Equations

One of the coolest things about the Internet is the ability to transport yourself elsewhere in the world, at least virtually, to see sights you may never see in person. Today, Google launched the Art Project which I absolutely love.

By following the above link, you can explore museums all over the world, and view masterpieces at very high resolution images.

Art museums have long been places that fire my imagination. To me, every painting is a kind of visual story. As I gaze at them, I can feel the painter's effort to weave a narrative in a very different medium from words.

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Computers are still our main access point to the Internet, but that will change as mobile devices replace desktops and laptops. Early adapters are already lugging iPads and Kindles and smart phones wherever they go, and an increasingly wired planet (actually to be precise, wireless planet) is facilitating their ability to stay connected wherever and whenever they wish to be.

But this explosion has never been about computers, or any other devices so much as it has been about the human networks. Networks of people are the most powerful new weapon for social change. Thus, the eruption of political protests in Egypt is a direct result of people's ability to organize themselves by using digital tools.

As the Egyptian government futilely tries to suppress a revolt that has now reached historical proportions by cutting off Internet access, activists find new ways to get around censorship and continue to connect. What we are witnessing all around the globe is the end of state power that does not enjoy sufficient popular support to endure in this powerful new era of freedom of information.

In many ways, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has finally come to life as the prevailing value of the 21st Century. There will be changes in every society due to this new reality. In the U.S., the Tea Party is one early consequence of the emergence of an unfettered First Amendment, but there will be others, particularly as progressive movements better appreciate the new opportunity to organize fellow citizens committed to social change.

I suspect (and predict) that the people currently labeled as "undocumented immigrants" will soon discover that they can exercise their very real economic and political power by organizing themselves online. Imagine an America where no houses are cleaned, no gardens are tended, no children are cared for, no fruits or vegetables are harvested, no new houses are built, and no offices are maintained, and you will easily see what I mean.

It's only a matter of time.

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Yesterday and today in San Francisco, you might almost feel guilty that as we experience such high temperatures that sunbathers are out in string bikinis and the rest of us in T-shirts, the middle part of our country is buried under one of the worst snowstorms in recorded history.

I worry about my family members back there.

Meanwhile, the first pink blossoms have appeared on our plum trees, and today, up on Bernal Hill, my daughter rejoiced in the many blooming flowers as we walked the dogs. From one side of that hill, I looked over at the old Candlestick Park, the former home of what is now our World Champion Giants; from the other side I gazed at the stadium in China Basin, their new home by the Bay.
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In our family, a recurring theme of the relationship between parent and child is math. As much as I love the subject, I curse it. Is there any other segment of human knowledge that causes more angst among students and their parents?

I will not say more, out of respect for the privacy of my children, but I've burned more cycles on math homework lately than on writing. Maybe that is as it should be, however, as I seem to be the only person I know whose brain appears to be split down the middle, with equal tissue devoted to words as to numbers.

My kids have random distributions that fall along this scale. My job is to help bring it all back into balance.

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