Lev Lafayette's journal

A few days ago we noticed that Calamity the rat had acquired quite a sizeable tumour. So we book the local awesome vet to have his operation and he comes out fine, albeit a bit dopey. He's had a nibble at his stitches, but with the application of a sock over the affected area he should be fine. One last check at midnight before I go to bed and ... he's slipped out of the sock, and chewed out all his stiches - revealing a gaping wound and a little too much of his stomach muscles to the world. (On a tangent, it is interesting seeing such things how much skin is just a bag for a second layer of muscle, then internal organs). So we rush the "little nutter" (hat-tip to mickmercer for such a description of rats) to the emergency vet, who dope up the rat (again), staple up the incision, coat in film and send him on his way.

With the upcoming debate on the Australian Senate, I have written an article for the Isocracy Network which argues that all politicians are unrepresentative swill. On a similar note, a presentation I gave at the Melbourne Atheist Society last year has made its way to YouTube (part one, follow for others, original text).

Have recently completed two large work projects; an introductory training manual for Linux and HPC computing (16,000 plus words), and a review of the company website (xhtml and css standards compliance, accessibility compliance, design and features, content, and Flesch readibility. Currently working on a marketing plan (as we don't have a dedicated marketing person). Also have the misfortune of having to review MS-Windows HPC as a software package apparently requires it; I lean to proposals that it will be better for everyone's state of mind to port the code instead. Finally, more kudos to VPAC's summer students who did an excellent review of their work last week on porting parts of the Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit to be used on Graphics Processing Units. The advantage of medical imaging in medical sciences (brain surgey was cited!) from hours and days to minutes will be enormous.

Last week the VLSCI announced their new HPC system, dedicated to disease research. The Age reported on the matter, which included a few errors. My letter elaborating on these was published, alas they cut probably the most important part (that it will probably be the fifth most powerful in the world when it is complete - in two/three years), and the more humourful remark (that I have doubts that the system will "speed up time").

Whilst I was in New Zealand I also received an invitation from Intelligence Squared/St James Ethics Centre to speak on their debate on the representative quality of the Senate; alas it seems they have found somebody (Senator Nick Sherry) but will follow up with the topic on the Isocracy Network and with the organisation in the next couple of days.

Over the past several days I've been working on background chapter on Japan for tashiro's game Fox Magic; at the moment it concentrates largely on classic and medieval Japan, with modern Japan being added; it's currently about seven thousand words. Finally, on a minor note, I have received an acknowledgement in Ken Westmoreland's book on Timor-Leste, A Pretty Unfair Place.