Political Theory, Practical Christianity, Tech Stuff, Social Stuff

[tcpip]

Have written a piece on Leftfocus on Labor's Georgist History. Will circulate to state and federal Labor MPs to see if any of them support this founding principle of the party. Also, the same 'blog is having a debate on the age-old reform vs revolution, vanguard party vs spontaneous masses approach to social change. Writing another item at the moment which combines Lukács and Arendt which argues for "revolutionary reformism" and "vanguard masses".

Last Sunday conducted the service at the Melbourne Unitarian Church, with Baptist Minister Simon Moyle giving the address. A competent speaker, I was very impressed by his practical, here-and-now approach to Christian ethics (I suspect Tolstoy or C.S. Lewis would have liked this). I rather wish than more Christians were of his ilk. With the presence of of the RMIT Choir adding to the mix it was one of the best services I have been to in the seven years I have been a member.

Yesterday gave a presentation on collaborative technologies (pdf) at the Victorian eResearch Strategic Initiative. Annual work review afterwards was very positive with suggestion that I should take up a Graduate Certificate in Management (Technology), which of course can become a Grad Dip, then an MBA. Causing some 'wow' factor is IBM building an 80-core chip, and nanoscale chip to hold trillions of bits for billions of years.

On Sunday night caseopaya and I visited Polly's and met up with patchworkid, damien_wise, frou_frou, drzero, usekh, txxxpxx and Mr. Pxx - it was supposed to be a gathering for redcountess who was visiting from the UK! Last night dined with imajica_lj, drank cognac and watched Nazi propagandahigh art in the form of Triumph of the Will with our projector.

Have put up a a few old roleplaying games up on Ebay with more coming soon. Any requests? Because chances are I have what you're looking for.

Comments

[sandypawozbun.livejournal.com]

Leni was a talented artist, whatever else can be said about her work, and Triumph of the Will will always be a disturbing favourite of mine.

Another one I particularly liked as 'Burned by the Sun'. I saw both this and TotW during my brief sojourn into politics in my Politics Through Film subject back in the old uni days. I miss those days.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

*nods* It's a hard thing to separate aesthetic judgment from political judgment. TotW is a film with excellent artistic qualities and even as a propaganda film independent of the actual content.

We did give a few wry looks at Hitler et al saying how the SA would last forever..

I twitched when Julius Streicher came to the screen. It's almost bizarre to rate the top-ranking Nazis in terms of their lack of moral standing, but Streicher really excelled in evil.

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

What a fascinating lifestyle !

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I'm not so sure.. So often my life seems to revolve around politico stuff, tech stuff, gaming stuff and a bit of academia on the side.

In a parallel universe there's a tcpip who is a marine biologist instead, I'm sure..

[damien-wise.livejournal.com]

Excellent to catch-up with you&caseopaya. Where else can you get roleplaying, tax and the wonders of cybernisation in one hit? ;)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Likewise! I love your story about the checksum :)

I'll have another look through the DW archives tonight as well..

[essius.livejournal.com]

I've read my share of Mr. Lewis, but I definitely need to read more Tolstoy, having only read his Death of Ivan Ilyich.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

'How Much Land Does A Man Need?' is probably my favourite.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

That memory chip is pure Gene Wolfe ultra-far-future-SF awesome.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Being in a workplace that needs to store lots of scientific data and having suffered a couple of storage-related outages, I'm certainly keeping an eye on it!

[darknova666.livejournal.com]

ola when's rq on again?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

We had a session yesterday. Next one is in two week's time.

Balastor did OK, he got to fight Broos! But on the way there the spirit of Zammon Detected Chaos (crit) and as a result engaged in spirit combat with Ackerly. Ackerly managed to beat him back, but it did mean for most of the combat Balastor was holding his head crying "The Voices! The Voices are fighting again!"

In other news, Honest John was killed in the last adventure and put in a barrel of brine. The idea was to resurrect him at Horngate, but that would have caused a degeneration of characteristics. So Praxelites did a Divine Intervention instead.. And lost 18 points of POW. Casting spells and resisting magic isn't so easy for him now..

[darknova666.livejournal.com]

cool c u guys at church on sun!