Project

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.

Magic Markers and violent world

/ staticsky

I remember in 5th grade it was campaign season for student council & student body President. For the campaigns no one was allowed to use pre-printed boards, every campaign poster was hand drawn – suddenly the halls were no longer swimming in the smells of poor hygiene, but rather that smell plus Magic Markers.  You’d almost get a buzz going to the cafeteria. 

I walk into the office and discovered the smell of magic markers haven’t changed and I wonder if the giddiness I feel is from its brain alerting effects of its smell or just good memories of childhood.

So the supplies for the science fair arrived today.  And the Cela seems to be taking the “science fair” concept surprisingly literally.  Markers, boards, scissors, tape.  And if I was to make a unscientific observation but the nostalgia of these items has given everyone a giddiness and suddenly there is interest in this project.  Either that or the smell of magic markers also has give them a bit of a buzz.

A stack of personal slates had arrived, one each.  We all now have some access to the Intecela, basically The Sims Corner of the local grid.  There is a “read me” file (how retro) that let us know we’ll be getting wider access after the fair and any materials we develop should be place on our corner so that everyone can access.

This morning’s meeting started with the non-project statuses, because everyone seems to be jonesing to talk about what they’ve learned even it is things like the fact that two floors below us they have turned their cafeteria into an amazing curry place.  Hopefully we get access to move about soon, maybe after the fair.  Other folks say they’ve heard that there are other themed cafeterias and even hang out rooms on other floors.  Stan said there are a set of “pillow rooms” in the floor above us, which raised some eyebrows.  

Chen presented some posters he printed out last night, and they were not for the fair.  they were like tests for color blindness, in color you could clearly read “This Cela Sucks” and “I Enjoy The Outdoors What Abzu?” He had to say Abzu like “about you” to make the “joke” work.  It didn’t, it don’t work.  Chen’s idea was to put them up everywhere because unreadable if viewed with the B&W monitors.  Sam from anthropology noted that there was probably full time staff somewhere monitoring us, and with color monitors.  The B&W ones I saw were probably just a show of power, alluding to the archetype of surveillance being B&W monitors.  Lisa, the biology team lead, chimed in that depending on the contrast settings on the B&W monitors the messages might actually be visible since the color blind tests concentrate on hues and not brightness of the colors.  I think they were ganging up a bit on Chen, probably because of that “what Abzu” joke.  Chen seemed unbothered and noted he was putting them up around the office anyway.  Respect.

Now to the projects.  I asked if the Tangent team would be able to present today so that tomorrow we could get more folks on the science fair team and they said they were ready already.  If you’re just basing a presentation on hunches and memories of data, as there is no data, a presentation can come together really quickly.

Kim from Geology and Otto from Chemistry made the presentation.  Very professionally they started with a long list of caveats that they wrapped up by stating that their conclusions were basically “maybe.”  None the less everyone was in rapt attention.

We took what we thought was a minor change (7 millimeters) and saw the changes quickly and dramatically.  The “ape” that didn’t die on tangent kept leading wars and battles, changing a culture of a species that really didn’t have much of one.  Since we were looking at so much in aggregate we didn’t notice that these small things let to smelting for weapons while other ape communities hadn’t even developed agriculture.  The CO2 in Tangent was higher our “feelings” that storms were worse, likely were true.  Environmental lead increased, Tangent’s apes and lizards were getting dumber, their executive functions muted.  Quick violent reactions were more common.  Weapons of war became the technological drivers in the northl.  It wasn’t a feeling – Tangent was more violent, weather to war.  To say this is just a theory though is being generous.  There isn’t any data to point to – just memories of data.  Victim to the Big Boom.

There was a quiet, I didn’t want to call status to close on what really seemed like a downer, though what they were saying was fascinating.  Then from the back someone shouted “holy shit that’s a lot of goggles.”

Boxes and boxes of old school VR goggles were opened by the entrance.  One thing to say about Abzu is that they don’t have supply chain issues.  You put it in the Sacred Form and it appears the very next morning.

I got to spend a little time with Janice today.  We didn’t talk about “us” if there is such a thing for us anymore, but we did talk about Sally.  Sally is excited about her “field trip” to another cela next week, but Janice is rightfully terrified.  She is trying to talk herself down of course.  Sally spent a lot of the evening on her slate talking with her new acquaintances, friends?  Janice met some of the kids and briefly their parents, it all seemed normal even if the conversation with the parents started with the screen started with a disclaimer dialog box noting the rules of the communication:  No real names (except for the children), no discussion of what you or anyone in your cela are doing, no discussion of any personally identifiable information of anyone in your cela, etc. etc. The faces and voices of the adults were obscured digitally, though they seemed and sounded like normal folks and not like obscured witnesses on an old time TV investigative show.  Okay it didn’t seem normal at all, but really what choice did Janice have, and this all was so important to Sally.

Janice also said that Sally had skimmed what was on the shared slate, maybe I should call that the Unicorn Slate, and was not happy with Latin as a new subject. 

Over to you Adit – How’s Kaitlin? I heard she had a reaction to the cafeteria’s food.

People Helping People

/ staticsky

You work with people day in day out for months. Some are friends. Some you have lunch with. Some you say hi to. And all of them are brave and good people.

I have never been more impressed by my team. I have never been so overwhelmed at what people can do.

One long standing item on my to-do list was simply making what we were doing with Alpha easier.

The set up for Alpha and Tangent required so much custom coding; even the maintenance required so many developers, engineers, and DBAs hands on all the time. Of course some of the work was caused by the ever present hovering biologists, anthropologists, ecteraologists wanting to see more details or wanting to test a theory.

But when you got down do it the code to implement much of the laws our simulation needed to obey were already written. I had always planned on making some of these items as simple to implement as clicking a button. A world creating GUI if you will.

Thank god for procrastination. We never even got to the point of spec’ing such functionality. The simulations we ran are as difficult and complex to create and manage as they were from day one.

If you want to do it again we are necessary. All of us.

Greystle has been very obvious that they want us to do it again. So much so that they got us all out of jail.

So we put that to the test.

Last week Greystle announced that the Simulations Department was moving to ‘a new location.’ The last pretense of this being a project from an institution of learning- being on campus- is being removed. We were also told that we would be in some way working for the Defense Department and that because of that we weren’t being told where we were going.

Then last Thursday Janice learned that Sally was not coming with us. She was devastated. I was devastated. Within a minute of Janice and I being told I the news I was getting calls from team members about what we should do about it (even without access to the grid news travels fast).

Our team almost filled up the old cafeteria in the student center and I suggested something that to me seemed ludicrously ballsy. We would strike. We would go to jail and not to work.

And it was agreed to quickly and unanimously. Janice cried, so did I, so many of us did. The team was a beaten group, and this was a moment where they would fight back.

Whatever Greystle is planning on with another Alpha project must be big, because Sally is coming with us (and so is my unicorn covered slate I guess). They folded immediately. Good to know we aren’t powerless.

Sally promises cookies for everyone as thanks. Assuming Greystle allows us access to cooking instruments (no knives?).

Unicorns and Rainbows for data safety!

/ staticsky

Well thank God for unicorn stickers.

Now that I “work” for Greystle on “their’ simulations project I no longer have a right to privacy. They are trying to rebuild the project and have gone through everyone’s rooms/houses/apartments searching for every electronic device that may be of help.

Basically they are praying that someone broke their IP rules and took some work home.

They wanted to look at the slate but I let them know it was for Sally’s homework. And without missing a beat they just moved on. I wonder if that is out of respect for me having once been in charge of this project or for the fact that the slate is covered in unicorns and rainbows. Yes there are actual animating rainbows on the slate I’m typing on right now. I’ll never call them distracting again.

Funny thing is the “device” that knows the most about our project is Adit’s brain – so much of it is stored right up there. I’m guessing Ned isn’t fully in bed with Greystle, because they don’t seem to know that he is Rasa. The fact that Ned is keeping that secret makes me forgive the fact that he never showed up at any of the court hearings.

Tomorrow I meet the head of the project for Greystle. My first question is what are we doing, because Alpha and Tangent are dead.

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.

Science is not a risk management matrix

/ staticsky

Being back at my room doesn’t feel like being home anymore. I feel like I’m visiting. But does that mean the lab is my real home now?

There is a lot of hustle and bustle back at the lab. Work is being done, but it doesn’t seem to be science. All that the software and hardware teams are working on is how to do our simulations on a massive scale. There are plans, timelines, risk management, contingencies. It’s like Project Management for the sake of project management.

And if I see another spreadsheet… I’ll do nothing, I’ve got a lot of spreadsheets to look at in the coming days.

Janice has been able to get a skeleton grew to be dedicated just to Alpha and Tangent. Technicians and scientists that somehow haven’t shown up on a Greystle resource plan. The hardest part for them is to not follow their natural instinct and file reports. What happens in Alpha now is documented only in their personal journals. Anything official and they might get noticed. And if they get noticed they’ll be “ramping up,” and making the project “scalable.” And documenting our systems “best practices.”

Really, if it has never been done before I’m not sure the way that you did it the first time can be considered “best practice.” But what do I know – this is just what my career has become.

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.

Happy New Year

/ staticsky

I guess I should be happy this year is over as I sit on a cot mattress in a huge barracks like room. They can fit twenty of us in this room and there are three rooms like this on this floor. And there seems to be more floors below us. I guess now I know what Greystle was building.

Were they planning ahead for when the country would start falling apart? I’m pretending the sounds I heard from outside when I was walking down the stairs were celebratory fireworks. Should I be out there too? Fighting? For what I know. The past. But not sure what the fighting does. It doesn’t seem organized. Not to use the presidents term but it just seems destabilizing.

So it is New Year’s. A lousy fake holiday to begin with, now seeming even more pointless. No one is celebrating.

Should I reflect on the past year? Where it looks like so much has gone wrong with the year. With me. But so much has gone right with what I want to do. With Alpha. Is it wrong to take joy in that. When I should be miserable. Like the rest of the world.

I’ll take what I can get. I’m luckier than I should be.

Hard to believe at this time last year Ned and I were overseeing the shut down of all the other projects at the Simulations Department and the formation of the Alpha team.

Alpha has gone from a University sponsored study staffed mostly with grad students to some kind of military industrial skunk works in what seems like a blink of an eye. Or a few billion Alphan years I guess.