Summer in the City

Bartender and Server on Hawthorne
Photo by K. Urner

Meanwhile, Near Hawthorne...

Caught John Roberts (the anchor, not the Supreme Court nominee) getting rid of his tie last night, following a segment on down-dressing business class Japanese (still formal, just minus the jacket and tie). Then today in Powell's I found Fruits, by Phaidon, about fashion-savvy teens in and around Tokyo, setting new trends. "Fruits" carries no specific connotations regarding sexual orientation in this context, unless you count polymorphously perverse.

What cracked me up on CBS last night was the story about DARPA trying to turn those cute robot puppies into vicious dogs of war, and maybe those Segways™ (straight out of Fantasia's Sorcerer's Apprentice) into silent stalkers. Leave it to DARPA to put a scary sinister spin on anything (even Python -- actually Python was easy).

I eyed the news while packing a night bag for Tara, who slept at the Oregon Zoo (Brenna too), part of a programmed summer camp experience for youngsters in this town. Dawn was in post-op, Short Stay, but not for anything too serious, and I fetched her home later that evening, having spent the better part of the day at the hospital, where I almost finished Quicksilver (so today I bought The Confusion, and a map of Rome).

Kirbiania

Hugh Watkins, a Wittgenstein buff based in Copenhagen these days, coined "Kirbiania" to refer to my writings (Kirbinalia might have been an alternative). Could this be some brand of God-talk from the Book of Narnia perchance, used by some exotic species or being that didn't make the final edit? Here's the relevant blog entry.

We've been feeling somewhat out of the woods regarding my wife's medical condition, at least for the interim, but today it finally hit home what they've been trying to tell us: the MRI was not really negative (although the PET thankfully was), and given the state of the art, that could mean many things. So an ultra-sound is indicated, and maybe a biopsy.

I'm about done programming my OSCON talk, which will presumably happen sometime in the first week of August. Later in the summer, we're hoping to maybe rent a smallish RV and visit Dawn's brother and sister-in-law near Sisters, and Crater Lake. I'd prefer to field test a real bizmo, but Education Research is less of a budget priority right now.

No, civilian programming continues to take a back seat as we prosecute some war on terror ad infinitum. Granted, life is somewhat terrifying, so there'll always be this need to keep our minds occupied with security concerns. But like president Eisenhower, I'd rather opt for better and more global health care, higher living standards, more civilian alternatives. Livingry is far more effective against terror than killingry.

As I wrote to Hugh yesterday: "In focusing on ordinary language, I think [Wittgenstein] brings us to where the action is, i.e. we need to infuse more science content into ordinary thinking, so that human beings bumble about in less politically-minded language games and spend more time programming their new smart homes and playing world game. "

My wife and I are mindful of the fact that the level of medical care we're getting is far above the global average -- and yet is still so dark ages compared to what it could be (the doctors feel this acutely).

Stealth Boat

"stealth boat"
(photo by K.Urner)

So today's front page of the Oregonian was about this jet boat variant we've been seeing, and photographing, on the Columbia River. Don and I watched it from the Chris Craft that day, as I filled my Olympus xD card (property of 4D Solutions).

Maybe we weren't supposed to take pictures, but I figured this is my Columbia as much as theirs, so if you're going to putter about in a public area, you'd better not complain if you're treated as a member of the public, by your fellow taxpayers.

Especially if you're working for the government, expect to be monitored by the boss (i.e. "we the people").

A crew member pointed to the shadow boat, like maybe that'd give me pause. So I got some stills of it, too. Anyway, now it's an open secret, so I might stop dragging Friends into my office during potluck, for a quick peek at the funny jet boat (followed by friendly speculations -- many of them on target).

JetBlue's Bizmo

JetBlue Bizmo, Blues Festival, PDX 2005.
Photo by Don Wardwell

Liseburg Amusement Park

Liseburg Kannen, 1 July, 2005 14:19:58
Gothenburg, Sweden (robot camera)

Gothenburg

This was a long day, given the sun only set for a few minutes, sometime after midnight, when we'd passed beyond Greenland going about 625 mph at 35,000 feet on a muscular MD-11 owned by KLM, enroute from Vancouver, BC to Amsterdam. The next jet, a 737-400, also KLM, was named Ernest Hemingway. The Air Canada from PDX to Vancouver was a Dash-8 (props, cabin under the wing). Airplane reading: Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson.

I haven't slept much since waking up in Portland many hours ago. That's OK. Dawn sometimes talks about entering dreamtime when she travels. Maybe this is what she means. I'm here for EuroPython of course, as a special invitee. We've got a thread going on the Math Forum that has some more background.

A Day At the River

Today Dawn woke up more unhappy than usual, and we resolved that getting out to some new place would be good. Her choice: Sandy River by way of Edgefield. We took this trip, and her mood greatly improved, as did mine. Scenic Troutdale was fun to drive through.

At the river, which we drove to after walking around the golf course, admiring the fresh plants (plus a wedding was getting ready to happen), having lunch, a big sign warned of drowing deaths, I think 12 since 1993.

Too many. Life guards were on duty, and an ambulance was parked nearby. But I'm sure this level of support can't be arranged 24/7. Kids will swim nude, drunk, or dive off the bridge. Grownups have their own problems.

The circling hawks were spectacular.

In a few minutes, I'll join Matt and Mike for a beer. Mike has a new used car. We haven't the three of us gotten together since my birthday. I'm coming back early though, as Dawn wants to celebrate the solstice with some good friends while I look after Tara. That's perfectly OK with me -- recharging one's batteries is an important part of life, especially during holidays.

Dad Guy

Me at Powell's.

Photo taken by Derek using the new
5.0 megapixel Olympus Stylus 500
(same one mom took to England)

Hat: from Princeton reunion, hand made in Ecuador
Shirt: ActiveState company shirt, a gift from OSCON
Pants: basic jeans with lots of pockets

Happy Birthday Tara

We celebrated at the Spaghetti Factory down by the river.

The Tree House

Tree House

I was glad to be back in Cary's and Theo's tree house last night. I took Continental from PDX to EWR, public bus to Newark's Penn Station, PATH to WTC, subways from Chambers St. to 88th on the west side.

I had dinner with David Lansky and his two boys, Ben in college, Sam in high school, and with Arthur Siegel, an active co-participant on edu-sig.

We discussed, among other things, the role of technology in the curriculum, the relevance (or lack thereof) of math courses. Sam shared his dissatisfaction with math courses that give no real depth, are entirely about doing well on some final test (in his case the IB exam). He once asked his teacher about some concept, and she told him not to worry about it, because this concept wouldn't be on the exam. Ben is seriously into English at Haverford, but assured us that many of his classmates are bona fide math and science geeks.

My goal was to make the 8:20 PM Amtrak to Rhinecliff, but I missed it by a couple minutes, trying to type my name on this touch screen interface at 34th St. Penn Station. So I hopped a subway to Times Square and took the cross-town shuttle (S), to Grand Central (enjoyed the wireless in the waiting area, with a $2 can of Bud). The Metrolink North on track 37, departing 10:02 PM for Poughkeepsie, brought me close enough for poor sleep-deprived Stu Quimby (a Toyman) to come fetch me, and bring me to the tree house. I slept well.

Spoon Man

Spoon Man

Artis in my living room, setting up for a performance. Photo by Don Wardwell, Canon digital camera, slow motion setting.

Artis, a busker, gave Nick a ride that day, coming down from Seattle, enroute to Bandon via Eugene. Nick phoned today from eastern Oregon, with Stallings, who is now doing a solo version of Hamlet (see my earlier review of his adaptation of King Lear).

The Aviator (movie review)

As in A Beautiful Mind, the screenwriters here have the daunting task of projecting the protagonist's psychic tailspin on the big screen. We see many foreshadowings that he'll be losing his grip, but not before he takes on the world and changes it significantly, and for the better.

To keep the storyline manageable, and maybe because the yet youthful DiCaprio would not seem quite believable as an old man, we never get to the concluding chapters in Las Vegas.

Congressman Brewster, well played by Alan Alda, was actually banking on Hughes snapping under pressure, making a public spectacle of his managerial incompetence. But this plan backfires. Fighting to keeping TWA on the map, versus a greedy Pan Am, contributes mightily to Howard's sanity. Here's a simple game with obvious villains. Hughes is restored to health by fighting in this political arena.

The movie-star women, though more complex than the greedy guys, are still a source of sanity in his life, though his mother takes a hit for maybe contributing to his ill-defined germ phobia (I understand Tesla had a similar problem -- or was it a fear of being poisoned?). My favorite line in the film: Ava Gardner walks into this apartment he's been flipping out in, sees tape connecting everything to everything (I'll guess this was a screenwriter fiction) and says with droll humor as she pours herself a drink: "I love what you've done with the place."

And then of course we have the airplanes, the simplest creatures of all (which the screenwriters compare with the women at least superficially -- both sleek). The planes are Howard's chief conduit to the exhilarating world of unforgiving physical principles versus human engineering and a desire to master them. When the plane, the woman, and bottled milk all come together (Katherine Hepburn at the wheel, high above Hollywood), he's in his element at last.

Oswego 2003

Oswego 2003

I've just been perusing a photo-blog chronicling the SNEC Summer Workshop in Oswego, New York, June, 2003. The ever-wandering Nick Consoletti, PhD attended the Tensegrity Structures workshop (also at SUNY Oswego) the following summer. Joe Clinton and John Belt were principals at both workshops.

These are the kinds of events I'd want control rooms to route my bizmo through (also to the Bridges and Bioneers conferences, to which I've never been).

More BizMo News

For sale on eBay

Trevor found this bizmo on eBay, complete with 7 workstations and externally viewable video wall. I could see dispatch sending a vehicle like this to some curriculum/circus event, to which I might be sent as well, in a bizmo we could actually sleep in. Coordinating resources is key.

The general Project Renaissance philosophy involves government working with NGOs, because they're on the cutting edge, pioneering new technologies in ways corporate R&D budgets might never directly support. Yet usable, commercializable ideas derive from such pioneering, so the money is in theory well spent (in practice there'll be some waste).

When humanity is hurt or damaged, control rooms spring into action and provide relief, which makes for good reality TV. Of course historically, humans haven't really worked as a body, as large groups typify other groups as pathogenic, and teach their children to perpetuate these views. Humanity has some kind of auto-immune disorder, like lupus or something, causing it to keep attacking itself. Project Renaissance attempts to overcome this disorder. The tsunami relief effort was a step in the right direction.

Speaking of bizmo-based reality TV, I was watching Pat Croce Moving In on the monitor at the gym today, close captioned, as I burned calories on a Precor EFX546i. This guy travels around in a bizmo, parking next to homes and getting involved in family dynamics, trying to help out and fix stuff. I'd call that prototypical of what I'm scheming to see -- I'd just like more of a geek channel overlay, i.e. a focus on technology and engineering, in addition to whatever soap opera family dynamics. Plus Croce's bizmo's interior is too much the suburban ranch style home for my taste (not my American dream).

Mythos

Cornelia with her pet Berus

From Tara's toy chest. I mentioned I'd share a photo of Berus (a nickname for Cerberus) once I got my digital camera replaced (see last two paragraphs of Children's Program).

I had a Fujifilm FinePix 2600 Zoom (2 megapixels), but the battery hatch broke off. I replaced it with an Olympus Stylus 500 (5 megapixels).

Last ISEPP Lecture 2005

Our guest last night was Dr. William Wulf, currently half-way through his second and final term as president of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), which co-exists with the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine within the framework of the National Research Council.

Dr. Wulf made it clear that whereas the NAE is an honorific society (per usual with such academies), it also has a special mission to advise the federal government on matters of technology and social policy on a not-for-profit basis. The membership churns out a lot of in-depth, well-researched reports in answer to various policy questions coming from Congress and federal agencies. Occasionally a report will have a classified appendix (meaning it's not accessible to the general public), but for the most part, these studies are all available on-line.

The theme of Dr. Wulf's lecture was C.P. Snow's "chasm between the two cultures" by which Snow meant the humanities on the one hand, and the technology fields on the other, the latter being characterized by their heavy emphasis on mathematics.

Whereas the idea of "two cultures" is easy to grasp, sometimes it makes more sense to break it down further, and Wulf outlined differences between science and engineering, which are indistinguishible in the middle, but also define two extremes.

Engineering is different from science in its emphasis on creating new phenomena, versus simply studying existing ones. Engineers create, bring into existence, design. As such, Wulf considers them to have more in common with artists than with many scientists. He wants to communicate this to new generations, so that creative, imaginative students don't buy into some silly stereotype of the engineer as some nerdy cog in the machine who doesn't think about the concerns of real people or topics within the humanities.

This difference has also been a key part of ISEPP president Terry Bristol's philosophy, so I found it interesting to have them both addressing our pre-lecture on this issue (a small gathering of teachers met with Dr. Wulf ahead of time, in the Heathman Hotel). Terry pointed out that the US Constitution may be viewed as a product of engineering, a blueprint or circuit diagram, complete with feedback loops, load balancing and so forth.

At the dinner afterwards I commented that Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller also wrote a lot about C.P. Snow's famous lecture, and that one way of bridging the chasm is to treat Fuller within the sphere of the humanities, as a New England Transcendentalist for example, and a poet, and then follow his threads into geometric and engineering domains.

Then I brought up Dr. Donald Knuth at Stanford, who suggested we fight overspecialization by becoming competent in at least two fields, preferably quite far apart. In Knuth's case, this would include his foray into theology (a humanities topic, rather different from computer science, in which discipline he's considered a giant).

I asked Dr. Wulf (who has a background in computer science) if he liked this model: you don't get to consider yourself well educated or accomplished in the liberal arts, if you don't have fairly well-developed competence in at least two disciplines, one from each side of C.P. Snow's chasm. Dr. Wulf pointed out that Dr. Knuth was also an accomplished organist, that few attain such stature in even one discipline, let alone more than one, but yes, aspiring to competence in at least two widely spaced disciplines was a good idea and he was all for it.

Don was in high gear last night, helping organize the pre-lecture and handling logistics, including the transfer of Julian's sculpture Unraveling Collagen from the neighboring Performing Arts Center to the lobby of the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall -- and back, after the lecture. Featuring Julian's work was a great idea for this lecture in particular, as it bridges C.P. Snow's chasm very effectively and intelligently. Good brainstorming by Wanderers!

HPD Cybervan

So we had a big powwow at West Precinct on Tuesday -- a much bigger turnout than usual. George had us brainstorm around getting use from the RedHat 9 lab. I sat there with the Toshiba trying to remember how Jerritt set it up, but could only get access to Coffee People across the street (weak signal). I've forgotten the details (though I still have his network diagram -- which doesn't include passwords, so I'm not going to be sysadmining any time soon (which is for the best -- better HPD should sysadmin, vs. just driving taxi)).

The grand finale was a tour of the new cybervan out back, just arrived, pure white, no decals. It's a 5th wheel, no power of its own, except a propane generator (right?) for the electronics, which include 3 TV consoles in three sections (back, middle, front -- side door into middle). Plus there's a Windows box using the giant satellite dish up top. One of the cops was playing with that, apparently getting signal. George waved towards some pickup in the lot that's supposed to haul this thing. It must be strong, because this thing obviously weighs quite a bit.

The current plan is to have the 5th wheel available in the parking lot for a summer camp experience -- kids in groups of 44 or so, with a snack station and rotating among workstations. The 5th wheel might be one of the workstations (the lab another, a couple other rooms talked about). As for how it gets deployed to more remote locations, that remains to be seen. The Washington County Fair that happens every year is a no-brainer, but the point is to keep it busy all year. That means more content.

How the open source angle plays out remains to be seen. George is pretty committed to Linux from a finances point of view (thinking of kids wanting to own their own computers), but that's not to overly discriminate against everyone else. The cybervan serves wireless, so if a non-Windows notebook shows up and wants to patch in, that shouldn't be a problem, provided proper authorization is obtained.

I took the Max to and from, hauling the Toshiba Satellite A60 and reading my various computer magazines.

Python for GIS Experts

I've been cramming for days to lead this 3 hour training for GIS professionals at an annual conference. As it turns out, you can't really cover Python in all its glory in 3 hours, i.e. when 5 o'clock rolled around, I still hadn't spent much time discussing how to open and read files. We covered some more advanced topics instead: generators and decorators. Going by partial feedback, at least some in the audience had fun, found me dynamic enough as a speaker. I'm pretty good with quips and asides, keeping things fairly light and moving.

But really, today was more an education for me. I soaked up a lot of info about the state of the art when it comes to geoprocessing and geographic information systems (GIS) -- good stuff for a Global Data CEO to know about. ESRI is the 800 pound gorilla in this knowledge domain. They're moving to Python for a scripting language in their flagship product (ArcGIS) which is how come I was a speaker at the Doubletree Hotel, Lloyd Center, Portland.

The lunch time talk was excellent. The speaker, Doug Divine, played a major role digitally surveying both submarines of Civil War vintage (talking USA history here). The Hunley, a confederate vessel, is the one most people know about, but the Yankees had their own sub, which was repurposed to pearl diving duty after the war and ended up all washed up on some island near Panama City. Doug's talk featured a lot of excellent DVD clips, including a dramatization of the Hunley's last mission, funded by Ted Turner.

Pycon 2005

March 24:

So I'm in Washington, DC with my wife, staying with friends in Virginia. We've been taking the Orange Line into town the last two mornings. I get off at Foggy Bottom/GWU.

Yesterday I gave a talk on hypertoons during one of the open space periods. Dawn visited the new Native American museum on the mall.

Tonight I'll be going out for dinner with Dabo and Schevo people (hi Patrick) -- both emerging database-oriented Pythonic technologies.

March 25:

So we had good Vietnamese food on M Street in Georgetown last night. Conversation meadered, a lot about raising kids, especially teenagers. Turns out Prague is a major capital in FoxPro world (a world I share with the Dabo guys); maybe I'll get back there one of these days. Would Microsoft have let FoxPro die off if it hadn't been for heavyweight clients like the US military, which uses it in JFAST (home page)?

Speaking of the military, one of the interesting applications demonstrated this week, inside of which Python plays a major role, was for imparting Arabic language skills to soldiers (PDF). Python glues together speech recognition software and a game engine (Unreal Tournament 2003), and simulates a mission: approach some locals, introduce yourself and your team; ask who's in charge; get directions to the local leader's house; follow them (all in Arabic of course).

This morning, we're looking forward to a keynote about how Python is used at Google.

In the news: I see Bobby Fischer has finally gotten out of that Japanese jail.