Chenté

Friday @ Matt's

I'm at Matt's place checking Google videos. I enjoyed this quick tour of a newspaper production facility.

The IE interface to my control panel for blogging @ Google really sucks on this OS X box -- no editing controls. No wonder Nick is dead in the water (he's packing an iBook or something). I'll continue polishing this posting when I get access to a more usable interface. I don't know if Safari is any better... Nope, sucks as well (not user-friendly).

My own video upload is still in verification.

Why am I at Matt's place? Time for the annual gutter cleaning, followed by the ritual meal.

It's Veterans' Day today. The flags are in place up and down Hawthorne.

Wednesday @ Pauling House

Setting: two tapes filled, camera now rewinding (I was cameraman, made lots of mistakes); participants are right now discussing funereal customs, cemetery design and so on, having already covered transportation, economic and social rules, many other matters -- all this in the context of Guatemala, per Don's slide show.

On break, Dick Pugh offered to do similar travelogues (Trans-Siberian railroad for example). We're Wanderers, so yeah, this makes some sense. On the other hand, we've typically integrated more science-minded analysis, dealt less in raw intelligence. What's the status of Guatemala's electrical grid I wonder. Or we could just lighten up and do more anthro -- more philo too while we're at it.

Don was embedded with a former student and family, Don being retired faculty, Mt. Hood Community College. His student runs a restaurant serving USA-style dishes (pizza and such). Don learned a great deal on this three week sojourn, his first foray outside El Norte. He performed marvelously, and brought back a ton of interesting insights and information. Guatemala is definitely a happening place. I was especially taken with Chenté, a street smart dog in the family.

I've got a bid request in with Bullseyedisc to see if our tape collection might be transcribed to DVD at an affordable cost. We'll recycle the Hi-8 tapes, minting 3 DVDs per talk to start: copy to the presenter(s) of a talk; copy to the in-house library; copy for off-site backup, Iron Mountain style. We may take up a collection, once the bid is in (likely the $80 or so in the coffee fund won't cover it -- I've got a stash of like 25 tapes by this time, including the two of Doug Strain).

Nancy joined Don and I for lunch on the boat where I got cell calls from France (school business) and from Mom in Washington, DC (I dropped her at the airport before Wanderers).

Tonight I met up with Dick Pugh again, also Wanderers McCarty and McGown, at the Sigma Xi meeting at PSU (Brother Guy for the Vatican re Pluto et al (hey, I vote we name this new 10th planet, grain of sand thingy Diana -- or maybe Coyote after some Native American)).

Monday @ Pauling House

Wardwell is burning CD-Rs with pictures taken in Guatemala on his Canon. We just purchased those from Fred Meyer's, with a parking lot on the roof (Google Earth shows it clearly -- across from the red-roofed Jiffy Lube, 39th and Hawthorne). We also bought an extension cord (8') to go from the wall to the power strip (grounded outlet), into which strip are plugged: Don's iMac laptop, my Toshiba running WinXP, my Optoma small footprint projector. We're running routine tests to make sure we're ready for his presentations. Don and Patrick (works here) are chatting in another room. Outside: dusk, still pretty light, 4:39 PM.

Physics Emergent (ISEPP lecture)

Physicist and Nobel laureate Dr. Robert Laughlin delivered the kickoff ISEPP lecture at the Schnitz last night. He projected a series of hand drawings (he's pretty good -- plans to take up color in a next life if he gets one) and talked about The Frontier (archetype) in science: yes there is one, but a lot of times we look for it in the wrong direction.

The word "law" has two connotations in English: physical laws that set the stage, and social agreements that govern the acting. Laws of the first type get ascribed to God, at least in Judeo-Christian thinking, and so we get the picture that God supplies the foundations or fundamentals, and complex life forms such as ourselves build atop this set-in-stone framework.

However, what's becoming more apparent in science is that physical laws may be emergent in the sense that their formulation and description only makes sense in the context of complex aggregates, assemblies or "piles" (Laughlin showed a pile of apples -- the picture had other plot elements I won't go into). The phenomena these rules describe simply vanish at more inward levels. So we get this hierarchy of "grammars" [my word choice].

Later, after dinner at the Heathman, I stepped out from behind the camera to propose this analogy: say a novelist is bound to follow all the rules of grammar [I'll add proper spelling], but in order to sell books, knows to incorporate suspense, to follow other rules for strong plot development; nothing about the rules of grammar predict or force a novel to be any good (that's up to the writer) i.e. these higher order rules are emergent.

Laughlin found this a pretty good analogy with the following caveat: he doesn't see any need to complement the mindless automaticity of quantum mechanics with some new principle of Agency (the writer). He's OK having his Universe run on autopilot, with emergent/synergetic behaviors, yes, but still a machine in the final analysis (Occam's Razor at work).

One practical consequence of emergent law (in physics, not just in biology and society) is we can't advance science through thought experiment alone. Measurement remains a primary source of new discoveries, and this feeds our appetite for new and better instruments (e.g. earth-focused satellites). Our sphere of scientific relevance, at any frequency, is bounded by our ability to measure.

For this reason, Laughlin sees string theory (about the very small) as only quasi-scientific, given it hasn't yet given us doable experiments that would make it falsifiable. A lot of cosmology (about the very large) is like that too. A chief purpose and benefit of such twilight zone science fiction is it helps us raise funds for new machinery so that the horizons of real science might be expanded to new frontiers.

Speaking of Nobel laureates, we remember Dr. Richard Smalley, a co-discoverer of fullerene, who died recently. And speaking of scientists who have died recently, we remember Dr. George S. Hammond, chemist par excellance, and a Wanderer.

Good Night and Good Luck (movie review)

George Clooney, writer and director, and Fred Friendly in this film, takes us back to a world of monochrome TV, excessive smoking, and people trying to stay sane (which is why the film is timely, and why the packed audience applauded at the end). It's a film about courage and integrity. Mom loved it.

A theme here is television might be used more effectively to wake people from their soaps and sitcoms and give them a bigger dose of reality. However, those trafficing in "reality" seem prone to paranoia and keep taking us into nightmarish episodes. Maybe more politicians should be watching Rome or Extras on HBO, instead of inflicting their twisted brand of theater on the rest of us. Maybe we need more quality fiction, not less. We could make it "reality fiction" -- like this film.

A couple years ago I rented the Ed Murrow vs. Joe McCarthy tapes from Movie Madness, having been too young to appreciate these events at the time. Last night I took the new projector over to Larry's house, where he shared Thirteen Days, about the Cuban missile crisis, one of his favorite films (I shared eXistenZ, one of mine). My reaction to these "great game" scenarios (ongoing): why should such a tiny cast get to arrogate so much power to script world events?

If an apocalyptic showdown between "great powers" is what turns you on, just rent the DVD. Either that, or think of some better role playing games, with more interesting and constructive props.

Rambling On

I missed much of the Wanderers meeting today at the Linus Pauling house, as I had a routine doc appointment (my annual physical). I got back for the tail end of a rambling discussion of the Israel-Palestine situation, the Canadian health care system, the tax advantages of S- corporations and so on.

We didn't have an organized presentation today.

Jim brought fresh-picked chantrelles again, $15/lb. at the local grocery store. I reported on Don's communications from Guatemala (so far so good). Patrick's wife might present on supercomputer applications in a few weeks (she used to work for Sandia).

In today's Oregonian (page D1): Google gives a $350K grant to PSU-OSU to for development of open source software (Google uses a lot of it, including Linux, Apache, Python and more).

This evening, I drove mom down to the AFSC-organized reading of soldier and civilian names, American and Iraqi war dead. I was glad to reconnect (however briefly) with local staff I've worked with (Alice, Marco, Pam). I brought some decaf to the Metcalfs, MMM stalwarts, who were holding the Quaker sign. Bruce Huntwork sat next to me for awhile. A few hundred showed up, in the park between City Hall and the Federal Building. My camera fell out of its case onto the bricks, but didn't break (yay).

I'm making rather slow headway in Quake 4. Les, recently back from China and Korea, would no doubt have finished it by now.

Shopping Trip

Friend Andy Cross of MMM invited me to join him on a trip to Fry's Electronics this Friday morning, a big box vendor in Wilsonville that used to be named Incredible Universe when owned by Tandy (Radio Shack). I sometimes call it Mecca, given its importance in my reality, and how often I make the pilgrimage. That no doubt sounds sacrilegious to some, but I figure electronics engineers have done God's will at least as effectively as priests (not that these are mutually exclusive occupations).

Andy was picking up a whole new system (a Sony desktop). I grabbed an internal DVD burner (16x +/- R, 4x DL, 5x DVD-RAM) for like $45 including mail-in rebate. My first backup was only 1x (very slow) but I don't think the new device was to blame (I was off having a beer -- next time I'll monitor more closely). I considered the more expensive Plextor, a brand with a loyal following, but unlike some Pentagoners I don't insist on gold plating.

I also bought Quake 4 for $37.99, a choice some Quakers will question. Like, what's a pacifist like me doing with an M-rated game ("Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language")? I'm actually OK with mythical mayhem. I'm this Marine fighting Strogg, with all humanity united behind me and my buddies depending on my prowess in battle. Thankfully it's only a simulation, as I die often.

Back to Work

Following that fun vacation to McMinnville and environs, I needed to get back to various projects simmering on my metaphorical stove (my real electric one has 4 burners, only 3 usable, plus a working oven).

Front burner: Sam Lanahan would like to meet Ken Snelson, given Flextegrity is entering the patent literature in close proximity to Ken's and Bucky's work As a software engineer, I'm suspicious patent abuse will gum up the works, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize good literature. Patent libraries are goldmines for historians of engineering.

Ken phoned me re my recent email proposing Sam and I fly out for a visit, just as I was going into a meeting on another high priority project: keeping the flow of clinical data to my health mission client uninterrupted, as we transition from vendor A to vendor B in the cath labs over the next few months.

Project 3: the RBF-LW bridge, a work in progress in philosophy world (I'm a critical path manager on this one).

Project 4: wiring more synergetics into K-12 CS-informed math (CS = computer science). I need more help from television on this front. Geometry lends itself to communication by that medium -- looking forward to more in high def TV and DVD. My work with Russ (he just sent some new EIG files) comes under this heading.

And last but not least, Project 5: preparing to teach Python in a Portland Public School (a 9 week stint, not counting school holidays and vacations).

... other projects, too numerous to mention, will need to go unlisted at this juncture (I read a lot of blogs, journalism and stuff, watch some TV, but that's more play than work, plus doesn't pay the bills).

Precessionally (tangentially, thinking more in terms of side effects), the above projects are also about putting 4D Solutions on wheels, in a bizmo, e.g. when I go on the road more, I'll still need to VPN into client networks, do source code editing and such (which reminds me, I need to stop writing in my blog and do some more POV-Ray renderings for Sam 'n LaJean).

From Evergreen's Airplane Collection

A MiG
Photo by K. Urner

Per our tour guide: the MiG's guns pointed upward 15 degrees for some reason, so the way to avoid being shot at was to fly very close to the ground. If you were shot at anyway, because the MiG was chasing you upside down, the pilot was probably Russian.

Our Hotel's First Manager

Portrait of Tom White
photo by K. Urner w/ Olympus Stylus 500

The inscription on the wall next to this painting reads: "Tom White gave life to the hotel in 1905 and guided it through its initial quarter century. A bit of a Renaissance man, Tom was well-read, a devoted member of the Masons, and very active in community work. He was an excellent cook, a skilled carpenter and loved working on his farm."

Hotel Oregon

Dawn and I did a retreat at Hotel Oregon recently. That's in the small town of McMinnville, in the heart of some wider sprawl engineered by a freeway- and mall-minded culture. We stayed in the first manager's bedroom, Tom White's. Yes, another Mason, like many departed in McMenemin's world. We learned of more Masons at the Grand Lodge in Forest Grove on another visit.

Then we visited the Spruce Goose and friends, at Evergreen Aviation. Our tour guide and former F4 pilot was none too pleased his bombing mission got canceled that day Hanoi Jane was in town. Fonda's visit recalls the early days after WWII, when the OSS thought Ho'd be a fine leader of a Jeffersonian democracy (Ho thought so too) if only the French empire would pull back, which it eventually started doing (Japan's empire had already been pushed back, thanks in part to this new US-Vietnamese alliance).

Then LAWCAP (e.g. Dulles & Dulles) decided to rebalance the powers by joining forces with former enemies Germany and Japan, now vanquished and ripe for rebuilding (see JFK by Col. L. Fletcher Prouty). In Vietnam, the "quiet Americans" (Capitalism's Invisible Army) started taking over, to fight an Evil Empire. Thus began WWIII, or the Cold War as they called it, in which many more millions would die, especially in Southeast Asia. That was before the Grunch came along (e.g. Fuller & Co.) and another rebalancing.

Evergreen also has an SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, which could read license plates and sense where the bodies of migrant farm workers were buried in California. Very cool. Its competition, the U "shot down" 2, is still in service, exposing miles of film to targets of interest.

I especially recommend the Hotel Oregon's rooftop pub and restaurant (we took the stairs, but there's an elevator somewhere). Park in the 2-story garage opposite the police station on 5th. And be sure to check out the Mack Theater directly across 3rd street to see what's showing. Dawn and I saw Junebug.

The Corpse Bride (movie review)

Many critics declaim against this movie's supposedly shallow plot (my wife included), but I figure the secret to this fairy tale is to see but one bride and groom to be, and the projections they go through.

The girl thinks maybe a parasitical money-grubbing a-hole is out to get her, like the one that broke her heart before, but this new guy seems different.

The new guy, meantime, is your typical morbid poet, worried about death and decay, and how this gorgeous girl is also this amazing like dead thing, i.e. so absurdly physical.

So yeah, the marriage rehearsals leading up to the real deal are seemingly interminable. The projected parental marriages aren't very encouraging either. I can see where some young folks might pause for thought before tying the knot.

Like Robots, this film is all about a look, and that look ain't just window dressing or something irrelevant. No, that's a looking glass look, a fun house mirror, a lens -- an artifact storytellers have worked on and polished, and handed down across centuries. Many proud artists, many forgotten graves.

The musical numbers: also strictly by the book.

There're only so many ways to do macabre, and make a funny family flick at the same time (Addams Family is another). This way works. Please accept my gratitude.

Talk Like A Pirate Day

Pirate ordering a cheeseburger
at the Island Cafe, 19 Sept 2005
(by K. Urner, Olympus Stylus 500,
brightness/contrast adjusted)

Rethinking the CyberBookMobile Concept

Based a lot on Ulmer's reality check, I'm recognizing my state of the art bizmo fleet is going to need better infrastructure. I just don't have the skills necessary to operate a rig like Dave's -- would need a crew of grannies to keep it long haul operational.

Per my alternative model lifestyle, I'd be less inclined to hold tightly to one bizmo of my own, and more thinking to check one out from a garage closer to a point of interest. After mission control uplinks my mission, I'll swoop into Town A and do some of the requested curriculum stuff, leaving behind a local school faculty thinking more about sphere packings, hypertoons, Pythonic mathematics. Lone Ranger type stuff ("nicely done Kemosabe" -- like when Don deftly parks his Meliptus alongside the Island Cafe).

This is a healthy memepool for sure, but should be no one's exclusive diet, nor is it, even for me. However, my bizmo will run software uniquely customized for my brand of scholarship and teaching/outreach -- not because I'm all that tied to a specific bizmo, but because the basic design is highly configurable through downlinking OS level stuff and/or special purpose applications.

On the outside, different bizmos may have different decals (I'm hoping we'll be seeing some from Google, whether I'm a driver or not). Those with the same decals will likely be running a lot of software in common (reflective of whatever corporate cultures, e.g. Mentor Graphics).

The decals themselves may be swappable, in the same way a Tri-Met bus, though advertising its route with lit signage, is perfectly able to run a different route on another day. In my case, my decals (e.g. 4D Solutions logo) might follow me around, maybe in the form of a rear view mirror dongle or glove box credential. The same physical bizmo might return to the same electronic gate on consecutive evenings, and gain access the one night but not the other, because the decals, running code, crew and driver, could have all changed overnight, not a big deal.

Basically, a geek checks the thing out of the garage, and then sucks down her favorite kernel (one of several), possibly similar to what wuz running in her last bizmo, or maybe in one she's nostalgic about (like running Win98 in 2020) but now the target points are different, so a different garage was accessed (same deal with the rental cars: return at the airport, like to PDX or whatever).

On another note (and speaking of The Island Cafe): last September 19 was Talk Like a Pirate Day, and by nightfall, we had a full cast of free spirits in properly piratical attire, right down to the plastic parrot this one guy had. A boat sailed to and fro in the channel, setting off a miniature ceremonial cannon, reminding me of the curious opening to The Confusion, sequel to Quicksilver in the 3-part Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson (Jules, Don's grandson, Nirel's son, is another Stephenson fan).

Dave's Bizmo

Dave, age 59, is presenting Dave's Life this Wednesday morning, about his on-the-road lifestyle. His slides break it down into Motivation, Equipment, Infrastructure, Monthly Costs and so on. The lifestyle depends on having good telecommunications and maintenance skills.

Given the complexity of these rigs "if you're not mechanically adept, you're dead meat" -- even RV-driving grannies have to learn basic troubleshooting, often by consulting Internet user groups (there'll be one for every component). Schematics aren't necessarily available, and dealerships may have long waiting lists.

Dave avoids RV parks like the plague, uses GIS/GPS to locate suitable public lands (BLM, state, national forest, military -- or maybe a Wal-Mart parking lot). This land is your land, this land is my land. He pulls a trailer containing a Yamaha Mountain Max snowmobile (used mostly in the spring) and Suzuki DRZ400 dual sport motorcycle. The bizmo itself is a 33' Beaver Diesel Pusher motorhome. He's self-sufficient in terms of fuel, food, water, power, for weeks at a time. His utilities (fuel, satellite, insurance etc.) run about $825 a month, plus maybe $200 for food with an emphasis on fresh vegetables (Safeway a good source).

Before 2000, when GPS was deliberately inaccurate, Dave smashed his snowmobile on the side of Mount St. Helens, thinking he was on a trail he wasn't. Driving heavy equipment, alone, in desolate, erratic terrain, is highly dangerous. Dave rarely takes these unnecessary risks. He stores his camp sites, drive routes, other points of interest in GIS software. Given over two years of living this way full time, he's got a gold mine of information in his database. His photo diary, shared with a small group of subscribers, is likewise a valuable record of his adventures.

Wanderers Retreat

I showed up at the Blanchard Education Service Center today to make some brief remarks on behalf of the Koreducators' charter school proposal. Adam & Co. certainly have their ducks in a row.

Retreat:

Day one (9/23):

We used earth.google.com software and projector to zoom in on the Pauling House, plus visit other points of interest (Gothenburg isn't highly resolved yet -- didn't find Chalmers). Jon Bunce grilled Dave Ulmer on his book (unpublished), having given it a close read. Nancy joined us enroute to another retreat at Mt. Angel with Father Driscoll. We looked at slides I took of Julian's unveiling of Heart of Steel in Lake Oswego, and slides of Dave's many bizmo adventures. The bizmo itself is parked out back, receiving satellite TV about hurricane Rita. Downloaded from iTunes and played: We Didn't Start the Fire (Billy Joel), played a bogus game of chess.

Day two (9/24):

Briefed by Dawn on Smallville developments (season 3), cartoons, Rita (weather news), breakfast on Hawthorne (Tabor Hill Cafe), helped Consoletti with inheritance fax, gave Ulmer my 9/14 letter (feedback on his book) while he projected the DVD 1984 from his laptop (I didn't watch too closely this time, believe I've seen it before -- like Brazil). Dave backed up the bizmo by 6', enough to see the HDTV satellite behind the tree. Jon & Don off to check out a dishwasher (mechanical problem). Allen's here -- he and I went out for Thai (Rick joined us for Thai take-out last night). I did some more messing about with "math through programming."

Big summit on future of Wanderers in the evening. Terry Bristol, David Feinstein, Steve Bergman, Audrey Lee, Pat Barton, Gus Frederick joined our group. Lots of discussion, lots of web sites projected. What did we decide? Terry is working on getting us a server with a fat pipe. Doug Strain's interest in peace work helps define us.

Day three (9/25):

Woke up with Sarah in the bed (sorry Dawn, I know the rules), another Smallville briefing from Tara (still season 3). Drove mom to Quaker meetinghouse (former ESI building) in Razz (our razzberry-colored Subaru wagon). Joined Dave & Don in the bizmo for long HDNet pans from a helicopter over New Orleans (some amazingly cool cemeteries). Even spookier would be HDNet over Chernobyl (saw that dare devil Russian chic's fast motorcyle diary -- likewise amazingly cool). Thanh Thao has been a source of most meals. Celestia + Stellarium = an answer to my prayers. I missed the impromptu presentation by portland.freeskool.org. Office Depot, printer madness. Guests from South Africa (the home scene). Julian came by with both children (I projected my slides from the unveiling). Jon solved the story problem (about a man and his dog).

Retarded Design

At the other end of the spectrum: yes, the closed and systematic formal expression of Universe is incomplete, always tantalizingly improvable. But the balancing inexplicable complement, considered from an all too human point of view, is slow-like, not God-like. We're mortally, fatally stupid and (good news) the generalized principles are on our side -- was Fuller's view. The eternal works to save us from ourselves.

Human intelligence, even at its best, is a form of retardation (a lagging), an abberation, which plunges us into the consequences of limited knowledge, limited speed. But that's not synonymous with any condemnation to hell. If we accept our limitations, yet continue to faithfully participate, knowing we're not the veritable impersonation of omniscience, we'll likely still do OK. Integrity matters.

What doesn't so much matter is whether you posit, in the sense of imagine, idolize, that superior intelligence. Either way, you/I ain't it. So believers, cut those who don't some slack. Non-believers, reciprocate. Either way, we're retarded, yet exercising what powers of intelligence we might. We shine as brightly as we're able, dim though we may be. Integrity matters.

Happy Birthday Dawn Wicca

We're so fortunate to have you in our lives. Here's to a kind and talented spouse, mother, daughter, friend, sibling -- also a fighter in more ways than one.

Batman Begins (movie review)

This movie is now playing at the Bagdad in 2nd run (cheaper admission, profits made in beer & pizza), but I've so far resisted the temptation to see it again. Dawn and I both enjoyed it quite a bit when we saw it in 1st run. Really the perfect batman film, plus the sequels have already been made, so the sequence feels complete. More could be done, sure, but this particular one admirably captures Metropolis in high gothic style, within a dark story against an east-meets-west backdrop. Pretty sophisticated stuff, for a comic book movie about a fictional superhero. Plus I heard Terry Gross interview Christian Bale on NPR. Very informative.