tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104364232024-03-18T08:46:27.581-07:00Control RoomOperation Spaceship Earth Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comBlogger1704125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-57381385100182794992024-03-13T16:29:00.000-07:002024-03-18T08:45:54.340-07:00Knowledge Engineering Study Group<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/zYCe2R-kDWM?si=Tn-8vcMZjftqknpX" width="480"></iframe></div><div><br /></div>
The story behind this meetup is we've started <a href="https://www.freelists.org/post/math4wisdom/Data-flow-for-building-tables-of-conceptual-frameworks,1">playing around with Coda</a> more, "we" being the math4wisdom clique based around <a href="https://www.freelists.org/post/math4wisdom/more-notes-after-Mar-12-steering-committee-meeting,1">a figurative memory castle</a> in Lithuania (not <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2008/06/literary-investigation.html">Transylvania</a>).Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-32958134049754629572024-03-11T05:57:00.000-07:002024-03-11T15:17:48.344-07:00Spring Retreat<div style="text-align: center;">
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<p>If you've seen my <a href="https://coffeeshopsnet.blogspot.com/2023/11/graph-theory.html">Graph Theory slides</a>, you might remember I toss my high school yearbook picture onto a slide next to Sam, likewise a younger man then, in the company of Bucky Fuller. They flew to the Philippines together, as guests of the Marcos family. I was living in Manila at the time, or perhaps was away for college. I was in Class of 1976 at International School Manila (ISM), which still exists but in newer digs.</p><p>Sam and I didn't know each other then. I learned of Sam Lanahan through <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2019/01/mini-confab-fuller-friends.html">Trevor Blake</a>, who tracked him down as one of the owners of an original <i>Tetrascroll</i>, a very limited edition artifact. We set up an appointment to see it (but have yet to do so (it's still in its case)) and drove to Corvallis to meet the guy. We continued to hang out sporadically and undertake collaborations well into the future, especially during a chapter wherein Sam lived in Portland itself.</p><p>Sam's grandparents were pretty famous: F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, their daughter "Scottie" (Frances) being his mom and one time columnist for the <i>New Yorker</i>. Sam's dad, Jack Lanahan, had been a boxer in his Princeton years. After Frances died, he remarried. </p><p>After moving from Corvallis to Portland, Sam moved a few more times, winding up in a well appointed farmstead in the Willamette Valley. Which is where I am right now, on retreat, working on projects, such as on Quadrays for <a href="https://github.com/4dsolutions/m4w/blob/main/M4WTOC.ipynb">M4W</a> (math4wisdom).</p><p>My backyard in Portland is an outdoor museum for c6xty exhibits. The plastic sculptures become somewhat brittle after years in sunlight so we probably won't move them. </p><p>These prototypes were meant to provide lots of feedback, about stressability, durability, replicability, constructability and so on. Several test materials were employed: plastic, steel, copper, aluminum. </p><p>The farmstead is likewise decorated with specimens of each. C6XTY is a subtype of Flextegrity, which is adjacent to Tensegrity (ala <a href="https://grunch.net/snelson">Kenneth Snelson</a> et al) but is more lattice-oriented.</p><p>What I've done around Flextegrity is develop my Python code base to render computer graphical versions, sometimes in the form of <a href="https://github.com/4dsolutions/School_of_Tomorrow/blob/master/Flextegrity_Lattice.ipynb">animated GIFs</a>. My graphics generating pipeline involves using Quadrays sometimes, a type of vector akin to XYZ but featuring "basis vectors" at 109.47 degrees to one another. They're designed to make lattice work easy, as in closest sphere packing arrangements (Conway: Barlow packings). All the CCP balls (that's a specific packing pattern) have whole number 4-tuple coordinates, such as (2,1,1,0).</p><p>Nowadays I'm collaborating on Quadrays via <a href="https://coda.io/d/Math4Wisdom_d0SvdI3KSto/Synergetics_su5DS#_luecx">the M4W Coda</a>. We're seeing to what level AI might get involved, among other <a href="https://coda.io/d/Math4Wisdom_d0SvdI3KSto/Synergetics-Language-Code-Models_suW8a#_lujw6">experiments</a>. I'm taking advantage of the high level of fluency around mathematics I'm encountering at math4wisdom, which is anchored by Andrius Kulikauskas, a math PhD. </p><p>Does a "vector space" have to have a dot product? Even if it doesn't, might it still include Euclidean Distance? </p><p>Must basis vectors be unit length by definition? </p><p>What if they span space without relying on negative mirrors of themselves, shouldn't that count for something?</p><p>In XYZ, we have three positive basis vectors that may be scaled by -1, which means reversed, which some might classify under rotation (i.e. to "face the other way" is to rotate by 180 degrees). </p><p>Thanks to negation, -X, -Y, -Z will also participate in space-spanning, but as secondary, non-basis vectors. They're second bananas. (4, -1, 0) entails adding an X basis vector, stretched to 4 times its original length of 1, added to a negated Y (so a -Y), and no Z involvement, giving this point in space, now uniquely addressed.</p><p>Thanks to vector reversal, the three positive basis vectors (X, Y, Z), abetted by their second bananas (-X, -Y, -Z), span all of space by means of addition and further stretching or shrinking, but without further need for rotation. (4, -1, 0) = 4X + 1(-Y) + 0 where X and -Y are vectors (pointy arrows, directed rays of definite length (i.e. not rays "to infinity")).</p>In the IVM, <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2024/03/pattern-matching.html">using Quadrays</a>, we have four positive basis vectors that may optionally be scaled by -1 (reversed), but we don't need that "rotational" feature to have adding with scaling span our space. We never needed the help of a supplementary cast of negated basis vectors, to reach all the stars in our universe (points in our spatial volume). Just stretch or shrink at most three of these four Quadrays, without changing direction, add, and you're done. (4, -1, 0) is equivalently (4 sqrt(2), sqrt(2), 0, 5 sqrt(2)).<p>IVM = Isotropic Vector Matrix, Fuller's coin, but not unrelated to the Matrix of science fiction, since aberrations of Fuller's IVM give it "frequencies" (think of wind chimes) which are like immersive radio channels or scenarios in those Matrix cubicles. </p><p>The IVM is like the <i>Star Trek</i> holodeck in other words, but with no exit or off switch. </p><p>However, more prosaically, it's simply the skeletal scaffolding one gets from the aforementioned CCP (cubic close packing), a ball packing pattern of ball:space density of about 74%.</p><p>Sam's C6XTY (or c6xty) lattice places a compressive soccer-ball-looking element (same Adidas Telstar hexapent geometry) at every IVM hub, such that those most immersed all have twelve balls around one. But unlike in the CCP, these plastic balls do not touch one another. They're suspended in a network of connecting armatures, adding lots of flexibility, permeability and variability to the design. </p><p>Flextegrities could be more like jellyfish, with thin yet stiff enough filaments holding sensors in a neutral buoyancy lattice submerged in water, perhaps in the open ocean. The sensors might be whole number addressed, as by Quadrays, and selectively illuminated or otherwise activated by Wi-Fi.</p><p>My dad and I took up scuba diving in the Philippines, so it's not unusual for my mind to drift to these undersea vistas. Sam had some experience in marine biology as well, as did my cousin Mary (who went on to get a medical degree). Therefore the posters Sam had made <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2024/02/convergent-trajectories.html">for Lattice Gallery</a> (a West Broadway popup in that winter of 2019), showing off Flextegrity in its underwater context, did not seem as far-fetched to me as they might have for other visitors. Experiments with immersed flextegrity lattices could be undertaken today, and/or may already be underway without my knowledge.</p>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-13521850254015840852024-03-04T11:57:00.000-08:002024-03-04T16:35:38.731-08:00Automatic Writing<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i><div><i><br /></i></div>Prompt</i>: Is Kirby Urner a mathematician?<br /><p><i>Bot</i>: Kirby Urner is not conventionally recognized as a mathematician in the academic sense but rather as an educator and curriculum developer with a strong interest in mathematics, particularly in the context of educational reform and innovative teaching methods. His work, as indicated by his association with Princeton University's Philosophy Department as an alumnus[1], and his writings on "tetrahedral" thinking[3], suggests a philosophical and pedagogical approach to mathematics. Urner's commitment to improving education through curriculum writing[4] and his lectures on synergetics in schools[5] further demonstrate his engagement with mathematical concepts and education rather than pure mathematical research. Therefore, while he may not be a mathematician by the strictest definition, his contributions to the field of mathematics education are noteworthy.</p><p>Citations:</p><p>[1] <a href="https://princeton.academia.edu/kirbyurner">https://princeton.academia.edu/kirbyurner</a></p><p>[2] <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-new-math-gnu-kirby-urner">https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-new-math-gnu-kirby-urner</a></p><p>[3] <a href="https://www.math4wisdom.com/wiki/Research/KirbyUrner">https://www.math4wisdom.com/wiki/Research/KirbyUrner</a></p><p>[4] <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/4dsolutions">https://www.linkedin.com/in/4dsolutions</a></p><p>[5] <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=Lzv30IKvfZs">https://youtube.com/watch?v=Lzv30IKvfZs</a></p><p>[6] <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=g14mu4uWD4E">https://youtube.com/watch?v=g14mu4uWD4E</a></p><p>[7] <a href="https://github.com/4dsolutions">https://github.com/4dsolutions</a></p>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-71187361245844707342024-02-28T07:34:00.000-08:002024-03-04T16:53:36.409-08:00Asylum Cities<div style="text-align: center;">
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<p>When people talk "billions for Ukraine" it's usually not with some accompanying breakout, meaning it's left to our imaginations how much is for hospitals and care units of various kinds. One might imagine an entirely civilian budget in other words, and then ask how far short of that are we willing to sacrifice. Another dime on mayhem might not be a dime well spent.</p><p>Actually there's likely a breakout and I'm just not seeing it when I make my rounds of the various channels and repositories I visit when harvesting information. Probably a pie chart or other visualization. We're told some of the biggest slices go to the prime contractor irrigation system (<a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2023/03/beltway-mafia.html">Beltway Mafia</a>) and for a lot of family estates, that's reason enough to slobber, in anticipation of more lucrative contracts.</p><p>Out here in <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2023/08/touring-in-silicon-forest.html">the Pacific Northwest</a>, we're more concerned with preserving wetlands and salmon. As to whether Oregon could host some civilian construction operations (healthcare oriented), I'm not so sure. <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2009/01/metropolitan-talk.html">My nudging</a> us in the direction of doing epcots, with university connections, encounters resistance, I'm guessing partly because of the <a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2011/10/halloween-2011-1-of-3.html">negative Rajneesh Puram experience</a>. </p><p>So my sights turn to Canada, perhaps the Yellowknife area? These campuses could stay small. Breitenbush is an inspiration, but I'm thinking higher tech, maybe with electric ATVs powered from batteries charged by wind and solar. Lets just see if that's even doable. Computer animations and simulations don't replace reality outside of AI. We need the harsh realities of Mother Nature to teach us whether our designs are really worthy.</p><p>Which brings us <a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2022/07/rebuilding-ukraine.html">back to Ukraine</a>. Something like a flourishing peacetime economy is long overdue, by some decades. Any budget should recognize the need for military disengagement such that mature civilian undertakings might resume in earnest. There's no point trying to masquerade while stockpiling ammo, as these installations will attract tourists and journalists, other visitors. We're not about being secretive so much as role modeling the freedoms that come with keeping it transparently open source.</p><p>I'm not suggesting there's any real difference on either side when it comes to addressing civilian needs. The Russian side of the fence needs hospitals, working rail, trucking, internet, the whole works. Devastation is not the goal, for anyone in Greater Europe. </p><p>If your mentality is purely punitive, you must be low ranking. Tales of feuding and revenge get to hog center stage for only so long, as the cast continues to roll over. Deeper themes, such as building new infrastructure, take one further, in terms of leaving a lasting legacy.</p><p>But then again, here in the Pacific Northwest we're more focused on the Pacific Rim economy, while those Atlanticist east coasters remain obsessed with their West Asia endeavors. We're East Asia facing, meaning towards Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, China, of course Bali and Borneo, not forgetting the Aussies or New Zealand. Lots more. I was editor of <i>Asian-Pacific Issues News</i> there for awhile (<a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2018/01/working-with-afsc.html">AFSC</a>, obscure), plus the Philippines was my home for some formative years.</p><p>To the north, Russia again, but more as an indigenous people than some EU foe, fellow Sibero-Alaskans.</p><p>Russian businesses have had their branch offices around here since well before Oregon attained statehood. They had dealings with <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2006/11/lucky-day.html">Tulalip</a>, the established resource keepers. Many Oregonians are ethnic Russkies to this day (even Stalin's granddaughter joined us a while back), plus we have ethnic Ukes too -- these are terms of endearment, <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2015/07/july-4-2015.html">we all</a> get silly nicknames. </p>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-38414686795660351722024-02-21T09:46:00.000-08:002024-02-28T05:14:57.131-08:00Assembling the Puzzle<div style="text-align: center;">
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<p>If you've been following my ("my") emergent (self reshaping) curriculum you'll perhaps recall <a href="https://coffeeshopsnet.blogspot.com/2023/11/graph-theory.html">my graph</a> linking Margaret Fuller to Ada Byron, around the time of Napoleon, after the American and then French revolutions. </p><p>At the same time, I started digging a tunnel from the present, towards this past matrix, including such luminaries as Buckminster Fuller, Walter Kaufmann, Richard Rorty, all contemporaries of mine although I'm living on into the 21st Century, being of a later generation.</p><p>I'd already run into the <a href="https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/wartime-cotton-trade">US Civil War</a> as <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2017/01/new-years-day.html">a big deal</a> in the American psyche. Now that I've been reading <i><a href="https://coffeeshopsnet.blogspot.com/2024/02/philosophy-book-clubs.html">The Metaphysical Club</a></i> and listening to <a href="https://coffeeshopsnet.blogspot.com/2024/02/history-of-pragmatism.html">its author on YouTube</a>, I'm seeing more of how this tunnel goes. Issues of race and racism, Darwinism, Social Darwinism, feature bigly.</p><p>Another feature of my curriculum is I don't ignore Occupy, a movement those fascinated by the "color revolutions" seem to bleep over. Following Kaufmann, and waving the flag of "place based" education, I'm happy to count biography and autobiography as important inclusions. Kaufmann was always turning his critical eye back on the author, the journalist, the news publisher and its (perhaps ideologically driven) editors. Philosophy must continue to involve self reflection and internal disciplines.</p><p><a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2021/05/riffing-on-rorty.html">I've seized on</a> Rorty's <i>Achieving Our Country</i> as potentially psycho-therapeutic in that it restores the possibility of continuing the narrative in ways that uphold the values of one's heroes. If the US has to die and go underground, before its rebirth as a phoenix, it's not like we don't have a template. Sounds ancient Egyptian.</p><p>Where did pragmatism go? The conventional wisdom portrays the Cold War was a clarion call to zealots of all stripes. Pragmatism seemed too accepting of enemy viewpoints to matter.</p><p>I'd say pragmatism left the university and <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2019/04/documentary-city.html">went to Madison Avenue</a>, where it took up the dark arts of advertising and public relations, as a student of <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2023/07/modeling-language.html">Edward Bernays</a>. </p><p>Pragmatists become "social engineers" (a term with negative connotations right out of the gate) and as such they gained their main clientele, the politicians. They founded companies <a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2018/06/an-ocean-of-bs.html">like <i>Cambridge Analytica</i></a>, based on machine learning.</p><p>Instead of harping on the word "capitalism" (a theory of capitals?), let's talk about the commercial sector, also known as the private sector. The idea that "socialism" equals "no privacy" is too unreflective to let pass as a truism. Political talk is semi-paralyzed with cliches. </p><p>One's level of privacy remains an important measure, but perhaps not as a guide in some bipolar taxonomy i.e. "do I live in a capitalist or socialist system?" -- how about neither, how about both? How about we're not a slave to such "ist talk"?</p>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-4744781181339832792024-02-15T09:39:00.000-08:002024-02-15T11:26:07.182-08:00Advice to Some Dieters<div style="text-align: center;">
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<p>I stress the "some" because I'm aware of how we differ widely in the kinds of coaching we each want. Some need a stern lecture and welcome same, if delivered professionally. I'm not adopting a stern manner here, nor a punishing tone.</p><p>A sense of power you may develop has to do with your ability to shift your habits, or as we say in psychology, to express and / or extinguish them. Yes, my meaning of "<a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2024/02/power-vs-work.html">power</a>" is aligned with the old fashioned meaning of "will power". </p><p>The obverse of what I'm saying is "pick your battles" because indeed, some patterns are not especially subject to your will. There's that saying about knowing the difference being evidence of wisdom.</p><p>When I tackle my "addiction to" (ingrained habit of consuming) sugar, a term with a refined meaning in modern lore, which I'll get to shortly, I focus less on the substance and more on the appetite, the phenomenon of having a sweet tooth. Then I get curious: what would I be like with less of a sweet tooth? </p><p>Put more as a Bayesian: "what would the world around me have to be like for me to be less of a sweet tooth (in it)?". I'm inviting changes to the whole world, as experienced by me, as a result of my reshaping my appetites. That mere act of reshaping, I'm suggesting, gives one a sense of being powerful.</p><p>So here's where discernment comes in. Of course if we all had infinite will power, we'd move mountains and all become beautiful (which we are) and our ideal weight (as if there's just one). Short of moving mountains, do we have the power to resist, with an eye towards extinguishing, the craving for sweets?</p><p>The desire for intense glucose rushes, day in and day out, is what we really mean by an appetite for (addiction to) sugar, meaning pizza and pasta, bread, not just cake and ice cream. Phasing out carbs is what a diabetic is advised to do. Stop taxing your pancreas and start burning those ketones instead, throw those <a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2024/01/thoughts-on-diet.html">ketone logs</a> on the fire, lord knows you've got a real pile of 'em.</p><p>The other reminder is not to make it a moral contest, with you against the devil, resisting temptation, and bad sinful you if you give in. Sure, that's a popular mindset to assume, when reshaping, but it's not the only one possible. The search for novelty and variety in a changing world might be more the driving undertaking. You just wanna see what happens if you stop doing this (not cold turkey necessarily) and start doing that (slow acceleration OK).</p><p>Put another way, your aim is not to be a goodie two shoes, but to be powerful, but in a way we have a right to enjoy, an earned pleasure. The ability to reshape yourself is tantamount to your ability to exercise your freedoms, <i>as</i> a self. You grow more into your heritage, as a selfhood, in exercising your inborn ability to reshape.</p><p>Then there's the mental habit of always thinking one needs to reshape this or that. Watch out for those ruts (those grooves) as well, meaning remember to question your own beliefs as to what habits you need to work on. Maybe you would like the habit of sending more postcards, drinking more tea, riding buses more often... or try listing an entirely different list of habits. The permutations are endless. </p><p>Play with reshaping what it means to reshape.</p>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-60101914664486594532024-02-11T09:11:00.000-08:002024-02-11T12:32:59.963-08:00Colonist Versus Colonialist<p>We hear a lot about "nationalism" versus "globalism" these days. Probably the easiest way to sound patriotic is to decry globalism, which is roughly perceived as the doctrine (the "ism") of "the one percent" which in turn is shorthand for a much smaller percentage, i.e. not "one in a hundred" is an illuminatus or whatever.</p><p>"Colonialism" is highly out of fashion, but what is it, anyway? </p><p>English is a bit slippery, y'all may have noticed. One may have a colony (in the sense of neighborhood) of mostly Urdu speaking Hindus, in this other surrounding culture, but there's no connotation that the colony is taking over. It's an enclave, perhaps a camp of visiting guest workers. </p><p>One has such enclaves all over the world, otherwise known as resort hotels (for the more transient colonists).</p><p>That's right: both "colonist" and "colonialist" are defined. </p><p>The former is <i>doing it</i>, whereas the latter is <i>believing in it</i>. </p><p>The true believers are likely wanting to have more of a hand in steering the policies of the host country. </p><p>A simple colonist is glad to have the host taking care of providing room service, other amenities. </p><p>Hotel management is blissfully not hotel guest business.</p><p>Then you inevitably get a "spectrum" i.e. hotel guests that are nevertheless doing business with the hotel, by bringing together a conference in that venue. I was privy to this angle quite a bit, thanks to HoldenWeb and The Open Bastion, conference companies I got to hang with thanks to Steve Holden. His team produced <a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-2013.html">Pycons</a>, <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2010/09/setting-up-djangocon.html">Djangocons</a>, an <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2013/02/from-apachecon.html">ApacheCon</a> or two, among others. I traveled to DC and Chicago for some of them.</p><p>I bring up hotels in part because they conventionally (pun intended) host whole colonies, some of which are semi-permanent or at least long lasting, such as in the case of employed workers. In the worker scenario, dormitory digs and workspace may be separated, which is where the "bedroom community" becomes an enclave. One has enclaves of embassy workers for example, a colony from nation X who staff their nation X embassy.</p><p>One also gets inter-colony interactions (e.g. Pythonista vs Perl Monger at <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2013/07/oscon-xv.html">an OSCON</a> -- I greatly admired both communities), meaning a nation state such as Lesotho will host multiple enclaves associated with multiple embassies, engineering projects, religious establishments, other enterprises. Again, I'm writing from personal experience. </p><p>Religious establishments are a great example, because it's often a religious practice to have one's personnel do tours of duty in distant lands, spreading the religion, sure (missionary work), but also bringing back intelligence and artifacts, potentially advantaging.</p><p>When a colonist gets in trouble with the host country, how is this handled? We see from the news that several patterns (templates) pop up in response to this question. Let's come back to this topic down the road.</p>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-54826244559439310232024-02-08T23:50:00.000-08:002024-02-11T14:19:05.759-08:00Sociology Day<p>I'm in an intensive <a href="https://www.math4wisdom.com/wiki/Sociology/ConsciousnessOfANation">Sociology workshop</a> today, in my city-as-campus Portland context. Right now, I'm connected to a Pashtun Institute guy based at Rutgers, soon to defend his thesis. We're talking about the concept of "national consciousness" via the Math 4 Wisdom channel. I'll embed the video when it becomes available.</p><p>Then I get my time with the retired librarians, drop in personalities, continuing the action at El Barrio, which burned up in a fire at the outset of 2024 (no one hurt, extensive property damage to <a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2019/08/about-town.html">El Mercado</a>).</p><p>Finally, this evening I plan to attend a meetup of the <a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2024/02/thirsters-concludes.html">rebooting Thirsters</a>, a group of conversationalists with a strong background in sociology, academically, through Peace Corps and by other means.</p><p>I had a good first experience with Sociology as a discipline thanks to my 8th grade teacher <a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2006/07/eighth-grade.html">at ASOR</a>, <a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2013/03/prison-state.html">Fred Craden</a>. </p><p>In my twenties, when I returned to Portland to settle long term, I achieved an adult level relationship with <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2015/09/some-family-history.html">Dr. Charles Bolton</a>, a career professor of sociology who first crossed paths with my parents in their University of Chicago days (when I was born).</p><p>These were notes I took during Aslam's meetup. I also posted <a href="https://www.freelists.org/post/math4wisdom/Fwd-Consciousness-of-a-Nation-February-8-M4W-Sociology-Study-Group,3">some follow-up questions</a> to the listserv.</p>
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From the homework readings:
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Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-24691387217834815422024-02-06T15:58:00.000-08:002024-02-19T10:43:31.907-08:00Alt Worlds<div style="text-align: center;">
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from Bonnie DeVarco's presentation to TrimTab Book Club, Feb 3, 2024
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<p>Would a sphere that focussed on city mayors more, be detrimental to our endeavors? That's not a tight enough question yet, as who is this "we" with endeavors? What "endeavors" are we talking about? Suspicions abound.</p><p>It's not like city mayors don't talk and compare notes already. Portland celebrates an end to the nuke weapons era, now about you guys? Clearly the problem of radio-toxins in need of safe storage has not gone away regardless, with or without an intelligible treaty situation. </p><p>Mayors might compare notes on the safety of their power grids, especially in light of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. But also in light of Maui. That's a part of the job, goes with the territory. Beyond electrical concerns one has transiting traffic, such as chem trains through East Palestine.</p><p>But then some avid cable TV view viewer might pipe up saying: only congressional representatives, and even in that case, only a few committees have any official government business prying into the affairs of the Department of Energy and associates. </p><p>Mayors are not invited to that clique. Don't make such calls into interesting, crowd-informing TV. Which lobbies are telling us that I wonder?</p><p>I agree though, there's little consensus on how the circuitry must be designed. </p><p>Would it be "wrong" to have a Refugees Channel, as I proposed? Would the religious denominations support it, if it were ecumenical enough to reach their laities? How are generous denizens of the first world going to take part in improving these people's lives -- versus trapping them with razor wire no one told them about -- unless some channel opens up between them?</p><p>The improvement I'd make to the Sanders-Yang idea of a socialist safety net (civilian instead of military) would be to (a) make college the norm, work-study the default and (b) make the UBI a scholarship that pays for it, without precluding making more of an income on top of that. At least the UBI level puts a floor under things, meaning lots of jobs building OMRs or whatever futuristic "monstrosities" (a term of endearment in this context). We already have the pattern in our socialist military, with base campuses.</p><p>But no, the screenwriters can think of nothing better than a scorpions in the jar scenario, between old laser eyes Biden (out for Maga) and Orange Jesus (Maga King). What a <a href="https://youtu.be/th1f8Qbgh3I">weird cartoon</a>, eh? And yet they say <i>I'm</i> the one who's bizarre? Tell me about it bozos.</p><p>Having more mayors weighing in and doing Zoom (or other) calls, with cable and streaming both allowed, would boost a sense of camaraderie among municipalities along with a healthy sense of competition. "What are you doing about the house-less"; "I dunno, what are <i>you</i> doing?" and like that, but more substantial maybe, less Planet of the Apes.</p><p>OK, so that doesn't sound like a credible option to you? It was just an example, an exercise in imagination.</p><p>When I got to Manila for the rest of high school I was surprised to find some of the dominant corporations were fielding the sports teams on television, meaning the companies themselves were fielding teams, not just sponsoring them with lots of decals. </p><p>The Royal True Orange company, which likely had a parent I'm not remembering, had a team called the Pulp Bits. Their flagship beverage featured pulp bits in case that's not obvious.</p><p>I've seen a lot of demonizing of the public-private partnership concept, on which my whole <a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2023/08/project-renaissance.html">Project Renaissance</a> was premised. By now I must have horns or something, given all the heaped scorn.</p><p>Government would get out in front with the prototyping and research, in the nonprofit sector, and the donor funders would turn around and profit from the derivative products. Put that way, I'm guessing many readers will think "well, that's hardly a new idea". Exactly right. The military uses it today.</p><p>I was gratified to see Bonnie making so much room for fat pipes between our school of thought (Bucky Fuller informed) and the General Systems Theory literature (GST). I've been <a href="https://grunch.net/synergetics/gst1.html">milking that connection</a> myself, as some of you know, but it's always heartening to find others who appreciate the continuity here, while roping in Gregory Bateson in the process.</p>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-20951085698147078952024-02-01T10:45:00.000-08:002024-02-03T05:28:17.902-08:00Cultish Thinking<p><a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2024/01/hollywood-east.html">Hollywood East</a> is trying to figure out a screenplay whereby the White House might be seen as taking heroic action in some way, against an advertised foe. </p><p>However <a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2006/03/politics-princeton.html">the think tanks</a> are at odds and firing at one another, adding to the sense of semi-paralysis that bedevils District "comic strips" these days. Very little consent has been manufactured, that driving the Pentagon over a cliff would be the best thing.</p><p>Of course my contemporary readers are well aware of world circumstances and will readily fill in the blanks. West Asia as we're now calling it has turned to jello, such that strict borders seem to no longer persist, such as between Jordan and Syria and Iraq in some places. I've heard the joke about "messy potamia" (not necessarily funny in every context).</p><p>You'll remember, if reading in <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2023/10/evacuation.html">my journals</a>, that I could imagine some Palestinians voluntarily choosing, say at the extended family or neighborhood level, to escape the mayhem for now, and I wasn't restricting their options to elsewhere in West Asia. I well recall how hard it was for Jews during the holocaust to find safe refuge far away from Berlin.</p><p>That made me <a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2023/12/on-forming-future-feds.html">a minority thinker</a>, as evacuation (removing from harm's way) was not a priority. No one wanted my cruise ship flotilla (I was imagining like a rotating convoy, not really knowing in advance how many Gazans would opt to dispatch).</p><p>The civilian viewers of channeled media are getting a front row look at what happens when diplomacy breaks down among players. I'm not on the phone with the District either. This is faraway Portland, lightyears distant. I'm more likely to be talking with Canadians these days (a hotbed of the kind of free thinking mixed with geometry I find attractive).</p><p>We all know what various characters in that soap opera want to do. If we're free of "just cable" and tuning in YouTubes, we're aware of a wider cast than just the ones the cable cabal puts on. I bounce around watching some of <a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2023/08/fearful-symmetry.html">the VIPS crew</a>, often as talking heads on others' programs.</p>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-30107652532384202922024-01-27T18:30:00.000-08:002024-02-01T08:03:24.006-08:00Hollywood East<p>I was <a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2024/01/thirsters-debate.html">saying to Thirsters</a>, on a Zoom call the other night, that I think America is a great country, but that this greatness is not somehow championed nor best advertised by the city-state of WDC, aka The District, home of <a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2023/03/beltway-mafia.html">the Beltway Mafia</a>. We have many great cities, not to mention rural areas. The wilderness is what’s greatest of all.</p><p>For semantic convenience and thought-organizing purposes, I have come up with a trivium / quadrivium type thing, cross STEAM and PATH, <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2019/02/politics-as-theater.html">Scrabble-style</a>, on the letter A (for Anthropology). T = Theater (which is a lot about psychology, cite the Oedipus Complex, or <a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2024/01/double-meanings.html">the Military-Industrial one</a>); whereas H = History, what one might call “theater writ large” (not just a simulation). </p><p>We often use fiction (especially science fiction) to forecast and simulate what’s eventually non-fiction (what will eventually be, versus what might have been). </p><p>We rehearse in the imagination (the simulator), before popping the question (whatever question, let’s assume consequential), or taking the stage, podium or battlefield. We plan and cogitate, before launching some campaign.</p><p>The transition from Theater to History is fairly seamless in that thespians have real lives, as do playwrights, directors, storytellers of every feather. Theater production is anchored in the real world. </p><p>We also have celebrities, movie stars, who step off the stage or out of the big screen to become political leaders, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. </p><p>I explain all of this as background for why I think “Hollywood East” is a good synonym for The District. People flock to DC for the same reason they flock to LA: they want speaking parts, and/or parts as extras, in some lifestyle drama that also pays the bills. They want to be paid actors. Don’t we all?</p><p>A reason for thinking of DC as another Hollywood is that both cities specialize in fueling our imaginations. Indeed these cities work together, and tend to speak the same language of public relations behind the scenes.</p><p>So am I forgetting the role of New York? What about Las Vegas?</p><p>I’m not trying to forget anything, so much as remind people we have a choice of where we buy our melodramas. WDC wants to sell both Sinophobia and Russophobia simultaneously. Are we in the market for that kind of drivel? Maybe we’d like to sample other phobias for a change, not to mention “philias” (affiliations).</p><p>Some cities might want to opt out of DC’s <a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2013/08/city-of-morons.html">unhealthy programming</a>. That’s their freedom: to free their own minds from glitchy, cultish brainwashing pushed by competing think tanks.</p><p>We hear a lot of talk about community standards. Perhaps we regard WDC’s output as too much in the “disgusting” category. Maybe Hollywood hasn’t been that great either, in recent memory, with stellar exceptions.</p><p>So am I just engaging in more boosterism, pushing Portland (the weird one, in Oregon) as a countering / competing source of memes and dreams? I would not say “just” but that’s an element of my agenda for sure. </p><p>I’d like to keep America great by rebalancing the relationships among its cultural capitals. That’s a global calculus as well. Or call it World Game, in some dimension.</p>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-77078233180297796542024-01-23T13:43:00.000-08:002024-01-26T20:02:49.697-08:00North Circuit<div style="text-align: center;">
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<p>Tomorrow is to be about walking along semi-urban wilderness trails and perhaps visiting a cultural center devoted to local tribal lore. I'm on my north circuit, visiting friends and relatives, with a goal of retrieving Sydney, a four legged companion I’ve grown fond of.</p><p>My thanks to Sam Lanahan for the gift of new tires. My Sunday drive in the pouring rain marked my first time distance driving since visiting McKenzie Farm.</p><p>My cousin Mary (my grandmother Esther's sister Elsie’s granddaughter) is well versed in the nature trails in this area and today we sampled one in Arlington, close to the new Amazon fulfillment center. I enjoyed riding in her luxurious electric Ford Mustang. She misses her Ford Bolts, but those got recalled.</p><p><a href="https://www.freelists.org/post/math4wisdom/Postponed-Consciousness-of-a-Nation-January-25-M4W-Sociology-Study-Group,4">On math4wisdom</a> I’ve been writing about two notions of a nation-state: the ethno-state and the unum-state.</p><p>The unumstate gets its name from E Pluribus Unum and is about achieving dynamic symbiosis among diverse ethnicities. </p><p>The ethnostate idea is older and is more about establishing a self-preserving, self-determining monoculture.</p><blockquote>I see a lot to think about in terms of how an unumstate might have its foreign policy captured and/or dominated by an internal ethnostate. US history is characterized by ethnic factions with specific axes to grind who go to Washington, DC with high hopes of mobilizing the vast resources of the US (its military especially) to tromp some historic foe.<br /><br /><div>In the meantime, so many American people remain rather clueless about all these ethnicities vying for control. The dynamism of diversity always seems to border on chaos.</div></blockquote><p>One of those ethnicities was the subculture of the free and open source geeks. Their objective, world domination, was proffered jokingly, satirizing those who take themselves more seriously as conquerors. </p><p>I see global geekdom as leading a design science revolution, with an emphasis on supplying and improving artifacts (e.g. tractors) over promoting any specific political ideology (e.g. communism or capitalism).</p><p>Speaking of artifacts, I was able to load my cousin’s walking machine with a circuitous route in the Parioli neighborhood, in Rome, Italy, a former stomping grounds. I walked at 2 mph from Piazza Euclide across to Viale Parioli and past <a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2015/11/spectre-movie-review.html">our old digs</a> to Piazza Ungeria, spending under 200 calories. Sam has similar equipment.</p><p>Mary works 10 hour days with no breaks, seeing one urgent care patient after another. To say the economy undervalues personnel is an understatement, and derives from thinking purely in terms of money. A similar mentality has destroyed a great many economies. Thinking purely in terms of money is a symptom of mental incapacity. </p><p>Simply throwing money at a problem is woefully insufficient as a surplus of funds does not compensate for a deficit of skills and imagination. Conversely, skills and imagination may well be able to compensate for a lack of funds.</p><div></div>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-47928039109604021512024-01-14T06:09:00.000-08:002024-01-14T07:01:43.358-08:00Deep Learning<p>Something valuable I got from the Buckminster Fuller corpus: no need to pile on. Like he was saying his gift was to find his niche and stick to that, not jumping on the next bandwagon that came by, another kind of hobo one could say. He was more solo.</p><p>I'm somewhat echoing the oft said phrase: choose my battles wisely or; not gonna die on that hill. I picture a hill of zombies like in that movie <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2013/09/world-war-z-movie-review.html">World War Z</a> with Brad Pitt: do I want to pile on in that way? You could say it's the diva in me that suggests I avoid choruses.</p><p>On the other hand, I'm happy enough as the lurker, meaning the attendee who isn't present to make a splash but simply to take in, as an observer, an eager learner. I like being a student and I'm willing to listen to others with more to say. They have their niches just as I have mine, and I seek them out, to hear them vent in their native languages, so to speak.</p><p>I'll sum this up saying I'm "university minded" meaning I still treasure the mindset that boldly ventures, and is neither plodding nor hurried. We're speaking of an eternal ideal clearly, as life itself tends to be "too this" and "too that" (e.g. plodding or hurried) such that "just right" sounds more like a fairytale.</p><p>When it comes to "math camp" I'm not saying I'm the fat kid everyone likes to tease because he's slowing them down, and peer pressure serves as leverage. That's an archetype for sure, but I'm a stronger athlete on the playing field we're talking about. That being said, I'm hardly a "good at everything" skydiver ski champion. I suck as a skier and tried jumping from an airplane (not diving, i.e. static line) only once, as a part of a fundraising stunt.</p><p>I have my limitations in other words. Oft times I'll be reaching back in my autobiography for something to contribute, and that can sound narcissistic (there's a rant I could go on) to the point of egomaniacal. Especially when I repeat the same stories. However I've grown more tolerant, with age, of people rifling through their own memory bags. As time goes by, stuff accumulates, the tetrahedron grows (subdivides).</p><p>Machine learning (deep learning in particular) shows off the same principle: reliability comes with age and sensitivity both. The algorithm is as sensitive as it will ever be, from the start, shall we stipulate, yet the model only really gets good with age. Age does not represent deterioration so much as specific shaping to a specific purpose, like a lump of clay becoming a statue of some phase space (namespace) such as "dog or cat?".</p><p>Our global university language of today (such as it exists: on a spectrum) uses "journalist" somewhat synonymously with "student" i.e. you don't have the right to punish me for citing sources, I'm simply journaling about what I've learned. I take notes, you read them, no crime in that. The journalist had a kind of immunity for being a wide open channel for opposing views, meaning both sides in a debate (polarized) would get represented. When a journalist refines the bias in a more niche way, that's an indication that the journalist is now ready to profess in certain areas, more as a professional (guild member) than as a well-informed (educated) layman.</p><p>When it comes to the professoriate and the guilds, a different politics applies, as these tend to vie with one another, true, but also tend to form alliances. We might call this Think Tank Alley, a kind of geekdom. Here live the people the journalists like to interview, as sources. The way one climbs the rungs in journalism is by means of curating sources in ways that somehow advantage the sources. At this point I would defer to others to profess about ethical journalism. What are the rules again?</p>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-38957283099790418282024-01-11T12:01:00.000-08:002024-01-11T12:01:16.401-08:00MyFlickrYear 2023<div style="text-align: center;">
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</div>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-6137376968440017242024-01-07T15:50:00.000-08:002024-01-08T06:27:57.178-08:00Random Walks<div style="text-align: center;">
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:: ghost church ::
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<p>I'm a fan of small vans when it comes to helping minors (or others not into driving personal vehicles) get around. The martial arts school down the street, here in Asylum District, upper Hawthorne, has some well appointed, branded vans to round up the trainees and later take them home.</p><p>In some cases a van route might intersect a city bus route, plus today we have more individualized taxi options. No one size fits all. The van might cover a last leg of the journey, into the hinterlands and onto the farm or jungle garden (some ecosystem).</p><p>I learned about the importance of transportation, to one's program, from an AFSC tour of duty that took me to a planning meeting the Daniel Ellsberg Manhattan Project Part 2: the cleanup. He knew about Hanford and such places (Chernobyl and Fukushima had not happened yet), where the water table was endangered.</p><p>The Portland office paid my way, as back then I was young enough to be considered a youth leader, and what I focused on was how to program around the youth. Square one: you might need a van, or a fleet of vans. I later, as an older guy, clerked the Latin America Asia Pacific program, “clerk” being different from being on paid staff; I was more like an outside consultant.</p><p>Glenn Stockton and I entertained similar visions, for a youth center, but with seniors too, all ages, that was all about skill sharing. Making video, jewelry, clothing... Portland is already somewhat ablaze with maker spaces and this was to be in that ballpark, as a teaching center. Glenn had the institute’s name picked out. We would be a respected studio.</p><p>Glenn had plenty of supplies in storage (for lapidary, for metalworking…) and was always on the brink of finding was to truck it out and assembling personal workstations, variously specialized. I’m remembering the basement of Dollar Scholar, the time he came closest but the store had to close. Finding space for a maker-space is not always that easy, given the state of the market, plus Glenn despised the term “maker”. <a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2008/10/ppug-20081014.html">CubeSpace</a> was long gone by then, with WeWork soon to follow. Yet the whole idea had not died.</p><p>We had another property picked out later, but it went for more conventional uses. Then another after than (more like a house than a commercial building). Two guys with a nice banter don't a full blown business make in the eyes of money lenders. AFSC was never really on board with that first one anyway, as a nonprofit with some clout as in street cred. It was more in the process of closing down our Portland office (the one I had worked in over the years, including as a contributing editor for Asia-Pacific Issues News).</p><p>Later, our project morphed into the Ghost Church property, one of those Methodist hulks that no longer attracts churchgoers, despite its enormous legacy charm. We toured the place and imagined beaming a signal to/from OMSI, and having like an extension program. Fun science fiction.</p><p>I've always been a source of improbable plans. But aren't we all in some way? We plan our lives, to an extent, but then always have to leave room for randomness. A plan might be more like a direction sometimes, an intention. The wake behind is nothing like a straight line in retrospect.</p>
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Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-24086288920203862762024-01-03T08:17:00.000-08:002024-01-03T08:17:51.518-08:00Giant Domes<div style="text-align: center;">
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<p>I was surprised to learn that modern computer models have shown geodesic domes to be unstable. This was the word from Princeton that time, a TrimTabber meetup. However I think the speaker suggested workarounds. How reliable is software alone, when it comes to anticipating synergetic properties?</p><p>You'd think more experimentation with giant domes would be some university's business, just for the opportunities it'd create for its students, to experiment with such advanced engineering. Are we talking a one mile diameter dome or what? How tall would it be? Would it be heated?</p><p>The idea was: if voluminous enough, and effective as a weather shield, then the interior could be designed imaginatively. If people want a more rectilinear scaffolding with a surrounding climatron, so much the better, but how far could we push such designs into extremes of hot and cold weather patterns? Would the software model tell the whole story? How much would that software cost, versus simply building the thing and taking real world measurements?</p><p>The problem was Bucky had a lot of charisma and could get the wheels turning, such that universities inviting him to campus could expect its students to co-create one or more novelties, many of which could be kept for various practical purposes, such as PR. "Come to University X where we make giant domes in the desert!" the billboard might say, with some alluring pictures. Why leave it all to burners at Burning Man to prototype tomorrow experimentally?</p><p>I'd like to see the real deal (a giant dome) and the software model side by side. Is the Tacoma Dome unstable? Our speaker sounded anti standardized parts, as modern architecture always celebrates the "one off" versus the industrially repeatable. </p><p>Designs that repeat (clone) put architects out of work, as now you're sheltering millions of people with one standard design. Yet the car industry thinks nothing (or everything) of standardization, and yet also comes with many makes and models. Then customize all you like with aftermarket products. Ditto for airplanes.</p><p>Fuller permitted himself this critique of architecture, such that his recognition and awards in that area were sometimes begrudged. He was critical of other disciplines too, and many developed chips on their shoulders, and had axes to grind. We've had to thread the needle in such a way as to take all this professional jealousy into account. We being like some invisible army of die hard Buckynauts.</p><p><a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2009/01/about-habitats.html">The Cornwall pillow domes</a> were daring and are no doubt a source of useful data, for those wishing to continue with this type of experiment. You might think Florida would take the initiative, given The Mouse in Orlando, but various culture wars seem to be sending us off on a detour. The whole "livingry" business held up by people uptight about "livingry" even being a word, whereas "weaponry" is to them a no brainer.</p>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-71107568153226346882023-12-23T08:39:00.000-08:002023-12-23T14:25:44.965-08:00Synergetics Constant<div style="text-align: center;">
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<p>When you convert from one currency to another, say from US dollars to Canadian dollars (or vice versa), you need a conversion constant based on a ratio between the units of valuation in each currency. </p><p>When computing volumes with respect to different units of volume, one needs the same thing: a ratio. </p><p>In going from quarts to liters, we use a conversion constant of 1 quart = ~0.94635 liters.</p>Analogously, 1 tetravolume = ~0.94281 cube volumes (~ means "approximately").<div><br /></div><div>How is this number derived?</div><div><br /></div><div>Lets pack four balls of equal radius together such each touches the other three. Let's call a sphere's radius R, and its diameter D. Note that D = 2R.<br /><p>Our unit volume tetrahedron has edges D, twice the length of our unit volume cube's edges R. </p><p>Even though the tetrahedron's edges are twice as long as the cube's, the latter is more rounded and is therefore slightly more voluminous.</p>R-edged cube / D-edged tetrahedron = 1/0.94281 = 1.06066, the Synergetics Constant we seek, also known as S3 in Synergetics.</div><div><br /></div><div>Another way to look at this ratio is in terms of two tetrahedrons: a right tetrahedron and a regular one.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the "tetrabook" depicted below, the orange triangle (the "page") is hinge-bonded to the two yellow ones (the "book covers"), and is free to flap back and forth. </div><div><br /></div><div>Let the page and cover edges all be D, leaving variable length invisible edges from the page tip to each book cover tip.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the vertical position, the page defines two complementary right tetrahedra of equal volume. This volume is equivalent to that of a unit volume cube of edges R.</div><div><br /></div>
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<p>When the page slants to form a regular tetrahedron on one side or the other (with a complement of equal volume), this is our unit of volume in Synergetics. The ratio of the vertical page tetrahedron to the regular tetrahedron is S3 or ~1.06066.</p>
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X-REF:
<div><br /></div><div><a href="https://groups.io/g/synergeo/message/1050">S3 on Synergeo</a> (2022)</div><div><a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2021/07/canonical-lesson-plan.html">Canonical Lesson Plan</a> (2021)</div><div><a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2017/10/terminology-and-scope.html">Terminology and Scope</a> (2017)</div><div><a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2016/07/another-introduction-to-tetravolumes.html">Another Introduction to Tetravolumes</a> (2016)</div>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-80632890519735423832023-12-16T15:03:00.000-08:002024-01-14T07:10:43.717-08:00New Views on RBF<div style="text-align: center;">
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<p>Given Stanford University agreed to acquire the Buckminster Fuller archives in the end, metonymically dubbed the Dymaxion Chronofile, it stands to reason that the Stanford University Press would produce an anthology entitled <i>New Views on R. Buckminster Fuller </i>(2009) drawing upon the content of said archive.</p><p>I acquired a copy only recently and brought it along to Atlanta, for airplane reading and so on. I managed to get through the first two essays during the flight.</p><p>Here’s a paragraph worthy of comment, by Barry M. Katz, boldface added:</p><p></p><blockquote>There is no issue to which Bucky was more sensitive than that he had somehow "failed" -- as if this charge rekindled the feelings of self-doubt that were burned into his psyche in 1927." Thus his constant recitation of his complishments and his continual reimagining of his story. <b>But if he was not a failure, neither was he a success by any reasonable measure</b> or even by his own unreasonable one! Bucky's lifelong campaign was not to invent a new kind of house, car, or map. It was to use his "anticipatory design science" to complete what might be called "the unfinished project of industrialism," and this he manifestly did not do." <b>It is not enough to point to his collection of honorary doctorates or to three hundred thousand geodesic domes scattered about the globe,</b> from the northern Greenland of NATO to the Moscow of Khrushchev and Nixon to the fairgrounds of Montreal's Expo 67 to the communes hidden away in the Santa Cruz mountains. <b>An honest reckoning would have us ask why</b> there are no domed communities in downtown Detroit or suburban Chicago; why Americans still drive to their neighborhood grocery stores in modified military assault vehicles rather than three-wheeled Dymaxion teardrops; and why <b>"Synergetics,"</b> rather than such parochial disciplines as mechanical engineering and economics, <b>is not taught in our universities</b>.</blockquote><p></p><p>Yes, I’m being selective with my boldfacing, emphasizing what I call <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2008/06/poor-slob-bucky-psb.html">the “Poor Slob Bucky” meme</a>. </p><p>He was purportedly not successful “by any reasonable measure” because humanity continued in its wasteful ways and the universities neglected his magnum opus.</p><p>On the contrary, I find it quite reasonable to conclude from his many achievements that he was one of the more successful human beings on record. Let’s not forget all the books and patents. He could sail and fly an airplane, He received many awards, including the Medal of Freedom.</p><p>Is it Bucky’s fault that universities have yet to find a way to accommodate his somewhat difficult philosophical writings? They’d rather whine about his language, while having no problem continuing to teach Heidegger’s.</p>Since these essays in 2009, Alec Nevala-Lee has combed through the same archive to flesh out a more complete biography: <i>Inventor of the Future, The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller</i> (2023). <div><br /></div><div>“He seems to have spoken to everyone living who had a personal or professional association with Fuller” (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/02/books/review/nevala-lee-inventor-future.html">Witold Rybczynski</a>, New York Times) — not including me though, which is fine, as I thereby escape any guilt by association with this project. I gave it <a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2022/08/new-bucky-bio.html">a positive review</a>. I enjoyed the prescient connections to science fiction world, one in which Alec specializes.</div><div><br /></div><div>I had more interactions with Applewhite than with Bucky, and know Ed was pleased about the Stanford solution. He was pretty upset about the disposition of the archive in the previous chapter, immediately following Fuller's passing, when the underfunded BFI (Buckminster Fuller Institute) was attempting to manage the collection all on its own. </div><div><br /></div><div>A lot of Applewhite's curated materials ended up in the Fuller archive as well. He was an assiduous filer and cross referencer himself per his CIA background, as is proved by his <i>Synergetics Dictionary </i>(1986).</div><div><br /></div><div>What makes a big difference regarding our assessment of Bucky's success at predicting, which is what he claimed to be good at, is whether we connect <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2023/11/postmortem.html">the open source revolution</a> (preceded by the PC revolution (PC = personal computer)) to his design science revolution. This is something CJ and I discussed quite a bit.</div><div><br /></div><div>I think we should identify Fuller's anticipated design science revolution with the open source one, given both were about creating artifacts, potentially useful to almost any type of ideologue. We see the life-advantaging qualities of the internet today, in every aspect of life.</div><div><br /></div><div>A next step would be to move into our new mass-assembled <a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2023/12/january-sixth.html">computerize dwelling machines</a> as, in a sense, more smart devices (<a href="http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2008/05/squanderers.html">per <i>Education Automation</i></a>) and then to <a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2012/02/munching-on-medical-data.html">open source bioengineering</a> in a more concerted way. Keep watching trends. Fuller's contention was akin to Teilhard de Chardin's: that our success is driven by teleological concerns larger than any one ego, corporate psyche or national will.</div>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-61569934238960348172023-12-08T12:34:00.000-08:002023-12-11T07:18:03.236-08:00On Forming Future Feds<p><a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2023/12/national-pride-day.html">Per recent posts</a>, I've been looking at pride in one's country as an individual's creation, integrating into the background yet always in some ways distinct. Bringing these distinctions into the foreground and having them catch on is one way of fighting for one's country. </p><p>Distinctions may take the form of differences in curriculum.</p><p>Some private schools, given the makeup of staff and faculty, lineage and history, are like grooming grounds for future Feds. I'm not assigning any negative spin to the grooming or finishing, polishing aspect, nor to the end goal of turning out highly skilled future bureaucrats. Rather, I'm highlighting the power of some private schools to embody what public schools might wish to emulate. Curriculum distinctions thereby spread.</p><p>Let's take a concrete example: <a href="https://github.com/4dsolutions/elite_school/blob/master/RSA.ipynb">RSA, the algorithm</a>. <i>Mathematics for the Digital Age and Programming in Python</i> has its roots at the Phillips Academy at Andover, where it was written by two faculty members, Maria and Gary Litvin. </p><p>Although using a programming language, the book builds towards communicating public key cryptography, which underpins what I'm calling Supermarket Math (aka Commerce World). Familiarity with cryptography is one hallmark of a future <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federales">Federale</a> (federalist). The public schools now have Phillips to imitate, not that they really can or will given the grip of the private sector on schoolbook publishing.</p><p>I don't mean to sound defeatist however. In fighting for my country, I point out that schools on paper at least have the freedom to go electronic while customizing their learning and teaching materials. "One size fits all" is not competitive versus economies that understand how to optimize. </p><p>Different schools exploring in different directions, running in parallel, are going to find and establish a stronger track record, just watch. The private schools I've worked with all get to RSA as a topic, somewhere in the curriculum.</p><p>Sunshine Elite Education (SEE) was one such client. I was given three outstanding students and a free hand to accelerate through <a href="https://github.com/4dsolutions/elite_school/blob/master/PY4HS.ipynb">a whirlwind tour of core topics</a> they'd re-encounter at places like Jesuit and Central Catholic, other top schools in our area. Catlin Gabel. Oregon Episcopal. You know the ones (if you're in Greater Portland that is). These were 8th graders and already computer literate.</p><p>Yes, I'm aware the Elliptic Curve algorithms have superseded RSA in many contexts, but from a high school curriculum development viewpoint, we need the history and the number theory that RSA provides. Nothing bars deeper EC treatments going forward, but as a forewarning they're likely not coming from me i.e. you'll find only so much about a topic before I'll hand it off to a better positioned teacher or teaching. </p><p>I'm more a transit lounge than a final destination for a lot of students, with connecting flights (I'm getting more metaphorical on you).</p><p>My USA is into Martian Math, meaning future Feds from my province, Cascadia, might not even call themselves Feds. They'll be Pythonista Federales or something more Hispanic sounding. We're keen to brand differentiate from the overly Anglo. We're a lot more Asian-Latino here in Portlandia. </p><p>Those are my years of AFSC background talking, per my community service resume: Latin America Asia Pacific Program (LAAP). I wasn't a staffer so much as supervising Quaker.</p><p>Our Stark Street meeting was originally a dual purpose building: Religious Society of Friends and American Friends Service Committee both had their facilities there, with many doorways and staircases connecting them. AFSC later outgrew the small office and took over a whole house on E Burnside, which is when I was around and <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2007/05/more-basement-archeology.html">LAAP happened</a>. </p><p>I also served at the Yearly Meeting level, as a Quaker delegate to the corporation (AFSC), bolstering the latter's legitimacy as a Quaker-backed nonprofit staffed by mostly not-Quakers.</p><p>Our regional AFSC programming was not centrally focused on Mesopotamia, which is more an Atlanticist thing. During my tenure, wearing various hats, the focus was (a) youth leadership training and (b) tapping into Asian and Hispanic subcultures through after school extra curricular activities. Does this all sound subversive? To me it sounds like church work, kinda mainstreamy.</p><p>However, Portland has quite a few expat Palestinians from the early diaspora, families who migrated to Kuwait, Jordan and elsewhere the first time an expulsion happened. They had to take up statehood outside of Palestine and some of them ended up around Portland. </p><p>But that's only the <a href="https://flic.kr/s/aHskhzu79R">tip of the iceberg</a> when it comes to our Arabic speaking communities. I like to think my ties to the <a href="https://discourse.aosus.org">Free Open Source movement</a> tied me to Arab speakers, more than my AFSC work in this town. Dr. Tag an I overlapped through CUE and her having roots in Ramallah (site of <a href="https://www.rfs.edu.ps">Ramallah Friends School</a>).</p><p>I see the USA as acting responsibly in <a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-refugee-biz.html">the Refugee business</a>, but more from the point of view of a Diaspora nation, a global dispersion that includes a lot of expats, as well as base dwellers. We cannot easily turn our backs on our heritage, Statue of Liberty and so forth. </p><p>A lot of Anglo-Euros who came here were more interested in being imperial (versus the locals at first, later more globally), or setting up some "government in exile" or what have you. </p><p>I'm more focused on keeping travel circuits opened up and available, including people falling through the cracks per the United Nations, the so-called stateless or undocumented, and among the most oppressed.</p><p>People don't talk about the Tibetans nearly as much as they do about Palestinians, when it comes to examples of recent diasporas. However, as I was saying above about Portland, and more especially here in the "Buddhist ghetto" (term of endearment) in which I live, we do have that more Asian focus.</p><p>Along those lines, my Uncle Sam is allowed to operate in that spookier space of the has beens, as a past tense entity, given the nation-state system as a whole has been superseded, we see all the signs. There's a <a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2023/07/god-talk.html">chthonic</a> quality to governance, sending more energy to mythos, that dream world where virtual nations get born in the first place, in glimpses and glimmers.</p>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-8853778972835625762023-12-03T07:59:00.000-08:002023-12-16T18:36:55.985-08:00National Pride Day<p>A question is what we want from our nations. Job security? A marked grave? A criminal record? As a first approximation, lets ask what we might get from somewhere else. In what aspects of life do nations have any competition?</p><p>A religious order is the chief analog of the state it would seem, in having the power to assign rank to members, assign them tasks, insure their well-being in various dimensions, and mark their graves. </p><p>If we claim Israel is an apartheid state, then is the Vatican any less so? It’s walled-around after all. </p><p>One question is whether rank has a basis in immutable physiognomic characteristics, such as skin color. Does an apartheid state have to be racist by definition? Might the barriers be entirely class based while blind to physiognomy?</p><p>The Vatican does not espouse dogmas regarding racially based ranking to my knowledge, but did it ever? I’ve not done much digging into whether white supremacy, for example, found much foothold in the daily sermons and catechisms shared with noobs. I’ll need to explore in the Museum of PR some more if I want to find out.</p><p>What I do know something about (if not a lot) is how organized religion provided ammo for supremacists of various stripes.</p><p>Lets remember how “supremacist” is close to “chauvinist” in meaning, and to be “chauvinist regarding X” is to “take pride in one’s Xness”. However no transitive law insists on equivalence here. One may take pride in X without claiming X is best. X and Y might be equally good, but what’s considered virtuous and natural is to be proud of what one is. Root for the home team: that’s your job and your mission.</p><p>Which brings us back to nations, “patriotic” being close to both “chauvinistic” and “proud of”. <i>In Achieving Our Country</i>, author Rorty takes “hating one’s country” as a kind of “self hate” which as such is pathological, where “achieving our country” might mean healing or overcoming this complex. How might one “fight for one’s country” without any sense of cognitive dissonance? I’ll get back to that.</p><p>My closing question for this entry (not really) is: what other institutions might we imagine that could provide us what nations provide, outside of organized religion? Consider the university for example. Imagine a global university consisting of a network of campuses, with students and faculty free to transit from campus to campus without bothering the nation-states i.e. these movements would not concern them.</p><p>Before you reflexively express skepticism regarding this alien idea, ask yourself whether every troop deployed by the Pentagon has a visa i.e. permission from the bureaucracy claiming jurisdiction over the territory. Do US troops in Guantanamo have “red cards” from the Cuban government, permitting open-ended stay on the island?</p><p>Lots of times, a corporation will ensure job security (a playable role) and creature comforts (including the necessary minimums: privacy, sanitation, opportunities to stay healthy, mentally and physically). Through your employment, you get a gym membership, health insurance (guaranteed access), a cubicle, pod, and dorm, cafeteria, meeting rooms, a travel budget. Do you need a state at all? How do rich people achieve statelessness to the point of paying zero taxes? Do corporations own graveyards? They certainly memorialize their dead.</p><p>I was looking at the Las Vegas football stadium from the Goodyear blimp a couple nights ago, watching from an Asylum District sports bar, as the Oregon Ducks lost out to the Washington Huskies. That looks like a scale model of an Old Man River city (OMR) I was thinking. The new MSG Sphere aka “EyeBall” was visible in the distance as well.</p><p>What if Boeing or the like could do an aerospace version for delivery on demand? A spanking new campus, with terraced apartments, transportation, and with rail to an airstrip. The stadium-shaped city would be big enough to host a stadium.</p><p>We don’t build on that scale now, unless you count whole cities as singular projects, which we’re free to. NYC is a campus, with ancient infrastructure. So is Portland. One of our main bridges is sitting on wood pylons in hard mud subject to liquefaction under earthquake conditions. We’ll be closing that bridge and replacing those pylons with metal ones that go deep enough to hit bedrock.</p><p>Might a city have “a fuselage”? Not in today’s city planning yet and likely never. However I do expect more interpenetration of these shoptalks: land-based construction and spacey-maritime. </p><p>Shall we test one (an OMR) near Yakutsk? That’s a big city in Siberia. I spent much of my morning on YouTube following travel vloggers to that area, just to remind myself of the challenges of permafrost.</p><p>What would it take for a Stadium Campus City (SCC) or any city, to feed itself without over-plundering its surroundings, to the point of becoming untenable? I’m not sure the Mayans ever mastered these equations. </p><p>A big part of the plan involves planning for recycling, of the skeleton itself, should the city become unneeded, or simply in need of a remodel.</p><p>In fighting for my country, I’m somewhat careful with my “we”. I’m not too quick to ally myself with those having nuclear weapons for example, on the basis of shared citizenship alone. We the people of the United States do not necessarily own or claim to sponsor those nuclear inventories, and some of us fight to make sure we necessarily do not, unless in the capacity of safe disposers thereof, and recycling perhaps, but not in the form of WMDs. ‘</p><p>I’m free, as a patriot, to explicitly disown properties I do not consider legitimately a part of my country’s inventory. “Who ordered these?” Not us. </p><p>But then others operate their virtual worlds differently, and maybe in their namespace, the USA is some last/only superpower. That position is then taken for granted by an ego (eggo) and becomes a symptom of what we call the “military-industrial complex” a deep-seated psycho-pathology president Eisenhower warned us about. Fighting to restore sanity to these poor citizens is part of the good fight. Obviously, my country contains its share of drug addicts <a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2023/12/january-sixth.html">and crazies</a>. I’m proud of it anyway, the metaphysics.</p>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-43274673795198557752023-11-27T12:21:00.000-08:002023-12-04T09:44:40.081-08:00Checkbox City<div style="text-align: center;">
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I've got a new title coming from Amazon, presumably tomorrow (it's on the way): <i>The Invention of the White Race: The Origin of Racial Oppression</i> (paperback) – January 11, 2022 by Theodore W. Allen (Author), Jeffrey B. Perry (Introduction). <div><br /></div><div>I'll be adding it alongside other such books on Racism in my library, with its both physical and virtual shelf space. Like if I wanted to read in Ashley Montagu's <i>The Fallacy of Race: Man's Most Dangerous Myth</i>, I'd go online (like to archive.org), as my physical copy, if I have one, is likely buried in a box somewhere (or is that one on my Kindle?).<div><br /></div><div>I signed up for an eye doc appointment the other day, and as a new patient was given the standard race boxes to check in with. I was never asked my nationality, but did get to specify a preferred language.</div><div><br /></div><div>One sees the usual list of checkboxes, but then Hispanic is set <a href="https://flic.kr/p/2piqLSq">off by itself</a>, as not-a-race. I'm welcome to check some boxes there as well (or not). </div><div><br /></div><div>I followed my usual "when in Rome..." compliance algorithm and dutifully checked Caucasian for race, although my DNA ancestry doesn't trace to the Caucasus very directly, if at all. We don't all have to trace to the same Caspian Sea area do we, we of pale complexion?</div><div><br /></div><div>I do feel greatly influenced by Hispanic language and culture but I don't want to imply that my Spanish is any good, so I decline that identification, artificially impoverishing my recorded heritage ("when in Rome..."). </div><div><br /></div><div>In my private egoic narrative, I'm thinking these check boxes reveal a lot about the ethnicity of the bureaucracy in charge. They think of ethnicity (e.g. Caucasian, e.g. Armenian) as rooted in one's genetic profile, with "race" meant to establish not only bio-physical boundaries but psycho-social ones as well (as in "Jewish race" and/or "Ukrainian race" -- USA federal forms would not have those).</div><div><br /></div><div>The concept of "race" is elusive, including <a href="https://flic.kr/p/2piqLSq">to machine learning</a>. That's a topic of much research of course: not how to be "race blind" but how to identify someone's race (e.g. Samoan) simply based on facial features, including but in no way limited to skin coloration.</div><div><br /></div><div>The "ethnicity versus physical type" divide is akin to the mind-body duality. A body is a result of "breeding" although we discourage the animal husbandry mindset from overthinking our mating practices. </div><div><br /></div><div>A persona (personality) is a result of "breeding" too, meaning acculturation post graduation to autonomous eating and breathing (i.e. birth). Some say we start acquiring language well before birth in some cases. Then we go on to finishing schools (the schools of life, which eventually finish us).</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_terminology_for_race">Wikipedia</a>:</div><div><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"></span><blockquote><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">It was long recognized that the number of categories is arbitrary and subjective, and different ethnic groups were placed in different categories at different points in time. </span>François Bernier<span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"> (1684) doubted the validity of using skin color as a racial characteristic, and </span>Charles Darwin<span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"> (1871) emphasized the gradual differences between categories.</span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">Today there is broad agreement among scientists that typological conceptions of race have no scientific basis.</span></blockquote><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"></span></div><div>In <a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2022/12/advice-column.html">free liberal nations</a>, we tend to actively undermine what other types of nationalist consider most intrinsic to their nationality: their genetic makeup. Liberals think the mark of a successful melting pot is experimentation and cross-fertilization. People marry or otherwise hook up across class lines, as well as race lines, as it's enshrined in principle that these lines are meant to be crossed, if not erased all together (ending all diversity then?).</div><div><br /></div><div>The historically mostly white US Navy has a long tradition of such liberality in the Pacific theater. The US Navy is less segregated than ever these days, including among its nuclear and extended families (not just among crews).</div><div><br /></div><div>The eugenics groups see "races" on the analogy of "primary colors" such that all humans are an admixture of these constituent lineages, such as "Caucasian" i.e. the American version of "Aryan". The actual picture is far more complicated and is continuing to evolve, such that DNA tests now talk about Neanderthal ancestry, not just Cro Magnon. People still speak in terms of "blood" but largely know that's metaphorical i.e. DNA in the blood is not different from DNA in any cell of the body (excepting gametes).</div><div><br /></div>
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<div><br /></div><div>My own ethnicity is far less enamoured of the old racial typology, which appears to trace to the Book of Genesis, story of Noah. Those hoping to think simplistically in terms of Black, Brown, White, Yellow (did we lose the Red?) or BYWB, are guilty of the kind of groupthink God worried about. </div><div><br /></div><div>These days though, given few take such thinking seriously, we're free to move on. Besides, few are really so bigoted as think in terms of "Yellow" and say "Asian" now, and Black and Brown should be capitalized ("white" not so much as it goes to their heads), whereas Hispanic is not really a race. So they tell us, until they tell us something else.</div><div><br /></div><div>Wikipedia again (minus the footnotes):</div><div><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"></span><blockquote><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">The other three self-designated races are not labeled by color.</span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">This is due to historic negative associations of terms like "Yellow" (for East Asians) and "Red" (for Native Americans) with racism.</span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"> However, some Asian Americans and Native Americans have tried to reclaim these color terms by self-identifying as "Yellow" and "Red", respectively.</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-ross_26-1" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 11.2px; line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"></sup></blockquote><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-ross_26-1" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 11.2px; line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_terminology_for_race#cite_note-ross-26" style="background: repeat; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration: none;"></a></sup></div><div>The great flood in Genesis serves as a pinch point in human evolution, such that Noah's progeny suffered from too much inbreeding. The resulting mono-culture was also subject to debilitating forms of groupthink, which is what the Tower of Babel was all about. Humans were imprinting on the landlubber construction industry as the be all end all, losing their native maritime skills. Bummer.</div><div><br /></div><div>Without some external intervention, humans would misguidedly think that certain way (in terms of a "tower towards God" i.e. "God is in the up direction") and never get on with fulfilling their true destiny. </div><div><br /></div><div>God's solution, to confuse tongues, was brilliant as it pushed the tribes apart into Diaspora Nations, where they'd finally discover the Whole Earth (the real WE).</div></div>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-6437237714768352492023-11-19T10:47:00.000-08:002023-11-24T10:55:33.009-08:00Introducing Curious Listening Dialogue<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/sCt_-uPYifY" width="480"></iframe></div>
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A lot of the groups I participate in hold Zoom meetings way more often than I'm able to attend. The 52 Living Ideas network has an especially cram packed schedule. I'm assuming this is the usual pattern. <div><br /></div><div>Groups that record their meetups provide their participants with more opportunities to keep tabs, plus generate material for lurkers, would be new recruits. 52 Living Ideas and M4W both record the majority of their meetups. TrimTab Book Club only rarely does. FieldStructure Institute is somewhere in between.</div><div><br /></div><div>This particular M4W meetup is about Curious Listening Meetups, which have a specific format and code of conduct. We talk about Bohmian Dialog quite a bit. I bring up <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2012/05/twenty-one-guns.html">Dr. Nick Consoletti</a>, who did his PhD on that topic. We have another Bohm fan in our midst, John Brett.</div><div><br /></div><div>Aslam is from the Pashtun region and is joining us as a PhD candidate at Princeton, with a background in conflict resolution. We have a series of meetups he leads, focusing more directly of Sociology as a discipline. He questions to what degree we decide our direction unconsciously, given how intentionally and deliberately he's been operating as a decision-maker on a spiritual journey.</div>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-1049330422916246542023-11-12T12:22:00.000-08:002023-12-04T10:43:41.348-08:00Telling Some History<p>The teacher strike continues, here in Portland, Oregon, reminding me of what it's like to be in class, as a student, as a teacher, as an instructor who shows up after school. I've played all of these roles. That's far from all the roles however.</p><p>Typically, insofar as North Americans, USA types more specifically, get some shared education, it happens in K-12, then we go our separate ways. Those attending colleges, or maybe joining a military, are likely to have some continued need for history, and in general, adulthood continues to be about self education in a variety of topics. Dialing back to high school then, let's talk Napoleon, what did you learn about him?</p><p>Warning to the reader: I get increasingly autobiographical at the end, but here up top I'm thinking of everyday school textbooks and the "reality" they represent, that of the school, of the teacher, and whatever learning goes on in and out of the classroom. We most likely learn about Napoleon through that context, which I'm echoing here.</p><p>I'm about to seem silly. I learned the mnemonic, wholly un-PC (non-woke) in our day: A Red Indian Thought He Might Eat Tobacco In Church. First of all, why not?, as tobacco is a holy substance, used in rituals, but actually the point was to remind us how to spell "arithmetic" (and it worked, for me anyway). Along those same lines: "able was I ere I saw elba" -- have you heard that one? A palindrome for sure. Same phrase each way. And who is the "I" in this sentence. That's right: Napoleon.</p><p>Lets further omni-triangulate, with two facts you might have never learned, and a third that's more common knowledge but still obscure:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>per this <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/untold-history-of-ai-charles-babbage-and-the-turk">IEEE Spectrum article</a>, Charles Babbage encountered The Turk</li><li>Napoleon too played The Turk (and I believe lost)</li><li>Charles Babbage and Ada Byron are sometimes credited as father and mother of computer hardware and software respectively</li></ul><p></p><p>That was one Junior English School in Rome, 1960s, that taught me a way to remember "arithmetic". Let's put it this way: in some churches you do smoke tobacco, and probably chew it, I'm no expert.</p><p>The Turk was deceiving in that it was meant to appear an automaton through and through, a machine of gears, a clockworks. However, it was good at chess. Looking back from today, when computers play good chess, the deception was prescient i.e. what then only seemed possible and was really not yet (self driving cars), is now taken for granted (chess playing). The advance seems to be continuing. We're still debating what AI means exactly, based on what we see in practice. A kind of mirroring.</p><p>Now, back to the mainstream, US history: what's going on with the US around the time of Napoleon?</p><p>The basic dynamic is, in struggling to define the ongoing significance of its own Revolution against the British Empire and monarchy, the founding fathers were engaged in debates about the significance of subsequent revolutions in Europe. We'll see the Transcendentalists joining that debate, before the Civil War. The Revolution was not about becoming another tyrannical empire. The point of democracy was not to beat the crap out of resistant countries.</p><p>France and England were at war, the former an ally of the US, and the latter an enemy, but also a homeland, an "old country" for the Yanks at least. France would gift the US with the Statue of Liberty somewhat later (1886), inviting future incoming waves of peoples. </p><p>Jefferson stretched the reigning (mainstream) psychology into realizing that France was a check on homeland (i.e. English) bullying, and we were willing to support Napoleon with a deal, now called the Louisiana Purchase. He would become somewhat enriched thereby and enabled to further prosecute his ambitions.</p><p>Jefferson agreed with Hamilton, as events progressed, that it would indeed be bad for the USA if either Empire engulfed the other and then turned its menacing attention to the States of the New World, then still a fledgling Federation, not yet bicoastal. Both already had a foothold on the continent, no question, but by their staying divided in Europe... not forgetting about Spain and Portugal... remember Britain actually attacked us in 1812.</p><p>The above is in the ballpark of what a high school student might encounter, when being brought up to speed. Like, what's been happening? There's still a lot more to go.</p><p>I always liked getting my info through MAD Magazine and Saturday Morning cartoons on TV (no not exclusively). As a boomer, I was already well down the slippery slope to Sesame Street and MTV i.e. madcap, fast cut, free associating music video and infomercial type formats. We might have cartoons about Napoleon against a backdrop: French History. I don't think we did though, not very many. Leave that to the textbook tellers right? Stick to fiction.</p><p>OK, as a school teacher (including of adults), I have to admit feeling leery, about all this time with the Fictional Universes (e.g. from blockbuster-based Hollywood, and from the playstation industry). Is this obsession detracting from, outright competing with, actual History for bandwidth? </p><p>Isn't getting that distracted dangerous? Aren't incommon narratives critical? Can we afford to grow up in all Narnia worlds, effectively in our private closets?</p><p>"That's right, you <i>are</i> in competition" say the dreamer gamers. In a way they're saying they're fed up with consensus history as forming any kind of social bond, and would prefer to bond through universes (e.g. Marvel Comics Universe) other than those dominated by the usual cast of History's narrative. "According to whom?" is another one, meaning who gets to tell history. Who got to choose the textbooks? Cosplay is idle recreational for some, yet a form of rebellion for the hard core. Bumper sticker: defy reality.</p><p>Leaving aside those debates, I'd like to get back to Ada and Babbage who played The Turk, and always suspected there might be a midget inside. What about Ada? </p><p>My first exposure to Ada was through ADA, the computer language. This was a DoD pet project and a lot of projects going forward were therefore going to be using it (it was a spec of the job). I crashed some conferences on the topic, not as a spy but as a Princeton guy with a real interest in computer science and anthropology. A guy named Arch Davis showed me around, my guide like in Dante. I found the whole Ada vs ADA connection interesting but as yet didn't know much about Ms. Lovelace.</p><p>Coming from a practicing Quaker branch, I was not groomed for ADA work, meaning DoD stuff, but then DARPA brushed off on me anyway, via Python and its IDLE ide. One could say I got soaked in DoD sheep dip through other channels, such as a teen blessed with base privileges through my dad's job in the Philippines. </p><p>His job was quite civilian, not focused on military or munitions at all. His work was OK with his activist wife at least (my mom Carol). My point is I'm not wholly ignorant of matters military and I don't plan to rewrite history as though that kind of ignorance were OK.</p><p>I brought the Philippines into it on purpose, as the Philippine American War cannot be forgotten, nor can Smedley Butler, nor the Business Plot, a theme of Occupy. Smedley Butler was not a big fan of General MacArthur let's remember the Hoovervilles. Then let's talk about FDR, Truman, Eisenhower and so on, and the rise of a covert government or "deep state" (made highly visible through the window of Iran-Contra, in the Reagan Era).</p><p>The Transcendentalists were likewise contemplating what the American Revolution meant, and to what extent what was happening in Europe was a positive or negative development. Margaret Fuller was sent to report first hand on what was happening around Rome at the time (a revolt against the Papacy). That's a story those who study the Transcendentalists well know, but beyond the purview of most high schoolers.</p><p>I did get into computer programming by the way, if not from the ADA angle. There would be Python, in part DARPA boosted, but for decades in between I was focused on xBase, a language, and its commercial forms: dBase, FoxPro, Visual FoxPro. </p><p>Yes, I remember Clipper, used dBase II through IV, then hopped to Microsoft and rode VFP to the end, official support for VFP9 ending in 2015. Which doesn't mean there aren't still VFP9 programs out there, or dBase II for that matter, if the old PC still boots. </p><p>But I'd long before switched to teaching Python, with demo stacks showing off the DB API (talking to databases), web (Flask and Django), data science (array based), although not without a final flip with Foxpro, tracking Trucking (my last look at VFP source code was in connection with a trucking program).</p><p>Ada wasn't informed of the true identity of her father, Lord Byron, the poet, until she became twenty one. From the bio I read, I remember her polymathic tendencies. She had that in common with Margaret Fuller: an unflinching vision of an industrialized future. Ada was more a harbinger of machine world than a wilderness romantic, and out of that grew her fascination for the Babbage engine, and what it foretold.</p><p>The Babbage engine was too difficult to really build at the time, but later generations of machinist have proved it works. That's the textbook rendering in any case and I have no reason to doubt it; the finished versions are on display. It was programmable to some degree, and Ada shared the vision to some level, and promulgated the Big Idea (e.g. AI) in social circles. She was a key cog among the cognoscenti.</p><p>Why do I go back to Napoleon and the Louisiana Purchase at this juncture? That had to do with proto FINCAP one could say, the politics of vast land grabs on paper, by map redrawing. The King of Spain could be talked into surrendering (ceding) his American property rights to France, which in turn could sell them to Thomas Jefferson and double the USA's size. European empires had these vast estates back then. William Penn was gifted with Pennsylvania, which state Quakers had their <a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2022/04/base-housing.html">high hopes</a> for.</p>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-51563028990546760872023-11-09T10:46:00.014-08:002023-11-11T11:56:43.356-08:00M4W: Sociology and Trucking<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div><span style="text-align: left;">I'm on a call with Sociology the topic. I'm talking about my <a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2023/10/simulators.html">Trucker Exchange Program</a> (aka Truckers for Peace (<a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2018/06/iran-forum.html">T4P</a>)) with this little math4wisdom group (M4W), headquarters in Lithuania. Andrius Kulikauskis is our anchor.<p>Trucking, as a profession, is inherently an attractor of polymaths. The driving part is already multi-disciplinary, but then there's the data science, the people skills, the opportunities to encounter other cultures when driving long haul (or even over short distances). I've been developing a science fiction narrative in which truckers become citizen diplomats.</p><p>Aslam at Princeton is joining us thirty minutes after the announced start time owing to room scheduling issues. Now that he's here, we'll switch to another channel where he'll present about Michael Polyani's <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/studyofman0000pola_d2f0">The Study of Man</a></i>.</p><p>Although we're not all mathematicians in some technical sense (all of us share in interest an math), the cognitive framework being developed by Andrius is an anchoring one. Fortunately (for me at least), Andrius is using his framework in a mindful way that encounters other systems and disciplines as more grist for the mill.</p><p>In my opening remarks, before Aslam arrived, I talked briefly about <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2015/06/thirsters-201564.html">Bob Textor</a> of <a href="https://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2014/08/thirsters-again.html">Thirsters</a> and his importance in getting anthropology inserted into Peace Corps work, both in training of personnel and in their field discipline. I also write about a <a href="https://worldgame.blogspot.com/2018/07/cyber-tourism.html">Chinese Peace Corps</a> in these journals, as any civilization is likely to encounter this idea, perhaps to absorb some Americana.</p><p>Polyani's framework contrasts explicit and tacit knowledge. The former is assumed to be true by its holder (lets say we "contain" knowledge), whereas tacit knowledge tends to be unarticulated and therefore harder to disprove. Tacit knowledge is less likely challenged, because it's harder to see.</p><p>I'm reminded of <a href="https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2023/10/anticipating-trends.html">Arnold Mindell's Consensus Reality (CR)</a> versus Nonconsensus Reality (NCR), in that one may be unconscious of how one's biases are unshared (in the sense of unchecked).</p><p>Also during my check in, I talked about an archetypal vision of M4W as a gathering of heroes, like the Jedi Knights, who might be dispatched to trouble zones, with powers to help the affected peoples restore harmony. That's a comic book picture more than a present reality -- more science fiction in other words.</p><p>Think of a plot line in which ETs broker a piece between tribes A and B, because the ETs are able to bring tacit knowledge to the surface in both tribes, to where a sufficient consensus reality might be forged. </p><p>Prearticulated nonconsensual attitudes and biases, not to mention missing knowledge (not shared on both sides) have a way of undoing attempts to "get along". The ETs catalyze a growing area of explicit overlap.</p><p>That all sounds fine and good for science fiction, but we don't have ETs (there's no consensus that we do), let alone those with the patience to play intermediary. But might we cultivate an ET point of view (ETPV, ET PoV)? Enter M4W and its alien viewpoints.</p><p>Popper also enters my thinking here: we talk about beliefs being believable to the extent they're falsifiable, but then we also have what we call truisms, where the opposite is more nonsensical than incorrect. </p><p>Wittgenstein's <i>On Certainty</i> explores this difference: between what's believable, and therefore adjustable, and what's unquestionable (raw phenomena? tautologies? certainties?). Let's talk about grammars, forms of life.</p></span></div>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">I'm currently in a meetup about The study of man : Polanyi, Michael, 1891-1976 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive <a href="https://t.co/uTZw3jFhuT">https://t.co/uTZw3jFhuT</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/internetarchive?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@internetarchive</a></p>— Kirby Urner (@thekirbster) <a href="https://twitter.com/thekirbster/status/1722696256190132499?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 9, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
</div>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10436423.post-74725181210959411092023-11-08T16:30:00.003-08:002023-11-08T16:32:44.186-08:00CommentaryInteresting that allowing stateless Gazan refugees to escape from their torture pen is now referred to as “decanting”. Their forced confinement to a killing field, apparently favored by those with states, is therefore “to bottle and cork”?<br /><br />Voluntary departure is not the same as forced displacement. If Palestinians had statehood, they would have the usual right to cross borders and escape the war zone, without surrendering a right to return. <br /><br />That Gazans are forced to stay in Gaza is a symptom of their statelessness. The world seems complicit. The whole situation is a strong indictment of the nation-state system.<br /><br />Confining Gazans who want to leave Gaza to an open air prison is hardly an humanitarian gesture. <div><br /></div><div>Ukrainians were allowed to leave Ukraine when the war started. Syrians were permitted to leave Syria. Yet the world is complicit in depriving Palestinians of their human right to move freely about the world, even to escape a war zone — or maybe that’s not a human right? Forced confinement is OK? <div><br /></div><div>Only those with statehood get to travel is that it? The United Nations seems mostly interested in fencing people in.<br /><br /></div></div><div>[ from my comments on YouTubes ]</div>Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.com