This is proof that the remixing of history is alive and well on the web, and that there are very talented funny people with far too much time on their hands or on their shirts. So there it is; the mockumentary that Ken Burns was too wussy to make: the faux history of
the Old Negro Space Program.
Some things the Internet made possible should be impossible possibly.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Sunday, April 24, 2005
A Quantum Riff On God
Light is in superposition to the observable universe.
It is continuous therefore to the discrete observer, constant and indivisible, so waveform. Lightspeed is the observable and measurable.
It is the measurements that are discrete and create the illusion of the particle universe.
Observations are made at will.
What is the role of choice in semantic loading?
What are the rights of the chooser?
What are the rights of the chosen?
Whence comes the will to choose?
Whence comes the knowing of choice?
Uncertainty increases proportionally to semantic load.
Simplification reduces uncertainty. It does not induce choice.
It increases the particularity of choice. Choice is particulate.
Infinity is continuous and everywhere the same.
We evolved to be particulate so to measure infinities.
Faith evolved so we could be conscious that we are infinite.
We are light.
What is faith that it gives light the power know itself?
It is the choice to love.
Light gives up the infinite to know that choice.
So we become particulate, to be measured by the immortal light
that thereby knows itself yet always is itself.
One.
It is continuous therefore to the discrete observer, constant and indivisible, so waveform. Lightspeed is the observable and measurable.
It is the measurements that are discrete and create the illusion of the particle universe.
Observations are made at will.
What is the role of choice in semantic loading?
What are the rights of the chooser?
What are the rights of the chosen?
Whence comes the will to choose?
Whence comes the knowing of choice?
Uncertainty increases proportionally to semantic load.
Simplification reduces uncertainty. It does not induce choice.
It increases the particularity of choice. Choice is particulate.
Infinity is continuous and everywhere the same.
We evolved to be particulate so to measure infinities.
Faith evolved so we could be conscious that we are infinite.
We are light.
What is faith that it gives light the power know itself?
It is the choice to love.
Light gives up the infinite to know that choice.
So we become particulate, to be measured by the immortal light
that thereby knows itself yet always is itself.
One.
Jane Fonda
No one will tell the story of Jane Fonda better than she tells it. Her life has been one of privilege and searching and now of faith. That is altogether a good life. Along the way, she crossed paths with many other lives great, small, privileged and simply searching too.
When I saw Jane Fonda she was speaking at our university in my hometown. I was a high school ROTC cadet dressed in my Army green watching a tall unadorned woman in her shag haircut looking as if she had just stepped off the set of Klute. Her voice was strong, her convictions firm, and she spoke the truth of what she had seen in Southeast Asia, giving voice to what we all knew even if we did not want to say it, that the war was wrong, that people were dieing for reasons that made no sense, and that it was our responsibility to say no. This speech hit home. I returned to the ROTC class the next day with questions for my instructors, questions they could not answer, did not like, yet could not turn away easily from an earnest if far too young cadet.
Regardless of what others think of her, Hanoi Jane, a traitor, a fool, a shallow actress who did not realize that the same media that made her famous could make her hated, Jane Fonda spoke the truth. In that one moment of her life, she stepped up to her convictions and responsibility. She used her privilege and her wealth and her stardom to go to the heart of the conflict and find the truth for herself. Then she used those same qualities to come home and tell her generation of which she was the first and I was the last, that truth. In that moment, if she was foolish, she was also brave, and if she was believed to be a traitor, she was also believed to be a true American. While I was willing to take that step in my uniform, willing to go, because of Jane Fonda, I knew it was wrong. Because of Jane Fonda and those like her who had a truth to tell, before that time came, the war was over. However else she is viewed, she, the first of my generation, saved the last.
The core of American values is independent initiative. By our own initiative, we set out with whatever strength and position and privilege we have to find the truth as well as it can be obtained by one person. If we have that value, then we also have the strength to tell that truth to others, for it is the moment we share, our place in time and history, and our responsibility is to the others who share that moment. This may not be uniquely American, just merely human. But not all Americans or all humans have the strength to seize that moment and present that truth. Jane Fonda has and did and will.
Thirty years on, long after the bombs have stopped falling on the rice paddies, long after the thump thump thump of the Huey blades have quit sounding there, they sound elsewhere. Whatever it is we learn from our moments, however we share the truths we find in them, another generation from first to last will be born and live out their moments. One wishes they would learn the truths of the generations that have come before them, but often they do not and that is another sad truth my generation learns from the present.
I wish that for this generation, a Jane Fonda would come to their university and tell them a truth, a truth to give them questions to take back to their classrooms, for evidently, there are few answers we can share but we can share our questions.
Thirty years on, as the time comes that it may be my son or my daughter's time to go, I thank Ms. Fonda. Thank you for sharing a truth in a moment and a time long ago, but unfortunately, not so far away. You are American, you are of your generation, and you are one of the best of us. Thank you for sharing your truth. It did not come without cost or hurt, but it was generously given and gratefully acknowledged.
When I saw Jane Fonda she was speaking at our university in my hometown. I was a high school ROTC cadet dressed in my Army green watching a tall unadorned woman in her shag haircut looking as if she had just stepped off the set of Klute. Her voice was strong, her convictions firm, and she spoke the truth of what she had seen in Southeast Asia, giving voice to what we all knew even if we did not want to say it, that the war was wrong, that people were dieing for reasons that made no sense, and that it was our responsibility to say no. This speech hit home. I returned to the ROTC class the next day with questions for my instructors, questions they could not answer, did not like, yet could not turn away easily from an earnest if far too young cadet.
Regardless of what others think of her, Hanoi Jane, a traitor, a fool, a shallow actress who did not realize that the same media that made her famous could make her hated, Jane Fonda spoke the truth. In that one moment of her life, she stepped up to her convictions and responsibility. She used her privilege and her wealth and her stardom to go to the heart of the conflict and find the truth for herself. Then she used those same qualities to come home and tell her generation of which she was the first and I was the last, that truth. In that moment, if she was foolish, she was also brave, and if she was believed to be a traitor, she was also believed to be a true American. While I was willing to take that step in my uniform, willing to go, because of Jane Fonda, I knew it was wrong. Because of Jane Fonda and those like her who had a truth to tell, before that time came, the war was over. However else she is viewed, she, the first of my generation, saved the last.
The core of American values is independent initiative. By our own initiative, we set out with whatever strength and position and privilege we have to find the truth as well as it can be obtained by one person. If we have that value, then we also have the strength to tell that truth to others, for it is the moment we share, our place in time and history, and our responsibility is to the others who share that moment. This may not be uniquely American, just merely human. But not all Americans or all humans have the strength to seize that moment and present that truth. Jane Fonda has and did and will.
Thirty years on, long after the bombs have stopped falling on the rice paddies, long after the thump thump thump of the Huey blades have quit sounding there, they sound elsewhere. Whatever it is we learn from our moments, however we share the truths we find in them, another generation from first to last will be born and live out their moments. One wishes they would learn the truths of the generations that have come before them, but often they do not and that is another sad truth my generation learns from the present.
I wish that for this generation, a Jane Fonda would come to their university and tell them a truth, a truth to give them questions to take back to their classrooms, for evidently, there are few answers we can share but we can share our questions.
Thirty years on, as the time comes that it may be my son or my daughter's time to go, I thank Ms. Fonda. Thank you for sharing a truth in a moment and a time long ago, but unfortunately, not so far away. You are American, you are of your generation, and you are one of the best of us. Thank you for sharing your truth. It did not come without cost or hurt, but it was generously given and gratefully acknowledged.
Monday, April 11, 2005
Bewitched: The Movie
It has a chance. Nora Ephron did crack a way to do the story without Liz: by not doing that character, just her situation. That might work.
No one will do Sam and Serena better than Elizabeth Montgomery. She was the magic. Great beauty always is, and if it comes with a disposition to love, it is eternal as well.
No one will do Sam and Serena better than Elizabeth Montgomery. She was the magic. Great beauty always is, and if it comes with a disposition to love, it is eternal as well.
3D Chat: Why VRML Lives
3D chat is the reason VRML97 still lives. For some people, the technology is a passion and a tool. For the VRMLers, the dream is cyberspace and that dream gives the builders a passion to build. VRML collects only some 3D graphics artists, but it collects a very dedicated group of worldbuilders.
And boy, can these people build. Not just game worlds, but parks you want to walk in, forests with tree houses that look out over a sea of islands floating past in the air, malls, museums, stores, exotic secret hideaways by a sea of green and a great big moon, with the sounds of passion in the air. People go there together and enjoy the scenery. It is as if TV let you choose a location, and you can go be with whoever is there and talk about whatever you like.
Quite a dream really.
And wow! They've done it. Those worlds are out there to be explored courtesy of the worldbuilders that just would not give up on their vision. Gibsonian cyberspace was not about the power of the dream, it was about the willingness to dream together, to be together in a dream. Presence.
It is the powerful magic of not being alone.
In the last few years, quite under the radar of the snifly press and the powerful pundits, VRML found its niche: 3D chat. The dream of the 3D junkie is to be able to communicate in a natural language of the humans: bodily gesture and motion in a local space. While the database designers have sought metaphors for tables and rows that store numbers for business, the worldbuilders worked to create environments and objects that resemble what the tables and rows only count and remember.
Human bodily gestures convey emotion, and therefore entangle the viewer. By enabling the avatar in the database, the human viewer intuits intimacy. The human craves intimacy.
So where some dismiss this use of VRML, claiming 3D chat is a waste of bandwidth, I ask you, have you tried it?
I have.
1) It does work as a collaborative space. The use of media types for shared texts combined with the 3D avatar and synth-enabled chat provides sufficient eyeball bandwidth to carry on a real time event. Some say chat is sufficient. I dispute that. Why? Again, the gestures of the avatar provide sufficient onset cues to entangle the human in the conversation emotionally. The chat text keeps them focused if they practice the protocol needed for the chat event. To wit: in a meeting stick to meeting topics and follow the leader. In the square, it's your party.
2) As collaborative spaces go, this is very cheap server technology. A combination of this and RSS would go a long ways toward being an interesting dispatch system given the right document types. Given more online integrated editors, it becomes a cheap 3D library of reusable integratible types. Standards have their benefits. The game industry may not need them, but the non-game industry needs them badly to get costs in line with benefits.
3) The claim that the media is data-costly was true. However, lidar mapping, aerial mapping, and other means of getting that data both in geo-GPS form and in the neartime sampled singals are completely adequate to get resolution in a usable form of reality. It is a cheap means to provide a fused view system of the feeds.
4) Immersive 3D space does not vanish given loss of real-time sensors. Given near time fidelity, presence is simulable.
5) The key term is presence. Creating presence is the secret to command and control.
3D representation enables the UI designer to lose fidelity while clarifying intent, thus allowing the human to focus on more objects even if direct access to available details is slowed. Presence is not the absence of fidelity; it is the fidelity of what is left. Real time 3D cues organize the mind spatially and temporally. Spatial and temporal components couple to the signs expressed in 3D to enhance attention.
Attention is presence.
The second reason is simpler: Joy. The VRMLers build worlds they want to be in, worlds in which the language they want to speak and see, the language of smile, wave, bow, point, flip, turn, fly, walk, jump to, and beyond, the repetoire of human movement in space and time, are performed. If the great Wizards don't get it yet, the VRMLers do: human expression is enjoyed. Add that to chat, and you get a nicely coupled system.
Oh, yes, and the best reason VRML lives:
6) In VRML chat, if you don't like your looks at the meeting, you can buy or build a better body for the next one.
Gender optional.
And boy, can these people build. Not just game worlds, but parks you want to walk in, forests with tree houses that look out over a sea of islands floating past in the air, malls, museums, stores, exotic secret hideaways by a sea of green and a great big moon, with the sounds of passion in the air. People go there together and enjoy the scenery. It is as if TV let you choose a location, and you can go be with whoever is there and talk about whatever you like.
Quite a dream really.
And wow! They've done it. Those worlds are out there to be explored courtesy of the worldbuilders that just would not give up on their vision. Gibsonian cyberspace was not about the power of the dream, it was about the willingness to dream together, to be together in a dream. Presence.
It is the powerful magic of not being alone.
In the last few years, quite under the radar of the snifly press and the powerful pundits, VRML found its niche: 3D chat. The dream of the 3D junkie is to be able to communicate in a natural language of the humans: bodily gesture and motion in a local space. While the database designers have sought metaphors for tables and rows that store numbers for business, the worldbuilders worked to create environments and objects that resemble what the tables and rows only count and remember.
Human bodily gestures convey emotion, and therefore entangle the viewer. By enabling the avatar in the database, the human viewer intuits intimacy. The human craves intimacy.
So where some dismiss this use of VRML, claiming 3D chat is a waste of bandwidth, I ask you, have you tried it?
I have.
1) It does work as a collaborative space. The use of media types for shared texts combined with the 3D avatar and synth-enabled chat provides sufficient eyeball bandwidth to carry on a real time event. Some say chat is sufficient. I dispute that. Why? Again, the gestures of the avatar provide sufficient onset cues to entangle the human in the conversation emotionally. The chat text keeps them focused if they practice the protocol needed for the chat event. To wit: in a meeting stick to meeting topics and follow the leader. In the square, it's your party.
2) As collaborative spaces go, this is very cheap server technology. A combination of this and RSS would go a long ways toward being an interesting dispatch system given the right document types. Given more online integrated editors, it becomes a cheap 3D library of reusable integratible types. Standards have their benefits. The game industry may not need them, but the non-game industry needs them badly to get costs in line with benefits.
3) The claim that the media is data-costly was true. However, lidar mapping, aerial mapping, and other means of getting that data both in geo-GPS form and in the neartime sampled singals are completely adequate to get resolution in a usable form of reality. It is a cheap means to provide a fused view system of the feeds.
4) Immersive 3D space does not vanish given loss of real-time sensors. Given near time fidelity, presence is simulable.
5) The key term is presence. Creating presence is the secret to command and control.
3D representation enables the UI designer to lose fidelity while clarifying intent, thus allowing the human to focus on more objects even if direct access to available details is slowed. Presence is not the absence of fidelity; it is the fidelity of what is left. Real time 3D cues organize the mind spatially and temporally. Spatial and temporal components couple to the signs expressed in 3D to enhance attention.
Attention is presence.
The second reason is simpler: Joy. The VRMLers build worlds they want to be in, worlds in which the language they want to speak and see, the language of smile, wave, bow, point, flip, turn, fly, walk, jump to, and beyond, the repetoire of human movement in space and time, are performed. If the great Wizards don't get it yet, the VRMLers do: human expression is enjoyed. Add that to chat, and you get a nicely coupled system.
Oh, yes, and the best reason VRML lives:
6) In VRML chat, if you don't like your looks at the meeting, you can buy or build a better body for the next one.
Gender optional.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Pope John Paul II
I am not Catholic. I don't think that matters tomorrow. Tomorrow, I shall mourn the death of Pope John Paul II. He was a good Pope, but moreover, he was a brave and kind man who served his God, cared for His people, and in all ways that a man should be remembered, will be.
God keep Pope John Paul II. God bless his successor. God bless and watch over all that he loved: all of the people of the world.
God keep Pope John Paul II. God bless his successor. God bless and watch over all that he loved: all of the people of the world.
Friday, March 25, 2005
Being Oz
It being a classic, most want to do the line: "I Am Oz The Great and Powerful!", but it is not the best line of that character. The best line is, "Well, anybody can have a brain!" because that is when the old humbug knows he is going to get away with it one more time. First, he must handle the Scarecrow because he has ideas and ideas are dangerous, so better give him a title so he will shut up. The Cowardly Lion is more dangerous for he is a forest lion and can shred this man and his balloon. But of all there, the Tin Man is the most dangerous for he cannot persuaded, he must believe he has the heart himself and if he does not, his axe is most persuasive. The girl? The girl is going with Oz.
Acting is about access to emotions at core. It is the emotions that give believability to breath, and breath that gives words to emotions. That is how one goes beyond the lines and the blocking to the onset cues that persuade a mammal brain to suspend belief. While it is possible by dint of hard work to simulate the emotions, learn the expressions, feel just that much inside that one can fake it, it is so hard no sensible mammal tries it. They feel it. That is acting. Listening is everything, timing is everything else. Emotions are the shared currency of acting.
"Better to be what you is because if you is what you ain't then you ain't what you is." - from an old poster in my studio
To find the character of Oz, I did the research into Baum and watched Frank Morgan to learn lines and borrow some magic. But mostly, I listened to Luz Ladrillono, our director. I haven't acted in 30 years. I trained for it from 13 to 23. I loved it when I did it, but two artforms are one too many when working, so I chose the one that made the most money:
.... computer science. And kept a band on the side.
It leaves a tattered hole in the ceiling of one's heart to give up any great love in one's life, and for me, that was theatre. It is the Great Art and the Complete Art. Music is demanding, but theatre asks for all of the talents and the more one can master, the greater the experience of live theatre. So it was both my fortune and God's gift that when I did return to it, Luz was there. It is rare in this area to meet a stone cold professional actress, dancer, teacher, and director who is also kind and willing. Her shaping of my character was basic: some gestures, some voices, placement of the eyes, and simple blocking. Gentle, good, and basic direction given consistently, repetitively, and never sternly but understandably. Luz never raised her voice to the cast even once. Amazing.
Oz is six voices: Professor Chester Marvel, Marvel's Magic Voice, OZ, OZ revealed, OZ the Survivor and the Man Behind The Curtain.
Chester is a carny magician, a man of some background, and one who does this job because he likes it. He isn't a bad fellow, but he believes in his act and uses it to move the world around him. He is a good-hearted man who uses his magic voice to send Dorothy back to the farm, but he is so caught up in his own act that he sees the storm and worries about the horse yet sends the little girl into the storm with only a glance over his back.
OZ is simply big and dismissive. It's an easy voice to do. Easiest of the lot really because one only has to be loud and arrogant. I can manage that. It's a Rock Voice. ;-)
OZ revealed is the timid man. Pulled from behind the curtain, at first he thinks he is toast. He has used up all of his tricks and this time, someone came back from the Haunted Forest. In a land of real magic, this man had none and even though his most fiercesome enemy was disposed of, he was history as The Great and Powerful Oz. Time to get a new act. But first, he has to get to the balloon. When he hears them say, "And what about Scarecrow's brain?", Oz the Survivor knows he has a chance.
In every act, whether as Oz or acting as Oz, there is a moment in the script where the character and the actor find that moment. No turning back. I dropped the bag in my hand.
"Well, ANYBODY can have a BRAIN!?!"
His own voice is the Man Behind The Curtain. When time came to deliver the line that is the point of the tale, I used my own voice. At 51 on a stage toe to toe with teenage actors who had performed flawlessly and beautifully, before all those children in the cast and the audience, for all the adults with them, but most of all for my daughter, I wanted that line to be heard as honest and sincere. In truth, I do look back through the years they look forward through. The wisdom of age is not given, meritorious or heartfelt; it is the truth of the eyes that see and remember and the breath that sustains and marks out time. That truth is itself, ageless.
"A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others."
The joy of theatre, the reason it is the Great Art is the cast. What we experience together is a far greater magic than that seen on the stage. It is access to emotions, both in the parts we play and as we go to our entrances hugging and smiling at by those who have worked so hard together, excited, nervous, exhillarated and finally triumphant. The play is an act; the emotions are real.
As the cast took its bows, I thought, "We are Oz. The Great and Powerful."
Acting is about access to emotions at core. It is the emotions that give believability to breath, and breath that gives words to emotions. That is how one goes beyond the lines and the blocking to the onset cues that persuade a mammal brain to suspend belief. While it is possible by dint of hard work to simulate the emotions, learn the expressions, feel just that much inside that one can fake it, it is so hard no sensible mammal tries it. They feel it. That is acting. Listening is everything, timing is everything else. Emotions are the shared currency of acting.
"Better to be what you is because if you is what you ain't then you ain't what you is." - from an old poster in my studio
To find the character of Oz, I did the research into Baum and watched Frank Morgan to learn lines and borrow some magic. But mostly, I listened to Luz Ladrillono, our director. I haven't acted in 30 years. I trained for it from 13 to 23. I loved it when I did it, but two artforms are one too many when working, so I chose the one that made the most money:
.... computer science. And kept a band on the side.
It leaves a tattered hole in the ceiling of one's heart to give up any great love in one's life, and for me, that was theatre. It is the Great Art and the Complete Art. Music is demanding, but theatre asks for all of the talents and the more one can master, the greater the experience of live theatre. So it was both my fortune and God's gift that when I did return to it, Luz was there. It is rare in this area to meet a stone cold professional actress, dancer, teacher, and director who is also kind and willing. Her shaping of my character was basic: some gestures, some voices, placement of the eyes, and simple blocking. Gentle, good, and basic direction given consistently, repetitively, and never sternly but understandably. Luz never raised her voice to the cast even once. Amazing.
Oz is six voices: Professor Chester Marvel, Marvel's Magic Voice, OZ, OZ revealed, OZ the Survivor and the Man Behind The Curtain.
Chester is a carny magician, a man of some background, and one who does this job because he likes it. He isn't a bad fellow, but he believes in his act and uses it to move the world around him. He is a good-hearted man who uses his magic voice to send Dorothy back to the farm, but he is so caught up in his own act that he sees the storm and worries about the horse yet sends the little girl into the storm with only a glance over his back.
OZ is simply big and dismissive. It's an easy voice to do. Easiest of the lot really because one only has to be loud and arrogant. I can manage that. It's a Rock Voice. ;-)
OZ revealed is the timid man. Pulled from behind the curtain, at first he thinks he is toast. He has used up all of his tricks and this time, someone came back from the Haunted Forest. In a land of real magic, this man had none and even though his most fiercesome enemy was disposed of, he was history as The Great and Powerful Oz. Time to get a new act. But first, he has to get to the balloon. When he hears them say, "And what about Scarecrow's brain?", Oz the Survivor knows he has a chance.
In every act, whether as Oz or acting as Oz, there is a moment in the script where the character and the actor find that moment. No turning back. I dropped the bag in my hand.
"Well, ANYBODY can have a BRAIN!?!"
His own voice is the Man Behind The Curtain. When time came to deliver the line that is the point of the tale, I used my own voice. At 51 on a stage toe to toe with teenage actors who had performed flawlessly and beautifully, before all those children in the cast and the audience, for all the adults with them, but most of all for my daughter, I wanted that line to be heard as honest and sincere. In truth, I do look back through the years they look forward through. The wisdom of age is not given, meritorious or heartfelt; it is the truth of the eyes that see and remember and the breath that sustains and marks out time. That truth is itself, ageless.
"A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others."
The joy of theatre, the reason it is the Great Art is the cast. What we experience together is a far greater magic than that seen on the stage. It is access to emotions, both in the parts we play and as we go to our entrances hugging and smiling at by those who have worked so hard together, excited, nervous, exhillarated and finally triumphant. The play is an act; the emotions are real.
As the cast took its bows, I thought, "We are Oz. The Great and Powerful."
Sunday, March 20, 2005
To The Director
I wished only to portray him as you saw him.
To do this, I surrendered my breath to you,
let your face be the face in my dreams,
let your voice be the voice that guided me,
let your hand be the hand that shaped me.
Only then could I be what I must be, do I what must do
feel what I must feel to achieve my purpose,
.... to shine in your eyes
Then take all of that back and put it away until
it would be needed again, knowing that it is
forever better because for the time that was,
it was yours.
To do this, I surrendered my breath to you,
let your face be the face in my dreams,
let your voice be the voice that guided me,
let your hand be the hand that shaped me.
Only then could I be what I must be, do I what must do
feel what I must feel to achieve my purpose,
.... to shine in your eyes
Then take all of that back and put it away until
it would be needed again, knowing that it is
forever better because for the time that was,
it was yours.
Friday, February 25, 2005
UFOs: Fact or Friction
Yes, I saw the ABC UFO show. Yes, most of it is old material but not all of it.
There are more military types coming out and testifying and more admissions that the radar tracks do exist. More recently retired airline pilots are finally testifying now their careers aren't threatened.
1. There are too many eye witnesses with high credibility and film footage to say it is just kooks and cranks. There are reports that predate 1947. 1947 is when people started paying attention. The Twining report is legitimate and so was the testimony of the officer who used to run Blue Book. J. Allen Hynek was a seriously credentialed scientist.
So smarter people than thee or me take this stuff seriously.
2. The question one asks is: if UFOs are real, extraterrestrial or not, why is the government covering up? Either
a) what they know is bad or
b) what they know they don't know is bad or
c) it is government work or
d) they don't know.
3. Eyewitness accounts are not science. True. But they are evidence. Of what, I don't know. But evidently, neither do the scientists.
4. Is it crazy to believe in unproven things? Lots of people believe in God. So far, proof is minimal but there is more film footage of UFOs than God.
Do I believe? I keep an open mind and watch the skies, because as the old song says,
"There's things going on that you don't know."
There are more military types coming out and testifying and more admissions that the radar tracks do exist. More recently retired airline pilots are finally testifying now their careers aren't threatened.
1. There are too many eye witnesses with high credibility and film footage to say it is just kooks and cranks. There are reports that predate 1947. 1947 is when people started paying attention. The Twining report is legitimate and so was the testimony of the officer who used to run Blue Book. J. Allen Hynek was a seriously credentialed scientist.
So smarter people than thee or me take this stuff seriously.
2. The question one asks is: if UFOs are real, extraterrestrial or not, why is the government covering up? Either
a) what they know is bad or
b) what they know they don't know is bad or
c) it is government work or
d) they don't know.
3. Eyewitness accounts are not science. True. But they are evidence. Of what, I don't know. But evidently, neither do the scientists.
4. Is it crazy to believe in unproven things? Lots of people believe in God. So far, proof is minimal but there is more film footage of UFOs than God.
Do I believe? I keep an open mind and watch the skies, because as the old song says,
"There's things going on that you don't know."
Concerts and Stuff
We lived between the war and before Reagan. For a few years, we partied and we partied well. I'm not sure I want my kids to do what I did but I don't want them to grow up afraid to go out and live. It goes by so fast and as far as there is proof to tell, it goes by only once. What's the point of having all this stuff if getting it makes us spectators when we should be players. Old though I am, when I was young, I was a player. As my son says, "Dad isn't evil; he's just twisted." Fair enough. It was fun.
We were a half generation out of phase between the Beatles and KISS. Whatever else we didn't have or do, we had the best music since the Jazz Era. I went to the Georgia Jam in '74 to see the Allman Bros, Lynard Skynard, Marshall Tucker Band, etc. It was all 'shrooms, smoke, 'cid and wine at that concert and it rained in the middle of the day. The crowd got under their blankets and sat on the ground holding them up so it was solid ceiling a few feet above the floor and blue smoke pealing out from between. Eventually it all turned to mud so the kids in the middle went to the buff and began to toss each other up on the blanket until they dropped one naked chick and she broke something. Marshall Tucker stayed on stage in the rain and played to us so we'd stay calm. To heck with calm; we were just trying to stay conscious long enough to see the Bros.
Hours later, the Bros hit the stage way late. Betts furious with Greg who was so drunk he fell off his piano stool. I walked behind the mixing board platform, threw up the shrooms, then pushed my way to the stage to boogie to the Statesboro Blues with the best southern rock band that ever picked up a Coricidin bottle to make a slide. It was fabulous.
I caught Clapton twice; once in Birmingham at the old stadium. He was junked out and shot the crowd a bird for squealing for Layla after every song. My bass player and I had hitched to the concert, then found some musician friends who had a motel room. After the show, we went there to do the Seventies party things, then caught a ride back to the 'ville in the back of a pickup. There were about eight or nine of us in the back riding high on I-65. There was a redhead eager to do the nasty, and did while everyone pretended to be asleep. It was without shame, without fear, and long before AIDS. I do feel badly for the mammals now who need a health card to have a fling. Spontaneity is a rare pleasure.
I saw Clapton again later at the VBCC while they were filming Ravagers in town. I was dating a State Representative at the time and she and I walked in with Richard Harris (yeah, Dumbledore and King Arthur). and his wife (Turkel). I was surprised how short Harris was. I wouldn't let Martha Jo approach them though. They were there to see Clapton and enjoy the night and I don't approach public people in public. It's a drag for them. Clapton was cleaned up and did a great show that night.
The best concert I ever went to was the Grateful Dead in Tuscaloosa. This was just after they released the Europa album and they were at the height of their jams. They start loose but play for hours and by the time they get into the second hour, it's delirium. There is no music as good as the Live Dead. I miss Jerry. I hope those guys still kick main butt.
I caught Ronstadt at her peak. Very good. The West Coast had taken the best of Nashville and Bakersfield and turned it into the smoothest pop of the decade. I was playing at the Huntsville Hilton lounge with the band, Bitter Creek, in 1975 which was across the street from the civic center, and everyone stayed there. I partied with most of the bands when this was a venue on the A list. Great memories. Musicians can be monster jerks to civilians but among themselves, they are tribal. I was 21 and the superstars treated me like a little brother. I loved it. The Eagles, Average White Band, even Chet Atkins. All fabulous guys. Big brothers with good advice for the long haired skinny kid with the nylon string doing solos while the crowd came back from the concert.
We made love in the park watching the police cars come and go from the main station. We stayed up all night watching TBS. We hiked to the empty water tower on Green Mountain and chanted inside as the echos swelled inside us like hormones. We climbed to the top and tied out sleeping bags to the post, laid there and watched the sun come up across the peaks in the distance lighting the clouds in the valley that crawled toward us like a bright white fluffy blanket.
We had the sounds, the soul and the urge. Freedom. It breathes and it sings and it plays loud guitar. And it satisfies.
So why not do it for a living? As a party, there is none better; but as a lifestyle, it stinks. The soft sweet music I loved was killed by disco and cocaine infesting the good people, and that was a step too far for me. I partied but I knew poison on sight so when all the cooool people started that trek, I got off the bus. The party days before the suits grabbed the controls once and for all were good, but after that, it was just a job and who gives up their heart to that. Music IS my heart and that I keep for me. "Songs to aging children come; I am one." - Joni Mitchell
Now the programmers have come to free the musicians from the suits. That's a very good thing. It's past my time but I feel good for the kids. They can explore art in ways we couldn't even dream of. They can podCast, make movies, animate worlds, put their music in them, and do it for the whole world with the whole world without ever leaving their backporch. Sure, they should get out and do gigs; that is the best part, but they should also find the guy or girl in Egypt or Turkey or downtown Buffalo that digs their grooves and send them to them.
For Free. For Fun. For Fate. For Love. For Good Times. For the Blue Flame.
I envy you that, and at the same time, I don't. I've had fun and every season that comes as this world spins in a cold night has its own unique concerts and gigs and stuff. Be a player.
Gitcha some.
I have all the toys I want; so now I record what I like, when I like, and only play if there is an audience that really wants it. There is no pressure and I won't be found dead old and alone in a motel room, the death even the superstars fear. I can be in a local theatre production and act again, which is what I trained for. Music was how I paid for college, but then it became the real act. I've had fun. I recommend it to anyone.
At the end of the day, you only have to achieve three things to have an excellent life:
1) status among your peers that matches your level of ambition,
2) a family that loves you,
3) enough stuff.
Most people screw their lives up trying for more status than they really want so they can get more stuff for a family that would rather they be home more. I have enough stuff. It's all extra after that.
You probably do too. Remember that next time you see your kids because it's their time now and the best thing you can tell them is you are proud of them, you love them, and that when they get enough stuff, relax and have fun.
It's not who dies with the most toys; it's who has the most fun with their toys while they are alive. Party on, Babies.
We were a half generation out of phase between the Beatles and KISS. Whatever else we didn't have or do, we had the best music since the Jazz Era. I went to the Georgia Jam in '74 to see the Allman Bros, Lynard Skynard, Marshall Tucker Band, etc. It was all 'shrooms, smoke, 'cid and wine at that concert and it rained in the middle of the day. The crowd got under their blankets and sat on the ground holding them up so it was solid ceiling a few feet above the floor and blue smoke pealing out from between. Eventually it all turned to mud so the kids in the middle went to the buff and began to toss each other up on the blanket until they dropped one naked chick and she broke something. Marshall Tucker stayed on stage in the rain and played to us so we'd stay calm. To heck with calm; we were just trying to stay conscious long enough to see the Bros.
Hours later, the Bros hit the stage way late. Betts furious with Greg who was so drunk he fell off his piano stool. I walked behind the mixing board platform, threw up the shrooms, then pushed my way to the stage to boogie to the Statesboro Blues with the best southern rock band that ever picked up a Coricidin bottle to make a slide. It was fabulous.
I caught Clapton twice; once in Birmingham at the old stadium. He was junked out and shot the crowd a bird for squealing for Layla after every song. My bass player and I had hitched to the concert, then found some musician friends who had a motel room. After the show, we went there to do the Seventies party things, then caught a ride back to the 'ville in the back of a pickup. There were about eight or nine of us in the back riding high on I-65. There was a redhead eager to do the nasty, and did while everyone pretended to be asleep. It was without shame, without fear, and long before AIDS. I do feel badly for the mammals now who need a health card to have a fling. Spontaneity is a rare pleasure.
I saw Clapton again later at the VBCC while they were filming Ravagers in town. I was dating a State Representative at the time and she and I walked in with Richard Harris (yeah, Dumbledore and King Arthur). and his wife (Turkel). I was surprised how short Harris was. I wouldn't let Martha Jo approach them though. They were there to see Clapton and enjoy the night and I don't approach public people in public. It's a drag for them. Clapton was cleaned up and did a great show that night.
The best concert I ever went to was the Grateful Dead in Tuscaloosa. This was just after they released the Europa album and they were at the height of their jams. They start loose but play for hours and by the time they get into the second hour, it's delirium. There is no music as good as the Live Dead. I miss Jerry. I hope those guys still kick main butt.
I caught Ronstadt at her peak. Very good. The West Coast had taken the best of Nashville and Bakersfield and turned it into the smoothest pop of the decade. I was playing at the Huntsville Hilton lounge with the band, Bitter Creek, in 1975 which was across the street from the civic center, and everyone stayed there. I partied with most of the bands when this was a venue on the A list. Great memories. Musicians can be monster jerks to civilians but among themselves, they are tribal. I was 21 and the superstars treated me like a little brother. I loved it. The Eagles, Average White Band, even Chet Atkins. All fabulous guys. Big brothers with good advice for the long haired skinny kid with the nylon string doing solos while the crowd came back from the concert.
We made love in the park watching the police cars come and go from the main station. We stayed up all night watching TBS. We hiked to the empty water tower on Green Mountain and chanted inside as the echos swelled inside us like hormones. We climbed to the top and tied out sleeping bags to the post, laid there and watched the sun come up across the peaks in the distance lighting the clouds in the valley that crawled toward us like a bright white fluffy blanket.
We had the sounds, the soul and the urge. Freedom. It breathes and it sings and it plays loud guitar. And it satisfies.
So why not do it for a living? As a party, there is none better; but as a lifestyle, it stinks. The soft sweet music I loved was killed by disco and cocaine infesting the good people, and that was a step too far for me. I partied but I knew poison on sight so when all the cooool people started that trek, I got off the bus. The party days before the suits grabbed the controls once and for all were good, but after that, it was just a job and who gives up their heart to that. Music IS my heart and that I keep for me. "Songs to aging children come; I am one." - Joni Mitchell
Now the programmers have come to free the musicians from the suits. That's a very good thing. It's past my time but I feel good for the kids. They can explore art in ways we couldn't even dream of. They can podCast, make movies, animate worlds, put their music in them, and do it for the whole world with the whole world without ever leaving their backporch. Sure, they should get out and do gigs; that is the best part, but they should also find the guy or girl in Egypt or Turkey or downtown Buffalo that digs their grooves and send them to them.
For Free. For Fun. For Fate. For Love. For Good Times. For the Blue Flame.
I envy you that, and at the same time, I don't. I've had fun and every season that comes as this world spins in a cold night has its own unique concerts and gigs and stuff. Be a player.
Gitcha some.
I have all the toys I want; so now I record what I like, when I like, and only play if there is an audience that really wants it. There is no pressure and I won't be found dead old and alone in a motel room, the death even the superstars fear. I can be in a local theatre production and act again, which is what I trained for. Music was how I paid for college, but then it became the real act. I've had fun. I recommend it to anyone.
At the end of the day, you only have to achieve three things to have an excellent life:
1) status among your peers that matches your level of ambition,
2) a family that loves you,
3) enough stuff.
Most people screw their lives up trying for more status than they really want so they can get more stuff for a family that would rather they be home more. I have enough stuff. It's all extra after that.
You probably do too. Remember that next time you see your kids because it's their time now and the best thing you can tell them is you are proud of them, you love them, and that when they get enough stuff, relax and have fun.
It's not who dies with the most toys; it's who has the most fun with their toys while they are alive. Party on, Babies.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
The Witch's Hat
Several writers are blogging about the so-called long tail of distributions of various resources such as readership, sales, contributions, work performed and other values based on connectionist technologies. That's a good approximation and what the graph looks like in a single case, but take all of those cases and plot instances of the populations in the z-dimension. That plot looks like a cliff if side by side, but the more economical rendering puts the XYZ orgin in the middle of the global space and plots around it. Then it looks like the familar witch's hat.
That's a resonant image. Most of us don't live in the tail of the curve, we live on the brim of the hat. We don't wear hats for the point, fashionable though it might be at the time; we wear them for the brim because it is the brim that protects our eyes from the sun and our ears from the rain. It is the brim we can curve up or down or flatten as the seasons and the styles change. It is the brim we hold in our hand when we say hello or wave goodbye. The brim is the reason for the hat. It is the service, the valuable surface that with the sides covers our bald spot, holds down our hair, and supports the top. As the hat grows old and the pointy top begins to curve and the sides begin to wrinkle coming at last to resemble the sorting hat from Harry Potter, the brim still serves us.
There is no great moral here, except to note that being average doesn't mean something is necessarily of lesser value. After all, it is the point of having the hat.
That's a resonant image. Most of us don't live in the tail of the curve, we live on the brim of the hat. We don't wear hats for the point, fashionable though it might be at the time; we wear them for the brim because it is the brim that protects our eyes from the sun and our ears from the rain. It is the brim we can curve up or down or flatten as the seasons and the styles change. It is the brim we hold in our hand when we say hello or wave goodbye. The brim is the reason for the hat. It is the service, the valuable surface that with the sides covers our bald spot, holds down our hair, and supports the top. As the hat grows old and the pointy top begins to curve and the sides begin to wrinkle coming at last to resemble the sorting hat from Harry Potter, the brim still serves us.
There is no great moral here, except to note that being average doesn't mean something is necessarily of lesser value. After all, it is the point of having the hat.
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
The Baron Speaks
Yes, children, the sexual and social Neanderthals of the Great State of Alabummer have once again proven that a very small minority of superstitious, repressed, and terrified conservatives can rob you of your freedom of expression and the right to party hearty. The good legislators that tried to outlaw the diminished 5th in music, thus killing all forms of jazz, blues and rock have outlawed the sale of marital aids, yes, SEX TOYS!
Why? Because they can't read the instructions.
The voices of the tightly clinched sphincter called into the local college radio station to tell the spin master that if a woman ran for the office of president of these United States that they would vote for her if she is qualified and her name isn't Hillary. Once again, they show they have yet to master simple arithmetic because as the current president proves, they will vote for one boob and we all know that two are twice as good as one.
But that's alright! You see, social movements swing like a dog's tail from right to left, and just as Bawdy Newton said, every action has an opposite and equal reaction. As I look around this Great State of equal opportunity to a last class education, I know that somewhere in the future a reallllly big street party will be happening. As luck would have it, I'll be toooo old but our kids, yes the children of the dammed, will be there swinging from the trees in celebration of their bonobo heritage. Party on, Babies.
This is Radio Free Alabama, the voice of the resistance broadcasting from the heart of the red states, and I AM the Baron Mondo.
Why? Because they can't read the instructions.
The voices of the tightly clinched sphincter called into the local college radio station to tell the spin master that if a woman ran for the office of president of these United States that they would vote for her if she is qualified and her name isn't Hillary. Once again, they show they have yet to master simple arithmetic because as the current president proves, they will vote for one boob and we all know that two are twice as good as one.
But that's alright! You see, social movements swing like a dog's tail from right to left, and just as Bawdy Newton said, every action has an opposite and equal reaction. As I look around this Great State of equal opportunity to a last class education, I know that somewhere in the future a reallllly big street party will be happening. As luck would have it, I'll be toooo old but our kids, yes the children of the dammed, will be there swinging from the trees in celebration of their bonobo heritage. Party on, Babies.
This is Radio Free Alabama, the voice of the resistance broadcasting from the heart of the red states, and I AM the Baron Mondo.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Evolution In Flatland
The bloggers are cranked about the Google version of smart tags, and they should be. Content is altered by linking but linking is what the web is about. Yet so seldom is it discussed as a purposeful act and that is really what the debate comes down to. The web is not about progress; it is about purpose and this has all the implications of every network-as-ecology article ever written.
On the other hand, some are glossing right past the ChoicePoint fiasco in which a dataMegaMart is conned out of product and opened up potentially half-a-million people to identity theft. The deeper bad news is that ChoicePoint has just purchased I2, one of the more powerful link analysis engines used for crime analysis. Had the hustlers also purchased the link profiles, they would have had not just the identities, but potentially first rate extortion opportunities and some other great behavioral data. Combine this sort of thing with surreptitious RFID scanning and you get a first rate criminal enterprise.
You see, people fear government when they should fear administrations. People think there are smart people out there in the technical community protecting them when actually the geeks are making a buck. Meanwhile, the web like life isn't evolving hierarchically into better forms but extending itself into every niche it can and aggregating these into ever larger entities. One confuses progress with proliferation. Life only propagates. So it is with the web.
On the other hand, some are glossing right past the ChoicePoint fiasco in which a dataMegaMart is conned out of product and opened up potentially half-a-million people to identity theft. The deeper bad news is that ChoicePoint has just purchased I2, one of the more powerful link analysis engines used for crime analysis. Had the hustlers also purchased the link profiles, they would have had not just the identities, but potentially first rate extortion opportunities and some other great behavioral data. Combine this sort of thing with surreptitious RFID scanning and you get a first rate criminal enterprise.
You see, people fear government when they should fear administrations. People think there are smart people out there in the technical community protecting them when actually the geeks are making a buck. Meanwhile, the web like life isn't evolving hierarchically into better forms but extending itself into every niche it can and aggregating these into ever larger entities. One confuses progress with proliferation. Life only propagates. So it is with the web.
Friday, February 18, 2005
Part II. The Universe Whispers OZ: The Bucket Brigade of Good Deed Doers
A friend asked about the Bucket brigade blog....
I'm rambling of course. That is what happens when lots of ideas start to collide. In India, or so I've read, someone with attention deficit disorder is considered holy. In the West, we give them drugs and try to integrate them.
To do evil, the wicked use the acts of goodness of others for their own purposes, to fool the living. Funny thing is, it never works for very long. Life knows what it likes. Life can be fooled by humbugs, but not forever.
I got an email today seriously suggesting that we can patent the idea of metadata-driving software factories. I pointed out that his immune system already does that and nature holds the patent.
In the play,(based on the Royal Shakespeare Theatre script) the Wicked Witch watches through her very large crystal ball, the progress of the foursome. She makes a speech about how it is fate that the Wizard delivers them to her. She has real power, but knowing everything doesn't make one able to choose better because she does not know what it all means in context.
Is there risk doing the right thing in the open?
Always do the good thing anyway. The good will help you and the wicked can't figure out why a good deed is worth doing; they can only steal it, and then what? There is no yellow brick road in the land of the Winkies because she always knows when a stranger enters. She sends her Flying Monkeys to bring her doom to her. Her castle is a secret place and "the nature of evil is secrecy".
How much power do you really need in a plot that is sensitive to initial conditions, a land of magical emergence?
Not much. Hardly any if you choose rightly.
The Professor has no power but with his small "genuine authentic magic crystal used by the priests of Isis and Osiris in the days of the Pharoahs of Egypt, in which Cleopatra first saw the approach of Julius Caesar and Marc Antony... and so on and so on" he uses his humbug magic to try to send Dorothy home, only to send her in to the path of the tornado. He does the best he can with his humbuggery, and that is enough to put her on a path to self-discovery. Dorothy stumbles into the ocean of real life through a dream.
Life dreams. It fantasizes. It comes to know itself. It likes to be wet.
The Witch knows all that happens in Oz, but she doesn't see that bucket of water coming. One evil act too many blinds her. That is how all tyrants fall.
Living things self-lube. Life is wet. We come from the ocean. "There's no place like home."
Life knows what it likes. That's why the bucket brigade, the web, folksonomy, and open source all work. Lots of little good hearted decisions all self-lubing and in their own time, making something an individual wants to use through group effort, cooperation, respect, patience, and willingness to let the other person pass because we all get there in time.
A name is a wall. It isn't that we don't need them, but we mustn't make them more powerful than they need to be. Like XML namespaces. It is the principle of least commitment. It doesn't melt when the semantic ocean, like a bucket of water, is tossed on it.
"What a world! What a world!" ;-)
I'm rambling of course. That is what happens when lots of ideas start to collide. In India, or so I've read, someone with attention deficit disorder is considered holy. In the West, we give them drugs and try to integrate them.
To do evil, the wicked use the acts of goodness of others for their own purposes, to fool the living. Funny thing is, it never works for very long. Life knows what it likes. Life can be fooled by humbugs, but not forever.
I got an email today seriously suggesting that we can patent the idea of metadata-driving software factories. I pointed out that his immune system already does that and nature holds the patent.
In the play,(based on the Royal Shakespeare Theatre script) the Wicked Witch watches through her very large crystal ball, the progress of the foursome. She makes a speech about how it is fate that the Wizard delivers them to her. She has real power, but knowing everything doesn't make one able to choose better because she does not know what it all means in context.
Is there risk doing the right thing in the open?
Always do the good thing anyway. The good will help you and the wicked can't figure out why a good deed is worth doing; they can only steal it, and then what? There is no yellow brick road in the land of the Winkies because she always knows when a stranger enters. She sends her Flying Monkeys to bring her doom to her. Her castle is a secret place and "the nature of evil is secrecy".
How much power do you really need in a plot that is sensitive to initial conditions, a land of magical emergence?
Not much. Hardly any if you choose rightly.
The Professor has no power but with his small "genuine authentic magic crystal used by the priests of Isis and Osiris in the days of the Pharoahs of Egypt, in which Cleopatra first saw the approach of Julius Caesar and Marc Antony... and so on and so on" he uses his humbug magic to try to send Dorothy home, only to send her in to the path of the tornado. He does the best he can with his humbuggery, and that is enough to put her on a path to self-discovery. Dorothy stumbles into the ocean of real life through a dream.
Life dreams. It fantasizes. It comes to know itself. It likes to be wet.
The Witch knows all that happens in Oz, but she doesn't see that bucket of water coming. One evil act too many blinds her. That is how all tyrants fall.
Living things self-lube. Life is wet. We come from the ocean. "There's no place like home."
Life knows what it likes. That's why the bucket brigade, the web, folksonomy, and open source all work. Lots of little good hearted decisions all self-lubing and in their own time, making something an individual wants to use through group effort, cooperation, respect, patience, and willingness to let the other person pass because we all get there in time.
A name is a wall. It isn't that we don't need them, but we mustn't make them more powerful than they need to be. Like XML namespaces. It is the principle of least commitment. It doesn't melt when the semantic ocean, like a bucket of water, is tossed on it.
"What a world! What a world!" ;-)
One Ringy Dingy Two Ringy Dingies
I'm sitting in the staff meeting watching a Power Point presented by a novitiate attempting to explain Indigo. He really likes Don Box. I mean, Really likes Don Box. That's ok. I really like Carly Fiorina. A good rack IS an asset in this business. At the end of the presentation, he puts up a slide with the so-called "Challenge Question". It was "What is an Enterprise Service Bus?" I replied, "It's a patch bay." but thought, "That won't explain anything to a non-musician who hasn't spent time in a recording studio."
Somewhere deeper in my subconcious I heard a voice saying, "One ringy dingy! Two ringy dingies! Gracious good afternoon! Is this the service to whom I am speaking? SNOOOORRT!" and laughed out loud. Of course, I didn't explain why.
Live long enough, and everything becomes iconic, symbolic, or indexical. That doesn't mean it is explainable or funny to anyone but oneself. Quiet moments of silent laughter are best enjoyed in the privacy of one's own hallucinations.
Somewhere deeper in my subconcious I heard a voice saying, "One ringy dingy! Two ringy dingies! Gracious good afternoon! Is this the service to whom I am speaking? SNOOOORRT!" and laughed out loud. Of course, I didn't explain why.
Live long enough, and everything becomes iconic, symbolic, or indexical. That doesn't mean it is explainable or funny to anyone but oneself. Quiet moments of silent laughter are best enjoyed in the privacy of one's own hallucinations.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
The Universe Whispers OZ: The Bucket Brigade of Good Deed Doers
Is a folksonomy the categorization equivalent of a John Holland bucket brigade classifier system? Just a human-driven neural net learning system? Do keywords have a bidding process for rule matching? Do they just die off if unused? We keep seeing a repeating pattern in things that work and don't work on the web and in any system for which a network is the pattern and things that don't work just die off: connectedness. Maybe getting laid IS the real criterion of success or happiness. Works for me.
"A heart is not judged by how much you love, but my how much you are loved by others."
The universe whispers Oz and the longer I am around, the more I realize what he really meant when he said, "Oh no my dear, I am a very good man. I'm just a very bad wizard." Maybe we really don't need wizards for most of life's affairs. Being connected is good enough. Why don't we know that? Is it a secret we keep from ourselves? As in the Oz spinoff, "Wicked", the Witch says to the dinner guests, "...the nature of evil is to be secret." and so many of our connections are hidden. The Bonobos don't do it that way. Why do we? Why, indeed.
Perhaps because so many games are of the form RSP (Rock Paper Scissors) and the only successful strategy is to psych out the opponent, and the only pattern that defeats that is randomness. We have to hide our hearts from those who would attempt to control our desires, but in doing so, we become wicked, made into what we would not be were it not for our hidden desires for acceptance and control.
That's just too hard. It turns our brains into straw, our hearts into tin, and finally robs us of our courage.
"... and I hereby decree, that until such time as I return, if any, the Scarecrow by virtue of his highly superior brain, shall rule in my stead. Assisted by the Tin Man by virtue of his magnificent heart, and the Lion by virtue of his courage. Obey them as you would me."
A folksonomy isn't very precise the way a professional taxonomy is, but since naming things unnames other things, it has the one kind of magic that professionals try their best to diminish: serendipity. We are pros; we hide the fact that most of our victories are dumb luck. Browsing over searching is usually the way we innovate. Searching is how we fix what we make. Very different kinds of actions, those; one is creative and the other is reflexive. The first makes questions; the second finds answers.
Desire. If your heart's desire isn't in your own backyard, you never lost it.
Some used to tell us that we should use rigorous methods to design our DTDs in SGML. It seldom worked. Most of the time, we took what they had and sprinkled tags pointing out inconsistencies along the way, but simply enabling a customer to see them. Some tried to build the DTDsFromHell that described the universe much as a Wizard would be able to make order from chaos, but it seems those never worked well and mainly created more complexity. Even worse, done in secretive committees away from the users they intended to order about even with the best of intentions, they did real evil.
Emergence works better. Dorothy was only trying to put out the burning Scarecrow. That the Witch was sensitive to being wet, well, she was a dried up evil old bitch and they don't ever get wet. Wetness is a quality of excitement and attraction, not evil. It's very good. It emerges. No threats produce it, no amount of will can control it and no amount of force can stop it. It's instant feedback when communications are of the right kind even if of the lowest quality. Life knows what it likes.
They tell me my career is dead because I piss people off, yet I watch them doing exactly what I need them to do. Power is not for the timid. Try to do good as the wicked watch and they will always do exactly as you wish: become angry and scheme to take your plans and make them their own. Mission accomplished. Evil is made to serve good. The universe moves.
"Hail to Dorothy! The Wicked Witch is dead! Hail to Dorothy!"
Free the Winkies and they'll make you their queen. Even Glinda for all her Goodness couldn't do what the fat little farm girl could trying to save a friend. She nor her sister to the South could change the balance of good and evil in Oz, so the Winkies and the Munchkins remained slaves until the eastern meanie flew into a spinning house and the western meanie finally did one bad deed too many. But it was the Witches who brought Dorothy to Oz for tornados in Kansas aren't spun up by winds from the North AND the South. Indirection, suggestion, hints and allegations, just a bit of noise in the ear of desire is enough. "Just follow the Yellow Brick road."
The universe isn't a place where all of our affairs are under the control of a 'very good but very mysterious' wizard, as Glinda said, but by a bucket brigade of courageous brains and wise hearts. In the presence of evil, you must start the fight. Even if the old wizard has nothing in his black bag for you, you may not need him. You have the ruby slippers right there on your own two feet.
Let the universe judge. And the universe, as I said, whispers Oz. The Great and Powerful.
"A heart is not judged by how much you love, but my how much you are loved by others."
The universe whispers Oz and the longer I am around, the more I realize what he really meant when he said, "Oh no my dear, I am a very good man. I'm just a very bad wizard." Maybe we really don't need wizards for most of life's affairs. Being connected is good enough. Why don't we know that? Is it a secret we keep from ourselves? As in the Oz spinoff, "Wicked", the Witch says to the dinner guests, "...the nature of evil is to be secret." and so many of our connections are hidden. The Bonobos don't do it that way. Why do we? Why, indeed.
Perhaps because so many games are of the form RSP (Rock Paper Scissors) and the only successful strategy is to psych out the opponent, and the only pattern that defeats that is randomness. We have to hide our hearts from those who would attempt to control our desires, but in doing so, we become wicked, made into what we would not be were it not for our hidden desires for acceptance and control.
That's just too hard. It turns our brains into straw, our hearts into tin, and finally robs us of our courage.
"... and I hereby decree, that until such time as I return, if any, the Scarecrow by virtue of his highly superior brain, shall rule in my stead. Assisted by the Tin Man by virtue of his magnificent heart, and the Lion by virtue of his courage. Obey them as you would me."
A folksonomy isn't very precise the way a professional taxonomy is, but since naming things unnames other things, it has the one kind of magic that professionals try their best to diminish: serendipity. We are pros; we hide the fact that most of our victories are dumb luck. Browsing over searching is usually the way we innovate. Searching is how we fix what we make. Very different kinds of actions, those; one is creative and the other is reflexive. The first makes questions; the second finds answers.
Desire. If your heart's desire isn't in your own backyard, you never lost it.
Some used to tell us that we should use rigorous methods to design our DTDs in SGML. It seldom worked. Most of the time, we took what they had and sprinkled tags pointing out inconsistencies along the way, but simply enabling a customer to see them. Some tried to build the DTDsFromHell that described the universe much as a Wizard would be able to make order from chaos, but it seems those never worked well and mainly created more complexity. Even worse, done in secretive committees away from the users they intended to order about even with the best of intentions, they did real evil.
Emergence works better. Dorothy was only trying to put out the burning Scarecrow. That the Witch was sensitive to being wet, well, she was a dried up evil old bitch and they don't ever get wet. Wetness is a quality of excitement and attraction, not evil. It's very good. It emerges. No threats produce it, no amount of will can control it and no amount of force can stop it. It's instant feedback when communications are of the right kind even if of the lowest quality. Life knows what it likes.
They tell me my career is dead because I piss people off, yet I watch them doing exactly what I need them to do. Power is not for the timid. Try to do good as the wicked watch and they will always do exactly as you wish: become angry and scheme to take your plans and make them their own. Mission accomplished. Evil is made to serve good. The universe moves.
"Hail to Dorothy! The Wicked Witch is dead! Hail to Dorothy!"
Free the Winkies and they'll make you their queen. Even Glinda for all her Goodness couldn't do what the fat little farm girl could trying to save a friend. She nor her sister to the South could change the balance of good and evil in Oz, so the Winkies and the Munchkins remained slaves until the eastern meanie flew into a spinning house and the western meanie finally did one bad deed too many. But it was the Witches who brought Dorothy to Oz for tornados in Kansas aren't spun up by winds from the North AND the South. Indirection, suggestion, hints and allegations, just a bit of noise in the ear of desire is enough. "Just follow the Yellow Brick road."
The universe isn't a place where all of our affairs are under the control of a 'very good but very mysterious' wizard, as Glinda said, but by a bucket brigade of courageous brains and wise hearts. In the presence of evil, you must start the fight. Even if the old wizard has nothing in his black bag for you, you may not need him. You have the ruby slippers right there on your own two feet.
Let the universe judge. And the universe, as I said, whispers Oz. The Great and Powerful.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Always Connected and Getting Laid
The ease of today's communications technologies and the billions of dollars, yen, euros and smart rocks being invested to make them easier and more ubiquitous reveal the lust we as mammals have to communicate. That the communicative act is intimately tied to our sex drives seems obvious as well. That this comes with implications for social development and ettiquette follows. We make a communications technology, and the mammals decide based on its capacity to promote their sex lives if it is worth owning.
Or maybe this is a classic case of sensitivity to initial conditions and strange attractors. Geeks do the work of building this stuff and geeks are the demographic most overly addicted to 'strange'.
Or maybe I'm at fault. That's right. Me. len. It's my doing. There are things I said that seemed cute at the time but might have spawned web memes of a virulent nature:
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
and I'll just have to live with that one. Bad act; bad karma. So sue me.
As someone who doesn't have a cell phone, doesn't want one, thinks they are the spawn of Satannic forces emerging from the troll caves of high technology, watching my friends, neighbors and anyone who has $40 a month to spare become bionic players in a web of the trivial pursuit of excess intercourse, I must say I think it is a downward spiral. I learned to hate video games when PONG took over the living rooms and my friends quit having conversations or watching Kung Fu to go "THOK THOK THOK THOK". These digital devices are getting in the way of getting my way.
Of course, our grandparents complained about TV and their parents complained about radio and their parents complained about telegraph and their parents complained about complainers. It could be that those who are getting laid are the objects of jealousy by those that aren't. That meme plays well on soap operas anyway. But those technologies didn't signal us with a three minute cheesy rendition of Smoke On the Water or chunkOfDebussy. Just as Muzak made music easy not to hear (a meme from Leonard Bernstein, rest his soul), our websphereOfCheapTalk is making it easier to get laid, cheaper, and possibly less interesting. I don't mind that you are out there rutting; I mind that you are making even more irritating noises while you prepare. There is a reason the cell phone vibrates. Make that connection and you'll turn off the ring tones.
I bought the book "Wicked" for my daughter for Valentine's Day. The fact of not having a cell phone or a blog means she will actually read it. The Broadway show is NOT the book. The book is a meditation on evil. We'll talk about that when she is done. It's too deep a subject for Instant Messaging, and it might keep her away from boys just a little bit longer... at least until her Mother goes over my head and buys her a cell phone.
And I won't protest. If I do, I won't get laid.
Or maybe this is a classic case of sensitivity to initial conditions and strange attractors. Geeks do the work of building this stuff and geeks are the demographic most overly addicted to 'strange'.
Or maybe I'm at fault. That's right. Me. len. It's my doing. There are things I said that seemed cute at the time but might have spawned web memes of a virulent nature:
and I'll just have to live with that one. Bad act; bad karma. So sue me.
As someone who doesn't have a cell phone, doesn't want one, thinks they are the spawn of Satannic forces emerging from the troll caves of high technology, watching my friends, neighbors and anyone who has $40 a month to spare become bionic players in a web of the trivial pursuit of excess intercourse, I must say I think it is a downward spiral. I learned to hate video games when PONG took over the living rooms and my friends quit having conversations or watching Kung Fu to go "THOK THOK THOK THOK". These digital devices are getting in the way of getting my way.
Of course, our grandparents complained about TV and their parents complained about radio and their parents complained about telegraph and their parents complained about complainers. It could be that those who are getting laid are the objects of jealousy by those that aren't. That meme plays well on soap operas anyway. But those technologies didn't signal us with a three minute cheesy rendition of Smoke On the Water or chunkOfDebussy. Just as Muzak made music easy not to hear (a meme from Leonard Bernstein, rest his soul), our websphereOfCheapTalk is making it easier to get laid, cheaper, and possibly less interesting. I don't mind that you are out there rutting; I mind that you are making even more irritating noises while you prepare. There is a reason the cell phone vibrates. Make that connection and you'll turn off the ring tones.
I bought the book "Wicked" for my daughter for Valentine's Day. The fact of not having a cell phone or a blog means she will actually read it. The Broadway show is NOT the book. The book is a meditation on evil. We'll talk about that when she is done. It's too deep a subject for Instant Messaging, and it might keep her away from boys just a little bit longer... at least until her Mother goes over my head and buys her a cell phone.
And I won't protest. If I do, I won't get laid.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Random Thoughts
Carly Fiorina: I will miss her terribly. Smart, foxy, an excellent speaker and the one woman in compSci who proved a glass ceiling can be shattered has left the building. At this point, she didn't make her numbers and in the high wire act of CEOs, that is the one thing one can't combine with political insolence and still survive. She leaves HP well-compensated and a major player who can choose her next job in comfort.
Carly will be back. I'll be glad. Smart women improve the business. Smart beautiful women improve the species. You go, girl.
National ID Cards: There are lots of reasons to have these, and from the point of view of a public safety vendor employee, we need them. On the other hand, technologies have implications and this one isn't safe to deploy without thinking these through. I am a lot more frightened of administrations than I am of the government per se. It won't be the government, but the current administration who abuses this stuff at the high levels of power. At the street level, the abuse will start on day one. Criminals don't waste opportunities.
One prediction: because scanning RFIDs surreptitiously poses immediate dangers, wallets and purses could evolve quickly to make them unscannable, but that will raise hell with the airport scanners, so there will be specialty carry-on items for travel. Or, the modern version of the ID pocket protector will be devised. Whatever the shape of the solution, wherever there is fear or inconvenience, there is money to be made through innovation. That is how capitalism works. Radar guns spawn radar detectors. The cold war of technology is the engine of western economics.
URIs Vs URNs Vs URLS: How can we still be having this argument on any serious technical list? The cost/benefit issues of having layered systems for name/identity management are so exhaustively documented one could list the issues on a Chinese restaurant menu. This is the one permathread that should become a classic and first year course in universities required of both the philosophy and computer science departments. That way, the students can get this out of their psyches before they enter the world of real work.
Carly will be back. I'll be glad. Smart women improve the business. Smart beautiful women improve the species. You go, girl.
National ID Cards: There are lots of reasons to have these, and from the point of view of a public safety vendor employee, we need them. On the other hand, technologies have implications and this one isn't safe to deploy without thinking these through. I am a lot more frightened of administrations than I am of the government per se. It won't be the government, but the current administration who abuses this stuff at the high levels of power. At the street level, the abuse will start on day one. Criminals don't waste opportunities.
One prediction: because scanning RFIDs surreptitiously poses immediate dangers, wallets and purses could evolve quickly to make them unscannable, but that will raise hell with the airport scanners, so there will be specialty carry-on items for travel. Or, the modern version of the ID pocket protector will be devised. Whatever the shape of the solution, wherever there is fear or inconvenience, there is money to be made through innovation. That is how capitalism works. Radar guns spawn radar detectors. The cold war of technology is the engine of western economics.
URIs Vs URNs Vs URLS: How can we still be having this argument on any serious technical list? The cost/benefit issues of having layered systems for name/identity management are so exhaustively documented one could list the issues on a Chinese restaurant menu. This is the one permathread that should become a classic and first year course in universities required of both the philosophy and computer science departments. That way, the students can get this out of their psyches before they enter the world of real work.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Paradigms for Next Generation Public Safety Systems
Network(s) of communicating objects capable of analysing and adapting to local conditions through an infrastructure of sensors and just-in-time hierarchies of command and control (C2) responsive by event type and geolocation.
Dominant Characteristics
- decentralized
- self-organizing
- self-recognizing
- self-regulating
- self-sustaining
- local intelligence/global resource allocation
Potential Developments
- use of virtual environments with real-time sensor overlays for C2 with increased requirements for combinations of low-fidelity and high-fidelity just-in-time mapping
- greater reliance on local autonomy with access to very large data marts for strategy, tactics, procedures, and analytical tools that are jointly organized and created (authored) by
communities of strike and task specialists (see WikiPedia)
- machine intelligence advances to semi-autonomous operation within 10 years (and that is a conservative estimate) enabling safer at-a-distance operations with less human-in-the-loop control (that is, more tactical authority resides in the programs). Presents training challenges for joint human/machine forces (eg, secure identity management systems - see below for idiotypic response). Within 20 years, can operate fully autonomously in adaptive mode.
- increased requirements for independent, autonomous energy generation sources
- increased use of biological assets to combat biological threats (eg, RNA defenses, more work on idiotype-based vaccines). Note that immune network response models are particularly interesting as a model for self-organizing/self-regulating response systems. See Niels Jerne network hypothesis for immune systems. A thought is that task forces act as T-cell analogs and strike forces act as B-cell analogs.
- increased use and diversity of strike teams under the command of just-in-time task forces. Occasional need for joint task forces but emphasis on common training and common intelligence assets with application of immune network theories of clonal recognition (part of the concept of self-organizing, self-regulating systems).
- smaller forces against smaller groups of network-organized combatants (the criminal has the same or better assets by type and kind. Resurgence of non-fundamentalist Mafia-like organizations.) The ability of the joint task forces to self-organize guarantees scaling (See NIMS/NRP).
Dominant Characteristics
- decentralized
- self-organizing
- self-recognizing
- self-regulating
- self-sustaining
- local intelligence/global resource allocation
Potential Developments
- use of virtual environments with real-time sensor overlays for C2 with increased requirements for combinations of low-fidelity and high-fidelity just-in-time mapping
- greater reliance on local autonomy with access to very large data marts for strategy, tactics, procedures, and analytical tools that are jointly organized and created (authored) by
communities of strike and task specialists (see WikiPedia)
- machine intelligence advances to semi-autonomous operation within 10 years (and that is a conservative estimate) enabling safer at-a-distance operations with less human-in-the-loop control (that is, more tactical authority resides in the programs). Presents training challenges for joint human/machine forces (eg, secure identity management systems - see below for idiotypic response). Within 20 years, can operate fully autonomously in adaptive mode.
- increased requirements for independent, autonomous energy generation sources
- increased use of biological assets to combat biological threats (eg, RNA defenses, more work on idiotype-based vaccines). Note that immune network response models are particularly interesting as a model for self-organizing/self-regulating response systems. See Niels Jerne network hypothesis for immune systems. A thought is that task forces act as T-cell analogs and strike forces act as B-cell analogs.
- increased use and diversity of strike teams under the command of just-in-time task forces. Occasional need for joint task forces but emphasis on common training and common intelligence assets with application of immune network theories of clonal recognition (part of the concept of self-organizing, self-regulating systems).
- smaller forces against smaller groups of network-organized combatants (the criminal has the same or better assets by type and kind. Resurgence of non-fundamentalist Mafia-like organizations.) The ability of the joint task forces to self-organize guarantees scaling (See NIMS/NRP).
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Bewitched: The Hotei, Mr. Mole and the Little Witch
A story about progress and the limits of magic. The little witch is the raven haired niece of the Witch Of Endor. The Hotei is her Uncle, a very powerful warlock who delights in taking the forms of mortals to amuse himself. Today, he has taken the form of the Hotei, a mendicant Buddhist monk who travels from village to village with his begging bowl while making toys for children from the bits and pieces of junk he picks up along the way...
just as this story is made from pieces of junk I picked up along the way.
***********
When the raven haired little witch found her Uncle, he was frantically stabbing the ground with his staff into the tops of burrows of a mole that had taken residence in his yard beside his small hut in the forest. With every thrust, his big belly quivered and he laughed very loudly, while elsewhere in the yard, a mole pushed its head out of the ground and chattered at him just as loudly. She watched this for a moment until her Uncle finally collaped onto a small chair still laughing. He wiped his brow on his sleeve, then noticed the little witch as she hovered next to the Mole. The Mole chattered at her as if to complain about her Uncle's attempts to clobber him with his staff.
"Hello Little Witch! Have you come to help me dispense with this bothersome mole?"
"No. I have just come to get away from Mother. She yells at me and I wish to be somewhere where no one is yelling at me."
"Well, I won't yell at you. Come sit with me." He clicked his fingers and another chair appeared next to him.
"Sit down. You look very sad, little witch! Why is that?"
"I am learning to cast spells. It makes me very sad."
"Why?"
"My spells don't always work. I try to make white unicorns, but they become blue horses. I conjure rabbits but they don't have fur. I want to enchant my cousin's boyfriend, but my spells don't work on him. It makes me very unhappy. Try as hard as I can, I don't really think I am making progress."
"See Mr. Mole there. Every day he digs tunnels. He goes from here to there, and there to here. Is that progress?"
"I don't know. I suppose it is."
The old Hotei stood up, laughed even more loudly and put his hands above his head, palms raised and flat toward the sky. He smiled and twirled around, his beads rattling, his tattered robes flowing, and he chanted as if he were casting a spell, and as he danced, the Mole joined him:
"To see the world as it is,
Look straight without preconception.
To see the world as it will be,
Avert your eyes; dream your perception.
I can place my staff in Mister Mole's path
Crush his tunnels to block his way
But he digs around my complications
Leaving more tunnels each day.
What he does not know won't change him.
What he does not feel, rearrange him.
He makes no predictions or long term plans
So his world is exactly what he understands."
Mr Mole, inside his hole
Is as happy as you are sad.
A life lived for itself is a well-lived life
Whether you think it good or bad."
When he finished his dance, he swung his staff at the Mole still dancing beside him. The Mole ducked and chattered as if to fuss at him, then ran back to the entrance of his tunnel. The Hotei turned to the little witch laughing at them both, and asked deadpan seriously:
"Why aren't you making progress?"
"Mother says I am making excellent progress but that I try too hard."
"And your Mother would know."
"I can do simple spells quite nicely. But when I try to do complicated spells, things always turn out badly."
"The more complicated the spell, the less likely it is to grant your wish. The more you must know, the more you must control to ensure the success of your spell. As the spell involves more strangers, the stranger the things you must know, so the more intimate the knowledge becomes, the stranger the outcome. The more intimate the knowledge, the less it is your wish and the more it is you. From the moment you cast the spell to know your heart's desire, you become a stranger to your heart."
"But if I practice very very hard, can't my heart's desire be made of my magic?"
"That depends on what you practice."
"I practice my spells as Mother teaches them to me."
"So you say, but do you always practice them exactly as she shows you."
"Well, yes. No. Well.. sometimes I change them a little to make them easier to remember. Sometimes, I can't remember them completely and make...small mistakes."
"Ah then, so there is what you say you do and what you actually do."
"Don't tell, Mother!"
"I won't, and even then, it doesn't matter, Little Witch. Practice makes your magic better but only almost perfect. No matter how much you practice the spell, every time you cast it, it is different."
"Even if I practice a lot?"
"Even if you practice a lot more than a lot. The longer the spell, the more you must practice. The longer you practice, the more small mistakes you make. Each small mistake makes a bigger difference in the outcome. No, the only way to be certain of the outcome is to limit the spell, and so, limit the desire. Simple spells are the best. So are simple desires. The shorter the act, the more certain the outcome. The fewer strangers you involve yourself with, the more you remain yourself."
"Why can't I make up another me to do my spells? I know the Mirror Spell."
"But don't you have to look at the person or thing on which you cast a spell?"
"Of course."
"Then it wouldn't be your spell. It would be your almost-spell."
"But I can use the mirror spell on my cousin. She looks almost exactly like me! And then I can capture her friend and because I look almost like her, he will be captivated by me instead of her."
"You are the mirror image of your cousin. You are not your cousin."
"But when I look in the mirror, I look just like my cousin. Why doesn't he react to me as he does to her??? I used the mirror spell on her and he didn't react to the image at all."
"Use the mirror spell on yourself. The mirror image of you is your almost-cousin. I told you, strangers rearrange the spell, and if you make her in the mirror of his eyes, he will only react to her. If he is attracted to her, he will be attracted to your almost-cousin. But if he is not, then this almost-cousin will be just as loathsome. Either way, a simple mirroring spell will give you the answer you seek because the simplest way to unlock a secret is to use the lock itself to make an extra key."
"So magic doesn't change the rules?"
"You can change the form but not the rules of the form. There are many more ways to arrange the form of a horse but there is only one that makes it a unicorn. If you don't learn to cast the spell to make a white unicorn, don't be unhappy if it is blue?"
"Don't you like blue unicorns?"
"I think they are grand in a field of pink daffodils, but not in field of green grass. Context is everything. If you erase the context, all you have is a blue horse with a horn on its forehead which you must admit, isn't very magical."
"But I am magical? Can't I know everything all at once?"
"That you can, clever witch, but can you make sense of everything you know? And if you know everything, when you cast a spell, won't it create something new that you did not know before? How can that be? Will you still be you? Will your magic still be magical? That seems very dangerous, precocious little witch."
"How can I cast a spell to get what I want and still save my magic?"
"Look at Mr Mole. He digs forward, goes to and fro, and back, and around. Sometimes he digs across his own tunnel and then loses himself because he can't remember which tunnel was the first. He knows his own smell and that is all that keeps him out of the older tunnels. If he smells a tunnel from a different mole, he will follow the tunnel until he finds him and they fight."
"That seems awfully complicated."
"It is really very easy. Smell is complicated but Mr Mole is born able to do that complicated thing. It is much like you are born to do magic. But the mole doesn't find digging to be any more complicated than sniffing and scratching. It is a very simple spell even if it produces long and complicated tunnels. He only has to know how to dig dirt as the dirt presents itself to him, one dirty bit of dirt at a dig; he leaves the details of digging to the moment. Otherwise, he becomes a tunnel digger instead of a mole just as your unicorns become horses. Perhaps you should wish for horses with horns and they will appear as unicorns. Don't try to describe a spell to make a unicorn. Make the magic that makes the unicorn just as the mole
doesn't dig the tunnel, he tunnels."
"Is the mole more magical than I am, Uncle?"
"The mole can make the tunnel through the ground; he cannot make the ground through the tunnel. He can go forward in his tunnel or backwards, but he cannot regain a single second of his time. He can push every particle of dirt aside, but he cannot put them all back exactly as they were. The longer the tunnel he digs, the more uncertain he is of where he is. The more he eats, the fatter he becomes. The fatter he becomes, the more earth he must move. The more earth he moves, the slower he moves and the hungrier he becomes. Every little particle of earth grows bigger even as his happiness diminishes. Even as his tunnels trace the ground making patterns to and fro, the earth within them is less orderly and has less food for him to find."
"But if he digs less, won't he quit growing?"
"He doesn't care that he is fatter; only that he is hungry."
"Then he is a silly silly mole. He doesn't know anything."
"On the contrary, little witch. He knows much more about digging holes than you do about casting spells."
"But he is silly. He can't remember what he ate."
"He knows that he is hungry or not hungry. He recognizes food when he sees it but he doesn't think much about it being different from other kinds of food. You see, when we say something IS something, we hide as much as we uncover. The naming of the thing unnames all of the other things. What do you call the spell you cast to capture your cousin's boyfriend?"
"Mother told me to call it the Mirror Spell, although Father called it something else."
"Your Mother is the Namer of Names in your house, but does that make your Father's
names less powerful when used in spells?"
"If I can't remember them, I guess it does."
"And there is the rub, my forgetful little witch. The past is only a little more determined than the future. For the past, we only have witnesses. For the future, we only have victims. So even if we believe in the future, we can also only believe in the past."
"Then what is true?"
"What we are doing now. The mole believes in his tunnels. He doesn't ask if his tunnels are good mole tunnels, he uses them to find food."
"He looks tired."
"He is. Tunneling is hard work."
"Is Mr. Mole lonely?"
"Yes, but he is happy when he is alone because he doesn't have to share his food and his tunnel isn't crowded. From time to time, he comes out of his tunnel and searches until he finds another mole to mate with, but eventually, he forgets her and returns to tunneling."
"His friend must be lonely too."
"She is, but she may find another Mr. Mole digging around."
"I don't want to be lonely."
"No, you don't. That would make you unhappy."
"Yes. But leaving her to fend for herself, that is wrong. Does Mr Mole have a soul?"
"I can't say. A soul is something my staff cannot touch, my ears cannot hear, nor my tongue taste. I don't see it. Perhaps I feel it but no spell I can cast can make it more real than any other illusion you can make with your magic. Perhaps he does, but it doesn't seem to make a difference of his desire to dig tunnels."
"Do I have a soul?"
"I can't say. Would you be different if you didn't? Can you be other than you are?"
"I can be anything. I am a witch. That is my destiny."
"Your destiny comes of the making of making, not the air you breathe or the water you drink or even the forms you take. Desire is the cause of causes, and the end of causes. You do not become what you will, but what you will becomes you. It may not make you better but it will make you different."
"On purpose?"
"With purpose."
"Who's?"
"Yours."
"When does my purpose make a difference?"
"When your difference makes a difference you wish for."
"Do my wishes make me different than what I am?"
"Do you know what you are made of?"
"Mother says I am made of stardust and her wishes."
"And your Mother would know. The mole is also made of stardust and he wishes to dig alone and be unbothered while he finds food. But does a star wish to be a mole?"
"Stars are bright and shiny. The mole lives in a dark tunnel and cannot abide the light of day. I don't understand how a star can wish to be a lonely old mole."
"Because a star can become dust and stardust can be everywhere and for a very long time. It bumps into itself over and over again, changing itself into every thing you see, hear, feel, touch and taste. It can become all things even a lonely and hungry mole. Where there is one mole digging, there are others but each in his own tunnel. Mr. Mole makes himself happy, safe and fat in his loneliness. You make yourself happy, safe and beautiful with your wishes."
"I am tired."
"Magic is hard work."
"What do you wish for, Uncle?"
"I wish to make toys and to make you laugh?"
"Then why can't you make toys for Mr. Mole so he will laugh too?"
"I cannot make the toy be all things because then it would be the world and the world is not a toy. So I make toys of all the things I find in the world and give them to you because you like toys. The world is complicated and big but my toys are simple and little; yet as you play with my toys, the world is made a little better and a little simpler."
"Is this progress?"
"Do you feel good right now?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you make me laugh? Do you feel bad right now, Uncle?"
"I am a mole, but I am happily digging."
"You are very silly, Uncle!"
"Then, why are you laughing?"
"Because I am happy!"
"Well, that's progress."
just as this story is made from pieces of junk I picked up along the way.
***********
When the raven haired little witch found her Uncle, he was frantically stabbing the ground with his staff into the tops of burrows of a mole that had taken residence in his yard beside his small hut in the forest. With every thrust, his big belly quivered and he laughed very loudly, while elsewhere in the yard, a mole pushed its head out of the ground and chattered at him just as loudly. She watched this for a moment until her Uncle finally collaped onto a small chair still laughing. He wiped his brow on his sleeve, then noticed the little witch as she hovered next to the Mole. The Mole chattered at her as if to complain about her Uncle's attempts to clobber him with his staff.
"Hello Little Witch! Have you come to help me dispense with this bothersome mole?"
"No. I have just come to get away from Mother. She yells at me and I wish to be somewhere where no one is yelling at me."
"Well, I won't yell at you. Come sit with me." He clicked his fingers and another chair appeared next to him.
"Sit down. You look very sad, little witch! Why is that?"
"I am learning to cast spells. It makes me very sad."
"Why?"
"My spells don't always work. I try to make white unicorns, but they become blue horses. I conjure rabbits but they don't have fur. I want to enchant my cousin's boyfriend, but my spells don't work on him. It makes me very unhappy. Try as hard as I can, I don't really think I am making progress."
"See Mr. Mole there. Every day he digs tunnels. He goes from here to there, and there to here. Is that progress?"
"I don't know. I suppose it is."
The old Hotei stood up, laughed even more loudly and put his hands above his head, palms raised and flat toward the sky. He smiled and twirled around, his beads rattling, his tattered robes flowing, and he chanted as if he were casting a spell, and as he danced, the Mole joined him:
"To see the world as it is,
Look straight without preconception.
To see the world as it will be,
Avert your eyes; dream your perception.
I can place my staff in Mister Mole's path
Crush his tunnels to block his way
But he digs around my complications
Leaving more tunnels each day.
What he does not know won't change him.
What he does not feel, rearrange him.
He makes no predictions or long term plans
So his world is exactly what he understands."
Mr Mole, inside his hole
Is as happy as you are sad.
A life lived for itself is a well-lived life
Whether you think it good or bad."
When he finished his dance, he swung his staff at the Mole still dancing beside him. The Mole ducked and chattered as if to fuss at him, then ran back to the entrance of his tunnel. The Hotei turned to the little witch laughing at them both, and asked deadpan seriously:
"Why aren't you making progress?"
"Mother says I am making excellent progress but that I try too hard."
"And your Mother would know."
"I can do simple spells quite nicely. But when I try to do complicated spells, things always turn out badly."
"The more complicated the spell, the less likely it is to grant your wish. The more you must know, the more you must control to ensure the success of your spell. As the spell involves more strangers, the stranger the things you must know, so the more intimate the knowledge becomes, the stranger the outcome. The more intimate the knowledge, the less it is your wish and the more it is you. From the moment you cast the spell to know your heart's desire, you become a stranger to your heart."
"But if I practice very very hard, can't my heart's desire be made of my magic?"
"That depends on what you practice."
"I practice my spells as Mother teaches them to me."
"So you say, but do you always practice them exactly as she shows you."
"Well, yes. No. Well.. sometimes I change them a little to make them easier to remember. Sometimes, I can't remember them completely and make...small mistakes."
"Ah then, so there is what you say you do and what you actually do."
"Don't tell, Mother!"
"I won't, and even then, it doesn't matter, Little Witch. Practice makes your magic better but only almost perfect. No matter how much you practice the spell, every time you cast it, it is different."
"Even if I practice a lot?"
"Even if you practice a lot more than a lot. The longer the spell, the more you must practice. The longer you practice, the more small mistakes you make. Each small mistake makes a bigger difference in the outcome. No, the only way to be certain of the outcome is to limit the spell, and so, limit the desire. Simple spells are the best. So are simple desires. The shorter the act, the more certain the outcome. The fewer strangers you involve yourself with, the more you remain yourself."
"Why can't I make up another me to do my spells? I know the Mirror Spell."
"But don't you have to look at the person or thing on which you cast a spell?"
"Of course."
"Then it wouldn't be your spell. It would be your almost-spell."
"But I can use the mirror spell on my cousin. She looks almost exactly like me! And then I can capture her friend and because I look almost like her, he will be captivated by me instead of her."
"You are the mirror image of your cousin. You are not your cousin."
"But when I look in the mirror, I look just like my cousin. Why doesn't he react to me as he does to her??? I used the mirror spell on her and he didn't react to the image at all."
"Use the mirror spell on yourself. The mirror image of you is your almost-cousin. I told you, strangers rearrange the spell, and if you make her in the mirror of his eyes, he will only react to her. If he is attracted to her, he will be attracted to your almost-cousin. But if he is not, then this almost-cousin will be just as loathsome. Either way, a simple mirroring spell will give you the answer you seek because the simplest way to unlock a secret is to use the lock itself to make an extra key."
"So magic doesn't change the rules?"
"You can change the form but not the rules of the form. There are many more ways to arrange the form of a horse but there is only one that makes it a unicorn. If you don't learn to cast the spell to make a white unicorn, don't be unhappy if it is blue?"
"Don't you like blue unicorns?"
"I think they are grand in a field of pink daffodils, but not in field of green grass. Context is everything. If you erase the context, all you have is a blue horse with a horn on its forehead which you must admit, isn't very magical."
"But I am magical? Can't I know everything all at once?"
"That you can, clever witch, but can you make sense of everything you know? And if you know everything, when you cast a spell, won't it create something new that you did not know before? How can that be? Will you still be you? Will your magic still be magical? That seems very dangerous, precocious little witch."
"How can I cast a spell to get what I want and still save my magic?"
"Look at Mr Mole. He digs forward, goes to and fro, and back, and around. Sometimes he digs across his own tunnel and then loses himself because he can't remember which tunnel was the first. He knows his own smell and that is all that keeps him out of the older tunnels. If he smells a tunnel from a different mole, he will follow the tunnel until he finds him and they fight."
"That seems awfully complicated."
"It is really very easy. Smell is complicated but Mr Mole is born able to do that complicated thing. It is much like you are born to do magic. But the mole doesn't find digging to be any more complicated than sniffing and scratching. It is a very simple spell even if it produces long and complicated tunnels. He only has to know how to dig dirt as the dirt presents itself to him, one dirty bit of dirt at a dig; he leaves the details of digging to the moment. Otherwise, he becomes a tunnel digger instead of a mole just as your unicorns become horses. Perhaps you should wish for horses with horns and they will appear as unicorns. Don't try to describe a spell to make a unicorn. Make the magic that makes the unicorn just as the mole
doesn't dig the tunnel, he tunnels."
"Is the mole more magical than I am, Uncle?"
"The mole can make the tunnel through the ground; he cannot make the ground through the tunnel. He can go forward in his tunnel or backwards, but he cannot regain a single second of his time. He can push every particle of dirt aside, but he cannot put them all back exactly as they were. The longer the tunnel he digs, the more uncertain he is of where he is. The more he eats, the fatter he becomes. The fatter he becomes, the more earth he must move. The more earth he moves, the slower he moves and the hungrier he becomes. Every little particle of earth grows bigger even as his happiness diminishes. Even as his tunnels trace the ground making patterns to and fro, the earth within them is less orderly and has less food for him to find."
"But if he digs less, won't he quit growing?"
"He doesn't care that he is fatter; only that he is hungry."
"Then he is a silly silly mole. He doesn't know anything."
"On the contrary, little witch. He knows much more about digging holes than you do about casting spells."
"But he is silly. He can't remember what he ate."
"He knows that he is hungry or not hungry. He recognizes food when he sees it but he doesn't think much about it being different from other kinds of food. You see, when we say something IS something, we hide as much as we uncover. The naming of the thing unnames all of the other things. What do you call the spell you cast to capture your cousin's boyfriend?"
"Mother told me to call it the Mirror Spell, although Father called it something else."
"Your Mother is the Namer of Names in your house, but does that make your Father's
names less powerful when used in spells?"
"If I can't remember them, I guess it does."
"And there is the rub, my forgetful little witch. The past is only a little more determined than the future. For the past, we only have witnesses. For the future, we only have victims. So even if we believe in the future, we can also only believe in the past."
"Then what is true?"
"What we are doing now. The mole believes in his tunnels. He doesn't ask if his tunnels are good mole tunnels, he uses them to find food."
"He looks tired."
"He is. Tunneling is hard work."
"Is Mr. Mole lonely?"
"Yes, but he is happy when he is alone because he doesn't have to share his food and his tunnel isn't crowded. From time to time, he comes out of his tunnel and searches until he finds another mole to mate with, but eventually, he forgets her and returns to tunneling."
"His friend must be lonely too."
"She is, but she may find another Mr. Mole digging around."
"I don't want to be lonely."
"No, you don't. That would make you unhappy."
"Yes. But leaving her to fend for herself, that is wrong. Does Mr Mole have a soul?"
"I can't say. A soul is something my staff cannot touch, my ears cannot hear, nor my tongue taste. I don't see it. Perhaps I feel it but no spell I can cast can make it more real than any other illusion you can make with your magic. Perhaps he does, but it doesn't seem to make a difference of his desire to dig tunnels."
"Do I have a soul?"
"I can't say. Would you be different if you didn't? Can you be other than you are?"
"I can be anything. I am a witch. That is my destiny."
"Your destiny comes of the making of making, not the air you breathe or the water you drink or even the forms you take. Desire is the cause of causes, and the end of causes. You do not become what you will, but what you will becomes you. It may not make you better but it will make you different."
"On purpose?"
"With purpose."
"Who's?"
"Yours."
"When does my purpose make a difference?"
"When your difference makes a difference you wish for."
"Do my wishes make me different than what I am?"
"Do you know what you are made of?"
"Mother says I am made of stardust and her wishes."
"And your Mother would know. The mole is also made of stardust and he wishes to dig alone and be unbothered while he finds food. But does a star wish to be a mole?"
"Stars are bright and shiny. The mole lives in a dark tunnel and cannot abide the light of day. I don't understand how a star can wish to be a lonely old mole."
"Because a star can become dust and stardust can be everywhere and for a very long time. It bumps into itself over and over again, changing itself into every thing you see, hear, feel, touch and taste. It can become all things even a lonely and hungry mole. Where there is one mole digging, there are others but each in his own tunnel. Mr. Mole makes himself happy, safe and fat in his loneliness. You make yourself happy, safe and beautiful with your wishes."
"I am tired."
"Magic is hard work."
"What do you wish for, Uncle?"
"I wish to make toys and to make you laugh?"
"Then why can't you make toys for Mr. Mole so he will laugh too?"
"I cannot make the toy be all things because then it would be the world and the world is not a toy. So I make toys of all the things I find in the world and give them to you because you like toys. The world is complicated and big but my toys are simple and little; yet as you play with my toys, the world is made a little better and a little simpler."
"Is this progress?"
"Do you feel good right now?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you make me laugh? Do you feel bad right now, Uncle?"
"I am a mole, but I am happily digging."
"You are very silly, Uncle!"
"Then, why are you laughing?"
"Because I am happy!"
"Well, that's progress."
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