etymo note: diwan douane

2.III.1430

diwan btw is not turkish as i thought it was.

it is the fa3laan wazn/sarf/verbal form
of diyah, which is what is due - possibly (and apparently) also related to dayn , whence debt and "religion". ... Read more

versioned systems and planetary orbits

2.III.1430

versioned systems have varying frequency of numbered revision.

versioned systems include software and standard / protocol specifications.

both can be made equivalent as "specifications" or algorithms or state machines.

if we consider the recurring property(ies) of each numbered revision,

One such property is the event or state of release itself. We could treat it as a sort of point of return (function value of that property) to which the system returns periodically, analogous to the physical concept of position .

The length of time it takes a system from one revision to the next, is like that taken by a planet to complete an orbit back at the same position.

Unlike planets and their orbits, a versioned system can have more than one orbit
on which it revolves, depending on how many recurring properties are taken into account.

The frequency of revisions of a specification can be akin to the orbital speed
and thus magnitudes of the orbit.

The larger the system, the slower the rate of revision.

thus specifications that apply to protocols w/ global scope eg rfc's, svr4,
xml1.0, java2, can exceed a decade between revisions,

whereas data client software applications undergo revisions every few months.

the extension might be made to things like common international law, and even
religious predicate.

thus revisions of small systems have smaller/narrower and faster orbits
whereas very large systems describe much wider orbits much more slowly.

Question is orbits of what? ( a time interval? are they orbits "around"/"about" a time axis ?)
This marks another distinction between solar system orbits and the
orbit metaphor/perspective of revisioned systems.

Another difference is that upon return to same location (release of a new revision)
the system is no longer the same,
here the system would have a different size complexity, for instance.
which is sort of akin to a planet arriving at the same location
with a different mass each time.

Thus, we have this comparison:

planets	versioned systems/specs/software/programs
- location	- revision release
- describes/travels on a single orbit	- travels multiple orbits/
	possesses multiple inherent orbits
- always the same at same location	- grows or changes in size & other things
- orbits a gravitation field source	- orbits what? dont know.
- interval to return to same pos,	- intervals vary between each release/update,
fixed	not fixed

... Read more

art dept.: watercolor of the day

16.II.1430

Carl Larsson, The Christmas Eve (1904-1905)



Uncharacteristic for watercolor paintings so often diffuse. In addition it is a pretty "ligne claire", in close proximity in its strokes to the other ligne claire medium of the time, poster art.

Though the coloring techniques seen here are familiar in belgian illustrated stories (BD) which took off about three decades later. So this watercolor, like poster art offers an example of the predecessors of the art of the BD, particularly its coloring, which gives color areas a rich texture (see the coloring of the wall in my profile photo which is taken from one of Herge's Tintin albums).


Goes very well with a lot of the music, short stories and science texts from the first quarter of the XXth century that i've been perusing.

Bonus watercolor

The same as the foregoing goes for this bonus watercolor, with a subject even more fascinating and more intimate, brimming with nostalgia and potential, that also reminds me a bit of Leo Tolstoy the illustrations of a famous edition of his classic stories for children. (should update on the edition and illustrators when i locate the book in one of the bookshelves.


Carl Larsson, Frukost under stora björken (Breakfast under the big birch) (1896)

... Read more

indepsim disco: three examples

12.II.1430

Independent simultaneous discoveries dept: 3 examples. the 3rd one cuts the deepest.
1. independent and almost simltaneous development of infinitesimal analysis by Mrrs. Newton and Leibniz.

2. Early in the 19th century, Karl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) and William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865) independently and almost simultaneously proposed the idea of defining complex numbers as ordered pairs (a, b) of real numbers endowed with certain special properties. Apostol, Calculus volume I (1967) ch. 9, p. 358.

3. The third ring of Saturn "was first detected by Mr Bond at Cambridge U.S. on November 15, 1850; Mr Dawes, not aware of Mr Bond's discovery, observed it on November 29th, and Mr Lassel a few days -later." Maxwell, Scientific papers of James Clerk Maxwell, Niven ed., Cambridge UP (1890) ch. XIX p. 291.

cf.:
telepathé communication

... Read more

Bring back the horse-drawn carriage + garbage in

13.II.1430

And the electric tramway too. We ought to push to bring back clopping the horse-drawn carriage for transport in downtown areas, with larger omnibus variants. Word!

We ought also to unleash the power and cleanliness of the bicycle (and scooters) for most delivery jobs as those circulate only in small-radius zones.

Motorized transport should only be between city districts , not within the same area. For instance, want to go from point A to point B within Mohandesseen, or from Mohandesseen to Zamalek, or from Zamalek to the oepra house, take a horse-drawn carriage. Want to hitch a ride to Heliopolis or Maadi? Then hail an automobile for-hire.

We ought to restore the inset-rail tramway in downtown streets , that does not disrupt other traffic flow , like we used to have in Cairo and Alex - use the dedicated rail strip variety only for transport between suburbs (like the present-dat Cairo and Alx metro).

Also clean up the act of bus drivers, livery cabs, microbus service, and for God's sake update and enforce a single taxi fare for each city. Taxi drivers and their customers should not have to bicker over rates. (Personally I never bicker over rates; the problem is that cab drivers refuse to hire their cars because of their expectation of getting stiffed by the riders - leaving me and countless others stranded waiting for a ride , whether there's an emergency or not - unless I start waving hundred-pound bills, which I do now often just to get a cab to stop and listen to where i'm going).

And BTW, as a P.S., the municipal authorities are obligated by the same law that taxes homeowners on their property to collect residential garbage at publicized schedules, not leave the garbage bags prey to the unminded stray animals (weasels, cats dogs and rats) for days before collecting only the emptied torn plastic bags.

These are the conditions in the supposedly middle-income residences. Naturally people manage by pulling rank and threatening lazy and irregular garbage collectors with punishing actions involving abuse by cops. This mode of doing things - extra-legally - however leaves single-person households like myself at the mercy of the whims the of Oliver Twists that collect my garbage (if we can call it collecting) - which translates into a mound of trash outside my kitchen door.

UPDATE 27.II.2009:
See Rome bans horse-drawn carriages
... Read more

inaudible speech

12.II.1430

The extension (LENGTHENING) of some consonants (e.g. kâf) (as opposed to the extension of a vowel, like a, where extending it produces a continuous sound) at the diacritical "Silence", known in arabic as Sokoun, produces not only an interruption in the sound's continuity (that is, an actual silence) but also an interruption of the mechanical act of pronouncing the consonants, in this case a kâf, or qâf; for a good example of this, it is demonstrated in the readings of the Quran by some well-known readers (cf. some tape i have). I think this qualifies as inaudible speech, in the sense that if there is such a thing as inaudible speech this's got to be it (or part of it).

on the difference between what drives technology in the west and the muslim worlds.

on advancement
technological advancement would lose its meaning when engineering design becomes automated. The term "advancement" implies discovery of a way to do something, an algorithm, such as a machine, or function, and is thereby an act of design. Automating the act of design would eliminate the need for technological innovation on the part of humans -- just as a perpetual source of food would supposedly eliminate world hunger, or a perpetual motion machine would eliminate the need for energy.

Technological innovation itself is an act for the sake of itself, or exists for its own sake. Just as software developers write frameworks where each new one simplifies the preceding programming interface, and new machinery simplify and facilitate tasking, by older machinery or technology. So design is a closed cycle where designers build successively sophisticated working models building on older ones, and importantly to enable them to carry out more design innovations. In other words, technological innovation directly begets more technological innovation. Thus far, this has been an act done only by humans and some animals or other lifeforms, if you believe in them.

Automated technological innovation, could in effect put an end of technological innovation -- that is, if we want to. Technological innovation (so far) is not like the act of manually typesetting a printing template, which has been quickly replaced by the personal computer. We, humans like to take pride in feats of engineering, little known designs that revolutionize or accelerate industry, etc. Engineers (and lately software developers) are ranked now higher on the social ladder, than the human typesetters of old (pre-late 80s) ((- they're just about the only job on the media that doesn't have hollywood films made about it.)) so automating software or machine design (maybe even architecture?) will not necessarily replace engineering design; design is closely linked with art, which dedicates a field to it. Humans would probably still look for the human touch and beauty of an architectural design, or the shape and functions of a kitchen blender or cd-player.

(continuation of last paragraph from previous entry)
What is potentially at an end, is the *need* for industrial-grade utility deisgn. Automating design, most likely beginning with software, as well as logic chip design, can thus be applied to communication systems, and other information systems, perhaps proteonics and even use biomimetic methods to contribute to its own design algorithmic repository. It is probably easy to apply automated design, but through human agency or intermediacy here, to the design of manufacturing, packaging systems, as well as abstracts such as urban planning systems. If nanotech or something else bring us into the informatic utilization of matter, design, automated design could push out our understanding of what is possible by an order or more of magnitude.

... Read more

etymo note: بقول فول فاصوليا fava Fabaceae Phaseoleae

11.II.1430

Phaseoleae are a tribe of the subfamily of Faboideae, commonly the legumes (ar. بقوليات ) that comprises most of the beans raised for human and domestic animal consumption, including peanuts, and fava beans, the common bean, lentils, soya, peas, among others.



Faboideae is one of the three subfamilies of the family of Fabaceae.

There does not seem to be a direct link between بازلاء and فاصوليا , but the latin name of the former is Pisum sativa. And it seems to take after the near eastern name rather than vice versa, since the basilla or peas are originates in the near east.

At long last this also explains the arabic name for peanuts "sudanese fava", because they come from the same.

Beans, fava, lentils, peanuts and peas belongs to genus Phaseolus (of a subtribe (Phaseolinae) of the Phaseoleae tribe), Vicia (of the tribe of Vicieae), Lens, Arachis and Pisum of the subfamily Faboideae alias Papilionoideae of the family Fabaceae alias Leguminosae.



Scruntch! scrunch scrunch ...

ps. of course we see no connection between ful or fa[v|b]a and fasolia.

... Read more

genetic engineering for fun

10.iI.1430

Instead of trying to one-up nature in productivity or resistivity or "improving" them, and besides the need of GE in medical research, I could think of better safer uses.

Take the largest bacteria known, unicellulars that can be about .3 .5 and .75 mm long, and find ways to induce gigantism in them so that we can have even bigger macroscopic samples of a unicellular organism. Thus which very cheap microsopes one can probe details of the cell.

Now if we can do the same for eukaryotic cells , and maybe induce an endosymbiosis we could grow gigantic samples of early unicellular algae, and take it from there. ... Read more

self-similarity in geography

09.iI.1430

There is an unmistakable degree of self similarity where every sea, every subcontinental outcrop or indentation finds its form repeated in relative miniature somewhere inside and or near it, and someimes also far from it as if reflected about some axis.

And with the formal replica in miniature there are also political replicas to the regionally larger political or ethnolinguistic structure.

... Read more

P مـ م Ρόδος Ruːdes عامود rod

12.I.1430

Rhodes was known for its colossus which to be truly colossal and on a harbor for the far flung to see, it must have stood on a pillar.

In taking the semitics/phonoecian's `amoud, they mapped the glyph due to simil of form to P the letter Rho, and mistook the with a R phoneme,

Remaining text. ... Read more

chinoiserie dept: reproducing form

08.iI.1430

I'm not much fond of sculpture but this wood sculpture is really, verily vow!


("Bodhisattva Guanyin; 11th/12th century A.D.; Polychromed Wood; Chinese; Shanxi Province; Liao Dynasty (907-1125)" , north song 960–1127 or jin dynasty )
src: click photograph

there are of course equivalent specimens in the history of european sculpture , even equally with wood which must demand more delicate subtleties, but the age range of the statue, and moreover the choice of this pose / posture , and for a buddha, make it particularly interesting.

... Read more

do the locomotion: everybodys doin a brand new dance now

07.iI.1430

Animal locomotion and biomimetics have much to offer in the problems of automobility on earth off it and outside it without recourse to combustion (the generation of huge inefficient mechanical change just to move the tiny weasel cabinet, vessel or ve-hicle).

There are ways to circumvent the cap on efficiency that most 19th century physicists (starting w/ Carnot) theorized for thermodynamics. Because living organisms do not obey that efficiency limit! (though we humans are so inefficient we've been making up for all the efficiency of nearly all life of the past 4.5 beellion years for the past 250 years :( ) In fact, Mrrs. animals (or rather , their Mr. design) turn the whole stupid concept of a combustion engine on its head.

So here is a big bird to Mrrs. Watt, Carnot, Daimler, Benz and Diesel. Because it is actually they , who turned the natural concept of a heat engine on its head - albeit unwittingly and blamelessly because they only had the macroscopic world of farm barns and then garages to look at.

Heat engine

Nearly all animal organisms have ways to propel themselves. It is only one of the use s of their means of generating and storing energy and converting it to both work and heat. This propulsion involves combustion too (apparently no way to ever get rid of it) but it is ingeniously and cleanly bRroken dOwn at the VeRy mOleCuLlaRRr levvell. (actually macromolecular)

That aside there are also promising routes electromagnetically (think a very advanced maglev train with one End of the rail turned n degrees up from the horizontal, which somebody proposed about a decade ago). And combinations thereof) and by duly treating the darned celestial space as the medium that it is. This is all barring some future exploitations of other properties of matter other than just their frivking high energies.

The escape problem

Some of the smallest insects there are (though i'm not sure where they draw the line) jump really high using the sort of spring action by hind legs. It is similar to the way cats or kangaroo propell themselves too , those paddle like hinds. (mmmm hinds)

In any case it beats my conception so far to propel a ve-hicle to orbit without using combustion; namely set the ve-hicle next to the vertical drop of an elevation, a hill, a short falaise or plateau from the top of which we'd assemble a huge amount of mass and then drop it onto one end of a seesaw to propell the "rocket" sitting on the other end of the seesaw.

- more (more?) -

The ideal is to build birds large enough to carry/house (for they can be made separable) the desired payloads , that would flap and glide in widening circles all the way through the atmosphere , then when the air is too rare for flapping to be effective it can then resort to assistance from a jet engine onto orbit, requiring far less fuel than the stupid idea of accelerating to escape velocity all the way from the ground. I think we've seen the renunciation of that approach in some of the desins of the partlyt saudi-financed X Prize.

The idea of transport in zoo-morphic machines is familiar to all of us in many works of science-fiction literature, art, comics and motion pictures.


Similar techniques should be employed if the interstellar medium - electromagnetic radiation and fields and particle jet streams in addition to grav fields in the dense ley populated solar system - permits itself to be exploited like atmospheric air.

... Read more

Stop improving nature

07.iI.1430

In response to things like , "RuBisCO is very important in terms of biological impact because it catalyzes the most commonly-used chemical reaction by which inorganic carbon enters the biosphere. RuBisCO is also the most abundant protein in leaves, and it may be the most abundant protein on Earth[2]. Given its important role in the biosphere, there are currently efforts to genetically engineer crop plants so as to contain more efficient RuBisCO (see below)," I'd like to say a few words ...


Stop messing with stuff. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
You're paid to keep / use the stuff not improve it.
KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid!

This is not the only instance. I keep running into stories about how some idiots with degrees discover new gene or protein function and then promise to set to work on improving it or making it more pronounced.

Does it occur to anyone in the "biohack" community that stuff is the way it is for not just any reason , but for an OPTIMAL reason ?

Doesn't anyone who funds them realize that?

Hey Monsanto, Archer Daniel Midlands, Go To Jail, Do not collect $300, Do not pass Go.


I looked at Monsanto on the nearest/easiest source, wikipedia. I saw this as their logo(done up with a goofing slogan?)



Hey, Monsanto, stop imagining!

If I had an agribusiness or a biotech affair I wouldn't mind the slogan

"We like it the just way it is"

... Read more

Very quick solutions to the coming social metamorphosis

5.iI.1430

1- Cancel all debt computed due to compound and simple interest.
2- Enforce food self-sufficiency for every nation that can do so.



1- Cancel all debt computed due to compound and simple interest.
In practice what people will end up doing is whole sale cancellations of debt which is not advisable or necessary - but then again people will be acting out of panic in reactionary ways.

- more -

... Read more