Car Stories

A well-known plus to renting a car now and then is one gets in a time machine and travels to the far future, the present, 2015 (as of this writing, duh).  Normally I drive a 1997 Nissan, a quality vehicle that I still appreciate.  But it needed a new mass airflow sensor and so I called up Enterprise and booked a car for a day.

The rental was a 2015 bright red Toyota Corolla with a lot of frills, including radio controls on the steering wheel, rear view camera, great mileage (to Salem and back on a quarter tank).

Carol and I both caught something probably contracted by Lindsey in her air capsule coming from China to Bay Area.  Or who knows anymore.  In addition, I'm susceptible to seasonal allergies in these hot summer days in the 90s (F-scale) so I'm likely to be a basket case anyway, given the right pollen mix.

I tried Sudafed and Claritin both, but stayed pretty miserable and tried not to get too close to people at the Salem Meetinghouse.  Carol was likewise in a state, and as a guest speaker, co-appearing with Dr. Linda Richards, she actually had a workout, whereas I was just an audience member.

We'd started the day with Paul Barker at the Stark Street meetinghouse, so two meetinghouses in one day.  I'd call us dedicated circuit riders.

However mom and Linda were not on strictly Quaker business, more were representing Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) to Followship for Reconciliation (FOR).

Carol's specialty is demilitarization whereas Linda teaches history of science.  Both have given excellent Wanderers presentations at the Linus Pauling House in Portland (connected with ISEPP).

Math Avoidance?

The accusation of "math avoidance" comes from those claiming our K-12 maths curriculum (using the UK plural) is too watered down, too diluted with geegaws and gizmos.  It's just "toy math".

Whereas I'm sympathetic to the accusation, I do need to ask if it's "math avoidance" to simply bury all the late 20th Century innovations documented in architecture, regarding the relationship of geodesic spheres to the virus and buckyball both.

Is it wise to be so ignorant of this heritage?

Fig. 988.12 Icosahedron Inscribed Within Octahedron: The four-frequency tetrahedron inscribes an internal octahedron within which may be inscribed a skew icosahedron. Of the icosahedron's 20 equiangular triangle faces, four are congruent with the plane of the tetra's faces (and with four external faces of the inscribed octahedron). Four of the icosahedron's other faces are congruent with the remaining four internal faces of the [ octahedron ]. Two-fifths of the icosa faces are congruent with the octa faces. It requires 24 S Quanta Modules to fill in the void between the octa and the icosa.

Readers of Synergetics already know of the volume 20 VE, which contracts to a volume 18.51 Icosa by Jitterbugging.  That's our s-Factor at work i.e. (Svol / Evol) to the -1 i.e. Evol / Svol.

20 * (1  / sFactor) = 18.51...

As seen from the excerpt below, from a Python program, these two volumes come with "S + s3" and "E + e3" expressions for volumetric decompositions.

In this case-sensitive notation, S:s3 == E:e3 == Phi ** 3 i.e. the linear dimensions of s3 are 1/phi those of the S-module, ditto e3 vis-a-vis the E-module.

The S-module has a tetra-volume of pow(phi, -5)/2.

print("VE:         ", 20,                 420 * Svol + 100 * s3)
print("Icosa:      ", 20 * sFactor ** 1,  420 * Evol + 100 * e3)

With output:

VE:          20 19.99999999999996
Icosa:       18.5122958682192 18.512295868219162

Another Icosa-to-Cubocta relationship involves not Jitterbugging, but keeping the faces flush, eight of them, though only partially overlapping, as shown in the figure below:

Fig. 988.00 Polyhedral Evolution: S Quanta Module:
Comparisons of skew polyhedra.

We could call this a "skew" relationship and applying 1/sFactor twice to the 18.51 icosahedron takes use to what Koski affectionately calls the "Small Guy" cubocta, of volume ~15.86065.

What is it's frequency, assuming Icosa edges = 2? Recalled 20 * F**3 is our formula:

print("Small Guy edge:", 2 * pow(sFactor ** -3, 1/3))

Output:

Small Guy edge: 1.8512295868219202

What's interesting about that number, a linear dimension, is that it's 1/10th the volume of the jitterbugged icosahedron's.  The differences in the ending digits above have merely to do with floating point error margins.

So what is the volume of the Icosa within the volume 4 Octa of Figure 988.12?

Clearly it's 4 - 24 * Svol or 4 - 24 * (pow(phi, -5)/2) = ~2.917961.

In Python again, and using David's decomposition formula:

>>> Svol = pow(phi, -5)/2
>>> s3 = Svol * pow(phi, -3)
>>> 60 * Svol + 20 * s3  # S + s3 form
2.9179606750063085

Applying the reciprocal of the sFactor twice more, to this tiny Octahedron-inscribed icosahedron, nets us the volume of its "skew mate": the volume 2.5 cuboctahedron, i.e. 1/8 the volume of the cuboctahedron of volume 20, faces flush with the same Octa of volume 4.

>>> baby
2.9179606750063085
>>> baby * (1/sfactor) * (1/sfactor)
2.5000000000000107

Inside Out (movie review)

Yes, I too admired this film for its cleverness and compassion.

As she gets older though, and even while young, I think those five archetypes don't quite cover it.  Maybe we would find some mutant sixth and seventh crew members in different people?

We take only a small sample, with N only > 10 towards the end, if it ever gets that high (cross species, nice touch).  I'm talking about how we look in on different control rooms.  Always the same five?

This Disney / Pixar movie is the paradigm "control room" movie, taking the meme right to its psychological roots, as a source of core memories feeding complexes ("military industrial" or whatever).

Shades of Woody Allen right?

Long term memories get visited later, by an estranged headquarters pair, seeking to get back to the helm.  Not giving too much away.

She's a ship in choppy waters, our girl, and through an extended and elaborate set of interlocking metaphors, we get an excursion through a detailed mind map.

Either that (more crew) or each of these five might need to stretch a bit more, to take in new territory?  The subconscious covers a lot of ground... I'm maybe just unclear about the plumbing. 

I admit the prospect of a sequel somewhat scares me.  What if the series catches up and passes me?  It gets scarier doesn't it?  San Francisco is just the beginning.  Maybe The Zero Theorem fits here?

OK, I'm angsting a bit, have some concerns of my own.  Maybe I'm a tad envious of little girls and the problems they get to have?  Sniff.  You've gotta admit she has it pretty good, just having so much joy for starters.  Her parents have benefited, a stress point right there.

Hey, I'm looking forward to Minions.

Twas fun to see this on a big screen with a friend in an audience.  I had my book on cryptography and Poe along, taking the bus, got a ride back in a new Mercedes.

We get more from a spontaneously shared event in a dark movie hall, than watching on a flat screen home alone.

Not that I don't welcome the more kicked-back option; I do that too.  I'm glad I have the option to choose.  Did I mention seeing Jurassic World with Alexia?

This is one I'd gladly add to my collection.

Villa Touma (movie review)

Thanks to a heads up from Dr. Tag, I was able to bus over to 16th & NW Glisan to McMenamins Mission Street Theater & Pub just in time for this fundraiser for Palestinian Childrens Relief Fund (PCRF).

This showing of Villa Touma, a film by and about Palestinians, was an event designed to launch a  new PCRF local chapter.

An orphan girl, of an eligible age (almost 19) is taken in by her aunts, who live in the past and want to marry her off to someone judged to be of high social class.

The Palestinians I was watching this with found lots to laugh about, but questioned the realism of the premise.  "No one is really like that, it's not true" one of the audience members commented.

But then the film is a spoof, gently mocking those who try to live in the past.

That these sisters take themselves so seriously only adds to the comic element.

We get a window into a dollhouse inhabited by these sad clown ladies, a dog, and a caretaker.  The atmosphere is purposely claustrophobic, redolent of the dead ends these lives have become.

Badia does bring some light and joy into this household, slowly lifting spirits, but her oppression is severe and she fails to meet the unrealistic expectations of her silly aunts.

From my angle, the film was a lot better than the nasty and shallow review by Jay Weissberg in Variety.

As a movie reviewer, Jay has perhaps proved his talent elsewhere, but his panning of this film is flat and unmodulated, deriving from a failure to recognize that he's dealing with a comedy of manners, not a compelling political analysis of anything.

Faulting a film because one guessed wrong about the genre is more a reflection of viewer immaturity than anything to do with the film itself.

Gender Pride Day

:: gay pride 2014 (rerun) ::

I'll call it that, given today is Gay Pride Parade in Portland, and Prairie Home Companion, on the radio now, has been appropriately Seattle / Northwest based.  Is this a rerun then?  As of yesterday, sure.  Dang but Garrison is good.

He just advised a guy to go for same-sex marriage next time, funny marriage counselor skit.  All morning were poignant "dad" stories on NPR, well made.  I found myself admiring radio as a medium again.

That's right, unlike last year when I photographed Gay Pride on a somewhat rainy day, capturing Congressman Blumenauer and some others, this year I'm kicked back in an easy chair ("... of computer science") with my dog and the radio.  Having a case of Achilles tendinitis (self diagnosed) is a contributing factor to my relative inactivity.

Carol wanted to walk home from Stark Street Quakers (SSQs).  I drove her there at 9:40, bright sunny day, great for a parade.

"Gay" does not even begin to cover the full pantheon of "Queer" or as some say "Pan", the parent class, most inclusive, from which the subtypes derive.  Remember that genders turn off and on and that the asexual dimensions are often the most textured and nuanced.

"Turned on" states, even friendly-flirtatious, often feed the exaggerated caricatures more easily, so those working against stereotypes will often do so in a more business class persona, at least around Portland, which has an eclectic Central Business District (CBD) and everything.

Bend gender at work, where it matters, not at the bar, where no one cares (in a liberal town like Portland, it takes a lot more work to get stares, so your mileage may vary).  That would be my advice to gender activists.  However, work includes business lunches and being out in public, so I'm not drawing a hard line.

While kicked back, I'm conversing with other math-teachers, or debating in some cases, on the issue of multiculturalism (is that an issue?) and "technology in the classroom", both perennial themes.

Last night I was catching up on work-related studies around Cython, the basis of Sage, and I-Python Notebook in synergy therewith.  Cython is a hybrid Python + C that "compiles" to C code that in turn compiles using a C compiler.  Sage is developed in this language.

In this mode of work-study, I have Safari open on the Samsung tablet (Galaxy 3) and an I-Python Notebook on the laptop.  Same chair ("... of computer science").  I'll read for awhile, then tap tap on the computer, read some more and like that.

Nor do I have a working camera this year, as of yesterday.

The Fujifilm XQ-1, black, which I adore, suddenly no longer powered on, after a bright morning of fun shooting.  Taking pictures is such a big habit of mine that I was almost right away on the phone to Camera World, where I bought it under a year ago.  An hour later, I was downtown at the store, having it shipped for repairs under warranty.

Good timing for seeing Ex Machina, before driving home.

Opt Out App

Patrick is excited to have access to some real electrical meter data from actual households, broken down by appliance (e.g. wine cooler) a level of detail he doesn't currently need.  His goal is to harness input patterns and feed them to a Numenta bot that may prove capable of anticipating what's next to some degree, better then current technology can.  Crystal balls are always in vogue, even if they see ahead only one or two minutes.

I just registered for OSCON again, so am looking forward to Patrick's talk.

Speaking of parents with families, an Opt Out app is about opting out of specific kinds of recruiting the Constitution doesn't say you need to accept.  Once opted out, you may also choose to report violations.  I've brought this app to the attention of the Portland Peace Program.

Civilian services, such as scouting in its various forms, which involves instruction, investing in infrastructure, winning merit badges, is likewise in need of more people willing to Opt In.  Scouting and coding have merged on many levels, as mathematics becomes more of an outdoor sport, thanks to geocaching etc.

High School 2.1

I don't know how directly Nexus architects were influenced by Scott Gray, maybe not at all, directly, however the similarities are striking, between the Nexus and "user active" philosophies.

A percentage of the instruction these students receive could be from mentors such as myself, propagating Python skills over the wire, responding individually to students within my caseload.  Every mentor, from senior to rookie, is working a beat, which will be defined by track and language of instruction (English or...?).

If students need to take supervised tests i.e. we need to seriously authenticate they're who the say they are etc., the Node (say a Nexus) provides the venue.  If they're inspired and want to pursue their learning off site, e.g. from home, the same distance learning portals are there.

I'm upbeat about this new model for high schools and encourage more states besides Michigan to show off their imaginative next versions.

Tomorrowland (movie review)

There's precedent in these blogs for me breaking a review into two or having another review come to me later, more analysis or whatever, and that's the approach I wanna take here.

Willamette Week, a witty paper, had me all prepared to not like this, for the right reasons, but I ended up admiring it a lot, for all the archetypes and love knots it takes on.

Remember I go by Chief Marketing Officer for some Coffee Shops Network that has Athena very much in its heraldry, and this film has an Athena.  The dad-daughter relationship there is encoded in Greek mythology as well:  she sprang from his head directly.  There's some Gnostic potential there.

So yeah, lots to think about and really well made.  Good work.  I will follow up at a later date with more thoughts.  Hey, I'm still thinking about Mad Max.  These movies are like time release pills.  They're not over when they're over, if you're like me.

Alexia, sorry if we'd planned to see this together, I was just pretty sure it was a dud going in and my evening was geared to Starlight Parade.  You and I would have others to choose from.  As it happens, not a dud in my case, and I missed the parade this year, hope to catch it next time.

Body Art

 I have a lot on my plate to write about, including the closing ISEPP lecture for this season, Terry summing up engineering as a moral enterprise (up to some good, one always hopes).

Let me mention the Gift Shop idea and where that went:  Body Art.

That'd be quite consistent with Third Eye across the street and is completely compatible with the decal-based art already in the mix.

So that's a win.

Yes, I'm talking about Peace Sign (or even Peace Corps sign) tattoos, for many significant, including among the Laughing Horse reading and viewing circles.

With most taboos removed and stereotypes crumbling, there's a niche somewhere on Hawthorne no doubt.

Glenn is repainting.

More NPYM IT

:: working with WQM Men's Group ::

Memorial Day

People were out in droves in my neighborhood, enjoying those establishments choosing not to close for the holiday, but stay open.

I'm reminded of my quick visit to London Knowledge Lab on a bank holiday when no one sane would be at work.  But a kind Lab guy, knowing my itinerary (guest of Shuttleworth Foundation, hot off a jet from Pacific Northwest), realized it was now or never.  I gave a presentation.  The gig was recorded and for many years made the rounds, plus I got to brag to the Foundation folk I'd already briefed LKL, sounded important.

This year, 2015, I drove Deke, a fine fellow, on an errand to Dr. Bolton's hood, out Tryon way.  We stopped in to visit with Sir Charles, an emeritus sociology department chairman and contemporary of my dad's.  The Boltons started to tune in Urners at University of Chicago, but then went their separate ways.  Not until they got together again in Portland did the conviviality really develop, such that when we moved to Rome, we made the trip to Positano, to hang with the Boltons, on sabbatical.

The intersection top of Boones Ferry, where Stephenson T's in:  that's been a rough corner and a lot of redesign has gone into it recently, I think for the better.  This was my landing quad i.e. my starting sector in the World Game of Portland I started playing, off the plane from Bangladesh.  Mom & Dad were pulling up stakes there, I'd gone to help them pack up, take another look around Dhaka, and then I stayed with the Boltons rather than resume an East Coast existence.  Time to get back to my Portland roots.

The Nissan has a fuel system issue that I'll trace to poor maintenance on my part, casting no aspersions on Nissan for this one.  The Altima I drove to and from, on my recent mid-west tour (St. Louis MO etc.), was a world class motor vehicle.  I like how rental car scenarios let us try before we buy, or rent again, or whatever.   Anyway, the Maxima bucks like a bronco sometimes, even shutting off.  Good thing it's OK to restart in neutral.  But hey, Deke and I both remarked how overall smooth the whole trip was.

Funny part:  Charles was just showing us a postcard from Maureen, in dense handwriting, and saying he thought she might still be in Europe when, knock knock, there she was at the door, pretty funny.  I alerted them to Carol's immanent arrival and suggested we all get together again soon, Deke included (he liked our energy, think he might join).

Maureen was at the WILPF Centennial like mom was, with her son Erin in a supportive role.

Mom did a lot of her five weeks solo, also tackling NYC YMCA on her own (for visits with UN people) and DC.  She routed herself back to LAX via JFK and fortunately made standby on JetBlue, shortening her stay in JFK by a good six hours, way to go Carol!  She said she'd gladly take JetBlue again.

The day before, I got together with my friends the Gunnells, new in Portland.  I took pictures at the wedding, my former co-worker Eddy's daughter the bride.  Eddy and I were high school teachers at St. Dominic Academy, for girls (young women) in Jersey City, New Jersey.  That was back in the 1980s, great gig!

Bravo Michigan on Bold Experiments

I may have gotten the story a little wrong and will apply corrections in future blog posts, allowing misapprehensions to continue registering here, but my current understanding being that high schoolers in Michigan are guaranteed by law at least one distance education class as a part of their public schooling experience.

Public Act 205, passed in 2009, allowed the formation of full-time online schools for the first time in fall 2010. In 2006, the Michigan Legislature was the first in the nation to pass a requirement that students have an “online learning experience” before graduating. [ source ] 

Is that opt in or opt out and what if one wishes more than one?

In any case, the Nexus Academy solution looks promising in that it solves the need to authenticate identity.  Those of us in distance learning know a weak spot is what if the student lets her dog do the homework instead.

Most realize they cannot fake it for long on the job, so why fake it now, but adults are more likely to realize this than children maybe?  Not that teenagers are children exactly.

In any case, certified testing centers are a need at all levels for all ages.  The science wants control and supervision, not some going overboard on some "honor system".  Authentication is required, perhaps with biometrics.

One might imagine a combination of experiences, inside one of these centers for some activities, outside for others.  You need not imagine yourself cooped up for days on end, as for academic credit you're required all over the map.

What is distance learning anyway?  Thirty feet away can be pretty far, in human terms, in a room of five hundred.

A lecture hall is distance learning?  Might as well be.

Actually no, there's an audience / speaker rapport that makes live talks a bonus, same with music.

Anyway, it would be up to Michigan whether an obstacle course in cyber-space such as mine, or some other DL activity, would count for credit per the State of Michigan.  That's not my decision, as an online teacher, and besides who want's to learn lambda calculus anyway?

But the very idea of a Nexus Academy wherein I might have students, even if I'm in faraway Oregon or St. Louis, does inspire me, whether it's really practical in the short haul or not.  Thank you USDLA for opening my eyes to the possibilities (that's a conference my school sent me to, and a membership organization).

Raining in Portland, did yard work today.

Decision-making is by many methods, and who has access to all that many boardrooms?  We have our finite experiences.  Democracy does not just mean once a year elections, or once every three or four.  People learn to vote when going out on a group date and picking a restaurant.

But then if you're Quaker and use consensus, maybe you never choose?  "Let someone else program it" might be how the unprogrammed would do it, but presumably "expectant waiting" is more intelligent than that.

Wanderers 2015.5.19

Tonight was my turn to give a Wanderers presentation.  I decided to spice it up by saying I was acting a part, not really being my ordinary self.

I wore shiny shoes and my Quaker hat (a Stetson).  I was the "Quaker futurist", like a gig, or act.

Trevor (depicted below), being the Egoist presenter recently, was an inspiration.  "If someone says I'm egotistical, I correct them, saying it's really egoistical that I'm being" (bada boom -- one of my jokes).

Shades of Portland Center Stage...

Anyway, I was a bit gruff and abrupt, and people warmed to that as I'd warned 'em.  I practiced by telling Don to "shut up" a couple times, like I thought I was Bill O'Reilly.

The idea was my Martian-tinged cult had some future in the pipeline and here was a Saturday Academy class, already delivered, that had already passed the torch.  The future just passed you by, did you even notice?

1, 12, 42, 92... I kept harping on that, like a mantra.

I was touting the standard Garden of Eden in a Climatron stuff, a kind of utopianism associated with Whole Earth Catalog if anyone remembers those.  The Bucky stuff, I call it.

Stewart Brand had a hand in this stuff, and so did J. Baldwin.  Stewart pushed to get pictures of the whole Earth, as in "from-space photography" into the public domain.

Shots from space (ET PoVs) were entirely new in those early days of the first orbiting satellites, ala Sputnik et al.

I started my hour-long presentation with two misanthropic cartoons, pulled from my Facebook profile, then flipped through slides from the Martian Math class.

The Martian Math stuff was portrayed as 10-20 years ahead of the pack.  I was purposely somewhat Cabalistic or cliquish one might say, in implying Silicon Forest was moving ZomeTool, as implied by a picture from our field trip to ONAMI, as a part of some cultic process.  We talked about Grunch a lot (Fuller's coin), and Ed Applewhite's Cosmic Fishing.

But I digress.

People were quite engaged and full of insights and questions, as I'd hoped.  We talked about dedicated freeways with self-driving trucks -- but don't we have those already?  They're called trains and only one of the cars, called the engine, needs to drive (the trucks would need some kind of supervision too).

Although I was walking them through some slides, the idea was to inspire conversation.  We were there to think about Futurism as a discipline, and about how Science Fiction works, as distopian-to-utopian.  I mentioned the Paul Allen museum on the subject, in nearby Seattle.

The ratio of science to fiction matters.  That's on one of the slides.

And also:  is it about humans expanding elsewhere, or being expanded upon, as in invaded?  A little of both maybe?  I talked about "angels and devils" as the old days ETs.

Regrets poured in from some of the people Don had invited (that's his role) but who couldn't make it and maybe wanted to be polite and all, but as you can see from the picture (above), it's a small room.

Thanks for thinking of me, and lets get together soon!  Life is short.

Trevor in character at Mother Foucault's

Voting Machines

Those of you US people without amnesia (Gore Vidal said this was the United States of Amnesia we live in, if you'll recall), may remember the voting machine fiasco.

We all lost confidence in the machines because they would not share the algorithms or submit to auditing by students of computer science, who might be high school aged.

One of the nonprofits I work with is experimenting with state of the art e-voting software that not even an election administrator can rig.

It's a vote-by-email type of system, with one ballot going out to each eligible person.  I'm not saying it's either fool proof or applicable in its present form to just any election for whatever office.

DemocrayLab is the NGO I've written about most in connection with providing "democracy in a box" ideas, i.e. turn-key software that's democracy-enabling.

However eVote and Helios are already open source, not saying you need to bother Mark just because you're interested in either of these two packages.

Every high school needs voting machines as a part of its civics curriculum, with votes counted often, on myriad topics, experimenting with different modes.

In some systems, even the voters are secret e.g. you don't know who in the audience is really the critic for the New York Times.

With Quakers, we tend to move by consensus but that only works in a non-trivial way when the players are communicative.

When people stay strangers, you lose a lot of the inertia that comes from shared access to organizational memes.

That's why companies do team building and such, even encounter groups in some walks of life, to break down the barriers to speedy / timely / efficient communications.

Conference Call

In case my Gift Shop proposal flies, I've talked to Glenn about a tour.  Area Program Committee is considering a proposal to fill in for the missing Laughing Horse Book Store and Video Collective ("nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky" -- Kansas).

There's a hole in this town that Friends could help fill, both programmed and unprogrammed.

501(c)(3) nonprofit corporations are allowed to sell swag.

But this would be more than a swag shop.  We'd have vintage Peace buttons, educational materials. Proceeds fund our non-profit programs.

We get around needing to provide ADA compliance to this rickety old building (the one we're touring) by having the organizing meetups elsewhere.

We can do sales outside on summer days, so if you're on crutches you'll still get access.

The competition wants a strictly back office low profile in a little trafficked part of town (comparatively).

Their building is for sale and unstable in that sense but the back office people don't seem to worry as they have few responsibilities and no programs.

Our program people are in the field.

Why a small city like Portland should get Philadelphia-type jobs is a bit of a mystery.

"Back office" is what Friends Center is for, is what we thought, not West Region where we need to be public-facing and engaged.

PR for Earlham College

:: thanks! ::

May Day 2015

I haven't been to the postmortem / analysis meeting yet, and I missed the last several before the event itself, having participated in the fundraising phase more than the route planning phase.  I was in favor of a counter-clockwise route, but the fact that it ended up going clockwise was perhaps unintentional.  The newspapers are saying we were off the planned route.  That's credible.

However, walking against traffic in the bus mall, all professional drivers with union sympathies, right passed the Apple Store and other centers for the more privileged work-study players, highlighted the contrasts, as we made it to our R2DToo campus.  I took the pedestrian crossing to traverse the west-traveling lanes and revisited the Door Project, per storyboard.  Other than that, I was free to cross paths with the march haphazardly and took breaks at both Rogue Hall and Melting Pot.

Our plan was to keep moving and not assemble on the steps of the Justice Center in quite that way, but then all these plans were before Baltimore and continued escalation in tensions through the media.  Given all these storms, our relatively festive and orderly mobilization was not the unruly mob portrayed by the children writing for The Oregonian and such, i.e. journalists of low stature ready to react without much thought or reflection. 

The operation was both professional and to the point, criticisms to the contrary notwithstanding.

Closing Keynote: USDLA

The closing keynote by Burck Smith focused on mega-trends for the future.

Non-accredited institutions are muscling in to the same teaching space occupied by accredited institutions.

Accreditation has been a kind of monopoly allowing those on the inside to keep their tuitions high.

With the falling cost of course delivery thanks to distance education, profits have been fattening for the accredited, but at high cost to students.

In the next chapter, the competition from the players outside the accredited sphere are likely to make deeper inroads into diploma space, offering certificates instead.

USDLA Keynote

Why Open Education Matters from Blink Tower on Vimeo.

Hal Plotkin, with experience in the Obama administration, is now with Creative Commons.  His abbreviated history of the copyleft movement (skipping the GNU / GPL chapter) led to this punch line:  in some scenarios, dropping proprietary content in favor of equally high qualtiy open content saves enough money to assure students get a properly equipped personal workspace to get on-line.

That's a lesson learned in the software industry a generation ago.  Perhaps the Linux / GNU chapter got skipped given Microsoft's interests in this area?  Free software and free curriculum content (free in the sense of liberated) certainly have a lot in common.

A focus of Hal's keynote was CC-by within TAACCCT, a US Department of Labor program.  We got to watch a fun little video (above) and learn about some success stories.

Translating into computerese, he's into gamification of learning e.g flight simulators for everything (chemistry etc.).  "Nobody can cheat on a flight simulator".

The geek world memes of "Ignite" (as in Ignite Portland, or Ignite.gov) and "open licenses" appear to have permeated this education world.  Several of the talks have the word "ignite" in them.

I'm here with some of my co-workers from O'Reilly School of Technology, nothing to do with the auto parts company, everything to do with publishing e.g. Safari On-line.

We got some statistics that only 7% of the world's humans have post secondary school education, but that's measured in terms of having academic degrees.

If you're like my friend Lindsey in Nepal, deeply involved in the study of Newar Buddhism, you might not have a PhD in that, yet still be highly educated.

Education and academic schoolwork are overlapping non-synonymous concepts in my book.  That might be heresy in this group, not sure (I'm a newbie).  The pro open source ignite flavored memes we're getting here are quite familiar to me however.

OSCON will be in Austin TX next year.  Portland and Austin have a lot in common.  They're both into staying weird.

The first talk I attended after the keynote was about "the four stages of SAMR" meaning Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition, an approach to giving new technology a foot in the door into course delivery.  Share PDFs with Dropbox, use a Learning Management System (e.g. Blackboard) for grading.  Basic stuff.

We're hearing a plug for Microsoft Office Mix + Powerpoint + Notepad, adding to my sense that F/OSS (free and open source software) is not a primary focus here.  "All students use Evernote or OneNote for all notes" (Powerpoint slide) -- that's Augmentation, after Substitution lets them use any app for notes.

OneNote is free as in beer at least, if not open source.  I'll first need to upgrade my OS to use it though.

Back in St. Louis

I woke up to telecommunications in Campaign Illinois, after seeing Johnny Rawls Blues Band at Iron Post, in Urbana, to learn of the devastation in Nepal, a 7.8 earthquake.

Lindsey is in the middle of the chaos.  She had taken disaster training seriously in Portland, little knowing she would confront disaster in Kathmandu Valley, in the shadow of the Himalayas.

My Altima Nissan (actually Alamo's) served me well on this trip, a jump into the future from my 1997 maxi taxi, a Maxima.   Push button start, rear view camera, comfortable and strong.  Quite and expensive piece of equipment, and I was relieved to get it back in mint condition, though with 700 plus additional miles to its credit.

I've updated some of the people who know Lindsey, and of her whereabouts, that's she's still alive.  Many were not so lucky.