Lev Lafayette's journal

Because I was not in a good place for quite some time, I found myself ignoring the looming deadline for the book chapter "Monitoring HPC Systems Against Compromised SSH" for CRC Press. Well, with a Herculean effort over the past several days I powered through what needed to be done and made the word count. The most fun day was Monday where I wrote a thousand words and subtracted eleven hundred, but all writers and programmers know what that is like. As Ken Thompson once quipped; "One of my most productive days was throwing away 1,000 lines of code." Currently, my co-authors are checking over it and have submitted a couple of patch files. The editor is happy, so it looks like another publication relating to supercomputing is in the pipeline. In somewhat related news I also attended a meeting of Linux Users of Victoria last night on containerisation, probably the first one I have been to since I stepped down from being on the committee for fifteen years or so. The meeting struck me as being more conversational than the presentation-and-QandA format that I am familiar with, but such is the nature of different people running a show.

As a profession, the dual role of supercomputer engineer and educator does, of course, accord pretty reasonable compensation for what is often some challenging tasks (I've just spent two days building a recent version of TensorFlow and its dependencies from source). But of course, my main motive is to provide the computational support for the various empirical scientists who are trying to make the world a better place. I have mentioned in the past how incredible it is that we have vaccines at all for SARS-CoV-2, and I know quite well there are several research teams on Spartan who are working in that area. Nevertheless, public health is not just medicine, but also policy. This is why yesterday I found myself penning some words for the Isocracy Network on public health policy as the pandemic reaches four million confirmed deaths. I acknowledge I am especially concerned with what appears to be the beginnings of a disaster (because I can do cumulative math) on Thailand and Indonesia, and probably Malaysia as well, with the Delta variant of the virus, a lack of vaccines, and poor social regulation.

Wilful awareness of such issues, and even solutions, is a great challenge to my sensitivities which can induce feelings of depression and helplessness. "This is the bitterest pain among men, to have much knowledge but no power" (Herodotus, Book 9, Ch. 16). It is appropriate then that I've spent much of this evening composing my thoughts about the terribly boring topic of electoral systems, with a view of contributing a few design ideas about how to encourage better public representation. Because if we find ourselves to be ruled by incompetent and corrupt fools there are two causes; the first is that there are incompetent and corrupt fools (fixing that is more the domain of psychology) and secondly because our political system has provided opportunities for such people to acquire power. Providing a considered alternative system and a path to achieving it is a worthwhile endeavour in its own right, "another world is possible", as has been said. In the meantime, within my own profession and outside, I do what I possibly can. Knowing that I am using my knowledge and skills for compassionate purposes brings solace. I hope it is a feeling that remains.

Earlier this year I made a start on a combination study-guide, Esperanto for Anarchists which, as the name suggests would include both a self-paced learning guide on Esperanto but with anarchist content inspired by the synthesis from the times of Republican Spain, "Paroli Esperanton estis iam esenca parto de anarkiismo". I have recently dusted off the project and whilst I still have a long way to go I am making good, if somewhat haphazard, progress. The book is increasingly also an elucidation of traditional anarchist (i.e., libertarian socialist) principles so it is a self-paced guide in that regards as well. I rather wish my brain would give an appropriate title that would combine both aspects in a satisfactory manner. I'm still hoping to have the project completed by the end of the year.

Our workplace is currently doing a "culture review" following some rather interesting survey responses indicating a need to improve employee participation and articulation of mission. I have joined the working party a little enthusiastically, but do mean to apply what I do know (which isn't much) about organisational psychology to the project. Hopefully, I will learn more in coming weeks as I start preparing for my my graduate studies in psychology next year at the University of Waikato. Not much for the rest of the week however as I have two days of workshops to conduct and I'm currently working on a new one on Mathematical and Statistical Programming for HPC. The following Monday I have a major assignment due for my masters in higher education on developing a mentorship programme for HPC researchers which, fortunately, I have already completed a third with a presentation to a symposium on the subject a week ago.

Following reviews from psychologists, I have finally posted my essay on Dealing with 'The Thing': Can Stoic Philosophy and Project Management Help Anxiety?, which at least a few people have said that they are finding personally useful. Good! That's why I wrote it. Moving from mind to body, my physical regimen continues with gradual success, with now consistently good blood pressure, and a significant drop in heart-rate to an "athlete's" level (c50 bpm, resting), which is quite remarkable for one in their mid-autumn years. Not to let one's culinary desires go astray I have actually developed a healthy cheesecake - replacing a standard recipe's call for cream cheese and sugared biscuits with whey protein and yogurt and oat flour with almond essence.

The past three days I've spent most of my work time conducting HPC training classes, the standard introductory class, shell-scripting, and finally parallel programming. As has happened in the past, by the end of the third day I'm quite exhausted and this time even more so than usual. It doesn't help that the final part of the third day is the most difficult, debugging message passing programs and I found myself making some simple mistakes at the end. My researcher-students were very kind in offering some supportive comments, especially after I mentioned that I was beginning to lose concentration after three days of lecturing for about five hours straight each day. The poor bastards, imagine having to put up with me talking to you for five hours? They put up with for three days. After today's class, I also had a board meeting of the international HPC Certification Forum, which is seeing some useful progress with the injection of some new contributors; slowly the tortoise advances. On a related note, given the content, I have received the feedback for my second assignment in my MHEd studies at the University of Otago; a pretty good grade again, although I am amused by the insistence of providing me what is effectively a B++ rather than an A-. Many years ago as an honours student I received such a grade and asked my assessor why on earth they just didn't give me an A-. Their answer was unforgettable; "Oh, we want you to work harder". There is a reason why my 'blog is subtitled 'Diary of a B+ grade polymath'.

I have had recent challenges to inner stoic, which has led me down the path of reading The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, something that I have not touched for decades. There are many things I find disagreeable about the Stoics of course; the fact they place virtue prior to action or motive in ethics, their dogmatic appeal to nature, and their physics is obviously contrary to contemporary evidence. Nevertheless, there is much to be gained by their emphasis on asceticism, and especially the mental training to concern oneself with the things that are you can actually control and what actually matters; although I do strongly agree with the critique that there are an empirical reality and physiological needs that have priority. Modern stoicism has, of course, has encounters with utilitarianism, Marxism, and the recognition of the similarity with some of the mental approaches and ethical systems in some versions of Buddhism. It is perhaps of the latter matter that a special highlight in recent days was catching up on a video-conferencing session with my old friend Glenn K. Way back in 1996 we shaved our heads and went on a Buddhist pilgrimage by hitch-hiking from Melbourne to the temple in Woolongong for the Year of the Rat. It was quite an epic tale, and one day I promise to write down this strange and wonderful "on the road" trip.