Lev Lafayette's journal

It is easy to forget that it's been a few days since I've posted anything, especially given that the first three of those days were delivering high performance computing training workshops. Whilst I am sure newcomers get a lot out of the first two, the third (Regular Expressions) was perhaps the most interesting to me, especially as I've reviewed the course to include a great deal more about incorporating regexes into HPC job submission scripts and even after the course adding content about how to further incorporate GNU parallel. I rather get the feeling that there is potentially too much content from such a tool and, with the potential addition of parallel processing using Python as an introduction (compared to C and Fortran), I might have to split my existing workshop into two. Another project for 2022, I guess.

Most of Victoria's restrictions were eased on Thursday, for the fully vaccinated, having reached close to 90%+ double-dose vaccination for those aged 12 or older. On the first night out caseopaya and I went to a concert; Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' at The Athenaeum Theatre, a rather charming "old Melbourne" venue. We originally booked to see Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" but, 'rona being what it was, caused three cancellations of that performance. Played in shopping centres everywhere, "Le quattro stagioni" was quite an innovative group of concertos for its time for its naturalistic representations, and this concert certainly represented that style faithfully, also interspersing with the somewhat less well-known sonnets, before concluding with part II of the Sønderho Bridal trilogy.

Today ventured into the city with a meeting of the Victorian Secular Lobby, especially discussing the third attempt of the Federal government to introduce it's "religious discrimination" bill. A number of people also attended online but I rather failed to account for the effects of ambient noise in an open environment. The city was also had a number of protestors of the anti-vaccination, anti-employment mandates, anti-pandemic legislation which, as has been observed, are very much based on "outrage first, detail second" (if ever) and are very prone to the most foolish conspiracies (I've seriously seen "zombie apocalypse" claims) but more disturbingly, the advocacy of violence. In both cases, I suspect that the relevant legislation will be passed by the end of the year, with amendments.

After a couple of days of deliberation among the committee, the Victorian Secular Lobby launched a petition this morning (picked up by no less than Lee Lin Chin, hooray), calling for the Australian Christian Lobby to be de-registered as a charity and for the Federal government to remove the "advancing religion" clause from the Charities Act. which basically allows any religious group to claim tax-exemptions even if they are not doing any charitable work in a meaningful sense of the term. This does come on the midst of a significant court case in Australia between Israel Folau by Rugby Australia after he was sacked for various social media comments. I have written an extensive piece on the Isocracy Network, Rugby, Religion, and Charities, which was simultaneously posted in a slightly modified form in talkpolitics. For something that has been running for just over twelve hours, the petition currently has over 4,000 signatures.

For a good portion of this week I've been delving into various linguistic studies. I have neglected my Portuguese from French studies for months and with a new co-worker who is a Portuguese speaker (from Brazil), there is an opportunity to practice my woeful skills in this language. Duolingo has also just started an Arabic course, which I have thrown myself into with some interest and less competence. I have also spent some time (i.e., have completed the first week's worth) of Noongar, the Australian aboriginal language of the south-west. A course is available on edX and co-ordinated with Curtin University. One thing I have discovered over time is that quite a few words in my childhood which I thought were standard English words, were, in fact, Noongar words. I was always brought up with the knowledge that a hand-spear for fishing was a 'gidgee', for example.

Apart from that, I've been making a few remarks on my information systems course on the difference between methodological individualism and institutional socialisation, along with the economic and business value of free and open source software from a strategic perspective; as one does. On Wednesday most of our team avoided going to work because the building site next door was breaking up concrete which would have been a hell of a racket - I spent a good portion of the day building software and updating my introduction to parallel programming course, especially with additional material I had overlooked in the shared-memory OpenMP API; the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been very helpful in that regard. Plus I have a co-authored presentation in at the ARDC Skilled Workforce Summit, so I might be going back to Sydney again soon. Speaking of which, neglected to mention that last Tuesday week I was on Sydney Radio Skid Row with John August talking about truth in political advertising, and the relationship between an informed electorate and a functioning democracy (quite a strong correlation, it turns out).

Friday night caught up with Peter C., at Sister Bella a typically Melbourne small bar hidden at the end of laneway. Peter lives in the Netherlands and I believe the last time we met was well over fifteen years ago (at the very least, it's not in my LJ and I'm sure I would have recorded the meeting). We know each other from the SF community in Perth from the early nineties and I was always impressed by his combination of moderate politics with a radical and enthusiastic imagination; we had a good chat about the Dutch Reformed Political Party and the Party for Freedom. Afterwards visited Brendan E., in the form of a belated birthday visit. Went to a local Mexican, Beach Burrito which provided some fine sangria and for pit entertainment has skate ring. Afterwards returned to initiate our knowledge of season 2 of Ash vs Evil Dead. Brendan is always a good one for justifiable cynicism and is superb at filtering for our popular culture tastes.

Semi-political meeting of the week was a visit to the University of Melbourne Secular Society with James Fodor speaking on 'Where Does Morality Come From?'; currently seeing if we get another similar presentation to The Philosophy Forum. There is a new article on the Isocracy website, Argumentum Ad Temperantiam on the notion that the middle ground in news is preferred. Continuing the series, I have written a summary of Trump's seventh week, and as news just in, a detailed review of the rather dramatic result in the Western Australian state election, as two of four 'blog posts.

Have been beavering away at Papers & Paychecks with plans for a draft release on Monday evening. Dan 'Smif' Smith has provided some excellent art pieces that can also come with the draft. Also making preparations for RPG Review Issue 34 which will have game design (systems, scenarios etc) as a main focus along with an interview with Ron Edwards, along with preparations for our annual Bunnies & Burrows game - this time planning to be held at the Conquest convention. Today I break the drought from actual play with a session of GURPS Middle Earth planned. To be honest, I can't even remember where we're up to - and our GM isn't famous for doing session write-ups. Still, all will be resolved I am sure.

I have dived into several secular related projects in the past several days. The first was speaking at the Sunday Assembly, a friendly godless congregation of people who like "church activities" but without a diety. My presentation ws Everyone Should Be Secular which, of course, is a rhetorical statement because everyone is secular. The issue is whether they are a secularist or support secularism - which is carefully distinguished from atheism, which many assume.

A practical example of how state atheism, effectively a type of theocracy, differs from liberal secularism, is the issue of the recent (failed) ban of the burkini in France. A debate with a former union leader (whom I discovered is perhaps not so good at cognitive flexibility) led to my writing an article for the Isocracy Network, Burkinis, Bigotry, and Beyond, which has received a very good response on Facebook and has been crossposted on the LJ community talk_politics.

"Let's be blunt about it. If you support the burkini ban, you're not a feminist or a secularist, you're a misogynistic bigot."

Tuesday was also the AGM of the University of Melbourne Secular Society. As a staff member, I am extremely sensitive of my degree of involvement in the club and try not too heavily involved, whilst at the same time wanting to assist and encourage, because they really are doing a valuable job. On being asked by the president I took on the heady role of returning officer, and that really is as far as I'm prepared to go.

Following on from this, I've arranged a meeting of the Victorian Secular Lobby has a meeting at Parliament on September 13th with Harriet Sing, MLC on The Future of the Safe Schools Programme (FB event). On September 17th, I've organised a meeting of the Isocracy Network on Paths to Marriage Equality (FB event) with speakers from Equal Love. This Sunday I'm speaking at the Melbourne Unitarian Church on Changing Definitions of 'Marriage' : Past, Present, and Future. Are we detecting a theme yet?

A fair bit of work this week has been preparing for courses for an introduction to the Spartan hybrid HPC/Cloud and the NeCTAR cloud starting on Monday which will run weekly. My side of the material is available on github. Apropos, I've had another encounter with odd password policies from a university which has led to another 'blog post: Password Praise in the Future Tense. Tuesday night attended a BuzzConf technology meeting; interesting technologies but the presentations were at such a high level it made it an utterly low-quality advertorial.

Have been less than happy with the state of gaming this week; Sunday's Eclipse Phase game was less exciting than I hoped it to be (although explorations of character schizophrenia were promising), Thursday's session was cancelled, and this coming Sunday's GURPS Middle Earth session has been suspended. On the other hand, my review of Open Grave has been published on rpg.net, and I've penned a small piece on Pyrrhic victories in HeroQuest.

The Victorian Secular Lobby will be holding it's Annual General Meeting this Wednesday at Parliament House; the guest speaker will be Maree Edwards, the state member for Bendigo West, who will be talking on the politics of the Bendigo mosque. Many secularists were rather slow in defending the rights of Bendigo Muslims to worship peacefully when this was a major issue earlier this year, forgetting that secularism is not antithetical to religion, but independent of it (some more fundamentalist atheists, I would suggest, are not actually secularists). Hopefully Maree's presentation will illustrate why religious bigotry has no place in secularism.

Attended UMSS AGM Tuesday week and spoke the following week on The Victorian Secular Lobby and Politics, which outlined the differences between us and similar groups and our priority of political lobbying. As a external-studying and increasingly mature-aged postgraduate who collects degrees, I have not really been involved in university student associations for some time, despite it being a very significant part of my life in my youth (MARS being the most notable), and it has been pleasant to associate with youthful and enthusiastic people who discerning intelligence. I must say I rather enjoyed it, and will endeavour to attend more in the future.

It certainly beats some of the recent discussions I've had, most prominently being "discussions" with anti-vaccinators (Facebook), and not for the first time. Whilst the issue of scientific literacy and illiteracy is very evident, politically there is an issue where personal freedoms conflict; the freedom of health choices vis-a-vis safe public movement. I am sorely tempted to argue that the unvaccinated should quarantined or similar which would satify both political principles. But then what about the children?, or, in a more general sense, at what point does lack of parental responsibility reach the point where public intervention is required? Just quietly in the world of real science, the Americas is now rubella-free.

In more social enjoyments, played through another session of GURPS Middle-Earth on Sunday, caught up with Keith's book launch (Facebook), played some Ingress with agent hdaze on Wednesday and helped build up the area, enjoyed dinner with Rodney B., at Burmese House on Thursday, and spent a few hours today in the company of kremmen and kbpenguin, who are staying at the classic Grand Hotel. This upcoming week however looks a lot busier, starting with the Philosophy Forum tomorrow.

Saturday was the Beginners Workshop for Linux Users of Victoria, with Daniel Jitnah providing "An Introduction to Drupal". That evening, convened the Annual General Meeting of the Victorian Secular Lobby, Inc., which witnessed a good turnout, excellent discussion, the election of a new executive, reports of activities from the previous year, plans for the upcoming year, and most importantly, a statement of policies. The program for the coming year is looking good as well, with at least four main meetings along with usual activities. A minor and partial victory has been achieved with the announcement of dying with dignity reform.

It is with some sadness that Tony Benn has died. As a radical democratic socialist who renounced his own peerage, I am comfortable in describing myself as a "Bennite" insofar he was inspirational. His capacity for pithy sayings has not been forgotten, nor his final attempt in parliament to transform the UK into a democratic, federal, and secular republic. He wasn't above engaging in a bit of politically justified vandalism either, even as an MP.

Appropriately, attended an ALP branch meeting meeting on Tuesday night; a good turn out and met the candidate for the next state election. Thursday night was gaming night, with a return to our Masks of Nyarlathotep story with the gradual uncovering of a murder cult in the heart of London. Friday evening was spent with Mal Wood, a friend from Murdoch University, whom I hadn't seen since around 1991. We went to the Abbotsford Convent for dinner, then gave him the customary tour of Willsmere, the latter which thoroughly interested him as former psychiatric nurse. Today is another gaming day with the continuation of the GURPS Middle-Earth story set in Lake Town.

Spent two days off sick from work this week. On Sunday afternoon fellow gamers noted that I looked decidedly off-colour, but I managed to participate in good humour just the same - having decided that the language of Middle-Earth's Dalish needs to be expressed in the accent of the Swedish chef from the Muppets (if Rohirric is similar to old Anglo-Saxon, then Dalish is Swedish). OK, maybe that was the first signs of impending delirium, because all through Sunday night and throughout Monday and Tuesday I was hot, felt cold and clammy, constantly dehydrated.

I have finally finished an essay on Apartheid and Zionism, which nobody of a partisan persuasion will agree with, and follows on somewhat from a previous essay The Country of Palestine : A Zero State Solution. Appropriately today I went to a small lunch in honor of Nigel Sinnott's 70th birthday at Halina Strnad's home; there's a four hour interview with Halina available on Youtube including her experiences in Auschwitz and Stutthof.

Nigel been a secular activist for his entire life, and is a former editor of The Freethinker. A truly intelligent atheist and committed liberal in the British Oxfordshire tradition, his opinions are deeply considered and balanced. Other attendees included a number of people involved in the Humanist Society. Halina too is a member and delighted attendees with a story of a local Jewish function where a younger member at her table (who obviously didn't know) called her self-description as a secular Jew as an oxymoron. "What right do you have to call yourself a Jew?", he asked the holocaust survivor. It's where gallows humour meets irony.

One of the better achievements of the last Federal Labor government was managing to get the Gonski education reforms approved by the state governments. Now this going to be all undone. Richard O'Brien (FB) has a few choice words to say on the matter. This follows a notable lack of diplomacy in foreign affairs, and impending doom with proposed changes to the NBN. All in all, it's becoming a boulervard of broken promises, with a some indication that "buyer's remorse" has set in already. Well, just imagine what the next three years are going to be like.

In more local matters, it seems that the state government (no doubt with some support from knuckle-draggers in the ALP) will be attempting to recriminalise abortion. The Victorian Secular Lobby will be meeting to discuss this. Part of the problem of course is that people of certain strong religious persuasions hold the sanctity of life as being the most important moral standard, independently of whether it is a good life, a safe life, or the costs of other lives (it gets really confusing when the same people support the death penalty) - hence absolutely crazy situations such as the Baby K case where there was legal enforcement to keep a child alive who had no brain. Arguably the child then went on to become a member of the Victorian State Parliament.

During this week there's been a couple of contacts with Sydney-related matters; another interview on Worker's Radio on 88.9FM, where I discussed issues relating to Venezuela, and the provision of an academic paper derived from the presentation I gave at Sydney last month on Universal Secularism and Religious Particulars. On a related topic this week I am speaking at the Victorian Humanists this coming Thursday on Secularism, Individual Rights, and Democracy, and have finished cobbling together notes for Wk3 on Tertiary and Adult Education Policy, specifically Workplace and Adult Education.

Linux Users of Victoria had an excellent meeting on Saturday with Les giving an introduction to Emacs and especially org mode. The next main meeting will be the Annual General Meeting, where a very dramatic motion is being put - that the organisation should dis-incorporate and become a subcommittee of Linux Australia! Whilst it wouldn't mean much in the actual practise of the organisation, it would cease to be a legal entity in its own right. After that in exciting Linux news will be Software Freedom Day 2013. Whilst on-topic, happy 20th birthday Debian.

Last Thursday played a session of Fiasco, a thoroughly narrativist game which generates storylines that are like a combination of soap opera meeting action and tragi-comedy. The actual play reports give some indication of the results. Appropriately, posted a review of another similar narrativist game, In A Wicked Age, to RPG.net which should be published this week. Today, returning to the mainstream semi-simulationist-mainly-gamist creative agenda, played in a game of Fantasy Craft Middle Earth where we're on a "missing person in Mirkwood" quest.

Oh, it should be on the front-page in every country around the world, but it isn't. An Australian scientist discoverers a cure for cancer.