Lev Lafayette's journal

After many months of COVID-19 delays, caseopaya and I are finally getting around to putting our Willsmere property on the market. The Willsmere Estate is certainly a nice place to live with astounding natural surroundings and for those who have an interest in local history, the former use of the grounds and buildings as an asylum should certainly intrigue. Anyway, we're in talks with a couple of real-estate agents, and we've had a couple of nibbles of interest. It would be awesome to sell to someone we know of course, so if you're looking to buy and have deep pockets I'm sure we could come to an arrangement, right? In a manner most inappropriate for a seller (yet suggested to me by my mentor many decades ago), I am more than willing to engage in a full and frank discussion about what is wrong with the property; not much to be honest, but better if the vendor tells you than the buyer discovering it after purchase.

The working week was a difficult one for me. Not because of the work, per se, but rather the conditions. Last week was particularly warm making a good night's sleep something of an impossibility. Yes, I do have air-conditioning, but I prefer to use it only in the most minimal amounts, partially because I have this weird sense of environmental responsibility (although I am now with a 100% renewables electricity provider) but also because I am particularly prone to terrible headaches from said devices - and even the occasional nose-bleed. More to the point, I was attending the EasyBuild user's conference which, being hosted in Europe, meant that I was getting up at 1am in the morning for a conference that finished at 6am - just in time for work. Now the sessions are all recorded on Youtube. However, I did at least make some effort to be in attendance - because on the first day they proudly announced that they now have attendees in four continents because there was a person registered from Australia. EasyBuild really has made a big difference in the installation and optimisation of HPC software, and I'll be writing up a conference report in the next few days.

Whilst I couldn't really have evenings, last weekend I did (on advisement) take the unusual opportunity to relax a bit (a temporary cool change also helped). Providing post-housing company, caseopaya and I have smashed our way through several movies, of the fantasy variety, for kids young and old. My pro-rodent bias was charmed by "The Tale of Despereaux", and surprised by many of the cast. Following this, two of the three movies in The Hobbit series, which I think are quite well done and I don't mind the elaborations to the original story. Then there was Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm", which combined visual appeal and some adult-level Python-noir comedy, and finally in great contrast, "Eragon", which is definitely for the youngsters with a plot and dialogue that really does seem like a young teenager's Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Appropriately then, the weekend also witnessed the Annual General Meeting of the RPG Review Cooperative at the Rose Hotel in Fitzroy, which was a really was a good excuse to catch up with fellow gamer friends whom I hadn't seen for a year or more. Meeting business took thirty minutes; a meal and a few drinks later and I believe a few hours had passed.

About a week or so ago a small storm occurred on the Linux Australia mailing list about women in IT, or specifically the existence of bridging programmes to improve the significant gender disparity. It is clear from the discussion that some are still unaware of the existence of subtle but powerful forms of discrimination that exist - so I've written a small article on the matter. In other Linux-related news, on Wednesday night gave a presentation at Linux Users of Victoria on Linux and MMORPGs (PDF) which looked at the history of multiplayer games, virtual worlds, MUDs etc and some contemporary examples. Enjoyed doing a "show and tell" with an original boxed set of Dungeons & Dragons with supplements and went positively nostalgic in the final slide. On Saturday 16th Andrew Pam will be giving a more hands-on talk at the LUV Beginners meeting in the same. Was also pointed to a very good article on Bringing Gaming to the Library - but say, who is that playing Glest in the photo?

Thursday night was another episode of Martin's Eclipse Phase game, albeit the game was heavily interspersed with a great deal of tangental table banter. I now know far more about Titan than would be necessarily outside of that context, including our mission objective at a base near lake of methane, ethane, and propane at the moon's south pole. In terms of other visitations to Willsmere, was delighted to play host today to uke and his partner Leslie, and youngster Ezekiel. Gave the tour of the estate including on of the main entrance building apartments which is going up for auction soon. Speaking of which, Willsmere once included a resident involved in the first same-sex marriage in Australia - courtesy of St. Francis' Catholic Church - take a walk on the wild side.