankly brilliant and moving use of John Farnham's "You're The Voice" in the first major "Yes" advertisement). Ultimately, it will be results that count, and fortunately from the evidence that we have it is known that when governments listen to and work with, communities rather than just doing things to them, the outcomes are better.
Among all this I've had a modicum of a social life as well; for the first time in many years, I attended a local goth club (Elysium) at Kepler Bar, which comes with some rather nice scientific flavours, with the company of Liana, Simon, and Carla. The goths have always been a welcoming, if delightfully weird, community and there is nothing strange to them of having a fifty-something person in attendance at a nightclub, even if the median age is somewhat higher anyway. In a more low-key affair, I had a wonderful afternoon with my dear friend and neighbour Nitul and his visiting mother, as he has just returned from the homeland of the Indian state of Kerala with plenty of stories to tell. Finally, last night I hosted Justin's RPG session of The Burning Wheel set in The Thirty Years' War which uses scenarios from Warhammer FRPG. It's a delightful mash-up of systems and settings that's working extremely well. But, my goodness, I rather do need a bit of a rest sometime soon.
The study of the vulnerability assessments has highlighted to me the importance of the Voice referendum, and the importance of a body that has the ability to ensure the parliament and executive listen (at the very least). Examples of injustice, even to this day, are well-known to those who care to look. As much as one delights in the frankly brilliant and moving use of John Farnham's "You're The Voice" in the first major "Yes" advertisement). Ultimately, it will be results that count, and fortunately from the evidence that we have it is known that when governments listen to and work with, communities rather than just doing things to them, the outcomes are better.
Among all this I've had a modicum of a social life as well; for the first time in many years, I attended a local goth club (Elysium) at Kepler Bar, which comes with some rather nice scientific flavours, with the company of Liana, Simon, and Carla. The goths have always been a welcoming, if delightfully weird, community and there is nothing strange to them of having a fifty-something person in attendance at a nightclub, even if the median age is somewhat higher anyway. In a more low-key affair, I had a wonderful afternoon with my dear friend and neighbour Nitul and his visiting mother, as he has just returned from the homeland of the Indian state of Kerala with plenty of stories to tell. Finally, last night I hosted Justin's RPG session of The Burning Wheel set in The Thirty Years' War which uses scenarios from Warhammer FRPG. It's a delightful mash-up of systems and settings that's working extremely well. But, my goodness, I rather do need a bit of a rest sometime soon.
