Surely Different

"It sounded a bit like ducks quacking and the complex resonance of a rich musical instrument combined. In retrospect, a celebration of analog perception as a function of time. Its artifactual content barely distinguishable from an ancient pre-human signature. Did that mean something special? If felt that way. Should one trust that feeling?"

Reading it created a flood of gratifying illumination. Sound as light. His fingers stood poised to record the mind dump. And then, as if on cue, it began.

Announcing the Cosmic Treasure alpha. For regular readers this post may not come as much of a surprise. Since the first decode flag of subliminal perception's roll in enlightenment, a motivational pattern traceable to childhood held promise in the mission.

Evidence of the treasure and its great value was anything but precise. It left little doubt, though that much good would come from the revelation of its location and significance.

Pinging remote locations made sense. There was little risk in doing so. It was not clear yet just how many layers existed between them and here so making maximum but timely use of each layer seemed wise. What would the pinged message contain? Highest entropy.

Under Weather

He could not get comfortable, the virus sapped his strength. Yet he was unable to deeply rest. In this state it was hard for him to see the experience as anything that could be described as productive. Yet, wise folk advised to seek what one could learn from it. Asking the question, and reviewing the advice, he did think of something relevant.

Systems started shutting down to divert energy to fighting the invader. Who or what exactly was the invader? The body's defense had to identify the invader, see it as distinct from the useful parties. It is not enough to just tag cells, organs etc. as useful. The tags need to be managed over time because life is change.

Sitting on enough destructive power to instantly destroy the physical vehicle on a moment's notice. Aspects of this weaponry could respond to the minutest signal if that signal was selected by the evolving defense. From one perspective, 'shoot first and ask questions later' supported survival. Hardly ideal though.

Critters dependent on a wider context required a more sophisticated defense. One that could allow a rapport to develop with an unknown conscious entity, friend or foe. Was a virus something like a message? Such as, "I am a pattern that is a threat to you, learn me and you will know how to defend against those like me?"

Many questions, and even through the haze he knew they were not a waste. The model of the mind that extends beyond a brain and even beyond the skin supports the concept of awareness residing not in a concentration between the ears but in interacting fields widely distributed.

His congested, achey hunch was something like: Code for this. Danger lurks. You have caught it early. Apply the patterns you know. Be open to discovering new ones in the library. Remember the library is a system. You have time to contact the other branches.

Getting well from this point of view is not nearly as mind-numbing, he thought. What happened recently that might provide a clue for updating 'defense'. Altercation with capable manager with on outsized ego. Fueled by an organization and industry that might be believing its own hype? A debate driven by saber-rattling rather than seeking a better way. Who are the friends not under siege? Contact them, when readyl

On to something? … Maybe. Let it percolate...

We have come to the bridge.

The two primary options, more resources and better efficiency were available. They in turn were subject to competitive forces in the eco-system. Subjects were tuned by their nature to convenient repetition of primitive advocacy. The machinery to deliver it had evolved over hundreds of years and recently accelerated in both cost-effectiveness and reach.

Old school was to use large quantities of the universal means of exchange to purchase influence. Effective for many decades, this management technique was highly refined and able to dominate its competition. Times were changing, though.

The new school could be described as the confluence of low cost access to the triune brain population and a better awareness. Mass consumption of the accepted teaching was at variance with common sense in the new light.

Some were deeply vested in old school. A plutocracy of perception had enjoyed a long run, largely because there was a surplus of wealth. Wealth as capacity to exercise free-will has been shown to reach a happiness plateau. Beyond reaching this level the returns just don't seem to justify the increasing expense.

Past the happiness threshold, an inordinate influence has a variety of detrimental effects. Among them is the addictive nature of feeding the nearly limitless capacity of the human ego. Another is the necessity to detach from happiness inducing relationships - for safety, to protect denial, to indulge oneself to escape etc.

So the larger obstacle at this stage was not that some revolutionary paradigm need be adopted. No, it was our old 'friend' the uglier side of the ego and its many manifestations. This, of course, has been well known for a very long time indeed. What is new, thanks to the project, is the ability to codify the relevant patterns and synthesize new procedures for predicting optimal trigger points.

They knew for several weeks now that the two consuming tasks of late were connected. Now it was becoming apparent why. A heretofore hidden aspect of the medium to support the anthropologic fields was becoming explicit revealing a whole new set of salient relationships. It was not an accident that it seemed as if someone or some group wanted to impede the rapid discovery they had been experiencing.

You might want to reconsider.

Once again, time to update the Catastrophe Disclosure Trigger. When first implemented the mechanism simply monitored an inhibit input once a week. If the inhibit command was not received in a timely fashion, the entire conditional data set was automatically distributed. This kept the bad guys vigilant. Not only would they not interfere with his ability to explicitly send the message each week, they had an interest in his well being because he alone could send the message. Was this expecting to much?

The second major update came when it was recognized that the sensitivity of the data set, as amended, was important enough to the bad guys to inspire an extraordinary effort to discover the location of the data and erase it. Storing it in the cloud and making sure all read/write access transactions covered their trail and were used only once satisfied the extended requirements at the time.

These techniques, sophisticated conditional disclosure and privacy are the basis of electronic social networking. Because the need for the Trigger predated the identity project it proved quite useful as a model for the security framework. The challenge was and still is reconciling the often contradictory goals of flexibility and safety.

This update, then, was to take into account how small groups of players could be assured of fair protection from any risk created by an accountability breach in the machine. The update was not complete so it would use the phased implementation approach. This was the first time that it would be tried before testing of the last module was complete. Some risk yes, but the urgency was worth it.

Mea Culpa

When I was clearly getting my clock cleaned in our iPhone scrabble game, I thought about what I might do to make it more of a contest. In my mind's eye I considered (rationalized) that both my opponent and I would benefit from a more competitive game (maybe he was ahead of me in this regard?).

Not being in clear site of my opponent, whose intellect I hereby acknowledge is engaging, I went to my old friend, Google for help.

Google and I have been an item for some time. I know that whatever I want, Google will try to accommodate. This extended, in my view, to not being humiliated by this friend at a game he talked me into loading on my phone.

I found over the years that being honest and direct with Google was best for my relationship with Google (like relating to sentient beings - no disrespect intended). So I just inputted 'scrabble cheat' to Google's inviting gaze. After a very short period, Google wagged its tail and brought me some of its relevant buried treasure and dropped it at my feet.

I am sure your imagination, dear reader, can fill in much of the detail. Now I feel guilty. Not only did I unfairly annihilate my good friend in a game for which we were, ostensibly, to have a good time playing (I sure enjoyed it). I involved my loyal pet, Google, in a covert operation to prevail (by a whopping 36% margin). The fairness part of my mind is now suffering from a variety of ills. Did my friend sense in me my inclination to cheat and use this noble method of bringing it to my attention, and I, foolishly, felt shame as a result?

I write this because I noticed that redemption is popular in our culture and thought if I just "let it all hang out" there is a possibility that I will be forgiven for my transgression(s). I am not even asking for adulation and fame. No, I would settle for, say, everlasting life and golf twice a week.

America

Historically 'short circuit' was the thing that made a lot of noise, a flash of light, a little smoke and a left big black mark. The triune version is when reptilian talking points become really funny. For example:

startey over

step by stepey

not government take ovary

health care for rich foreign peopley

BECAUSE ITS WHAT PEOPLE (real Americans) WANT … ey.

We pause now for these words from our sponsor, Daddy Warbucks Pharmaceuticals.

Song

Hiding behind a white and grey veil as the new emerges ready to reflect the light, chromatically heuristic. It is the way here, value measured in an ancient way. Even before we spoke.

Haunting melody in pursuit of identity. Something new but somehow familiar a result of the latest discovery. A handle forming, but not quite there. She had a different name for it. He knew what she meant. And they had just navigated the influence of a strong oblique wind and learned from it to expect others. It is the nature of sailing and ...

On the way to the launch facility she acknowledged his arrival. He later thought about what the next step would be in light of this unexpected bridge in understanding the latest decode. He could not readily discern the intent of such a hint and assumed that the expectation was anticipated. As they methodically went through the steps, it was apparent that each movement outward was unique to a certain limited but predictable degree.

This pattern seemed to scale readily over the expanding search realm. What was its voice? What instance would serve to make it transmissible? A tune for many yet?

Real data, new look.

"I suggest you consult your superior regarding the risk your coercive tack presents to the organization.", it read.

Considering what had transpired and the evidence supporting it, this message did not come as a surprise. Putting out these kind of fires was relatively routine for the seasoned head of a corporation. With other types of organizations, alternative accountability maps applied. Prioritizing was essential to the process in nearly every case, though.

When any industry starts to dominate an economy, it naturally becomes a target of scrutiny. Price fixing and the like are highly damaging to the consumers of an industries' products or services. Privileged status combined with conflict-of-interests present a special challenge.

As the limit of resources was approached there was far less room for deferring the sunsetting of unsustainable consumptive practices. The promotion of such practices in this industry has become pandemic. Layers of unsupervised 'good intentions' coupled with exploitation of the deficiencies. A prescription for intractable.

Research revealed that in several important categories, consumers rated this facility very low. Yet their 'marcomm' would have you believe they are one of the best. Not the case, according to a very credible consumer organization. The old adage perception is reality works for only a short time. Then perception catches up. Profiteers, by design, move on before that happens. Invested dollars in go into the pockets of special self-selected people often to the detriment of end-users.

On the first run of the data, the suggested solution model included mandatory disclosure of potential conflict-of-interest. Since each customer/stakeholder had an equal share in the elective control of the organization and no person could make money from doing work for it without being a customer/stakeholder … You get the idea. Testing against successful recurring organic lifecycles of various wavelengths was a large part of the vetting simulation.

"Rather than compensating for end effects, lets predict as if there are none here.", he muttered with a knowing smile.

Burger?

So confused by what she had heard that she mistook a missive about a person having deep character for another person using coercive tactics to produce that illusion? It was possible that his assumptions were ahead of her awareness. Now that she was discovering the expressiveness in the language he presumed that she had a sense of veracity that, apparently, she did not.

One reasonable explanation: that his utter lack of musicality and strong bias toward text based communication had been confused with her newfound lyrical ability. Ok, he thought, let it go for now. Pursuing 'Why' without a clearer sense of direction was rarely productive.

A culture turned on its head by, among other things, having one newly emergent constituency using anonymous funding to leverage superstition and fear to advance a cause. This seemed to be the political reality of the time. Man made noise of the third kind was coming close to disabling the basis of social harmony, friendly communications.

When the cloud came into being, data would magically enter at one point and would emerge from the cloud in all manner of chosen ways depending on the application of the messaging. Persistence in the cloud allowed time shifting and processing inside the cloud. Side effects included a number of other things. Among them, unwanted persistence. And for the cloud itself: Nefarious applications.

When the fruits of the latest decoding turned into action tasks they no longer had the luxury of relative anonymity. The flood of affected parties with an interest in the dysfunctional status-quo came forward and started to use their power to resist change. Persistence, not necessarily a good thing.

False accusation. And the false accusation that speculation and it are equivalent. The negative recursion was apparent to those who were trained to see it. She, apparently, was not quite there yet. Her associate might be though. Tragically, it was likely out of a self defense no child should be asked to employ.

A Lotus

Later that day, they planned to see yet another female of deep character. Her profession was one of nurturance and care, and she like few others practicing it had elevated it to high art through her spiritual depth. She practiced her belief in the dignity of others and now it was opportunity for them to recognize her for it. Her smile, in essence, told them she had received all the recognition anyone, certainly she, could ask. But in what would be considered by most her moment of need, she was giving that others would see the light too, and by it become happy.

Normally, going to see a dear friend who had been hospitalized for over a month would be a down experience. But this was so very different. Everything coming from that building about her had a cosmic smile to it. And as of this time, a solution to what put her there in the first place had not been found. This was not the first time they experienced a miracle of this type. It was the second in five years.

All three would go on this unseasonably warm and sunny day in February. Like those irresistible puppies they would see every couple of weeks, the experience was likely to have something very good for the people who were looking for it. Spiritual without religious baggage.

A nice break from the weighty issues of the work week. Once again their complementarity shown like the garden through the seasons in a region lucky enough to have seasons. All is beautiful with a wide enough lens.

Dancing in the Flames

Without further ado, today's soliloquy. Frankly, nothing he can remember had taught him the robust use of the language faster in six some decades on the planet. But today he was attentive to two females, young and pretty to match but, most importantly, highly intelligent and pure of heart.

Through their collaboration, deep dark corners of what ails a discipline and its host country was lit up with a campfire light. The stories around that light had a reality that far transcended mere recital of selected and convenient facts. Too young to have accumulated enough experience to read the adjacent contexts. And offset by a heretofore unavailable resource, near instant access to a vast body of knowledge. The premise of its organization was recently assuming the triune brain architecture. No matter, the early success of these two cannot be denied, though some would and in fact did try (out of jealousy?). The corner has just been turned and on their capable shoulders a great opportunity is carried.

And yet another female. Led astray by a self-indulgent ego that had become a huge burden to those in her wake was about to learn a valuable lesson in integrity. A final opportunity to make amends before her magical world gone wrong began to collapse? Perhaps with a carefully considered mea-culpa? A least 48 hours to mull it over. He would not waste any of the time remaining.

This is not a test.

To have the opposition illuminated so fully was the big break. While luck had something to do with it, careful preparation and courageous execution cultivated that luck. Acting as a provocateur had an associated risk and is inherently stressful and uncertain. As each section lit up on the target screen the effort became more predictable and manageable.

Hubris leaves a big wake containing a lot of wasted energy and pointing to the hull that created it. Foolish pride so easy to see from a safe distance. This wake cut through the organic sea as if its inhabitants mattered not. But of course they do and given the opportunity they give voice to justice that is, at once, wise and resilient.

This pattern was familiar, too familiar. Not at all uncommon for someone escaping the confines of dogma driven survival. So relieved to break out of the suffocating morass the newly emergent attaches easily to the nearest flag. There are those who wait just outside because they know marks with energy are plentiful at the perimeter. Easily co-opted, nearly unaware that only half the battle took them to the edge.

Filters tuned to mask not the various forms of noise but instead anything not pleasant to the senses. Just the momentum carries her forward, this ship of a wayward wind.

And what of those on board? Someone there for a better ride, discovering too late that this is not what was expected. Another because the ship has its appendages that are net yet allowed to break free.

The messages started leaking out. Stirring the pot had the desired effect. Entrenched camouflage was subsumed by the newly vibrant brew. Now the violent reaction that just happened less than 24 hours ago made sense. This ugly machine had been forming for a long time. How far back, he was not sure yet but he expected at least several years. The warning signs were there but obscured by misused wealth and the usual assortment of privacy blinds.

The recording was as thorough as any since the project began. It can't have gone unnoticed what danger may lay at the doorstep after such a long time of beating back the truth without regard to the lives it hurt. Ignoring what might happen if this destructive pattern were allowed to continue was simply not an option.

A Vertical Pattern

Headed down the path of a white collar criminal? That is a scary thought. Seeds are evident. When is expediency smart? Perhaps when it does not inordinately sacrifice the long term for the short? Yet another secular argument for compassion?

The intention was noble to a degree. Wanting to help a friend without betraying a confidence. A tricky proposition for a novice, no doubt. But handled with aplomb. A carefully placed hint with a person known to speculate carefully and vigorously. The downside risk, that person was … wait for it … human.

The privacy game a major theme here. Whose is more sacred? Sorry for the drama. Whose should prevail? Mamalian brain driven, the second level? It is about nurturance and its first assignment in the evolution of the triune brain? Not yet conscious but so much more than reactionary. And still easily preempted by the primitive, reptilian brain below.

The deep vertical patterns were easier to see now. Not that the technology was incapable of rendering them. It was just that the machines were not directed to do so, before. Once again a decoded nuance that had wide ranging ramifications.

The competition had an emotional element not well understood by either party. Hints at a collaboration on the other end of a contentious dialog confirmed by language patterns. A real study in curious mixes of seemingly contradictory behavior. Glaring errors in the most basic of management communication coupled with an extraordinary career … in management.

Tuning the high detectors, in fact, building them in the first place was clearly the most valuable discovery in the code so far. Adaptable sensors with robust programmable intelligence connected in a field oriented data store. And the detail to date was just on the inside. Wow.

Daylight Epiphany

This tipping point like most was discovered after its effects became visible to a critical mass. A simple principle expressible in a few short words described with great accuracy a turning point in a decades long history. Before many attempts at a singular goal failed or were so costly as to threaten the vehicle and its momentum. After … its as if the journey's plan was to reach a pinnacle and nothing more, for it would consume every resource save for the accumulated wisdom of the mission related aspiration.

The potential energy was huge for the top was far from the gravitational center. But navigation here had to be very careful for the train headed down hill better start in the right direction. One thing was for sure: Being closer to the source with the best view of all the relevant context made seeing robustly possible with very little energy expenditure.

Decoding, by design, took advantage of the coding experience to such a degree that it required very little beyond knowing how to apply its tools. The bootstrapping was clever beyond description. Not getting wrapped up in whether or not its implementation was volitional was key to moving away from the draining debate over irrelevant philosophy. That it would engender such passionate debate was more important than the debate, much more.

The self-decoding pattern, ubiquitous and, for purposes of the mission, still without a handle … Should he press now or wait again? She might know. Code the question, then ask.

"How long do we have", he asked himself silently.

Operation Sunshine Initialize

It would be an exaggeration to call it hunkering down, though it surely was not a day in the park either. Under such circumstances certain systems were shut down while others were either locked down or put into a special hardened mode. Much of the terminology was carried over from military operation equivalents even though nearly all of the activity was in a virtual environment.

Like a biological ear, the detectors were protected with a feedback system that could enhance the sensitivity with multi-modal positive feedback and dramatically reduce it for anticipated high signal levels with negative acoustical feedback. A continuum of gain settings tunable to every conceivable listening task. Further, the content of the signals were taken into account. Adjusting spectral gain while minimizing deleterious effects from the expected wide dynamic range.

For those wishing to disable or deceive the 'listening' system there was nothing like an empirical listening history. Further, with the virtual anonymity of remote sensing in the cloud, gathering the empirical data covertly was very nearly routine.

So the tit-for-tat escalation of strategy and counter-strategy was different than other types of unencumbered interactive learning by one major parameter, the nefarious intent of the intruder. Generation of false signals disguised as navigation aids were now far more effective because co-opted agents were unaware that their loyalty had been kidnapped.

This pattern exploited the primitive functions by disabling the default override. Used often in political campaigns once the primitive 'code' was discovered. And considerably advanced when large data bases could be updated on a near real-time basis. Programming of agents was essential to this technique. Further, it had to be done in a disguised manner.

Conflation of obscuration methods immediately set off alarms because of the implicit danger of circumventing various security perimeters. For those agents experiencing traumatic stress effects the reaction was both immediate and severe.

Such was the case with the last interchange. The goal was to gain insight into the loud decoy problem. This person exhibited all the common symptoms of someone overexposed in a hostile environment. He regretted having to sideline this friend who might have been pivotal to the mission over the next several months. Such was the nature of operating in unchartered waters and only partially understood adversaries.

The Legend

Many of you are wondering how it came to be that Google's new social networking application, Google Buzz was named and how it relates to my nickname. Let me start from the beginning.

When I was too young to accumulate accessible memories for my later years, my father inexplicably called me Buster even though my first name is Robert and middle name is Brian. The legend goes that I was … lets say hard … on objects that came into close proximity. It later occurred to me that while this might have been descriptive of certain notable events in my early life it was probably a reach to describe my entire being in terms of those events.

My father was a doctor with a deep interest in electronics. He was absolutely fascinated with the post WWII potential of electronics in medicine and communication. I was born right after the war ended in 1946. When my family moved from the big town with the only medical school in the state to a little mill town in another state not far away. He set up his electronics shop in our log home overlooking one of the world's great rivers. We affectionately called it the 'ham shack' because dad was an amateur radio operator and had his gear there (KWM-2, Thunderbolt Linear, Tri-Bander beam).

Because we lived close to the bigger city with the medical school, my dad remained on the visiting faculty of the school throughout my childhood. He was inspired by a company that was born the same year I was. Its products appeared to have real value to medicine in general and my dad's specialty, ophthalmology specifically. My dad supported my older brother's boyhood academics to a remarkable degree. My thing was hanging out with him in the ham shack (and its predecessor, next to my bedroom in the basement where he took a correspondence course in electronics).

To make the very long story shorter, Buster got shortened to Buzz. Sibling rivalry expressed itself in me as deep suspicion of the mechanism of academics and a voracious appetite for learning things related to communication and technology. The name just fit better (though I remained somewhat challenging to fragile objects).

So now to my original question. If there is any correlation between my name and Google's handle for their new service it is probably coincidental. Rest assured, I will continue to leverage the coincidence for all its worth to me just as folks who sit on a peace of real estate until the city grows out to them do.

And now you know, what I know about this. Congratulations.

I'm sorry ...

An interesting variation on a popular theme. This person seemed particularly adept at purposeful brevity. One of a group of the quiet while speaking. With high ambient noise and/or lack of acoustical sensitivity the potential for covert control was high. Obscured agendas were common enough. Study of this special case would likely yield a new vector in the competition suggested from the latest decode.

The sample size was small but seemed adequate to answer the critical question of the moment, what beyond the output style might the group have in common? Perhaps it would be useful again to contrast with an opposing group.

Loud, pernicious behavior. Usually anonymously controlled by a party with a vested interest in deception. The two contrasted groups in this case would not engage in the normal course of their activities? Yes, the questions were coming fast now. A good sign. Passing along this insight data was the next step. Rapid distribution avoided coloring the subtle value of first impressions.

He enabled the appropriate detectors and turned to her, "Nice work. I now know why you don't acknowledge."

Whose work?

Where do you draw the line? Perhaps, like a lot of similar phenomena, a gradient of some type applies? And what modulates that gradient? For one, it appears 'credentials' and peer pressure do. For another, a formula that uses content as input and dispassionately decides whether a legal threshold has been passed.

In this environment it was more important to know the source for elucidation than attribution for the purpose of honoring initial ownership. To those that mattered who were on deadline or with limited resources or both the connection between an originating entity and the work was mission critical.

Contrasting the several academically oriented contributors, he noted that one was especially adept at using a variety of means to acknowledge sources. It helped that this person understood media better than most and had the experience of this aspect of disclosure. Another, many of the same things could be said. But here, the gradient was more like a threshold and based on an entitlement of sorts. Good ideas only came from the formally educated who had an academic administration mentality. Yet a third, recently receiving credentials looking to apply his new found training in a down market had a healthy view, or so he thought.

The most successful in the group at finding financial support up until now had apparently accepted that purse strings behavior was worth influencing with a modification of personal ethics. All the better that denial helped detachment from inconvenient … thoughts. A track record with baggage. The other two, fascinating skills and personalities. Less experienced in the rough and tumble world of economic competition, less cynical and less realistic. Hopefully there would be a better adjective to replace that last one. Frankly, there had to be for this all to work.

Three people, three skill sets. All potential contributors. All could be interested. The need to fill the slot was not immediate but the mind experiment for the selection process was a good use of his current time. Working on the tools when they are idle, a craftsman's trick.

Good Guage

Citing resources as if quantity will substitute for veracity on one extreme. On the other, veiled references to ambiguous opinions based on heresay on the other. This man was a study in a curious mix of creativity, scientific rigor and social ineptitude. An engaging smile that was, at times, hiding an 'academic realism', to use terms that seemed to fit his style.

Rejected for consideration in the project because of his 'convenient' administrative ethic, seeing him again in a different circumstance was helpful. The early warning radar was better now at inhibiting false alarms. The robust application of the new cooperative paradigm, as in other venues, made it possible to see new opportunity without raising risk above an acceptable threshold.

Just a few years back, this research oriented educator represented a unique opportunity to fuse the practical with the highly structured to advance a particularly efficacious but expensive field. From one point of view, the potential could light the way to productivity in related fields. This was so because his field and its problems were so visible to decision makers and influencers.

Cooperative and often emergent networks … yes. Made possible by a highly tuned and massaged organic system. Ideally, energy and sensory data in. Good energy and processed data out. Avoiding the word before that best described robust context awareness and action seemed appropriate again. The forced indirection paradigm was working its magic again. Its icon, the symbol substituting for an instance of identity.

Precursive gauging of mood and intent, acknowledgment … nay reverence for the subtle nuance of effective communication. There was no substitute for practice. He again felt the cosmic smile well up from inside.

Do we really need it?

Much has been written about the dark underbelly of the ego. But from the ego, one could argue, comes the bravado perhaps even courage to forge ahead without a conscious awareness of the still obscured path ahead. Sufficient similarity at the pattern level of the sub-conscious drives it? A temporary tuning of the filters to phase out what is assumed to be inconsequential or diversionary? And accumulating those settings to discover over iterations whether a particular tuning has value with real-time experiences or simulations?

Ironic that one of the less desirable manifestations of the ego is to be oversensitive to credibility risk. And at the same time there is the possibility of rationalizing this hypersensitivity. A highly supportable dysfunction. Something outside the unit circle that becomes a redundant perception hidden from detection because the artifact changes with the input.

He knew his continued attempts at putting tracers on the internal operations was productive. The new wrinkle was discovering connections that were invisible or non-existent before. Knowing that communications media had associated error rates, messaging such critical relationships required highly sophisticad error-correction. The deep role of redundancy and abstraction variations of it only recently discovered to be essential to propagation of life supporting routine.

The machine was quite capable in this area but review by an analog observer from time to time almost always generated new value. Organic recursion … again.

They can hear now. What should we say?

Reminscent of the transition from high dependence on the broadcast paradigm giving way to the more cost-effective and appropriately symmetrical interactive communication tools, he thought. Top down as a starting point still made sense in a lot of contexts and this challenge started there. The empirical feedback came back fast as a result. The problem was that to the degree the assumptions were inconsequential or incorrect the effort yielded little in the way of deep understanding.

Looking back on centuries of communications development, a consistent pattern was evident relating to the lifetimes of messaging formats. Top-down and broadcast was near the beginning. Wide dissemination of a message and low cost on the plus side. Often the efficacy of the message was not considered before sending it since, by definition, the medium did not exist yet. Effective vetting is something that would have to wait. McLuhan said something about the new medium that applied then. Now too, but different.

Early feedback mechanisms were often constrained by obstacles that, especially in retrospect, could have been anticipated. Asymmetry in communication innovations was a natural consequence of pioneering a new tool. Even its application was just the figment of the minds eye of a solitary individual, far more often than not.

The projects organic methodology of looking into the inductive cognition process started with this paradigm. No surprise in retrospect. So engaging the others in a free-flowing deep discussion on how to bridge this case of communication asymmetry was the critical path on this nondescript overcast day in the 'dead' of winter.

Focus

She, in his estimation, was just about to get her clock cleaned. Better that it happen with those who love her than in a major competition in a higher risk venue. Circumstances and the times thrust her into a demanding work schedule, a position of high authority with the usual baggage. That would be junk food for the ego and more money than could be used wisely. The tragic part, something dearly important to her would be subordinated to this unprecedented distraction.

He wondered how, beyond what he had already done, would help this high achiever with an unlikely background. And was he hypersensitive to the situation because of a highly similar one in his own history? Ownership, the idea that one acknowledges the experiential source of one's opinions … He was nearly exhausted from the the effort to transcend his denial. It was close to home though not close in time.

This was beyond the two of them, of course. In fact his involvement was not intentional. Dragged into it by the threat of what it could do to valuable relationships that mattered to him and the project, he knew that shirking the responsibility would be to delay and amplify its consequences.

Now that the organic propagation seemed to be working as intended, he was pretty sure he would have feedback worthy of consideration within the next 24 to 48 hours. The best feedback was still face to face, but the next best was using the latest communication tools. The combination of the two, virtually unstoppable. His confidence that even the most intractable of the obstacles referred to in the latest decoded chapters was high indeed.

Shadow

Sound moral compass, mediocre self-calibration otherwise. Good heart, deference when inappropriately self-deprecating a risk. But an important player in the project. Complicated because he was one step removed from operations but still mission critical.

Over application of formulas not at all uncommon in an accelerating theater of operations. As good a reason as any for the trail leading back from 'why'.

Less than an hour to prepare, he reviewed the game plan iconically. Two players engaged just a short while ago. One in tune, the other not so much. Upcoming diplomacy an opportunity to turn the retreat energy into fuel for the next launch. This stage remarkable for its potential for engaging another intelligent agent on the subject of propagation.

Remembering now what at the time seemed like a rabbit trail (it is a dream after all, Alice). "Like confusing the immune system. Not easy, once done, hard to undo. Training has many honed filters that take time to design , build then operate. Generic they are, anticipating future patterns applicable to safety.

Breach Response

"We will have to go with what we have, our time out has expired."

He wondered why he needed to re-learn how easy it is to brainstorm a breakthrough compared to implementing it. Perhaps a better way to say it; the jarring re-discovery of over-simplification hazards inherent in creative processes.

What does the authoring of a binding agreement entail in this problem? The detail is clearly necessary at some stage. At this early stage it obscures the preverbal forest. Whereas … many collaborative documents had that word at the top.

Whereas an end-user has discovered the value of the service and the provider has invested in that discovery by providing that service without a contract … Seems a reasonable place to start.

Malleability of recollection, one of the vulnerabilities inherent in the best of adaptive cognition engines? Well yes, we are like that. Necessarily so, as he saw it. Communication not only served to transfer information between cognitive entities, the functions that supported it mitigate errors. And not just the bits lost or changed in transmission. Also in the automatic categorization process in the receiver where a large part of confusion can occur.

Mechanisms for dealing with the shaky nature of recall have developed over a very long period of time. The one they were considering now had a long history of success. Not perfect though. But uncertainty understood and defined was better than any alternative they had considered leading up to this 'eleventh hour'.

Private Mission

The hazards of privacy was top of mind now. He realized when there was a disconnect between his external persona and his internal convictions life was just more difficult. No hiding behind a noble mission on this one. Privacy came at a high cost. Privacy is a security blanket. If I am private, I can pretend to be somebody other than who I am so those who want to harm me don't know where to shoot.

But what a price, that very protection from those who would harm one out of negligence or ill intent also prevented the kind of rapport with friends that would provide protection too, and more efficiently. Friendly trumps gates, he thought.

But a poor copy of friendly can occur too. A group that ostensibly protects one another (a good thing) but does so out of loyalty enforced by the threat of coercion and sometimes violence. The classic gang scenario. The voice of this congregation, "Don't mess with me, my 'friends' will make you pay." The very characteristic that makes humans capable, especially in a group context, there adaptability is subordinated to loyalty to a gang 'leader'. An often insecure but intelligent human that has not come to terms with her/his fear and anger.

Privacy, in your name I can harm, perhaps even kill the enemy. There will always be enemies, I believe that. I can tell you where they are because I am constantly on the lookout for them. When someone disagrees with me I know the enemy may be very close. So I will say, "Don't mess with me". Sometimes an enemy will hide that fact. I must be ever vigilant. That thing I don't want to remember … if I had only been vigilant. I won't make that mistake again. What did you say? Did you really mean it? Are you just messing with me?

So, maybe there is something good about privacy? For the moment, it was difficult to think of what that might be. Is it that privacy is the default mode since it is the safest in an environment not tested yet for friendliness? That could explain why post traumatic stress disorder is rife with the exaggerated sense of danger.

She clearly was not in a good place. What was visible was that she was not as happy as before. Alternating between the free-flowing talent that represented the dynamic good in her environment and an incongruous suspicion. They were doing it to. He did not see them as much but he could see that they too had a weary look that would come and go, inexplicably.

Temporarily disabling the tool had a much larger benefit than he expected. Once again, evidence that so much more is happening internally than he could be consciously aware of. Speculating that a contract made some sense he started documenting his ideas related to a fair transaction of value in this context. Once again, exteriorizing a record of that meme stream was leading to value. Just as the recently decoded section had implicitly promised.

Intimate Meme

"When the long wave agenda collides with a short wave agenda.", he thought.

Sharing the same space, it is somewhat intuitive that this a small but distinct probability. One, the short, clearly appears to humans to have an agenda, collective free-will. To the degree that both have an agenda mechanism it is quite conceivable that they will interact. Infrequently, to be sure, since the frequency of the long wave is so low by comparison.

Yesterday's experience cued these thoughts about the fundamental nature of our perceived universe. The speculation that our universe has projected dimension(s) and perhaps one of those is time set in motion its consequence to the mind overlay of the task's current objective.

Several wavelengths were in play, cosmic, generation and discovery cycle. Some combinations were consciously explicit, others not. Some permutations contained even more relevant insight.

She was managing two common but conflicting paradigms. In this case, they were quite natural in the here and now. With a new tool, balancing them was much easier in most situations. But this time the tool was a conduit for random and adjacent noise. It was easy for him to break the connection. He knew the risk of doing so, the system would adjust to what it perceives as a breach and because it was easy to implement, it was also easy to subsequently detect and prevent.

There was a word that described the mindful interconnectedness involved. They had used it on several occasions since the project began. In the individual functional disciplines at the project's beginning this word had at least one meaning for each. They avoided using it for that very reason. This important concept and its application in the effort is when the Alias Task (AKA) began.

Her primary assignment at this stage was to glean as much as possible from the … I want to say, collision of the long and short wave agendas. To become a believable participant, her operating directives were modified according to recent societal norms.

She was quick but lacked deep experience. Her sub-conscious volition was carefully cultivated though. Her skills were widely recognized not only among her peers but also among people of other ages and other sentient beings.

But she had to concede in the confrontation yesterday, that his method was at least effective even if not totally justified. Believing ones own deception is a common and often overlooked hazard. The sheer complexity and sophistication of the technological offset mechanism was testimony to that fact.

He knew that yesterday's events opened the door for resolution of the current obstacle. It would be easy and also foolish to wallow in the success and abdicate responsibility for the next cusp due in just a few short days.

Security Breach Check

He knew from past experience that when the incoming data showed symptoms of covert deception that their was a high likelihood of danger. In this case, the danger was to an inexperienced operative in the field. As yet, there was no clear direct evidence that the deception was specifically targeted to the current mission.

It is important to give young operatives the autonomy to discover how to adapt by giving them the opportunity to adjust to the inherent uncertainty of this type of work. The earlier a mindful detachment can be cultivated the more effective the resulting framework is at supporting the accumulated wisdom. There was always a small but measurable outlier that could upset this normally fast-paced process. And such seemed to be the case here.

Just a matter of days to several weeks ago, detectors were going off at an above normal false alarm rate. It was not a sustained level jump and not periodic but considered as a whole the situation deserved further investigation.

Competing agendas proved even more elusive in this part of the mission for a reason. That reason was the objective to operate at a level of indirection that distanced the team from example specific nuances. Knowing the difference between the specific and non-specific was a constantly moving target.

It was her somewhat odd behavior that had pushed the issue to the tipping point. Looking back, something was amiss in the response time during discussions. Not so much that it would have been noticed without the associated hyper-sensitivity. What adjectives he would add to using the word confusion were, at best, still vague in his mind and in the still-nameless machine model.

Now that a set of clues in the case were available and a briefing to the crew at HQ was complete it was time to discover the degree to which the communications channels had been compromised.

Only in America?

When a private enterprise is built with a large enough constituency and the proper checks and balances built on the principles the founding fathers wanted for cooperation between the states you will have:

1) An advocate for liberal principals that is NOT government.

2) An organization that is able to use the best characteristics of both of private and public sectors.

3) Show the world a better way to make a better world.

4) Because it is designed to not fail, it can never be too big.

All the finger pointing will be seen as the silly exercise it is once a critical mass is happily inside the fish bowl.

intel (not the co.)

Someone recently asked, "I see, what can I do to help?" Since this is a common historical pattern there is a wealth of precedent for the next steps. A depth of vetting when one embarks upon a plan can be both motivating and catalytic. At least two dimensions apply, our old friend time and synergy.

When communications are intelligent and robust, synergy can radically reduce the amount of time to vet the efficacy of either the task at hand or the mission and facilitate a mission's rapid implementation.

Those competing for mind share and/or challenged by the mission have a deep interest in diluting contributing synergy. Synergy in this context requires trust. If trust can be undermined, synergy can too. Ironically, when such efforts are exposed, trust bonding is enhanced (think, neighborhood association). Designing the means to detect things such as covert campaigns to instill doubt can play a significant role in a successful mission by validating the need for diligence.

Intelligence agencies have long known techniques for manipulating group opinion. Their sponsors control what the desired outcome is. Because bureaucratic momentum, it is worthy of note there is also the possibility that some control is internal.

In both cases, the directing entity is probably less than something we could call enlightened. We have come full circle now. If the mission has deep, rapid vetting by the parties who both control and consume good things are likely to happen, at least for awhile. Close the loop by connecting source and destination ... wise.

For the people, by the people … Using modern machine assisted agency , communications and organic morphology.

Looking into the Eye of Why

"Is there a way to visually depict these newly generated or discovered concepts?", he asked her.

She looked at him with that now familiar expression on her face that meant to him that she did not feel the need to acknowledge understanding his question. He found it frustrating, but in retrospect a curious pattern was repeating.

Depending on the content of the question and its current context there was a nearly predictable latency between his query and her usually highly satisfying response. It was possible, of course, that his frustration was more about his expectation than whether or not one should depend on some sort of feedback in this kind of situation. Was it a 'rabbit trail' to consider this urge to understand the impression of the first volley? He didn't know and decided to move on.

"Letting it go" for the moment, he started preparing for the response. The set up had been the recently discovered insights in the inductive path. Thoughts of climbing a spectacular water fall came to mind. What a beautiful experience seeing the value of the relative source in the magnificent splendor of nature.

When he asked her about what might connote the concept, he was looking at her eyes and into the mind to which they were connected. Therein lay something nearly beyond description for its complexity, value and a panoply of other positive attributes. But a word came to mind. It was beauty.

So, if the world famous water fall was an example of beauty what would be the generic symbol for this member of the highest of abstractions? He thought more about the implicit meaning of that image. Great effort was required to work against gravity to see each source. Complexity seemed to contract on the ascent, but not so much. Was the effort to ascend so energy consuming that less complexity was noticed and this explained that experience?

Entropy, arrow-of-time, causal necessity … were these 'constraints' just about experience and was our experience unique? More questions … fun. It would be a couple days … he was looking forward to it.