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

[tcpip]

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.

Comments

[mia76.livejournal.com]

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...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

It's not always wine and roses unfortunately.

Some people do object a great deal to my opinions and I have discovered that they prefer to attack me "behind the scenes" as it were, or with smears, rather than being upfront and debate the issues themselves.

I suspect because they ultimately lack the arguments or the conviction in their own opinions.

After all, there is a difference between deeply ingrained prejudice and deeply considered conviction. I like to think that I've made the effort to reach my opinions through the latter avenue. It requires a hell of a lot of doubt in oneself, and a certain intellectual humility to investigate a subject knowing all the time that the things you believe to be true might be completely wrong.

But once you start down that path, not only will you gain a great deal of confidence and happiness. Yes, happiness; as Virgil said "Happy the man who has been able to learn the causes of things."

One other side effect is that the people who end up being in your inner circle or invite you into theirs will be of a similar ilk. It does takes time.

An elderly member of the Labor Party, after listening to what I had to say, nodded sagely and tapped me on the head and the back. "Watch your head, and watch your back". It was sound advice. Keep your sense of humility, and remember that there will be those will will try to stab you in the back.

[mia76.livejournal.com]

Now that's a load of useful advice... Especially the one about being prejudiced and having no convictions. I know better to doubt myself at all times, sometimes people keep attacking me I have no time to rethink it and get defensive because... I don't know, people can get very snarky at times and I'm too busy being hurt. And I'll keep the "watch your head and your back" in mind. =)

Thanks. Keep blogging anyway. I love to read from you. I mean I could've just abandoned by LJ account, but i still use it to read my friends. =)

[mia76.livejournal.com]

hope you don't mind me putting this in my memories. i need to read it over and over.

thanks =)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Glad to provide a memory :-)