Fall Orientation: Welcome to Asynchronous Schooling

Kick Off Lectures

Global Data Corp Update

Looking back on my science fiction:

Much of the Islamophobia was underwritten by banking establishments fearful that certain Sharia practices might challenge compound interest as the de facto standard.
That North American market consumers might simply enjoy the choice to factor in religious affiliation, looks really troubling to bankers, who count on the Secular look and feel of Roman columns, marble floors, the claptrap of a catholic (liberal) Empire.

The strategy was to pretend there's someone in charge of Islam who forbids innovations in FinTech unless that comes with hand chopping and burning at the stake (taking a page from the Christians there). In fact, none of the world religions are actually organized, as admitting mere mortals are behind the scenes (as the organizers) would undermine the underlying premise: that religions transcend mere mortality and somehow reflect a transcendent will.

In point of fact, enterprising imams have the ability to shape the law to suit local community standards. Rather than allow liberal Islam to flower, drawing even with Christians in having female hierarchies, the strategy has been to trap this world religion in its own bad PR, a strategy similar to the one pursued against Russians, making Putinism (invented for the purpose) akin to Stalinism (no need for discussion, just mimic the attitudes).

Christian sects with a strong background in Capitalism are more likely to see how the rules get made (like sausage), and some, like the Quakers, may co-venture with likewise contrarian Islamic sects, in the realm of FinTech.

None of this venturing precludes the participation of other competing religions of course. No one can beat the Mormons in Las Vegas, as the saying goes. Religions and Fintech have gone together like blood and wine over the eons.

The course I've been pursuing, as a science fiction plot, revolves around creating another tech giant, similar to well-known brands, but inside the jurisdiction of a "different Delaware" meaning the foundational DNA doesn't have the look and feel of British bylaws. We're not that Anglo of an operation (not using Tea Company boilerplate).

Picture something Hopi. A kind of movie-making studio, with data centers a necessary part of its business. I gave it a name and started running some ads, ala some kind of Banksy business, in the 1980s.

Time has been on the march all along, and devout Muslims at least, do have alternatives to compound interest, even in Greater LA. It's not like they give you free money, those Islamic bankers. No, bankers want you to make them richer, that's pretty much true across the board. Yet the permutations are endless. Like casino games.

But banks also compete for high profile clients, the kind that doesn't mind bragging a bit, about having Swiss bank accounts (not something to keep hidden). Remember American Express ads?

A Synergetics Slide Deck with Narrative (4D Solutions)

A lot of geeks I know are already into this stuff and pretty well versed. We didn't waste the forty years and established a track record, including websites, published sources, plays, exhibits.

Then you have a lot of 2nd tier think tanks, a lot of them too derivative and downright lazy to have taken a defined position regarding the design science revolution (which has included free open source backlash against intellectual property inventions).

Russiagate Recap

Me on Facebook (today), hyperlinks added.

The CrowdStrike narrative included in the Mueller Report is cleverly crafted, regarding timelines, such that Trump's public speech, calling on Russians to find those missing Hillary emails, actually came to GRU's attention in real time, and there and then they got to work on the phishing expedition that led to Podesta's emails appearing on Wikileaks.

How did CrowdStrike know all this, and more? What forensic evidence was presented to the grand jury? We were never made privy to any of this, and the story sounds rather far fetched without evidence. Putin offered to let the FBI do some recorded interviews of any GRU agents named in the report, if, in return, the Kremlin could do some taped interviews of Browder, the UK oligarch behind the Magnitsky Act, the guy who touts himself as Putin's greatest enemy.

Trump thought that sounded like a good idea, as he saw a path to exoneration (this was before the Dems went for impeachment, only to be stopped in the GOP Senate). He was excoriated of course, because it sounded like he trusted Russian intel to get to the bottom of the story more than he trusted the purveyors of the Steele dossier (British meddling and collusion was never far from the surface).

CrowdStrike, for its part, has not done anything impressive to substantiate its case. On the contrary, the word on the street is they don't really have the evidence to substantiate their version of the Guccifer 2 chapter. That's why the common wisdom, as I sense it, is that Russiagate fell apart and re-stoking it with new fuel has become an important priority of the anti-Trump movement. I'm thinking Trump has done enough and should go play golf in Mar-a-lago, but I don't buy that the GRU played an integral role in the Wikileaks chapter. Not until we see some proof, then I'd be willing to reconsider.

I support the repeal of the Magnitsky Act. I know Biden and his cronies are all about pushing Ukraine into NATO and trying to "win the cold war" all over again, but in my book, the USSA lost Cold War 2. That's over already.

https://www.axios.com/senate-intelligence-russia-interference-971619a8-a806-470a-9de6-1416220ab35b.html

I've been reading the report. Mostly it seems to trace to the same indictments found in the Mueller Report. It repeats the allegation that GRU officers took their cues from Trump when he said in a public speech that the Russians should find Hillary's emails. The Russians then set about spear phishing in response, got Podesta's emails among others, and turned everything over to Wikileaks? Proof?

How exactly this story is proved is not discussed. Rather, it's sufficient in the legal sphere to make allegations, make any evidence secret from the reading public, and then later quote these allegations as further proof. If one is skeptical, as I am, including based on counter-evidence and alternative narratives, then there's a nagging feeling of illusionists at work. This doesn't seem like forensic science.

Black Studies

In recent Youtube channel activity, I've been tracing links between Fuller's positive futurism, and the civil rights movement in North America, through the life story of Kiyoshi Kuromiya in particular.

Kiyoshi and Bayard Rustin were also gay rights activists, which comes under the heading of civil rights.

New Circuit Designs

Always the same mental cartoon about the super rich handing over assets in a "redistribution", if the less super rich get richer (see 23:07 in the above cartoon model).

If your mental picture is motherboard earth the computer is plugged into the wall socket sun, then if neighborhoods start looking better it's not "at the expense of the rich" or "as a result of redistributing wealth" from the rich, it's a matter of redesigning the irrigation system so the daily new flow of wealth, fresh from the solar source, distributes more equitably / efficiently / intelligently than it did before.

I don't want Bezos to have to give up his fancy house. But if other people start living relatively better, in aerospace study-pods, I'm not seeing that as coming from Bezos in the first place. 

Our collective species IQ is learning how to design the motherboard better. Amazon is a part of that circuitry in providing study pods with Amazon Web Services. However the smarts behind Amazon isn't localized to some single 100W bulb (which is the average power consumption of a human animal).

The Columbia Gorge was flowing without help from humans, who figured out later how to plug into the gorge and make street cars go up and down, along with elevators, in Portland. 

It's not that we need hugely more power from the sun. 

It's that keeping millions under arms, drilling / marching / "training", pushing menacing battleships this way and that, burning time in nuclear mass suicide submarines, is squandering 80% of our fortune on inherently meaningless ideologies.

We're a Ghetto Planet with a rotted Cult (set of beliefs), an amalgam of past beliefs we're too lazy to get out from under.

I'm thinking we wouldn't need more raw power to make this a relative utopia, compared to what we have, with simple onboard reprogramming of our neural matter, an undertaking that requires bits and bytes, not heavy steel making.

Pirate Party Planks

Pirate Party Planks:

* copyleft > copyright
* ethnicities are not races
* Govt runs some businesses to showcase its values
* special public schools focus on training for work in govt
* some public schools are residential, some are same sex
* Tulsi's reprimand of Trump > impeachment verbiage
* Russia is not an enemy
* China either
* protect electoral infrastructure
* until elections are more trusted, no party has a mandate

Pirate Party USA: no candidates, only planks, feel free to steal

Shakespeare in the Park

Shared with Public

July 27 at 9:19 AM ·

Midsummer Nights' Comedy (satire):

City: Look there's no socially responsible way to be publicly engaged in making our world better than outdoor summer rallies right now, so we'd like to let this keep going, even support it.

Feds: oo oo, you make our buildings ugly, we sending apes, you not strict.

City: um, no really we know our people, that graffiti can be cleaned up. Our police can handle it, we know our own people, we'll make your building look like new down the road.

Feds: you not strict, we angry, you Portlanders don't respect authority of God

City: anthropological differences exist between us...

Feds: STFU, apes on plane. We coming now.

Experimental Prototype Communities

The military abuses AI, per Manning et al, which is why so many at Google advocate severing ties, with certain programs at least (death dealing by AI doesn't make anyone look good, least of all collaborators).

My philosophy is keep lowering the barrier to entry i.e. all the tools you'll need to build a utopia are within range of the pooled resources of the first investors.

Then grow your community by trial and error yes, but also by reading up on good ideas and/or better, visiting parallel utopias likewise experimenting with new ideas. Watch the video feed that comes from your competition. Send your spies to see if they're lying.

We all learn from the dystopias too (e.g. Rajneesh Puram as a great case study, speaking of Oregon).

What I try to get away from is any implicit assumption that the debate is about how "we all" as in "all of us" need to agree on some innovation before we try it out.

I think in terms of thousands, maybe millions of little campuses, dotting the Earth, each trying different mixes, different fusions of ethnicities.

Some will be more into AI and tech, wanting to dress unisex like on Star Trek. Others will be more into creative anachronism, dressing like we're in some Monty Python episode, lots of rustic implements, amidst some high tech (say for powering the place).

I think of theme parks. I think of EPCOT, the original meaning: Experimental Prototype Communities of Tomorrow.

We need lots and lots of epcots. The design science philosophy is about facilitating in their creation, less about judging them in advance.

Bump It Up

Memorandum to Global U

Memorandum

As y'all know, I'm into putting PWSs (personal workspaces) on like an AirBnB network, except I called it the Housing Project in the 1980s, and a lot of it was about swapping, so more like those timeshare vacation spots. 

Dorm space, faculty lounges, study pods...

Wiring up the Harrison Street facility to the global Coffee Shops Network (charitable) and to the connected think tank community, has been a long term project. 

Known to some as the "Blue House" in our Buddhist Ghetto (Portland proud of), or in Asylum District  (also celebrated -- named for the sanitorium that used to anchor the neighborhood), we've been a hub for Food Not Bombs, established covens (music bands).  

Portland's creatives called us Blue House to distinguish us from Pink House and some others.

Tomorrow I'm having a contractor spec the place for roof replacement.  Long overdue.  The other big project would be the upstairs bathtub drain situation.  

Then you'd have the perfect faculty housing or student group housing, with included study space and studio, just like it is now, perhaps re-furnished.  Do you like the diner kitchen, a relic of the 1950s?  The main timbers date back to 1905 according to my records.  There've been some add-ons.

In my dreams, I'd like to come back on a circuit and stay here myself from time to time.  The XRL (Extreme Remote Livingry) "middle of nowhere" type boarding schools, the mixed use skyscrapers, the other city-as-campus configurations... I might not be in Portland as frequently as I have been.

My daughters, friends and family would be welcome here, perhaps in some admin capacity.  Tara is next in line to help design the circuit.  

The family business is merging with the Global U in a way that keeps logistics non-onerous.

I'm a big believer in institutional wealth.  You don't need to own an aircraft carrier or submarine to live on one. Ownership of the supersonic jets, the space station, the racetrack, is likewise not my forte.  On the other hand, I'm into storyboarding, like an investment bank, or movie-maker.

As one more student-faculty member, I'm into enjoying the Global U responsibly.  That's how I bring credit to my school.

Air America Reunion?

I think we need to help Rachel Maddow pull out of her tailspin. Remind her it's a small world and all these networks, like the one she works for, interpenetrate in mysterious ways.

Maybe if Russia buys MSNBC and lets her keep her job going on and on about the re-education camp she's worried about, people will settle down and stop worrying. 

As it is, Russia basically bought up Air America (the radio network) which had Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, Rachel Maddow, Thom Hartmann... some went to MSNBC, others ended up on RT. 

For RT to buy MSNBC would be like a family reunion in a lotta ways.

Control Room Simulator

Tibet TV

Recent screenshots.  From Facebook.

GST for Dummies

I think all will agree that a planet, any planet, is an instance of a system. An open system. Here's my question: does it make sense to apply the concept of Entropy to a planet? In principle. Doesn't have to be a question about Earth.

More specifically: can a planet be Syntropic i.e. Negentropic?

Or is that a meaningless question?

I ran this by a list of physics teachers awhile back and didn't seem to reach a consensus, but maybe I posed the question wrongly. The question above is a new attempt to phrase it more correctly.

If you know the right Youtube to answer my question, I'm open to any all suggestions in that regard. Thoughts?

Like I've heard some people invoke the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics to explain why worsening conditions for Humans in Universe over the next 10K years is a necessary consequence. Of course that's not correct, as a planet may in principle harvest the free energy around it, if an open system, and capitalize on the grant income.

For further reading:

GST [1][2][3]

Talk Like a Pirate

Mind Control

I have no ethical problems with consenting adults getting together and agreeing to take some personality test (say OCEAN) that shrinks each to a set of numbers.  Then feed those numbers as machine learning features, paired with one extra Y, such as "voted for...", such as "preferred to purchase...". Do we have a model? Did we discover some predictability?  Not?

What data scientists sometimes ignore or forget to study is whether outliers in one study might be outliers in another or, put another way, are those least predictable (a measurable trait) in turn predictive? Lots of mythology swirls around this question. The predictably unpredictable, the anomalous, do they exist and, if so, what do they teach us?

You might call this an artificial intelligence class, with the twist being our question: so just how artificial is our intelligence, anyway?  Are we all really phonies?  There's some fear of that, which psychoanalysts raised in saying they could predict our lot in life on the basis of our relationship with the mother, or per some other archetype.

But that's astrology in a nutshell: shrink me down to some numbers. Comforting. Back to OCEAN.

I know what you're thinking: we already know OCEAN is predictive and that's what Cambridge Analytica used to tip the election to Trump and blame the Russians.  That's why Facebook was duped, then later took the fall, accused of being too greedy or too loose with its data or whatever.

Americans are stuck believing their every belief is in a database somewhere, and that these beliefs make them predictable, pliable, dupable. That's disturbing.

No one likes learning, from machine learning, that they're a machine.

My response is no, we don't know any of that.  The mythology of marketing and PR is to create an aura of all-knowingness, if that's your line of business (omniscience sells by the "square" they tell me), creates a swirl of doubt around what the true state of psychology is.

What is the state of the art?  With uncertainty so much a tool in the toolbox, how could we know?

The uncertainty principle is not about minimization in psychology, as it is in physics.  The squid ink of purposeful juxtaposition of intended states is what keeps the whole situation fluid, and that's a plus when you're hoping to hover above any literal meaning, indefinitely.

I'd happily join other grad students in this experiment, with or without the Float On floatation tanks. Float On, a nearby business in Asylum District, has also ventured into publishing, resharing some of the John C. Lilly works, on telepathy with dolphins.

I know that's all fringe culture silly stuff, but thar  (as in them thar hills) is where the pirates encode their secret treasures.

A Bridge Over Troubled Water

Kirby Urner
Yesterday at 1:37 PM ·
Shared with Public

My Youtube channel conceit (that's an OK thing to have in literary criticism) is I'm designing curriculum for an Elite Quaker School (warning: stereotype), like Sidwell or one of those. I've got the New England Transcendentalism going, but also Pound and Poe. So yeah, heavy on the humanities but with a bridge from Xanadu across the C.P. Snow Chasm, to STEM, land of the Stemites (not a typo). That bridge is made of C6XTY it seems, a commercial product or artwork or something mirage-like and shimmery, on the brink of esoteric to the point of occult.

A Ramanujan Identity

Concentric Hierarchy in Blender (School of Tomorrow)

More Sausage (as seen on Facebook)

Regarding this "news" article.

"The documents were obtained through the Dossier Center, a London-based investigative project funded by Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky. NBC News has not independently verified the materials, but forensic analysis by the Dossier Center appeared to substantiate the communications."

Somehow dossiers from England don't impress me anymore. We've made too many wrong turns based on "British intelligence". I'm going to use this story as more evidence of British meddling and plans to keep inflaming Russophobia within the North American psyche.

Because they use the word "forensic" they think we sheeple should be impressed. The Mueller Report is already a big part of the history going forward. Any high school history class that doesn't bring up Guccifer 2 is totally bogus in my view, I laugh in their general direction (Monty Python allusion). NBC stinks of police state and militarism very distinctly. That's a network I no longer hold in high esteem, right down there with CNN.

I'm still loyal to CBS though.