Lev Lafayette's journal

After many months of COVID-19 delays, caseopaya and I are finally getting around to putting our Willsmere property on the market. The Willsmere Estate is certainly a nice place to live with astounding natural surroundings and for those who have an interest in local history, the former use of the grounds and buildings as an asylum should certainly intrigue. Anyway, we're in talks with a couple of real-estate agents, and we've had a couple of nibbles of interest. It would be awesome to sell to someone we know of course, so if you're looking to buy and have deep pockets I'm sure we could come to an arrangement, right? In a manner most inappropriate for a seller (yet suggested to me by my mentor many decades ago), I am more than willing to engage in a full and frank discussion about what is wrong with the property; not much to be honest, but better if the vendor tells you than the buyer discovering it after purchase.

The working week was a difficult one for me. Not because of the work, per se, but rather the conditions. Last week was particularly warm making a good night's sleep something of an impossibility. Yes, I do have air-conditioning, but I prefer to use it only in the most minimal amounts, partially because I have this weird sense of environmental responsibility (although I am now with a 100% renewables electricity provider) but also because I am particularly prone to terrible headaches from said devices - and even the occasional nose-bleed. More to the point, I was attending the EasyBuild user's conference which, being hosted in Europe, meant that I was getting up at 1am in the morning for a conference that finished at 6am - just in time for work. Now the sessions are all recorded on Youtube. However, I did at least make some effort to be in attendance - because on the first day they proudly announced that they now have attendees in four continents because there was a person registered from Australia. EasyBuild really has made a big difference in the installation and optimisation of HPC software, and I'll be writing up a conference report in the next few days.

Whilst I couldn't really have evenings, last weekend I did (on advisement) take the unusual opportunity to relax a bit (a temporary cool change also helped). Providing post-housing company, caseopaya and I have smashed our way through several movies, of the fantasy variety, for kids young and old. My pro-rodent bias was charmed by "The Tale of Despereaux", and surprised by many of the cast. Following this, two of the three movies in The Hobbit series, which I think are quite well done and I don't mind the elaborations to the original story. Then there was Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm", which combined visual appeal and some adult-level Python-noir comedy, and finally in great contrast, "Eragon", which is definitely for the youngsters with a plot and dialogue that really does seem like a young teenager's Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Appropriately then, the weekend also witnessed the Annual General Meeting of the RPG Review Cooperative at the Rose Hotel in Fitzroy, which was a really was a good excuse to catch up with fellow gamer friends whom I hadn't seen for a year or more. Meeting business took thirty minutes; a meal and a few drinks later and I believe a few hours had passed.

I had a little flurry on Duolingo this week, completing two more skill trees; namely Portuguese and Französisch (French from German). Both of these had been on the back-burner for a while, so it is not really surprising that they were eventually completed. When I look over my personal objectives in terms of languages this year I didn't really make much headway in Russian and Mandarin, which was my plan, but have done a lot of cross-referencing between the central and west European languages, which wasn't high on the agenda. But it does make sense seeming that I have familiarity with such tongues and head in that direction with significant regularity. In any case I'm now on the Golden Owl Hall of Fame. I don't think I'll be finishing any more skill trees this year.

Have just submitted my Digital Innovations end-semester assignment, which is basically an argument for a combination MOOC MMORG VR for studies in history and mythology. It's something that I've felt would be worthwhile for a very long time, but requires a commitment to the gamification of an educational experience and a multidisciplinary team. I also received my grade for the mid-semester assignment, and was feeling a little grumpy that I'd lost a couple of percent on aesthetic matters (in a science degree no less), but then realised I'd received the highest grade possible, so I'd best just shut up (even internally) about it. On the other side of the lecturn, this week I also gave a training day on Advanced Linux and Shell Scripting for HPC and had an interesting experience at work with GCC 8.x and Python 2.7.x which was sufficiently interesting for its own blog post.

On the gaming side of things this week played Megatraveller last night which involved many negotiations with the Aslan to engage in ritualised warfare on 'preferred planet X' rather than our homeworld. Took some delight in describing the nibbles and drinks at the soiree for the lion-like people (lots of salmon, dried chopped liver chips, brandy Alexanders, actinidia polygama for toothpicks etc). Space opera can be weird and silly a lot of the time. Still in the science fiction realm, ran Eclipse Phase last Sunday with the Sentinels visiting Halley's base in Antarctica and making their way, if inexpertly, to Vostok base where some three hundred mind-controlled transhumans have been taken. Finally, have made some work on the next issue of RPG Review based around solo and one-on-one play.