Lev Lafayette's journal

Friends and long-term readers of my journal will be all too aware of my rat fancy. Well, this weekend I decided to rejoin The Cult of the Rat. Erica and I travelled to The Happy Rattery to bring two youngsters into my home. A big welcome to Mayday (with the white-furred face) and Mayhem (splodgy face). It has not been since 2017 that I've had such animal companions, although some twenty-two rodents graced my life in the fifteen years before that. It is mostly Mel's fault; I expressed disappointment that my travelling lifestyle didn't suit having such pets, but she offered to look after them if I was away. So I hired a steam cleaner for the carpets; you have to protect those ratty noses and gave the place a thorough scrub. It's amazing how much ingrained dirt there was that Reginald the Robot didn't pick up.

In addition, a few months ago Ruby pointed me to a new game in development seeking playtesters. With just a hint of experience in such things, I conducted a thorough review and several sessions with Erica, Mel, and Julie, and sent all the notes to the designer, Benjamin Cadenza. I am very pleased to say that the game, "The Happiest Rat", is now thoroughly tested, and with crowdsourced sales underway, reaching its target in under 48 hours. The author has designed a game with subtle strategy, complexity, and flexibility whilst at the same time being very aware of the behaviour and personality of rats. So these are the main influential vectors that have led me, for the first time in seven years, to have actual rats back in my life.

Just how much of a rat fancier am I? Apart from the twenty-two pet rats I've had the past (I won't list their names), there has been the fundraising for APOPO that Erica and I had for our civil union in 2010, a cyberpunk conference I organised in 2020 that went under the subtitle "Year of the Stainless Steel Rat", an address given to the local Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, initiating a memorial campaign for the Bramble Cay Melomys (a rat of sorts), substantial contributions to the Wikipedia entry for the novel "Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife", lobbying against the now-abolished "forced swim" test, and, of course, my only tattoo, a rat with the equations derived from Curt Richter's brutal experiments. With all this background, I assure you I will do my best to ensure that Mayhem and Mayday are The Happiest Rats.

It seems that I have some ink permanently etched in my skin, specifically on the inner-right forearm, a rattus norvegicus with a mathematical flowchart following its body. My interests this body art are, as always, multi-layered and complex. Firstly, rattus norvegicus is pretty obvious; I had some twenty-two pet rats from around 2003-2014, and I loved each of these clever, emotional, and deeply empathic creatures dearly. Once I gave a presentation where I tried to cram in as much of my knowledge of these amazing creatures. This is my tattoo in memory of my animal companions. As companions, I am deeply saddened that rattus' are subject to often cruelty in experimentation. Kristin Andrews' essay, "Rats are us" points this out in some detail and is a very worthy read.

In particular the equations I use on rattus represent a mathematical flowchart of particular experiments that are as significant as they are uncaring. It involved dropping rats into water and seeing how long they would swim before they drowned. The domestic rats would swim for an hour or more, whilst their wild cousins, just as competent swimmers if not more so, died within minutes. The difference? The domestic rats believed in their human carers. Too strange? Well, then another set of domestic rats were tested, and then rescued at the last moment. Once they recovered, they were put in the water again. This time they would swim literally for days, obviously terrified for their life, but desperate with the hope that they would be rescued a second time. They weren't, of course. Science must progress and who cares about a drowned rat? So this is also my animal welfare tattoo. Rats are us.

Also, I love mathematics; it is the language of nature, so to speak, and carries great beauty and elegance in its abstract simplicity and rigorous logic. This is also my mathematical naturalism tattoo and thus the equation; a beginning (alpha, the nose of the rat), exists with a finite time series (∃t=0..n<∞) of life that is confronted by normal distribution challenges that are increased with time (time wounds all heels ) and are reduced through resilience (inner strength, hope, etc) (Cn=𝒩 (µ, σ²)+(t-r)). If the value is too great it comes to a full stop resulting in the end (omega). Otherwise, there is a continuation, which continues the alpha-cycle. The rats, like people, can overcome many challenges if there is even a glimmer of hope, it spurs their inner strength to reach out for support. Rats are us.

The location is also important. I chose the right arm because if I ever do encounter a challenge that is greater than my hope and resilience, it will be with my own hand that I make the final decision (unfortunate accidents withstanding). I know that some prefer the semi-colon, and I respect that. But I have chosen a continuation sequence instead. For me (being mathematical rather than literary in this instance) it represents that almost every single day I have the question of continued existence confronting me without respite, an eternal recurrence. So far, I have followed the continuation sequence, a sequence of semi-colons if you like. And almost every day? Yes, there have been times of very notable exceptions, and perhaps one day I will explain - but the time is certainly not right at the present. For today, I have a math rat tattoo. Rats are us.

Who would have thought that in the Year of the Rat, I would help initiate a national campaign to draw attention to the extinction of Australian fauna. Well, I knew I was going to but I wasn't sure what I was going to do. With memorial services, letters to politicians, and a mention in parliament, a new national day is established. Now, the United Nations Fifth Global Biodiversity Outlook report has highlighted the extinction of the small brown rodent, bringing particular attention and criticism to Australia's rather weak environmental protection laws. Yet, this is not the only rat-related news a land-mind clearing Hero Rat, Magawa, has received the PDSA Gold Medal for "lifesaving bravery and devotion to duty" (full award ceremony available on Youtube).

Australia's main academic IT conference, eResearchAustralasia (I'm not sure of the "-asia" content), is coming up soon, and I find myself giving two presentations; a full paper on Spartan: From Experimental Hybrid towards a Petascale Future, and a short paper on Contributing To the International HPC Certification Forum. Just to add to the pile of pleasing work, a chapter proposal for a book, Processing Large and Complex Datasets for Maximum Throughput on HPC systems, which I am co-authoring with Bernd Wiebelt from Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, has also been accepted. On top of all this, next week I start with two day's of workshops - delayed from last week's foot injury (which x-rays thankfully showed no break or fracture, but some soft tissue damage); the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are doing their job as did the combination of sick and annual leave.

Mention must be made of "Trump's Virus", and in part I do mean his destructive behaviour in the Presidential debate, which has necessitated new rules, and of course, Trump's continued explicit support for white supremacists. Now of course there is additional news with both the president and "First Lady" (what a weird term) being tested positive for COVID-19, which I noted was within the same day that Cornell University announced that they had tracked down that most coronavirus misinformation can be sourced back to Trump's remarks. Irony, that most uncanny of guests, is knocking at the door.

My surprise at Tramper rat still being alive at our return to NZ proved to be short-lived. The following morning his body was still so prior to work I buried him in the backyard and planted forget-me-nots. At 33 months (82.5 rat years) Tramper was the last of his trio, the largest and oldest of the group. In his younger days he was certainly the leader and most forward of the pack, gregarious and gentle. As he aged, he slowly accumulated various health problems; a foot infection, a mammary tumour, and glaucoma. He lived through these with a high degree of adaptability. Whilst wary of anthropmorphising, I cannot help but think that he kept himself alive for a few extra days to ensure his farewells.

Thus ends some fifteen years of having rats as animal companions. The entry point was a few years prior whilst living with Glenn K., in Richmond where his rat Spit befriended me. Following my return from Timor-Leste I've lived with Harlequin and Montebanc, then Vagabond and Rogue, Ragamaffin and Scoundrel, Calamity, Mischief, and Trouble, Rascal, Nomad, and Riff-Raff, Tricky and Naughty (the mothers of P, P, & P), Lucky, Picador, Pierrot, and Prankster, and finally, Scamper, Rover, and Tramper - this is along with looking after Bambi and Suki for a neighbour.

For the uninitiated the rat may seem a strange choice of companion. They have bad press, as bearers of diseases (true), dirty (false), cunning (true), and selfish (false). For those in the know, they are intelligent, they are social, they have memory and reasoning and - from a combination of these factors - are surprisingly moral creatures, exhibiting empathy, guilt, and altruism. I have learned a great deal from them, and perhaps a little about myself as I have done my best to care for them. I hope I have contributed in some small amount to their comfort. I have not lost interest in the creatures but my own life-plans do not allow at this stage for their limited lifespans. So, in parting, I raise a salute to these heroic creatures.

Rover the Rat unexpectedly died last night, almost certainly of a heart attack. He had been his usual very active self the previous day, and had just enjoyed a plate of food. However I was worried as he seemed a little tired when I put him to sleep last night. This morning he was but a dead rat, and joins the cadavers of many others that are in our small garden. Having reached the age of 29 months (72.5 in rat years), I really expected to be spending several more months in his company on the basis of his alertness and activity. But it is not to be.

From his troika, Rover was the youngest and smallest of the set and was originally quite shy, albeit full of a energy and a sense of adventure. He soon came to appreciate the company of the human members of the colony, encouraged by an extraordinary appetite that correlated with his energy. Never much of a lap rat (he was too active!) he lived a life of playful happiness and would delight getting himself lost in the foliage of our garden. I guess his sudden demise spares him of the slowness of age which I imagine would have been frustrating to him. Now there is only old Tramper, the eldest of the group and the last of the rodent colony. He certainly doesn't have much longer himself, and that will be the end of the rats.

It's been a tough week at work; not so much on matters of complexity, but rather on sheer volume. With last week's cluster and cloud computing, there has been in an influx of over two hundred master's level students to the HPC system and the inexperience of quite a few is evident. Such is the effects of an entire generation of computer users who have started with the GUI rather than the command-line. Apropos the planned session with the good folk at the University of Freiburg didn't get up for the International Supercomputing Conference. A German co-author responded pithily, You have to see that we are considered heretics. Well, it wouldn't be the first time, that's for sure. So instead we're looking at a publication in Advanced Computing. Given that most of the paper is already written, a draft can be submitted perhaps the end of next week.

Shortly after that caseopaya, funontheupfield, and I are heading to New Zealand. Apparently I can't get enough of the place. The latter has never been before so recommendations were put in place for a short trip; Wellington and the Marlborough Sounds, primarily Havelock and Collingwood with opportunities to take short hikes, go spelunking, horse riding, and to see the strange natural landscape that is Farewell Spit. Given that my past two trips to NZ have been almost entirely work-related, I'm rather looking forward to the opportunity to venture 'cross The Ditch entirely for pleasure. Hopefully I will be able to organise dinner in Wellington for the handful of people that I know there.

The native animal population at our home has had a recent increase with a clutch of friendly young magpies deciding that our home is worth a visit, primarily for cat biscuits. A few days later a blue tongue lizard decided to move in. We think it's still in the house somewhere. Our other animal companions however have not been particularly perturbed by our new visitors; apparently our home is an open-plan zoological garden. I must however express some concern with the health of Tramper the rat. Already close to three years old (about ninety in rat-years), he's doing it a bit tough. He's had a bumblefoot infection for a long time (which curiously, seems to be healing up), he has a large mammary tumour which is quite inoperable without risk to his life, and now he's has advanced glaucoma in one eye. Tramper now spends much of his time snoozing (even on the rat-scale of things), but also has a good appetite and enjoys scritch time. Despite his illnesses, I think he's going to be around for a few more months.

Visited the David Bowie exhibition with Liz B., Karl B., and caseopaya on Sunday on a special event organised by the Australian Sex Party. Spent a fair bit of time chatting with Fiona Patten, the party's leader and member in the Victorian parliament. They've done very well over the past six years as a minor party and have managed to succeed well beyond their representation. The exhibition itself was quite a delight, with quite a collection of ephemera, clothing, music, and videos. As an example of the imperfections of memory, was reminded how abundantly political and very Australian the "Let's Dance" video clip was (for someone who has three copies of the album on vinyl, the lapse is quite impressive). Entry also included a free album, albeit tied to Google services.

Other heroes, which I have already mentioned in passing on FB, are the hero rats of APOPO who, in Mozambique, have finished their contribution of making that country land-mine free. For the civil union caseopaya and I had that as our charity of choice, so it is very pleasing to see their remarkable success. There is of course plenty more work for these small but mighty noses to do in the detection of land mines in other countries and early detection of tuberculosis. Journeyman Pictures has a great short documentary on their mine-clearing activities.

Spent last night with a small group having dinner with futurist Jamais Cascio, and quizzed him on a few matters of the matters of dangerous climatic changes, the possibility of geoengineering to resolve these problems, and the political impediments to such action. Also as an item of discussion that night was the heroic research success of NASA's media announcement of having found liquid water on mars. Yes, 'heroic research' - courageous, audacious, doughty. We need to see some more of that in this world.

Sunday was the poetry and music service at the Unitarians; I presented Cows with Guns with a special dedication. Afterwards ran a session of 7th Sea Freiburg, which included a "haunted house" styled adventure along with casing a gang stronghouse. The former ended with the unexpected requirement of fishing for books, in a literal sense. After that (it was a very busy Sunday) attended a Jesus and Mary Chain tribute gig, which I reviewed for The Dwarf. Apropos have just completed a review of the Campaign Classic Pirates supplement, which will also be on rpg.net soon. Very pleased to have an upcoming interview opportunity with Mark Pettigrew, author of Flashing Blades.

On Monday evening caseopaya and I had dinner with Anthony L., and Robyn M at Quan 88. Absolutely superb food at a very low price, albeit with very simple decor. We spent the evening primarily discussing political strategy for the coming year, with a particular interest on the inherent requirements test in the Equal Opportunity Act. Our plans include illustrating some issues with the "right" of religious organisations to discriminate via some rather harsh short videos

Slight panic at work yesterday as one of the NFS storage devices fell over and for a period of time approximately half our users were unable to access their home directories, apparently all caused by a single-user's file transfers causing the controller to lose its head. As always, a gentle reminder that computational devices, being set-theory based creatures, have some limits. Today was unable to resist any further temptations from the local pet store and purchased three new rats, as yet unnamed. They're of varying ages, and I was feeling particularly for the oldest who was heading towards a life in a pet store charge. They're settling in, but will require some time. They haven't been handled a great deal and seem even unaware of chocoloate. However I suspect they're learn soon.

Some pretty good gaming experiences in the past week are worthy of jotting down. Firstly, last Sunday put the Werewolf Yugoslav Wars game on hold for a while to start a 7th Sea Freiburg as recommended by usekh. We pretty much did character generation and an opening scene, for the standard (and extensive) scenarios offered in the Freiburg set, although I do find the libertarian governance of the city to be highly improbable at best. On Thursday ran another session of Masks of Nyarlathotep, where the Investigators managed to get quite a lot done, visiting a range of strange individuals, accumulating an enormous array of clues, and even catching up with a person who they have been chasing for several game-months. After such a success and elation, true to the Call of Cthulhu theme, it'll be appropriate to send them mad or to the maws of monsters in the next session. Also, as expected, my review of Pirates & Plunder has been published on RPG.net. The next issue of RPG Review ("Pirates & Swashbucklers") is due this week, however I have my suspicions that it will be delayed.

Last night went to see 20000 Days on Earth, the Nick Cave biography documentary, at the Astor. Nick was present for a Q&A session afterwards. Erica managed to get her copy of The Birthday Party Definitive Collection signed along with And The Ass Saw The Angel, whereas I have reviewed the show on Rocknerd. This week I also wrote an article for an upcoming gay music 'zine, entitled Industrial: Music of A Cyborg Sexuality in the Fin de Siècle. Tonight I am off to see and review The Underground Lovers. I swear, I am a bloody demon when it comes to reviewing or critiquing music, I could easily do several a day if I had the opportunity to do so.

Suki rat's owners came over on Wednesday night; we had managed to keep her alive and well for that period with an aforementioned course of forced feeding of critical care, antibiotics, and of course a great deal of human empathy. Instructions for care were passed on to her owners, who were both pleased to see and also concerned with her state. However we have since been informed that she's recovered somewhat and is now eating of her own volition. The household is now however ratless, and I'm suffering from withdrawl symptoms. Whether as young nutters bouncing around the place or as elderly sleepers. Despite this immediate desire, imajica_lj has made the sensible suggestion of finding rescue rodents post-xmas.

Last Saturday night was the Victorian Secular Lobby meeting; a smallish gathering with last-minute cancellations. I gave a presentation which outlines an effective strategy for the small group in the upcoming state election. The following day The Philosophy Forum discussed A World Without Evil at the Unitarian Church; this was preceded by David Bottomley's (son of a former Minister) charming recollection of his childhood at the old (since demolished) neo-gothic church building. This was the second week in a row I had been, the previous week to see the Federal member for Melbourne and old uni colleague, Adam Bandt, speak on avoiding austerity budgets. His reasoning was sound, but sometimes I think he could do with some more fire and brimstone in his presentation. There was also the AGM afterwards; another substantial financial loss and decline in membership. As an more disinterested observer these days, watching the slow-motion train-wreck is almost amusing.

The work-week itself started fairly difficult; Suki rat made a late night decision to chew the stitches out from her tumor removal. So she was rushed to the emergency vet in Collingwood. They're really good there; they flushed her wound and stapled her up. She was in a bad way, in some stress and having lost blood so she spent time in a heat and oxygen tent. Eventually we made it home, and exhausted, the following day I went through three solid days of conducting Linux, PBS, and OpenMPI classes. Feedback was excellent, which remains inspiring. After that I has another presentation to give, to the Young Professionals CPA, where I spoke on Free and Open Source Software For Business Applications (slides available). I thought I was completely scattered; they thought otherwise, and I heard a few horror stories about how proprietary business software is both damaging and expensive.

In the realm of entertainment, my review on The Dead Kennedys gig has been published on The Dwarf; next gig will be The Tea Party and SuperJesus. Gaming-wise RPG Review has been delayed as the author of a key article has dropped out leaving me several pages short. Will be work on an alternative for the weekend. Last Sunday ran another session of Werewolf:The Yugoslav Wars, which involved planning for the capture of a Sarajevo business leader of ill-repute. Thursday night was another session of Masks of Nyarlathotep in Kenya with the party making their way substantially towards the base of the appopriately named Cult of the Bloody Tongue; true to the theme of the game, an impending death and insanity toll approaches.