What's an Engineer?

We've been having some spirited debate in one of the think tanks about exactly what constitutes an engineer. We're an interesting mix in that some of us are proud to call ourselves engineers, whereas others think engineering epitomizes everything that's messed up in the human psyche. A mixed bag, to say the least.

I'm asking about film-makers and whether they're engineers. The standard answer is "no" but is that more ethnic, more anthropological than anything else? Some of the Illuminati I track recommend STEAM over STEM, i.e. to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, lets add Anthropology, not to dumb it all down, but to keep it more worldly and wiser.

Game designers are also engineers, especially when we call them "simulations" ("game theory" in systems science added respectability for games, as did "language games" in philosophy, yet there's still the need among some people to find a more serious-sounding word than "game"). These "countdown to zero" games require a lot of background. "Do your homework people" -- shades of Alex Jones.

To some degree, I tout philosophy as competing with engineering, following the unoriginal assumption that competition counters excessive complacency. I champion General Systems Theory (GST) versus Economics for the same reason. When it comes to bread and butter issues, we'd be foolish to put all our eggs in just the one basket.

I'm listening to a piano serenade at the Quaker meetinghouse as I blog this. One of the FNB guys. Walker is off with her tractor bike retrieving the cooking utensils and produce from the Pink House. We both missed out on the Thanksgiving festivities. Satya shot by with his own trailer, bringing bread. He's scooting off to somewhere not far from Scappoose, via St. John's.

Deke the Geek and I met at Fred Meyers this morning for coffee. Although Portland has a reputation for being a geek capital of sorts, the print media such as Mercury, Just Out and Willamette Week are pretty weak on technicalia. The Oregonian barely even tries, nor does the Portland Tribune.

This is why Geek Out should have an instant market, especially as a free 'zine, hard to find, strategically distributed. Topics might well be retro. Figuring out how we got here and from there is what we call "lore" in the business and PDXers have no shortage of lore, nor our we confining our sources to Portland, Oregon. It's a big world out there.

I added a comment to Chris Fearnley's ruminations on Bucky Fuller and Existentialism. I'm glad he's taking the bull by the horns and actually talking about Philosophy for a change. Too many of Fuller's commentators think the only topics we care about have to do with Physics.

Philosophy Bar

I'm cheating a little in saying I was just at a philosophy bar. Yes, we discussed philosophical topics. Anna's boys (men) are really into those. Belief in a god, in a self, were topics of conversation (I prefer directing skepticism towards a "belief in self" than a "belief in God" as that tends to hit closer to home, sparks deeper debates sometimes -- plus who cares about "beliefs" anyway sometimes (Karen Armstrong an influence)).

However, the giant LCDs were all devoted to sports events. We actually needed to request a more out of the way table so that our philosophy talk might be more focused.

Just before heading down to this "philosophy bar" (on the 2nd floor of this hotel), I'd been adding to some thread on precisely this topic. In part I was keying off some stuff Nirel had been saying regarding the Netherlands. They're feeling burdened in Holland, yet realize their bars have become a tourist destination, owing to less prohibition in that neck of the woods. Are the trade offs worth it though? Lots of debates.

Another way we intersected philosophy today was at the University of Washington, where we toured the campus. Savery Hall is where the philosophy department is headquartered. Then we went to the bookstore, where Tara browsed in neuroscience. I mostly perused angry political books by people taking issue the what they imagine to be the president's programs. These angry taxpayers would probably never support Operation Starry Night, my utopian science fiction about helping students escape light pollution, a way of investing in the future.

I was meeting with Anna Roys in this philosophy bar (really just a sports bar) in downtown Seattle. We're both into education reform in our respective ways. She's become a certified teacher since I met her the last time, when she came through Portland. Her Thunderbird Academy is still in the works, although it may piggy back on an existing public charter, rather than launch a new charter of its own. Anna is here to visit with two of her four adult sons.

I went over my thoughts about philanthropic gaming again, and my history as a buckaneer, starting with Walter Kaufmann's endorsement of est as an interesting exercise in applied philosophy. I become more aware of Bucky Fuller through Erhard's collaborations therewith. These collaborations maybe didn't sit well with E.J. Applewhite, at least at first. Bucky was already facing PR problems without this. That's all water under the bridge by this time though.

We also talked about the bizmo idea. The Pacific Science Center is running one that brings a "dog and pony show" to Washington State schools. Anna had even thought of applying for the position at one point.

OMR Again

A recent thread on the Math Forum regarding multiple choice testing got me thinking about OMR again, and the energy simulation games that might use it. SimCity could add this module with practically no changes to the underlying framework I bet. Perhaps I should write to Maxis. Or should we start over from scratch, using open source Python, perhaps Blender?

OMR, for those who don't know, is a stadium-shaped city projected for middle America back in the time of the Union Tank Car dome, the apogee of that kind of technology in North America, at least until EPCOT. Actually that Baton Rouge dome opened for business in 1958, the year I was born, so I guess I'm a little off on my time line. The plan for Old Man River City came out of the civil rights movement and was part of the "war on poverty", envisioned as a public work fueled by a "peace dividend" (although that wasn't the term used).

The prime contractor irrigation system, set up during WW2, proved too lucrative to just turn off, and indeed was ramped up under Eisenhower under the direction of Congress, which saw pork barreling of defense spending (so-called "ear marks") as the ticket to staying in power.

ICBMs became cruise missiles which then morphed into drones. Each generation of technology required its "theater" for live guinea pig testing, usually overseas, although paramilitary goods had their domestic applications as well, among police forces, private security services, hunters, and survivalists.

After-market military equipment remains an important ingredient in most scouting programs. Many homeless people use military grade sleeping bags.

President Eisenhower could see the writing on the wall and realized that war, once hugely profitable, could be commodified and sold to the American people as a permanent way of life. Robert McNamara, fresh from a job with Ford Motor Company, helped "create the space" for all subsequent secretaries of defense.

If allowed to build aircraft carriers, tanks and missiles (along with a defense against missiles) white collar voters would prove grateful and loyal, regardless of any party affiliation. These were the family wage jobs one needed to pursue the American dream of happiness, preferably in a suburban setting.

Not all Americans would sucker for this plan, but enough of them would to keep LAWCAP in ascendancy through the arc of the Cold War, and on into its War on Terror.

The architects of this economy took Europe's religious feuds as their gold standard, a time-tested recipe for prolonging hostilities. As long as Jews and Muslims couldn't see eye-to-eye, the money changers would have a field day in the temple, while Christians could be counted on to arm all sides.

The term "beltway bandit" was common currency in the news stories and referred to that privileged cast frequenting the "revolving door" twixt the arms bazaar and DC-based agencies. "Privatization" (a euphemism for cannibalizing public resources) transferred much of this know-how overseas, helping "level the playing field" as billionaires spread around the globe more evenly.

The hoi polloi made do with their impoverished schools, decaying infrastructure, and nursed their hatreds for the designated scapegoats du jour. They were told that any living standard advantages they enjoyed were a consequence of weapons research, and for many decades this folk myth was accepted.

As America fell further and further behind in the standings, some deeper thinkers came to question this central dogma, including many CEOs of well-known companies, who saw the mindless waste more in terms of its opportunity costs.

OMR, a symbol for any number of futuristic projects, large and small, stayed in the closet, amidst other esoterica. Not even the science fiction writers out of Hollywood dared touch it, lest old civil rights memes get reactivated. Positive futurism had the potential to "go viral" and the advice from PR firms was to "keep a lid on it" if serious about getting sponsors and advertisers.

A Visit with the Architect

Nick reconnected me with the architect John Discroll, this evening. He'd been in Oklahoma recently, at another convergence celebrating the work of architect Bruce Goff. His own chief mentor had been in that lineage. We shared a meal prepared by Hannah.

The house they're staying at is connected to the Santos Daime church in this town. I took some pictures of the interesting decor.

Carol (my mother) is leaving tomorrow, to stay the winter in Whittier, her other home with my sister. We sent the shipment of eleven boxes by UPS today, files and clothes.

Tara won best in show (best overall speaker) as well as first prize for Lincoln Douglas debate at her meetup today -- four awards in all, plus a ceremonial cape. I'm grateful to Gonzo for putting so much heart and soul into this vestige of civil society, which the public schools barely have funds to support. In a more enlightened society, we would have more of these debates on television and the Web. These cerebral sports don't get nearly the attention they deserve.

Lindsey has ordered up a storm of outdoor survival products, spending literally days in the Web doing the necessary homework. She's been describing to me all these purchases and how they fit into her vision. Solar charger, lights, water filter, kelly kettles... repair kits.

Her plan is to strike out in the dead of winter to test her metal as a cyclist-camper. If these early tests go well, her radius will steadily increase. If all goes per plan, we'll be seeing a lot less of her around Portland, is her latest news. At her request, I contributed an OLPC XO to her on-the-road inventory. Tara has lent her a battery-powered keyboard.

More action around the Blue House tomorrow, preparing food for the homeless and then distributing sleeping bags by bicycle, a Laughing Horse project started by Lindsey last winter. Food Not Bombs is invited to join in. Lindsey has been an effective community organizer during her chapter in Portland. She will be missed, and not just by me.

Thanks to cues from Nick, a current guest, I watched David Kaiser's lecture How the Hippies Saved Physics. This MIT-based history-of-science guy gives a lot of credit to Werner Erhard (and to CIA spooks) for funding a transitional (and talented) cast of characters who took physics from its Cold War phase into its more philosophical phase. I filed some pointers to Synergeo. I've been echoing the thread on Verboten Math from a Math 2.0 list.

I had Noah over again today, age 12, for some Python computer language lessons. His mom joined in for part of the lesson. We like to share Youtubes and explore little known aspects of Google. Did you know about the Google version of Pacman? Noah was quite ready to code up a Python class/blueprint, a template for any number of objects. He's already studied some Java, so had some questions about public versus private variables. I showed how we do this in Python in my sample code.

Fashionistas

I recall the term "fashionista" from the Bruno DVD. Much of what motivational psychology is about is this drive for "coolness", which is of course a moving target. Sometimes a style will make a come back though. I'm reminded of the movie Being There. Our hero (played by Peter Sellers), had just the right look when his time in the limelight came around.

These games around fashion may seem the apogee of self-indulgent nonsense a lot of the time. The narcissism may be intense, as the pro models learn to strut the latest stuff. One needs to not only look good, one needs to feel good about looking good, to perform in the groove, to stay in the zone. William Burroughs spoofed this as DE ("doing easy").

The flip side is feeling awkward, inept, out of one's depth, dorky.

One needs to go through these "I'm not cool" experiences in some chapters, when adapting to new styles. If one's resistance level is too great, then one gets stuck in a rut, and maybe hopes the old music and dance numbers will at least have a niche. One finds one's flock, one's natural audience for a finite set of karaoke numbers, perhaps even written by one's self, in a past chapter.

Here at the Blue House, we have these same growing pains. Just when I'm at the top of my game in some dimension, a superseding technology or better way of doing it comes along. Take Visual FoxPro for example: that used to be my bread and butter. If it weren't for using Python, I'd be looking more reptilian (more like a dino -- and yes, I know they were more like birds).

In terms of having the right credentials for this zip code, we're gold at the moment, maybe platinum, and yet there's a sense of imitators nipping at our heels.

We're surrounded by serious urban gardeners, community organizers, radical teachers, star debaters, other IB students, other Quakers, other cool individuals who sew their own clothes and make yogurt out of soy milk, made directly from ground soy beans. Not needing electricity may be a next trick, cooking with sunlight at some tailgate party for bicyclists / tricyclists (semi-clothed) and their sensor-equipped trailers.

We hold our own as fashionistas, but the competition is intense.

On the activist front, criminalizing nuke weapons has never been trendier, even among so-called conservatives (sometimes just a euphemism for "among the last to catch on"). Carol was interviewed for KBOO after Countdown to Zero, like how cool is that? The show has since aired.

To keep ourselves in the zone, it becomes necessary to tap into that 73% of the universe (aka the collective unconscious) known as "dork energy". This is where we talk to God (or Bob Dobbs as the case may be) about our deficiencies, our uncoolness, our sins. Confession is important, the Catholics got that right. You need to find a good ear, as just talking in your head will not necessarily do the trick.

For me, the Linus Pauling House group has been a good source of feedback. We know we're dinos in some dimensions, unable to roll back every sign of obsolescence. On the other hand, as committed scholars and thinkers, we're able to stay up to speed in other respects, plus have the benefits of long and varied experience. That's not my only source of feedback though.

Speaking of feedback, I was privileged to catch up with Dr. Tag recently, my Palestinian friend. She's off to Malaysia in the near future. We talked about visas, other complications of world travel. She's a fan of Yemen in much the way I'm a fan of Bhutan: people don't freak out when the electricity fails them. Not that either of us have much access to our respective ideal countries. Neither of us has much use for idle tourism, and the free open source eco-villages ala GOSCON etc. are still in storyboard phase.

A still rustic, simple way of life keeps people honest and in touch with their physical environment, their integrity. There's no need to spoil this, by adding too much glitz and faux glamor, much as the media moguls might like to pimp it out more, add more crass consumerism. There's a big difference between being a consumer and a connoisseur.

Yes, I'm connecting back to our theme of encouraging Havana, the whole of Cuba, to stay free of fast food franchises, and to continue nurturing a more well-rounded way of life. That would be strong PR, attractive to Global U students seeking meaningful experiences in collaborative environments, making and delivering ice cream or whatever.

Driving gas guzzlers past the fast food window was cool at one time in El Norte, but is today a more reptilian activity, neither romantic nor even warm blooded. On the other hand, reptiles are cool in other contexts (like Jurassic Park), so I'm not about to fall into the trap of demonizing them across the board.

Speaking as a Pythonista, that'd be somewhat counter-productive.

The Cult of Athena (so-called) remains enamored of Pythons, Apollonian atrocities notwithstanding.

GNU World Order

I told Marian, Multnomah Meeting's Recording Clerk, that I thought the Food Not Bombs policy of feeding anyone who showed up was about a commitment to community and besides, what would be the alternative? A test of low "net worth"?

USAers have this pathological way of talking about people as having low, no, or even negative "net worth" -- which makes sense in terms of some of the board games they're playing (like Monopoly), but then they tend play by those rules no matter what the walk of life, don't they?

Like, everyone is poor in the USA, spiritually speaking, given all the inferiority conditioning that goes on.

As RBF would point out, the flip side of "earning a living" is "not deserving one" by default. You've got to "prove" your right to freedom. You're born into a state of servitude. That's not what the original coders of the USA operating system intended, but then the counter-revolution has been unrelenting. Many new bugs have been introduced.

I really liked this fast drawing cartoon (above), but couldn't help thinking the economists it depicts are overly mystified. Our "gnu world order" did not emerge inexplicably. On the contrary, engineers know that tool use creates life support, whereas money is merely a measure of same.

Take away the skilled tool users, the Morlocks, and your Eloi money becomes worthless.

The last FNB meetup featured a skills sharing about building bike trailers from bamboo. Some of these same folks took off for a skills share this weekend, put on by some of the same personnel doing the first aid trainings. FNB is also about learning how to community organize and cook healthy food for medium sized groups.

I wrote another gossip column for the folks on Synergeo, using my chattier writing style. I like to switch gears a lot, like in some of this Willamette Week stuff I've seen. In the meantime, math-teach is seeming downright political in this thread about political humor -- I'm reminded of the Other Russia movement.

PPUG 2010.11.10

For those readers unfamiliar: PPUG = Portland Python User's Group. If you word search on my three blogs (worldgame, controlroom, mybizmo), you'll find plenty of prior write-ups.

So tonight was our last gathering at WebTrends, at the top of a Portland skyscrapter adjacent to Pioneer Courthouse Square, a prime location. Next meeting: Urban Airship, their new digs in NW. Looking forward.

Wow, tonight was esoteric, about extending Python in multiple directions.

Ctypes is a great module for importing a DLL or Unix/Linux so (shared object) and using it directly. I asked if this'd work with COM. Not sure. Anyway, it's cool.

Did you wonder about extending Python with FORTRAN? That's a whole cult. FORTRAN has hardly gone out of style, even if the punch cards are no longer (lots of chuckles). f2py is truly awesome. Wrap your FORTRAN compiled object with C, and import it into your Python scripts. NumPy is of this genre.

Then we learned about GMPY and GMPY2, the extended precision modules. Such awesome tricks. Mutable integers? Amazing. Extend precision to 1000 bits (or more), and ask about pi. There it is, to many decimals. Impressive.

The most esoteric talk: extending Python with OCAML. It's that C-language bridge that eats up cycles, translating data types from this language to that. If you really wanna multiply two 100 x 100 matrices in the shortest time, consider NumPy (back to FORTRAN). Ocaml is cool though, no question. Brilliant talk.

IronPython is dead they tell me, wow. Seems like Microsoft really missed the boat then. I'll have to think about that one.

Good conversation with Jason, about women in computer science. I say they own it. Not the majority (male) view.

Thanks again Michelle. You're a great leader and a lovely individual.

Runaway Universe

Alex Filippenko is a popular lecturer who knows how to engage a lay audience. Our Pauling Memorial Lecture series folks are more sophisticated than average, as Alex readily pointed out, so we might not have needed as many cosmetology vs. cosmology jokes, but those were the slides, a part of the script. Ironically, I was wondering if his hair was dyed (so dark), but Tara said professors weren't that vain. Or maybe they cultivate the gray look.

Cosmology is still in its infancy, it's probably safe to say, as is humanity, which isn't to say humans are guaranteed a long trajectory. During Q&A, Alex expressed his opinion that humans, broadly defined, are a rarity in the universe, even if microbial life maybe isn't. Their intelligence may not confer sufficient advantages to keep them in the game. Here we are, only about 160 million years into the homo sapien experience, and we're already giddy and teetering, devoting zillions to weapons of mass suicide (WMSs).

"Dark energy" is mostly a placeholder these days, as is "dark mass" (these two are not the same). Plain old Newtonian gravity isn't providing a satisfying explanation for the galactic clusters cohering, which is where dark matter comes in. Dark energy, in contrast, is repulsive (or repugnant -- more jokes), and is responsible (in a theoretical sense) for pushing the clusters apart.

The bulk of the lecture was about detecting supernovae of a particular chemistry (A-1 type) and using these as "standard candles" to register distance. The work is tedious, but software helps. Monitor a few thousand galaxies a night, superimposing successive frames, and find the deltas, the bright spots. Two teams were doing this work, which was productive, both for the competition (a sport) and for corroboration once the results started coming in. These results were surprising: the receding of galaxies appears to be speeding up, starting around 5 billion years ago. Before that, the expansion was slowing, or so measurements seem to show.

Dr. Filippenko has his visuals. He threw a bright red fake apple into the air numerous times, to illustrate points about gravity, expansion, contraction, Einstein's cosmological constant. The rubber band with the balls strewn along it simulated an expanding universe. He also had a small blue balloon to inflate. Much of the banter was "by the book", is what you will find in introductory textbooks on cosmology.

The very meaning of "the universe" seems to have broken down, now that we have talk of multiple universes, with some philosophers proposing communications between them. Partially overlapping universe scenarios might suggest eternal regenerativity to some minds. Each universe would be another way the game could be played, a set of realized possibilities. Such talk is purely speculative of course. Alex asserted his credentials as an experimentalist, not a theoretician.

Tara joined me for this outing, an expanding universe in her own right, an active thinker eager to learn from her world. I so wish for a better civilization for her and her peers.

My own universe seems to have settled into a combination of sorrow and love. I'm deeply fond of these people, awed by the suffering. Thinking of Paul Tillich and his "courage to be".

Good seeing Juliet and Jerome in the auditorium. Jerome went to middle school with Alex. Juliet was my contemporary at the International School in the Philippines.

Wanderers 2010.10.26

Trish is saying kind things about my blogs. Makes my day. She watched Charlie Wilson's War thanks to one of my reviews, and now recognizes the name Buckminster Fuller (I name I was dropping at Oasis Pizza the next day, confirming Glenn and I were both teachers).

Anna Roys phoned from Alaska while I was at Glenn's. The charter school approach seems a steep uphill climb for local administrators, but when she mentioned doing a school within a school instead, the lights went on. It'd be within the existing public framework, where the familiar rules apply. The charter apparatus is just so unwieldy.

I stumbled into the Aspartame debate yesterday and found a lot of the same debate patterns that characterize other "unsettled science". Just labeling something a "conspiracy theory" is hardly persuasive. It's wall-to-wall conspiracies; what else are there? "To conspire" means "to breath together". Dismissing schools of thought as "cults" is likewise non-substantive, is connotative only. But then "connotations" are what spin is all about.

Science is something of a junkyard, full of shipwrecks. Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions maybe wasn't enough about economic pressures. Stakeholders don't just walk away from their investments, such as in some belief in "racial purity". Michael Crichton's State of Fear was very much about these economic pressures. I tend to focus on the appendix of that book, which looks at the junk science behind World War 2, ala Edwin Black's research.

I'm back to thinking COM is the way to go with this trucking stuff, not XML-RPC. We had a two hour meeting at Lyrik this morning and I got a better sense of how these puzzle pieces might fight together.

Not having a shared big picture positive future, such as was promulgated at international expositions and world's fairs in the previous century, is taking its toll. The fear level is driving a market for gold and silver. The breakup of the USSR gets discussed as a model of what many might go through, when the money system breaks down. Bigger tent cities, hoarding and looting...

Whatever happened to Old Man River City? How about cities that float? Aircraft carriers would count, also cruise ships, submarines. I guess we have them then, though mostly not for civilians.

I'm here at the Pauling House filling out an eligibility form for my high schooler. We're a low income family. A lot of our food comes from charitable sources. She should get school meals at a discount, plus some price breaks on IB tests, which are like $200 a pop.

I pay over $500 a month for health insurance just for the two of us, which ends up covering almost nothing routine. This is what we call "catastrophic" insurance. Life in the Global U doesn't mean having a lot of disposable income. Credits come in many forms, including simple access. I'm chauffeuring again tonight: MVP arriving at PDX in about an hour.

At Glenn's pad, Barry was talking about life aboard a British man-o-war. Being a marine was probably better than being a poor farmer. Those square-sailed ships couldn't tack well, or sail into the wind. They'd do these figure eight patterns. If the weather was wrong, shipwreck was likely. Sloops, on the other hand, were more maneuverable, or was that schooners?

The Coffee Shops Network is about funneling resources to worthy charities. Players make their own investment decisions, build a portfolio.

Active Day

I was up at 4:15 AM, not having slept all that well. I've come down with something, am not blaming the boat ride on Wednesday (after Wanderers).

Anyway, Carol needed to be at PDX by no later than 5:30 AM. We met that goal, yet she still almost missed her plane to Indianapolis by way of Denver.

I was home by 5:30 AM in time to chauffeur our debating champion to her rendezvous at Cleveland High School. The tournament is out of town.

In between 4:15 AM and 4:30 AM, I answered email from Lindsey cc Patrik McDade regarding bridging Day Labor Center to Free Geek, now that the Bike Farm link is in place and operational. I went over some of my experiences with that outfit, circled some Youtubes.

Later this morning, I plunged in to cleaning the kitchen, which had reached my threshold for entropy. I scrubbed cabinets, counter tops, the stove top, swept and mopped the floor. I was at it for some hours. Then came vacuuming the stairs and living room (lots of dog and cat hair) and putting away laundry.

I dress informally in Pacific Northwest grunge a lot, getting up to "scruffy professor" sometimes, with plenty of gray hair. I'm not usually as spiffy as the Japanese "salary man".

Carol phoned intermittently, from Denver, then Indianapolis, reporting on her progress.

The Food Not Bombs trailer and pots (down to only two -- need sponsors with cast offs) became a focus in the afternoon. That's mostly Lindsey's project, though I've been chipping in since the ER episode. Various vegetables went on the trailer, though not any chanterelles, which LW claimed might make dynamite "buffalo wings" (maybe next year?).

She's been rebuilding her strength, getting back into her Tarzania role (here on Planet of the Apes). She's ordered some more survivalist gear for life on the road, methodically pursing objectives she's had since I met her, through the Linus Pauling Campus. Deb is another Tarzania type (they've met), though personality-wise they're quite different people.

Satya came by for the trailer but Lindsey had already transported it to the cook at St. David of Wales.

Through much of this, I was putting finishing touches on a ReportLab project which reads in text files in the knowledge domain of trans-continental trucking, and spits back a PDF, complete with intelligent pagination decisions and an aesthetic choice of fonts (Lucinda Typewriter Bold for the data, Helvetica for the headers and footers).

Some readers may remember I've been racking my brains about how to combine Visual FoxPro and Python into a more seamless whole. The assumption is we'd be using COM, but I delivered a working demo using XML-RPC instead (not that they're entirely unrelated, as VFP has to instance an HTTP object).

Finally, I took the bait and answered Roberto's question about whether mathematics has ever been cast in a human-like language.

A Necessary Ruin (movie review)

A Necessary Ruin from Evan Mather on Vimeo

A hauntingly well-made little film. The tone resonates with Thinking Out Loud in that it hints at some Other Tomorrow, a parallel universe wherein we still practice a hopeful brand of futurism.

The good news is the dome has its twin, still in operation as of this writing. It won't last forever either though. Rust never sleeps.

Related thread on Facebook.

Hillsboro Story

:: hillsboro story @ artists repertory theater ::

At first, Carol was confused by the title, as we have our own Hillsboro, towards the end of the Blue Line.

I too write about our Hillsboro quite a bit, in connection with my work for the police department (HPD) as a Saturday Academy instructor, a project by a former FBI guy, George Heuston, to make high tech more friendly. The police don't relish growing old amidst people who hate and fear them, any more than you would, and the world of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) looked welcoming to them. Lets recruit among recent immigrants (Latino especially) and prove America is a land where dreams come true.

OK, now lets rewind the tape to the 1950s and Google Earth over to Hillsboro, Ohio, and dial back to when the Mickey Mouse Club was first hot (before my time). This is the world of John Waters and Hairspray, of Drapes and Squares, of a certain American Look we still celebrate to this day. The play reminds us of all of this and more. The beat generation. Allen Ginsberg and Howl.

The Supreme Court had just ruled that segregation was illegal, but the state and county governments were taking a lackadaisical attitude, didn't want to feel bullied by any central authority or tyrant. Even Eisenhower didn't have the gravitas of Abe Lincoln, and desegregation, a reality on paper, was stalled on the ground. Overt racists still occupied and ran the country like they owned the place. The KKK still openly practiced terror and intimidation against "uppity coloreds".

I'm eager to share what happened next with the engineers at the Pauling House, as it was one of our ken who finally snapped under pressure and took matters into his own hands. The design of America herself was on the line, her deepest Constitutional values.

Foot-dragging about obeying the law, after a bloody Civil War, was just too much. Philip Partridge was tormented by these failures, of the legal system, of county administrators. Mothers had made their wishes clear, by picketing. The young and idealistic were expecting action (like after Obama got elected). He was mad as hell and couldn't take it anymore.

Lincoln Elementary was the pits, yet Negro children were forced to go there, to learn of their lower class status at an impressionable young age. Meanwhile, the privileged kids got to sit in newer remodeled schools, and have E.B. White read to them (Charlotte's Web) or in my case The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (we were living in Rome at the time).

Sesame Street had yet to be invented and the Woodstock generation was just coming out of the starting gate (Whoopi Goldberg etc. -- she gets mentioned). The military had already started to integrate as of WW2, though it had not yet accepted its own gayness (nor had the intelligence services, making blackmail a lot easier).

Our kindly engineer realized that if he burned Lincoln Elementary to the ground, late at night (so no one got hurt), he'd force the issue. It was a clear calculation. He was not thrilled about his prospects if he went through with it, so made a promise to himself he'd only follow through if God woke him up at 2 AM precisely...

A lightning storm of furious proportions shocks him awake in the bleak of night at 2 AM (a cinematic moment), and he knows this is his destiny. He's always felt cut out to do something pivotal. This is to be his hour of fame, his moment of glory, and he seizes the day (carpe diem)... It'd be a clear case of arson, of breaking and entering. He wasn't there to shoot anyone. This wasn't like in Elephant. He wasn't "going postal".

The operation goes as planned. The lawyers, however, are not to be rushed by this course of events. They have their own plodding process. The town puts Lincoln back together again, fire damage and all, and prepares to frame some poor Negro as a cover story. Philip turns himself in rather than sacrifice yet another innocent bystander, which galvanizes the psychiatric community to take his case.

No one suggested he was a communist or shouted treason. There was no 700 Club to play the role of the KKK and/or Rush Limbaugh. He's a well-liked engineer who knows his job. For awhile he was like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, as they poked and prodded his psyche, looking for what made him tick.

They decided he was sane enough to go to prison though, not really a kook. He might have been a bit paranoid, sure -- or self-aggrandizing (too uppity) -- but then so was J. Edgar Hoover, and so was just about everyone else at the height of the Cold War (the "U2 incident" is not mentioned).

During his year or so in prison, Philip helped build new facilities (obviously with staff approval), bonds with fellow inmates, and becomes a yet wiser man. What a hero. Our Institute for Science, Engineering and Public Policy (ISEPP) should memorialize him in some appreciative way.

I'm on the board. I'll bring it up with our president.

In the meantime, this excellent and well-researched piece of storytelling was part of a benefit for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), for which I serve as Bridge City liaison and as an NPYM corporate rep (not a new gig for me, as former clerk of the LAAP program committee and editor of Asian-Pacific Issues News).

Several staff, members of the Executive Committee, and the Regional Director herself were all present. Eddy Crouch (EC) had done a masterful job of bringing us all together. My mom, Carol Urner, on the national board, was introduced after the play as one of the several VIPs present. Rick Seifert, currently serving as clerk of Multnomah Meeting, was also acknowledged for his early civil rights work.

The house was packed, almost every seat taken. Fortunately, Sonya Pinney managed to get in on standby. Bob Smith was there, and Annis Bleeke....

Annis said I "cleaned up well" until she took a closer look at my tie: a loud Bugs Bunny, from the USPO, my homage to my own childhood of privilege, with Marvin the Martian (also Post Office) my other option, MAD Magazine... I was also wearing a Holden Web badge on my lapel, subtle hype for Python Nation, where I serve on Diversity and edu-sig, advocating further integration within geekdom.

I like Charlotte-the-spider OK too though, though I sometimes confuse her farm with that other one in Animal Farm (another side of the American Nightmare, which it sometimes becomes).

I liked how the playwright, Susan Banyas, also the director and a star in the play, turned the legal battles into fashion shows. The top judges and lawyers appear as if on a Fashion Avenue runway, ala Bruno. The NAACP lawyers prove to be snappy dressers. No slouches in court. Social class is overcome by clothing and demeanor.

The wheels of justice turned bravely, and after the longest time, the Federal Circuit lost patience with Ohio's transparently resorting to gerrymandering (rezoning to control the demographics) to divide and conquer, a practice still rampant to this day, across all fifty states, and over many of the same issues i.e. a strong yet misguided belief in "class" and "race" as reputable concepts.

Banyas was also clear how simply forcing a mixing of ethnicities, inexperienced with integration, was not a short term enterprise. South Africa might have to integrate more successfully down the road, before North Americans could relax, given how apartheid anywhere breeds suspicion and hatred everywhere.

The saga is ongoing, with many more ethnicities to think about, more than fit on one hand, more than 195 (the current number of nation-states, a number that bumps up and down -- close to meaningless were it not for the UN and its Declaration of Human Rights).

Some of us stayed for a "talk back" with the troupe. Although I didn't pipe up, I thought the play reminiscent of the D.W. Jacobs play about Bucky Fuller, in its use of montage and sound track. The sets were less fancy, this being a lower budget production, but one could well imagine future productions with actual 1950s-looking TV screens, showing mug shots of historical figures, pictures of store fronts, excerpts from Mickey Mouse Club, perhaps with young Britney Spears.

Most encouraging was the news that Portland Public Schools would be happy to take this play on as a part of its curriculum. This wouldn't be the first play PPS had built in (as an 11-year veteran of the system, I've seen lots of good theater). I can certainly see the appeal. There's no physical violence in the play, although quite a bit is alluded to (the Civil War and the Indian Wars were both horrific and the memories are still haunting). People resolve their differences in good order in this play. Those most into hate speech fail to spark an angry mob.

The wheels of justice turn, albeit at a glacial and petty pace, from day to day. A courageous engineer serves his time. Important steps get taken without bloodshed. A Quakers even make an appearance, a supportive elders, reminiscing about underground railway work.

Alternatives to Violence were pursued, and Ohio ends up a happier state as a result. No wonder Oregon wants to share such a hopeful story.

We liked hosting Bishop Tutu as well. South Africa rocks, for having moved so far forward without cataclysm or apocalypse.

Onward Urners et al

// dead Youtube removed -- I dont' remember what it was. Dec 25, 2022

 

In family lore, we remember the death of Dr. Jack Urner, one of the world's great planners (Libya, Egypt, Philippines, Lesotho, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Portland). 

 

What's an Urner?

 

Mom (Carol Urner) was with him in the accident and survived. The other driver was killed as well. This was in the Republic of South Africa, on the highway from Maseru, Lesotho to Bloemfontaine, Orange Free State.

 

On the topic of planning, anticipating, thinking ahead, the idea of infrastructure parks still has applicability I suppose, but we're probably leaning more towards a cross between video arcades and flight simulator trainings. 

 

The computerized sim games have largely replaced the need to build the scale models. Militaries and paramilitaries use them, including as recruiting tools. So do zoo tycoons.

 

I used to write science fiction about a possible Caleb Gattegno park in Eugene that'd feature scale model trains, another Nowhere Man fantasy. I was learning about Gattegno from Dr. Benson (Stanford) at the time.

 

I've been checking out some of the truck simulators while reading up on truck routes across Asia. As peak oil becomes more dear, we will see emphasis on "more with less" strategies (e.g. load optimization).

The trucking world intersects both the "bizmo" world and Coffee Shops Network. The trucking lanes connect with rail, inland waterway and ocean shipping networks. Warehousing connects us to Supermarket Math. 

 

Trucking and trade routes are also associated with the spread of viruses (such as HIV) and memes (ideas). There's much to be learned from a multi-disciplinary study of over-land trade routes, although admittedly some of these routes are somewhat treacherous.

 

The ability to operate an eighteen-wheeler and/or warehouse forklift might come in handy as you develop your appreciation for operations and logistics in various work / study programs around the world.

Just because you're co-piloting a truck from Istanbul to the Ukraine doesn't mean you can't be earning credit with the Harvard Business School at the same time.

 

Micheal Sunanda swung by on his bicycle, a classic / vintage Eugene-based hippie yakking about as many conspiracy theories as will fit into one meeting, drawing from Alex Jones, Dick Icke, the Coast-to-Coast crowd. 

 

I briefly joined that circuit with MS for an Adventure in Radio Land that time. He has since moved on to television, appearing on Alex Ansari's cable show the other day.

 

What's Julie Urner been up to?

Reminiscing...

:: linus pauling center for peace... ::

Glenn and I walked Sarah-the-dog this morning. I'd been up late taking in more student videos (sometimes I lurk). We talked about the 911 thing quite a bit. That's not a discourse I'm trying to clamp down on somehow. I apologize to Jim Morrissett for seeming so impatient (a colleague from Centennial days in San Diego). Let those chips fall where they may.

I'd scrap booked about WTC quite a bit in my Jersey City days in the 1980s. I was unaware of Paul Laffoley's art back then and his future dream of a Gaudi-inspired hotel-cathedral of some kind, complete with some Thomas Edison Memorial Atrium.

One could imagine religious functions scattered throughout both towers, was my thinking at the time i.e. different religions could have their shrines, temples, other offices. Why should only bankers and lawyers get all the best views?

In today's terms, that'd mean having not just one mosque but maybe several, stacked up inside. Not exclusively of course. Nordic Lutherans could stake a claim, just like in Prairie Home Companion. These various religions all have their sects and denominations (like the Red Hats and Yellow Hats of Tantric fame).

This kind of more cosmopolitan multi-purpose zoning might be inspired by the Parliament of World Religions, although again, that world body was not on my radar at the time I was sketching these storyboards. Cape Town was still in my future, as was Bhutan.

Speaking of the Parliament of World Religions, I dropped a note to Nancy Irving today, wishing her well and following up on some of our interest group discussions. PWR and FWCC have no official relationship (I asked about that in the interest group) but that doesn't mean they can't read about each other sometimes.

Dunno if Nick made it to Bioneers this year. I was just writing about John Todd and the kind of New Alchemy Institute type stuff associated with the first J. Baldwin pillow domes (even before Cornwall's). Speaking of J. Baldwin of Bucky Works fame, I was glad to see Guy Inchbald's positive remarks regarding Sam Lanahan's new book. Guy is the author of the oft-cited Archimedean honeycombs paper.

LW is back on her feet, digging furiously in the Peace Garden. The Food not Lawns ideology is being more clearly expressed with each expenditure of sweat equity.

Nevertheless, she's not primed to lug 90 lbs of fresh produce up any hills, her stock in trade when running full steam working with Food Not Bombs. I've offered to do that myself like last week, I hope having learned my lesson about not lifting boxes the wrong way. I did finally manage to clear that drain by the way, using a plumbing snake (old and rusted).

RB asked me about some rumor about Google Earth being run by Evil Bert (picking up on a Science News meme?). I told the InQTel story again, not that I'm privy to all the details (duh), but there needed to be some bridging mechanism between those inwardly pointing space telescopes (those navel-gazing Hubble wannabes) -- otherwise known as Key Hole (KH-11 etc.) -- and the Google Earth developer network. The bridge wasn't specific to that one company though. Declassifying a satellite mosaic is an ongoing process per Bucky Fuller's Critical Path, and is also in the works for other planets (ala Google Mars).

Writing that stuff probably got me in the mood to tackle Woodward's new book (Obama's Wars), which mom has been scoping out at the local Powell's on Asylum Avenue. I headed up there with my laptop and had the biggest sized latte, going over some pages. WTF. Hard to make head or tail, but then I'm maybe rusty with my Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics. Some passages brought me back to Whittier, reading Plame's magnum opus and watching Charlie Wilson's War.

I may not be a hunk like Tom Hanks, but some adorable women were on the phone with me that Christmas (we drove both ways -- before the oil crunch). They've left me for other men by this time (not that either was "mine" to begin with), which reminds me of Good Shepherd.

Storyboarding Ecovillages

The way I've used the word "storyboard" over the years relates to science fiction writing. In movie-making, a storyboard gives some idea of the planned movie's flow in a comic book style, with the drawings suggesting some of the camera angles.

Individuals going through a vista or environment looking this way and that, might be considered "immersed" in that environment. A new kind of camera, such as those used to develop Google Street Views, takes in almost a full bubble of vista.

A corresponding projector might fill a 5/8 dome with simultaneous data. Viewers need to turn their own heads to take in aspects of the recorded scene. These vistas may likewise be simulated, generated from models, where the vista has no real existence.

Science fiction is less literally a projected rendition than a movie-maker's storyboard. A science fiction novel may provide no pictures at all, as the technology of reading is such that the reader's imagination serves as the immersive environment. One learns to project in the "mind's eye".

Pundits disagree on whether a culture of TV and movies has weakened the mind's eye. Seeing lots of movies gives one more raw material to draw upon, especially when it comes to vividly presented fantasy worlds, so the argument could be made that visualization powers are increasing.

Some point to rising global IQ in the spatial geometry sector, claiming the IQ tests have to renormalize by as much as 7% from one generation to the next, given humans seem to be getting smarter in some ways (yet the average is supposed to stay fixed at 100 regardless).

Others suggest that visualization skills may be improving, but the ability to simply read with comprehension is in decline as attention spans have shortened and more people turn to finished products, canned fantasies, rather than imagining their own worlds. This is also leading to more uniformity in thinking, as people internalize increasingly similar vistas from widely distributed films and DVDs.

The ecovillages in my science fiction are informed by Bucky Works, both a book and (I'd suggest) a genre. In this possible future, the aerospace know-how currently used to militarize and rain terror from the skies, is used to develop these humanly affordable "peaceable kingdoms" complete with horses (where appropriate) and electric ATVs.

But how do such ecosystems survive, if not depending on frequent visits by 18-wheelers loaded with imports? The designer's job requires "bioneering" (ala John Todd and others), such that village inputs and outputs are not unrealistic and therefore unrealizable.

What are the energy sources? Where does the food come from? What health care facilities do we find? What happens when people die of natural causes? Do any trucks at all visit the site? Do we have roads to the village? A rail road? Perhaps there's only an airstrip. What kinds of cargoes do airplanes bring? What medicines? What functions does the ecovillage perform? Rehab for those suffering from PTSD?

Once one gets into the nitty gritty of ecovillage design, there's a lot to consider. The capabilities of the aerospace dwelling machines needs to be factored into the equations, but if these don't yet exist... what might we realistically imagine? How much power do they require? Who has the prototypes? Will companies replace their cube farms with ecovillages? Might we find a call center in the Andes?

The world's militaries and paramilitaries already engage in these kinds of studies on a large scale. War planners often assume roads will be constructed or improved. They also assume helicopter access, with or without surface roads. Locally grown food, such as gardens, may be featured on some bases, however most corporate designers imagine food stuffs coming from outside providers, perhaps from the surrounding community (such as fresh fish in Vietnam). A lot depends on whether one assumes a friendly or hostile surroundings.

Some of my more recent writing looks at medications, their supply and distribution within a camp. Weaning people off medications is sometimes a treatment goal. Other ecovillages might be specifically designed for cancer patients undergoing chemo and radiation. One might design dome-shaped outer shells, transparent to full spectrum sunlight, and then have a mix of facilities inside, including clinics and food stores.

This genre of futurism is already somewhat established in the literature. I'm certainly not the only contributor. Bucky Works is a real book, by J. Baldwin.

Views of America

Roger Paget graced our small group of Wanderers this morning. He's an emeritus professor of Asian Studies and Political Economy at Lewis & Clark College. From his written preamble:

Most citizens do not have the dimmest notion of what capitalism means for good reason. Even secretaries of the treasury and lions of industry, banking, etc., intone the ritual precepts oblivious of their fundamental vacuity in the contemporary world.... what is conventionally billed as an economic theory is in actuality integrally wedded to political interests. [ hyperlink added ]

He had some dots to share, inviting us to connect them. The first had to do with his repeated visits to Indonesia over the years (he's fluent in Indonesian). The recent economic crash in Asia, which preceded the meltdown in North America, has resulted in Indonesia reconnecting to its own resources. The economies there are bouncing back, but not as a result of the international system. Bretton Woods era capitalism, post WW2 LAWCAP, appears to be over in many respects, but that doesn't mean everything's going down the tubes. 

On another front, one of his former classmates is now a multi-billionaire and is funding important initiatives having to do with internationalizing the educational experience of many North Americans. Yet this same classmate is unfamiliar with Federal programs designed to encourage similar outcomes (more cosmopolitan thinkers and doers). Roger is very aware of the mutual ignorance that keeps public and private sector initiatives and programs oblivious of one another.

 

A more cosmopolitan level of discourse would help America rock. Roger is a classic liberal in many ways (he drives a classic VW bus, lives in Portland for crying out loud), meaning he's imbued with a sense of a powerful semi-omni-aware state, his state (the United States).

 

Here in the early 21st century, he's what I'd call a prime representative of USA OS, or the USA style of governing (steering), by means of institutions with checks and balances (to prevent despotism and waste) and with lots of participation by the people for the people (at least in theory). 

 

In another story, Roger talked about his delivering way more than an average number of babies, including his own. I'd been musing about male midwives in chatting with Laura, so was pleased to have this thread joined. He got into a relationship with Mercy Corps, which wanted to help mothers learn how to breast feed. No, it's not all intuitive, helps to have guidance. However, by the time he got to the front lines, he was like the only guy in the room explaining this agenda. The technologists and gynecologists were learning the more coldly robotic western ways, of birth by Cesarean, followed by infant formulas. We can blame literally soulless Nestles marketing, or we can blame westernized grownups for broadcasting the messages they're willing to pay for, spreading those memes (those lifestyles).

 

Roger spoke especially knowledgeably and with admiration for the Comptroller General's office, an appointment of 15 years, the longest in the USG short of a Supreme Court justice. This officer oversees the Government Accounting Office (GAO), recently renamed the Office of Accountability. The theory here is an auditing office with lots of overview, and somewhat immune from short term political pressures, could point out obvious (and not so obvious) errors in the operating system's design.

 

He ended with a few pointed remarks about the Koch (pronounced "coke") brothers, recently featured in The New Yorker, as a way of bringing up the disproportionate influence of moneyed interests on the affairs of state. If academia fails to rally and defend a cosmopolitan center (liberal because open and diverse, not narrowing and controlling), then we may go off the deep end into another fanaticism, perhaps a despotic fascism. I took this to be the gist of his thesis.

 

I don't know if Roger is a member of our Wanderers discussion list. I don't think so or he'd have posted something by now. The preamble was forwarded by Don. Had he been on the list, he'd've known we've already been discussing the Koch brothers some. 

 

I've been making lots of links in my posted remarks to Edwin Black's books, which I'm plowing through, and which have everything to do with (a) fossil fuel addiction, and (b) a lingering classism linked to racism which seeks to defeat any kind of democratic system, Jeffersonian or otherwise. 

 

I reiterated these comments in the ensuing discussion, along with my standard identification of USA OS with a kind cyber-nationalism, a geek school of thought which tends to virtualize nationhood, such as by using Bucky Fuller's deliberately nationless world map, his "game board" for playing World Game. According to this view, the USA is powerful in proportion to the degree its design principles are evident anywhere in the world. 

 

Democracy grows with a people's self-organizing for self-determination and cannot be imposed from without (an oxymoron). We may learn from one another however, so it's not like every wheel needs to be reinvented. 

 

The civil rights movements, starting with Gandhi's resistance to imperialism, taught people a lot about how to be more effective, how the use "the force" (precession). Young people are especially keen to throw off any yoke of tyranny, as they have their whole lives ahead of them as the saying goes. Older people may have a next life to think about, and some are hoping to spend it right here.

 

Every generation hopes to steer a little closer to utopia (or God's Kingdom if you prefer such language), learning from mistakes of the past (or repeating them).

 

Given the USA's Forest Service is in Brazil, while the CDC is doing health work in Africa, and the FBI (supposedly domestic / internal) is investigating corruption in Afghanistan, it's obvious that national borders are becoming somewhat vestigial. Fuller saw this happening way back in 1983 (wrote a book about it), and got a Medal of Freedom shortly thereafter.

 

All we need next is a Chinese peace corps in Detroit, providing needed clinical services and urban farming skills to refugees from a dying political economy. Once people are helping out every which way, we'll have our more well-rounded "Cosmopolis," our one "global university" with a giant spherical campus (and a moon for an annex). 

 

Is this our Novus Ordo Seclorum then? Our Promised Land?

 

That depends on your virtual nation's and/or ideological perspective. 

 

If the planet really gets its act together and starts taking care of its students, then maybe we should call it Finlandia. In the meantime, it's more like the Wild West perhaps.

 

Roger has a deep soothing voice. I told Lindsey later that he sounds just like Noam Chomsky to my ears, even if what he's saying is different. That was a complement by the way, as I think Noam as an accomplished rhetorician.

 

Given how I'm prone to multi-task these days (part of what it means to be a geek), I had to take a short leave to chauffeur my daughter to Cleveland HS (went to "college night" tonight) after she missed the bus.

I also tapped tapped on my keyboard, self-promoting as a kind of "not mathematician" who is yet weighty as a Friend, a posting I later shared with the chairman of Python Nation as he's mentioned in passing (by title). We're expecting Steve back in Portland for GOSCON in a few weeks.

Willamette Quarterly, 2010

:: fall 2010 willamette quarterly @ mmm / unity ::

I've journaled about this event several times over the years. Last year I agitated to stage it here in Portland, at the meetinghouse, instead of trucking out to the Kiwanis Camp. The planning committee took up that idea, and so it came to be. We had over 109 people and brought in sufficient revenue to cover renting the Unity Church multi-purpose room and kitchen down the street, for meals.

I joined Nancy Irving's interest group. She was on vacation from her job in London as General Secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC), staying with the Abbotts. To the extent Quakers have a global office, this would be it. However, given it's a spirit-led faith without a credo, the central office is not expected to produce detailed statements regarding "what Quakers believe" that all faithful would sign on to. FWCC may know some of what's going on though, has some overview perspective.

[ In the meantime, Holly reportedly led a brilliant walking tour of nearby CSA sites (Community Supported Agriculture), an activity Lindsey had helped to organize (and would have led, if not for an illness). Larry joined this walk, and later showed me his new gizmo: a thin pocket sized access point, a wifi hotspot, through which his iTouch and laptop both connect to the Internet. Quakers are pretty up on this stuff. And wow Ron, congrats on losing 65 pounds! ]

As an example of sharing overview, Nancy talked about food insecurity in the Philippines, where the economic crash in the Middle East in 2008 resulted in many construction workers returning to the islands, with the resulting boom in housing construction wiping out enough cultivated land to create a deficit in rice production. Needing to import rice is a new phenomenon. In the meantime, there's an exodus of professionals with any kind of health care training, which contributes to poverty levels at home.

I did not attend Friday night's program on food issues (the theme of the quarterly). Instead, Patrick joined us on the back patio upon returning Tara from her babysitting duties. Lindsey, recuperating, joined us and we talked about food, the state of the world, social justice and all the rest of it.

I butted in a few times with some off the wall rants about how money isn't the problem, as Energy + Intelligence is pretty much all we've got. How does this relate to Geography + Geometry, my other unifying heuristic? I'm not sure we should get into that here. In the middle of our discussion, Simon showed up with a care package for Lindsey, lots of squash and kale, the kind of stuff she can eat.

Program Clerk Elizabeth Fischer and I went for a walk to get her photos at Walgreens. She didn't think food ethics had really percolated to the top of the interest group agenda. The recent April 2010 article on food issues in Friends Journal also seemed rather lame in her view (Applying Quaker Thought to Food by Shaun Chavis), with the author, who writes about food for a living, agonizing about whether he could live without lobster tails or pate foie gras.

There are those lobster tails again...

More permanent buildings are going up and some, already built by Afghans and deemed not good enough for American habitation, are scheduled for reconstruction. Even in distant FOBs like this one, the building boom is prodigious. There’s a big gym with the latest body-building equipment, and a morale-boosting center equipped with telephones and banks of computers connected to the Internet that are almost always in use. A 24/7 chow hall serves barbequed ribs, steak, and lobster tails, though everything is cooked beyond recognition by those underpaid laborers to whom this cuisine is utterly foreign. [source]

Welcome to the Global U, eh? The biggest educator on the block is the military, as I was pointing out on the Math Forum earlier.

People would ask me what I've been up to. Some had only vaguely heard about the Food Not Bombs group using the kitchen (a pet project of mine).

Those wanting more stories (true ones) got to hear about my ideas for GIS / GPS applied to trucking along various routes. Not everyone's cup of tea, I realize.

I forgot to bring along any Flextegrity but the guys in our Men's Group already know about that project, and some of the science fiction that goes with it (Project Earthala and like that).

Carol had a WILPF meeting downtown. Other friends, in the meantime, were busy downtown, protesting those FBI raids awhile back. Americans are nervous about their civil liberties going away.

Persecution of the undocumented ties in, as a kind of mean-spirited nationalism distracts people from developing positive futures, investing in workable plans. John Munson led a group on this topic, including references to AFSC's underground railroads.

I also talked to Gayle about my hopes for Havana, keeping it free from speculators who just want to recreate the casino culture of yore, bringing back organized crime and fast food.

The global university network might counter with some work / study programs that take advantage of the relatively unspoiled vista, giving students more opportunities to build on system architectures that reflect the ethics they study in philosophy classes.

That emerging vista may or may not include a Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory, with ties to Vermont and "hippie values" (such as open source) that have become incorporated as a part of The Grunch's legacy (my thanks to Laura for cluing me regarding The Hippie Museum in Tennessee).

A challenge here is to create branding opportunities sans the baggage of LAWCAP's antiquated notions of "corporate personhood" (aka Voodoo Economics). Land use planning based on GIS / GPS technologies is what future food security depends upon (satellites too!).

"Democracy" is not synonymous with "uncontrolled development", nor is "free enterprise". Lots of old timer capitalists believe in land use planning. Look at Disneyland: no KFC.

Nor need Mecca include any Christian churches.

The idea of a "theme park" transfers to both urban and rural settings. Like, why would Havana want to become a cheap carnival, given high literacy rates, refined tastes?

Back to Willamette Quarterly Meeting (WQM): I enjoyed connecting with Joe and Jane Snyder again.

Switchboard Activity

I've been posting up a storm on the Math Forum and need to provide some "supply chains" (links). I also posted something to Synergeo reiterating our thinking about the 7.5 volumed rhombic triacontahedron (what I've elsewhere dubbed the "NCLB polyhedron" -- regardless of volume).

I was up early for surprise chauffeur duty, for the global U student we're gladly hosting as a welcoming Quaker family. She's disciplined herself to not use her car (dubbed the "torture taxi") except for medical emergencies, and this was one of those times.

No health coverage, just an "average American" and a brilliant leader in my book, a brave and free spirit (yes, many people own those qualities, I recognize).

I've got the FNB trailer if you're out there reading this, and wonder where it is. I have limited contact information, as you might expect. I started an email thread with Satya and Cera, but they may be outta town.

As it turned out Satya and Cera were just recently back in town and Cera showed up at the meetinghouse to take charge of the cooking (she's an experienced cook, had just been serving as chef at a Zen retreat closer to the coast).

At the park, I experienced a small world moment as it turned out Satya used to live across the street from Alex, son of Aung San Suu Kyi and Micheal Aris, author of several books on Bhutan (where my parents used to live).

Lindsey is coordinating with Lew on the phone about that Quarterly Meeting interest group. Even if she can't lead it herself, the show must go on.

Equinox Retreat

Temperatures are dropping. Summer is done. The thermostat in the refrigerator conked out. I was lucky to find a repairman on a Saturday.

I read old Wiki pages by students in Israel, talking about elephants and whether they had a sixth sense that warned them of tsunamis (not that adding a "sense" really explains anything, might as well add a "dimension"). One of them wrote about Gaza. This was on Wikieducator and I was conversing about conserving elephants with Mr. Wong (a Wikieducator user) in China, saving elephants being a theme of his business school curriculum. I shared about the Global U recruiting campaign to get more people seeing themselves as global university students (giant spherical campus).

Walt has hooked me up with an interesting new correspondent, a deep thinker in Canada named Ted, Lakota heritage, who writes about site-based situational learning, versus a more western model based on cookie cutter jobs (template roles) and individual volition (as if "place" were not a causative field, as if only "the individual" were the locus for action). Walt and I had been yakking about the Zeitgeist... We've been talking about David Peat and Blackfoot Physics among other topics.

My post to Synergeo from earlier today (while the repairman was working, including out buying parts) includes more on the bamboo bike trailer delivery network from some hypothetical Unilever ice cream factory in Cuba. That company has been working pretty hard on getting more recycling and composting going, including in the Lipton tea making process.

The Synergeo post connects back to the Math Forum for more details. This is a Harvard Business School type project in that we're recasting metaphors to better align with modern computer science concepts. The API between an enterprise and government is up for redesign, given all the changes in Cuba these days. The population is highly literate and attuned to such challenges. The rest of the world could learn from work / study programs along these lines, perhaps without disrupting Havana's status as a "fast food free zone" (a commercial edge, attractive to tourism).

Trish joined Glenn, Don and I for some more Youtubes on the big screen for the 2nd night of the retreat. I was drawn to WW2 era Private SNAFU toons by the great Dr. Seuss. Laura Cooper (Goodbye Party) was again influential. We also watched that 7 minute Blu toon again, and listened to Leonard Cohen (Don is his fan), also Mad World. Trish pointed us the the sand painting artist Kseniya Simonova, as well as to her own toon-like drawings on Facebook, pictures of her handsome young son, and the amazing sidewalk art of Julian Beaver.

I was glad to hear back from John Belt, who dropped me a note while in the middle of teaching a class for SUNY / Oswego. Sam, Glenn and I were in a meeting at Bridgeport, connected in real time by wifi. John had recently been staying with Joe Clinton and had showed him Sam's book. Sam Lanahan and Joe collaborated over about a two year period in Elizabeth, New Jersey some decades back, both having been students of Buckminster Fuller at different times.

My writing to Ted, the Lakota guy, included a sketch of the bizmo concept, which has somewhat blended with the Holden Web flying circus idea at this point. Geeks and circuses go together, what can I say? What institutions would (or already do) sponsor bizmos? What control rooms would (or already do) dispatch them? I saw some plans for Afghanistan bizmos go by in Dr. Beebes slides, but when I asked about 'em she said they weren't there yet.