tcpip | Entries tagged with roleplaying

The past several days have been full of activity, even more so than usual, and, as a result, I have been quite lax in putting finger to keyboard in the regular act of reflective correspondence. The outage of the Spartan supercomputer and upgrade of the operating system is going well, as is the testing and documentation that follows the application suite rebuilds and I've even managed to add a few new tutorials according to need (e.g., scikit-learn). I also had a meeting with the good people at the Australian Institute of Marine Science to conduct a week of HPC teaching for them early next year. Study-wise the second half of the trimester has started with a deluge of assignments; one has consisted of a review of three vulnerability assessments (Auckland, Baden-Wuerttemberg, and the Bishnupur forest of Nepal. Fortunately, there is an extra week for the paleoclimatology paper.

The study of the vulnerability assessments has highlighted to me the importance of the Voice referendum, and the importance of a body that has the ability to ensure the parliament and executive listen (at the very least). Examples of injustice, even to this day, are well-known to those who care to look. As much as one delights in the frankly brilliant and moving use of John Farnham's "You're The Voice" in the first major "Yes" advertisement). Ultimately, it will be results that count, and fortunately from the evidence that we have it is known that when governments listen to and work with, communities rather than just doing things to them, the outcomes are better.

Among all this I've had a modicum of a social life as well; for the first time in many years, I attended a local goth club (Elysium) at Kepler Bar, which comes with some rather nice scientific flavours, with the company of Liana, Simon, and Carla. The goths have always been a welcoming, if delightfully weird, community and there is nothing strange to them of having a fifty-something person in attendance at a nightclub, even if the median age is somewhat higher anyway. In a more low-key affair, I had a wonderful afternoon with my dear friend and neighbour Nitul and his visiting mother, as he has just returned from the homeland of the Indian state of Kerala with plenty of stories to tell. Finally, last night I hosted Justin's RPG session of The Burning Wheel set in The Thirty Years' War which uses scenarios from Warhammer FRPG. It's a delightful mash-up of systems and settings that's working extremely well. But, my goodness, I rather do need a bit of a rest sometime soon.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: The Rookery
Current Music: John Farnham, Whispering Jack

For the past few days I've been almost entirely buried in the last pieces of assessment for "The Physical Basis of Climate Change" and "Environmental Law", which wraps up trimester one of my MCCSAP degree. In the end, I am quite happy with what I submitted for both, although in the latter I did veer in the direction of critical legal studies. The more I studied the re-interpretations of Aotearoa New Zealand's ill-fated Resource Management Act as new legislation comes in after thirty years, I could only conclude with the Maori Whakataukī (proverb): "Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua" ("I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past"). As for the former, the grim and factual reality of stubborn physics and the relentless and tragic march of mathematic projection leads me to echo the words of Kate Marvel; "As a climate scientist, I am often asked to talk about hope. .. Climate change is bleak, the organizers always say. Tell us a happy story. Give us hope. The problem is, I don't have any... But the opposite of hope is not despair. It is grief... We need courage, not hope."

At the end of last week I also ran two days of Linux and HPC workshops for a range of bioinformaticians mostly from the veterinary and agricultural Sciences, but quite a few from health sciences and the attached medical centres as well. They were a good lot, with some excellent questions, and it pleased me a great deal that I was able to work my usual content to fit more precisely to the software that they use, including the several steps of a genomics workflow including sequencing data, quality control, alignment, and variant calling with everyone's favourite E. Coli. The process led me to discover a couple of applications that we didn't have installed, specifically the FASTX-toolki and Seqtk, both of which can be slotted into my regular expressions workshop.

The weekend also witnessed being host to the visit of one James H., with whom I share interests in roleplaying games and indigenous affairs, both fields in which I consider him to be more expert than I. Through James and Alison B I was taken to the 50th birthday of Caitlin H, which had a "Doctor" theme on account of the number of people present who had both PhDs or were science fiction fans; there were quite a few attired in a Dr Who style, for example. It was quite a delightful evening with some 50 people crowded into the Understudy of the stylish Bar 1806. For my own part, I went as the son of Dr. Merkwurkdigliebe, who some would know as "Doctor Strangelove", and I continued his message, albeit with a climate disaster approach. The following day James hosted an RPG session with the Futurama-like Farflung, which generated a story that was dramatic, hilarious, and wild. Plus it cleverly used the six quarks (up, down, strange, charmed, top, bottom) as attributes. I will be giving that another look in the future. For now - a moment's break! I think I deserve it.

Current Mood: chipper

It has been a very busy week. In part because I seem to have purchased an apartment in Southbank. It's a mere 500m from Flinders Street station, a massive 100m^2, and sold for quite a reasonable price. A bank has offered me an unconditional approval for a loan and, despite a minor error in the contract which all parties are happy with fixing (two different prices on two different pages), everything seems to be in order. My dislike of the real estate industry or the banks has not changed from the experience and really the less I have to do with either the better. Now is the process of paying the formal deposit (rather than the initial holding deposit), wrangling the actual cash from the banks, signing and swapping the transfer of title, and the longer process of moving in. After ten years in the same place, there's a fair bit of work to do. Oh, and as I have even submitted to Victorian parliamentary inquiries needs to be replaced by increased land taxes, in order to increase productivity, housing quantity and standards, and reduce homelessness.

The workweek was one of two days of conducting workshops, an introduction to High Performance Computing and Linux, following by Advanced Linux and Shell Scripting for HPC. Then there were three days of eResearch NZ 2021 where, sadly due to circumstances, my attendance and presentation was virtual. My presentation, "Interactive HPC Computation with Open OnDemand and FastX" was a little rushed due to the excessive amount of content I prepared, but better too much than too little. I find many conferences these days of this ilk a little too high-level to my liking, and this was no exception. Still, I will credit the organisers for putting on a pretty good conference under some very difficult circumstances. It was clear that the circumstances were less than optimal, and was certainly reflected in what appeared to be smaller conference numbers than what they normally experience. In-between sessions I also spend a fair bit of time building up the repository of HPC job submission examples for ANSYS, as a user wants to do a dependency relationship between ANSYS, MATLAB, and back to ANSYS again.

But that is not all; today I finished what has been a multi-year D&D campaign of Charlemagne's Paladins in my usual style of historical fantasy. The game ended using a re-worked version of "The Lost City" and a hunt for the Eagle of the XIX with an almighty battle against a Capricorn monster. For something completely different, I also completed a short introductory Epidemiology in Public Health course through John Hopkins University. I am on to the last session of transcripts for the Cyberpunk 2020: Year of the Stainless Steel Rat, so hopefully I have that done by tomorrow. All I have to do after that is get all the gaming scenarios in place.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Willsmere
Crossposts: https://tcpip.livejournal.com/315996.html

Apart from dealing with multiple medical issues that I've raised in previous posts, I have had the opportunity to engage in my favourite hobby othe weekend - traditional roleplaying games. On Friday evening I participated in what I call Eclipse Phase Mars, on the basis of its standard location (although most recently this has involved extrasolar gatecrashing etc). This particular group meets primarily on Google Hangouts with players in Western Australia, Vietnam, Victoria, and New Zealand. I've missed a couple of sessions of this game, partially due to technology issues (my computer screen was completey destroyed on my last trip to NZ, so I've been trying to work with a dinky Asus Aspire One), and partially because of international trips. Both of these have affected my ability to complete Papers & Paychecks; although I did release an update on Saturday morning following completing the bestiary section, and integration a number of significant changes, even this late in the publication process.

Saturday was also a regular CheeseQuest day with

hathhalla and

ser_pounce. Given the cool weather, our lunch feast consisted of a pumpkin gnocchi and Nova Scotia brown bread. The cheese feast included fried saganaki and halloumi, havarti, maasdam, gorgonzola, Dutch smoked, and two not-cheeses, a faux cheddar and "tree nut" cheese, which are quite tolerable. I was rather taken by the Devil's Corner pinot noir that our guests brought over, light but tasty and with a brilliant ruby colour. After lunch was the second session of our historical-fantasy Dungeons & Dragons game, using the very different 4th edition rules in the setting of Charlemagne's rule. The game went very well, everyone plays up their character ethno-religious background and character class, as they cleared out a old Roman-Germanic temple in Freisland haunted by Wiedergänger.

Sunday was also a gaming day, this time with my own game of Eclipse Phase. This session involved the PCs engaging in a short-case to an autonomist morph resleever on one of Neptune Trojans, then taking a stealth craft to intercept an Ultimate scout ship en-route to Eris. There was an almighty gun-battle that followed which eventually saw the PCs successful, and partially courtesy due an inside agent providing assistance at the last moment. After that was the challenging process of psychosurgery and the literal merging of minds. More on that for the next session. Appropriately I've started reading the two books entitled Dungeons & Dragons and Philosophy (one published by Open Court, 2012 and the other by Wiley Blackwell, 2014)

Current Mood: energetic
Current Location: Willsmere
Current Music: Master of the Universe, Hawkwind
Crossposts: http://tcpip.livejournal.com/241843.html

Spent the better part of Saturday the ALP National Conference, which was a pretty average affair. The new national policy is largely OK, especially when considering a party that is dominated by a socially conservative wing with a large liberal-socalist internal opposition. Much of it was a creature of compromise (e.g., the two state-"solution" for Israel-Palestine, the passing to another committee the role of the socialist objective, the 'conscience' vote following by a binding vote relating to marriage equality). It was particularly good in relation to climate change mitigation. Even most of the asylum seeker policy was tolerable with a doubling of the humanitarian intake (by 2025), the abolition of TPVs, but also accepting offshore processing. The three-day notification by the leader, Bill Shorten, to accept boat turnbacks was an ambush, which has shored up his otherwise vapid leadership but at the cost of total loss of trust among those on the left. He'll be struggling to staff the booths on election day.

It's been a busy week for gaming; last Sunday week was GURPS Middle-Earth where we went through the second session of The Battle of Four Armies at Almost Helm's Deep. On Thursday played in a our regular session of Laundry Files which is pretty epic involving nano-bot shoggoths whilst fighting zombies on an oil-rig. On Friday night joined a new gaming group in Westgarth who are running Eclipse Phase, which I make a welcome return to - I get to play my social-democratic Octopoid. Sunday was 7th Sea Freiburg which has been skipped for a month due to familial duties. The session was more of tying up some lose knots, but also the planning to invade the home of the villain banker-landlord who is keeping his mail-order bride imprisoned. Some time has also been spent on further work on Spirit and Sword, especially on redesigning the activity spheres to incorporate environmental as well as occupational positions.

I have been running myself a bit ragged at work of late, and really need to slow down, especially if I'm going to be able to run courses next week with any sense of effectiveness. There's been a mountain of enrolment applications from the University of Melbourne, received almost immediately after advertising, but there is still some doubt on whether they are prepared to pony up for the courses. It makes enormous sense for them to do so; researchers who are trained in HPC finish their research earlier. But future benefits, even significant ones, often lose when confronted with short term costs.

Current Mood: sick
Current Location: Willsmere
Current Music: Heartbeat City, The Cars
Crossposts: https://tcpip.livejournal.com/203296.html

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.

Current Mood: satisfied
Current Location: Willsmere
Current Music: Rage, ABC
Crossposts: https://tcpip.livejournal.com/188873.html

As per opinion poll expectations, the Labor Party has been defeated in the Federal election. Slightly annoyed that the leaders of the ALP and the Greens failed to work cooperatively in the campaign, providing numerous examples of resource wasting, not to mention the damaging effects of the factional infighting; as Beattie observed the ALP was far better at governing the country than governing themselves. Abbott will now have to face up to his improbable collection of promises which, as listed, will mean a shift in income and wealth from the poor to the rich and will damage Australia's economic and technological growth. The damaged version of the National Broadband Network being a combination of both negative factors.

Have been working through an free short Agile Project Management course run by Charles Sturt University. It certainly some benefits worth keeping in mind, but doesn't serve as a particularly strong methodology. The greatest weakness, I believe, would be the ease in which it can be misapplied as general sloppiness. In more comprehensive academic progress, took the initiative in starting the online discussion for Participation and Access for Tertiary Education Policy. Next up is an analysis of the 2008 Bradley Review of Higher Education.

My review of Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game has been published on RPG.net; a beautifully produced game with some lovely features, but sloppy editing and dull combat system (of all things!) puts the ratings down. This follows on my review of Albedo a somewhat strange combination of anthromorphics and hard simulationist science fiction. Thursday was another session of Pendragon which is reaching the apex of the "Romance period", before heading off to do engage in demon-hunting in Ireland. Tomorrow is another episode of Space 1889 on the Victorian-era fantasy of Mercury, which is an opportunity and excuse for some steampunk attitude and props.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Willsmere
Current Music: Blade Runner 2002 Esper Edition, Vangelis (yes still)
Crossposts: https://tcpip.livejournal.com/167230.html

Last Thursday gave Wordplay using the 'Fish Rain' Gloranthan scenarios from HeroQuest. As expected, the game ran extremely well and I must confess some preference for WP over HQ. On Sunday continued the now very long running RuneQuest Prax story, with the appearance of the Magus Artalen from the Strangers in Prax sourcebook. Tomorrow night will run a session of D&D3.5 for Ralis.

On Sunday gave the service for Dr. James Brown who spoke at the Unitarians on alternative energy. His approach was realistic, providing precise and contextually appropriate values for solar and wind power as well as their limitations. Afterwards ran a session for the Philosophy Forum (surprisingly very well attended) on the nature, cause and solutions to violence; the wide variation in social metrics indicating a heavy environmental rather than natural causes. It will dovetail very well with next month's discussion on Hannah Arendt. There was a degree of local context as a visitor to the Church assaulted an 83-year old congegation member a couple of weeks previous; I'm in the process of ensuring that said visitor never be allowed to step foot in the building again.

On Tuesday had two exams for my MBA; Marketing and Managing Information Systems. These are considered two of the more advanced subjects in the programme and sitting six hours of exams in one day is pretty heavy going. Nevertheless I am fairly sure I passed (probably with a Credit grade overall) and as such will be awarded a Graduate Certificate in Management. Next step is the Graduate Diploma and then the MBA itself.

The CRU email hack seems to be much ado about nothing except that scientists can be snarky in emails. There has been some ironically predictable display of global warming skeptics being unskeptical of emails cobbled together over several years, and a parameterisation in some IDL code which is attempting to make tree-ring data fit instrumental observation. There is this thing called the divergence problem in dendroclimatology and to make dendroclimatic modelling programs more accurate some 'fudging' is required to fit instrumental records. The CRU of East Anglia University have some additional pertinent comments.

The latest Isocracy Newsletter is now available. It includes a review of Dominique Moisi's "The Geopolitics of Emotion", a campaign against a proposed escalation of 40,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan costing $100 billion USD, a secret copyright treaty and user disconnection in the UK and US, and the development of Isocracy across different social networking sites. I am pleased with how this small group of politically-interested people is developing. Perhaps early next year it can be formalised as an incorporated association in Melbourne, and start it's own public campaign; I was thinking of raising the spectre of free public transport which has received some previous support

A number of my longstanding roleplaying campaigns are coming to an end. My eighteen month Powers & Perils game has reached a point where all needs to be written up is the denouement. My HeroQuest Glorantha game, which has been going for almost three years is in the last couple of months by my estimation, as is my sixteen month RuneQuest Prax game. The short stint I had for Rolemaster Cyradon playtesting is also complete. Hopefully all this will give me some extra time to do some more RPG writing (yes, rather than playing - swings and roundabouts).

Crossposts: https://tcpip.livejournal.com/106433.html

Last Tuesday went to The Problem with Evil forum at University of Melbourne. Rev. Peter Adam dodged difficult questions by turning them into jokes. Barney Zwartz at least saw 'evil' as a condition requiring a human response, although he did seem convinced that only religious groups could provide solace to the suffering. Former Senator Lyn Allison used the forum to promote her new role as President of Dying with Dignity Victoria. Philosopher Russell Blackford gave a succinct outline of the problem, noting that it isn't a problem for deists, Christian atheists and the like. Perhaps on a related topic, I gave the address on Sunday at the Melbourne Unitarian Church on the topic The Other Half: The Universalist Tradition where I outlined the American Universalist tradition, argued that the Unitarian Universalist merger was a merger between a rationalist and humanist tradition respectively, and how it can be perhaps be remodelled in a modern and secular fashion.

Had dinner with Fiona Patten, convener of the Australian Sex Party on Wednesday as they are preparing to run in the Bradfield federal by-election. Liberal MLC Bruce Atkinson was dining on the table next to us and dropped over to say 'hello'. Also on Wedesday finished by first two assignment for my MBA; a financial report and analysis (Financial Management) and a strategic analysis for VPAC (Management Perspectives). Arrived home quite late for to find notification of results for my now-completed Cert IV in Workplace Training and Assessment; 14 High Distinctions is pretty good I suppose.

On Thursday eve, ran Lords of Creation for that group and on Sunday played GURPS Krononauts. My review of HeroQuest (2nd edition) is up on RPG.net along with Cannibal Contagion - two fairly different games, but both planted in the narrativist camp of RPG gaming. Also have a supplement for Summerland, Fallen Leaves which should go up this week. Also planned for this week (and will probably end up being the next) is Issue #5 for RPG Review.

Crossposts: https://tcpip.livejournal.com/103701.html

Just handed in my last item of assessment for a Cert IV in Workplace Training and Assessment. Filled in an application for a Graduate Diploma in Education (Tertiary and Adult) at Murdoch University to follow on with some credit; the gradual steps for a VPAC University continue. In a non-progressive sense in a different envrionment, I would dearly like it if people who did not know what they were talking about did not respond to helpdesk tickets either to clients or to those actually doing the work. It's too much like The Chronicles of George.

The forum on public transport at the Unitarian church went well. Numbers could have been better, but the quality of the speakers was excellent and the material they covered complementary. Gave a presentation on positive economics on Sunday at the Philosophy Forum; some do not like the facts of the economic calculation problem. Next Sunday's address will be Simon Moyle, a former Baptist Minister who has become a social justice activist under the aegis of the Uniting Church; I'll be taking the service.

Had a great night with

recumbenteer, Louise and

caseopaya last night at the new home of the former two. Wide-ranging and animated conversation along with a few bottles of wine. Last Saturday dropped in to see

imajica_lj who has allocated himself more free time and introduced me to the joy that is Left For Dead. Apropos reached a climatic point in Pathfinder Fantasy Australia on Thursday and a denouement for the RuneQuest "Cradle" scenario on Sunday with "Barran The Monster Killer" (from Strangers in Prax) and "Temple at Feroda" (from Big Rubble). Tomorrow night starting in a NWoD game.

Crossposts: https://tcpip.livejournal.com/98938.html

Pat Robertson has recently asked whether people who have sex with ducks are protected by hate crimes legislation; two young women engage take a satirical take with "sex with ducks". Both at Feminist Law Professors. It does remind me of a South Australian MP several years ago who argued that the decriminalisation of prostitution would lead to sex with ducks. What is it with ducks? Are they thinking of ducks with giant penises?

Recent addition to Casa di Lafayette/Hoehnhauss has been a video projector; a Hitachi XSGA CPSX5500. Several years ago these cost $10,000 and whilst the technology was superior to standard LCD, they were outrageously expensive; even a replacement globe costs over $1,000. So work bought three new projectors for their Access Grid room and I'm borrowing this old one. The resolution is very good, but the colour is a heavy shade of blue; hopeless for colour films, but excellent for our vast collection of black and white classic films (and

caseopaya knows her classics) projecting a 'screen' of some 2m by 1.5m.

Other recent entertainment includes an excellent game on Friday eve of Insectes and Companie (PDF, French language, translation coming) run by Fabrice and on the Sunday session of GURPS Krononauts which involved Hernan Cortes capturing of Moctezuma in the middle of his own capital and his subsequent sortie of against the 1,000 Spanish soldiers sent to arrest him (Wikipedia summary available). Whilst I have little friendly to say about his imperialism (although they did put an end to religious human sacrifice) one cannot help but be thoroughly impressed by his strategic and tactical genius mixed with an extraordinary confidence in his own abilities.

Crossposts: https://tcpip.livejournal.com/98510.html

This weekend booked flights to Indonesia; journey is from the 4th to 18th of August, with planned journeys throughout Bali and into central Java at the very least to visit Yogyakarta, Borobudor, and Prambanan, along with the Indonesian Unitarians (who have a different name for political reasons). Would also like to visit Komodo Island, but

caseopaya doesn't like to rough it that much. Appropriately I have put up another Bahasa lesson; now that tickets are booked I should do a lot more of these with regularity. One day I should also do the same for Tetum, seeming that the dictionary I transcribed is still one of the most commonly referenced materials of its sort.

Kudos to

crankynick for having a spot on the ABC's program Inside Business last week. It must have been a week for it as a couple days prior to that airing I was helping out their science program, Catalyst, and CSIRO put together some material that will be screened in a couple of months. Most "interesting" task recently at work has been dealing with email archiving issues in an older version of Mailman (which is, I hasten to add, excellent software). The initial bug, required a patch which then led to a new bug in multipart/alternative MIME, specifically, base64 encoded text/plain and text/html. There seems to be no immediate way around this with the version of Mailman we have.

RuneQuest game on Sunday saw the conclusion of the "Cradles" scenario and with that, the end of part II of this three part campaign (it's only taken a year so far). Received feedback for Rolemaster Cyradon; some minimal changes required and then it's off to print (yay!). Last Tuesday ran the regular "Fantasy Australia" D&D/Pathfinder game, for which I've been appropriating a great number of plot ideas from Dark Sun. Giving serious consideration to releasing it as an OGL product in its own right.

Spoke on Wednesday night at the St. Kilda branch of the ALP; primary emphasis of my presentation was on socialisation of land rents and how their private collection contributed significantly to the global financial crisis. Also speaking on the night was Dr. Nicholas Gruen of Lateral Economics who was advocating a state-owned Internet banking service for transactions and for superannuation. On Sunday I gave an address at the Melbourne Unitarian Church entitled "Sympathy for the Devil", where gave an outline of this poor misrepresented spirit, discussed some contemporary organisations that claim some allegiance and concluded that trumping prosaic versions of moral judgment with supernatural versions and excuses ("the devil made me do it"), should be utterly abandoned. Sunday week I'll be giving part II of the "Philosophy of Economics" study with an emphasis on positive economics. A few days beforehand will be the forum on public transport; should it be returned to public management? should it be free?

Last week the Federal budget was announced; ARCS received a massive increase of funding; some $97 million over the four financial years 2009-2013, whereas previously we had $22 million; this is truly awesome especially given the modest number of staff we have (did they read my preceding journal post?). On the other half of my working world, my installation of a CUDA instance of NAMD has seen some excellent results (plus I found a bug). Attempts to install Desmond have been less successful. Have conducted another review of our training course and in my own studies for the Cert IV in Workplace Training and Assesment picked up two more High Distinctions.

On Thursday night finished off our Dragon Warriors campaign with an explosive conclusion; on Sunday ran the first session of GURPS Krononauts which involved an intervention in the time of the fall of the Aztec Empire, a fascinating and tragic period of history. In the HeroQuest pbem, the Crimson Bat has been destroyed by a Rubble Runner with a Dwarven grenade. Now accepting articles for the fourth edition of RPG Review which will include interviews with Dennis Sustare and (apparently) Ken St. Andre!

Have had a great week at work, including writing a firewall document for Access Grid, a FAQ for the same and putting up a proposal to incorporate Livejournal/Dreamwidth technology as a collaboration tool for Australian researchers; I should also mention I have codes for DW if anyone is interested. Also last Tuesday attended Linux Users Victoria; Michael Wahren gave an excellent presentation on where Red Hat is taking virtualisation.

My alternative modernist Middle-Earth article, White Hand Rising, has been reprinted in Other Minds. Final draft (although I am sure there will be tweaks) of Rolemaster Cyradon has been submitted. F2F gaming during the week consisted of D&D3.5 Fantasy Australia on Thursday and RuneQuest on Sunday - both went very well.

Last Sunday gave the service at the Melbourne Unitarian Church. The speaker was Michael Shaik from Australians for Palestine and my opening words, reading and closing words were on-topic with his address. The address is repeated at The Isocracy Network; which is open for comment. Next week I am giving the address entitled "Sympathy for the Devil: The Use and Misuse of Metaphysical Evil", which has greatly amused

devilgirly who visited during the week (she has been justifiably shilling a a great film clip.

Meanwhile I'm putting all this together as

caseopaya is making her way to Royal Melbourne emergency from home because of abnormal levels of ketones. Yes, it can be fatal.. Update: Have returned from emergency.

caseopaya is on an insulin drip. Although she has abnormally high sugar and ketone levels she isn't showing any other symptoms of danger. They are keeping her under observation just the same.

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Extended Vectors
Climate Change Endings, Bioinformatics Teachings, Interstate Visitings
A New Apartment, Workshops and Conferences, and more
That Dice-Rolling Hobby
ALP National Conference, Gaming Activities
Vita Activa Prosequitur
Election Result, Academia Progress, and Gaming Updates
Gaming Sessions, Unitarian Services, MBA Exams
Gaming Sessions, Unitarian Services, MBA Exams
CRU Email Hack, Isocracy Network.. Inc?, RPG campaigns
Evil and Universalism, Political and Academic Pursuits, Gaming Activities
Academic and Work Progress, Unitarian Updates, Socialising
Sex With Ducks, Home Theatre and Other Entertainment
Indonesia Journeys, ABC and Mailman, Gaming Updates
Presentations, ARCS and Scientific Computing, Gaming News
Tech Stuff, Game Stuff, People Stuff, Emergency

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Lev Lafayette's journal

Entries tagged with roleplaying

Navigation

Extended Vectors

Climate Change Endings, Bioinformatics Teachings, Interstate Visitings

A New Apartment, Workshops and Conferences, and more

That Dice-Rolling Hobby

ALP National Conference, Gaming Activities

Vita Activa Prosequitur

Election Result, Academia Progress, and Gaming Updates

Gaming Sessions, Unitarian Services, MBA Exams

Gaming Sessions, Unitarian Services, MBA Exams

CRU Email Hack, Isocracy Network.. Inc?, RPG campaigns

Evil and Universalism, Political and Academic Pursuits, Gaming Activities

Academic and Work Progress, Unitarian Updates, Socialising

Sex With Ducks, Home Theatre and Other Entertainment

Indonesia Journeys, ABC and Mailman, Gaming Updates

Presentations, ARCS and Scientific Computing, Gaming News

Tech Stuff, Game Stuff, People Stuff, Emergency