Work Stuff, Political Stuff, Philosophy Stuff, Gaming Stuff.

[tcpip]

So tcpip, what exactly do you do? ("Something with computers"). Most of my working day is spent trying to get "big iron" cluster installs for big science projects. Most recently it's been LAPACK, ATLAS, NUMPY, SCIPY and, quite from leftfield, Schrodinger. Vaguely related to the latter is news of colourful transgenic mouse brains; brainbows they call them. Of a more amusing variety is a video of "the day the routers died". Recently I have also been taking advantage of the high $AUD vs low $USD to purchase a number of decent O'Reilly (and other) IT books from Amazon; I manage to get through a lot of these. Six more days until my presentation at Securecon

Whilst it is generally hard to get too excited about the Federal election, the last several months of opinion polls have been pretty stable and predicting a wipe-out for the Government. Pollbludger reports that even the safest Tory seats are under the hammer. Indications that they are completely falling apart include Tony Abbot losing the plot yesterday and Kevin Andrews involved in conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Gillard this morning indicated the "big difference" items between Labor and the Coalition being climate change, industrial relations and the Iraq war in an attempt to hose-down apparent similarities in policy.

Gave a presentation last Sunday at the Unitarian Philosophy Forum on "Borderlines: The Theology of the Platonic Philosophers". Normally philosophy and theology, despite their universal application, are quite distinct with the former based on verification and the latter on revelation. However by using an ontology of the forms, deductive logic and rationalist epistemology, various Platonic philosophers in history were able engage in what can only be described as philosophically-grounded theology. The presentation I gave a month ago "Women in Philosophy : Philosophy of Women" is also available (doc file). At some stage I really should combine all these into a single publication (and get them out of .doc format).

Finished up our short Decipher: LoTR game last Sunday. Next up will probably be Legend of the Five Rings using their rather charming Way of the Ratling (excerpt, pdf) and RuneQuest's old "Land of Ninja" and GURPS Japan. I like Lo5R's task resolution system ("roll and keep") but will be reversing the method for knowledges (add stat to pool, keep skill). Also have recently purchased a small mountain (over fifty items) of ancient RuneQuest (including a signed first edition, Trollpak, Big Rubble, Pavis etc) and Call of Cthulhu (including Mask of Nyarlathotep, Spawn of Azothoth, Green and Pleasant Land) material.

Comments

[greylock.livejournal.com]

lso have recently purchased a small mountain

A small mountain of madness?
Did you roll for SAN?

/I kill me.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

*snicker* You are quick!

Strangely I don't think that Chaosium ever did release a scenario based on the Mountains of Madness... Would have been great if they did..

[greylock.livejournal.com]

I made my DEX check, or whatever.

I have also been buying up Lovecrafy books AND I was looking at this:
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/dungeons-dragons-monsters.php

So I had my 'game face' on, as they said in Buffy.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Not bad at all..

I think it may be inspired by:

"AD&D: 30 Years of Stupid Monsters"

http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article73.htm

(I actually like Pliny's Bonnacon)

My favourite is the backcover blurb of Monster Mythology..

Maglubiyet... Blibdoolpoolp... Diinkarazan... Panzuriel... Such names are whispered in the dark on the far side of midnight, or muttered fearfully around jugs of wine when old, scarred adventurers tell their tales....

No they're not. Such names are mentioned with cackles of incredulity. Who they hell came up with such ridiculous names?*


* Well Gygax for Blibdoolpoolp....

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Thank god the Wolf-in-Sheep's-Clothing is on that list.

Spelljammer is strangely over-represented. ;)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

As the author says...

"Also know that I pulled stuff from all versions of Dungeons and Dragons, including that really unpopular one they made in the 1980's which was pretty much Elves in Space. Fighting Pirates. And Space Dragons. Not a joke. Really. "

[greylock.livejournal.com]

I had no idea the Duckbunny existed.
That's just awesome.

This article is going to make my afternoon.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Follow on to more of Jared's goodness; especially Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I have a great perverse desire to pick up a set of Spelljammer books for amusement value.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I could help you out there...

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Yes, they did, or at least they released one late last year set in the Antarctic and conceived as a sequel to the story. Its called Beyond the Mountains of Madness and its fucking massive -- 400 page hardback!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

That's excellent! Antarctica is such an excellent location... Shades of "The Thing" mixed with Lovecraft... All too good..

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

So, Gillard indicated that voters should pay attention to those areas where the governments policy is known to be very unpopular (and in two out of three cases, historically based on now provably false bases), and the ALP is in some way different. Astonishing, how the ALP has rediscovered the abiiity to construct a campaigning strategy based around sensible and obvious tactics.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

*nods* Tactically the government has had no room to maneuver in this campaign; all the big promises from the government have been copied and improved. No wonder they're squealing like stuck pigs.

Still, like most people I would have preferred expenditure on social and physical infrastructure over yet another round of tax cuts..

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Its just a relief that the ALP are able to make campaign strategy choices that are vaguely sane this year, after previous failure (eg Lathams idiotic choice not to even challenge the government on economics, whereas Rudd has been doing the obvious things, like pointing out Howards record as treasurer in the 70s in response to the government using figures from the 70s in scare campaigns).

And yes, its very disappointing they went for tax cuts over infrastructure so resoundingly, but frankly, if the end result is to break the back of the Libs (remove their experienced ministers and few successful campaigners, leave them left with a small inexperienced caucus reliant on recruiting from its deeply dysfunctional state branches), giving us a term or more to work on improving ALP policy, that will be a fine result, thanks.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Assuming that the opinion polls are actually right and Labor does pick up an incredible 56% TPP... What does that leave the Tories?

Costello by a nose (held by 0.06%),, Joe Hockey by 1.3% (if his personal reputation doesn't wipe him out)... ditto for Kevin Andrews.. and Phillip Ruddock.. Downer might survive as well, although he certainly doesn't deserve it...

Tony Abbot survives and I'm sure he'd make a fine enough leader to ensure Labor gets the next three terms..

Wilson Tuckey... Brendan Nelson ... Sophie Mirabella... Andrew Robb (hah!),, Julie & Bronwyn Bishop...

On the plus side; Petro Georgiou.

And about twenty-five other people of absolutely no consequence whatsoever.