The need-driven approach is starting to produce more results than just turning the base upside down. At present, I am going through the links of history to various nations and peoples. In prehistory, I am at present emphasizing links to the social institutions. For antiquity, I am just about to review the links, to see which ones I want to emphasize for this period. For the classical and medieval period, I am linking to the stocial institutions. I've been going through the links from modern history rather rapidly, and right now, I'm working through the various peoples of the world. There hasn't been much demand for studies of the future.
The sociology section has been getting quite a bit of demand, so I have been revisiting quite a few of these links, and I'm currently reviewing applications of anthropology. Peoples are also in demand, and there I'm reviewing links to culture. There hasn't been much demand for particular nations; this will probably come later. For Western Civilization, I am reviewing links to the social institutions. Anglic peoples and Latin peoples have been most heavily demanded, with Germanic and Northeast Europan lagging somewhat. I am also close to a signficant review of Asiatic peoples, and the Middle East is notably important. Links to communities and social structure and change have not yet resulted in heavy demand for these subjects.
The Institutions section has been had some demand, and I am at present working through peoples of the world. Religion is coming close to a substantial review. Government isn't far away, and neither is economics. Education and families will take a little longer.
I have recently done a significant review of how to develop the Culture section, and the connections to history are still missing pieces out of the middle. Behavioral and material culture are growing substantially, and I recently did an expansion of conceptual culture
Anthropolog is going slowly, but I am starting to review its history. The human geography section has been demanded more heavily than usual, and here is where I actually have a couple of new pages, in European geography. Personal studies and science are also being developed.
When I started going through the links from history, I started taking notes on what sections were being inverted, revised, linked, or created. So far, the most progress has been within sociology, with institutions and culture roughly tied for second place. There isn't quite yet enough new material to publish the latest version to the web: I'm planning that for when I have gone through the links from history.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Friday, March 06, 2009
More inversion
In spite of the lack of updates, neither this blog nor the knowledge base has died.
I've been steadily working on the inversion project. So far, things seem to be flowing nicely. I just published the latest version.
One of the difficulties keep struggling with is that my process of development has seemed too rigidly mechanical, where a natural flow of topics according to how they are related to one another would probably be more useful. Some topics are more closely related than others.
So far, this approach seems to be working. For instance, in history, the emphasis is on modern history, and on the 20th century in particular. In discussion of the various peoples of the world, I have been emphasizing Western civilization, and Europe in particular. Development of the institutions still has a heavy emphasis on religion, but that seems to be under developed anyway. Cultural topics, which have been hard for me to get to because they are in the middle are developing better. One of the first new pages prompted by this version is in the area of European geography. I haven't worked down to the personal studies or biography much yet, that may take a little longer. The sciences are a bit slower to develop.
Visits to the knowledge base have been declining over the past few months, probably because I haven't put many updates up. I revised the site map somewhat, to try to make it easier for search engines and the like to index it. I suppose I'll see if that helps.
I've been steadily working on the inversion project. So far, things seem to be flowing nicely. I just published the latest version.
One of the difficulties keep struggling with is that my process of development has seemed too rigidly mechanical, where a natural flow of topics according to how they are related to one another would probably be more useful. Some topics are more closely related than others.
So far, this approach seems to be working. For instance, in history, the emphasis is on modern history, and on the 20th century in particular. In discussion of the various peoples of the world, I have been emphasizing Western civilization, and Europe in particular. Development of the institutions still has a heavy emphasis on religion, but that seems to be under developed anyway. Cultural topics, which have been hard for me to get to because they are in the middle are developing better. One of the first new pages prompted by this version is in the area of European geography. I haven't worked down to the personal studies or biography much yet, that may take a little longer. The sciences are a bit slower to develop.
Visits to the knowledge base have been declining over the past few months, probably because I haven't put many updates up. I revised the site map somewhat, to try to make it easier for search engines and the like to index it. I suppose I'll see if that helps.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
More inversion
I've set aside the microindustry project for now. After a friend came over and we made a hobo stove, the weather here turned very cold, and then snowy. Perhaps in a few weeks or a month, I'll venture out to try it out.
That same friend noted that, as big as the knowledge base has grown, turning the whole thing upside-down will take some time. I hate to delay adding new pages and new links, but I'm trying to relax the strict formalism that has made work on the project feel like so unsatisfying so much of the time. I'm working with history both backward from the present and forward from antiquity, because different subjects emphasize different parts of it.
That same friend noted that, as big as the knowledge base has grown, turning the whole thing upside-down will take some time. I hate to delay adding new pages and new links, but I'm trying to relax the strict formalism that has made work on the project feel like so unsatisfying so much of the time. I'm working with history both backward from the present and forward from antiquity, because different subjects emphasize different parts of it.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Microindustry
I'm still working on the inversion project for the knowledge base. So far, I've followed this down through science, physics, mechanics, and particle mechanics to improve the content and links of this section; I had last worked on it last February.
As a bit of personal background, I was growing up in the 1960s when the environment was becoming an important topic, and I developed something of an interest in renewable resources that can be done on a small scale, sustainable basis. I'm also interested in innovation and doing things as inexpensively as possible.
So, the wooded hillside that I've mentioned that I live next to (downhill from me, fortunately) is economically entirely unproductive, or it would be if anything were done on a large scale. It's too small for conventional forestry or logging, which would leave nothing but an ugly, barren hillside. It's too steep for agriculture, or building. There isn't much that can be done in the way of conventional forestry or logging, or agriculture; especially since I don't own the area and don't have the rights, or know-how, or equipment. What it does have is brush (including the multiflora rose I mentioned last post), fallen trees and tree branches, and trash (I've seen a vacuum cleaner, a lawnmower, and various tires) . If I can figure out what can be usefully done with this, it should be extensible I've seen a lot of property more or like this around town.
On a small scale, I can do some unobtrusive experiments. I mentioned the bush I've pretty much cut down, but it has many neighbors just like it. I talked a bit about it about that species to a friend who is a professor of agriculture at WVU and runs a farm in his spare time, and confirms my impression of it as a pestiferous species. What do I do with it once I prune it down to the roots? It would seem to be only fit for burning.
The question is, burning how and where? When I was playing around with information from New Mexico, and I came across creosote bushes (a species I'm familiar with from Arizona where I was raised), I was wondering what can be done with them. I was thinking about aromatic oils, and whether they could be extracted, and I came across mention of distillation. Distillation? of wood? so I looked at that a little bit, and moved on, in the process noting that it was once a chief source of methanol, wood alcohol. Well, methanol is one of the simpler organic compounds, so I've been running across it in my studies of organic chemistry.
So, I was doing some study of small woodburning stoves, wood combustion and pyrolysis, and distillation, all of which are more or less related in theory, and after sleeping on this for a few nights, came up with an experiment I want to try.
The ordinary burning of wood doesn't directly burn the wood at first. What it does is force it to give off combustible gases, which in turn heat the wood further, driving off more gases, until at length nothing is left but ash. The temperature depends on the composition of the wood in question, and on the rate of mixture with the oxygen in the air, which would be rapidly depleted
if there were not some kind of air flow. This is usually supplied by a chimney: The burned gases get hot, less dense, rise, and create an airflow. The difficulty is that this combustion is incomplete. The exhaust gas (smoke) contains not only air, somewhat depleted in oxygen, and the end products of water and carbon dioxide, but it also contains carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, ranging from the simplest to the heaviest; many of which are somewhat toxic and irritating and unburned particles of fuel. More efficient combustion occurs when there is a better mix of air and fuel, and when combustion takes place at higher temperatures.
Much a similar process occurs when wood is simply heated in the absence of oxygen; it gives off combustible gases, some organic liquids, and leaves charcoal behind. Producer gas, wood alcohol, and charcoal have been produced for centuries. Charcoal is interesting, because it's a renewable resource, and something of a substitute for coal. However, producing it is an old technology and rather wasteful of wood.
So, in the interest of efficiency, I've decided to experiment with a device in two parts: one a stove, where the primary interest is in combustion, efficient burning, and heat, which drives the other part, the oxygen-free destructive distillation of wood. This should yield combustible gases, which in the absence of good gas handling material, I can feed back into the stove. However, before burning these gases, I want to extract some of the volatile organic compounds, at least those which are liquid at normal atmospheric temperatures, and range from tars to alcohols. The solid should be charcoal, which can in theory be used to experiment with glassworking and metalworking.
However, all this is theoretical, and to make an idea like this work, I need to do some experiments and observations. I've asked another friend if he would be willing to help me make a hobo stove, as the first stage of this experiment, so I can get started.
As a bit of personal background, I was growing up in the 1960s when the environment was becoming an important topic, and I developed something of an interest in renewable resources that can be done on a small scale, sustainable basis. I'm also interested in innovation and doing things as inexpensively as possible.
So, the wooded hillside that I've mentioned that I live next to (downhill from me, fortunately) is economically entirely unproductive, or it would be if anything were done on a large scale. It's too small for conventional forestry or logging, which would leave nothing but an ugly, barren hillside. It's too steep for agriculture, or building. There isn't much that can be done in the way of conventional forestry or logging, or agriculture; especially since I don't own the area and don't have the rights, or know-how, or equipment. What it does have is brush (including the multiflora rose I mentioned last post), fallen trees and tree branches, and trash (I've seen a vacuum cleaner, a lawnmower, and various tires) . If I can figure out what can be usefully done with this, it should be extensible I've seen a lot of property more or like this around town.
On a small scale, I can do some unobtrusive experiments. I mentioned the bush I've pretty much cut down, but it has many neighbors just like it. I talked a bit about it about that species to a friend who is a professor of agriculture at WVU and runs a farm in his spare time, and confirms my impression of it as a pestiferous species. What do I do with it once I prune it down to the roots? It would seem to be only fit for burning.
The question is, burning how and where? When I was playing around with information from New Mexico, and I came across creosote bushes (a species I'm familiar with from Arizona where I was raised), I was wondering what can be done with them. I was thinking about aromatic oils, and whether they could be extracted, and I came across mention of distillation. Distillation? of wood? so I looked at that a little bit, and moved on, in the process noting that it was once a chief source of methanol, wood alcohol. Well, methanol is one of the simpler organic compounds, so I've been running across it in my studies of organic chemistry.
So, I was doing some study of small woodburning stoves, wood combustion and pyrolysis, and distillation, all of which are more or less related in theory, and after sleeping on this for a few nights, came up with an experiment I want to try.
The ordinary burning of wood doesn't directly burn the wood at first. What it does is force it to give off combustible gases, which in turn heat the wood further, driving off more gases, until at length nothing is left but ash. The temperature depends on the composition of the wood in question, and on the rate of mixture with the oxygen in the air, which would be rapidly depleted
if there were not some kind of air flow. This is usually supplied by a chimney: The burned gases get hot, less dense, rise, and create an airflow. The difficulty is that this combustion is incomplete. The exhaust gas (smoke) contains not only air, somewhat depleted in oxygen, and the end products of water and carbon dioxide, but it also contains carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, ranging from the simplest to the heaviest; many of which are somewhat toxic and irritating and unburned particles of fuel. More efficient combustion occurs when there is a better mix of air and fuel, and when combustion takes place at higher temperatures.
Much a similar process occurs when wood is simply heated in the absence of oxygen; it gives off combustible gases, some organic liquids, and leaves charcoal behind. Producer gas, wood alcohol, and charcoal have been produced for centuries. Charcoal is interesting, because it's a renewable resource, and something of a substitute for coal. However, producing it is an old technology and rather wasteful of wood.
So, in the interest of efficiency, I've decided to experiment with a device in two parts: one a stove, where the primary interest is in combustion, efficient burning, and heat, which drives the other part, the oxygen-free destructive distillation of wood. This should yield combustible gases, which in the absence of good gas handling material, I can feed back into the stove. However, before burning these gases, I want to extract some of the volatile organic compounds, at least those which are liquid at normal atmospheric temperatures, and range from tars to alcohols. The solid should be charcoal, which can in theory be used to experiment with glassworking and metalworking.
However, all this is theoretical, and to make an idea like this work, I need to do some experiments and observations. I've asked another friend if he would be willing to help me make a hobo stove, as the first stage of this experiment, so I can get started.
Friday, January 02, 2009
Inversion
Partly as a result of the alternative approach to study I mentioned in my last post, I decided I needed to invert the knowledge base, or turn it upside down. That means, in this case, going from more complex to simpler. In the various breakdowns I've used for working on it, things seem to go more easily if I do it that way. However, I'm beginning at the science end, so it's something of a hybrid.
In informal explorations of the local neighborhood, I've taken an interest in the local biology. It's the middle of the winter, so what I see most deals with biology, and particularly plants. I started attacking a bush with pruning clippers in order to clear a path down the hill so I can follow the runoff from my apartment's parking lot. This had the thorns (technically prickles) of a rose, so I spent a few hours searching the internet, and came up with a probable identification, Rosa multiflora. This bush had the high, arching branches associated with this species, abundant prickles (although some of its neighbors are more so). I couldn't find the clusters of tiny rose hips associated with this species at first, but found some the next time I attacked it.
Since the multiflora rose is now regarded as a pestiferous intrusive species ( it was intentional introduced some 80 years ago) , I figure no one's going to complain if I cut a few of them to pieces. I've been wanting to make contact with someone to give me help in plant identification, so I finally tracked down one of the county extension agents (by phone), and luckily got hold of one. Based on my description of the plant and where it was growing, he agreed with me that that's probably what it is, but a definite confirmation will have to wait a couple of weeks until everyone is back from vacation.
As part of my look at small scale, inexpensive industry, I started looking at stoves for heating. I'm not interested in the home scale, I'm interested for now in experimental, small scale heaters. There are some varieties that run on small branches and twigs, but since I rent and don't have property or much of a budget for tools and supplies, these aren't much use to me. This led me into what is called the pyrolysis, or destructive distillation of wood, and I got a quick review of the chemistry and physics of wood combustion. This interests me for several reasons, from both theoretical and applied points of view.
I'm taking a number of passes through science history, and started with modern history, concentrating on the 16th century. I expanded this century into 20 year periods, and so far have Copernicus and Kepler as major figures. I've looked briefly at the application of Sociology and institutions. I'm also taking a look at expanding other areas of science.
Part of the motivation came from a renewed interest in chemistry. My version of the periodic table is now filled out, and I'm in the revising the appearance of the alphabetical list of elements.
I've also created a few more compound pages, including the simplest organic compounds, those with only one carbon atom, although I have notes on those with two carbon atoms. Organic chemistry gets very complicated, very fast, as the size of the carbon skeleton goes up.
In the process of filling out more details for the particular compounds, I found myself looking for physical properties, which suggests a review of physics, and thus led round about to deciding to invert the whole knowledge base. I started this with mechanics, particle mechanics in particular, but I will want to consider this in more detail.
In informal explorations of the local neighborhood, I've taken an interest in the local biology. It's the middle of the winter, so what I see most deals with biology, and particularly plants. I started attacking a bush with pruning clippers in order to clear a path down the hill so I can follow the runoff from my apartment's parking lot. This had the thorns (technically prickles) of a rose, so I spent a few hours searching the internet, and came up with a probable identification, Rosa multiflora. This bush had the high, arching branches associated with this species, abundant prickles (although some of its neighbors are more so). I couldn't find the clusters of tiny rose hips associated with this species at first, but found some the next time I attacked it.
Since the multiflora rose is now regarded as a pestiferous intrusive species ( it was intentional introduced some 80 years ago) , I figure no one's going to complain if I cut a few of them to pieces. I've been wanting to make contact with someone to give me help in plant identification, so I finally tracked down one of the county extension agents (by phone), and luckily got hold of one. Based on my description of the plant and where it was growing, he agreed with me that that's probably what it is, but a definite confirmation will have to wait a couple of weeks until everyone is back from vacation.
As part of my look at small scale, inexpensive industry, I started looking at stoves for heating. I'm not interested in the home scale, I'm interested for now in experimental, small scale heaters. There are some varieties that run on small branches and twigs, but since I rent and don't have property or much of a budget for tools and supplies, these aren't much use to me. This led me into what is called the pyrolysis, or destructive distillation of wood, and I got a quick review of the chemistry and physics of wood combustion. This interests me for several reasons, from both theoretical and applied points of view.
I'm taking a number of passes through science history, and started with modern history, concentrating on the 16th century. I expanded this century into 20 year periods, and so far have Copernicus and Kepler as major figures. I've looked briefly at the application of Sociology and institutions. I'm also taking a look at expanding other areas of science.
Part of the motivation came from a renewed interest in chemistry. My version of the periodic table is now filled out, and I'm in the revising the appearance of the alphabetical list of elements.
I've also created a few more compound pages, including the simplest organic compounds, those with only one carbon atom, although I have notes on those with two carbon atoms. Organic chemistry gets very complicated, very fast, as the size of the carbon skeleton goes up.
In the process of filling out more details for the particular compounds, I found myself looking for physical properties, which suggests a review of physics, and thus led round about to deciding to invert the whole knowledge base. I started this with mechanics, particle mechanics in particular, but I will want to consider this in more detail.
Friday, December 19, 2008
New Direction
The new direction I was taking at the end of my last post has seemed like an interesting enough direction that I have decided to pursue it somewhat more, and set aside the work I have been doing on history for a while. For some time, I've been frustrated that I can't seem to get to the practical, middle portions of the knowledge base.
I got a certain ways into pursuing the New Mexico direction, looking up real information for fictional characters, and decided that this was also a good approach for directing my own studies.
In the process, this turned out to give extra incentive to practical activities. I have a tendency to set aside some of the ordinary, mundane tasks of living aside until the last minute, which leads to more stress than I need to deal with. This also connects to what I've been grouping under administrative tasks, of record-keeping, financial management, so I've been working the pas two weeks on sorting the papers I keep into files. So, as a side benefit, my apartment is cleaner and looks better. I've also picked up my study of computer science, re-started my studies in Spanish, and taken a few outdoor walks, and done a little work on the history outline in the Knowledge Base to December. I've also given some time to considering community structure, and constructing maps of my local area. Yes, Google, and Mapquest, and Rand McNally all have maps on line, which is a useful geographic learning tool.
For some time, I've been speculating on renewable energy, and the various technical problems involved in the capture and storage of naturally-generated power. For a lot of purposes, we are dependent on the extraction and burning of fossil fuels for heating, motor fuel, and electricity. There are all kinds of technical problems with sources such as solar energy and wind power, since electric power is not easily stored, and the idea occurred to me some time back that one of the missing links is electrochemical fuel generation. I'm also interested in small technology, rather than the huge plants we usually use.
I was browsing the web and found that there are people who work with small, or micro scale hydroelectric power, but there isn't much off the shelf technology for it. It would not be a large technical problem, since motors and generators are in theory the same device run in different directions, but in practice, the equipment needs to be designed and optimized for a particular use. There isn't nearly the demand for a variety of small generators the way there is for small motors.
This prompted my curiosity on the generation of hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis, and again, there isn't much off-the shelf technology available for it.
This has also re-invigorated my interest in science. I took a walk down the hill near where I live, and though about the local ecology involved in a mixed deciduous forest area, in the Appalachian plateau (near the Monongahela River, resulting in a lot of hills and river and stream valleys). I'm not familiar with the various kinds of trees and plants, to that gives me some practical direction of study. This had something to do with my thoughts on hydropower, and I've also been interested in erosion. This, in turn, prompted some interest in Chemistry, and in looking up some formulas of fluid physics.
The other part if what I've been doing lately involves consideration of New Mexico, specifically Las Cruces. The State of New Mexico has promised funding for SpacePort America, contingent on five major steps. The Environmental Impact statement has been completed and the FAA/ACT has issued a license for the facility, which completes four of the five. The one remaining is to secure an "Anchor Tenant" for the spaceport, and that is expected to be completed by the end of the month. A construction management firm has been selected, and bidding for specific contracts should begin soon, with construction to begin early next year.
Several years back, when I began watching as the X-Prize was offered to prompt the development of reusable suborbital space vehicles, I noted Bert Rutan of Scaled Composites was one of the few contenders with the capability to actually build hardware, and I noted that his vehicle, SpaceShip One, carried by White Knight One, won that prize. Richard Branson founded a company called Virgin Galactic to use a new, enlarged version of that vehicle to carry paying passingers into suborbital flights. Virgin Galactic will be the anchor tenant for the spaceport, and the carrier aircraft, White Knight Two, has recently begun flight testing. I'm watching all this with some interest.
I got a certain ways into pursuing the New Mexico direction, looking up real information for fictional characters, and decided that this was also a good approach for directing my own studies.
In the process, this turned out to give extra incentive to practical activities. I have a tendency to set aside some of the ordinary, mundane tasks of living aside until the last minute, which leads to more stress than I need to deal with. This also connects to what I've been grouping under administrative tasks, of record-keeping, financial management, so I've been working the pas two weeks on sorting the papers I keep into files. So, as a side benefit, my apartment is cleaner and looks better. I've also picked up my study of computer science, re-started my studies in Spanish, and taken a few outdoor walks, and done a little work on the history outline in the Knowledge Base to December. I've also given some time to considering community structure, and constructing maps of my local area. Yes, Google, and Mapquest, and Rand McNally all have maps on line, which is a useful geographic learning tool.
For some time, I've been speculating on renewable energy, and the various technical problems involved in the capture and storage of naturally-generated power. For a lot of purposes, we are dependent on the extraction and burning of fossil fuels for heating, motor fuel, and electricity. There are all kinds of technical problems with sources such as solar energy and wind power, since electric power is not easily stored, and the idea occurred to me some time back that one of the missing links is electrochemical fuel generation. I'm also interested in small technology, rather than the huge plants we usually use.
I was browsing the web and found that there are people who work with small, or micro scale hydroelectric power, but there isn't much off the shelf technology for it. It would not be a large technical problem, since motors and generators are in theory the same device run in different directions, but in practice, the equipment needs to be designed and optimized for a particular use. There isn't nearly the demand for a variety of small generators the way there is for small motors.
This prompted my curiosity on the generation of hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis, and again, there isn't much off-the shelf technology available for it.
This has also re-invigorated my interest in science. I took a walk down the hill near where I live, and though about the local ecology involved in a mixed deciduous forest area, in the Appalachian plateau (near the Monongahela River, resulting in a lot of hills and river and stream valleys). I'm not familiar with the various kinds of trees and plants, to that gives me some practical direction of study. This had something to do with my thoughts on hydropower, and I've also been interested in erosion. This, in turn, prompted some interest in Chemistry, and in looking up some formulas of fluid physics.
The other part if what I've been doing lately involves consideration of New Mexico, specifically Las Cruces. The State of New Mexico has promised funding for SpacePort America, contingent on five major steps. The Environmental Impact statement has been completed and the FAA/ACT has issued a license for the facility, which completes four of the five. The one remaining is to secure an "Anchor Tenant" for the spaceport, and that is expected to be completed by the end of the month. A construction management firm has been selected, and bidding for specific contracts should begin soon, with construction to begin early next year.
Several years back, when I began watching as the X-Prize was offered to prompt the development of reusable suborbital space vehicles, I noted Bert Rutan of Scaled Composites was one of the few contenders with the capability to actually build hardware, and I noted that his vehicle, SpaceShip One, carried by White Knight One, won that prize. Richard Branson founded a company called Virgin Galactic to use a new, enlarged version of that vehicle to carry paying passingers into suborbital flights. Virgin Galactic will be the anchor tenant for the spaceport, and the carrier aircraft, White Knight Two, has recently begun flight testing. I'm watching all this with some interest.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Current quarter
I've been working for the last few days mostly in the last couple of months, October and November. Some of this involves summarizing events in the United States, and in the process expanding particular states. Some of it involves creating links to education and families. This is interesting because it brings forward the possibility of categorizing events according to, say, principally economic, or principally government, or principally religious. This is still in progress, and I need to widen the links from October to fill in a few gaps, and continue with November for the most current events.
In an entirely different development, I occasionally dip back into science fiction role playing games, Traveller, to be specific, and practice world building as a way of thinking about and organizing various ideas. Although this is primarily set in the far future, It's not too hard to adapt one version of it or another to the near future, or even the present. I decided to look up information on the New Mexico Spaceport that's been under discussion, and tracked it down
to its planned location near Las Cruces, New Mexico, and see what I could see about actual progress. (New Mexico is evaluating bids from principal contractors before one is selected to manage the project, as nearly as I could tell.) In the process, I've been learning about the various tourist and other attractions and something about the city and the region.
In an entirely different development, I occasionally dip back into science fiction role playing games, Traveller, to be specific, and practice world building as a way of thinking about and organizing various ideas. Although this is primarily set in the far future, It's not too hard to adapt one version of it or another to the near future, or even the present. I decided to look up information on the New Mexico Spaceport that's been under discussion, and tracked it down
to its planned location near Las Cruces, New Mexico, and see what I could see about actual progress. (New Mexico is evaluating bids from principal contractors before one is selected to manage the project, as nearly as I could tell.) In the process, I've been learning about the various tourist and other attractions and something about the city and the region.
Friday, November 21, 2008
New update
I've published the latest version of my web site. It seems that I have a misdirected link somewhere, that's causing my web site editor's link checker to reference a whole bunch of files that don't exist, but that's a nuisance rather than a real impediment.
For some time, I've been wanting to cut down on the size of the site map and break it into a number of parts, so that search engines can index it better. I started that, but I'm not nearly done yet. I mentioned that I had a connection to current events, which is good, except that development of links from the fourth quarter aren't up to what they are for earlier quarters, so I have some catching up to do.
I've also begun working on other areas. For instance, in the United States, I have about 20 of the 50 states grouped into three major regions, many of them with a place to put notes on history of the particular state, or region. I'm gradually adding provinces to China, as well.
I'm starting to make better progress at digesting the stream of disconnected facts into organized knowledge, which will give content and meaning to the knowledge base, instead of having mostly a skeletal collection of links to content-barren pages. It remains to be seen how this will go.
For some time, I've been wanting to cut down on the size of the site map and break it into a number of parts, so that search engines can index it better. I started that, but I'm not nearly done yet. I mentioned that I had a connection to current events, which is good, except that development of links from the fourth quarter aren't up to what they are for earlier quarters, so I have some catching up to do.
I've also begun working on other areas. For instance, in the United States, I have about 20 of the 50 states grouped into three major regions, many of them with a place to put notes on history of the particular state, or region. I'm gradually adding provinces to China, as well.
I'm starting to make better progress at digesting the stream of disconnected facts into organized knowledge, which will give content and meaning to the knowledge base, instead of having mostly a skeletal collection of links to content-barren pages. It remains to be seen how this will go.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
More recent history
I'm starting to look all the way up to the 20th century level of history to make sure that I have precedent for the aids links at lower levels. That, and the early 21st century, are being linked to types of societies as the most interesting links I'm adding. For 2008, I'm starting to make forward progress instead of just catching up. At this and lower levels, interesting links are being made to the sciences. I skipped the 2nd quarter again and went to the 3rd quarter, where I'm adding events to analyze to August 2008. I had hoped to do more analysis for September 2008, but this is coming together slowly. For the fourth quarter, I'm getting closer to the state of development I have for the third. For October 2008, I have the list of events to analyze, and am starting to break his down by countries and topics. This is one of the marks I've been looking forward to reach, so I have a pretty much continuous record from August to the present. The next goal will be to fill in the gap between where I left off last June, and August. The last few passes have gone into the future, but since by the time I got to it, I was getting worn out for the
day and not making any further progress, I skipped it for once.
I had made a list of the largest files, and I use this as a rough guide to the pages that need to be split up. Very large, fat files are much more difficult to work with. The history of sociology, or history applied to sociology, was one of those, and I've been procrastinating creating a new page with just the modern history part for some time. That wasn't quite as tough as I had been expecting, so I went ahead and separated out the modern history part of peoples of the world, and wound up writing expanded summaries of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. I also separated out modern history of Western Civilization onto a separate page, and made rather more progress on connecting biographies pages to it. The Anglic peoples section I pretty much skipped over to get to the United States, which has been nagging at me for some time. This was large enough for a split, so I separated out the sociology section to a new page and did some tweaking of the format. US History is one of the largest pages in the whole base, because so much of it has been simply copied wholesale from the fat month-by-month pages. I'm afraid it's going to get bigger before it gets shorter, but I made a start on condensing it with events of November. I also took the trouble to expand a few more state pages.
Up to this point, a good deal of my work in the knowledge base has been more or less limited to the creation of links between different pages so that I could quickly jump from one to another, and it's been at times a rather mind-numbing routine. However, all this groundwork is starting to pay off, and I will be doing more analysis and writing which requires (and permits!) actual thought, rather than semi-mechanical linking and compilation, although there will still be plenty of that, too.
day and not making any further progress, I skipped it for once.
I had made a list of the largest files, and I use this as a rough guide to the pages that need to be split up. Very large, fat files are much more difficult to work with. The history of sociology, or history applied to sociology, was one of those, and I've been procrastinating creating a new page with just the modern history part for some time. That wasn't quite as tough as I had been expecting, so I went ahead and separated out the modern history part of peoples of the world, and wound up writing expanded summaries of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. I also separated out modern history of Western Civilization onto a separate page, and made rather more progress on connecting biographies pages to it. The Anglic peoples section I pretty much skipped over to get to the United States, which has been nagging at me for some time. This was large enough for a split, so I separated out the sociology section to a new page and did some tweaking of the format. US History is one of the largest pages in the whole base, because so much of it has been simply copied wholesale from the fat month-by-month pages. I'm afraid it's going to get bigger before it gets shorter, but I made a start on condensing it with events of November. I also took the trouble to expand a few more state pages.
Up to this point, a good deal of my work in the knowledge base has been more or less limited to the creation of links between different pages so that I could quickly jump from one to another, and it's been at times a rather mind-numbing routine. However, all this groundwork is starting to pay off, and I will be doing more analysis and writing which requires (and permits!) actual thought, rather than semi-mechanical linking and compilation, although there will still be plenty of that, too.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Catching up
For the past few days I've been working rather heavily in the current year. The late 2000s have nations pushed well ahead of where I am currently working, because I did so much on this a year agon, and then set current events aside to work on other parts of the knowledge base. However, there is still connection of other areas that needed to be done. I have set events of 2006 and 2007 aside for now, but hope to get back to them before too long. The major concentration is on events of this year, 2008. I have also set aside development of the first quarter and second quarter, though I expect to get back to this. In the third quarter, I haven't done much with July lately, but I've been working in August, adding events a day at a time. For September, my notes on events are more or elss complete, and I am working on rearranging them by nations and topics, so this will invomve more analysis and rewrite than other areas. I've been working intensively on the fourth quarter, to try to get this caught up on current events, and I have notes on them for about halfway through October. November is now up to date, as far as my principal source goes.
I have also been working with the future, including the near future, which breaks down to the current month. There are events that are scheduled but have not yet occurred in November, and a few more scheduled for December. For the next quarter, I'm looking at January, and I'm also reviewingn connections for the next year.
Sociology is going rather slowly, with all the effort in history. I've been working on developing the pages for the States in the United States, since they are so important for analyzing history. I've also picked up the program for adding states of India. I'm a little further ahead on provinces of China. I have also extended the list of cities, and I will be working on connecting these to the proper peoples. I've had intentions of going deeper into social structure and change, but haven't reached that far in my daily efforts. I haven't been working much with other areas lately, except as they are being connected to various periods of history.
I have also been working with the future, including the near future, which breaks down to the current month. There are events that are scheduled but have not yet occurred in November, and a few more scheduled for December. For the next quarter, I'm looking at January, and I'm also reviewingn connections for the next year.
Sociology is going rather slowly, with all the effort in history. I've been working on developing the pages for the States in the United States, since they are so important for analyzing history. I've also picked up the program for adding states of India. I'm a little further ahead on provinces of China. I have also extended the list of cities, and I will be working on connecting these to the proper peoples. I've had intentions of going deeper into social structure and change, but haven't reached that far in my daily efforts. I haven't been working much with other areas lately, except as they are being connected to various periods of history.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Working back
Almost 30 years ago, when I returned from two years in Bolivia, I started a project of clipping
from newspapers the prominent events of the day and trying to write a continouous story based on current events. It quickly got out of hand, and I gave it up, but it was fun while it lasted.
A few years later, I tried the same thing. I've been trying to build toward that same sort of thing in the knowledge base.
Over the weekend, I've been concentrationg on a narrow slice of history; the section that deals most closely with current events. It's a challege to keep up up with, them, since so many occor on a daily basis, and at the same time I'm trying to keep up with them, I'm also trying to expand the knowledge base in other areas. I think I have enough nations and other related topics to
come closer to keeping up. At this point, it's still to be seen, whether I can succeed.
from newspapers the prominent events of the day and trying to write a continouous story based on current events. It quickly got out of hand, and I gave it up, but it was fun while it lasted.
A few years later, I tried the same thing. I've been trying to build toward that same sort of thing in the knowledge base.
Over the weekend, I've been concentrationg on a narrow slice of history; the section that deals most closely with current events. It's a challege to keep up up with, them, since so many occor on a daily basis, and at the same time I'm trying to keep up with them, I'm also trying to expand the knowledge base in other areas. I think I have enough nations and other related topics to
come closer to keeping up. At this point, it's still to be seen, whether I can succeed.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Early 2000s
Actually, this begins with the early 1990s, which I extended back a year to 1992, but don't have much useful content. However, I did finally adjust the site map to reflect the current pages, which have extended both backward and forward since the last update around March.
In the late 1990s, I added a nation for each year, and did some minor tweaks of the information from modern history.
For the early 2000s, the year-by year analysis has been updated to reflect events in India, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. These are well worked over, but there is value in looking at the largest nations. I addded another quarter to 2004, and did some preliminary work in the quarters of 2005 getting ready to begin adding nations.
In the late 1990s, I added a nation for each year, and did some minor tweaks of the information from modern history.
For the early 2000s, the year-by year analysis has been updated to reflect events in India, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. These are well worked over, but there is value in looking at the largest nations. I addded another quarter to 2004, and did some preliminary work in the quarters of 2005 getting ready to begin adding nations.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Early 21st century
I finished the last round of expanding months of 2008, and got this caught up to what I had done for the 3rd quarter of 2008. This time through, I started at the first quarter of 2005, so this was an extension backwards. I got all the way through to 2007 3rd quarter and started picking up Monts with August. I had already created a page for this before, but this time I'm checking the links and topics I let slide the first time around. I have a bit more summary in 2008, especially in the 3rd quarter now. The last time I did serious work at this level of detail in history, several months ago, I was seeing a lot of Pakistan, so now I have a better sense of what has happened there since then.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
2008
Today's developments are limited to the gradual expansion of events of the past year. I've noted that India and China have both made significant achievemts in rocketry, launching satellites. I don;t know if I've noted that China completed its third manned spacefulight, which makes it a place to be watched.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Recent events and an update
I've been working mostly on recent events for the past few days. I don't know that I mentioned that I now have pretty much a continuous sequence of periods from earliest prehistory to the present, with no gaps. Not all are equally detailed, and I don't have all the content filled in, but
I have a solid backbone so that I can hange everything else on it.
For now, within history I am not going to be creating pages at any more detailed level than monthly, unless from time to time, complex, fast-moving, complex events require it.
I also pushed my way through the list of US States and now have a page for each. There isn't any content to most of them yet; that will have to get filled in later, but it's a start.
I have a solid backbone so that I can hange everything else on it.
For now, within history I am not going to be creating pages at any more detailed level than monthly, unless from time to time, complex, fast-moving, complex events require it.
I also pushed my way through the list of US States and now have a page for each. There isn't any content to most of them yet; that will have to get filled in later, but it's a start.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
More history
I've been pretty much working in modern history for the past couple of weeks. I decided to go
through and extend the aids in each of the 20 year periods. This also means that quite a few more subjects have links to these periods, but there still isn't much depth to them. I've done the same (extending the aids) to 5 year periods of the 20th century.
through and extend the aids in each of the 20 year periods. This also means that quite a few more subjects have links to these periods, but there still isn't much depth to them. I've done the same (extending the aids) to 5 year periods of the 20th century.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Update
I finished the review of the Sciences and published the latest round of updates to the Web, so they are all now visible.
Now I've started a new round.
For History in general, I've done a little cleaning up of the history using sociology page, distributed a few nations to the various peoples, reorganized the connections to Latin peoples and to the Middle East. For the history using institutions, there weren't many new sections in the last round, so this mostly involved starting to put the companies in better order in the economics section, and cleaning up the connections to science.
Prehistory also got a little bit of cleanup and distribution of a few particular nations. Again, the Latin peoples and Middle East benefited most from the reorganization. I didn't go into particular periods of prehistory this time.
Antiquity in general got the same treatment: a few more nations connected, and a reorganization of Latin peoples and the middle east, and the connection to sciences done a little better. Likewise, I didn't go into particular millennia of history.
All of these areas need better development of social structure and change before I go into the details of such things as religion and government, but they need to be developed and connected to more recent periods of history first.
Now I've started a new round.
For History in general, I've done a little cleaning up of the history using sociology page, distributed a few nations to the various peoples, reorganized the connections to Latin peoples and to the Middle East. For the history using institutions, there weren't many new sections in the last round, so this mostly involved starting to put the companies in better order in the economics section, and cleaning up the connections to science.
Prehistory also got a little bit of cleanup and distribution of a few particular nations. Again, the Latin peoples and Middle East benefited most from the reorganization. I didn't go into particular periods of prehistory this time.
Antiquity in general got the same treatment: a few more nations connected, and a reorganization of Latin peoples and the middle east, and the connection to sciences done a little better. Likewise, I didn't go into particular millennia of history.
All of these areas need better development of social structure and change before I go into the details of such things as religion and government, but they need to be developed and connected to more recent periods of history first.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Anthropology and Personal studies
I got through the section on human geography. Some of the lower level pages hadn't been touched in two years. I didn't add much, a link or two to each, but this slow growth in the detail pages is part of the process. I got through human ecology, physical anthropology, demography, and social foundations sections as well. Many of these are so far linking back to high level areas in the sociology section.
Since I'm creating two links, that is, when I link from one page to a second, I also create a link from the second page back to the first, this means that in some cases, I do more work on a subject through the links back than I did to its page in the first place. This is helpful in speeding up pages in the neglected middle sections.
I also started in on personal studies, and did a review of biography. I didn't go much deeper on most of the various subjects that still need to be linked to biographies. Once I got the sociology and peoples sections linked, the urgency of doing biographies started to fall off, and these are being handles more indirectly now. I also did a review of he psychology section. I didn't quite get through the human body, which will be the next subject up. I'm still on track for finishing this round by the weekend.
Since I'm creating two links, that is, when I link from one page to a second, I also create a link from the second page back to the first, this means that in some cases, I do more work on a subject through the links back than I did to its page in the first place. This is helpful in speeding up pages in the neglected middle sections.
I also started in on personal studies, and did a review of biography. I didn't go much deeper on most of the various subjects that still need to be linked to biographies. Once I got the sociology and peoples sections linked, the urgency of doing biographies started to fall off, and these are being handles more indirectly now. I also did a review of he psychology section. I didn't quite get through the human body, which will be the next subject up. I'm still on track for finishing this round by the weekend.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Institutions, Culture, and Anthropology
Skip a day, and thing just start piling up. I went through the government, making new connections, and developing a few more. In Economics, I had been having some trouble with how to organize the various companies. I had decided to handle them similarly to the way I've been handing nations: assigning them to industries as they come up, but I hadn't yet done much with that approach. I also added links to a couple more universities, but since these don't seem to break down into types like companies, do, I may have to rely on the geographic and regional organization. I have reached a little but further into families as well.
Going through the culture section took me a couple of days. In the Behavioral culture section, I created a number of links. The conceptual culture section was a little more pleasing: I finally have a page for philosophical schools and doctrines, and there was some satisfying progress on applied sciences. I didn't quite get to do much with math, and did less than I would have liked with literature, graphic arts, or language, but if I don't follow the program, I get really bogged down. Material culture is also an area I have been wanting to develop, so I'm pleased with what I did this time around. Some of these sections haven't been touched in almost a year, so it's really about time I did something more here.
I've begun working on Anthropology, and after an initial review, I started in on particular groups, which still lack specific detail. I'm hoping to identify significant ones from a study of history. I also started in on human geography, but only the main page so far, and not specific details.
I should be able to go through the remainder of Anthropology before too long, since this section isn't really detailed. By the end of the week, once I've finished reviews of Personal studies and Science, I should be ready to publish the updates that I've been reporting.
Going through the culture section took me a couple of days. In the Behavioral culture section, I created a number of links. The conceptual culture section was a little more pleasing: I finally have a page for philosophical schools and doctrines, and there was some satisfying progress on applied sciences. I didn't quite get to do much with math, and did less than I would have liked with literature, graphic arts, or language, but if I don't follow the program, I get really bogged down. Material culture is also an area I have been wanting to develop, so I'm pleased with what I did this time around. Some of these sections haven't been touched in almost a year, so it's really about time I did something more here.
I've begun working on Anthropology, and after an initial review, I started in on particular groups, which still lack specific detail. I'm hoping to identify significant ones from a study of history. I also started in on human geography, but only the main page so far, and not specific details.
I should be able to go through the remainder of Anthropology before too long, since this section isn't really detailed. By the end of the week, once I've finished reviews of Personal studies and Science, I should be ready to publish the updates that I've been reporting.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Religion
In another split, I created a new history of religion page. I did minimal addition of new nations, since this is already so well advanced over other topics, but I did a little connection of social structure and change and education. I also advanced the number of biographies connected to history, about 1/4 of the way through the list.
In particular religions, I managed to create links from each division of Abrahamic religion, the major divisions of Asiatic religion, several of pagan religion, and secularism. Some of these pages hadn't been touched in a year, so this was some progress. I still don't have proper subdivisions of religious organization, practice, or belief. These will have to wait until I can start examining the particular religions in more detail.
I also reviewed the main government page. The history section is updated, but like many other history sections it lacks enough detail to make it interesting. Sociology is extended a little bit better, and connections with economics are better developed. I also did some connection of individuals to government.
Next up are details of government, and possibly economics.
In particular religions, I managed to create links from each division of Abrahamic religion, the major divisions of Asiatic religion, several of pagan religion, and secularism. Some of these pages hadn't been touched in a year, so this was some progress. I still don't have proper subdivisions of religious organization, practice, or belief. These will have to wait until I can start examining the particular religions in more detail.
I also reviewed the main government page. The history section is updated, but like many other history sections it lacks enough detail to make it interesting. Sociology is extended a little bit better, and connections with economics are better developed. I also did some connection of individuals to government.
Next up are details of government, and possibly economics.
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