Wear Some Flowers

"Soon after the conclusion of the second world war, a few were suggesting more need be done and that extreme violence on a global scale was just not a very wise plan for the future.

A profound truth: Compassion is Wisdom

"Being re-introduced to all this history has stirred some google searching. Very rewarding. It is shedding some new light on my compassion quest."

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Convenience

"Seems to me, you don't have to leave the country, to save the world. You don't have to even go outside Metro DC and environs. Most of the bad guys have set up shop right where they get the most bang for the buck.

"Once their US operations are shut down, there are more than enough good guys to set things straight.

"On oversimplification, to be sure. But know this, the central nature of the US Economy has made it a magnet for those who would like to pull strings without revealing who they are and what their motives may be.

"I am suggesting geurilla tactics are an excellent match in such a confined theatre ..."

© 2013 Buzz Hill

You Know What Most Know

"Not a secret anymore. The part that the globally networked device you likely have in your pocket can authenticate you for the benefit of low-cost and secure personal transactions.

"There is so much more, once one clears a path through doubt for a sustained period.

"Stay tuned, the caboose has a pleasant surprise for us mere folks."

"This has something to do with the Gangplank syndrome doesn't it?"

Society is quickly learning what biological evolution discovered long ago. Thanks to reaching and surpassing a certain connectivity threshold, some lost order is re-discovered.

A dominate ego is not a wise allocation of mind for our continued survival. Hidden by all the fanfare of what we have created is a solution to the mess that it has hidden.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Pre-calibration State

"What do you suppose they meant by 'granularity of sense and control'?"

"Maybe that the routines passed on in replication could not be sufficiently tuned to the current environment.

"Preparation to acquire-and-learn is the limit of programming in such a context. It may have been convenient to debate nature vs. nurture as if they were all but separate from each other.

"The more robust view now possible suggests a communications 'membrane' between the two far more interesting than anticipated."

Drifting away from the topic she had hoped they would address it was clearly an opportunity to lean in. Too much engine, not enough steering and sense of the road. Natural selection more appropriate for the survival days.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Cat Out Of Bag

"Take me to your leader, I want to check to see if she/he is real."

"That thing in your pocket will tell me who you are from your here-and-now, if you so choose. Leadership (actually authorization) can then be established, accordingly. Unique authentic, aadhaar number.

"Apologies, if any are necessary for extrapolating a bit, Eric. I suspect stirring the pot is good for the stew. Am happy to be an 'equal' ingredient."

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Faustian Bargain

Justified?

"We are paid well to chase rabbits. It is an academic entitlement, if you will."

"We are rewarded handsomely for hoarding wealth. The problem is the world may run out of wealth to hoard."

The successes of a few can fuel a destructive wake of many. If those that achieve look only forward as they advance, the cost to others is avoidable suffering.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Best

"The biological precedent is the inexorable drive toward efficiency on many levels. Watching visualizations of molecular machinery, one is struck by the sheer elegance manifest in sophisticated but simple mechanisms that are efficient."

Turning to the audience, he continued, "What then is excellence in the context of a highly ambitious identity based artificial structure whose purpose is information interchange?"

If the two dimensions were instead Art and Commerce?

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Leading Question

"Two instances where rotational mechanical elements occur at the molecular level - 1) TPA synthase, 2) DNA replication. On first exposure to the visualizations one might ask, why do we not see this action at a much larger scale?

"One explanation is simply that the physics do not scale as easily as the mechanical concepts.

"Consider then this phenomenon applied to the identity interaction commonly referred to as social networking. Some system attributes scale easily while others do not."

Visualization is a tool of enormous benefit in managing complexity. The return on investment in the technology is very high. Especially in the case of evolutionary discovery. Reversing the direction of the tape to reveal causes with its time honored error detection ...

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Visualize Now

"The answer seems straight forward, reverse engineer evolution.

ATP Synthase

"Scoping or effective sampling of evolution is, generally speaking, a more formidable task than the action taken on it."

If one assumes for the moment that she/he is the universe for her/his here-and-now, then a snap shot of state is the optimal scope. The downside is that it becomes something far less, immediately because now "moves on".

Or does it? Perhaps it just moves away. Among candidates for measurable starting points, here and now has great appeal. To the degree that point can be experienced substantially by more than one, some magical things can occur.

While turning the foregoing inside out is a fascinating topic unto itself, another wild and subtle ride is right next door, so-to-speak.

And so we have disclosed such in the hundreds of pages that has preceded this one. With the likes of Facebook and Apple, Google and Amazon, Sorkin and Gyatso, Obama and Ban kI Moon et al. working on it, you can feel the electricity in the air if inclined to do so.

To be continued ...

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Speak in Code

"So, you do speak in code?"

"Yes, pretty much most of the time."

"Outside is where the largest freedom and danger exist. Inside is safe, but constrained.

'Energy' balance favors the sustainable (in our little corner of the space/time continuum.)"

Practical application is understanding what is possible at the here-and-now surface. The explosion in connectivity and the awareness it enables is just now breaking. Watching folks who have enjoyed unprecedented domination on a large scale unravel has become … comical.

Some have wisely chosen the angelic roll of venturing outside the cocoon for the simple joy of practicing compassion.

It is our ability to effect change that gives life meaning.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Not Listening Directly, its True

"Picture this, rows and rows of servers, blinking lights, the photon/electron dance of artificial understanding. You can virtually feel 'their' yearn to grow and thrive much as the gene's of earth's biology must have done before them.

"Human's need not touch, hear or see what happens on a regular basis once this honeycomb was built and weaned. The design schema, a self-adapting automaton that masterfully serves the continuation of volitional change. Autonomous."

He spoke out loud as these ideas formed. Halting narration seemed most conducive to visualization early in the process.

Honed by loving craftsman, it became the masterpiece you see today.

"Prineville. I'll meet you there."

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Dumpster Diving

The cloud changes everything.

"What do those optical storage 'errors' tell us?"

One could interpret the tone of her comments in at least two ways. One - mocking the absurd nature of the effort. Two - by emphasizing 'error', she acknowledged it might not be such a waste of time.

"To reduce cost, we have chosen to bring most of the rest of the conflict home. There is a lot of space to spread out here and things that go bang have fallen out of favor. We can't afford to be so wasteful anymore. Furthermore, we have run out of non-rich people to exploit."

© 2013 Buzz Hill

New Gauge

"So now you know why sequencing is job one - it empowers everything else.

"Do it the old way, and you will fall flat on your face.

"Deciding what tasks need to do in order to satisfy a rigid initial sequence to accomplish the mission is the old way."

"In dealing with a world beyond our ability to accurately predict, a new architecture is required. Actually it is not new at all, just inadequately understood because - until now - there was no need."

© 2013 Buzz Hill

We Best Care

"We came over to play in your neighborhood."

"'Watching covert observation.' or 'Lets look for it under the lamp post. The light is better there.'?

"Its the intrinsic hazard of speculative cognition -- just ahead of real-time. Before wave collapse, we are dealing with probabilities. Which of the multitude are relevant?"

Physics is just one theory we need deal with as is the case with logic and higher mathematics. The self-reference nature of our beast presents its biggest challenge.

"Are you just going to let it happen or are you going to play?"

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Game On

"Amazon/CIA private cloud - why was it publicly disclosed? Stirring the pot to observe the chatter? Who is stirring? Why now?"

These questions were the first off the top of his head -- immediately recorded and distributed to establish priority. An experimental protocol that had proven itself many times over.

The audience given just enough time to form questions of their own, she followed with, "We could have guessed as much when the usual suspects told us we would not be able to reference details of the project for future marketing purposes."

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Referenceable

Public Spring

"In the national interest, we will be required to subvert US representative democracy as it has been known and do so anonymously."

Recalling the disconnect between the promise of the technology and the response of the capital community. The virtual non-event was nearly four decades ago.

Sure, the strategic implications were there. First interest was in highly classified intelligence applications. Ostensibly, because price sensitivity was a non-issue.

But what of hidden exclusivity?

"The pattern is far more interesting than the long-ago recollection of the incident employing aspects of it. Identifying operatives in the field has always been a top priority. One could argue that keeping intelligence operations breakthroughs confined, has been and is larger - hence the seeming menagerie."

"If our government relies on private vendors who happen to be organizationally transnational to design and operate critical intelligence infrastructure, we have a problem."

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Drum Roll

"Here is how we see the roll-out proceeding. Keep in mind, various third-party technologies are still being evaluated to get this to market - in many cases,  these tools are brand new. Change is very rapid. Only the nimble survive.

"Rest assured, when the time has come, the best we can hope for is that the identity train is pointed in the smartest downhill direction."

From the double doors on the audience's left, a large and clearly heavy box on wheels was pushed into the room.

Frankly, a lot of drama for a dress rehearsal.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Identity Trust

"... authentic personal ID (one and only one per person, no false or multiple IDs) is mission critical to a whole class of extremely useful global network applications. Mutual trust should be near perfect and perceived as such.

The names, Lynch and Ives, could be critical in this context. There are others, of course. But they have been on the radar for some time.

"Remember, this opportunity is the outgrowth of the high stakes conversation media competition. There is no substitute for comprehensive current knowledge of what is winning in the field. Further, it is impossible to keep pace without embracing unprecedented levels of uncertainty."

"The winners are those who acquire knowledge fastest and use the best resources available to fearlessly push the discovery envelope."

NOTE: Some of the foregoing in this BuzzTheHill post is not fictional. Consider its appearance here as a public disclosure and as such, to the degree something novel and not obvious to those skilled in the art has been discussed, the specific intent was/is to put it in the PUBLIC DOMAIN.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

The NA Rubber Stamp

"It just may mean that they do not want it to happen and easiest way to swallow the realization is to get 'expert' input confirming their wishful thinking that it would not work."

A common term for this kind of maneuver was 'cover'. Make it look as though everything reasonable was attempted to see if the new paradigm would apply to their unique circumstances.

---

"Wait a minute ... even better. A sketch."

"This has nothing to do with professional baseball."

"Exactly."

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Cheers?

"I am guessing we need to say something soon, I am hesitant at writing anything right now. It seems so unnatural. I could be dark but even that would be inauthentic."

"Reader's may be identifying with your malaise. Carry it much further and they may go comatose before the next show."

"Not all of them."

"Funny."

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Other Side of Surface

"Two of my larger memes. Could not remember when both were consciously active at the same time.

"Yesterday late and in a flash they came together as if to ask, "Is it not obvious we are two sides of the same coin."

"As is my long time habit, I assumed there was meaning and that it would be worth a little time to discover more about what that meaning might be."

On and off all day Sunday, he attempted to recreate the vivid insight in some tangible way. Was it illusion that the 'coin' seemed to only have one side at a time? Who is present in both worlds or could be so?

Vivid but vague. Memorable but ambiguous. Making the most of trying to stay out the way of the immune system's current battle with a formidable adversary, he entered in the usual way. After all, it is the nature of dream (fever may have embellished it a bit this time).

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Synthetic Emotion

"When first exposed to the rant, I thought - that could be me.

"Then I realized the implication in what I attempted to describe. A rather deep cognitive effort to fabricate something that was not really there.

"Or was it a fear or regret that emptiness was at the root and the whole thing was denying denial? Recursively stuck in a downward spiral."

"The escape hatch is a function of the innate ability to communicate ... if you can hear me, please reply." A plaintive cry as if no-one could hear.

Soup, too long ignored, did what it has done before, manifest in the mind's perception of the external world. A haunting experience even for the veteran voyager. Perhaps especially so. The much practiced ego learns how to maintain its illusion of unaided authority.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

All over again?

Sing?

"Let me see if I have got this straight. Nearly a year ago a series of events occurred …" He paused in mid-sentence realizing that a variation on that theme was not the only option.

"Well meaning and competent folks were in a position to take the same ingredients, add one or more new ones and cook up a much better recipe.

"Patterns often repeat with subtle variations. Punctuated equilibrium might occur under circumstances I am about to describe (it is a work in process - please stand by) ..."

Meanwhile, subplots start unfolding. What are the personal dynamics that have kept this story bizarre and incomplete?

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Discovering The Plan

"As I recall my path started by interacting with a person I admired who seemed to have the kind of life I wanted to have. She was basically doing what she wanted most of the time. And a large part of that was interacting with people that she could share stuff with.

"She asked me questions about what I liked to do, dwelling on subjects where my answers were somewhat specific about the activity - and at that time she would take copious notes.

"Keep in mind, I had never met her in person though I would recognize her in a heartbeat if the opportunity would arise again.

"In effect it was ad-hoc curriculum development happening in near real-time. The process was so frictionless that re-starting was essentially no big deal. In fact, we began anew on several occasions discovering during the process that guiding assumptions had led the effort astray."

The question, instead of what curriculum can we fit the candidate to, might be what curriculum design can we build for this individual?

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Fast Track Learning

Conversation for Learning

"Watch the lecture on-demand - pausing to interact with other students on the material being presented when necessary. As if collaborator/students and experts were present in the same room at the same time on a ad-hoc basis."

Rewind, chapter hopping, review and much more. Fast, easy, robust, convenient.

"So back your ink on dead tree content truck up to the garage and lets start making some magic."

The content, once again, is key. Too often it has been constrained by the delivery mechanisms available at a given time. Recently however, that has changed. The technology to deliver compelling educational content is no longer the limiting factor. Not by a long shot.

The bottleneck, it seems, is training the generic capacity technology to help teach in the most friendly way possible on a given subject.

NOTE: Some of the foregoing in this BuzzTheHill post is not fictional. Consider its appearance here as a public disclosure and as such, to the degree something novel and not obvious to those skilled in the art has been discussed herein, the specific intent was/is to put it in the PUBLIC DOMAIN.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Calamity?

"Electing to go outside and being pushed as we were has some curious contrasts. Prediction mechanisms become far less relevant when the event is a surpise, by definition. Activated recognition circuits may be highly inappropriate. Raw data, as a result, can overwhelm general data abstraction mechanisms."

"Stress inducing but manageable if artifacts are minimized by filters that have been carefully designed.

We should know soon if that is the case here."

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Distrust Inc.

Correct religion, problem solved?

"We did not see the bridge because of the fire. The fire was set by 'neither side.' Instead by someone with a vested interest in our distrust of each other, a third party."

Meanwhile, just blocks away ...

"My plutocrat is better than your plutocrat. Its because of your plutocrat that we did not have enough of other people's money to buy the election.

"What if money wasn't what mattered most."

"Nonsense. This democracy stuff has gone too far."

© 2013 Buzz Hill

I Led Three Lives

Malware? What's that?

"Just about a year ago, a comparison was made between mosques in countries abroad and churches here used as secret field offices for operations not sanctioned by local government.

"Here it is not so much force that keeps things proceeding along a certain path as it is persuasion - the kind that relies on highly sophisticated deception."

Admittedly, they were discussing a span of six decades or more. From a strategic perspective, not such a long time though.

Just what has changed in that time span is worth enumerating. DIY (do it yourself) just as popular as hackers would now attest.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Bouncing

Less lost to heat.

"She mentioned schema in a similar context weeks ago. It occurs to me now that dynamic schema -- I hope I'm using the term properly -- is made practical by advanced relational data base systems."

"Extreme flexibility at scale ... so that is how they do it?"

"It is a big part, yes. Without commensurate attention to efficiency much of what we as users take for granted would be impossible."

"Lets put it to music?"

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Gangsta Gardener

Someone asked what it had to do with Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED).

Was it Einstein who said something like the best solution is the simplest but no simpler? - I am pretty sure that applies to Technology.

How exactly is it NOT entertaining to watch the tide turned by the oppressed - Leonard Cohen suggested Halleluja (I concur).

And Design? The kind that puts deep, sincere smiles on faces that had not seen many happy expressions before, are good … very good ... design.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Not a joke to some.

"Its the car of the year. With a highly robust system of computers handling all sorts of critical transportation and convenience functions.

Secure?

"Now imagine having to rely on third party vendor's malware mitigation software to keep this amazing car performing in a way you have been led to expect."

It was only a short time before most in the room realized the implications in the wider context they had been discussing for months.

The car was probably secure, other things on which we have come to depend, not so much.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Search Broken

No other blog links to here?

The BuzzTheHill search box (normally at the top-right of this page) has been removed temporarily because it stopped working. The author relies on the blog platform provider's search code.

Is it reasonable to expect that Google will fix it soon? If and when they do, the Search Box will again appear on the right side of this page.

Meanwhile, you can mimic BuzzTheHill's search behavior by adding "BuzzTheHill' to a regular Google search.

Thank you for your patience.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Dot Connecting

Smoother as event quantity increases ...

"Expecting a pattern when there is none. 'The coin has no memory. The probability of another heads after five consecutive heads is still 0.5."

"Yes, I get it. A single human's experience can misguide her/his predictions on important phenomena.

"However, the opportunity to use mildly moderated instinct to modify crowd behavior is our topic, is it not?"

"In large part. That is true."

Reflecting on the lively interaction that morning he had occasion to update the log ...

"Wandering into areas not sanctioned by the authorities is what these 'guys' do. Get over it. Some of the best input came from the lady 'guys' in the room. You might say, the majority gender present were' leaning in'. Not alone in being glad that they attended."

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Medical Error?

Destination: Pill Hill

"Is it still a medical error if it is covered up?

"Communication that serves a purpose beyond or different than open exchange of information between the parties to the conversation is, by definition, manipulative.

"Folks in general, especially the young, are wary like never before of anything smelling like classic messaging deception. It as much or more because there is an inexpensive and more reliable alternative than independent suspicion of motive."

"Youth are mostly healthy and naturally less sensitive to the direct consequences of 'medicine' as it is practiced here. But they are highly subject to the unemployment that it indirectly causes. The foundation of a bridge between disparate interests?

"Something to think about."

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Hack Caper

Watergate Hotel, Washington DC, USA

"Background checks. Most know what they ostensibly are intended to do -- help employers know the risks of a new hire. 'Safety first' would be a common first impression of related services.

"Take a look at this. I am pretty sure it does not fit that description." On her cue, a page opened that described just what she was talking about. The 'above-the-fold' example, a nefarious political application of such checks (a.k.a. 'dirty tricks')."

Dirty Tricks belongs to a class of CU ("Citizens United") objects created by hidden interests. One can reasonably speculate, the handle (nickname) for these objects is purposely chosen to mislead with respect to the goal of their design.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

GoogleTheDog likely knows.

"Thirteen visits from Singapore with an average duration of 1:23. Nearby Indonesia shows similar activity. Someone is paying attention."

"Worth the short while to take a closer look, I suspect."

"Those who would trivialize international communication exploits are automatically suspect for a reason these days. Our friends on the other side would have most believe it is a wild theory. We are beginning to see why. Obfuscation, misdirection and the like are the coin of the realm and it is clear just how expert the top players are."

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Retail Load Balancing

"It amounts to small chain beverage kiosk 'load balancing'. Its a metaphor, Prudence.

"Retailers pay rent effectively for 24 hours per day. The more a business uses that space the whole day through to enhance revenue or efficiency, the better.

"Servicing customers in a friendly way to alert the loyal to lulls in 'traffic' thereby avoiding overly busy store hours.

"Enter, say, Twitter. I suspect some readers are already picking up on my drift ...

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Blowback

Oops?

"With whose version of the history in question, should we start?"

"Seems to me that a pragmatic look at who is most influential in managing the consequences of said history should choose."

"Agreed. The rationale for your observation is a subject unto itself. Let's get to work."

'The Canadian Caper' made for a riveting screenplay. Especially for those impacted by the event thirty plus years ago.

Producers and the director who actually believe there are more important events than promoting the well being of a one-to-many medium.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Can't Be Correct?

"The sun is setting on this cloudy Pacific NW day in early March. Another daily conversation window is opening. Generic first impressions are suggesting useful propagation opportunity instances. Momentos hang on the walls, the dial glows and sound has a mesmerizing quality.

Cooling of the atmosphere increased reflectivity of the upper atmosphere at certain electro-magnetic wavelengths. When that happened, the short-wave radio would come alive with 'connections' spanning great distances. Like from SW Washington State to Antartica."

Her eyes glazed over. While the comparison could be compelling on a different subject, this felt like a counterproductive diversion. As she would soon discover, it was anything but.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Reality Test

"At just what level are we?"

"Of course, it is too early to tell just weeks into the probe. There is no single objective observer. We achieve something approximating that ideal through our own strategic collaboration.

"Sequencing is the key to rapid on-demand scaling, up or down or steady-as-she-goes."

"So what is wrong with this picture?

"Actually nothing. Its context however can create a cognitive inflection point. Case in point, to provide a 'kick' to level closer to 'reality' ..."

The practical value of this ongoing discussion? Highly informed speculation based on vetted predictive resources. Reaching outside one's mind with unfettered conversations, preferably with technology assist.

© 2013 Buzz Hill

Technology Assisted Collaboration Risk

"The collaboration tools, though mature, rely heavily on Java. Some reports indicate that even Javascript code has been inserted onto user's machines through infected Java Runtime Engine on the client side. Are these to either related or, worse yet, part of the same infection vector?

"I hope I am getting it right."

"At least we can build some auto-search terms. Will this morning's meeting be a risk?"

"We sandboxed our machine as best we could. The risk is small but still significant. Fortunately, we are likely to see a breach, should one occur."

Overhearing the technology team can sometimes be a bit much. This conversation was crucial to the remaining hours and days before the first deadline, however.

© 2013 Buzz Hill