Climate Change

When asked about "climate change" I often say I don't trust the English word "climate", which means something like "long term weather".  It's so restrictive.

People "Borgify" the world, such that it shines at night, with a cosmopolis from Boston to DC, to name one of the bigger ones, and as long as CO2 doesn't increase that's considered "no change in climate"?  Yet the world has been anthropogenically terraformed.  The biosphere is super-obviously different.

So I like "Biosphere" better than "Climate" for its meaning and contribution to conceptuality.

Does that make me Russian?  At least it marks me as a GST proponent.

To make something like "global average temperature" the one point of debate is to dumb it down a whole lot.  Lets talk about peak oil?

The Gibbs Phase Rule is the common core topic we should get back to in STEM education.  The 21st century is still shedding.  1900s muck ("dead skin") must be forgiven (or what else might we do with it?).

Anchorman 2 (movie review)

I started my afternoon thinking to watch Bronies, a new documentary about the subculture of mostly males who like My Little Pony cartoons.  But it wouldn't boot in my DVD player.  I watched a Ground Hog Day special feature I'd never seen instead, this DVD being in my permanent collection, then returned the bum DVD for a trade, which I'll review later.

Having returned to Movie Madness a second time, I walked on to Horse Brass, an Olde English Pub style place, and had some yummy beers while reading Willamette Week, about what it's like to work at Voodoo Donuts (well written) and some movie reviews.  One of the reviews persuaded me Anchorman 2 might be worth the price of admission and I was at Lloyd Center faster than you could shake a stick, whatever that means.

I was disoriented for whatever reason and stumbled into two cinemas showing different Disney cartoons (Nut Job and Frozen) before I finally found Cinema 1, as in One.  Anchorman 2 had just started.  The old team was getting together and heading to New York to help GNN take news to the new 24 hour format.  CNN was to some extent the target, but also Fox in that the CEO was "Aussie", but closer to Crocodile Dundee.  Not much like Ted Turner either.  Idiocracy in general is a target... I started to snore (literally) during the later climactic scenes involving Jaws allusions (lots of shark footage).

What the film reminded me to write about, however, is another documentary I saw while down for the count with a lung-related illness: Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie.  Believe it or not, I don't believe I caught a single episode of this talk show, though I did see a few of Oprah's and Donahue's. This documentary chronicles better than most the arc of US television, at least in one of its dimensions. Moral:  don't smoke so many cigarettes, it's not even cool.  Quit completely if you can. The animation, which added a lot, reminded me ever so much of Ralph Bakshi's.  I used to live in Jersey City, which would be your stereotypical source of audience members (that show owed a lot to its audience, its level of participation).  Again, not really on my radar at the time (Universe being non-simultaneous and only partially overlapping).

More Espying

I think in Olde English you still had that E in Espying.  In any case, thanks to my generous science-minded friend Patrick, I have an infrared web cam in my attic, motion activated.

I was hoping to brag to bored listeners about the opossum, i.e. possum, in my attic, but I'm thinking that myth has been veritably exploded by now.  Lowly rats are to blame for all that noise we've been hearing.  Not poltergeists either.

/locationhistory is boring on Google these days as I'm a home body for the most part, managing my medical conditions and getting my work done.  This is about as other end of the spectrum from James Bond as it gets (continuing the spy theme) though I suppose a Le Carré character / Friend could be this puttery, a good cover for something-or-other, and suitably English-seeming (constant gardeners, those Brits).

I'm committed to not killing the rats.  They're being entertainment, talent on TV, and so deserve payment if anything.  On the other hand, they lower my property value so I'm intending to trap and release.  I hope to get to it shortly.

actually these are squirrels -- the rats went away

Chronicling (Captain's Log...)

Yep, that was the drive today, Google already knows.  How?

My Android, coupled with my Gmail account, is allowed to tell Google its cell tower.  The tracing is therefore hand-off to hand-off, more like bee lines than a GPS trail would leave.

Do you have an Android and use the GPS services with authorization to talk to Google Maps?

Check /locationhistory to see if there's data.  Thx to LV.

:: spying on self ::

Cousin Mary's is a place where I often learn things from books I'd maybe not have encountered otherwise.  A treasure trove.

Here were two that I browsed on this latest visit:

:: table top reading ::

Happy New Year!

Connecting Dots

A couple news stories that need connecting:

1. In India, inequities in how people in India get treated as members of diplomatic corps overseas, versus privileges granted foreign visiting ambassadorial staffs, have come under scrutiny.  The issue of "diplomatic immunity" more generally is being raised, to which is connected the culpability of military and/or mercenary units, their liability for damages.  To what extent will the nation-state shielding of yesteryear protect them from scrutiny today?
2. The other story focused on Qatar and was about indentured servant employes who came as migrant workers at the mercy of some construction company (we're looking ahead to some Olympics).  One question is at what points in the agreement if any, during orientation, may a servant raise an exception and bail?  Another question would be to what extent new families are allowed to form under the watch of these companies.  Pretty soon we're talking Pharaoh and the prison / slave class Hebrews.

I suppose what connects these stories is the common backdrop of human rights, and should the rights of humans pass a lot of symmetry tests we might call "fairness criteria"?  To what level do we tolerate curtailment of freedom and allow instead "compensation" in the form of clams, silver dollars, or other desirabilia.

Schools come under scrutiny, as well as sometimes work to call others to account.  Their faculties may or may not assess the worth of other schools -- many do, just as companies do -- and publish their findings.  We're in an era when a great amount of shared information is having an equalizing effect, in the sense of erasing caste differences.

Pi Lab

The owner of The Open Bastion is outside the US jurisdiction at this time, in the UK, but his trusted co-workers had plenty to do, thanks to the generosity of both Holdenweb and the Wolfram Corporation, in particular the latter's decision to port the wolfram-engine and mathematica to the Raspberry Pi, a cigarette case sized computer that costs even less than the XO (One Laptop per Child) but, to be fair, comes minus peripherals, meaning keyboard, mouse and monitor.  It's ready for all them though.

Steve was lavish in terms of banking on these gizmos and outfitted four workstations complete with LCDs for the HDMI output, said mouse and keyboard, plenty of SD cards, network cables to the router.  Trevor, the Pi Chief, let us in with his key.  He'd been busy assembling quite a number of images (operating system + filesystem) using NOOB.  This boot loader gets in front of the boot process and offers a choice of images.  Tara and I started trying them out while Trevor showcased a latest favorite, which looked a lot like a hotel guest room TV, offering a menu of options.  More TV than computer -- a change in flavor.

For our purposes though, on the wolfram-engine project, the wheezy image proved sufficient, and after I finally remembered to plug in the network cable, sudo apt-get install... worked like a charm for both products (mathematica included).

I've heard rumors about the GPU being locked up on the Pi board i.e. maybe it's not being fully utilized, but I don't have that story.  Mathematica runs, but if you burden it with lots of graphics, you'll find it runs slowly.  But remember:  what it's doing are things no scientific calculator is offering at this price point.  Unless you count all the peripherals, but those tend to be needed anyway.  People need a big screen, even students.  I'm just wondering what advantages the UK will reap if it really goes in this direction.  I doubt the US will attempt it, except in pockets as always.  Each zip code is its own microcosm, like a fractal.  Those that march to the same drummer tend to lose out.

Patrick joined the fun mid-process.  He's been practicing with Amazon instances in the cloud, a different department one might say, plus he's working the same queue as I am re Python / OST.  Having a Pi Lab so close to my office is a big help in my work, as I'm able to appreciate more of the STEM education conversation, and not only in the US and UK, but in other parts of the world looking into the same crystal ball and trying to discern their cyber-futures.

We had a great solstice potluck at Wanderers this evening @ Linus Pauling House.  Lots of exotic characters (I'm happy to be counted among them), with Tara joining too, but feeling a need to supervise the pet situation, with a poodle joining the Blue House cast.  The basement crew is in "away team" mode.

For further reading on MathFuture:  Traditional HS math vs CS

Twelve Years of Slavery (movie review)

I arrived at the movie theater directly from a comfortable winter Norman Rockwell family scene, with tree decorating and a crackling fire.  Definitely "the North".

Other critics aren't saying this so let me be original:  the two guys who entice our hero to Washington, DC are a lot like the two tempters in Pinocchio.  And Pinocchio is in turn related to the Biblical story of Jonah in some ways.  Certainly this guy loses everything, enters a living nightmare in the belly of "the South".

The film fit well into my own studies, of pro-slavery Christianity and divisions among Quakers, stereotypically working the Underground Railroad, but in actuality on the fence as established Meetings and not wanting to be seen as contravening (subverting the authority of) said Washington, DC, the nation's "capital" (cite Hunger Games).

The former overseer, down on his luck and paying off his debt by selling himself into servitude, is an interesting character, not just because he betrays our hero.  He's the guy Quakers are afraid will scare away black people.  Friends of my persuasion have an Oversight Committee and there's a stir amongst us to abolish said committee in favor of some more pastoral-sounding, less hard-edged committee.  That way none of us have to wear the label of overseer, which, after a movie like this, would seem at best an embarrassment and at worst an admission of a serious crime against humanity.

I'm against our brand of Quakers losing its edginess and instead recommend continuing to hack away at those ropes that bind us to the so-called "mother ship" of Christianity.  If it's a game of distancing from a specific terminology, then let's speak of Christians without so much of that "we" flavor.  Those Christians sure knew how to throw a dance party, we could say of the slaver couple, a not so happily married twosome.

At the New Thought Interfaith Panel, my mom, representing Quakers, got her own slot, along with Baha'i, Hindu, Scientologist and Essene (Islam, Jewish, Atheist etc.).  That seemed a positive step.

We may still embrace the Bible and of course Jesus himself, our friend and rabbi forever, without pledging allegiance to that twisted snake basket of belief systems unified by Emperor Constantine to consolidate control over his empire. Quakers already do not recite the Nicene Creed, a sure sign of heresy.  Why not officially leave the fold, at least among certain Meetings.

Christianity is deeply flawed and perhaps unsalvageable, as we see in this movie.  Or maybe it will heal from its horrible past.  Either way, Quakers need not tie their karma (fate) so tightly to this albatross.  We have a direct relationship with our principals and need not identify with these mostly priestly outward forms of the church-going, even if we affiliate and coalition with. 

I'd rather distance Quakerism from Christianity as a whole than hack away at our own internals and gut ourselves of Oversight.  We need not be ashamed of having overseers or admit cosmic guilt for attempting to practice responsible self super-vision.  It's all about how we spin it (overseeing).

Back to the film, I enjoyed Brad Pitt's part.  He's the modern voice in the film, speaking the mind of the audience which has been witnessing all this in horror.  "You must not be from around these parts" says our hero (in paraphrase).  "You're right, I'm from Canada" says Brad.  I almost laughed out loud, because Canada is even still sounding and acting smarter than Washington, DC ever could or did.  What a zoo, that city of pseudo-roman and modern architectures.

The bad guy slaver and the director have worked together before I've learned.

I respect the bad people in this movie for really doing a good job of acting.  They condemn one another in Biblical terms in ways that sound authentic, which is why I would never give up on the Bible as a source of soap operas, meta-stories, polemics and invective.

The Bible, a great storybook, is not the enemy.  Christianity, on the other hand, may deserve to be treated that way from time to time (with tough love). 

Look at Christians today and their two-faced support of nuclear weapons only for themselves and their friends.  Sound familiar?  How many Christians actually support abolishing nuclear weapons?  We should run more polls.

Out of the Furnace (movie review)

This was a case where I was at a cineplex in a time slot, quickly scanning summaries to find something starting within 15-30 minutes.  That narrowed my options considerably.  I went with Out of the Furnace because of the big names, like Christian Bale and Willem DaFoe (I consider myself a fan of both).

Christian plays the antithesis of the American Psycho guy.  He cares little for appearance (except he's handsome) and is not proud or loud.  He's pretty much your Bruce Springsteen all American, somewhere close to New Jersey.  But by now that's so retro / ethnic is to make it like National Geographic and Bridges of Madison County.

It's not that kind of love story (Bridges...) though, it's grim and violent.  There's the more twisted younger brother, the one who ends up in Iraq, tour after tour and gets more and more bent out of shape.  He's explosive and that sets it off in others.  The world is too dangerous for the likes of young Rodney, who has already paid too high a price.

Given I'm an older man now, I practiced projecting on the old guy side kick as my avatar in the ring.  You know how when you go to movies you pick a person...  I shouldn't say that as if novels weren't offering the same thing.  Any fiction.  Any history as a subset of fiction.  Fact is the fiction most agreed upon?  I ramble.

The bad guy in this movie has aroused our ire right from the opening scene, where he behaves like an out of control bully.  One wishes for Bruce Lee to jump out of the big screen and deal with him right then and there, but this is not a martial arts film.

Object Oriented Thinking

I was hanging with Deke (@dekebridges of Twitterverse) the other day.  You don't get 50K followers or whatever it is by being a bot.  Deke is a Penrosian Node in a non-computable space, a neural net given over to meme filtering, amplification, and propagation.  He's an instrument of the Zeitgeist.

I'll call him Lawn Mower Man for short (just kidding, insider allusion).

The thing about Deke is he likes Wendy's and one in particular.  He's brand loyal, to this instance (the special case), and to the class or template, the species.  This is Python talk, the computer language, just like Java jive at this level (Smalltalk, C# or whatever).

There's the pie-in-the-sky Platonic Wendy's in a Platonic strip mall (which need have nothing to do with stripping or strip bars, no need for see-no-evil monkeys to avert their eyes), and then there's the actual brick and mortar on-the-ground site-specific Wendy's, which typifies the ideal in an actual instance.

It's a Wendy's with a self, to continue the Python talk.  And it's not just a mindless affiliation in Deke's case.  He sincerely likes the chili f'rinstance.

Anyway, as we were driving around he suggested we might stop at Wendy's.  I said "I'm a Taoist, I don't fight the Way, when with Deke, go to Wendy's" and we did.

Deke just called.  Gotta go.

ISEPP Kick Off: 2013-2014

Terry picked a great speaker to kick off the lecture season this year.   Eric Drexler is a clear thinker who really helped get the ball rolling on nanotechnology.  Skip Rung, ONAMI director, gave the intro for obvious reasons.

Drexler was very aware and conscious of this being a Linus Pauling Memorial Lecture.  Not all of our speakers take that so much to heart, and they're not required to, but it so happens that "nanotechnology" was greatly aided and abetted as a field by the work of Linus Pauling.  Eric tried to convey how some people become so important and pervasive in their influence that you don't directly name them anymore.  Speaking of which, I think he managed to not say "fullerene" the whole lecture, though nano-tubes and graphene were key themes.  We don't have to cite Newton every time we use the word Gravity either.

What happened to nanotechnology is that the term became highly politicized, such that Eric has to do extra work up front to carve out the space that most interests him:  the space of building very tiny nano machines, like with gears.  These would work together in nano-factories to produce nano objects by the billions.  This kind of thing already happens in the electronics industry.

We're already surrounded by nano-devices and maybe don't call them that.

The future is bright, in terms of "more with less" continuing to mean something.  It twas a "Dymaxion Evening" with "dymaxion" being Fuller's coin for the "more with less" concept.

Eric's chart about exploratory engineering reminded me a lot about my GST "limits of language" poster.  He colors in a "forbidden zone" where realistic science fiction cannot tread, more the realm of fantasy.

However even within the "allowed zone" one might boost living standards to a point where the "war no more" people had a winning hand.

Silent Running

The above screencast, by David Koski, was meant to have sound.

He narrated over the phone what was going on.

I thought I could keep it in my head, but the zig-zag pattern of three tetrahedrons in the frustum is frustrating to memorize.

Start with ye regular old tetrahedron then move a face outward from its opposite vertex to make the edges phi (1.618...) times what they were.

The three zig zag tetrahedrons inside are now 1/phi, 1, phi in ratio, where 1 = the volume of the original tetrahedron.

You may generalize this result to non-regular tetrahedrons.

Related reading:
Constructing the Desert Tetrahedron (Dec, 2013)
Multiplying Desert Tetrahedron by PHI (Dec, 2013)

Before / After

:: before ::



:: after ::

Pacific Islanders Meet

For those unfamiliar with history, after Washington, DC imposed its post WW2 victory and Pax Americana in the so-called American Lake (the Pacific), it proceeded to betray a lot of peoples, starting with

• the Vietnamese whom it sold out to its former colonizers after getting Ho's help against the Japanese
• then the Filipinos, whom it liberated only to reimpose a heavy hand (having enslaved the Filipinos in an earlier chapter) and then of course
• the Pacific Islanders, who saw their homelands turned into a nuclear testing range, with entire islands obliterated and/or rendered uninhabitable, while generations were subjected to previously unknown levels of long term low level radiation, the effects of which are still making themselves known.
  

This evening, a group of Marshall Islanders got together in Portland to reminisce and celebrate small victories.  DC had taken away their eight year driver's license, treating them as "undocumented" on their own islands.  They got that overturned.  Now they'd like their medicare back.

Their major atoll, Kwajalein, was taken over by a culture-crushing, despotic military, the same one that destroyed, and/or pushed to the edge of extinction, so many native American cultures.  DC has been lying ever since, about the true magnitude of its ecocide in the Pacific.

Getting that City of Morons off the backs of free peoples in the Pacific is a worthy goal, but is difficult given DC, like Rome before it, counters open defiance with brutal aggression. 

More effective:  laugh at DC behind its back and work around it.

Private corporations may be effective as DC understands and obeys those with means.  Money talks to politicians even when few others can make sense of what money is saying.

To paraphrase Wittgenstein, "if money could talk we would not understand it" -- unless privy to one of the code languages the monied use amongst themselves.

Carol was too busy packing for her semi-annual migration to make this event, but I had Giff Johnson sign a copy of his book for her.

Winter Repairs

I'd already planned to leave the Nissan in the shop when I went to California.  They told me last time, something about needing valve cover replacements or something.  Well, I waited a little too long I guess because those lights on the dash meant what they said:  I was eating through the battery; mom and I pulled up the driveway from Old Wives Tales, after the AFSC meeting, with zero Joules to spare.  Trying to restart confirmed:  battery dead.

Fortunately, I'm up to date with AAA and my annual dues covered the tow to Gladstone, near Oregon City.  That was Thursday morning.  This Monday, all was repaired, including the new alternator.  The spray or leakage from the decayed valve covers is what had damaged the alternator over time.  Front and back brakes were down to 10%.  Other repairs needed.  The grand total was over $1800 2013 US dollars, paid against a standing loan (the credit card).  Why I put it on the non-mileage VISA I'll never know.  My right and left brain don't always talk I guess.

I've been concerned about the python, with which I share an office.  The dog comes by quite often as well.  During office hours, I'm more with non-humans than not, but the snake has been very balled up in his box, his shack within the larger aquarium.  Tonight, he came out.  I'd sneaked him a test mouse earlier, picking one up on the way back from Gladstone.  He passed the test.  I should give him another one before leaving for California.  Must dry clean the jacket.  Works out.  Mouse store and dry cleaner are adjacent and within walking distance.

Lindsey professes to despise the Blue House Party Mix, though I think both videos were new to her.  Dumb uninteresting beats, is her take, as a musician.  I guess that makes me easy to please, although I do like her more off beat experimental stuff sometimes.  We didn't get to that "all video-game sounds" version of Gangnam Style, just as well.  114/94/SAT was my work today, a shorthand I've developed, chicken scratches.  Patrick would know what I meant.  He chauffeured me past Cleveland High School, Tara's old haunt, and Oak's Bottom, Dawn's and mine, in route to Gladstone.  We at first missed the Nissan repair place because I'd misremembered the Nissan layout.  No biggie.  We drove home separately, reunited at The Open Bastion.

What Marx called product fetishism is real enough, as is consumerism as a lifestyle.  Shopping.  Some like to eBay all day.  Trading is turnover and variety is the spice of life.  I expect to receive a ton of philosophy books tomorrow.  Blue House is like grand central these days, with lots of comings and goings.  On the other hand, the power of having the right tools for the job should not be trivialized with dime store psychology.  Honing in on artifacts, such as cameras, even jewelry (some ornaments are also instruments in some science), is not anti-Marxist per se, but nor is it about being intimidated by Marxist labels.  The Blue House Party Mix obviously celebrates new / vogue technology and the accompanying razzmatazz (bling).  That seems superficial, if tools can't be deep.

Alan Watts used to point out that shopper-consumers were often the antithesis of Materialists.  They were in pursuit of a concept of a concept of happiness (pointers to pointers) and the mundane reality of materials was actually no longer capable of inducing thrills.  The idea of being at a certain restaurant was more important than the food forgettably consumed.  American Psycho comes to mind, for alluding to such a lifestyle.

Then lets look at Debt:  The First 5000 Years, and review the meaning there given "communism".   You may be sure the professoriate is "going here" i.e. today's colleges are already abuzz with some new thinking (not a new phenomenon right?).  The meanings of words do not hold fixed spontaneously and in fact it takes work and review to uphold a meaning.  Stories pegged to seasonal changes, star patterns and so on, have a longer half life than some.  Political stories, sustained by journalism, can sometimes just fizzle.  You reach a kind of terminus and there seems nowhere next to go, like a StopIteration exception in Python.  The generator is exhausted.  The bandwidth is a scarce resource I suppose you could say, not asynchronously so much as when everyone has their tightly scripted part.  Some of the fancier stuff can't be done without bandwidth.  Banks fail for this reason, people simply lose interest, to recycle an old pun.

The story is one of Mind continuing to pull the rug from under merely copied or habitual behaviors.  A given Brain might be happy doing the same thing every day, but the humans' gift is to receive grace, no need to argue if it's divine.  Of course it is, if by this means we shed the old reflexes and habits in favor of and in service of, some actual will, a chooser / decider, some executive function.  That means there might be somebody home, albeit non-computable / unpredictable, and therefore a plan of action, and not just action.  We need both.  "Computable" is in contrast to.

Thoughts that hold water need not always hold water.  The Holy Spirit keeps moving, as some religious might put it, meaning the forms continue to reform.  Morphing happens.  The beats change and draw us onward.  And let us remember that in morphing may be healing; not all change is injurious.  Letting go of conversations that displace more worthy conversations:  a spontaneous / emergent process.

Enough metaphysics for one evening's blog post I'd say.  My focus needs to turn towards the morrow.

Quakers in Business

:: mongo DB ::

Quakers started out as a highly persecuted minority but, once they had passed various integrity tests, they became a valuable asset to England's business community.  Their reputation for honesty and plain speech made them the logical ones to have talks with the "Indians" (English had Indians on both sides) and then, once trust was established, violate it, an old pattern.

Quakers began to feel used in this arrangement, as good will builders, only to see their investments go up in smoke.  They had their turn to run a utopia in Pennsylvania but that soon gave ways to Indian Wars, Ethnic Cleansing, Forced Migrations and so on and on, not fun at all.  They'd seen slavery up close in Barbados, and unlike King George III or was it IV, did not see much future in it.  Philadelphia was to be a bastion of freedom.  DC got the swamp.

Fast forward and you have a global network of Friends, not unlike other denominations and sects for their networks, with little campuses here and there.  It's corporation-like. Quakers helped pioneer a lot of the business practices we take for granted today and you'll find them still practiced in Quaker business meetings today.  Agendas go out ahead of time, minutes are taken and taken up at next meeting, where amendments may be made.  There's a constant effort towards leaving a clear written record of every meeting.

How do such practices carry into the future?  To some extent the written word forms a happy medium, in that we're able to have our Skype sessions and hang out on Google, but not bother with a recording, as minute-taking is still the succinct brief we will take with us, along with augmented memories for ourselves.

Practices need not change all that much, in other words.  The need to have every meeting video recorded and archived is not usually felt to be pressing.  On the other hand, living simply does have its advantages when everyone is potentially carrying a recording device and all phone conversations are retrievable.  If you have too many non-matching stories or "sets of books" then the pressure to implode is somewhat exponential in the digital age.

My expectation is that people will keep the Quaker ways alive in a sandbox or virtual space (called "religion"), there to continue fine tuning a kind of utopian business community that self administers and self heals.

Skills acquired practicing Quakerism will inform one's own private businesses thereby.  For example today I plan to reach meeting in time to transact business around coffee.  We have a supplier in Central America, as have we Friends.  The global network keeps talking to itself, including to its Beanites (that's a pun on our propensity to consume coffee, and the name of a founding family in our branches).

Speaking of Quakers and caffeine, on learning of "Mormon Tea" I was suggesting the Mormon authorities approach such a brand and allow its merchandizing.  Typical of a Quaker to think in that way.  Have little teabags and everything, some semi-fictive Santa Claus background (not my place to make it up).

The Strange Case of Señor Computer (movie review)

Lindsey built this up as the ultimate gift movie experience, a way of paying me back for all the duds we'd hit, not surprisingly, as she and I have watched hundreds of movies together (rough estimate) a lot of them from Dominic's collection at Laughing Horse.  Most of his are pretty good though -- Laughing Horse is a treasure.

Anyway, this movie is camouflauged as a badly directed amateur effort, which gets peoples minds off the budget and special effects.  It's uniformly ridiculous, like Team America, World Police (a relatively high budget film by South Park).

The star is this like white and nerdy mad professor guy (but younger) who just wants a girlfriend but all he has for company is this whacked out robot struggling for consciousness, and having a hard time of it.  The robot narrates the movie, in a synthesized voice, which makes no laugh track necessary.  I was cracking up the whole time.

I don't get to see much of Lindsey which is probably why we were both looking forward to some time alone.  She's off at City Hall all day, fighting to lift the camping ban or working Food Not Bombs in multiple shifts around town, including R2D2.  She gives the goodie two shoes churches a run for their money, in terms of siding with the poor, not a half bad performance, even by Portland standards which are pretty high.

However, her militancy against automobiles and refusal to ride in one has side tracked her music career as far as live night club appearances go (we did the downtown and east side circuit).  I used to be her roadie / chauffeur when she was new in town, but she gave up on those ethics and just gave me her vehicle in exchange for no rent in a basement (in far better use, by a quasi full time activist musician than for storage (that's what the garage is for)).  She tells her mom she lives with an old school teacher, and guess what, that's true (I'm 55 and I work for a school).

Blue House wins with such interesting talented people playing World Game (speaking of which, Jen just left this morning, having camped out both in the backyard and in our living room as the days grew shorter and colder).  She's off on the next big chapter in her life.  Here's a picture of her early this morning, with all her worldly goods.  I wish her well and expect to see her again in a future chapter.

We we're still working on boundaries though, Lindsey and I (cell phone use and like that -- she won't own one but then I can't play social secretary so she mostly works through her girlfriend Melody for telecomm).  We've had hardly any chance to catch up at all lately, as I'm really feeling it at work.  Aside from the blow-up about maybe closing the pavilion at Colonel Summers Park (no plans to do that now), I have had my head in other spaces, as this blog will attest.  She and I don't overlap nearly as much as we used to.

Back to the movie:  our hero is a mess, suicide prone, and relationships only take a greater toll than they're worth, diminishing him, not feeding him.  The robot is no help at all in this situation as the scientist's doppelganger i.e. he's pretty much going through the same thing, having a relationship over the phone, using his "father's" credit cards, and spending a lot of time introverted and morose, an emo kid for sure.

Your enjoyment of this film will be proportional to your taste for underground comix (e.g Crumb) and other films of the same ilk.  It reminded me somewhat of Doing Easy.  Very William Burroughs.  Lindsey and I share that same wicked sense of humor to some degree (as does Christine).

After the movie I invited Linsdey to sit in the co-pilot chair in my office and watch zombies storm Jerusalem again, in WWZ.  I like to share that clip with people.  Now that's high budget, comparatively.

Differential Equations

:: hexagonal awareness 

by Glenn Stockton ::

I wrote to Tara about "interlocking deltas" today, something that's been occupying some attention on my walks, or call them "walking meditations" (Quakers have that too, or call it "worship walking").

"Delta" is a Greek letter, a little triangle, and signifies change, perhaps the smallest change possible.  The idea that "change" is discrete, comes in quanta (all or nothing bits, yes or no at some level), is similar to the notion that "substance" is discrete i.e. "atoms", with "atoms" boiling down (reducing to) "energy events" by most accounts.

People argue about whether "matter is energy" (Kenneth Boulding and I did some of that) perhaps imagining they're holding "is" constant (there are three words at work here, not just two, plus is it an empirical question or a matter of a priori stipulation?).

When you plod along linearly, you accumulate distance, lest on a treadmill at the gym, in which case "distance" is measured for you (and displayed).  Accumulation shows as a slanted line, and accumulating accumulation, as in adding consecutive numbers, becomes a triangle, or area.  So a first power becomes a second, and a second power change becomes a third.  That's "integration" (accumulation) where as "differentiation" is going the other way (back down to plodding).

On today's ascent of Tabor I met up with Glenn, not by prearrangement but nor entirely by surprise.  He'd found some new puzzle pieces, regarding planetary geology.

Plate tectonics used to be laughed at, but now there's this other theory, that the interlocking plates, without changing relative position, also slide around as a whole, like an outer crust would be free to rotate.

By how much?

I didn't manage to pin that down but lets just say that polar ice weighs a lot and the physics of precession might just make for a kind of axial realignment to compensate, during periods of heavy glaciation.  This would again be independent of the relatively ellipsoidal orbits at a maximum -- or is it, entirely?

I don't claim to know.

Because of oscillations of the axis and where the ice buildup happens most, parts of Antarctica have been sometimes uncovered.  The idea that human civilization might have flourished there between ice ages has its supporters, among them a Canadian couple.  Glenn had their book.

I snapped a few pictures and then moved on, this being a Monday and all.  It may not look like I work eight hour days (or more) but I do.  Getting it all in takes some packing.

The Bagdad is closed now, as I was saying it would be soon, for the remodel.

Jen has joined our household again as she did for some months last year, using Carol's room.  Carol is still here so she's got the livingroom.  Lindsey's music studio is still in the basement though she's not around right now.  I've got the upstairs split between bedroom and office, while the real office still waits for insulation (my job) and dry wall (contracted).

I share the office with a python, very active at the moment.  I should take him out... nah, he's pretty shy, some other time maybe.  The office opens out on a deck, newly redone with a fantastic fence and durable "rubber" cover.  No leaking downstairs anymore.  I paid for all this by grading mountains of student work.  I'm paid as a gatekeeper, per the Project Renaissance model.

I noticed Lyrik has turned over again, used to be Fine Grind (under Jody), before that Wired.  Keiko, our Brazilian of Japanese heritage worked with Joe on the Lyrik enterprise (half coffee shop, half art gallery).  I didn't make it to the restaurant, with its steam punk menu, and now it's gone, an opportunity not taken.  Accelerating acceleration and all that.  Differential equations again.

I remember when visiting Holden in DC, his then wife was talking about a pay delta.  She was talking about a security guard and his family, her business being property management of premium DC real estate.  Anyway, I appreciated that use of "delta" too.  So many little triangles out there, signifying miniscule differences.  But they add up they do.  It's amazing how a little leak can fill a bathtub full of water.  Been there done that.

Carol Addresses Thirsters

Carol visits Thirsters @ McMenamins

This fairly low key weekly conversation group has recently switched digs, moving from the McMenamins on Savier in NW to the McMenamins on Broadway in NE.

Carol regaled them with stories about her work for civil / human rights and Constitutional democracy in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Egypt and Lesotho.  She talked a lot about the Transformation Resource Center (TRC) as being one of her very favorite NGOs.  She never mentioned PAFID by name, the NGO she helped resurrect in the martial law Philippines to counter the land-grabbing polices of Colonel Elizalde and his cronies.  Yes, this was in the Marcos period.

Why did the US back Savimbi in Namibia again?  She has always freely questioned so-called "US foreign policy".  The succession of presidents made a difference.  Under Carter, her work was more celebrated and acknowledged.  EB asked her why she got "kicked out" of the US Embassy in Maseru.  Again:  a change in personnel, and anyway rotation is the norm in embassies, where few last as long as five years (as she had).

Carol and TRC had a lot of input during the hammering out of the Lesotho constitution in the aftermath of the insurrection by those voted out.  These people started burning down the whole country and surrounding nations had to intercede militarily, which they did without a bloodbath, though killing occurred.  Hammering out an agreement after that took about three years.

She played up the role of Quaker conflict resolvers, indigenous South Africans, in the ending of Apartheid.  My parents had great admiration and respect for the RSA (Republic of South Africa).

She talked about meeting dad and their collaboration as expats.  He was more the technocrat social engineer (sounds evil -- regional and education planning mostly), while she would work as a volunteer, more like Descartes, by which I mean she had more leverage when not subservient to a boss.  She could follow her intuitions more and whereas mom is often mixed up about matters of fact (in my opinion) she is capable of good judgement ("discernment" the Quakers call it).  One of the Thirsters made some insightful remarks along those lines.

I talked to Doug a lot, Peace Corps vet from Liberia in the 1970s, left before the Civil War.  He'd been back in DC for President Carter's inauguration.  I chose that day to see the Tutunkamn Exhibit -- while the new prez and his wife were strolling down Pennsylvania Avenue in a parade.  Looking at ancient Egyptian stuff at the same time was not disrespectful, but an acknowledgment of our bonds to civilizations past (and maybe consult de Chardin about our bonds to the future).

Thirsters obviously enjoyed this presentation.  Carol has good command of her subject.

I was fairly social with people but also brought along The Rajneesh Chronicles.  I'm about half way through maybe?  Anyone like me who fantasizes about eco-villages in rural Oregon should study this anthropology, or call it "true crime" (how the book tends to get filed at bookstores -- and not without reason mind you).

Some Quaker Overview

OVERVIEW from Planetary Collective on Vimeo.

Ever since Walter Kaufmann translated Nietzsche's "Übermensch" to "Overman" instead of "Superman", there's been discomfort among Quaker Overseers, who are caught in the hard place of remaining vigilant against undermining / subverting influences (cosmetics, music...) that might distract Friends from expectant waiting on the spirit.

Quakers don't believe in titles or, more accurately, different ranks or classes of human. Fox was popular among infantry and officers for his direct egalitarian manner and plainspokenness, direct speech, an asset in war time. Quakers wouldn't treat some as uber-entitled and others as trash, which got them in trouble (an understatement).

However, Kaufmann's whole schtick (or a big part of it) was to put distance between "Übermensch" and any stupid Nazi ideas of Arayan supremacy, the ultimate classism or sense of entitlement.

Friends tried hard to put the brakes on WW2 (see Human Smoke) by seeing Germans as humans too (like Americans, far from perfect); they resisted imposition of the food blockade, the siege Churchill had mounted and needed FDR to support, and they pushed to open borders to fleeing / desperate refugees from Nazi oppression, Jews chief among them.

DC Comics might have had the better translation after all, in that ordinary powers we have, as humans further along the timeline, are "super" compared to what they were until recently. We fly places. We Google stuff. We see the Earth from space.

Compared to humans just a short time ago, in terms of environmental impact at the terraforming level, for better or for worse (or neither or both), we're now "super" or "uber" or "on steroids" if you will ("over the top", "hyper", "amped up").

Nietzsche was right: humanity was about to go into overdrive and into orbit and now we have "overview" (Über-view) from space. We see the fragility of our situation. That's what our new superpowers (powers of oversight) help us realize: that we're uber-vulnerable, as a ball-shaped ecosystem in the middle of nowhere.

Polyhedrons at Play

These two videos stem from conversations between David Koski and myself.  There's a lot more to it, so let me not try to reveal all here.  Visual Python is a fine platform for outputting 3D animations as a result of running Python code.  They're interactive animations, meaning even as they play, you can change the viewing angle and distance.  Computer games may provide even more fluidity of motion but at least we've moved a step in that direction.

In the 2nd video I tell the listeners they might not agree with my volume figure and suggest they try with red edges = 2.  In XYZ, they should get a volume of 1, modeled likewise by a cube with edges half the reds, i.e. 1 x 1 x 1.  The shape is a reflected 1/6th corner of a rectangular brick where the brick is volume √3 x √3 x 1, so two of those is 2 x 1/6 of 3 = 1.

In Synergetics, the "prime vector" (PV) against which the others are scaled, is typically twice that of the unit-radius sphere's (540.14) four of which pack to create the regular tetrahedron of edges 2R, or D (Diameter = 2 x Radius).

That's the 2nd tetrahedron I pause at, with all edges D, and is the Synergetics unit of volume.  The geometric model of multiplication is different, even in Flatland, so 3rd powering is not cube-shaped at the end of the day.  I use the brand 'Martian Math' to share it sometimes, in contrast to 'Earthling Math' which is the XYZ stuff we both know.

Sometimes another edge, usually R, or even an edge of the T module, is so important to the discussion you consider it the prime vector instead (think of "__main__" in Python). Synergetics names (tools) tend to adapt to the namespace (problem area) you're working in (a kind of pneumatic flexibility built in to the language).

So the XYZ unit and IVM unit are both in the same animation, but with our volume numbers staying with IVM i.e. with "tetravolumes".  This would be a door to a "concentric hierarchy" of volumes, a somewhat familiar assortment of nested polys, but with more whole number volumes then you get from the XYZ namespace.

Making the cube your unit came at a cost and Synergetics helps us investigate the consequences by giving us workarounds.  Art courses (including in Cyberia) focusing on the concentric hierarchy have been a source of ideas for more straitlaced (as in straitjacketed) where experimental geometry is less well established.

What's this "IVM"?  Same as "octet truss" in architecture, on which for awhile Fuller held a patent (even though Alexander Graham Bell did the same constructions).

Here's the source code for the above videos.  Sorry about the word-wrapping, in the comments too.  You'll need to fix that on your end, a good way to start familiarizing yourself with the code.