Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Matrix game, Project Mu: PM FAQ

That's my most cryptic subject line yet.

The creators behind the Matrix game answered a lot of questions in a substantial FAQ.

New blog: by an Iranian leader

A vice president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mohammad Abtahi, has launched his own blog.  There's an English-language site, which should be updated soon.

(via MetaFilter)

Bluejacking notes

Following up on John Schott's excellent meditations on Bluejacking, I followed him up with some brooding.

Matrix game concluded!

The Matrix game... is over.

In some style, the designers announcd this by following up on an earlier detail. Back in October, MetaCortex advertised for betatesters for their new VR product. I signed up, eagerly, and just received my acceptance to the team. A URL came, along with a URL, which took me to the homepage for Project Mu - which is a name for the entire game. The Mu site gives some background, including credits, a dedication, links to bios (and MetaDexes, and sites, and blogs), music, and some behind-the-scenes stuff.

Amazingly, this is fan fiction!

Good to see that some of the designers are women.

I need some time to write more, but wanted to celebrate (with sadness) the game's conclusion.

Matrix game: notes for the 22nd

More on that game -
NetNinja now hosts the best introduction and overview out there.

Game events: mysteries are coming to light, and plots to crises.
EDITED TO ADD: MetaCortechs has approved betatesters. We've been given logins for "Project Mu."

The AI man, also "Friend", has offered to create a sector of the matrix for McConnell and other friends:

You and your associates will enter this version space, removing yourselves from the simulation. When your signal is no longer detected, the associated search processes will be terminated.

Moreover, inhabitants of the new space will be able to probe the old, risky and ghostlike (cf the second movie's Gothic note):

I will also provide for you a translation program, which will allow you to pass between the version space and the simulation. Upon returning to the simulation you will notice that the translation program does not fully register your shell with the system renderers; this will leave you intangible and, with luck, impervious to all physical harm. You will, regrettably, be unable to interact with the simulation to the degree to which you have become accustomed, but I trust you will come to view this as a necessary precaution. Be aware that if you stay away from the version space for too long the system will register your presence, and the search processes will be restarted.

Spam rage

More on rage against the email snafu: spam rage.

Booker threatened to send a "package full of Anthrax spores" to the company, to "disable" an employee with a bullet and torture him with a power drill and ice pick; and to hunt down and castrate the employees unless they removed him from their e-mail list, prosecutors said.

In a telephone interview with Reuters, Booker acknowledged that he had behaved badly...

Matrix game developments

This week's updates on the Matrix game, with lots of help from the Unfictforum:

In an email found in Philip Gairden's MetaDex, Elizabeth McConnell confronted her supervisor, Marcus Ormond, about the file she'd stumbled across in his office, on James Avery (former MetaCortechs CEO, mysteriously missing). Two things followed: first, Ormond insisted that Avery had simply disappeared, and that he knew nothing more. Second, the agent, now called and logged as Friend, reappeared, and told McConnell that he was "cleaning up" after Avery's disappearance, and Lynne's. Elizabeth is having a hard time with this, mingling ontology and romance in the classic Matrix way:

I don’t know what is harder for me to understand right now, that James and Lynne are dead and have been for some time or that a computer program had a responsibility to remove all traces of them. I thought that I was okay with all of this. I thought that I could deal with it. I think that I’m losing my mind. I mean this can’t be real, can it? I just need to see a real person. I just need you to come and tell me that it’s all a dream (a nightmare?) and that I’ll wake up soon.

Philip Gairden is back, according to a note signed with his name in Elizabeth McConnell's MetaDex. He visited a friend, who vanished, along with their belongings, leaving behind only a sketch, which reminds me of Dina's butterfly.

Katherine Cunningham has been busy. She worked on another Aquapolis breach, revealed in a log directory (kcunningham, laika). Delos flooded, again, and Cunningham tried in vain to fix it, but her pw failed:

Perhaps she died, drowned.

She has also received an ominous note from one "Agent Jones":

We received the file parcel on Elizabeth McConnell today. Please contact us immediately for further instructions.

This suggests impending action, and the plot developing with some threat to McConnell.

Ethan the blogger has met one Jesse, and identifies another Matrix-y plot: Jesse is James Avery's son. A teen geek, he found something out about the MetaCortechs plot, and lost his parents to it. He went on the run with a cybergang, probably the Scratch et al we've been hearing about. Then Ethan and Dina were set up with false identifies, fake selves, to parent him, but now they know. Dina might be dead:

Oh god! She's gone! Her hand was reaching out. Was it reaching for me? Why didn't I take it and save her? Could I have saved her? Her hand. Our ring. Oh god, why didn't I go back? Why didn't I get her? Running. Rain. Voices. She slipped. She couldn't keep up. She screamed. Her scream. Her pain. Her scream. I turned to help. The wall. It wasn't there before. Her hand. Oh god!

New site: Dr. Schuffhausen, who looks exactly like Wongmo.

NetNinja has a primer.

Nigerian scam rage

A cheery article on more rage and revenge against the Nigerian scam:

A scam-baiting site run by 'Alexander Kerensky' focuses its efforts on 419 gangs based in Amsterdam. Adopting the persona 'Lillith Cova', an attractive but desperately lonely 27-year-old advertising executive from London, Kerensky exchanged emails with a man by the name of James for more than a month. During this time he received authentic-looking documents, including a power of attorney, entitling him to a 20 per cent share of $18 million.

'The site started because I managed to lure James in front of an Amsterdam webcam and I wanted people to know what these scammers look like. I don't have anything against Nigerians. These people are, quite simply, outright criminals.

(thanks to Becky Palmer!)

Knowledge management: Carroll on 2003

Nicholas Carroll writes on trends in knowledge management in Mindjack. KM enthusiasm has dropped with the dot.bomb, but still talked about in corporations. Content management rises as a theme, and firms might start hiring people to look after this, as automation falls short.

This is not to say that common sense has won the war. The sell-in of practical information management systems will continue to face obstacles in a world plagued by PowerPoint presentations. For every lucid whitepaper given, there was the usual deranged slide show of boxes, circles, and feedback loops, about as enlightening as Total Quality Management in its heyday.

Matrix game: AI advances

While the third Matrix movie flops, for most viewers (and I vow some links, comments, and a review, as soon as I get into a theater to see the thing), the game continues to grow and deepen.

Beth McConnell has communicated with the entity she's been in contact with, and receives an email, an image, and makes a transcript of her side of a conversation. These appear on Phil Gairden's MetaDex, and Beth's. The message explains how it made contact with Beth. It describes Auditors, other programs it works with (or that support it). In closing, it commends itself to humans' safety, and suggests withdrawal to another physical locale:

I am explaining this to you because I believe that their interest in my existence may endanger those around me. Your help has been invaluable and witnessing human instincts has been most interesting. I have come to appreciate your nature and do not wish to cause you or those near you harm. Because of this, I have determined that it is in the best interest of your kind for me to test my functionality in the safety of a less populated area. You and I will no longer be in contact.

Another file in Beth's MetaDex, called "stream", seems to describe the intrusion of this entity into her mind and daily routing, in stream of consciousness style. It climaxes imaginatively, and breaks off at a peak, without punctuation:

How are you doing this? Do you understand what you are doing? Can you repeat it? Is this supposed to happen? Maybe this is part of your function! Though I still don't understand why or how you have functions. It makes no sense. You make no sense. An angel of some sort? What could do this? Could an angel do this? Could a god? A god? Would you stop documenting everything I'm saying just for a minute so that I can think? Please. Just stop it. Stop it. Stop! I can't read it! Stop typing it out or sending it. Well whatever it is just stop. Ok, let's think this through. He can read my mind. That is not normal behavior. Not human behavior. Stop reading. This is hard. I don't understand. Just go away. Leave. Well don't go. I don't want you to go. I just don't want you to read my mind. Stop reading it! I said

Beth is also being passed over at work by Marcus Ormond, and blames Katherine Cunningham.

She's right, in that "katgirl" has moved onto another, and big, project. We learn from Ormond's Metadex that Cunningham is working on the Aquapolis security setup.
Aquapolis announces that its "Main Control Area [is] Operational." Another nice example of the game's text using bureaucratic/technological language in a mundane way, with a layer of threat. They've also fixed their spinning cam problem.
They're using a MetaCortechs tech called SafeSys.

Cunningham also has a phonecall recorded in her Dex. It's a mix, containing overlapping streams: a female voice asserting that all is AOK (which we've seen on the Aquapolis site, and in Cunningham's note); a male voice, complaining about problems; cheery muzak; alarms. Unf's working on it.

Cunningham is perhaps tracking the entity which communicated with Cunningham. Some notes from her Dex:

They did not capture him
Continuing contact outside of events

(thanks, Unfic)

Speaking of Ormond, we also learn from his Dex that Meta CEO James Avery turned down his request to move to South Korea. He also has a picture of an i.d. for one Jesse, for Redland, from 2000-2001. Unforum thinks it could be James Avery's son.

EDITED TO ADD: Dina's blog and Ethan's blog reveal connections to each other, and some mental expansion. Ethan vies with IRL players for a CD.

Generally, I'm impressed at the work - the creators', and the players'. This is a splendid mix of storytelling, mystery, and multimedia production.