This story includes a few short code examples in python, perl, and java. It will also give a flavor for how I communicate in writing about technical subjects.
http://dobbse.net/thinair/2004/02/pdf-pot-luck.html

This is a longer code sample using perl to create a specialized state machine for scraping HTML, kind of a poor man's web services trick. ;-) I was on a State Machine kick for a while and this was the first post with my own code.
http://dobbse.net/thinair/2004/08/perl-fsm.html

Here's a story about a trend I see in the programming industry with a lot of links to other resources and a lot of java open source name dropping.
http://dobbse.net/thinair/2004/05/functions-rising.html

Here are a couple posts about perspective and vanishing points and an SVG animation. You'll probably need Adobe's SVG plugin() to look at it. The first illustrates some terms used in describing perspective. The provides and animated illustration of a vanishing point. You can look at the source for the animation (third link below) to see my experiment in using closures to create something like a specialized animation scripting language. Very much in the functional style of programming with just a little bit of object stuff in there too.
http://dobbse.net/reflection/2002/12/000074.html
http://dobbse.net/reflection/2003/12/000157.html
http://dobbse.net/reflection/perspective/vp.svg

Couple things on this thread...

First thing is that intellectual property is very slippery stuff. Knowledge doesn't have the same attributes as matter and there are all sorts of convulsions happening out there trying to force rules that make sense for things but don't really make sense for knowledge. Apple and ThinkSecret are just another episode in the ongoing wrestling match. The 'Net is a hugh power shifter and power never shifts gracefully. We can expect to see this kind of fight for a long time to come.

Someone else wrote:

There are governments, as well as large corporations in this World, that would just as soon see the internet shut down, or censored and filtered beyond what we would recognize as the net now. The internet is the only form of media they do not yet control.

Second, I think there's good cause to be concerned about Government or massive corporations abusing their respective power. Even so, I think you're really underestimating the ability of the 'Net and its citizens to route around damage. In some ways this is an inherent property of knowledge and information. You can't really build walls to contain it.

Imagine a worst case scenario -- the government and the 500 joined forces. GovCorp started by trying to protect children from pornographic spam and over a few years grew the Decency Consortium into full scale censorship and information control.

Over the same few years, the Greybeard Programmers remembered how it used to be in the early days of the net, long before it had been commercialized. Even universities were connected to each other over dial-up lines. There weren't permanent connections between places and there really weren't central points of control. The protocols that were used in those days were still out there, lying dormant on most computers. They dug out the old code and polished it a little bit to work over wireless networks and to exploit the recent advancements in peer-to-peer file sharing. It was a bit slower than the dedicated lines, kinda like the good-ol-days. But wireless cafes and wireless laptops and almost forgotten protocols enabled a network to emerge that didn't use any ground lines, cell towers, nor satellites.

Some open source projects quickly emerged to assemble packages which make it easy for anyone to install the new-and-improved old-school tools. Just as GovCorp was sealing the last nodes of the network, the Software Pirate Syndicates learned about the work of the Greybeards. Their distribution swarms spread the tools as far and wide as they could. Within a few days the FreeNets sprung up all over the world, well out of reach of any single political jurisdiction.

Anyway, while it's important to pay attention and to hold government and corporate powers in check, there are far more important issues. Human minds are at their creative best when they are at peace and uncluttered by fear.

I have a collection of practices that have reduced my own suffering enormously. I share them here with the hope that you may also benefit from them, reduce your own suffering, and increase your constructive contributions to the world. I have no particular need for you to accept what I offer here. But I hope some among you will find value in these practices and reshape your own corner of the world around values of peace, acceptance, compassion, and beauty.

The Really Big Picture

There is a purpose to our existence: to experience Love and Joy.

We are individuals who live in groups. This creates the most basic tension between our own needs and the needs of our family and our community. At our best, this tension creates the most profound experiences of love and joy. At our worst, this tension creates our deepest suffering.

Balance is a key part of the big picture. The universe at every level works toward a balanced state. The suffering in human experience is an effect of our own imbalance.

"I understand about indecision
but I don't care if I get behind.
People livin' in competition.
All I want is to have my peace of mind."
-Boston

What is needed individually and collectively to maintain the balance is peace of mind. When our minds are at peace we act creatively in the world, and we experience and expand love and joy. When our minds are not at peace we act destructively. All of the suffering in the world are effects of our collective imbalance and the destruction which emerges from our imbalance.

The most promising path away from destruction and suffering and toward love and joy is to create peace first in our own hearts and minds. We must trust the magic of emergence to create solutions to the big, global problems. As we gain our own balance we can help those in our immediate group to regain their balance. We can create islands of peace in this terrified world. We can create networks between our respective islands so that we may know that we are not alone in this effort to restore the balance.

The practices I offer help to create and sustain individual peace of mind.

The Root of the Problem

Vanishingly few of us are raised with the unconditional love of our parents. Vanishingly few of our parents were raised with the unconditional love of their parents. And so on. We grow into our understanding of the world with the distorted notion that love is somehow scarce and uncommon, that we must prove ourselves worthy of love, that we aren't naturally acceptable. The lack of unconditional love undermines our belief-in-self. At the critical foundation of our lives, we learn to doubt and second-guess ourselves. We learn to guard our own love and joy cautiously, and to cling to what shreds of love and joy we find in the world. We learn to hoard the love instead of sharing in it. In so doing we create the very scarcity we fear.

These distortions become ingrained in our perception of the world, ingrained in our understanding. In a sense the distortions are cemented into our own minds. It turns out to be quite difficult to change your mind. A change of mind is exactly what's needed.

A Picture of the Mind

Know that I am not a neurologist, nor cognitive scientist, nor psychologist. I have no credentials to claim my picture of the mind is in any way authoritative nor measurable. I offer a metaphor. I am a geek, so you may notice a striking similarity to a computer.

The mind very simply responds to incoming stimuli with information relevant to the stimuli.

Stimuli are just information that enters the mind via our senses. The mind responds to one bit of information with another bit of relevant information drawn from memory or intuition. The secret sauce that sets our minds apart from a computer is that the mind responds with relevant information. The relevancy filter makes all the difference. What's important to notice is the positive feedback loop. The positive feedback loop causes the mind to run in vicious or virtuous cycles depending on the character of the information stream.

The Missing Manual

We all live with our minds but mostly not in any intentional way. We swim around in a stream of consciousness as the mind sifts our memories and experience through the relevancy filter. We have implicit knowledge of the mind but not explicit knowledge.

All of my practices rely on the same trick: intentionally inserting thoughts into the feedback loop to effect the character of the cycle. I insert thoughts which strengthen balance and peace of mind, intentionally seeding the feedback loop to steer towards virtuous cycles and away from vicious cycles.

The trick is to trust the relevancy filter and specifically ask the mind for what you want in the way of information.

State of Mind

The mind wanders a continuum between peace and fear. A peaceful mind creates virtuous cycles of information which foster creative and constructive actions. A fearful mind causes vicious cycles of information which foster our destructive behaviors.

Consider again how the mind works. It simply responds to stimuli with relevant information. If we respond to a stimulus with fear, the information will be relevant to the stimulus, but it will also be relevant to the fear. Those bits of information stimulate another cycle of information that is also relevant to the fear. Our minds can become consumed by fear. Our usual tools for dealing with fear are destructive.

If we can respond to the stimulus without fear, we will get a stream of relevant information. From this stream we act creatively.

These vicious and virtuous cycles in individuals are magnified geometrically in groups. The effects of peace and fear in individuals feed off one another. Our destructive behaviors create fear in others who then create their own destructive behaviors. By contrast, our creative behaviors may solve problems for others freeing them to address other challenges.

Instinctive Responses to Fear

Our instincts offer only limited responses to fear. In immediate life-threatening situations we will fight, flee, freeze or faint. None of these responses are creative, nor particularly effective. They have served the species well enough to get us where we are today, but very few of us face situations which are immediately life-threatening. Nevertheless, we live in fear and even non-threatening social situations can provoke the same bodily responses -- increased pulse, sweat, shortness of breath, heightened awareness, hyper-sensitivity, and edginess.

Variations on these instinctive reactions to fear manifest in non-life-threatening situations. A fearful mind responding to stimuli will first deny the fear. When the fear remains the mind will respond with ways to cope with the fear. When coping fails, the mind will compromise with the fear. When compromise fails, the mind will defend the fear. When defending the fear fails we descend into a generally self-destructive pattern which allows us to survive with the fear.

Some survival patterns include drugs, alcohol, or other addictions which aim to dull the pain of surviving with fear. We may also try to control or manipulate those around us to ward off our fear. My survival pattern is perfectionism and avoidance. I try to get something exactly right or I try to avoid it altogether. I also end up with a lot of self-directed anger and condemnation when I fall short of perfection or get bitten by a problem I was avoiding. Other patterns include depression, anxiety, jealousy, gluttony, sloth, and various other destructive behaviors.

Survival patterns are where we suffer with our fear. As our own suffering eats away at us we often share the suffering by lashing out at those around us or deceiving them or even just by whining.

How it should be

Children who are raised with unconditional love grow into the world with an incredibly powerful belief-in-self. This belief-in-self is like a strong immune system which prevents fear from taking hold of the mind.

When faced with a scary situation, those with a strong belief-in-self will assume they can rise to the challenge and find a creative solution. Their minds are not consumed by the fear and the destructive responses to fear. So their mind will be filled with a stream of relevant information, uncluttered by fear. They can think clearly under the pressure and gradually the steps that need to be taken become clear.

It is strong belief-in-self that allows people to trust their own minds, to trust their own resourcefulness. Fear cannot find a hold in their minds.

Few people enjoy such profound belief-in-self because few people were raised with unconditional love. It is very, very difficult to bootstrap belief-in-self. Creating belief-in-self is the key to creating a balanced and peaceful mind. But changing our minds is much more difficult than we are led to believe.

The Practices

We can break our own vicious cycles by practicing more constructive responses to fear. The basic trick is to intentionally and repeatedly insert thoughts into the feedback loop. These are instructions to the relevancy filter to tune the kind of information that the mind digs up for us.

"Release my fear"

Filter out the fear, please. Request information that is only relevant to the situation at hand, not information that is relevant to the fear. This is the most direct way of responding constructively to fear. Just tell your mind to let it go.

"Peace of mind"

Asking for peace of mind is the same as releasing fear, but with a positive spin. Instruct the filter to favor information that will calm the mind and maintain the balance.

"Belief-in-self"

Ask your mind for information which reinforces your belief-in-self. This is a longer term investment. Building belief-in-self helps reduce the need for actively releasing fear or asking for peace of mind. Specifically asking for belief-in-self can help summon courage when faced with scary news.

"Needs be met"

"You can't always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes
you might find
you get what you need."
-Rolling Stones

Ask for help with a leap of faith. This is an intentional adjustment in perspective. Whatever may appear to be looming on the horizon, creating fear in your life, you are still alive and breathing. Many times before there have been things looming on the horizon creating fear. But in all previous cases, your essential needs have been met or you wouldn't be here alive and breathing. Ask your mind to remind you of the times when you have narrowly succeeded against the odds. Ask to be reminded of the times when your failures turned out to be less disastrous than you had imagined. Ask to be reminded of the times when you have recovered from failure with unexpected follow-up successes. There's plenty of evidence in your experience that things work out in the end. Needs are met.

"Practice acceptance"

This is the hardest of the practices for me.

As we ask our minds for specific information about a problem, a pattern emerges. Who do I need to talk to? Where do I have to go? What exactly do I do next? When to I break the news? More often than not we just don't know. We may know most of our answers, but some key piece eludes us. So we analyze the hell out of the situation and try to force or coerce that last ingredient out of our own head. But the simple fact of the matter, it isn't in there and no amount of re-hashing the same collection of facts can change it.

Practicing acceptance is closely related to asking that needs be met. In my own experience I eventually discover that key information in time to prevent catastrophe or to recover from my mistakes. Even the need for information has been met. Practicing acceptance is also a leap of faith. It is accepting that I don't know the answers now, but I will. I will know the answers when I need to know them. Accepting that I don't know those answers now frees my mind to work on other problems.

"Solution in progress"

Insert a belief into the feedback loop that needs are met and that there is a solution in progress which will resolve whatever issue is creating fear. I've found this one to be a powerful compliment to practicing acceptance. It helps me get over my overgrown sense of responsibility for the world. I did not personally create the war in Iraq, for example. I sure haven't been able to extend any influence over our continued imperialism. This is a problem that is considerably out of my reach. By inserting the belief that there is a solution in progress I can free my mind to attend to things that I can actually influence. (Like, oh, say, finally publishing these practices for creating peace of mind).

...to be continued

The United States' produce over 20% of the world economy [1] with less than 5% of the world's population. [2] That suggests astounding leverage. Unfortunately we consume 30% of the word's oil. [3] The USA is a machine that consumes 30% of the oil to produce 20% of the GDP. The 10% difference is friction or profit depending on how you look at it.

Usually those numbers are thrown around by zealous environmentalists warning of impending ecological catastrophe. I, however, will take those numbers down a different path of impending doom. :-) In order to consume 30% of the world's oil, we must control 30% of the world's oil. If you want to understand the hatred of the US, look no further than the way we control and consume that 30% of the oil.

Like all effective forms of control we use a carrot and a stick. The carrot is the money we are willing to pay for oil. The stick is how we use our military to "protect" the world's oil supplies.

The major oil producers in the world can't afford to anger their biggest customer. They're stuck pretending to enjoy the dance with us even as we step on their toes or kick them in the shins. We don't really have to be a good dancer because they can't afford to say no to us. That kind of imbalance breeds deep resentment.

Our "protection" of the world's oil supplies is mafia protection.

You say, there's a 'dangerous element' threatening your pipelines and oil wells. Of course we'll protect you. How could we not? Welcome to the family. We can count on your undying loyalty, yes?

That claim goes completely against our national self-image. Aren't we the beacon of Freedom, a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people, a more perfect union?

When I get this cynical in conversations with my friend Jeff, he reminds me that we are the most giving nation on Earth. Actually, no. In absolute dollars, Japan is the most giving nation on Earth and we are second. [4] And we're way down on the list relative to GDP [5] or population. [6] Our generosity pales in contrast to our military spending. Ours is 37% of global military spending. China is a distant second with 8%. [7] That's a very big stick. What's more, we've shown a historical willingness to use it.

Peter Hartcher says the Congressional Research Service notes 200 US military interventions abroad since our independence. Unfortunately he failed to name the source of that figure so I went digging. The most likely candidate: CRS Report RL30172 -- Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2001 (160K pdf)

I count 299 instances of varying scale. Did Peter filter the list according to his own notion of military intervention, or draw from a different source? Regardless, the United States is only 228 years old and by our own reckoning we have conducted 299 military interventions abroad. As I've said before, the rhythm of our war machine is disturbing for its incredible consistency. It's like we're a geo-political vampire craving a bloody fix every few years regardless of who is in the White House. (How's that for cynical?)

Let me be clear. I love this country. God bless America. I wouldn't live anywhere else. I am completely blessed to have been born here. (No sarcasm nor cynicism in that sentiment whatsoever -- just in case my tone of voice in unclear in this written form.) Nevertheless, in our behavior abroad we fall very short of our own high standards. We talk a good game about freedom, but the walk we walk is enormously intimidating. Our global posture is why the country I love is the target of such widespread hatred.

We are at the center of a gross imbalance in the world. Oil is the foundation of the global economy. It's not that terrorism is directly about controlling oil. Rather, the imbalance in oil consumption reflects a broader imbalance of power and wealth in the world. It is the power imbalance which feeds the terrorism. Oil happens to be a useful way to measure the imbalance. Specifically, 5% of the world's population controls 30% of the oil.

Nature abhors imbalance. When things are out of balance, they fall. In human nature this rule often presents itself in bloody revolution. Those with little power become desperate enough to risk and even sacrifice their lives to oppose the imbalance. Throughout history the mighty have grown and grown only to fall at the hands of desperately oppressed people determined to reclaim their own power.

Here's what I mean by gross imbalance. Measuring wealth and power by oil consumption, if power were divided equally in the world, each person would get a bit less than a half-gallon per day. [8] But power is not divided equally and the US controls 30% of the oil. Pretending each US citizen gets an equal share of that 30%, I get just less than three gallons/day. [9] In order to redress the imbalance I would have to give up two-and-a-half gallons of oil per day or 86% of my current share of global resources. That is gross imbalance and that is the heart of the problem. However idealistic I may be, I cannot imagine how I could reduce my consumption by 86%. And so I contribute to the demand for oil. That contributes to the power imbalance.

Sarah added another dimension to the mix. The US is so powerful that there's no immediate need for us to listen to what the rest of the world might think. We mess around in the matters of other countries throughout the world either financially or militarily to protect our interests in their part of the world. We don't give much consideration to what's in the best interest of the other countries. If we were less powerful we wouldn't be able to behave so selfishly in the global theater. The imbalance of power enables our government to run roughshod over the needs of the rest of the world. It is an important dimension to the way the imbalance of power fuels international resentment.

The problem is our very way of life. It's not about our freedom. It is about our gluttony. The protection of our global interests supports our gluttonous lifestyle. It's fast-food, SUVs, shopping malls, televisions, movies, air conditioning, air planes, and clothing. It's our music, our computers, our American-dream single-family-homes, our two-car garages, our eight-lane highways, our parking lots, and our CostCos and WalMarts. It's the paper cup and plastic spoon we throw away each time we order a drink at Starbucks or McDonnald's. It's the extra helping of fries, and the quarter-gallon of carmel-colored corn syrup we drink to chase down a mediocre four-dollar hamburger.

In so many areas of our holy way-of-life we abuse our wealth and power in thoughtless waste and excess. Our military defends the world's oil supplies so we don't have to think about the stuff we throw away or the energy that went into its creation. As we sit in the line at the drive-thru, radio and air-conditioning blasting, we give no thought to the money and power we're burning idly away. As we throw the cup out the window, we give no thought to the energy that went into its creation, nor to the diesel fuel that delivered it from the factory to our favorite food joint. Unfortunately our thoughtlessness "trickles down" into international hatred.

[1] US GDP is $10.45 trillion, of the total $48.51 trillion globally. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/eco_gdp

[2] US population is 290 million of 6.1 billion globally. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/peo_pop

[3] The US consumes 19.7 million barrels of oil per day of 64.81 million barrels per day globally. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/ene_oil_con

[4] The US gives $6.9 billion of $48.62 billion globally. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/eco_eco_aid_don

[5] http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/eco_eco_aid_don_gdp

[6] http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/eco_eco_aid_don_cap

[7] US spends $276.7 billion and China $55.91 billion of $738.04 billion spent globally on military. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_exp_dol_fig

[8] (64.81 million barrels per day * 42 gallons/barrel) / 6.1 billion people = .446 gallons/day/person

[9] (19.7 million barrels per day * 42 gallons/barrel) / 290 million people = 2.85 gallons/day/person

Today they posted a new map of the 2000 election with voting breakdowns by county. Take a look at that map. There's a pretty compelling correllation between population density and political party. Seeing it on a map really hit me.

Until recently, I did not understand why rural Colorado generally votes for republican leaders despite consistent favoritism toward big corporations and the super-rich. My roots run three generations deep into rural Colorado soil, but I've been voting democrat for years now. I'm finally starting to understand the descrepancy. The republican intelligentsia talk a good game about small government but their power-grabbing actions speak louder.

I hope some of you folks who aren't living in cities or suburbs will reconsider your support for the Bush administration. They are not who they pretend to be.

If you happen to be a Colorado Republican, we probably agree on this point: power corrupts, greater power leads to greater corruption, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. One way to reduce corruption is to reduce power. I would prefer smaller government too, if only to limit the damage that can be done when leaders get abusive.

Why, then, do I prefer the democratic presidential ticket?

In spite of all the rhetoric to the contrary, especially at the national level, Republican leaders have been quite happy to expand government. They cut social programs as if striking blows for smaller government. But these leaders just divert those funds to military purposes. They don't cut the government, they just grow a different part of it. Remember that they are the government. It is not in their interest to actually reduce their own power regardless of what they will claim to the contrary.

Tax cuts are lies without spending cuts. The deficit is tax dollars the government has spent today which it will collect in the future. Bush Sr. said "Read my lips" and then broke his promise. He raised taxes to reduce the deficit that Reagan and Carter had grown so carelessly. Deficit spending leads to tax increases regardless of who spends the money. Don't be fooled by tax cuts -- keep your eye on the spending. If we are agreed that smaller government is better, then government spending needs cutting. That is cutting, not just diverting money from one party's pet projects into the other party's pet projects.

The republican intelligentsia lie about reducing government. The political magicians in the next several months will draw your attention with great bravado to their tax cuts in one hand. The other hand will continue to pour billions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars into the pockets of Bechtel and Halliburton. It is government spending, and they are filling their friends' pockets with billions and billions of your tax dollars.

The national politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, are quite happy to spend, spend, spend. They differ only in what they choose to buy. Democratic leaders buy bread and butter. Republican leaders buy weaponry. Our current republican leaders spent our tax dollars to topple the governments of two countries. The Democrats' shopping list seems radically less threatening to my safety and liberty than the Republican's, and frankly it seems considerably less expensive in both dollars and American lives.

Power corrupts. The war in Iraq is an abuse of US military power. Although some good may eventually come of the war, a government that unilaterally overthrows other countries has gotten entirely too big for its britches. The leaders who perpetrate such abuses must be removed from office. The election is our opportunity to prevent the Bush administration from further abusing power.

As if that weren't enough...

Republican leaders present themselves as if they will defend the common folk against the Democrats' attempts to expand government power. But even the awesome power in the global theater is not enough for them. Republican legislators from my own state have proposed to expand the power and reach of the federal government all the way into our marriages. In today's radio address, Bush loudly supported a constitutional amendment to protect the most fundamental institution of civilization

I could not agree more that the institution of marriage is in grave need of defense. A rare moment indeed to find myself in agreement with W. But that is where our views part ways. I can't say this emphatically enough. Regardless of what you think about gays, lesbians, and gay rights, the federal government needs to keep its damn hands altogether out of marriage. End of story. That is an intolerable expansion of federal power. I cannot believe the people proposing and endorsing this amendment can honestly call themselves republicans. My granddad must be rolling over in his grave.

This difficult debate was forced upon our country by a few activist judges and local officials, who have taken it on themselves to change the meaning of marriage. In Massachusetts, four judges on the state's highest court have ordered the issuance of marriage licenses to applicants of the same gender. In San Francisco, city officials issued thousands of marriage licenses to people of the same gender, contrary to the California family code. Lawsuits in several states, including New Jersey, Florida, Nebraska, and Oregon, are also attempting to overturn the traditional definition of marriage by court order.

Let me draw your attention to the completion of a traditional Christian marriage ceremony in the US. "... and by the power vested in me by the State of Colorado, I now pronounce you husband and wife." Declaring a couple legally married is a power of the State, not the Federal government. It is precisely the "local officials" who are empowered by the Tenth Amendment to determine what is to be considered a legal marriage within their own borders. For the federal government to assert itself here is entirely inappropriate.

The phrase "activist judges" betrays hunger for other power. The administration is not satisfied with Executive powers. They are not satisfied to have Legislative powers mostly under their control. They won't be satisfied until they also control the Judicial powers. The Constitution divided the government powers for a reason. We need "activist judges" to keep us from descending any closer to monarchy.

If the good people of Massachusetts take offense with the new legal definition of marriage within their State, it is up to them to take that matter up with their local officials. California, New Jersey, Florida, Nebraska, and Oregon are free to choose as they see fit. Freedom to choose is the American Way. Frankly, it is no business of the State of Colorado to meddle in the affairs of Massachusetts or any other state. Colorado's federal legislators should be concerning themselves with Colorado's welfare and not Massachusetts'. What could be worse than allowing the Federal government to have dominion over marriage.

It's simply not American. They spin it as if they are great moral defenders, but it is nothing more than another federal power grab, plain and simple. It is another glaring attempt to extend the federal powers -- and to extend those powers all the way into the most important of individual relationships of US citizens. Do not be distracted by the emotional and moral views of homosexuality. Keep your eye on their insatiable lust for power.

These jokers do not represent the values of rural Colorado. The Republican Intelligentsia are just playing on powerful emotional issues to try to grab more power. Vote these jokers out of office before they go any further.

On Friday, June 10th Terry Gross interviewed Thomas Frank who has written a book entitled: What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. Frank asks the same question in his own way. "Why has the conservative movement won over so many working Americans when the movement's policies are just making the rich even richer?" In a separate interview from the same program, Terry also put the question to self-described conservative P.J. O'Rourke. Between the two of them I've finally got satisfying answers to my question.

According to Frank, Republican intelligentsia have redefined social class by creating what Frank calls "the authenticity divide." The class stereotypes have been shifted from an economic divide between the rich and poor, to a social divide between the authentic salt-of-the-earth types and the liberal elite. Paraphrased:

On the one hand are the average, salt-of-the-earth, blue collar Americans, who live in the heartland, the grassroots people, middle America -- people who have authenticity, who aren't ashamed of who they are, who work with their hands, they're humble, god-fearing, patriotic, and hard-working.

The others are effete, uprooted, driven from fad to fad, they tend to have very pretentious college degrees and funny little affected pets, they drink lattes and French wine.

Frank claims the Republican leaders have positioned themselves as the defenders of these authentic, small town folk against the snooty city slickers. He exaggerates the stereotypes in order to cast the Republican intelligentsia as manipulators. Nevertheless, he's on to something.

My question assumed economic class lines. Republican policies favor big corporations and the super-rich. Rural Coloradans by and large are neither, yet support the Republican Party. That is only a paradox because I assumed it was economic divisions that mattered. Separating the classes along non-economic lines weakens the paradox implicit in both Frank's and my questions.

O'Rourke, who describes himself as very conservative, had different answers. Again paraphrased:

While it may be morally right for us to support the poor and the elderly, it is inappropriate for the Government to force us to do so by levying taxes with an implied threat of force if you fail to pay those taxes. Average people assume government will abuse its power. They believe that Democrats will increase government more than Republicans will -- there's more power to abuse if Democrats have their way.

Now I think I understand. Frank has revealed incorrect assumptions in my question. Then O'Rourke basically answered the question I should have been asking. My conservative relatives and I are equally concerned about government power and corruption. I just happen to be especially appalled by the the Bush administration's abuse of power.

Snakes are the place to start with this pattern. Snakes move their bodies in a wave like motion which propels them forward along the ground. Alligators (or is it crocodiles -- maybe both) have legs which stick out from the sides of their torso, as opposed to the way mammals have legs underneath their torso. You can see a more subdued wave pattern along the spine of alligators when they move. I think the same is mostly true of how small lizards and geckos move, but they move quickly enough that I can't quite see it with my own eyes. Obviously the legs and feet provide some valuable traction and leverage, but the movement of the torso still exhibits the wave. The same wave is also pretty evident in the way sharks (and other fish) swim. Swimming snakes slither through water much as they do over land -- eels too.

As a kid I was fascinated that dolphins had the same sort of wave, but up and down instead of side to side. I even had a personal kind of classification of the good guys vs bad guys in the animal kingdom based on which way their wave went. Whales and dolphins and sea lions and otters all wave up and down, whereas sharks and eels and barracudas wave side to side. As I try to visualize it now, I'm not entirely convinced that sea lions and otters and walruses wave up and down -- I'll have to look for that next time I'm sitting in front of a nature show on the subject. Thinking of the shape of their hind flippers reinforces the notion, but it's been a long time since I actually looked for it.

Last year while walking our dog, Ellie, I noticed with great surprise that she's got a slight side-to-side wave in her spine when she walks or trots. I can't keep my eyes on her spine long enough to know if it's also the case when she runs, though it seems likely.

A few months ago, Sarah and I rented Winged Migration. I've been meaning to mention it in my blog ever since. I'm interested in the way birds fly and I wish I knew more about migration patterns, so I was naturally fascinated by the film. I was struck by the close-ups of flying geese. Their shoulders move up and down while their heads and tails seem to stay in place. In fact it looks somewhat like watching an accomplished athlete swim the butterfly stroke -- up and down waves.

At park in Toronto, I once noticed that seagulls appear to row through the air. I've tried to see that in other seagulls on other occasions. I can't spot it very consistently. In that park it was quite pronounced.

Segmentation is one of the earliest evolutionary organizations to emerge. This notion is suggested by the many examples spread broadly throughout the animal kingdom. You can see it in earthworms, and in insects. In larger creatures segmentation is most apparent in the spine and rib cage. It's especially apparent in snakes and eels 'cos they're all spine. My casual observations suggest that the more segmentation in the critter, the more apparent the wave in their motion. I think these waves emerge from the segmentation in the anatomy.

In linear perspective, when parallel lines are projected onto a picture plane [1], the resulting projections [2] will intersect at a vanishing point. For lines parallel to the ground, the vanishing points will appear on the horizon line [3]. When drawing objects in perspective, the artist usually begins by drawing the horizon line and a couple vanishing points. Construction lines are drawn from those vanishing points to help the artist correctly locate the edges of buildings or other objects. Perspective drawings and paintings are sometimes classified by the number of vanishing points used in the construction.

I don't remember the exact definition of a vanishing point from Dr. Veltman's collection. It would have been similar to what I've written above: accurate and descriptive with a certain amount of precision in the use of language and inherently relative to other terms of perspective. But words don't suffice. A vanishing point demands illustration. I found my original diagram of a vanishing point painfully lacking. It looked basically like a stick figure and a pile of triangles. At the time I was very interested in animation and thought I could visualize a vanishing point more clearly with a little motion. I ended up with a stick figure and a moving pile of triangles which was much better. ;-)

Without further adieu (with the caveat that an SVG plugin is required) . . . drumroll . . . (click Go):

It is probably not self evident as to why Kim was so impressed by such a simple animation. Computers as an Historical Tool for Mathematics, Science and Art will help clarify why this is an interesting contribution to the history of perspective. There are some other hints in another article which I quote below.

Back to the pictures of infinity. Notice how as the projected lines grow ever more slowly towards the vanishing point before leaping at the very end. This is a direct consequence of geometry and infinity. The ground lines are growing at a constant rate whereas their projections are growing in a ratio relative to the point of view and position of the picture plane. If I let it keep going it does eventually get fairly close to the end, but it's really not worth the wait. Someday I'll rearrange the animation so the projected lines grow at a constant rate. I'll still have to do some fudging towards the end as the ground lines approach the limits of the SVG coordinate system.

Speaking of coordinate systems there's another detail worth mentioning if you're inclined to look at the code behind the animation. SVG uses a two-dimensional coordinate system whereas the scene I'm depicting is three-dimensional. For this animation I'm just using the 2D coordinates to calculate intersections. In the AutoCAD version I had the advantage of a three dimensional coordinate system for my code. That arrangement more accurately reflects the actual geometry at work when light reflects off of objects and into our eyes. For simplicity my stick figure is a cyclops. In both of these ways I'm actually continuing a very long tradition in the history of perspective and geometry in general. :-)

Here's how Kim described it in the introduction to Computers and Renaissance Perspective

A long tradition of Euclidean geometry developed two-dimensional conventions of representation to the extent that they were part of the legitimation process in mathematics. As a result, Renaissance treatises on perspective evidence a basic paradox: they use abstract two-dimensional conventions to display the principles of a new three-dimensional method of representing space. This is achieved by folding different planes (usually a lateral view and or a ground view) into a single plane (usually a frontal view). This procedure of folding back (technically termed ribaltimento in Italian and rabattement in French), makes most of the diagrams in the early treatises virtually incomprehensible to the untrained eye, all the more so because the reader is confronted with a completed construction which usually gives no visual clues concerning the steps taken to get there. One can identify the steps taken in arriving at an end product in any of these constructions; one can reconstruct these steps and theoretically it would be possible to print these, except that the cost of including so many diagrams makes this alternative prohibitively expensive. All of which helps explain why these treatises have never been studied systematically.

Many of the animations I created in Siena were folding the two-dimensional images into their three-dimensional origins. In one, I animated the steps Piero della Francesca described to construct a perspective image of a pentagon. No small task to understand a centuries old Italian text on a geometric construction. When I was done animating his instructions I re-did the animation in a way that I thought made the technique he was describing more clear. If I remember correctly, I then folded the resulting drawing into its three-dimensional arrangement and animated something of a proof of the technique by projecting lines from the point of view to the pentagon on the ground and showing that constructed image aligns correctly. When I get more tuits I'll see if I can repeat that stunt. :-)

[1,2] See my illustration of perspective basics
[3] I still haven't illustrated a horizon line anywhere.

An the older woman was sitting right next to the door. She tried to look busy with her purse, but her body language betrayed that her attention was as focused on him as mine was. She and the woman sitting immediately behind the driver exchanged occasional glances. He commanded everyone's nervous attention though no one looked him.

There's an unspoken rule on crowded buses: avoid eye contact to preserve a sense of personal space when the space itself has been compromised. He was oblivious to that rule, or just didn't care. Everyone shrank from his stare.

At the next stop another young latina boarded and sat directly across from him. I'll call her Maria. He muttered, shifted his weight, shook his head a little, and smiled at her. She was unmistakably afraid. Searching the front of the bus for a safe face, she found Lucia and they exchanged a knowing glance. They shared similar outfits and the same fear. Maria feebly tried to adjust her very tight clothes into a more modest arrangement. She clearly wasn't planning to be seated across from this guy when she got dressed that morning.

I imagined my dad there looking over his glasses at Maria asking "Do you like older men?" Dad still flirts like he did when he was young and handsome. Whereas in the past she might have been flattered, these days his missing front teeth and unkempt clothes would probably evoke similar fear.

" Mutter, mutter, mutter. I tthing mutter seea movvie." A long pause. "I seen tthat one ... wha was it? With Freddie Kruger an ... oh I know ... man, wha was it? You know, Freddie Kruger and --"

"Jason?" I asked, overcoming my own nervousness.

"Yeah," he replied with a somewhat toothless grin. "It was preddycool. Heh heh." Long pause. "In th end when mutter, mutter? Heh heh ... itwas cool." I didn't see the movie and I couldn't make out the spoiler he was sharing. I nodded along as if I'd understood. Judging by his grin and chuckle he must have really enjoyed it. His joy contrasted starkly with the fearful tension in the air.

A number of people got off the bus at the stop in front of Social Services. Maria escaped to one of the vacated seats somewhere behind me. His eyes followed her as she went, stopping to make contact with Lucia. He wasn't so drunk as to miss the rejection in Maria's escape and Lucia's reaction to his gaze. It hurt. That moment of joy quickly submerged, replaced with anger.

" mutter need thiss!" he announced to everyone and no one in particular, gesturing to Lucia. "I was in tharmy ," he said as he swayed forward and pointed with both hands to the logo on his cap. He grabbed the lapels of his leather jacket and sat up more straight, said "I'm retired," and swayed back into a slouch.

"Were you in Viet Nam?" I asked, hoping to distract him from the rejection and anger.

"Yeah." he answered gazing into the distance for quite a while. My mind filled in an educated guess at his age: probably in his late-fifties, maybe sixties. The average age of the U.S. soldier in Viet Nam was nineteen. n- n- n- n- nineteen. nineteen plus thirty-five or so.

"How long were you there?" I asked. The whole bus held its breath. His anger was confirming their worst fears. Something Unpredictable could happen. For me that fleeting chuckle and my daydream of Dad made me want to know his story. I hoped it would relieve some of the pressure.

"Thrddy eight monthss," he said, still gazing into the distance.

"That's a long time." Three years and two months of war, probably up close and personal. "What was your occupation?"

"I'm an engineer ..." he announced almost proudly. " ... a combat engineer." He was definitely up close and personal.

"So you built bridges and stuff?"

"Yeah. An blew'em up after you got across. I did all kinna shit."

"My uncle was an aviator ... a marine ... flew air support in an A6-Intruder," I offered.

"Oh yeah? I shudda done that." He replied, snapping briefly out of his distant gaze and then drifting back into to it. He's probably right. My uncle is in considerably better shape for his time in Viet Nam.

"My dad was in the Navy. But he was in and out of the service before Viet Nam got started." I was kinda surprised at the connections my brain was weaving. Dad was also an aviator -- communications or radar or something -- but never saw any combat. He and his crew did get escorted out of Soviet airspace by a couple of MiGs once when their navigator screwed up.

"My dad was in th Navy too ... World war two," he said nodding, back out of the gaze again. He seemed a little surprised that we had anything in common. "We had his flag and mutter " he said making a triangle shape with his hands.

The bus stopped again. More people got off and more people got on. In my peripheral vision I could see Lucia specifically avoiding eye contact as he looked back her way again. His anger returned.

"I was in thArmy" he said, swaying in her direction and again pointing both hands at the logo on his cap. "Why she mutter look at mutter, mutter ?" he asked me, gesturing to her again. His gesture lingered there oddly. His fingers stretched wide and tense, his arm outstretched straight from his shoulder, pointing at her almost with his palm.

"She's okay," I replied.

"Shlook at me like I'm a dog ... I represented my country."

While he paused again I turned over the image in my mind of the United States personified as a drunken, retired combat engineer rejected by a teenager.

"I wanna ... there a thheater downtown?" He asked the woman sitting between him and me as she tried to ignore him. I moved to the now empty seat right behind the driver thinking he might stop swaying over her.

"I don't know which theater you're looking for but this bus will take you downtown," I answered. "Can you find your way from the Sixteenth Street Mall?"

"Yeah, th ... its two stories? You mutter ?" he asked incomprehensibly.

I didn't understand, but the topic changed before I could clarify. He had looked back at Lucia again.

"I was in the Army ," he said again with the same sway and both hands pointing to his cap again. "I represented my country. ... For her?! Hers."

It may not have been clear to anyone but me that "Hers" meant something special. It was a meta-syntactic variable for any American woman, or probably any American.

"I signedup during Viet Nam." He announced indignantly. His gaze drifted away again.

He knew he would see combat. A young kid imagining the hero his father might have been and wanting to follow in his footsteps. He wanted to represent his country in combat.

"I ... my friends died ... for hers. An she look at me like I'm a dog."

"She doesn't know" I replied. "She doesn't know what you went through. I don't think she has any idea. Probably none of us know. Very few ... almost no one has seen war like you have. I haven't."

"An I pray you never have to," he said looking me steadily in the eye. "I pray to God."

He put his hands together and muttered at the heavens while I choked back the tears welling up in my eyes. Something in the way he looked at me gave me a tiny piece of his pain. I could imagine the feeling: a friend killed right in front of me. I could feel the fear and anger and helplessness and guilt, or at least my imaginary equivalents. Probably nothing I could imagine would ever compare with his real experience. Even so, I could feel the deep resentment for returning home to a country that was too afraid of me to understand my pain. And here it was playing out again thirty years later on this bus. Like nothing had changed in more than three decades.

"There's a theater downtown ... two stories ..." he said again.

"Oh! I know now," I exclaimed. "At the Pavilion. It's right up there. You see the yellow sign going down the building on the right side of the street up there?"

He stood up as the bus stopped at the light at 14th and Glenarm?. "You look at me like I'm a dog," he said to Lucia in a more menacing voice. "You never represented your country."

"This isn't a stop. And quit hassling my riders," said the driver.

I leaned forward and told the driver "he'll get off right here if you'll stop." The thirty bus doesn't usually stop at 15th and Glenarm, but it did this time. The combat engineer turned back to shake my hand as several other people moved past him nervously to get off the bus.

"Thank you for what you did back then" I said shaking his hand. He thanked me too and muttered something else at Lucia. Then he got off the bus.

The bus let out a tangible sigh of relief. Several people shook their heads. One commented "he's not all there."

"That's what war does to people," I said, feeling that pain again. "It breaks them. It chews them up and spits them out." The driver nodded. "There's kids in Iraq right now learning the same as he did. In another thirty years ..." I couldn't finish that thought. I just shook my head and felt that pain.

I didn't make this story up, except for the names of the two latinas. This is how I remember what happened on a bus trip home in late August. I wrote most of this story the night it happened, though I tightened it up a little this afternoon. Seemed an appropriate way to remember Veteran's Day. Many vets never recovered from their tours in Viet Nam. I pray the next generation fares better.

Kim originally hired me to illustrate various definitions of terms from the history of perspective. At the time he had an extensive database on the history of perspective including definitions and bibliographic references for primary and secondary sources. But the perspective terms refer to visual elements. Textual definitions are pretty lacking without supporting illustrations. This illustration connects terms to their visual elements. You can click on the parts of the drawing to see their corresponding term. Or you can click the terms to see their corresponding elements. Lastly, I think I made up two of the terms: ground projector and picture projector. I don't remember illustrating those for Kim. But those lines are useful for understanding how the geometry works. I'll illustrate the horizon line and vanishing points later.

The SVG itself includes some CSS and JavaScript. Thanks to J. David Eisenberg for SVG Essentials. Those essentials were just enough for me to get started.

It was a rare and unexpected opportunity for me to listen to authentic war stories. Bill was shot down and spent ten months as a prisoner of war at the Hoa Lo prison in Hanoi. Rob flew an extraordinary 208 missions. Most aviators were superstitious about flying more than 100 missions because they could only defy the odds of getting shot down for so long.

This evening has effected me profoundly. It has come at a time when my mind is already buzzing with Linda's comments on literacy and democracy and Jefferson's belief that public education is the antidote to tyranny.