Poverty. Part 2.

By the way, want to stop violence? Legalize.

Oliver Gospel Mission takes a Man on the Mountain point of view. The Cathedral.

I think Bazaar. I think Gas Stations.

Ponder for a second: what would life in this country be like if to operate a gas station, or to sell foods with saturated fat, or to sell cigarettes, you must operate a mission for the poor in the same building?

Approved missions:
1. Food Kitchen.
2. Drug rehabilitation clinic.
3. Job hunting office.
4. Volunteering corps office.
5. Beds.
6. Elderly Care Centers.
7. Veterinary Services(Seeing eye dogs get sick too).

You would design each approved mission in legalize so they would have roughly the same operational upkeep cost, and maybe even say you must give 10% of the station's profits to supporting this mission.

But we didn't take very much from the Army here. The task is to take the Army in mind as well, otherwise it just won't stick.

Poverty. Part 1.

Poverty. I want to solve it.

I want to seed some of your thoughts tonight with 2 things.

For the first seed I want to bring you to the south-east corner of Assembly and Taylor in Columbia South Carolina: the Oliver Gospel Mission.

http://www.olivergospelmission.org/

Your thought starts here because for 120 years they have been doing it right.

Welcome to the Oliver Gospel Mission. After 123 years, we are continuing our commitment to reaching out to the broken and homeless in Columbia. We have renewed the emphasis on equipping them to become spiritually fulfilled and functioning members of society who are making a positive impact on the quality of life in the Columbia area. For example, men who were previously unemployed are securing jobs, even in these tough economic times. Others are being reunited with estranged family members. Above all else, we continue to provide hope to people who have lost all sense of significance in a society that puts such a high value on material success. I am confident that as you browse our site you will be surprised by all we’re doing in the community, and find ways in which you can help. We encourage you to contact us for a tour. We’d love to have you visit the Mission and hope to hear from you soon!

-- President/CEO message

Re-read that message as if you were Hermione, look between the lines. Good progress is easy to find, as are ideological holes. Good Seed.

Second seed for this genetic experiment of a discussion we will find at 1225 Bluff Road, Columbia South Carolina. The National Guard.

Your thought must go here because since Neolithic times armies have been doing something right.

Now I know what you are thinking, It's the God Damn Army Bill. They fucking kill people. These are all murderers that deserve nothing more than death themselves. Every dollar spent on defense is a dollar stolen from someone's dinner. Etc.

But I've brought you here for a reason.

This one you really have to put on your Hermione glasses:

The Guard answers the call, at home or abroad.
Share

The incredible versatility of the National Guard enables its troops to respond to domestic emergencies, combat missions, counterdrug efforts, reconstruction missions and more—all with equal speed, strength and efficiency.

Whether the call is coming from the state governor or directly from the president of the United States, Guard Soldiers are always ready and always there.
You'll serve your community, your state and your country.

As a Guard Soldier, you can expect your primary area of operation to be your home state, following the leadership of your state adjutant general and governor. This may include community efforts, responding to wildfires or floods. Or, it may include serving overseas, training foreign forces.

You will also be prepared to mobilize when directed by the president. This may include overseas service or domestic, such as serving along the U.S.-Mexico border.

So, what does the National Guard do? Whatever is needed, wherever it is needed.

If you couldn't quite do it for that last one: I'll help. The first is the last line: "Whatever is needed, wherever it is needed." You are *needed* Charlie. We need you. I need you.

Doesn't that conjure up a fuzzy feeling... Dwell on that feeling for a little bit.

The second key is the rest of it. Describing "stuff to do." You'll be productive! Rob always described it as an itch he had.

Dwell on how you feel when you are getting things done contrasted with when you are not getting things done for a little bit.

The third key is entirely implied. You ask any soldier: Why did you fight? and they'll respond for my friends. For the people right next to me.

Community.

Not the community that people like to think of as their city. But real community. Real brotherhood. Camaraderie. Friendship.

That's it right there. You want to help mommy with the dishes? Do it. You are needed.

This one is bill.

What I think Stewart is advocating for (or maybe this just just what I would advocate for so I'm projecting) is that:
We advocate with honesty and sincerity. Don't misrepresent the truth to suit your own viewpoints and don't pretend to be a ludicrous parody of your own beliefs in order to force the discussion in your direction. Ask for what you really want. If you want an end to partial-birth abortion don't say you think all family planners are murders and should be on death row. If you want better financial regulation don't say you want bankers kicked out of their homes so that victims of fraudulent foreclosure can live in them.
We treat our opponents fairly. Avoid ad hominem attacks when they aren't relevant to the topic at hand (the almost never are).
We seek to maintain a productive dialog. Is your discuss convincing your opponent ? Is it convincing an undecided observer ? Is it rousing those in agreement with you to take productive action ? If not then you're wasting your breath and creating meaningless polarization.
We try to understand an opponent's perspective. Do I think our involvement in two wars over the course of a decade has turned out to be foolhardy and ill-advised--yes. Do I think many of the acts we've committed were probably criminal--I do. Do I think ulterior motives were involved--it's very likely. However, I don't honestly believe that anyone in power went home and told their SO, "Baby, I think we've found a way to make money by killing Ahab." Relying on dark and vile imagery to paint our opponents as bad people is intellectually shallow. Most people are not truly evil and even those who are could be prevented from doing bad things if we do what's needed to solve the elementary systemic flaws in our political institutions.
None of those points require advocating a position any more moderate than the one you honestly hold. It simply requires that you seek it in a way that's honest and productive and is more interested in moving the dialog forward than in "winning".

As a mathematics graduate student in the boonies, I'm going to counter point here on behalf of Andrew Jackson's mobocracy. I don't have time to read the Bush books. I simply do not have time enough to keep up on being literate when it comes to any topics The Daily Show deems important.

In college, we talked about how to "read texts." Experiment with which perspective you take when you read new ideas. Look for things missing, look for hidden discriminations.

However, modern speech writers took such a large shit in my mouth that I can't do that logically. It's impossible. I literally do not have enough processing power to consider everyone's problems. In New York City a few weeks ago I had this carnivale experience where ambulances were running and all the hundreds conversations on the street kept going. This was right down the street, someone was obviously hurt but these people have been convinced that this is not an issue for them; wall street is, Wisconsin is, Conservatives are, their job is.

Everyone has a voice, no one has, or is getting, a heart.

Flame on.

A thread recently made me angry on sage-devel:

http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/browse_thread/thread/cbb7a39575870636

> Do we really need Cliquer in Sage?
>

I know this comment will be pointless, as I am pretty sure those who agree with Dr. Kirkby only want a Mathematica clone for solaris (based on his recent posts) but I'm going to go ahead and flame anyway.

I am not able to count how many times I've been in a combinatorics lecture while an algorithm using max Cliques to solve the problem at hand was casually thrown into the mix.

I am also not able to understand why Nathann received such harsh backlash for pointing out something so obvious.

I am around professors every day who use C and hardly ever check their malloc's. These are the kind of people who have written full chapters in the CRC handbook of combinatorial designs, and books(plural!) on combinatorial algorithms.

I find it revolting that there would exist math software that would cut strong usable features based on code quality. This kind of policy does NOT promote code sharing among researchers.

long live purple sage

New Direction

I'm going to take this in a new direction, programming. I know that programming blogs are a dime a dozen, but this isn't for reading really. This is for communal, logged, purposeful programming. Alright, that's it.

Help a newb out with Design Theory

I have a design $D=(X,B)$ with parameters $t$-$(v,k,\lambda)$.

Let $P^*=(P,\subset)$ be the poset (P is also an abstract simplicial complex)
formed by the following construction:

1. $X \in P$.
2. $B$ is a subset of $P$. (call these facets)
3. If $Y$ is a subset of $b \in B$, then $Y$ is in $P$.

With poset relation subset.

Obviously, all $t$ subsets of $X$ are in this poset, and they have $\lambda$
facets (blocks) that contain them.

Define a new parameter $c$.

Let$ t\leq c\leq k$.
There is a smallest $i$ such that all $i$ subsets of $X$ are in $P$,
but not all $i+1$ subsets are in $P$. Call this smallest integer $c$.

For complete designs, $c$ is $k$.

Does this parameter have a name? does it have a use?

Without loss we can say $t$ is the greatest such $t$ for this design. If $twhat can we say about the number of facets(blocks) that contain these $c$ subsets? nothing?

First recursive function I've written in years.

recurse:=function(G,B,i,g,f)
  local j;
  if Size(g) = (i-1) then
    if Size(g) = Size(B) then
      return f(g);
    else
      for j in Combinations(G,B[i]-1) do
        return recurse(G,B,i+1,Concatenation(g,[j]),f);
      od;
    fi;
  else return;
  fi;
end;


global_array:=[];
fun:=function(G,B,g)
  local gset,glist,difflist,gcopy,x,L,i,j,pos,idealdifflist;
#TODO Implement FindL, code's written, just wrap it up
  L:=2;#FindL(G,B);
  gcopy:=StructuralCopy(g);
  gset:=Flat(gcopy);
  glist:=List(G);
  difflist:=ConstantArray(0,Size(G));
  idealdifflist:=ConstantArray(L,Size(G));
  idealdifflist[Position(glist,One(G))]:=0;
  # if Id is not any one of the diffs;
  if Positions(gset,One(G))<>[] then
    return;
  else
    for i in [1..Size(gcopy)] do
      Add(gcopy[i],One(G));
    od;
#generate difflist
    for i in [1..Size(gcopy)] do
      for j in Tuples(gcopy[i],2) do
        pos:=Position(glist,j[1]*j[2]^-1);
        difflist[pos]:=difflist[pos]+1;
      od;
    od;
  fi;
#verify difflist
  if difflist = idealdifflist then
    Add(global_array,g);
  fi;
end;