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 ( Read more... )

It's been a busy week for secular activities in my word. The petition I initiated, to de-register the Australian Christian Lobby and end "advancing religion" as a charitable category, has reached over 17,000 signatures, although it has slowed down in the past couple of days. In upping the ante, the Federal government is raising the prospect of " ( Read more... )

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 ( Read more... )

Apart from the structured environment of work, my most focussed activity of the past week has been the Federal election which I've been watching with a serious and slightly nervous eye. As usual I've been recording major events on my Isocracy 'blog every couple of days, although one item that hasn't been added (can't be too parochial) is the local ( Read more... )

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 ( Read more... )

Today was a policy meeting for the Victorian Secular Lobby with a presentation on Section 116 of the Australian Constitution by saithkar. Not a heavily attended meeting but with a remarkable and genuine set of apologies which were graciously accepted. Secularism is, of course, one of my great loves - to develop public policy without a deliberate and ( Read more... )

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 ( Read more... )

Attended the University of Melbourne Secular Society meeting on Tuesday which debated the often troubled relationship between Islam and the secular west and especially in relation with historical contexts and the prospects for change. Following evening was the annual general meeting of the Victorian Secular Lobby at Parliament House with MLA Maree ( Read more... )

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 ( Read more... )

Second half of the Tasmanian trip started with dinner with my old colleague Emeritus Professor Peter Boyce, a really wonderful night with a wide-ranging discussion with a bit of a concentration on the weirder parts of the former east European governments in less democratic days. It dove-tailed well with caseopaya and I continuing strongly with our duolingo ( Read more... )