Tetrahelix

We're still waiting for some enterprising blockchain company to choose the tetrahelix for a core animation. The successive blocks form the twisting path of face-bonded tetrahedra why not? Blocks are blocks. No one said the chained "blocks" have to be orthonormal, an aesthetic considered uncool in some circles, given the alternatives.

Gary Doskas is one of the current masters of tetrahelix lore and I ran the idea by him, but maybe he doesn't straddle the geomtech - fintech divide. Few do apparently, or we would have a lot more better toyz by now, counting computer games.

Clearly I've got tetrahedrons on my mind again, as I recently published a narrative to a couple listservs talking about the so-called "Goldberg Table" wherein Michael Goldberg summarizes what was known about space-filling tetrahedra up to the time of his publishing his paper.

The point of my Goldberg story was that Buckminster Fuller is repeatedly cut out of accounts where he's making serious contributions, either to virology, geometry, architecture or whatever, because there's always a convenient "inhouse luminary" better positioned to take the credit. From TrimTab (April 25, 2024):

It just so happened that Fuller's research carried him over territory being surveyed by professionals in many walks of life at the same time. Virology, the discipline, was bringing them together even more than architecture. 

The price RBF paid for his comprehensivity (anticipating CJ's book) was not being best of the best in any of the various fields he was visiting, meaning one could always swap in a home team star come trophy day [1], leaving "good at skipping rocks" his only real claim  to fame (I say that whimsic-sarcastically).

The dismissive attitude I'm circling is well-demonstrated by the lengthy reply we saw from Andrius:

The best we have is this Goldberg table. The point would be to show that polyhedra can fill space. Perhaps that would be useful for a model of dividing up conceptual space, which is actually what I do. But no, you have no interest in actually applying this math scientifically. Your interest is to validate Buckminster Fuller. An honest investigation would dive into that, what is that all about?

I have not been at all reticent to discuss my interest in validating Fuller's research. That America's premier futurist of the 1900s has been deplatformed by so many universities, after their milking his popularity when he could draw the big crowds, and paying students, is somewhat scandalous to say the least. Applewhite was always wondering how they got away with it, with impunity.

Quoting more from my TrimTab post:

Apologies if the ordering was confusing, between Fuller's compact vocab (mite, rite, bite...) and the Goldberg table of tetrahedral space-fillers coming to be known at the time. That slide (in my BEAST deck) is still evolving.

Speaking of Michael Goldberg, Applewhite said he'd met him (I recall asking him about Goldberg specifically, given his key role in our narrative) adding "he didn't have a mean bone in his body" meaning in that context Ed didn't believe the guy had any malevolent intention of deliberately messing with Fuller's self promotion / reputation i.e. he was no kind of villain or foe.

Easy to believe I'd say. "Space filling tetrahedrons" is a pretty obvious topic, when you get right down to bare bones and/or brass tacks, as are subdivisions of a sphere using variable frequencies. "Aristotle was right, remember the MITE" could be are our high school chant, in some weird sci-fi School of Tomorrow. Cue cheerleaders.

This was the footnote (see above):

[1] per Ed, Fuller was especially hurt when a certain Scientific American article summarizing recent breakthroughs in the field of virology, skipped mentioning him completely. I got to see some of the primary materials.

Catacombs

As some of you know, I've donned a Sociology hat and have been focusing on shaping relationships among "meetup-based" subcultures. I use "scare quotes" because of connotations around "meetup-based". Of course using Zoom a lot (a characteristic) is a recent development, galvanized by the SARS2 outbreak, and many of these subcultures were chugging along, sometimes famously, without the benefit of internet-based meetups for decades, if not centuries. Think churches, temples...

In tandem with these studies, I've taken up the topic of insect mentality, or shall we say dynamism. What are the deltas associated with an ant hive in particular? The metaphor of "tunnels under Disney World" has again arisen. I have to add: Catacombs. We're into the chthonic around here.  Mount Parnassus.

My thinking around the ants, inspired by Active Inference Institute faculty, DAF in particular, left me wide open to the sudden discovery of miner bees in my front lawn, at the base of the Tetrahedron, the pyramid of C6XTY beneath my front porch that makes helps Keep Portland Weird. Miner bees don't build a hive in a tree; they build individualized residences. Tiny mounds of dirt pop up, as a result of excavation. How catacombed these tunnels may be is a topic. Current answer: unknown. I'll read up on it sometime.

A household down the street was convinced it had a wasp infection and little warning signs went up everywhere, however I think it's likely merely a miner bee visitation for them as well, as the signs are now gone and, walking home last night, I saw a few tiny dirt mounds in the grass. This seemed to happen all at once around town (I say that now based on two data points), as if on a timer. 

YouTube says the world has over a thousand species of miner bee. They're not aggressive towards humans, don't or can't sting, and they cross pollinate. Gardners love them. They're not honeymakers though, so they're not usually "kept" in the beekeeping sense.

The Catacomb Codas. I've stuffed many a deep chamber with some of this Synergetics stuff. Detractors (or even entomologists) might picture me barfing up pabulum, weighed in tetra-somethings, anticipating this nurturing content will empower the colony going forward, the hive mind or whatever. 

At what level of consciousness does a hive operate? Put like that, the question is still a mirage, suggestive of a real question, still but a fevered dream. However, other questions might still be worth asking. Prompts get fine tuned.

Even though I've favored a Dark Theme in the Codas, a personal setting, I'm working to keep the subject matter non-turgid and easy breezy, partly because the purpose, architecturally, is transit, or liminal. Let's say vestibular. I'm meaning to sweep you onward, to your next flight, while providing a pleasant environment in the meantime. Enjoy your visit.

Think Tank Meetup

A lot of humans get born into high density population centers and scarcely have the opportunity to experience the opposite: low density areas. A theme in my blogs over the years has taken inspiration from Portland, Oregon's "outdoor school" institution: the public schools include an out-of-town camp-based experience wherein presumably light pollution is low enough to make the Milky Way visible.

I've tacked on the "make the Milky Way visible" tagline, i.e. I don't believe I'm cribbing it from official outdoor school literature, but if that's explicitly part of that program's mission statement, so much the better. Bill it as a psychological health requirement. You need outdoor living experience for that high school diploma.

Which brings me to our topic last night at the Think Tank (what we've taken to calling it): housing around Portland. My long term readers know I've hoped to get Portland into the "Refugee Tech" business, where "refugee" fades in and out with "camper" and "nomad". 

Some people hit the open road by choice, in a high end RV they've been saving for, and now have, in retirement. Others might fancy a pre-retirement business oriented vehicle that doubles as a place to stay, the so-called "business mobile" or BizMo option. Then you get people forced out of their homes by natural and/or economic disaster (e.g. war), and becoming reliant on social engineering, i.e. back to the "refugee" paradigm.

Portland has done some pioneering work along these lines, according to our guest, especially when it's not too proud to learn from other metro areas, and not just San Francisco and Seattle.

My approach focused on enrolling people into the business of shelter testing, with ideas flowing from the prototyping front lines to the commercial market as finished products. I used to send my little diagrams about it under the rubric of Project Renaissance. This was before public-private partnerships got such a negative reputation (long story).

Integrity Testing

Welcome to my journals. Welcome back if you're returning.

Let's recap: 

Facts I use as evidence, that Verboten Math is subversive include: 

(a) it's not taught 

(b) it won't go away

(c) it has practical applications

Most candidates are revealed to be (i) nonsensical (ii) false or (iii) trivially true. No such verdict has been established in this case, ergo it won't go away.

However, most people have no clue what Verboten Math even is (it's not taught), and calling it Martian Math instead doesn't really help matters. 

In fact, Verboten Math is a source of good ideas for the mainstream, once these ideas are sanitized, their  radical roots obscured.

In today's meetup (recorded) I mentioned Quakers had a history around creating schools, and with schools come their hallmark curricula and faculties. As Quakers, we need to compete in order to enhance our brand, and bring glory to God. We're not afraid to share Verboten Math. On the contrary, we relish the opportunity.

The New England Transcendentalist aspects, Margaret Fuller and so on, were always conducive to Quakers taking an interest, as is the inbuilt skepticism regarding Manifest Destiny style imperialist mindsets, a skepticism shared by Andrew Carnegie and Mark Twain of the Anti-Imperialist League.

In a move to repair the damage brought on by a narrow-minded and short-sighted global plutocracy, wrapping itself in the Stars and Stripes, American schools overseas have a special incentive to phase in elements of Martian Math, given both its highly geographic content, and its potency as positive PR, as Americana and as a vanguard for USA OS.