Make: Mathematics

:: OST annual meeting ::

I'm in a presentation by Scott Gray, O'Reilly School of Technology (OST), regarding his ground-breaking Make: Mathematics program.

The conceptual model is a cube with paired opposite faces representing Tools, Content and Learning Management. Opposite Tools is Making, opposite Content is Learning, and opposite Learning Management is Feedback.

In a past era, a "maker cube" was actually an apprenticeship, a hands-on, integrated approach to learning a trade, with mentoring. Assembly line education broke up this model to manage the exponential growth curves. With the advent of electronic communications, Scott thinks we're ready to restore the apprenticeship model in some areas.

Scott has an interesting story. He was born into a coal mining subculture in Appalachia. He was struggling academically in a mediocre school, until he encountered a college math teacher who helped him flip on the lights. He suddenly discovered his inner brilliance and went on to become a luminary in the distance education world, having grappled with many a STEM curriculum.

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity drove his curiosity in several dimensions.

The story behind OST has a lot to do with the University of Illinois in Champagne / Urbana. I'm still putting the puzzle pieces together in my own mind, as I get to meet the key people. Several have flown here for the annual meeting.

The late Jerry Uhl was the early pioneer in this picture and his curriculum writing is still a backbone of the Make: Math curriculum. I'd been tracking him through the Math Forum and knew of his stature. Many of the people at this meeting knew him personally, were among his closest friends and co-workers.

Make: Mathematics is designed to be sharable for a fee. The product allows professors to customize their own course content and syndicate it over the web, using Scott's team's cloud service. Wolfram has licensed Mathematica to run on their back end.

Students get to interact with a web page that's a lot like a Mathematica Notebook, implemented in HTML and JavaScript (Bruce has been coding the back end). UI enrollees get to actively author content in a personal sandbox, while switching between native Mathematica syntax and typeset views, provided by the server as images.

Hilbert has built in workflow that allows students to hand in work-in-progress to a teacher (e.g. Bruce), who then gets to make comments and hand it back. Color coded text areas distinguish between student and mentor comments. The team sought our feedback on the color scheme.

This is not simple-minded low end learning management system (LMS). Students have access to free form cells accepting Mathematica code. They can change code on the fly, look at 2D and 3D graphics with a slider that changes the viewpoint -- all in a web page (AJAX by Joel).

The mathfuture group should have some interest in this technology. "Learn Math by Making Math" (OST's motto) is a lot like "Make Math Your Own" (Maria's tag line).

Wanderers 2011.02.15

Mark Frischmuth is giving us an update on developments around DemocracyLab. Brandon, also present, is a code warrior for the project. Expect more news soon.

Steve Holden is new in Portland. He has been helpful since hopping off the airplane. He solved the rear car door not unlocking problem (child proof feature, duh). The drains are flowing more smoothly than they have in months.

Steve is reassuring us that his peregrinations, frequent moves over the years, have not kept him from developing a sense of community. He doesn't think electronics are able to replace community however. We're a completely packed house tonight. Barbara, Patrick, Lew, Dick, David, Bill, Jon... Trish.

What is the open source philosophy? Its goal is to develop common resources and infrastructure which you're free to tweak, mess with. Costs may be driven down by sharing in the development of these assets.

Steve didn't want to make this a long talk. He gave us some biographical information, tried to locate himself on the geopolitical spectrum, made some thoughtful remarks, and then threw it open to discussion.

The discussion got into patents and copyrights, whether academic work is open source, what benefits one might get from contributing to open source projects. A lot of the people around the table have experience and connections in the open source ecosystem, so this was a fairly sophisticated discussion. We mentioned Apache a lot. I sat quietly, typing this blog post.

Exhibit:

/*
 * --------------------------------------------------------
 * "THE BEER-WARE LICENSE" (Revision 42):
 * Adam Ziolkowski and Leon Handreke 
 * wrote this file. As long as you retain this notice you can do 
 * whatever you want with this stuff. If we meet some day, and you
 * think this stuff is worth it, you can buy us a beer in return.
 * --------------------------------------------------------
 */

Terry Talks

Terry Bristol is sequestered with some of his friends, and visiting guest speaker Nancy Cartwright, to go through some of his philosophy of science banter. Terry Talks are not TED Talks, though we do have a camera going (the same tiny Canon that Glenn Stockton controlled when Nancy Cartwright lectured at the Schnitzer).

He's working on a book, somewhat like Mindwalk (Capra brothers) and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Pirsig) in that it weaves biography, real world characters (Stephen Hawking especially) into a kind of reverie on the history of "western" thinking (scare quotes because east met west quite awhile ago by now).

Terry has been fortunate to hang out with quite a few big name contemporaries, the guests he brings to Portland, Seattle, San Jose and other places (Portland is the hub of this activity, but does not define the outer boundary of his show). He also considers himself a serious philosopher in his own right. Given these two ingredients, it's not far-fetched to expect the kind of book that brings Terry's reverie into the foreground, against a backdrop of stellar figures.

I was quickly introduced to the assembly, by Terry, as a big wheel in the Bucky Fuller subdomain, and as a student of Rorty's at Princeton. The latter tagging was for Dr. Cartwright's benefit. The credential (studied with Rorty) got me a lot of cred with Dr. Haack when she was here, because she'd sparred with the guy, in print and in person.

Pragmatism is much on the table here, through Dewey, and Karl Popper especially. Wittgenstein is at "the far end of the fire poker" here, kept at arm's length for the purposes of this discussion. Bucky Fuller's thinking will only appear here, in my blogs (on-line journals).

Fuller's philosophy is somewhat unique in the "western" tradition in that it subtracts away any static all-encompassing "thing" that is "the universe". We experience Universe (Fuller assigns it a proper place name (532.18)) yet it's eternally aconceptual, a context for our systems, our partially overlapping time tunnels (scenarios) without being point-to-able as some "elephant" or "thing".

Terry's philosophy is somewhat similar in that he's skeptical that "a theory of everything" is a necessary goal of the sciences. He's content to let our systems stay special case. That may be the more pragmatic stance, I agree. When empirical theories become intrinsically intolerant of counter-cultures and complementary "insanity" they've likely reached the rigor mortis stage of some "empire", an endgame.

Anthropologically speaking, perhaps the urge for a totalistic TOE is the urge to build a Tower of Babel, with human cogitation at the apex. What seems to happen at the apex is thermodynamic noise, or is that pure signal? Systems tend to dissolve, in any case. Humanly contrived systems have a finite half-life, tend to meltdown at "the top" (another meaning of "trickle down").

Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript could be another puzzle piece here?

Terry's style is to speak quickly in a colloquial style. He says the word "thing" with high frequency, and might end a sentence with "da da da" (similar to "yada yada"), the sense being he's been over this turf so many times, it's somewhat a waste of time to say it again. If one hasn't bounced around in this namespace, it may sound like noise. Having been to several Terry Talks over the years, I feel on familiar ground.

On the pragmatic front, a service guy from Montag keeps coming back to fix our furnace. He has theories as to why it's not coming on. A rational tree structure diagrams the possibilities. The art of furnace maintenance may be subtle sometimes. Lets hope our experienced repair guy doesn't snap under pressure.

Nancy had an interesting necklace worth commenting upon. A large puzzle piece around her neck. I felt we'd won something important while geo-caching, couldn't say what exactly. A cosmic fish perhaps.

Nancy Ankorn was also present, meaning both XXs were named Nancy. The rest were XYs of high mental caliber and engaged in contradictory exchange. Both Nancys are quite up to co-managing in this guyish world in my judgement. Good seeing Bruce Adams, Mark Martin.

PPUG 2011.02.08

Twas my distinct pleasure to introduce the chairman, Steve Holden, to a packed house at Urban Airship, PPUG's new meeting venue. Adam Lowry was acting in the role of host, with Eric Holscher, another UA MVP, delivering the majority of the evening's content with a truly excellent presentation (more below).

Steve is temporarily my house guest, like Lindsey but shorter term. He's already found a property to value in 97214, making his new business (The Open Bastion) bi-coastal. His other zip code is 11105.

Other news: upcoming conferences: OSCON, Pycon, OS Bridge. Talk proposals for this last one are still being accepted.

Dan Colish gave a talk on the ABC module, containing Abstract Base Classes. The name of this module may be construed as homage or at least a pun. Guido greatly appreciates his intellectual progenitors at CWI, as I learned at the EuroPython in Gothenberg. Python-the-language inherits from an older language named ABC.

Readthedocs is a free and open source community service, implemented in Django. The project got started during a 48 hour dash (dart?), a longer version of the sprint. As a lightning talk is to a thunder talk, so is a sprint to a dash ("thunder talk" is not commonly so-defined as of this posting).

Eric was a veritable font of information about what's cool and hard at work in web services: Gunicorn, Nginx, Solr, Celery, Haystack and of course Sphinx, around which this django project is built.

Readthedocs can host your materials through a docs prefix in your existing registered domains, while also providing subdomain access within their rtfd namespace. It supports themes, including an in-house theme that gives you a consistent user experience (ux). "Use a designer" counseled Eric, sharing important insights he'd gleaned.

I spent much of the pre-meeting chatting with Luke, following up on our conversation about computing in academia. Back then, I'd been pondering PSU's situation (Banner etc.), before diving head first into trucking for a spell.

We adjourned to Bailey's Taproom (see slides) where much chatter occurred. Jolly Michelle ran a tight meeting as usual, getting most of us to wear name tags (me included: Kirby Urner it said).

Fond greetings to all of you. Yes, I said Chipy was cooler, in terms of e-lists, but that was more just to galvanize (goose, elicit) more self improvement activities.

HNY 4708

Got Tara off to her debate meet, a road trip, student organized, parent supervised. I burned through much of the day in cyberspace, plane spotting or whatever I do, pretending I'm a Howard Rheingold or Amber Case (both cyber-anthropologists).

I was in a thread on mathfuture with Alexander Bogomolny, webmaster for Cut the Knot, a useful source over the years. I've linked to it from Bizmo Diaries.

Then I shot down to FNB on my Captain Amerika bike or maybe she's Bat Woman. She was happy to be closer to her love interest, the FNB trailer, retrieved from another Ville.

Walker played the Casio and sang as we gradually dispersed, with some soon heading north to monastic facilities and/or the San Juans.

Tara texted from the debate site. Emails with mom, regarding AFSC business, with Stallings re Consoletti.

Holden inbound.

I've been reading up on White Metal Rabbit lore per some Chinese mnemonics. I'm not sure any one culture has a monopoly on "memory palaces" though I could see where advances in spatial data management techniques would excite cross-cultural GUI development in mind's eye virtual modeling (a glass bead game (meme game)).

Humans learn from their peers pretty quickly.

Make your teachings worth propagating.

Happy New Year.

Wanderers 2011.2.1

Don's cell call reminded me of this interesting opportunity, to hear more stories from Asia from a woman recently returned. I took my leave of Food Not Bombs in the shelter, making sure I'd be seeing Cera again, before she disappears into some monastery or wherever she goes.

I peddled my bicycle through the darkness and winter cold, grateful for the flashing LED headlamp I'd finally won budget for (funds are tight in America, with Nick an hour on the bus each way to dialysis, barely able to walk, and with spinal difficulties). We've eliminated oil heat from the list of necessities. DSL is the priority.

Funds are very tight in Cambodia as well, forcing parents over the border into Thailand, perhaps to never see their children again. The child abandonment rate is very high, in part because of a recent holocaust and a missing generation. The need for orphanages is great, reminding me of Romania in some ways.

I learned a lot from Ms. Goldmann's presentation. She's a vivacious, intelligent and I expect effective fundraiser for her worthy projects. If only the Coffee Shops Network were further along, with its NGO-friendly games.

Ethical tourism is the new buzz word (right up their with eco-tourism), heard around Burma as well. Come with the intent to spend wisely, to have your visit help sponsor your causes.

Discretionary travel is a way to walk one's talk, on the model of a pilgrimage, an inward journey involving self reflection and meditations about purpose.

The flip side of traveling ethically is to encourage beneficiaries to not discriminate so blatantly against foreigners (in Cambodia, all foreigners are blanket "French").

For example, the current Cambodian airline (co-operated by Vietnam Airlines) actually advertises lower prices "for Cambodians only", meaning foreign nationals will automatically need to pay more.

This double standard makes humanitarian projects like Ms. Goldmann's unworkable, as NGOs depend on stretching dollars as far as they'd go as if a local were spending them. Having to pay "tourist prices" makes such undertakings unaffordable.

The orphanage in question is just outside of Batdambang, Cambodia's second largest city. Some speculate international tourism may route through a revitalized airport there, given the airport nearest Ankor Watt is too near, and the relics are starting to crumble thanks to jet engine vibrations just a mile away.

Ms. Goldmann has gone back and forth quite a few times and had many adventures to recount. Motorbikes are dangerous. Dustin's severe foot injury reminded me of Nirel's experience in India.

Our gathered Wanderers were much impressed and encouraged by Ms. Goldmann's kind and brave nature, as well as her extreme youth (she's 18). I was reminded of Jody (an orphan with experience working with orphanages), of my daughter, and of the goddess Tara herself, a compassionate archetype.

Speaking of Buddhism, even though the Cambodians are cash-poor, they know how to build epic-sized temples. Finding some kind of rapprochement between "the French" and their western education, and indigenous scholarship, would probably be of significant benefit to both sides. Californians revere Buddhist teachers and study Zen for college credit. Why pit east and west against one another, in dimensions where the most synergy might occur?

The orphanage itself is non-sectarian. Ms. Goldmann is Jewish and Dustin, her business partner, soon to become a Cambodian, does not plan his life around some belief in a deity. I think of my Jewish friend Alan Potkin as well, another respectful admirer of Asian cultures who has no interest in recruiting people away from Buddhist patterns of thought.

Buddhism is variously categorized as poly and/or non-theist, depending on which branch of scholarship one is following. A doctrine of rebirth somewhat obfuscates the line between mortal and immortal, meaning Bodhisattvas or saints might also be considered embodiments of eternal archetypes, more like in the Jungian model.

Enneacontahedron Again

Finding omni-symmetrical polyhedrons with volumes close to the sphere's volume, while having the same radius in some important direction, has been a preoccupation of some geometers, David Koski among them.

Sir David works in tetravolumes, a little known standard, wherein the unit sphere is rt2(2)*pi in volume. That's (4/3)*pi*r**2 times S3, the Synergetics Constant. Either way, the ratios come out the same, so even in XYZ you will find the enneacontahedron comes within a fraction of a percent of a sphere's volume, hugging it even more closely than the rhombic triacontahedrons you may have encountered in this neighborhood: the 5 and the 5+.

Below is a rendering developed in POV-Ray using the export feature from vZome. I've jiggered with the camera and added a textured sphere inside, still growing to become tangent to the enneacontahedron's narrow diamonds, embedded in our rhombic triacontahedron's.

Waiting for "Superman" (movie review)

The movie offers a somewhat ahistoric view in that it paints a picture of some idyllic time, when it all just worked, but now it's all broken.

The supposed idyllic time was no doubt after the Civil War, but maybe before the Cold War, or during said war if your family was then living the suburban American dream and unaffected by the world's hellish conditions (a minority even then).

There was no mention of the fact that a really giant educator, the military service, slurps up a lot of people, and has been doing so for a long while. The prisons get talked about, but not the military.

Other voices in the film (besides the director's) do point out that the despoliation has been occurring for a long time, somewhat contradicting the "idyllic past" hypothesis.

So lets just say the movie tells more than one story, at least if you read between the lines.

The analysis accepts a rather rigidly nationalistic framework, with the USA pitted against these other nations in a kind of metaphysical Olympics (USA losing).

I won't deny the "metaphysical" part, but is nationalism much more than a crutch for a lame and insufficiently responsible rationality? What did Albert Einstein think about nationalism, and what percentage of high schoolers have studied that question in the last year, anywhere in the world? I'm sure we don't know, but probably not very many (OMSI-goers an exception).

In sum, this movie is itself the product of a somewhat impoverished all-American curriculum. The movie-makers have no time for much history (nothing about "busing" or the civil rights movement, desegregation, successive waves of immigration, church and state tensions). They're effective teachers (deserve merit pay) but that doesn't make up for the rather shallow analysis.

The animations work (or what does Tufte think? -- too much chart junk? I saw spatial volumes substituting for surfaces when showing percents, a recipe for making statistics misleading) but with that kind of bandwidth, we could be covering a lot more ground. Let's put even some good college teachers to shame by really covering a ton of data in the allotted time. Don't dumb it down for us.

If you have Bill Gates on your show again, maybe have him do something more technical, less political? Maybe he could teach us the next Windows, or explain SQL? Lets actually educate about math and computer science, not just talk about whether we like it or are good at it.

Like, at what speed does one actually break the sound barrier and when was this done? There's lots of room on the screen to show facts and speedometers (control panels). Why not flood the screen with data, like they do during football games (with scores of other games, recent headlines, a company logo dance, a belly dance...). Let's play with the theory that big screen communications could convey a lot more, now that we have the ability to easily rewind them. This is what happened to writing, once literacy became widespread.

I found it interesting to come to this film having just seen Helen's work, which looks at the same issues from a more zoomed out perspective. Is this "education" we plan to be offering all that big a help? Were we teaching anything about how to grow vegetables? So what if you know calculus? Sure, you might need to know it but are they telling you why? No computer programming in your high school? Reasoning? Where's the debate?

In much of the world, kids get herded off to classrooms, where a culling process begins and a few get skimmed off by The Empire. The rest are dumped on the streets with no prospects, ready to be recruited into liberation fronts. Their farmlands have been taken, their community fragmented. Why should this be called "school". If you're not building networks and friendships for life, as well as relevant skills, maybe it doesn't get that label?

When Quakers wanted to distinguish their houses of worship from the other churches, they decided to use "meetinghouse" as their designation. A church was but a "steeple house" and, as such, was not up to Quaker standards. I'm seeing a similar need today, to distinguish, to disambiguate.

People these days say "eco-village" a lot. Perhaps a real school is at minimum an eco-village. City-as-campus. Maybe these buildings called "schools" are just another kind of learning center, one of many. Should we Quakers open some new learning centers around town, and leave "going to school" to the less innovative? Let's check what the tribes are thinking.

The guardians in this movie are committed to providing a decent life for their kids, however it's clear that this cannot be done near or in the home, and that adults who have not specialized as classroom teachers are not a source of "schooling" and will not be offering many life-relevant skills beyond idle play and/or nagging to do one's homework. "On which side of the Periodic Table do we find metals?" Your average parent is not expected to know, and yet your average 8th grader is.

If there's something between you and that body of knowledge, it must either be your own lack of will, or the fact that some system is withholding your rightful heritage. In this case, I'd agree with the film makers: it's your heritage that's being withheld, by those likewise deprived, but then when has the public curriculum been overwhelmingly generous? It's not new to hold back. Not everyone needs to know the King's business, after all.

I mean look, if we were really serious about pumping more and better information into the culture, wouldn't we be doing that by now? Perhaps some of us are. We have televisions and DVD players galore, not to mention Youtube, which many "schools" block.

Sure, we could be investigating our problems way more seriously than we do, and have working solutions to many more of them. Like we could've had voting machines in the schools for some years, and been polling students frequently on many issues, lots of stats. We could have used this technology to explore how voting works, how votes get tallied fairly even when the ballots are secret. What's private and what's public?

But lets face it: at the end of a long day commuting and pushing products nobody really wants or needs, it's more fun and relaxing to kick back and pop open a can and watch something quasi-mindless. I'm not against R&R, but lets talk about how to talk ourselves out of crummy work habits. Guardians need quality time with their kids doing shared community service. When does that happen?

Note to historians: Americans had simply run out of any ability to imagine the future, other than to try to inhabit some TV world they'd had beamed at them as the wars raged in Asia. If Star Trek and The Jetsons were unobtainable, maybe we could relive something already in the can, say The Waltons or even All in the Family. "Someday, we might even break the sound barrier and wake up in the 21st Century (give us another generation or two)". Welcome to the rubber room, still open for business and packed with people in transition.

We went to this movie at Laurelhurst Theater on Burnside directly from Quaker meeting. This was one of the two days a week when minors are permitted (the marquee didn't let on there was a 1:10 PM showing, as this was only true on weekends -- the Web was my source). Tara and I had Chinese food afterward and discussed our views. Her latest debate tournament at PSU didn't result in any awards, but she felt good about her role as a mentor to the relative newcomers to the sport. Other Quakers went home to watch football, as today was an important game, especially for Bears fans.

At meeting, I talked about AVP and whether violent video games were an alternative to violence. In some curricula I think they are, most definitely. Carl and I also discussed the merits of NPYM affiliating with FGC. He's neutral on the topic. Doing so would have its costs, but they're probably bearable.

I'll be avoiding Quaker Quest (a program hatched in the UK) as I'm finding it too alien to my own Friendly faith 'n practice. No biggie, forking happens.

I also met up with Lew, our property management clerk. He'd recently finishing using Google apps such as Sketchup to get the Multnomah Friends meetinghouse in 3D on Google Earth, as a public service (our clerk positions are unpaid). Now this guy is educated.

click for larger view

The title Waiting for "Superman" has somewhat the same cadence as Bowling for Columbine, but the films come from different angles. Would a KIPP show Michael Moore films to its students? How about SuperSize Me? Would it teach Verboten Math? If you're a student or teacher in one of those, maybe drop me a note, as I'm curious. Journalists? Any news?

FNB: 2010.1.13

Food Not Bombs has been in a sharing relationship with the Religious Society of Friends here in Portland since about September of 2010. The relationship goes back a little further than that if you count our participation as a Quaker household (per directories) minus any use of the commons on Stark in a non-rental community-serving set of arrangements.

Basement storage of bulk supplies is permitted. Deep frying is not (fortunately FNB tends to go with light steaming, as we did yesterday). Friends pay for heat, electricity and water use for a three hour period each week. FNB also borrows salt and pepper on occasion though with plans to replenish (I could get some next time I visit Costco).

I used to be dogmatic about some official FNB trailer not getting separated from Simon's cookware, but that was mostly invented bureaucracy on my part. The stalwarts are ingenious at coming up with trailers, including making their own. Simon, a stalwart, with history as a software developer, is pulling a new rig fashioned from a ladder. Aaron's trailer, like Noah's in Davis, is able to haul an ass of compost, maybe several (an "ass" is a unit of measure in our household).

Yesterday (Jan 13), I wasn't sure I'd be getting assistance (I'd done the job solo the previous week). Lindsey volunteered to assist, though she considers herself mostly a hauler (despite her vegan cooking skills). Upon arrival, however, I was greeted by two veteran cooks already in the kitchen. Sarabell used to work in a Quaker elementary school in Philadelphia. Noah seemed to know his way around a kitchen. We showed up with the produce Lindsey had hauled earlier that day.

Thanks to the surfeit of cooking talent, Lindsey allowed herself to sing her show tunes using the social hall piano, though always mindful that her TV-14+ lyrics might be offensive to some Quakers working in the building. She has a more PG-rated lineup when playing in houses of worship, such as during that benefit for Sisters of the Road.

At the park, it felt a bit like a Zen convention, as Satya and friends were on their way to some esoteric sitting and presentation regarding some newly translated works. I thought about going, but then Brent very kindly offered to share wood he'd salvaged from a free pile in Washington (a clear cut). Their native practice in that state, probably in Oregon as well, is to douse all this burnable fuel, including fresh hemlock, in diesel, and set it ablaze. Air pollution from such waste had already driven Brent from his habitat at another time (the fire smolders for days). He fights back by salvaging what he can and redistributing it to suburbanites who maybe don't appreciate the value of real firewood, or the level of waste their own lifestyles encourage.

Brent came to the house with his maul and ax and split some seriously big segments right there on the patio, by the light of a partial moon (plus some electric light, which Quakers are not against using). I now have that essential ingredient I'd been missing: lots of kindling, as well as more burnable woods than what we'd inherited when buying the house: a garage full of something rock hard, which Brent also took a crack at, successfully in many cases.

While all this chopping was going on, Lindsey reappeared with the trailer and responded to Brent's request for broken inner tubes he might use around his ax handle (as a veteran of Bike Farm, she stocks such supplies). Then she was off to her coven and I to my office, where my night job begins late. I went through a few billable hours of course material before shoving the dog over and crashing. Other household members are away. Nick, who sometimes stays in the room where I crashed, is still undergoing lots of tests. I plan to go visit him using the green elevators.

Noah didn't join us at the park as he wanted to be a part of this town meeting, called by the mayor, asking citizens whether Portland should rejoin a certain "counter-terrorism task force".

The reason Portland is thinking about rejoining is because of mentally ill people and their nightmares, many of which have an impact on collective living standards. People have been staging protests and vigils against terror. It's hard to find anyone who's pro-terror in this neck of the woods. Many of 'em just wanna use "shock and awe" to eliminate terrorism, using torture if necessary.

Of course the Quakers are in the minority on this issue, in wanting torture banned in all its forms (including slow death by starvation). The collaboration with Food Not Bombs is a part of our Ending Hunger campaign, the way I look at it.

Speaking of which, the head of Food Not Bombs was interviewed on the radio in a program broadcast by KBOO this morning. I missed hearing it but apparently FNB is disturbing to neighbors in some zip codes and they end up calling the police.

Here in Portland, neighbors often show up to share food and catch up on the buzz. We discuss all kinds of esoteric topics, as we hail from many walks of life. Many of us are wanderers, and enjoy comparing notes. For example, Fallon, who made the little Youtube about our operation, is these days biking around Mexico, doing her damnedest to pick up on more Spanish (or Mexican -- English:American :: Spanish:Mexican, sort of, when it comes to vernaculars).

Concave / Convex

Epiphany 2011

The way I was taught, the Kings didn't show up on Xmas day, plus they weren't really Kings, more like Wizards or Magi, as in "magicians" (they knew to "read stars" and such). Of course in geological time, we don't reckon that December 25 is much more than a close-to-solstice holiday, like Saturnalia, but the fact of an interval (or memory address offset) makes sense, like the Kings wouldn't intrude right on his birthday (that'd be rude).

I've been reading the 2nd edition of Aung San Suu Kyi, Fearless Voice of Burma. I enjoy seeing mention of some of the same people I've shared a room with, such as Bishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama, also friends of each other. Bob autographed one for the elder son whom I hope to meet with someday. This was another Bhutan family (of subgeniuses?), living in Thimphu around a decade before ours did.

Congratulations to Steve Holden, who isn't thinking about his business (Holden Web), now that he's just meeting his first grandson. Some of us met at his behest at Kell's recently, to brainstorm about where the "open source" idea might be going. Portlanders are supposed to have ideas about that sort of thing, at least by reputation.

On the way to Kell's from the "taxi" I walked along with a frac gas guy going back to Arkansas (random chance meeting), where permitting isn't as controlled. Hard to frac for gas around here.

We've continued to apply "spit and polish" (as they say) to our crystal ball for geometrical concepts, a kind of test pattern for high def and stereo TV. I've posted some of the latest blueprints to the CSN "wall" (as people say in FB).

Our household is likewise scholarly (not unlike some of those I've been reading about). A "wave of Zen" seems to have swept the place, although it's still a bit rustic and maybe too dense.

2011: Day One

by dk

Ken Brown kicked it off by sharing from his mobile that 2011 is both prime and the sum of 11 consecutive primes. He doesn't give this as a reason for Mayan Y2K, which some predict for 12/21 for reasons I've forgotten.

Apocalypse Pretty Soon was interesting reading. Woolsey shows up as maybe talking about UFOs at one point. You could see how word would get out if that happened, grays talking about grays.

Ed Cherlin was praising Quakers for being closers in gray power suits, in a thread on mathfuture. I look more like Jack Abramoff when I wear my "power hat" (the one by Paul Kaufman).

Did some cleaning, checked in with family, did some equipment inspection (Kelly Kettles are pretty cool), telecommuted to work some. I was privileged to learn from one of the Python teachers about this Calculus video.

Dr. Z is continuing to represent the academic consensus. The Global U seems to be churning a lot, as "the Bucky stuff" continues to go viral on some LCDs. We call that an "upgrade" but others prefer to teach their usual business without competition. I should check that MIT webcam again.

Trevor reports that the Kabul Dome is now in Alaska. That sounds symbolic.

More on Islamic banking, micro-lending and Quakers on mathfuture, ala RSoWR and all that.

Anthony Manusos, Kathy's predecessor at Friends Bulletin (now Western Friend) was known to observe Ramadan on occasion and to write knowledgeably about Quaker-Islam relations.

ibid

From Day to Day

Just off the cell with Dr. Nick, having contacted Verizon to roll back the terms (a rep had talked me into a lower text messages bracket but that had backfired).

I cataloged a list of science fiction storyboards I'm working on, some closer to reality than others. This was to Brian with copies to our Wanderers group, which meets on that Linus Pauling Campus I sometimes write about:

EPCOT West; safety corridor for academic degree program "truckology" students twixt Istanbul and Kabul / Stans; Pycon / Tehran; Pycon / Havana (post Gitmo); Martian Math cartoons (Japan / PDX); "weapons inspector" as a major at University of Colorado and New Mexico Tech, Python courses and lightning talks, GOSCON, "girl scout math" at abandoned military bases in the Philippines (lots of Martian Math influence); SeaWorld / Iraq (going on many years by now -- relevant that Keiko is an honorary Wanderer); Countdown to Zero, the computer game / simulation (Valerie Plame Wilson and Scott Ritter sought for board of advisors).

Science fiction? Maybe, although some of these are pretty dang real (Martian Math is on Wikieducator and was field tested at Reed College this summer; GOSCON = government + open source, was a blast this year, I was at the table with PSF chairman Steve Holden, Rami Kassab of Portland, and some Barcampers from where Keith and I last met up).

Martian Math:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/sets/72157622961425831/

GOSCON:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/sets/72157625315757940/

So is that review or preview or what? We all have our preferred futures, and science fiction is a way to express them. The Science Fiction Museum in Seattle, part of the Experience the Music Project (EMP), focuses on this theme quite a bit, or did when I went through.

After making supper for Tara and I (toasted cheese sandwiches with pickles), it was time for Food Not Bombs. I took the bike Lindsey tricked out for me, versus the FNB hauler with the tall pedestal.

What a crowd tonight! Simon, Aaron, Cera... David. Lots of people I couldn't name.

I told David about the college major of "weapons inspector" I was writing about, a story set in the near future when we have a lot of weapons to inspect (kind of a joke). I think he could see why I'd be recruiting for this career among those standing for Food Not Bombs. I also explained the difference between a maze and a labyrinth.

Satya was just arriving as I departed, ships in the night, quick greetings on passing bicycles.

Virtual Ornaments

by david koski

by swdharmraj

Storyboarding Engineers

We've enjoyed some passionate discussions on the Wanderers board, between actual meetings in the board room around the long table. Those of us most active on-line may not be the ones who show up at the meetings and vice versa.

The solstice party was fantastic. Gus played some vintage radio from funnier times.

I've been going over with Keith some of the IAEA stuff I've been looking at in connection with these schools for diplomats. These are like OMSI camps in some circumstances, complete with caring for horses (more important than riding them -- it's more about them in their welfare, not you in the movies pretending you're a cowboy).

The cosmopolitan spin is about all getting along, even after we go back to our respective "bubble villages" in whatever grid sectors we monitor. Maybe EMO should have a role. Ecotrust definitely. GIS/GPS is a big part of IAEA "geocaching" (sometimes with assistance from FBI people).

Although you may be picturing boarding schools for mostly young people, it's not always that way. Picture a few thousand Camp Davids (maybe not easy, if you've never been there), and take the average.

The reciprocity in training and verification techniques makes IAEA duty not unlike TSA duty, and indeed, there's overlap, and I'm not just talking about 12 Monkeys type stuff. You might have a week's rotation in Colorado followed by a short stint in South Asia (many more states). All have their respective challenges. Multi-tasking is less wearying (at least to some -- others like to stay focussed on the one situation).

I've had to change my grading philosophy based on feedback from my boss. Given the kinds of jobs I envision, I was being a stickler for details, but at this early stage keeping high morale is more important. Many people lack the self confidence to jump in to this business.

Here are some excerpts from my correspondence with Keith, archived to our group:

What I write about are "bubble villages" that look something like

those DEW line encampments, or subsequent models. The people

living there tend to have strong backgrounds in STEM. They might

be bioneers like John Todd, or developers of the Garden of Eden

dome concept, like J. Baldwin.

The latter wrote Bucky Works, an interesting book that has served

as a basis for a lot of my screenwriting and science fiction planning

for over a decade.

...

Back to my original point, I see a lot of serious and immediate

concerns about the health of the biosphere and ecosystem being

corralled by this feckless discourse called "global climate change".

Like, I'm fine with trying to figure out of the global temperature

is going up or down and whether the sea level is being affected.

We need to monitor everything and have plenty of open data for

people to analyze.

But I think it's mind-numbing to imagine that "global warming"

is the only signature we need to look for, if the goal is to avert

catastrophe and provide for the well being of future generations,

of non-humans and humans alike.

Yes to a focus on global climate change (one of many).

No to any monopolistic hijacking of that debate by people

who think "climate" does not include the presence or absence

of nuclear weapons.

Their presence is warping everything about how humans behave

and that's affecting the climate. Getting rid of them is what

serious engineering is all about (unless maybe you live in

the Lower48 where it's more like Planet of the Apes these

days, monkey see monkey do etc.).

Over on math-teach, the topic is bandwidth again. We watched the RSA Animation about how adults are drugging their kids to keep them focused on too-boring-for-words presentations. I'm hoping the Ignite format helps address the boredom issue, and that we can give students better self-management skills where "brain meds" are concerned.

On Synergeo, Rybo is learning to say "meds" instead of "medications". In my book, that's a positive. Yes, idle banter, but among feuding factions, so an improvement in our internal affairs (buckaneer world).

New on the Job

This feels like that first day for Centers Network, getting balled out by a lower chief for forgetting the golf pencils. Checker cab full of bankers boxes, straight from supplies. Then to seminar setup. Sometimes in the snow. "Damn, forgot the damn pencils" forgetting to censor my own train of thought. I had some between-jobs soap opera guys on my team as well, I'll call them fans. They booed when Ron gave me a dressing down, stayed in my corner.

The training today was well crafted. I followed along on screen.

On other fronts, I was putting out fires.

But the main situation in my control room is mundane: a leaky roof. Pictures will be forthcoming but I must say I'm grateful for the break in the weather. Patrick turned me on to some goop that appears to be just the ticket. His sample had hardened to onyx chewing gum, which is kind of the end state I'm aiming for, but the new stuff, going on, is more like thick cake frosting. I went to town with this stuff. Like slag from some oil refinery, like where David was pulling night shift.

At least the math teaching forums are being peaceful. I sense a broadening consensus about where to go next. People are getting used to their iStuff and are ready for more outdoorsy experiences. Hiking and geocaching, camping and maintaining trails, look like a better bet than just lying on the couch all day with a diet coke shooting at pixels in high def. Your thumbs get strong, hand-eye improves, but you're still not getting much exercise or team player skills (not counting your on-line buddies).

It's not like they won't have video games at the school, twenty miles walking in. You'll have other stops along the way too, complete with wifi and interesting activities. This isn't about wasting a lot of your time, but on the other hand what are the skills? Sometimes watching and waiting is one of them.

Wanderers 2010.12.15

Ohman, Dec 19, 2004

We're having one of those open sessions dominated by comparing notes on computer matters, quite boring to some. The "Microsoft treadmill" is a theme, which is not really a good name for it. Any number of companies require fees to keep their software functional.

Bookkeeping companies want you to download new tax tables. Of course the government should have made such software available for free ages ago, as compliance with the government's own laws is what's at issue. It's an executive branch function to interpret the will of Congress into running code. However, DC doesn't have the imagination for real government, is just coasting on past fame and glory. Or maybe I'm just unaware of the cube farms already working on this challenge? Where's the beef?

Speaking of which, the Blue House would be happy to prototype the energy simulation games, contemplated for use in the schools. These give both a household view and more zoomed out views, comparable to first, second and third person. Monitor your resource consumption as an individual, team or household, or grid sector on the globe. With this equipment in place, we could also look at those gorgeous new bookkeeping front ends the government is thinking about, complete with a Wild West motif for those wishing, lots of history tucked away as easter eggs. Even people who "hate money" will love playing these wonders of contemporary engineering.

Even if DC is planning to pass on all these opportunities to keep the USA alive, other cities might share the responsibility more. Hollywood has done plenty to inject life into various myths, such as Iron Man, Batman, Superman and all of those. People use these as matrices for internal guidance sometimes (internalize role models). Introjecting comic book characters is phase one in becoming a geek, escaping the larval nerd incarnation. A kind of morphing (transformation) occurs.

The same thing happens at more zoomed out levels. USA OS gets a new shape, new feathers. HQS are more distributed.

Congressman Wu put his finger on it when comparing it to a geodesic sphere, not a pyramid hierarchy. Should we change the dollar bill, and put the eye in the middle?

I shared my view that the rest of the world is hopping onto the free bandwagon where "metaphysical assets" are concerned. Most cities don't torment their kids with negative propaganda about the "free Web" being a bad thing. That's more retro thinking from the 1900s, still spewing, still polluting the 21st century. We wave good bye in the rear view mirror.

Speaking of "girl scout math", Trish showed us a website where she'd gotten the template for a free antenna that enhanced her laptop's wifi reception considerably. This led to many additional forking conversations, regarding access to bandwidth. Jim would like something other than dial-up where he lives, but not at exorbitant cost.

suggesting Uncle Sam supply "liberty apps"

Onward FNB

Here's what I posted to the board this afternoon. Run of the mill stuff really. Lightly edited:

[pdxfnb] Re: week of Dec 12 (Tues / Thurs )

chronological

thread

• From: kirby urner
• To: pdxfnb
• Subject: [pdxfnb] Re: week of Dec 12
• Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 12:41:55 -0800

Greetings FNBers --

The trailer is in the usual location. Chefs should be

thinking about acorn squash and kale as major

ingredients. Also have pomegranates, other fruits

and root vegetables.

Food prep on Thursdays at the Quaker Meeting house

has been happening since the beginning of September,

except on Thanksgiving when we made other arrangements.**

I'll be there at the usual time (sorry, was late last time)

to open up, return the soup ladle, and look for some left

behind plastic. I'll wash the pots and await the chefs.

If you're volunteering for Tuesday, you know where to

go for the trailer (blue house on Harrison) and OTY

ingredients. Greetings from OTY.

LW still gearing up to check possible CSA site in Yamhill.

I filled in as hauler per prior plan. Fond greetings to all.

Kirby

** Here's a write-up with slides from back when we started:

http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2010/09/fnb-food-prep.html

Postmortem FNB

By "postmortem" I mean "going meta w/r to the last chapter" as FNB will continue on its merry way. I'm still hosting the trailer, planning a next pickup.

There's a trade off between excess and waste. One brings an abundance of food to the market so as not to run out, and paying customers come to get what they need. After closing, you have the problem of what to do with unsold produce. Trading with your neighbors is not always feasible as you may all have an excess of the same thing.

Enter these various alternative recycling systems, engineered by geeks, drawing from the gleaner tradition. Yes, the material has already been picked over by paying customers, or in some cases selected and delivered. That doesn't make it all substandard though. Excess may mean "more of the same" i.e. there's no detectable step down in quality.

A geek cook or chef is someone to value. If there's a doable menu with lots of essential nutrients, both hygienic and flavorful in a rustic vegan kind of way, then your chefs will come up with it. There's not always much lead time. Here's what we have, start the meter running. You may have seen similar talent shows on The Food Channel.

Fruit that's too ripe for further storage might be perfect for a pie. Not being an expert chef, I'll spare you a long list of examples. Whitney brought cinnamon yesterday, and that made a real and positive difference to the fresh squash Aaron cooked. We also had scads of mushrooms. I proposed we make that a soup, to which beets, potatoes and some other stuff was added. As part of the janitorial staff, I'm allowed to make proposals.

What many would have to do with their excess is drive it back to its rural origins for composting, as the city waste collection system isn't open to excessive dumping. A farmer's market can't just abandon a pile of wasting produce and expect to be invited back week after week. So it's an expense to the farmers to haul a lot of it back. Earning the good will of the townsfolk by feeding one of its recycling architectures, makes a lot of sense.

In my own case, I model the "radical house terminus". I know you're probably thinking "radical" means something "bad" politically, but as a math teacher let me assure you it simply means "root", as does "terminus" in some lexicons, as in "tapping point". We provide time and energy to the recycling grid, which means accepting some compost and doing our own gardening and food provisioning. We contribute to the kitty.

On the other hand, we don't want FNB to become a composting service for surrounding neighborhoods, or, if we do, we'll need to work with the city on a truly intelligent plan for that. Maybe bulk storage and delivery around town on CSA routes, using lots of bamboo bike trailers, a job for academic credit in some programs, becomes fashionable, if not in Portland then maybe in Brooklyn.

However if neighbors start lugging bags of compost they can't use to the FNB fooding events ("fooding" is a colloquialism in Bhutan), expecting free haul away service, then "termini" such as mine would be quickly overwhelmed.

Now Lindsey is a composting genius and when she takes up residence on a property, it's "with intent to farm" -- and that means compost. She'll get off her bike to check out a compost pile, strike up conversations, build her whole social network around the art and science of composting. This isn't me though, and when Lindsey leads a girl scout math training in Oregon's hinterlands, I'm immediately over my head with this composting business, unable to route and organize effectively. I go under, as neighbors use my terminus for a landfill (we haven't gotten to that yet, thanks to city codes).

So that gives a sense of the workflow. If Portland wanted, it could probably scale up these types of operation and pretty soon be teaching gourmet ethnic cooking to legions of young people, taking advantage of healthful local produce, some bought and some vectored through experimental math curricula like FNB and girl scout math.

In a TV literate culture, you'd expect to build public acceptance and understanding through sharing video and audio (so-called "reality television"), and indeed we're well along in that process. FNB chapters have been feeding media to public repositories from all over the world, each providing a local spin. Our chapter was recently the subject of a PSU student study.

When Lindsey came to town from her engineering company background, the bicycle equations were front and center, all about joules and calories, and skills, intelligence. The bamboo bike trailer phenomenon was getting going, thanks to a civil engineer we later met at a FNB event. Aaron's metal version is like eight feet long and easily took everything from the meetinghouse yesterday (including a soup server I need to return, along with Aaron's plastic ware).

However, we're well aware at the Blue House that this is a lot about trucking as well. Food conveyed to the warehouses, on a big enough scale to stock supermarkets, does not happen without trucks. Fortunately, our insights into that world are growing, owing to geek activities in transportation engineering. The same routing games played with bicycles are played with trucks on another scale.

Portland has been working on being bicycle friendly, so the idea of "feed me" cafeterias staffed by people in training, with a lot of bicycles going and coming, is not going to overwhelm the infrastructure right away. The lanes have been painted and are intended for use in all weather conditions (except ice and snow for most cyclists -- for most motorists too, in these parts).

An electrified fleet might be coming, if not here then in a sister city, but it's still a different mix on the road, more vulnerable and fragile.

Oregonians make fun of themselves for not knowing how to drive in the snow, but they do know how to accommodate bicyclers hauling trailers or just hauling ass. That might be a university geek you know, does Ruby on Rails. Or maybe she's a nun of some variety (we have those too), cross-enrolled on several campuses around town. These aren't people you wanna hit with your gas guzzler. Foreign exchange students (many from Africa). Ambassadors' kids. Lets keep Portland tourist-friendly.

Cave Paintings

Speaking of debates, today is Civil War day in Oregon and the clerk of our Quaker meeting, himself an accomplished journalist, has been wondering about the appropriateness of this metaphor. Doesn't this nomenclature tend to trivialize, while at the same time lending an air of innocence and fun to something intrinsically awful? Oregon's so-called Civil War is this annual football game between two of its major universities, the University of Oregon (Beavers) and Oregon State (Ducks).

The debate has to do with language and imagery. Some Quakers oppose violent language whereas others think the imagination, including science fiction, the Bible, comics, film, television, are appropriate media for channeling demented, disturbing and violent memes. Art absorbs these transmissions, not to amplify them in the physical world, but to render them less likely to erupt in mob behavior. If we're not violent on paper, we'll be violent for real, because of the real voltage pressures beneath the surface, the teleological vulcanism of the zeitgeist itself.

As is obvious from my rhetoric, I place myself in this second camp, likely because I started reading Freud in 8th grade. I was schooled in the view that an id or unconscious needs some approved way to express itself, and that a strong superego is less repressive than a fragile one. Tapping into the deeper recesses of the mind requires encounters with the archetypes. Fairytales are full of violence. However, if the violence remains within the metaphysical vista, then those fairytales have done their job. Those who insist on a completely sanitized psyche, all sweetness and light, are actually feeding the maw, serving as shills for the underworld, by adding to the imbalance.

Judging from its imagery, Tantric Buddhism would seem more well rounded than a lot of the more sugar coated stuff.

My many postings on Alternatives to Violence (AVP) therefore have a somewhat dark aspect. I link them to my Jungian Society talks. When watching football (or playing chess), I might sometimes imagine the horrors of war. Or I'll play videogames with violent content -- not because I wish for more violence in the world, but because I think potentially horrific content needs to be wisely channeled.

This analysis goes for debate world as well, the world of diplomacy. The contestants often invoke images of all the death and destruction that will likely result, if their opponents' views are more widely adopted. Disptopian outcomes are unfurled on screen, in movies such as Punishment Park, or Clockwork Orange.

There's a tendency to exaggerate, to engage in hyperbole, to invest in caricature. Again, these are ways to express stresses and tensions that are even more dangerous and likely to get out of hand if not allowed to express themselves. One needs to spy on the id ("id" for "idiot"?), get a sense of its thinking, if wanting any semblance of a rational, well-crafted civilization. This is difficult work, and requires spelunking deeply into oneself.

That's supposedly something Quakers are good at, or so some would contend.

The Ducks won this year.