Inspecting Disaster Zones

Also, nix on paying the debt for all those weapons. Those were LAWCAP's idea. Citigroup can pay for 'em with all that laundered drug money eh? Uncle Sam doesn't have any nukes either -- those are criminal and therefore belong to organized crime syndicates (terrorist networks). That's why we need the IAEA, FBI and other police, to put the spotlight on those criminals. Plenty of bad guys to go after. [from post of June 8]

Recruiting for the "away teams" needed to assess and monitor the super-toxins and other controlled substances associated with nuclear WMD storage and manufacture is an IAEA concern.

Having these sites cordoned off with "police tape" as criminal investigation sites means we're looking at forensics and the attendant training.

The treaties promote symmetry, even though there's an inner circle of criminal syndicates holding on to these weapons, shielding themselves behind nation-state iconography.

Some inspectors of Persian heritage might find themselves suddenly in Colorado one afternoon, installing more web cams. A fleet of jets, contributed by forces for good, keeps personnel moving.

Many hope to advertise their support as program sponsors, and to build brand loyalty thereby.

Was this a surprise visit, or was plenty of advance notice provided?

Surveillance from space might suggest whether any surreptitious activities had been triggered.

Exceptions for civilian power generation and nuclear medicine have already been granted.

Military power generation, as on submarines, many carrying outlawed weapons, is a different matter.

No world body has been certified to make the rules for the sovereignties, so it's the court of world opinion that registers its bias.

Tilting against nukes may seem like an exercise in futility, however many arms control experts continue leaning in that direction.

The drain on resources is non-trivial. The growing risks to present and future generations is unjustifiable.

The wars are killing us, although they still profit a few in the short term.

Committing crimes against humanity is a great way to squander good will and have your brands lose their magic.

Nation-states without nuclear weapons already have disproportionate clout and credibility thanks to a cleaner record.

Rules of the Road

Re: rules

--- In synergeo@yahoogroups.com, "coyote_starship" wrote:

The theft of livelihoods from hoi-polloi by roadway bandits to fatten their Baal is tantamount to child sacrifice, as president Eisenhower so eloquently stated. If ending world hunger is not on your agenda, then I'm curious what tops your list instead. Usually advocacy of some kind of veiled culling is encrypted in the platform, an unconscionable eugenics, a war against the weak. Rather than "feed the hungry" it's "feed only the right hungry (right in my judgment)."

Hyperlinks added by Alan and myself.

Working with vZome

vZome is Scott Vorthmann's virtualization of ZomeTool, an ingenious geometrical supply built around this injection molded hub and plastic rods of variable length. Ideally, students would have ample access to this building supply. However, it's not necessarily practical to be assembling a rhombic triacontahedron in your airplane seat on some jet ride to Tokyo. For times like those, you have vZome. For other times too.

As of this writing, we do not have a corresponding tool for Flextegrity, and could use one. The Elastic Interval Geometry genre (EIG), starting with Struck, then Springdance, Springie, and Darwin @ Home, has taken us a long way in the right direction. The Flextegrity application would likely be in this EIG lineage.

vZome rods are not springs, but are of fixed length and color-coded. The hub's angles are also fixed. These constraints constitute a self-auditing aspect to vZome constructions, which its power-users come to appreciate.

My project is to take some recent Koski vZomes and pull them up in Scott's Java app (vZome). Next, I will boot up Camtasia Studio and see to what degree I am able to faithfully capture the live operation of vZome on screen, for saving to disk in some movie format, suitable for uploading to Youtube.

This is the kind of thing we could be doing in Canada, trying to get around the Qyooban Embargo (long story). Some of the vZomes show off Verboten Math (e.g the 7.5 RT and 6.0 RD inter-twining), stuff not usually made available in the USA, especially not in high schools -- unless you're lucky enough to have a RadMathNet household in your zip code area (97214 has a few).

Hunger Project on Synergeo

Per Diet for a Small Planet, if you want to feed more humans a healthy diet, you need to not run so much feed through cattle on their way to the dinner plate. Bucky ate a lot of steak, and spinach. Some people crave meat. I'm not saying to not be a meat craver. But if you're not one, and not a smoker, then why start? Eat lower on the food chain if you can afford to. You will be popular and score lots of dates (if that matters to you).

The word on the street in Havana should not surprise you: no McDonalds and no Burger King. How about Ben and Jerry's, in the Unilever portfolio? That might be different, in terms of floating the decor and best product (minus any notion of "corporate personhood" of course -- that stays within USA borders, where they seem to know what it means (the Supreme Court does at least, right?)). No, I'm not suggesting a "cigar flavored" ice cream.

Getting the concentric hierarchy as an OLPC app is at least as important as the iPad / iPhone and other versions. I've got it on iPod, podcast downloadable (see Synergetics on the Web).

Around here, we're close to zero meat, except mom is a meat craver sometimes, and we don't blame her. Actually, we all eat some meat, given the opportunity. But when we buy, it's usually more like rice and beans. As a "radmath" house in the Pauling Campus network (one of several), we have plans for rain barrels, solar panels and such, right down to the trim color.

That's what home economics class is all about, whether offered at a book store, Washington School or wherever.

What we don't have is a huge budget as Havana is poor. Showcase homes, with appliances by Google (control panel connected to house meter), other sponsors, are not out of the question, once the embargo against Bucky is lifted against the United States (there's a ring of oil companies trying to fence her in, other obnoxicists).

Where there's excess food available, there's no excuse for people not having food. Where there's no excess, there's a transportation problem or a transit problem, or the potential for more farming. Portland's neighborhoods maybe don't have the vegetables Havana's do, but there's lots of emphasis on urbanites doing some of their own food raising. Chickens are permitted etc. I don't actually know all the rules (just that we're well within them).

For how long this ban on high fat fast food? Fast Food Nation is a popular film in Cuba they tell me, as it provides a fairly bleak analysis of the North American "paradiso". Lets not say I'm the expert. Couldn't tell ya. Maybe a long time, as tourists want and expect that "commercial free" atmosphere, something they can't get at home, and often crave with a vengeance. Keeping Cuba pretty commercial free might just be the ticket. That doesn't mean no interesting work. S3 cartoons require lots of computers and studio time, maybe in cahoots with University of Toronto?

Kirby

Synergeo 60786 re: Martian Math

re practicing multi-culturalism

"all math is ethno-math"

One of the bright ideas Dick came up with recently (seriously folks!) was the idea of Martians making a delivery, of a tetrahedral yard of concrete. Just making it a yard was in itself brilliant, as that term contains "thirding" as a concept, which'll get us to 2-frequency (where concrete is born! (joke)).

So what are Earthlings to do, to get ready for the delivery? Make a mold for the receptacle, using root2(2) on every edge (of a cube). Carve out that internal tetrahedron, like in a dug-out canoe, and have the Martians fill that up. That'll be your yard of concrete. That's about 1.414 yards to each edge.

Those who didn't "get" Synergetics don't understand the Martian instructions and build a "cube root of 3" cube instead, with edges about 1.44 yards. That cube is too big and they're wasting materials. From a Martian perspective, these people have a mental disability. In the Martian equivalent of the DSM, there's an entry XYZ (let's call it) that gives a more spelled out version of the diagnosis / prognosis.

Now some sticklers might come along and say our cube is two half-yards on a diagonal, and since 2*2*2 = 8, this must be a 2-frequency cube. If the tetrahedron is 8, the cube itself must be 24. At this point, you get an argument between the two Earthling camps: should the edges be 2*root2(2) or 2*root3(3)?

There's another sect in this picture, with yet another interpretation of the Martians' instructions. What do they think? We might have to wait until a next episode to discover that.

Kirby

Moratorium Proposal (Synergeo)

I like the idea of a moratorium on new PhDs until we deal with the Bucky stuff with more integrity. It's a philosophy department thing. Unless you're up to date at least a little, how can you be a "doctor" thereof?

Princeton should announce this. Small grad school as it is. Turns out it's just a gesture, as it takes about 30 minutes to screen the concentric hierarchy in a way people get, especially with 4D IMAX [tm].

I also think it'd be worthwhile to padlock all the public high schools for a day, another token gesture, underlining the fact that this funny business of denying students access to their heritage has gone on long enough -- so stay home and watch Youtubes, like what they show in the military ("off your duff math").

Operation Padlock could be carried out by the National Guard, as it's their job to protect security at home. The governors could order the action. Students would mostly love it of course, as it's another day off from the holding tank prison. Great recruiting tool for the Guard, probably double its popularity overnight, especially when people understood the motives.

We need to turn some North American bases into Reboot City operations, where people get some new skills, train in logistics. People will call these brainwashing camps (which they are already) but ultimately will feel more secure if there's some continuity with the decals. If we reskin everything to look "UN", the neo-Nazis will go crazy (as if they weren't already). These should be run by civilians though (as the military already supposedly is).

Lets see which service, Army, Air Force or Navy (or Marines) is the first to have cool concentric hierarchy cartoons in its officer trainings, along with all the positive futurism attendant thereto. I.e. lets see which service is the least cowardly.

My guess is the Navy will be first, even though the radomes were mostly an Air Force thing. Clearly you can't be a legitimate Admiral or General and not know about World Game etc. (unless you're in some mercenary-moron outfit, wearing a clown costume).

Probably sounds weird for a Quaker to be wanting the military to shape up and make sense. You go with the army you've got...

Also, nix on paying the debt for all those weapons. Those were LAWCAP's idea. Citigroup can pay for 'em with all that laundered drug money eh? Uncle Sam doesn't have any nukes either -- those are criminal and therefore belong to organized crime syndicates (terrorist networks). That's why we need the IAEA, FBI and other police, to put the spotlight on those criminals. Plenty of bad guys to go after.

Kirby

Learning Reading

[ from Math Forum, fixed some typos ]

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Robert Hansen wrote:
> Landmark School
>
> $45,000.00 per year.
>
> It would take some time to study the ramifications
> of that one fact.
>
> Also, they tutor (I should hope so at that price).
>
> I am less than convinced now than when we started
> this debate.
>

I've been perusing this whole thread. I liked the part where Pam talked about decoding words, not just getting stuck on trying to memorize a whole bunch. You need good mnemonics, which requires delving into heritage, roots (root = radical).

So, for example, we delve into ancient Greek for our hedra, our polyhedra. Tetra, Penta, Hexa, Septa, Octa, Nona, Deca and so forth. Ennea. Triaconta. Icosa. Building these associations takes time and is an exercise in reading. People who think mathematics is just noodling iconic symbols around, while never reading or writing anything polysyllabic, have another thing coming.

One curriculum segment I've worked on takes us to Kanji i.e. Japanese characters heisted from Chinese and repurposed in many cases. We study the Kanji for polyhedra (such as rhombic dodecahedron) while learning about Unicode, the binary basis for encoding all these symbols (including a lot of the math noodling symbols from Iraqi math (aka algebra)).

Spatial geometry tends to be polysyllabic as well as cram packed with acronyms and abbreviations. That's just like the IT world in some ways (although here we find an emphasis on single syllable posix commands, many quite alien by today's standards, yet fun to learn about in math class). Ergo, it's good training for 3rd graders to learn about these space-filling tessellations that'll be on the test.

Q1: the [depicted Schlafli orthoscheme of the cube]
fills space with itself and a mirror image
(a) true
(b) false

Q2: [picture] fills space with:
(a) [picture]
(b) [picture]
(c) [picture]
(d) none of the above.

However, in place of [picture] think of something more like LiveGraphics3D (per Math World) or VRML / x3D. The "textbooks" are online, ergo at least five times more colorful and interactive, less than half as expensive, and not made of dead trees trucked from distant factories using peak oil. A win all around.

They're also quickly fixable, when mistakes are discovered, provided we have a responsive publisher.

The spacefillers are starting to get simpler names in some curricula. Let me preview:

Minimum spacefiller: mite

Mite face-combines with another mite to make: rite, lite, bite -- three species of syte.

Two sytes make a kite, of we now have three: kit, kat and kate.

Some old skool geometers may object that these naming conventions are incompatible with what's on the books, in terms of the tri-rectangular disphenoid tetrahedron (the rite) already having a name on wikipedia (which is editable by people just doing their jobs).

The point is to jump in and out of namespaces. These are local variables more than permanent assignments. When you tour in a new country, all the food names are changed, but it's the same foods (at a primitive level -- the recipes may vary wildly). Likewise, no matter what you call it, a Smite or a Schlafli orthoscheme of a cube, you'll need that mirror image to complete your space-filling tessellation. We have a toy to help and to provide more tactile understanding. It's not all about visualization. Kinematics enters in.

[I think reading specialists know the importance of body language. Learning to crawl (before walking) is a good precursor to left/right differentiation. Don't just sit 'em in front of the TV if you want 'em to be highly coordinated). Crawl before you walk, walk before you run (and don't forget to "toddle" some)]

This thing about price tag is a no-winner, as the minute something worthwhile shows up, you set it out of reach. I don't think I should discuss my pricing, as that'll immediately be used to prove that my approach cannot succeed, because we do not have the resources. Actually, we have plenty of people willing to tutor the young, and it's actually part of human biology to look for opportunities along those lines, as teaching others, not just the young, is self-reinforcement, is a way to stay in shape yourself. What a civilization is is people always teaching one another (a life long process).

Like, suppose we say we use Mathematics for the Digital Age and Programming in Python. Someone comes back with the fact that some schools already using it cost $xx * 10**x per year, so why bother? The public schools will just never have that kind of money. Do you see the complete non sequitur here? This is an argument completely without logic. Maybe the Russians gave us the copyleft rights for free electronic alternatives and we're doing more with OO right out of the box. So what? It's not about the economics, it's about pedagogy. Lets give them all scholarships in our mental models at least, and then talk about "what and how should it be?" not just "how much will it cost?".

I've proposed the following state standard: kids need x number of nights when they get to view the stars "live" i.e. under a naked night sky minus light pollution, such that the stars are directly and brightly visible. Exceptions apply, but the whole middle of the Bell Curve is expected to meet this requirement or... no high school degree. Period. A culture that can't pay for that, can't organize night sky experiences for millions of kids, is just too dumb for the history books. Lets get some new managers.

The next best thing: a planetarium for every high school and/or elementary school. Not that expensive. Any civilization worth beans would do that, I'm sorry. We have the technology. We just don't have the smarts (a self reinforcing cycle, as people with no clue end up just talking about money (the great cop out)).

There have been no substantive economic arguments on math-teach to date that I'm aware of, e.g. explaining why we skipped a whole generation. The Idiocracy ("Ed Mafia" per Haim) has other explanations (they're rewriting the DSM as we speak, so I'm thinking we should contribute new edu-speak in terms of psychological complexes. What led people down this path in the first place? I have my theories, similar to president Eisenhower's in some ways).

People forget that blitting pixels to multiple screens is dirt cheap, likewise sound waves to speakers. There's a whole new distribution architecture already in place, yet the food fighters in Math Wars are still thinking in terms of truck and train loads of physical wood pulp textbooks. This is too retro for words really. Can we even talk to these people? Stone Age prehistoric, these math warriors.

That's why I like the One Laptop Per Child campaign, which actually doesn't depend exclusively on the XO line to get the word out. "Adults will just hold you back, as they impose the patterns of their own childhoods. What else do they know?" Sure, some kept up, pioneered, but there's a Bell Curve.

You get too many old guys remembering their glory days and wanting to help little Johnny learn how to swing that bat. No contemporary skills. Skipped generation types. Don't even know what the minimum space-filler is. Good thing you've got a way around 'em then (those boomer-geezers). So lets rock.

Rad Portland

Duke's Landing on Belmont

Laughing Horse Books

Outlining

• GEOMETRY BASICS
  
  
• Rhombic Dodecahedron (starting point)
• inscribed cube
• inscribed octahedron
• Concept of Dual
• cube - octahedron
• cuboctahedron
• Angle versus Frequency
• 12-around-1: 10 * F * F + 2 (cuboctahedral numbers)
• 12-around-0: 10 * F * F + 2 (icosahedral numbers)
• virus morphology
• geodesic domes and spheres
• buckminsterfullerene
• VE <--> Icosa (Jitterbug)
• 25 Great Circles (VE)
• 31 Great Circles (Icosa)
• LCD triangles
• Spherical Networks
• vertex, face, mid-edge axes
• poles as +2
• 2*P*F*F + 2 (Coxeter paper)
• Concentric Hierarchy
• A & B modules
• Mite, Sytes, Kites
• Coupler (1)
• Rhombic Dodecahedron and the Coupler
• Coupler in XYZ
• Rhombic Triacontahedron
• toy: Ball of Whacks
• T-E modules
• RT volume 5
• RT volume 7.5 (K)
• RT volume 15 * root(2)
• RT / RD relationship
• Tetrahedron as Unit
• 24 A modules
• Unity-2
• IVM (toothpicks)
• two kinds of voids
• 4 IVMs
• Dimensions
• 4D / 4D+
  
  
  
• GEOGRAPHY BASICS
  
  
• Time (space-time)
• clocks
• time-lines
• time codes
• adding into the future, subtracting into the past
• time scales (geological vs. human vs. pico)
• rates of change (ratios)
• Space
• Coordinate systems (including latitude/longitude, degrees)
• Girding/griding the planet (GIS/GPS)
• Mapping/addressing schemes
• Length and number (ratios)
• Area and volume
• Objects
• Shapes
• spatial networks (polyhedra)
• plane figures (triangles especially)
• Objects organized in sets
• types of number
• operations with number types
• permutations and combinations (DNA)
• Objects organized in hierarchies
• subtypes (rationals a subtype of real a subtype of complex)
• geometric hierarchies
• biological taxonomies
• APIs: exposing objects to users
• Fractions, Decimals, Percents (rational number type)
• Polynomials (solving, graphing)
• Vectors
• adding and subtracting
• scalar multiplication
• dot and cross products
• Matrices (translation, rotation, scaling)
• Events
• Communications
• Symbol systems and codes
• Energy
• kinetic energy (units, dimensions)
• heat energy and temperature (conversion constants)
• Frequency (links to time)
• color / optics (the spectrum, visible and not)
• Rates of Change
• velocity vectors, acceleration, slope, gradient
• derivative
• anti-derivative (integral)
• Event-triggered objects
• mouse clicks and key presses
• Probability and Permutations