Wanderers 2011.06.29

:: Wanderers Talk, June 29, 2011 ::

Accelerating acceleration is evident, as usual, tip of the hat to Toffler. "The roller coaster is normal" seems a lot like Bucky's "rest speed is top speed". Bob McGown was there today, even gave me a check in appreciation. He appreciates the significance of the polyhedronists, of tensegrity, even of flextegrity (Sam joined us, and spoke at length after my talk).

Yes, this was my time in the sun, to focus on Minneapolis and environs. We had a 27 year veteran of that country, Connie Wynn, raised on the East Coast, who came to reflect on life in this great city, or Twin Cities as it's called, Minneapolis / St. Paul.

My presentation was non-linear, but pretty tight, as I'd hand-drawn two road maps on 8.5 x 11. I will photograph and upload these if they still exist. I wanted to weave a story and a fairly abstruse one, as befitting the topic: my visit to St. John's Abbey and University to visit with Father Magnus Wenninger and to contribute to the pool of shared video in appreciation of this marvelous man (not to mention an interesting busy campus). MVP David Koski was the producer and organizer of this event.

I brought along Barrel Tower, my Kenneth Snelson original. This got discussed and passed around quite a bit. Another name that get coming up: Popko. His book Geodesics had been a subject of discussion yesterday, in my meeting with Trevor and Tim. Tim actually came to this talk at Linus Pauling House, on really short notice. I was impressed, as we'd only just met.

Dondi, good friend of Trisha, also managed to make it, having sampled the retreat (the one I missed while in Minnesota). Don skipped the lunch a few of us attended, eager to move his boat from the usual moorings to the Blues Festival venue.

I pretended this was a road trip even though I was just blocks from my house. I lugged my own sound system and projector, as well as a big chunk of Flextegrity (without pre-arrangement). As a road show, I imagine myself as a part of an "away team" more than as some solo standup (I mostly sat, controlling the laptop).

The video and slides went over well I thought.

I played up the interesting features of campus architecture, including the Foucault Pendulum in the science building. Bob McGown said something about it taking 33 hours to go around at this latitude. David Tver chimed in about vibrational fields in the Sun, independent of its swift period of rotation. The Sun, unlike Jupiter, unlike Earth, is not oblate and there's a reason for that.

Anna of Thunderbird Charter, still influential as a drawing board construct (Alaska), is making her way from Seattle for another meetup, having just attended the Charter Schools Conference in Atlanta. She's another Internet collaborator (in the sense of fellow traveler) who found me through math-teach, a Forum I frequent. We tend to take a more open ended futuristic position vis-a-vis our more conservative posters, though I have to admit that's a gross oversimplification of all that goes on in those sometimes tempestuously snappy threads.

During lunch (Steve Mastin, David DiNucci, Glenn Stockton and myself), I was eyeballing the CNN screen, showing embedded camera action amidst the kinetic warfare in the human terrain systems, showing ongoing riots in Greece (thinking of Nirel's report), in Egypt. David shared the story of his brother, maker of famous DiNucci bike frames, and of his sister, one-time winner of top-level Jeopardy and a significant sum. A talented family.

Afterwards, I joined Glenn for some archaeological studies thanks again to our neighborhood Dollar Scholar. The Etruscan ink well, etched with the Phoenician alphabet, was an especially good find. Glenn regaled me with stories (as Dawn would say) of the relatively high status of Etruscan women, meaning they were allowed to carouse with the guys and weren't expected to only go outside wearing sacks (from whence derives Saks Fifth Avenue, just kidding of course).

Steve Holden was telling me that Ann Sang Su Kyi was giving the BBC Reith Lecture this year. I need to check into that next, after captioning more Photostream. I shot a few from the head of the table, where I was positioned as speaker.

I walked back to Pauling House after hauling my stuff home in the company car (just a few blocks). First though, I got involved in a car chase, nothing over the speed limit. Accelerating acceleration.

Solstice Wanderers

The balance of our evening was devoted to learning from Allen Taylor about The Mad Scientist, a work in progress by his talented sons, and still raising funds. This kickstart site is pretty interesting.

This is the prequel to their Evil Cult, which I saw in a movie theater in downtown Portland years ago.

Craigmore Creations has done a splendid job redecorating the interior of the Linus Pauling House. Any signs of ISEPP are now gone or more subtle. Julian's sculpture is still outside.

I'm glad I still have the Photostream set, preserving a bygone era.

I'm at OS Bridge at the moment, official nametag and everything, in my usual role of "geek about town" (no cane or top hat this time, trying to shed any lingering Mr. Toad imagery for more Pythonic fashions).

The talk I attended today was all about making maps, lots of influence from Tufte. Yes, back to the ESRI world, with a strong plug for GeoDjango, even though the speaker was more of the Rubyesque persuasion.

Cartographers use different standardized spherioids, with a datum to anchor them. Geodetics help align the data as well. This is all the omnitriangulating Fuller was talking about in Critical Path, still ongoing. I grabbed a DVD on my way out the door, after asking about open source licensing.

The math of geodesy could easily plow a digital math track right back through K-12. The "tentacles" would emanate from this geekdom of "world masters" (those who've done a lot of homework on themselves). Sounds romantic. Octopus's Garden.

Visiting a Geometer Priest

:: visiting Father Magnus Wenninger ::

David Koski had visited Magnus before, as St. John's Abbey is only about 1.5 hours from Minneapolis where he lives and, in our little world of polyhedrons, he's a super star. He wanted me to share this experience and graciously hosted my visit to Minneapolis so I might do so.

David was especially concerned that Father Wenninger's life was not well-documented enough and wanted us to explore making a documentary of some kind. As it turned out, at least one short biographical DVD has been produced. He's also one of the most cited authors in polyhedral geometry books.

Magnus received us in the Great Hall, formerly the main church on this campus, before an architect named Breuer changed everything.

Magnus has been connected to this place since his young adulthood and perhaps even his teen years, having trained here for the priesthood from a young age. His mother had suggested he become a priest, and he was ordained in the 1940s.

He later went to Canada for more training in mathematics (as it turned out) and then to Columbia University for a masters in mathematics teaching. He was assigned to the Bahamas by his abbot and spent many years in the monastery and high school there. He later returned to St. John's and has been there ever since. He is now 91 years old.

Magnus took us to his quarters. He navigates stairs rather easily. We got a campus tour, taking in the library, which is due to expand, and seeing the patch of grass where perhaps, if sufficient funds are raised, a bronze version of Order in Chaos, one of his sculptures, will be rendered in an 11 foot high version. It's made from multiple copies of three pieces. We visited the brass version (smaller) in the monastery recreation room, down the hall from the cafeteria (where we ate lunch together).

Another high point was touring the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, which is exhibiting a newly completed St. John's Bible, hand lettered and illustrated by a creative team headed by Donald Jackson.

St. Joseph University and Abbey is quite a headquarters, in a beautiful setting overlooking some lakes.

Father Magnus is cheerful and is relaxed about sharing about his spiritual leadings, thoughts on divinity, on life, on death, on life after death. We joined him for the mid day worship service, where a congregation of visitors and monks went through a programmed liturgy. I sat next to Father Wenninger who guided me in which hymnals and prayer books to pull out, and how to use them properly.

A high point for David was finding a certain pattern of triangles tiled into the floor of the science building that is used to generate the 59 stellations of the icosahedron. He had just been using that pattern the night before to show me how he quickly develops stellates in vZome. Finding it on the floor, with Magnus our guide, felt very "Da Vinci Code".

A highpoint for me was looking at the book called Divided Spheres, as yet unpublished, but ready to be. The bibliography is extensive and I was able to find my name in it. My friend Kenneth Snelson wrote a blurb on the back. The tome also talks quite a bit about Waterman polyhedrons, which I named for Steve Waterman, their conceiver.

Systems Science (PSU)

Captain's Log...

I'm here at the meetinghouse with two of the striking women of Food Not Bombs, Lindsey still on the way.

The trick is to not get tricked into taking trash, yet it's a fine line and sometimes it's OK to err on the side of caution. The Village Building Convergence was a source this week. The board is always lighting up.

"Just in time" inventory means no, we don't want a truck load of Dave's Killer Bread (which we all like), but we'd love it if one of our cyclists (say Cedar) made it her mission to routinely share some excess already given to charity (not every NGO can use everything it gets and swapping around may sound like "socialism" but it's what Americans do at swap meets of all shapes and sizes). "Just bring it to the park" is what I posted to the archives.

I see FNB / Orlando is having trouble. I'd think all those NASA engineers working for the Mouse would be more like us here in Intel country. Optimization of excess food streams is a diabolically difficult problem, city-centric and endemic. To have the elemental solutions, with people willing to pony up and volunteer, is what any healthy city would encourage I'd think. We sure do in Portland. I'm glad Fallon is coming back to Portlandia (she did some of the videography regarding our ethnicity for a college project, before moving to Mexico).

What's somewhat amazing to me is PSU's systems science department doesn't do more with such ethnography. Maybe absorption into the Urban Studies department, School of Government, will bring more focus to the systems aspect of architecture. It's all about resource flows and optimization, time as well as energy.

Techno-Invective Reloaded

EJA saddled me with inventor status versus this "art form" as he called it, which is similar to what Quakers call ranting, but about highly esoteric subjects in rather technical ways. You can call it polemics, but then the content tends to be rather dry. Imagine a shouting match between engineers over SQL schemas, or a steamy sex scene: either way, the "EQ" seems out of proportion to the "IQ" (or something like that).

Rather than practice literary criticism on my own art, frowned upon in some circles as "self indulgent", let me conclude by linking to another recent example. This stuff is highly polished, a result of working in a domain, hammering away. Role models might be underground comics writers, some of the shock jocks, and certain comedians when it comes to doing it live. Tends to be somewhat funny in other words. Sounding off about nothing, but in ways that may leave an impression. Others will be less charitable I'm sure.

Fuller Schoolers

Two of our celebrities, as featured in our growing archive of free on-line courseware (Global U).

Victor (above) is one of the main videographers in our tribe.

Joe Clinton has been a stalwart and irrepressible explorer, collaborating with many individuals.

Amy isn't talking about Synergetics here, but gives a sense of what she's like.

Re: Paulings on OPB (Wanderers List)

Thank you very much Lynn.

It is my fond hope to be able to share that with family members. We don't subscribe to television services at this time.

I saw it myself on a big bright HDTV and thought it was well crafted and packed with interesting facts.

They did a good job recreating the chem lab in the basement.

So that was a rooming house run by his mother then? I could see where having all those rooms would come in useful.

The show emphasized the importance of diet and nutrition in some of his own chapters, helped us see why orthomolecular medicine would be a lifelong focus.

But then we all have a body (yeah I know I know, speak for myself), so the real question is why aren't we *all* more into it like he was?

He comes off like the smart guy in the room, that's for sure, with a partner who recognized his talent (and vice versa).

Kirby

- Hide quoted text -

On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 10:30 PM, Lynne Taylor <lynne@laurelwoodart.com> wrote:

I have taped it on a DVD for those of you who missed it.

Lynne M. Taylor
Laurelwood Art
(503) 985-7374 (503) 317-4003 (503) 985-8765
www.laurelwoodart.com
art@laurelwoodart.com (for art business)
Lynne@laurelwoodart.com (for personal mail)

A Gathering for Bill

:: celebrating bill sheppard ::

Yakking on Facebook

I was anticipating Donald Trump's withdrawal from the race shortly before I caught up with the story.

His reasons were different of course, but I think siding with the "birthers" against the first native son of Hawaii to become president, just reminded everyone of the tricky sick stuff people do around legal documents.

If you've been on the receiving end, you know how they show up with a "title" to your ancestral lands, and "prove" that it's theirs. This used to be called the Doctrine of Discovery, though of course it's nothing more than naked imperial aggression, as practiced by any number of empires, including the Vatican's, with its Emperor-Popes.

I can see where politicos are on the defensive these days, about holding on to Hawaii. North Americans of Anglo-European heritage have no natural right to these islands and their dissing of a native son president by seditious Lower48 low life just reinforces that obvious fact. "Why submit to such obvious inferiors?" There's no good answer to that question.

However, rather than simply drop out of the union, I think calling any income from Feds "reparations" on the books (in the history books) will go a long way towards leveling the playing field. Empires finally paying their bills looks like an end to their vicious tyranny. Lets get on with the reckoning.

Philosophy Talk

I've repaired to TaborSpace for the weekly Wittgenstein Study Circle.

Some may think I'm a naughty geek for embracing some brands of quasi-nonsense as pertinent to philosophers. Many had hoped to be free of nonsense, meaning say Heidegger, thanks to logical positivism.

Wittgenstein was to be one of their heroes when, Krishnamurti-like, he turned his back on his following, or at least dispelled notions of his being heir to some crown of the crowd pleasers. He had too much integrity for that.

Aris kindly lent me Sex At Dawn, borrowed through Satya and making the rounds among Portlandia's cogniscenti. I've been writing a lot about anthropology and ethnography lately, ever since our previous meetup, where one of our guests was an anthropologist (this was prior to Dr. Sonnenfeld & son), and on through the C3 event at Reed, which has continued to have repercussions.

Wanderers happened this morning and a lot of it was animist talk, music to my ears in some ways. Trisha spoke of her hummingbird problem, while I regaled people with stories of rats.

On Monday night, Tara and I were pleased to show up at the Bolton residence on invitation from Maureen, to celebrate Dr. Charles Bolton's 90th birthday. Actually, his birthday isn't until December, but this was an opportunity to get together with Erin again. Erin is the son of Maureen and a talented architect, Harold Long. This is a family I've watched evolve since returning to Portland in 1985.

Erin spends a lot of time teaching scuba, putting students at their ease in some of the still destination worthy parts of western Thailand. We shared lore about that part of the world quite a bit, extending into stories about Burma, where some of us had been. We had to leave early because Tara is studying a lot and I have a full plate of work.

Anyway, I've been a naughty geek in not seeing this brave new cyberspace as somehow by default a product of analytic philosophy. Some of their champions take too much for granted I'm thinking, and convey that sense in some of my posting.

Now I'm attending a webinar, organized by Maria Droujkova and hosted by Gizem Karaali (Pomona College) and Mark Huber (Claremont McKenna College). I'm wearing my hat as an OST curriculum writer these days. I was showing Alex the ASCII art version of the Mandelbrot Set we've developed, a pedagogical device taking advantage of Python's expressiveness.

Wanderers 2011.04.26

:: Peter Donovan ::

Looking back three days later: I'd "raced" (who with?) to Pauling House on reminder from Don, from the park where we serve, to the lap of Mt. Tabor. I hadn't remembered we had an invited speaker, from Eastern Oregon, from even beyond the high desert where Sam & Judy take care of Judy's mom (of Unity church, a New Thought manifestation of the American Transcendentalist variety).

But I wander.

Peter Donovan is what you might call a "deep ecologist" although that sounds a bit too ten-years-ago (or was it twenty?). His concern for the Earth is evident. Someone told me later he has a lot of background in the shepherding, in Hell's Canyon or one of those. Which brings me to Bill Sheppard (means "sheep killer" more like a wolf), whom many of us are visiting these days. I included Nirel in the huddle via Skype, used in IM mode (what a lot of users do, same at work).

He talked about the whole carbon cycle and went through a lot of classic experiments tying it together: where carbon comes from and where it goes. The net loss of coal to the Earth has changed the atmospheric mix and it's clearly getting hotter, humans or no humans. Lots of fires, many of them deliberate. Stewart Brand worries about the Venus future, if humans don't take self organization to a next level. And clearly humans do effect the climate in the plastics department, if we admit that climates have such a thing as plastic. The word "biosphere" was in many ways more prescient, as humans clearly are affecting that. Our presenter spent some time praising the Russian who came up with it, has had Margulis on one of her visits. It all comes down to coal and nukes and oil and solar and wind and rain. There's a vast Phase Rule computation going on, with degrees of freedom, pressure, temperature, all viscerally accessible. It's not like planetary changes can't mess with your head.

My question was about glaciation and what he felt about the remineralizing role the glaciers might have, and of returning the Earth to cold storage, after another age had burned through its metabolite and made a junkyard of the place. He seemed to agree it came down to soil richness as so critical to the equation. If we want to prolong the life of metabolite, we should maybe not worry if lots of pavement returns to grassland, simply as a natural process. The homeostatic tendency is a real one and there's no reason every mile of paved road needs to be preserved as vital infrastructure, let alone parking lot. Major ecosystems of the future will include abandoned industrial sites as much as they include sunken wrecks of seagoing vessels, many of WW2 vintage. Suburban subdivisions have their various trajectories, as campus facilities, co-housing cube farms (study studios) and whatever. People will still find ways to make use of them.

We talked a lot about those fires, those hectares of jungle sacrificed to a few seasons of growing, then grazing of scrawny beef, turning pharmacopias into carnage for the fast foodies. North Americans took the same route and denuded vast tracts, some still under cultivation, though heavily dependent on fertilizers.

The FNB crowd tends to be seriously vegan, and athletic. I kid you not when I mention a triathelete in training, who comes to us for his calories and proteins. Fresh organic produce direct from the Earth is hard to beat and Friends have a pretty nice kitchen, although that St. David of Wales one is quite a bit bigger (as is the congregation).

Our Wittgenstein Study Circle met at Lyrik next time, a variation on the theme (of a Coffee Shops Network). I became the proud tender of a larger flock of tomes by or about Ludwig Wittgenstein, to be corralled on the Time Capsule (our art deco hemicylindrical book case in the foyer). Alex enjoyed getting to meet Keiko. I showed him my corner office.

The Horse's Mouth (movie review)

The art of movie watching has changed since the advent of the DVD and its random access through a front end menu. This one goes to the original opener, Daybreak Express, a random "documentary" set to a Duke Ellington piece that is truly a great work of art.

Horse's Mouth is the filmic world making fun of the static frame oil painter's, in some degree. The movie's director is likewise teaching his art ("the sculpture is so big, it's out of frame") in the longish interview. You'll want to see that, and the documentary on the documentary (Daybreak Express), so get the DVD.

As fluke would have it, I'd gone to Movie Madness for this DVD, only to find it checked out. Since I was in the Alec Guinness section (they file by actor quite a bit, as well as by director and genre), I settled for Hitler's Last 10 Days. In some ways, I couldn't have picked a better pre-quel (in historical terms), as here was a frustrated artist, Adolph, who would have been so benign as this later bass voice fulminator, same guy in a lot of ways. I'm remembering how Aguirre became that "rubber baron" in Fitzcarraldo, a later lifetime. If only these guys could have waited?

Another thing to see on the DVD is the original trailer. How did they tease their audiences in 1958? The film world, inheriting from vaudeville and penny alley, was titillating the neo-Victorians. There's a nude, from the back. Maybe if I pay my tuppence, they'll turn that camera around. Those gutsy artists, with all their angst. Alec Guinness sure knows how to play 'em.

The poignant story is about the youngest most earnest actor in the film, paying tribute to Alec Guinness as the "artist wannabe", only to die of a sudden illness before the movie was done shooting, and needing to recruit a voice to finish the dubbing. Like I said, you'll want the DVD version.

Yes, the fulminating Hilter character couldn't help but connect me to the carousing introvert in that stage play movie about Nixon, again on DVD. That's only to praise the acting. It's hard to really "be" these "responsible" men (and women).

The world of actors and directors, promising new talents, only partially overlaps the world of painters. They grab a "big tubes" guy off the street, on advice from Kenneth Clark, and he goes nuts with the canvases, knowing his art will live on, as that of a fictional character's, by some talented novelist. Holy smoke, what an opportunity. But to have to commit to that wall, that the filmmakers had intended from the beginning would be knocked down (five cameras, from every angle)... he understandably had a hard time with that. The world of transient media, committing to film: it's like jumping out of an airplane (one gets attached to one's creatures).

The director does a long riff on his "God's light" theory of illumination. Too many light sources, and you've doomed your look and feel. How intriguing, to hear from these pros. Our world's intersect, partially overlap, almost touch.

Just Use It

From an ad campaign I've been orchestrating:

Multitasking Again

Buzz is updating me on FB re the DL on the standoff between rivals in Tibet (virtual nation).

Google is reminding me it's about to pull the plug on any video content I've hosted on Google Video, news to me. Lots of downloading and uploading (to Youtube). My critic is hot on my trail.

A discussion of Free Will on the Wittgenstein list probably seems like a waste of time, but I'm busy fleshing out this post-PIC memeplex that's meta to same (PIC = prison-industrial complex, as some call it).

The local temple, Pauling House block, is doing as service, as is Santo Daime, both today. Then there's the play at the school. However, I'm feeling deadline pressures so can't pull away from the desk job right now. HB2U AA.

Too crowded for me though (the temple). I told the two I was coming in with that I didn't want to add to the discomfort if the concert was already packed, which it was. I got a few shots of the perimeter and headed over to the Bagdad for Unknown.

Carol is in Boston. Tara's aunties took her out for breakfast and shopping today, for the next debate contest. Other members of the household are on their respective and concurrent tracks. Time slithers on.

PPUG 2011.04.12

PPUG = Python Portland User Group. I took the bus, having a Workingman's Red at Bagdad as I awaited the 14, transferred to 9 at 6th and Main.

I was pulled towards the Pauling House as well, as Duane Ray was going through telescope lore, Bob McGown in attendance (he'd been to like half of them). I almost skipped boarding.

The chairman, Steve, and I texted to and fro, while in transit, stuff about various keys, given Open Bastion (west) is a part of the same complex as Glenn frequents, in terms of living quarters (or chambers, as one might have in some dorms).

PPUG was great once I got there, certainly worth making. I'd invited at least one PSU Systems person. The place was packed, almost every chair occupied.

I got to read in Infinite Jest along the way, and the guy who sat next to me at the meeting was like "Is that your first time through?". I'm going like "Finnegans Wake" at which point the old guy in front of me swings around, wants to see it. I tell him "this is different".

Then the same guy with the laptop starts pulling up Parthenon pix while multi-tasking, doing slides about concurrent queues. That gets me to go off at the end of the talks, asking if he knew of the Parthenon Code (like Da Vinci's but completely different) and did he know how the Python fit in? You see, as a PSF member, I'm known to pipe up with this Cult of Athena biz from time to time. I've been designing a philosophy and biz model on this basis. Turns out he's with Parthenon Software.

Adam Lowry knocked out a couple modules from standard library, the traceback module, which will do more for debugging when exceptions get raised, and the cgitb module for pretty printing such output, making it be all HTMLy. Of course the frameworks usually supply their own better runtime messaging.

Then Chris Pitzer compared Python to Javascript, with each interactive in a split screen presentation, using customized tools in both cases. A tour de force, and at a pretty deep philosophical level. JavaScript seems somewhat alien to Pythonistas, in its use of the new keyword to bless a function, turn it into an object of some kind.

Finally, Michelle Rowley did a superb presentation on how to give presentations, with lots of credit to Moshe Z. She practiced as she preached, completely meta to her talk, and therefore present in her fearless if nervous way that inspires. I bet we'll have no shortage of talks for a long time to come, provided we don't get diverted into some calamitous situation like has overtaken Japan.

I bussed back to 97214, texting old contacts from my cell while awaiting the 4, deleting some. Those Wanderers I caught up with had clearly been inspired by the telescope lore. Having taught Python at the Space Telescope Science Institute, I could see where I'd feel pulled to both events, like by gravity's rainbow.

Richard Stallman at PSU

For those who don't know their philosophy, Richard Stallman is one of our premier pragmatist - ethicists. His training in logic revolved around LISP, one of the more sophisticated executable notations. His work in that brought us Emacs, much as Bill Joy's research brought us vi, later updated to vim by Bram Moolenaar.

At the end of his talk (I've caught it before), Richard likes to pause, walk over to his bag of tricks, and pull out a robe and a halo. He transforms into St. I-GNU-sius and starts spouting all kinds of offensive mock-religion, Subgenius style. This tends to disarm those who decry his wearing some holier-than-thou halo, as clearly he makes no bones about doing so.

Stallman's rap is well-structured in an Hegelian trope, with Logic on the one hand, History on the other. The thesis - antithesis pair is unfree versus free software. Their fusion is an unholy alliance that colors the chronology (history).

Those wanting (and defending) liberty above mere convenience make a point of not using those portions of the Linux code that masquerade as part of an "open source" kernel, but are no more than slapped-in binaries, mostly support for higher end video cards, wherein the competition is cut throat and trade secrets are jealously guarded.

Such competitive environments tend to challenge the "love thy enemies" approach of sharing source with all comers. The proprietarily minded are simply among the most selfishly misguided, and so are in special need of liberal arts alchemy (new world geekery). SAAS and Apple both get special treatment, along with DRM (all tools of Idiocracy).

He then went on to spell out the four freedoms in detail and why each one mattered, and what the symptoms might be, were each one curtailed.

There's the freedom to run the software only when and if you wish, the freedom to share it with others unmodified, the freedom to modify it as you please, and the freedom (option) to help others by republishing the altered code.

Seeing through the eyes of a debater / judge, I could see that Stallman has reached a well fortified position. I've been circling his name in our Wittgenstein Study Circle, as one of the greats of our age.

Without GNU, there'd have been no free C compiler and the Linux kernel (named for Mr. Torvalds, as Stallman calls him) would have been a long time coming. GNU helped connect all the dots and sparked a revolution in computer engineering that still baffles many classical economists.

Second tier (academic) philosophers, self-marginalized from today's core cultural conversations, have had relatively little to say on this revolution or its implications. Their reluctance and/or ignorance and/or timidity has left universities semi-rudderless when it comes to answering student questions about the ethical integrity of their own computing practices.

Why do universities use closed source software to manage their own internal affairs? You would think they'd be more interested in walking their talk, plus giving faculty and students more insight and control over their own code. Does PSU eat its own dog food, or lazily piggy-back on Banner like everyone else (we know the answer, but why not form that consortium we've been talking about?).

Stallman brought a toy Gnu to the podium, maybe from Finnegans, probably cost him like $8.99. He auctioned it off for a cool $450. He was also able to control the room's temperature (a tribal center built for just such convenings of tribal elders) simply by flapping his arms and uttering friendly directives. The man still has both power and charisma and philosophy has been lucky to have him (computer science too).

I sat with students in the Systems department, whom I've befriended (John is the architect, introduced to me by Dr. Consoletti).

The Beat Goes On

The local media have switched to disaster relief as the number one topic, knowing well we're not good at it. Katrina, Rita, the earlier tsunami, the floods in Pakistan, earthquakes in Italy, China, Chile, New Zealand... and now the big one in Japan, complete with out-of-control nukes.

Portlanders have realized they've stashed almost all their emergency vehicles on the east side, so if only one bridge remains, which is optimistic, they'll be OK. Of course emergency vehicles may not be apropos in unnavigable rubble.

Whereas national guards and emergency agencies need to be training, forecasting, planning, which includes deploying in "away teams" to share the work elsewhere, gaining valuable experience, the resources are caught up in nefarious "war games gone wild" where the species deploys its least-competent-to-cope technology: killingry.

When you're at the end of your rope, you resort to extreme measures and here we are, suffering big disasters, and our younger generation is already deployed, doing other things for Iron Mountain. They were pretty easy to recruit they tell me. So what else is new.

So many of these skills are transferable to civilian scenarios, which is why converting those military bases into girl (and boy) scout training camps makes so much sense, although not every circumstance is well simulated in the tropics. A "freezer building" might help, a place to acclimate before deploying to Oklahoma some winter.

Lindsey's lyrics have veered into dark allusions to this species incapability. We find it hard to look at ourselves in the mirror sometimes, and art helps us do that.

In other news, PyDev 2.0 for Eclipse is out. We've been tracking this, given its importance at work. I sent around some memos just prior, reminding readers of what we had learned during the last staff meeting, people flying in from Illinois, Oregon, St. Louis.

Systems Studies in Portland

Akbar Version

Originally uploaded by thekirbster.

My thanks to John Driscoll and Glenn Stockton for helping me get back in the groove.

Inside Job (movie review)

I went into this movie already biased in advance to sound critical if it didn't focus enough on what I thought was the problem: any number of obese and/or sleek Americans crowded into hotel ballrooms listening to the self appointed real estate mavens yak up the lifestyle of buying and flipping for no money down.

All kinds of cable TV about it, just buy the tapes. It was a craze, sweeping the culture. I was there, and remember.

Yes, a Ponzi scheme of vast proportions, but one in which Mr. and Mrs. SUV-owning American were happily complicit, while goofball presidents went on their golfing and bombing sprees, a little bowling, always the LAWCAP dupe and/or puppet (sorry, insider jargon). So New York figured out a way to feed the greed. What else do you do with your uncontrolled brats? Reason with them? Good luck with that.

The film devotes all of about 8 seconds total to a quick shot of such a hotel ballroom (or was that a megachurch?). The people jump up and down like maniacs, enthused by their prospects in real estate. Yes, it was crazy time. But it was also "grass roots", like the dot com boom.

Then it interviews a tearful bottom-of-the-Ponzi evictee on the wrong end of a predatory loan.

Nowhere in the middle are the armies of mortgage brokers caught up in the frenzy of get rich quick, with these mythical lifestyles on Wall Street trucked out like so much celebrity pizzazz, with large-to-middle-sized gym-going Americans not-so-secretly resentful and jealous, trying to clamber and claw their way to the top of the heap.

Is this anything more than Hollywood getting back at a rival here? Is that why the Academy Award?

OK, now that I've gotten that out of my system, I found this an educational video, like one from Khan Academy about liquidation and refinancing of moribund zombie corporations. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Like Waiting for Superman, it paints this idyllic never-never-land of some recent past of financial security, just after nuclear and other holocausts and just before the lights went on around the world and other people decided to make cars as well.

Was that back when most people couldn't get loans of any kind, or go to college? Did women yet have the right to vote?

Yes, there was a period of sustained growth in North America, after much of Europe, as well as Japan, had been bombed and burned to smithereens. Is that all because people were more honest back then, or just more hard working?

That old canard about "shipping jobs overseas" is a little bit shop worn by now. Workers of the world unite already. This campus is yours. Don't forget to study hard and know thy enemy and/or thyself (if there's a difference).

But instead of more responsible analysis, it's a blame game again, with this broad brush Puritanical streak, this zealous going after of the medical records and addictions of these bully boyz 'n girlz on Vice Street, pursuing happiness in ways other mags market as "glamorous".

Hey, here's an idea, lets all fight a moral crusade against hormones. Doesn't work.

When the camera zooms in on the high heals of some supposed hooker wearing Prada or whatever it is, I fail to choke up with righteous outrage, like some swaggering Jimmy Swaggart on steroids. The sex industry may be ruthless and cruel, but neither was it born yesterday.

I'm against Prohibition, remember, think a lot of organized crime is nothing more than "good people" being hypocritical and moralistically unrealistic about human nature. The high incarceration rate is an index of cultural immaturity (imagine China without the martial arts).

Some maybe think it's "not Quakerly" to make room for Portlandia's TV-MA "party on" attitude. On the contrary, I'd call it "plain speech" (though it's also Asian in flavor).

To take another example, the narrator's voice goes a pitch higher in outrage because Credit Suisse doesn't grovel and obey some Uncle Sam edict that Iran's money must not to be laundered, and that its real and true energy needs must not be met by a domestic uranium enrichment program.

OK, tough call, as certainly the Americans betrayed our trust on that score (sorry Einstein), but it's at least an item of controversy. Why should we buy the narrator's "mind already made up" point of view? What does this know-it-all know about Iran that we don't?

And that's what a lot of the interviewees are quietly asking, in their evasive answers: what did you expect? What planet are you on? France? Tell me about it.

OK, I'm raving again. Hey, I admit it, I got angry. This very rude old lady behind me thought nothing of yakking on her cell phone when the feature had already begun. The story line was complicated and I wanted to concentrate, didn't see why I had to put up with her rudeness -- but I kept my mouth shut.

More than that, I agreed with the movie's analysis that Economics, as a discipline, lacks professional ethics, but so what? People have been saying that for years and hey, it's not the only discipline that goes un-policed (unregulated), given ethics has gone out the window in an anemic philosophy department. I'm the GST guy remember, offering a competing invisible hand.

And yet, despite the bankruptcy of the curriculum, people keep lining up around the block to give their life savings to colleges and universities, so junior might become a fancy pants on Wall Street or whatever the hell, with the Smedley Butler's of this world (a decorated Marine) expected to give their lives for free markets. Go figure. Hypocrisy strikes again.

The way everything got framed within the parable of Iceland was actually pretty brilliant, as was the analysis of conflicts of interest among academics. These sell-your-soul professors trade on their academic reputations by writing puff pieces for money. Their wallets get fat as their thinking becomes thin. Yet the filmmaker inconsistently berates these people for resigning when they're needed by their country. Make up your mind: did you want them running things (at least keeping up appearances), or not running things?

The parallel with corruption in the sciences gets made (by the interviewer) but seemingly without the same realization: that professional ethics aren't especially better there either. Scientists need funding and puff science is more the rule than the exception, where twisting arms in Congress is concerned. Junk science, like junk bonds, is big business.

The thing about ancient Rome was the hoi polloi wanted bread and circuses, had a somewhat insatiable appetite for same. You could have an emperor like Marcus Aurelius (played by Obama, say), introspective and contemplative, and yet it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference in the hinterlands, where the imperial legions were manifesting their "manifest destiny" (to rule the world), and still do to this day as Americans Gone Wild (in a theater near you).

How do you tell them the war is over? Maybe that's where this Youtube comes in?

Reviewing Pi Day

Followup writing:

Pi Day Ideas (Math Forum)

Useful Speech

Related writing:
Posting to math-teach @ Math Forum, 11 April 2011

Pycon 2011

Using Python in Education? Contribute to our brochure!

Tomorrow is Pi Day!

Adventures in Philadelphia

Twas my good fortune to join with the Ben Franklin Thinking Society the other morning, just two blocks from my hotel (Club Quarters). The topic was education reform, and we came from many walks of life.

One of our number was a psychiatrist who'd worked with some of the roughest kids, like that boy who'd witnessed a murder, heard gun shots at night, and slept with a knife under his pillow while shivering with fear. He forgot to take it out of his day pack, and when school authorities found it, expulsion was the only bureaucratically mandated solution. Yet this kid was a victim, not some perpetrator / bully. This scenario gets repeated endlessly.

To me, that analysis seemed highly nationalistic at first, with pronouns to suit. I heard a lot of "we" and "them", though when I pointed this out, many were quick to signal their allegiance to homo sapiens in general.

Chris Fearnley and I then meandered on through the Drexel University campus (from where the Math Forum is hosted) to a coffee shop, to continue our somewhat random discussion. Neither one of us had proper rain gear, and so made our way back by jumping from one overhang or doorway to another. Back at my hotel, we talked about global data and Hans Rosling. Coincidentally, the guy was on CNN just a few hours later, on Fareed Zakaria's show.

My airplane trip back was the next day. I took SEPTA from Suburban Station (in the heart of downtown), direct to the airport. I enjoy flying Southwest. No seating by class, just first come first serve (in terms of when your boarding pass was printed). At lunch today, Stockton seemed to know a lot about their management philosophy.

Both directions, I read the O'Reilly book Statistics in a Nutshell. What's interesting to me is the examples that get chosen. Nothing too controversial. The usual stuff about "IQ". Yes, cigs cause lung cancer, and legal drugs lead to problems or maybe it's the other way around, or was it illegal drugs?

How many people think we should put the coke back in Coke (in small amounts)? It'd probably have to be a bar brand. Speaking of which, I sipped alcohol (Dewer's) on the first leg for $5 (Philly to Denver), then stuck to ginger ale and water on the final hop to Rose City. I was so immersed in a book on Git, the version control system, that I missed my Hollywood stop, had to back track from Lloyd Center.

Tara managed well in my absence. Our house guest, LW, a free schooler and beneficiary of our Quaker family scholarship, is continuing to work hard on her music, has really mastered R2 (her drum machine). Why are USB to MIDI cables so expensive and hard to find in this neighborhood?

Note to Wanderers

[ originally posted to the Wanderers list ]

Greetings Wanderers --

I'm in the "Quaker Vatican" as some wryly refer to this place, Friends Center in Philadelphia.

Over lunch we (those at our table) talked some about how this myth, that slavery is a thing of the past, needs to be exploded. Human trafficking and forced labor without rights are commonplace, including in North America.

Slavery is alive and well.

That's important to acknowledge in Quakerdom, which has specialized in fighting slavery over the centuries. Our work is not done -- far from it.

Here's a blog post, FYI:
http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2011/03/corporation-meeting.html

You'll notice I refer to the "criminal syndicates" behind nuclear weapons stockpiling, testing and proliferation. This is a logical extrapolation of the Linus Pauling philosophy (to identify such WMD production as criminal activity -- a tautology really).

Yes, much engineering is of a criminal nature (obviously), but then much engineering is vitally life-supportive.

I think of medical science as another kind of engineering, shifting the meanings as usual. I see no reason to talk the way everyone else does, somewhat unthinkingly.

Per my remarks on "climate change", I don't buy the idea of "climate" either, as long as there's any question whatsoever about whether humans have drastically altered it. Of course they have. Just look out any airplane window.

We have an ecosystem, a biosphere. Distilling everything to a debate about global temperature is mind-numbing (and deliberately so, I'd argue, a trend encouraged by those who gain by narrowing the discourse).

Likewise our definition of "torture" is corrupt, if it neglects to include slow death by starvation as one of its forms. Malign neglect of the starving is effectively a pro-torture position.

[ funny story: the neighbors started referring to the building on Stark Street as "the torture church" thanks to this sign, subsequently removed ].

On Sunday I get to attend a meeting of the Ben Franklin Thinking Society.

Kirby

Chatter Box

Gotta head over to Fred's soon for bread, a lunch standard (PB&J). Koski: to call. File: FZ. Here at Glennspad (wifi) having checked out newest version of Global Matrix Studio in DS on Asylum Ave.

Worked through a queue, basic inbox. I used to do GST in terms of PWSs (personal workspaces) with two credit wheels, like the ends of a cylinder. Inputs and outputs. In between: value added.

I've uploaded some pix from Sonoma, now turning my gaze to the Far East (Philly). The Middle East is like Reno.

FNB tonight: talked to some cycling genius who'd biked his way across North America. Road quality varies a lot between states and counties.

Sonoma, with an abundance of pavement, is seriously planning on letting a lot of its road bed go back to like gravel. All that asphalt was unsustainable. No, not a bluff, a change in land use.

Hard to find a way over the Mississippi in a bicycle. Go north to Kentucky, just over the border. Otherwise it's all freeways, pandering to the dominant paradigm.

One of Barry's friends is buying a Tesla.

Good catching up with LT this afternoon, thanks to T (Cleveland) having left her calculator somewhere on the ski trip. One of hers goes to Grant. T got to sit with Khafourys at the dinner for Brian Greene (who was tightly scheduled, reports Glenn).

SB in AK yet? Talked with RS. Heading out for that bread now.

Open Secrets

:: Steve Holden in Portlandia ::

Steve Holden knows how to throw a good party. Elizabeth Mazzara knows how to find a good venue. The Secret Society, as it's now called, has a long history as a HQS for fraternal organizations, i.e. mostly men.

Overcoming any "color barrier" in Masons was a part of its history. Thursday evening (February 17) we were breaking new ground by inviting many digerati and illuminati of Portland's legendary (and diverse) open source community. No, this wasn't the most wheelchair accessible of venues (Wayne couldn't have joined us).

Portland has this reputation, for being an open source capital, but is it for real? Steve assured us he'd be sorely disappointed if there was little substance behind the hype. He's shoved a lot of poker chips onto Pioneer Courthouse Square, one might say (metaphorically speaking). He's gambling (banking) on Portland's walking its talk, still being somewhat pioneering, brave even.

A party is also a switchboard, if properly designed, with the live music not too loud, drinks flowing freely. Steve and Elizabeth had seen to the chemistry, and I think we achieved critical mass. Many reported having satisfying encounters.

For my part, I had illuminating conversations with the new dean of PSU's School of Engineering and Computer Science, Renjeng Su, D.Sc., and with Bart Massey, one of the associate professors.

We talked about the proposed digital math curriculum for high schoolers, and the possibility of PSU eating its own dog food when it came to nuts and bolts course management software (currently outsourced, but amenable to a consortium-based approach).

Speaking of consortia, I got an ear full regarding the electronic medical records picture. The USG is using Medicare / Medicaid reimbursement as a lever. If you want to participate in a USG medical expenses reimbursement program, your software will need to meet certain standards, in terms of the reports that it gives. It's not enough to simply register events (e.g. patient X treated for condition Y). One needs to show one followed an accepted protocol, and provide information about outcomes.

In order to ensure compliance, it's not sufficient just to buy the "certified" software and have it sit on the shelf, unused. A doctors' office or hospital has to show (prove) "meaningful use", meaning said certified software has to be up and running for a specified length of time, with more than token patient coverage. The goal is to have the software gradually accommodate more and more of the USG's strict reporting requirements. As you might imagine, many vendors are happy to add to the cost of health care by providing this software at exorbitant prices.

Of course it'd have made more sense if the USG had ponied up early, put its money where its mouth is, and pumped some free and open source solutions of its own into the mix. Business bookkeeping software might have taken the same route.

Perhaps it's not too late.

In the meantime, small groups of early adopter doctors have seen the light and have begun to champion the idea of open source medical records software. I had the good fortune to meet a few of the core players in this domain.

Adam Lowry of Urban Airship was quick to offer good reality checks, when I shared with him my vision of a noSQL "scrap book" approach to medical records keeping.

My concern has been to keep it multi-paradigm and multi-lingual, such that "a witch doctor in Nepal" (a purposely incongruous image) could get a word in edge wise, should the patient wish such analysis (Dx and Rx) in the "scrap book" (EMR).

Perhaps most future doctors choose to avoid this patch of esoteric recordings, while one or two experts might mine that section, following related URLs, not just to devices with long memories (more expected in "western" hospitals), but to entire theories of health and illness, perhaps alien to most readers.

Lets just say I start out from a "zoomed out" point of view.

Anyway, Adam assured me that it was API and UI that I needed to think about, not so much the back end, as SQL / noSQL will generally co-exist in some complicated ecosystem (ala Facebook).

One measure of a system's efficacy and power is its ability to export to other systems. Vendor lock in is one of the biggest challenges facing any given patient, as if you commit to having your records stored in System A, yet later want to copy them to System B, you may or may not be out of luck.

This is mostly science fiction from the standpoint of current patients of course. We still live in the dark ages using 1900s IT. I'm glad the USG is trying to spur us on, much as it worked to expand the HDTV standard.

Yes, industries share these same goals and may be realistically modeled as having partially overlapping agendas vis-a-vis the USG.

Other systems may evolve in a more spectacular fashion, given the USA is not widely respected for its health care programming. Canadians do it better in many ways.

Speaking of democracy, or the lack thereof, we had a strong representation from political players, including from the Bus Project, Congressman Wu's office, and the Democratic Party of Oregon.

Private foundations were also represented.

Specific technologies also had their reps, or so one might presume to categorize. I think of Selena as a Postgres avatar, whereas Urban Airship sing's Python's praises (not that it's either/or obviously -- open source technologies form an ecosystem). OpenEMR is a LAMP stack project with P = PHP.

After our open bar and appetizers experience, some of us joined Steve for further conversation and edibles in Toro Bravo downstairs. The venue was packed, but not uncomfortable.

Our group proved adept at trading chairs, ala eXtreme Programming practice, the better to have more varied conversations. The switchboard experience continued, even around a long table.

And the communications continue in cyberspace, and are leading to follow-up meetings.

Steve made a splash, and scored a tactical victory of sorts, for our community as a whole. Thank you Steve. You're a world class catalyst.

Yes, "open secrets" is a bit of an oxymoron, as is The Open Bastion, Steve's newest company. Or think of it as a koan. We're open and freedom-loving, but we're not undefended and not without friends in high places. "Don't tread on me."

The Other Mexico (movie review)

Speaking of Tahrir Square, that "square" in Mexico City, Zócalo, certainly saw crowds, during the contested elections, perhaps up to 3 million, with encampments lasting for 47 days. I had a camera's eye view of these 2006 events in an Italian production written and directed by Francesca Nava.

No, not from Laughing Horse Books. This was on loan from Multnomah County Library, chosen at random as I was escorting a young visitor.

I appreciated the Italian soundtrack, with English subtitles, with frequent delvings into Mexican dialects. I still find that Italian resonates with my Italian upbringing, adding fun spin.

This documentary is a generally sympathetic portrayal of Subcommander Marcos and The Other Campaign. By eschewing electoral politics, this network sought to play a role similar to that of the media conglomerates on the other side of the aisle.

The Italian talking head intellectuals have this curious spin on the word "utopian" such that it means both "implausible / unattainable" and "forever the albatross for the left, not the right."

The "right" always has that default aura of being the established order (status quo). I'm still thinking a pole flip might be in order, just to even out who carries the handicap.

Anyway, I'm curious how either end of the spectrum manages to shirk its responsibility to offer dreams for a brighter tomorrow. Doesn't any memeplex with some pretense to a half-life have its own version of Autorama or the Borg Cube?

Are we tracking with Paolo Solari, perhaps Gaudi? If not, then with whom? Where are you leading us, oh leaders? Seems an obvious question.

"The future" is not just for "the left" to have to concern itself with, if politics is to make any sense at all.

Oh sure, I've looked at NAZI positive futurism from the times, confirmation that not just liberals have to advertise a Tomorrowland.

But then my right winger friends are quick to assure me that that was a kind of socialism -- the NAZIs were leftists -- whereas my left winger friends remind me how many an Anglo-American capitalist was quick to cozy up to the fascists in Germany, Italy and Spain. Henry Ford only backed out at the last minute, occasioning some fury (or at least frustration) in the Fuhrer.

Both left and right still claim democracy as their own. Expedient? Some say it can't work, I realize.

Rallying around one individual as the leader is as non-democratic as scapegoating one individual. Sub-commander Marcos, a student of philosophy, walks a fine line. He listens, shares time at the microphone, is appreciative of others.

As a Subgenius, I can identify with the automatic humility the title Subcommander must confer. Praise Bob.

Again, how does "the right" manage to not be "utopian" and what is the meaning of that word? Obviously, I'm curious because of my American Transcentendalist ties, where we include such titles as Utopia or Oblivion.

Especially funny about this film, though not at its core (the film is not all that funny), were the theories as to why Subcommander Marcos always wears that mask. Is it because he's so handsome that if he took it off, he'd fall in love with himself in the mirror and forget about revolution?

Leave it to the Italians to ask such questions. Such a Romantic culture. At almost the same time, I was reading Bill Moyers on the corrosive effects of sentimentalism on democracy. Indulge in sappiness at the expense of the facts, at your peril.

The late scholar Cleanth Brooks of Yale thought there were three great enemies of democracy. He called them "The Bastard Muses": Propaganda, which pleads sometimes unscrupulously, for a special cause at the expense of the total truth; sentimentality, which works up emotional responses unwarranted by, and in excess of, the occasion; and pornography, which focuses upon one powerful human drive at the expense of the total human personality. The poet Czeslaw Milosz identified another enemy of democracy when, upon accepting the Noble Prize for Literature, he said "Our planet that gets smaller every year, with its fantastic proliferation of mass media, is witnessing a process that escapes definition, characterized by a refusal to remember." Memory is crucial to democracy; historical amnesia, its nemesis.

This video opened with an interesting preview about the Karen and their struggle to escape oppression by the Burmese. Prayer for Peace: Relief & Resistance in Burma's War Zones is another DVD to look for, next time I'm using the card catalog.

Viewpoints

LW is hoping Tahrir Square remains a nucleus or hub, a public HQS, a kind of clearinghouse and space for oratory, free and open debate (a forum). I see advantages in a city having like a permanent sound stage that's open to the public, a soap box. Could be a web site or coffee shop (with public oratory a variation on karaoke and/or funds-committing game playing).

She also pointed out that situations are unfolding differently across the various kingdoms, so generalizations about "revolution" need not be overdrawn. Egypt's story is but one in the Arabian Nights. Speaking of which: I've had lots of time in The Bagdad recently, in the wake of Jim Person's memorial service.

The bar wouldn't be as high as a community television studio, although there'd be overlap. A video feed emanates from the public "square". Any number do, as locals and tourists amble through, comparing notes and recording sound bites. We interview one another, and publish on Youtube. No one has to feel under cover to use the new spy stuff; just buy it at Costco, or check it out from the tools library.

PB was questioning the legitimacy of this or that group, based on sketchy criteria such as "numbers massed". KU (me) asked PB what made "legitimacy" a core criterion for anything.

SH thinks a lot about democracy and what it means. How might those advocating democratic ends invoke non-democratic means to "protect" or "attain" their goals?

Has real democracy ever been practiced or is it direction along some line of purpose? Coming from a Global U perspective, I get impatient with "nation-state talk" as a coherent tool of analysis. These are the Global U's "colleges" at some level, but at other levels our experimental prototype community of tomorrow has to cooperate supranationally in order to stay viable (semi-sustainable).

Democracy involves groups feeling their way forward through a process of alliances and oppositions. Legitimacy is implicitly extended to all by default and only withdrawn or diluted in special circumstances ("innocent until proved guilty" would be an analogy).

KBOO's, other talk shows (other formats), help give people a voice. We had an hour on conspiracy theories recently, focusing on 911 in particular. When people hear voices they recognize as expressing their own views, and sense these voices have secure channels and outlets, their fear level goes down. "People like me aren't being rounded up, imprisoned, disappeared, that's reassuring". Quakers couldn't assume safe access to any soap box in 1600s England.

SH and I have been sketching The Party Line (TPL), literally a set of "train cruises" for STEAM punks (picture geeks with wifi devices). STEAM = science, technology, engineering, anthropology, mathematics. Some cars will be set aside for Show & Tell, lightning talks, rants. In other cars we'll screen documentaries, other didactic content.

A dome car, for viewing the scenery, will hearken back to a golden age of passenger trains in America. Like an ocean cruise, the trains stop in various geek valhallas and nirvanas, eco-villages, other facilities. These experiences involve "learning new ropes". You may wish to a apply for a longer term internship in some of these communities, having sampled them as more of a tourist on an earlier pass.

Philosophy of Science

Nancy Cartwright's presentation was extremist in some ways. She carved out a space for symbolic expression (so-called "math"), being known as a mathematician of sorts, even though we were a lay audience. The coefficients included the Greek letters alpha and beta.

Her examples were well chosen (Bangladesh, California) but were somewhat few and far between: she was somewhat relentless is keeping to a high level of abstraction.

Her background was in physics and gravity, which to Tara made a lot of sense, explained her attitudes, her sense of certainty. Nancy said she only dared venture into more mushy terrain once assured of tenure. Many tenured are not nearly that brave, taking few if any risks.

If you educate young mothers about nutrition they will make better decisions when procuring foods, randomized studies show. What if mothers aren't permitted to procure? If you halve class size, disadvantaged children will especially benefit from the increased attention, studies show (and people believe). Yet doubling the number of teachers may flood the system with many unqualified and physical space may be in short supply, resulting in many vital courses getting crowded out by mediocre "more of the same".

The Speech & Debate community was there in some force (thanks to Mentor Graphics Foundation), Rose spotting Tara (old team mates reunited). I sat with other board, Steve Holden, hangers-on (smile). Terry was relaxed at the podium and effusive in his praise for Nancy, even though she's "terrified" of global warming (as she made clear during the Q&A (Terry sometimes poses as a skeptic (on many things controversial where the neg position seems poorly defended))).

Actually, thinking back, that was pretty bold what Terry did, taking on Icahn by the horns and defending Mentor's current management as community minded. That's what's so threatening to cowardly investors who hide behind rapacious money-making machinery that wreaks havoc, externalizes all risk (impossible on a spherical planet, where what goes around comes around -- quite literally).

Nancy's thesis: whereas the empiricists are right to thump the table in favor of randomized controlled studies, they're often just as confused about what these studies might legitimately establish or assert as the non-empirically minded. Her talk reminded me of Tom Siegfried's, as his message was similar: people don't get it about statistics, even when you think they would given their job descriptions as scientist types.

Causes need contributing factors to work their magic, catalysts. They're insufficient by themselves, nor are they necessary in the sense that if p then q, q, therefore p doesn't follow. You might get q for other reasons. Lung cancer need not be caused by cigs, which doesn't mean cigs don't cause lung cancer.

Wanderers 2011.02.09

Today's presentation by Kris Nelson is about applying Henry George style economics to boost "station area" communities within municipalities.

We were mainly imagining single or double line train stations, like along the Max line (Portland's light rail system). Victoria Station in London would be a whole different ball game, yet similar principles might apply (as above, so below).

Transit oriented development aims to bootstrap development along transit lines. Our presenter is working on a legislated tool that could be tested in various communities (LR 1632).

A Transit Benefit District (TBD) is defined as the real estate within say a quarter mile radius of a planned transit facility.

As property values increase, usually in two stages (once when the plans are unveiled, again when the station is installed), bond issues might be made against an increase in the taxes.

The public investments are of direct benefit to the speculators, who are then not taxed or taxed less on the improvements they make to their individual properties.

The ultimate blueprint might involve a two-tier taxation structure, weighted in favor of taxing rising land values versus privately funded improvements. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania took this approach of splitting the property tax awhile back and reportedly turned its economy around as a result.

The general goal is to return more of the benefits of public development to the public, in such a way as to still benefit property owners. Kris reports bipartisan interest in the idea. Lawmakers are sniffing around such schemes given the general collapse in public funding and the flat-lining of many sectors of the economy.

The talk was quite technical in its terms. The general idea is to give the public sector more leverage when it comes to developing mixed-use subdomains, including schools, parks, plazas and so forth.

Bill was interested in the question of pole shifts. A newspaper in Salem is reporting an accelerating rate of change in the position of the magnetic north pole and predicting dire consequences as a result. Is this a harbinger of a pole flip and perhaps the onset of a next ice age? Other sources point out that the poles wander and field strength fluctuates all the time, so these cannot be construed as evidence of any immanent flip.

We were honored to have Steve Holden with us this morning.

GNU Math

:: reading ::

Quaker Quest Program (QQP)

My title is with reference to a workshop held yesterday at the meetinghouse. I hadn't attended; I was on call to assist with Nick's departure from the hospital. I was the acting custodian for much of his stuff.

The Quaker Quest Program (QQP) appears to originate in the UK yet comes with FGC's imprimatur in some way. Lew had photo-documented the event on Picassaweb and set up the new meetinghouse A/V cart to project on the wall during social hour. We could read what had been committed to standard meeting-sized paper.

Photos disclose at least one dog had been in attendance, a seeing-eye puppy-in-training. The same dog was in our joint Oversight and Worship and Ministry meeting a couple Saturdays ago. We also had a dog at Food Not Bombs the other night, chauffeured by fancy car. This caused some philosophical ripples on the serving crew. As resident animist and observing anthropologist, I tended to praise our inclusiveness of non-humans.

I wanted to also showcase Lew's work to get the meetinghouse in Google Earth and eventually let a junior Friend take the helm (hope that's OK Lew, you were deep in conversation). He kicked Google Earth into Flight Simulator mode and proceeded to fly off towards Mt. Hood. A gaggle of other youngsters gathered around, taking in the belief system.

This being a Blue Moon First Day, as Tim called it (an allusion to infrequency, this actually being a fifth Sunday in a calendar month) our format was a little different. A query was read around 2/3rds into the worship and the format flipped into Worship Sharing, a kind of overdrive which encourages more messaging. Explorations in the geometry of thinking ensued, an experiential endeavor not just a head trip.

The Blue House has some focus on Egypt, though just now I was mostly talking about Greece, echoing Nirel's communications about the tensions in that country. I didn't think the unrest and impatience with not-democracy was going to confine itself to some "Muslim world" (insofar as we might project such a thing). Journalists have taken to reporting anonymously from the scene, even on major networks like Al Jazeera. Their narrative is often uncomprehending it seems to me, but then I'm a fine one to talk, I think many would say.

Hey, great meeting some of Trisha's entourage at Pub 181. The guy with Autodesk, who reminded me of Jesse Ventura, had been to 168 countries already, beating my score by far. You could tell he loved traveling, had his passport and shots card in his wallet. He'd grown up in the Philippines speaking Cebuano, part of the backlash against Tagalog-speaking nationalists.

One might see parallels with Burmese vis-a-vis those not agreeing to the current nation-state system or standardized language proposals. His brother had been killed during the secessionist unrest, caught in the cross-fire, around the same time I was there going to high school by the sound of it, shortly after the declaration of martial law.

And this guy was but one of Trisha's many interesting long time friends. Another quiet engineer type had been a source of ideas. This other girl wanted to yak about quantum physics and was wishing for Brian Greene tickets.

Trisha was a turbo-charged young hellion, going off on her own quite early. Like Michael Bolus, she'd survived a nearly-fatal accident. More recently, she's been abducted by Wanderers and seems to be enjoying our conspiracy. She introduced us around her circle as her "science friends" (or "science guys"), which I found congenial.

According to Lew, the Quaker Quest program advises dropping the "ism" in Quakerism and going with Quaker Way instead. One might say "Faith and Practice" in place of "Way" I suppose, or F&P for short, or, as Nick says: MO (modus operendi).

Key terms of art, of the belief system, get imbued with meaning operationally, not by "pointing at objects" in any static literal sense. Hence the sense of Becoming (emergence) that imbues one's sense of "being in meeting" (a space of partially overlapping scenarios, a theater (non-simultaneously conceptual)).

Speaking of Food Not Bombs, I wanted to be there at Duke's Landing when Lindsey hammered out her show tunes, uncensored and raw (Beans & Rice a current favorite). Satya Vayu and Cera Monial, practicing Buddhists, joined in on hand drums, Cinnamon on tambourine. Evelyn made several wry comments and her daughter and friend joined in the singing.

Cinnamon was wearing an eye patch to preserve night vision in one eye. He makes frequent transitions to his bike in the darkness and finds this technique helps with his practice.

Sarabell (on the scene in the aftermath of Katrina) showed up at Duke's before any of us (except Walker), with her tap dancing shoes. She's a talented dancer, though somewhat new to tap. Her shoe action, combined with the drumming, complemented the free-cycled piano most excellently. Great percussion track! Duke's was looking grand as well, with room for many more faces around those tables.