SA: ClassNotes 2008.4.19

Three levels of complexity: data structures, functions, classes.

For data structures, we focussed on strings firstly, then lists. We'll get to dictionaries (hash tables) next time.

For functions I started bridging to sphere packing already, with triangular numbers (def triangle(n): return n*(n+1)/2), plus your basic parabola (def f(x): return x * x).

For classes I start with my Biotum (one template, many selves), with eat and poop methods, using a stomach list as a queue.


We spent a rather long time at the POV-Ray site, looking at that office scene in particular (this was in part owing to having no logins at first, staff scurrying to secure them).

Whereas a Dutch master might've known to put in those Venetian blind reflections or whatever, in ray tracing we just combine geometry and optics and let the computer figure the consequences, meaning the artist is as excited as anyone to see what comes out the other end, maybe after a long night of rendering (if doing animation especially -- many frames).

We also imported "star" (meaning everything) from visual (from visual import *) and ginned up a gray ball -- kinda boring but good foreshadowing for what's coming, plus shows how core Python plus the Standard Library plus 3rd Party stuff (including mine) makes for a generously endowed math learning environment.

We're using IDLE on Windows in a university computer lab -- and yes, I clued them about the Monty Python connection (e.g. Eric Idle).

Small class, about six, the way we like it in Saturday Academy -- means lots of individualized attention.

Reposting from Newsgroups

I'm watching the crackdown on Mormonism (old style) with interest as this has repercussions in diplomatic circles where the common accusation is North Americans moralize excessively outside their purview, but hey Utah is within DC's jurisdiction, as is Arizona and so on, so yes, an internal affair (China hasn't said much, officially, trying to set an example of holding one's tongue -- but then many tribal nations have officially seceded already, so it gets messy... basically a loose federation is all we've had to begin with, kinda fragile).

Anyway, abuse of a minor by a predatory adult is definitely in need of a community response and the idea behind the police action was apparent lax enforcement in the face of an all too common domestic relations situation (not saying this sect was a major urban area, just that polygamy is an orthogonal crime i.e. isn't synonymous with child abuse in many cultures any intelligence community deals with daily, given the varied anthropological patterns humans have cultivated over the centuries and millennia, a real zoo I can tell you).

Anyway, I think it's unfortunate in terms of timing that this became a full scale cultural battle against a well established North American lifestyle for some people, rather than a domestic relations case involving just a few bad apples, as now we're taking attention off human rights problems the USA had sought to capitalize on elsewhere, in order to regain some traction as a champion (vs. a hypocritical imperialist, a prevalent view today).

Also, there seemed some real advances against prejudice against Mormonism in the recent presidential campaign. We knew this had always been a tension, so why make it a public spectacle now of all times? Wasn't there a smarter way to handle this? Maybe there'll be less of a hero attitude in future interventions of this kind?

Hard to know, not my department. I bet the FBI is abuzz with water cooler chatter about it all, given echoes of Waco (so far this is way way less ugly, but still ugly enough).

There Will Be Blood (movie review)

This contemporary award winner (Daniel Day-Lewis for best actor, also best cinematography) surprised me with its bold sound track, and long opening with no dialog, which reminded me of Lost, right down to the shaft and old dynamite: welcome to another hell of sorts.

Once the dialog begins, it's still about the music of it all, the power of communication. Some of the loudest drumming signals the onset of deafness, a pivotal scene as now the boy is beyond the reach of that fatherly, mellifluous, soothing, and controlling voice, in his own world for the first time.

Unheeded warnings, danger signs, people in grotesque aspects: all very disturbingly psychotic, with the only religion in the picture even more so.

The game between Daniel and Eli becomes one of mutual humiliation, each poking holes in the other's story and self image, letting the sense bleed away.

They're mirror images in many ways, challenging one another's integrity and authenticity as competing patriarchs, both full of misanthropy and self-loathing. The specter of false brotherhood haunts the subplot as well, which likewise ends badly.

I understand why this picture is celebrated, although it leaves me mumbling prayers for greater happiness among sentient beings, we humans included. The ancient Greeks would understand.

Embedded Controls

Those of you on board for the ride since Web 1.0 will remember those CGI scripts, or Common Gateway Interface gizmos. The user would have to hit reload, or the Javascript would trigger it, and a new page would appear, some matrix reloaded.

Flash forward and Microsoft comes out with this ActiveX control that allows developers back door access to the browser's experience. Without making any obvious click noises, or otherwise distracting the user, the browser could update a server regarding user-triggered events, key strokes and so on. Of course such tools could be used to nefarious ends, and to this day we have controversies surrounding browser security and so on.

Nevertheless, other browsers quickly rallied around the XMLhttpResponse object (hence Web 2.0), which does what it says it does. The client stuffs XML up the pipe, or just asks for new data, with XML coming back, to be deployed within the DOM somewhere, thereby giving the user an updated view, minus any need to reload or click or do other than emulate a control panel.

For example, in throwing the I Ching, an HTML button or embedded timer loop might trigger a fetch, sending nothing except this "need a new throw" signal. The server comes back with some appropriate yadda yadda, which transcribes to the screen, pulling Chinese characters from whatever font library supporting the unicode codespace (or some other addressing scheme -- the purpose of the DOCTYPE declaration).

Those of you who already know all of the above often use the word AJAX, focusing on the asynchronous nature of the Javascripted events (plus the AX might remind us of humble ActiveX beginnings). Servers have lots on their minds and can't be guaranteed to have instantaneous response times (tcp/ip itself doesn't guarantee it), so what happens on the client side, versus the server side, is only loosely coupled. The response object signals when it's ready, has some new content.

I recommend doing some more searching if wanting more details on this subject, as it has been written up in depth by many competent AJAX developers and technical writers. I'm just supplying some overview, value added for those readers enjoying my spin on stuff.

PPUG 2008.4.8

We're getting briefed on IPython, an old fashioned looking high contrast CRT style front end to the Python interpreter.

There're some gotchas plus the pager screwed up a few times, but I get the feeling our Intel guy is pretty happy with it, having done a really thorough evaluation.

I'm no IPython guru, so it's news to me, all these automagical functions.

About fourteen of us? Hi Dylan... Jason.

Not planning to stay long tonight -- too much on my plate (PPUG = Portland Python Users Group, check us out at the Python.org Wiki).

Jason wrote his own shell, based on "batteries included," to help with presentations. It includes the concept of "slides," canned content appended to the shell's source, which feeds the shell at runtime. I interrupted with some vocal praise at this point, then went back to blogging.

Meeting Math

This YouTube [since removed] of Kraftwerk was experienced live by Trevor, in Seattle. The music was so loud his clothes rattled, definitely ear plug territory:

This second video is little branding gig for the Y2K World's Fair in Hannover, Germany:

Trevor and I were in the Multnomah Meetinghouse today, returning a medical supply, plus I'd come through earlier for adult education, missing M4W this time.

This is the same building we met in back in the early 1960s, soon after ESI transferred the property to AFSC and sponsors.

I connect Britney's Piece of Me to Kraftwerk because of the computery riff / refrain towards the end (2:06 - 2:24) -- "very electronique" as they say. Trevor pointed out the moire pattern allusions (0:16, 1:42 - 2:05 etc.).

Experiments in Democracy

We met in a private home not far from Reed College, a retired professor, software engineers, and Mark, our fearless leader, to brainstorm about designing networking infrastructure that might help people deliberate about specific policy proposals, in light of their values, positions on issues.

The goal is not to just duplicate what the pollsters provide, but to give individuals useful tools for connecting the dots in various ways. Popular board games suggest where we might start. We know what Monopoly looks like. How would Democracy look?

My standard example in these meetings is to suggest two icons, say a teepee and a fish. I'm supportive of local NavAm casinos in part because of profits they put into restoring salmon habitats, which makes for a healthier environment overall (plus I like eating salmon). So these icons are now linked in my own world view, a memespace or namespace.

How do others wire up their icons I wonder? This democracy lab would help us study intellectual currents, provide us with summary views. Of course the Web already does this, plus the private sector spends big bucks on polls and surveys. A goal here would be to make such information more available to the general public, not just to paying customers.

Trust and transparency would be key to the success of such a system, but in and of themselves would not be enough. Robust designs will be essential. To that end, we'll need to grow our team, ideally testing some competing prototypes before settling on best of breed (and even then, the improvements will be ongoing).

Troop Rotation

The endless conveyor belt between the burbs and Baghdad, taking enlisted both ways, leaves many Americans wondering when and/or how it will end.

The substance of what gets conveyed is especially critical, in terms of livingry versus killingry, as Bucky would put it. To the extent living standards deteriorate, serving in a militia, however decaled and branded, becomes the only remaining option, the very definition of poverty in much of the world today.

Given both sides in Iraq see an end to the foreign military occupation as a common goal, what divides them is more a push versus persuade strategy. The more militant factions want to push, whereas the more established party prefers to believe that a deescalation of violence, already accomplished, will prompt a voluntary withdrawal in response to political pressures back home (not much sign of that happening, which bolsters the militants' view).

On the civilian front, most of the action is behind the scenes, but with the cooperation of various supranationals, it's becoming easier to bid on reconstructive, post-war projects, not just in Iraq, but throughout the Middle East. Whether the US Army Corps of Engineers gets a piece of the action, in stabilizing that dam for example, remains unclear, at least to this analyst.

Certainly there's nothing stopping a formerly enlisted engineer from returning to the scene in a civilian capacity, as has happened in Vietnam in the aftermath. Civilian energy projects need trained personnel, this hasn't changed. Whether the home office is in Belgium or Birmingham matters less than an understanding of the scene on the ground.

Disambiguation

cuisinart vs. cuisenaire

A cardinal function of numeric, alpha and alphanumeric strings, is to tell one thing from another, meaning "to disambiguate" among them.

This isn't always as easy as it sounds, as very different things may nevertheless share the same or similar names, plus we have those fine distinctions among subtypes, breeds or brands.

The word "dog" doesn't begin to do justice to the many varieties of dog out there.

Consider for example, the box of Cuisenaire rods shown above, named for the Belgian math teacher who first thought them up.

Many old timers remember these toyz from math class, where they were supposed to link length and number, forming a primitive geometric bridge to an algebraic sensibility. Of course in many schools, they just sat on a shelf.

Given an accumulation of post-war detritus, children and grandchildren of baby boomers may be unfamiliar with these colorful manipulables, which go against the grain of modern fashion.

More likely they remember a brand of food processor known as the Cuisinart.

However, here again, the Cuisinart brand needs disambiguation from any specific kitchen appliance sold under that trademark, such as the coffeemaker depicted below.

I purchased one of these gizmos at my local Peet's today, replacing a broken Starbucks Barista.

Underfunded Schools

[ originally posted to Math Forum, two typos fixed, hyperlinks added ]

Yo Haim --

I think the Iraq War is pertinent to some extent as we've got designs for putting some returnees into math teaching roles, including on base in an enlisted capacity i.e. much of what we're doing with computers in the private sector, to teach children, might be adapted to advantage families in the services, which are subject to civilian oversight.

Regarding how reformists sound similar themes over time, I think that's true. Dave discounts minor wrinkles like technology, goes for the rhetoric. I notice in my Chicago talk (link posted) that I employ a familiar trope or two e.g. kids beg me to not send them back to their traditionalist context (which is true), plus I employ standard divide and conquer strategies vs. the states, singling out the smart ones by litmus test (do they teach Euclid's Method for finding the GCD?).

I'm also very typically a salesman (vendor), trash talking calculators because of my HP flatscreens or whatever they are. I'm clearly competing for public dollars, just as you suspect (no shame in being a defense contractor, if it's really defense that you're peddling (vs. some mindless manifest destiny imperialism of the prehistoric knuckle dragging "American century" type (a political embarrassment, worthy of spoof))).

Plus I think schools are underfunded, as we need more video/audio editing equipment and electric ATVs, not just Mindstorms Lego and Cuisenaire bricks. More field trips to Antarctica also on the drawing boards, an opportunity not just for the rich and privileged. Overseas boarding schools also planned, public as in tax sponsored (i.e. you can apply from Peoria, for a year in Uruguay or whatever, with at least half the student body from the school's locale (international school model, but adapted to serve a broader domestic base, give more USAers pre-college overseas experience through a secular model i.e. not in the capacity of missionaries or NGO personnel)).

Kirby

Wanderers 2008.3.26

Ten of us sat around the big table having our typically meandering conversation about everything: iPhone SDK, the remoteness of southern Oregon, the short attention span of children, three wheeled vehicles, brain function (I think brains are over-hyped).

I often take a rhetorically twisted position on issues of the day, balancing overly sane views with certifiable antitheses.

Regarding short attention spans, yes they're adapted for TV and it's cruel to expect cold turkey kill your television behavior in scholarship; better to go with the flow and teach "television editing" (might just mean sequencing stills together over audio for YouTube, inside an affordable price point for public schools, provided they get sufficient vendor sponsorships (a form of product placement, advertising -- a competitive environment in working models)).

Anyway, lets keep it up with the mathcasts on YouTube and Google Video, in supplement to whatever else is going on.

Many threads broke out around the table for a spell, then converged to one conversation. Jon talked about how sentence fragments might assemble into a semi-coherent dream-like whole, per some passage by William Burroughs. Sleep deprivation might lead to similar results. We had a visiting psychoanalyst this morning, a former student of Anna Freud's; I hope we were fun for her (she said we were).

David Tver: "What thin partitions, sense from thought divide" (Pope, Essay on Mind).

Spring Retreat 2008

:: swag ::

I'm online from the Pauling House, shooting the breeze. Anagrams of Wanderers with the word "nerds" in 'em were on the board last night, but on Sir T's recommendation I consulted an anagrams server to get Errands, We and Darers, New.

Also, Kirby Thomas Urner anagrams to Your Bankers Mirth, which has an apropos grunchy flavor to it.

Patrick and I compared notes on the recently concluded Pycon, where I represented my firm as senior partner.

Lots of talk about ToonTown, its heritage (through art books and websites both), plus a subplot of me trying to upload raw video from my Pycon talk (session #53), through a Java applet running on Ubuntu, supplied by Google.

Some discussion of goofy hollow earth theories, adhered to by some Nazis.

I've strewn swag on the table, including Cuisenaire rods, an XO (green and white), some literature, some geometry toyz. A toy microscope showed up (blue and white), which Bill has been trying to repair.

But the gizmo that takes the cake is Terry's new Apple Xserver with three terabytes of storage. I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with it out of the box.

Catching up regarding Eris, Quaoar and Sedna, thanks to Cosmos by Giles Sparrow, a beautiful gigantic tome.

More from Pycon

Listening to Mark Hammond's talk, Snake Charming the Dragon, is helping me assemble a better picture of Python's future role.

Sun's JVM, Novell's Mono, Microsoft's .NET, and Mozilla's Tamarin will serve as the basis for many future applications, not just web browsers, and Python, along with the newer JavaScript, will be a standard language for developers of these applications. Microsoft's Silverlight and Adobe's Flex both fit into this rubric.

Generic GUI development will inherit from browser-based tools, such as CSS, plugins, various XMLs such as XUL.

Regarding OLPC: Uruguay and Peru (Arahay) are among the early adopters, also Birmingham, Alabama. The software development process still has a ways to go. Ivan Krstić is the man on the front lines here, literally risking his neck to get XOs in the field.

Ian has been generous in sharing his talents, having me go through a recording of my talk on his iTouch while penciling in filenames on a time line -- a first step in his video post production process.

Catching Up

A counterpart from New Mexico came through here today, wanting to visit Powell's Books. I whipped up this quick floor altar to celebrate.

SnapShot

[ copying a snapshot of a shared Google Document, started by Alaska-based Anna, directly to my blog, from a coffee shop in Oregon ]

Test Hello All!

This is a test of this new tool I just learned about. It allows us to collaborate with others on the same file if we set up rights to share. I could see this could be very valuable to our project, especially as we move forward in the refinement of our new school design.

Please respond so we can test this.


Thank You, Anna 8)


Our new website launched at http://www.TECC-Alaska.org

Kirby adds: Bio Blurb (seems pretty easy to add stuff)

Here's an example Python module that's both a lesson plan (adapted from a New Mexico project) and runnable code.

Accentuate the Positive

Bucky often hearkened back to some popular tune of his day, when explaining his effectiveness (way beyond just moralizing, pronouncing judgments), his craft, involving trim-tabbing and such.

Inventiveness within language, coming up with a deliberately remote vocabulary, was a big part of it for him. While he (sometimes quietly) conceded when the competition had bested him, he at least kept a few words for himself: like spin.

What Bucky meant by "spin" is closer to what is today meant by "spin doctor" i.e. someone who imparts meaning in some sly and precessional way (that's Bucky's meaning of precessional).

Or maybe it just looks sly (crooked, weird) to more straight-ahead types. But for Bucky it was "deliberately non-straight" and in that sense perfectly natural (how nature does business).

Recent Chemistry

from Synergeo

We've had some buzz on the Bucky lists thanks to UCLA's announcement of another icosahedral microarchitecture, similar to the viral sheath, reminiscent of buckminsterfullerene. However, rather than stir up the Bucky talk again (like there's already that play), these science writers have found safe passage through Epcot and its signature Spaceship Earth:

Yeates and his colleagues have identified the proteins that play the critical role in how the structure folds in the carboxysome, a protein shell that is the best-known and most-studied microcompartment. The shell has a structure like a soccer ball or the large, iconic dome structure at the Walt Disney World's Epcot Center. [source]

So then dharmraj aka John Mac Cosham, active on Synergeo, whipped out the above, using some Canadian software to output a virtual world file, downloaded and rendered in my FluxPlayer plugin in FireFox for this screen shot.

These are the kinds of college level skills we're hoping to foment in some of the college prep charters our various vendors supply, including 4D Solutions.

Programming Unglued

Some who started their careers in the days of punch cards, think of programs and data as one stack of cards, data after program, all queuing as jobs for the CPU, printed output to follow. That was their paradigm, for then and for now.

Then came the command line or shell, interactive dialog. Workbench and toolbox metaphors predominated. UNIX a smash, ran for cash, until GNU gave us all free bash.

These alternative conceptions of "programming" (queuing lengthy "self sufficient" programs vs. enriching a namespace with tools) come to bear as we move on from just calculators, and really start using technology in the classroom, for real this time, not just Zoombinis (cool games).

In math world, we're used to little snippets, dense thickets, all floating in a haze of discursive prose. Functions abutt sigma notation. Diagrams obtrude (graphics). The vista is fragmented.

MathCad and Mathematica have done wonders to acclimate pro math users to the interactive and/or spreadsheet environment. On the other hand, both of these successful commercial products are themselves "big code" in the sense of reams of source all glued together by a mouse-and-keyboard event driven framework.

The user is "in" a game-like environment, just like "in" a Python shell (i.e. something is running, an interpreter we call it).

Python's modular format brings both worlds together: big iron executables; a more loose fitting, seat of your pants, command line experience. Programming is like typing, like novelists and journalists experience. Except your machine talks back to you, and you're allowed to actually tell people that it does.

Functions are like fish in the tank, with mouth-like parenthetical syntax, just waiting for arguments. Python's own math module is a great example: the trig functions just sit there, waiting to be fed. And you feed them through parentheses, even if there's a GUI at some desktop level.

( click for larger view )

Big code runs in the background, but you also want that responsive interface in the foreground, a sense of driving, even if the steering wheel isn't connected to anything, that Fisher-Price like experience, kinda Stephen King like in some contexts (disconcerting).

In Python, that need for "glue" to bring it all together is typically expressed in the form of a testing regimen at the end of the module. If this code is actually being run as a main process (if __name__ == '__main__'), versus imported for random accessing from outside, then fire up a whole lot of tests, giving every feature of this module a miniature workout. Show what it'll do.

In sum, the in vogue eXtreme Programming "test as you go" techniques -- already satisfying to mathematicians because like proving up from axioms -- fit well with the more interactive, unglued aesthetic, wherein you don't necessarily want an obtrusive framework, making you pick from menus for everything, pestering you with questions, prompts or whatever.

Sometimes entering "just do it" is the most direct way.

New Entries

"clever disguise"

"2nd line: not centered, indented"

"cool hook"

Evening TV

Last night I dove into Lost mid-episode, having missed the previous (queued), while trying to eyeball an O'Reilly book on my laptop in Safari about the Linux kernel, trying to get some bang for my buck (I pay a subscription) -- all mildly disorienting. Kate always gets my attention though, plus all these intense others. Lost is quite riveting. We hope Sayid is OK.

Earlier we were attuned to the news (CBS). This election season is being plenty interesting. Like there's Kosovo all of a sudden, right on cue it seems, complete with a carefully staged rampage in Belgrade, go figure.

The chatter on the radio is about how we're back on track for an Academy Awards worth remembering. Hollywood is in a much better mood these days, what with the writers' strike being over.

The job of an operating system is to schedule the use of resources in an intelligent way, so that hardware, a scarce resource, though quite typically ample if well managed, is put to good use.

Processes get the illusion of having the computer all to themselves (within a process are threads), but in the multi-tasking paradigm, concurrency is more the fiction than the reality.

However, this was about an older version of the kernel on younger architectures, as true multi-processing has become normative in many computing environments, as we might say in modern geek (one of them "yawner talks" as we might say in hillbilly (a focus of Simpsons on Fox 49, an episode wherein Lisa helps the Spuckler kids become more urbane)).

US 193

:: artist's conception ::

Early press reports suggest the eclipse-night missile firing might have saved our bacon here in Portland, given the wayward spy sat's rapidly decaying trajectory.

Lots of journalists were saying how NASA needed to get its act off the stage, or risk taking a bullet, but now with the shuttle safe on the tarmac... it was show time at last!

Or did the projectile just clip off a rabbit ear? Hard to tell from this distance.

The Pentagon is doing some fancy signature analysis to see if the toxic payload of (N₂H4)_n leaves spectral traces in space, which'd be more like proof positive. Other agencies, observatories, have their eyes pointed skyward as well, checking for fallout.

In the meantime, I'm giving the navy my vote of confidence by walking outdoors, on a cold bright sunny day in late winter. Portland is beautiful this time of year. Last night's lunar eclipse was grand.

That being said, I was somewhat dismayed to learn that none of this recent rocket science counts as "already paid for" by the Star Wars initiative, as that was about building an anti-ballistic missile system (ABM), whereas this anti-satellite stuff (ASAT) is a whole different ballgame and required lots of last minute modifications.

Getting into this new business of shooting down friendly but out of control satellites, keeping humans safe from their toxic payloads, will cost a lot extra, the navy has been very emphatic about that.

Portlanders should be easy to persuade, in light of what's just been averted.

"moment of impact"
(click for larger view)

Py3K

Py3k + IDLE, checked out via svn, running on Ubuntu

Py3K was in some ways named in spoof of Y2K, which sounded dated as soon as it was over. Python 3000, on the other hand, would at least stay in the headlights a lot longer.

But in practice, the jump alluded to is not measured in solar years. Instead, it's a break point in the Python language's development, accomplished with a lot of smooth maneuvers, including a 2to3 converter (runnable in 2.5).

Yes, I see why apply was taken out. Instead of going apply(f,(1,2)) we just go f (*(1,2)) i.e. the asterisk unpacks the contents, makes 'em two arguments.

And no, and I won't miss reduce either, and so far no sign little lambda is going away (I bet Mary is really happy about that).

We're going to think in a more organized way about bytes and strings, by making these the two principal encoding types. In string world, we default to Unicode, but that's really a complicated standard, so utf-8 is more like it (not complaining -- as a user of Latin-1, I'm already privileged).

Making print a function: yeah, seems like the right idea. Guido is good at this stuff. I'll reserve comment on some of the more esoteric innovations, until some more opportune time.

Were I to start teaching new Pythoneers tomorrow, I'd stay with production 2.5.x, as learning core Python means learning core concepts, and these only get reinforced, not abandoned, i.e. one's comfort level only increases with future versions. In other words, learning 2.5 today means you still have 2.6 and 3.x to look forward to, and that's a good thing.

We've added another Ubuntu laptop to the family, given the Sony had to go off to meetings in Philly. True, Sims 2 doesn't easily run on this distro (right?), but Lost at abc.com certainly does.

Background reading:
Re: minimalist vs. maximalist spectrum (Feb 18)

More Rocket Science

Yeah, the Russians are right, there's an ASAT aspect to this USA-193 story, and the military'd rather have kept the whole op covert, rather than make a public spectacle of itself.

But this is an election year, and a leap year, and the public wants a reality check. Just what have we been paying for with all this Star Wars stuff since Reagan? Now is a chance to find out. And given it's not so clear why we fight, in the old fashioned way, old conventions about cover-ups have evaporated. Too many privatized civilian agencies, ready to blow the whistle -- and so it's official news then, can't have it both ways.

Indeed, it's spun as not so hopelessly staged, like one of those test shots from Vandenburg, but as still with plenty of variables (almost realistic): an expensive piece of equipment, lost in a risky game of chance, is plummeting towards Earth filled with toxic fuel, no predicting where it'll hit (Moscow? London?). Hollywood couldn't have done it better, and I'm not saying I don't believe it, even if Britney doesn't.

Whereas the old Pentagon might've just said "fuck 'em" (and what else could they say? -- no sense running around like Chicken Little, setting off a public panic), the new Pentagon has to put some walk behind its talk and actually try and shoot the sucker (because sometimes stray sats need to be shot?), or else fess up that rocket science is still pretty darned hard to get right (we knew that already). At least there's a window for more than one shot (80%, the declassified figure, is hardly for sure).

Also, in my view, orbiting space junk full of poison / toxic stuff is already a "weapon in space" so it's not a matter of if / when. Another victory for military intelligence, to have that thing out there, being evil. Or does Hubble have that same 'zine stuff inside? I like Hubble. Time to go Google and bone up on "sat guts" (satellite anatomy). I'll see some of you out there.

Oh, and put a self-destruct feature in next time guys (we've all seen those movies) -- not really spies are ya, or you'd've thought of that (or did the failsafe break this time? Malesh).

Pythonic Art

Various graphic designers have been putting forward some alternative designs for a EuroPython logo.

Above, some examples.

Below: what Pycon USA is using these days.

The Holy Mountain (movie review)

This movie gets attention for the meta story behind it, appropriate given the finish, wherein Jodorowsky tries to frame the frame, an exercise in self-consciousness for the viewer, who by this time may be fairly drawn in.

According to this back story, which adds to its mystique, this Mexican film (1973) was suppressed for the longest time (to avoid scandal), and is still almost impossible to find. Anyway, isn't the collective unconscious supposed to be suppressed? -- that's what makes it unconscious after all.

Our protagonist is engaged in a quest for enlightenment, also billed as a search for immortality. He struggles to escape identification with Jesus, difficult given his crucified appearance (which tourists appreciate), yet he remains within the alchemical tradition, wherein even excrement (raw film) might be turned into gold (through smart editing and enlightened commentary).

In the alchemist's lab, each avatar on the team gets to explain his or her planet.

On Venus, our Don Juan type makes the accouterments of love, while on Mars it's all about weapons (naturally). There's a police state planet, with eternal executions and mowings-down, and a another planet (different from Mars) devoted to the manufacture of war toys for kids, always carefully crafted with the next enemy in mind (Peru in this case). On the architecture planet (Pluto) we find some foreshadowing of those Japanese capsule hotels.

One could choose to look at all this as an acting troupe, director-alchemist included, in the process of bonding, getting comfortable emoting and disrobing together, clowning around for the benefit of an observer-voyeur -- fun stuff to look back on at the end of the day. Others see it as a "spoof of religion" and indeed the wisdom clichés get thickly applied, like too much makeup.

Pacific Shift

Tests on 500 trailers, finally begun last month, are being performed by CDC, the lawmakers noted. "The Committee is concerned about the independence and scientific integrity of any indoor air testing for formaldehyde levels in these trailers done under the auspices of FEMA," Miller and Samson wrote.

"For those who are too poor to live elsewhere, FEMA's position remains as it was in 2006: there are no possible adverse health effects that can't be cured by opening the windows," they added.

[Lawmakers Fault FEMA on Trailers, Washington Post, January 29, 2008; Page A03]

Perhaps the silver lining to this story is it has become obvious to even casual observers that Washington DC is paralyzed when it comes to taking meaningful action in the face of emergencies, either domestically or overseas.

DC is no more than a sandbox for puffed up bureaucrats, powerless and ineffective, playing blame games with Congress. Brain dead self-described "strategists" manage a killing machine in Iraq, with no clue as to why they're there or what their real mission is (big ideas anyone?).

This is all very helpful to our economy out west, when it comes to attracting investment and new talent, as it reinforces what we've been saying all along: the east coast is for losers (an exaggeration of course, but then advertising is supposed to be pithy).

More Grid Talk

[me commenting on a 2006 blog post by journalist William Shepherd]

Interesting post. The argument about insurgents seems off base as we already have plenty of long line transmission where that's not really a problem. Generally insurgents want to make a political point, want the PR, and have other more visible ways to attack than to head for Alaska or Siberia. When was the last time the Alaska pipeline was blown up?

The idea that we get plenty of energy is more compelling, and will be the strategy of smaller communities. However, huge urban areas often snarf so much Kwh that the only realistic way to provide is by importing from a long distance away. Hauling coal by locomotive is a chief way of doing that today. Economies of scale should be compared, apples with apples.

Would the Siberia connection make it more affordable to power Calgary or Detroit? These are the kinds of questions (some of them already answered in the minds of the author's "monopolists" I suspect, given recent patterns of investment).

I like the point about the war with Iraq not really being about oil, but the spread of western banking. I wouldn't call that initiative "victorious" at this point however. It's more of a blending that's going on, like a Vulcan mind meld. Telling "east" from "west" is becoming increasingly difficult and those who over-indulge in such talk brand themselves as children of the 20th century (Fuller was more from the 21st).

Wanderers 2008.1.30

David and I met for lunch over Thai food, with me getting an update on his company's decision process and visualization tools.

Consider a science fair. One may be hard pressed to find even a single judge who has compared a given pair of projects (A,B), given the comparison matrix increases as a 2nd power of the number of projects. Flooding the scene with judges means too little overview on the part of each judge and/or contestants overtaxed with too many interviews.

However, even with a sane number of judges, chances are very good of finding multiple cases wherein two judges have a 3rd project in common, i.e. the pairs (A,X) and (B,X) both occur for multiple Xs. The differences (A-X)-(B-X) give a sense of (A-B), the comparison we wanted to make. Collating all such instances may net significant new information, which David's latest prototype is good at extracting.

More Quaker Politics

I realized in my meeting with Gordon today, at Jim and Patty's for coffee and tea, that I don't need to disturb the peace among Quakers just because I think I'm some kind of futurist (and hey, so does The Oregonian -- with two articles in back issues, featuring me predicting "hypertext kiosks" in one, more global grid action in the other).

There's a whole spectrum to accommodate and if the goal is to be free of encumbering and unnecessary bling, then there should be a flavor of Quakerism that fits.

In a kind of Sims 2 cartoon, I think of our own Kathy Hyzy in the MMM library, talking about diversity among Friends. We treasure diversity, even as a relatively small liberal group, which makes us all that much more impressive. My Quakers on YouTube distillation, which I shared with Gordon by iPod, gives some sense of our multifaceted shape.

On the other hand, I think the AFSC, the action arm of Friends, should be more willing to embrace the future, in the name of staying effective, using the available tools. Lots of non-Qs in AFSC, by design, so making AFSC higher tech does not necessarily imply Qs are all on the same page, with regard to technology (lots of diversity, lots of experimental approaches -- our F&P not set in stone, even within just NPYM).

My thanks to Gordon, another geek, and others I've been in dialog with recently, for helping me get more clarity on my potential role. Also, having met with AFSC a few times recently, I'm not too worried. Staff was teaching me stuff about Facebook I didn't know, not vice versa. Where AFSC is concerned, I'm on the receiving end of a lot of good teachings and I kind of like it that way (humbling). Keep up the good work ya'll.

Speaking of The Oregonian: Opus quite funny today (high tech a concern), Dilbert too.

PowWow @ Peet's

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Today was a lot about [feeding Naga] the Tetrakaidecahedron.

Now you may rightly raise your eyebrows, a lot of you, as you're thinking which one?

Do I mean Kelvin's Cell? Or are we talking the one that BCCs with the squashed dodecahedron?

Heck, even the cuboctahedron is a tetrakaideca, given the latter simply means 14 (perhaps your age even now?). Funny bumper sticker: Heck is for people who don't believe in Gosh (OK, only kinda funny).

See Synergeo 37796-97 for more on this tetrakaideca business (or go Google?).

My thanks to Glenn Stockton for bringing a copy of The Parsimonious Universe to the table -- reminds me of my Hargittai volume snapshot, also @ Peet's (Nick also present today, so some talk of Stallings).

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Greek Polytheism

I think a better way to teach Greek mythology to today's high schoolers might be to use the analogy of a mixing board and/or a multi-track editing system.

Each god or goddess gets a track, and it's a matter of compensating, perhaps overcompensating, swinging the pendulum back, continuing to accommodate what Neoplatonists later called the Holy Spirit, or just Spirit if you didn't see the need for a qualifier.

Many philosophers like to say Zeitgeist instead, given their Germanic heritage and/or distrust of people who say "holy" for a living (an old "stones & glass houses" story, still plagues Old Europe).

Then you had these cults around each deity, basically ad agencies, PR firms, think tanks. On the ground, there'd be a war, like with the Trojans or something, Persians whatever.

Outward wars tend to be sick and twisted by definition according to my own Quaker F&P, so what's called for is therapy, and physicians with a sense of social responsibility.

You figure out what remix will maybe help restore peace and prosperity and lead to happier, more liberating pursuits and co-venturing.

In a modern context, for me, that'd mean more Athena and less idiocy, like I've been in this cult of Athena for some time now, duh. We have a longstanding alliance with the cult of Apollo, lots of other details I could go into, but why let the competition in on our secrets right?

New Toyz

my kit

A gnu math teaching suggestion:

After pouring out your cube into three tetrahedra, and before losing focus on your cube, quick switch to another cube model and demonstrate our 24-MITE dissection (perhaps with CubeIt! or maybe with something homemade) i.e. nail it right there, before proceeding to your octahedron or other basic shape.

Sounds like a (lesson) plan.

And don't forget the Coupler while you're at it? Lots of ways to go, per hypertoons.

Anyway, let's keep those suggestions flowing. I'll be incorporating some of them, but hey, don't wait for me to hog all the fun.

my studio
(click for larger view)

Friends of Jung

I joined a throng of strangers, plus a Wanderer friend, to find out what J. Pittman McGehee had to say on the subject of love.

I'd always been curious about Oregon Friends of Jung, having grown up a Freudian of sorts, a focus in 8th grade (his Interpretation of Dreams in the school library), then Chaim Potok's The Chosen was fun, Woody Allen movies, later shifting gears though.

Anyway, I thought this guy did significant work, wielding those three Greek roots eros, philia and agape, mixed with more modern taxonomy ala DSM-IV and with more than a dash of mainline Protestant or Christian or whatever that was (big cross behind him, in a Methodist church -- no way to escape it and besides he embraces his religious credentials).

His value system grated against mine somewhat, but hey, it's not like he's my father or anything.

Although he had a structure to his talk, you could tell he was exploring, learning, discovering more about himself. Bottom line: compassion for self (among others) is critically important.

I'd gladly attend some of these other lectures I see scheduled, though not at the expense of missing my own workouts (it's one thing to watch other people work out -- I don't allow myself to just play a spectator role).

And speaking of workouts...

Show & Tell

I produced this "metoob" mostly as a test of some new equipment, in particular the QuickCam Pro 9000 by Logitech, with Carl Zeiss optics. I'm feeling OK about the investment.

That's CubeIt! from the Huntar Company, mine from Math 'n Stuff, and Barrel Tower by Kenneth Snelson. Ed (E.J. Applewhite) was also my friend.

I rolled over my regular glasses in my sleep last night, snapped a temple (since fixed), hence the sunglasses. I make no excuse for the hat (I've tagged this with "Quakers" among other labels).

Polymorphic XP

"Polymorphic" is a fancy way of referring the the multi-valence of words, including some acronyms and abbreviations. XP in Windows XP is maybe not the same XP as in eXtreme Programming. Or is it? Maybe we'll never know for sure.

In any case, eXtreme Programming (XP) refers to an evolving discipline (new discoveries every day) aimed at increasing programmer productivity. The Hollywood stereotype of free caffeine-stoked beverages in a cooler, offices conducive to overtime, aren't necessarily up to date regarding the latest practices around pair programming or multitasking.

My XRL is a cross between XP and URL, with a hint of eXtreme roller coasters, like Matt and I patronized that time at Six Flags, about 40 miles north of LA on I-5 (drove by it again just the other day, quite a sight even from the freeway).

XRL might also get decoded as "eXtremely Remote Location" instead of "L for Livingry" (in the sense of "gear," and set opposite "killingry" in Bucky Fuller's lexicon).

Recruiting for XRLs

An XRL is an eXtremely Remote Livingry situation, perhaps in some windswept high desert, complete with electric ATVs and training in the safe handling of rattle snakes (Glenn knows a lot about such things).

Those tracking my Winterhaven chapter recall my big push around Celestia and Stellarium, also features in some of my Saturday Academy classes.

These OMSI-like astrolabe and planetarium type tools help orient campers (e.g. BarCampers) vis-a-vis their local galactic space-time situation, which all seems more sensible when not trapped under a big city's light pollution dome. "Are city folk more self-absorbed because they can't see the stars at night?" some ask.

In any case, XRLs often feature HDTV and plenty of bandwidth. Hooking a laptop to the dome's AV system shouldn't be problematic.

Given the setting, it's more your Bob McGown and Allen Taylor types we need to "abduct," as you need that "forest ranger" or "tour guide" tier, able to interpret what's on screen, in terms of what's outside, and vice versa.

Amateur astronomers have an edge, in other words, when it comes to filling some of those key staff positions -- even better if your astronomy skills dovetail with your navigation skills in some way. Plus it helps to know what to eat or not eat, other kinds of awareness, in terms of a given terrain, ala Cascadia Wild.

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Launching the Mother Ship

Tonight Multnomah Friends celebrated a job well done in their newly remodeled facility.

Janet and I reminisced about the old lighting fixtures (as kids, we had plenty of time to stare at the ceiling).

Shortly after I got there, archivist Carl Abbott gave a quick synopsis of the building's history, including the Doug Strain chapter, which ended around 1963 on the stipulation that the AFSC have offices in the new Meetinghouse as long as it wished.

Fittingly, Marco was present, kids in tow, from the local office.

Lots of appreciation was expressed for the architect, by all accounts a very talented woman, and for the site supervisor, who learned a lot on the job, and for the couple who acquired the "house next door" allowing Friends to walk their talk by recycling, rather than wasting, an entire residence, by moving it some ten blocks away.

Excerpted below, an invitation from me to Wanderers, in recognition of the historic overlap in our respective trajectories.

Yo Wanderers!

There's already been some cross-fertilization twixt Ws (Wanderers) and Qs (Quakers) thanks to many historical and contemporary exigencies.

In case any of you are curious to see the inside of the newly remodeled Stark Street facility, which used to belong to Doug Strain's company before the zoning rules changed, there's an open house this evening from 5pm to 9:30pm, a potluck.

Nancy Ankorn and Don Wardwell joined me in their wandering capacity. Mark Allen sat with us and shared about his adventures in clothes-making and, more recently, welding.

weekly announcement bulletin
Jan 6, 2008

Pythonic Algebra

The above screen snippet shows two algebraic functions, everyday inhabitants of classroom textbooks, getting wrapped by some Pythonic OO thing such that we're subsequently able to compose these functions using the multiplication operator, at no extra cost to administrators (Python is free).

That's how group theorists want us to think of functions, or permutations, as elements you might chain together by means of a binary operation variously called composition or multiplication.

f(g(x)) and g(f(x)) are respective synonyms for (f*g)(x) and (g*f)(x).

Does commutativity pertain? That depends on the group, if it is a group. Maybe it's a ring too.

Welcome to high school algebra.

The wrapping Function class, shown below, overloads both __mul__ and __call__. We don't just want to compose them, we want to pass them arguments (food) and have them do work (expend energy).

click for larger view

Related thread on math-thinking-l.

More Family Album

:: glenn stockton, cousin alice ::

:: himalayan xmas ::

:: xmas in so-cal ::

:: bumper stickers ::

Other News Blips

News of Iranian swift boats feinting attacks against imperial armor in the Straits of Hormuz, has percolated to the surface just in time to promote Spartans in Darkness, a new history of the NSA based on recently declassified signals intelligence. Parallels with the Gulf of Tonkin hoax may be overdrawn however (history doesn't actually repeat, according to Heraclitus).

The CIA story seems to have fizzled, with some so-called experts saying the CIA should sit at the feet of the Brits and Israelis when it comes to learning how to torture people and lie about it -- all pretty Banana Republic if you ask me (hey, just ask Sayid).

I agree with Katherine Heigl: "leave her alone" (re Britney). How about we focus on Kenya instead? Or Sri Lanka.

Silicon Forest News

:: an XO atop my Ubuntu Dell laptop ::

We made it back from LA just in time, as winter storms closed around us in the following days. We're hunkering down, telecommuting between power flickers, UPSs often called upon.

I was somewhat amused that when Intel announced it was peeling off from the OLPC project, it was my phone that started ringing (I'm sure others' did too). I'm not all that surprised though, as OLPC has figured in my writings and slide presentations for some time now, plus I even quit an important Fuller Schooler committee to make time for this work (staying friends with the chairman though, plus now I'm back on committee, as the OLPC work is mostly done).

Somewhere between "Quaker animism" (me) and "Pierce's existentialism" (Terry), I inserted a reassuring write-up for Wanderers (#1954). The campaign to get an Intel Inside logo pasted on some flavors of XO was more of a marketing gimmick than anything, to draw attention to some smokin' new chips we're all looking forward to (yum, new Intel chips).

But the default AMD chip is working just fine from the point of view of our clients. Plus Intel has every freedom to inject its own offerings in the market (Classmates or whatever). The XO is highly specialized, customized for a niche demographic, which leaves the field wide open to other $100 laptops (closer to $200 as of this posting).

From my vantage point in Python Nation, the XO is a robust little platform stuffed with goodies: lots of literature, lots of programs, lots of pointers back to MIT and its infamous OpenCourseWare, and back to Hollywood, where G1G1 helped with many a fun party.

"What's important to sales is sales people who really believe in what they're selling" goes the old maxim, and there's lots to like in this picture.

Data Display Tool

That's a rough estimate of my mileages using a new API from Google, thanks to Guido for the heads up. This'll be a good way to teach about paramater passing via URL.