three layers

I was very serious about painting for some years. The first fifteen or so paintings I produced in my first studio in railroad square back when I was twenty-one all focused on a 3d object which consisted of a pyramid with a cube stacked on it, with a sphere stacked on that. The relationship of this object to its surroundings - earth, sky, and space (and light) basically, is what I was exploring.

The pyramid was the body, the cube the mind, and the sphere the spirit.

Now I have become interested in a new isomorphic analogy. Rather than describing the individual, however, it attempts to describe the world. It is the jungle, the system, and the path.

The jungle is nature. No matter how we romanticize nature, it is a ruthless place where survival of the fittest rules.

The system is our civilization. Government, power lines, the internet, the media... things of the mind, of money, of technology. Rastafari have it correct, it is Babylon System.

The path is a narrow way through these other layers, which is discovered by the spirit.

Software Architecture and Quidditch

First allow me the pleasure of saying that Harry Potter sucks. I'm a big fan of Tolkien, Moorcock, Zelazny, and other fantasy. But not the juvenihilisticism of Potter.

(can I say it sucks when I've never read it? how dare I)

Quidditch is interesting, though. Hurling on steroids, with the twist of the snitch. The snitch is a magic key to victory. There is a corollary in software architecture: the snitch is the core issue, core problem, which underlies the scaling and complexity issues of a system. It is the job of the architect to find the snitch.

Unlike in Quidditch, though, in software architecture it is the job of the whole team to do something with the snitch once it is found. In software, the best solution, the best idea, can come from anyone. The architect should facilitate the solution process once the snitch is discovered, so that the entire team can then win the game together.

Let's not build an entire school to kiss one kid's ass. :)~

link to the first parts:

The Zenstone

quattro

Glasshouse: brains were and are developed toward the better modelling of the changing 3d matrix around them

Arkowitz: you would be blind if you did not perceive through us, humans

tres honorabili

Arkowitz took the final step up onto the ridge, anticipating the view. He had not been able to see much except the jungle he was moving through, zigzagging within the crevice of a stream channel.

The trunks of the larger trees which could only grow that big because of the water and shelter provided... were the only footing in many places. The dappled light hinted at the force of the full sun above.

Looking back over the valley Arkowitz could see the network of roads, powerwires, trains, and lesserknown layers of the system. Nature was eventually incorporated as yet another layer distributed throughout the substrate (aether).

The other side of the ridge sloped more gently down, but the pockets of nature far out on the plane were linked more strongly by green corridors, devoid of the tech of the other layers, and obscuring the movement of the walkers within them. Leading down into this level by level was a path over exposed rock, fed by smaller paths coming down from the ledges and domes of the spine. The wolf loped along one of the domes, to the last comfortable point on the curve of precipice. An ancient pine was clinging there. He lifted his snout into the air, balmy breezes carrying scents of fires, smog, and juniper, and the denizens of the jungle and the system.

Arkowitz found a boulder with a decent angle for his back. Good place for a smoke.