r buckminster fuller.

[Slarti]

read about him in illuminatus of course. any of his stuff worth reading? i tried to read something about him online but it started talking about geometric synergetics or something and i was frightened off.

[Trollax]

read about him in illuminatus of course. any of his stuff worth reading? i tried to read something about him online but it started talking about geometric synergetics or something and i was frightened off.

Hyperspatial geometry not for you eh?

can't get enough of it... give me the list of his weirdest.

[Trollax]

*slaps forehad* silly me... Here I am, sitting in a library with easily half a million booksinit, and I can just go to the science section and look up his entries in journals and periodicals...
*grins maliciously*

[Slarti]

errr okay. fine i'll go read some stuff from him. trollax you keep adding stuff to my reading list..

[St. Pynchon]

'No More Secondhand God' has some of his poetry.  Good stuff, IMHO.  An excerpt:

The revolution has come -
set on fire from the top.
Let it burn swiftly.
Neither the branches, trunk, nor roots will be endangered.
Only last years leaves and
the parasite-bearded moss and orchids
will not be there
when the next spring brings fresh growth
and free standing flowers.
. . .
Here is God's purpose -
for God to me, it seems,
is a verb
not a noun,
proper or improper;
is the articulation
not the art, objective or subjective;
is loving,
not the abstraction "love" commanded or entreated;
is knowledge dynamic,
not legislative code,
not proclamation law,
not academic dogma, nor ecclesiastic canon.
Yes, God is a verb,
the most active,
connoting the vast harmonic
reordering of the universe
from unleashed chaos of energy.
And there is born unheralded
a great natural peace,
not out of exclusive
pseudo-static security
but out of including, refining, dynamic balancing.
Naught is lost.
Only the false and nonexistent are dispelled.

And I've thought through to tomorrow
which is also today.
The telephone rings
and you say to me
Hello Buckling this is Christopher; or
Daddy it's Allegra; or
Mr. Fuller this is the Telephone Company Business Office;
and I say you are inaccurate.
Because I knew you were going to call
and furthermore I recognize
that it is God who is "speaking."

And you say
aren't you being fantastic?
And knowing you I say no.

At least a quarter of a billion people
sit quietly for hours in
darkened halls.
And they say they are "at the movies"
not looking at anyone or anything real.
They certainly don't see the screen.
I say they are looking at God.
. . .
and there is now only half a world left,
and one-half of our time remaining
in which to
"let our hair all the way down"
and say, "We have plenty, we have
the means, the ability, the knowledge.
Let us start the mechanism
to creative account;
not to vast and vaster destruction."

,ĶNo one in America will say that its leader
is overstepping his authorized bounds
if he takes sincere, forthright, and
adequately big steps
to accomplish world healing.

God will be handling the radio-telegraph
for such a mandated dictatorship; and
Democracy is not challenged by such a dictator
whose very first move must and will be
tidal-waved with Demos authority.

Stop "calling names"
Names that are meaningless;
You can't suppress God
by killing off people
which are, physically, only trans-ceiver mechanisms
Through which God is broadcasting.

But his requirement is dynamic and
if man-mechanism proves too inefficient as an invention
he will immediately devise a cataclysmic improvement.

- R. Buckminster Fuller, 1940


Don't let the math scare you, Fuller was a true polymath and his writing reflects it.  Just find the angle (or omnidirectional construct of your choice) you can handle and run with it.

[chaosgraves:agentoferis]

I enjoy synergenics... It also has some poetry as well as hyperspatial geometry. really if you pick up any of his books and have an aversion to math you should be able to skip around and find some poetry philosophy or pretty pictures to look at.

[Slarti]

i like math- the large vocabulary on the site just scared me at first. i'll check out hyperspatial geometry. what is it though?

[Rupert Giles]

i like math- the large vocabulary on the site just scared me at first. i'll check out hyperspatial geometry. what is it though?

Do a google search for Klein Bottle.

[Slarti]

ohhh i see.

[Rupert Giles]

Oh, and just because this is a little personal von Kleist family irritation, and the name Klein brought it up, have you ever heard of a Leyden Jar?

[Slarti]

nope. i have heard of a klein bottle but not a lyeden jar

[Rupert Giles]

nope. i have heard of a klein bottle but not a lyeden jar

Good.  Because it's not a Leyden Jar.  It's a Kleistian Jar, god Dammit!

Carl Eric von Kleist, IV.
Representing for the Dead, Overlooked Family Members, yo.
*Empties a Pint of St. Pauli Girl out onto the Cobblestone*

[SMFabal]

Ooooo .. annother inventor whose invention got someone else's name on it forever ... welcome to the real world.

[Rupert Giles]

Ooooo .. annother inventor whose invention got someone else's name on it forever ... welcome to the real world.

Hey.  I go out and evangilise Hienrich's works, too.

Kleist.Org -- Dedicated to Trackin' my Fucking Family (Warning -- German Site)

[Donkeyotay]

read about him in illuminatus of course. any of his stuff worth reading? i tried to read something about him online but it started talking about geometric synergetics or something and i was frightened off.

The critical Path is good read