Generations

They say a generation is twenty years.  Twenty years ago I went to the Fuller Centennial in San Diego and wrote this three part series.  I'm tonight reading a partially overlapping account.

Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters were boomers, somewhat post beatnik which was Jack Kerouac's generation.  The two met in New York as a part of that bus trip, Leary's group the next stop.  Sometimes a Great Notion (Kesey's next novel after Cuckoo's Nest) was being released.

Pegging the time.  I was in elementary school, starting in Portland, winding up in Rome.

My generation was / is late boomer, pre Generation X.  When our group had families, those were called Yuppies (young professionals) a play on Hippies.  Various neighborhoods gentrified or whatever.  Jersey City sure took off, since my day in the early 1980s, as a high school teacher walking to work along Kennedy Boulevard.

I took my daughter to New York and Long Island City that time, to meet with Kenneth Snelson and to take in a ceremony honoring the friendship between Fuller and Isamu Noguchi, a sculptor.  Shoji Sadao was another in that crew, a workshop / studio, across from where the Noguchi Museum is today.

My mom is aiming to be in New York City by tomorrow, for only for a brief stay.  She'll be back through on her return.  I'm meanwhile soon to set out for the mid-west on company business.  My daughter is now twenty, a next generation.

The Princeton P-rade is worth catching, if you get a chance.  The classes parade in order, though with a 25th year group in front (I think is how it goes -- I was there for that one).  You see time go by really quickly, a review.  The alums get younger and younger, turning into underclassmen at the end.  I'm not sure what other universities do that.  Pretty interesting.

The "march through time" metaphor (is it a metaphor? -- seems pretty literal) is pretty cliche.  Or is it the march of time?  Whatever.  "Time is the only dimension" was one of the tropes I remember from Synergetics.  But then time and size go together.  One needs room to rattle around.

Given I was in Rome during the tumultuous 1960s, I had a somewhat different take on things than my three-years-older wife.  She had stayed in North America, mostly in the southeast, joining the Portland scene before I did.

My return to Portland, in 1985 (as I've pegged it, I hope correctly) was after my parents left Bangladesh but then moved to Bhutan, where dad continued his career as a planner / designer, now of education systems, later in Lesotho.  When my wife was hired as the bookkeeper for Center for Urban Education, I was away in Bhutan.  On a next trip, she and Alexia joined me.

Anyway, if you're curious about my autobio I've got more on file.  Check it out.

Trite Math

Держись!

According to the Bridges trolls, i.e. the kick-and-punch reviewers who come out from under the bridge when someone proposes to cross it, the relationship VE:Icosa :: S:E is of no conceivable import, cultural, artistic or otherwise.  So be it.  Lets call it Trite Math (Koski's coin).

VE is a remote vocabulary word in the Synergetics namespace, pioneered by the ever-lonely Bucky Fuller.  VE stands for Vector Equilibrium.

Rational ancient Greek speakers know it as the "cuboctahedron" although that suggests a solid shape, not the skeletal version with doubled radials, eight hinge-bonded unit-volume tetrahedrons, per Concentric Hierarchy lore.

That's twenty-four radial versus twenty-four circumferential vectors in Bucky's accounting system and vocabulary, hence the name "vector equilibrium" (twenty-four of each).

The shape is barely stable however, only fleetingly itself.  It Jitterbugs into an Icosahedron of equal edge lengths, the Icosa in the ratio above.  In so doing, the volume decreases from 20 (the eight tetrahedrons are volume one, six half octahedrons volume two, so 8 + 6*2 = 20) to about 18.512... (more digits).

S & E are both slivers, splinters.

The topologically minimum container in ordinary space and ordinary language, is the tetrahedron.  You don't have a volumetric "cage" with less than six edges, if constrained to constructing with sticks.  Fuller accounts volume using aggregates of these slivers, which he names:  A, B, T, E and S.

You can look them up. They have plane nets and everything. A, B and T all have the same volume (1/24).  E outweighs T by a tad, has the same shape.  S is for Skew.

So VE:Icosa :: S:E is a volume thing.  David Koski has been playing with these blocks and making lots of discoveries.  Low hanging fruit (i.e. trite fruit) is plentiful in this 4D domain.

Lets do it in Python:

e3 is simply Evol shrunk by 1/phi i.e. all edges are .618... of what they were, with volume decreasing as 3rd power of that amount.  Edges:Area:Volume grow and shrink in a 1, 2, 3 powering relationship when a shape changes size (duh).

I agree this is all pretty easy and accessible, which in some circles is a mark of inferiority, of triteness.

[ The fact that floating point numbers have noise digits on the end owing to base conversions etc. may be off-putting to "real numbers" fans. ]

Cliché Math we could call it. Cut and Paste Math.

Speaking of which, the source code for studying the above modules is available here on edu-sig.

The source to render the above graphic is also available, but you'll need the free / open source POV-Ray ray tracing engine to get the final result.

Rejected, too-trite and/or incomprehensible papers:
Bridging XYZ and IVM Volumetric Accounting Systems with the Square Root of 9/8 by Kirby Urner
Revisiting R.B. Fuller's S & E Modules by David Koski

POV: A Game of Fetch

POV = Point of View.  In this case, provided by a DJI Phantom Vision+ 2.

Starring Seuss the dog, Les piloting, Elise and Kirby as backup ball throwers.

:: the quad-copter ::

Wanderers 2015.4.7

:: paying myself $30 plus postage ::

Barry is talking about needed reforms in the capital games tax, talking about day trading, after the capital gains period, eating your losses etc. etc..  He's a retired banker, but those around the table aren't that as financially savvy necessarily.

I think a state should expect commitment of time and energy in lieu of taxes or as a type of taxes.  You get a job with the government where presumably there's value added as a result of your performance.

Barry doesn't like the corporate personhood movement, also known as Voodoo Economics whereby inanimate objects (corpses, corporations) gain personhood (souls).  It's a kind of legal fiction, or science fiction that's serious enough to govern role playing in some subcultures.

A government could run hotels, rental car depots, a bunch of tourist related stuff.  It does so now, in the guise of its military, but what about civilian bases, more like Disneyland than Mordor?  There's no shortage of stuff for people to do, as committing some percent of their aliveness to serving the greater good.

The so-called 1% would stereotypically want to exempt itself from government service as they're wanting to party in penthouses and not maintain mountain trails.  Not everyone is equally able.  One could have a monetary way of playing the taxes game, but also this other way, like joining the military but the civilian correlate.

At one point I was suggesting Girl Scouts as the model, with abandoned bases in the Philippines as my backdrop.  I'd been to Clark AB pre Pinatubo so knew how a base might double as a civilian campus, or be converted into one, more like a university, less like a prison.  War is unfreedom to the max.

Christine is asking questions, as Barry continues talking about stocks and IPOs.  Insiders can't sell their shares right away.

When people give to charity they get credit sometimes.  Their profile is updated.  However the government takes the glory for how taxes are spent.  Were individual role playing the currency, bleeping over the importance of individuals would be harder.  People complain USAers are "too individualistic".  Maybe that really is not the problem.

You want to be a star, a celebrity, and how do your taxes help you achieve that?  Does the government give you fifteen minutes of fame?  Are you able to make movies?  In some cases yes, taxes get used for that.  But how many filmmakers get to serve the greater good as their way of pulling their weight?  Don't we waste talent by not letting them?

Some from the art side struck up a side conversation on Zombie Jesus, another circulating comic meme.  Warning:  not everyone has a sense of humor where Jesus is concerned.  More of a Gnostic thing maybe?

Interstellar (movie review)

I caught this at Laurelhurst, packed house, smaller screen, bright and sharp picture though, I don't require Real3D to stay happy (except outside when driving I find it convenient).

I'd been skeptical about this film given the hype and my low opinion of public opinion a lot of the time, call me a snob or elitist.  However I've come to respect the film for what it tackles:  the way in which love seems to transcend even death, or call it gravity.

The memes are straight from the dust bowl cornfields of America mixed with NASA space program ethos, a volatile combination with many stark contrasts.  Planet Earth is on the wane and there's a sense of needing to bootstrap somehow.  Why are humans always on the brink?  Or maybe that's what prehistory was about:  not being right up against it with End of the World just around the corner.

Science fiction is expected to have worm holes and higher dimensions.  That tradition was established at the end of the 1800s, when novelesque plots were developed to take advantage of 4D, the new kid on the block.  The tesseract or hypercube, made its brilliant debut, with no upper limit on dimension number.  Worm holes could be everywhere.  Our confinement to the solar system, a frustration for plot developers, was solved.

As I've harped on in these blogs, the tesseract is not a time machine except in scifi.  That these would be jumbled together on the chalkboard is part of the tradition, but formal math does not permit it.  The polytope mathematics of the nD crowd, led by Coxeter, is not the 4D mathematics of Einstein, nor the 4D philosophy of Fuller, to which this film comes very close (no obvious tetrahedrons though).

In classic humanities liberal arts, the dead speak to us in our libraries, through our books, across time, across space.  Yes, it's kinda spooky, and poltergeists (at least tales of) lurk in those pages.  Young girls are especially drawn to certain passages, specific phenomena.  Their dads use science to discourage this tendency but then end up on the other side of it, wanting to speak after deadline.  The hero's frustration is palpable.  He has machine Marines for cold comfort.

The relativity touch was really well acted I thought, complete with aging at different rates.  Maybe I'll see this movie again, in Real3D even.  A car pulled out in front of me on Stark on the way home and I was glad to have the right break-hitting reflexes and enough traction even in wet weather.  The film is long, starting with previews at 8:45 and not letting out until close to midnight.  Not complaining; it kept me in my seat.

ReThink911 @ HGP

I learned from Dr. DiNucci that David Fura would be presenting on 911 at Friendly House, addressing Greater Humanists of Portland.  Given local Quakers have been recently joined by David Chandler, scheduled to speak at the meetinghouse on April 12, as a part of our Peace and Social Concerns program, my scoping out this talk seemed apropos.  Fura cites Chandler in his slides and plays the video of David, identified as with AAPT, asking the NIST guy a question.

The National Geographic and Popular Mechanics efforts at debunking get tackled in Fura's talk.  If thermite is not useful in demolition, as NGS alleges in its own attempt at debunking the Truthers, then how does one explain the patents for using it that way?  I forget what the Popular Mechanics thing was about, however these debates are all on-line so feel free to tune in.  A lot of people are participating in these discussions, not just the Humanists and Quakers.

The ReThink911 agenda is all about casting doubt on the official NIST reports, especially around WTC7, the building that (even officially) went into free fall, officially because of fires weakening its structural members, but unofficially and off the record thanks to preset charges i.e. because of controlled demolition.

If NIST is right -- but it won't release its computer model -- then it has discovered a new way for skyscrapers to fail due to carbon-based fires never before contemplated and never before or since seen.  The Truthers remain highly skeptical of the NIST theory, wherein the numbers keep changing.  Both sides appear to use science to support their claims.

My question, as a matter of logic, is how one gets from the apparent fact of "controlled" demolition to the "uncontrolled" events of 911.  Buildings of that size and stature should be designed with demolition in mind right from the start, as Paul Laffoley asserts was the case with these 1970s monsters (which I admired), losing money and ready to be replaced by the 21st century.  With what we don't know.  Laffoley's own design, conceived after 911, was for a Gaudi-like building, part memorial, more conceptual art than a blueprint at that stage.

Could these buildings have been scheduled to come down anyway, just not as a result of terrorism?  Was someone "pushing the button" a part of the terrorist plot all along?

If demolition were integral to the design, then the question becomes at what point in the timeline were charges added.  Might there have been a schedule driven by financial concerns unrelated to troop movements in the Middle East?

As expected, once off the official narrative, it's somewhat of an inkblot test as to whom we think is really responsible.  People who don't read a lot often think of Neocons and the CIA as the same bunch, whereas from other angles one sees open hostility, or at best rivalry between these two camps.  Just saying "bad guys did it" doesn't really get us anywhere.  The devil is in the details.

That the CIA is trying to use the Truther Movement to make Bin Laden look like a patsy is consistent with past cover up failures.  Iraq would be more like Cuba by this analogy, Oswald being cast as pro Castro and by extension a Soviet spy.  Hadn't Saddam plotted against Bush Sr.?

However analogies with the JFK chapter only go so far as in this case there's really no doubt about the jet airplanes hitting the two buildings, WTC1 and WTC2 (not WTC7) -- except amongst odd-ball extremophiles.  In Oswald's case, it's rather doubtful he ever fired that rifle, or killed Officer Tippit or any of that.  He was just following instructions, up to where he tried to escape his fate as the fall guy, by explaining his innocence to the police.  Jack Ruby had to silence him.

What do the ReThink911 people imagine would have happened if only the jets had hit?  What would have been the scenario, absent any controlled demolition?

The jets hitting was enough to get people jumping off buildings.  Hundreds if not thousands had died already.  Clearly these were nightmare situations, with firefighters bravely walking into them.  If the goal were to provoke a war with Iraq, per the Neocon agenda, wouldn't this terrorist act have been sufficient?  Why would anything potentially even more risky be required?  At least one of the Humanists asked about this during the Q&A.

With no demolition system in place, would the towers still be standing today in 2015, or would they by now have been demolished, WTC7 included?  After that day, they were totaled, unsalvageable no?  So we'd have demolished them by now at least, maybe even without the planes hitting.  The Twin Towers were close to worthless by 2000, were white elephants, according to many accounts.  As soon as we had finished rescuing all the people, they would have needed to be destroyed, no question.  Repair would have been infeasible.

However Fura thinks the WTC towers may have been too full of asbestos to make their demolition practical at any point.  This would point to a major design flaw as how does one replace buildings of that size once they've outlasted their lifespan?  How would one remove towers of that stature except by controlled demolition?  Or is the theory that anything that big has to last forever?

Do we suppose architects are off the hook in needing to think about a building's full life cycle, including its eventual destruction?  I expect the buildings would have needed to come down later, actually quite soon, WTC7 included.  In fact, once the Twin Towers where down, why keep WTC7 around even a day longer?  Everyone was out by the time it imploded.  Why not?  It was worthless by then.  Just more rubble to clean up at that point.  Civilians had cleared the area.

What I don't know is how many additional lives might have been saved had the firefighters been given more time with their hook and ladder trucks etc.  People were already jumping to their deaths.  The additional numbers that might have been saved is a difficult calculation once you factor in the number of firefighters who might have died as a result of heroism, trying to rescue people from the two towering infernos.  Lots to think about there.

Brunch on Hawthorne

We promised William an authentic Hawthorne brunch this first spring day, and Cup & Saucer did not disappoint.  Glenn talked about his "global matrix", a thread in these blogs.  I called it a "non-glaze over" namespace, as for Glenn at least, his particular decryption or encryption (however you want to look at it) keeps him fluent in many cutting edge areas.  He has low bus numbers though.

William is studying computer science and works full time doing the kind of work he trained for at OST and elsewhere.  When we first met, he was one of my students, still in Afghanistan.

Quick Loop (Infrastructure 101)

Our viewpoint from mid-Columbia was impressive, of sea lions, of ships.  Not that many ships actually.

On the Washington side we saw the grain elevator working, or heard it at least, with Golden Cecilie, brand new, appearing to have a full belly.

The car-carrying Delphinus Leader appeared to have delivered its load.

The container shipping terminal we went by, however, was eerily quiet amidst talk of labor disputes up and down the western coastline.

The Columbia takes ocean-going vessels as far as the outlet of the Willamette and a little higher.

What takes cargo on farther, or brings cargo from further inland, are barges, trucks, and trains.

The barges enjoy a series of locks, getting them past the big dams.  The train tracks go up both sides whereas the main east-to-west freeway along the gorge is I-84 (south edge), with I-5 north-to-south.

Containers are lifted directly off or onto ships from both trains and trucks, with barges doing more bulk items.

The rail lines do less work busing people (done by Amtrak) than freight, with airlines and private cars moving most the people, or Bolt Bus or whatever.

Freeways cater to private car traffic, shared with cargo-carrying semis (tractors with trailers, up to three).  The road and warehouse network brings goods closest to most cities.

Warehouses get used to repack different loads quite a bit.  A shipload of teddy bears from Asia gets divvied out to the different retail outlets, both big box and boutique, though some may stay with Amazon, a new kind of retail shopping.

A grain-carrying ocean-goer will park alongside an elevator and load up with grain that arriving by barge and by train.

Containers go by truck but aren't for grain usually.  Grain doesn't get shipped in containers, not in bulk quantities.  Special train cars, covered hoppers (not box cars) are best for transporting grain, and barges.  Trucks are fine for baked bread.

These sorts of infrastructure tours may not be practical as bus tours (we were on a boat) i.e. field tripping school children are not seen in droves apprehending their ecosystem / biosphere.  They need this information though, to understand their ecosystem.

With Google Earth and immersive video, these important aspects of a child's or adult's exoskeleton, the civilizational shell, may be explored and communicated.

Noticeable on the cargo ships were their bright orange escape pods, angled for rapidly shooting off and getting away from what might be a fire hazard.  The captain need not go down with the ship, as in storybooks.

The hazards of transport, the kinds of things that go wrong, are much on the minds of many who live here, as there's lots of talk of taking bigger health risks in terms of the volume and volatility of the cargo mix through the ports.

I've said little about air freight so far.

You might be surprised how many tons of commercial carpet have been flown from Atlanta to Tokyo!

Then we need to add the communications channels, which carry programs (e.g. via TCP / IP) and the power distribution networks, which channel electrical power, natural gas. Many networks to learn about.

Wanderers 2015.3.10

Our guests, Brian Haug and Eli Eichenauer, are crowd sourcing their businesses based on the new Crowd Funding law, encouraging Oregonians to invest in Oregon-based enterprises.

A small number of business were chosen to showcase the model.  Small enterprises scattered across the state have started up various green industries that care about profits, people, and environment as an integrated bottom line.

Oregon is around the fifteenth state to define a Crowd Funding game. 

You have limits on how much you can raise, both minimum and maximum.  The law passed in January 15.  Hatch, a community innovation lab, wrote Hatch Oregon, a web site implementing the game (picture Kickstarter).

Software engineering allows many games to be implemented, with variable risk levels, possible payouts.  On this one, you get money back, if the business thrives.  You've got something like stocks and bonds. 

The new law allows investors to take risks without engaging in public trading around IPOs in the usual, more exclusive way.  As long as people understand the rules, and the state approves, these experiments remain possible.  [ If the state does not approve, it's called a "numbers game" or something, and the FBI gets more annoyed (sometimes, depending on jurisdiction). ]

Hatch players need to be Oregonians.  Investors go shopping for businesses to invest in, through the web site.  Hatch is a nonprofit and does not take a cut. 

Some of the success story establishments pay rent if on site, so when the law works, Hatch looks good because its tenants look good.  Training, listing, launching -- a "purpose wheel" is in the making.

The business talking to us tonight Of Hops & Men, a Taproom-Barbershop, is not open for business yet, but will be shortly we hope, in 2016.  The shop will be OLCC licensed.  As a CSN guy brainstorming about a network of licensed coffee shops, my ears perked up.

An 18-block area near the Lloyd Center named Hassalo on Eighth (an eco-district development) is currently under construction.  This is property close to the Oregon Convention Center.  Offices are flooding in, bringing lots of new retail, hence OH&M.  The picture of Portland's NE quadrant in 2035 shows impressive growth projections, a busy skyline.

Brian, a former Navy diver, Peace Corps vet (I know him from Thirsters) is a 4th generation Portlander.  His Portland pedigree is impressive.  He can feed that in to the decor. 

He has a floor plan laid out. 

He hopes to work behind the bar, with the hair cutters paying him for their high profile positions. 

Hair cutters are like journeymen and bring their own equipment. 

Despite the name, women are quite welcome, the maleness being a branding theme not a deterrent to female customers.

If Brian gets his preferred location he'll be a stone's throw from the Max line.  He wants bicycle-related decor, but not overdone.  Digital Pour, like at Bailey's and Growler's, will show the beers.

 Hotel Eastlund is growing out of the old Red Lion.  A new Oregon Convention Center hotel should be here by 2017 maybe?  For Pycon round two?   

I'd like to see a Henry George based analysis of the Hassalo project.  Taxing land value, versus income, is how that game is played and its proponents claim they're able to "raise all boats" more successfully.
Eli is doing WebLively, Your Wellness Network, a website for clients to maintain a secure profile with medical information. 

Picture Facebook, but HIPAA compliant. 

Professionals (doctors, nurses, other health professionals) also store profiles, but publicly. 

Picture a dating service betwixt clients and professionals, but perhaps with a team, not just one on one.

My questions had to do with patients wanting to withhold information i.e. why does a massage therapist need to know anything about my bout with malaria six years ago (just making that up). 

Exactly: the client is able to set permissions for different specialists. 

OK then, I've been thinking about these issues for awhile, so the model feels familiar to me already.

Hatch Oregon is involved here as well of course, i.e. WebLively is another showcase business developing as a result of the new Crowd Funding law.

Alien Boy (movie review)

Jim Jim, who went by various names, was a work in progress.  He liked Mad Magazine and comic books, as I do, and was finding his way in the Portland punk rock scene, or trying to.

James ended up getting hospitalized for mental illness and was on a long slow road to recovery, with an address in downtown Portland (finally) when his life took a nose dive.  He'd gone off his meds and was needing more help than anyone had to give, given a network of friends is not always a real safety net.  He was passed being able to take care of his personal hygiene -- but had the potential to bounce back, under care, all talking heads agree.

At the bottom of his luck, though still with an apartment, a police officer and a social worker came to his door, knocking repeatedly.  He asked if a police officer were present (a chief terror), then he bolted, unpursued.

Later, when urinating (when you have to go you have to go), different police accosted him.  Terrified of police encounters ever since getting beat up in Utah, he bolted again but these officers were not the nice kind and beat him badly, then used a taser, in front of many witnesses having lunch outside.

The police knew they had broken him, likely killed him, so the game after that was to make it look good.  Spin control started early, with allegations about cocaine on his person, as if that would explain their excessive force actions.  But the crowd wasn't buying.  Having witnessed a murder, the lunch eaters were upset (the waiter included), and thirsty for justice.  Police need to show more self control in a civilized town.

J. wasn't quite dead yet though.  The paramedics showed up and offered to take him to the hospital, but the cops, having broken his ribs in 26 places, were not eager to tell the medics they were the likely cause of death on the record, so the agreement was to waive the patient's medical treatment and remove him to the county jail where the cops could control the narrative.

What followed was caught on tape on the prison cameras:  the police carrying a terribly wounded man around, not knowing what to do with him, and refusing him treatment, until he died in their care.

The public continued to thirst for justice for many years.

Immediate family eventually got a settlement of over a million dollars, as the city needed to stick with the union and not let anyone get fired for brutality.  Losing a civil suit was the best they could do.  After all, the whole point of a police department is to be brutal, like a military.  People understand what they're paying for:  the state's thugs (good guys) versus the bad guys.  Thugs are supposed to be badass.  So the cops who committed the homicide were never charged, which is why we shouldn't call it homicide.  The court said not guilty.  Soldiers don't murder people either.  English is funny that way, very law-abiding.

The Mayors keep apologizing though (first Potter, then Adams), and the City keeps needing to settle on other cases of abuse.

Clearly the training is at fault, a finding made early.  Tackling a fleeing 147 pound man from behind because he was urinating on public or private property is actually not what the training suggests is appropriate.

However a lot of this "training" is more hearsay than anything actual cops have been exposed to.  Portland cannot afford top-level training for its people, although even if only in self protection, the union should insist.

Leaving people vulnerable because of inadequate professional skills is the great disservice.

My thanks to Multnomah Meeting's Peace and Social Concerns Committee (PSCC) for bringing this video to my attention.  I'll wave the DVD around at tonight's APC meeting (AFSC volunteers + staff) before returning it to Movie Madness nearby.

Back @ Beaches

:: PDX ::

I'm back at Beaches in chauffeur mode, seeing Steve Holden off to the UK.  Rather recently, I was saying good bye to Lindsey, as she took off for Nepal.  We had some farewell beers, and food, in this same establishment, at the D, E gate end of the concourse.

We started up another Google Group today, for NPYM record-keepers.  Friends ("Quakers") are into record-keeping.  In order to cohere as a self-governing business, a Business Meeting needs (A) organizational memory and (B) structure.

I've been making airplane reservations, hotel reservations, rental car reservations.  Everything is so convenient and there's no need to pick up a phone to ask some busy person to take real time out of their day.  The phone was too intrusive.  Asynch is the way to go.  Friends learned that early.  We put silence between our communications, as a matter of course.

Even though the airport FlyPDX domain was not about to let me download Anaconda, Steve had a way of getting it over to me (memory stick), so I took the opportunity to blow away Python 3.2 in favor of Anaconda's 3.4.  That leaves me to face the music in PyCharm, which I expect will be easily reconfigurable.

Followup: turns out I hadn't really blown away 3.2 so PyCharm was unaffected.

@ Beaches

Song of The Sea (movie review)

This Irish / Celtic tale, beautifully rendered I thought, was in that same ballpark as my wife's Turning the Wheel and its storytelling.  She went to Ireland with Elizabeth and Gayle to visit those kinds of places, imaginary yet real (Ireland is a real place but the proper noun is not a constant, as one might say Eire, as one might say Nippon for Japan).

The dad is sad, having lost his wife in childbirth, and she's got some problems probably stemming from lack of oxygen at birth.  She's gifted though, and warms the arts of the frozen, which is are fate in Narnia as well, whenever the Ice Queen holds sway.  This world has an old witch too.  The echoes of Spirited Away were maybe not just in my head.

The big dog is adorable.  The family dynamics are a great hook.  I saw Step Brothers recently, a gift from Lindsey, a comedy with Will Farrell and John C. Reilly, of whom I became a fan through Check It Out, and am in the mood to look at all that kid stuff again, not that it ever goes away or anything.  I've always loved cartoons. 

I wouldn't call this a comedy though, more an action adventure or, lets get real:  a fairytale.

A Tale of Two Logos

:: mosaic @ PSU ::

Way back in the 1990s, when the Internet, and the graphical web especially, were novelties, I was encouraged to discover the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) was already using the IVM (Bell's Kite) for a logo, something on which Fuller had briefly (in geological terms) held a patent.

I started leveraging this fact, only to find out later the NCTM legal team advised taking more control of the logo and rebranding as something more slippery:  an infinity symbol, more mysterious, more alluring (or whatever cosmetic concerns).  Bucky's name:  sliced out of the picture.

Fast forward to yesterday and I learn the IMU (International Mathematical Union) has a new logo.  These are top mathematicians, not just high school teachers, and they overtly mention Bucky Fuller in their video about how their logo was conceived.

Now that shows the difference in caliber, between bona fide mathematicians, not afraid to acknowledge their influences, and lawyers, afraid of losing control but not really having any in the first place.

Despicable Me (movie review)

Like the Madagascar series, with which this series has much in common, the characters are still evolving and branching out, with movies of their own.  Madagascar spawned the Penguins thereof, and the two Despicable Me films, which I saw out of order, have set the stage for Minions, not out yet as of this posting.

A similar plot element pops up frequently in movies these days, given our fear about "franken-food", GMOs etc.  The baddies are into genetic modification or transmogrification or monsterfication (monsterization) -- but then is that really a new activity?  No.  The evil genius has always been into making monsters, only reality has changed.

Gru is an interesting character, compared by some to Boris of Boris & Natasha from Rocky & Bullwinkle days.  He's extremely flamboyant in ways completely inconsistent with the usual idea of a "spy":  someone living "under cover".  He has many good qualities.  A lot of the best humor, though, comes through his minions.

Quaker Terminology

:: attenders ::

For the most part I think we use "slate" the way most people do as in "list of candidates" but we carry it over to mean "approved cast" as well.

When you get a playbill with a list of players in a show:  that's a slate, the way we use the word.

The other meaning is:  "not yet approved" as when when Nominating goes to Business Meeting with a "slate for approval" (the more mainstream usage).

So we could say "unapproved and approved slates" and be plain (clear) in our meaning.

As NPYM's technology clerk, I've been looking at npym_slate (a web page) to see if we've filled any holes still showing as empty, or if we're showing any ad hoc committees that have since been laid down.

Clint has been making changes.  This is an "approved slate" we're talking about, just sometimes the web-displayed version lags what clerks carry around in their heads.

Domestic Affairs

Perhaps as a consequence of the smartphone still having Alzheimer's, overloaded with Aviate, I managed to spend four TriMet e-tickets getting from A to B, which pissed me off, and I thumbed my irritation in the direction of the app makers.  To their credit, they refunded my Visa, and to mine, I'm still using eTickets, being a credit to my religion (one in favor of appropriate tech, including these handy GIS / navigation devices).

Speaking of Alzheimer's, did you see where Putin might have Asperger's all of a sudden?  That's not catching, like Ebola, so he's had it all along and only his nurses knew.  The martial arts training was all a way of diverting our attention from his stare or whatever open source signals are telling the Pentagon goat staring types what's really happening in Putin's brain (as opposed to his soul, which Bush checked out and briefed the Pentagon about already, presumably).

CBS is the one with the story.  I'm yukking it up on Facebook about it, but with empathy for those who suffer from this syndrome, which nowhere in the Constitution is listed as a disqualifying characteristic for a USA president.  I've always seen Ollie North as autistic, yet he'd have been at least as strong as Romney dontcha think?

Back to my kitchen:  dish washer has run amuk, leaking into the basement.

Thirsters last night:  kudos to Mrs. Beebe (PhD) for her presentation on stellar Filipina women who've not only tended our ailing (e.g. in the Holy Land) but have run banks, software companies, done everything men consider worthy.  But was leaving the Philippines a prerequisite for success?  One may always wonder, but one life is the one set of cards, and we don't get to play "as if" all that easily as when fantasizing about lives we didn't have.

I was glad to see (in her slides) more of the history in condensed form since my departure from those islands, after many formative years, in the 1970s, to attend a four year university (Princeton).  I was back briefly right before Cory Aquino's rise to power, but not since.  I still buy San Miguel sometimes, just for the mood and the memories (not that I was a huge beer drinker in high school, just we liked to hang out and enjoy one anothers' company -- what a lot of school is about, or should be, if you're lucky).

Superbowl 2015

Yes, I'm partaking of the national secular religion today, Superbowl Sunday.  I'll link to some previous blog posts, as proof I've been around the block at least once in this cult.

I've got the pre-game on screen and feel properly endowed with comestibles and imbibables, namely cheetohs (flamey), Dr. Pepper (diet), and Torpedo IPA from Sierra Nevada.  Plus local sports bars are but blocks away.

Dr. Charles Bolton just called, the sociology professor.  I think he understands my willingness to partake in a social ritual, even though distant from football (US style).  I think back to the Mayans and the importance of ball games in this hemisphere.

US football may inherit from rugby but I think the seriousness with with civilization takes spectator sports is not confined to the North Atlantic Anglos or anything so restrictive.  Athletic events abound wherever anthropologists are willing to seek them.

Yes, I care about memes (memetics) and therefore advertising and so on, and may have something later to say about that.

So far my only story is about Patriots deflating their balls or something.  I'll no doubt be doing more homework on that, given how easy a search engine makes researching such stories.  Time was, one needed to dig in the library or find gold mines in books full of such juicy stories.

Omni-triangulating is easier now.  One to two pounds under.  Lots of other coverage out there, not saying it all ends with one story.

For those not from around here, US football, unlike soccer football, features goals high off the ground and no goalie per se.  You're allowed not only to touch the ball but to hug it like a teddy bear and make it your best friend ever.  Kicking it is allowed but in special circumstances only.  Hitting it with your head, which is supposed to be in a helmet, can only be a mistake.

Bookmark: one of yesterday's, to the Math Forum (familiar themes, pg. 119).

Hah, I liked that Katie Couric with Brian Gumble flashback commercial, for BMW's new electric model.  The Kickstart commercial was pretty rad.  Bud did another Clydesdale and puppy scenario, fun.  M&M gag was good.  Invisible woman: funny (with Matt Damon).

Interstate Message Traffic

A common misperception even among Hawthorne District aka Asylum District cognoscenti, is that the "one flew over the cuckoo's nest" prototype, outsourced by Salem, is the seminary at the top of the street, a ways up Mt. Tabor.

Not so.  The old hospital campus no longer exits but think "food carts near Jolly Roger" on 12th to get closer.  Think Washington High School (where Pauling went), already retired from public school service in my day, and used by artists.

Anyway, I finally met a guy from there, the seminary, just here for two weeks to finish up some doctorate of divinity studies.  He's based in Texas and his family gets antsy when he travels.  I understand.  If the family might go too... I was thinking of Brazil with my daughters...  Not everyone enjoys having their cage rattled the way traveling does do.

He was already very experienced as a world traveler, doing childrens relief work.  We agreed that Austin is like a bridge city between Portland and the rest of Texas.  Everyone seems to think that.  Topology is weird.

New on Twitter: @npym_it

:: @npym_it twitter account launches ::

The first tweet is a link to the job description i.e. how the IT Committee serves NPYM Meetings and Annual Session. This is a new committee as of October, 2014.

I'm the Technology Clerk with Alberta Hill the Facilitation Clerk (when we have meetings, she clerks them).

We mostly work with development teams and interested parties on things like (a) registering and organizing for Annual Session (b) Directory Services.  We may also poll member meetings (e.g. invite them to participate in surveys) and consult with them regarding appropriate technologies for conducting their business.

Inching Closer

We may be getting closer to that Guantanamo "theme park" memorializing the USA's descent as a sovereign power under the globalizing influence of Pentagon-style capitalism aka "cowardly capitalism" based on "cost plus" defense contracts.

The mercenary industry became a boom sector, organized around the Goon Belt (WDC).  Neocons ruled.  America suffered a huge loss in respect as the rest of the world watched aghast at its wild antics.

Lots of giant corporations were never fans of the Neocons however and getting funding for such a theme park need not be a huge problem, especially if it's established as a non-profit.

The Cubans should not have to worry about coughing up the dough.  They weren't the cause of the problem and needn't pay the tab for the cleanup, which will take decades.

The Imitation Machine (movie review)

I recommend coming at this as a theater play with historical content, not as some "docu-drama" or historical re-enactment.  That way you needn't worry about "manga-fication" (cartoonification), the process whereby subtle tensions become much more in your face and melodramatic, anything but subtle.  Like with Wittgenstein and that fire poker.  He almost killed Popper right?

Like in real life a Rumsfeld might dictate some acerbic memo, a "snowflake" in Pentagon-speak, asserting his primacy in the chain of command over Condi.  In the "manga-fied" movie version, he gives her a punch across the jaw and she responds by dancing with nun-chucks on the ceiling, in slow motion, in a leather rain coat.

Taking a real example from the movie: I doubt a fist fight broke out over withholding strategic life-saving information after Enigma was cracked, or that the Really Stupid General was really so stupid as to take a crowbar to a Turing Machine named "Christopher" and almost lose the whole war single handedly for His Majesty.

I was glad to see the Soviets getting sympathetic treatment from MI-6, as Churchill was indeed worth bypassing; you can tell I'm not a huge fan, Human Smoke reader that I be.

I wasn't privy to any of this salacious storytelling or gossip around Alan i.e. Bletchley Park was no Hogwarts for me.  They didn't celebrate that history yet.  I grew up in the Cold War when such things were still secret.

Public key photography would have to wait for the power of GCHQ to wane against New Zealand's (long story, PGP-related).  I started to catch up thanks to Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.

Great acting, by all the Turings!

For a minute there I thought Scarlett Johansson (aka "Lucy") had come back in time in her "know everything chair" to help Alan with his puzzle.  But no, Keira Knightly is actually a different person, duh.

NPYM IT Comm: Tracking Issues

We don't have a JIRA instance or others issues tracker, though it's on the drawing boards to get one as a service, so I'm noting some tasks here.

(a)  Outreach & Visitation is following a number of Friends, whom we might call "isolated" except "Isolated Friend" is a term reserved to a type of member.  Friends (RSoF) as implemented within NPYM has a membership aspect baked in.  But this new column is independent of membership and could be coded as FollowedBy with OVS as a property of that relationship.  Except that's graph database talk.  These days, we're in SQL.

(b)  continue engaging #M3 re gender attributes we might want to add.  The current schema appears stripped of any gender or ethnicity information.  That may be intentional, or M3 may, at the corporate level, suffer from an attention deficit, a common phenomenon among corporate persons.  M3 is a flagship Monthly Meeting (MM) albeit not the only one in our region.  Its choosing to drop gender, and our regional schema following suit, should get some notice as a landmark decision, versus happening almost as a sleight of hand when no one is looking.

I've got the ball rolling on both (a) and (b) by the end of 2014, but see many steps will be needed before either issue is closed.

Birdman (movie review)

I got to Columbia River Brewery (CRB) early and checked in via Swarm, leaving a record in my Facebook profile.

Hollywood Theater, a nonprofit with a loyal membership, including friends of mine, was doing a brisk business this day after Christmas, 2014.  Matt and I were there to see Birdman.  I saw Wild on Christmas Day, also showing here, but I saw it at Lloyd Center.

We both admired Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice and I saw a lot of continuity in the character.  A raving psychotic who should be supervised, or at least not be given openable windows, is allowed to pursue a dubious career in theater, at least in his paranoid / locked-up own mind.

His daughter does her best with this guy but is showing a lot of birdman tendencies herself.  Both achieve some notoriety, with her registers being more cyber-spatial (Cyberia-focused); she's following Twitter and all that.  Having seen Wild the day before, this young one's character reminded me of Cheryl's.

Matt and I had mostly critical things to say about the movie, but really we were talking about the whole melodramatic / theatrical culture.

I'm not exactly a quietist, as a Quaker, but on the quietist-to-ranter spectrum, I'm more a quietist than this theatrical bunch, prone to expletives, like the Nixonian White House.  I'm certainly known to rant sometimes, giving vent to invective.

But then, to be fair, this cast needed to survive on Broadway and pump it up incredibly, every night, for eager audiences, any one of which might contain a powerful media critic of enormous influence.  That's a lot of stress.  Show business drives people nuts, and likewise attracts nuts to its swirling core (cite The Zero Theorem -- nutty and fun).

We decided to hit Laurelwood Pub, adjacent Rheinlander, which used to occupy the CRB location nearer the theater, only to find it was packed to the gills.  We checked the pub I often go to after Hollywood, but that was packed too (not a work or school night).  CRB was comfortably busy with just cleared booths.  I got War Elephant Double IPA and a sandwich, Matthew a salad.

Birdman is over the top intentionally I'm sure and with enough psychoanalysis we could get something spinning around the secret psychic powers (shades of Stalker).  I'm going to leave that to other critics.

Test Piloting a QR-code

with special thanks to David Chandler, Leslie Hickcox, and to Portland Mennonites

Hobbit Economics

"everything is awesome!" (so much gold!)

So King Thorin has a serious headache with all that gold, inherited from the nasty dragon.  If he just lets it out the door then pretty soon it won't be that scarce.  We saw how the villagers treated it, but how long would that last?  It would have to be meted out, and you would need to be an Einstein, or Milton Friedman, to figure out the velocity of money issues.  How fast would be the military build-up?  Would inflation lead to food riots, with wheel barrows of gold barely buying a zucchini?

What are orc children like?  Did we see a hatchery in a back episode?  Do Mr. & Mrs. Orc ever party, and do they form nuclear families at all?  They don't appear to have much use for money in other words, or the finer things in life.  That's probably why Smaug's Mountain has to be "strategic" in some battle ground, as a bunch of gold is not attractive enough.

Indeed, what can gold buy you?  The Elves have what they need so remain aloof.  No HDTV, no iPhones... there's precious little money can buy back then, and one gets tired of mere jewelry and gold bricks used for street pavement.  So what?  What's so "wealthy" about streets paved with gold when you get right down to it?  Slippery, impractical.  Back to Thorin's nightmare.

One can almost read Gandalf's lips there at the end when he says Bilbo is a terrible liar.  We all know he's got the ring and Gandalf understands the Shire is the best place for it as the saga continues, with Mordor on its military build-up, post face-off with the elvyn chyk (tail tuck time).  We know that in the audience as well, that Gandalf is just biding his time, plus the book readers among us even better understand how the ring is increasing Bilbo's willingness to lie, never mind how bald facedly i.e. badly.

The first of the three Hobbit films got me claustrophobic and I'm reminded by last night's Solstice banter that the book is that way too.  Now that I've seen the Snowden documentary, I can't help but make the pun "snowed in" and draw the parallel of getting stuck in some hotel room in Hong Kong for N hours.  Lets just start on some adventure already!  People should let up on Assange.  In general, lets be a lot less Mordor-like, less Orc-like, if we really think the Hobbits won or deserved to.

Where's the Fair? (movie review)

Where's the Fair? asks why the USA no longer seems to care about the World's Fair or Expo concept, having withdrawn from the international body that plans them while producing only lackluster pavilions and then only when goaded by foreign governments to step up to the plate.

Talking heads propose various theories as to why the State and/or Commerce Department have dropped the ball, while the Freedom of Information Act begets a lot of heavily redacted documents.  No one seems to know for sure.

The film spends very little time on the Montreal dome of 1967, Buckminster Fuller's contribution, and mentions Kabul and Khrushchev not at all.  Minus the Bucky thread, perhaps too much of the narrative unravels?

Washington does not want to get trapped into doing another dome probably, while winning hearts and minds is an undertaking that city despairs of doing anymore, having alienated just about everyone. 

The confidence to spin truly hopeful visions of the future is not in the USIA's repertoire anymore, as there's no longer a USIA.

I learned quite a bit from this film.  I had no idea Spokane, Washington had hosted a World's Fair in the 1970s, or maybe I'd known that once and forgot.   Archival clips from some of the events were exciting.

Perhaps the USA is just too diverse to be represented by some out of touch State Department in any case.  Cascadia could have its own pavilion someday maybe?  GM did, in Shanghai in 2010, with its Chinese partner company.

Milan 2015 will be the site of the next Expo.  The documentary suggests the USA will not have a pavilion but from the perspective of December 2014, we do expect one.

:: rendering:  usa pavilion 2015 ::

Followup proposal:
A possible food candidate for the American Food Pavilion

Wisdom @ Work

Penguins of Madagascar (movie review)

Strange as it may sound if you're not used to thinking of movies in a curriculum context, ala film school, this cartoon deserves doing some homework first.

The Madagascar franchise is already well evolved, and this narrative follows an off shoot:  the special ops team of penguins, so endearing in the earlier episodes.

Ideas come quickly at high bandwidth, fighting boredom all the way (I was never bored); ideas about physics, about relationships, and about human (or octopus) motivations.

The villain feels royally dissed that all the zoo patrons coo over penguins and not him.  His revenge:  "monsterize" penguins.  The giant ray gun, a staple of villain cartoons, is playing the usual role.

Another special ops team appears on the scene, somewhat modeling the so-called "special relationship" between the US and UK.

The US broke off from the UK at a high management level, as well as in the rank and file, and the two cultures still have a lot of the same attitudes toward what "special ops" looks like (ala James Bond, though I didn't catch that many direct references to this Ian Flemming character).

Seeing Penguins of Madagascar and Big Hero 6 both on the same day, with a few hours in between (enough time to visit Yard House for dinner, bus home, come back with the car), made for some interesting thinking.

John Malkovich plays a great villain, bravo.

Note closing credits:  they get it right with the hexagons as connoting high tech.

By 2014 we have successfully migrated from the right angled XYZ look to the more futuristic / organic IVM look, when it comes to connoting high technology.  Graphene is where it's at.

When buying two 3D movie tickets at once (the 2nd for Big Hero 6 at 9:50 PM) for like $29, I mentioned something about breaking the bank.  The ticket lady said she didn't mean to be rude but if I were age 60 or greater I could claim a discount.

Although I have the requisite white hair, I wasn't sure if she'd card me so demurred: "I couldn't prove it" I said, "but I'll be 60 soon though, and then I can watch all the cartoons I want!".  The guy behind me thought that was funny.  Me too.

Men Were Too Slow

Given ongoing ops in Bangalore to raise living standards for children by sharing a more intelligent STEM curriculum (OLPC an influence), I'm seeing a next campaign shaping up.

You may remember my Kite campaign, a connecting of dots that included Alexander Graham Bell's kites.  This campaign will be similar in that many dots will connect, and many light bulbs will go on.

Before that it was "Aristotle was right, remember the Mite", homage to space-filling tetrahedrons (Sommerville a champion).

The gist of the new campaign:

Men had thirty years to appreciate Synergetics and a few of them did, but mostly the Bucky stuff, being about livingry and not killingry, is about "girlie man" stuff i.e. is "for girls" i.e. "patriarchy [sic] is too dumb to get it" (as in:  too lazy, too slow -- a non-virtuous kind of dumb).

This taps into pent up fury against patronizing men, plus helps counter the Barbie Syndrome.  Works well in India, but other places too.

More on Facebook.  Stay tuned. Wicca an influence as well.

Good Bye Party

I'm at a low key good bye party for Steve Holden, who comes and goes from Portland quite a lot, but with this departure having a penultimate flavor.  We look forward to having him back in 2015.

Steve lent some serious technology to the Blue House:  a color printer, now in the Buddha Room, and an Apple computer, to which I added an HDMI monitor and USB keyboard.  Lindsey uses this setup, freeing my Samsung tablet for use as my reader.  I bought Dataclysm this evening.

I'm chauffeuring Steve to PDX tomorrow morning.

Progress...

After watching a few motivational Youtubes about Neo4j, which I'd been playing with using the default Movies tutorial, py2neo just started working as advertised.

What I'm still not clear on is where this data persists, and will Tom Hanks come floating to the surface, some castaway, perhaps lost in our Quaker terminal?

The "4j" should be seen as meaning "for Java" i.e. Neo4j targets the JVM, as do Scala and Clojure.  No matter:  the C-family of Pythons have an API to the engine, just as they have the standard DB API for talking to SQL engines.

Neo4j, in being an open source graph database, is "not SQL" or "~SQL" per the graphic below, aimed at elucidating Model, View, Controller architecture in the form of a web application.

Mockingjay Part 1 (movie review)

My daughter warned me as I entered one of Plato's many caves (The Bagdad) -- having just bought her his Republic, a new translation -- that this would not be a happy world, beer and pizza notwithstanding, nor one tied off with a bow (being a Part One).

Katniss, Tara noted (having seen it earlier), had broken through to a next meta-level of The Hunger Games when manipulating cat behavior in a bomb shelter (cave), suddenly seeing her own role (as Katniss) with new eyes (bingo, enlightenment strikes).

I'm somewhat in awe of this whole series which snuck up on me.  The pieces it fits together are pieces we've seen before, but the arrangement seems deftly done and that impresses me.  More to think about.  The Wag the Dog aspect is especially intriguing i.e. the PR dimension.

I've been writing about PR a lot on the Math Forum, sometimes in complement with a disillusioned "mad man" from Bangalore, soured on sloganeering from having pushed too many products he did not personally approve of.

Onion Pie

Steve Holden is a pretty good chef and blogs have traditionally kept recipes.  I only have one so far, for a lentil dish.  Here's another:

Take six pounds of onions, and chop off tips, skin outer layer, halve, then slice with cross-section laying flat.

Add to large sauce pan with stick of butter and steam over medium heat until cooked down and flavorful, about 25 minutes.  Preheat oven to 425F.

Add to onions:  four slices (rashers) of sliced bacon, sauteed; pint of sour cream; two heaping tablespoons flour; salt; pepper, four eggs lightly whipped to blend yokes.

Fill pie shells and bake for about 45 minutes to an hour, until golden brown.

Extra filling may go in portion-sized bowls.

NYPM IT Comm Business

I was cracking some jokes with the IT Committee about our retro, largely spreadsheet-based record keeping practices within NPYM.

We're not universally using such scatter-brained tech, as M3 uses Quickbooks, which is at least database based, what you need where monetary transactions are happening.  Keeping track of money on spreadsheets is not especially professional, though they're great for "what if" planning and doodling.

Imagine a futuristic NPYM wherein the Secretary, wanting a list of current M&O clerks throughout the region, simply runs a reporting routine that polls the MM servers behind the scenes.  These Meetings of Record, the Monthly Business Meetings, are where the real action is and their servers are on-line 24/7.

NPYM is just about gathering together a few summary reports and providing Directory Services, in addition to producing Annual Session, our roaming conference, like a circus.

In reality though, in 2014, we use only a few SQL engines, let alone NoSQL engines, for member tracking and there's no uniform API allowing the central office to send HTTP requests to any of them, for a list of current members.  They're not on-line in the first place.

Meetings do not host CMFs and/or depend on FGC Cloud Services, even though NPYM is technically not within FGC.  Friends tend to use Facebook instead, which I'm not saying is terrible, but the data then goes to Facebook, not to our offices.

I've set a target of 2016 for having at least two Monthly Meetings able to demonstrate an ability to let households maintain their own records on-line.  Our NPYM Directory would then practice polling them in answer to NPYM Secretary queries.  Worth a try anyway.

Back to Teasing

We've got this character named Israeli Knight, seriously.  I call him IK for short (see below).

You can dig through math-teach yourself if interested, an acquired taste for sure.

Anyway, he's a racist of the classic sort, and Biblical to boot, so I asked him this question, as a way of spiraling back to a favorite video:

Say IK I've been wanting your take on this short operetta about a black King and a white woman who decide to collaborate on an oasis development project, thereby attracting attention from the natives. Do you think it's a good idea to form inter racial business partnerships of this kind?

Ongoing repartee: [1][2][3]

CitizenFour (movie review)

Big slow-moving bureaucracies that can't do their own thinking are easy targets for the faster thinkers, human individuals, brains with integrity, geeks or what have you.

The NSA is easy to crack and spy on, its mostly military-minded leaders none too bright and none too keen on protecting the Constitution, which they most likely know little to nothing about.

Google is easy to spy on as well, as is Verizon.  These companies have little to no ability to protect against serious investigative reporters, let alone geeks.

The table-turning of Wikileaks etc. is obvious:  the real intelligence community owns the unimaginative bureaucrats, the laughing stock victims of professional spying.

No, I'm not saying Snowden was a criminal, guilty of espionage.  Like Manning, he's a bright kid who wants to uphold and defend democracy.  He thinks for himself.  Unlike most generals.

So what do we learn from "spying" on the NSA: that most of its people are average Americans e.g. they get along to go along and aren't particularly principled.  So what else is new?   The technology is new.

I remember researching "PGP guy" (Zimmermann) versus Bobby Inman (then head of NSA).  Should ordinary citizens have a military-grade skill set?  The opportunity, the freedom to have that, is what counts.

Organized government, like organized religion, says no.  Who asked them though, right?

Anyway, PGP plays a role in this movie, as does encryption as a general theme.

This film could be shown in high schools to:

(a) inspire patriotism and respect for geeks and
(b) motivate more learning of maths, crypto in particular.

I saw it with Carol and Melody at Living Room Theater #6 in downtown Portland, a couple blocks from the main Powell's.

Martian Math

 
1 x 1 = 1

2 x 2 = 4

 
3 x 3 = 9

3 x 2 = 6

Wanderers 2014.11.4

David Chandler was our speaker tonight.  He's made a name for himself in 911 circles by proving, fairly persuasively, that WTC-7 fell "at the speed of gravity" meaning "controlled" demolitions were happening, in addition to crashing airplanes (no airplane hit "WTF-7").

NIST in its final report agrees WTC-7 was in free fall for over two seconds.  The North and South Towers had their own pathologies.

The Twin Towers were certainly alluring as a symbol of cogitation, including to me, in nearby Jersey City for some years, a high school math teacher.  I was taken up with the plight of Tibet and seeing office towers as a place for "virtual nations", like corporations, to base themselves.

My fantasies tended toward offices of the Dalai and Panchen Lamas in respective towers, maybe goofy but I thought poetic, given the imposing nature of the towers.  This was before the family relocated its HQS to Bhutan.

Were one to dig up my crudely hand-drawn comic books of the day, the Twin Towers in silhouette would show up on various pages, and one might imagine I had nefarious designs.  The designs were benign however.

I'd ride the PATH train from Jersey City to WTC quite often, Manhattan's Penn Station even more often.  I had other designs as well, our family (dad in particular) having "planning" on its resume:  for a high definition Dymaxion Map billboard on the back of Loew's Theater (near my house); a rail spur to Newark Airport (like Portland's MAX to PDX); an IMAX in The Stanley.

:: big dreams for JCNJ ::

When 911 actually happened, Dawn and I, in Portland, Oregon, were expecting a wedding anniversary, which it was, but not one of the normal kind obviously.

As a matter of logic, one cannot conclude from evidence of an intentional demolition that hitting the button on the buildings was long planned for that day, even if there was such a button.  How many more would be saved versus burned alive?  So many were leaping to their deaths, would that be going on for several days then?

Would helicopters and long ladders have made it all better?  Viewers would have felt moody and blue watching all that dying day after day, not that they weren't moody and blue already.

The "mercy killing" theory is the antithesis of the "part of the same assault" theory.

In between is the "needed to do it there and then for insurance reasons" theory.  Only the "coordinated assault" scenario really requires pre-planning.  Other scenarios require quick judgement calls one may question in hindsight... and a button.

Depending on the theory, different groups get to push the button.  Bin Laden pushed it?  Yeah right. Not enough is made of Bin Laden being the construction company.

The idea a building of that size would need to come down someday, so would be pre-wired for self destruction -- seems like a good idea at least.  Nothing lasts forever.  I'm not sure you'd need to sneak around adding explosives later.  Paul Laffoley's story suggests otherwise.

New World Order

Whereas the financial press may date the end of the US as we know it to the 1980s, when terminal bankruptcy was trumpeted as a sign of bogus immortality, the layperson on the ground is more likely to date the desovereignization process to the breakdown of borders in the Middle East.

As of 2014, no one really knows where the borders are among the former nations of Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Iraq and so on.  Political maps survive, showing snap shots of various people's belief systems, however the credibility of such was draining away from the 1940s onward.

Ironically, a chief catalyst in the breakdown of the nation-state system was the Pentagon's "strategy" of bombing whomsoever it pleased in the No Man's Land around Afghanistan-Pakistan.  The cruise missile and later drone attacks were corrosive of the whole sovereignty concept and softened up that framework for eventual garbage collection.

Of course Romans did not really know Rome as an Empire had "fallen" on any given day.  Those narratives get invented later and only hold water through repetition and agreement, as stories are much more than necklaces of facts strung together.  The infrastructure of passports, customs, import / export taxes and so on remains, especially in areas where borders are enforced.

The end of the nation-state system happened first on paper in the back office, where those in the know were holding high cards or at least knew what a "high card" was.  Then "border rot" propagated by Pentagon policies, helped the world's "average joes" come to terms with the fragility of the entire nation-state framework.  Life would go on amidst the rubble of once proudly recognizable jurisdictions.