Welcome

Welcome to my Dulles Tech Simulations Department Blog: Static Sky.

I originally wanted to call it “Simulate This,” but thought better of it.

I am the project lead for the Alpha team, meaning I know enough of what is going on to nod my head at requests that make a little bit of sense, and shake it when I don’t grasp at all what they want to do.

Presently Alpha is the only project the Simulations Department is moving forward on given the cost of our energy needs.

Other smaller scale projects are being shut down.

Here’s what we are attempting to do:
Create a world.

Tah Dah!

Unlike the previous projects here we are not simply simulating an environment or a pre-fabed society. We’re starting at the beginning, cranking up the speed, and watching an entire world take shape – from cooling molten mass to hopefully a planet teaming with life. Sentient life. The bits of code will live. The bits of code that represent rocks will be solid when the life hits it. The bits of code that represent vegetation will be a source of sugars and nutrients to the life that eats it.

What happens we don’t know. We’ve got the algorithms written (almost). Biology, physics, chemistry, all the laws are set. When we flip it on, the chaos begins and we will see it all come together as the rules we’ve set unwind before us.

Our budget is huge, but I always try to note that it is a hell of a lot cheaper and faster than flying out in space and finding a new planet being formed and watching that grow.

Counting Down

Tomorrow is the big day.

Tomorrow we push the big red “On” button.

Later tonight I’m going back to the lab to actually paint the button red.

Delays and near arrests

My god what a week. As you probably realized, with my lack of posts, that we didn’t make our launch date. I’m told by Sgt. Tyler of Homeland Security that all the security checks will be done by mid next week and then we can get back to normal.

Homeland Security you say? Yep – the morning of the scheduled Alpha Launch they showed up and shut us down. It seems Jack got someone at Greystle a little annoyed.

Jack, I guess, mistook politeness as interest at the Greystle party. He’d been sending emails and calling some woman about one of his ideas. He was sure she would be interested in his newest idea – easy millions; he’d even done some research and it seems this woman not only owned thousands of acres of unharmed northern Canadian forests, but was a major investor in almost every supermarket chain you could think of (not even counting the ones Greystle itself owns). And these things were important in getting his idea off the ground. See Jack decided that his idea “Thirst Sapper” would be the biggest thing since bottled water. Thirst Sapper was to be bottled Maple sap. Not Maple Syrup, but the actual sap that sane people boil down into Maple Syrup.

Jack had taken a trip to his uncle’s farm out up in Vermont over winter break and there were still some Sugar Maples on his uncle’s farm that survived the blight. His Uncle had a side business making maple syrup and let Jack take back some sap before he boiled it down.

I had some – I have to admit it was good. It was like water but just a little sweet what was weird that when it was cold it felt cooler than water that was the same temperature, but seriously Thirst Sapper wasn’t even up there with some of his ideas.

Anyway, this investor got more than annoyed and I guess she’s really connected because Homeland Security came and told Jack to cut it out.

Not only that, Jack had to get out. He had to move off campus. He was off the project.

I hope he can get a job. I know its tough these days. Maybe when things cool down I’ll be able to get in contact with him.

Meanwhile Sgt. Tyler and his boys and girls have been basically living with us. Every drive, card, and chip was handed over and copied. My room was searched, Janice’s room was searched, Ned’s house was search, Adit’s room, heck even Sally’s room. Everyone on the team. Kim from the geology team was hospitalized because she got so stressed out by this. Seriously this is a bit much for us basement dwellers to put up with.

So Jack is off the team. Tom from anthropology and Chen our lone sociology guy are also off the team. They got up in left in the middle of the night. After that happened the searches began again.

I haven’t slept much this week. I don’t know when the new launch date will be. At the end of next week I’ll get together with the Tech folks and work out with them who’ll be our new lead. It’ll probably be Kaitlin – if we can take all her Irish music.

This doesn’t seem real. Homeland Security. Damn.

Om

Today was the day. A simple command line was entered by Adit, and I got to hit the red enter button.

“Om” Adit chanted as we looked at the code fill up the screen. I let out a laugh but Janice gave the “that” look. Adit was being serious. “Om” being the first sound of the universe or something.

When we projected the rendered images the gravity of the moment hit me. The gases, dust, and debris gathering together before us. Alpha was being born. EDIT: I just noticed the gravity pun – sorry.

We’ve started

We have it cranked up so Alpha should begin cooling by the end of the week.

Ned and I have a meeting at the Greystle Group tomorrow to get more funds. Kaitlin has quite a wish list for new hardware.

Because I need to get ready, I’m skipping the “launch” party, which is probably just as well. A bunch of basement dwellers getting together in a stunned state of disbelief (at having actually begun and still recovering from the whole Jack/DHS fiasco) is probably as fun as it sounds.

Life in a poison world

Life – or something like it!

That was fast. The universe really must be teeming with life.

When we first started out Jack and a lot of the anthropology folks wanted to go the exogenesis route and just plop life willy nilly all over Alpha. I think their argument was basically “it would save time.” We went the organic compound route. Some Greystle guy thought that meant we were going the panspermic route and Janice practically bit off their face when she heard that.

This was about seeing life happen, not watching it evolve from microganisms or another primitve form of life. It was about seeing life itself occur. So yeah we had rocks dropping on alpha with stuff, but none of that stuff was alive.

The rocks, comets, and dust were as chockfull of organic compounds as those we’ve found way out in the Kuiper belt: amino acids and primative sugars, just like my mom’s cooking.

I’d say it is beautiful watching the shooting stars splash into the dead world, the splash of molten metals, the swirls of gas shooting away from the impacts at hurricane speed, and the instant electrical storms, but the truth is we have all been so busy pouring over all the unspooling data that we’ve never bothered rendering anything that’s been going on for the past week.

Our patent pending count from the gasses, isatopes, and other general crap is already over fifty and Greystle has brought in their own chemistry folks. The fourth floor now has more of their people than ours. Janice won’t go on the fourth floor anymore, she says they’re spies. Not sure how you can spy on your own product, but I understand; you can’t help but feel self-concious around those guys.

The fourth floor has the only vending machine with Janice’s favorite noodle bowl, so I have to go up there twice a day. Those guys do not fit in. We’re all running around excitedly spouting out words like “stromatolites” and “prokaryotes” they’re talking about “office action” and “patent flooding.”

On Land

Almost spilled some of the miso soup on some neurologists who were leaving the lab when I brought in lunch. They were brought into the lab to help Kaitlin and Rasa on some things. Yep, Kaitlin and I have started calling Adit “Rasa;” we want to make sure we don’t use his real name with any of the folks that come in to help now and then – when we get into something that’s out of our areas of expertise (well that’s almost on everything for me).

Got a call earlier for Janice that some Alphans made land! I wish I was there. I was going to use that event as an excuse to ask Janice out. A milestone of the project celebrated by just the two us – some place nice. Alone. Instead I’m basically living in a lab with Kaitlin and Rasa. Actually using the name Rasa has another advantage – this isn’t Adit. Not yet, not until he’s “fixed.” He is different. I miss Adit, and I’m sure Rasa does too.

Anyway the Alphans that made land don’t have lungs yet. Janice says they have an amazing filtration system in their “skin” that basically plucks the oxygen right out of the air. I think Kaitlin was half proud and impressed at her “Alphans” progress but also just as pissed that we again handed Greystle a patent bonanza. You just know that there will be ten new products coming out next year that filter air in heavily polluted areas and none of them will mention Dulles, Alpha, or the cute little slime blobs that made it happen.

I think Janice is pissed at Adit, Kaitlin, and I too. She doesn’t know what we are up to. Ned has told everyone that we have to prototype a new simulation process for Greystle so we can get a new round of funding from them. I know he choose that excuse because it was the most plausible, but it just pushes Janice’s buttons. She hates those guys.

Hitting the Fan

At six this morning Ned ran into my office absolutely livid. He was a mess. It looked like he came into the lab right out of bed. And basically he had. He got an early morning visit from a Greystle lawyer.

Ned ranted about how the project was not only going to stop but that I and the whole team was going to go to jail.

What the hell?!?

“Rule Number 1 Rob, Rule Number 1 – Don’t screw the money!” Ned said that every ten minutes for most of the morning.

Someone in the biology team was so excited about the medical possibilities of the VKV that they sent some of the info to some medical students. They went outside the team.

Greystle found out about it instantly. What idiot on our team would put project data on the grid? It doesn’t matter if it was encrypted, that is a fantasy now anyway with every key owned by the government. And now I guess we could say Greystle owns them too.

When Ned ran to meet with Greystle’s lawyers I called all the managers to the main floor. Adit, Janice, Kaitlin, etc. Every group manager was there and I let them have it. I asked them if their CVs were up to date because they were going to need them soon. I was shaking. I think I might have been crying.

I told them that Alpha would most likely die and that Ned was trying to save our asses.

And then it got worse.

Janice just stared at me coldly and said “you would kill them all. All the animals, all that life. You’d kill them all for Greystle?”

I always thought the phrase “the silence was deafening” was crap, but I swear my eardrums were bleeding while all of us just stood there. No one shuffled. No one cleared their throat. A lot of death to think about, and inside I screamed as I thought of what Janice must now think of me.

When I finally spoke again I took a more conciliatory tone. I said that if Alpha was going to continue we’ve got to work better with Greystle. If the VKV is going to be used in medicines and save lives in the REAL world we’d need to work with Greystle or else what we learned here could never be used to help anyone.

I then ordered Pizza. That seemed to help a bit. But there was almost no small talk as we ate. Janice wouldn’t look at me.

During lunch Ned came in with somewhat good news. Alpha would live.

Ned convinced Greystle that the mistake would not be repeated and that Alpha was a proven money maker that could not exist nor be maintained without the present project team.

So now as it stands nothing has changed except that if any of us leaves the green zone we are instantly off the project and possibly even instantly put it jail.

We also lost our write access to the grid.

Okay, this is embarrassing to admit, but I didn’t know it was possible to that. I’m sure Adit will figure out a work around, otherwise half the team will lose their entire social life.

So we’re now prisoners of the campus and the green zone. Just as well I guess, none of us ever left… really. I mean at least now our campus pharmacy is fully stocked of Orexinal. Of course even if I didn’t take some tonight I doubt I’d be able to sleep.

I’m pretty sure we’ll have to push back our “beg for more money” presentation to Greystle yet again.

Hey Rob – It’s still me, Adit

Okay, I was messing with some of your old equipment you have back here, seeing if there was anything Kaitlin can use, and I find another Orexinal stash.

Not cool. First thing when you get up we’re going to go through everything you’ve got – together. I won’t tell Janice – If you help me flush all your stuff.

Look, it’s really important you do right by yourself and your whole team when you wake up.

With what has happened with Greystle we aren’t just a project team anymore we’re comrades in arms, and we need you fearless leader. Ned isn’t one of us, you are.

So stop this crap! If you don’t this is all going to fall apart.

A new member of our motley crew

Today I interviewed the soon to be newest member of Adit’s software team. He’s a freak and will fit right in.

Stan Chen is a theoretical physicist. Alpha though isn’t theoretical nor is the software that runs it. No, we need Chen to work out the physics of Alpha in even more detail; really we need to know better about what we can hide.

Alpha is possible with our equipment because of Jack and Adit’s “quantum compression” that renders information only when needed. This could be because of us wanting to see data on what is happening in Alpha or something interacts with something else on Alpha.

Since for millions and millions of Alphan years the interactions on Alpha were simply physical (volcanoes, cooling plates, ocean waves, etc) and mathematically predictable this tactic saved us a lot of horse power.

But as Alphans appeared, be it slime, bugs, or mammals, our rendering has been continuous as all these independent beings interact, observe, and evolve. Our rendering speed has gone from millions of years or more a day to less than a few hundred thousand a day (at the most).

We need to come up with more efficient rules to save on cpu queries. Chen could let us use the latest theories on the behavior of macro and micro physics (we have got Newton covered) and basically come up with ways for us to cheat. Because the day is coming when we’ll have animals that might notice more than just the movement of the sun and stars but perhaps study them and we’ve got to make sure we have a bit more there… there.

Chen’s CV is perfect but I had heard that he hadn’t been able to hold any one position for long. The fact that he’d found other projects to work on after being kicked off of others is an unfortunate proof of his abilities.Chen seemed to be relieved that I had asked so bluntly about his problems holding down a job. He blamed it on his episodes. Every few weeks Chen loses a day of work because he has had a temporal lobe seizure. He is epileptic. The “episodes” as he calls them only last a few minutes but the experience wipes him out for at least a day. It drains him physically and mentally, and he pretty much has to sleep the day away.Previous employers refused to accept this excuse because Chen himself refused to take medication. Without going into detail I assured him that I was very understanding of those who wanted to avoid medication and as long as Adit’s team’s work wasn’t hindered by his occasional absences then there shouldn’t be any problem with him joining us on the simulation projects. And then he pushed it and explained why he doesn’t take medication. And if I had any doubts about him before this, this put them to rest. This guy was a nut but the type of nut that would be perfect for this project.

He didn’t believe he had a disease per se, but rather he was somehow wired differently and that allowed him to occasionally crossover into other universes. Seriously.

When he has an episode he has brief flashes of memories of things that did not actually happen. Not wild dream like scenes, but realistic scenarios of trips with friends or dinner at certain restaurants. But he also consciously knows as he experiences these memories that they are not actually his. The experience he has is disconcerting, confusing, and physically draining. Deja vu with an attitude. But he doesn’t think these are just false memories that are a byproduct of a bunch on neurons firing randomly but that they are real memories. Memories from a different him.

Chen is a strong proponent of the multiverse theory where our reality is actually just a small sideways glance at what truly exists. Our universe is just the view from one point on the shore of an infinite ocean. And infinite other points of this shore are infinite other versions of our lives, even our lives without us. Chen goes so far as to believe that every probability created from the movement of an atomic particle exists. An infinite number of universes with Earth, an infinite number with Earth but not me (sucks to be me), an infinite number with me but with me still having my beard. Etc. An infinite number of infinites.

With all these universes occasionally energies can cross over and be detected, though not necessarily understood. It could be the Voyagers mysteriously slowing down as they left our solar system or it could explain the nonexistent mass that is dark matter and even dark energy. Or, as Chen explains to me, it could be thoughts that occasionally cross over from different versions of yourself. Memory leaks (now I know he’d be perfect from software design).

He calls this phenomenon a Mental Teseract. I tell him to keep it himself for now.

That said maybe when things calm down around here his idea will be a great dinnertime conversation piece.

Begging for Bucks

Well our presentation for a second round of funding from Greystle finally happened. Only 5 or so months late (oh but they’ve been good months).

We need more horse power and we need it fast. We want the servers to keep Alpha going, but also to take our simulations program to a whole new level.

We were not going to grow just another planet, we were going to grow an entire solar system. Start with just the “star stuff” and see it form a star with an accretion disc. Watch the planets form and jockey for position, watch life occur not just once but perhaps multiple times in multiple places in our new solar system. We’d learn incredible amounts about our own sol system and even about the Milky Way. And we’d stare at the beauty of our comets whizzing by our planets.

Greystle wanted to give us the funding; they were positively excited on that count. They just didn’t want to take the project in the logical direction that we had planed (and documented and charted and diagramed), they wanted to go a different way. A way that kind of freaks me out, though an interesting freak out.

They want to make history diverge. They want to take a snapshot of Alpha, put it on a new server set and run it from the time of the snapshot but with just a modest variation. They then want to see how the two Alphas become different from each other.

They want to see how they diverge, how quickly and how much. They didn’t seem interested in us discussing the lack of real science at play here and how this takes the project from observation to manipulation.

Our project is now taking an almost philosophical path now, where we actively play God. This new direction for the team didn’t go well in the staff meeting, but there was the unspoken understanding that if we didn’t take the money then Alpha itself would be turned off. Then someone said we were taking blood money, but that was met with groans. I can safely say that no one is happy about this.

Though I know I’m not alone in also thinking this will be kind of cool.