In an act of pure self-indulgence, I went to visit Louisa G., at Lu La Belle Studio next to Toorak Station (dahling). A haircut is not what would normally constitute an item for a journal entry, but yours truly has not been a professional hairdresser since 2002. Since then it's been a case of either having a ponytail, snipping off the tail, or ( Read more... )

It's a couple of months late but RPG Review Issue 49-50 has been released. This is the Cyberpunk 2020, Year of the Stainless Steel Rat double issue, with transcripts from the conference proceedings, a setlist of cyberpunk music, various cyberpunk scenarios and campaign settings, film and soundtrack reviews of Blade Runner 2049 (OK, that's previous ( Read more... )

The Year of the Stainless Steel Rat cyberpunk convention has run, and I must say with a degree of success. All the speakers were absolutely great but I really want to point out Walter Jon Williams, Dan Smif Smith, Sarena Ulibarri, and Tod Foley's presentations. Anyway, the next step is to get the transcript of the conference together - six hours' ( Read more... )

The last four workdays I've been on annual leave, mainly because I've accumulated too many holidays and that makes the bureaucrats feel nervous. Most of the time I have spent at home, albeit with a couple of exceptional social outings, one of which I joked with the participants that I was "on a hot date with three girls" (they were all older women ( Read more... )

There are many occasions where I am quite pleased in my profession. A recent example is the cracking of the Zodiac cipher on Spartan, an announcement that has made quite an impact in the international news. I confess that I was aware of it a week ago, but for obvious reasons, I've waited for the official announcement by the FBI before commenting. ( Read more... )

With just under three weeks to go, I am feeling quietly confident that everything is falling into place for the Cyberpunk 2020: Year of the Stainless Steel Rat convention, now with Fraser Simons, Rick Wayne, and Stephen Dedman as confirmed speakers. It will be quite a good way for the RPG Review Cooperative to end the year, especially that ( Read more... )

Cyberpunk 2020: Year of the Stainless Steel Rat convention continues in its development. A massive success in the past few days was scoring major author Walter Jon Williams as a speaker. Hardwired is, of course, one of the earliest and most famous cyberpunk novels and was certainly one of the first that introduced me to the genre. Nevertheless, ( Read more... )

Another week has somehow managed to go by and when I look back it there has been quite a lot going on. Today I am very pleased to announce that author and anthologist Sarena Ulibarri will be speaking at the Cyberpunk 2020 conference, specifically on the technology panel and with an emphasis on solarpunk; "the future is so bright, you'll have to ( Read more... )

Late last week spent two days giving workshops; Parallel Programming (CPU-based), and GPGPU Programming (GPU based). Both classes, at least in my opinion, went smoother and were better structured than the last time I delivered them. Whilst teaching is slowing down for the year, I suspect I have probably four more day-workshops to give before the ( Read more... )

It looks like I'm about to finish another 13-week MOOC, this time the macroeconomics course from UC Irvine, in one month, having powered my way through two week's worth in the past few days. Because this is what I do for fun, qute honestly. At least a fair bit of the time. And when I'm not learning, I'm teaching which often enough amounts to the ( Read more... )