Baby alligators

As a young child my favorite reading materials were comic books and Mechanix Illustrated. Even the ads in the latter were fascinating, for example each month there was an ad, for $2 one could have a baby alligator mailed to you as a pet. Seemed that would be fun, but mere fantasy for me. Having since seen what a grown alligator does to a grown wildebeast attempting to cross a river, I consider the situations people found themselves in, those who bought the baby alligators for $2, and had them grow up to be big alligators. A similar stuation seems to be now with the country's nuke arsenal, in the news intensely recently. Why would the Dept of Defense give their nukes to the Dept of Energy? Maybe like large alligators being turned into shoes and purses before eating the family dog, or worse. The fissionables might be useable to power a new era of nuclear electric power plants, when petrochemicals start running out for good. I suppose Russia had the same problem years ago. The whole nuke secrecy thing got my attention when, for the 4th time coincidentally LANL was under some kind of attack following some of its people being interested in my KESTS to GEO concept, as a way to massively put up solar power satellites etc, conceivably seen as rival to nuke power plants on the ground yet also far more useful for other things. This time it is when the SE2005 Space Elevator conference accepted abstract from me on a paper; LANL was not harrassed in the years when my KESTS type papers were not invited for presentation. So.... I recall not too many years ago I was working as a tech at a small firm run by its two owners, making car alarms (it paid my rent and groceries, when other companies would not hire a super tech who had previously worked up to be a non-degreed EE, apparently perceived as sneaking past the college degree requirement.) There was a big shakeup when a box of product could not be accounted for. Accusations flared, tempers flared, accounting personnel quit. Everybody sweated, how could they prove they had not stolen the box? Weeks went by, then my boss, a no-nonsense man of Armenian decent, got courage to go into the boss' office, and look around, and there he found the missing box of product stashed in hiding. And that stopped the tensions. The motivations of those who crave and wield power, can be complex indeed; essential shakers & movers they may be, but sometimes I wonder what is up, they probably not being saints.

Behind rock in Keams Canyon

As a teenager in the Southwest before the cliff dwellings were fenced off, I got to climb around in some of the great cliff dwellings, and see a lot of other interesting things. One thing that particularly impressed me, was while we were exploring Keams Canyon in Arizona. The place was known as a place where some soldiers were pined down by the Indians for a long time. Their fate was not known to me. Wandering around in the place, now quiet, I found a few words scratched in a slab of red sandstone jutting out of the desert floor. A soldier had clearly been trapped behind that rock for a long time; his name and rank was carefully engraved into the upper part of the rock. It was easy to imagine him preparing this tombstone for himself, perhaps all that would be left of him when the savages (to his viewpoint, trying to stay alive a while longer) were done. No one to talk with, no one to help, and some unfriendlies nearby did not like him.
Sometimes writing in this blog I flash on such a feeling. No one posts a comment. No one seems to know I'm here. A voice crying in the wilderness. Yet, like a friendly hunk of red sandstone in the desert, upon the blog I write. And the writings are indication of a difference between not being here, and of being here.

Clustering: Responsibility to the Nation

Responsibility to the Nation

Responsibility has many facets, and there is a human individual (or group) tendency to focus on only part of them. For example, the creation and potential implementation of my KESTS to GEO project seems one of, or perhaps the only one of, ways to supply the country and civilization itself with adequate clean energy and environment, via lifting SSPS into GEO and total recycling mass-spec type facilities into GEO, when petrochemicals become severely uneconomical in the near future; so it seems there is high responsibility to make KESTS to GEO, and also probably anchored tether space elevators, happen as soon as possible, getting started ASAP due to the long lead time needed for unfamiliar technology configurations, despite its poor fit with existing space enterprises. I've pointed the finger of blame at businessmen and politicos that have apparently been stifling KESTS to GEO, including interference with my technical paper publications and with the few people who are knowledgeable enough and wise enough to be supportive of KESTS to GEO. Yet there are indications "responsibility" definition is a variable per one's Temperament type. As an Idealist Temperament type man, I focus on responsibility to the future of the nation, of civilization; yet a Guardian Temperament type person might consider "responsibility" be to the past, to maintaining traditions, all else being "irresponsible fluff" to them. Artisan Temperament people might focus "responsibility" to the correctness and efficiency of getting something done, but not particularly focused on exactly what is being done, however; the "doing" being the only major responsibility. Rational Temperament types might consider responsibility to focus on credibility issues, interlock fitness with the existing accepted knowledge base. As a whole people functions optimally with all the Temperaments doing their thing continually and with some harmony, I too would do well to wisely consider the viewpoint focus of other Temperaments other than my own, and integrate the wisdom found in those other Temperament focus viewpoint aspects of "responsibility".

cluster vignette: words

WORDS

Words are symbols, representing something more physical; placeholders.

These representations of physical-world things can be more compactly stored, transported and reproduced, than their more physically real counterparts.

A requirement is that the words represent the same thing (more or less) to each person interacting with them.

Words can be combined into packets, self contained groups like sentences, paragraphs or stories. The grouped words enable ever more precisely defining a specific something.

Redundancy of words, saying the same thing two or more ways, as is done in the biblical Psalms, increases the likelihood of accuracy between intent of transmitter as compared to impression it produces in the receiver.

The Bible states “In the beginning was the Word...” which suggests to me now that those beginning Words were blueprint symbols, shaped empty spaces into which physical reality pours into where the two fit; thus electrons, atoms and stars were cast into physicality.

Like a blueprint guiding the making of a physical something, a symbolic model more mallable than physical reality, words define materials and process, including that of the songs of life,

Life’s placeholder patterns are made out of charactersets: the four of DNA’s double helix, the twenty-six of English, and how many are those of the minstrel’s songs of life?

-- James E. D. Cline 2004/04/09-13

URLs of my web pages and brief content descriptions

These are all "works in progress".

http://home.earthlink.net/~jedcline/

The above is my original Earthlink.net freebie website, online since 1996 so it "just grew", has info on a wider range of stuff, such as advanced transportation ideas, holistic info, technological poetry, personal info re life achievements, etc. Also has copies of some of my GEnie network files posted starting in 1988, (but vanished when internet became publically available.)

http://www.kestsgeo.com

Above URL is for my website mostly dedicated to my hobby of designing a space transportation system adequate for the upcoming petrochemical energy starving world, could lift construction materials for building satellite solar power stations into high earth orbit, lift materials for large scale total recycling mass-spectrometer-type facilities in GEO, make GEO the primary spaceport with cheap electrical lift of spacecraft from ground up to GEO, eventual build large scale cities there in GEO, opening the high frontier truly for all who want to go there. Best: when SSPS up and running in GEO, they can power the transportation system to space even when petrochemical fuel is running out, making continuing space access possible even with no chemical fuel for conventional launches is available. I urge get started now before things get too distractingly tough. Unfortunately, KESTS to GEO is being heavily stiffled, presumably by rival businessmen and politicos, irresponsible to the future of humanity, waiting for this older man to dissappear. (Over the years, most -- but not all -- of my many innovative sparks for people's projects have been forgoten or ignored, no credit given to me.) And lots of jobs, fortunes to be made, can make the good life for people IF done correctly: it would have a better chance at success if I am involved adequately in implementation. Since most of my employed career was as a top level Sr Engineering Technician in R&D in electronics, I have a good sense of what will or will not work, and skill at approaches to how to change them so as to make them work. The integrated conceptual design I have been developing and talking about since 1988 and have named "KESTS to GEO," has a good fit with technological principles.

http://www.kestsgeo.com/pages/tstnhm/indextst.html

Writing a tutorial on making thin sections at Natural History Museum Invertebrate Paleontology facilities (a volunteer task).

Some URLS & books on Temperament; work styles

URLs re Temperament theory per Linda Berens; with close corellates to Jungian psychetying, this seems more widely anchored and suited for individual or group use, helps understand people (including oneself) to enable better functioning:

http://www.telospublications.com/
http://www.tri-network.com
http://www.16types.com

Also see (especially for those who have journaled at some time):

"The Artists Way At Work" by Julia Cameron"

typing vs handwriting

I wonder if some widespread sociopsychological effect will happen regarding changeover from handwriting to typing, brought on by computers and email especially. Given that writing began as a gestural communication leaving tracks as cuniform then other scratches on something, a more long lasting expression than vocalization, then "writing" is an extension of the mind. The manner and channel then would shape that process. Like changing the flow of water in a riverbed, the river then changes where the river goes.

20040715 the poem, Magnetic Footprints

JEDC's Technological Poetry
MAGNETIC FOOTPRINTS
by James Edward David Cline

Here is a poem written about the inner workings of a disk drive, written using the INSCRIBE cognitive engine.

by J E D CLINE 6/13/84

Shining like a mechanical jewel
The tortured metal and plastic shapes
Were bound unwillingly together
By man and machine. And now, the
Conscripted shapes silently await,
Like a statue frozen, the
Awakening pulse of electric life
To throb in it's copper veins,
Energizing mechanical muscles....
Then, TURN-ON!

A twirling whirl goes to a filmy disk
Of micromagnets, sending them hurtling
Past a special place: a read/write head
With magnetic maw that sometimes
Shouts and sometimes listens
To the concensus of the
Scurrying horde of magnetic domains.


The gaping maw jumps back and forth,
Then lies in wait for the call of
The one it seeks.

Here they come! The earthquake rattle
Of ten thousand dancing domains in a
Chorus line, all spread their energy
To the hungry ferrite eye, then take it
Back again, escaping.

Their rock-and-roll dance is
Patiently watched over,
Then finally the familiar notes
Of the sought sector comes on scene.

The throbbing beat is announced,
And its repeating rhythm forms a
Trellis of time supporting the
Melodious string of data notes.

Stronger now and square, the
Marching line of ones and zeros
Triumphantly emerge as information,
Reborn to live in the halls of
Mankind's busyness.

But there comes a time in the life of bits,
When the world tires of them, and
Prepares to send their progenitive essence
To ferrite crypts. The chosen ones, the
Lucky bits, herd into groups, then file
Courageously singley into the iron maiden.

The ferrite's searching eye,
Having found the assigned shelf
In the filmy store, grabs each
Brave bit in turn, transforming
It in an instant into a torrent

Of current, rushing first one way
Then the other. This river of
Excitement pours through copper swirls,
And their waves of motion stir concerted
Flux in flying ferrite glider.

The flux strikes a barrier!
A gap to be crossed in an
Exhuberant flurry and shout,
And leaves magnetic footprints by
Overturnings in the domains below,
In the filmy land of time's sleep.

Copyright © 1995 James Edward David Cline

cluster: Inscribe

INSCRIBE

The Inscribe process is a walk-the-path device, for exploring and building along the walked path to create something new, led by what is interesting at the time. It provides guidance for a process that shuffles between one’s logic mind and one’s design mind, as one also shuffles between the world of physical action and the world of imagination and intuition. My first test run of the process produced a “technological poem” titled “Magnetic Footprints” which has gotten positive comments from a wide variety of people over the years. Subsequent uses did not produce as acclaimed results, however, probably since the factors of each step were clear in my mind during the first test run, but that which was evoked by the Inscribe diagram thereafter was not quite the same. This suggests the need for revision of the diagram so as to more completely identify that which is to be evoked by each step along the path, redundancy and/or clarification. Yet there is a need for simplicity and compactness in the overall diagram, easy to look at as a whole. Another function is to imaginatively record into appearant physical reality, a newly chosen meaning for the physicality rather than merely the initial appearant significances. Thinking back to 1984 when “Magnetic Footprints” was written, I had an old disk drive in my view, and imaginatively inscribing new significant imagery into the disk drive as I saw it. Then, in something like this clustering process of Gabrille Ricco, suddenly the poem began to congeal in my mind, like condensation of specific words floating out of a 3 dimensional sea of widely separated words. I then wrote down the composed short phrases, an unfolding in my language mind as some other part of my mind was concurrently somehow exploring the overall pattern into a sequential flow of events. And there it was, a written composition that I later named “Magnetic Footprints” (from an initial name of “the Shugart ....??disk drive”) and gave the classification of “technological poetry”. The Inscribe process is a blueprint for building something out of what is physically found, imaginatively decorating it and reworking the physical initial meaningfulness to amplify that which is especially attractive about it and lacing evocative morphological equivalents together while walking the inscribe path diagram, impulsively choosing which fork in the road to take when a fork is encountered.in the shuffle from design mind to sign mind (using Ricco’s terminology for left and right brain, or wide view to narrow focus), directed by the pathway to pick a function to notice and then to describe. Each interesting part of the physical object blossoms out with a lacework of broader significances, producing a writing that is full of energy, a composition which appears to also be attractive to other people who read it.
James E. D. Cline 2001 12 12, 1342 hrs.

clustering: visionary

Blog looks like a place to store some of my cluster-written vignettes, as taught by Gabrielle Ricco in "writing the natural way":

VISIONARY

The vision of a project provides the imaged blueprint to be filled in throughout the creation and implementation of a project. It ensures the harmony among the many parts when finished, an optimistic image map in which the trailblazers create the pathways which prepare the subsequent activities. The vision needs to foresee the final product fully having fulfilled its best purposes throughout its useful lifespan.

Jim Cline

200407#4 re morning pages

The "morning Pages" of Julia Cameron's "artists way at work" book has been a companion for me for many lonely years. Handwriting in a notebook is not the same as typing, so I wonder what will happen if I go to an electronic, computer input, form of Morning Pages or journal. Blog in that catagory too.

The involvement of handwriting's gestural physical activiy surely is part of the process of Morning Pages, which have the primary function of finishing up the processing of the night's sleep. Sometimes useful data gets written, as well as good ideas for subsequent folow-up use; but mostly it is foggy un-losing-it babble, getting oneself together mentally analogous to taking a bath, shaving, and putting clothes on for the day, only mentally.

20040714#3 acronym meaning of "KESTS to GEO"

The acronym, initials, of "KESTS to GEO" stands for Kinetic Energy Supported Transportation Structures to Geostationary Earth Orbit. This is a conceptual design for a space rail elevator integrated with the applications it would enable, powered by the Sun, to continue our high-energy, high population civilization, ever more harmonious with the interconnected web of all life on Earth. It is intended that you will be inspired to seek and achieve ever greater works with a sense of its place and potential function in the wider picture of existence. What you do (and what you don't do) are partly your responsibility. Live lessening reactivity and increasingly on-purpose with your greatest possible wisdom of the moment. Living on purpose with wisdom.

The idea of building a spacerail encircling the earth elliptically between ground and GEO seems preposterous to almost everybody. Nonetheless, no one has yet to give reason why it won't work; and after putting the concept out via GEnie network in 1988 and then on internet starting in 1996, (earthlink freebie site) I now have versions of it formally published in peer-reviewed conference proceedings, ASCE finally acknowledges it to some extent, and it is more a civil engineering project concept than simply aerospace.

Using excess velocity in an OTT path to create centrifugal force slightly greater than that needed to offset force of gravity on stator mass with its loads, and using the same stored kinetic energy inductively drag tapped to lift spacecraft between ground up to GEO and gently back.

Jim Cline

20040714 #2 living on-purpose: prepare future spacerail

Inspiring living on-purpose with wisdom, as mankind the great builder, amplifying the great process of life: www.kestsgeo.com

A space rail elevator economical full access between the ground up to high earth synchronous orbit so as to build in GEO great works for powering all humanity with abundant electrical power cleanly, to purify toxic materials made in civilization's processes and make the materials available for new purposes, to build new living space in GEO, and to build ports of economical access to the vast material resources of the solar system, all solar of this being powered.

This comes at a time when most people are "too busy" to think about it; Survivalists stuff their rural stronghold nests, Sustainable-living folk learn to scratch an existence also rurally; others hack at the civilization, thinking the problem is "too many people"; others grab for whatever remaining petrochemical fuel resources can be found; and rising panic in the population is quelled by drugging the population. Is this a worthy application of mankind? Does this have to be a time of "grab all you can while the energy-built civilization starves for fuel and is in collapse? Note that unless a launched satellite is completely given energy and direction to fully achieve an orbit, it will come crashing back down; civilization now is analogous to that. The KESTS to GEO conceptual designs offer direction to fully achieve sustainable orbit for civilization.

20040714 starting blog

Initial entry blog, on July 14, 2004. Am on vacation today, up in Pacific Northwest forest land, greenery dense here.

I look forward to exploring what this blog thing is about.

Jim