Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Monday, November 09, 2009
Transcript (typos fixed)
Dick: Your new emotional restraint, I will appreciate it while it lasts.
I thought Quakers were about promoting peaceful alternatives to violence. Or is that wrong. Maybe Quakers are peaceful when it is convenient. I have no idea. Except I do know plenty of words are slung and thrown around at the meetings, not for happy reasons, or so I am informed by participants I know.
Kirby: When you've turned away from outward use of outward weapons, that doesn't preclude you from being a vicious attack dog Karl Rover. Quakers are not about being polite all the time.
They were always being offensive, heckling preachers, refusing to doff their hats, inciting the masses. They were imprisoned routinely.
Many got sick of that treatment and decided to create a relative utopia called Pennsylvania instead.
However, Quakers lost control of their state when the in-flooding immigrants, hot off the boat, wanted to use tax money to fight "Indians".
The Quakers had been enjoying peaceful relations with said native populations and wanted no war taxes levied. They were out-voted by a corrupt majority and Quakers have had relatively little influence on the internal affairs of Pennsylvania ever since.
The rising tide of stupidity that overwhelmed Pennsylvania then spread to the rest of the Lower48, now known as Dumbfuckistan to our inner circle (just kidding, there's no inner circle, if you've ever seen the "Quakers guts" poster -- a blog topic of late:
http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2009/11/local-activism.html
)
Dick: his kind of aggressive verbal behavior is perceived as strength in the Friends' circle, I suspect... Beats me.
Btw, you have been unusually tolerant of others at synergeo in the last 2 weeks.
Kirby: Probably not a lasting trend, likely I'll say something offensive here shortly.
Rybo: Ha, that is great Quaker history Kirby. Thx for that story.
[ source: Synergeo 56508, 56514 ]
I thought Quakers were about promoting peaceful alternatives to violence. Or is that wrong. Maybe Quakers are peaceful when it is convenient. I have no idea. Except I do know plenty of words are slung and thrown around at the meetings, not for happy reasons, or so I am informed by participants I know.
Kirby: When you've turned away from outward use of outward weapons, that doesn't preclude you from being a vicious attack dog Karl Rover. Quakers are not about being polite all the time.
They were always being offensive, heckling preachers, refusing to doff their hats, inciting the masses. They were imprisoned routinely.
Many got sick of that treatment and decided to create a relative utopia called Pennsylvania instead.
However, Quakers lost control of their state when the in-flooding immigrants, hot off the boat, wanted to use tax money to fight "Indians".
The Quakers had been enjoying peaceful relations with said native populations and wanted no war taxes levied. They were out-voted by a corrupt majority and Quakers have had relatively little influence on the internal affairs of Pennsylvania ever since.
The rising tide of stupidity that overwhelmed Pennsylvania then spread to the rest of the Lower48, now known as Dumbfuckistan to our inner circle (just kidding, there's no inner circle, if you've ever seen the "Quakers guts" poster -- a blog topic of late:
http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2009/11/local-activism.html
)
Dick: his kind of aggressive verbal behavior is perceived as strength in the Friends' circle, I suspect... Beats me.
Btw, you have been unusually tolerant of others at synergeo in the last 2 weeks.
Kirby: Probably not a lasting trend, likely I'll say something offensive here shortly.
Rybo: Ha, that is great Quaker history Kirby. Thx for that story.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
The End of Suburbia (movie review)
This film is somewhat paradoxical in that it sounds the death knell for a particular lifestyle made famous over the last seventy years or so by its practitioners, but without much mourning.
The city planners all decry urban sprawl as a disgraceful waste, have no special sentimentality towards low density single story strip malls consisting mostly of parking lots.
"If this was the American Dream, we're glad to be waking up" seems to be more of the message, even if the "awake state" (after taking the Red Pill with some OJ) proves sobering.
The film features a number of talking heads sounding the alarm at various levels, including Kenneth Deffeyes.
On the "scary talk" rating scale, you would think global warming talk ala Al Gore would be scarier than peak oil talk.
However I think the peak oil people are somewhat more effective at provoking a reality-based response, which is maybe not saying much given how the media response to date has consisted mostly of idle daydreaming about an impossible tomorrow (what we might call "bad philosophy" in some circles).
I watched this as a double feature with Over the Hedge, which likely colors my take.
The city planners all decry urban sprawl as a disgraceful waste, have no special sentimentality towards low density single story strip malls consisting mostly of parking lots.
"If this was the American Dream, we're glad to be waking up" seems to be more of the message, even if the "awake state" (after taking the Red Pill with some OJ) proves sobering.
The film features a number of talking heads sounding the alarm at various levels, including Kenneth Deffeyes.
On the "scary talk" rating scale, you would think global warming talk ala Al Gore would be scarier than peak oil talk.
However I think the peak oil people are somewhat more effective at provoking a reality-based response, which is maybe not saying much given how the media response to date has consisted mostly of idle daydreaming about an impossible tomorrow (what we might call "bad philosophy" in some circles).
I watched this as a double feature with Over the Hedge, which likely colors my take.
Friday, November 06, 2009
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Into the Fire (movie review)
This tightly edited documentary traces the beginnings of WWII to its dress rehearsal, the fascist bombardment of Spain by the Axis powers, Hitler and Mussolini puppeting Franco, who was in rebellion against the duly elected government in Madrid. The aerial bombardment of Guernica was memorialized by Pablo Picasso. Ernest Hemingway narrated a movie from the Loyalist perspective (those loyal to a democratic, parliamentarian Spain), showed it to the Roosevelts in their White House home.
As those reading their history remember, the USA was already sick of the whole WW1 experience and was not anxious to rejoin the European adventure. However the world was shrinking owing to the development of air transport, and those watching world events could see that failing to stop the invasion of Spain by the dictators would simply postpone the day of reckoning. Many Americans got into the fight early, and this film chronicles the dedication of those called to nursing, helping mostly men on the front lines. The horror of modern warfare was just becoming apparent through newsreels. That Americans weren't lining up to join in the madness is understandable, but the situation only got worse as Hitler and Mussolini were sensing their behavior was being reinforced, they had a free hand. The ostensibly democratic governments of the USA, France and Great Britain, weren't really doing anything to get in their way.
The Spanish first stand against what would become a terrible enemy was echoed elsewhere in the world where newly literate classes were eager to manage their own affairs with less bullying from some power elite. Central governments were worried about communism. In the USA, the eugenics movement was strong. Plenty in the business class were backing fascism at first, not yet aware of the monsters in the making. Hitler was still writing Mein Kampf from prison, consuming racist pseudo-science from Cold Spring Harbor and places, well funded North American think tanks, as documented in War Against the Weak.
As those reading their history remember, the USA was already sick of the whole WW1 experience and was not anxious to rejoin the European adventure. However the world was shrinking owing to the development of air transport, and those watching world events could see that failing to stop the invasion of Spain by the dictators would simply postpone the day of reckoning. Many Americans got into the fight early, and this film chronicles the dedication of those called to nursing, helping mostly men on the front lines. The horror of modern warfare was just becoming apparent through newsreels. That Americans weren't lining up to join in the madness is understandable, but the situation only got worse as Hitler and Mussolini were sensing their behavior was being reinforced, they had a free hand. The ostensibly democratic governments of the USA, France and Great Britain, weren't really doing anything to get in their way.
The Spanish first stand against what would become a terrible enemy was echoed elsewhere in the world where newly literate classes were eager to manage their own affairs with less bullying from some power elite. Central governments were worried about communism. In the USA, the eugenics movement was strong. Plenty in the business class were backing fascism at first, not yet aware of the monsters in the making. Hitler was still writing Mein Kampf from prison, consuming racist pseudo-science from Cold Spring Harbor and places, well funded North American think tanks, as documented in War Against the Weak.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Not Following Detroit
[ typos fixed, hyperlinks-enhanced version of a math-teach posting @ Math Forum ]
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 7:18 AM,
Domenico Rosa wrote:
> Publisher enters new chapter in textbooks
> Houghton sells $40m high-tech teaching system
> By D.C. Denison, Globe Staff October 29, 2009
>
Whereas I agree that the mass published wood pulp textbook is no longer the most relevant distribution system for curriculum content, there's a lot of political pressure in Portland, and Oregon more generally, to "eat our own dog food" as an open source capital (Christian Science Monitor, 2005).On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 7:18 AM,
Domenico Rosa wrote:
> Publisher enters new chapter in textbooks
> Houghton sells $40m high-tech teaching system
> By D.C. Denison, Globe Staff October 29, 2009
>
OSCON is returning next year (Open Source Conference) and we also have OS Bridge, all thanks to the Silicon Forest serving as a champion of FOSS (or FLOSS as some call it, L for Libre or Liberal, as in Liberal Arts).
This trend extends to empowering teachers to commit to Open Education standards, ala WikiEducator and so forth. Initiatives like Maria's Math 2.0 will likely play a greater role in future curriculum writing than any dinosaur mass publishers "back east" (we tend to be snobbish out here, see "the east" as about 10 years behind the times, with California only 3 years behind).
Math Labs may use mostly recycled hardware, hand-me-down machines from the corporate sector and government agencies, although some of the more well-endowed get grants for new equipment. Mostly the money needs to go for teacher training, as math teachers especially are expected to have IT-related skills (lest their "technology in the classroom" rhetoric sound empty and hollow -- just knowing how to use a scientific calculator is no excuse for numeric literacy, or "numeracy" any more).
So I'm anticipating a lot of skepticism regarding Detroit's adoption strategies. We'll expect to learn from Detroit's mistakes perhaps?
Kirby
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Halloween 2009
:: halloween 2009 ::
Today has been productive. I got to mess around with several flavors of animal manure: chicken, horse and, inadvertently, dog (on my shoes).
This was in connection with urban gardening, an activity I still suck at, being a clueless newbie in so many dimensions. Live and learn.
I've been having some meaningful dialog on the Wittgenstein list, am glad of Sean's facility.
Tara had two friends over last night. They enjoyed cooking up a storm for breakfast this morning.
I was in the back office patched into a Math 2.0 WizIQ discussion, featuring chat, web cams, white board, the works. We joined from many time zones, with our anchor in the Middle East this time.
Our topic was WikiEducator and was most informative. I'm hoping to join a team that'll bring more spatial geometry to that wiki, including some of the more esoteric content my company is known for promulgating and producing.
Tonight, Halloween, Tara is off with her friends, working a different neighborhood. I joined the Bartons for a delightful dinner, then rushed over the Duke's. Trey is playing with his smoke machine.
We have a videographer this evening. Lindsey is delivering a tight and classic performance. She's in her element. I'm eating onion rings and drinking Double Dog Dare and patching in to the Internet. Duke, the English Mastiff, is the Grim Reaper tonight.
Mom isn't feeding the candy habits of young children tonight, has the lights off at home. Like me, she's patching in to the "2nd world", communicating with her spirit network. Boo!
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thinking Outside of the Box
Posted to math-teach @ Math Forum, hyperlinks added.
> From U.S. Department of Education: See
> http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/2009/10/10222009.html
When I read this, I get a picture of traditional classrooms filled with rows and columns, teacher up front, USA flag in the corner, chalk board... we've all seen the movie, maybe starred in it too.
It's not like all that is going away, but we have lots of other options for educating, including stitching together programs where kids do a lot more work on their home computers, watch more videos, take tests at testing centers, visit companies and government institutions for mini-courses for credit, hold internships and apprentice-ships etc.
Issuing a national student card or simply having local authorities do that, and then creating opportunities that register for credit, ala one's transcript, is the way to go, more like Facebook but specific to building one's academic portfolio, showing off community service work, time at a math lab learning some vector graphics or whatever.
It's not gonna be that organized overnight, but let's take advantage of what home schooling families have pioneered. It's not all about "seat time" in these few factory-looking buildings scattered around town. Keep using those, but use actual houses for foreign exchange program, film some of your cooking shows in actual kitchens (many homes have nice ones) and fund families accordingly. Let the parents get in on the act, as they need training as well, need food and shelter as a part of the deal (not just more debt in exchange for deferred gratification).
Insisting that the K-12 lifestyle simply stick in the same ruts that it's been in since the 1920s and before shows a lack of imagination. Likewise teachers should have more options, such as a national program more like TSA that keeps them moving around, pinch hitting on teams, if that's the lifestyle they choose. It's less about paying the big bucks than developing lifestyles with the perks all built in. Have teachers in caravans, dispatched to conferences and workshops, more like the traveling circus model. Coordinate local projects. It's a lot like development in the 3rd world, except there's not really a 3rd world any more, just the real one and the cyber one (first and second).
A lot of people reading this are gonna think I'm crazy to suggest any of this, but then think of the military, our vast socialized system of pooled assets, government funded and ostensibly about providing training and equipment (fun, travel and adventure as the recruiters used to advertise). Any country that is able to run that many young people through a government program on that scale, should be able to provide similar opportunities for civilians -- unless of course the plan is to keep civilians in squalor such that military service is their only realistic option, in service of imperial goals.
Just don't whine about how we have no resources to serve students with better opportunities on the one hand, while squandering billions to warehouse hundreds of thousands around the world, supplied with a vast inventory of high tech toys, including entire floating cities (aka aircraft carriers). I realize it's maybe not politically correct to link these two sectors, but to the rest of the world it seems obvious that the USA could do OK for itself, if it just stopped imagining itself as some kind of world conqueror on steroids. Even students see the logic in that position.
I think if it's just a matter of recruiting vast numbers of teachers to live like the boomers, supporting public schools as we know them, then it's not gonna work, that's pretty much a guarantee.
Too many kids are eager to get out of those hell holes, would never voluntarily go back to support them. Boomer-senior culture is not one to emulate, but to transcend, the sooner the better. All boomers know how to do is whine about their crappy health care system and invade foreign countries yes? Whatever they advise you to do, do something else, would be my advice (yes, I'm a boomer, so there's some irony here).
> From U.S. Department of Education: See
> http://www.ed.gov/news/
When I read this, I get a picture of traditional classrooms filled with rows and columns, teacher up front, USA flag in the corner, chalk board... we've all seen the movie, maybe starred in it too.
It's not like all that is going away, but we have lots of other options for educating, including stitching together programs where kids do a lot more work on their home computers, watch more videos, take tests at testing centers, visit companies and government institutions for mini-courses for credit, hold internships and apprentice-ships etc.
Issuing a national student card or simply having local authorities do that, and then creating opportunities that register for credit, ala one's transcript, is the way to go, more like Facebook but specific to building one's academic portfolio, showing off community service work, time at a math lab learning some vector graphics or whatever.
It's not gonna be that organized overnight, but let's take advantage of what home schooling families have pioneered. It's not all about "seat time" in these few factory-looking buildings scattered around town. Keep using those, but use actual houses for foreign exchange program, film some of your cooking shows in actual kitchens (many homes have nice ones) and fund families accordingly. Let the parents get in on the act, as they need training as well, need food and shelter as a part of the deal (not just more debt in exchange for deferred gratification).
Insisting that the K-12 lifestyle simply stick in the same ruts that it's been in since the 1920s and before shows a lack of imagination. Likewise teachers should have more options, such as a national program more like TSA that keeps them moving around, pinch hitting on teams, if that's the lifestyle they choose. It's less about paying the big bucks than developing lifestyles with the perks all built in. Have teachers in caravans, dispatched to conferences and workshops, more like the traveling circus model. Coordinate local projects. It's a lot like development in the 3rd world, except there's not really a 3rd world any more, just the real one and the cyber one (first and second).
A lot of people reading this are gonna think I'm crazy to suggest any of this, but then think of the military, our vast socialized system of pooled assets, government funded and ostensibly about providing training and equipment (fun, travel and adventure as the recruiters used to advertise). Any country that is able to run that many young people through a government program on that scale, should be able to provide similar opportunities for civilians -- unless of course the plan is to keep civilians in squalor such that military service is their only realistic option, in service of imperial goals.
Just don't whine about how we have no resources to serve students with better opportunities on the one hand, while squandering billions to warehouse hundreds of thousands around the world, supplied with a vast inventory of high tech toys, including entire floating cities (aka aircraft carriers). I realize it's maybe not politically correct to link these two sectors, but to the rest of the world it seems obvious that the USA could do OK for itself, if it just stopped imagining itself as some kind of world conqueror on steroids. Even students see the logic in that position.
I think if it's just a matter of recruiting vast numbers of teachers to live like the boomers, supporting public schools as we know them, then it's not gonna work, that's pretty much a guarantee.
Too many kids are eager to get out of those hell holes, would never voluntarily go back to support them. Boomer-senior culture is not one to emulate, but to transcend, the sooner the better. All boomers know how to do is whine about their crappy health care system and invade foreign countries yes? Whatever they advise you to do, do something else, would be my advice (yes, I'm a boomer, so there's some irony here).
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Machuca (movie review)
This could be viewed as a double feature with Motorcycle Diaries in that it focuses on many of the same themes, namely the rise of political movements around a consciousness of class, if not also race. Or watch it with Favela Rising, about a documentary set in Sao Paolo, or with The Lost City, about Castro's Cuba.
The core setting is a boy's school, St. Patrick's in Santiago, Chile in the late 1960s, and the respective home lives of two boys, one from the privileged elite, the other from a shantytown.
Thanks to the ascendancy of the Allende regime and a supportive Catholic priest headmaster, St. Patrick's is integrating, providing some scholarships to boys from the shantytowns.
In looking through the lens of young male (a slightly younger contemporary -- I was in Junior English School in Rome about that same time), the political drama becomes a background of sound bites, with adults parading in the streets in large numbers to demonstrate their various political positions. They jump up and down and bang on pots and pans, playing commies versus snobs.
Strife flares in a parent meeting at the school, where many of the moneyed blame the introduction of the economically disadvantaged for a rise in school violence and turn on the English-speaking priest. Other privileged parents are more liberal, though are not outright Marxists.
When the tide turns against Allende and the military seizes power on 9-11, 1973 (a coup), the disadvantaged are vengefully attacked, their ideology driven underground, and the Marxist sympathizing priests are muscled aside by the ruling Pinochet junta.
The little window we get into the St. Patrick's curriculum shows that frank discussion of events of the day and their historical context is not really what's up. Civics, debating skills... not a part of this picture. The real world of social interaction and starkly contrasting lifestyles is more what kids learn about after school and during recess.
The film is well acted by all concerned and provides a better doorway to history than dry texts alone. I might assign readings along the lines of Bucky Fuller's No Race, No Class to go with it, plus I'd encourage critical questioning regarding the efficacy of politico-military solutions.
One Laptop Per Child might be more of a step in the right direction, along with enlightened urban planning ala Mayor Jaime Lerner of Curtiba, Brazil. Engineering projects and the distribution of strategic artifacts (e.g. soap, shoes... eyeglasses), and better access to global data, are more the core focus in world game playing.
The core setting is a boy's school, St. Patrick's in Santiago, Chile in the late 1960s, and the respective home lives of two boys, one from the privileged elite, the other from a shantytown.
Thanks to the ascendancy of the Allende regime and a supportive Catholic priest headmaster, St. Patrick's is integrating, providing some scholarships to boys from the shantytowns.
In looking through the lens of young male (a slightly younger contemporary -- I was in Junior English School in Rome about that same time), the political drama becomes a background of sound bites, with adults parading in the streets in large numbers to demonstrate their various political positions. They jump up and down and bang on pots and pans, playing commies versus snobs.
Strife flares in a parent meeting at the school, where many of the moneyed blame the introduction of the economically disadvantaged for a rise in school violence and turn on the English-speaking priest. Other privileged parents are more liberal, though are not outright Marxists.
When the tide turns against Allende and the military seizes power on 9-11, 1973 (a coup), the disadvantaged are vengefully attacked, their ideology driven underground, and the Marxist sympathizing priests are muscled aside by the ruling Pinochet junta.
The little window we get into the St. Patrick's curriculum shows that frank discussion of events of the day and their historical context is not really what's up. Civics, debating skills... not a part of this picture. The real world of social interaction and starkly contrasting lifestyles is more what kids learn about after school and during recess.
The film is well acted by all concerned and provides a better doorway to history than dry texts alone. I might assign readings along the lines of Bucky Fuller's No Race, No Class to go with it, plus I'd encourage critical questioning regarding the efficacy of politico-military solutions.
One Laptop Per Child might be more of a step in the right direction, along with enlightened urban planning ala Mayor Jaime Lerner of Curtiba, Brazil. Engineering projects and the distribution of strategic artifacts (e.g. soap, shoes... eyeglasses), and better access to global data, are more the core focus in world game playing.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Change History
From Synergeo, hyperlinks added:
--- In synergeo@yahoogroups.com, "coyote_starship" wrote:
I've decided to excise my comments from the current discussion pages re Synergetics and Synergetics Coordinates. They'll still be in the change history plus I've archived them here. Both articles still link to resources I've authored under external links.
Having my name in the discussions might imply that I'm somehow actively involved in maintaining these pages whereas I'm more interested in distancing myself from them.
I have my own pages on the web for which I'm responsible (they're somewhat in disrepair, lots of broken links, but at least they're mine and not so much a product of group think or another author).
I'd be happy to see some good synopsis of Synergetics (Fuller's) in Wikipedia. However the time has come to pass the torch to a next generation of scholars and not hog the limelight. Let's see if any competent Fuller commentators come out of the woodwork.
Given academia has dropped the ball, it could be that we'll be skipping another generation or two. It's pretty easy to explain the concentric hierarchy of polyhedra with its tetravolumes, mites, sytes and kites. It's harder to explain the philosophy. I've proposed American Transcendentalism as a category or pigeon hole, somewhat influenced by Applewhite and his linking of Synergetics to Poe's Eureka.
Kirby
--- End forwarded message ---
--- In synergeo@yahoogroups.com, "coyote_starship"
I've decided to excise my comments from the current discussion pages re Synergetics and Synergetics Coordinates. They'll still be in the change history plus I've archived them here. Both articles still link to resources I've authored under external links.
Having my name in the discussions might imply that I'm somehow actively involved in maintaining these pages whereas I'm more interested in distancing myself from them.
I have my own pages on the web for which I'm responsible (they're somewhat in disrepair, lots of broken links, but at least they're mine and not so much a product of group think or another author).
I'd be happy to see some good synopsis of Synergetics (Fuller's) in Wikipedia. However the time has come to pass the torch to a next generation of scholars and not hog the limelight. Let's see if any competent Fuller commentators come out of the woodwork.
Given academia has dropped the ball, it could be that we'll be skipping another generation or two. It's pretty easy to explain the concentric hierarchy of polyhedra with its tetravolumes, mites, sytes and kites. It's harder to explain the philosophy. I've proposed American Transcendentalism as a category or pigeon hole, somewhat influenced by Applewhite and his linking of Synergetics to Poe's Eureka.
Kirby
--- End forwarded message ---
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