tcpip | Liberal Religion and Neo-Astrology, Champagne Breakfasts, Clusters and CMSs

Gave an address at the Melbourne Unitarian Church on Sunday on Reverend Stephen Fritchman, a radical liberal in the U.S. who caused a great deal of trouble for the political establishment during the 1940s, 50s and 60s. On a vaguely related topic I found myself debating on

convert_me last week with astrologers, of all people. Intrigued to discover that some of that ilk now claim (or rather, admit as the statistics and science is beyond reasonable doubt) that it has no predictive value whatsoever, but rather can only be used as a metaphorical and instrospective approach. So, after all those centuries it is finally acknowledged to be fiction.

Last Saturday the deco-apartment of Das Hoehnhauss/Casa di Lafayette held a champagne breakfast with various teas, Timorese coffee, lots of pancakes, almond shortbread, silverware and fine china. In attendence were

caseopaya's new workmate and partner along with

imajica_lj. We're hoping to turn this into a semi-regular event as it's a delightful way to waste away a Saturday morning and most of an afternoon and catch up with a small group of people as well. We're gradually building a list of people to come along, but if anyone is particularly keen to attend in the next couple, please drop a line below.

Work-related matters have been quite busy of late and we've been somewhat short-staffed. Upgrading the dual-core Opteron systems to quad-cores on Tango is a necessity if we wish to reach at least somewhere close to the c7 Teraflop peak but (as one would expect) it hasn't entirely been smooth sailing. On a completely different tangent, I've been investigating the relative competitive benefits of Drupal vs Plone CMSs for ARCS. Having some experience with both does lead me towards the former for the sake of simplicity, but I'm interested to hear contrary views.

Threaded | Flat

I don't suppose you saw the first part of The Enemies of Reason by Richard Dawkins last night on Compass, did you? He spent a while looking at astrology.

I've always thought of things like Tarot, Astrology and I-Ching to be entirely to do with the brain functions of the operant, rather than any mystic or supernatural force. It's like looking through a prism - different facets are thrown into light or relief. Tarot is especially good because it deals with a set of symbols quite fundamental to the western mind, symbols that are easily interpreted subconciously, leading to a revelation or revelations sourced entirely from the self.

Like inkblots, ya?

Been meaning to get back to you abt this weekend - seems we're unfortunately otherwise engaged and alas can't pop along, Rob is finalising the mastering on an album he's been recording for some time, and I have sadly been quite unwell in any event :( But perhaps some time soon we can attend!

Short staffed eh?

Your champagne breakfast sounds delightful. Very much in line with the High Tea events we do occassionally, only in the morning...with alcamahol. Mmmmm.

Looking forward to seeing you in a few weeks at Chez Pop. Menu is underway & not at all what I was expecting, but I think it should be nice all the same.

:)

I found Plone has some annoying overheads and scalability issues for large deployments, but has some exceptional capabilities for developing your own stuff. They are the two CMSes I tend to prefer.

If basically what you want is to simply roll out fairly straightforward CMS functionality I'd go drupal, if you need to develop your own data types etc I'd go Plone.

yah astrologers do draw from a particular format, not always from the sun sign, but other planets come into play. Its fun, but does have a set format in which to determine personality characteristics.. but as for predicting? I couldn't tell you..I really don't know. Fiction? okay! *grins*

as for the Tarot..ehhh, sure its the symbols if someone interpets this and nothing more. BUT there is more to this, I can't account for the strange taste sensations in my mouth, or the visual flash in my head suddenly detailing the aspects of a person's life. or the squirrelly goosebumps I get and suddenly blurt out something I couldn't possibly know..So I guess you could say I read from the gut. I NEVER EVER ask questions OR obtain information from the one seeking a read. I've done phone reads, email reads WITHOUT ever meeting the person.
I've also met people and shook their hand, before they started to tell me everything, I'd just tell them NOT to say anything because I HAVE to read this cold..too much information and the feelings I get are just murky as hell.

Seems I do pretty well. Even made a living from this. I've been reading cards since I was 14, well over 30 years. the deck HAS to have imagery from at least the 17th century, I just dial right in. The Boi (My son) doesn't read cards, but has an unflinching sixth sense about people which will serve him well in law enforcement. Its damned uncanny how he pegs people.

so for what its worth, I have fun with this and try to raise the bar on my talent every chance I get.

How do you do it?

you always seem to have these interesting topics on your LJ (some of which i'm too cautious to be talking about in my own LJ), you even talk about work, they're all public, you're not exactly anonymous online when you write what you write. and yet you never complain about getting bullied offline for expressing your thoughts. or do you get into trouble offline and not talk about it? i seriously envy you...

Drupal has a very large community (and consequently a lot of indirect support and add-ons), low requirements and has proven to be good enough for Warner Music (http://drupal.org/node/162162) and Greenpeace (http://importantprojects.com/archives/000084.php). The Greenpeace decision was apparently very close run but maybe the spreadsheet should give you an overview as to how they felt the systems met their criteria.

Then again, for my own personal stuff I'm more interested in Joomla! (although another visit to the doctors' is a bit more pressing right at this moment) so I'm more on the outside looking in where this is councerned.

Mmmm. Nicely lulztastic astrology thread. Well done.

Just letting you know I am reading.

no subject

no subject

no subject

Hmmmm.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject