January 2008 archive

While searching for information and sites related to Science I stumbled across the International Society for The Systems Sciences.  In July they’ll be holding a conference on the following topic which I found very intriguing:

Systems that Make a Difference

Location: University of Wisconsin, Memorial Union, 800 Langdon Street, Madison, Wisconsin

The title for this conference borrows from Gregory Bateson’s definition of information as “a difference that makes a difference.” The question for systems researchers and practitioners is, “what difference are we making?”

What difference are we making and is our information and our information system a difference that makes a difference?

We need to start from a very basic perspective…you at a computer, connected occasionally to Docudharma.com, producing content which is presented to the group, the readers of the site and readers in other places via the news feeds, blog comments, directories and community sharing sites.

Melissa gets it right.  We know that the big three and Richardson are all pretty much the same as far as substance goes.  The media, party and most of the blogosphere have what they want.

First posted tonight over on ePluribus Media. If you have any information that could help locate Edna, or give police more information that would be helpful, please share it in the comments over on ePluribus Media in order to keep everything together.

A story by Kathy Matheson in today’s edition of the Boston Herald caught my attention today: Teen faces extort rap over mutt. (Available online here.)

Edna, a ten-year-old beagle mix belonging to Bill Whiting of Philadelphia, PA, vanished during a Halloween walk. Whiting received a late-night phone call from kids demanding $600 for the safe return of the dog. A dog collar was jangled over the line, and in the background a dog yelped. Whiting didn’t recognize the yelp, but the jangle of the collar sounded familiar.

If there were one thing I could get everyone to buy, it would be the annual Best American Essays anthology put out by Houghton Mifflin Company.  I’ve been getting them every year since 1992, and they have some of the best writing in the genre of the personal essay you will ever read.

Some of these clips are funny, some serious.  These are essays that, once read, I have never forgotten.

This house right next door to us has been abandoned for years and supposedly the will /deed was unclear and so the heirs are fighting over it. Nobody lives there but people show up to hunt…. I am not sure what style one would call it…. perhaps supreme redneck?

A horse across the road. I don’t know him well but he is getting a barn built for him and he has two kids.

A few neighbor dogs who look ferocious but aren’t… my border collie doesn’t like dogs and I was worried she would pick a fight with them. She won’t walk on a leash and escaped out the front gate when I wasn’t paying attention because she was pissed off I was taking Arno out. She has an old injury so normally I don’t take her on long walks.Typically Arno and I walk about three miles a few times a week and for shorter ones other days. Honestly he needs to walk three miles a day every day of the week, he is pretty high energy.

cross posted in part at The Dream Antilles

“Cuando Jesús nació en Belén de Judea en días del rey Herodes, vinieron del oriente a Jerusalén unos magos diciendo: ¿Dónde está el rey de los judíos, que ha nacido? Porque su estrella hemos visto en el oriente y venimos a adorarle. Oyendo esto, el rey Herodes se turbó, y toda Jerusalén con él. Y convocados todos los principales sacerdotes, y los escribas del pueblo, les preguntó dónde había de nacer el Cristo. Entonces Herodes, llamando en secreto a los magos, indagó de ellos diligentemente el tiempo de la aparición de la estrella; y enviándolos a Belén. Ellos, habiendo oído al rey, se fueron. Y al entrar en la casa, vieron al niño con su madre María, y postrándose lo adoraron; y abriendo sus tesoros, le ofrecieron presentes: oro, incienso y mirra. Pero siendo avisados por revelación en sueños que no volviesen a Herodes, regresaron a su tierra por otro camino.” (San Mateo 2, 1-12).

(This is easy to read, even if you have only the most basic Spanish or other Romance Language, it’s Matthew 2, 1-12.  It’s also great in English.)

January 6 is Three Kings Day (Tres Reyes Magos or Epiphany). The holiday commemorates the day the Three Kings from the East, after following the star for twelve days, arrived in Bethlehem to find the child in the manger and to give symbolic gifts of frankincense, myrrh and gold. Three Kings Day is the day on which gifts are traditionally given throughout Central and South America.

Only relatively recently has globalization and commercialization brought Santa Claus and Christmas trees and gift giving on Christmas Day. Before that, the Three Kings came with the gifts only on January 6, twelve days after Christmas. According to this Wiki:

In Spain, Argentina, and Uruguay, children (and many adults) polish and leave their shoes ready for the Kings’ presents before they go to bed on the 5th of January. Sweet wine, nibbles, fruit and milk are left for the Kings and their camels. In Mexico, it is traditional for children to leave their shoes on the eve of January 6 by the family nativity scene or by their beds. Also a letter with toy requests is left and sometimes the shoes are filled with hay for the camels, so that the Kings will be generous with their gifts. In Puerto Rico, it is traditional for children to fill a box with grass or hay and put it underneath their bed, for the same reasons. In some parts of northern Mexico the shoes are left under the Christmas tree with a letter to the Three Kings. This is analogous to children leaving mince pies or cookies and milk out for Father Christmas in Western Europe.

If you consider the Three Kings Story from a mythic, rather than a religious perspective, it’s a very important allegory about the wise, eastern Kings’ faithfully following their instinct and knowledge across the desert to the place it led them (did they know where they were going?) and when they reached the destination giving their gifts to those they found who should receive them.  I really like that.  I like to think about the kind of courage and understanding one would need to have to play the role of the kings (the wise men) in the story.  Would I follow my star?  Would I persist for 12 days?  Would frustration, despair, fear stop my journey?  Would I realize when I had arrived?  Would I know what gifts to give and to whom?

Feliz Dia de Reyes!

Over on the European Tribune, where I crossposted a couple of these bike blogs, asdf asked:

If bikes are the most efficient way to get around–at least for distances up to a few km–then why do we not have proper bikeways? Smooth pavement, gradual hills, and COVERS to keep the snow/wind/rain off? Imagine a countryside with little bike tunnels going here and there, with cozy, dry riders efficiently making their daily trips…

This is a lovely image. Indeed, a system of bikeways of this could even qualify as a dream.

However, if we start to dream it, we have to be careful that we do not fall into the familiar bad habits of the fading age of Auto Uber Alles … which is to use bikeways as a mechanism to get those pesky cyclists off the road.

If a system of bikeways is done right, then it will create far more bikes on the road of most cities, towns and suburbs of American than we have ever seen … indeed, than most of use have ever imagined. Which means, directly, that any system of bikeways intended to get those pesky bikes off the roads will be bikeways done wrong.

See you over the fold … and remember, as always, this is also a general cycling open thread.