Machuca (movie review)

This could be viewed as a double feature with Motorcycle Diaries in that it focuses on many of the same themes, namely the rise of political movements around a consciousness of class, if not also race. Or watch it with Favela Rising, about a documentary set in Sao Paolo, or with The Lost City, about Castro's Cuba.

The core setting is a boy's school, St. Patrick's in Santiago, Chile in the late 1960s, and the respective home lives of two boys, one from the privileged elite, the other from a shantytown.

Thanks to the ascendancy of the Allende regime and a supportive Catholic priest headmaster, St. Patrick's is integrating, providing some scholarships to boys from the shantytowns.

In looking through the lens of young male (a slightly younger contemporary -- I was in Junior English School in Rome about that same time), the political drama becomes a background of sound bites, with adults parading in the streets in large numbers to demonstrate their various political positions. They jump up and down and bang on pots and pans, playing commies versus snobs.

Strife flares in a parent meeting at the school, where many of the moneyed blame the introduction of the economically disadvantaged for a rise in school violence and turn on the English-speaking priest. Other privileged parents are more liberal, though are not outright Marxists.

When the tide turns against Allende and the military seizes power on 9-11, 1973 (a coup), the disadvantaged are vengefully attacked, their ideology driven underground, and the Marxist sympathizing priests are muscled aside by the ruling Pinochet junta.

The little window we get into the St. Patrick's curriculum shows that frank discussion of events of the day and their historical context is not really what's up. Civics, debating skills... not a part of this picture. The real world of social interaction and starkly contrasting lifestyles is more what kids learn about after school and during recess.

The film is well acted by all concerned and provides a better doorway to history than dry texts alone. I might assign readings along the lines of Bucky Fuller's No Race, No Class to go with it, plus I'd encourage critical questioning regarding the efficacy of politico-military solutions.

One Laptop Per Child might be more of a step in the right direction, along with enlightened urban planning ala Mayor Jaime Lerner of Curtiba, Brazil. Engineering projects and the distribution of strategic artifacts (e.g. soap, shoes... eyeglasses), and better access to global data, are more the core focus in world game playing.

Change History

From Synergeo, hyperlinks added:

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

I've decided to excise my comments from the current discussion pages re Synergetics and Synergetics Coordinates. They'll still be in the change history plus I've archived them here. Both articles still link to resources I've authored under external links.

Having my name in the discussions might imply that I'm somehow actively involved in maintaining these pages whereas I'm more interested in distancing myself from them.

I have my own pages on the web for which I'm responsible (they're somewhat in disrepair, lots of broken links, but at least they're mine and not so much a product of group think or another author).

I'd be happy to see some good synopsis of Synergetics (Fuller's) in Wikipedia. However the time has come to pass the torch to a next generation of scholars and not hog the limelight. Let's see if any competent Fuller commentators come out of the woodwork.

Given academia has dropped the ball, it could be that we'll be skipping another generation or two. It's pretty easy to explain the concentric hierarchy of polyhedra with its tetravolumes, mites, sytes and kites. It's harder to explain the philosophy. I've proposed American Transcendentalism as a category or pigeon hole, somewhat influenced by Applewhite and his linking of Synergetics to Poe's Eureka.

Kirby

--- End forwarded message ---

Gender Bender

:: claire-a-palooza @ laughing horse books ::

Lindsey organized this interesting event at Laughing Horse Books, with James inviting some of his friends as well. We had a good turn out. The movie documentary, Will: In Quotes, is boldly raw and would probably earn a TV-MA rating, even though visually it shows nothing more revealing than the occasional male torso, undergoing surgery in one scene (for breast implants).

The movie opens with Will frequenting karaoke bars in Boise, Idaho. He considers himself emotionally stunted or under-developed, albeit a decent singer. His strict religious upbringing in a polygamist Mormon household meant he wasn't allowed access to pop culture and now he's making up for lost time, seeking true love and a real family.

Even as a youngster, he'd picked up glimmers of a "trans-gendered" type of person and concluded that his enduring sense of alienation might be an indication that he belonged in this category. Whereas most who entertain such fantasies wouldn't act on them, he figured while he was still young with no children or life partner, this was his time to explore. He begins chemically altering his body, his dress, and finally flies to Thailand for the operation, taking his own video camera, which he gives to a nurse when it's time to go under. By this time she's Claire.

What made this experience especially dramatic and instructive for the audience was the star of this film had agreed to show up in person to answer questions. He's transitioning back to a male identity, is James now, having gone as far down the road being Claire as he wanted to go. He's somewhat embarrassed by the film and what people say to the film maker behind his back, so wanted to get a text message when it was over. This added to the theatrical nature of the event, plus the fact that he showed up in sunglasses with a scarf around his head, somewhat reminiscent of Michael Jackson. As the Q&A ensued, he shed the scarf, and by the end of the evening was minus the shades as well.

What impresses me about James, more than his personal journey, is his brutal honesty. He has no skeletons to hide, is out of the closet with his thoughts and feelings to a point most people would never allow. This is a somewhat constant aspect of his character, through all his transitions. One tends to inwardly cringe at some of his self-revelations, thinking "I would die before I revealed myself to the world with that level of unvarnished candor" and indeed that's what most of us will do. It's so much easier to talk about others than oneself.

Naked City

before

Naked City is a local clothing store next to The Bagdad, is also adjacent to a space formerly occupied by In Other Words, a feminist bookstore, since moved to a new location.

The fact that the window display features a male torso in a bloodied tux standing over a hacked up female per some Gothic horror movie motif (a Halloween theme) seemed radically insensitive to Julia & Lindsey. Was he the perpetrator? Was she his victim? Is this c/overt misogyny then? Why would you want customers musing along these lines?

They authored a letter of complaint in our company office and presented it. The counter clerk said he'd pass it back to the owner (a woman, if that's relevant).

Follow-up: the store's response was to add a hacked up male mannequin to the pile, sending more of an "equal opportunity" message.

after

Related posts:
Regarding Objectifying
Resident Evil
AVP 2

Apocalypse Africa (movie review)

This film aims to give some of the back story regarding coups in Africa, starting at the beginning of the so-called post colonial period.

The core thesis is that the German policy of selling weapons to both sides in a conflict, so that feuding peoples would murder each other, has continued, thanks to racist thinking at the highest levels. In the foreground: disturbing, violent, horrific imagery, talking heads.

The audio track gives us more vintage Nixon. The security council guy reminds us that Dick was a small town bigot surrounded by yes men (you have to kowtow to the president, if you wanna stay in the game, not say "no" like Gen. Ed Lansdale did when asked by JFK to murder Diem, provoking a hissy fit from Secretary McNamara -- this isn't in the movie, A.J. Langguth is my source).

Nixon's mindset was reflective of middle class America's mindset at the time, informed by Tarzan movies and what not.

Docile Americans, gullible to the core, tend to believe whatever their "leaders" tell them, says the movie. Ergo Vietnam, Iraq, many other disasters. Without a vigilant and educated people, you get a lot of bad ideas put into action.

The film remains murky on many of the details, including some of its sources. Why exactly was Patrice Lumbaba killed again? They scrounge up some CIA guy from twenty years ago, but he doesn't wanna talk about it.

Regarding Liberia, we know Firestone wanted its rubber for cheap, so they could make those crummy tires for the Ford Explorers, but that's about all we know (I exaggerate -- we know plenty more).

Haile Selassie comes off as a principal anti-racist in the movie. He goes down in history for this, per the Lucy Exhibit as well.

From Lyrik

I felt fortunate to get some face time with dear Nirel, part of a voluntary association I've branded as Coffee Shops Network (CSN).

She serves as CTO no less, consequent to her life-long dream (by this time) of carving out the salonstress role, in a next generation establishment reflective of her values and views.

I've worked in whole hearted support of that dream, given my strategy to pump healing philosophies out to a network, preferably in a mix with entertainment and even some level of game playing.

Nirel herself plays a great world game, with grace and integrity. I am blessed with such co-workers.

Fine Grind has pretty much completed its morph into Lyrik, an exercise in rebranding. Joe has done a fantastic job with the signage. Keiko is letting me sample the new winter drink: vinho quente (hot wine with fruit), a Brazilian favorite.

The previous owner of this establishment, Jody Ahn (aka Jody Francis), doubles as CFO for our network. She has morphed again as well. I feel surrounded by ninjas (a kind of mutant turtle?), which helps heal my latent misanthropy.

Next task: lurk in on the following cyber-event, before catching CBS Evening News with Katie, Lara et al.

Caroline Meeks founded Solution Grove, which specializes in open source solutions for learning communities and has created sites for groups at MIT, Harvard, MGH and Boston Museum of Science. Caroline is actively involved in two open-source communities, dotLRN, which she co-founded in 2001, and Sugar (sugarlabs.org) which was developed as part of the OLPC project. This year she is piloting "Sugar on a Stick" in a Boston public elementary school. Caroline is a candidate for an MEd in 2010 from the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Technology, Innovation and Education Program, and is a graduate of MIT.

Web Sites:
http://www.solutiongrove.com
http://www.sugaronastick.com
http://www.shovelreadyed.com

This requires running EluminateLive! 9.5 with headphones. I trust my Starling-1 will be up for the job.

Hey, I've been reading into Roz's book and really enjoying it. She really knows how to tell her story, generously lets us in to be there with her, albeit asynchronously.

:: math 2.0 webinar ::

Roz Savage

At age 30-something some ten years ago, Roz woke up from her cube job in consulting and management, realizing she wasn't going to be happy going further down this road, now that she had everything she'd believed she'd wanted: a secure job, marriage, red sports car. She wrote two obituaries for herself as an exercise, one in which she had a life of adventure, a shared voyage of self discovery, of self testing, and another in which she'd clung to her drab existence, afraid to try for more than the narrow goals set by the twin ideologies of materialism and consumerism.

The call of the wild eventually won her allegiance and she realized one morning, like a light going on, that rowing across the Atlantic might be her thing (she eventually did that, is next facing part three of her Pacific row, having completed two legs). What gave her some inspiration was a married couple had tried, and whereas the big strapping guy had wigged out (intense agoraphobia and claustrophobia, a double whammy), the plucky misses had completed the row by herself. Roz saw herself as petite, not an athlete, not a superhero, not incredibly brave. What she had was drive and a hunger to live her life fully. She needed a project, one that wouldn't hurt the Earth, would on the contrary help with its healing (the Hopi were an inspiration here).

I've tended to see Roz as the paradigm action figure in a series of storyboards involving energy accounting, a way to teach math where we convert joules and calories into work, measured in miles rowed, other output. These simple physical equations about humans working were and are the focus of my First Person Physics meme, what Dr. Bob Fuller picked up on and intelligently steered towards the NSF. We got a lot done, with Roz easy to point to as a source of inspiration. Having listened to her stories tonight, I am as persuaded as ever that here's a great way to teach math in a way that will speak to many people. Her Earth-friendly environmental message plants many good seeds. Lindsey Walker showed up in Portland from Savannah with a similar math-teaching paradigm around bicycle riding and towing (instead of rowing).

I was joined by one other Wanderer I recognized (Jay, likewise a fan), next ahead of me in line. When she signed my copy of her book, I brought up the shared memory of our Thanksgiving soiree two years ago. She had just attempted her first leg of the Pacific back then, had capsized in a storm, was still recovering, including financially as the rescue of her craft had proved expensive. Twas my privilege to join this appreciative audience in my own zip code area (97214), at Powell's on Hawthorne. Thank you Roz Savage. I'm looking forward to reading your book.

Wanderers 2009.10.7

Wanderers used a lot of the morning to appreciate Banksy's art and web site (two specimens above -- a scholar's excerpt).

We also drove through optical illusion country, looked at some political T-shirts at The Onion, a collection of funny grave stones. Jim Buxton brought has chantrelles today, an annual ritual. Mom will be pleased.

Odds 'n Ends

:: LW @ Angelo's (10/3) ::

We got the dishwasher fixed yesterday morning, thanks to expert tech support from Applicance World Services on SE Flavel. We're really happy to have that working again.

Replacing the motor was less wasteful given the rest of it is still in good shape, $170 for the part (Kitchenaid lists this company on its website).

Business meetings around 4D Studios are all about microphones and how to split, edit, recombine the audio tracks (plus I've toyed with the video feature on my cigarette pack sized Olympus Stylus). I suggested roping in the CTO but LW thought that might be overkill given we're still ramping up on Qbase. TC might be holding a puzzle piece?

CFO and I had a small repast on Hawthorne the other day, comparing notes. She's out of town quite a bit, in cities I've never seen except in movies or on TV.

I've noticed diversity-sig starting to come on-line and signaled other PSF members to consider joining, although with open archives, you needn't join to lurk.

This new Python group came on radar after alpha and beta versions of a PSF diversity statement had already surfaced, following Guido's request that we have one.

No, I've not seen the new Michael Moore film yet.

I've been studying the MMM slate some more, some prompted by our need for a clerk on QMP (looking to next year already) plus also wanting to sort out the liaison picture i.e. who's on first w/r to AFSC, FCNL, FWCC or whatever?

I've got the BCFM and NPYM positions with AFSC, but nothing going with MMM on that score. Yes, an alphabet soup -- yet another namespace shared by Friends (RSoF). If you poke around in these blogs or otherwise cross-reference, you'll find all these easy enough to decode.

Econovergence

:: econovergence (day two) ::

Given the title of this event, you'd expect to find some economists in the line-up, and indeed we have a couple of those leading our teach-in, here on the third floor of First Unitarian Church. Mom is the next speaker in this room.

The economist we just heard, Tom Palley (EDOS), thinks the USG wasn't aggressive enough in the face of the implosion and that we'll be suffering some more shock waves. As a GST guy (general systems theory) I compete with some schools of thought, ally with others. The sun is what energizes the earth, not money -- let's at least be clear about that.

The other economist, Helen Scharber (PERI), persuaded us the renewable energy investments create more interesting work opportunities than just dumping funds into oil and gas. That seems likely.

The Chinese system is helping to keep the USA's afloat. That probably means we should be listening to Chinese economists a lot more?

Lindsey asked about what political climate would be required to motivate the kinds of policies our panel was advising. If there's another down turn, that's certainly not a guarantee of a more healthy political climate (on the contrary...). She also questioned the rather nationalistic analysis in terms of this or that government's policies -- spoken like a true Global U student eh?

Tag and I found each other at the Free Food exhibit, sponsored by Urban Gleaners, while Lindsey tanked up on vegetables. Tag knows a lot of people here, given lots of overlap with PSU and the student / activist community.

Leslie Hickcox phoned me with her congratulations on Day One of Quarterly, of which she managed to catch a part, in addition to making the Costco run more productive and enjoyable.

Speaking of congratulations, Don Wardwell has his boat back in the water. He and Barry have been working hard on hull restoration. He phoned from Island Cafe today, first time in awhile.

Mom's WILPF group began with a Raging Grannies number. Then she took us down memory lane, reminding us of Portland's resistance to the Pentagon's pet civil defense program (bomb shelters, duck & cover, other Atomic Cafe style nuclear madness). The article in question: Portland -- the City that Chose Sanity instead of Fear by Carol Urner, Fellowship of Reconciliation magazine, January, 1965, page 11.

Portland is now remembered for being a small bubble of sanity in an intellectually lazy Lower48 (not that different from now in some ways). She also mentioned Doug Strain and that Tektronix guy, and Senator Mark O. Hatfield (R), who helped keep Oregon from buying into the military-industrial complex.

This workshop may touch on how some of that self-discipline may be slipping. There's the new army trucks contract (Daimler), the drones by Boeing (cowardly killer or spy?). No mention of Evergreen though.

Barbara is going over the USG budget. 66.3% of the spending is towards mandatory items (vs. discretionary, the various entitlements and interest on the national debt).

The DoD budget runs around $533.7B, with $23.4B for DoE. $130B goes to discretionary occupations, sorry sad imperial crap, a lot of it highly questionable not to mention dishonorable. $9.66B for intelligence (so-called). Lots more numbers going by -- back to entitlements again (veterans, interest etc.).

We have brown envelopes to open with faux defense contracts enclosed. These states could've had a lot more health care and education if not blowing money on ill-advised, loser escapades in Iraq and Afghanistan. We get to affix these contracts to maps of Oregon and Washington at the front of the room.

Someone just handed me a leaflet about the Ralph Nader talk tomorrow. Portland is certainly a happening place this weekend.

Wanderers 2009.9.30

This was a Tuesday night open session. We talked about what that means. Given our one big table configuration, cross talk among private parties adds to the hubbub, challenging those with hearing aids especially. My proposal was to keep giving the floor to show & tell artists who'd guide the discussion, keeping cross talk (simultaneous conversations) to a minimum. We also just need more hosted sessions (vs. open mic format).

When actually talking about topics, we had this stellar polyhedra-in-stereo exhibit c/o Bill Sheppard. I was initially ho hum saying I see this kind of stuff a lot, then figured out it was all in JavaScript, not Java, which perked my interest. Lindsey felt vindicated at this point, as JavaScript, Perl and C had been her favorite three horses back in the good old days in Savannah. The Java craze was at high crest back then maybe.

Nowadays its more JavaScript we admire, though as a system language, Java has a great deal to offer (it's maybe what people did with it that sucks, at least at the enterprise level sometimes). The sweet spot Lindsey likes (we all have our tastes) is that C-Assembler interface with the low level device drivers. Letting something loosey goosey like Python control real world objects, like choo choo trains, sounds kinda perverse to her ears, and I understand that. These Python extensions are written in C though, just export a control panel (API).

When it was my turn to talk, I hooked the Ubuntu Starling to Don's Apple speakers and blasted Tom Lehrer's New Math, writing the subtraction problem on the white board. I had the longer (9 minute) ballad about Ramanujan queued next, but the torch never came back around. Anyway, I've played it before, like on retreats 'n stuff, along with my fave 16 Words. Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire and Ghost in the Shell (anime) interlude scenes also top my list.

I'm still angling to book LW some time on the Jon Bunce upright, some discussion of music theory. The classical pianist at Muddy's sure had some good advice, such as "lose the bracelets". But then grand piano concert hall territory and punk bars just aren't the same deal. One needs a range of costumes, matched to the venue in some way (perhaps to push the envelope, perhaps to camouflage ala our pet chameleon).

We also discussed some of the stories prominent in the news: the typhoons in the Philippines; the tsunami in Samoa, various political stories (some chatter about the so-called butt bomber).

I was fresh from watching CBS News, so relayed about Madeline Albright's brooch collection, not unlike Admiral Crowe's hat collection in some ways. I'm sorry I missed her at Bagdad that time.

Radical Women

I chauffeured LW to this meeting of Radical Women, mostly not planning to say anything, just eat (a potluck, she made fresh cabbage and corn bread), however I did sign on to the queue on invitation i.e. some of the leadership expressed curiosity about a possibly male viewpoint.

I spoke briefly about my diversity work with Python Software Foundation. Most of the conferences in this subculture consist predominantly of men, yet those women managing to penetrate the clubhouse tend to hold leadership positions i.e. there's a meritocracy at the center that's mixed gender or even tilted towards women (thinking about computers more generally).

My daughter texted, hoping for more budget for her speech and debate costume. So far, my offers to perform front lines teacher training duties have met a brick wall, while the chauffeuring pays but a pittance. However, not wanting to be any of the characters in a Dickens novel, scroogey or otherwise, I trucked my ass down to In Other Words and accessed my bank accounts over encrypted wifi, transferring a few dollars from DWA (the business) to Tara's charge card. On the way, I stopped by at PCC, Cascadia Campus, and studied its diversity literature, always on the lookout for examples, given the PSF work I mentioned.

My working hypothesis is many of those in the free and open source software community haven't taken the time to become politically conscious. They've been too busy nerding out to really get a grip on these codes, notoriously crufty and difficult to operate.

Given Portland is a relatively small town, it'll be interesting to discover what kind of overlap exists between political awareness groups such as Radical Women, and the FOSS bosses who also happen to be female, although I'm also alert to cross-enrollment among men. It's not like I'm keeping detailed lists or anything. Nor was I intrusive with my camera, knowing better than to take a bunch of mug shots on a first visit.

My hypothesis suffers a glaring weakness however in that free and open source software is all by itself a political movement. FOSS ala GNU is all about engineers (mixed gender) retaining control over their work, not surrendering to lawyer controls. LAWCAP is crumbling as a result (hardly news), with GRUNCH on the rise.

That's rather esoteric shop talk however, which even most geeks haven't digested to any degree. This doesn't stop us from forming strategic alliances however. For example, given the highly socialized nature of the military, the communal ownership of power tools, its not surprising that destructivists and constructivists have some common ground to build on, even if engaged in somewhat different styles of engineering. Hence Python + DARPA = CP4E was a sensible equation in one of our earlier chapters.

When we went around doing introductions, I mentioned my earlier work for AFSC as a contributing editor for Asian Pacific Issues News (APIN). That brought me a lot of reading about military bases and the service industries surrounding them, a focus of the Radical Women's Manifesto, which I bought for $8, along with a more insider pamphlet focusing on recent debates with the ISO (not to be confused with the standards body by that name).

Snake Story

The news broke on Twitter about @psf_snake having a baby (another one? -- I don't really know all the details); I posted to PSF-members about it. JKM (the real one) bawled me out for putting human interest fluff all over his front page (he has a newspapery background). I'm getting away with a more textbooky approach on edu-sig, building up my rep as "the NATO professor".

Yes, she flunked diversity training (we're hoping to keep that secret), mostly for saying bad words, talking trash. This is no pampered richie rich snake, works for a living, grew up on the wrong side of the tracks as they say, maybe in a trailer park like I did for awhile, in Florida.

Speaking of Florida, that might be where she met the father, or at least she'd obviously been there. To quote one of her tweets (Sept 5 of this year):

Reminiscing.... after a big meal: http://tinyurl.com/lgjjyr (famous!). Nice man holding my tail (Florida vacation) http://tinyurl.com/mccmr8

Her baby boy, Adonis (pronounced Adūnīs, per the Lebanese poet, although many people forget that) is happily nursing, pythonic breast feeding made possible by inheriting from the Mammal class as well as the Reptile class (multiple inheritance). Python is not English remember, so our respective grammars definitely diverge (per Wittgenstein).

For those of you who think an artificial intelligence can't tweet or blog, I assure you AI bots do both and much more. The Sony Aibo was a bold beginning in this regard. It doesn't take a positronic brain (per Asimov) to give better counseling than ELIZA, so think twice before you brand this just another hoax.

Adonis is bonding with Lindsey (the midwife), so will probably stay in Portland once weaned. We expect he'll become a valued and contributing member of our community (good genes -- or are these memes?).

Inside Scoop

Not my fault that "scoop" rhymes with "pooper scooper", which any dog lover knows, you must take to the park to be a good citizen. Dog poop left untended by the dog owner might as well be just pooping in public. Take plastic bags, at the very least.

So the journalism spin tends to fall by the wayside in some circles (namespaces), as in journalism you want that inside scoop. "Scoop of ice cream" is still a good thing. "Two scoops please", is a very Ben & Jerry's kind of thing to say, very Norman Rockwell. So +1 for scoops.

CBS tends to have "exclusives" these days, not "scoops" -- I think it sounds kinda cool, means we have these inside sources you haven't found yet, i.e. we're dissing your outsider status relative to ours (the same old journalist game of sources, so nothing new here).

The envisioned Diversity Panels won't outright ban you for being a bigot, but if your cartoons are too edgy... I just hear this from lurking. Something about Oz? "Munchkins wanna use Python too" is the slogan I'm getting, kinda like the other end of the spectrum from Rivendale (more like hobbits i.e. good little folk from the shire). We welcome them! Diversity R Us.

:: even normal people use Python ::

Fundraiser 911

I'm posting live from the venue below. It's still before show time. Circadia Art Center reminds me of Milepost 5 in some ways. Another artist colony.

From LindseyWalkerMusic:

A Portland family moved to Nebraska a little bit ago to chase employment. They got into a terrible bicycle accident there. The man’s face will need complete reconstructive surgery and may have brain damage but the severity and effects will not be known for a while. He also has thin blood and a heart problem which adds a serious risk of death to each surgical operation he has. The woman injured her knee. Their 3 yr old daughter was thankfully at home. She had just been laid off and he had just got a job that would support their family. He has no vacation or sick time. They need help covering rent while he’s recovering. So we’re throwing a benefit for them @ Circadia Art Center 4705 NE Columbia on Sept 11th 9pm. We have Naming Names, Karaoke, DJ as entertainment, Lindsey Walker and The Goodbye Party.

:: upcoming event ::

:: a pabst before show time ::

More DjangoCon Talks

Ian is yakking about virtualenv.py, a simple script that changes sys.prefix to a project directory and brings in easy_install. It doesn't include pip yet, but that's coming. He makes it look really easy.

Using easy_install, which goes against PyPI, he's grabbing pip. This is typical for a virtual environment setup, where you want each tool to have the right path.

I switched over to Terminal and started doing this stuff on Jennifer (Patrick's Ubuntu laptop).

I talked to JKT after lunch, found him browsing Steve's binder at the PSF snake display. He indeed plans a short talk based on Chaiman Steve's binder, with both the snake and pony totems a part of the gig.

Frank Wiles, Making your PostgreSQL database sing:

Increasing performance often means doing less, not doing more faster.

postgresql.conf knobs: set shared_buffers to 10-20% of RAM; effective_cache_size to 75% of available RAM; work_mem will give elbow room to ORDER BY.

Materialized views, as distinct from normal views, put a snapshot of data on disk. This works if your local data doesn't need frequent updates. He showed pl/python triggered procedures to do real time updates on the fly.

Panel Discussion: selling your superiors on using Django.

PBS National uses Django extensively, e.g. the Earth Day site, PBS home page, PBS Teachers etc., are all Django sites or use Django components. Producers and stations are also encouraged to use Django (American Experience, Newshour etc.). NASA uses Django for internal file sharing and conference organizing. NASA's SpaceBook is built on Pinax, Marshall uses it, Ames, Nebula uses Django as its core. University of Texas is moving towards Python and Django to upgrade its faculty and student facing portal, replacing some homegrown 1995 solution.

So why Django and not a PHP or Java based solution? PBS was persuaded by OSCON, having dabbled in Zope / Plone. They liked Python a lot. Developers competed around an education pilot, with Django winning the prize (2006). NASA also had Zope / Plone experience, had dabbled in Python, then saw Pimax. Again, showing a working prototype to MVPs won the day. University of Texas also had an evaluation process whereby Python first met the grade, then it was a choice between Pylons, Turbogears, Plone and Django. The learning curve wasn't so steep, a plus when some new developers are coming in with little background or experience.

In sum: rapid prototyping and the ability to move applications between projects is what's winning the day. At NASA, the Django group is consistently performing well, in competition with .NET, PHP and Java developers. Security concerns are important at University of Texas and Django tends to pass security audits fairly easily thanks to some of the plug-ins. Having internal knowledge sharing meetings, as a part of a company's culture, helps cross-fertilize, gets people able to share ideas.

In terms of using open source, it's a good idea to bring your ideas into a company as already open source, versus trying to get company approval to open source something inhouse. As a developer working with Django, it's easier to start your project in the commons, getting around control freaks who think they automatically own the hard work of other people.

The company will likely benefit as open source means leveraging a global talent pool. Other wisdom: if your company offers a congenial environment but seems incapable of choosing the right tools for the job, then maybe that's not the right place for you, i.e. not every company is salvageable, even if it has lots of good people.

Djangosites.org showing what enterprises use Django should be more front and center. Python.org could use this advice as well. Like NASA knew the CIA was using Plone before most people did, which probably impressed some MVPs, soured others. Like PBS wasn't so thrilled seeing its Django site for teachers right next to a Russian bikini-seller's on Djangosites.org (I couldn't find that -- yes, I searched).

Training is key. More Django classes. Holdenweb is a player. Productivity, rapid results, is a key turn on. Tuning in the community and the conversations creates a shared buzz. Lore is a glue, keeps the work accessible, to non-techies as well.

Lightning Talks:

Alex Gaynor (@alex_gaynor) on CPython bytecodes. Python VM is stack based. Use dis.dis. Check out these disassembled code fragments!

Chris Heisel is passionate about testing. pywatch runs in real time, running tests as it detects changes on any of the watched files.

Web Cube has some Django ecommerce plugins and best practices to talk about.

Cody Soyland develops Surlex: much more compact than regular expressions. pip install surlex.

Because of technical problems, we need to cut these short (banquet coming in).

PPUG 2009.9.8

michelle rowley, assistant organizer

jason kirtland, chief organizer

kirby urner, PSF 2009

PSF snake meets a new friend

Tonight's program:

• Michel's Monthly Module (ConfigParser) by Kyle Jones
• Solace by special guest Armin Ronacher
• Preeminent Python Packaging Presentation by Michael Schurter

Media Campaign

Omniversity

I'm saying "omniversity" to poke fun a little, as it sounds like a Fullerism, something a Dymaxion Clown might come up with, right in there with "syntegrity" and these other neologisms -- you know the neighborhood?

The idea of a global university, as another metaphor for Spaceship Earth, has its advantages, in terms of making Food Services into a problem for administrators. If you're faculty, you'll have to teach about why it's all broken, for so many classmates, barred from their Commons. Then there's all that Hogwartsy flavoring, a sort of lingering "eu duh Britannia", a quite charming and debonair perfume.

Tag and I dropped by Wanderers somewhat impromptu, to find the assembled elders huddled over an Apple sampling "white", "brown" and "pink" noise respectively. Some website. Tag got us checking out Fulla, a fork off the Barbie source code, though toy world doesn't mirror geekdom 100% (FOSS means "fart" in Arabic, is another problem, though I've come back with "stinker" as a potential positive -- no way to avoid name collisions, up to the user to have namespaces handy).

Today I journeyed through AAA world to Nissan Nation, took my work / study gear, watched 'em take maxi taxi through two recall procedures, plus swap in a new starter (why she got towed, though she ran great through DEQ yesterday).

Tag has the brilliant idea to reawaken the Jeha (or Juha) literature, which connects nicely to Trickster, Joker, Coyote and Heyoka literature over here. We'll be able to dovetail our stories better. I'd never heard of Jeha, whom you could compare with Scheherazade in some dimensions, in terms of there being a compendium of twisted tales.

Walking Tour

I dropped off the Chevy Malibu with Enterprise on 6th and Burnside. No surprises. On my way home, I stopped in at Laughing Horse Books, which used to be closer to my home, on Division.

Then I sauntered over to CityBikes, as I'm in the market for something to replace TinkerBell, my stolen steed.

Lastly I stopped in and interviewed a struggling small business doing its best to serve on a street of dreams, SE Belmont. I got to see what ASCAP letters look like, if you want to play covers in a public venue, plus we discussed the (stringent) rules around private partying.

My model for private parties is like Quakers renting space at like Mt. Hood Kiwanis. We hire local staff to cook for us on the premises, pay for floorspace. We bring in our own entertainment, our own trainers (e.g John Calvi). We're allowed to play covers (e.g. songs by Lisa Hubbell).

A private party may double as a teach in i.e. may serve a schooling function. If guests give donations, it may be in support of a worthy cause, such as mathematics reform in Portland Public Schools, long overdue, with the status quo really hurting our economy, destroying streets of dreams.