Lev Lafayette's journal

It is always a joy to have close interstate visitors come to town, but sometimes the circumstances aren't ideal. In particular, I feel for my dear Darwin friend, Lara D., who at the end our holiday in Bali received news of her grandmother's passing as she was at the airport. Such events can bring close friends and family together, which has certainly been the case in this instance. Lara is not one to let a visit to Melbourne occur without adventures in her style however, and on Sunday night we and Anton went to the beautiful "Lightscape" event at the Botanic Gardens, whilst on Tuesday night we all met members of the immediate family and friends at the Simon's Peiking Duck restaurant, named after the famous former owner Simon Lay. Despite the circumstances, it was quite a delight to spend time in their company. Thursday afternoon was the funeral itself, held at St Scholastica's Catholic Church. As has been observed as one gets older they go to more funerals than weddings, and whilst everyone dies many of my friends have chosen to be unmarried (including the broader sense of civil union ceremonies, etc). It must be said am more familiar with secular funerals as well, which are inevitably more about the person. But I was thoroughly charmed with the Polish components of the services, and the closing song "Goralu, czy nie żal" a story of leaving the Tatra mountain range, where Lara's grandmother was born.

For less sombre reasons, I have been blessed with a visit from my dear friend from Adelaide, Paula DA. Neither of us will tire of how we first met, on a protest bus trip to the Woomera Detention Centre for asylum seekers in 2001. We discovered very quickly that we had similar interests (e.g., history from a worker's perspective, anarcho-syndicalism, Unitarianism), and were of a like mind, disposition, and humour of such matters and, as a result, we have been firm friends ever since. It was also a great opportunity to whip up something special for my regular Friday evening dinner party which was attended by myself, Paula, Erica H., and Dom J., and which I plied people with Italo-Franco food (air-fried gnocchi with a light tomato salsa, pot de crème au chocolat, etc) which all worked out pretty well. Erica, also a good friend of Paula's, has enjoyed her company as well, and today Erica and I ventured to see the "The Art of Banksy" exhibition, which included several videos and a very impressive collection of static pieces. Of course, we are both overfond of rodents which is always a draw-card, but apart from this stylistic inclusion, one must be impressed with the darkly humourous insight, humanist subject matter, and dedication to just causes displayed by this artist. I found the video referring to the Syrian civil war (rather, the war on civilians), for example, to be very moving.

On Sunday I caught up with Anthony L and Robin M, for our semi-regular dinner and was quite delighted when they pulled out a couple of old bottles (from 1998) from Kirwan's Bridge Winery. More than 20 years ago, I created a website for the winery (now sold off, sadly) and received a crate of plonk for my efforts, the final bottles being quaffed more than 10 years ago. The 1998 bottles were past their best, but still very drinkable. A credit to wine, the company, and the people who kept it in careful storage! Perhaps in this way, aging red wines and red people are similar.

Hot on the heels of the visit to the Pharoah Exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, the last few days have witnessed a couple of delvings into the dramatic arts. On Tuesday Erica H., came to visit and we went to the Malthouse Theatre (located five minutes walk away) to see "Macbeth (An Undoing)", scoring some pretty decent seats. It was quite a clever re-writing focussing mainly on Lady Macbeth as less of a villain and more of an opportunist. The rotating stage really worked well, creating the illusion of the many rooms of a Scottish castle, whilst the performers took the opportunity to break the fourth wall a few times. It was really quite an excellent performance.

Finally, last night Ruby and I ventured out to one of my favourite haunts, the Astor Theatre, to see Yorgos Lanthimos' latest work,
"Kinds of Kindness". This was a challenging and often gruesome triptych with more than a dash of magical realism, and thematically orientated around control and violence. It is certainly not to everyone's taste by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm quite happy to see disturbing films - or series for that matter - in a completely different subject, Erica H., and I smashed our way through "Baby Reindeer" in a single sitting, a rather tragic and painful tale which is full of wrong decisions by all parties.

Anyway, I'm composing all this at Melbourne Airport about to board a flight to Bali for several days. Lara D., has organised a small party of six to actually have a real holiday where we put work and Australian life on the backburner for just a short period of time. Whilst I am a bit of a seasoned traveller to the island, it has been several years since I've put foot on the place. I suspect that I will certainly. visiting my old haunts in Sanur and Ubud. Holiday time!

I have found myself buried in several writing projects over the past week. A work-related document was writing scoping for our HPC service support, which is fairly important to protect the time and resources of our relatively small team (and just in time for our short planned outage next week). For the Isocracy Network, I wrote "The Great Tory Loss" on the UK elections. I also have a similar piece in the works for the French legislative election which, with their two-round system, saw a tacit agreement between Nouveau Front populaire, the left-wing electoral alliance, and the centrist Ensemble, which denied victories to the far-right populist and nationalist Rassemblement National. The final results were 180 seats to the New Popular Front, 159 to Ensemble, and 142 for the National Rally. I have also almost completed a longer article for the Fabians on "Climate Change and International Relations in the Pacific", an article on "Public Nonsense" (inspired by Channel 7's decision to have an astrologer as part of their news programme, and, on a completely different matter, an article on Personal Boundaries (and why they apply to yourself and are not imposed on other people).

I have not been entirely averse to a couple of social occasions. Last week my dear old friend Des J., dragged me out to RRR's Neon Sunset's 10th Anniversary Special, a fine night of some good punk rock, and appropriately enough we ended up at The Retreat hotel afterward, one of my favourite haunts in the inner north. The following night I joined Julie A., and friends for her birthday dinner at Lucy Liu's, a restaurant that started with truly delicious dishes, but was trying too hard to be almost like a dining nightclub, somewhat spoiling the ambiance. I should also include the session of "Call of Cthulhu" that I ran on Thursday as a social event as well, where the interpid investigators had to deal with the joys of passenger flights of the 1920s but with the added bonus of supernatural horror. Overall, I'm taking my recovery from the weeks of bronchitis with some caution and care and as I should. It would ludicruous getting sick after being sick and, as can be expected, I do have many reasons to put finger to keyboard on a number of topics.

This coming Saturday (2pm AEST) I'll be giving a presentation on "Do We Have Enough Time? A Eudaimonic Answer" which will build on previous presentations I have given, "The Continuum of 'Needs' and 'Wants'", "From Stoicism and Naturalistic Pantheism to Effective Altruism", and "The Pursuit of Happiness". As with those previous presentations, I'll be outlining a continuum from hedonism, to Epicureanism, and to Stoicism that draws upon utilitarian and altruistic approaches, matching these with Arendt's division in "The Human Condition", but with the additional existential component of time and aging, where I'll attempt to match the pursuit of happiness with ideas of personal and social development for a balanced commitment to truth, justice, and beauty within this constraint. The Zoom link for the lecture is available on request.

For my own part, I've struggled with a rather rough cold the past few days. Certainly, on Saturday I enjoyed many hours in the company of Mel S., and even had lunch at her home which was a real joy for her - for various reasons, she can't eat food that I have at my various dinners, but I can eat her food. Afterward, I joined Julie A., Erica H., and Liana F.., for dinner and a game of Pandemic. I enjoy this board game; cooperative, global in scope, rules-light, etc. The next few days, however, I was stricken by this cold. With an equal level of illness (unsurprising given her work hours and current climate), Ruby M. also came to visit, creating a co-convalescence. Somehow I also had to host two HPC workshops; in usual circumstances one could (and should) simply call in sick, but that is difficult for parts of my work. There are not enough drop-in HPC educators readily available. Such is how I live.

My trip to the Northern Territory effectively consists of two parts; the first, and more official reason, is attending the National Conference of the Australia China Friendship Society. The second, a more holiday and festive reason, involves bands, rodeos (yes, really), donkey sanctuaries, and more. The second part will have to wait a couple of days, because this post will be about the ACFS National Conference, which ran from Friday 7th to Sunday 9th of June, mostly at the ACFS NT Centre in Leanyer. For myself, however, the Conference started by watching Eunice Leong's funeral, which had been held the day before. Eunice was a founding and life member of the ACFS, which dates back to 1951. As her son Anthony pointed out, she was the diplomat who complemented the warrior spirit of her partner, Maurice, and must be remembered for her service to this country. I only had an opportunity to spend time in Eunice's company on a few occasions, but her sparkling disposition, humour, and intellect left a lasting impression.

As for the Conference itself, it began with a reception at Parliament House with an opening speech by the Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Ngaree Ah Kit (from Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Chinese descent herself), and then with Colin Mackerras giving the Bill Morrow lecture remotely from Beijing. After that, the City of Darwin hosted a dinner, and I spent quite some time with the Mayor, Kon Vatskalis whose partner, Amy, also spoke at the Conference as Director of the Confucious Institute at Charles Darwin University. The following night there was the spectacular conference dinner also at the Hilton Double Tree, which I attended with the ever-stylish Lara; the cuisine was delicious, the singers and dancers truly impressive, and the short speech by Minister Mark Monaghan was of good quality. The NT opposition leader, Lia Finocchiaro, was notable for arriving, announcing themselves, having their name read out, and leaving - all done in under ten minutes. While on a food-based subject, I must also give enormous credit to the ACFS(NT) branch whose volunteers provided the conference Chinese and local cuisine feasts for lunch on the Saturday and Sunday. Another more informal event included a visit to the impressive Chung Wa Society Museum and Temple, which dovetailed nicely with a presentation from the Society's President, Roland Chin.

At these events, the informal provides superb conversational and networking opportunities, while the lectures and presentations give information from people with expertise and necessary organisational activities. Financial columnist and author Daryl Guppy was an expert and entertaining MC for these events. The ACFS NT patron and former Deputy Minister Peter Styles had a certain grandfatherly charm with his sagacious advice on running volunteer groups. International Chinese guests (e.g., Duan Jan from the Department of American and Ocean Affairs, Jihong Fu from Shanghai, and Li Xiao from the Qingdao Associations for Friendship, Beijing Youth Camp, etc), were especially insightful in their contributions in group discussions about furthering positive and beneficial relations between Australia and China, while Edwin Joseph (President of the Multicultural Council) gave a useful commentary on that Darwin's rich tapestry of cultures. Official organisational business was handled fairly smoothly; membership, finances, activities, tours, and elections; and on the latter it appears that I have also become a national director and the communications officer. Overall, it was a successful and informative gathering that underlines the importance and benefits of seeking understanding between countries and cultures as an alternative to belligerence and ignorance. Special thanks must be given to Shu Qin Li, President of the ACFS(NT), and the rest of the branch for their incredible effort and success in putting the conference together.

It is no secret that I am quite a fan of magical realism, the representation of a sense of the other-worldly, yet still explicable through a narrative interpretation of dreams, hallucinations, and madness. It interests me how well Latin American and continental European cultures (e.g., Jorge Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende) inherited and transformed surrealism to this genre with a lineage that includes gothic romanticism, and how it differs from and connects with explictly realist works and other-worldly works such as fantasy, science, and other genre fiction. It would be appropriate to mention in this context the recent series Lovecraft Country, which I recently finished viewing with Erica H. and even more appropriately with a recent re-watching of El Orfanato (The Orphanage) with Ruby M. The explicit action-orientation of the former contrasts with the ambiguity and subtly of the latter. Whilst both have been billed within the "horror" genre, the former also includes a necessary emphasis on political realism and an anti-racist message that must condemn Lovecraft's horrid racism whilst recognising his inspiring mythos, whilst the latter includes an exceptionally touching psychological and emotional depth. Finally, credit is due to Melbourne's Rising art exhibition who have been playing an evening song with Boonwurrung, Woiwurrung and English vocals, which easily carries to my apartment - now that's magical realism as a direct experience.

Firmly in the real world and without much magic at all (at least for those in the know), it's the exciting world of supercomputing. On Friday I hosted a presentation by Melissa Kozul, Research Fellow in Extreme Scale CFD, Mechanical Engineering, on her project's development of gas turbine technologies using specialist Fortran software with GPU accelerators and their use of systems from our home-grown Spartan system to the world's #1 supercomputer, Frontier. The second item of note is the welcome introduction of a new staff member from overseas who comes with plenty of experience and who I am spending a few days introducing our system and our way of doing things; we can certainly do with another smart person in the room. Finally, on Sunday visited former workmate Martin P., and their family (and their delightful pet rodents) who provided me with a rather wonderful South African-inspired lunch, as I picked up a bottle of Vin de Constance which they had brought back from said country; the first time I tasted this was at a University of Melbourne wine-tasting several years ago and the stuff is like liquid gold (with a price tag to match). It's a complete folly getting it, even with its aesthetic history, but I can engage in folly once every four years or so. Another welcome folly was a workmate who gifted me last week a grand vintage bottle of Moet & Chandon, provided by their real-estate agent; they don't drink, whereas I relish a fine drop; thanks Naren!

I really feel like I've outdone myself this week, looking at the range and quantity of activities. Of note includes two meetings of the National Tertiary Education Union, one on the future of public education and the budget (with a very good guest speaker, Prof Dr Julian Garrizmann, from the Goethe University Frankfurt, who was steadfastly evidence-based), and the second on Gaza and the student encampments (three motions passed with 1% opposed, demanding disclosure of UniMelb's links to the war, supporting academic freedom to speak on the issue etc). Matters on the former perspective were followed up with a long night with the local ALP branch on the Federal budget and then continuing discussions well into the night with several of the younger branch members. Most people think the budget was pretty good, and it was, with the glaring exception of that enormous bugbear expense, the AUKUS submarines, whose scale I believe is incomprehensible to most.

On Sunday a number of people (myself, Rodney, Andrew, Charmaine, and Penny) from the RPG Review Cooperative ventured out to the outer suburbs to visit our friend Michael who is currently in convalescence. He is in good spirits and seems to recovering well, but tiredness is a factor. In related news, Erica and I visited David and Angela recently who are in the midst of moving from their long-term abode. David kindly gifted us a veritable mountain of roleplaying games and comics (about two bookshelves worth), and Erica and I took great wide-eyed delight fossicking through them over dinner. Speaking of such things, Friday night's south-western Chinese feast with Liana, Julie, and James was an absolute joy and we even managed to finish a game of Trivial Pursuit, which has dated quite significantly. Of another culinary adventure, Ruby's visit came with the impromptu invention of a (spinach and blue-cheese based) béchamel senfsauce verte, in my apparently never-ended attempt to combine French and German cuisines.

All play and no work is, of course, implausible and whilst most of my work is invariably going through some difficult optimised scientific software installs, I have been very impressed with one recent workflow that involves the automatic generation of array job scripts which themselves have job dependencies, which in turn call another set of job arrays. The fact that there have been several support requests this week that are of unusual levels of complexity has been challenging and rewarding, as has a review of the workplace's "five-year plan" with which I hope I have made some reasonable suggestions for clarification, elaboration, and improvement.

With time running out for continuing registration, I have quickly put together an annual general meeting for the Isocracy Network next Saturday with yours truly speaking on "Climate Change and International Politics", which I believe I might know something about. I've scurried to get everything ready for that day, including the annual report, and getting formatting for articles on the website correct; the most recent being "The Case for Opposing the AUKUS Agreement" by Labor Against War, "Cash is an Anachronistic King" by yours truly, and "Reviewing 'At Work in the Ruins'" by Robert Barker. There is also one on the recent events in Gaza forthcoming and, of course, notes from Saturday's presentation will also be included.

The weekend, unsurprisingly came with a bit of a Star Wars theme; on Saturday I joined Owen, Chester, and Carla for a regular session of the board game "Root" but we decided to design our own factions as a playtest. I built the Ewoks, with sacred forest sites, rituals to overcome their unaggressiveness, and ambush tactics. Other players had a realist participatory democracy and alien abductors. It all worked very well. We played the Star Wars trilogy in the background which holds up quite well, and even better once you realise it is a metaphor for the Vietnam war and the US is the Empire. I suspect that couldn't have been made too obvious at the release in 1977.

The evening previous I hosted an Ethopian-Eritrean dinner for Julie A., and Liana F., the first time I had tried to make such food; specifically Misir Wat (Ethiopian Lentil Stew), Shiro Wot (Spicy Ground Chickpea Stew), Gomen Wat (collard stew) and Tej (honey wine), with store-bought desserts, including date biscuits for Saudi Arabia and baklawa from Lebanon. Purists might be horrified that I used khobz rather than injera, but I'm actually not too fond of the latter - too sour for me.

In other cultural events, in my role as the local president of the Australia-China Friendship Society, the committee met with the new consul general for Victoria and Tasmania, Xinwen Fang, whose background includes working in Timor-Leste which, of course, we had a great deal to talk about. In general, we had exchanges about the ACFS, how we could have functions with the Consulate, and a few jibes at some of Australia's more regrettable local foreign affairs decisions. We also sampled some of Tower's crop of Bi Luo Chun tea, which will feature highly at this coming Sunday's Tea Tasting and Yum Cha event.

Struggling with a bit of a head cold, I delivered workshops this week only almost falling faint once; I guess that's a sign of dedication to the cause or something like that. I've also been attending the live stream of the Easybuild User's Meeting, which is hosted in Sweden so there is invariably catch-up videos for me to watch. I am particularly interested in their work with RISC-V processors and EasyBuild v5, which is in the works. In addition to all this, I've finished the assignments that have been allocated for me to mark for COMP90024.

A special highlight for the week was attending Julie A.'s graduation ceremony in Psychological Sciences with Erica H. The following day we went out to Creature Bar to further celebrations. For my own part, today I received the official notification that my degree would be conferred, to be approved by the University Council in a month or so, and with the ceremony in Wellington in December and that the academic referees that I had nominated for my PhD application responded immediately. I think I'll attend this degree ceremony; for all my degrees, I've only been to one of my graduation ceremonies (the MBA) and I'm rather pleased to discover that I can purchase, rather than just hire the academic gown. Maybe I should buy the set? It would become my dominant form of clothing if I did that.

The week has also seen some work with the ACFS, including a committee meeting and the organisation of our first major event, a Tea with Yum Cha gathering next month. The tea in question is quite special, a fresh crop of the famous Bi Luo Chun tea, considered to be the first among Chinese green teas. "All the tea in China", as the saying goes. We're working toward what I consider to be a good balance within the ACFS between understanding differences in political economy, of business interests, and cultural exchange. Of course, with my own biases, I am extremely interested in that country's actions regarding climate change, and notable the development of clean energy (solar power, electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries in particular) accounted for 40% of the country's 5.2% GDP growth in 2023. Imagine if we aspired to such levels.

The past several days have been an almost novel experience; no study and taking a few days leave from work coupled with public holidays. I know that I recharge quickly in the right circumstances, and given that a few of these days were spent near Apollo Bay on the Otway's coastline in the company of Ruby M., this was exactly the right environment. The Otways coastline this time of year is certainly to my taste with a forested topology that rises sharply from a wild ocean and overcast skies. In many ways, it reminds me of the stark beauty that I find in much of the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand, and home is where the heart is. The human company added to the healing experience, regaling with tales of their adolescence in these lands, coupled with coastal exploration, lazing by the marina, a memorable luncheon at the local Fisherman's Cooperative, and a local art show featuring pieces by my old friend Kirsten D.

Returning to the city on Friday, I made my way to Erica H's belated birthday party at her Footscray apartment. It was almost entirely a Perth goth reunion from the early 90s with James N., Liana F., Julie A., Rob M., Chiari and Adrian C. and myself in attendance. Leaving in the early hours of the morning I was confronted by a strange individual at the train station who attempted to cast spells on me; your cantrips have no effect on me, prestidigitator. The local scurrying rats were far more pleasant company. The following day I returned with Mel S., for an opshopping run with Erica, and the day after I was in the company of Rama F., Liana F., Balaram M., Carla L., and Isobel for another evening Moroccan food and viewing of Casablanca. The experience was sufficiently enjoyable that there is now talk of a regular themed "dinner and movie" evenings.

But today I am back at work and my mental focus has shifted back into that gear, not the least reviewing recent articles that have been published that made use of the Spartan supercomputer (the solution to the Zodiac 340 cipher has finally made to a formal paper). Another matter that has weighed lightly on my mind in recent weeks is whether to continue further doctoral studies. I have chosen in the affirmative, and have made initial inquiries at two different institutions and on two different topics, one of which provided an almost immediate acceptance of my application. Soon enough, I imagine, I will be back into my regular experience of full-time work and full-time study; if only I could scale beyond that.