Kaitlin

Not food poisoning – POV v2

/ staticsky

Adit here – We just said it was the food, but I caused her a bit of a seizure, well not a bit, I mean any seizure is a seizure but it was mild.  It was an absence seizure, she went blank for a second and then just got really nauseous.  She made it to the bathroom on time.  

I got a little board that you can easily tuck away on one of the goggle’s straps.  We tested it on Kaitlyn to see if she could get the video feed of the goggle’s camera to go straight to her brain.  POV was mapping the simulation’s data to our brains, there was no original visual at all until our brain visualized it.  I was mapping the real visuals captured by the goggle’s camera to a data format similar to how the simulation processed.  

I tweaked that process to make it more efficient, but what I did contained a mistake, but I am not sure which change was the route of the problem.  We’ll go back to exactly the same method tomorrow. 

I guess my mistake was subconscious revenge for all the seizures you two gave me when making Adit 2.0.  Yes I know about Adit 2.0 terminology – I’m not mad, it fits.  I’m not mad about the seizures either, I am definitely not seeking revenge.  I know you know this, but I want it on the record.  Our record. A record only we read?

This does mean that the frequency method of triggering the neurons isn’t as full proof as we thought.  When and if things are a bit more calm around here I’ll work with Janice and see if she or one of her team members has an idea of what happened.  I don’t like being restricted to a method I know isn’t as efficient as it could be.  But I don’t like giving folks seizures even more, so I’m in no real rush to figure this out.

Chen and Makda are also basically done with the old style VR set up, but they made a custom kernel to run their system that isn’t just an old VR unit but is easily extensible, that can support input from the simulation and export data to alter the simulation, and, ahead of schedule, can support any type of security we develop.  There’s your writing on a white board Rob.

Distraction does set the mind at ease

/ staticsky

As has been the case before, our team lives and relaxes by doing the work – work on our project (or project adjacent) – work they hopefully still love, and especially now when there is nothing else.  Again this morning, and I think perhaps every morning from now on, begun with the team gathering in our central area.  The status brief portion of the status meeting was indeed brief – as work on anything at all had just began. It was mostly teams announcing what hardware they need immediately and that for what items they would be filling out additional sacred forms.  

Next, and perhaps in reality the most important part of the meeting, was the status about – us.  Our people, this place, what we have learned.  Janice started by first thanking everyone who had volunteered to help with Sally, i.e. being Sally’s escorts, guard the bathrooms for her, etc.  And she made an announcement that got a cheer, Sally talked with other kids yesterday.  As much as Sally loves us and has fun with us, let’s face it we are all adults, perhaps not in maturity, but definitely in age.  So a lady named Jane (wait, why does Lady Jane sound familiar?) stopped by Janice and Sally’s room short of breath and told Sally she had rushed over because she realized that Sally had never been invited to the meeting which had just started. Since she noted Sally wasn’t online she had rushed over to let her know.  [there were chuckles amongst the team about this glorious example of Abzu’s high tech organization].  What meeting?  Oh, it was Sally’s introduction to some of the other kids in Abzu.  Sally’s slate (Abzu supplied, not this one) had been configured with the, get this, The Intecela – the Abzu wide grid.  Sally had more access than anyone on our team.  The call went well – it sounds like, surprise, surprise, the other kids are pretty geeky too.  None of them are in our Cela so Lady Jane (I’m sticking with that) is going to arrange a field trip soon for Sally to meet them all in person.  More cheering all around.

After that great news the meeting got pretty lighthearted. Chen noted that he and Erik had a chat with some folks from another group that works on our floor.  They didn’t tell Chen or Erik what their projects entailed because supposedly our team is supposed to go into the science fair all “tabula rasa.” Yeah, that won’t be hard.  Anyway they did let Chen and Erik know that our team is nicknamed The Sims around the Cela. While we don’t know anything about anyone, it looks like they know what we do, I wonder if they know more about what we do than we do.

The general reaction to the nickname was met positively by the folks that had even heard of the old game. When Chen started explaining the game he went off on a tangent about putting all the sims folks in a pool and then building a fence around it so they couldn’t escape and they all would swim themselves to death, there was an uncomfortable hush until Alice chimed in with a very loud aside “guess I better double check his code.”  Chen laughed the hardest.

“Sims it is” I ended the meeting with, and then called out folks to work on the early stages of Visual POV.  Kaitlin and Adit of course because it eventually will segue into POV but also Chen and Makda to work on a basic VR device so we can quickly get private communication happening outside of just Sally’s slate.  Makda is part of Kaitlin’s team and seems to have an affinity for retro-tech like Chen – once they have the parts we’ll have our private chalk board up and running in a day (or two)

I desperately want to talk to Janice about “us” and that seems incredibly selfish with everything else going on.  I just have to wait.  And how does “us” work in a Cela anyway?  The truth is this is a prison for us, certainly a very interesting one, but it is a place we can’t leave – and it is weird that fact seems to be normalized already.

I think this is why my entries have been longer and more regular – I have internalized I have nothing else I can do, which is a lot more restricting than my previous situation of just not doing anything else.

And Adit, this is weird.  This “blog” has always been a semi-personal journal, the fact that we are also now formally using it as communication between us makes it awkward.  Just wanted to put that out there.

Smile for the camera

/ staticsky

Big Day, Long Post.  Yesterday’s meeting with Stan was a good reminder that we need to be on our best behavior.  Otherwise, I guess its jail.

But I don’t even know what good behavior is.  I’d assume it would be doing a good job, but I don’t know what we are supposed to be doing.

The best way we can behave is just to make sure we don’t get caught saying something bad.  We are definitely being watched and I think it is safe to say that whatever we say is being heard.  As Greystle turned this project away from our goals I know a lot of the more esoteric disciplines in our team was starting to feel ignored, unfortunately none of us are being ignored now.

When the full team had shown up, and started to unbox some of the items that had arrived from the sacred forms, I whistled and gathered everyone over.

“Hey guys, I wanted to give you an update.  Let me start by saying I don’t know exactly what we are doing, so this isn’t going to be the best update.  There is a huge cloud infrastructure available to us that is more than we will ever need, and when I say cloud I mean some cave a couple of hallways away.

But first, and this is important, look anywhere in this room and wave.  Know that there is a monitor somewhere here that just displayed your wave.  Now with your best ASMR whisper say hello to Stan.”

I couldn’t think of a subtle way of letting everyone know, and if I whisper it to everyone or write it on a note to show it surreptitiously, I think that’d just be worse.  But the reaction was very unhappy.  And the only way to get them happy was to give them work, really work.

“While we are waiting on what the new job is, there are still some things I think we should continue some of our old work.  I know all the data is lost, or I assume it is, but I’d like it if the task force on Tangent could plan for a presentation to us this week.  Honestly, just say where you think the data was leading you to conclude.  Obviously, no charts, or real data.  Just what you learned.  I think it would be good to know.  Like, why was, if it really was, Tangent more violent.”

I divided the teams into three groups, the Tangent task force, folks to set up their equipment as it was starting to pile up.  And then a third group consisting of Kaitlin, Janice, and Adit, but before I could explain my really good idea (Visual Point of View – and I’m seriously proud of myself) over an intercom Stan’s voice boomed.  “Rob, come see me at my office.”

I know Chen thought better of it the second he said it, but I’m sure it was a hard idea to suppress, he looked at me and said “oooooh, you’re in trouble.”  I should have been worried about whatever repercussions to my announcing our surveillance state was, but truthfully I was worried I might have forgotten how to get to his office.

Even though I knew what I was walking into, the wall of monitors and the window to a cave of servers caused me to make a, hopefully inaudible, “oooof” exhale.  Though I admit I really was freaked out about how hard the push back would be for my “smile for the camera” bravado.

But… nothing.

Instead Stan barely gave me eye contact beyond acknowledging that I had come in.  He was just putting a slate in a shoulder bag.  “Hey Rob, just wanted to let you know that we’ll be ready in a couple of weeks for you all to begin, in the meantime just keep your team busy.”  

Then as he walked me to the door he mentioned the most hilarious thing, “At the end of the week every team in this Cela is putting together little presentations of what their broader project is.  Think of it is a high school science fair, put up a poster or two of what you are doing on a fold out table and just talk to folks and answer their questions.”  And then he finally looked at me.  With a smile he said, “seriously this is a lot more effective than it sounds.  You get to mingle around see what other people are doing and start riffing off each other.  Then full docs and info are up on their corners of Abzu’s grid for more detail. “  Stan stopped, “you all are stuck here, try to have fun.”  And then out he went through a door into one of the long hallways. I had thought that door was just a closet.

The team hadn’t left the central meeting spot.  I stepped back down into the center.  I looked at Chen and gave a thumbs up.  “Okay, change of plans, 4 groups:  1 unpacks and builds up our local infrastructure, the Tangent presentation group, and 2 new projects.  Who here misses high school?”  I knew there would mostly be groans, but it almost seemed exclusively groans.  “I need some folks to work together and whip up infographics and handouts.  We’re going to a science fair on Friday and we need something for our booth.”  Crickets.  “It’ll be a good opportunity to find out what other people are doing here behind their closed doors.  There might be some good ideas we can use.”

And as I started to say before, we’re going to need some of the department heads to work on a new simulations feature.  I never liked how we need to set some time aside and make a special effort to render a visual of what was happening on Alpha.  What if we could just type in the camera location, put on goggles and look around and see from our own eyes what was happening in real time?”  Janice’s face had a look of distress, I smiled in her direction to try and reassure her.  “We can use one of our slates to run the lamest simulation possible.  One of these conference rooms, we can just move around objects in the simulation for testing.”  

Afterwards we kind of all just milled around in our little office center.  Then there was a mass exodus to the cafeteria and I got to hear the team talk about work again.  We all had something to do.  I heard Chen volunteer to be the “eye candy” at the booth.

First day at the office

/ staticsky

Wow, it’s amazing how spreadsheets can bring you back to reality.

Today I learned where the sacred form is. There was a stack of them in my office. Now I can requisition anything from toothpaste to all the computers we’ll need for the team. In fact I can request more forms with the form.

Today Stan Winston escorted me and Adit to the Simulations lab. I guess we work weekends. Abzu is a surprise behind every door. Down one flight of stairs and down yet another identical hall was a door labeled “simulations” (yes – in lower case). You open the door and zoom you are in a glass corporate office building, without the windows to the outside world. Rows of offices with glass walls, a cubicle farm that went on and on to the point of parody; this was going to be big.

“Welcome home,” Stan said with all honesty. I think I had just witnessed some kindness. I was allowed a few minutes of acclimating before the rest of the team showed up: Janice, Alice, Kaitlin, Erik, Chen, everyone.

In the middle of the cubicle farm there is a clearing and a sunken open space. Though there are meeting rooms, this is probably the only place large enough to hold all of us if there is a team wide meeting.

I introduced everyone to where we would be working and I showed them the sacred form from which all things derived. The assignment over the next couple of days was to fill out the forms for everything they needed. Each group was to get a meeting with me to go over their needs (and their forms) and I’d approve them. We were starting from scratch. Most of the cubicles had no chairs and none of the offices had desks (which made the chairs seem so lonely).

There were lots of questions I couldn’t answer, the most important being of course how we were to access the server farm or if there even was a server farm or were we to spec it out all over again. Other questions centered on how to get Alpha back up, did we have any access to earlier backups of the Alpha code with which to jump start this project. And of course, my favorite: What the hell was this project. I didn’t know that either.

I did have one piece of hardware though, and it held the only piece of information I had. Stan gave me a laptop with access to my corner of the Abzu grid. Nothing there except a meeting on my calendar for Thursday to discuss servers. Hopefully that will answer some of these questions.

The highlight of the day was the mess hall on the simulations floor. It was massive and had an Italian Market theme, and it was the first time we got to “mingle.” Yes, we got to mingle with other inhabitants of Abzu. In fact Stan instructed all of us as to the importance of this. This cela was the ultimate think tank, and information, thought, and retention only grows when it is expressed face to face.

A nice theory and the people I met seemed nice, but very reserved and cagey about what they were working on. It actually was pretty uncomfortable. Hopefully communication and sharing will gain with time (as will our access to other research areas). Maybe to increase mingling we should have a mixer. Deck out the mess hall with ribbons and mirror balls. Serve bad punch. Bring up the awkward another notch.

Meet the new boss

/ staticsky

Unlike every other multinational Greystle still seems to be agile, I’ll give them that. They can turn misfortune to their advantage. Well they can turn the misfortune of others to their advantage.

I had been feeling like we were a bunch of wage slaves for Greystle. We either worked for them on what had once been our project (a project of discover for discovery’s sake) or we could be let loose into the wilderness to search for employment that doesn’t exist. Though being near both Alpha and Janice is a joy.

Now the slavery is a bit more literal. The list of charges was ridiculous, our lawyer pathetic, and the sentence was draconian. Prison time for everyone.

Janice wouldn’t be free in time to see Sally graduate high school. I wouldn’t be out in time to see her graduate college. But longest sentence of all was for Alice who wouldn’t be out in time to see Sally’s children graduate. The judge and prosecutors didn’t take kindly to her being a black belt and actually inflicting at least a few damage points to some soldiers.

But was most impressive about our collective railroading was that it was collective. You didn’t even need to have come to our little riot to get sentenced. If you slept through it you still got 4 years. Being on staff or a grad student was enough. What few undergrads we had were expelled.

And then the white knights of Greystle arrived and all would be forgiven with such magnanimity that they believed they deserved another tax break. Actually Greystle didn’t look at this is an opportunity for good PR, corporations stopped worrying about that years ago. No Greystle now has a guarantee – none of us will go work elsewhere.

We can’t.

None of us will ask for a raise.

We can’t.

And we can’t seem to get a straight answer on how long our servitude will last.

All I know is that I’m not going to prison, Adit isn’t going to prison, Kaitlin isn’t going to prison, Alice isn’t going to prison, and best of all, Janice isn’t going to prison. We all can watch Sally grow. And be free. Though that word is a bit vague these days.

Oh, and I’m not doing my taxes on time this year. What are they going to do? Arrest me?

The Big Boom

/ staticsky

The explosion woke me up. It was loud. The glass shook and the smell felt like that it would burn my nose hair.

Next thing I knew I was outside in front of our building. When I was running across the campus I was joined by most of the simulations staff and students; we were pouring out of every piece of housing. I hadn’t thought of how many there were of us until that moment. And we were all sure it was from our building.

The troops didn’t run. They were already there. Blocking us from getting into the building.

It was if we were parents being blocked from entering the burning school knowing our children were still in there. The Alphans. Were they destroyed? The billions of simulated lives gone. Did some destabilizer commit the largest genocide ever, and not even know it?

Janice rushed the guards and was pushed back – hard, and in a strange moment of bravery or anger or – let me take a moment to sound lame – chivalry, I rushed the guard. I’m told I was met with a rifle butt.

I missed the real excitement. Adit dragged me away. Janice ran to me. Sally screamed and thankfully Kaitlin had the sense to take her back to the trees. Because the next think that happened was for all intents and purposes a riot.

A bunch of IT nerds and science geeks, made even more pale than normal from weeks of not being outside, rushed armed soldiers and Greystle guards. The only advantage we had was the few seconds of their inaction due to the fact that they were in a state of bemusement.

But they were old pros at dealing with rioters by then and we weren’t that adept at rioting. An hour later I was at the campus hospital along with a dozen others. I’m sure one of the soldier’s boots got scuffed.

Sally got me the slate and a bag of cheese curls when she and Janice visited. Janice gave me a kiss and a lecture.

Now half my face is a big swollen clammy weird feeling mess and I’m told that I’m a very lucky little project director because my eye is fine and my retina didn’t detach with the force of the blow.

But the truth is that the Alphans are dead, the project is probably shut down and every one of us is royally screwed.

What the Hell?

/ staticsky

My request was met with almost zero interest. I’ve been told that their main interests in Tangent and Alpha have been met, and though we can continue the project (“for the time being” – what does that mean?) they want all software and hardware teams to begin work on making the simulations scalable.

They want to run 10,20,or even more tangents. I told them a real number would be helpful and was told “more than fifty.” Wha?

The idea of simulating the formation of a solar system is off the table for now. Maybe if we ever get from under the thumb of Greystle we can again have the scientists make decisions on what the science we are studying is. Boy I sound like such a dreamer.

I’ve had Adit’s team slow down Tangent and Alpha to the point where we don’t have to have constant upgrades. Kaitlin’s team is going to be too busy making the mother of all shopping lists to be able to spend time upgrading the simulation hardware every day.

Down on Tangent and Alpha it now takes weeks for a generation to be born and die. Suddenly that seems slow. How us long lived Gods bore of times slow progression. (Oh, I hope Janice never reads that, she really freaks when team members talk about the whole “we’re Gods to them” aspect of this project).

Violent Tangent

/ staticsky

It might just be in my head, but I’m not alone.

Tangent seems like a more violent place than Alpha. And not just for the primates who now seem to be in constant war. But everywhere.

Thunderstorms seem worse. Rodents seem nastier. Even our lizard friends seem grumpy.

Kaitlin thinks so too and she’s one of the most “grounded,” okay – analytical – people I know.

I wonder if anyone in Adit’s team can come up with a way to really quantify violence and get what is a feeling into the realm of fact.

VIPs

/ staticsky

Some kind of big wigs came today. I asked Adit who they were. I mean, had he ever seen them before. He had.

Two of them appeared on a news show for a minute or so a few years back it seems. They were members of the Walker family.

Relatives of the first family. Wow. I know, though not sure why, that Alpha is pretty important to Greystle. But is Prescott aware of our little project here? Are they really that interested in lizard’s and their breakthroughs in mathematics?

Oh did I mention that? Those guys are wizes at math. Their theories are getting to the point where Adit and Kaitlin’s team are spending their nights reading up on higher math to see what the heck they are doing and if there are some new discoveries being made. I’ve asked Greystle if we could bring in Kim Ng from the math department, Dulles’s own Noble Laureate. But Greystle was pretty cagey about the idea.

Are we some kind of high end sweat shop? I have to ask permission to get someone to explain the science our science experiment is uncovering. Maybe we’ll get a grad student of Ng’s at least.

Living in the basement

/ staticsky

I used to joke how our team was just a bunch of basement dwellers, of course there were less of us then, but we didn’t live in a basement. But you know. Times change.

They’ve got a huge kitchen/dining area in our new basement campus and have even brought in some pretty good cooks. Though part of me misses the roach coach lady.

We have breakfast, lunch, and dinner there, and we eat in shifts. Not sure if that is really because there are so many folks living in here now or if Greystle want us to think there are.

The place just feels so large now. There are people on the staircase and in the halls that I don’t recognize. I have no idea where they came from or where they go during the day.

Janice, Kaitlin and Adit certainly have their ideas but I’ve pretty loudly told the teams the best thing for us is to just keep working on the project and let the world figure itself out.

Narcissistic? True, but giving basement dwelling nerds permission to live only in their world and not the real one is what I needed to do. Nothing good is going to happen if we get involved. And what could we do anyway. What should we do?

Besides, the project is the only thing that is really joyful in here. Well that and Sally. She’s taken to this so well, though she is definitely getting a little stir crazy. If it ever feels safe enough to pull POV out again I’d love to find some nice field or beach for her run on.

They’ve got some great horse like creatures in one of the southern continents. Sally would love to be one of those.

Sally’s also got the beat theories as to what is going on. Mostly they have to do with aliens.