PatternSmithing Alliance Blogs

FluxPoints fits into a larger set of projects and the plan has been to add its technology in after some of the other layers have been built in.  This was always due to its complexity, and to avoid any tight-coupling to the fluxpoints framework; however, some recent work on static pattern engineering and the Thingk framework have prompted the need to inject the underlying concepts in FluxPoints into all of the projects.  The developments are quite exciting and I expect tremendous momentum on all projects over the next few months, so there will be plenty of opportunity for those who would like to contribute.

I can’t talk about detailed specifics on two core components of the FluxPoints framework; however, after working with their consequences, I believe they can bring about a transformation of how we use the web.  Both are geared around the goal of bringing flux to endpoints that wrap around static patterns or Thingks (that is, fluxpoints).  There will be several mechanisms for bringing flux to these endpoints, but these two additions, it is hoped, will change the nature of how people respond to information on the web.

The first, and oldest, mechanism is the NeoReQuest framework, and changes the way we look at the standard web request and the way we frame a sequence of interactions with the web.  The notions of context, intention, and most importantly, autotelic behavior surround this longer running transaction we frame as a new form of web request.  Eventually, NeoReQuest will be a standalone site as the value this way of walking the web will bring will far outgrow the fluxpoints project; however, the fluxpoints framework will frame the activities on partner sites (thingk.com, dreamspawn.net) as NeoReQuests.  This serves a two-fold purpose: to bring flux from the partner sites to these activated endpoints and to evolve the neorequest framework so that it can be effortlessly incorporated into future partner sites when it is time to go public.

The second project focuses on one of the best forms of analog flux that carries meaning that we have encountered and has been completely overlooked on the web.  Armed with the technological platform we are arranging and some basic concepts, this form of flux provides us some of the best measurements and provisioning of flux from the human mind than we could ever hope to achieve without it.  To be honest, since this idea came to me I have not been able to tuck it away for future work.  This is probably the most active Thingk in my mind at the moment and the energy of it will drive all of the other initiatives forward (except it will probably slow work on the book I am writing).  Of course, I’m being purposely vague, but those who work with the beta testing of Thingk.com will be able to experience early stages of this technology.

Finally, the PatternSmithing Alliance is the “centralized organizing and guiding body for the core activities, knowledge, and applications of static pattern engineering technologies”, and these are three such technologies (that is, fluxpoints, neorequests, and voxpoints).  All three are semantic web technologies at root (that is, they both expose and consume data using the semantic web framework) and the Alliance will maintain the specifications for the ontologies and schemas used for all three.  This is also an invitation – I am interested in collaborating with individuals who are interested in any of these technologies.

As a last note, I want to pay homage to Dr Stephen Thaler, whose series of Thingks and experiments he performed with Imagination Engines, and his generous sharing of information to the web community all along and my subsequent exposure to them, gave the initial inspiration for the FluxPoints project.  Although I am not using any of Dr Thaler’s technology in this site, the spirit of his ideas and the results he obtained live inside this project – I have no doubt exposure to his ideas directly transformed my own conceptions of SPE technology back in early 2001.  This sort of attribution (the “inspiredBy” attribute in the Thingk-related ontologies) is essential to track.  Thank you, Dr Thaler.

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The Thingk.com private beta will open up in May 2010.  Here are some details surrounding the private beta:

• This will be an invitation only beta, which means:
  • Some colleagues and friends will be asked directly to join – please feel no obligation but your feedback will be greatly appreciated if you can assist.
  • Throughout the last few years, I have been looking at interesting individuals who may be interested in patternsmithing and Thingk persistence – you will be receiving a hand-crafted email as a personal invitation – once again, no obligation please – only do this if it brings you value but if you do your feedback is greatly appreciated.
  • As expressed on this blog, if interested feel free to contact me at the contact form http://xri.net/=joel.kotarski and I will be able to accomodate you.  Also if you think you know someone who would be interested from the category above, please contact me here as well.
  • We’ll probably have limited invitations to spread around among private beta users – these will probably only be on a request-only basis, however, to control capacity initially.
• For those in town, we will most likely host an in-person meeting where we will go over some details about the site and what is being accomplished – for out-of-towners we may also host a teleconference as a separate event.
• Since we will be testing privacy and security (with potential bugs to be found), I ask that you put the kind of ideas you may spontaneously work on but not your actual work and certainly not anything you would consider intellectual property at this point.  Much of the data from the private beta will be wiped clean on launch so that we can fully test; however, I am planning to make an easy mechanism to tag content you wish to transition over to the full system – also, I will be soliciting feedback on making this process as painless as possible for those generally interested in getting value from the work they do in beta testing.
• As always, being asked to participate should not imply obligation to participate, and participating should not imply obligation to give detailed feedback.  Anything you do is greatly appreciated and will be rewarded in some manner.

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The user interface will be central to the success of the Thingk.com site.  We’ve gone through several iterations of user interface in an attempt to simplify how our users will persist their Thingks.  After several iterations, I believe we have reached a concept that will achieve all the goals we set out to accomplish – I am codenaming it “Polymeric” – a nod to combinatorial chemistry (more on this later).  This label may or may not make it beyond the source code and this blog/design meetings, but it usefully describes what is going on: I  want the user interface to not only assist those who have a Thingk ready to persist without getting in their way, but also those who are searching for a solution in a combinatorial manner (where the site becomes a source of information, components, and inspiration as well as a persistence mechanism).

Polymeric finally admits that the user interface should get out of the way of the user – that the best expression comes out of the user if they are guided and prompted along but in a non-intrusive way.  At the core of Polymeric is the ContextProvider – the context is used to provide suggested components, prompted questions, and directions for exploration.  The ContextProvider works at three levels : what the user has done before (what Thin(g)(k)s* they have created, what Thin(g)(k)s have inspired them, as well as the components of each), what they are doing right now (the current word they may be trying to type, what question they are answering), and where the engine can infer they are going (via pattern matching of current text we can infer related directions for exploration).

*: Thin(g)(k)s means Things, Thinks, and/or Thingks (or any combination thereof).

At the center is the Polyermic edit box – a text editor (with optional rich editing functionality but this is hidden away and only appears under certain circumstances) which is fed by and feeds the ContextProvider.  At the moment, we are planning to have users use WikiWord format to denote Thin(g)(k)s across the entire site – it is just a format that works well.  The ContextProvider loads several layers of information, but the first layer of information is a static list of WikiWords (that is, pointers to Thin(g)(k)s) which the user has had contact with (either by creating, being inspired by, or using as components in their other creations), primed for usage in this context.  Let’s look at the post I am writing currently on this blog – four WikiWords are at play and only three are Thin(g)(k)s.  The Thin(g)(k) WikiWords are : “ContextProvider”, “Polymeric”, and “Thin(g)(k)”.  I’ve repeatedly typed all three manually throughout this post, but if I was editing this post in Polymeric in the actual Thingk.com web site, these words would have been suggested to me.  This due to the first and second layers of information: “Polymeric” and “Thin(g)(k)” would have been loaded in context in the first layer (as my creations and/or creations I collaborated with others on), but the moment “Polymeric” was suggested to me and I picked it, the ContextProvider would have loaded all the components of the Thingk “Polyermic” into context, including (but not limited to) the “ContextProvider”.  And one of the other Thin(g)(k)s that would have been loaded is a reference to a project which inspired context suggestions and must be payed homage to: GoogleSuggest.  GoogleSuggest inspired many people as an autocomplete mechanism to use Ajax to give suggestions based on user inputs, but this is in the context of one singular input, whereas we will suggest individual parts of a larger body of text – this is of course nothing revolutionary – you can see the same feature on your cell phone.  The difference here is that a Thingk, behind the scenes, will be a RDF resource that follows the ontology defined for Thin(g)(k)s at the PatternSmithing Alliance, including linkages between Thin(g)(k)s at the RDF level.  Like most semantic web applications, we would never dream of having our users manually hand-type RDF; however, by choosing one of these WikiWords, the text of the Thin(g)(k) is not the only persisted but also the relationship/link to the Thin(g)(k) itself.  This was the crucial problem to solve – to give the user an intuitive mechanism for forging these relationships.

The Polymeric user interface has an additional set of features which are fed by the ContextProvider.  Several of these are based off the usage of WikiWords – for instance, it is possible to use a WikiWord for a Thin(g)(k) not currently on the site (for instance, my mention of GoogleSuggest would have started the process of creating an authorative reference on the site to Google’s project, pending Google’s permission to create such a thing) as well as suggestions to the user to turn a repeated pattern of text into a WikiWord and therefore a Thin(g)(k) on the site.  Additionally, the outer borders of the user interface will have bits of context floating in based on what is going on inside the editing area: a cloud of moving WikiWords that can be grabbed and dragged onto the editing surface that changes over time, and prompting questions that fade in and fade out  to guide the user to starting or evolving their work.

Once we open up the private beta, we will be soliciting feedback from some of you, so please contact me at http://xri.net/=joel.kotarski if interested.

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NOTE: This is a preface post (formerly called Stub post) which gives an intro on upcoming content.

As I continue to work on the upcoming volume to be published, one of the opening chapters that has emerged concerns seeing the world in terms of patterns.  This thesis (that the world can be perceived, modeled, and treated as an intermeshed collection of patterns) is central to establishing the entire field of static pattern engineering as well as orienting individuals toward the activities (patternsmithing, pattern engineering, and architecting) that arise from it.

One of the problems I have struggled with is that the term Pattern has a lot of connotations surrounding it and most of them are seemingly purposefully and annoyingly vague.  For current examples across the web, see the following google query.  In a future post, I will reveal the formalization of the term pattern that underlies static pattern engineering (intuitive hints have been spread throughout this blog) and  with this formal definition I will give plenty of exercises of seeing the world (including that which is formed, that which is forming, and that which is yet to be formed) in terms of patterns.

Once patterns are defined and examples are identified, it will be important to introduce how forces are operating on this pattern and the terms static pattern, dynamic pattern, and active pattern will come into focus.  At that point, it is hoped it will become clear how and why individuals work on creating, transforming, and operating on patterns in their daily lives and why we need a field and set of activities for working with these patterns directly.  Once this post is published, I’d welcome feedback on it, as I am hoping this will be an intriguing opening for the book and ultimately an introduction to the field for many.

Also, on another note, as a reader please begin registering your interest levels (via the polls available) which topics you would be most interested in reading next, as the frequency of posting on this blog is fairly low, I want to make sure you have a voice and that I am made aware of what you are looking to discover.  As always, contact me at http://xri.net/=joel.kotarski with any questions or feedback.

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