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Three staff from our systems team are leaving work; two, previously on secondment, are taking at roles at the Victorian Life Sciences Computation Institute, and the other has decided to run off to Europe for pure fun. We had a farewell gathering on Friday night, eventually turning our training room (that is a very old 'photo) into quite an impressive video-and-music lounge, courtesy of Youtube and the very large projection wall, three ceiling-mounted projectors, and a reasonable sound system. Several drinks later some of us were playing laser skirmish.

The other end-of-an-era is the closure of Xanghai Restaurant (google maps link) in St. Kilda. Apparently the owners of the building have decided the location is better to convert into apartments. Proprietor Jin Wu Xu has been there for 28 years, and we've been attending about once a month for the past 8. On Sunday a small number of her most loyal customers were invited to come along to a final feast. On leaving we were given momento chopsticks.

Spent Saturday with Chris and Donna, in their delightful home in Upway, although alas both are having a couple of health-related issues. Attended a review of the Global Atheist Convention by Dr. John Perkins, leader of the Secular Party of Australia, at the Unitarians on Sunday. This was followed by an enjoyable session of Planescape Pathfinder (beautiful SRD) where my wererat monk ended up arguing with modron about an alliance with an imp.

Finally released RPG Review 15, which is nominally associated with indie game systems. It's incredibly late, but nevertheless I am happy with articles like the interview with Liz Danforth, and the actual play reports. One thing which strikes me about indie RPGs is that their narrow focus and simplicity is at least partially due to the enormous quantity of material that has been produced in the 70's, 80's; I am still playing good RPGs from that period. It is little wonder that there is demand for new games to be particularly short and snappy.

As an example last night finally had the opportunity to run a game of Ringworld, a very good Chaosium game based on the Larry Niven series. There was an excellent fan site a few years back, however said author gave up after the Niven's agent squashed a plan to publish a Known Space RPG. Damn character generation took all night tho'.

Last weekend there ALP State Conference and a meeting of the Isocracy Network. The former a primarily a policy conference, which meant that some delegate were less interested (which is tragic) in attendence. The urgency motion that I had put up regarding Timor-Leste documentation had somehow become misplaced and as a result wasn't discussed. I collared several responsible people over this and will continue to do so.

The Isocracy meeting went very well, although unfortunately a the UN Association of Victoria did not provide their planned speaker. Nevertheless, there was a wide-ranging discussion of the history of just wars, legal mechanisms such as the Geneva Convention, the definition of genocide, the rise of the International Criminal Court, and finally the Responsibility to Protect. We took an in principle support of RtP, recognising potential issues of implementation. We also decided to affiliate with the International Luxemburgist Network.

Last Monday gave my presentation to the Melbourne Interfaith Philosophers group on Celtic History and Mysteries. It was lengthy presentation and even at the end of it felt like we'd only scratched the surface; which is to be expected given the timescale and scope involved in the discussion. Perhaps appropriately Thursday evening was our regular Pendagron game, which included a journey to the north with Igraine and Morgan, as a case in point of interpretation there are multiple variations on Arthurian legend.

Tuesday night went to hear a lecture by the 2011 Nobel Laureate for Physics, Brian Schmidt, on cosmology and the increasing expansion of the universe, and its ultimate fate (accelerates forever, local galaxies combine, distant galaxies become spread apart). It was an excellent introduction to the subject, although I surprised myself somewhat with the realisation that I was actually well and truly up-to-date on this material. Inevitably one person did ask the classic stoner question, i.e., "If the universe is expanding what's it expanding in to?" (paraphrased). Following night touched on this material with a visit from R., who's currently going through separation from his partner of some fifteen years; a damn good night to reminisce and down a few wines and mead.

Very busy plan for tomorrow. Firstly, I am presenting a motion at the ALP State Conference on document discloure for Timor-Leste (my thanks to CF for much assistance in this matter). This is followed by a workshop for Linux Users Victoria. Then finally, a meeting of the Isocracy Network on the Responsibility to Protect.

Three days this week was spent doing almost nothing else but taking an intensive course on PRINCE2 Foundation certification, which included no less than three exams (two trial, one real) on Friday. In two week's time this will be followed up by the Practioner exam which is supposed to come with a modicum of difficulty and is meant to be time-challenging. The week after that is my Project Management exam for the Grad Cert and after that the Advanced Project Management exam. Particularly looking forward to applying some of these techniques in the political world to see if they are sufficiently adaptable.

Next Saturday is an Isocracy general meeting with a speaker from the United Nations Association of Victoria on the Responsibility to Protect. This is probably the most important change to international law in history. It was introduced by the United Nations in 2005 and argues that State-sovereignity is not a privilege, but rather a responsibility. States which cannot, or will not, prevent mass atrocities, will be subject to intervention, including military intervention. Critics argue that it undermines state sovereignty. Supporters argue that it is necessary to stop mass atrocities. The question is posed: How do we best protect civilians against mass atrocities by the State and other agencies?. Register your attendence at the event here (Facebook) or in the comments below.

Further planned meetings this week: Celtic Histories and Mysteries at the Melbourne Interfaith Forum, where I'm presenting, a meeting of the Socialist Left on Sunday, ALP State Conference next Sunday, where I've put up an urgency motion on document disclosure for Timor-Leste, which is certainly a hidden sore in Australian archiving history. The motion was passed at the Kew branch meeting which I attended on Monday (and was seconded by Steve Hurd, the Federal candidate for Kooyong at the last Federal election). Oh, and wasn't that budget a ripper? Unsurprisingly, Dr. No responds with an expected level of competence.

No less than three days this week will spent on PRINCE2, sponsored by the company as part of the glacial moves towards project orientation. Hopefully it will go better than my recent Project Management results which were, surprisingly, somewhat below what I received for Advanced Project Management. Out of the two main project management methodologies I have come to be more supportive of PMBOK over PRINCE2, although they are not entirely incompatible. Whilist latter is very precise on procedures that should be followed, it provides a set solution, rather than an adaptable toolkit, which is what PMBOK gives. I would certainly recommend PRINCE2 for smaller organisations and smaller projects, just in the same way I would recommend Gannt charts. However for large and complex projects I would increasingly lean towards the systems engineering approach used by PMBOK and PERT charts.

Have given two presentations in recent days. The first was at Linux Users of Victoria on Multicore Computing and Linux (plus notes). Newcomer to the LUV committee, Les Kitchen followed up with an excellent discussion on the early days of Linux. The second presentation was at the Unitarian Philosophy Forum on Ex nihilo, nihil fit, the debate on why existence exists in the first place; one could suggest a pretty important cosmological issue.

It's been a pretty busy time politically as well. I've submitted an urgency motion to the upcoming Victorian Labor State conference, calling for a declassification of Federal government documents from Timor-Leste in the 1970s, which is currently being blocked. Saturday week I have organised a meeting of the Isocracy Network, exploring the concept of the Responsibility to Protect, with a speaker from the United Nations Association of Victoria.

My usual past-time has had some enjoyable moments of late. Visited ser_pounce and yesterday and played In The Year of the Dragon. We are currently working our way through the Monty Python cheese sketch, although some might be difficult. On Thursday finished the first scenario of the quite trippy Tournament of Dreams for Pendragon.

Today is May Day; briefly attended the anarchist gathering at the Eight Hour Day monument, spending most of my time with a Israeli Jew who spent several months living in Ramallah. Later this afternoon Australia-Asia Workers Links is holding a follow-up rally.There is actually two May Day gatherings in Melbourne; one largely organised by the Melbourne Anarchist Club and friends (which was formed on May 1st, 1886) and the other by the old trade union officialdom, who evidentally can't produce a website to save themselves and don't like anarchists. My own on-topic contribution is Political Anarchism in the 21st Century which essentially argues that whilst social anarchism is preferable to individual and lifestyle anarchism, political involvement would be even better still.

Following a very different sort of revolution, tonight I'm speaking at Linux Users of Victoria on Linux and Multicore (presentation slides and notes available). Also have just started to initiate the compilation of conference proceedings from last month's Multicore World conference in NZ. On a tangential matter (it's sort of related to anarchism, IT and Project Management), I'm absolutely astounded to discover the NSW police seem to have engaged in software piracy of their criminal intelligence database, whereas their Victorian colleagues continue to throw scores of millions at their equivalent, LEAP. Having worked on electoral roll and civil registry databases with hundreds of thousands of records, I can safely suggest A database multiple layers of security with a pretty front end that keeps records on millions of people really isn't that difficult or expensive. In other project management news, recently received my grade for Advanced Project Management; 82.5%.

Among personal projects, very pleased to catch up with _fustian and wildilocks on Friday evening and usekh earlier in the day. The former also alerted me to a couple of worthwhile IT projects he's engaged in, including the reconstitution of a 1980s programming language for games into PHP.

When pressed on my religious attitudes I tend to answer that am an empirical atheist, a normative agnostic and an aesthetic pagan. This means that whilst I note there is no empirical evidence for the supernatural, laws and morals should treat the question as if we do not and cannot know, and, as a personal appreciation, I delight in the expressive beauty engaged by humans with their sense of reverence. This does sound like Naturalistic Pantheism, although I am wary of any metaphysical claims to naturalism - indeed, my stubborn pragmaticism makes me wary of all metaphysical claims, although one may find me arguing along the lines of supervenience to explain mind-body issues (the cool kids cool have returned to calling it emergent properties, I've noticed).

Point being in a few week's time I'm giving a presentation at the Melbourne Interfaith Philosopher's group on Celtic Paganism: Histories and Mysteries. I was particularly interested in Celtic history and religion in the mid-1990s, and even made a modicum of effort in learning a few phrases of Breton. What was interesting from this interest was how little we genuinely know, how much of the Celtic Reconstructionist is highly speculative at best, and how deeply we are in the period of the Celtic twilight. It is these key messages which I'll bring to the presentation on May 14.

In two different tangents, I'm taking the service at the Unitarians this Sunday with chairperson Peter Abrehart's address on "Looking from the side - never the bystander", words from Amira Hass. Also, from my hobby perspective, the next issue of RPG Review has two pagan-inspired "actual play" reports - from Agon (Hellenic) and In A Wicked Age. RPG Review is, again, late but that's fairly much par for the course in a volunteer project like this. Looking forward to receiving interview responses from Liz Danforth (who I suspect is a little paganish as well) and then we'll be "hot of the press", so to speak.

Also, reminder to self. Update DW/LJ at least twice a week.

The visit to Dunedin has been a success. We've changed agents to PropertyScouts who seem to be taking better care (and communication) and have listed our South Pacific secret base on Trademe (albeit at an absolute steal of a rental price). Spent caseopaya's birthday with dinner at Etrusco, a favoured dining establishment in the art noveau Savoy Building. We stayed at the beautiful deco Law Courts Hotel. For a compact city, Dunedin is a dream location if you're the sort of person that has preference for buildings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Also managed to visit the office of the Dunedin North MP for some party contacts, followed by a visit to Rev. Dr. Sarah Micthell of the Knox Presbytarian Church. We had a delightful conversation about religious liberalism (the South Island Presbytarians are very liberal), and our respective churches - she seemed very pleased to hear that the Melbourone Atheists met at the Unitarian Church!

After Dunedin we returned briefly to Oamaru to meet up wih Nicolás Erdödy from Open Parallel, to discuss the development of the multicore community and future conferences; I was particularly pushing for the NZ emphasis. After that we made our way across central North Otago, which is home to the rather spectacular Aviemore and Benmore Dams. After this we began our journey towards Westland, stopping at the small community of Tarras. Behind a diner there was an innocuous sign for "Shrek"; intrigued by this I ventured forth to discover a charming two-room museum dedicated to Shrek The Sheep, a local of the region. Making our way between Lakes Wanaka and Hawea and through Haast Pass, past the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers to stop at Hokitika, where we sampled local fare (whitebait pizza?). Hoki has grown substantially since our last visit, and this time we had the opportunity to visit its quite impressive museum. From Hoki we made our way through more national parks than I care to mention before making our way to Havelock, a under-rated township in the midst of the Marlborough Sounds. We took an evening walk to see some glowworms than inhabit some nearby cliffaces. From Havelock we returned to Picton, spent time at their aquarium (which included a recovering penguin), before crossing the Cook St. to return to Wellington and then Melbourne.

During the journey around New Zealand I wrote an address on "Great Unitarian Political Leaders of Australia and New Zealand", which I gave at the Melbourne church, the morning after our return. Of particular note are Catherine Spence, Chris Watson and Robert Stout. Also written on the journey (and emailed one night whilst parked outside a closed cafe near the beach of Hokitika with wireless access), was my major assignment for Advanced Project Management. Returning to Melbourne I also had to complete a slightly shorter assignment for Project Management, which I am doing concurrently. A major realisation I am getting from these studies is a systems approach to projects and the realisation of how little formal documentation my workplace has on such matters and how a proposed structural change from some two years ago was not implemented correctly - despite projects being an increasing source of revenue. To finish off the return week to Melbourne, another highlight was recumbenteer running Space:1889 set in Melbourne with a strong political theme. I'm playing a fictionalised version of David Andrade; in the first session we had the Sunday Liberation Society take control of the State Library, only to face the wrath of the Sunday Protection League - which wasn't too far from actual incidents.

Spent two days in Wellington as the MC for Multicore World, as caseopaya worked on registration. It was a great conference built around the recognition that hardware limits have led us to a multicore environment, programming has a long way to catch up, and - apparently - New Zealand can lead the way. It was a good combination of business and technical talks, although the latter seemed better. Was particularly impressed by Dr. Tim Mattson of Khronos OpenCL Group and had the opportunity to have lunch with Clare Curran, the member for Dunedin South. The day after spent some time with the Wellington Unitarian fellowship who include some quite talented individuals (and the very talented beagl).

Into The South Island (definite article required), we spent an evening at Kaikouri (famous, as the name indicates, for its crayfish), then Methven (a service town for the Mt Hutt skifields), then Oamaru (stunning Victorian era limestome architecture and penguins) before reaching Dunedin, where we've spent an evening with members of the Dunedin Linux User's Group. The time spent at Oamaru included a visit to the Blue Pengiuin colony, close encounters with fur seals, and the Steampunk HQ, which was neither steam nor punk, and reminded me that artists need to talk to engineers if they're going to more than banging out interesting shapes from scrap metal. Amazingly, the weather has been blue skies and sunshine every day.

The next few days involves some work on the management on our Ravensbourne property, completing two major assignments for Project Management and Advanced Project Management, writing an address on Unitarian Political Leaders of Australia and New Zealand, writing a scenario for our annual Easter Bunnies & Burrows game (this time Bunnies & William S. Burroughs). During this time we're hoping to visit Wanaka, Hokkitika and Farewell Spit.

Very good turnout to the Isocracy mining resource rent forum last Saturday week. Key speaker, David Collyer (campaign manager, Prosper Australia), gave a good outline of the key distinction between profit derived from site monopoly and the onerous taxes applied to others (in particular small business). Felt that the mining rent could be expanded and the expenditure by the opposing mining companies was actually rather small compared to what they could have used. Meanwhile, Fortescue Metals is preparing for a High Court challenge (which will almost certainly fail). We can be reminded of how much (PDF) provision to the public purse Fortescue current makes to public purse. In related news, much attention has been drawn to landlord class member Clive Palmer, with his crackpot conspiracy theory that the CIA is funding the Greens to wreck Australia's mining industry.

Also related to spies (and East Timor), is the heroic efforts of Associate Professor (and former army intel) Clinton Fernandes to have the Australian government release thirty year-old records concerning Timor-Leste. This follows from attempts by the Australian army to prevent publication of his book "Reluctant Saviour" and prevention of the release of daily situation reports from Timor-Leste in 1975. Of other note of the shifting alliance in Timor-Leste is that following the first round of presidential elections, Ramos-Horta is now seeking an alliance with the social-liberal PD.

In news that doesn't relate to relate to comrades and former employers, caseopaya and I are heading to New Zealand for a fortnight; first to attend Multicore World, where I'll be MC, and caseopaya will be handling registration and second to inspect our still vacant (any people from Dunners reading this?) property. Hoping to make it to Farewell Spit this journey, one of the few corners of NZ that we haven't been to.