Lev Lafayette's journal

On Sunday I gave an address to the local Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship on "The Pursuit of Happiness" which followed the phrase from the US Declaration of Independence, and outlined the three main approaches; hedonistic, Epicurean, and Stoic along with some empirical backing from the modern science of well-being and societal-level measures. As I mentioned in the presentation, I have discusssed this matter at some length in the past with "The Continuum of Needs and Wants", to the Melbourne Agnostics, on November 14, 2020, "From Stoicism and Naturalistic Pantheism to Effective Altruism" to The Sea of Faith in Australia, on April 21st 2022, and "We Are We Do: Emotions, Trauma, and Happiness" the Melbourne Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, on May 15, 2022. I neglected to mention, because I plain forgot, that I also gave a presentation to The Philosophy Forum on August 7, 2011, also entitled "The Pursuit of Happiness". Across all these presentations there is a running theme where I note that there are different stages of happiness that correlate with Hannah Arendt's categories of being and the satisfaction of each stage can lead to an indulgence which brings unhappiness - and the empirical evidence backs this up. Thus there is an evolution from sensual hedonism, to the contentment of Epicureanism, to the moral virtue and social engagement exemplified by the Stoics.

On the matter of hedonistic and epicurean approaches, the winter phase in Melbourne is an opportunity for me to engage in various forms of soups and stodgy fare of which various dining companions are given the opportunity to put on a kilo or two in my company. As promised in the last entry, I have a small mountain of recipes to update of this nature, so here's the new additions: Coq au vin, Vichyssoise, Soupe au Pistou, Hungarian Mushroom Soup and Langos, and Irish Colcannon. This last weekend also witnessed "German night" which is a challenge when you're cooking for vegetarians. Although in the past I have made Kaese Spaetzle (the German version of "mac and cheese"), this time I tried my hand at Eier in Senfsoße (eggs in mustard sauce) with a side of sauerkraut, Thuringian Klöße mit Bratkartofflen (potato dumplings and fried potatoes), with Schmorkohl (Braised Cabbage), and Frankfurter grie soβ (green sauce - mine was not nearly green enough), before finishing with a Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Blackforest Cake). Apart from the cake, there was a pretty serious amount of cabbage, potato, and onion and whilst it all wasn't bad at all, my friends of Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg regions may forgive my preferences of the more colourful foods of the Campagne française.

Friday's dinner was a wonderful meeting of some rather impressive minds. Gathered at the Rookery I was enjoined by three political allies, namely Maggie S (former Melbourne editor of "Vogue" no less, thank you), Wesa C (CEO of Cultural Intelligence, recent Labor candidate for Prahran), and Sarah H (recently elected National President of the Fabian Society). It was quite an exuberant evening, rather like the classic play and movie "Don's Party" as one attendee quipped, that covered a range of contemporary matters on politics, worker's rights, and the aesthetic dimension. The previously enjoyed triple-smoked ham from Aldi did lead to attendees saying it was the best they'd ever had, so I guess that was a plus as well.

On the topic of the aesthetic dimension, today Erica H. and I ventured to the National Gallery of Victoria for the Alexander McQueen exhibition. I am by no means a fashionista, although I do have a few items that carry a certain style (mostly inherited). McQueen however is quite exceptional; drawing upon sources as diverse as antiquity, early modernism, Bauhaus, gothic-punk, Scottish dress, and much more, he certainly left a great impression for a career that was comparatively recent and sadly shortened by his own early death.

Regular friends and readers would probably know I've been in an on-again, off-again relationship over the past few years. In that time said partner has broken up with me four times or so. Each time I've accepted them back into my life and treated their apologies as genuine; I'm a person of emotional moderation, stability, and commitment, and they're prone to extremes, instability, and temporary affections. Well, today they broke up with me again in the usual fashion. Except for this time, I feel nothing but great relief and happiness. It is, in the parlance, "the Final Discard". For far too long I played the role of caretaker and rescuer, rendering assistance and receiving punishment. No emotionally healthy person would want to be treated like I've been treated, and I let my sympathetic nature get the better of me. But those days are in my past; what it came down to was that only one of us was making an effort. Tonight I break open the champagne and celebrate!

Today is RU OK Day? and various businesses and organisations host morning tea's across the country supposedly on the topic of mental health. As a Mental Health First Aid person, I find it, whilst usually well-intentioned, is often more than a little cringe-worthy. My own workplace was no exception; almost two hundred people crowded into a space, providing a great opportunity for a super-spreader event, and a couple of more senior managers spoke a few motherhood statements about the importance of mental health, how the past couple of years have been especially difficult, and the recommendation of checking the website. None of it was untrue as such, but it didn't exactly come across with the spirit of availability and supportive empathy, which must come first.

On topic, clinical psychologist Sanah Ahsan has written an excellent piece in The Guardian highlighting how so much of mental health is orientated towards individualised understanding (which is great when it is appropriate) when for many people social inequalities manifest themselves as mental health issues. Universal basic income, for example, reduces depression and anxiety among financially insecure young people. Perhaps on that note, I should mention that I attended Wesa Chau's campaign launch last night, the Labor candidate for Prahan with some 70 people present who made a point of highlighting Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health system and the implementation of the Commission's recommendations.

On the final tangent, there is much to be said for the healing properties of music although the popular claims of "The Mozart Effect" are complete nonsense (the effect is temporary and modest at best and works regardless of genre). Nevertheless, the mood and mental health benefits of music and the neuroscience of music in general; stress relief, cognitive performance, energy levels, etc have more than incidental evidence and one intuitively suspects that the type of music will correlate to the effects; it is, after all, a "sound language". I must also mention that I am still making good use of the University's concerts around the corner from home. The Klara Quartet from two nights ago, in particular, featured a wonderful version of Dvořák's Piano Quartet No.2, and a few days prior to that attended the Mirmir 2 concert with Virginia T., which included the very challenging and dissonant Schnittke Quintet.

I appear to have been struck by a bug of ennui; listlessness, dissatisfaction, lack of excitement. Certainly, I am going through the motions of normal behaviour. I'm back into my regular exercise régime post-operation, I am keeping up with my studies and especially my teaching, although I must say the student participation from the University of Rojava is less than optimal. I'm putting together the final touches of RPG Review issues 50 and 51, although I am still waiting on a couple of scenario articles from other authors. I've also found myself in a graduate teaching course at UniMelb for teaching online delivery, even though I'm not formally enrolled; something about professional development. I'm also about half-way through an article on modern monetary theory because that's the sort of thing I do for fun. Perhaps it is like a pregnant pause, as I have some rather exciting events coming up in the coming week (settlement on my apartment, forum with the breaker of the Zodiac cipher), and all I have to do this week is relatively mundane in comparison, going through the motions of my usual activities with very few exciting and unique activities. Given this reflection, it is probable that I will shake this bug in the next day or two.

Certainly at least part of this feeling comes from what is the utterly dire situation in Australian Federal politics. The past two months have witnessed multiple shocking revelations of sexual misconduct and rape by multiple Australian politicians and their staff. The Prime Minister resists multiple calls for an inquiry into the allegations of rape against the Attorney-General, Christian Porter, and has gone so far to describe Porter as innocent. Apparently, Morrison is a member of the "Big Swinging Dicks group in the Federal LP, designed to prevent women from attaining power; The results are self-evident. Then there's the debacle of the SARS-COV-19 vaccine roll-out in Australia. The Federal government made the orders for vaccines, and promised that 4 million Australians would be vaccinated by the end of March (so far it's 14,169), and everyone by October.

Today, seventy-five years ago, the atomic bomb was used against the civilian population of Hiroshima and three days later on Nagasaki. The two bombings killed around 175,000 people and came on the back of a massive firebombing campaign against almost seventy Japanese cities, killing around 550,000 people. In the 1980s, as the threat of nuclear war was often present, these were days of commemoration and protest; "protest and survive" as historian E. P. Thompson quipped, combining a call to political action with the existential risk. With the possibility of a global war more remote now than it was in those days, and indeed the relative level of peace between and within nations higher than it has been for many years, I wonder if there is sufficient realisation that in some regards at least, that these are in fact better times. The problem being, of course, they are only better because of of the dedication of political activists over the decades. Never forget that if you leave politics just to the goodwill of who seek to attain power then they will be prone to corruption, warmongering, and oppression. If you aren't involved in politics, politics will be done to you.

With some of this in mind, I penned a few words today about the possibility of an AU-EU Society, like similar cultural and sometimes vaguely political associations. Apart from some strong cultural ties that Australia has with the continent, there is also some political equivalents as well; an interest in a welfare state, civil and democratic rights, etc. Apart from that I've continued powering away with various writings including the "Philosophy, Project Management and Anxiety" essay, the "Esperanto for Anarchists" book, teaching material on parallel programming, and on a complete tangent, a small piece of local history, "Willsmere and Cricket", along with some initial notes on a meta-review of various incarnations of The War of the Worlds.

My workplace, the University of Melbourne, has decided to make some 450 staff redundant, citing falling international student numbers. Given the capital works and balance sheet, it is hard to see why this is entirely necessary. As the union says, "Cutting jobs should be the absolute last option, yet it is clearly the first impulse of university management". Unsurprisingly, the union has also initiated a petition calling for greater financial transparency, and is holding an all-staff meeting (virtually) in a few days. Last I hear our group, Research Computing Services, is doing sufficiently well that we probably won't be affected, and as for my own position, I certainly can't say that the pandemic seems to have reduced my workload at all, despite spending a good portion of my time in teaching-related activities.

A couple of days ago one of my old friends from the Melbourne Unitarian Church had died. Ralph Knight had looked after their radio show for many years on 3CR (where he had been a founding member) along with a swing music show and Steam Radio, of music and humour from the pre-electronic and pre-radio era. Whilst his health has always been less than optimal for some twenty years that I had known him, he had the inverse in his knowledge, displaying an extremely solid knowledge of a variety of physical and biological sciences, but also of human psychology. The combination of which led him to have little respect for nonsense which conflicted the former, and a very wry sense of humour coming from the latter. All our lives must end; but it is a terrible tragedy of our species that some great minds that are still in excellent state must depart with a body that no longer works.

The rolling study machine continues on with daily (or at least, travel time to-and-from work, and evenings) intensive studies in economics dominating. I think I might have gone off the deep-end when I started suggesting that due to diminishing and eventually negative returns of utility in all goods that indifference curves would eventually be circular. This is the sort of mad speculation that one engages in late at night, but it just goes to show that economics isn't all dull. Not at all dull in the wrong way when you have an economy that has just slipped into recession, as my local Federal MP and national treasurer Josh Frydenberg, has been called to task for continually misrepresenting Labor's fiscal policies. Little wonder that the LNP is spending $1m to save his sorry arse in what is supposed to be a safe seat.

In other study news I received my mid-semester assignment result back for my MSc in Information Systems with quite acceptable 80% grade. That was cause for some elation, but it has been significantly soured by the University of Otago suspending my access to the elearning tools because of an alleged $25NZD debt - basically they took my fees (over $4K I might add) decided without reason to deduct $25 and now claim I have a debt, but with no feasible means of making a payment. I am nevertheless continuing this MHEd course courtesy of working directly with the course co-ordinator who is a lot more reasonable in comparison. Seriously though, it is like Otago University is making every effort to prevent students from participating. Hopefully, this will all be sorted out soon. On the other end of the teaching experience, next week I'll be organising a two-day course for High Performance Computing for Mechanical Engineering, which is like my standard courses but with an emphasis on various engineering applications and OpenFOAM in particular, horrible software that it has become.

I haven't just been doing work and study, however. Last night attended a meeting of Linux Users of Victoria with Adrien Close talking about ZeroTier, which looks mighty fine for people who don't like to muck around with tunneling and IPSec whilst on the road, and Enno Davids on some recent less than ethical events in the IT world over the past several months (Australian Census, encryption access, Supermicro, TCL phone data redirects). Further, despite the heat, the RPG Review Cooperative managed to hold its annual Fruit Bat picnic at Bell Bird Park which had a few visitors from Ballarat as well. Finally, last week Mac the Cat ended stuck 6m up a tree; I eventually managed to coax him down with food at 10.30pm to a knot at 4m and then drag him home. A couple of night's later he turned up with a young ring-tailed possum in his mouth, so I guess that's how he got stuck in the first place. We try to have a sunset curfew for Mac, because cats are murderers, and sometimes he gets away with it.

Australia has had an absolute political circus of a week with the bourgeois-liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull seeing off an attempted party-coup lead by hard-right minister Peter Dutton on August 21st, only to experience a second leadership spill two days later. This time Turnbull stepped down and surprisingly Scott Morrison has now taken up the role of Prime Minister of Australia; a more thorough account is provided by the good folk at Wikipedia. Turnbull had always been too willing to compromise with the crazy right-wingers of the Liberal Party and was so ignorant of the economic pain of ordinary people to ensure public support. It was, briefly, impressive to see how he fought back in the last days but it was all too late. As for the contenders, Peter Dutton is an obvious extreme-right dullard who is widely loathed, and Scott Morrison whilst slightly more pragmatic but has no public appeal, and also comes from the far-right of the party and comes with the same economic baggage. So whilst the liberal and conservative wings of the Liberal Party are at open war with each other (and the latter winning), the public are increasingly annoyed at a party that has no concern with their increasing levels of inequality, increases in the cost-of-living, wage stagnation, and their virilent anti-unionism. People are furious as their behaviour and the Tories are going to get smacked for six when the Federal election is finally called.

Whilst the circus was unavoidable, there were other events to participate in over the past few days. Notably delivered a training day on Parallel Programming on Wednesday which was well attended by an interested class. The evening beforehand I went wrote a couple more code debugging examples for Valgrind and the GNU Debugger which are appropriate for the class and will fine-tune those even further for the next classes - four have been set up for the coming month of September. Thursday started with yet another hearing at VCAT where an application was made to sell Rick B's house; given that there is no argument about the need and no opposition, it surprises me that this requires a court case rather than simply being an administrative procedure. Later that day participated in a session of Megatraveller where the PCs finally caught up with a nanite distributing scientist-gone-wrong only to discover that they were doing the right thing. The GM added in some major player-created plot elements as part of the chase which worked quite well. Finally, today attended a meeting of Linux Users of Victoria today with Wen Len presenting on Dual-Booting Windows 10 and Ubuntu, which was appropriately sub-titled "the fun, the pain, the joy". As he pointed out that actual process itself is reasonably easy - it's the planning that's painful. It's quite a busy few days, and next week in Perth will be busy as well. Still, perhaps one of the happiest moments of it all is that I received confirmation a short time ago that Kyral Castle will be available to host RuneQuest Con DownUnder on November 11th - so that's official. And guess who will be leading the organisation of that event?

Are propertarians, that right-wing "libertarian" political philosophy, among the worst thinkers of all? Or, ironically, as bad as vulgar Marxists? I raise this possibility to two recent debates with such individuals where they have shown a disdain for factual information. One claimed that Marxism has no influence in Europe, in Germany in particular. I mentioned everything from the Frankfurt Declaration, to various research institutes, to the state parliament of Thuringia. The next tried argued about Chinese communism, and were less than happy when I suggested it was probably better than the alternatives available at the time. So it goes; the Stalinist communists think I'm an apologist for capitalism, the propertarians and neoliberals think I'm an apologist for communism, and in reality I'm neither. It's just that I start with contextual facts without partisanship. I actually think that consciously losing a sense of political partisanship was one of the smartest acts of self-improvement I've ever done - even it both confuses and annoys those with rigid ideologies.

Anyway, as an example of the horrors of government interventions, when an Australian turns fifty, the government likes to check their bum and I've provided them that opportunity. What I'm referring to is the National Bowel Cancer screening program, a voluntary at-home program which does lead to a reduction in cancer incidence. Of course, people claim that they "don't have time", and to be fair it was weeks before I even read the documentation. For what it's worth this is an encouragement for people to actually pull their finger out and do this, because it can be a life-saving exercise. It is actually better to know, rather than cancer catching you when it's too late. Apropos on other health issues, an old friend has been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis; I have taken the opportunity to recall a story from my youth (Facebook) where involving a memorable confusion between sclerosis and cirrhosis.

Neglected to mention in the last post that I attended the Linux Users of Victoria meeting last Tuesday on the use of FOSS tools in the production of the play 'Share' by Dr. Katherine Phelps, which introduced me to the script-writing tool, CeltX. Also this week ran the usual set of three training courses; whilst the first went really well, even if the class were mostly beginners, the latter two had to be cancelled due to non-attendances. This is the first time in eight years or so that this has ever happened and I've suggested that, whilst we offer the training for free to researchers, that perhaps we need to add a deposit to encourage their attendance. The courses are in very high-demand and it really isn't fair for those who do make the effort to attend.

In the past few days wrote-up an lengthy Isocracy Newsletter (members only), and have just posted The Shambling Mound's Tenth Week. This Thursday is the University of Melbourne Secular Society AGM. In other such gatherings, a week ago I went to see Barry Jones talk at the Unitarians about changes in employment and populism. He's very knowledgeable, but his style (and this is evident in his books) tends to be bric-a-brac and the first topic wasn't addressed at all! Last Sunday at The Philosophy Forum, Rohan Macleod led the discussion on the nature of political conservatism; the material needed work but there was excellent discussion afterwards on the class nature of conservatism and the separation of socio- and economic- attitudes.

Big event of the weekend was caseopaya's birthday. We had a quiet gathering in each other's company watching cheesy vampire films from the sixties and seventies. The gifting consisted of tickets to a cabaret show at Speakeasy HQ in the coming week which has since been extended - with a courtesy call no less - to include the following burlesque show due to a misprint on the tickets. The weather has turned a little cooler, so I was able to engage in my modest culinary expertise to produce two candle-lit dinners with a reasonable coq au vin supplemented on the first night with a rather tasty German sparking white (infused with lime) and an Italian chianti on the second; so in effect that will make three birthday dinners.

Last journal entry expressed a tale of a wayward blue-tongued lizard which finally ventured out to catch some rays. We managed to coax it outside where it has found a home under the hot-water system and probably a food supply more appropriate than cat biscuits. Tramper the rat continues to soldier on, although he rather foolishly managed to catch a cold and had stopped eating. His teeth needed a good clip and over the past few days I've been force-feeding him critical care, along with a course of antibiotics. It seems to have had a positive effect with the aging rodent making effort to eat more normal food again as well. Still, it seems that my prior assessment that he will be around for a while longer was somewhat optimistic.

It's been an interesting week in anglophone politics. Jeremy Cobryn was elected leader of the British Labour Party with almost 60% of the vote, a conclusive mandate in anyone's language. Whilst conservatives are having an aneurysm, a further 30,000 people have joined since his win. Meanwhile on the other side of the Big Pond, Bernie Sanders continues to go from strength to strength - one speech that really caught my attention was to Liberty 'University', a conservative religious institution where he emphasized the morality of economic justice. Finally in Australia the ultra-conservative and deeply unpopular Prime Minister Tony Abbott was overthrown in a party-room coup by the more liberal Malcolm Turnbull, who nevertheless has committed to existing policies.

On a completely unrelated personal note, last weekend I hit my thumb and broke the skin under nail causing some bleeding. A day later it was clear that it was infected. The day after that I was at the doctor's who prescribed some antibiotics. Alas, the infection continued and my thumb swelled, creating something like a felon infection. It was quite painful to say the least with significant pressure; not as bad a root canal, but lasting longer, and getting worse. So it was back to the doctor who promptly drained the wound by piercing the thumbnail and wound entrance with a paperclip heated by a lighter. Such are the wonders of modern technology.

On the gaming side of the week, I've reached level 15 in Ingress and will make 16, the top level, in a couple of weeks at the current rate. Thursday night was our regular Laundry files game, finally finished dealing with Deep Ones in the Bass Strait and the escaped Shoggoths. An order was also received to purchase my entire Torg collection, a game which I quite liked but really wasn't using, and that was shipped today. Also had a number of reviews published on rpg.net this week, previously from RPG Review; RuneQuest Pirates, Pirates of the Vistula, En Garde!, 7th Sea Players Guide and Game Masters Guide, Freiburg, and Freeport.

Finally, in some work-related news I've resigned my position as Quality Management Coordinator, one of the many hats I wear. I was going to run an internal audit this week, but the managers weren't interested which is consistent with their behaviour in the past year of ignoring reports of various standard breaches and improvement requests. I was particularly frustrated by this in a business sense, because the empirical evidence is utterly overwhelming that continuous improvement, controlled documentation, procedural transparency, etc, are the foundation of success over ad-hoc decision making which perhaps counter-intuitively, is more time consuming. I foresee naught by doom and gloom as a result of this disengagement of the QA process. Resignation was indeed a very appropriate word choice.