Lev Lafayette's journal

Late Friday afternoon received informal notice that the company would receive ISO 9001 recertification which is obviously good news both for the organisation and for myself as the coordinator of the QA system. Quality Assurance is one of those areas which is really quite essential for organisations to succeed even if they don't apply for formal certification, as it encourages consistency, transparency, multiscoped improvement, and customer focus - as numerous studies illustrate. The two-day audit really had plenty of good things to say about our practises and our use of controlled documents, revision control, and pretty clear objectives. Adopting other certification standards (e.g., information security) is also of interest.

Afterwards attended the Lawrence Krauss dinner at the University of Melbourne, hosted by the Skeptics Society. Krauss spoke mainly on the recent discovery of gravity waves very shortly after the beginning of the universe singularity in a phase-state-like transition from supersymmetry, and then had a little rant about religion in education systems. Well located for the discussion (right next to the lectern), I asked about the temporal effects of spatial contractions from such waves, and the role of religious atheists and a secular approach to religion as a counter to theological dogmatism. Also present at the dinner was Cindy L., whom I hadn't seen for at least a dozen years. We took the opportunity the dinner to have a couple of drinks and catch up; she's spent the better part of the past decade or so in a hedonistic global exploration. Nice work if you can get it ("and you can get it, if you try").

On the following day caseopaya made the journey to the 'burbs to visit hathhalla and ser_pounce for another round of our cheesequest. This was a particularly special event because (Venezuelan Beaver Cheese excepted) we have completed all the cheeses of the skit - the final cheese was smoked Austrian, which involved me finding some imported (frozen!) limburger and smoking the cheese with hickory. We also played Runebound, a moderately good boargame although the exclusive portrayal of semi-naked female characters could make a special issue of gomakemeasandwich.

After cheesequest made our way to usekh's fourtieth birthday party at the very pleasant and tres gothique Back Bar in Windsor. Despite continuing issues with ".xxx" as it was once cryptically named (not it's not a MS-DOS program or a top-level-domain), the evening's namesake seemed to be in excellent spirits as one would being surrounded by so many good and close friends. It was rather like an local aging goths gathering in surroundings were one could actually engage in conversation; there were many people whom I hadn't seen for quite a while and alas, fewer still that I had the chance to have a long yarn with. Thanks are especially due to txxxpxx for organising group gifts which I'm sure will be thoroughly appreciated.