Traitor Joe's?

[Note: the last time I talked to a Greenpeace spokesman I was told Trader Joe's had complied with Greenpeace requests and no boycott was any longer being encouraged. I'm fine with shopping at Trader Joe's myself these days, after refraining for well over a year -- KTU on Feb 2, 2011]

I've been getting a lot of questions about this, more in the mail today, and my answer is always pretty much the same: as CMO, I don't dictate to shops about sources, about vendors.

I'll state my own preferences and practices, with showcase shops backing up that it works (i.e. I walk my talk), but it's in the spirit of competition i.e. you might show me, against all odds, that your mix of vendors is of CSN caliber. Hats off to ya then! (a willing gesture of admiration and respect -- not edict-enforced by naked emperor types).

On the philosophy circuit, I've been suggesting a Politics of the Organs series of publications, looking at how people have changed their discourse about guts a lot. The brain has become really important since its "air conditioner for the blood" career (some truth in that, however metaphoric). Remember how the pituitary gland used to be core in philosophy? Or was it the neighboring pineal?

Anyway, you get the picture. Phrenology was a harbinger of modern day brain talk, even if only a quack science in large degree (it might have helped spread the use of helmets, some other beneficial side effect, so don't expect a long rant from me against such a dead-already horse -- life is short).

Having a book circle meet in your shop would be excellent, thinking of Laughing Horse here in Portland for example, where some of us go sometimes, also In Other Words on Killingsworth, where I represented as CMO for this network.

If they sit there with Kindles or like devices, toted in tote bags, riding on bicycles, we wouldn't diss them for that. Street youth have smarts sometimes, weren't all just born yesterday even if they look like it sometimes.

Anyway, back to my original point, go ahead and shop at Trader Joe's, without fear of any reprimands from me. I go to Fred Meyer's (a Kroger chain) even where others are boycotting out of principle. I enjoy free spirited debate across these kinds of lines.

That's all Congress is doing, getting paid to do it, professionally. I'm envious.

I often think about public figures with some sense of awe and appreciation, as I would about star NFL players if I were really into NFL (sorry guys -- but I do get it sometimes, like the half time thing (including Ms. Jackson's)). I watch military people too, phasing over into paramilitary. Who can blame me for watching the circus? Isn't that why they call it a theater sometimes?

Graphics Library

A library of a different type (see below) is in software. People don't want to re-invent the wheel at every turn and have a well-developed practice of passing libraries back and forth, value adding, developing a common set of tools.

This doesn't keep our coder girls from competing with one another, just the shared library levels the playing field plus heightens the level of play, so everyone wins, even if sometimes one loses.

The OpenGL type stuff I've been yakking up with my students is capable of driving the 4D video games I've been marketing. 4D in this namespace means "friendly to the enterprising of Bucky Fuller", who tended to brand his work 4D, with sound mathematical reasons for doing so.

My 4D Solutions has developed additional resources in this same area, but mostly in the form of "cave paintings" (defined more on edu-sig at Python.org). Full scale FOSS libraries develop within communities of co-developers, using tools such as Mercurial and Git. Some of our philanthropic games will derive from this work.

4D IVM and 3D XYZ have a lot in common, with the latter dominating in the 1970s, defining a signature rectilinear look. You'll recognize 4D from its signature space frame, the octahedron-tetrahedron truss (the long winded name for it).

Stacked fruit is a typical hallmark, both triangular and square based. Also watch for Morley's Theorem to crop up here and there.