Musings on Theme Park Planet

I was surfing in a Jungian Space yesterday evening, out for dinner with some heavy hitters I know or was getting to know.  Dwaraka was open for indoor seating, per our current zip code protocol (not that protocols are defined at the zip code level -- I refer to Asylum District, here along Hawthorne Boulevard, 97214).

Lets pause for a moment to cite Ken Kesey and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, his novel and later a movie Ken didn't much care for.  That novel put Oregon in the map nonetheless, as thematically about mental health and/or the lack thereof.  Asylum State.  With the double-meaning of "asylum" as "sanctuary" and/or "hangout" and/or "safe space".

What might asylum mean today?  Where might you enjoy an outdoor concert while tripping in some way, without fear of arrest, but in potential need of medical attention?

I'm tempted to go on about Portland's particular place in PsyWar Space (the business of the "intelli-seers") but at this point lets talk about the space of meetups, newly facilitated by Zoomer culture, and also Meetup the website.  

The catalysis of online meetup culture, thanks to covid and people staying at home more, trading First Life (more driving and flying) for Second Life (more virtual) conventions, has sparked an acceleration in the conversation.  New equilibria get established through communities comparing notes, and not just through owner-controlled mass social media.

I'm thinking here of ISEPP Wanderers meetups 52 Thinking Ideas, with Thinking Society of Philadelphia and Humanists of Greater Portland as supporting actors.  This was happening in my backyard, but also through related listservs and emails. 

Humanists were already studying the job of ship crew worker, several weeks back.  I've been looking at the truck driver role for several years myself, not as a driver myself, but as a role play designer (call it "cosplay" if you must).  

The idea here is to apply design principles (ala The Design Way) to lifestyle design, wherein lifestyles contain their workflows, such as truck driving, heavy equipment operating, jet engine development and so on. 

The so-called "dirty jobs" are not outside academic experience, per the polytechnical institute model.  Include housework in the above.  The focus of Fuller's Dymaxion House was its unique particularity along one dimension, but its function in family life along another:  as shelter against the mortgage holders and the related slave driver regimen of both parents working (or lose your home), kids abandoned (to daycare shelters).

In place of polytechnic, think polymathic just as readily.  The "maths" in "polymath" come from "mowings" etymologyically, i.e. the condensed harvest from any "field".  The Silicon Forest is polymathic and its curricula are designed accordingly.  Like check out mine.

How this all connects around on Planet Jung is The Design Way by Harold Nelson and Erik Stolterman invokes James Hillman and other Jungians, and dwells on the importance of the unconscious in creating "organic" solutions that are "with the grain" of a situation.  

A commitment to comprehensivity (polymathy) gets the ball rolling, providing a wholesome starting context, with experienced judgement suggesting when to transition from analysis to implementation. "Analysis paralysis" is a stalling out to avoid, although maybe not in sciences wherein simply describing the status quo is the final objective. "Paralysis" might mean "arrived at the station" in that case (mission accomplished).

Harold Nelson doesn't use the term "Feng Shui" that I could find, but I'm sure many of his followers do.  On Planet Jung (in the space of depth psychology) we permit Alchemy, Feng Shui and Astrology (interconnected "failed paradigms" and/or "pseudo-sciences" to some), to perpetuate some of their ideals, not as scientific truths, but as intentional associations and mnemonic systemic structures of potential value upon selective amplification.  We live as players, not as cogs.

The Design Way posits Truths, Realities, Ideals as orthogonal axes.  

Ideals must be served by Truths in the long run, and the Realities provide the necessary feedback, without which steering would not occur. 

"Are we leaving the ideal path because our truths are wrong, or because we have been lazy in updating our truth tables?"  We sometimes get behind in telling the truth.  Reality overtakes our storytelling.

Again, if you don't bother to have at least these three independent axes in your model, you may more easily become disoriented, as you'll confuse ideals with facts in need of proof, or special case realities, with what's true in general.  

Whatever the case, keep in mind your worldview is (a) yours to keep designing and (b) never finished.

What would Disneyland be without all the "fairy tales" it weaves together using some of the highest tech of the day?  Even "humans making a success of themselves" (Fuller) is but a fairy tale we may embrace, or laugh off as somehow beneath or beyond our ken.  Did we have some better story in mind then?

Does choosing to remain oblivious make us devils?  

Humanity bereft of any cause for hope might pass for the subhuman-tormented, as lost souls, in some dark novel (science fiction?) about mental illness.  "Ill to the point of losing our humanity" reminds us of the benefits of getting our collective mental health back.  "Humanity" still registers as a positive, even if, as creatures (monsters), we abandon our ideals and reconcile ourselves to cruelty and inhumanity as our lot.  

Will the pendulum now swing the other way then?  There's always the hope that these dystopian moods are but cyclic.

Just Say Space

Should I write a memo or something? I just had a realization in marketing space.

CMO here, Chief Marketing Officer for CSN (Coffee Shops Network). So why don't I post on that blog instead? Isn't this company business? Yes and no.

The realization is this: our marketing is being done for us when it comes to "namespaces" (pointing back to PSF Python, see below), in that the pros are just saying "space" and "spaces" and have been for some time.

It's OK to drop the "name" in front.

"I work in the space of advertising" sounds about right. As a phrase in the new vernacular, and also what I do in CMO mode.

I promulgate the idea of (design a space for) playing games for charity, stealing the acceptability of church bingo and drawing from casino space for some of my aesthetics, not to mention video lottery games.

You choose where the money goes, from a menu of options. Build a profile in the process. Be a hero.

Actually that's more spelling out a business model, but leaving out the circuit diagrams I've buried at the CSN blog, to keep patent trolls at bay.

There's a bigger picture around designer giving, the strategic application of funds to specific scenes in the various movies we're making.

Now I'm starting to wear my Asylum City hat, which is not that different when it comes to emphasizing prototyping. Asylum City draws experience from refugee camps, outdoor music venues (sound stages), the Oregon Country Fair, and even Occupy Portland (OPDX).

So that's the memo: just saying space is OK in this space i.e. when we're talking about the various namespaces we're operating with or within.

===

(base) Kirbys-MacBook-Pro:elite_school mac$ python -m this
The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!
(base) Kirbys-MacBook-Pro:elite_school mac$

Trucking and Social Media

Some readers might be surprised to learn that I've long used the cab of the long hauler truck as my paradigm PWS (personal workspace) in GST, even more than the cubicle.  The cab of a truck is a work-study space, and driving may take fierce concentration.  You may also sleep in your study carrel. 

The Trucker Exchange Program is a meme more than a program, even if I've taken inspiration from such as Bob Textor, whom I didn't know well, but I joined his drinking party anyway.  Thirsters at McMenamins. 

He had to do with sensitizing the budding Peace Corps to the importance of Anthropology (the A in STEAM says no one but me).  In terms of diplomatic corps, State Department types, I knew my dad of course, and James Lambert.

Since I'm propagating memes more than I'm administering program, I don't have to worry about taking credit for the rising self esteem among truckers, where "self" stands for "role" i.e. "job".  The idea of a "role" is more appealing I think.  

Theater is it.  World Game.  A play within a play within a play... Disney beat me to it, with cast members instead of employees. We see that holds all the way up, to Top Mouse.

The romance of the trucking lifestyle, if only as a glimmer in the Eye of Possibilities, is enough to keep the would-be future trucker generations circling.  Let's make it a reality while we can. Like while we're not truckers, in my case, but active truckers may join us too.

I'm some member of the movie crew in one scenario, following some experienced long haulers doing OBOR (Silk Road) or something in Africa, or Texas, or in Oregon or Australia.  

I help with curriculum around trucking, to provide continuity, helping to design a global exchange regarding work-study opportunities.  The job (role) involves more tourism and diplomacy.  We depend on truckers to work things out.

A Battle for Market Share

The joke about 5G is that "it isn't about mind control" whereas of course it is.  Not in a tin foil hat sense, but in a marketing sense. The FCC needs you to be OK with 5G, as does Qualcomm, and really, what's your problem with it?  

Do you intend to obstruct the right of free peoples to make use of those frequencies?  We already use them, for cooking.

The PR maze makes it look like the anti-5Gers have a problem understanding the difference between nuclear bomb type fallout radiation, and the kind we all use to listen to the BBC on FM.  

5G is way down below the visible spectrum with radar, microwave, and other ice cream melting frequencies.  5G has nothing to do with gamma rays.  The G does not stand for Gamma, you sillies.  You conspiracy theorists who think people haven't done their homework.

That other animals besides humans might already be making use of invisible frequencies is in many circles considered balderdash, except in the sense that loud sonar or rocket blasts could break the hearing and peace of mind, to the point of self destruction, of various species.  

If SpaceX blasts the surrounding turtle space with trauma and drama, it's not a given the sacred species will "bounce back".  

The science will tell us, if and when, but by then it may be too late.

Research seems to show that animals brought up in the presence of 5G suffer no ill effects presuming just a trickle of power.  Blasting power through devices not meant to handle it, usually causes damage, to phones and IoT devices included, not just nervous systems (wiring is wiring). 

Ear drums get damaged when subjected to 2G rock and roll (when the giant amps and speakers made their debut, and kids stood right up next to 'em).  Stand right in front of a radar at the wrong time, and you're asking for trouble.

But are all the concerns around next generation telecommunications owing to concerns about brains in a radio frequencies ocean?  Not at all.  Other paranoias run just as deep if not deeper.  Stay tuned.

City of Transients

In the ordinary English I inherited from birth, a "transient" is someone who hangs out around the Greyhound bus station, not really from around here, and soon to move on (with our encouragement, "we" being the people who live here).  You could use "transient" interchangeably with "undesirable".

The revenge of the "transients" came with "tourists" who would come through laden with the gift of a hard currency. One's role in life was now to be authentic, loyal to one's traditions, so the outsiders could gawk at one's behaving so quaintly. The Amish could set up a roadside gift shop, and get the hard cash needed to procure from "the grid" (or "the English" in their jargon).

"Transient City" is more fun than just a giant dreary Greyhound bus station, however I admire the Greyhound brand and so wouldn't mind working it in.  "Disneyland for Bums" doesn't get it right either, because a Wanderer is possibly a college professor, someone else skilled, serious, hard working.  Among the bums be anti-bums. The quantum physics of "particles in transit" includes a representative percentage of every human variety (even the rare types).

I'm fine with working backward from the scandalized of the future.  Artificial Intelligence (Spielberg) does this with the anti-AI circus, wherein the anti-AI bash the AIs (the robots). My time-tunnel scenario was through the 1960s and Woodstock. Harlem had a blow-out around the same time (a giant party). 

Music is core to Asylum City, as is the willing participation of government agencies ala Oregon's Vortex 1 festival, brought to my attention by Alan Potkin and tracked by me ever since.  

The Oregon Country Fair in Eugene, Oregon is another model.  Expand that to include a whole suburb of a larger City, with sound stages and FM radio bubbles, and lots of internet with storefront gamer shops.  Wait, didn't I just describe the 1990s?  

Where are the sports stadia and intramural events?  At the schools of course.  Scholars and athletes are encouraged to cavort, and even be the same persons if possible (a Greek ideal).

The transient nature of tourists coming here, to live awhile, then move on, based on new connections and situations, leads to a camaraderie one finds among tourists.  Some are too full of stories to ever shut up about and are hard to be with, especially if one is bursting with stories as well.  Others have an endless supply of travel tips and whet the appetite of Asylum seekers to get out, to see the world, to quit the venue of Wanderers, Flaneurs, Tourists and rejoin a more static community, a Terminus (station, placement).

Not all my visions of Asylum City are this sprawling.  As I write, I find myself picturing current situations, the shanty towns, the refugee camps, stretching for miles.  How do we shape these into more festival centric "tourist traps" destined to drain, eventually, of those truly wishing to move away for awhile (they deserve a vacation), while serving as strange attractors for others.  

Those who leave, may return (e.g. to Gaza), to see how a steady flow of tourism may shape a place that's ideal for transients.  Airport transit lounges provide a clay for our imaginative play.  Ambient Music for Airports.  Hello Brian Eno.

Scheherazad Numbers

On the Zoom call yesterday, with simultaneous chat (text dialog), I found myself weighing in on what I thought Bucky Fuller was up to with these uber-composite numbers, pregnant with prime factors, and going for a large number of digits.

We're used to large digit integers from cryptography these days, and the idea of a "wrap around" gear wherein our composite is the modulus for totatives, co-primes to N.  Scheherazad Numbers would have those too, but maybe not as many as we'd expect (depending who "we" are), given their size.

Flash to the Antikythera mechanism, reconstructed from ancient blueprints (a rusted specimen, subjected to X-ray analysis), and we find a gearworks up to tracking local astrophysical phenomena.  Integers can do it pretty well, if at high enough frequency.  So could a computerized Antikythera with Scheherazad Number limits to precision, hold its own?

The theory includes trig tables and all manner of digital operation, within the confines of this high frequency integer space, however expressed as a decimal.  The Numbers provide a degree of resolution, without dictating a specific scale, much as RGB provides "millions of colors" and no more.

In Buckyverse we have this "nature is not using pi" trope, which stands for the whole phenomenological argument over whether pi has trillions of digits of significance in any future physics, or does Planck insure a limit on precision / certainty (Heisenberg too)?  Bucky comes down on the side of uber-precision being attainable, but infinite precision being the fetish of infinitists, a school of thought he's pitted against.

In other words, nature gets through the day without needing our trillion digits computer generated versions of "pi in theory", as fun as this target is to reach for.  Incommensurability is a real phenomenon sure enough. I don't think of Synergetics as "in denial" vs-a-vis what Euclid proved:  that the 2nd root of two could never fully resolve as some p/q with p, q integers.  Rationals have their limited exactitude, but then what doesn't in phenomenological space and time?