So I'm in a small coffee shop. Terry is at the house, with another business associate and my wife the bookkeepper for ISEPP, as a consultant.
Terry wishes the plan to rennovate the property next to Pauling Campus, the renting office repair store, into a Cafe Philosophicus or like that, might materialize. Just needs the $100K.
Don's asking "how" (his name will appear this time).
So PDX was in some write-up in Christian Science Monitor today, as an up-and-coming hub of the global open source network, thanks to the hard work of so many geeks (aka software and hardware engineers), trying to write some benign-enough science / fiction.
Terry just walked in. Our meeting resumes...
Derek appears.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Sunday, November 20, 2005
More Map Talk
Just because the Fuller Projection is by definition nationless, at least in its most pristine, least dumbed down form, doesn't mean we don't see the barbed wire, concrete barriers, armed guard kiosks and so on.
World Game players may very well carry passports (complete with RFID) or find workarounds (like staying home). Plus as any pilot knows, the no fly zones don't just follow national boundaries. Our targets of interest may have no visible presence except on our maps.
Whenever people pour into the streets to register their views, in Beirut, Tehran, New York or wherever, that's of course visible to satellites as well. One way we play the game is by massing ourselves in open areas, such as at Woodstock or Burning Man.
So it's not like we're waiting for any political events to occur, before we start displaying global data in the Fuller format. We've been doing it for years.
Once you have your global data sets in compatible electronic format, its fun to mix and match them, including across time. What dinosaurs lived in your local area code? How might we assign zip codes to off shore floating cities? The permutations are endless.
World Game players may very well carry passports (complete with RFID) or find workarounds (like staying home). Plus as any pilot knows, the no fly zones don't just follow national boundaries. Our targets of interest may have no visible presence except on our maps.
Whenever people pour into the streets to register their views, in Beirut, Tehran, New York or wherever, that's of course visible to satellites as well. One way we play the game is by massing ourselves in open areas, such as at Woodstock or Burning Man.
So it's not like we're waiting for any political events to occur, before we start displaying global data in the Fuller format. We've been doing it for years.
Once you have your global data sets in compatible electronic format, its fun to mix and match them, including across time. What dinosaurs lived in your local area code? How might we assign zip codes to off shore floating cities? The permutations are endless.
Monday, November 14, 2005
Memo re The Map
In my view, Snyder is a damned good cartographer and I have no problem using his algorithm to populate global data displays making use of Fuller's preferred layout, with uninterrupted landmasses (one layout among many).
I'm aware of cheap imitations of the Dymaxion or Fuller Projection, which slice into Japan or wherever, and I know would-be World Game players would be dismayed by such a dumbing down. Competent players want access to the real deal, I understand that.
I'm also aware that Fuller's algorithm, as computerized by Bob Gray starting with Fuller's simulations, expressed with Polynesian-style artifacts, might be used to replace Snyder's in some contexts, giving different gaussians (i.e. the triangles are still distorted, but in a different way).
Mostly, I'm interested in just cutting through the BS, such that open source global data displays, of relevance to NGOs especially, don't involve diverting precious resources from field offices and control rooms already fully engaged in serious-minded service on the front lines.
We don't have the time/energy to spare to ensure compliance with a lot of complicated EULAs. That's why we use Ubuntu/Gnome and like that: we're short of money on paper, and yet we're performing vital high tech services on behalf of omnihumanity nevertheless.
The Fuller Projection should be immediately accessible to such remotely deployed individuals, as well as to school kids in their safe 'n secure classrooms, complete with relevant data overlays.
Our school's objective is to foster competent planning and collaboration skills, such as we've been learning and benefitting from in the open source community more generally. Let's keep up the good work while making GIS/GPS more integral to our thinking.
I'm aware of cheap imitations of the Dymaxion or Fuller Projection, which slice into Japan or wherever, and I know would-be World Game players would be dismayed by such a dumbing down. Competent players want access to the real deal, I understand that.
I'm also aware that Fuller's algorithm, as computerized by Bob Gray starting with Fuller's simulations, expressed with Polynesian-style artifacts, might be used to replace Snyder's in some contexts, giving different gaussians (i.e. the triangles are still distorted, but in a different way).
Mostly, I'm interested in just cutting through the BS, such that open source global data displays, of relevance to NGOs especially, don't involve diverting precious resources from field offices and control rooms already fully engaged in serious-minded service on the front lines.
We don't have the time/energy to spare to ensure compliance with a lot of complicated EULAs. That's why we use Ubuntu/Gnome and like that: we're short of money on paper, and yet we're performing vital high tech services on behalf of omnihumanity nevertheless.
The Fuller Projection should be immediately accessible to such remotely deployed individuals, as well as to school kids in their safe 'n secure classrooms, complete with relevant data overlays.
Our school's objective is to foster competent planning and collaboration skills, such as we've been learning and benefitting from in the open source community more generally. Let's keep up the good work while making GIS/GPS more integral to our thinking.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Headline: GENI Out of the Bottle
I found a Plone site about the Iraqi economy, including news and views regarding regional hookups, stretching as far away as Europe (e.g. through Turkey). That's encouraging. The global grid gets mentioned in this blog, and in neighboring blogs. The buzz around GENI is not new.
Critical Path project (high priority): network the high voltage long distance distribution grids, to facilitate buying and selling of power. ENRON failed to elucidate the vision, got side tracked into attacking California, getting caught in off shore language games around tropical fish 'n stuff. Maybe not really the smartest guys in the room. More of those at Google.
Critical Path project (high priority): network the high voltage long distance distribution grids, to facilitate buying and selling of power. ENRON failed to elucidate the vision, got side tracked into attacking California, getting caught in off shore language games around tropical fish 'n stuff. Maybe not really the smartest guys in the room. More of those at Google.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Control Rooms?
Notably absent from coverage of a FEMA response, or lack thereof, to recent hurricanes, has been any view of a control room. Apparently FEMA has no central nervous system it feels proud enough to show off, no Hollywood-style NORAD or Mission Control ala Houston.
Relief engineers don't huddle over monitors, tracking the progress of this or that mobile relief convoy, with a big screen up front sharing overview. Nor do we see such centers on TV when disaster strikes around the world, e.g. in Pakistan or Guatemala.
TV news rooms come closer, give a sense of a high tech hub receiving reports from journalists around the world. The evening news is a tip of the iceberg sampling of top stories, but there's a sense of thousands more hours going to some archive for later retrieval and review.
But news rooms field spectators, watchers. The ethic of journalism is not to participate, but to report. In nervous system terms, news rooms receive pleasure and pain signals, but have no direct way to trigger a motor response. We hope other control rooms get the message.
Of course a lot of control and situation rooms don't get much TV exposure. Demolition engineers punch up real time satellite imagery, video feed from drones and so on and battleships have their bridges. When it comes to command and control, Pentagon style, wreaking havoc is the name of the game. Our script writers and scenario planners tend to be apocalyptic and/or vengeful in their thinking, anxious to fight human enemies, not weather, earthquakes, fire, famine, drought or poverty.
World Game still takes a back seat to war games, in the fantasy lives of so many children, when they imagine what a safer, more secure world might be like. Control rooms focused on disaster relief and monitoring civilian infrastructure don't really enter their consciousness. Instead they dream of overwhelming fire power, missile defense, ray guns on orbiting space platforms, zapping Earth-bound terrorists on the run.
We have the technology to play World Game for real, but our thinking remains immature, stuck in yesteryear's science fiction. Not enough grown ups. Not a new problem.
Relief engineers don't huddle over monitors, tracking the progress of this or that mobile relief convoy, with a big screen up front sharing overview. Nor do we see such centers on TV when disaster strikes around the world, e.g. in Pakistan or Guatemala.
TV news rooms come closer, give a sense of a high tech hub receiving reports from journalists around the world. The evening news is a tip of the iceberg sampling of top stories, but there's a sense of thousands more hours going to some archive for later retrieval and review.
But news rooms field spectators, watchers. The ethic of journalism is not to participate, but to report. In nervous system terms, news rooms receive pleasure and pain signals, but have no direct way to trigger a motor response. We hope other control rooms get the message.
Of course a lot of control and situation rooms don't get much TV exposure. Demolition engineers punch up real time satellite imagery, video feed from drones and so on and battleships have their bridges. When it comes to command and control, Pentagon style, wreaking havoc is the name of the game. Our script writers and scenario planners tend to be apocalyptic and/or vengeful in their thinking, anxious to fight human enemies, not weather, earthquakes, fire, famine, drought or poverty.
World Game still takes a back seat to war games, in the fantasy lives of so many children, when they imagine what a safer, more secure world might be like. Control rooms focused on disaster relief and monitoring civilian infrastructure don't really enter their consciousness. Instead they dream of overwhelming fire power, missile defense, ray guns on orbiting space platforms, zapping Earth-bound terrorists on the run.
We have the technology to play World Game for real, but our thinking remains immature, stuck in yesteryear's science fiction. Not enough grown ups. Not a new problem.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Baghdad, City of
We may legitimately expect great advances in civilization from Baghdad, once the dust settles. Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi lived in Baghdad, according to an online Britannica. I was just checking into that a few minutes ago. I hear Greenspan favors still teaching the long division algorithm in K-12. I'm certainly not averse.
Did I ever mention my job at Georgetown University, refiling Arabic language texts to their rightful shelf positions? The job required at least knowing the regional alphabet. At the time, I kind of did, thanks to a course I almost failed at Princeton. I also used the time to read more about James Joyce (the Hugh Kenner connection), and naval history (this is closer to the time when Fuller's whimsical/poetical Critical Path was still new).
Let's keep working on getting Imperial Rome out of the picture. Old Glory, in symbolizing a fight against British Imperialism in the 1700s, knows something about beating back illegitimate tyranny. Democracy and self-determination at the local level go hand in hand.
We understand that a stable world system doesn't require power to apex in any one apex. Tower of Babel was for a reason: to keep Man where he belongs, out of the control room (within those limitations, we do as much as we responsibly can, and then some).
Did I ever mention my job at Georgetown University, refiling Arabic language texts to their rightful shelf positions? The job required at least knowing the regional alphabet. At the time, I kind of did, thanks to a course I almost failed at Princeton. I also used the time to read more about James Joyce (the Hugh Kenner connection), and naval history (this is closer to the time when Fuller's whimsical/poetical Critical Path was still new).
Let's keep working on getting Imperial Rome out of the picture. Old Glory, in symbolizing a fight against British Imperialism in the 1700s, knows something about beating back illegitimate tyranny. Democracy and self-determination at the local level go hand in hand.
We understand that a stable world system doesn't require power to apex in any one apex. Tower of Babel was for a reason: to keep Man where he belongs, out of the control room (within those limitations, we do as much as we responsibly can, and then some).
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Return to the Moon?
Mom pointed out an interesting juxtaposition of stories on the front page of The Oregonian today: the rural southeast feels bypassed by federal aid agencies; NASA wants to return to the moon.
I have Google set to sweep newsmedia for any mention of the OMR stadium-shaped city idea. Turning stadiums into cities seems to be a favored solution to date, but that doesn't seem very practical in the long run.
If NASA could build us a spanking new moon base (a dot-mil operation), maybe it could help us brainstorm about new high tech ecovillages right here on Spaceship Earth. We civilians (remember us?) could use some help from the aerospace sector.
But NASA may not have the imagination for it, may not have the "right stuff." OK, so how 'bout The Mouse in Orlando? EPCOT used to mean Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, before the language lawyers changed it to Epcot (deliberately meaningless) and disgused the BuckyBall with the wave of a magic wand (camouflage?).
I have Google set to sweep newsmedia for any mention of the OMR stadium-shaped city idea. Turning stadiums into cities seems to be a favored solution to date, but that doesn't seem very practical in the long run.
If NASA could build us a spanking new moon base (a dot-mil operation), maybe it could help us brainstorm about new high tech ecovillages right here on Spaceship Earth. We civilians (remember us?) could use some help from the aerospace sector.
But NASA may not have the imagination for it, may not have the "right stuff." OK, so how 'bout The Mouse in Orlando? EPCOT used to mean Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, before the language lawyers changed it to Epcot (deliberately meaningless) and disgused the BuckyBall with the wave of a magic wand (camouflage?).
Monday, September 12, 2005
More on Mathematics
I've gone back to Internet brainstorming with other math heads, trying to find a way to engage the media more successfully in high def, high bandwidth, prime time pedagogy, i.e. how do we live up to the promise of TV as a medium for education? Obviously it needs to be entertaining as well. The two go together, positive synergies are inherent.
Inventors always dreamed it might be used for good, even as they cringed, bracing for worse. Well, we know what worse looks like, but there's still plenty of bandwidth for better. And we've had a lot of excellent television. I've often been awed by the talent, the writing, the whole shebang.[1] Not on every channel nor every program mind you. But sometimes TV just blows me away, the way some books and movies do, or some dreams.
A lot of thinkers have focused on "symbol dances" as a genre to focus on, by which I mean multimedia language games that have, as their content, some of the alpha/numeric, iconic, ideogrammatic, and variously stylized glyphs of our or other cultures. Like, flash the ancient greek letters and say them. Sigma, phi, pi, theta. Ro ro ro your boat. But with Flash as in Macromedia, as in Shockwave, as in Sesame Street with Big Bird -- and Evil Bert (not really evil -- that was a joke from the political sphere, some kids won't remember).
I've played with Flash myself, and come up with primitive examples of what I'm talking about. But I'm no super incredible artist when it comes to some sophisticated art-making technologies. I write pretty well. But I'm no great prodigy when it comes to animation (I like to think I add to the team, but I'm not as good in all positions, obviously).
[1] "shebang." WordNet 1.7.1. Princeton University, 2001. Answers.com GuruNet Corp. 13 Sep. 2005. http://www.answers.com/topic/shebang
Inventors always dreamed it might be used for good, even as they cringed, bracing for worse. Well, we know what worse looks like, but there's still plenty of bandwidth for better. And we've had a lot of excellent television. I've often been awed by the talent, the writing, the whole shebang.[1] Not on every channel nor every program mind you. But sometimes TV just blows me away, the way some books and movies do, or some dreams.
A lot of thinkers have focused on "symbol dances" as a genre to focus on, by which I mean multimedia language games that have, as their content, some of the alpha/numeric, iconic, ideogrammatic, and variously stylized glyphs of our or other cultures. Like, flash the ancient greek letters and say them. Sigma, phi, pi, theta. Ro ro ro your boat. But with Flash as in Macromedia, as in Shockwave, as in Sesame Street with Big Bird -- and Evil Bert (not really evil -- that was a joke from the political sphere, some kids won't remember).
I've played with Flash myself, and come up with primitive examples of what I'm talking about. But I'm no super incredible artist when it comes to some sophisticated art-making technologies. I write pretty well. But I'm no great prodigy when it comes to animation (I like to think I add to the team, but I'm not as good in all positions, obviously).
[1] "shebang." WordNet 1.7.1. Princeton University, 2001. Answers.com GuruNet Corp. 13 Sep. 2005. http://www.answers.com/topic/shebang
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
More Global Data
Of course another stargate that's opened (metaphor) is between New Orleans and Amsterdam, Louisiana and the Netherlands. I was pleased to see so much set in the Netherlands in Quicksilver, however twisted that telling. Such wonderful canvases.
People elsewhere on the globe are starting to get more of a picture of what the heartland of America is like. The logistics are poor here. Like, look at our dikes. Kids in Holland stare at the TV agog: so America is like this stone age place, like in The Flintstones?
People elsewhere on the globe are starting to get more of a picture of what the heartland of America is like. The logistics are poor here. Like, look at our dikes. Kids in Holland stare at the TV agog: so America is like this stone age place, like in The Flintstones?
Sunday, September 04, 2005
OMR?
Is now the time to dust off shelved megaproject proposals, e.g. Old Man River City (OMR)? Trevor brought this up at our meeting yesterday -- seemed apropos.
This stadium-shaped A-frame features terraced living, with apartments taking the place of bleachers (obviously its scale dwarfs ordinary football stadia), plus a cover.
I updated a web page on my site with a pictured scale mockup (see Bucky Fuller's Critical Path, 1981 for more details).
On synergeo (Yahoo eGroup) some guy thought I was talking about replacing New Orleans with this leviathan, but I'm more thinking how to bring something on-line that'd be faster to start using (it could go up in sections), while employing companies starting now, thereby giving folks some options (shades of New Deal thinking).
The eventual fate of New Orleans needn't hinge on what we do or don't do in the East St. Louis area.
And we might have learned something in Baghdad about building in transparency (sorely lacking in that context).
The tsunami story isn't over yet either, by a long shot. Disaster relief could and should be one of the world's principal industries (like the body's immune system), fading into construction, communications, health care and education at the civilian end of the spectrum.
Emergency response becomes part of the military way, what with its chain of command and experience with heavy equipment. Restoring order means reverting to a natural state of nonviolent civilian living. Putting out fires is the name of the game -- not starting them.
I don't know if OMR is just a solution looking for a problem here, but bouncing back from Katrina with megaproject proposals, one of which would be rebuilding New Orleans itself (a daunting task), is a healthy response. However, going to the moon wouldn't be that relevant (thinking back to Hurricane Camille, which came shortly after Apollo 11).
Floating city ideas should also be revisited while we're at it, with realistic attention to natural disaster possibilities. Not every technology is suitable to every ecosystem -- presumably we know that much by now.
This stadium-shaped A-frame features terraced living, with apartments taking the place of bleachers (obviously its scale dwarfs ordinary football stadia), plus a cover.
I updated a web page on my site with a pictured scale mockup (see Bucky Fuller's Critical Path, 1981 for more details).
On synergeo (Yahoo eGroup) some guy thought I was talking about replacing New Orleans with this leviathan, but I'm more thinking how to bring something on-line that'd be faster to start using (it could go up in sections), while employing companies starting now, thereby giving folks some options (shades of New Deal thinking).
The eventual fate of New Orleans needn't hinge on what we do or don't do in the East St. Louis area.
And we might have learned something in Baghdad about building in transparency (sorely lacking in that context).
The tsunami story isn't over yet either, by a long shot. Disaster relief could and should be one of the world's principal industries (like the body's immune system), fading into construction, communications, health care and education at the civilian end of the spectrum.
Emergency response becomes part of the military way, what with its chain of command and experience with heavy equipment. Restoring order means reverting to a natural state of nonviolent civilian living. Putting out fires is the name of the game -- not starting them.
I don't know if OMR is just a solution looking for a problem here, but bouncing back from Katrina with megaproject proposals, one of which would be rebuilding New Orleans itself (a daunting task), is a healthy response. However, going to the moon wouldn't be that relevant (thinking back to Hurricane Camille, which came shortly after Apollo 11).
Floating city ideas should also be revisited while we're at it, with realistic attention to natural disaster possibilities. Not every technology is suitable to every ecosystem -- presumably we know that much by now.
Friday, September 02, 2005
Katrina (aftermath)
Tracking with CBS, I saw that segment about the big banana shipment, a fully loaded container ship, getting tossed inland, meaning very bruised bananas. Tremendous loss of hard work, careers built over a life time. Fishermen, their boats ruined, so carefully maintained and fussed over all of their fishing boat lives. Pets gone. Children. Heartbreak in the heartland.
New Orleans and Baghdad have opened a kind of stargate between them, as both have suffered so many untold disasters, and now have armed national guard troops trying to restore order. The public now feels they're in competition: how could you provide for Baghdad and not for us?
A hurricane of destruction was willed by men against Baghdad, whereas Katrina was not of men. These crises do not have the same causes, and yet the shapes are similar. War and natural disasters have always borne some resemblance. And the Red Cross administers in both contexts.
New Orleans and Baghdad have opened a kind of stargate between them, as both have suffered so many untold disasters, and now have armed national guard troops trying to restore order. The public now feels they're in competition: how could you provide for Baghdad and not for us?
A hurricane of destruction was willed by men against Baghdad, whereas Katrina was not of men. These crises do not have the same causes, and yet the shapes are similar. War and natural disasters have always borne some resemblance. And the Red Cross administers in both contexts.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Refugee Camps?
This seems like one of those times when we need emergency short term FEMA cities (camps really), with free rides to the new digs, efficient intake -- on sites high and dry and pre-fitted with portable infrastructure (food and water).
Get back on your feet, start a new life elsewhere.
We wonder about Tara's playmate Alana and her family, of Biloxi. They moved away from the house across the street to be closer to relatives, and were enjoying their new life. They came back for a visit around the same time I got back from my trip to Sweden. How has the storm changed their circumstances, near and long term? We pray for their well being, and that of their neighbors.
FEMA must have such plans in inventory. We've been in a war after all. Corporations will want to get their logos on record as well, to earn the good will of disaster victims everywhere (tomorrow's retail shoppers and investment bankers -- better they should feel gratitude than the sting of abandonment in a time of need).
Followup, Sept 1
I've since learned my info re Alana's family was incorrect: they were closer to New Orleans on the Louisiana side of the border. Our prayers reach out to you, wherever you are. And we continue monitoring Biloxi, looking for signs of your good works, amen.
Get back on your feet, start a new life elsewhere.
We wonder about Tara's playmate Alana and her family, of Biloxi. They moved away from the house across the street to be closer to relatives, and were enjoying their new life. They came back for a visit around the same time I got back from my trip to Sweden. How has the storm changed their circumstances, near and long term? We pray for their well being, and that of their neighbors.
FEMA must have such plans in inventory. We've been in a war after all. Corporations will want to get their logos on record as well, to earn the good will of disaster victims everywhere (tomorrow's retail shoppers and investment bankers -- better they should feel gratitude than the sting of abandonment in a time of need).
Followup, Sept 1
I've since learned my info re Alana's family was incorrect: they were closer to New Orleans on the Louisiana side of the border. Our prayers reach out to you, wherever you are. And we continue monitoring Biloxi, looking for signs of your good works, amen.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Shark Tale (movie review)
I watched this again last night -- one of the few I've purchased for the purpose of sampling, as parts or as a whole, any time. Plus I like the special features.
Capturing the likes of Robert de Niro and Martin Scorsese, as fish, is a major coup, and I salute these gentlemen for agreeing to be in a film for children, that's so kind to adults and their dark worlds, in this case that of an undersea urbia and a world of mafioso types. All the characterizations are brilliant, right down to the hermit crab, who cracks me up every time ("you're blowing it man!").
Capturing the likes of Robert de Niro and Martin Scorsese, as fish, is a major coup, and I salute these gentlemen for agreeing to be in a film for children, that's so kind to adults and their dark worlds, in this case that of an undersea urbia and a world of mafioso types. All the characterizations are brilliant, right down to the hermit crab, who cracks me up every time ("you're blowing it man!").
Friday, August 19, 2005
A Couple of Skits
Skit One:
Karl Rove hosts SNL. Skit-within-a-skit: liberal Oregon family in funky station wagon or bus, all the right bumper stickers, pulls over for disgusting junk food, to find Karl Rove serving at the 2nd window ("ketchup?"). The family freaks, barrels down the freeway, pulls over for gas. It's Karl at the pump.
Skit Two:
The day Rush Limbaugh is out sick and filling in we have Barney the purple dinosaur, spewing love for everyone.
Karl Rove hosts SNL. Skit-within-a-skit: liberal Oregon family in funky station wagon or bus, all the right bumper stickers, pulls over for disgusting junk food, to find Karl Rove serving at the 2nd window ("ketchup?"). The family freaks, barrels down the freeway, pulls over for gas. It's Karl at the pump.
Skit Two:
The day Rush Limbaugh is out sick and filling in we have Barney the purple dinosaur, spewing love for everyone.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Regarding Today's Headlines
I got home in time to watch most of Ted Koppel's Nightline about Peter Jennings, a long haul control room anchor from Canada who recently died from cigarette smoking.
Everyone remarked on how cool-headed he was on the air, and on his ravenous appetite for omnitriangulated information (only a small percentage of which made it to the nightly news on ABC, given ABC offered no 24/7 televised news channel).
Editorial re today's news:
Iranian nuke facilities take a step in defiance of those who've already weaponized their uranium stockpiles.
Nonproliferation should mean it's illegal for any facility, anywhere in the world, to produce new weapons-grade fissionable materials. Any facility that does so, including in North America, should get its satellite picture in the paper for committing crimes against humanity.
Stockpiling such materials is likewise a crime, unless the intent is to secure and eventually destroy them, or render them inaccessible (plans and timeline on file with the IAEA).
Any nation allowing such weaponry to proliferate within its own borders is of course a rogue nation harboring terrorists, by definition -- often a sign that the central government is extremely weak and without a serious national security policy (like in Afghanistan).
Histories currently in production will tell the story from this angle: the Iranian government is not alone in being inept against terrorism. We'll have quite the rogues gallery of nefarious nuke heads and incompetent politicians.
USA OS PolicyToons: [1] [2]
Everyone remarked on how cool-headed he was on the air, and on his ravenous appetite for omnitriangulated information (only a small percentage of which made it to the nightly news on ABC, given ABC offered no 24/7 televised news channel).
Editorial re today's news:
Iranian nuke facilities take a step in defiance of those who've already weaponized their uranium stockpiles.
Nonproliferation should mean it's illegal for any facility, anywhere in the world, to produce new weapons-grade fissionable materials. Any facility that does so, including in North America, should get its satellite picture in the paper for committing crimes against humanity.
Stockpiling such materials is likewise a crime, unless the intent is to secure and eventually destroy them, or render them inaccessible (plans and timeline on file with the IAEA).
Any nation allowing such weaponry to proliferate within its own borders is of course a rogue nation harboring terrorists, by definition -- often a sign that the central government is extremely weak and without a serious national security policy (like in Afghanistan).
Histories currently in production will tell the story from this angle: the Iranian government is not alone in being inept against terrorism. We'll have quite the rogues gallery of nefarious nuke heads and incompetent politicians.
USA OS PolicyToons: [1] [2]
Friday, August 05, 2005
RubyToons
I'm imagining some kind of language game with syntax highlighting, symbols in motion, demonstrating the logic of a high level language: Ruby for example.
Just stepping through with a debugger is already good enough for geek television. A strong debugger even crosses language barriers, e.g. will go into the C# if that's where the problem or break point is, even if the calling code were in IronPython.
Ruby on Rails is a well designed framework for frameworks, targeted at facing a public through the web (http). Since a lot of rails is written in Ruby, the developer's comprehension of the stack will carry her quite deeply into things.
Fond memory (they're developing already): Jim Huginin, beginning his presentation with this funny remark: " the wireless microphone doesn't appear to be working, so if I trip over this cord, please all laugh loudly to help me cover my embarrassment."
Just stepping through with a debugger is already good enough for geek television. A strong debugger even crosses language barriers, e.g. will go into the C# if that's where the problem or break point is, even if the calling code were in IronPython.
Ruby on Rails is a well designed framework for frameworks, targeted at facing a public through the web (http). Since a lot of rails is written in Ruby, the developer's comprehension of the stack will carry her quite deeply into things.
Fond memory (they're developing already): Jim Huginin, beginning his presentation with this funny remark: " the wireless microphone doesn't appear to be working, so if I trip over this cord, please all laugh loudly to help me cover my embarrassment."
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Achieving Orbit
We woke up early thanks to our daughter's special interest in NASA's program, today the launching of a space shuttle. The events were well timed and exceptions minimal. NASA still does great control room. We watched it with Bob Schieffer, a CBS anchor I've always liked.
This is two years after the tragic loss of the previous shuttle, owing to exceptions at launch. This shuttle trip is all about repairing that damage, which many said was evidence of a loss of safety- consciousness at NASA. If true, or even if not, we might use this opportunity to remind ourselves that loss of safety-consciousness is not a phenomenon limited to NASA. Please drive safely.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...
Followup, July 28, 2005: Per today's New York Times front page, exceptions were not minimal as I'd earlier surmised: a big piece of foam broke away from the fuel tank, like last time (although this time it missed hitting the shuttle). So a root cause of the last shuttle disaster hasn't been fixed. The launch process is still unacceptably dangerous.
This is two years after the tragic loss of the previous shuttle, owing to exceptions at launch. This shuttle trip is all about repairing that damage, which many said was evidence of a loss of safety- consciousness at NASA. If true, or even if not, we might use this opportunity to remind ourselves that loss of safety-consciousness is not a phenomenon limited to NASA. Please drive safely.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...
Followup, July 28, 2005: Per today's New York Times front page, exceptions were not minimal as I'd earlier surmised: a big piece of foam broke away from the fuel tank, like last time (although this time it missed hitting the shuttle). So a root cause of the last shuttle disaster hasn't been fixed. The launch process is still unacceptably dangerous.
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