More Curriculum Cartoons

Birth of C60

Atom Self Constructs

Assembling Audrey I...

All of the above are by sculptor, photographer, and computer animator Kenneth Snelson, who gives his atoms a consistent look and feel based on his Portrait of an Atom.

Xrefs: [1][2][3][4]

Wanderers 2008.7.8

:: duane in action ::

Duane Ray is using us as a kind of focus group to test his mainstream science presentation about the Big Bang (he's a creationist in that sense, not one of the eternally regenerative crowd). Wanderers is good for this, helps people refine their spiels.

In brief: photons are important, yield up the spectra: we and stars share a common set of constituents, quarks & leptons, denizens of a primordial soup (mixed in with the dark stuff), which gave rise to these bigger masses, atoms, planets and stars.

He's being quite animated, giving me ideas for cartoon characters.

"Iodine, uranium... hydrogen, helium...," a separation into layers with heavier stuff towards the center, hard planets, within the first couple billion years, bringing us up to date (between 13 and 14 billion years into it -- 13.7 to be more exact).

Meanwhile the rate of universe expansion is continuing to speed up (we just figured that out, based on supernovae).

Black holes behave like garbage collectors, but evaporate nonetheless (takes awhile), giving us this closer to zero heat death of the universe.

There's no connecting the ending to the beginning in this cosmology -- more of a linear one-off, nothing much to compare it with. Dark matter (23%), dark energy (73%), atoms (4%)...

Editorial interjection: given the standard Big Bang story doesn't explain the dark stuff, it's probably premature to suggest we have a working model or theory here, but that shouldn't dampen our enthusiasm for cosmology, which doesn't depend on always having a coherent explanation for everything -- maybe in a couple of years? Data acquisition proceeds apace.

I just got an email back from Kenneth Snelson, woo hoo (count me a fan).

"subway map"

Touring Facilities

Today Elise and I joined management for a tour of the hard hat area, casino extension project.

Congratulations to Alexia on finding and adopting Izzy.

Carol and Julie are exploring their heritage at Seattle Center.

We'll probably stop at Math 'n Stuff on the way back to Portland. Apropos of that I published some more discussion of 6174, sparking a series of replies, including from Tim Peters woo hoo.

me at Cama Beach

EPCOT Makeover?

I think everyone agrees the Kodak Pavilion is like a joke, except for the octet truss superstructure, in showcasing very ho hum ideas about the future, kind of like GM did (North America: home of the dinosaurs, like Jurassic Park on steroids).

So it's not like Americans are interested in creating good family wage jobs right now, given pessimism is so in vogue, but were they wishing to do so, a revamp of Epcot is long overdue. First: set it back to an acronym, EPCOT, like Disney intended. Second: avail of all that NASA type talent, that migrated to The Mouse after Apollo.

North Americans are good at showcasing future alternatives, getting feedback from focus groups, and that includes futuristic lifestyles using such as EcoMotion mobiles, FEDs, other newfangled toyz. Unlike Hollywood, we don't require suspension of disbelief at every turn. We may not have Santa hammered out yet, but we do make real motor cars (electric motors included).

Remember, Control Room had it first (we rock over here).

Get Smart (movie review)

This was a pure nostalgia trip in some ways, back to 1960s motifs and a battle with a mythical Moscow and environs (talk about eye candy!).

The allusions are contemporary though, given the president is so into Goodnight Moon, meaning the vice president "knows our business" as Tenet avers, which is why he gets in on those knock-down drag out meetings with Alan Arkin.

Bill Murray (agent 13) plays a "Man X" type, always available for those clandestine meetings on the Mall, with DC also looking resplendently gorgeous in the limelight.

Although Control is not and never has been the CIA, is one of those sixteen or so other agencies under the DNI (not cast) there's still that trademarked DO versus DI tension (ops versus analysis), with Maxwell hoping to make the grade and join the fun in the field, with agents 23 and 99 (a former couple) serving as role models. His background in "chatter" makes him an asset to the team.

Yes, the plot takes predictable turns, but the point of a movie like this is to follow formulae, to remind us of templates, even archetypes on occasion.

I found myself mildly amused, plus Kim & Jimmy were enormously generous, sharing popcorn, Red Vines, even a mini pizza! Plus Tara gave me some of her pretzel. Lots of calories! Not to worry though: I'm still getting smarter.

Surfing the News

SpaceWeather.com

Nuclear.Ru

BarentsObserver.com

Newsday.com

Canada.com

Nomenclature

excerpt from a censored reply

I've been debating with math teachers whether it's OK to describe al-Khwarizmi, the man for whom our word "algorithm" is derived, as "Iraqi" in some of our lesson plans.

Of course the modern state of Iraq didn't exist in the 800s, but on the other hand you'll find people referring to Fibonacci (1170 - 1250) who studied al-Khwarizmi's writings (among others), as "Italian" whereas Italy-the-nation didn't come into being, as the Kingdom of Italy, until sometime in the mid 1800s.

My opponents in this debate prefer saying al-Khwarizmi was "Persian", more closely associated with the modern state of Iran in their minds, regardless of the fact that his career as a mathematician took him to Baghdad, where he joined the House of Wisdom. He may even have been born near Baghdad, the record is somewhat in dispute.

Be that as it may, I think if we look at nation-states like zip code areas, tiling most land masses, then it makes sense to use adjectives like "Iraqi", "Italian", "French" etc. as a convenience, to indicate a specific geographic region, but with the qualifier that we're not necessarily talking about citizenship.

Citizenship isn't about where you live in any case, as people routinely hold citizenship in one country while living in another. Obviously al-Khwarizmi didn't have an Iraqi passport, but then neither did Fibonacci have an Italian passport.

I'd enjoy this debate more if my side weren't being censored by the moderator, but that's life on math-teach (Math Forum, Drexel University, Texas Instruments a sponsor).

Teaching without Preaching

from CBS Evening News, June 24, 2008

The curriculum discussed in the above video looks a lot more like what I got in high school, at the International School in Manila (Class of 1976).

We studied world religions quite religiously, not with an intent to recruit newbies, but so as to better understand and appreciate the world in which we live, an important aspect of education, I think many would presume.

Some of the religions we studied are no longer practiced, or may persist only in exotic niche areas.

A more informed discussion of world religions also serves as an ice breaker when it comes to philosophy, as fluency with philosophical concepts improves our ability to comprehend and communicate certain aspects of mathematics, in part by providing more context, an historical and/or anthropological dimension.

When I got to Princeton (Class of 1980), my philosophical interests took me back into the religion department, where some of the best thinking around Wittgenstein was happening (both departments shared 1879 Hall, since my day much expanded).

Sometimes it's hard to police the border between religion and psychology as well, as disciplines like zen tend to pop up on either side willy-nilly. Keeping the mind flowing and flexible, not logjammed with bogus concepts ("cruft"), is considered an important aspect of many spiritual disciplines.

Day in the Sun

:: from page 2 of 2 ::

Here's a more thoughtful review of Fuller's stellar career, posing the question whether his image might be rehabilitated, after all those "failures" and subsequent dismissal as some kind of crackpot by "peers in mathematics, cartography and other disciplines he had challenged."

I'd pose the reverse of that question: how might we rehabilitate the image of those who've been doing all this irresponsible dismissing of Fuller as "incomprehensible"? I'm not sure that's a priority right now.

The article is bold in daring to use the word "tetrahedron", generally considered too high brow a word for journalistic accounts, even in the Herald Tribune. Maybe we're actually getting somewhere in the numeracy department?

The analysis concludes that Fuller's contributions are likely to find a more appreciative and receptive crew in the 21st century, now that we're starting to catch up with the guy:

At a time when design and artistic practice is increasingly collaborative, open-ended and fluid, Fuller looks a lot less nutty, and more purposeful. So do his emphasis on concept, rather than the finished product, and his capacity to embrace failure as a learning experience and a step toward success. "You only succeed when you stop failing" was a favorite motto. "It is amazing that Bucky gets his day in the sun at the Whitney," said Cameron Sinclair. "Part-genius, part-altruistic-visionary - what's not to admire?"

My thanks to Bob McGown for the bucket below, something he scrounged for its "allusionary value". For me, it connects to that empty canister of Tefzel in my 2005 Wanderers presentation on Bucky Works, J. Baldwin yakking about pillow domes.

The Happening (movie review)

A couple of curious young people talked me into this R-for-horror American Gothic, like a bedside novel (not an expensive budget buster, only good if the acting is, and the make up), then text messaged me when it got too scary (they'd hopped to a different venue) but I wasn't consulting my phone, so thanks for letting me know eventually (we caught up later), so yes, I watched it through to the end (a lot like the start, by design).

So is there anything psycho-therapeutic about the genre, let alone this specific film? Not really a fair question, as within the genre we have apples and oranges, just like in any other genre.

This one had some good advice: don't be all macho-ornery around shut-ins, other isolated folk, especially in the Northeast (but I'd say anywhere). They're alone for a reason. The silly young boys just wouldn't listen, or at least one of them didn't.

The main teaching: nature's power includes psychic storms, not just outward stuff. We sound stupid even to ourselves, trying to explain them, otherwise counter them. The science teacher did his level best to think it through though, and we admire him for trying.

The running joke in this film was trying to plug "air holes" in drafty houses, drafty vehicles -- reminiscent of people putting tape on their windows, officially crazy, but what can you do? So entirely hopeless, these counter-measures, because nature is within.

Granny's theory, about one always chasing, seemed somewhat profound, but in other ways she didn't behave like an elder. Blame the bees, blame the flowers. A lot like War of the Worlds in some ways (but not a blockbuster), also reminiscent of a more light hearted art project (a stunt) at Grand Central that time, but more horrifying (duh).

New Thought

One usually hears "New Thought" with reference to a series of evolutionary events in the recent history of contemporary religions. The Unity Church network, related but different from Unitarianism, has served as an avatar of this movement.

A related meaning would be a more literal "new way of thinking" brought on by technological change. In his provocatively titled Is Google Making Us Stoopid? Nicholas Carr suggests something obvious: that the Internet is changing the way we think. We think differently. Dr. Vannevar Bush predicted as much in the 1940s (given this is Atlantic Monthly, avoiding all mention of MEMEX is part of the fun (or did I scan too quickly?)).

He calls this a "crazy quilt" and I can see why, but then so much of what we had before was maddeningly slow and plodding, formulaic. Once you've read that paragraph about clocks changing our sense of time a few times, it reduces to an ideogram.

So many paragraphs have appeared before, reworded slightly, but known segues nonetheless. We lose our taste for these displays of learning, as everyone seems to be purveying essentially the same product.

Google lets us sift for the new, to find what really is different. That takes work, and without competent search engines, we probably couldn't do all this work.

So let's enjoy these new freedoms, even as we go back to reading whole books now and then -- once the authors come up with new content worth a "slow reading" treatment.

That we endlessly recycle the same old ideas, hardly ever have new thoughts, is one of the disappointing truths that Google reveals.

I liked the Nietzsche-at-a-typewriter image, very Archy in some ways. How many monkeys would it take, to write a superman comic book, to screw in a light bulb?

Let's remember an important urban legend, a fable if you will: that sometimes designers purposely dumb it down (no kidding), precisely to keep humans' thinking abilities in check.

In building "search" into everyday thinking, adding to AI in this way, Google is helping the hardware to keep up with our very human (non-artificial) capabilities. Go Google!

Iron Man (movie review)

I understand why Stark Industries gets compared to Microsoft, with our Bill Gates type hero developing a conscience (a new heart) and going all soft and philanthropy minded, ready to target his own stuff if necessary. Steve Balmer (played by Jeff Bridges) tries to keep making war machines or, in the case of Microsoft, expensive stuff that breaks a lot.

The analogy breaks down however, as Microsoft has embraced OSS while keeping Windows itself behind a curtain of secrecy. That's just fine with the Linux community, which isn't interested in that code pile anyway, so a kind of detente was declared (see Microsoft 2.0 by Mary Jo Foley for more info). There's no longer any big battle for supremacy on that front.

Personally speaking, I probably won't become an Iron Man devotee as I prefer superheros to have real superpowers, not be Incredible wannabes. Give me a Buffy over a technogeek any day, or combine them (so more like Willow then), although maybe I'd consider batman an exception.

Note that no real Afghanis were harmed in the process of making this film, which was wisely shot entirely inside the USA, pure Hollywood.

Concept Car

Here's one from tomorrow's New York Times about Fuller's concept car, here depicted in front of his concept house (concept family at right).

Many post WWII Americans were ready for a peace dividend and fully expected something futuristic to happen, ala Buck Rogers. The magazines were full of such hype, with fewer capitalists actually taking the necessary risks. At least Fuller walked his talk.

Test driving, like test piloting, may be tricky. The car itself was absolved from blame after that crash, a highly unfortunate accident, but a godsend for business as usual types, who used the tragedy to bury the whole idea. Superficial stylistic "exterior decorating" would substitute for true innovation in so many corporate board rooms.

Keeping Bucky labeled "a failure" because so many of his prototypes only promised, didn't deliver (some delivered), helps keep those rising civilian expectations under control.

No peace dividend for the many, just an endlessly profitable war for the few, is what actually came about. And be warned: you'll be branded a failure if you seek a way out.

It's an inept maneuver, this anti-Bucky boycott but that's the American Look for ya, more about spin and hype than real smarts, more like Enron.

re Dymaxion Study Center exhibit
(June - September, 2008)

Storyboard

Drive with Glenn to repair shop...

... check out Dave's new Amigo engine ...

... park downtown ...

... in old town ...

... and have lunch.

PPUG 2008.6.10

I had to jump ship, skipping Wanderers this time, given job-related demands.

I need to get up to speed on various matters Pythonic, specifically Django, walking my own talk in some ways.

Curse.com is one of the largest deployed Django sites on the Internet:

We do roughly 60-90 million page views in an average month, and we have peaked at over 130 million page views [in a month] using Django. We are a very dynamic and user-centric Web site for online gamers, specifically massively multiplayer games, and are one of the largest Web sites globally for World of Warcraft. Our Web site was established in early 2005, and since late 2006 we have been expanding our reach into games beyond World of Warcraft.

More discussions with those brainy bees on Synergeo (lots about Wittgenstein) plus managed to hook up with Stallings, thanks to Consoletti's initiative.

Mom visiting offices in DC, Philadelphia.

Speaking of Wanderers, today I extended wwwanderers.org with ICANN for another two years, plus offered to relinquish my position as ISEPP technical contact per whois, give someone else a turn (twas fun while it lasted).

Terry's new server at PSU is waiting in the wings. I'm mostly focused on extra-Portland initiatives, connecting Quakers with Wanderers sometimes (Qs with Ws), just like at Pauling House HQS.

We're also taking up TurboGears this evening, wish Barton was here. Hey, maybe there's still time to crash Wanderers...

...I made it in time for Lynne's birthday cake, but missed David's robot vacuum cleaner demo (he bought it at Costco).

Quaker Economics

When Joe and Teresina Havens moved to Portland, our meeting was quick to embrace them as celebrities in residence.

Teresina was a strong player in Buddhist circles and wanted to share her experience over a series of meetings, with Joe sitting in. Dawn and I were loyal attenders at these gatherings.

Then Joe scrounged up his courage and formed his Quaker Economics circle, his intuition being that Friends had something to offer, as a Society, to this "dismal science" (as many then called it).

Friend Kenneth Boulding had pioneered something called a systems approach, along with some others. A lot of us could see the potential, and the group grew and thrived. We hailed from a variety of backgrounds; some of us were practicing economists.

Both Teresina and Joe have passed on by this time, both dying in style, making strong statements. Their good work lives on in our meetings however, in our memories. I consider both an inspiration and thank them for helping me keep attuned to my own inner leadings.

Identity Management

Relief workers see a stream of people in need, of water, of medical attention. But community services depend on a notion of persistent identity, matching individuals with programs, and tracking progress through those programs.

Ongoing medical care depends on accurate charting, whereas academics work with transcripts and portfolios. Individuals are not just snapshots in time.

To this end, field workers have ways to assist in the establishment of medical records, using Google's CCR-based approach for example, but a strong community doesn't leave identity management only to outsiders.

Record keeping is a vital internal process, whether by word or by mouth, with the extended family a typical repository of vital information on family members. The workplace is another institution for keeping tabs. Some subcultures code personal histories into their uniforms, along with rank and/or serial number.

A strong education system gives students a sense of responsibility for their own identities, what to reveal, what to conceal, which aspects to cultivate, which to retire, all based on reality checking, feedback from one's environment, but of course also based on one's heartfelt desires, intuitions, callings and/or leadings as we Quakers sometimes say.

Speaking of Quakers, we often use journaling and/or web logging to assist with our identity management tasks, going back a few centuries. This practice is in no way limited to just Friends of course, is intrinsic to bookkeeping, to public service.

Autobiography is closely related to journaling, becomes a multimedia enterprise in some cases. Biographies, authorized or not, typically use such logs and/or journals, other self chronicling work, as raw material. Historians and cultural anthropologists study collections of biographies, and so on, helping future societies benefit from sometimes hard won experience.

We all develop habits of mind. Providing students with strong individual identity management skills is part of the work of building democratic societies, wherein semi-autonomous individuals really know what it means to mind their own business, and do so responsibly.

XRL: Meeting Space

upper level

lower level

These were like back of a napkin type sketches from my meeting for business with Glenn Stockton today. We also walked to the hardware store on Division for a new flapper for my downstairs toilet tank, the one with the big rock in it.

Just to explain a bit, the "L.P." on the meeting room table means "Linus Pauling" as in "like the table we use at Linus Pauling house for Wanderers meetings" except I'm suggesting an elongated hexagon, symmetrical around the short axis (it's not pentagonal, or "coffin shaped"). I just like the Klingon motif.

The reception area forks to an L-shaped art gallery and/or hall of fame, or museum, with flatscreens on the wall, showing customized content. I put a spiral staircase and/or elevator in the far corner (depends on the ADA rating). We'd likely want another "W.C." on the upper floor in a next draft.

Viewing facilities for two different kinds of projection, "2D" and "3D" really add to the flavor and functionality of this mass producible facility. 2D is like the usual Hollywood style format, maybe 16:9, whereas 3D displays are still emergent.

Rear projection may be the best way to go in both cases -- there's an option to sell these parts separately. The design of the facility needn't dictate such choices, just as the same model of car might come with different transmission options (automatic versus manual -- Razz's is manual).

I didn't spend much time sketching the lower floor. There's a dumb waiter from the kitchen up to the meeting room (the Pauling House had that too, although it wasn't operational in our day), plus a larger dining area ("D.A"), a space for a server rack, which serves the gallery, projection and meeting rooms.

This is quite a small facility. Some will complain that the meeting room is windowless. Variants might address this "shortcoming". Sometimes you want a meeting area free of distractions though. The table top itself might include recessed displays, in a space easily darkened.

Glenn asked me about location and I said this was for the Great Slave Lake area, but that's just in the one particular storyboard.

As this unit provides no living quarters, there's the implication we have other free-standing units nearby. I don't get into those details here. There's also a totem pole outside (not shown).

The more spherical projection room (more like a "flight simulator" in providing a more "wrap-around" view) would likely be an omni-triangulated geodesic as seen from outside, or perhaps a hexapent.

The Hunter Art Museum in Chattanooga may have been an unconscious influence here, in terms of suggesting a shape and/or dramatic perch for our meeting facility.

Fun Center

Funtastic runs a pretty tight ship, come through quite often, this one off to Marysville next. In the tradition of "extreme" in amusement parks' evolution, we have two high tech gizmos by the Hawthorne bridge these days, right next to the pirate ships, "rides on steroids" by yesteryear's standards.

Last night was just perfect, in terms of no throngs. Whereas other days on the waterfront we've been mostly Latino, last night we were pretty Russian, especially on the two extremes.

Tara & Rose had decided on the sling shot, a reverse bungie jump in some ways, a carriage sent soaring some hundreds of feet vertically. They also road the more traditional swings, a favorite of Dawn's as well.

I gladly paid for the DVD version of the event, a wireless cam watching the "astronauts." People debating whether to try it get to watch the monitors for awhile, trying to gauge their own level of discomfort against the obvious thrill value. A little peer pressure helps in a pinch.

We missed a Central Friends event as a result of all this (Quaker youth in training), but I figure this counts on some level. No one said practicing nonviolence couldn't be thrilling.

American Look (movie review)

You need to go back a ways in USA corporate culture, to find much happy days futurism as a genre. The later science fiction is more Mad Max, one of Dawn's favorites, darker and edgy.

But American Look is unrelentingly upbeat, produced by Chevrolet in the late 1950s, a tribute to America's designers, or stylists as they were often then called.

The camera hovers lovingly over those mod lines we still admire today, though more as retro chachkas for Church of Elvis type palaces, with Austin Powers shag rugs.

Those perky percolators, those adorable Stepford Wives, with their modest almost ankle-length dresses (unless water skiing or sun bathing, or showing off motor vehicles). Those swoopy pencil sharpeners, those cute streamlined telephones (still rotary dial)...

Per recent anthropological studies, some teenagers were actually cultivating the more juvenile delinquent look back then, in a still hush hush rebellion of Drapes (underdogs) versus Squares (on top). Later we'd get The Beatles and all that loud music.

However, our avuncular, all-knowing narrator is undeterred by these troubling signs of a brewing culture war, and simply reminds us (again and again) how lucky we are to be (white) Americans (no Negroes in this film, nor any of their music).

Women get nodding acceptance as stylists until we get to the Inner Sanctum, where Bob appears. Bob smokes a pipe, and his team of men in black, his no nonsense yes men, are anxious to please.

They go off to make a car out of clay, a Chevrolet. They then stroke it and worship it, and when Bob reappears, he is pleased.

This is really the climax of the film, but we take awhile to wind down after that, have a cig maybe, look at those percolators some more.

man in black enters the inner sanctum
(note: authorized personnel only)

Bob sets the tone (note pipe)

Bob helps choose which future is brightest

unveiling the clay car
Bob (center, with pipe) is pleased

Animal Rights

I've been exploring my Quaker animism more, on Synergeo of late. Plus I was just over at Jimmy and Kim's, watching this documentary about Fridtjof Nansen, the Nordic explorer. His team had to kill lots of non-humans to stay alive, and sometimes felt really bad about it, "like we were committing murder" he says in his journal.

But you can't technically "murder" a non-human, right? I never got a degree in "White Man law" as some Oregonians call it, so I can't really say that I know the answer.

In any case, legal representation for animals makes plenty of sense, not necessarily as advocates of their owners (who may be part of the problem), and not necessarily as pioneers of new rights, although that is an important function of cases sometimes i.e. to set precedents.

Just get someone trained and articulate before the judge to speak on the nonhumans' behalf, not to moralize so much as to expedite reaching an equitable solution.

In other contexts, humans lavish attention and care on their pets, treat them with utmost respect. Horses in particular, get a lot of appreciation, for what they give back.

But an animal shouldn't have to be "pleasing" or "affectionate" or "a moneymaker" to deserve protection under the law, principles already established in the case of we humans (I at least know that much from my readings in Anglo jurisprudence).

Of course the logical objection to this view is "who will press charges on behalf of a non-human?" -- we don't have many rules for that.

However, in the medical profession we have the role of "advocate" in the sense of "looking out for" or "in the corner of." Often a spouse or good friend plays this role, accompanies a patient on appointments, provides coaching and oversight, helps the patient navigate the system.

I have no problem envisioning a prenuptial agreement in which the horse owner couple agrees ahead of time, that in the event of a messy divorce, the animals will have independent advocates, much as we already have from child welfare agencies.

Non-humans and children have much in common, in terms of their suffering severely abrogated civil rights, a fact many have remarked on besides me.

Prince Caspian (movie review)

Narnia has been conquered by Aguirre types (Telmarine, Taliban or whatever), complete with the right accents and swarthiness.

They treat Narnians like conquered (and feared) Aztecs or Incas (Aslan would know), and mount a Lord of the Rings style attack on this ruined Mayan Temple, its basement full of ancient iconography from the last Narnia movie.

OK, so I was in the wrong mood for a long (long!) epic battle. Good seeing Ents again, though these ones weren't talkative.

Tara thought the acting was excellent.

I thought too much leaning on the sound track and reaction close ups for effect. No real suspense or personal growth in the characters. Susan gets nowhere with her Prince. Aslan keeps wanting to make the same point.

A dreary, repetitious day dream, while waiting for the tube in machine world?

Maybe not such good storytelling from Dumbledumb this time?

So maybe I just miss my Ice Queen OK? There's more hope now that I've seen her alive again, never mind Edmund's macho fantasy of doing her in.

The website was impressive.

Selling the War

Recapping tonight's analysis, with AFSC presenting at a Quaker meetinghouse in Portland:

Most Iraqis don't actually believe those silly media stories about how they'll all begin killing one another on religious grounds, once the occupation ends. In the last twenty times an occupation has ended, that never happened (the Brits warned of it too, in the early 1900s). Things usually get better, when the wannabe back seat driver goes home.

The question most Iraqis are focused on: when will the last foreign soldier and/or privatized combatant finally quit the country? That'll be a first step towards normalizing relations.

Especially interesting to Iraqis is that all three presidential candidates seem to still harbor fantasies of permanent bases; another USA president living in a dream world, so what else is new right? Nixon's sure was surreal.

SA: ClassNotes 2008.5.17

This was the wrap up, so I tried to go back and hit most of the main points.

I also shared more geek lore, including recent gossip around OLPC (my XO made a reappearance, along with my plastic box of cardboard polyhedra).

Each student got a one page summary of our scope, plus a signed certificate.

I admittedly dwelt on the polyhedra rather a lot, looking at the 6, 4, 3, 1 volume relationships. I tend to not have much faith in my peers when it comes to sharing this basic info. Some of my Python source code files likewise reflect this peculiar obsession, a result of my training as a buckaneer.

WMBS (satire)

WMBS or optionally WBS refers to White Man's Burden Syndrome, named for the poem by Rudyard Kipling, ostensibly war propaganda to encourage the US invasion and occupation of the Philippines at the turn of the last century, although in hindsight easy to read in a sarcastic tone.

WMBS, or White Man's BS, is a psychopathology tracing to the quasi-science of Economics and the early work of Thomas Malthus to collate global assets and come up with some realistic-seeming science fiction for his day.

His results were darkly dystopian and fed a twisted, apocalyptic mindset wherein mass killings and die-offs should be welcomed as a means to raise living standards for those better off.

Here's the late Col. L. Fletcher "Man X" Prouty (USAF, retired) on this topic:

The East India Company founded Haileybury College in England to train its young employees in business, the military arts, and the special skills of religious missionaries. By 1800 it became necessary to initiate the task of making an Earth inventory, that is, to find out what was out there in the way of natural resources, population, land, and other tangible assets. The first man assigned the official responsibility for this enormously vital job was the head of the Department of Economics of Haileybury College.

This man was Thomas Malthus, who, in 1805, postulated the idea that humanity is multiplying its numbers at a geometric rate while increasing its life-support capability at only an arithemetic rate. As a result, it has been universally concluded by the power elite that only a relatively few humans are destined to survive successfully in generations to come. The Malthusian theory thus provides a rationalization for the necessity of somehow getting rid of large numbers of people, any people, in any way -- even genocide. With the Malthusian theory as the power elite's philosophical guide, this becomes an acceptable objective because, they believe, Earth will never be able to support the progeny of so many anyhow. From this point of view, genocide -- then as now -- is accepted as all but inevitable. Who cares and why be concerned?

JFK (1992)

This was the science fiction of Britain's elite managerial class, or call it dystopian futurism. As such, it's a lot like the apocalyptic visions of many Xtians, presenting with many of the same symptoms (fatalism, misanthropy, superstition).

Western civilization especially seems to have this style of thinking as a quirk, almost a hallmark.

Of course such thinking is dangerous because, as we know, prophesies have a way of being self-fulfilling, because people get used to the rhythms, believe in the music, become entranced, mesmerized by the mental imagery.

WMBS is especially endemic in North America, which partly explains why this area is so full of mentally crippled people. Children are sometimes deliberately infected by their elders with these dangerous memes in the name of "science" (a form of abuse).

We still need a DSM code for WMBS so we can bill its treatment to insurance. Obviously a lot of folk have been infected with it. More self-education is often sufficient to effect an inexpensive cure.

Econotalk

[ from PHYSOC, May 2 2008, replying to another poster ]

Seems more economics and social policy than physics but we might address this in energy terms, recognizing currencies trade against futures, in whatever commodities, gold, dollars, oil.

Relative to other currencies, the dollar has been weakening of late, as speculators rush into a different mix of holdings, not a new phenomenon. To speculate is to imagine a future, dystopian, utopian, and invest accordingly, which is all implicitly about energy channeling i.e. how to use that daily dose of solar, mixed with weather, add agriculture and fuels, in longer term programming -- quite the volatile mix, called "life" in biology, or just biomass if you don't care (did others see that story about PETA asking for in vitro meat?).

So for example Warren Buffet sees reasons why the Mars and Wrigley operations should meld, but merger is only one thing that happens. There're also spin-offs, and our Silicon Forest is full of 'em (typical event: big company CTO uses savings to spearhead new company, like that woman taking off from OLPC with her cool secrets -- Mary Lou Jepsen of Pixel Qi).

As we all know as well, oil companies are mostly repositioning, through branding and marketing, as energy companies, have several technologies to play with, but don't want to jump the gun, all shy of the beta versus vhs debacle, or hd vs blueray or whatever -- i.e. who wants to bet on what horse, is the name of the game.

I think the hard focus on hydrogen by some leading fossil fuelers was a play for time, to keep more electric at arm's length (too scarily popular per that movie Who Killed the Electric Car).

I think a key question facing whatever next president will be why is the dollar weakening, which can't be separated from that sense of direction i.e. investors want companies with a coherent story about where they're going, not just where they've been.

Trading in dollars is somewhat commensurate with a USA management class knowing what it's talking about, but then there's no monolithic mega-conspiracy I hope we all know that (many Internet lists don't, and it's tiresome). We're a lot of partially overlapping networks, if you hadn't noticed, some stronger than others, but sometimes small and nimble is what you need to be (echoing myself here...).

The office of USA president provides great overview and if there's a brain equal to the job, we'll get some good, positive results. You might read that as a dig at George W. but it ain't, not here to diss anyone this time, just acknowledge that's a tough office (I've got my own, different challenges, more private sector in flavor, though tilted towards NGO work).

The gas tax issue is something for the public to bat around in the blogs or whatever, because it's simple and easy to talk about (both pro and con). You need a selection of such "no brainers" going, just to keep people focused, when they're not doing NFL, NBA, Cartoon Network or whatever. That sounds snooty-elitist I'm sure, so let's just pretend I'm W.C. Fields (check YouTube?), did go to Princeton so am supposed to be a snob (not a frat boy though -- didn't have those, lived with witches (good ones)).

Kirby

PS: re our zombie truck system (driverless long haul options, using a lot of existing infrastructure, earlier posts to this list): I finally caught The Simpsons episode wherein Homer and Bart inherit a truck in a steak eating contest (winner dies), only to find truck union conspiracy around autopilot feature many are using (but not talking about). Homer blows the secret but earns kudos for dodgy driving, while meanwhile Marge and Lisa have a stuck doorbell problem.

SA: Classnotes 2008.5.10

I took Tri-Met today, which got me there with minutes to spare. It's quite a hike from where 14 leaves me, to Cramer in PSU, but Portland is a smallish town, and I wasn't lugging speakers, nor even a laptop this time.

Our main focus today was a somewhat exhaustive investigation into a simple game framework I put together since last week, after gauging student interests and abilities.

The emphasis here is on building a reading familiarity with core Python such that slower paced tutorials will already come with some context.

We visited Showmedo and watched some of Jeff Rush's Intro to IPython, also Dive Into Python, and of course the Python docs themselves, to prepare them for self-study at whatever rate.

I also continued underlining the fact that Python comes in several flavors, including a proprietary version atop Nokia hardware or whatever, all in accordance with its liberal license.

IronPython and Jython implement the language in C# and Java respectively. Stay tuned for more options.

I also explained how I use Python in my own case professionally, sometimes to study the geometry of geodesics, per stickworks.py and polyhedra.py -- my 4dsolutions.net stuff will remain at their disposal, as adventures continue.

Teacher Training

[ first posted to Synergeo #39693 ]

So the idea is to run these like summer camps and/or inservice trainings for teachers wanting to have the right stuff, based on both state of the art standards and popular stereotypes.

Thanks to Hackerteen and such, kids expect induction into the mysteries of the Internet rather early, so if you're not talking IP numbers in grade school (nothing to do with intellectual property -- namespace collision), that might mean you're in one of those pre-21st century institutions (more like prison -- do they block Youtube even for teachers? a telling sign).

The private sector, somewhat in competition with the military, is hungry for students who actually know something about how the world works, information not liberally shared in most workaday schools, where the old management philosophy was to train 'em for factory jobs or other rank and file occupations, with college not the default (those were called prep schools). Of course nowadays everyone expects college, but with high tuition that's still not really normative.

Per today's blog post, we in the Silicon Forest (there's that we again), are chomping at the bit to revamp the K-12 experience such that it's more up to date as to the mix of skills it teaches, even as we stick to many classical topics, such as trig, some calc, stats, and metrology (the art of measuring). Geography ties it all together on some level, in that we always start with the spheroidal planet, zoom in on applications of interest. Google Earth plays a big role, other KH-derived services.

What teachers get selected for such training? I'm thinking the military will try to set up a pipeline for some of its own teacher-trainers, but this won't preclude collaboration at the federal level, as there's tax money involved either way and traditionally the private sector is allowed to synergize (make a profit) by field testing and/or guinea pigging in that area. However, I'm thinking the military mission will become more like what NGOs already tackle daily, in terms of disasters, with the violence quotient far lower, given its inappropriateness as a reflex (earlier / recent threads). That's why as a Quaker I'm not so bent out of shape about all the cold war baggage we're inheriting as next generation Fuller Schoolers. Cold war means psychological, and we Quakers don't preach against so-called "inward weapons" only outward, i.e. jihad, in its less uncoordinated (awkward) sense, is ok, has many parallels even in Buddhism.

The military and civilian spheres have long overlapped in medicine, where the job of physicians is to tend to wounds, however inflicted (in whatever theater). The direct relevance of open source engineering principles (a form of design science -- plus we've already had more than a decade of it), to healing the wounded, doing medical things, is just starting to become obvious. The old legal system, which had no concept of "legally free" (as in "criminal to be selfish with"), had less to offer good doctors than the spanking new legal system of today, which owes a lot to the engineering community.

Greater Portland, hailed by Christian Science Monitor as an open source capital, is well positioned to pioneer in this area between biochemistry, electrical engineering, genetic science, and front lines medicine. We're not that dependent on the traditional military economy, which is mostly a junk recycling business these days. That frees us to think outside of that box, and we're doing it. The education system is adapting pretty quickly I'd say. Looking forward to the Bucky play in October. Stay tuned.

Animal Electricity

Tonight Tara and I bused downtown for a lecture by Roderick MacKinnon, a professor of biophysics. Then we checked out the Cinco de Mayo scene on the waterfront, rode the ferris wheel.

Thanks to Julian for the heads up on this Pauling Legacy Award Lecture. Oregon State has been giving out this award biannually since 2001, for outstanding work in areas related to Linus Pauling's research in chemistry.

MacKinnon, like Pauling, is an X-ray crystallographer looking at molecules, albeit bigger and more complicated ones, such as these ion channels within the cell membrane, devices for releasing positive charge.

I was telling Tara on the way over that a good study technique, often better than taking notes during a lecture, is to just listen with rapt attention and do a recall shortly thereafter. I learned this technique from my Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics course in the Philippines.

Tiny "ion pumps" chug away in the background, fired by ATP, keeping all those cell membranes charged up like capacitors. A lot of calories go into keeping up that electrical tension.

The mechanical discharge of potassium ions, through these various types of channel, variously activated, is like a "wave" in a football stadium, where people progressively stand up and sit down, causing a ripple along the nerve or whatever.

The storytelling was very intelligible and historical, tracing the evolution of our understanding of electricity through a lot of big names, Ben Franklin's included.

SA: ClassNotes 2008.5.3

Per usual for this class, I showed Warriors of the Net, in which our warriors are these intrepid little IP packets, like trucks inside of tubes, our Internet.

We went over some elementary trigonometry so these students could better appreciate how a Pythonic expression like "[(cos(radians(n)), sin(radians(n))) for n in range(0, 360)]" is actually making a list of points in a circle when plotted.

Most of our time was spent tweaking vfun.py, some beginner examples of using VPython for fun (and for learning).

Having hit some high notes around a Biotum class on day 1, we're mostly settling for function level syntax on day 3, practicing basic flow: if and loop statements.

Named arguments may be passed in any order, or dropped entirely given defaults, which is what keeps our VPython functions (for cylinder, for sphere... for pyramid) so simple and sane.

We played with my jungle.py some though, just to keep the flavor of more object oriented code (foxes eating bunnies in this case -- no visuals).

I downloaded and installed wxPython with demos while students worked on their projects, for an impromptu segment on widgets programming, having gotten some GUI-related questions. We also looked at Pygame a little, but both have a steep learning curve, so best to already know Python.

We also toured Sourceforge a little, talking about how geeks collaborate on new code, share projects. That's not really the focus of this course however. Perhaps one day soon, Saturday Academy will offer classes on CVS, Mercurial, Bazaar... on Apache.

So many topics, so few Saturdays.

IronPython 2.0 beta 2 is out today. I'm downloading for testing.

IronPython 2 on .NET
free with source code
per Microsoft Public License

Legally Free

This is one of my favorite philanthropic projects, aimed at getting more free music samples and production tools to those eager to express themselves musically.

The challenges facing artists in rural areas and regions with limited connectivity are also overcome. “Music production, for one, can be very expensive,” insists Hudson. “The software required costs thousands of Rands and music samples are also expensive, making it difficult for musicians to express themselves. With the Freedom Toaster, artists will now be able to obtain the tools and other materials needed for their work, irregardless of their Internet connectivity and for free.”

Or, if it's not specifically music that interests you, but computers more generally, the Freedom Toaster is potentially a goldmine of legally free assets and information. Just make your selections, insert your CDs, and burn. Get what might take days to download, in just minutes.

The Shuttleworth Foundation
Republic of South Africa

Pentagon Policies

A nuclear superpower, the Pentagon, still occupying what turned out to be an essentially unarmed country (no WMDs as suggested), continues whining about neighboring Iran supplying weapons to the Iraqis.

Do we suppose Washington, DC could stop Texas from supplying guns to Canada, were the Russians to invade our neighbor to the north?

Nationalism being what it is, the Iraqis will keep fighting the occupation for as long as it takes, that much is obvious. Tehran has limited ability to stop the flood of weapons, given how easy these are to procure in a world market already flooded with ammo-for-profit.

The American people, mostly hostage to all this miscalculated belligerence, and not getting the low gas prices they'd hoped for when the war was being sold to them, are now being threatened with a massive conflagration by these inept military commanders, trained to suppose there's a military solution to every problem.

One hopes the Pentagon is not completely in charge of foreign policy, as obviously we have some very unimaginative thinkers in that building -- sad for the USA to have to put up with this crew.

One hopes the war colleges are turning out a more sophisticated crop of military leaders, one that doesn't get itself stuck in future quagmires of this kind.

The president tried to wrap it up with that "mission accomplished" extravaganza, an obligatory show of macho (isn't that what politicians do, strut on stage?) after a relatively short blitz. Saddam and his cronies were captured long ago. These were the graceful exit points, ignored by those at the wheel.

So what's the mission today? No one seems to know. The Pentagon has no fresh ideas.

Will the election make a difference? Some tyrants are hoping to have their next war going already, so they can keep calling the shots. Democracy and the will of the people take a back seat when there's a war on, a fact many Pentagon planners instinctively know.

Maybe the upcoming Olympics will get people in a better mood? Athletes in general are a more competent bunch, not resorting to violence at the drop of a hat, yet still very competitive and patriotic, far more of a showcase for what civilization is all about.

Calculus Mountain

Those of you who've heard me inveigh against Calculus Mountain, such as in the YouTube above, will maybe think I'm anti-calculus or think it shouldn't be taught.

This is not the case.

For one thing, teaching calculus was my bread and butter out of Princeton, my first job with a BA in philosophy (Rorty my thesis advisor, Kaufmann one of my referrals to Erhard's philo, which I studied on the side, in tandem with Wittgenstein's with Victor Preller et al, some grad work at St. Peter's in Jersey City, making the transition to a Dominican run school).

But also, I'm in agreement with many in the Physics First and First Person Physics movements, that calculus, having grown up in the context of Newtonian mechanics, has a natural context within physics, so we should use that in K-12, with "pure calculus" (minus any physics application) left for some later time, for those college majors electing such degree paths.

We currently waste way too much time on calculus in high school, in some faddish, almost occult desire to equate this subset of math concepts with the whole shebang. Strong candidate alternatives are already in field testing, with promising results. The USA is not monolithic and there will be no "one size fits all" replacement, so don't expect big headlines regarding some big switchover. That occurred years ago, as a part of the rise of digital over analog technologies more generally.

Remember, the steam engine reached its pinnacle in sophistication long after the writing on the wall had already appeared, spelling diesel (now it spells a lot of other things). Calculus as currently configured is already well past its pull date, but still hangs in there, bless its little heart.

And again, I'm not for a purge.

I'm for physics getting a better toehold, chemistry too, both united in biology, and have no problem with relaying Newtonian mechanics in a somewhat classical form, abetted with VPython, YouTubes and so on (plus maybe real visits to roller coaster parks, if we do our FPP curriculum).

SA: ClassNotes 2008.4.26

The parking went more smoothly, plus the weather was good, got Ubuntu Dell and better speakers in harness no problem, with CodeGuardian queued. However, without support from the home team, I'd've been leaning on staff too hard, having left my logins chart on my desk or someplace.

We worked pretty hard today, through viztoyz and povtoyz, which take the real time versus render time approaches respectively. The former uses VPython, the latter POV-Ray. The point of showing a movie like CodeGuardian is how such a small team now has these powerful tools, but you also need to really sit at the feet of great directors, to pick up on small touches like camera jitter, a way to help viewers join the action.

My Fibonacci generator, designed for phi convergence (which worked eventually), got off on the wrong foot, as 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8... yields my sequence 1/0, 1/1, 2/1, 3/2, 5/3, 8/5... So I got bitten by two gotchas: divide by zero and default integer division (this is Python 2.5). Fortunately, easy fixes were at hand.

I was able to show my I Ching source code in a font that renders the characters readably, back to explaining the ASCII to Unicode migration, also part of this 2.x to 3.x transition.

Erratum

I hadn't properly tuned in the fact that Texas, not Arizona, is the state engaged in the shameful and cowardly attack on an American community, however unusual and perhaps distasteful to others its anthropological structure (I'm not saying I'd join in this lifestyle, but this isn't about me).

Currently, it's looking like the call instigating the raid might have been a hoax, but never mind, families are being destroyed, government DNA testing enforced, all in the name of "preventing child abuse" -- laughable, and sad. Let's see which presidential candidates have the courage to weigh in. Or how about the incumbent, given which state we're talking about.

The arrogance of the so-called dominant culture is stunning in this scenario. I hope we don't see the USA out there trumpeting "human rights" again any time soon, the hypocrisy would just be unbearable.

This Borg-like and brutish hand of forced enculturation was used against pueblo and others in the same region (Native Americans, old timers). Several enlightenments have come and gone, but we still have these antediluvians among us. Texas has always been very "throw back," these still-thriving authentic old-style Mormons a case in point (score one for religious freedom).

Such cultural diversity was part of what made North America charming, until the police state came in, with their know-it-all psychologists, and ruined it for everyone. Who invited these people to our party anyway, not me.