Tesselations: Dodecagons, squares and implied hexagons

General strike in Oakland, Wednesday, November 2.

Re Occupied Oakland. General strike in Oakland on Wednesday.

 Frank Ogawa Plaza, a.k.a. Oscar Grant Plaza, is once again filled with people.

 And this time we brought vuvuzelas!

To be fair, I shouldn't use the plural.  This was the only visible (and audible) vuvuzela.

 The theme last Wednesday included good looking and well behaved dogs.  

This theme continues.

 On Wednesday night, I noticed no smell of urine or weed.

This afternoon... no smell of urine.

If you get my drift.

 At the steps in front of City Hall, speaker after speaker got up and gave call and response, talking about what they did to organize today in different parts of the city.  This guy went to Fruitvale near International Boulevard.

What are they organizing, you might ask?  A general strike in Oakland for this Wednesday.  I have three jobs right now, but I can't say how many I'll have at the beginning of the year. My work situation is very tenuous and the future it doesn't look like it will get better any time soon.  

All my work on Wednesday is in Oakland.  

I will be on strike and I will be able to tell my students why this Monday.

This is a town where police tear gas peaceful protesters and IT DOESN'T WORK.

This is a town where a cop shoots an unarmed man in custody in the back, the video goes up on YouTube, some idiot L.A. jury gives the cop the least conviction possible and some even stupider L.A. judge gives the bastard the minimum sentence.

If you are down in the plaza on Wednesday, who knows?  Maybe I'll see you there.

The done blowed up function hits close to home.

You're not new here, are you? You know how I feel about numbers.

Okay, just so we are clear.

The other blog is still more popular than this one, but it has been fading recently. I check in on it today just out of idle curiousity and what do I see?The blog traffic today done BLOWED UP!!!!!!

(Click on picture for larger and done blowed uppy-er.)

My sitemeter data only keeps track of the last hundred entries, so I can't tell exactly what accounts for eight times more traffic today than yesterday, but the big excitement right now is this picture of Kate Middleton in a white bikini.

(Click for larger and just about equal hotness.  She looks foine, as the young people say.)

A picture that is several years old and can be found in lots of places around the Internet.

But for some reason, people have decided MY nicked copy is the only one of earth and they are flocking to the site like it's a shrine to hot babe-ness.

Go figure.

The police try to Occupy Oakland. The people have other ideas.

The neighborhood of 12th Street and Broadway is an easy bike ride from my apartment, one BART station north of my home station of Lake Merritt. Tonight, there were blocks of satellite trucks from the local stations, both those that broadcast in English and in Spanish.

The news is interested because yesterday in the wee small hours, the Oakland cops came in with tear gas to close down the campsite of Occupy Oakland, the area behind this fence, behind this handsome and well-behaved dog. As you can see, much of the grass turned brown. That will happen when you cover it for many days. I was there on Monday, the afternoon before the early morning crackdown. The place was clean and peaceful. There was no wafting scent of urine or herb. I hella (Heart) Oakland, but I will admit you can find those smells more often than you might like in many neighborhoods.

Not at the campsite on Monday. People were organizing to protect themselves. They were sharing food. They were playing chess. A peaceful assembly, not unlike that given to us as a right in our Constitution.

There were lots of signs. A woman was just finishing painting this one.

This father and son were nice enough to show both of these for my camera.

Yet another handsome and well-behaved dog, one of the definite themes I saw this evening.

And signs. Signs were a definite theme.

And a third theme. People ready for the fucking Oakland cops to show up again with tear gas.

I'm in this neighborhood at least once a week to pick up the headlines for the silly tabloid blog. I promise to bring my camera to keep track of the goings on.

Penrose patterns #13a and #13b : The clusters

Cluster #1

Date: 23 October 2011

Type: Pattern

Number of tiles: 230

Color breakdown: 75, purple, 55 yellow, 100 blue

Shape breakdown: 130 darts, 100 kites

Kosher Penrose tiling rules: no

Cluster #2

Date: 23 October 2011

Type: Pattern

Number of tiles: 330

Color breakdown: 125, purple, 105 yellow, 100 blue

Shape breakdown: 175 darts, 155 kites

Kosher Penrose tiling rules: no

They remind me of military medals.

An enemy of the United States is dead. Where are the cheers from the loyal opposition?

So Qadhafi is dead. At the end of the Reagan administration, a PanAm plane blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland and Libyan intelligence was linked to the act. A lot of people treated him like a buffoon or clown, but as I recall, many people saw Mussolini that way during his lifetime, but no one was confused about him being on the side of the bad guys.

But the Republicans today are the gang who can't shoot straight, and one of the least straight shooters is old Straight Talk Express himself, John McCain, aka Grumpy Grandpa Walnuts, who was sucking up to Mickey Rourke's slightly uglier twin barely more than two years ago. What could have possessed him?

And who showed him how to use Twitter?

I don't see how patriots can support these clowns.