Contents this issue:
NEW SITCOM FEATURING PORTLAND
BIONEERS THROW A PARTY
FLEXTEGRITY MAKES A SPLASH
COMPUTER GRAPHICS R US
CONSPIRACY THEORY
VISITS IN SOHO
MORE ABOUT ESOZONE
WORLD GAME
NAKED BOOSTERISM
ABOUT SOURCES
SYNERGETICS "BACK EAST"
NEW SITCOM FEATURING PORTLAND
Hey, there's a new TV show coming up with 'Portlandia' in
the title. She's our town's icon, after which comes the
Chinese Gate and Garden, Rose Garden, Japanese Garden.
Some comedy, makes fun of our ways, like a guy riding a
bicycle through the grocery store, asserting right of way
(we supposedly have aggressive cyclers in Portland -- but
actually what we have a more polite than average drivers,
meaning the deaths have been relatively low, less like
Chicago's). We also had the largest naked bicycle riding
event by far, beat out the competition they tell me.
You'll find us on Youtube .
BIONEERS THROW A PARTY
Word from Nick Consoletti in Bellingham: he made it to Bioneers, where
the BFI was also inter-leaving its content. Allegra was there and Jaime,
but Nick was too flu-struck to even croak out his name, was basically in
a dizzy spell the whole time. J. Baldwin was there too. I'm no expert on
bioneers. Think John Todd (one of the BFI grand prize winners ).
FLEXTEGRITY MAKES A SPLASH
Speaking of J. Baldwin, he said Sam Lanahan's book was remarkable
(which it is -- was just rereading the forward this evening, proud to
be a contributing editor, photographer and ray tracing artist). He's
all business with the geometry and engineering but doesn't minf getting
into ethics and aesthetics in a well rounded way. That's more like a
Renaissance man than we're used to, in this day and age. He's been
a deep reader, to write that way, one can tell.
Joe Clinton wrote a positive technical review, as did Guy Inchbald. I am
pleased. You can check out Chapter 5 free of charge though this link,
if you have the right browser plug-in.
It's Mt. Kilimanjaro next for Mr. Lanahan, now that this book is behind him.
And this is a man who could barely walk about a year ago. Someday
we'll have that camera crew and studio, people who know what community TV
really could be, Portlandia's especially.
COMPUTER GRAPHICS R US
In VPython world, which I've haunted for quite awhile, it's back to
projective geometry ala Pygeo. The last Arthur Siegel was an admirer
of Klein of Klein Bottle fame. Paul Laffoley does a great thing with
the Klein Bottle: he grows it out of Goethe's main vegetable, the
proverbial "object" at the top of the class hierarchy. I should do
my homework (as Alex Jones would say) and look it up (the name of
the vegetable). Here we go:
(nope, didn't find it -- lots on Paul and his art though, so worth a look).
CONSPIRACY THEORY
And Who is Alex Jones? Sorry, not all of us volunteer at Laughing Horse
books (off 10th and SE Burnside). He's a leading conspiracy theorist,
right up there with David Icke .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHHw1ihH1iw (Alex Jones)
(more context, in case you're not up on this stuff --
not really new to the Fuller syllabus, as Robert Anton Wilson
opened this space long ago, welcome to Esozone eh?
Bucky-as-Britney etc. (more gossip, say cheese)).
No gossip column would be complete without something
about Britney eh?
Anyway, more mention of Arthur at the VPython site. He was proud
of his status as a "New York Jew" (one of the best kind, I agree)
and when I got through Manhattan, we'd sometimes manage to meet
and catch up. What a charming and gentle man -- loved to debate,
to argue, to challenge. We'd do that on edu-sig, a shared resource
in Python Nation (worth mining for gold).
VISITS IN SOHO
Speaking of Manhattan, I was trying to get Frank Zubek up to speed
on the lore. Another flurry of emails. I said I'd give it a break until
2011. Anyway, I mentiioned about my wonderful times with Kenneth
Snelson and the MVPs I'd introduced to this great artist, father of
tensegrity (Bucky more a godfather, cue Mafia music). E.J. Applewhite,
Sam Lanahan, and Julian Voss-Andreae.
(early picture of Julian)
http://www.julianvossandreae.com/ (official page)
(Sam and Kenneth meeting -- note Tetrascroll nearby, and Nirel,
design scientist).
All three have been to the Linus Pauling House let me say (Ed, Sam, Julian
-- Nirel too of course, captain's daughter). Only Kenneth has not, though
he's a native Oregonian, hails from Pendleton where his dad ran a camera
shop. Kenneth is a pioneer of 360 degree photography as well, as many
of you know.
MORE ABOUT ESOZONE
Picture of Russ Chu during Esozone conference:
Russ = founder of Synergetica magazine, builder of famous toothpick IVM
depicted in several collections, author of Verbchu paper on the 4 IVMs.
His ex is Deb Kasman, another friend of Ed Applewhite's and a medical
ethicist dog lover.
Both of these individuals were kind to us during the time of my Dawn Wicca's
long battle with breast cancer. Their daughter Liana is friends with my
daughter Tara.
WORLD GAME
On the energy front, I've not heard from Andrew Frank in awhile. He was
to collaborate a lot. We were on KBOO together, a local radio station,
talking about Synergetics at like 2 in the morning.
The Infinia solution is somewhat in competition with the Corvallis startup
looking to sell small vault nuclear plants, convection design. Toshiba has
one of those new generation prototypes as well.
However, with all the wind coming on line, there's some question as
to what's needed. A lot depends on how smart is this "smart grid" we're
developing. I've heard some nuke heads arguing we should cut back
on grid research because they don't want cheap wind from Montana
muscling in on their lucrative nuke plans.
OSU also hosts ONAMI, the nano-tech lab. So if nuke stocks don't
rise, maybe some of these others will. Or both? Could it really be
neither nukes nor nano?
Wanderers are split on the energy future. Glenn likes the nuke vaults,
whereas Barry despises wind. I'm still talking smart grids. That
doesn't begin to cover all the opinions. Keith wants to go with
ServerSky (which you could call solar).
I speak of "stocks rising" somewhat figuratively of course, as
there're lots of ways to build debt equity short of profit from
shares. Khan of Khan Academy explains all this in his popular
Youtubes.
NAKED BOOSTERISM
Oregonians are upbeat about their playing card hand, with or
without that electric car factory (I need to check back on
how that's doing). I'd prefer a Made in Oregon product myself.
Intel has just announced more big investments as well. Google
is boosting its Portland profile. Silicon Valley move over. Portlandia
is the new center of innovation, even if our CEOs have tattoos
and spiky hair (only some of them do, whereas the males tend to
be more conservative).
ABOUT SOURCES
I should write some more about GOSCON. I was just out for
dinner with a county lawyer talking about events in the news. He's
the one who knew about the TV show, and about Google. Some
of the nuke stuff is from a visiting PhD student, Linda Richards,
also famous from my blogs. She joined us on the field trip of
the Linus and Ava Helen Pauling archive at OSU. We got to
hold the two Nobel prizes ourselves.
However, this is long enough for one column. More soon.
Oh, just to say Trevor Blake is forever a Joe Moore fan. Someone
should paste this over to Geodesic maybe. Was the topic some
new PhD thesis on Fuller? Yes, I think it was. Trevor thought
it was quite well researched, had only good things to say about it.
Anyone have a link?
Speaking of Geodesic, Michael S. Mitchell and I have gotten back
in touch. I posted an interview / thread, with his permission,
here on Synergeo about a week ago.
SYNERGETICS "BACK EAST"
Check out Chris Fearnley's blog if you get a chance. He's asking
for comments on the mind/brain distinction. Not a day goes by that
I don't think about it, but I'm having writer's block on that topic.
I'd probably end up just going over all that Wittgenstein stuff
again, like over on Sean's list. Good thing I don't re-open those
flood gates.
We need to focus on upgrading the quality of civic discourse.
That probably sounds pretty funny coming from the bowels of
Synergeo.
A pat on the back, if you appreciate the irony. Urner out.
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