Invasion Day, Linux Conf, Social Life

[tcpip]

Like Melbourne's most well-known anarchist, Dr. Joe Toscano, I cringe in anger and shame at the "celebrations" of Australia Day. Like Toscano, I believe it would be far more sensible and sensitive to have a national holiday on "Mabo Day" as a good symbolic step towards reconciliation. Nevertheless, the day was spent in the fine company of Chris Samuel who become an Australian citizen (now he can get back into the country). At the ceremony itself Tony Smith (Liberal, Casey) provided one of the biggest loads of empty-headed jingoistic nonsense I have had the displeasure to listen to.

Linux Conference Australia is being held in Melbourne this year and like a damn fool I've volunteered to help out with registrations every morning before work this week, along with caseopaya. Nevertheless it's a extremely impressive programme and I hope to see at least some of it whilst helping out. On a related topic, Shahrokh Montazavi , Microsoft’s main HPC Developer Architect, recently gave a talk at VPAC on Pure Mpi.NET developer tools they've recently released. They're pretty good, but stuck within the Microsoft operating system, which probably means the ideas will have to be picked up by the open source community which has several operating systems which are actually suitable for High Performance Computing.

First week of social life post-forty (thank you all for the kind comments, btw) included dinner with severina_242, _zombiemonkey, imajica_lj and caseopaya followed by a accidental involvenment in a trivia night at the Drunk Poet (or something) where we did fairly well. Later in the week dined with ser_pounce (his 24th, the young 'un) and hathhalla and went to see Sweeny Todd at the deco (or more precisely, apparently, "jazz moderne" and "streamlined moderne") Rivoli cinema. Director Tim Burton's influence is everwhere as gothic, bloody and whimsically semi-operatic. Producer and script-writer John Logan certainly deserves kudos as well. Excellent performances are given by the morose Johnny Depp as Sweeny Todd, Alan Rickman as the manipulative Judge Turpin, Helena Carter as a lovesick Ms. Lovett, and Timothy Spall as the violent Beadle. Also I am sure Jamie Campbell (Anthony Hope) is going to become a heart-throb for numerous aging homosexuals. Anyway, a highly recommended film and one I suspect will be good on multiple viewings as well.

Comments

[the-shadow298.livejournal.com]

my friend Antti was at the Linux Conference.
To make the circle tighter, he is friends with Liz & Mikey -whom you know.

Meant to be off to see Sweeny tonight.
Have an American friend who has been raving about it for months and she says its good -even when compared to the original book and the first musical movie version.

And happy b'day for the other day too.
Tried to leave a comment but had issues with LJ.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hey thanks my shadowy friend.

Linux Conf has been very cool so far, even if I haven't been to any of the miniconfs (apart from dropping into the Linux Chix miniconf for a minute)

Sweeney Todd is well worth the watch! Enjoy!

[the-shadow298.livejournal.com]

welcome, mate. :)

And glad that you are enjoying it.

I think that I shall -being a Burton fanboy and all. :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I think it's hard not to be a Tim Burton fanboy. He did a great job with Batman (I helped organise over 100 people to an opening night screening), and of course Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride and Sleepy Hollow... He manages to combine gothic horror, romance and humour in a very special way.

.. and it's just been pointed out to me that he's engaged to Helen Carter. Now that I didn't know.

[the-shadow298.livejournal.com]

it was really The Nightmare Before Christmas that really did it for me.
Had seen Edward Scissorhands before but didn't appreciate it because I was too young to understand it.
But now I really do like his work.
I also think that Big Fish is a great film -especially considering the original story it is based on isn't all that good.

Yeah, my Sweeny fangirl friend pointed that out to me too.
Which is why she appears in a lot of his films since Planet of the Apes (which is one of his lesser films).

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I haven't seen the Apes or Big Fish. I've read that Planet of the Apes includes Burton in name but not in spirit.

[the-shadow298.livejournal.com]

PotA was really hacked apart by the studio to make it what they wanted.
Such a pity really.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

It is a pity. I can imagine something seriously creepy coming out of Burton's mind to deal with that somewhat camp tv series.

I'm thinking Tim Burton, David Cronenberg and Peter Gabriel should get together. They could do their own monkey film that combines Batman, Altered States and Shock The Monkey..

OK, that's fucked-up right there, isn't it? ;-)

[the-shadow298.livejournal.com]

that's beyond fucked up.

More fucked up was the photo of Cronenberg, Hunter S. Thompson and the lead actor from The Naked Lunch.
It looked the most fucked up generational photo.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I think of it as cyberpunk meets planet of the apes :-)

[the-shadow298.livejournal.com]

heh heh.

Would still be cool.

But probably too violent to ever see the screen. :)

[ser-pounce.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm 28 :) Wish I was 24!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I trawled through my emails in an attempt to find out why I thought 24.. without success.

Hey, maybe you look 24! ;-)

[zhenzhi.livejournal.com]

we do not celebrate australia day in my family either. it's too sad to.... just not right for us.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I can imagine a bucketload of trite responses as well.. e.g.,

"Aw, you've got a 'black armband' view of history"
(Never mind if the view is the true one)

"It's a day of celebrating national pride"
(When the net actions is probably cause of national shame)

"Stop being so negative!"
(Which amounts to saying "Stop thinking")

"Just enjoy the sporting festival"
(... words fail me at that point)

[zhenzhi.livejournal.com]

yes :-(
it's sickening.

[forwrathandruin.livejournal.com]

I seem to have missed, somewhere along the line, the announcement of your birthday.

I bid you a belated Happy Birthday and as many more as you want.

[telarus.livejournal.com]

My girl and I just watched Sweeny Todd a few days ago, and I was very impressed.

[celsa.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed it, but I was in the chorus of the musical in an amateur theatre company some years ago, so I kind of missed some of the things they cut out. Definitely something I will watch again, though. At home where I can sing along as loudly as I like! :-D

[telarus.livejournal.com]

We did theatre as well (tho neither she nor I ever produced that one) so I appreciated alot of the little work that went into sets/costumes/effects. I totally hear you on singing @ home, tho.

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

MABO Day sounds good to me. Kevin here suggested Eureka Day as a replacement for Australia Day.

Sweeney Todd  was quite enjoyable! I should be seeing it for a second time with Kelli next Tuesday.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Kevin here suggested Eureka Day as a replacement for Australia Day.

Crikey. That would be interesting.

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

I can just imagine the re-creation events!

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Mabo Day is a bad idea.

It lacks any of the benefits of Waitangi Day, because it's the courts imposing their view on the majority of Australians, rather than a treaty. And, frankly, Mabo (and Wik) have effectively become institutional racketeering in many (remote) areas.

I favour a new national holiday in the second half of the year. But I also favour the Queen's Birthday being celebrated on the same day in each state and territory.

script-writer John Logan certainly deserves kudos as well.
Yet he gave us Star Trek: Nemesis.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

It lacks any of the benefits of Waitangi Day, because it's the courts imposing their view on the majority of Australians, rather than a treaty.

The majority of English New Zealanders probably weren't happy with Waitangi Day either, but when it comes to matters of justice, majority doesn't automatically rule.

And, frankly, Mabo (and Wik) have effectively become institutional racketeering in many (remote) areas.

Was that before or after the Native Title Ammendment Act (1998)?

Yet he gave us Star Trek: Nemesis.

*shrug* Oh well, one dud (co-written) script out of a dozen or so isn't so bad.

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

Nemesis?! An OK film, but not good Trek.

[recumbenteer.livejournal.com]

Call me a saddo, but when I saw linux conf, my thought was "configuration", not "conference"

How to make a conference

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

tar xvf conference.tar
cd conference
./configure conference \
--with-prefix=/local/melbourne/
make
su
[enter root password]
make install

Re: How to make a conference

[recumbenteer.livejournal.com]

That might work, but it does assume you can resolve the 'InterestingGuests', 'Venue' and 'Budget' dependencies :-)

[mia76.livejournal.com]

i'm assuming that's an implied recommendation to see the movie?

can't wait till it's my turn to see it.

[lucazzo.livejournal.com]

This is a comment completely out of the blue, but necessary.

I wanted to congratulate you and thank you for keeping the Socialists board running efficiently and within the proper bounds of internet respect. As you may know I'm not the most popular guy there, but there has been a great deal of civility and proper debate (aside from an anonymous IM, but that's outside of the board), which is more than I could have hoped for.

Anyhow, sorry to intrude on your personal journal, and keep up the good work. Also, good luck with your doctorate. More people who are willing to make history by knowing history are needed.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks for the kind comments.

There are plenty of parts of the Internet where trolling and flaming are actively encouraged. Whilst they have their place for aesthetic reasons, I am interested in running the socialists community with the objective of mutual understanding. Hopefully it has made some progress in that direction.

[rogue-scholar.livejournal.com]

These things go down as you'd expect; last year, my mum's naturalisation (is that what they call it? en-citizenship) was graced with Petro Georgio's learned presence, and he gave the sort of considered, thoughtful speech you'd expect from the man who really shouldn't be in the Liberal party of today. Really down-to-earth but insightful commentary on the benefits, responsibilities and broadening of experience that come with multicultural integration. All 100% at odds with Howard Government policy.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Personally I think Georgiou should be leading the Liberal Party, but I realise that's a minority position :-)

(Chris called it his "neutralisation")