Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Wanderers 2006.3.7
Last night we met with Micheal Sunanda (yes, that's how he spells it, ea not ae) to learn of his adventures in Central America.
He was researching the state of organic homesteading, and ended up spending a lot of time on a coastal permaculture farm, where the infrastructure was good, but staff practices had been rather lame.
Trying to jump start the "humanure" composting system proved difficult because the staff had the usual cultural reluctance to discuss anything relating to poop.
On the whole, Micheal was rather unimpressed with the state of permaculture in Central America, including among "alternative lifestyle" types. People are buying into the processed food economy, instead of perpetuating the older village-based system of complementary growing. Possible costs: loss of self-sufficiency and independence, some deterioration in health.
Micheal sent around little plastic containers of clay plus a mystery substance, which turned out to be cacao steeped in olive oil. He told the story of the centipede "tapping" him on the eyelid (they don't really bite so much as tap), and the screamingly severe pain that caused, ameliorated with clay packs to some extent.
He slept in a cloth hammock, lost in the jungle on occasion. Howler monkeys are really loud.
We had some new faces tonight, mostly friends of Don's, including Chisler, who makes esoteric metal parts for Japanese furniture and such. He liked to interject comments and Micheal got a little testy about that. I appeared to be sleeping through much of the talk, but was actually concentrating or meditating -- I forget which.
Micheal also talked a lot about Earth's magnetic fields (he carries a little magnet on a gimble everywhere he goes) and about "spirology." The conversation then turned to ley lines and the empirical basis for some of this feng shui talk, if any. Art Kohn, back from DC, steered some of this discussion.
Then there was Rob, who wanted to know when he'd be the same age as his dog, so he could have a party on that day. We'd been kicking this problem around for quite awhile (Jon Bunce had actually solved it, but I'd lost the paper) so I finally turned to the open source community just hours before the meeting, hoping to give him a real answer. This proved a success story, as chronicled in a thread on edu-sig.
Still flush with this success, I sent out a call for concentric hexapental spheres to Synergeo, a Fuller School eGroup on Yahoo!, hoping to impress Glenn Stockton with how fast I could get back to him with some images of his Global Matrix.
This morning, I had two relevant images in my in box, plus helpful pointers on how to get more. Tim Tyler's is displayed above, Adrian Rossiter's below.
This was the subject of my OSCON talk last year: how the open source community has made my work as a Fuller Schooler so much easier over time.
Another highlight: Nirel cluing me in to Ashes & Snow.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Politics @ Princeton
"think tank"
Matt and Mike plan to tease me over beers this evening, about my alma mater, thanks to the cover story in the most recent issue of The Nation: Princeton Tilts Right by Max Blumenthal (March 13, 2006).The article is about some well-funded conservative think tank based at the university, but getting no direct funding therefrom. If you're reading from overseas, don't confuse "conservative" with "conservationist" -- two separate memes.
Geeky aside: if looking back from the magazine cover i.e. from inside the depicted Ivory Tower (not really ivory), the tilt is actually to my left.
As the movie Why We Fight points out: think tanks have become pretty important of late, as government out-sources more of its brains, as well as its brawn, to become a pale ghost of its former self (like a ring wraith?).
Well, I guess that's participatory democracy in action. Plus thinking really doesn't cost that much (brains are quite energy efficient), so having a ton of money doesn't necessarily mean that much. Like, I've got my blogs, and they're world readable at no cost to me. So what if I'm not a billionaire like Bill?
But hey, what if Google gets taken over by Chinese ideologues and my blogs get deleted by busybody censors? There's always room for angst. Old Europe used to have an even more drastic remedy for talking heads it didn't agree with: it'd cut 'em off or strangle 'em (or just burn the whole body alive, at the stake).
The USA's founding fathers tried to curb those Old Europe reflexes (didn't succeed entirely), by enshrining freedom of speech in the U.S. Constitution. But did our founders forecast "artificial persons" having the same rights as the real ones, under the 14th Amendment? Obviously not. But then, they didn't foresee the Internet either, which makes my websites "but a mouse click away," on a par with ExxonMobil's.
I interviewed two candidates for Princeton this year, like I did last year. Impressive achievers, per usual. I didn't hear a lot about community service though. When do high school kids ever have the time to work with the less fortunate, the impoverished? Why doesn't our public school system provide these opportunities? Because there's no more poverty to worry about? Someday maybe. In the meantime, the wall around the privileged seems higher than ever these days, gated communities more the norm (like we had in the Philippines -- I lived in the somewhat ironically named Magellanes Village).
Anyway, as a radical middle guy, I know people will probably cull through my many postings looking for words to use against me, if and when those A & B modules ever start appearing in our nation's geometry classes. Showing synergetic geometry on television (like in a Global Data commercial): that'd be like a match to the fuse of Bucky Fuller's long-running Mission Impossible thread.
Well, my would-be critics'll find plenty of Urner-authored rants and diatribes, stuff to get angry about. Like just today, look what I posted to Quaker-P (more context in the full version):
There is leverage in having someone owe me a debt. There's also the hypocrisy of the USA pushing the IMF to force other governments to repay debts, at great cost to social programs, while it simply sinks deeper and deeper into debt itself, never really forcing the same dynamics internally.
Yes, social programs get cut (FDR era programming has been gutted), but just enough is meted out to forestall a massive popular uprising or backlash -- a day-to-day calculation, requiring close collusion with the corporate media. In the Third World, it's easier to use brute force intimidation, to make activists "disappear." ....
I have this portfolio of investments. It doesn't have to have the USA in it for my operations to be profitable. There's nothing the USA has that I couldn't get elsewhere. Or that's how it might come to seem, if present trends continue.
Besides, there's a sense of poetic justice in watching those USAers join the rest of "the developing world". I'm tired of watching this self-righteous "superpower" strut about on the world stage, arrogant and stupid. I would love to have it go down, but in a controlled and intelligently managed way, such that it doesn't set off its nukes, the way Americans do whenever they feel threatened (sniveling cowards that they are).Wow! I sound like a dangerous dissident or something. But keeping to the middle way means hanging ornaments in a balanced fashion over time.
I veer left and right, but it's design science, more than politics, which supplies the gyroscope I steer by. I Engineer (downloading it now, from iTunes -- a song Matt turned me on to a long time ago).
Other developments:
Mom just called, about to fly off to the New Europe. Sunanda is back in town, from Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua, with lots of stories to share with Wanderers.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
FEMA Villages?
I caught some Congress dude pointing to an aerial photo of manufactured homes (huge numbers of them) some 450 miles from ground zero (New Orleans etc.), on C-SPAN (flip flip flip).
He was making a lot of good points e.g. why is FEMA just sitting on these homes, while in the meantime stopping payment on hotel rooms?
OK cool, so Congress is waking up. I'm all for it.
The reason of course (for sitting on these homes) is there's this pervasive assumption among bureaucrats that people are undeserving of the valuable services they might provide.
You find this in India a lot: the greatest satisfaction is in denying others what they most sorely could use. It's a back-handed way of meting out justice (however sick and twisted that "justice" may be). At last, a way to punish, a way to be in control of others, to have some power.
Or on a stereotypical English estate: the biggest snob is the butler. If you buy there's this totem pole or ranking system, and you're three rungs up the ladder, then no way are people on rungs one and two going to get above you, come hell or high water. They're just scum of the earth after all.
In a democracy, we're less enamoured of any totem poles in the social stratification sense. Old timers get respect by default, because their "been there done that" quotient is likely higher. We acknowledge experience.
But in the lifestyle department, we take a more theatrical approach: people live on different stages, act out in different soaps. They're not atop one another. More like Universal Studios: the sound stages are laterally dispersed.
Does this make any sense at all? I think so.
In the social stratification sense, I consider myself as high as I need to be. I've got a middle income lifestyle and that's sufficient. I like being average in that dimension. Ram Dass was a teacher in this regard: "keep to the eight fold bath of the upper middle way" he said (like, I wouldn't mind having a jacuzzi -- might have to up the amps to my fuse boxes though).
And I use my disposable income to man a battle station. That's a luxury, privilege, freedom, and right that I have: to engage in battle, to make alliances, to practice the art of war ala Sun Tzu and Machiavelli. Bucky was my teacher, but not my only one.
Our democracy affords me this opportunity. Thank you Uncle Sam.
He was making a lot of good points e.g. why is FEMA just sitting on these homes, while in the meantime stopping payment on hotel rooms?
OK cool, so Congress is waking up. I'm all for it.
The reason of course (for sitting on these homes) is there's this pervasive assumption among bureaucrats that people are undeserving of the valuable services they might provide.
You find this in India a lot: the greatest satisfaction is in denying others what they most sorely could use. It's a back-handed way of meting out justice (however sick and twisted that "justice" may be). At last, a way to punish, a way to be in control of others, to have some power.
Or on a stereotypical English estate: the biggest snob is the butler. If you buy there's this totem pole or ranking system, and you're three rungs up the ladder, then no way are people on rungs one and two going to get above you, come hell or high water. They're just scum of the earth after all.
In a democracy, we're less enamoured of any totem poles in the social stratification sense. Old timers get respect by default, because their "been there done that" quotient is likely higher. We acknowledge experience.
But in the lifestyle department, we take a more theatrical approach: people live on different stages, act out in different soaps. They're not atop one another. More like Universal Studios: the sound stages are laterally dispersed.
Does this make any sense at all? I think so.
In the social stratification sense, I consider myself as high as I need to be. I've got a middle income lifestyle and that's sufficient. I like being average in that dimension. Ram Dass was a teacher in this regard: "keep to the eight fold bath of the upper middle way" he said (like, I wouldn't mind having a jacuzzi -- might have to up the amps to my fuse boxes though).
And I use my disposable income to man a battle station. That's a luxury, privilege, freedom, and right that I have: to engage in battle, to make alliances, to practice the art of war ala Sun Tzu and Machiavelli. Bucky was my teacher, but not my only one.
Our democracy affords me this opportunity. Thank you Uncle Sam.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Levee Town
I watched lots of stats marshalling on my CBS TV last night, mostly about approval/dis of that Oval Office guy (oval like a cowboy hat they tell me -- so like how many gallons?). In this skit I imagine, some pollster's on the phone: "so whaddya think of the job our prez is doin'?" Ten minutes later, phone rings again: "so how 'bout now?"
It's those levees that've got my attention. Like, I wouldn't move back or invest if I thought The Flintstones were still in charge. Ol' Hurricane Harry of 2010 might obliterate my casino again. And what about those pumps? They tell me one of the last to croak was this 1929 jobber. True? Makes a good story anyway. And some giant screw of Archimedes by Leonardo himself, was still turning at 10 feet under (!) -- not that this helped much.
I recall some dinner conversation in Portland, many months before Katrina, where I soaked up some talk about those levees. New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen, was the gist of it. I listened, wide eyed, incredulous, as if to some episode of Believe It or Not. Little did I realize how soon would come my chance to believe.
And at that St. Helen's viewing center north of here, they show this movie about Mt. Rainier having a bad hair day, shuffing off a glacier or two (no big eruption or anything, just a hiccup, or a sigh), and what that might be like. Picture a sudden river/tsunami smashing through used car lots, playgrounds, Burger Kings. Did the people evacuate in time?
And that IMAX movie: there's this pattern of earthquakes, marching rather predictably it seems, with Istanbul (or some suburb thereof) in the cross-hairs. The older mosques have already weathered a few and are still standing. It's the speculators who throw up the cheap apartments, cut corners against code, play dice with the lives of Allah's children.
Bottom line: many disasters have been queued by Mother Nature, a few of which we're even half expecting. God to humans: "you'll need to stay alert." Humans: (lost in some soap) "upgrading those levees will just have to wait Mr. Almighty Sir, we've gotta keep winning against those godless communists!" Satan snickers. Remember the story: angels were deeply jealous God had found this new love, these wingless humans, and the meaner ones (Satan the meanest) just love it when we goof up big time.
Another skit: journalists break into the Pentagon, inner sanctum, expecting to find all these maps of the Middle East, but it turns out everyone's focused on levees, earthworks, evacuation plans, other civil engineering. "We haven't been into war planning for years," some general confides sheepishly, "that's more a big business thing." Cutaway to Raytheon or other beltway bandit hide-out: now here's a real war room (very reassuring) and yep, a war with Iran might mean selling a few hundred cruise missiles through Congress (kaching!).
And hey, speaking of cruise missiles, did anyone even ask if the word "tomahawk" might be copyrighted? I bet they owe billions and won't pay. Them forked tongue lawyers never pay -- the Injuns learned that early -- far cheaper to just change the law.
Rrrring. "So how 'bout now?"
It's those levees that've got my attention. Like, I wouldn't move back or invest if I thought The Flintstones were still in charge. Ol' Hurricane Harry of 2010 might obliterate my casino again. And what about those pumps? They tell me one of the last to croak was this 1929 jobber. True? Makes a good story anyway. And some giant screw of Archimedes by Leonardo himself, was still turning at 10 feet under (!) -- not that this helped much.
I recall some dinner conversation in Portland, many months before Katrina, where I soaked up some talk about those levees. New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen, was the gist of it. I listened, wide eyed, incredulous, as if to some episode of Believe It or Not. Little did I realize how soon would come my chance to believe.
And at that St. Helen's viewing center north of here, they show this movie about Mt. Rainier having a bad hair day, shuffing off a glacier or two (no big eruption or anything, just a hiccup, or a sigh), and what that might be like. Picture a sudden river/tsunami smashing through used car lots, playgrounds, Burger Kings. Did the people evacuate in time?
And that IMAX movie: there's this pattern of earthquakes, marching rather predictably it seems, with Istanbul (or some suburb thereof) in the cross-hairs. The older mosques have already weathered a few and are still standing. It's the speculators who throw up the cheap apartments, cut corners against code, play dice with the lives of Allah's children.
Bottom line: many disasters have been queued by Mother Nature, a few of which we're even half expecting. God to humans: "you'll need to stay alert." Humans: (lost in some soap) "upgrading those levees will just have to wait Mr. Almighty Sir, we've gotta keep winning against those godless communists!" Satan snickers. Remember the story: angels were deeply jealous God had found this new love, these wingless humans, and the meaner ones (Satan the meanest) just love it when we goof up big time.
Another skit: journalists break into the Pentagon, inner sanctum, expecting to find all these maps of the Middle East, but it turns out everyone's focused on levees, earthworks, evacuation plans, other civil engineering. "We haven't been into war planning for years," some general confides sheepishly, "that's more a big business thing." Cutaway to Raytheon or other beltway bandit hide-out: now here's a real war room (very reassuring) and yep, a war with Iran might mean selling a few hundred cruise missiles through Congress (kaching!).
And hey, speaking of cruise missiles, did anyone even ask if the word "tomahawk" might be copyrighted? I bet they owe billions and won't pay. Them forked tongue lawyers never pay -- the Injuns learned that early -- far cheaper to just change the law.
Rrrring. "So how 'bout now?"
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Boosting Bandwidth
A Math World(click for larger view)
So if a picture is worth 1K words, then 30 frames/sec = 30K words/sec. That's a lot of info.
Of course the real differences between frames may be small (static background). MPEG capitalizes on that. Gregory Bateson: information = differences that make a difference.
An MTV generation has grown up on fast cuts, slick editing, making music on a multitrack (if privileged), but then comes formal schooling and a sudden slow-down.
One can hear the gears shearing, the cultures clashing.
Like in math class: the... teacher... talks... really... slowly... as she squeaks out some chalkboard algebra, back to the room (spit ball, paper airplane -- anything to add bandwidth (starvation is painful)).
Nothing dances, nothing moves.
Typical adult response: kids have been spoiled by TV, can't concentrate, short attention spans, need drugs (the legal ones). Oh and Johnny, I'll be late coming home from work: watch TV or something.
How about we try meeting them at least half way? I'm thinking of math movies, DVD clips, flashy shorts with high production values. Abacus, subtract in base 10, then in base 8. Play Tom Lehrer's New Math in the background. Lots of video collage (mix in some history: sputnik, Eisenhower, Weisenheimer).
Then let kids dream up their own, editing/recombining from a growing stash of stock footage. Mix 'n match. Hip hop TV, and with some real academic content.
Slow down for talking heads, sure (caution: heads talking).
I'm not saying only teach this way. But at least let's give it a try. I've seen so few good examples to date (Power of Nightmares was pretty good, showed off lots of media literacy, but not much in the way of math).
I know this culture is capable of more, much more. We take pride in our media savvy, yet so often refuse to use it except to push an easy credit, consumer-based lifestyle, combined with fantasies of being one of those smart people on TV (some doctor, cop, or lawyer -- rarely a priest anymore, unless it's Robert de Niro on late night cable, or maybe TBN).
The rest of the world watches our endlessly dumbing it down and rightly wonders: how low will they go?
Sesame Street was something of a breakthrough, but Big Bird doesn't know anything about icosahedra, vectors, or complex numbers (or if he does, he isn't sharing).
Related posts:
Math on video.google.com (the early days) @ the Math Forum
Another Alien Curriculum
Follow-up thinking on edu-sig @ python.org
Follow-up thinking on math-teach @ Math Forum
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Back from Catalina
Avalon in February(photo by K. Urner, Olympus Stylus 500)
After a couple blissful days watching breaking waves on Catalina, a movie makers' haven, I'm back in the world of "breaking news" on airport monitors.
CNN's "Situation Room" aesthetic seems especially shrill, more like a panic room. Whatever happened to simply monitoring events vs. squeezing them for cheap thrills?
Last night CNN was all about fungus in our pillows, close ups of dust mites. I suggest buying a Kirby if that's your concern; they suck pillows big time.
Today we're all up in arms about globalization, as if there's no discernable difference between UAE and OBL (they're both "Arab" right?).
Some idiots blow up a mosque and now it's civil war -- seems there's a real appetite for it, an eagerness for the next disaster, the next spectacle. Will TV be used to fan the flames or cool them? The medium works wonders either way.
OK I'm venting a bit. I've come down with a mild case of misanthropy. I'll shake it soon I hope.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Welcome to Reality
Writer / Director Stephanie Cooper(photo by K. Urner)
Stephanie Cooper’s Welcome to Reality, a play in nine scenes, is set in Lone Oak, a small New England town wherein all the adults have committed to a rationalist / literalist mode of thinking, with two exceptions: a science fiction writer who speaks of his characters as if they were real, and a civil war buff who believes he was once a rebel captain (sometime before the car accident).
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
American Islam
There's nothing to stop Islam from being a politically constructive player on the USA domestic scene. Malcolm X was a trail blazer in this regard.
These emerging schools needn't take direction from overseas. As a Quaker, I look forward to working with a pacifist branch that understands the Lamb's War, i.e. we're in a battle for hearts and minds, fighting against fear, corruption and tyranny. Outward weapons are for losers.
The Pentagon is shifting gears to focus less on nukes and more on psychological warfare, a positive development (long overdue), and not inconsistent with a warrior class value system, per many Asian examples.
The idea of a war for freedom and liberty isn't specifically Christian (indeed, many Christians hate our freedoms as surely as some Muslims do).
As a secular state, we're free to learn from Islamic schools about how to resist terrorism and parasitism in all their ugly forms.
These emerging schools needn't take direction from overseas. As a Quaker, I look forward to working with a pacifist branch that understands the Lamb's War, i.e. we're in a battle for hearts and minds, fighting against fear, corruption and tyranny. Outward weapons are for losers.
The Pentagon is shifting gears to focus less on nukes and more on psychological warfare, a positive development (long overdue), and not inconsistent with a warrior class value system, per many Asian examples.
The idea of a war for freedom and liberty isn't specifically Christian (indeed, many Christians hate our freedoms as surely as some Muslims do).
As a secular state, we're free to learn from Islamic schools about how to resist terrorism and parasitism in all their ugly forms.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Jihad
mosque in Alabama, by TemcorNuclear weapons = sin (pride, hubris, Satan -- see Paradise Lost).
Allah to humans: be loyal, disarm.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (movie review)
A real joy on this DVD is director Paul Schrader's commentary, which frames what's already a multi-level puzzle box of art about art. The film weaves grayscale memories with color-themed theatrical excerpts from Mishima's works, within the outer frame of the artist's final performance, a kind of paramilitary maneuver and homage to bushido culture.
Mishima was a great post-WWII Japanese writer who, with the rise of film and television, morphed into a media celebrity and cult figure. He used his prominence to make a statement, signed with the blood of his own surreal and spectacular suicide, along with that of his adjutant, on November 25, 1972.
Scharder's postmortem commentary in November 2000, at the Lucas Skywalker Ranch, provides insights into the intricate dynamics behind the making of this 1985 film, which resulted in its being temporarily suppressed in Japan, where Mishima, survived by his widow, remained a controversial figure. Just making this film took guts, especially if one were Japanese (the foreigners were expected to be insensitive and reckless).
My thanks to Trevor Blake for putting me on to this film, and to Netflix for making it easy to come by.
Mishima was a great post-WWII Japanese writer who, with the rise of film and television, morphed into a media celebrity and cult figure. He used his prominence to make a statement, signed with the blood of his own surreal and spectacular suicide, along with that of his adjutant, on November 25, 1972.
Scharder's postmortem commentary in November 2000, at the Lucas Skywalker Ranch, provides insights into the intricate dynamics behind the making of this 1985 film, which resulted in its being temporarily suppressed in Japan, where Mishima, survived by his widow, remained a controversial figure. Just making this film took guts, especially if one were Japanese (the foreigners were expected to be insensitive and reckless).
My thanks to Trevor Blake for putting me on to this film, and to Netflix for making it easy to come by.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
More Adventures in Quakerdom
informative brochure from an outward weaponry museum(from the chronofile of Annis and George Bleeke)
Tara and I drove out Hwy 26 towards Mt. Hood, to Road 39 past Rhododendron, a small town with a cool relic: a junked articulated bus, extravagantly tagged, likely one of those Hungarian jobbers we used in Portland for some years (they proved a maintenance nightmare). MMM clerk Peter Ford and I snapped pix when going back to the Rhododendron food market in search of garlic and mustard (we found both).
Dawn stayed home to work on the books for MMM (which she converted from Peachtree to Quickbooks) and NPYM among others. I complained to Annis Bleeke that Quakers want too much for their dime, the way my wife gets chained to her computer like that. But of course this was not her doing.
I tried to help with her sudoku puzzle but it had a five-star difficulty rating and Annis, of sound logical mind, obviously didn't much need my help.
I studied her three ring binders, a chronofile of the Bleekes' FWCC adventures for those years when Annis was General Secretary. She had a lot of Africa pix. Annis and George helped me immensely with logistics in Lesotho in 2000, in the wake of the October 13 car accident; the estate sale went very smoothly thanks to them.
Anyway, while we were standing in line, waiting for food, Janet asked if I'd reconsider being the webkeeper for NPYM, now that Steering Committee had implemented some of my suggestions around boosting network security and smoothing turnover around the webkeeper position. I said OK. So my name goes back to nomcomm, and I'll likely be assuming my new duties soon.
Addendum: nope, nomcomm decided to go with someone else, which is good, as it looks like I'll be heading to Switzerland around the time of NPYM's Annual Session this year (combined with FGC).
Friday, February 10, 2006
Yes!
photo by K. Urner, Feb 10, 2006I usually collect my bizmo pix over in Bizmo Diaries, but I'd just been posting on funding services for children, so I thought here might be apropos.
Outside In is one of our social service agencies working with youth.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Fund the Children?
I just got a solicitation call from a nonprofit tasked with publishing a directory of missing children, a kid finder, a locator of some kind.
It sounded extremely important, and apparently this directory is often used by Multnomah County social services, to assist in its job of providing assistance to juveniles and their families.
I did not offer to send any money. Why?
Because I think County services should get the taxes it needs to generate these directories minus any need to go begging.
That's a problem in this country: anyone with a worthy cause has to beg, while anyone with a sure-fire way to make dough, all ethics aside, is assured of a friend in Congress.
There's gotta be some happier medium, even without crossing that dreaded line into 20th century socialism. 20th century capitalism: it's your company that owns that computer, so use it to do company work, not personal work. Works great if you're a company prez like me, of some nebulous Global Data dot net.
Of course I don't want the guy who phoned me just now to lose his job. I want him to work full time helping with that missing children situation, not begging for hand-outs. Same with Congress, they deserve more freedom from special interests. Like, we make them need gobs of money, just to stay in the game, but then say "oh, but bribery is illegal."
In the original USA theory, elections could be run cheaply, and some worthy individual with drive, but shallow pockets, could get a crack at holding office. Holding office wasn't supposed to be an exclusively rich man's game, not even high office (we differed from Britain in that way). Not even exclusively men (still tends to be though, at least as long as it's war time).
That's all gotten stretched out of kilter by now. Elections were made super expensive (not to mention untrustworthy), and you had to be on the take somehow, just to get inside the beltway. Going back to the old ways won't be easy on any national level.
That's why I'm suggesting we start local and small. Like, let the County do its job, don't make it beg to save the children. Let's just save the children already. That's just our job, as older adults, s'been that way since prehistory (and not just if we're penguins).
It sounded extremely important, and apparently this directory is often used by Multnomah County social services, to assist in its job of providing assistance to juveniles and their families.
I did not offer to send any money. Why?
Because I think County services should get the taxes it needs to generate these directories minus any need to go begging.
That's a problem in this country: anyone with a worthy cause has to beg, while anyone with a sure-fire way to make dough, all ethics aside, is assured of a friend in Congress.
There's gotta be some happier medium, even without crossing that dreaded line into 20th century socialism. 20th century capitalism: it's your company that owns that computer, so use it to do company work, not personal work. Works great if you're a company prez like me, of some nebulous Global Data dot net.
Of course I don't want the guy who phoned me just now to lose his job. I want him to work full time helping with that missing children situation, not begging for hand-outs. Same with Congress, they deserve more freedom from special interests. Like, we make them need gobs of money, just to stay in the game, but then say "oh, but bribery is illegal."
In the original USA theory, elections could be run cheaply, and some worthy individual with drive, but shallow pockets, could get a crack at holding office. Holding office wasn't supposed to be an exclusively rich man's game, not even high office (we differed from Britain in that way). Not even exclusively men (still tends to be though, at least as long as it's war time).
That's all gotten stretched out of kilter by now. Elections were made super expensive (not to mention untrustworthy), and you had to be on the take somehow, just to get inside the beltway. Going back to the old ways won't be easy on any national level.
That's why I'm suggesting we start local and small. Like, let the County do its job, don't make it beg to save the children. Let's just save the children already. That's just our job, as older adults, s'been that way since prehistory (and not just if we're penguins).
Icosa Globes
student projects suspended from the classroom ceiling(photo by K. Urner)
Sixth graders in Portland study plate tectonics (Pangea, subduction plates, geological stratification, volcanoes and earthquakes) using these paper fold-up globes.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Congress at War
Congress keeps suckering for this "nation at war" hypothesis, and so eagerly swallows a lot of other bunk, in its mad scramble to please big ticket defense lobbyists.
Like, of course we're at war, the most profitable damn war the weaponry pros have ever seen: open ended, an inexhaustable supply of dispensible bad guys, enough religious righteousness to fuel a simmering armageddon to kingdom come. And so let's keep recruiting those extras, those fanatics we love to see killed.
But doesn't Congress have the power to say, "hey wait a minute, we're done with this war"? That's happened before. Wars get called off. People go back to being civilians. Soldiers come home from the front. Why isn't that happening? Doesn't anyone ever win eventually?
No, that's the whole point: Congress needs to keep certain people happy, come hell or high water (we've had a lot of both). So war it shall be, grimly, gravely, with much pageantry and show. A circus for the masses.
Welcome to Rome.
Like, of course we're at war, the most profitable damn war the weaponry pros have ever seen: open ended, an inexhaustable supply of dispensible bad guys, enough religious righteousness to fuel a simmering armageddon to kingdom come. And so let's keep recruiting those extras, those fanatics we love to see killed.
But doesn't Congress have the power to say, "hey wait a minute, we're done with this war"? That's happened before. Wars get called off. People go back to being civilians. Soldiers come home from the front. Why isn't that happening? Doesn't anyone ever win eventually?
No, that's the whole point: Congress needs to keep certain people happy, come hell or high water (we've had a lot of both). So war it shall be, grimly, gravely, with much pageantry and show. A circus for the masses.
Welcome to Rome.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
History is Surreal
Nixon in ChinaOr there's this thread in Synergetics Dictionary (Applewhite): only the impossible happens.
This picture has the look of one of those posed propaganda posters, but for what episode of Alien World?
"Another day in the twilight zone" might be a good caption.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Meeting @ Wired with Sam Lanahan
Sam and I had a jovial and convivial meeting regarding his latest explorations in the geometry of Flexblox. We had coffee, plus he had a scone, me a Guinness ("the better breakfast beer").
Then, using the Toshiba (my main machine, although KTU2 is behaving better lately) we oggled pavilions going up in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. That bird's nest and bubble prism are breath-takingly bold.
I also used the opportunity to share some of my own strategy maps, which center around an old theme in this blog: OSCON versus NCTM. I use these two conferences to typify two directions in math/engineering: towards a bright future of open source and tech savvy kids; towards a dreary and pedantic world of more of the same (and lots of clueless adults grousing about how dumb the kids seem to be these days).
I'm sure NCTM doesn't appreciate being the symbol of all that is dreary, but just use your own powers of research and track down how many references to Medal of Freedom winner R. Buckminster Fuller you find in the last 20 years of "OK with NCTM" text books. How much synergetics-friendly mathematics?
The NCTM even changed its own logo to make it less likely to remind us of an octet truss.
Don't tell me these Stalinesque cover-ups of huge swatches of history only take place in totalitarian countries. Take any large enough bureaucracy of gutless enough wonders, and watch your edgy little design science curriculum turn into some "safe enough for everyone" pablum.
Fortunately, our nation is still free enough to not get all marching orders from pedantic and narrow-minded bureaucrats. We have many ways to bypass curricula which don't treat our students with the dignity and respect they deserve e.g. by short changing them regarding their heritage as Americans. We have the Internet. We have television. We have music. The future looks bright.
Then, using the Toshiba (my main machine, although KTU2 is behaving better lately) we oggled pavilions going up in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. That bird's nest and bubble prism are breath-takingly bold.
I also used the opportunity to share some of my own strategy maps, which center around an old theme in this blog: OSCON versus NCTM. I use these two conferences to typify two directions in math/engineering: towards a bright future of open source and tech savvy kids; towards a dreary and pedantic world of more of the same (and lots of clueless adults grousing about how dumb the kids seem to be these days).
I'm sure NCTM doesn't appreciate being the symbol of all that is dreary, but just use your own powers of research and track down how many references to Medal of Freedom winner R. Buckminster Fuller you find in the last 20 years of "OK with NCTM" text books. How much synergetics-friendly mathematics?
The NCTM even changed its own logo to make it less likely to remind us of an octet truss.
Don't tell me these Stalinesque cover-ups of huge swatches of history only take place in totalitarian countries. Take any large enough bureaucracy of gutless enough wonders, and watch your edgy little design science curriculum turn into some "safe enough for everyone" pablum.
Fortunately, our nation is still free enough to not get all marching orders from pedantic and narrow-minded bureaucrats. We have many ways to bypass curricula which don't treat our students with the dignity and respect they deserve e.g. by short changing them regarding their heritage as Americans. We have the Internet. We have television. We have music. The future looks bright.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Voting Machines
I caught Lynn Landes on The Ed Schultz Show, KPOJ AM, PDX, somewhere around 2:45 PM today. She's a journalist suing the civilian authorities to recover transparency in voting, and now has a docket number with the US Supreme Court.
From the sound of it, she's against using machines entirely, at least in their present form, which makes sense, as their transparency is near zero.
So could we ever ensure a computerized voting system was honest? I imagine ballot type objects, each with a unique ID, and able to reconstitute as printed objects any time we like. Plus the ID numbers collate under each candidate, forming a cross-check. Historians get to download the bulk data in some standard format and analyze the hell out of it.
We keep it anonymous by not linking ballot ID numbers to people -- which doesn't mean we lose control on how many or which people get to vote (it's just how they vote that we don't track, not how many times).
With this infrastructure in place, one could randomly create fictitious ballots with known content and shunt then through the system, having them originate with the real votes, indistinguishably therefrom, at the precinct level.
In the final count, we would see if our fictitious ballots had been credited properly, as we'd have their ID numbers, which would then become public as not-counted audit checks. Since the ballot stuffers would come from a black box (stored in more than one location, including with election watch dogs), no vote counter would have a way to tell them apart from bona fide votes. Any significant miscounting would show up in the postmortem, perhaps voiding the results.
American Express uses a similar technique to spike proprietary mailing lists; if your store sends junk mail to the list more times than it paid for, various bogus addresses get pinged too many times, and your store gets called on the mat.
An interesting design question: should we give individuals privileged access to their own ballot ID number? Then it's their secret to keep or reveal. I could go to the data base via web form, ballot ID in hand, and call up my own voting record.
Any changes to any of my votes would be immediately obvious to me, although without the printed receipt (not counterfeited) no one would have to believe me if it said I'd wanted Chicken Little for president.
Some people might keep their ballot receipts just long enough to verify their choices were recorded properly (the ID number links to candidates' names in the relational data base), then destroy them.
Here's an idea: since the NSA is getting more involved on the domestic front, thanks to Al Qaeda, why not have the NSA come up with some new voting machine infrastructure, or at least the specifications? A consortium of universities could assist with this project.
Network security is a key specialty at the NSA. If our ability to accurately count the votes is being impaired by some kind of behind-the-scenes skulldudgery, our USG security establishment should be all about uprooting that.
The integrity of our USA codes is undermined to the extent we're unable to establish an unbroken link to the actual will of we the people. The legitimacy of the courts themselves depends on protecting the integrity of this social contract.
Congress has seemed remarkably reluctant to take this bull by the horns and address the widespread concerns of ordinary Americans that our system is broken. Maybe the executive and/or judicial branches will show more backbone?
From the sound of it, she's against using machines entirely, at least in their present form, which makes sense, as their transparency is near zero.
So could we ever ensure a computerized voting system was honest? I imagine ballot type objects, each with a unique ID, and able to reconstitute as printed objects any time we like. Plus the ID numbers collate under each candidate, forming a cross-check. Historians get to download the bulk data in some standard format and analyze the hell out of it.
We keep it anonymous by not linking ballot ID numbers to people -- which doesn't mean we lose control on how many or which people get to vote (it's just how they vote that we don't track, not how many times).
With this infrastructure in place, one could randomly create fictitious ballots with known content and shunt then through the system, having them originate with the real votes, indistinguishably therefrom, at the precinct level.
In the final count, we would see if our fictitious ballots had been credited properly, as we'd have their ID numbers, which would then become public as not-counted audit checks. Since the ballot stuffers would come from a black box (stored in more than one location, including with election watch dogs), no vote counter would have a way to tell them apart from bona fide votes. Any significant miscounting would show up in the postmortem, perhaps voiding the results.
American Express uses a similar technique to spike proprietary mailing lists; if your store sends junk mail to the list more times than it paid for, various bogus addresses get pinged too many times, and your store gets called on the mat.
An interesting design question: should we give individuals privileged access to their own ballot ID number? Then it's their secret to keep or reveal. I could go to the data base via web form, ballot ID in hand, and call up my own voting record.
Any changes to any of my votes would be immediately obvious to me, although without the printed receipt (not counterfeited) no one would have to believe me if it said I'd wanted Chicken Little for president.
Some people might keep their ballot receipts just long enough to verify their choices were recorded properly (the ID number links to candidates' names in the relational data base), then destroy them.
Here's an idea: since the NSA is getting more involved on the domestic front, thanks to Al Qaeda, why not have the NSA come up with some new voting machine infrastructure, or at least the specifications? A consortium of universities could assist with this project.
Network security is a key specialty at the NSA. If our ability to accurately count the votes is being impaired by some kind of behind-the-scenes skulldudgery, our USG security establishment should be all about uprooting that.
The integrity of our USA codes is undermined to the extent we're unable to establish an unbroken link to the actual will of we the people. The legitimacy of the courts themselves depends on protecting the integrity of this social contract.
Congress has seemed remarkably reluctant to take this bull by the horns and address the widespread concerns of ordinary Americans that our system is broken. Maybe the executive and/or judicial branches will show more backbone?
Monday, January 30, 2006
One: The Movie
Dawn and I caught this one at the Bagdad free of charge. Given the offgassing of fumes from the floor varnish in the soon-to-be pool table room (behind the big screen), management decided to forego the $3 admission and just sell refreshments.
The staff never dimmed the house lights, although I made a special trip to the counter with this request. The dimmer guy was on the phone. Oh well.
Anyway, as the liner notes and movie script spell out: some middle aged, middle Americans take it into their heads to get a DV cam and make a movie on the meaning of life. As might be expected, given no training or background, they come up with a hodge-podge.
The saving grace of this film is they manage to record some trully talented people sharing honestly and sincerely, including but not limited to several VBNs on the spirituality circuit (some of whom I'd read, but never seen, like Robert Thurman).
But the interviewers, being somewhat clueless and inane, tend to squander the opportunity by asking "big" questions instead of probing or insightful ones. Now if only we'd had Bill Moyers... There's also some storyboard about some guy on a "journey" (he rides buses and stuff).
In sum, this isn't very good reality theater, much as I admire the players.
My sense is there's tremendous talent out there, especially in the religious sector, ready and willing to rise to the occasion, but a lot of this talent goes untapped. We just don't have the needed directors yet.
The solution may be for more religious groups to see the making of film and television as a divine calling, and not leave it to others to get it right. A role model here might be Khyentse Norbu of Bhutan.
And let's script in more technology working to alleviate suffering in tangible ways. I'm tired of this ridiculous stereotype that spiritual people can't do engineering or use computers.
Add to all this dumbing down all those supposedly God-directed clowns brandishing firearms and making terrorist TV, and you can see why so many good people tend to marginalize religion as irrelevant at best.
The staff never dimmed the house lights, although I made a special trip to the counter with this request. The dimmer guy was on the phone. Oh well.
Anyway, as the liner notes and movie script spell out: some middle aged, middle Americans take it into their heads to get a DV cam and make a movie on the meaning of life. As might be expected, given no training or background, they come up with a hodge-podge.
The saving grace of this film is they manage to record some trully talented people sharing honestly and sincerely, including but not limited to several VBNs on the spirituality circuit (some of whom I'd read, but never seen, like Robert Thurman).
But the interviewers, being somewhat clueless and inane, tend to squander the opportunity by asking "big" questions instead of probing or insightful ones. Now if only we'd had Bill Moyers... There's also some storyboard about some guy on a "journey" (he rides buses and stuff).
In sum, this isn't very good reality theater, much as I admire the players.
My sense is there's tremendous talent out there, especially in the religious sector, ready and willing to rise to the occasion, but a lot of this talent goes untapped. We just don't have the needed directors yet.
The solution may be for more religious groups to see the making of film and television as a divine calling, and not leave it to others to get it right. A role model here might be Khyentse Norbu of Bhutan.
And let's script in more technology working to alleviate suffering in tangible ways. I'm tired of this ridiculous stereotype that spiritual people can't do engineering or use computers.
Add to all this dumbing down all those supposedly God-directed clowns brandishing firearms and making terrorist TV, and you can see why so many good people tend to marginalize religion as irrelevant at best.
Friday, January 27, 2006
Memo Re Google in China
Here's text I just posted to a private Forum I frequent. The Forum question was about recent news reports, of Google collaborating with aliens to dumb down its search engine service.
I think Google should play by American rules, meaning Bill of Rights and First Amendment. I didn't like it when Microsoft pulled that Chinese blog either, because it offended certain readers in China. Many other readers in China, including a small following of journalists, loved that blog, and were deeply hurt that Microsoft would get involved in Chinese politics, and side with some ruling faction against them.Addendum: please feel free to send an email to Google if you're in China and can't google up this Blogspot post, Blogger being a Google service. Cc me if you like. Use my Gmail address.
If Chinese authorities want to dumb down the Google service, they shouldn't expect Google to do this work for them. They should build a new franchise, with pass-through to Google, and censoring of what comes back. This franchise should not use Google trademarks, except maybe to confess to clients that they're piggy-backing on a back end by some other company (truth in advertising).
Or you could just appoint some government minder to stand behind every Chinese student who wants to Google up Tiananmen Square, and use a cudgel.
See Wikipedia: Tiananmen_Square_protest_of_1989.
But it's the Chinese themselves who need to pay for all that extra manpower. Google has enough to do without worrying about local censorship rules. Push that off onto the clients, leave Google free to not dumb down its own service.
Kirby
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