Lev Lafayette's journal

For the sake of inclusion and opportunity, I will count the seasonal feasting with gaming with the younger folk at Ru's Crew in Fawkner for the Solstice. It was another afternoon of the Root board game with about ten people playing or otherwise in attendance and this time I played the "Corvid Conspiracy" which is deemed almost impossible to win, on the grounds of their predictable pace. The afternoon was successful for the dual-player Vagabond with a strong finish. In between turns, I enjoyed discussing worldbuilding with Andre, who is designing a world with many tectonic plates (which slotted in quite well with my interest in the physical geography of the Pacific).

True to the Germanic Christmas tradition, Erica H., came over on Christmas Eve (Heiligabend), where I had prepared quite a collection of culturally-appropriate food (I do think the Germans do Christmas well) for that evening and following days; Eier in Senfsoße, Schwäbischer Kartoffelsalat, Käsespätzle, Rösti mit Pilzen und Parmesan, Frankfurter Grüne Soße, and Pflaumen-Blaubeer-Sorbet. We also had a second Xmas dinner Part II last night. Between these, I went to see Anthony L., and Robin M., for what was advertised as a "grazing" event but ended up being a four-course dinner, plus grazing items, with Wesa C., Matthew W., and Sarah also in attendance. The following day attended an actual grazing event with Alison B., at the home of Lucy Sussex and was charmed to catch up with Jenner, of Doc Rat fame, whom I hadn't seen for at least 15 years.

Yesterday I caught up with Mel S., and she led the way to the northern suburbs for an epic op-shop run, which included surprisingly good music at each point of the venture. I think we covered 10 establishments in total, spread out over almost six hours and over ten kilometers on foot. With a hearty breakfast of the leftover Käsespätzle, this morning I ventured out to see the delightful Lara D., who is visiting from NT. True to style, we made our way through the day by visiting three bars (Arbory, Whiteheart, Her Bar), and attending two events. The first was "Marshmellow Laser: Works of Nature" at ACMI, which was a scientifically-informed digital artwork, and the second "Monopoly Dreams" dedicated to the famous boardgame. Our consensus was the former was the superior of the two, whereas the latter did have some interesting trivia about the game, it was more of an arcade experience. I noted that they studiously avoided mentioning the radical origins from "The Landlord's Game", or their attempt to sue the producer of "Anti-Monopoly".

I must confess that typically my cheery spirit in the season and gregariousness amongst company belies a deeply morose streak. This is mainly generated as a result of my deep and continuing consideration of those for whom the season can bring little cheer due to their circumstances with a proportional juxtaposition to the festivities. The happier the company, the greater the feasting, the more I find my mind and spirit in is in "the house of mourning" (Ecclesiastes 7). Certainly, I have not forgotten that house; and who Would, with the state of affairs in Gaza and Bethlehem being bombed on Christmas Day itself? I believe the key difference is that I have reached a certain sense of security within myself that I am personally doing enough. As much as I can encourage the betterment of the world if they do not heed the clarion it is up to them to realise for whom the bell tolls.

It is appropriate, given the French revolutionary date of July 14, that I mention that this coming Sunday at 11 am at the Kathleen Syme Centre in Carlton (and also on Zoom) that I will be presenting the Melbourne Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on "The Pursuit of Happiness". Apart from having a prominent and interesting history in the American Revolution, there has been a lot of discussion over the years of its application in terms of psychological well-being, whether one is taking a hedonistic, Epicurean, Stoic or other perspective, all of which I will address in turn, along with a return to the context of the origins of the phrase as it recursively embodied its own meaning. At times, journaling in the future tense requires one to be a combination of enticing and ambiguous in language. All will be revealed to those who attend, or see the write-up after the fact.

Much of the past few weeks at work have seen me deeply buried running a project for a major upgrade of our applications on the supercomputer. It was an extremely challenging task with close to 500 applications as a whole to install, built from their source code, according to specific versions, and the same for all their dependencies. The project finishes today and, despite what looked like a Herculean task, we managed to complete all but a handful; sometimes software just won't install in this environment, and quite often because the upstream programmers are much better at being a scientist in their domain than understanding good conventions in programming. The next fortnight will be testing, building containers for the old application collections, and writing job submission examples.

On a related matter, whilst I haven't had much opportunity for external socialisation, I have played host a few times recently. The winter phase, such as it is, gives me the opportunity to apply my skills to various European and related foods. A recent visit from former a manager from the Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing (Bill Y) and advisor (Norber N) included palacsinta, a Hungarian Crepes (along with a French Potage Crécy and Italian agnolotti). Norbert recalled his mother making them when he was a youngster in Vienna, which is really quite a delightful memory for one who is at least a couple of decades older than myself. Liana F., also visited for "Hungarian night" which consisted of a mushroom soup, langos (fried bread), palacsinta, and a couple of Bela Lugosi films. New friends Todd and Karen from the arts and fashion industry visited on the weekend as well with Maggie S for a rather boisterous night of Spanish and Latin American food. This weekend will include "German night". Unsurprisingly, my next entry will almost certainly include an extensive collection of recipes. After all, I'm an advocate for "open sauce".

Do you have a love for a place or people that you have never been to? For me, it is Brittany (Bretagne, Breizh), the north-western corner of France. To be sure, I do have a thing for wild coastlines and cool, stormy, maritime climate, which also explains why I like the land of my birth, the South Island of New Zealand. Whilst still spectacular, I can only imagine how impressive the Paimpont forest (Forêt de Paimpont, Koad Pempont) would have been in previous centuries, as the legendary Brocéliande, the final resting place of Merlin and much used in other fantastic literature. Perhaps it is the extraordinary archeological remains, including Neanderthal hearths that are some 400,000 years old, or the stunning neolithic cairns of Barnenez, Saint-Michel tumulus, and the Carnac stones? Maybe it's because I am charmed by the Ouessant sheep, which are around 45-50cm at the shoulder, fully grown.

Perhaps there is something about a place whose people are one of the last beacons in the Celtic Twilight (which I have given previous presentations)? One small village of indomitable Gauls (a childhood favourite) is in Armorica, inspired the village of Erquy as unofficially confirmed by Underzo. The Romans probably didn't really think much of the place, naming the far NW corner, Finis Terrae, the end of the earth. Of course, the Bretons are not Gauls, having made their way over from Devon and Cornwall in the 5th to 7th centuries CE in preference to having to deal with the invading Anglo-Saxons. Brittany managed to remain semi-independent until the 16th Century, until incorporated into France by jure uxoris. With the Breton language (sort of like Welsh with a French accent and loanwords) never officially recognised, it fell into a decline especially in the second half of the 20th century to approximately 200,000 speakers, although there is a contemporary revival and, conveniently, it is today's featured project on Wikiversity.

There is much more that I could say on this subject, but on an Epicurean level, last night was Breton night at home. With caseopaya's nephew Luke staying with us for a few weeks in preparation for his move back to Perth it's a full house. Drinks through the night were various versions of Kir, the Kir Impérial to begin with, followed by Kir Breton for main (with imported Kerisac cider), and a standard with dessert, and a post-dinner Calvados as a night-cap. The dinner itself was Gratin de Thon aux Haricots Secs, which I thought would be pretty plain but was absolutely amazing, although my variance from the standard recipe by using tomato-infused breadcrumbs possibly helped. Dessert was Kaletez, buckwheat pancakes, with fruit fillings. Background music was of the culture, which caseopaya drew some similarity with Dead Can Dance; nothing new under the sun, but there is new combinations.

Earlier this year I made a start on a combination study-guide, Esperanto for Anarchists which, as the name suggests would include both a self-paced learning guide on Esperanto but with anarchist content inspired by the synthesis from the times of Republican Spain, "Paroli Esperanton estis iam esenca parto de anarkiismo". I have recently dusted off the project and whilst I still have a long way to go I am making good, if somewhat haphazard, progress. The book is increasingly also an elucidation of traditional anarchist (i.e., libertarian socialist) principles so it is a self-paced guide in that regards as well. I rather wish my brain would give an appropriate title that would combine both aspects in a satisfactory manner. I'm still hoping to have the project completed by the end of the year.

Our workplace is currently doing a "culture review" following some rather interesting survey responses indicating a need to improve employee participation and articulation of mission. I have joined the working party a little enthusiastically, but do mean to apply what I do know (which isn't much) about organisational psychology to the project. Hopefully, I will learn more in coming weeks as I start preparing for my my graduate studies in psychology next year at the University of Waikato. Not much for the rest of the week however as I have two days of workshops to conduct and I'm currently working on a new one on Mathematical and Statistical Programming for HPC. The following Monday I have a major assignment due for my masters in higher education on developing a mentorship programme for HPC researchers which, fortunately, I have already completed a third with a presentation to a symposium on the subject a week ago.

Following reviews from psychologists, I have finally posted my essay on Dealing with 'The Thing': Can Stoic Philosophy and Project Management Help Anxiety?, which at least a few people have said that they are finding personally useful. Good! That's why I wrote it. Moving from mind to body, my physical regimen continues with gradual success, with now consistently good blood pressure, and a significant drop in heart-rate to an "athlete's" level (c50 bpm, resting), which is quite remarkable for one in their mid-autumn years. Not to let one's culinary desires go astray I have actually developed a healthy cheesecake - replacing a standard recipe's call for cream cheese and sugared biscuits with whey protein and yogurt and oat flour with almond essence.

In the past few days, I've spent my copious free time in getting two parliamentary submissions in before their deadlines. For Federal government and on behalf of the Victorian Secular Lobby I completed a submission on the second draft of religious freedom bills. These effectively enshrine the right of discrimination as long as it's religiously motivated. The second submission, for the State government on homelessness issues, was on behalf of the Isocracy Network. Just as I completed the latter the committee extended the deadline for submission; so perhaps my personal submission can wait until a later date; to be honest I have no yet consolidated in my own mind what to write about my own experiences as a homeless teenager finishing his high school graduation.

About a fortnight ago we at Research Computing Services moved to our new offices on Leicester Street; we're all settled in now and the general facilities are an improvement to what we had before. A welcome drinks and nibbles gathering was held yesterday and found myself one of the last to leave having engaged in some conversation with the people from Space Management who had come to visit. Also on a similar trajectory, the night previous visited the local Aldi to purchase eleven bottles of their Oliver Cromwell, which had finally made to Australia. This is of note as it has won a few serious awards in that category. I cannot say I'm a big consumer of gin by any stretch of the imagination (caseopaya has a greater interest in that direction), but this was opportune. So having a good stock of the stuff shouldn't go astray.

Due to function clashes, our fortnightly Megatraveller game was shifted to Wednesday evening, where we had to deal with a crazed crew-member (there's always one, right?). I was quite intrigued by the organochloride native sapient lifeform of the hell world planet, but alas the plot didn't deviate in that direction. Nevertheless, it does provide material for the next "Monsters" issue of RPG Review which I am working on, with a desperate need for articles. Tomorrow I'll be running a session of Eclipse Phase, where the mutated exsurgent ex-proxies are going toe-to-toe with insane killer robots. Actually, quite impressed with how well the PCs played their new obsessive-compulsive behaviour in the last session.

Monday evening we went to The Astor to see Liquid Sky, which I hadn't seen in about thirty years or so. It is a decidedly B-grade film in terms of production and acting, but does a good presentation of the glam-punk fashion scene of the time, and has a superb plot. April is looking like a challenging month there with Eraserhead, Dune, Inception, and Interstellar all playing. On a related level, played Eclipse Phase on Friday night (we were completely hosed due to an ill-thought snap decision) and will be running another session on Sunday.

University House hosted another wine masterclass on Friday, this time German Riesling. It was a good overview of the only region of Germany I really know by experience, although try as they might there is nothing astounding about any Riesling, sweet or dry. It's the rice congee of wines. Appalling if bad, but usually satisfying and shouldn't cost more than $10 a bowl. I'm rather looking forward to the next event of South American wines; I am, of course, familiar with Chilean varieties, but I must admit I have no experience of Brazilian.

Current Affairs has published a superb critique of Jordan Peterson, outlying a method that combines banality with obscurity, with a fundamentalist's dogma. It is a far cry from, for example, Noam Chomsky's declaration that public intelectuals need to "expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions", of Habermas' "courage to take normative stances and the imagination to adopt novel perspectives", even in the age of the Internet, or Foucault's claims to universalism mixed with a Gramscian proletarian-orientated "organic intellectual", which develops in a very different form in Hannah Arendt's refugee-cosmopolitan experience. Looking a the world, it should be clear that the intellectual world needs more of this ilk, rather than that of individual self-help texts raised to political ideology, as offered by Peterson.

My fiftieth orbit gathering was apparently enjoyed by all. In hindsight I could have organised a larger group in a bigger venue. As it was India At Q did a brilliant job, and it was a great opportunity to catch up with close friends old and new. One of the more amusing comments I heard on multiple occasions was "You have such interesting and intelligent friends!" - the speaker overlooking the fact that they are one of those interesting and intelligent people. I was in very good spirits in this company and some even managed to convince me to give an impromptu speech which apparently wasn't terrible. I did drink a fair amount and the evening concluding with sipping armagnac. The following morning my head reminded me of exactly how much I had.

Nevertheless, I recovered enough to run a session of Eclipe Phase the following afternoon where the Sentinels are travelled to Luna to find out exactly what Cognite's Overlord Unit (aka Dr. Revolution) is really up to. It had been a pretty heavy SFRPG game few days, with playing Justin A's Eclipse Phase on Friday evening, and Megatraveller the night before (anothe session of Megatravaller is planned for tomorrow night. Posthuman Studios is having an "Open Muse" publication, and I'm very tempted to submit something. I might even find some inspiration from Ursula K. Le Guin who passed away today. Like many others I was particularly taken by The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness, etc, but most of all, her essays The Language of the Night. EDIT. Neglected to mention the utilitarian calculation in The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, which was the basis of a Pathfinder Planescape campaign that I was part of for many months.

The past three days I've been conducting training courses for the University of Melbourne researchers (and one from Victoria University). They have been the usual trio which are well established (Introduction to Linux and HPC, Advanced Linux and Shell Scripting, and Introduction to Parallel Programming), but the content never remains static with updates after every time I run the training days. I do have a tendency to try to push more and more information into each iteration, although it is clear that new courses (e.g., GPGPU programming) will need to be organised. Even after all these years they are no less tiring to run however, even with the interesting and inquisitive questions from participants. But providing researchers the systems and ability to conduct their computational tasks is a powerful internal motivation, and one which drives me every day.

The week started with ANZAC day, a national holiday in remembrance of lives lost in war, which war-mongers try to turn into a celebration of invasive military endeavours. A Muslim woman had the temerity to suggest that we shouldn't forget people dying in current wars or the refugees from such conflicts; the conservative media hounded her as a result. For our ANZAC day we had one of our regular cheesequests with hathhalla and ser_pounce with a heft European range (and Breton cider). In the spirit of things, I'd made an ANZAC cookie in the shape of ANZAC cove and surrounds - hathhalla commented that it was like one of her (primary school) student's science experiments until I started pointing out the topographical features.

Afterwards we had a game of D&D 4th edition, probably the edition that's closest to a board game, making use of the Charlemagne's Paladins supplement and Open Grave. It was the beginning of a gaming intensive week, with the following night spent playing Papers & Paychecks, and the night after that reading The Non-Designer's Design Book, an excellent summary publication on such matters (reddragdiva may also be interested in this). Today has included prepartion for a session of Eclipse Phase which I'll be running tomorrow, which also has a Kickstarter for a second edition (I did some playtesting for this).

But of course, that's not the only events of the week. Much of work has been battling a monster of a suite of programs, FENiCS, which has a monstrous toolchain of dependencies (probably close to a hundred, including those we've already done). Who knew that I'd ever need, for example binutils/2.25-GCC-4.9.2-binutils-2.25? It is enough to drive one to drink and fortunately University House came to my assistance with Dr. Geoff Scollary providing a class on the various types production and tasting of sparking wine (aka 'champagne', but we're not allowed to call it that anymore unless it's actually from Champagne). Based on blind testing apparently I'm fond of Domain Chandon Pinot Noir. Finally, on other matters that drives one to drink, earlier in the week completed a two-part special of The Shambling Mound, a fortnight's summary of the activities of the current US administration.

Organised Theo de Raadt to speak at VPAC at the conclusion of the OpenBSD hackathon. Apart from discussing the work that the various developers did at the network hackathon, there was also discussion on the OpenBSD approach ("we don't care what people use it for... but I hear some people are using OpenSSH"), various forks and divergence in the BSD code. It has also led me to spend some thinking about the difference between various copyleft licenses (of which GPL is the exemplar) and permissive licenses (such as the BSD license). The latter, I believe, can be appropriated by proprietary licenses, whereas the former ensure the same freedoms are preserved in derivative works.

Since the OpenBSD conf have taken the silver bird to Wellington, where I certainly hope to catch up with a number of people of that fair town. Purchased four bottles of Moet & Chandon, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, a bottle of Talisker, two bottles of NZ vodka, a bottle of Disarro, a bottle of Chambord, and some Frangelico at New Zealand's very generous duty free. Staying at the former Waterloo Hotel, with its dilapidated deco style. Have made it to Linux Conf (where I am typing this) and where I'll be spending the following week. Interested in the game programming miniconf. Have discovered that KapCon is on as well next weekend, so will take the opportunity to go to that as well.