Company Towns (EPCOTs)

I am sympathetic to the concept that if companies wanna test stuff they should pool with other testers to build EPCOT like company towns, where the people who live there do so on an opt in basis, and the reason they’re there is they wanna be testers.

Already populated cities are not an appropriate testing ground for experimental prototypes. EPCOT = experimental prototype community of tomorrow, remember? The lawyers changed it to Epcot (meaningless) cuz they wanted you to forget the original vision (which was smart).

Invite peeps to select from a catalog what prototype towns and/or cities they wanna go live in. Maybe they dress like in Space 1999 (BBC) and everyone has a robo-slave. You want that for yourself? Apply.

Blue Line Blues

:: from the Blue Line going over the Steel ::

I did not award myself a smooth operator badge (stored mentally) for the most recent bicycle loop, although I did give myself an honorary E for Effort i.e. Energy (E/acc). 

I went for longer than usual: instead of boarding the Orange Line at the Sellwood station (my usual routine), I kept going along Springwater Corridor along Johnson Creek to the Flavel station next to I-205, where I caught the Green Line to Gateway, where I transferred to Blue.

Shades of training for S2P (Seattle to Portland) — that was my old cycling route, or at least half of it (I’d continue north and return home across the base of Mt. Tabor — more recently I stay on Division, newly paved and with a bike lane added).

So why not a smooth operator badge? Because after I caught the Blue Line to downtown (going over the Steel), I switched to the Orange (southbound) at Pioneer Square, and left my bike helmet in the seat next to mine. That’s why.

I could visualize said helmet continuing without me, all the way to Hillsboro. Would it end up in Lost and Found? I’ve had good luck with that at least once before. 

This time I had the presence of mind to proactively phone the L&F number, to explain about my helmet, leaving my name (they already had my number, using caller ID). Maybe someone at the end of the line checks all the cars? Probably not routinely.

And now, a day later, I’m even questioning if I left the helmet on the Blue Line or the Green. I only discovered it was missing while awaiting the Orange. Did I take it off after Flavel and leave it at Gateway? Memory fades. Sometimes too fast.

On the brighter side, I have a second, backup helmet just like this one I’ve lost, with a “Bob” Dobbs sticker on the back. The straps may need some adjustment, but I’m confident it’ll work fine. I plan to continue doing loops without investing in a new helmet. I’m trying to save my pennies. Property tax is coming up.

On my way through Sellwood on Linn, I stopped at the substation to take a selfie and show off my new Esoterica T-shirt. I’ve learned quite a bit from Professor Sledge, the channel’s anchor, and still hope to learn more. I’m into esoterica. He’s pretty generous with his scholarship. I’m happy to tag myself his fan.

Graphing the Network

I just completed another circuit, one I've navigated before: Smith Rock area, Santiam Pass, Hwy 126 down the mountains into the Springfield area. This was neither camping nor glamping. I stayed with peeps I know, may even be related to. Sydney, my old dog, came along.

On the curriculum front, I'm following Dr. Rorty's model in bridging to the Eurasian continent, in terms of readings, taking Cascadian Pragmatism back to its sources, through William James to Wittgenstein's critique thereof. 

The phenomenology of spirituality aka psychological development, might be mapped in various ways, ala the M4W schemata. I tend to favor an Active Inference informed namespace, which has a thermodynamic flavor.

However, I don't need to exclusively follow the Logical Positivist thread back to the Vienna Circle of the early Wittgenstein (Schopenhauer et al). I've long embedded Mark Fisher in my School of Tomorrow matrix, and through him we get to an important node: the CCRU, a kind of think tank that interpreted developments in philosophy (e.g. Deleuze & Guattari) since Freud and Hegel to an anglophonic BBC-informed audience, around the same time the personal computer was taking off.

We might think of the CCRU as a particle accelerator sending entangled particles every which way. We're not talking about uniformity of thought so much as polarities, counter spins. Mark "liminal spaces" Fisher did not take the same party line as Nick "capitalism is AI" Land (admittedly an anachronistic telling, as AI was but a gleam in Alan Turing's eye back in those days).

As recently as last night I was lolling about taking in comparisons of Mark "weird and eerie" Fisher with David Foster "Infinite Jest" Wallace. I'm still very much in the process of assembling the puzzle pieces, from a curriculum developer's point of view. How might one connect the dots in an efficient synergetic manner?

Speaking of curriculum developers and family relationships, my Springfield stop brought me in proximity to the Fitzgeralds of Great Gatsby fame, leading me to prompt Perplexity this morning regarding some gender studies questions I have. 

I was happy to see Perplexity pushing back on what appeared to be my misconceptions: 

(a) the Gilded Age (late 1800s) was not the Golden Age (early 1900s), which latter Perplexity prefers to call the Jazz Age and 

(b) the Betty Boop stuff is only partially free of copyrights.

Why am I connecting to the CCRU in the first place? Recall Applewhite's tagline for Grunch of Giants: more subversive than anything since Karl Marx. He was clearly calling out the Marxists to check it out. 

One might suggest I'm seeking to answer the question: why are the Marxists so slow to pick up on our narratives? But that'd simply be to privilege my own coordinate system versus keeping it all more realistically relativistic. 

Subcultures abound (and partially overlap), and we each encounter the puzzle pieces in different orders and assemble different parts of the puzzle in our own good time. Rushed work tends to not hold up, has a shorter half life. 

Certainly Infinite Jest is hard to read (I've only sampled it) and yet Hannah Smart said she'd read it nine times, wow. Shades of Finnegans Wake (in the sense of "hard reading" that is).

Of Space n Time

:: roaming faculty ::

I have a drive of about three hours planned out, with my dog in the back seat. We’ll be both ascending and descending, with more of the latter than the former, given where we’ll end up, near the Mohawk River at a favorite campsite (well equipped).

Per the worldgame shoptalk, that’s what I’m playing, with my “avatar” or “piece on the board” so to speak, as they say in est, or said, back in the day. If you want more context, think Glass Bead Game from Magister Ludi, a Hermann Hesse novel. I used to bring that up over on math4wisdom (a Freelists listserv) when laying tracks nearer to Lithuania via M4W. 

Most Lower48ers (USSAers) won’t have heard of the GBG I’m thinking, unless they’ve heard of Martin Gardner as well, but that’s narrowing it down quite a bit.

Martin Gardner was a polymathic columnist for Scientific American, a role reminiscent of Hugh Kenner’s vs-a-vs Byte. I’d read both. I had free access to the latter when I worked for McGraw-Hill.

Gardner helped with the spread of cellular automata as a topic, per Wolfram et al. By “cell” we mean a partition or particle, like a box but not necessarily hexahedral. Often we just stack em in Tetris fashion and play a game of “trickle down” (i.e. of the “life substance” in terms of what next row — generation — begets). 

I’ve been personally invited to a G4G by someone close to Gardner when he was still alive, but I didn’t have any budget for it back then. I still don’t, but remain hopeful. Maybe someday. 

I recall something about heptagons one year. I’ll find my blog post about it. Heptagon means seven cornered, deriving from ἑπτάγωνον (that’s Greek). 

Sept also means seven and derives from Latin, so you’d think September would be the seventh month, but then wouldn’t December be the tenth? Safe to say, the Gregorian Calendar is a bit of a hodgepodge, having absorbed the Roman calendar which started in March and ran for ten months (not a full year).  

I’ll understand if various newcivs prefer another one besides the Gregorian, with computers around to do any necessary to/from conversions (assuming both are proleptic).

High Sierra (movie review)

I got this off the classic actors shelf, under Bogart, but it’d cross-file under noirs easily, were they to file multiple copies. DVDs are expensive, but not metadata, meaning it’s easy to find the same film following multiple routings. I’m speaking in general terms. I’m forgetting which filters MMU uses. I’m thinking in SQL terms (structured query language).

A noir because it starts the way many of them do, with a guy (Bogart) getting out of prison, pardoned from on high, and returning immediately into service as skilled in petty crime (stickups, common heists). As is typical with a Bogart film, his relations with women are of special interest. Although given the vote by this time, women are still groomed as dependents and must think of ways to manipulate men using their desirability. 

Bogart is especially attracted to a young woman too innocent to be at all wily yet. She has more power over him for this reason. Her farmer family takes him back to the good old days, before he became a criminal and prisoner. 

His willingness to help her with an operation to address a congenital defect, and then take no for an answer when he proposes marriage — he’s expecting a ridiculously paltry payment for his role in a petty heist and plans to retire to a life of travel — shows us he’s a hopeless romantic under it all. That explains why the more worldly woman likes him and wants to be his sidekick (she sees his good side as well as his ruthless toughness, “the right stuff” in her book)). 

At first he holds out for Velma (she has attached herself to someone else) but eventually he comes round to caring for sidekick Maria and the dog. The dog (a major character) is treated as a bad omen meaning a lot of thickly applied foreshadowing, starting with Algernon’s story of how the dog’s owners seem to always meet an untimely end. We know Bogart is headed toward a dead end. The high Sierras aren’t featured for no reason.

The film is made for a national audience meaning many states and geographic regions get a plot mention, not unlike in Apple movies today, such as Pluribus, which go for a global audience. The whole globe is now the common backdrop with one weather report for all, on tap at the global weather web sites.

Going forward from this time, women would win some and lose some in the gender wars. Women are still over represented among the exploited classes of course. Movies such as this provide stereotypes and  caricatures to some level, one of the chief functions of fiction. That only makes them more interesting from a psychological anthropological point of view.

Accelerationism?

sapien vs sapien

If you’re new to my blogs, check the index at the right for links to what those blogs are: this one, Control Room, BizMo Diaries, and Coffee Shops Network (CSN). This last is subtitled “Philosophy Talk” and in my most recent post (as of this post) I’m doing some catching up, mentioning some of the names associated with so-called “accelerationism”.

Say what? What’s that?

I’m more an outsider looking in, than insider looking out, so my thoughts might sound naive if you’re a veteran of accelerationist talk. My spellchecker doesn’t even know the word. My thinking drifts back to Future Shock by Alvin Toffler, which I’m surprised is not more cited in the literature, but then I haven’t sicced a lotta chatbots on the issue (yet). He coined “accelerating acceleration” didn’t he?

Put succinctly: if Toffler was right (let’s say he was) then there’s no need to “step on the gas pedal” and no, there’s no brake to speak of. We’ve entered an exponential phase and that’s the new status quo, so how is one to be an “ist” about it? You wanna boost what’s already boosting? You wanna self boost? Why pull yourself up by your own bootstraps when you’re already “up” i.e. already accelerating?

To slow it down we might always get pedantic. I associate the “ped” in “pedantic” with “pedestrian” meaning “the pace of walking” which is slow, relative to some other forms of travel. 

To walk it back a bit, acceleration doesn’t just mean speeding up or slowing down; it means changing direction. The laws of inertia suggest that directional changes are proportional to speed and mass in the sense that heavy things don’t turn on a dime. 

Sharp turns (a kind of acceleration) require less force at lower speeds. That’s some First Person Physics (or call it rollercoaster physics). You know from driving that taking sharps requires slowing down.

Now, with those Newtonian mechanics out of the way, let’s distill all of the above into a question to myself: am I myself an accelerationist? 

At this juncture I’d answer: I accept the premise of a somewhat shocking future in the sense Alvin Toffler anticipated, but I don’t see a need to make it more shocking than it already is. On the contrary, I think less shocking would be fine. 

Predictability is not ruled out by the fact of butterfly effects meaning minimizing surprisal in the Active Inference sense is a sensible response in the face of inevitable chaos. 

Learn to drive safely, is a good motto to steer by. Practice makes perfect. 

But then the perfect is the enemy of the good, meaning don’t expect perfection (or beat yourself up for falling short of it) but nevertheless aim for it in practice. 

We’re down to re-minting some old cliches here, some sayings. We get down to maxims.

A Quaker Event

I was glad Gayle emailed me about this event, as I don't always study the Multnomah Meeting newsletter closely and would have missed this event otherwise. A lot of my oldest Quaker friends were present. Lexi (Alexia) joined us for the morning segment.

Walking back to my place, Lexi and I came across the Belmont Street Fair just getting going. I’d just recently enjoyed Clinton Street’s and recognized some of the booths. The dollar books were a good deal, great selection. I had a fun conversation with the glamping lady representing a new Eddie Bauer travel program.

Lexi had something else scheduled, but I was able to return to the meetinghouse for the 4 PM presentation, outside in back, by the Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) team. They were looking to us for financial and other support.

I was glad to catch up with people and meet some new characters.

The night before: our Wanderers gathering at the Linus Pauling House on Hawthorne. As I’ve chronicled many times in these blogs, the two venues are linked through Silicon Forest pacifist philanthropists.

Urban Skiing

I don't wake up knowing if I'm gonna do a bike loop, but maybe. Sometimes I do. Today I did. I baked a potluck dish first, and did my elliptical. 

If I do my elliptical, my policy is I'm off the hook from doing much of anything else strenuous (""), but, hey, no one's gonna stop me if I wanna workout more.

Even if you don't know Portland, it might be fun to think of dots, visited in sequence. Let's play Edges n Nodes (or Nodes n Edges): 

1. The usual descent through Ladd's Addition and past Abernathy Elementary to the train crossing on 11th. Except a freight had just started its way across. I'd be better off using the overpass even if the elevators are broken (only one of them was).
   
   



2. On to OMSI. A NARA event was underway; I'd be back. Eastside Vera Katz Esplanade, under the Morrison, under the Burnside, over the Steel, on the lower deck, the deck that raises. Then right along the river, back under all those bridges on the west side, and over the Hawthorne Bridge back to OMSI, and back to the NARA event, with the line for fry bread.
   
   
   
   
   
3. From OMSI / Rail Heritage Museum it's my standard FX2 "lift" back up the hill. 

Urban skiing I call it. Most the cycling is downhill or flat, with mild uphill only, not counting pushing the bike out stairs (broken elevator). Note I said "out stairs" hah hah. Inside joke.

That's my foreground, what's in the background? Timelines will show new circuit designs for Motherboard Earth happening. But then since when has history let us catch our breath? Since global media became light speed, or closer to it, we've enjoyed a suffocatingly (to some) crowded Global Village (McLuhan), a seething melting pot of overlapping ethno-spheres. Some humans are offended that others co-exist (or try to).

I'm chatting with a WILPF lady about all the war propaganda seeping in through gamer world, a primary recruiting ground for those anticipating tomorrow's conflicts. I'll share some verbiage (stuff I wrote):

I don’t think those trying to stoke the flames of outward war by infiltrating the gamer community, are expecting to have their access to real junkyard weapons squeezed off, but that’s what I work towards regardless, as the AFSC motto remains War is Obsolete.

Regarding IAEA, it’s obvious the Iranians need to be invited as full partners when it comes to going max against any who would harness fission or fusion for homicidal purposes. Psychos like that need very restricted access to labs.

Also:

My goal here would be to expect that computer games will continue to feature war as one of many genres (not my favorite) and to gradually close off the “outward weapons” angle i.e. the only weaponized drones you’ll be accessing will be from Parks n Rec, after sufficient training. 

The drones won’t fly outside designated perimeters (players check them out — courses where peeps bring their privately owned drones might be more on the outskirts of town, less of a theme park setting).

https://kirbyurner.substack.com/p/parks-and-rec-drone-zones

If you’re a hormonal Estonian or Polish kid who wants to fight a real Russian, we’ll show you to a booth and you can have it out with your counterpart in our realistic simulator (realistic to a point; we’ll let you live even if your avatar dies).

Machine Learning At Work

 

:: predictive history ::

The concept of "predictive history" suggests a theoretical approach where historical patterns, societal data, and long-term trends are used to forecast future events or potential scenarios. In the context of the image provided, we can explore several elements that resonate with this idea:

Geopolitical and Economic Forecasts: The newspaper details a new Aeroflot route connecting "Cascadia" directly to the Russian Far East (Vladivostok), describing it as "A First in Cascadian History!" This represents a forecasted future where Cascadian regional identity has become formalized and its global connectivity has significantly expanded westward.

Technological Advancement: The text on the page references "Modern Fleet" and "Direct Service," hinting at predicted developments in aviation range and infrastructure that enable ultra-long-haul travel that is now only experimental or unavailable.

Cultural Trends: "Cascadia" is not just a geographical region but a bioregional movement. By 2027, the prediction suggests this identity has strengthened and gained international recognition. The small Cascadia flag pin on the coffee mug reinforces the forecasted societal shift towards bioregionalism.

Context of Real Events: Predictive history differs from pure fiction because it is often grounded in current data. While this exact scenario (direct Aeroflot flights from PDX to Vladivostok in 2027) is not a present reality, it is built upon existing geographical proximities and regional identities that could theoretically converge under the right conditions, making it an example of predictive scenario building.

(gg) gemini generated

Morning Musings

Visiting the Larry Yes installation

I didn't have the word for it in my boyhood, or it wasn't central, we might call an "SAT word", but now I do, and would say my Grandma Esther (dad's mom), was a polymath. 

Her reading and conversation, often about what she was reading, was highly eclectic. She displayed a deep interest in whatever topic she was diving into, which I might translate as "a high degree of comprehension" because, again with the passage of time, I've become enamored of  the word "comprehensivist", championed by CJ (Chris Fearnley), as a quasi-synonym for "polymath". 

In some passages I value, I've seen "comprehension" and "apprehension" interlinked in ways I appreciate.

Comprehension is a vital phase in that apprehension is more a lotta dots without connections and therefore no ability to squeeze, shrink down, compress. Information balloons, outta control. Why were "witch doctors" or "logicians of the psyche" (i.e. psychologists) dubbed "shrinks" in beatnik slang (the same slang that gave us "squares")?

The common wisdom is "shrink" is a derogatory reference to shrunken heads, again satirizing a profession in suggesting it's more of a pseudoscience than a fully generalized anything (a real, or hard, science). 

But why not admit another meaning: "to shrink" is to hand back to the customer a simplified model of a dynamic (a diorama of the ego-hero's predicament, customized) wherein the essentials are highlighted and extranea made to retreat into the background. Something big, humongous, and overwhelming, is now more minute and therefore manageable. 

To shrink is to comprehend, and thereby make short work of.

In this blog, we link Polymathy to Wandering. Being a stumblebum among disciplines doesn't imply ricocheting to no purpose, but rather with an eye to shrinking down, make comprehension (attained through processing) the goal of apprehension (collecting data). 

Wandering may be envisioned as a stationary activity in the case of meditating (perhaps upon a pile of pillows) and/or thinking and/or pondering (considering). But a wanderer is usually more adequately portrayed as someone actively engaged in epistemic foraging within a surrounding environment, exercising a wider range of skills and/or ways of coping. The "learning curve" is multi-dimensional.