Wanderers: Equinox 2012

We enjoyed another free ranging, somewhat informal retreat this equinox.  We included some new faces and noticed absences.

Some, such as Lindsey, made only brief appearances, flitting through.

Patrick brought his boy Spencer, our youngest.

We had three accomplished guitarists.

My own experienced encompassed Blue House happenings and the fact that Tara was at "nat quals" seeing if she could qualify for the NFL championship.  She was undefeated.  She managed to join us on the final day, for a discussion of snake species, their habits and splendors.

Axolotls and salamanders also featured.

Glenn's pad was a part of it too, a source of scholarship and a place to catch up.

Nirel has been enterprising with her Cuffka line, building equipment, inventory and skills.  She has maximized use of her digs.  Her practice is high level.  She is one of my teachers.

We had a visitor at New Zealand at Blue House, who accompanied Melody to an Alice in Wonderland party.

Terry joined us on the Saturday morning walk to the top of Mt. Tabor.

Gus from Silverton shared flyers for his upcoming talk on April 24 regarding Homer Davenport, the famous political cartoonist and Arabian horse afficionado.

We had the projector set up and watched quite a few Youtubes, other videos.

Lew Scholl shared pictures from his trips to Peru, and to Nicaragua as a part of Multnomah Meeting's delegation.

Considering Nomenclature

A respected member of Multnomah Friends has requested that we change the name of Oversight Committee on the premise that it's deeply offensive to some people who harbor memories of slavery.  Plus there's a question of whether slavery ever went away, including in this country, or just went into prisons and/or became wage slavery in other forms.

In comparing notes with some UK citizens last night, we agreed that "oversight" and "overseer" contain different connotations and moods.  The east coast Quakers have used "overseer" more and many have already retreated from that use.  I think marrying "overseer" with "tryant" makes some sense, as per the paragraph below which I sent out from the Blue House recently:

In particular, the fact that many have championed the cause of freedom against coercive overseers who would impress slave-draftees into military service, is a source of hope in many chapters.  Relatively recently, Muhammad Ali stood up against overseers of the Vietnam War and served as a role model for a growing underground of anti-war youth who are clearly not cowards nor afraid of a good / fair fight.  Islam put a damper on the lust for war then, as did Buddhism-Hinduism through The Beatles.  There's a rush to war again, with many of the same voices that encouraged a pre-emptive attack on Iraq again at the forefront.   

"Oversight", on the other hand, is maybe something we don't have enough of, although it's also a pun or double edged word, like "sanctions" (which means "punishes" and "permits").  An "oversight" is something missed, sometimes leading to hurt feelings, as the connotation is "out of negligence".  Should we call it "the Negligence Committee"?  Some Friends skeptical of the committee's performance might consider this ironically honest.

Yes, there's a sense of hierarchy or topography in the word, in the sense of some committees providing more overview.  Would "the Overview Committee" sound less like it's about holding slaves?

However the important point to make here is that Friends are expected to rotate through these committees, more like going from ride to ride at the carnival.  Sometimes you ride the Ferris wheel, a nice sedate image of what Oversight may be like (another image is "roller coaster").

I'm inclined to hold on to "Oversight" for backward (and forward) compatibility while meanwhile continuing to chip away at the whole concept of "race", which is 98% pseudo-science with an ugly past.  A racist is anyone who believes in races, which would be most USAers at this point -- an especially ignorant demographic in light of all the facilities they're privileged to have.  In terms of ratios, we're looking at a far from equilibrium biological phenomenon, likely to alter state in dynamical ways (chaos is like that).

I'm also against circulating this comforting myth that slavery has gone away, as if Quakers were really finished with their underground railroad business.

In terms of people taking offense, this is part of the new diplomacy where Diversity is concerned.  Those harboring some guilt complex are likely to find a shoe that fits in such an atmosphere, and begin issuing apologies on behalf not just of themselves, but on behalf of others as well.

What's true about guilt complexes is they often seek to involve others i.e. once one decides to fight a crime one sees oneself as guilty of committing, there's a tendency to not want others to "still get away with it". This is why the guilty tend to turn against their former friends and then run in packs, often whipped on by spin doctors (a kind of overseer) in the background.

Beware of the guilty, as they tend to attack in hoards from hidden positions -- like those rogue uber-coward drone people, who claim allegiance to a bankrupt nation kept on life support by their Beltway Junta.  They wrap themselves in the flag of "we the people" while confessing to and/or committing war crimes.  They carry brief cases to work and frequent think tanks.  Washington DC is full of these creatures, many of whom stalk the halls of government, imagining their own legitimacy, feeling entitled in some way.

I'm glad Quakers are having this nomenclature discussion, which has spread across several Yearly Meetings by this time.  The debate will impact the membership discussion as well, as some meetings have turned their Oversight Committees into Member Care committees, trading overview and integrity for a sickly cliquishness.  This is not a time to take the continuance of liberal Friends for granted.

Pi Day 2012

I didn't do anything special around Pi Day this year.  However I did mention the University of Havana's role in one of my meetings with a Pycon delegate.  cu.pycon.org is not yet spoken for, but I know Python is being used there.  With the liberalization of the Internet (thanks in large degree to software libre), come new freedoms for its user-developers.

St. Patrick's Day is coming up and the bloggers are making their usual point that Ireland didn't have snakes since at least the last ice age, and therefore St. Patrick's famous feat of ridding said island of snakes is at best a figurative accomplishment -- some say the Celtic druids are what the snakes symbolize.

March 17 is also when Dawn died.  We had a dinner in her honor a couple nights ago, near the Unity and Friends establishments -- with a focus on Unity's outdoor labyrinth (we didn't walk it, but we all were aware of it).

Might some readers of the Book of Genesis and the Garden of Eden story think this logo is offensive?  I plucked it from a web site in India, where snakes are associated with wisdom, perhaps going back to Chinese dragon iconography.

The positive spin on snakes remains in the caduceus in Greco-Roman cultures, and as Athena's familiar.  But then some Christians tend to demonize Athena as a version of Eve, whom they consider somehow a cause of Man's downfall.


That's a blame-based interpretation of the Bible my version of Quakerism would not subscribe to, but this doesn't keep people from seeing West Point as some kind of Eve-centric cult (because of all the Athena motifs).

I find it natural, as many do, to associate the circle (back to pi day) with the image of a snake eating its own tail, the Uroboros.  This may also be taken as a symbol of the eternal return or eternal spiral.  These are not new ideas.

Pycon 2012 in Pictures

Music as Water

"Music like water" will be a paraphrase of David Bowie, with a screen shot in my slides.  That was from my Spotify meeting.  Tara and her peers appreciate what this company is doing.  It all started in Sweden, with a couple of friends wanting to stream music at a private birthday party.

Echoing Graham's talk:  what's "property" is fluid.  On Luna ("Luna Park" -- our moon), they'd sell you the smells of Planet Earth, but we get those for free here (duh) -- or used to.  I've not seen the biosphere without its layer of human industrial gases at any time during this trip.

That we've morphed the planet, beyond all recognition, like a Borg, is not debatable, whether the "climate" (chuckle, what's that?) has changed or not.

I'm in the chairman's suite at the moment, having just met Julie in-the-real for the first time.  I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel with my queues.  This was not a paid-by-work conference.  I have only Ewa to thank for the promo, and Steve.

Would I have been here otherwise?  Maybe.  Parallel Universe talk, best to leave it alone ("other tomorrow" -- hello Trevor Blake).

What I saw today:  the guy who invented Selenium is well on his way to having a "magic fingers" with eyes, that tipples through your phone apps looking for bugs.  He controlled it with Python, as it played Angry Birds on his tablet and managed a decent (I thought -- not being a player) score.

As I was explaining to some of my colleagues, I'm busy losing my virginity in several dimensions here, such as in letting my Droid scan some garbage that led it to eat a 4.5MB application.  eXistenZ again.

A high point today:  I grabbed the mic after an ESRI guy called the Fuller Projection crazy.  This was after lots of reminders that the Mercator is nuts.  We had a jovial exchange.  He politely paused while I took a picture (ESRI has the Fuller Projection as an option), saying I'd put it on Facebook & Twitter (which is true).  Julie Steele (O'Reilly) tweeted the buzz, which I retweeted.

Congrats to Carl Trachte for the Community Award this morning, presented in absentia.

I'm pleased with the new Nikon Coolpix S8200.  It has a lot of built in intelligence, and as a guy with bags, swag, on the move, huffing / puffing, there's not all that slow motion time to set up a shot, use the gauges.  The approximations taken by the on-board algorithms seem pretty on target.  See what you think.

Work in the Service Industry

I admire the professionalism of the personnel and the high living standards to which I am treated, and not because I am royalty or especially entitled.  I'm just another paying customer taking care of business.

Glenn and I parted, talking global climate change and solar flares, as I boarded the 75 at Chavez & Hawthorne for Hollywood Transit Center and thence to the airport.  However, having watched eXistenZ again (movie night) I had lost a battle with my cell phone charger (I no longer saw it as being the right one) and left the Blue House with a dead Droid.

So instead of riding to the airport I jumped off in this new Mall City for some low density strategic shopping, Rev. Billy a role model, like when he buys that sweater, suits him.  No crushing through the doors in a panic for some stupid "deal".

I picked up a high zoom high megapixel camera, more later, and a new charger with built in buffer / battery for the Droid.  Got back on the next Max and resumed the trip.

I worked through a lot of my queue in Sacramento but still have a ways to go tonight.  I wanted to meet some of the Python MVPs, both on the ground floor and in Steve's suite.  I was not disappointed.

All in all, I have nothing to complain about at the moment.  As I reminisced with Steve, even though I've traveled a lot, it was under the aegis of my parents, my dad the trip planner in particular, and he was quite the smooth operator.  I was openly critical, but also admiring.  He knew his stuff.  We were the people to share it with him.

I feel I'm more disorganized and hit the TSA station like a cloud of loosely connected particles.  This guy came up to me with my postage stamps that had dropped.  I'd leaked coins as well.  A team helps me win.  Alaska Airlines still gives complementary wine on these short hops.  A high culture.

What do Pythonistas talk about at gatherings such as this, informally?  Just like everyone, we compare notes about life's journey and children are a big part of that.  We talk a lot about children, about parenting.

Not that I talk all that much.  I toted Naga this whole way, our PSF totem.  I have this newly embossed bag, done in Florida, with the stuffed / toy python inside.  Quite light and airy.  I also checked one bag for $20, well worth doing.  Again, the service has been excellent.  Alaska Airlines, the various airports, the drivers, the people helping me at the Verizon (charger) and Best Buy (camera).

My blog post on Pycon for the O'Reilly site is worth a link here.  Grandma and Grandpa O'Reilley would be amused and I think happy enough with this new incarnation.  The potato famine came up recently, where was that?  Tom's relatives came over as a result of that, or so goes the family story.

I brought (Over)interpreting Wittgenstein again, like on the trip to Philadelphia.  This book might actually pass for an anthropology of philosophy in some ways, and when I encountered has passages paying respect to Clifford Geertz, an anthropologist, I felt some happiness.  Wittgenstein and Geertz were both my heroes but I'd either forgotten or never known how much Geertz in turn admired Wittgenstein, took his thinking to heart in crafting his own style of rendering "thick description".

My Invisibile Landscapes series says "Hello Clifford Geertz" in one part, and was written closer to that time.

I consider myself to be in the service industry as well.  I work long hours, if odd ones.

Quakers and Nationalism

The AFSC has clearly bought into the nationalist model for organizing human affairs.  This has much to do with its history with the UN and the legacy of the 113 history of the British Empire, which gave rise to nationalism in its modern from.  Gandhi was a nationalist.  The split of India and Pakistan into separate nations, largely along religious lines, demonstrates the consequences of nationalism.  Now these are both nuclear weapons states, which would have upset Gandhi greatly.

Albert Einstein was more skeptical of nationalist programming.  He'd lived through the rise of German nationalism and saw how the Third Reich manipulated people into responding viscerally and emotionally to its symbols.  Humans are designed to process symbolically and to channel the archetypes by this means.  If an alchemy goes awry, the consequences may be deadly.  Ideologies channel energy and drive behavior.  If they're out of sync with the Holy Spirit or Noosphere (as some call it), nightmare scenarios may ensue.

Will humans a thousand years from now, a hundred years from now, look back on our 190+ national sovereignties as a passing phase / stage in evolutionary development?  A lot of us hope so.  However the picture is more nuanced in that one may conceptualize in terms of nations at the same time as one looks at other organs of governance on other levels.  As people continually point out these days, many a corporation has assets and annual budget exceeding those of some smaller states.  The 190+ states already share the stage with a number of other actors, including the world religions, with their own capitals such as the Vatican and Mecca.

Some people talk about Friends Center as the Quaker Vatican.  I like this nickname because it reminds us of non-national governance structures that have a global aspect.  Quakers need not be nationalist, anymore than they need brand themselves "Christian".  Like nations, religions are long-running PR campaigns, memeplexes, designed to manage human emotions and marshal behavior.

I'm interested in working with Quakers who are distancing themselves from Christianity partly because the Christian brand has lost so much of its luster in its service to nationalism and the goals of Manifest Destiny.  The institution of Pope, based in Rome, inherits from the position of Roman Emperor with the title of Caesar (Czar).

Christianity has worked hand-in-glove with imperial powers, of necessity, and absorbed much of the apparatus of nationalism.  To question the efficacy of nations, of dividing the world into a jigsaw puzzle of "nation states" is to think "outside the box" where many Christians are concerned.  It's taken for granted, to the extent that its resultant ills and pathologies are overlooked.  "Could the whole concept of 'nations' be sinful and against God's will?" -- that's not a question that gets asked much.

Moving away from nationalism does not mean strictly avoiding its core concepts ("when in Rome...") but it does mean brainstorming ways to reduce its influence.

Using world maps and globes that show no nations, or do so optionally as an overlay, is one aspect of the youth programs some Quakers have been working on.  Our Multnomah Monthly Meeting has a Fuller Projection in the childrens classroom.

Adult Quakers may have interest groups wherein a future without nation-states is contemplated, along with the question "how do we get there from here?".

Does this de-emphasis on the importance of nations put some Friends in conflict with the AFSC and its overtly nationalist programming?  Do we side with the AFSC and it's proposed "two state solution" for the Israel-Palestine conflict, or with Rabbi Lerner and his vision of a "no state solution"?  Clearly I'm more biased towards the latter solution, as are many religious leaders.  The nation-state "system" is too broken and psychologically immature for the long haul.  Humans will eventually outgrow it.

Corporation Meeting

:: Trip to AFSC / Philly ::

So here I am in Philadelphia at the annual corporation meeting.  I'm representing North Pacific Yearly Meeting. I also have long experience with the local (Portland) AFSC office, though not so much in recent chapters.

I was wondering if Hugh Thomforde would be here again this year.  He showed up just now at breakfast.  We did some catching up.  Hugh and I were part of the small clique of Quakers that met in Rome, Italy in the 1960s.  His dad worked for the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).  Now he lives in Arkansas.

Last year, we had a timeline about the AFSC around the breakfast room.  This year it's The Faces of Occupy.  Philadelphia's camp was right nearby and used the Friends building for bathrooms and a kitchen.  Hugh says Little Rock still has its camp going.  I showed him some pictures of from Occupy Portland on the Mac Air.  Then we moved in to Meeting for Worship.

Mom and I met at the Philadelphia airport last night and had a small meal of mussels and crab soup. This was behind the security line, so mom's carry-on, which US Airways had wanted to check, went ahead to the baggage claim area.  Recovering it from the office, where they said it would be, took some fussing, but it all worked out.

AFSC is a Quaker meme pool and switchboard, one might say.  It rises to the occasion.

Does this corporation have corporate personhood?  US law currently says it does, but Quakers have a history of considering lawyers and the law behind the times (look at immigration law), mired in superstition and obsolete thinking.  That's a perk of having a religion based on continuing revelation I suppose.  This is how new rules come about.

The AFSC has the word "American" as a first word, which suggests "America" has some role to play in Friends service.  In the obsolete world order, Americans saw themselves as helping the world be a better place.  These days, more of Friends' work is about educating Americans to be less destructive in the world.  As civilizations go, many of the North American ones are turning out to be quite militaristic and therefore frustrating and debilitating to many peoples around the world.

People "look up to" Americans a lot less than they did when the AFSC was first founded.  Working in a world that demonizes / vilifies Americans (USAers call themselves Americans) is more challenging in some ways.  As we move towards a Global University aesthetic, we learn to accommodate these twists and turns, to stay effective.

Mostly the AFSC needs to focus on its North American regions, of which there are four.  The rest of the world will be better off to the extent that Americans get their act together and stop being a drain on the world economy.  Helping peoples to avoid coming under the jurisdiction of American laws and lawyers is a worthy objective (remember the Bremer Edicts?). Many of their ideas regarding intellectual property, corporate personhood etc. are not conducive to human / humane development.

Importing better ideas from elsewhere is a top AFSC priority the way I see it, especially where alternatives to violence are concerned.  Occupy is one of those imports, to which USAers have added their spin (each city in a different way).  The idea that the USA has something valuable to offer is more back burner these days -- it does, but mostly USAers need to do their homework.

Friends are not uniform in their practices and expressions of belief.  The AFSC gets caught in the middle sometimes, as Friends project their fears and worries about one another's lineage onto their various agencies.  Many Friends have distanced themselves from the AFSC even as they have distanced themselves from other Friends.  This is not unusual for a religious tradition:  it forks and branches, not unlike software projects on Github or whatever.  Such is life in the big city.

Forest Grove

I'm with Dr. Nick Consoletti at Grand Lodge in Forest Grove.  We drove through a lot of Intel territory getting here.  Now we're both on the wifi, catching up, a working breakfast.  I Facebooked about some of it.  Medard has a blog.  Myopia versus Utopia is one of the posts.  Picture of Kenneth from 1959.  Lots of news from Synergeo, which I haven't been monitoring, having switched over to Koski's list for the most part.

I need to forward Tre's request to the Clerk, that MMM fund at least a portion of his budget for getting into the voter's pamphlet as OPDX mayor.  I use OPDX and PDX somewhat synonymously in this context, as the latter is the embodiment of the former.

In calling it the Blue Tent, I'm calling attention to the earlier Westward Ho! type would-be occupiers who made it this far.  They tended to be tough and self reliant, but also more tolerant and welcoming of other peoples, having suffered so much just to get here.

That accounts for some of our cosmopolitan ethics -- another New Amsterdam (unlikely to succumb to the Yorker types this time).  Friends have some of that anarchic flavor that Occupy Portland had going, with long experience at self administering, both regionally (NPYM) and globally (FWCC).

Alex and I had a wifi work meeting recently, both plying our respective tracks.  He was more into hardcopy actually.  That's when I forgot to mention about Tintin.  You might find Bader at such a meeting, if not away.  I'm still just learning how to use the new Air.  Costco after this, as Blue Tent needs restocking.

Sarah-the-dog had a play date with Sarah-the-corgi yesterday.  Walker has taken to walking Sarah and she's always welcome where Portland Energy Strategies is concerned (her anti-consumer based ethics, similar to Reverend Billy's, are fascinating to psychometricians, especially in Japan where the trend may be even more pronounced).

Ecovillages frequented by FNB style "girl scouts" will need to be tight ship operations to satisfy their owner-operators. I can well imagine more wasteful, less disciplined bases, such as the US Army might administer, coming under fire for their less-with-more waste stream.  Documentary film crews might compare them, in terms of training provided.

Alternatives to Violence and PBI have much in common, as does the Amnesty International approach to preventative protection (don't wait for a tyranny to over-reach, move in early).  Our ecovillage school campuses, in being safe for diplomats' kids, also serve as channels of communication between estranged regions.  The situation might involve Ireland, or Utah.  Anna from Alaska on the Droid.

I just pre-ordered Edward Popko's new The Divided Spheres, in early draft of which I scanned in Magnus Wenninger's office.  He wrote back appreciatively, reminded me I'm in the book.

If your kid is Palestinian and needs a family visit, the bases network might be pressed into service on your behalf.  Stay close to the tarmac and don't tell the locals you're fomenting a family reunion.  Medical leave is an important aspect of serving one's community, including one's nation-state if that's the duty one signed up for.

Tonight is the Academy Awards.  I may find a screen somewhere.  Maureen wanted me to see The Artist today, but she didn't know about the ODEC training.  Good hanging with Bunce & Co. last night.  Lots of movie and TV talk.  Portland knows media, especially comics and animation (Dark Horse is here).  ToonTown, some call us.

Tintin's Great Adventure (movie review)

We didn't make it to a 3D rendering, all the better to compare apples to apples, when thinking of other illumined worlds (anime).  The movie asks, right from the top:  how do you like my Tintin?

Then the movie really shows off:  look what it can do with light.  Mirrors, magnifying glasses.  Serious students of optics captured a lot of it in their mathematics, and it didn't all leak away.  We use it to computer generate and share what's in our imaginations, as well as to prescribe lenses for ourselves.

The movie (a snaking twisting scenario, always fast moving) makes fun of his signature tuft of hair.

We get used to the character, comparing it with our memories of the comic book if we have any.

I do have such memories, as I'd poured over Tintin as I had Mad Magazine and many others.  Nestro made a deep impression as the butler.  Shades of Batman.

This new ability to animate worlds, based on characters developed by artists past, is a stellar direction in which to be pioneering.  There in The Avalon, I was seeing the state of the art unfold.  A couple o' geezers (as Jane Snyder calls us) in future-ville.

Then we played retro games.

I got the biggest kick out of being a long haul North American trucker, from a Japanese point of view (some of those trucks you just wouldn't see on a standard stint).

Captain Haddock was formative in my characterization of Captain Wardwell, and that forced me to keep looking at Tintin and deciding what I didn't like about him.  He's eerily action-oriented, this guy, in hot pursuit of his story. He's a story chaser, that's his raison d'etre.

One can't dispute he's good at his job, so he wins high marks for professionalism, if that's really what a journalist is.

One never reads what he writes for the newspaper.  They haven't invented TV yet, in that world.  He's like one of the first one-named celebrities, like Madonna, like Prince.  Everyone knows him, they say, in his home town.

Tintin reminds me of this girl Sintel in the Blender anime -- very single minded and agile in pursuit of goals.  Now that's giving him a lot of credit, more than I usually do.  Credit Spielberg and his crew.

Anyway, I'll be curious to check this out in 3D someday maybe.  Alex, you've gotta see this.  Avalon flashes by in the opening credits of Portlandia.  Consider it a tourist destination if from out of town and doing the off-beat "real Portland" tour.  Go at night, foggy is best, and savor the outdoor lighting.

State of Society

The practice in many branches of the Religious Society of Friends is to reflect on the spiritual health and/or unhealthiness of the meeting and capture some of the tensions, joys, anticipations, in the form of a write-up called the State of the Society report.

You can see where the US Americans might have copied, with their SOTU et al, or maybe we got it from the Iroquois originally, I don't remember.

After several hours of intense discussion, I released myself to walk down the street to inquire about San Miguel beer, a beverage from my young adulthood not often consumed in these parts.  Lo and behold, they had some, so I took it to Steve's place, where he was doing his usual international Skyping and guitar strumming (good to be home again -- he's been away in Minneapolis).

I've got a drive out the gorge tonight, further than Hood River, to fetch some young Quakers and return them to Portland safely.  I need to get out my maps and plot a course.

What we discussed is confidential for now, but of course we surveyed the timeline, pointed to various events.  The delegation to Nicaragua was important, as was our involvement with the Occupy movement.  We're also looking at many recent deaths and memorials.

This is an occasion for Worship and Ministry, and the Committee on Oversight, to get together and compare notes.  The annual joint meeting is written into the script, as is so much of our yearly routine.  We call ourselves "unprogrammed Friends" but of course that's a relative term.  We're all running programs, says the engineer within (who has truth within too).

Friends up here always ask for news from Whittier.  We keep tabs on one another that way.

Touchdown

This touchdown was in contrast to fumbling the ball last time, and forgetting my appointment to present at 3Ms, our noon time potluck for MMM oldsters, mostly (MMM being Multnomah Monthly Meeting).

I'm an oldster now myself, so this was also a welcoming.

A lot of us there went back a long ways, to being almost babies together:  Linda Holling, Lael Pinney -- these were my contemporaries, and long time no see.

Bob Smith was already an adult when I was a baby, and he was there too.

:: fuller, me, overlap ::

I'd listed my talk on the backs of five envelopes, an ironic gesture to a cultural meme (we're supposed to brainstorm on napkins more than envelopes, Kehrnan signaled his agreement).

Envelope One was about me, the inveterate browser, anticipating hypertext.  I loved Princeton's open stack libraries.  Those international schools left their stamp on my character as well.

The next envelope was about Fuller, the New Englander, expelled from Harvard, loving the Navy, going broke, getting better, the inveterate counter-culture contrarian.

Our overlap (next envelope), and the people I've met as a consequence:  Applewhite, Snelson, Koski, Chu, Kasman, DeVarco, Lanahan... Trevor.  A great ride.

Then looking ahead, how I brand a kind of Transcendentalist / Tantric blend, using LCDs with reveries (as in hypertoons).

:: recap, on ahead ::

We were moving in to Q&A.

Marion asked about shelter, Lew about buckyballs... lots of good segues.  About 25 - 30 of us.

I had lots of books, toys, artifacts, Barrel Tower (also the major Snelson retrospective in my collection).

Marty was there, knows a lot about transcendentalists I'm pretty sure.

A great group to be listening.  I'd packed 'em in, thanks to Sonya, various announcements.

I fumbled later though, in that I got Tara to her driver's ed session on time, but then she left her permit in the car, which I drove off to a wifi spot to work for two hours.

If I'd only heard my phone or checked my personal email (reasonable expectations) I'd have been able to get the permit to her in time.  As it was, she missed getting to drive.

I'd been scheduled to clerk Oversight that night and had made arrangements with Betsey to be late, but to be late on top of having botched the mission (ostensibly) left me a bit stressed, bent out of shape.

I raged at the fact that I couldn't see house numbers on a dark street in North Portland (looking for the meeting in a neighborhood I've never visited).  Never mind the satellite informed GPS device in my pocket, with illuminated maps -- I was too busy being a victim to actually use my tools effectively.

Still, a good day all in all.

I had another dinner with Alex, first in awhile.  He's been meditating up a storm, making use of some of the professional Zen facilities in the region.  The Pacific Northwest is a Buddhist nirvana -- even better if you like beer.

Calendar Dates

No NFL for me this season, as in football, not forensics league.  Athletes in the latter guild I salute as "second to none" in my pro-student rant on Math Forum today, taking issue with some LA Times journalism.  Just another citizen, sounding off.

Sampling the Python buzz, if pycon.org.ir wants a pointer from ir.pycon.org, all they need do is ask.  I've been informing PSF about some of my ventures, both in trucking and no-fast-food.  us.pycon is sold out by the way. I got in under the wire with a promo.  I've paid full price for van / hotel.  This will be your typical Silicon Valley sojourn.  I haven't attended a Pycon since Chicago.  I'll be in Philly the week before.

We'll probably do movie night again at Blue House.  Melody has a sequel to Yes Men I didn't know about.  The DVD on Reverend Billy was truly eloquent and I sung his praises on WikiEducator.

Pycon, for those who don't know, is a brand of Python circus or conference, pioneered by Steve Holden, the current PSF chairman.

I started attending Pycons in Washington, DC, at George Washington University.  You'll find quite a few blog posts from those.  One year, a Pycon was just starting when I found out my wife had cancer and I flew home immediately.  She joined me for the next one.  We commemorated her death after the first in Chicago, with me and the two girls driving all night from O'Hare to Indiana, Pennsylvania.  I missed the two in Atlanta.

OSCON is also rolling around again and I've been reviewing talks.  Really high caliber stuff.  I'm looking forward to again joining.  Will I make the one in Newark?  I have to ask about the next staff meeting, and whether there's a conflict (I'll do that on Facebook).

:: storyboarding new infrastructure ::

Synergetic Democracy

We may not think of ant colonies as democratic.  We've decided they have "a queen" in some cases and that colors everything.  A Bugs Life captures a consciousness.  Ants live in monarchies.

Of course that's a rather irrational chain of "reasoning", somewhat of the kind Danny Oppenheimer says you'll find if you pull any "ant" aside (say an undergrad at Princeton) and send him through Danny's lab at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs.

What you'll find are things like:  if the subject / ant / village idiot sits in a chair that leans slightly to the right, literally, then their political views are measurably slanted the same way.  Flaming liberals tone it down and sound a tad more like William F. Buckley when right leaning.  Lots of silly circuits like that.  An ant is a primitive creature and mostly just says "duh" when asked to explain its reasoning.  Return it to the hive though, and the miracle of self organization continues to unfold.

I wasn't sure what I was getting into in going to this event, but sort of knew, because I'd been at this tap room at McTarnahan's (a HQS) for a similar Connie-organized Princeton Club of Oregon event some years back.  I'd replied some weeks prior that I'd be bringing one guest, not knowing whom that would be.  When push came to shove I decided to try Facebook, offering to pay the admit fee for whomsoever wanted to join me on short notice, just a few hours before showtime.

Buzz Hill stepped up to the plate.  He's an avid Facebook user and believes in the power of social media and networking tools to transform the ant colony.  He thinks humans are at their best in conversation, different from taking orders, engaging in transactions, or bombing one another.  The new media, like some of the old ones, are fostering transformative forms of interaction, especially in promoting conversations -- Buzz's brief.

Dr. Oppenheimer was right there in the middle of the room.  I introduced Buzz and myself as frequent attenders of meetings at the Linus Pauling House, with Linus Pauling being a proud son of Oregon and yadda yadda.  Danny's and Mike Edward's tome, and the event in general (an opportunity to hear about and buy a book) was taking me back to Mike Satin's presentation at Powell's on Hawthorne.  Had Danny ever heard of that book, I wanted to know.

Buzz and I drifted on back to the beers (he just had diet Coke) and I asked if his smart phone could get us to Satin's book on Amazon, so that when we drifted back to the author we could have a Part 2 discussion of book marketing and how it's smart to visit a few other book web pages when buying, as Amazon pays attention to that and alerts more browsers to the "also bought" option (might be Democracy Despite Itself, our focus this evening).

Danny thinks that even though the individual ants behave in irrational ways that key of metaphors and precessional cues, ala George Lakoff, there's still feedback and participation and the phenomenon of self organization.  Democracies are more robust regardless of how weakly the voting piece might be performing.  You could disconnect all the levers and just randomly toss people into office, but as long as the people felt some sense of responsibility, they would behave more as stakeholders, which means a "sense of the meeting" (Quaker talk) would guide them to support the colony in a push-come-to-shove world.

I bought the book, it's only the next morning so I won't claim to have read it yet.  I checked the index for Bucky Fuller and Ludwig Wittgenstein, something I almost always do for "sweep of history" kinds of books, plus the latter was a philosopher of language and I wondered if psychologists were picking up on that at all.

Couldn't there be some ants, seemingly even more irrational than average, that served as a source of cues.  I was thinking of so-called "opinion leaders" or "movers and shakers".  Danny claimed he used his powers as a psychologist only occasionally and in a benign manner, had only rarely been "tricky" in an almost magical way.  But not everyone has those scruples, or thinks exercising psy-powers is a bad thing.  They feel it's their way of contributing to a democracy -- thinking of spin doctors here, some better at it than others.

Connie said this was the 2nd best attended Club event ever.  My table mates were as one might expect for Princetonians and their others, well traveled and cognizant of world history.  We talked about Japanese prison camps and people we knew who'd been in them.  I mentioned knowing some Japanese with American prison camp experience as well.

The gentleman next to me had had a career in teaching at private secondary schools, ending up at Catlin Gabel.  We talked quite a bit about the Black Mountain contingent there among the faculty.  I'd joined that cabal on a couple of Thanksgivings having tracked them down through my study of Kenneth Snelson's work among others (some Freudian overlaps there).

A lot of memories came flooding back, which is part of the fun of conversation.

Joseph, who found my hat that time greeting me upon arrival, accepted my funds (these events just break even).  Since finding my hat (again missing) and realizing it was by Paul Kaufman, he had made contact with Paul, mentioned my name, and had a hat custom made.

Tim's mom Lori was there, from a class behind me.  Todd had mentioned she'd be there on Facebook, interleaving with Buzz and I on my wall / profile.

Dr. Oppenheimer didn't say a word about ants by the way, that was my resorting to metaphor, with the example of literal ants.  Vote for me.

:: from buzz's smart phone ::

Memorable Meetups

Twas my distinct pleasure to join a party of earnest high school teachers in a meeting with the PSU Middle East Center at Tarboush this evening.  I showed up late, given other pressing engagements, but one of the teachers, from Lincoln High, had decided to stay on and have a real dinner (this is a top notch Lebanese restaurant).  I joined in with Dr. Tagrid Khuri, who had invited me to this event and whom I'd not seen for quite a long time.

We all had our stories to tell, our adventures in that part of the world.  Dr. Tag, as she is affectionately known by a large Arab-speaking community, has the most up to date experience, being Jordanian (currently) with plenty of reasons to visit friends in Amman.  The high school teacher and I hadn't been to the Middle East in a long time.  Not counting Egypt, the last time I was in the Jerusalem area was when Bobby Fischer was contending with Boris Spassky for the title of world champion at chess.  That was a long time ago, I think those still living might agree.

Next, I adjourned to Greater Trumps for a meeting with Synchronfile, if metonymy may be permitted.  As usual, the futuristic gadgets were on and ablaze, at least for part of our meetup.

Trevor is a serious scholar and top ranking Esozone type here in Portland.  His interest in the restoration of Dymaxion Car 2, the model for the newly minted Dymaxion Car 4, a project undertaken by Lord Norman Foster, has been more than just casual.  Not atypically, Trevor expressed his admiration and respect for Joe Moore, another independent scholar doing valuable work.

A Scholar Talks

:: opening number ::

I showed up at the Unitarian Church prepared to enjoy Rabbi Michael Lerner and was not disappointed.  I did some speed reading in his book through the opening numbers and then pretty much listened in rapt attention, through the Q&A.

I surprised myself in electing to drive the taxi, which I rarely do off duty, not that it's a registered commercial taxi or anything.  This blog has its namespace.

The guy won me over when he went out on a limb and expressed his fondest hope, which was that statism would go away and we would finally start dealing with the planet's ecological issues in a more mature manner, more befitting this self-professed "sapien" status.  In the meantime, we could stay in the dark ages with some two state solution for the Israel / Palestine identity problem, keep it schizo.

Einstein had hoped for a similar scenario.  I noticed Michael didn't include Einstein in his index, and yet his fear-versus-longing analysis (we're each somewhere on the spectrum) is pure Einstein, through Bucky.  So in announcing his "no state solution", I thought Lerner was overtly joining the transcendentalist school, a mark of his spiritual progress.

The book is a winding tale from the crusades forward, to just a few months ago.

Lerner, like Kierkegaard, rejects the voice of the Objective Historian as a mask, and admits his bias up front: to tell the story in such a way that greater happiness might still be a possibility.  He's not about closing doors.

His message is a lot like the Dalai Lama's when it comes to happiness, so I could easily see why Bishop Tutu liked his book (the latter being a big fan of DL XIV).

In Lerner's view, we each oscillate between a dog eat dog hell and a heaven wherein people actually love one another and are adept at community.  Both world views are self-reinforcing.  He names them the right and left hand of God respectively.

Thanks for another great cue Suzanne, and bon voyage.

Lights, Camera, Action

Various scene changes are in progress.  Lindsey is methodically whittling away at her stash of accumulated treasures.  She kindly donated her Gulfstream pen collection to Blue House, along with a DVD on the G650, which I filed on the top shelf next to Torture Taxi, a Gothic tale.

Melody is wearing gas station looking overalls like from the movie eXistenZ, which she's seen, and agrees we should share with Lindsey.  Jen has been working hard too.  I don't always know what's going on as I'm part time in the MJ Chair of CompSci over at Open Bastion, either grading for OST or reading this new book on Wittgenstein and Weinenger, or some other treasure.  Not watching TV, that's for sure.

Dave Koski has been doing an interesting toon branching off the Richard Hawkins hypertoon at Grunch.net, involving that flapping tetrahedron (the opening sequence).  He'd unearthed Piero della Francesca's formula for the volume of a tetrahedron given its six edges, and whittled it down to one edge changing (f, for flap), the others set to the constant 2, as in 2 radii.

The two equilateral triangles flap in the wind, like butterfly wings or pointy book covers, with a shared hinge or spine.  When f = 2, we have our regular tetrahedron.  There's a parabola of volumes as all-but-f are held constant.  Derivations of P, Q and R modules (mnemonic: peculiar) were forthcoming, leading off into other areas (as hypertoons do).

These are the kinds of reveries to pipe to the Coffee Shops Network, to shared screens or laptops, from Youtube playlists, from secret sources (like with secret sauces).

One needs that bridging talent space found at Bridges (the conference) between art-math and science, and that includes the arts of computer programming and animation (anime).  Python.TV is a likely stash point if you want to check back.  Hypertoons were originally implemented in Visual Python after Hawkins encouraged me to enter a contest for an SGI workstation.

Tara is planning her scene change as well, with the so-called "common app" staring her in the face.  We both had to get government PINs to sign the FAFSA.  Parents of college aged North Americans get to wade through a new labyrinth hammered together in cyberspace, though it's probably different in the state of Canada.

I've got the Facebook scrolls for working with Friends, in addition to these journals.  Most my remarks on recent news, with citations to stories, are happening there.

If Pakistan renounces nukes and asks to sign the NPT as a non-NWS, that could undermine India's credibility as a moral leader in the West, where the Countdown to Zero campaign has taken hold with a vengeance.  I don't think that's likely at the federal level (in Pakistan) but the desire among young Muslim faithful to ban the bomb is quite sincere, and currently consistent with Iranian rhetoric, which is why some Christian recruiters have had to flip their position, even among the evangelicals (to be Christian and "for the bomb" just sounds moronic as a wine and cheese party line among officers, holds more water in like NATO's "worst-of-occupy" LoserVilles maybe).

DiNucci was jokingly accusing Nirel at Wanderers yesterday of getting her friend Julia psyched about Paris, the latter being a valued member of his humanist circle.  Also it sounds like Bader (who also knows Alex, part of this other circle) is off to Germany for a spell.  Scene changes everywhere.  DiNucci is fine tuning his book, almost finished.  He's caring for an elder so isn't traveling much himself.

I've connected Koski's recent studies back to Martian Math on Synergeo, which subject I'm slated to teach again this summer, for Saturday Academy.

Testing Math ML

This formula by Ramanujan is being rendered by MathJax. The equation was derived from the handwriting-to-MathML utility, Web Equation, and then hand edited a bit.  This formula served as a basis for our Python Pi Day contest last year, at OST.

 

${\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }=\frac{\sqrt{8}}{9801}\sum _{n=0}^{\infty }\frac{\left(4n\right)!}{{\left(n!\right)}^4}\left[\frac{26390n+1103}{396^{4n}}\right]}$

Right click on the equation and choose Show Source to look at the MathML.

In LaTex (I didn't need to edit this one): $$ \dfrac {1} {\pi }=\dfrac {\sqrt {8}} {9801}\sum _{n=0}^{\infty }\dfrac {\left( 4n\right) !} {\left( n!\right) ^{4}}\left[ \dfrac {26390n+1103} {396^{4n}}\right] $$ 
Ramanujan's crazy-making identities get mentioned by me a few times in this debate thread on math-teach.

If you're not seeing equations for one-over-pi, click here for a picture of this blog post to see what you're missing -- provided Flickr still exists.

Hectic

Glenn suggested the family condo homeowner's association might sue the linoleum company, over all that asbestos, which everyone has in their bathrooms.  Property values just dipped.  The banks should adjust their mortgages downward accordingly, like finding out there's a sink hole, like in Guatemala City, but the banks never do.  They'd rather we not blab with each other about property deficiencies, but in fact they can't stop us.

Speaking of which, the ceiling is still slated to go, just haven't figured out if we're going two-story.  This isn't the condo I'm talking about, but the Blue Tent (really a wood frame structure with lathe and plaster walls, wood siding), which has an amateur's 2nd floor deck, some pet project of former owners we'll never know.  We bought a neighborhood hand-me-down built in 1905 and felt lucky.  Yep, always lucky to be in America, no matter how they treat ya (spam up the wazoo, full body scans, pee checks, rigged elections... hardly what we signed up for as kids, so blame the terrorists right?).

Anyway, I'm ranting.  The bookkeeping pooter is still in eternal reboot mode.  That's not the end of the world but I want what's on those drives.  First step is to bust the dust bunnies and see if she recovers.  Before that though, I'm hooking up the Toshiba to the printer that only works with the other Toshiba that just up and died the other day, while we were watching.  No kidding.  Tara adeptly switched to the Ubuntu laptop and upgraded the heck out of it, but we're still down a machine and don't want to get Win7 when they're about to roll out Win8.

By the way, this LG phone they strong-armed me into getting, said use it or lose it on the credit, is the worst phone ever.  Tries to sell apps, freezes, just doesn't get it in general.  I'll get more specific with the model number when I get the time.  I'll not blame Verizon this time as they can't know some of their models from reputable companies are just plain junk really.  Who has the time to test them all?  Not the government certainly, oh no.

I'm back on Synergeo even after the big fight, which left a lot of us flocking to a different group (a Google one, no reflection on Yahoo! in terms of what we were fighting about).  A similar farce brought SWM back on board in Wittrs-Plus/Ex, Sean's station.  He narrated some of the haps on Analytic, the fighting there.  I was happy for the synopsis as I don't subscribe to Analytic nor really have the time.  Sean's station has been great though.  I've been posting about this fictive BBC broadcast they could actually pick up on if they wanted, based on a famous (if somewhat nefarious) book about the great master (the quintessential late millennium philosopher).

The Europeans seem to be getting all goofy given they can't figure out their finances.  Anything for a welcome distraction, like saber rattle at Iran.  Talk about a dysfunctional family.  I'm glad their footprint is confined to Washington DC in a lot of ways, a kind of containment.  North Americans are free to go about their business without having to fixate on what Euros are thinking.  We'll catch up on Youtube later.

In the meantime, I've been watching the Occupy Chile movement and understand they blame vouchers for some of their problems.  In a lot of ways, it's Chicago that's no longer obeyed, when it comes to macro-economics, but that back had to break further north first probably (talking neocons, remember them?).  "Allende couldn't hack it but Obama could" or something like that? -- too early to hatch a full blown narrative.  Anyway maybe Obama is for vouchers I can't remember -- time to tune in the elections a little more.

Once the Republicans snubbed the Governor of Louisiana by disallowing him time in the TV circus, I knew I'd made the right decision in killing my TV.  Dumbs ya down really bad, clinically.  Chomsky is right, Nader too.  Geniuses protect themselves better, develop antibodies.  If it weren't for the NFL (no, not talking football, duh) I don't think as many would survive public school, that's for sure.

Wanderers 2011.12.28

We were a small group this morning.  Per recent trends, we veered into an eatery, this time Tom's on Chavez / Division.  A lot of our focus was geographic, the LA area.

George Hammond was teaching chemistry at CalTech.  He would later join Wanderers meetings at the Linus Pauling House on Hawthorne.

He was married to Eve Menger, of Multnomah Monthly Meeting, and daughter of Karl Menger, whom I never met, but whose mathematics I cite sometimes.

Jon Bunce had played with the Shaggy Gorillas (minus one Buffalo Fish), a comedy troupe (mentioned herein).  He and Steve remembered some clubs, Steve the poor grad student, worked with Hammond.

During the meeting, I mentioned my "true Russian novel" motif again, for these blogs, a playful oxymoron ("true novel").  I also play with "Russian" quite a bit.

Speaking of which, at Tom's I explained about the genre of training film I'm envisioning, that explains aspects of capitalism in exquisite detail (better than you've usually seen) so that those coming to assist might have more empathy and compassion for its many types of victim.  We could dub into English, serve on Youtube.

The AFSC work camp idea grew out of the CO movement ("conscientious objectors"), when civilians had fewer service opportunities.  During the civil rights movement, the work camp became a way to compare notes across schools and ethnicities.  Some exciting work in diplomacy was going on in parallel.

I'm not saying we can turn back the clock.  Given today's miniaturized components, a "work camp" might be more like a dispersed affiliation of anarcho-bosses drawn together by a spiritual practice or sport.  Look at FNB for example:  urban based, not headquartered anywhere, chaordic (like Visa).