Carol on the Columbia

Quaker Village in a Box

Just add water... (smiley).

I'm mixing DemocracyLab memes with The Village (movie review) and coming up with this high tech "reality show" (reality, but shared in media) that comes with a software ecosystem and operating manuals, plus lots of DIY instructions for setting things up.

The community may not be autonomous or self sustaining in the larger sense, as we're all "solar surfers", but might still be somewhat remote and a place to restart in some ways, for some folks.

Yes, there's a bit of WestWorld in this vision (with Yul Brynner).

Edge of Tomorrow (movie review)

The plot here leverages the experience of every player of first person shooters:  you get so far into it, and then you die.  Reset, and again.  You play until you make it through, or give up (similar to our pedagogy at OST, in lieu of "grades").

Given there's no alternative "outside world" beyond the game (The Matrix is complete, a reality prison), Tom (named "Cage" with good reason) has his Ground Hog Day cut out for him.

Seeing Cruise and Murray and their co-stars (Emily Blunt as Rita, and Andie MacDowall also as Rita) as a double feature would be fun, as one gets two different worlds reflective of the kinds of acting each guy does.

Murry is quirky and whimsical whereas Cruise is darkly War of the Worlds and action oriented, highly kinetic.

Yet the similarities stand out too:  how to authenticate as a time traveler.  Blunt's Rita has "been there" and so has an added advantage vis-a-vis her looper partner.

Having Cruise go from shy and retreating to full on aggressive, with that same sense of partnership displayed by Peter Quill towards Gamora (Guardians of the Galaxy), was a fun twist.

A needed ingredient is that sense of destiny aka fate that goes with heroism, a strong sense of making a big difference.  Once Cage develops confidence and survivability, along with his sense of destiny, he develops his heroic qualities within the loop, an eternal return.

The "mimics" which Cage and Rita get to fight have plenty of demonic power.  As a first person shooter, this game is definitely challenging.  Live, Die, Repeat is the other name they came up with for it.

Finding Vivian Maier (movie review)

One might imagine I felt drawn to Vivian as I share her obsession with "street photography" as they call it, though I more call it "National Geographic photography" when thinking about it to myself.

The controversy about her accent seems easily resolved:  you could call it "affected" as she went to France only later to discover her ancestral roots.  Adopting those roots and owning them was wise on many levels, including in the practical sense that upper middle class people still sucker to this day for that "European nanny" jazz (though these days the Philippines is the new Europe).  It pays to have a French accent when you're in the nanny business, and she had to learn hers late in life.

She had that kind of spy-like fly-on-the-wall existence that life behind a camera somewhat foments.  You get that distance, that "observer" mentality (to quote the est Training).  One is recording for posterity, spying as if for ETs, but really for the future, and it was just hugely fortuitous that John Maloof would acquire her property at auction to start, and do the requisite archeology.  He reminds people how fun it is to discover others, and that's just as viable a creative outlet as making a big show of oneself.  Reminds me of Trevor.

Indeed, he's being somewhat Vivianesque in playing the self effacing documentary maker.  People treat him with the respect of someone who's done some homework.  Vivian too, did a lot of homework, and came across as respect-worthy.  Her employers would have sensed that in wanting her to have parenting responsibilities vis-a-vis their own children.

Yes, developing film was messy, chemical, and a pain.  If you're a deeply private individual, as Vivian was, then piling up your negatives in good condition and putting them all in a time capsule, with some strategic letters, is not a bad strategy.   High risk, but at least doable.

Remember Bucky Fuller and his "chronofile":  to self document in that way added a dimension to his experiment "Guinea Pig B".

Vivian achieved her own kind of nirvana in morphing herself into one of the greatest street photographers in the age before we could just upload into the cloud.  Now I think she so resonates with people like me, the common garden variety camera buff, because we share the same fascination with street photography, and the technology to make it relatively painless.

Of course it helps that the pictures she took were really excellent.

As Linus Pauling said (paraphrase):  the secret to taking some really good pictures is to take a lot of them (as he said of "ideas").

This is a well-made documentary about an intriguing subject:  Mary Poppins meets Bridges of Madison County (OK, that's a stretch -- she doesn't meet anyone, but she does remind of Clint Eastwood).

Someone told me ahead of time she was "plain" and/or "homely" and if maybe that was why she had such a lonely life, the poor dear.  On the contrary, Vivian was photogenic and displayed a level of toughness that goes with the territory, if "street photography" is your game.

As for her supposed mental illness (yes, lots of paranoia, imagine today with Cyberia) and draconian child rearing techniques, lets remember this was spoiled upper middle class America and she was hired as a French nanny.

The role of the nanny was to be "bad cop" sometimes, giving parents a more "good cop" role, sparing them the need to use the rod (nanny was rod queen).

So sure, the little darlings had some PTSD under Mary Poppins, but who wouldn't under such a Scary Mary?  I'm sure Vivian could be intimidating when she needed to be but she didn't water board, lets be clear.  Hers was the wing of the OSS (or whatever spy service) that didn't torture, but maybe did stay out in the cold quite a bit.

Graph Databases

Ever since Pernilla Lind's talk at OSCON, the idea of graph databases has been rolling around in my brain.  A kind of NoSQL.  That's the place to fit in.

I don't mind accepting the pejorative connotations of "spaghetti monster" (play up the Italian food angle) or the links to the spoof deity that said monster comes with, in the Atheists' religion (some denominations).

That's all a plus in my box.

Neurons, like the Wild World Web (WWW), get messy, like Ms. Frizzle taught.  That's STEM.  So yeah, a graph database might be a terrible tangle, a Gordian Knot.

The beauty of it though, may be seen in its application to Quakerism and its processes.  Nominating puts forward names in a slate, which gets approved by Business Meeting, thereby filling all these positions.

Who served as what when, create a time slice, produce a resume:  these things a graph database will do, and reliably, if you feed it true information.

GIGO, right?

Just keep track of who on what clearness committee recommended X for membership to Oversight, and you'll have your reports at the end of the day.  Bring a smile to your clerking team's helpers, especially if your meeting has grown complicated and involuted over the years.

Minutes are just log files detailing the transactions that have gone on.

But of course the applications of such graphing engines are far broader than Quaker committee work or household diagramming, business analysis and so on.  The list goes on and on.

Dymaxion House

My plan is to visit some coffee shop with Wifi and my copy of Cosmic Fishing, to re-read whatever Ed Applewhite recounts about the Witchita, Kansas operation.

Then I'll flip through Bucky Works by J. Baldwin, which Ed liked a lot.

Trevor of Synchronofile has the most comprehensive Fuller archive within a thousand mile radius, so I'll likely be consulting him too, just to remind myself about some of the subplots.

Speaking of Applewhite, I think he would have been gratified to see this depiction of Fuller's E-module, with follow-up mention of David Koski's Youtubes on Facebook:

 

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More Counting Down

As in "countdown to zero" that is, a meme brought to you by the abolitionists, versus nuclear weapons that is (the anti-slavery battle is ongoing as well and they're related).

This year we again enjoyed fine weather, perfect shade, and a relaxed summer park atmosphere, with members of the public towards the back performing acrobatics quietly, in much the same way Joe Snyder does with kids' program during talent night at Annual Session (which I mostly missed this year, OSCON a priority -- still got some IT committee prep work done though).

A fun wrinkle was this mom & pop "radio station" showing up with what appeared to be equipment for making interviews.  I didn't see them make any, but one of their colleagues posed during Congressman Blumenaur's speech, with a black on yellow sign calling for Barack Obama's impeachment.  Carol later remembered Bonnie Tinker's fascination with the prospect of impeachment vis-a-vis George Bush.  My take both times is the same:  USAers are still PTSD from the Nixon Era and now see impeachment (a kind of scapegoating) as a solution for everything.

The highlight of course were the en Taiko Drummers, teens and tweens, led by taller girls but all obviously enjoying themselves and the audience feedback.  Mom took the opportunity to leaflet the front row during their 2nd performance, a stunt reminding these theater mode duffsters that it was theirs to stay active, get involved, not just to expect entertainment.  Or at least that's my spin.  She really didn't block anyone's view and she had relevant information.

Veterans for Peace is always high profile at this event.  The Native Americans were less foreground this year.  These things come and go.  I was wandering off site to savor local context and widen my perspective, and stumbled into a photo exhibit regarding some event called Vortex in 1970, which according to the proprietor was like a state sponsored Woodstock aimed at keeping a surly hippie generation out of trouble for the summer, by organizing some "lets get naked and pretend we're Indians" event.  That puzzle piece fit with my recent airplane reading.

Carol reminisced in the car about some of the early versions of this annual event, now pushing fifty years.  Fellowship of Reconciliation used to be involved but FOR must see Portland as "over it" by now, pretty much reconciled by now.  Mercy Corps is just across the street but not an active sponsor.  I was off in a Chinese second floor restaurant having a Tsingtao and watching Chinese TV for a part of it.  Like I said, I was taking in surrounding Portland (Old Town), adding nuance and new angles to an event I've attended for almost fifty years (but with a huge gap from like from age six to fifty).

Carol was given full credit for helping start this ceremony / memorial by Polo, a community / city leader, some years back.  She knows a lot of these people and had a walker full of stuff to compare notes about.  She's looking forward to another workshop today in fact, on the military's misappropriation of drone technology.

OK, time to stop blogging and head out to an AFSC-related meetup (AFSC is an old time co-sponsor of this event, right from its inception). The Portland office has relinquished its hold on its historic digs on E Burnside, though the outdoor sign is still there.

Where to go next, that's fully ADA compliant?  Old houses like that one usually don't even begin to qualify.  E Burnside has a ramp, with some turning radius in the restroom but I don't have the exact figures.  I'm suggesting we camp out, at least on billboards:  picture an AFSC tent overlooking a grand canyon (doesn't have to be the famous one):  "Really Out There, and Lovin' It!" could be the slogan (would McDonalds sue?).

The idea is like we're into scouting and stuff.  Like the old days in some ways, when AFSC ran work camps for COs.  The idea of a recruiting tent right in R2DToo itself has some appeal.  AFSC has a long history of working with stateless / houseless / refugee populations.

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Pilgrimmage

Islamic cultures have appreciated the geodesic sphere and dome from the start.

The shape is geometric and the mathematics pristine.  No wonder that the Globe restaurant in Riyahd, atop Al Faisaliah Tower, is considered one of the architectural marvels of the Middle East.  Sir Norman Foster, who also developed a fourth Dymaxion Car, was the designer behind it.

Here in North America, the domed mosque in Perrysburg, Ohio, near Toledo, has long been on my list of "see in person if you can" places, and yesterday I found myself only eighteen minutes away (per Google Maps) having pulled off I-75 for some excellent sushi with a co-worker.

Tara and I took the country back roads in the rental Mazda 2, guided by GPS.  Although the building was locked, a kind gentleman allowed me inside for a brief self-guided tour.

This dome was designed by Temcor, Don Richter's company, Don having been a student a Buckminster Fuller's at Black Mountain College, a contemporary of Kenneth Snelson.