Simulations

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.

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.

Stan’s the Man

/ staticsky

Stan came into “my” office today, luckily after I shook myself awake. The request forms they used here have such a horrible layout that the brain wants to shut down in revolt. I assume this is purposeful as it probably cuts down on the amount of requests that are made.

He wanted to talk to me “in his office.” For some reason I had flashbacks of high school whispers of “ohhh he’s in trouble….”

Stan has an office in the simulations lab too, behind what I had thought was just door to an electrical closet was yet another hallway (seriously, how massive is this place?). The hall ended with another door that opened into a very roomy office. On one wall sat his desk with oak cabinets behind him. That scene would have been at home in any office park office building. Another wall however was all monitors, each monitor flipping through video feeds that seemed to cover the entire simulations lab floor. I’m sure Stan wanted me to see that both as a threat and a warning. We were watched. It was a given, but it was something else to see it in living black and white. Seriously it was black and white. This place seems to have no limit to its budget and scale and they can’t be bothered to spy on us in color?

But as spectacular as the wall of monitors was, the wall across from it was a wonder. I think it was a window (or an amazingly clean video monitor) to the server farm. But it was massive. They aren’t doing just a hundred or so tangents, they are doing thousands, tens of thousands. Server rack after server rack in a warehouse sized hole in the rock. We must be on the outer edge of Abzu because the server farm was sitting there surrounded by bare rock. It looked so fake honestly, like an underground factory from an old sci-fi film back when they used matte paintings instead of digital imagery.

Stan just wanted to reinforce the importance of this project, and how seriously “everyone” was taking this. It’s far beyond Greystle now.

I didn’t get to discuss what was of most interest to me: What “this” is. He just showed me his office and then pushed me out the door since he just “wanted to show me around a bit,” but that he had another meeting to go to.

Game night again tonight. It looks like we are using proper Abzu etiquette because our game is exactly where we left it. Adit would know if any piece had been moved.

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.