Closet, near the bottom.

Saw it coming. Wow, even before that, heard it coming. Mavis on eTown, then at Waterfront Park. A groundswell of good vibrations. A world ready for redemption became the pipe organ's cathedral. A formidable headwind to provide the tension for a spectacular drama to unfold. Systems seaming to fail, to be rescued by a resilience hidden from the everyday light. The storms, their timing unpredictable, their occurrence certain. Dark, blustery, cold like the day when the flame flickered into seeming oblivion. More than just one. Actually many ...

Babe

Yes, it means something to me. I write it because it is the spring to an imagination I am particularly close to. Buds on the tree, a symphony of chirps when the day is new. A welcome counterpoint to the fragile truth of the effectively finite.

What does it mean that reading that scribble has such a profound effect? I would like to believe it is because all was/is Ok that the creaking ship soars, its swan song celebrates into the future untold. Turning inward for the inspiration to escape the isolated rock in the churning rapids. It too is part of story (yes I did mean that).

verb: tune

If you think you are confused by reading this web log know that the very people who could fix the global economic train wreck are more confused by their sources than you are with this. Take heart though, we will once again wade through the swamp that serves as a mote to those that profit from our diverted attention. Oh ... you might want to check to see how much your day job depends on the chaos. It has been easy to lose track of one's culpability - by design.

Consider this, in the span of a few short months, these posts have made there way to a distribution system unprecedented in human history. It has become the new natural. And if you don't know by now, you will know soon that I am not alone in the ambition to put it to good use for the benefit of humans. Far from it.

That you are reading this now is all the evidence you need. The question is, and frankly, has been for some time, "How can we put our creations into tangible action, quickly?" I suggest, by accepting that call that most of us hear, even if only faintly.

The subtle but powerful can only be heard if we listen for it. And can only be put into play if we synchronize with it. Watch the conductor ... for she is us.

hypothesis bias

"This briefing is, necessarily, simplistic. It will outline our perspective of principles in our relationship going forward. As we both have recognized, our spheres of expertise share enough to justify moving expeditiously to discovering common ground …"

What they wanted to bridge has been commonly referred to as the "silos of expertise" problem. Each silo had developed its own communication paradigm to which outsiders were expected to adapt. Each exogenous interface was a low priority making a silo's cooperative ability correspondingly inept. Rapid early vertical growth left little time to even acknowledge the outside, much less collaborate with it.

Not unlike the uncalibrated ego, he thought. Diplomacy had its application here. But, where possible, team press should replace patience. The pacing item was moving much faster. The serial pattern no longer justified based on conscious specificity alone. There would be time to rest later.

"We will ratchet the Protocol Selector as you deem necessary or interrupt for interactive clarification.", he stepped back and cued her to start.

Interrupt

Background Navigator is, by definition, likely to lead to the unexpected. Executive review of its output, a high strategic planning priority. Behind the scenes processing that occurs out of sight during the day and reliably self-sufficient at night well documented in the glossary.

Blustery cold wind and all turned to shades of grey, eyes closed or not. It too is nuanced. Creating useable contrast in such hostile conditions is more than trivial, much more.

Flying on instruments while the gut says not to trust. Cognitive override of otherwise reliable automatic reactions. He, looked up from the overview entry in the manual and summoned the team virtually.

He asked her, "What just happened?"

"We are not sure, yet. At least some of the cause was real-time and some of it was a monitor response."

His pulse matched the decline in uncertainty.

Where to start ...

An odd word, he thought. It came up twice within hours. Another hint at what might be going on? Because he had to look up the meaning, he was primed to notice it when it came at him just a short time later. A completely independent source? Sure looked like it.

Consider this, when the the fields's complex mix of harmonics with phase intact (two or more) arrive within a time window, a concept is triggered by the coherence. Over time, accumulated 'hits' extend persistence.

Auto real-time indexing is a broad field highly relevant to meta-why. 'Find Dendrites' was not quite ready for primetime. "All we are using so far is essentially off-the-shelf stuff.", was the reply. Queries from the newly recruited field operators reinforced the notion that they needed to work on tools for 'coming up to speed'. The serial nature of cognitive acquisition created an explosion of implicit links. Each was easy to track but they were only classified by keywords. Synthesizing abstract concepts was still too labor intensive to be practical.

A silver lining became apparent in just the last week though. The lack of established protocol acted as a filter. Not ready were those who appeared capable of answering the selective answer questions with impressive proficiency but stumbled with uncertainty when asked to elaborate on how a question might be asked better.

"Yes.", he will say soon to the friend who said he was overwhelmed. "I have learned something of value about communicating from what you said, thank you. My advice will be to keep the new indexing tools in development for now."

Everyday Soup

From the lofty arrogance above it appeared opaque. If one were to dip ones toe in from there, anything but. Few acknowledge that on which their identity floats. By design, it does not confuse 'us' with its operations since our conscious capacity to manage complexity is constrained far more than we like to admit.

So, to dawn goggles, and breathing apparatus and take a dip is an exhilarating experience, that is if one has an open mind. To map onto the network what is observed below the mysterious surface is a large part of the mission. If the caretaker does not even know what she is hiding, how can the driven warrior know? Only by entering. Preserve the mystery, it is salient to the message.

Looking back on the academic efforts to more fully understand, was nearly laughable now. Meaning no disrespect. It is, after all, easy to build something consistent but incorrect (try limiting considered observations - a simple example).

Because his hardware is old but experienced, her methodology appears nearly frantic on first blush. Building a bridge, surely one of the best, to that potential from seasoned experience and back is critical path stuff, he decided.

She fidgeted, he plodded. And both care … deeply.

Shared Rhythm

Recent activity brought them back to structure often. Now that the 'thriller' was largely behind them, they decided to take a close look at the high level patterns that came into play. Remarkable it was that the patterns bridged at least three major overaching spatial types, organic, cognitive and social. Or remarkable that the time just passed revealed there existence and similarity?

Communications morphed each into the language of the other. And they overlapped as ripples in a puddle from several sources. One abrasive individual on deeper inspection was so because of an 'immune response' to social rough edge. Another quiet but deep person could consider an opposing view but was courageous enough to, quietly, express a 'conditional' dismay. And the his and her banter bridged a deeper divide. Just a few of the many examples.

Yes, he concluded, it is not an accident that these regions of existence sharing the space we call living have structures in common. The system monitor was now regularly coming up with a pattern that none of the team had seen before. Like a realistic, touched-up photograph that represented more what makes any photograph interesting generally rather than an instance of an image. The system monitor was their attempt at monitoring the network's activity as dispassionately as possible. Virtually everything they saw or heard on it was, at least, close to spontaneous.

When they designed the experiment, the intent was to not interfere with the natural interaction that had been honed over evolutionary history. This while at the same time using every tool they had at their disposal to amplify, transmit and otherwise augment the natural processes within the network. Reverence for the organic model, support of both the individual and group cognitive model and compassionate application of the social model was bearing fruit. It might soon be time for the harvest.

Rally

We are the performance. Some assume they deserve to be at the sacred end. At times true, mostly not and certainly not for but a short period. Enlightened plutocracy, an oxymoron, not to be confused with enlightened self-interest. Difficult to hear if one is speaking loudly and has been trained not to hear counterpoint.

Style

All mouth, no ears. Just plug her in to Vegas to refresh talking points. Charge her batteries with Credit Default Swaps, send her to Niemann Marcus for a new dress, sir Donald for attitude adjustment and let her spend a week on her makeup. Have her 'grilled' on a fair and balanced Fox News 'report'. Re-arm the Tea Party and you are ready to "get 're done".

Oh, and keep working on the lighting, both literal and metaphorical. Some argue, and I agree with them, lighting is the most important part of helping others to see. This lab will continue for the next 7 months or so. It is over half your grade. Good night and good luck.

Countdown

Hearing this simple story felt like a lantern lit in a historic hallway ... with rich portraits adorning its walls. Visible for the first time to the visitor. Yet, it was just the right place to enter. We as a species have developed many shared patterns. Some are very useful for extending what we apparently value most, living.

The hall, a relatively old artifact. This pattern gives us access to contexts for a variety of functions. Portraits, faces that tell stories over scores of years. And this new fangled electronic thing. At first she thought it might burn down the house, but he had, yes had to experiment with it. She protected the children. Both doing what humans do.

This story be told across many cultures, it is common to them. And if those cultures were huddled in a small inhospitable space and someone was able to help them see what they had in common, could they change that space and time? No doubt. Because we AND they, dear reader, have what you read this with.

Broadcast yes. But far beyond that. For it sees and hears, it time shifts … and more. It extends who we are beyond the boundary of our skins, our home (if we are lucky enough to have one), our neighbors. It does so in a way like never before … and it is growing. The voice of the audience about to penetrate the fourth wall? I want to go there.

What Can a Poor Boy Do?

The street, two views. One, of the folks who built the modern high tech version of it. The result of developing expertise in a number of complementary fields. Promoting experts. Compensating them well. Carefully considered and relying on rigid structures of usually effective hierarchy and measures of excellence. Professionals. Planning etched pretty much into stone.

The second view, by the people who live there. Really live there. Not by those privileged and exalted experts who have moved on to avenues more comfortable where one can select which people are neighbors. Vetting slow, stumbling and very revealing about potential if one knows how to look. Beneficial is measured by community not overly dependent on artifacts.

Each has its dark side as each has its light side. Can they come together? Can the human contact of the street touch the technology extended individual of the other? Is it possible for obsolete constraints to be carried gracefully away to be recycled?

"I suggest we try and here is how.", he dimmed the lights.

The presentation model seemed appropriate because it engaged the others in a way highly familiar to them all, in their own personal background and in their recent work. The overnight processing was not far from this topic though. It was not entirely clear why. In it, a game and a tool. And the realization that the specific game and the very generic tool did not, on the surface, seem at all related.

Did the readout indicate that they were adjacent? If so, why? Back to the soup below. Since its discovery, he went there often. Continuum, no ends. Just frequencies (or wavelengths) and magnitudes. From this meta-view the challenge was to associate each one with the other, simultaneously. When doing so, generating the fewest harmonics (formulas best contain few of them). Not so different to those who like soup, he thought.

The short presentation ended with the usual summary question.