Possible Solution to Supreme Court Ruling to Destroy the Homeless

Since the Supreme Court believes that we should destroy the homeless by denying them anywhere to go, but the Court also believes that it is unconstitutional to do anything to regulate firearms, why not put the two policies together and give AR-15s to the homeless and allow them to defend themselves?

Image by MidJourney

Good Background Material on Mandatory Palestine

I refuse to discuss the issues in Mandatory Palestine with most people.  What would be the point?  They know even less than I do, apparently, and that is saying something.  So rather than waste your time with my opinions on most of the issues, instead I will mention a few articles or books that I found particularly helpful.  

First "A Peace to End All Peace" by David Fromkin about the end of the Ottoman Empire. See https://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805068848

Second,  "Should American Jews Abandon Elite Universities?" by Bret Stephens in the NY Times.  See https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/opinion/jews-ivy-league-antisemitism.html

Students who police words like “blacklist” or “whitewash” and see “microaggressions” in everyday life ignore the entreaties of their Jewish peers to avoid chants like “globalize the intifada” or “from the river to the sea.” Students who claim they’re horribly pained by scenes of Palestinian suffering were largely silent on Oct. 7 — when they weren’t openly cheering the attacks. And students who team up with outside groups that are in overt sympathy with Islamist terrorists aren’t innocents. They’re collaborators.

Third, an article on the history of Zionism, particularly in the context of other ideologies of the 19th century by Peretz. See https://zionism-israel.com/ezine/Zionism_God_History.htm

I believe that there is something to be said for moral authority.  In other words, before you lecture other people or nations, it would be best if one cleaned up one's own house first.  Sometimes this is stated as "Let he (or she) who is without sin throw the first stone." or "leading by example".  If an American wants another nation which is fighting for its survival to "return the occupied territories" perhaps they should start by returning their own "occupied territories".  For example, in the case of the United States of America, one might return the states of New York, California or Virginia, all of them occupied territories. 

Peace.

Ensign of the Palestinian Mandate

Notes on Adding Assets to the OpenSpace Project (OSP)

There is an open source project to provide a visualization framework to present astronomical data to the public called, logically enough, the OpenSpace Project (OSP).  It is in the grand tradition of the infrastructure of planetariums that stretches back in time to long before computer graphics and even computers.  The current state of the art uses graphics and projection hardware that would have been far too expensive for this purpose even a few years ago.

This particular framework seems to be a robust, somewhat comprehensive collection of the things one might need to put on a science show at a planetarium.  Time marches on, and so must the software.  It must permit new science to be incorporated into the core framework.

Furthermore,   the classic planetarium show has always been interactive and real time even when it has been rigorously scripted. Real time enables improvisation but it does not require it.   Every community has its traditions and the traditions of planetarium shows insist on this capability.

One of the principals of this project, Carter Emmart, a veteran of the ancient Digital Galaxy Project at the Hayden in NYC, asked me to add a very simple item to the repertoire of OpenSpace.  It should have been straightforward, but I have been pulling my hair out trying to get traction because, as we all know, writing documentation for a complicated piece of software like OpenSpace is non-trivial and not particularly pleasant.  OpenSpace does have documentation but not all documentation fits all use cases.

Systems of this type have very different classes of users and they all need different learning materials.  Some of these users will script new shows with the capabilities at hand.  Others will want to add to the functionality of the software.  Still others will be doing a masters or PhD thesis that incorporates visualization of science data or models into the software, but for their own use and not as a general capability.  Some of these people will be astrophysicists, some will be visualizers and some will be children.  So learning the software is likely to be painful depending on what your use case is.

This blog post will attempt to fill in some of these gaps for those who come after me.  The post will evolve as my understanding evolves.

The task at hand is to be able to create a type of lunar surface that exhibits the "retro reflection effect" for want of a better term.  Imagine you are in a lunar rover on the surface of the moon.  One of the observed phenomena is for light to be directed back at its source just as you might see from a reflected sign on a highway at night.  This phenomenon has been observed both on the moon and from earth.  It shouldnt be too hard to have OpenSpace simulate some version of this.

Notes for Adding New Geometry & Shader to OpenSpace

1. In general, types of data to be visualized with the OpenSpace Project (OSP) are defined as assets.  All assets are defined in text files with the suffix ".asset".

2. Assets can be added statically at the startup of OSP or interactively through the Lua console.  

3. The particular type of asset we want to add is called a RenderableModel.  See the documentation for this kind of asset at 

https://docs.openspaceproject.com/en/latest/generated/asset-components/RenderableModel.html

4. There are three fields in particular that interest us: the GeometryFile, the VertexShader and the Fragment Shader.

5. The GeometryFile will be the filename of a GLTF or GLB file.  This filetype is designed to encapsulate 3D geometry and many other things.  It is documented and maintained by Khronos and can be read about here:

https://registry.khronos.org/glTF/specs/2.0/glTF-2.0.html

6. The Vertex and Fragment shaders are individual text files which are compiled and downloaded to the relevant GPUs.  They contain the code necessary to actually render the surface in real time.  

7. Probably we will define this type of asset interactively using Lua, and therefore will need the scripting API documentation, which is documented here:

https://docs.openspaceproject.com/en/latest/generated/scripting-api/index.html

8. So, to my current understanding, I will be creating a new type of asset which points to some geometry, a vertex shader, and a fragment shader, and add this asset interactively via Lua.

No doubt this post will be updated as I learn more.

Fan Art for "Earthly Pleasures"

 
Jill Fraser's new album, Earthly Pleasures, is loosely based on the music of 19th century hymns.  As a fan, I contribute the following fan art, based on the idea of an angel and worshippers.  The angel is wearing a silver bathing suit and carries a whip.

There are some very entertaining things that were mostly unintentional in some of these pictures.  Notice how the groveling worshippers seem to be in pain.  Is that because I said the angel was carrying a whip?

The Philosophical Research Society and the Library of Esoteric Knowledge

For all the years I lived in Los Angeles, I never visited the Philosophical Research Society.  I knew it was off in Los Feliz somewhere.  

Generally speaking, back in the day, I would rarely go east of Western and only go as far as Western because that is where the AFI was located.  

But the PRS is an example of the best of old Los Angeles.  Founded in the 1930s by a self-educated mystic, Manly Hall, he eventually built a library for his 30,000 plus titles of his collections of Esoteric Knowledge and wrote many classics in the field.  Their bookstore is the best of its type since the Bodhi Tree.  The library is open Thursday & Friday from noon to six.  The bookstore is open normal business hours and in the evening during an event.

An entertaining and informative article on the PRS, Manly Hall, and their history, is here:  
https://www.laweekly.com/the-strange-history-of-los-felizs-mysterious-metaphysical-research-center/

If you can judge a place by its people, then the PRS is a very interesting place.  We should all spend more time there.