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Diary of a B+ Grade Polymath ([personal profile] tcpip) wrote2024-11-07 11:59 pm
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A General Update

When life is busy and being lived to the full, sometimes the opportunity to record and reflect falls a bit of the wayside. As a result, the following is a rather random collection of some activities over the past few weeks, and notably missing a rather extensive discussion on "organised noise" and of course, recent political developments, both of which will have their own entries over the next few days. At this juncture, I wish to give brief reflections on eResearch Australasia 2024, the All Saints' Day cocktail party, and the next issue of RPG Review.

I've written a few notes on the eResearch Australasia conference at the Pullman Hotel in Albert Park. In short, several hundred people in attendance, lots of high-quality content, plenty of opportunity to network, and my presentation on Spartan was very well-received. Since then, I also took the opportunity to bring together attendees from UniMelb for a bit of a debrief session and compiled notes of interest; "many eyes make all bugs shallow". I am still working on an abstract for the eResearch New Zealand conference for next year and also putting my mind to the THETA conference in Perth next year.

The weekend after eResearch, Luna and I hosted an "All Saints' Day Cocktail Party" for former residents and friends of two households in Stawell Street, Burnley and Rushall Crescent, North Fitzroy, from the 1990s and early 2000s. It was really quite a wonderful night to bring people together, and I really enjoyed playing the role of cocktail waiter. A special highlight was the opportunity to catch up with one Fiona C., whom I hadn't seen since Stawell St. We certainly had a lot to say to one another, but after almost thirty years, we still only scratched the surface. For entertainment purposes, I put together a setlist which we ran through a least a few times.

The next issue of RPG Review is already underway. Whilst the release date is December, we are already collecting content for this special double issue, dedicated to fifty years of "Dungeons & Dragons", a rather important popular cultural phenomenon. Of special note is the fact that our interview subject will be none other than Frank Mentzer, who is most notable as the author of the "BECMI" (Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, Immortal) boxed editions of the game, which would sell in the millions and be translated into eleven languages. That's kind of a big deal, really. Mind you, our online 'zine has had some astounding interview subjects in the past, and we had over five thousand unique visitors to our site last month with the release of the last issue of RPG Review. So perhaps we're a bit of a cultural phenomenon in our right.
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[personal profile] duskpeterson 2024-11-11 10:33 am (UTC)(link)

I was keywording my way through Dreamwidth to see if there any other people here who were interested in classical philosophy when I stumbled across your journal. Nice to meet you.

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[personal profile] duskpeterson 2024-11-11 12:11 pm (UTC)(link)

Well, I had nearly a year's worth of Plato and Aristotle at my alma mater, St. John's College in Annapolis, as well as a bit of Pythagoreanism and Neoplatonism. Recently I've been reading Stoic and Epicurean writings. (I read Epictetus and Lucretius in college, but they didn't make much impression on me at the time.) Stoicism is especially attractive because the surviving writings offer so many practical mental exercises that are still useful. I wish more writings like that had survived from other schools. I find myself having to dig through classical writings and scholarly commentary for the practical bits that haven't been as much publicized as the Stoic exercises have been in recent years.

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[personal profile] duskpeterson 2024-11-14 10:02 am (UTC)(link)

Interesting! My companion is a Zen Buddhist; we often notice overlaps between Buddhism and Stoicism.

I haven't read all your philosophy-related essays yet, but I'm looking forward to doing so.