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The past few days I have placed finger to keyboard, eye to screen and page, ear to video audio, and even podcast. I do this regularly of course, I am not just a man of letters (albeit weak in popular culture), but also a man with a few letters after my name. I have been working my way through the transcript of the "Cyberpunk 2020: Year of Stainless Steel Rat" convention from last year (I should try to finish this by February 11, for aesthetic reasons). In addition, I have the eResearchNZ conference next week and because I like to be somewhat prepared, "Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man" (Francis Bacon) which of course I provide the slidedeck in advance: "Interactive HPC Computation with Open OnDemand and FastX", a thoroughly enticing title. In addition to this, I've elaborated and composed notes from a Facebook discussion some months back on different referencing styles, specifically "APA Style vs IEEE Style: Fight!", where I have ended up quite in favour of the latter. Finally, I have written a shorter piece on "Coronavirus Vaccine Policy in Australia", which dovetails quite nicely with the short not-for-degree Epidemiology in Public Health course I am doing with John Hopkins University. This is, of course, in addition to my studies in economics at the University of London, and the studies in higher education at the University of Otago (I have just started my final unit, the masters thesis).
In evenings, before turning in, I have taken to watching an episode or three of Horrible Histories which, on first blush, is a children's show (of course I am charmed by the hand-puppet host, Rattus Rattus). I was first exposed to the series through their Scholastic books with the memorable reference to the slogan of the artisans against the aristocrats in early renaissance Florence: "Death to the hats and long live the capes!", itself an inversion of the slogan used by the aristocrats some decades prior when they had the upper hand. But it doesn't take one to realise that the series is very much in the black-comedy tradition like Monty Python, albeit with even more adherence to the historical than even that famous collection (and they did pretty damn well). The author, Terry Deary, has a very good sense of pointing out how awful the ruling class invariably is, how stupefying ignorance has plagued us throughout the pre-scientific ages, and how actual the visceral experience of lived history is more important than memorising people, dates, and places. This said, if criticism can be given it does over-emphasise the British story, and doesn't really give a good sense of historical development and turning points. But for pure educational entertainment it is superb.
In evenings, before turning in, I have taken to watching an episode or three of Horrible Histories which, on first blush, is a children's show (of course I am charmed by the hand-puppet host, Rattus Rattus). I was first exposed to the series through their Scholastic books with the memorable reference to the slogan of the artisans against the aristocrats in early renaissance Florence: "Death to the hats and long live the capes!", itself an inversion of the slogan used by the aristocrats some decades prior when they had the upper hand. But it doesn't take one to realise that the series is very much in the black-comedy tradition like Monty Python, albeit with even more adherence to the historical than even that famous collection (and they did pretty damn well). The author, Terry Deary, has a very good sense of pointing out how awful the ruling class invariably is, how stupefying ignorance has plagued us throughout the pre-scientific ages, and how actual the visceral experience of lived history is more important than memorising people, dates, and places. This said, if criticism can be given it does over-emphasise the British story, and doesn't really give a good sense of historical development and turning points. But for pure educational entertainment it is superb.
