INSPIRATION

INSPIRED THOUGHTS & VISIONS

an old family property,
a 3D printer
lots of scrap wood and metal
a new shelter, semi-steampunk in appearance
permanently planting
a permaculture planting scheme: farm
a farm with multiple hammocks to boot
and solid bookshelves stocked with books
art and music abound
nature and technology melding together
people and animals
laid back and yet productive
these visions i have had

IMAGES

A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS?

In a move out of Minority Report, one police precinct in Tacoma, Washington will now begin an increased-surveillance, federal-funded, crime prediction program. The software that they will deploy to analyze and predict crime is named PredPol and stands for ‘Predictive Policing’. It is meant to predict the likelihood of any given crime being committed within a 500-square-foot-area, based on the people which frequent that area. It knows who you are through gait analysis and facial recognition. It also computes sociological data on the citizenry as well, it seems.

According to the company website, the “PredPol Difference” is this:

In contrast to technology that simply maps past crime data, PredPol applies advanced mathematics and adaptive computer learning. It has resulted in predictions twice as accurate as those made through existing best practices by building on the knowledge and experience that already exists.

It’s about catching bad guys using computers! Now who wouldn’t like that, right?

Well, these guys apparently: The Barefoot Bandit Brigade.

On the 13th of February the BBB took down 17 cameras from around Seattle. Many of these were apparently pointing, not towards the coast for observation and protection of Puget Sound waters, as advertised, but towards the land. Towards the People, that is. Whoops! Messed that one up, didn’t you guys? (It was a mistake in the installation process, I’m told.)

This vandalism or what have you was also, in part, a reaction to the continued detention of the ‘Grand Jury Resisters’, ostensibly Anarchist activists who protested the grand jury process by remaining silent. Read more about this here. Very interesting to note that Grand Juries can strip you of your 5th amendment right to remain silent or not provide self-incriminating evidence. You have to speak (lest you be thrown into the terrorist slammer apparently!) … Now back to the BBB.

So this dude and his friends in the BBB dismantled and stole 17 expensive spy cameras. I don’t think they liked the Puget Sound surveillance system very much… So I wonder how folks will respond to PredPol in Tacoma now (which is roughly connected to Seattle). Maybe we’ll all decide to just let the program do its thing there as a way to say thank you to the government for being so open and transparent about what it’s doing and who it’s watching this time around. Yeah, we’ll see about that, right?

Either way I must say I am not surprised that Anonymity is being targeted for elimination to such an extent: although this example is Canadian, I think it helps to paint the picture well in that you can be thrown in jail for 10 years if you wear a mask while protesting. Basically, if you can’t catch guys like these in the BBB, you can’t really catch anyone can ya? Better call in the reinforcements!

Yeah, we got profiles on all you little guys. Oh, and good work, Ash. Keep on reportin’ suspicious activity!

Watch out Tacoma. Ash is comin’ — and he appears to be wielding some new Master Balls..!

“We lost the documentation on quantum mechanics. You’ll have to decode the regexes yourself.”

What is Perl’s Definition?

Perl is a computer language. Some people say it stands for “Practical Extraction and Report Language”.

What is Perl used for?

It is used to write computer programs. For example: web sites, games, operating systems.

What is the “First Program”?

The First Program is a test of the language. This test makes the operating system display a message to you which says “Hello, World!”, hence this is known as the “Hello, World! Program” in computer science.

What does the First Program look like?

It looks like this:

#!usr/bin/perl
print "Hello, World!\n";

That’s it! Just text.

What does the output look like?

When you run the “Hello, World! Program” on your computer, you see the following message:

Hello, World!

This is the first thing you would do with Perl — get the computer to say hello to you using Perl.

What’s next (if I already know about all this stuff)?

Read one of the many tutorials (if interested). Else try to learn more about the code and what it looks like.

These options assume intermediate or advanced computer skills or some experience with programming, even if it’s just designing a website with HTML. You should know what the pictures below are or what they represent: In order, they are 1) a picture of the Windows Command Prompt and 2) a picture of the Linux Terminal (also called the “Command Line”). Both are ways of accessing and running Perl programs. If you don’t know what these windows are, read on to learn more at a gradual pace. For now, let’s just call ‘em windows. (Not much of a view right now I know, but things should be getting steadily more transparent!)

[press] WINDOWS-KEY + “r” [or click] START>RUN… [then type] “cmd” [and press] ENTER

The “Linux” version of the Command Prompt, called the “Terminal”. There are many ways to access this in Linux, depending on your operating system. I am using Linux Mint 14 to teach both you and I Perl.

How would learning to program benefit me?

Learning to program itself would be a mental challenge and an opportunity to think both big and small picture. It’s both a big-picture and a detail-oriented endeavor. Personally, I plan to (very slowly) create a simple website that can greet visitors with an appropriate greeting based on the time of day. This will be my test case to determine my own competence as a beginning programmer (I started Perl Programming in January of this year). In the future, I hope to build a fully functional blog using Perl and other web technologies. In the far future, I may be interested in working at the intersection of Architecture and Software, hacking into 3D Printers and building houses using cheap raw materials and Perl.

There are so so many things you can do, really — and the more you know, the more you can imagine:

You might want to combine newsfeeds from several of your favorite websites, or build a property perimeter security system, or an anti-squirrel water cannon defense mechanism, or a simple horoscope app for your phone, or a blog, and so on. Programming can empower you to be a Creator and a Producer of both products and meaning in your own life. That is how I see it.

So why Perl? I’ve heard there are many programming languages to choose from…

One of the best things about Perl is that it has a huge and friendly user community — people who both help teach you how to program (or point you in the right direction on something), and also those that leave behind repositories of tools in addition to providing help in using and improving upon specific tools.

Another great thing about Perl is its post-modern philosophy: There is more than one way to do it. Perl leaves the programming up to you. You may see this as a bad thing, but flexibility can be advantageous too. This flexibility is what has allowed Perl to remain a reliable choice for many, many projects and organizations worldwide for the last 25 years. It is easy to modify and build on previous code. This flexibility makes Perl fast to use (once you know how to use it). If you want to see the flexibility taken to its logical conclusion, see this funny contest that Advanced Perl Coders used to enter: The Obfuscated Perl Contest. I liken it to some beautiful-and-frenetic Jazz, one possible avenue of expression using a saxophone.

Can I see some simple examples of Perl?

Here are a few simple programs, what I’ll call the First, Second, and Third Program, all in visual (screenshot) format. (Note: I am using Linux Mint 14 to show you these. In Windows it would look a bit different, but the Perl code would look the same.) Read the rest of this entry »

Thich Quang Duc / Thích Quảng Đức
Born: 1897, Died: 11 June 1963 (aged 65–66)
Other name(s): Bồ Tát Thích Quảng Đức (Bodhisattva Thích Quảng Đức)
Religion: Mahayana Buddhism
Hội Khánh, French Indochina / Saigon, South Vietnam

Thích Quảng Đức, on his death, 6/11/63

“How can you claim the gods are merciless
when they robbed the snake of its limbs to give
the other creatures a sporting chance?”
— Hakim Loreweaver

Welcome to the Thrivenotes Python Tutorial & Continue-a-log.

What is Python’s Definition?

Python is a computer language.

What is Python used for?

It is used to write computer programs. For example: web sites, games, operating systems.

What is the “First Program”?

The First Program is a test of the language. This test makes the operating system display a message to you which says “Hello, World!”, hence this is known as the “Hello, World! Program” in computer science.

What does the First Program look like?

It looks like this:

print "Hello, World!"

That’s it! Just text.

What does the output look like?

When you run the “Hello, World! Program” on your computer, you see the following message:

Hello, World!

This is the first thing you would do with Python — get the computer to say hello to you using Python.

What’s next?

Read the tutorial (if interested). Else try to learn more about the code and what it looks like.

How would learning to program benefit me?

Learning to program itself would be a mental challenge, an opportunity to think both big and small picture and organize thoughts into usable tools, but also, it would allow you to combine other people’s tools with your own that you build, be it a robot guidance system or a web site or an iphone horoscope app, whatever you want. And one of the best things about languages like Python is that they have a huge and friendly user community — people who both help teach you how to program (or point you in the right direction on something), and also those that leave behind repositories of tools in addition to providing help in using and improving upon specific tools. (Look at Stack Overflow as an example of a great user community where you could learn programming.)

What’s next for this tutorial?

To be determined.

I had a dream that people around me were so excited to do volunteer work in the local Commons, and that people were spreading the message that you could volunteer, you could be thanked for your work, and you could go home just as soon as you were done with your work. The first thing I saw people doing was fixing or installing some wiring for a mailbox (don’t ask; it’s all fuzzy at this point!) — perhaps they were setting it up to notify recipients of when packages had arrived?? The clearest feeling I had in the dream was that people were so stoked to be told that they were free to go after they finished something — and this message was spreading like wildfire! People also appreciated the part about being thanked for what they had done, but that wasn’t the most exciting thing for them — it was more the free-association aspect that they liked.

I woke up feeling really excited about this myself, and wanted to go and help and continue to spread the word that ‘we could be interacting and living in such a novel way!’

It makes me think about my recent use of Stack Overflow for learning programming: It is a very social-libertarian/anarchistic place, a sort of Commons, where people interact and help each other out without being obligated to, and where they are rewarded in kind (with badges and contributions points and gracious comments) for doing so. And we are free to ‘go home’ at any time! How about that?

Pretty swell thing, eh?

Take a minute. No, like a WHOLE minute. First, you must know: there you are, you are there — sitting or standing or running or listening to someone or some computer voice read this to you. And what else do you need? A little air, perhaps? Yes, yes, breathing is good. But where to goes that air? Of course to the lungs, but which part?

Can we not send it down deeper, use the belly, breathe like you did when you were mere months old, with no preconceptions about raising your shoulders and puffing out your chest to breathe? Can we not just use our bellies? They are there for a reason, you know? Just try and imagine it: A large maternal hand over the navel, with its own gravity pulling, drawing air into the belly, helping it expand, helping it to bulge OUT like it should when nature is allowed a purview into the concrete-mentalist’s hard-cornered quarters — there is nothing else required. Three or four of these and you are done. But what are you worrying about? What are those thoughts sullying the tranquility that is rightfully yours?

It’s not that they don’t belong; we all have worries and pains. But don’t let these stop you from returning to the innocence, the peace you felt as a child resting, vulnerable, yet safe — the world is dangerous, yes, but in our suffering can we find the mercy of being vulnerable and breathe into it — no need to flaunt, puff up, spit bravado, or stomp around. Just sitting or walking or standing here — there — where you are — and engaging in some efficient oxygen exchange with the machinery passed down to you by your parents and whatever God you believe in. Just try to lean into it a bit.

As Rumi once said, “Suffering is a gift. In it is hidden mercy.” And whether yours if visceral or ethereal, your trapped and contained and locked-down trials and hardships may, if you chose to let them, flow out through that gentle mother’s caress, with that full and profound breath, in that pure-child perspective that knows no other way than to absorb what it finds around it, continually growing despite the growing pains that we all still face, even if we’ve long ago stopped getting any taller…

So there. Breathe once more and you’re done. Ok, one more for good measure… And don’t forget as you go off and away that your belly truly wants to be used! Best exercise it from time to time.

MORE ON BREATHING AND MEDITATION: Pranayama Medicine for Health (Reality Sandwich)

SEE ALSO: My PDF version of the article “Pranayama Medicine for Health”, by Eliza Bishop.

According to my Kopimist news source, MegaBox is going to be a “massive, socially-integrated creative content distribution site”, one which will cut out the middlemen and remove some of the hassle for artists trying to get their content out to their target audience, us, the content consumers. And do we not tire of exorbitant CD prices?

Oh, wait. When is the last time I even bought a CD? Hmmm… I’ll have to ponder that one. While I do that, go ahead and check out this video!

It has been said that MegaBox will cater to unsigned artists and allow anyone to sell their creations while allowing the artist to retain 90% of the earnings. And even if consumers choose not to contribute to a donation-based download, it seems MegaBox will still pay them, out of its own pockets, so to speak, under a program called “MegaKey”. Let’s hope this is the case when it is released!

From what I’ve read and heard, I believe this would make for a splendid cornerstone in the marriage of media/music-sharing and media/music-storage.

I look forward very much to trying it out.