MOTD

Fuller Projection
(click here for PDF version)

Re domestic spying: so how *is* the NSA supposed to interpret "domestic", when the Fuller Projection shows This Land is Our Land (merry little tune). -- K. Urner, Synergeo #25562

New Years Fireworks

I recombined a lot of my Math Forum themes into some year end polemics, hoping to spark some interest in our open source agenda for the new millenium. Having the ball in Times Square be a 3-frequency geodesic certainly helps (10ff+2; V+F=E+2; N:2N:3N and like that).

But newspaper editors don't seem to have much time for a high tech math-science spin (fullerenes, viral shells, octet truss...), especially one that could snowball. Can't have that. Better to recycle the usual stories we always get around this time of year (booze etc.).

We Win?

Dave Ulmer signaling from his desert bizmo
(self portrait)

Presents for Iraq

If I could wave a magic wand and give gifts to Baghdad (to share with environs of course), I'd probably put the following under the tree: Office and Home Depot outlets (substantial ownership in both chains, including stateside), a SeaWorld (Iraqis choose the site), lots of steady, cheap electricity (they can certainly afford it), membership in Costco, a new science museum (like OMSI), Netflix.

These gifts would be delivered irregardless of religious affiliation or sexual orientation.

In the USA, Xmas is a commercial/secular holiday, on which religions piggy-back. Jesus was not likely born on December 25 and in any case the gift-bearing Magicians showed up later (ritually on Epiphany, January 6).

The USA traces its origins to many Roman institutions (evident to anyone visiting Washington, DC), including Saturnalia. None of which is to say there's anything wrong with Christians piggy- backing on our secular holiday, as long as they don't mind sharing it with the rest of us.

Thinking Globally

Fuller Projection

This recent call from some president in Iran for Israel to vanish from the world map might be construed as a proposal to make more use of the Fuller Projection, whereon all nations have disappeared.

The idea here is it's all Israel, while the frequently-heard accusation that Jewish networks seek global domination is less a source of paranoia than of hope. Mature schools of thought, many found within Judaism, are indeed committed to the long term viability and sustainability of Spaceship Earth, our promised land, for millenia to come.

Our USA operating system is up to the same thing: providing robust, secure infrastructure for our global dominion. Certainly many pro Russians think intelligently about their ship, and act accordingly wherever they may be. Space-minded Chinese call it Our Land.

The Fuller School encourages thinking globally. We want whole systems thinking, global management philosophies, people who think in big picture terms. Letting your mind get boxed in by some arbitrary political boundaries just dumbs you down, artificially constrains your horizons.

So, how will the new Persian power plants fit in to the regional grid and how will the IAEA be assured that no weaponization is happening? These are supranational concerns. Let's use a Fuller Projection to brainstorm some answers. Let's make our Iran a safe and secure world.

Mid-level managers who still need to cling to some jigsaw-puzzle nation state approach to global thinking are welcome to do so, have plenty of other maps to choose from to sustain their patterns of thought.

Design Science

Terry Bristol and I had a high level meeting of the minds in my living room this afternoon. He said I needed more Christmas tree lights, and I agreed.

Bigger still, however, was my realization that his "intelligent design science" (a kind of science that's comfortable with teleological / purposeful language) and my "design science" (absorbed through years of immersion in the Fuller School), come close enough to form a closable cosmic gap.

Lots of big names in philosophy, many of them Greek, got tossed about. Terry's account of a certain Native American training (and rite of passage) reminded me a heck of a lot of est, in terms of sharing the same "getting it" experience.

Using the language of synergetics: Terry sees that an eternal war of incommensurability (987.061) might give rise to two competing orders, such that awareness of otherness becomes critical to the integrity of any science or core set of beliefs. There's always that complementary / missing 720 degrees (omnidirectional halo concept), a seed for negative Universe (the antithesis of Universe), both arising from the same cosmic integrity, what Ervin Laszlo calls Metaverse. Awareness of cosmic otherness begets a dialectic and synergy (symbolized for Bucky by a bow-tie).

Anyway, good meeting, good outcome, and worth saving as an operational part of my control room.

Related reading:
Invisible Landscape Series (by me): [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Questions for ID Propenents @ Math Forum
More re ID @ Math Forum

Another Meeting @ Wired

Trevor and I had dinner at Fujin this evening, compared notes with the owner and son about petty thievery in China (its current shape, ever shifting). I googled with my cell (466452), looking for Serenity in PDX (Trevor is enthused about it, I've yet to catch it). Met Derek on the corner of 39th, enroute to Chinese. Bid Trevor adieu at a 75 bus stop across from FixMyDeadPC.

I've been active around cyberspace per usual today, but also doing a lot of hospital work, coding in FoxPro, working on Excel spreadsheets.

Earlier this morning, I read up on music making using contemporary components and software. Some of the best GUI interfaces come from musicians. I'm consulting for a locally based pro, ready to move into the new era.

Tomorrow I'll be teaching Python some more. We started with "hello world", moved to data structures (lists and dictionaries), types (primitive and collections).

Last night, I wrote some notes about an ACM paper on pedagogy around computer programming (teaching coding to kids).