Hermit Chapter

This chapter, following Alabama Adventure, is soon to end, as I plot a next trip.

However, I'm glad for this heated cave with WiFi.  I'm working on some new course-ware, written in Sphinx, and wrote an essay on Medium about my latest thoughts on teaching Python.

I did get out this afternoon, to visit The Good Bye Party family, out towards Gresham.  I took the Max. Great homemade pear wine!  I learned so much, hanging out with this younger bunch.

Tonight I'm listening to A Man of Letters reading from Undercover Mormon by Th. Metzger. I do this as I blog, upload pictures, and make a long overdue backup.

Got SQLite?

Does you office pass around .db files as a convenient way to share data? Of course many file extensions are overloaded, so yes, to be clear, I'm talking about SQLite files, which require only the sqlite client, or many programming languages, to reveal their contents or accept new data.

In my courseware for IT workers, I tend to emphasize the efficacy with which SQLite might be used, as a simple way of keeping data organized. 

A database much more difficult to either tamper with or change inadvertently than a database, plus the format preserves the structure of a relational database, meaning the query engine is at your fingertips, if you just remember enough of the language (SQL).

Supply Chain Logistics

The world has lots of plastic junk already, and what with 3D printers now widely affordable, a different way to shape the plastic, we have a tsunami on our hands.  Recyclable plastic, actively reused in the space of an average human lifetime, might be a goal.

I'm back to those A & B modules again, so-named in Synergetics, which aims to capitalize on a Unit Volume Tetrahedron (UVM) in a corner (remote) of Universe somewhere.  A rebel planet.  However in a Diverse Universe (DU), we can afford renegades and mavericks, some of which become tourist destinations.  Rebels needn't be averse to tourism as such voluntary traffic gives more vectors for disseminating a more sympathetic version of history throughout the galaxy.

Then we have the two flavors of E module.  I put it that way because whereas A & B are equi-volumed but differently shaped, the T & E have all the same angles and differ only in surface-to-volume ratio.  The E-mod is phi-down from E3, i.e. 1/120th of the RT3 (another name for "SuperRT"), the rhombic triacontahedron embedding the edge-2R (1D) icosa of volume ~18.51, and its edges crisscrossing dual Pentagonal Dodecahedron (the two five-fold symmetric Platonics).

RT = Icosa + Icosa.dual(), where the dualing method sizes to cross edges by default, and the plus operation has been overloaded to mean combining two polyhedrons into one, a visually pleasing special effect.  Cube = Tetra + Tetra.dual().  RD = Octa + Octa.dual(), where RD is the Rhombic Dodecahedron, not a Platonic, but a space-filler nonetheless (and a Kepler favorite).  Its dual is the CO (cuboctahedron).

Finally, bridging the volume 4 Octahedron (1D edges) and inscribed Icosahedron (two S-factor applications up from the relatively askew Cuboctahedron of volume 2.5, faces flush), are the 24 S-modules, with a strong relationship to the E.  S:E :: VE:Icosa in volumetric terms, where VE labels the canonical CO of volume 20, edges 2R.  That's the S-factor of about ~1.08.  We also have S3 (about ~1.066), the constant by which we do IVM:XYZ volume conversions, but also: VE * S3 = RT3 (in terms of volume).

Getting 3D printed, face-gluable A, B, T, E and S modules, and phi-sizes thereof, is a supply chain issue.  Just In Time principles apply, i.e. why generate more than we need just to build inventory?  Have the specific use case already planned for and scheduled.  I'm thinking of my Saturday Academy class.  Others have their other scenarios to plan for.  A lot of us have access to workspaces like Hedron, which specialize in custom order manufacturing.

Finally, AAB = Mite, or Minimum Tetrahedron.  I already have a Pergamon Press bag full of these guys, a souvenir from a First International Conference on Fullerenes in Santa Barbara (1993).  I met Harold Kroto there and corresponded with him a bit much later.  I'd rented a convertible.  Nick Consoletti rode south with me part of the way.  I drove a German guy around, his first time in North America as I recall.  I'll link to another blog entry mentioning that adventure.  Ed Applewhite and Terry Bristol both had roles in helping me pull that one off.

:: Nick Consoletti with Sarah-dog ::

Codes of Conduct

Given my focus on Anthropology, the A in STEAM (not Art, as some falsely proclaim -- chuckle) I'm keen to see "Codes of Conduct" become more of a focus.  We're maybe done with tourism's first chapter, recreational travel post WW2.  That chapter was followed by "tourism" in the "tour of duty" sense, wherein adventurists donned camo and fanned out across the globe in some effort to "fight terrorism".  A lot of these adventurists were of the scaredy-cat variety, only willing to venture forth if heavily armed.  The consequences of disobedience could be severe.  Lets not pretend their code was democratic in any way.

These days, in brainstorming a Trucker Exchange Program, I'm thinking of the various briefings we'd need.  You don't insert personnel into alien cultures with no preparation.  Tourists would do that of course, and complain of "culture shock" as a result.  What works better is to prep, to train, to do some homework.  Remember it's just a tour, and you get to come home.  You're not a missionary.  Your job is not to impose your code of conduct upon others, although you're certainly welcome to share about your ways, as tourism is a two-way street.

The right to drive a truck anywhere and everywhere, given suitable training, is not a recognized "human right" or anything.  Driving is a privilege.  Having a mentor, or mentors is key.  We all start out as apprentices, in one way or another.  Perhaps our driving skills are fantastic, but what about language skills?

Gender relations are especially touchy.  How are people to treat one another?  A lot of tourists have somewhat Westworld-like expectations of their hosts.  "If we pay you enough, you'll do what we say" is their attitude.  Sex tourists, some wearing camo on duty, are "looking for a good time".  Some aren't even expecting to pay, as they assume they have the privileges of a dominant culture.  This pattern goes way back, with "rape and pillage" but the tip of the iceberg.

Launch Pad

The house next door held an album release party last night. I believe Peach Pit is the name of the band. One of our regulars found a wallet on the sidewalk and mentioned to several partiers we had it. Stopping the band for a sec to make an announcement proved impractical.  She came and collected it later. I never saw the lass as I was engulfed in the Steve Holden Chair of Computer Science, now with a large log in the back to compensate for lost screws.

These were the days, at the conclusion of 2017, when DC was relinquishing relevance left and right, butting out of businesses it no longer has the capacity to either regulate or understand.  Like the military, DC depends entirely on the private sector for any remaining smarts.  I'm not saying the public sector can't or won't make a comeback, however that needn't happen in DC in particular.  OSCON is returning to Portland after all.

Melody and Alexia each took a guest room as we switch tracks through this hub.  Blue House experiences turnover.  I've finished my most recent cycle of ten meetups, netting more LinkedIn connections.  That's an over-the-wire closed circuit TV show, built atop Internet technologies (or should we write "internet" -- the Buzzfeed copy editor shared some views on that at Powell's recently).

The idea of a global oligarchy / kleptocracy is not new and the concentration of capitalism in fewer hands, amidst a rising financial literacy index, has helped it once again gain foreground status. The notion of a "grunch" of giants pulling the strings is ingrained in the folklore, as expressed in various narratives.  The demise of nation-state politics, or shall we call it an eclipse, was never an overnight phenomenon.  We'll have true believers clinging to their true beliefs long into some future.

Tom's, a favorite breakfast nook, was not quite up to snuff this morning; too busy? The PSU student I was with required one fried egg over hard, but got two, soupy.  For a hard egg person, soupy is not appetizing.  Have you notice the "hard over" types also trend towards crispy bacon?  Lets see a scatter plot right?  Big Data where are you?  I posted a semi-favorable review on Yelp!.  No place is perfect.  They recooked the egg part then still billed for two (neither eaten), a sixty cent difference, but the bookkeeper trainee stood on principle, bless her heart.

Coming back to Blue House we encountered a small murder of crows, nothing like what we see (and hear!) in the PSU park blocks.  I mention that "group word" for crows in explication of my "grunch" (of giants) above.  Haim and I used to joke on math-teach about how I got it wrong in Desovereignization (a web page):  I said "gander" instead of "gaggle" (of geese). I still get those two confused.

Please don't ask that question. I think we have seen there is no bottom to stupidity.😝😝😝 https://t.co/Z9QjaaCitN

— Dorthea Kemp (@dkempdesigns) December 14, 2017

School Planning On Facebook

On Facebook, we're looking at the XQ Super Schools Project, a priority of Emerson Collective. This was after I brought up the generic idea of charter networks latching on to at least some of the New England / New Scotland (Nova Scotia) stuff, transcendentalism if you will.  Alexander Graham Bell and family were the New Scotland residents. His interests had turned to aeronautics after the big invention for which he was most known: the telephone.

You may have seen me on Youtube in my obscure (esoteric) channel, telling the story of Bell and his kites, based on this book I'm reading, having mined it for pictures.  Bucky Fuller is mentioned throughout, as another genius who came upon the same discovery by a different route.  I'm talking about the octet-truss of course.  What charters teach that?

Not that one needs a charter or that you have no right to experiment even if you've been stereotyped as a "traditional" school.

Friday, I was out of my usual ruts in North Portland, finally visiting the latest digs used by Saturday Academy, by now the thirty five year old institution.  You'll find I go way back regarding Saturday Academy in these blogs.  We talked about Martian Math some more.  I showed up with what's left of those cardboard polyhedrons made by Russell Chu and Trevor Blake and myself.  Some of those didn't survive to the end of 2017. Plus I took some C6XTY to the meeting.

Where we stand today in Python World, is Visual Python, a flagship spatial geometry add-on, is starting to work well with Jupyter Notebooks, a core technology in my virtual classroom.  We might be able to give high and middle school age students some experience with these tools.  The Martian Math stuff is very polyhedron focused.

C6XTY consists of plastic soccer-ball like spheres held in a semi-rigid lattice per the octet-truss arrangement, ditto Alexander Graham Bell's design for kites, towers, other structures.  Is it that he didn't patent the thing?  One might think that Fuller's gaining a patent on it later might have necessitated bringing their contributions together, and making Bell's work known to Fuller.  Apparently these connections got made only later.

Will a "super school" teach me anything about A, B, T, E and S modules?  In this flavor of spatial geometry, we employ the octet-truss as our home base conceptual scaffolding, not the XYZ all-cubes lattice of Descartes and Fermat.  It's not like we can't use both.  Indeed, in converting between the unit volume of the "IVM" (the octet-truss skeleton) and the unit volume of the XYZ coordinate system, we encounter S3, a specific scale factor, or "currency converter".

Quakers (Friends) have their history as school makers.  Schools have to be more than brick and mortar buildings, a physical campus, to survive the exigencies of time.  They need "schools of thought" to inhabit them, give them life.  What ghosts might we attract over time?  What frequencies?  Obviously, I'm reaching back to reach forward.

Work / Study

The plan in the "US" Congress, to gut grad schools by making tuition waivers taxable, targeting those with the least income yet still with hope, is motivating changes in bookkeeping.  Work/study is what they do in Congress too.

When I get a job at IBM or Google, and work my butt off to learn a lot of in-house procedures, you could say I'm in a kind of grad school, except I never see the $95K income the government would tax, that represents the worth of my training.

Likewise, a freshman legislator, still learning House rules, is getting a tuition waiver on like a $200K privilege, as she or he gets an education in the arcane functioning of government organs.  That's a lot like going to med school.

Given this concept of "tuition waiver" is so flexible, and doesn't apply in the case of IBM or Congress, it looks like schools will be changing their rules as well, to operate more like corporations, the only structure the "US" looks upon favorably, having been hollowed out by same.

We say "US" Congress with scare quotes at times, as the will of the people is no longer expressed through democratic institutions in the District of Columbia.  That's propaganda, or fake news, and rather weak.  We know bankruptcy when we see it.  The attack against grad students is proof positive that we have a dangerous parasite in our midst.  Let's hope the antibodies go into overdrive.

You'll notice the so-called "public schools" no longer teach civics nor provide much insight into the workings of government.  We've degenerated into clashing mobs and their media.  I suppose that's what they mean by "populism".  Whatever it is, it's not recognizably what's spelled out in the US Constitution.

That the USA is dead and gone, undefended by those sworn to uphold its Constitution, is not really news though.  We've lived with mob rule since the 1980s at least.  Imperialism spelled the death of a once proud democracy.  We live amidst its ruins and remnants, waiting to see what springs from the ashes.  In the meantime, it's all Reality TV.