tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82049422024-03-18T10:42:11.908-07:00Grain of SandKirby plays world gameKirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comBlogger2113125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-12149854973947217762024-03-18T07:51:00.000-07:002024-03-18T10:41:40.408-07:00Show & Tell
What are the dynamics of learning a practice? Draw your experiences from any and every corner of your life.What I come up with is we need to talk about the role of peers, how to work with them, in addition to who and what are they.Let's go back to a classic classroom of kids at their desks, teacher up front, like we see in so many movies. The peers are the students, and they check each Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-19824375460361594712024-03-05T22:28:00.000-08:002024-03-11T08:36:22.029-07:00Pattern Matching
I've been continuing to explore my own ignorance, by filling in holes, so to speak. Regarding the US Civil War period for example. But I do so searching for patterns that match our own time, such as around the topic of forced migrations, attempts to escape, underground railroads and so on. Yes I'm talking about Gaza and the NPU.Judging from what ChatGPT says about me, one might imagine Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-43942478559490646532024-03-04T13:09:00.000-08:002024-03-04T13:09:01.920-08:00Chatbot Gossip
I got a screenshot from a friend showing how the first thing ChatGPT said about me is I was a mathematician. ChatGPT: Kirby Urner is a mathematician, writer, and educator known for his work in promoting innovative ways to teach mathematics and computer science. He is particularly interested in leveraging technology to improve education and has written extensively about integrating Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-43319585887922513462024-02-27T15:23:00.000-08:002024-02-27T15:23:23.997-08:00BEAST: A Particle Zoo
I can't claim I'm breaking much new ground here, but I do profit from knowing my material and not getting lost in the woods. Those looking for a way to lace up Synergetics would do will to pull tight on this topic of modules, or "particles" as he calls them earlier. Leaving aside their importance, at least they have a definite shape and place in his little sculpture of nesting Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-39348073867203837062024-02-25T07:19:00.000-08:002024-03-01T10:57:09.742-08:00Americana
From hanging out around the US Embassy in the Philippines, I developed an appreciation for how the State Department shares American culture overseas, at many levels. This enterprise involves scouting for quintessential Americana and packaging it for distribution in other cultures.Along these lines, the international schools, rebranding from American, with some reverting, have a role in Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-36311501834480278882024-02-21T16:41:00.000-08:002024-02-21T16:41:10.560-08:00Village TweeterI'm in a first meeting of our Steering Committee, M4W (math 4 wisdom), based in Lithuania (but I'm in Oregon).https://t.co/qiynNmqhGZ— Kirby Urner (@thekirbster) February 20, 2024
Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-83504775429755110862024-02-13T15:28:00.000-08:002024-03-01T14:12:01.277-08:00Network Nations
I took my usual virtual nations talk to Thirsters, and felt cued when Barbara brought up Tibet in connection with the forcible displacement of some of its people, the administrative institutions most of all, as these were seen to be in conflict with those of mainstream metropolitan China. Not all Tibetans were pushed out, not by a long shot, and Lhasa remains ethnically very Tibetan to Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-87385935522934956192024-02-11T16:00:00.000-08:002024-02-22T06:42:41.421-08:00NFL Day
The more correct name for today is Super Bowl Sunday. The big teams, having duked it out all season, have winnowed it down to two. Derek is coming over, a University of Oregon grad with a lot of knowledge about athletics and football. He's a former track star, long distance runner, now a veteran of the food business (from many angles). He has a lot of cool possessions, including flat Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-26966099878797164082024-02-07T04:25:00.000-08:002024-02-11T20:52:07.962-08:00Remembering Nord StreamI'm subscribed to the Seymour Hersh substack feed, so I'm reminded we've come to an anniversary of sorts regarding the attack on infrastructure known as Nord Stream, a set of pressurized gas tubes designed to feed the economies of Europe, especially Germany's. Hersh's first report appeared a year ago tomorrow.Hersh believes Norway was involved, based on his sources. One wonders how many Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-60370070942392253002024-02-03T11:21:00.000-08:002024-03-05T05:12:17.350-08:00Convergent Trajectories
:: CJ Bridging Portland and Philadelphia ::
In the Euclidean belief system, it's not a problem to assert that two parallel trajectories might stay that way forever. What's to stop them? A Newtonian force? In the Platonic realm, as colonized by these true believers, these metaphysical lines have no mass or energy and will not be affected by the quanta of quantum mechanics. No "forces" to worry Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-74271543003196143222024-02-01T07:56:00.000-08:002024-02-15T10:01:54.817-08:00Gathering for Carol
Our Gathering for Carol at the Stark Street meetinghouse, was expertly produced by Multnomah Friends. Some attended over closed circuit TV, including from Whittier. Carol Urner was a lifetime activist who believed in collaboration over angry confrontation. Many of her citations and awards were from US officialdom. Her last paying job was with a US embassy (the one in Maseru).Jack and Carol (Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-18571935391389143452024-01-29T06:55:00.000-08:002024-02-18T05:10:51.570-08:00Teacher to Teacher (T2T)
I noticed yesterday (First Day) that Multnomah Friends, the Adult Religious Education Committee in particular, has instituted a new practice of pairing any visiting minister, with a local anchor, a peer.In the example I witnessed, a visiting minister from another group came by to express a leading, one might say to do some market research, some field testing. Quakers encounter "leadings" as inKirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-64399198632197346852024-01-27T06:56:00.000-08:002024-01-30T08:50:26.740-08:00Curriculum Norms
If you're at all aware of the syllabus we're using here (School of Tomorrow), then you know we're interested in electrical grids and power plants, as well as in off grid village communities that supply their own power locally. This focus inherits from a "lense adjustment" some call World Game, wherein we're "brainwashed" (deprogrammed) to see the whole earth as a single campus, versus a set ofKirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-2169361212976252982024-01-24T14:41:00.000-08:002024-01-25T08:11:02.498-08:00Tetrahedron Year
:: visiting The Attic ::
The current year, 2024, is a Tetrahedron Year. We won't be having another one until 2300. By "tetrahedron year" I mean any year with a tetrahedral number. These latter go: 1, 4, 10... 2024 (I skipped a few). Tetrahedral numbers get spaced further and further apart, as what separates them are consecutive triangular numbers: 3, 6, 10, 15... A tetrahedron of Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-55971521582296761922024-01-14T18:25:00.000-08:002024-01-14T18:50:23.194-08:00Refugee ProgrammingA big question we’ll be asking is “did you show them cartoons?”. I’m talking about the refugee kids, new to the Americas in many cases, or maybe just new to the northerners and their ways. They’ve probably heard of Loony Tunes and thought maybe that’s what they’d be getting.That’d be kinda like being an Iraqi kid and thinking Uncle Bush was gonna bring Sea World from Florida. Don’t tell me “no Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-58122145524865772622024-01-12T21:26:00.000-08:002024-01-20T07:58:00.071-08:00Looking BackMy view is Donald Trump won the 2016 election fair and square, without any significant help from the Russian spy services. The discovery of the Epstein network and a sudden groundswell of interest in pedophelia as a topic, had a lot to do with millennials coming of age and assembling a picture of the world. No, sixteen year olds did not vote in 2016, but their concerns were shared by many older Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-45201834637217878532024-01-10T12:06:00.000-08:002024-01-10T12:11:26.502-08:00School of Tomorrow: Orientation 2024
As I say in the video, I do work to keep focused on the problems, such as how to care for ourselves amidst some kinds of plenty, yet with scarcity too. Abundance doesn't mean an endless, affordable supply of everything. It means relative abundance, compared to benchmarks. Computers equipped with GUIs (graphic interfaces) are relatively abundant, as they were non-existent not so long ago. Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-49400689694374460002024-01-07T14:35:00.000-08:002024-01-26T19:56:24.343-08:00Gravity's Rainbow
Synergetics looks at "lagging media" (previous post) through the lens of the Doppler Effect. RBF has passages about events happening all over, but our news of them is coming in somewhat out of order relative to some more absolute calendar timeline. The way history shows things panned out is not necessarily the order in which any one particular person received news of them at the time, Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-72829237874116867792024-01-03T08:35:00.000-08:002024-01-07T15:56:26.610-08:00Lagging Media
:: happy new year ::
Let's say media are by definition lagging, yet there's still "relative lagging" as in further and further behind.We feel it in math class sometimes: some critical bridge was crossed and you're still on the same side apparently, left behind. Then the rest of the lesson makes no sense and so on. Are there ways to catch up? Not always.People drop math in droves, and if Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-31203400019087535472024-01-02T19:38:00.000-08:002024-01-02T19:38:27.793-08:00Knowledge Graphs
Dr. Steve Mastin is well-known in some circles for his exquisitely detailed presentations on gems and minerals. Right now, I'm awaiting to join a Zoom meetup regarding garnet. We might be having some technical glitches.Speaking of technical glitches, I've got so far got one corroborative post regarding an outage on Github: the pictures I've embedded, mostly imported from Flickr so as not to Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-51507526957854715552023-12-24T15:47:00.000-08:002023-12-24T16:14:10.850-08:00Xmas Eve 2023
This morning, some kind of water main burst, blocks away, unleashing a torrent. Danny had to step over or through the rushing curbside rivulet to bring in the groceries, delivered by a cutely painted Kroger van. I later headed out to take some pictures but streets were blocked with yellow tape. The water was stopped not long after, once the utility vehicles arrived.Whenever I travel, my Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-23064668243534559462023-12-18T18:17:00.000-08:002023-12-22T16:08:20.693-08:00Design ScienceOnce something complicated and new becomes more of a known quantity, then it gets distilled into an icon planners use in a next iteration. For example, a fulfillment center. Slide the icon onto a grid, with the accompanying fleets of delivery vehicles.Catalyzed by the global pandemic, many have migrated to a new lifestyle involving working from home and getting most supplies delivered. In Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-13534135450409275382023-12-14T04:32:00.000-08:002023-12-14T05:30:35.061-08:00All Nighter
I'm pulling an all nighter, which doesn't mean I avoid tiny naps. I'm wide awake right now, and it's only an hour before the dog's breakfast anyway. She's nudging my elbow. I have my reasons for burning the idiomatic midnight oil (although not so idiomatic in my case as the heating system in this house is literally burning oil, day and night). Given differences in time zones, it's not Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-43825984028700456842023-12-09T18:20:00.000-08:002023-12-10T10:53:36.214-08:00OscillationsToday's chatter on the FSI and TrimTab calls was useful to me. I did a lot of Show & Tell, with the Snelson sculpture (Barrel Tower), with Flextegrity (floating icosahedrons) and with a Vector Flexor.On TrimTab we were asking: "What is dynamic equilibrium?" We were reading Ideas and Integrities.The animation that came up for me was the gentle swaying of the Jitterbug as it Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204942.post-30719806594999921092023-12-05T06:05:00.000-08:002023-12-05T07:30:26.784-08:00Keyword Searches
Some may wonder to what extent all this focus on and interest in UAPs (UFOs a subset) is impacting our spreading Martian Math curriculum, within our Silicon Forest context. The focus on legit Mars explorations, anchored from Earth, were already a deliberate tie-in, i.e. during class at Reed College campus, we would watch YouTubes of the Mars landers, taking into account their Kirby Urnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12114860457655013242noreply@blogger.com