Lev Lafayette's journal

A first cut of my second book in the VPAC series, the snappily entitled Sequential and Parallel Progamming with C and Fortran (ISBN 978-0-9943373-1-3) is now available on github. As Matt D., and the ever-reliable darklion conduct the necessary code reviews, I'll be working on finishing the third book, Mathematical Applications and Programming: R, Ocatve, and Maxima (the latter will be a significantly new component). Giving some thought on who would be appropriate to write the foreward to that one. Somewhat related, today was the Annual Penguin Picnic for Linux Users Victoria. A good turnout (about 30 in total) and with sufficient catering courtesy of my visit to the markets the day previous. As usual, some excellent conversations from this rather clever bunch of individuals. Congratulations are also due to Linux Conf AU which, as of a few hours ago, announced that their tickets to the 2016 Conference next month has sold out.

Played Cats Against Cthulhu on Thursday night, where we foiled a plan to ritually blow up a local church with congregation. Friday night was Eclipse Phase where we continue our misdventures in the quarantine zone of Mars. Last Sunday played All Flesh Must Be Eaten, which has been reviewed and posted on RPG.net, next up the D&D supplement Liber Mortis. Also have taken the opportunity to add new items to the RPG Review store under the auspices of the new incorporated association - in very good news in that regard there is a good chance that we'll be getting the old MARS library.

There has been a trio of celebrity deaths recently which have saddened me; Ian Kilmister ("Lemmy"), once a member of Hawkwind and the lead of Motorhead, who died on December 28; David Bowie, the high-fashion avant-garde glam-pop-experimental musician on January 10, and actor of many character types, Alan Rickman on Jnuary 14. Lemmy had just turned 70 (by four days), the other two died at 69, and each of cancer (brain, liver, and pancreatic respectively). Obviously all talented in their respective fields, I found each of the appealing for their erudite minds, and honesty. All expressed some disdain to those in power and the marketing of politics whilst presenting progressive liberal views (I suspect that Rickman was a Labour-socialist). The other thing of course that one finds about aesthetic leaders is that they provide legitimacy in lifestyle choices; I can see the appeal in Lemmy's hard space-rock approach, Bowie as an aesthete, and Rickman's as a surprisingly tough self-made Shakespearean. All lived great and inspiring lives.

In rather significant news John Gustafon, perhaps the most important person in high performance computing, has agreed to write the forward to my book Sequential and Parallel Programming (ISBN 978-0-9943373-1-3). I cannot think of another living person in the world who would be a more significant option. John also made the wry remark that he's about to teach some classes on parallel programming and there is a serious dearth of teaching material on this subject. Said book will be ready very soon now, just as work a bit more on the chapter on shared-memory multi-processing and tidying up the chapter on sequential programming. Apropos, as promised, the very rough cut of the first book Supercomputing with Linux (ISBN 978-0-9943373-0-6) is now on github. Moves are apparently afoot to see whether the National Computational Infrastructure would also be interested in publication in print form, as an extension to planned minimalist print run. I have also just joined the International HPC Training Consortium.

Today was the founding meeting of the RPG Review Cooperative, which shall now apply for status as an incorporated association; I have been elected as founding president; our initial tasks will include taking over the RPG Review wesbite (previously cited), opening up the RPG Review store as a service for all members, and, very importantly, establishing a framework for structured reviews of released games. There's a good diversity on the community with a range of different groups involved. After the formalities, played a short game of GURPS Middle Earth which involved dealing with a hermit werewolf who was less than happy with their situation; very challenging as it involved capturing the lycanthrope alive. Dovetailed quite well with Thursday's excellent game of Cats Against Cthulhu where I think we've really struck on a thematic approach to the setting; using the human burdens as unwitting investigators and actors whilst the (somewhat) intelligent cats work out what is actually going on. Alas one of the human antagonists is on to us, and they make the most dangerous opponent of all.

It has been rather warm in Melbourne in recent days, and a cool change has just come through bringing great relief. I rather suspect that such weather will become more common over time. The weather has been sufficiently hot that one evening there was quite a loud bang in our house as the battery in one of our smoke alarms simply exploded. As can be expected the animals have been less than impressed with the weather as well; when you have the metabolism of a rat and fur coat, it's all a bit much. It frustrates me that such scientifically illiterate and irresponsible articles, such as the one recently published in The Express (yes, trash paper) are released. Whilst previously I have expressed deep pessimism of the possibility of the world's sovereign states of agreeing on climate change prevention, I have cautious optimism over the results of the COP21 meeting in Paris. John Quiggin has made a good point in noting that the libertarian right erred seriously in attacking emissions trading schemes by arguing against the science as a culture war.