The Garden

Elizabeth joined Alexia, Tara and I at the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden this afternoon, followed by lunch at Red Wing near Goodwill and Free Geek, where I tried a beer called Proletariat Red (New Old Lompoc Brewers). The water fowl seemed well fed, not as obsequious as on other trips. This garden was also our wedding venue, 9-11, 1993.

Razz is getting her clutch completely replaced, factory new from a kit. It'd been slipping badly, plus she was way overdue for her 60K service, at 73K. The loaner, a Forester, is a nice car, but I'm not ready to invest in a newer motorvehicle, although I may upgrade the music system a notch.

I've continued with my polemics on the Math Forum, trying to upset the status quo debates around calculators, which all focus on why Johnny can't multiply in his head, instead of on why Johnny can't code, which latter missing skill, from Johnny's point of view, is probably the hole most worth filling.

However, the grownups are busy fighting other wars right now, so I hope Johnny is doing some homework on his own. Well-educated kids maybe aren't the priority they once were, on many power-seeking agendas.

Lovely dinner with Jane and Dave, with Gordon swinging by to borrow our projector for his daughter's program on her work in Central America. His son is currently in Chile. Gordon's wife Susan was Tara's piano teacher. All of these folks are Quakers with either Multnomah or Bridge City.

The Labyrinth

Back going right: Elizabeth & Ron Braithwaite, Lynn Travis

Across middle: Lucy Travis, Laurie Todd, Kirby Urner

Front: Tara Urner, Chris Ferguson-Cradler

(photo by Alexia Davis)

About Dawn (a brief bio)

:: dawn ::

Dawn was born into a 1953 industrialized Ohio “where the river caught fire” and experienced America’s brand of grinding poverty before moving to a better life in Satellite Beach, Florida and enjoying a good high school.

Both her parents were former military. Don, her dad, was a hard edged soul, terrifying to the eldest two, Sam and Dawn, but mellowed with age while raising their youngest sibling, Carla. He died recently, in Nashville, having reconnected with his children. Her mom, Glenys, died unexpectedly early, like Dawn did, in her 50s, leaving behind a second husband, Bud, whom Dawn was able to visit shortly before she died.

:: dawn & carla ::

Dawn moved to Portland from Florida after the riotous 1960s, strongly anti-war, having attended Florida State and tending to vets in psych wards, while her then-husband Tom served in Vietnam. She had witnessed severe child abuse at a neighbor’s in Ohio, and was scarred for life by a distrust of men. She'd become an effective activist in the feminist, gay rights and right to choose movements. She later took the name Wicca as a reminder to stay wise. Before leaving Tallahassee, she became a mother.

:: don ::

While helping to parent Alexia after an uneasy divorce giving her ex custody, Dawn found a new spiritual path, including a Lakota-informed training she undertook with Élise, her horse-raising partner. She also developed her skills as a bookkeeper, doing fund accounting for nonprofits. Auditors loved her for her clear books, while clients loved her economy and efficiency. She joined the Center for Urban Education, a 501(c)(3), where she met Kirby, her husband to be, and the Multnomah Meeting Quakers.

Her final chapters were focused on family, spirituality, and travel, plus getting some perspective on her journey thus far. Sacred sites were her passion. She made pilgrimages to holy wells in Ireland, sites around Glastonbury, and years earlier to a Tantric Buddhist temple to Tara in Bhutan, a family home at the time.

:: dawn, carla, sam ::

When Kirby’s parents, Carol and Jack, later moved to Lesotho in Southern Africa, she took along both daughters, Tara then only five weeks old. On a later visit with family, Dawn traveled to Durban for a workshop with the Dalai Lama, and then attended the 1999 Parliament of World Religions in Cape Town as a member of our Quaker delegation. The 1995 Buckminster Fuller Centennial in San Diego was another highlight.

Dawn’s breast cancer was of an especially vicious variety doctors fear, but know how to treat ever more successfully. Her health team at Providence, professional to the core, gave her three more years of this wonderful life, a great blessing to the family, which needed this time to both heal and prepare.

Even while struggling with her disease, Dawn set up a new bookkeeping collaborative with her friend Phyllis. She spoke often of how it felt to be the oldest person at some meetings, and with great enthusiasm for the up and coming talent, a next generation of conscientious, skilled activists.

Dawn’s final days in March of 2007 were according to plan. Her wish all along had been for enlightenment, for teachers, for community. She died at home in the presence of family and good friends. We will always love her and honor her memory, may her soul be at peace, ho mitakuye oyasin.

:: kirby, dawn ::

Grains of Sand

:: mother & child ::

:: prayers ::

drawings by Carolyn Wilhelm

The Prestige (movie review)

My initially negative impression was mollified through my own lecturing about it to Alexia this morning. I realized it treats of a deep existential problem that'll confront the first Tesla types to walk through a transporter, like on Star Trek. Is that really "me" on the other end of the line, or do I die, to be replaced with my replica? But then it's not like we haven't faced this question in other contexts. These stage magicians certainly get a close look at the problem.

Another Gnu Math Circular

Not sure if you've been following the Python Reloaded thread on edu-sig, but there's some concern for our snake if it doesn't sprout the edit/continue hooks our competitors sport. Of course I've already made mention of Microsoft's Python, relying on community code, but I'm not close to that action. Maybe PyPy is where we need to look.

I've got two in the hole with the Synergetics storyboards,the first focusing on my career as a community activist, with lots of concessions to qyoob-heads. My second is going to bother certain factions, given we're capitalizing on school infrastructure originally built to impress future factory laborers. Not that we don't still have or want factories by the way -- and don't forget about "factory functions", a feature in our Algebra One.

I've gotten a lot of feedback over the Klingon business,and thank the other Conway (Republic of Perl's) for helping to keep that ball rolling, with that detailed lecture on its grammar at OSCON that time, mixed in with everything else under the sun (except some things). The next year it was Lara Croft (geeks love Lara).

By "Klingon business" I mean that it's quasi in Unicode, even if unofficially. As every gnu math teacher knows, we tie the powers-of-two proliferation of addessable cells with ASCII (Latin-1)and then Unicode, as mappings of human glyphs. Invented languages, such as Klingon, or Elven in Tolkien, have ways of piggy-backing on all this infrastructure, a feature meaningful to children's books writers among others.

Synergetics Storyboard 2

I affiliate myself with those schools of thought thinking school, the institution, should be in the business of disbursing some material wealth, as well as some metaphysical wealth, in exchange for student time and energy.

Then I walk through an outline of a curriculum sequence, with both "left brain" (lexical) and "right brain" (graphical) components. The video presumes some interest in Bucky Fuller's Synergetics, and/or may be seen as an attempt to recruit more students to focus their studies in this direction.

Today's Reflections

I've been thinking the evolution of Islam in the North American context may have beneficial effects "back east" as the old feuds and divides won't be reflected so strongly.

Someday, Islam on Mars may prove similarly calming, to those warring "back home" over this or that dividing line.

However, I think orbiting space hotels would be a precursor, plus a lot more undersea experience, before we might graduate to that level of being able to terraform another planet.

Let's not start counting those chickens just yet.

Back on Spaceship Earth, I'm continuing to nudge against horse and buggy K-12 mathematics, wishing it'd pick some new ruts more consistent with contemporary hopes and dreams.

Open source energy planning requires a strong concept of energy and its conservation, its caloric equivalents. Not just any energy is the right energy for a given application. Yet how many K-12ers get even the basics of AC versus DC? Yes, I know some do.

Picking up on the New Math of the 1960s, I'm seeing how a lot of it was on target, from my perspective of looking back over a long career.

But that's no reason to turn back the clock.

Onward and outward might be our Gnu Math motto, perhaps with a Quaker spin: go inward to go outward.

Man of the Year (movie review)

Banking on his popularity as a TV host comic, a thinly veiled Robin Williams seizes the presidency, only to surrender it in a kind of King Lear moment, when he remembers he's just the jester -- and really, it's better that way (especially since he gets the girl).

Although in the guise of realism, it's completely a mindscape, in the tradition of Team America (South Park Studios) but a tad less horrific. A bored, stupid public denies itself access to the wheels of real power fearing cameras on its past (and ongoing) misdeeds. Silicon Valley can't code worth a dime. There's no hard data about anything. Hollywood runs Universe.

Laura Linney's nervous breakdown in the company cafeteria was a high point for me. Who couldn't love this highly strung nervous nellie, losing it in high style? You could plot twist it right there and make that she is crazy. That scene with the apartment attacker was just in her dreams, and no, the election results were not based on her paranoid delusion regarding the doubled letters in each candidates name, duh. So Robin Williams is president after all.

If they ever do Ellen Ullman's The Bug as a movie, I hope they consider Laura for a part. She'd make a dynamite Roberta Walton I bet, or maybe Joanna? -- s'been awhile since I read it.

Wanderers 2007.2.28

Dr. John Taylor @ Pauling House
(photo by meliptus)

I missed last night's irregularly scheduled Wanderers, though my digicam was there, and tripod, taking it all in under Glenn's expert handling.

But this morning, I was actually on time for the regularly scheduled event, thanks to a two hour delay in Portland Public's operating schedule, thanks to weather predictions.

Our speaker, Dr. John Taylor, made his career as an urban planner and Quaker, with much experience overseas (like my dad). He has worked in India, Thailand, Malaysia and for 25 years in Indonesia. His North American sojourns included NYC and UCLA.

John launched his career trying to brainstorm viable alternatives to Robert Moses style urban renewal, which was to bulldoze and rebuild from scratch. His search led him into the more anthropological dimensions of community: it's about what people are thinking and feeling that matters, more than the physical furniture (props, stage machinery).

Throughout his career, he's been about really zooming in to the appropriately micro level from which to anchor one's modeling. Sweeping outsider viewpoints, though seductively simplifying, often tend to be just that. Real solutions emerge from within and, not surprisingly, usually have strong indigenous roots.

A lot of discussion focused on regional differences based on whether a people felt conquered, recovering in the wake of liberation, always free or whatever. Attitudes towards consultants are a function of earlier experiences with outsiders, as Werner Herzog discovers in Burden of Dreams.

The night before, Eve Menger and friends were reviewing Oregon's public coastline policies, which realtors would love to amend or rescind. Our lack of class consciousness out here on the Pacific Rim probably owes a lot to the fact that our beaches are still free.

I had lunch with Captain Donzo (Meliptus is back in business), Glenn, and David Feinstein, who shared yet another breakthrough, this one involving the calculus of variations (that guy is amazing, and so good at explaining himself).

Then my wife and I drove to and strolled along Belmont, visiting Kinta, a Malaysian establishment near to The Tao of Tea. Dawn had some stir fry and ginger ale, while I ordered Cape Town Roi Boos tea.

Sunday Outing

Traffic is light on Sundays in Portland, so it was no trouble driving Tara and Rose to Lloyd Center this afternoon, Dawn volunteering to come, but really needing more rest these days. Some other time.

Got that Sims Nightlife for Tara (finally -- not in stock at Freddies). She and Rose checked it out before Rose's mom showed up, on schedule, to get her home (it's a school night, after all).

I ended up purchasing Camtasia Studio, plus a bundled product, both for making inhouse screencasts and as parts of contract deliverables. I keep thinking I'll get to it soon.

Aimée came by, changed Dawn's bandage (she's a professional hospice nurse on temporary leave, married to erstwhile clerk of Multnomah Meeting, Peter, a librarian). She was in a plane crash once, in 1978, UA 173. Dawn helped organize the 1998 reunion.

Last night I wuz out with the boyz, Matt 'n Michael, with a flextegrity sample and IVM pyramid for conversation and show. We ended up all going to Trilogy, a local video outlet, in part so I could follow through on Michael's recommended viewing sequence. I have one more to go.

Later: helping Tara with Math Learning Center materials (algorithms for making tessallating shapes, with M. C. Escher and the Alhambra mentioned). Earlier: another alumni interview with a candidate for the Class of 2011 (I'm Class of 1980).

McMenamin's Bagdad's 80th birthday.

photo from website

A Boring Banking Story

So I tried to pay off the New Mexico trip out of the biz (licensed with the City of Portland as Dawn Wicca and Associates, and State-registered with a DBA of 4D Solutions), which is backed with an overdraft cushion, but in my rush I went right through it (the cushion), to hit the real bottom, meaning a bounced check meaning a $31 penalty in my online check register (a US Bank account).

Not quite understanding about the penalty, I sought out my banker at the local branch, who has done something positive with his hair (he reminds me of Nicolas Cage). Ron explained about the cushion, plus transferred from the equity loan (a kind of mortgage) so if Working Assets tries to put through again, I'll be covered, plus he refunded the $31.

However, when I phoned Bank of America about the bounce (still reflected in my transactions history), the customer service computer hadn't caught up, plus assured me the Borg's employees would know no more than it did, "it" being the central database or hive mind.

Maybe I'll call back tomorrow, as my "internal banker" is whispering that my credit rating will stay higher if I don't pepper my record with lots of records of bounced checks. If I'm able to cover the New Mexico mission, I oughta do it, and remain in the good graces of the powers that be.

BofA has like three business days to retry the same check, so maybe the central check cashing computer is actually ahead of me on this one, i.e. it has put through again since my most recent US Bank transactions. But that'd seem rather far fetched.

Wanderers 2007.2.21

Given out of town guests, I was planning to be late, but given the sudden need for a laptop capable of PowerPoint, I was to the rescue with Toshiba. Carla and Scott were ready to rest anyway, our having stuffed 'em with the best Chinese food from Fujin, where Becky, born Year of the Boar, doesn't think it matters if "Pig" is a synonym (a subject for teasing, either way).

Michael Armstrong is a behind the scenes publisher without much experience around scientists, judging from his performance. Bob McGown was especially interested in the subject, given his avid love of cosmology. Glenn Stockton has likewise studied their comings and goings. David Feinstein left early, back to analyzing the 10K or so shirt models he's been given, in terms of key measurements, some missing (so how to fill in, based on a smart model?). I got to sit next to Shomar in the coupe for a fun couple moments.

Electric Universe begins by zapping the sheer fabric of current doctrines, all centered around gravity countering nuclear energy, cohering the orbits (albeit chaotically, precessionally). "This cannot stand" is the obvious counter argument, and given what one might do electrically in the laboratory, all kinds of analogies might be cooked up, such that the literal truth of the Bible will once again be restored.

Brian the birdman swooped through, interested in the psychological implications. A cosmology is likewise a psychology (as above, so below), is the key teaching here.

Coming Together

new stem

mixing the glue

A T of T modules, plus remainder tet
(by David Koski with Zome)

Jesus Camp (movie review)

This is a hopeful movie, as it shows how a subculture, galvanized by a credo, is free to assemble, build facilities, and seek to influence the machinery of government by democratic means, just as, by Declaration and Constitution, it's intended that they should.

These Pentacostals are living the American Dream, their version of it, and feeling themselves mirrored in their president, hallelujah.

The film itself zooms back however, to countering USA-based subcultures and their sour grapes radio, to Muslims, playing card games near the the Capitol, to a distant political contest in the world of Legal Affairs, wherein worthy judges were contesting a listing on the roster of Supreme Court justices of the peace. Here, we get to the boundary of this particular LensWorld, as the president's first choice, Harriet Miers, is never mentioned. To Britney Spears.

There's a strong myth in some circles that kids are hardwired by the end of high school, so anything you can do to get to 'em before then... But my experience of est, other "adults mostly" trainings in mindfulness schools, suggests otherwise. Young Levi, a star in this film (the main girl is strong too), will probably keep learning new trix long into his old doghood. God'll keep teaching him, just as Jesus'll keep lovin' his Friends.

Addendum: VIP Koski phoned in the middle of my viewing (easy to pause it), discussing his adventures with ZomeTool. Those miraculous little hubs are anchored in five-fold, but'll twist into a regular tetrahedron with work, not the golden cuboid with both body and face diagonals however -- something to discuss at our next summer camp perhaps.

golden cuboids: body diagonal, face diagonals
(models, photo by David Koski)

Geek Lore

So I finally got around to cracking the covers of my new LinuxUser & Developer #68, purchased at the corner grocery store. It came with ubuntu 6.10 stuck to the cover, in a plastic case, on a DVD.

Inside: the USA spews credibility like there's no tomorrow as a sick and twisted Monsanto puppets it transparently, seeking to get starving Africans hooked on genetically modified seeds of death (sterile spawn), while, meanwhile, open source alternatives still exist, plus, thanks to IRRI, are healthier.

Well dang, so that GM hype (no, not the car company) is way out in front of the science, by like decades, still lags the old multi-millenial approach. Isn't that special? In the meantime, less cynical Euros mop up in the warm afterglow of USAID's incompetence (like FEMA, except for the rest of the world), developing everything that's trully useful anymore, like KDE4 (which I'm looking forward to using).

Also inside: yes, Blender is really hard to use, but we pro artists and organizers have magical powers and blended this famous open source HDTV movie called Elephants Dream, so eat your hearts out newbie losers or whomever you are who wish you could be us. Oh, and the sound track isn't all that open source -- had to cut corners there. Good article. Made me want to dabble in Blender again (it's really hard to use).

Per usual after reading such stellar propanganda (we geeks are good at what we do), I was ready to partition my drives, debug the kernel, and wallow in cyberloneliness (back page, Addicted to the Net) with cute geekettes like Rachel Probert (me and like 10K other losers (smile)).

Addendum: oh yeah, and I really admire that Freedom Toasters idea (page 61), kiosks for tanking up on free stuff, already in 16 cities in South Africa. My hat is off to whomever thought of that.

Peace Treaty?

Regarding efforts to bring an end to the so-called Math Wars, I argue on PHYSLRNR (a listserv frequented by physics teachers) that a participatory democracy leaves room for competition among diverse schools of thought.

There's no "one right way" we all have to teach mathematics.

For example, my subculture would never agree to just bleep over Bucky Fuller's concentric hierarchy, but others consciously choose to do so, while still others have yet to learn they've had a choice (to bleep, or not to bleep?) lo these many decades.

---

Thoughts regarding: Math Wars Peace Treaty (thread)
Thread initiator: Richard Hake
Respondent: Kirby Urner

====

Originally posted to math-teach @ Math Forum, Drexel. Feb 14, 2007 3:22 AM

Whereas I think we'll be more productive if agreeing to civil debate, motivations for calling an end to the "math wars" should be examined, if this means accepting some one size fits all curriculum, absent local and/or cyber community control.

For example, my geek ethnicity would never agree to limit itself to the geometric content offered under the heading of Virtual Manipulatives, in the Toolkit for Change, in support of the following standard for grades 9-12:

"use geometric ideas to solve problems in, and gain insights into, other disciplines and other areas of interest such as art and architecture."

[ links deleted ]

Said virtual manipulatives miss our core artifact for introducing polyhedra, the so-called Concentric Hierarchy developed by R. Buckminster Fuller (bfi.org).

http://www.grunch.net/synergetics/volumes.html

We consider this a core virtual manipulative and do not accept any math curriculum that fails to include it. We also don't much like using a Mercator Projection, per http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/frames_asid_308_g_4_t_3.html (we have our own, much better projection).

Is this an "extremist position"? It doesn't need to be.

We're implementing our curriculum unhampered, our children are benefiting, plus there's no sense of needing to win any math war, as what other ethnicities choose to implement need not be our focus or business.

On the other hand, we defend our right to recruit faculty and students to our network and see no reason to withhold criticisms and/or opinions regarding competing curricula, i.e. we're at liberty to join in the debates that swirl about how best to teach math.

In sum, I disagree with the premise that children must necessarily suffer just because there's no universal agreement on standards and/or content. This is as it should be in a participatory democracy that gives ethnic groups a lot of say over how to educate their own. Diversity in mathematics education is not something to overcome or get beyond.

There's no contradiction between pursuing our own version of the American Dream, and being at odds with some of the more mainstream curricula.

Kirby Urner
Gnu Math Teacher
Portland, Oregon
http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/

Ready to Make Nice?

So I've applied to speak at OSCON again this year, which I last did in '05, but don't yet know if I've made the final cut. I carry a brief for CP4E, a sort of bully pulpit from whence I urge us to "move beyond calculators" in terms of making pre-college mathematics more interesting for students. Python is a big part of those plans.

But have I been nice enough? Secretary Gates warns from experience as a university president that you need high level diplomatic skills to get anywhere with those prima donnas on faculty: "[A]s more than a few university presidents have learned in recent years, when it comes to faculty it is either 'be nice' or 'be gone'." I know I've at least ruffled a few feathers.

I saw a little TV documentary on being nice on Continental Airlines awhile back (Orlando, Houston, Portland), how that's a key to success in the business world as well. Donald Trump was convergent with PVH of Calvin Klein fame during commercial -- can't remember all the details -- and I think "being nice" was a part of his philosophy too, like he was to Miss America after she screwed up that time. He seemed kinda mean to Rosie though.

Anyway, I really do like the defiance of those Dixie Chicks. If they're not ready, they don't need to be, the way I see it. Let others be nice for a change and drop their weapons, and let those chicks at least use their guitars to register disagreement.

Meeting on Hawthorne

bonnie & ken

I really enjoyed hangin' with Ken and Bonnie this afternoon, Ken being the farmer and sailor from Alberta, Canada who owns Synergeo (a Bucky eGroup I often cite in my blogs), and Bonnie, also from Alberta, being a teacher of science teachers (we talked about Karplus, among others).

We started with beers at The Bagdad (Bonnie had an RC), chatting about Tesla, whom Ken deeply respects, then moved on to Thai food at Thanh Thao near the Pauling House, with Tara joining us.

We talked a lot about cancer, family members who've died of it, survived it, and health care systems. Ken and Tara talked about Squeak and robotics. Ken, with a background in electrical engineering, is tracking the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) campaign, is eager to see eToys shared with the developing world's children. I yakked about Saturday Academy, TuxLabs, our summit in London, showed off hypertoons on my iPod. Bonnie talked about science education in New Zealand, the subject of a book she's recently reviewed.

Synergetics in Afghanistan

This image of cybervans (bizmos) entering remote villages to spread good cheer and leave behind useful tools is an ancient one in NGO literature.

I say "NGO" because usually governments aren't trusted enough for such work. They're too in bed with some fanatical military and the usual schemer-dreamers, harboring fantasies of world (or at least regional) domination.

Imperial cybervan fleets would be no more than brainwashing mobiles, meaning (among other things) that the "opt out" component would be weak. The zealot teachers within them would be "imperious" rather than respectful of local traditions and willing to move on if not wanted.

That's no way to win loyalty for one's brand.

Cybervans in the USA's pilot programs, and operating on the domestic scene, are mostly like movie previewing machines. Students take a gander at some futuristic cartoons, they hope a part of some actually possible and even probable reality. Others provide medical services.

As a provider of some of these cartoons, at least in prototype, I focus on a suitably futuristic curriculum.

Sure, we still study ancient Rome, Greece, Egypt, China, India and so on. But we have our own spin, as does any age. We're less enamoured of the Qyoob (Cube) than some Renaissance Era Italians.

We also like a kind of discontinuous, geek-flavored television, learned in part from Sesame Street, with lots of cutaways to technical animations, some of which aim to cover geometry topics. Ford's commercials during Superbowl XLI were a good example of the genre.

The military re-enters the picture as providing for its own. If you've already joined a military, your kids still need an education. Whether to get brainwashed by the powers that be isn't the question. More the motto is: if it's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well.

My Groups (update)

I was gratified to see Duncan Richter including this blog in the list of Wittgenstein-related (below), even though it might not be philosophical enough for some tastes (wittgenstein-dialognet #6310).

I certainly manage to rub some readers the wrong way, as evidenced by this outburst on edupython, another group to which I'm subscribed.

Of course I'm quite capable of playing the arrogant bastard, so don't typically plead for mercy in the face of verbal assaults. Plus I do keep these on-line journals (blogs), for more private confessions of my sins.

Synergeo bubbles along nicely, thanks in part to David Chako's choosing to join us.

Philosophicalcoffeehouse also contains a stash of my posts.

---

RE: [wittgenstein-dialognet] Awfully Quiet out there

I recently found this Wittgenstein blog: http://methodsofprojection.blogspot.com/

A couple of contributors to this list have blogs too:

http://worldgame.blogspot.com/ (I'm not sure whether this is philosophical enough to mention here, but some people will be interested in taking a look)

http://tractatusblog.blogspot.com

Duncan Richter

-----Original Message-----
From: wittgenstein-dialognet@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:wittgenstein-dialognet@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of kd_palmer
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 12:06 PM
To: wittgenstein-dialognet@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [wittgenstein-dialognet] Awfully Quiet out there

Seems like everyone has forgotten the W list after the holidays.

This is the one list that has always been going strong.

So this is just a reminder that the list still exists for conversation on Wittgenstein's life and work.

Or has everyone shifted over to reading Blogs instead?

Are there any good Wittgensteinian Blogs out there?

The Management.

Portfolio Night

Winterhaven takes portfolio night seriously. Students keep their work in a binder and periodically open them to inspection by guardians.

The concept map helps connect ideas in a graphical form. Students also create concept maps as mobiles that hang from the ceiling.

Seventh graders have been studying the Platonic Polyhedra, among others, along with Euler's Law for Polyhedra: V + F = E + 2.

The theater program is also important at Winterhaven and this time featured students' powers of articulation and memorization, drawing from Shel Silverstein's Runny Babbit poems. Tara has been a Silverstein fan for some time. PKL has a book of his cartoons in its collection.

Analyzing the News

I saw that FreeSpeech on CBS awhile back where the guy bristled over anyone calling Condi "articulate," which made him instinctively rally to her side, even though he distrusted White House policies. So then Biden gaffs, using this same word about Obama, others equally offensive, but I think more spoofs, including that part about announcing his candidacy on "Me Too Tube."

He's a smart politician, knows how to act stupid. Score one for the virtual president (and on CSPAN, he listens very politely to authors of the current buildup in Iraq initiative, no matter how clueless they sound).

The stories about Damascus playing a role in brokering a peace sound promising. Regional problem-solving is where it's at. The USA needs to get back to those post Katrina FEMA villages, with something more intelligent and respectable for an encore.

Out here on the Pacific Rim, Islam has more of a Far Eastern flavor, including more pork in the diet.

Bill Whitaker's report on Rafe Esquith's classroom, where real reading occurs, was highly encouraging.

Follow-up from Damascus: I trust I'm not the only viewer to find some humor in this report by Elizabeth Palmer on the TV propaganda war.

More Mathcasting

Since my early postings to this blog, I've advertised a "geek channel" brand of television (CNET would qualify), or perhaps only one show, like Survivor. Interpolated with live action footage, would be these mathcasts or animations, explicating key concepts. I'm following the Sesame Street model, where "live action" might mean puppets, like Bert & Ernie.

Not having access to expensive production facilities, I've done more writing than actual track editing vis-a-vis the above proposal. However, with the upgrade to KTU3, a computer that pretty much works for a change, I now have some ability to prototype actual mathcasts, and this is what I've been doing, with my Python for Math Teachers series (today's was about RSA).

Where I'm going with this is towards a meet-up with the "this old house" and/or "revamping a motorcycle" shop shows, wherein skilled show offs make it look easy. Cooking shows similar. Except I want to be showcasing kinds of dwelling machine, alternatives to cubicles, alternatives to hurricane fodder. I've filed about this under the heading of "DynaBook meets DynaDome" -- a kind of retro way of casting it.

The goal is to recruit celebs into screenplays that show brands in a good light, doing good works. The "geek channel" heritage will permit these cutaways to background materials, lots of animations. Music videos also cultivate this mix.

The Illusionist (movie review)

This interesting film assumes the mantle of a "period piece" i.e. it's set in a particular "known quantity" Austria (other films use much the same setting), and then takes off in some timeless dimension.

The police are weirded out by all the dead people, sure, but that's not the would-be chief's focus. He wants to know if there's a method to this madness, or will the crazy guy be emperor and end up imprisoning a worthy magician?

Much to the would-be chief's relief, there was a method, at least based on his own afterimage assembly of the puzzle pieces.

Adventures with Devices

The iPod had a brain freeze, while connected to KTU3, which lobotomized her to where even the Shut Down process wouldn't complete without intervention.

Attempts to unfreeze the iPod culminated in a below freezing car at night, power adapter in a cigarette lighter, following instructions to reboot -- and enjoying a successful outcome.

With the iPod now restored to sanity, KTU3 reverted to normal as well, and I managed to copy my Python for Math Teachers pilots, which look sharper on the iPod's little screen than on Google Video in some ways.

I'm on call to assist with a larger device. Stay tuned.

Reviewing my OSCON 2005 Talk

 
click to activate, then click play control

In this 4 minute video, made on KTU3, I flip through a bunch of slides (oops on the loud woosh noise), talking about the presentation manager plus the content of that talk (about two years ago as of this writing). Mainly I'm testing Camtasia Studio, a tool for building screencasts. The slide show ends with an embedded segment of Bucky Fuller (just a few seconds). Wanderers mentioned. Polyhedra.

KTU3

This is my first post on the HP Pavilion, an AMD64x2 with 2 gig of DDR2, mobo nVidia, WinXP -- very like the one I almost bought at Circuit City, again the display copy. About $715 after rebate. No monitor (I've got my old Dell, a Trinitron), plus the Viewsonic.

The Office Depot supply room's lock was broken when I stopped in with Tara (lots of other customers affected as well), and when I returned after watching the CBS Evening News (story: UKers play finders keepers with shipping containers lost overboard), the locksmith had arrived.

Friend Gordon, a pillar of our Society, was also present. I felt a little defensive about my Quaker values, tried to reassure him I didn't just run out and self-indulgently upgrade at the drop of a hat.

No, Yeti Bubbles really had been devastating, made my KTU2 crazy (I did my little Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys imitation to show what that looked like). No icons under Network Connections for example. No ability to update from Microsoft (even with all licenses in order).

But I'd paid my dues in the penalty box (for well over a year), for being so goddamn stoopid.

Now I'm enjoying that "everything working" new computer experience. I grabbed 61 MB of upgrades right away. Next stop: Python 2.5 and a VPython to go with. I want to see what my Hypertoons look like with all this new hardware. Plus I'll have Java working again, PDFs...

KTU2 is not out of the picture though. I installed a Belkin wireless PCI card, plan to have it on the office LAN for awhile.

Advice to fellow geeks: yes, these mini-towers work well on the floor, but if your corner's a dust bowl the way mine is, consider keeping your box up on the desk. The new ones tend to be quieter, plus you'll have easier access to all those USB & memory card slots, DVD burner.

Time for a Red Bull. I have hours to go before I sleep. Which reminds me, was I supposed to be on jury duty today? I better call in tomorrow and reschedule if necessary. My bad.

Surveying the Scene (Synergeo #32124)

My impression is the Piaget type studies, including the original studies themselves, forked into rank and file pedagogue armies in support of the various disciplines, but the sciences were more successful.

The math teachers used constructivism on the rebound, having blown the New Math revolution, so it looks like a "trying to get it right this time" move, i.e. kinda lame.

The sciences, however, were lucky to get Robert Karplus, a theoretical physicist at the top of his game who nevertheless saw Science for Children as a yet higher calling, i.e. his skills as a scientist would be yet more deeply tested. How many research mathematicians took this route?

By extension, computer science, already with science in the title, would be better off tracking with Karplus than with anything corresponding in math teaching circles. Constructivism is floundering over there, having lost hold on Calculus some time ago, to the more physics minded (moves afoot to disown Calculus completely, rebranding as "Real Analysis" even at the high school level, to give that more "pure math" flavor).

NCTM has offered no leadership, just angry defensiveness, with lots of political projections, as to whom their opponents might be, getting in the way. The sciences haven't flown off the rails to this degree, and indeed are moving in to clean up the mess, because children still need a good education -- a constant drum beat in the background through all this (there's time pressure i.e. deadlines to be hit or missed).

But what about constructivism within computer science itself?

There's still some of that European "guru on a mountain top" chauvinism (most constructivism has this Euro flavor) in the Smalltalk contingent, which from the beginning has expressed the most interest in pedagogy for young children, in alliance with MIT ("constructionism") for awhile, during the Logo chapter (Logo was maybe too much a bastardized LISP to win much acceptance in higher academe and/or industry, and we learned what a dead albatross this "teaching language" moniker could become -- Pascal went that way too, though lives again in Delphi).

I think this compsci brand of constructivism is in an interesting position, at a crossroads. On the one hand, a fairly successful application of Piaget in the sciences, via Karplus et al. On the other, a disaster in the making, but therefore with lots of ferment, room for improvement.

Python and CP4E have been in rescue mode vis-a-vis this disaster zone for some time. We have more realism in our talk than the starry eyed "unschoolers," always planning for the revolution, but never really implementing anything, except half-assed stuff they themselves are the first to complain about, distance themselves from.

Probably to Python's advantage is it never had this exclusive "for children" packaging, and isn't about to develop that now, nor receive that "teaching language" kiss of death that so many'd bestow as their sick and twisted idea of a blessing.

Python is more the property of practicing scientists, in that they use it as a glue language, in a mix with whatever else does good work, such as Matlab, even old FORTRAN repositories (still a source for some of the fastest linear algebra libraries in the business they tell me -- and you can wrap them in Python, Perl whatever).

The final puzzle piece, which I've been showing around only recently, is where the Fuller School comes in, using Python as a strong P2P (peer to peer) teaching vector, complete with MITEs and Jitterbug. Again, science is having an easier time with these, given their practical and engineering applications, while K-12 mathematics (K-5 in particular) continues to wallow in confusion, poorly served by its various brands of shrink (analyst).

Again, I think the choice is clear. Students of early mathematics need Python more than the early science students do (same kids, just different tracks). As a Fuller Schooler, I'm encouraging the recently joined Smalltalker crowd to organize more like the scientists, but focus more like mathematicians. Their radical "unschooling" ideas will continue to serve the homeschoolers, various pilot academies open to testing new philosophies of education.

But we won't let those threads dilute our focus. We have our war colleges, their feeder systems, our ADA-like, DoD style collaborative environments, wherein solipsistic lone wolf intellectualism is not the name of the game. Extreme Programming (XP), other adult-minded team play, the latter long a feature of USA public schooling, will continue serving future management teams with people ready for group action, not just for "home alone" type stuff against "bad guys" or whatever (we're not loser couch potato cop show watchers). Design Science R Us.

Gingerbread Dome

My use of "gingerbread dome" is with reference to this nostalgic retro futurism, wherein adults go back to what they thought the future might have been like. A 1950s mom appears, like a soccer mom of today, with the Gingerbread Dome she's been working on for her cubs, they cheer, a sweet scene. Never happened (or maybe it did, and so much the better).

Kenneth Snelson, the Pendleton lad turned internationally celebrated artist, has quite a collection of this literature. We'd each have something that flies, that much was clear, whether it would park in the driveway or hang in the closet was the only question.

No one envisioned me in the TSA line, snarfing a cylinder of Starbucks (reduced fat) because of the ban on little cans of stuff. Coming back, I tried to get Southwest to accept a cute little purse sized O2 tank that my wife could wear. They respectfully declined. I respect that. But then, where's that personal jet you when you need one, NavAm or whatever.

In the outtakes, dad storms home drunk and mad that "they leak" (I think he means domes) and he smashes that Gingerbread Dome as a waste of mom's time and why doesn't she grow up and get a real job, so they can pay for day care. We tend not to be nostalgic for that part.

My daughter, only 12, is already nostalgic for Sony's Aibo, another valued exhibit in that "wasn't the future wonderful?" hall of fame.

Tiling and Spacefilling

click for source

Based on a draft at Math Forum, which Dave L. Renfro appears to have enjoyed, I ventured to cross-post a buffed up version of my Tiling and Spacefilling to some bigger league circuits, namely sci.math and comp.lang.python.

Whereas sci.math is quite frenetic, I expect I'll pick up some new readers through comp.lang.python, a Python Nation resource, and also a part of Usenet (see: NNTP protocol).

Meanwhile, over on edu-sig, we're investigating the challenge of mentoring. A teacher usually only finds a few if any mentees at any given time in her or his career, and "few" is a good thing in this case, as it's the opposite of herding through in large numbers, a more assembly line approach to automating education.

It's not either/or of course. As students, we appreciate the caring one-on-one relationships, but understand the need for impersonal simulators, testing centers, obstacle courses.

Like in real life, educational experiences run the gamut, from warm and intimate to icy cold, although any school that's too anonymous and unfriendly will garner a lukewarm response at best, which cuts in to recruitment (a lot of student protests in the 1960s stemmed from being treated "like a number" (computer databases were still quite new)).

Back to Tiling and Spacefilling, you'll see that I'm keen to tie in a religious dimension, by bridging through sacred geometry to the various traditions, ongoing, moribund, and completely forgotten (at least for the time being). Mesopotamians especially have a lot to talk about, given how many sacred geometry traditions claim roots in that area.

Snow Day! (Part Two)

In Part One, we were sledding, watching the situation in Baghdad out of the corner of our eye. For newcomers to this blog: we have a Bagdad in here too, a part of the McMenamins empire, and its decor is of course greatly influenced by that neck of the woods (Persia, Mesopotamia -- park at Tyre, proceed by car). In Portland, we always had "Attack Iraq? No!" bumper stickers, which many still wear proudly, along with these others ([1][2]).

David Koski phoned last night to recount his delightful visit with Fr. Magnus Wenninger. Right after we got off, I logged something to the Synergeo Archive (#32000 ):

>>>
phone log urner (OR) <> koski (MN) when:  tonight, just now
>>>

koski: mtg with fr. m. wenninger went well (account)
link: http://employees.csbsju.edu/mwenninger/phot-mag.html

then koski reviewed enneacontahedron, s. baer's result
= some 120 cells (10 + 20 + 30 + 30 + 30) all permutations
of two rhombi: rhombic dodeca's, and thin one with
diags ratio .618 1.618 (1/phi, phi).

ennea actually contains off center rhombic dodeca in a
way (only 1?) of building w/ these cells. g. hart another
authority on this.

many other topics.

kirby

I'm in the Pauling House at the moment, Don and Glenn telling maritime stories, snow stories, working to recruit David Shapiro of the Academy for Planetary Evolution (APE), to present on sacred geometry.

~M!

I've started screenwriting for this show with this enigmatic name ~M!. The ~ stands for "logical not", and M for Mathematics, so it decodes: Mathematics... Not! (i.e. it's a not joke).

Part of the joke is we have lots of mathematics in it, like the HP4E stuff from Katrina Network, but we're always teasing by throwing in bits and pieces of the real world, more like Discovery Channel.

I'm hoping Disney will help sponsor, but at this point it's not much beyond the "pitch stage" in Hollywood. Part of the draw (as I showcase in the pilot) is we feature mathcasts by YouTubers, including teencasters (a global demographic).

I'm happy to get this out at odd hours when transponder time is cheap. Not trying to mainstream. ~M! is way too "geek channel" for most viewers, except maybe in Japan and Korea.

PS: the math-teach server @ Drexel is down right now, or I'd give you a sneak peak. Stay tuned.

Happy Feet (movie review)

This cartoon uses March of the Penguins as background, and overlays several ethnicities, much as in Madagascar, The Wild... -- other such investigations of divergent cultures and their possibly synergetic and/or precessional interactions -- ... Flushed Away, Shark Tale.

In this telling, a somewhat brittle Anglo-Scottish empire, devoutly monotheistic, feels challenged when its hallmark trait (a good singing voice) is replaced by a penchant for tap dancing in Mumble (Elijah Wood), a child of Memphis (an Elvis type played by Hugh Jackman) and Norma Jeane (Nicole Kidman).

The ugly duckling Mumble, ridiculed by his peers, makes friends with a neighboring tribe of Latino penguins, with a more shamanistic religion centered around a Big Kahuna (Robin Williams).

Although the Latinos agree that Mumble can't sing, he's accepted as an equal, admired for his dance moves and generally good nature.

His self-esteem thus fortified, Mumble resumes his courtship of Gloria (Brittany Murphy), who sees through his bold front (a disappointment), to a worthy mate deep within (not too shabby).

The imperial rank and file, already partly Afro-Americanized, is highly suggestable (open minded), and vulnerable to heresy (new ideas), but the clergy pulls rank and the mutant is officially ostracized.

Gloria follows him into isolation, but Mumble bravely rebuffs her, having promised to get to the bottom of the mystery of the alien abductions. Like Agent Moulder of X-Files, he plans to connect the dots and prove the aliens are what's behind the increasingly acute fish shortage -- a problem the clergy had tried to pin on Mumble, mainly to turn public opinion against him.

So, not wanting to endanger his love, he hardens his heart and sends her away (shades of Spiderman, other lonely superheros), and sets forth upon his incredible journey. I won't give away the ending, but the lesson is definitely pro- biodiversity, anti- monoculture.

A moral of this tale might be: if the aliens are coming, you want to be ready with a song and a dance (it's not either/or).

Solving Puzzles in Algebra City

What I like about the president's proposal is it focuses on a singular Gotham, quasi-destroyed by gangs, and aims to concentrate attention on whatever it would take to heal it: civilian infrastructure, mostly, like flatscreens and download on demand Netflix subscriptions for everybody, courtesy of Uncle Sam.

I do think Baghdad should plan on leap frogging the West, in at least a few industries. EVs for example.

Or if Netflix is too infidelic, create some Imam-approved source of religious DVDs, mixed with eye opening pedagogy ala our PKL/ToonTown offerings, making use of that optical fiber. The point is: to the extent quality of life is on the uptick, people will be focussed on family, over rushing to crush some potentially crushing enemy (a two way street).

What I don't think will work is the exclusive focus on Baghdad. New Orleans is a mess, other cities around the world, plus rural places like Darfur need attention. What no serious-minded religion can afford at this point, is to hog the limelight too exclusively for its own troubles, because the suffering is quasi-global, including in North America.

The only way to sustain a positive push on so many fronts, is to feel we're gradually winning on most if not all of them, not sustaining some vital and/or fatal loss that keeps us oblivious to everything perilous yet "peripheral" to some nightmare center stage. We can't afford to be blindsided, at least not too often, as we were on 911, and later by Hurricane Katrina.

Algebra City is a template for Everytown, with grids and services. Using high tech plasma TV type diagrams, per our Spaceship Earth™ motif, NASA, Google Earth etc., is not out of place. This beginning is also promising because Baghdad already has a track record of sourcing high culture. The television coming out of there should be excellent.

I went back to 12 Monkeys last night, which Tara'd not seen. A wonderfully tight little timeloop and very dark comedy, with the cast pumping up some amazingly wild characters, Brad Pitt chief among them. I was sort of a bad dad pushing twisted scifi so late on a school night, and Tara wisely scheduled an intermission for a healthy sleep cycle, only to find it wasn't a school night, on account of snow (a bright sunny day actually, so far, with clear streets).

I was just kidding about Spaceship Earth™ being trademarked by the way -- you don't need my permission (or anyone's) to call it that.

Pundits Play Dumb

Pundits seem agreed that "war is not the answer" (the FCNL sound bite and lawn sign), but then sit back in the bleachers, watching in fascination, as the military tries to make it one, by default, as no one else is stepping up to the plate.

What's interesting is the disconnect between what's going on with the troops, and what's going on in the public schools, our front line of defense. The media refuses to link these two topics, but of course that's only possible if you're a zipper lips or clueless.

What is it that we're teaching in public school that would keep North Americans so vested in military solutions to every problem? I think I know what they're thinking: "we wiped out the Indians didn't we?"

Anyway, I salute the brave soldiers for giving it their best shot. I'm sorry the public was so poorly educated, so incapable of holding up the civilian end of the bargain, which was to seek more civilized solutions to world problems, not to put you in harm's way in some poorly defined mission.

Putting this all on the backs of military families is unfair in the extreme. I hope when the smoke clears, the military takes more serious command and control of its own public education and war college feeder system and doesn't repeat the mistakes that got us here.

Upgrading

So I was damn close to buying that AMD64x2, a loss leader at Circuit City yesterday, but not surprisingly they were out, and although the floor copy was mine at a discount, I'd have to forego any future free Vista upgrade. So I killed the deal. At least Kim and Jimmy found what they were looking for. We also checked Office Depot for post holiday pre Vista discounts.

I'm following Derek's advice, screening lots of candidates -- which includes buying a copy of CPU (Vol 7, Issue 1) to stimulate my lust reflex with glossy pictures (like check out that Asus Striker Extreme mobo on page 67).

In addition to KTU3, I've been submitting specs for the PKL network, however that's a hands-on lab for NGOs and GOs (i.e. public sector) wanting to simulate donor databases, home health monitoring ala CareWheels or whatever. Some of those workstations won't even need hard drives, ala K12LTSP.

Private industry won't get away with just a booth and some dog and pony show. Our simulators will put candidate software and hardware through their paces, so customers will have a "try before you buy" kind of experience. Lots of GNU, Linux, free and open source in this picture. We call it Studio How To, a spin off from my 1997 Project Renaissance initiative.

I envision KTU3 more as a personal productivity tool for just me and my usual back office 4D Solutions brand CP4E (computer programming) and HP4E (more geometrical) curriculum writing, of which I've already published a ton.

Although firewire is included in most candidates I'm screening, I'm not really supposing KTU3 would be a launch pad for the 4D Studios and/or Wanderers curriculum videos. Those'll more likely take advantage of the render farms, per the ToonTown model. KTU3 will allow me to keep previewing our pre-release inventory, as a member of various quality assurance teams.

suse

Anthropology Question (Synergeo 31526)

So here's my puzzle.

You have this recognized elder and chief who gets all these accolades, plus who invents something that makes geometry easier for young people of the tribe, and all without robbing them of anything already on the books.

Then the elder chief dies (1983).

Then all that promising stuff about the whole number volumes and and so on just gets swept under the rug, not shared with the kids, for at least one generation, maybe two (we're still waiting to see), some'd argue three (I'm dating from 1975, but the chief was already old by then).

The question: is this a common pattern in human cultures?

That "invented something," just to be specific, is yet another mandala or "matrix" of interposed polyhedra. We've seen these a lot in both the east and the west.

This one intersects the two tetrahedra, Star of David style, then crosses the resulting cube with its dual, netting Kepler's space-filler rhombic dodecahedron. The respective volumes: 1:3:4:6 as in tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, rhombic dodecahedron.

Now that's not the whole story. If you pack 12 rhombic dodecahedra around the nuclear one, diamond face to diamond face, the 24 outer edges so formed define the rhombic dodecahedron's dual, a cuboctahedron, which weighs in at volume 20.

3-frequency cuboctahedral packing
(92 + 42 + 12 + 1 = 147 balls)

Then you have a way to crack the cube into subpieces, or the coupler if you prefer, to get the 24 and/or 8 MITEs (cube and/or coupler), each dissectible into two As and a B, the As left and right handed, the B either left or right handed.

And finally, the Jitterbug Transformation, a bridge to the world of five-fold rotationally symmetric shapes, per Hargittai & Hargittai.

That's all pretty easy (no?) especially if you see it cartooned.

The volumes, again: A & B = 1/24; MITE = 1/8, Tetrahedron & Coupler = 1; Cube = 3; Octahedron = 4; Rhombic Dodecahedron = 6; Cuboctahedron = 20. Plus the five-folders (where you'll net your 5 and your 2).

We're not talking Einstein or rocket science here. We're talking basic Sesame Street level visualizations involving primitive shapes, with easy links to low order whole numbers and fractions, yet with threads branching everywhichway into interesting, relevant topics, including into purely mathematical ones (phi, fibonacci).

Our collective resistance to sharing this little gem of interlocked concepts, with our nation's pre-college kids, is something I think will go down in the history books, as well as the anthropology and psychology books, as a story worthy of some focussed analysis (and perhaps some gnashing of teeth).

Personnel Shakeup

"on break"

In the spirit of making personnel changes, I burned some gallons razzing out to Fry's this afternoon, only to find the HP Duo Core in question was all sold out at the newspaper advertised price. I came home sans KTU3, the planned replacement for KTU2, overdue for retirement, ever since the Yeti Bubbles incident.

Otherwise, it was another typical day in the neighborhood: long brightly lit hallways, concrete echoing stairwells, windowed and windowless offices, and cafeterias (two of them, a slice of pie both times, getting some on my newly dry cleaned suit jacket -- but it came off easily).

We talked about New Mexico some more, amidst the usual day job SQL chatter re pulling lesion-device pairs for outcomes research purposes (the patients stay anonymous, but devices have serial numbers, and we need to know which work the best -- an empirical question).

Derek is a member of my personnel search committee, and counseled doing a wider search among candidates, and working backwards with a specific end use envisioned (we used to give this same advice in CUE days).

But this isn't a typical upgrade. KTU2 is severely handicapped, yet I think might be destined for greatness as a future Linux box, as the crossed wires are all in the software. But we're not about to wipe this hobbled energy slave clean, without some backwardly compatible KTU3 in the picture.

Regarding the new public school TV shows, we're still exploring the issue of "what tracks?" Pure mathematicians often chafe about how their discipline gets mangled in K-12, and we've historically made them stuff those concerns, because there just weren't enough hours in a day to make "pure math" a reasonable use of Johnny's or Jennifer's time.

But now, with all the unused media capability, plus asynchronous scheduling solutions (for "time shifting" as we say in the industry), we suddenly see room for greenfield development in this area.

Let the purist mathematicians have their own channel or channels why not? What's the harm?

Then the other disciplines, which use math without being math, don't have to worry about Jennifer and Johnny not getting it straight from the horse's mouth as it were.

They (the other channelists) will soon feel more free to share their "bent takes," wherein the math comes across as deliberately nonstraight, will not have to take so much guff for hogging the limelight.

The more puritanical straight shooters, the "tell it like it really is" crowd, will finally have a place in the sun, an unobstructed curriculum track, complete with with its own advancement criteria, and with a target demographic reaching all the way back to the primary school level.

Such Math Channel programming might seamlessly blend with the more normally twisted fare, with students free to switch tracks more or less at will. This is not a "one size fits all" solution, is instead a strategy for offering more choices.

Let's take quality of life enhancing advantage of all these new tools, why not? And open source will play a huge role in getting these goods delivered (already is playing a huge role).

A Random Walk in the IVM Forest

:: Mad Magazine, 01.2007 ::

I zoomed to this cover of MAD at the coffee shop, adjacent the fish 'n chips place in what used to be Casa del Rio on Hawthorne, both excellent restaurants: Veep Cheney and Lil Buddy, helping to fill out our All American Pantheon.

Wanderers this morning was about Phase Rule stuff: thin metal strip sensors, able to detect toxins in mere parts per illion (million, billion...), perhaps released in a pressure or temperature change.

I asked about mercury vapor as a hazard in mining, after making some cracks about Newton thereon (not the only alchemist so imbued, plus girls sipped arsenic to make their veins glow blue).

That set our geochemist (the gent to my left, a Thirster) into a very detailed discussion of the mercury vapor problem, well known to gold miners. Better if the vapor could bubble up in some acidic pool and just cake at the bottom. There's actually an aftermarket for that sort of thing.

Our guest XX this morning (the rest of us XYs), was a star athlete in her last chapter, is now shifting into computers, starting with knowing a lot about version control.

I launched into a somewhat long-winded tale of Free Geek trying to bond with local area nonprofits, under the auspices of a forward-thinking MMT (Fred Meyer's foundation).

This first tentative knotting proved a highly technical undertaking, involving a Mozilla, Perl, and Postgres stack. Naked Ape made the Perl OOish. I siphoned data from Access to Postgres, using a monster data transformer script mostly written by others (but I helped a little).

This was around the time of my wife's first diagnosis, and I needed to bow out of some of my roles.

Anyway, the nonprofits (NGOs, plus a lot of GOs, per GOSCON) still get kinda panicy around so much mumbo jumbo in computer world, which we geeks like to spew forth in firehose quantities, but get slapped down for doing.

A culture clash of some sort. We'll work it out. Somehow. Someway.

The future's gotta happen, i.e. "What, Me Worry?"™

I did manage to crank out a little talk on the group properties of the totatives of N, field propeties if N prime. Our athletic XX version controller had expressed some interest in the subject during intros, and although I'm no expert, I've been rooting for Gnu Math @ Math Forum, so have such material on tap when cued.

"Women rule in Computer Science" is my motto, related to my going gaga for Athena, an Ice Queen (IQ) of sorts: coolheaded, logical, serene, yet intuitive. A positive synergy, worth putting on a pedestal.

Trevor, newly armed with NYT access, was searching on you know who, and came up with this 1955 story about a mock liberation of Philadelphia in a simulated atomic war, with Russian brass invited to attend and attending. I forget what was Bucky's role in all this. In another story, he's serving on the board of a homeless shelter for single male vets, having recently purchased Shelter magazine.

Cracker Dog

:: cracker dog ::

I'm pretty sure the cracker dog (foreground) in the above picture is from Germany.

My grandparents on my mother's side favored a popular option for retired people back then: fun in the sun in a prefab or mobile home, with money saved from a big mortgage on trips to a then still America-friendly post-WWII Europe. They came home with all kinds of cuckoo clocks, walking sticks, stories, and slides of Kodak moments.

That was a bravely positive working class futurism I think, to reconnect with war torn Europe as adventuresome ocean liner passengers, eager to mix with those Marshall Plan dollars, to help the roses rise, while meanwhile, on the home front, pioneering a somewhat spacey, new and replicable lifestyle, around shuffleboard, square dancing, golf carts and tourism.

[ True, no air-deliverable Dymaxion Dwelling Machines materialized, like Bucky wanted, seein' as all the good helicopters were needed for service in Vietnam. ]

Not a bad outcome for a career linotype operator plus spouse, empty nesters on quasi-fixed incomes. Has any subsequent generation proved bolder or more successful, at making its dreams for a civilian utopia come true?