HNMNBM Book One

Commissioner Sonny Davis picked up the phone to call Wonk, then decided what the heck, it would only be a 20 minute drive to talk in person. Eve was able to set up a time on Thursday. Wonk was still running his businesses out of his flagship men's spa, Backcomb. Welcome sir, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, asked Wonk. Nice day to be out, though breezy, lost my hat twice. I see you still have a bare office, I remember you telling me it helps you think better. Mine is a clutter magnet, photos, memorabilia from 30 years of service. And in all 30 years, despite no support from a state income tax, we have managed to provide top quality fire and rescue.  As you know,  Snohomish country ran a referendum on increasing the property tax rate to 1.2% to offset the decreasing funding support from Washington DC. It was overwhelmingly defeated. So, now what, he said with his voice trailing off. Wonk could see where the conversation was headed, but wanted to be careful. S...

PRESENCE: I always knew Wonk was driven, Yolanda beamed to her sister Gloria while sitting in a high wing back chair, but what I don’t understand is what drives him. Gloria nodded, when Wonk runs across lukewarm customer service, or inefficient business it bothers him to the core of his being. You’ll think he’s with you, but he isn’t really. I’ll be talking about spring flowers and he will suddenly pipe up and says something out of left field like, Why wouldn’t you serve the customer? What wouldn’t you make your business as efficient as possible? And he’s all jacked up when he says it, it is clearly bothering him. Look Yo, he is a complicated ejaculation, get this, he says his business is centered around personal service. But given his druthers, he goes to cashierless, registerless stores and restaurant delis, grab and go. Yolanda chuckled, that is what botxennials are supposed to do. Wonk is too young to remember the Sunday comic, Richie Rich, the poor little rich boy, bo...

Have you seen this Wonk, Eve asked? "According to a social media post by the Everett Police Protective Association, the incident involved the employees and manager of an Uncle JoJo’s Chicken ‘n Bar-B-Q harassing officers dining with a rendition of Scott McKenzie's 1967 hit “San Francisco” On Monday, however, police confirmed that no such incident occurred. “Despite media reports, two officers witnessed one employee make eye contact with them and mouth the words ‘Wear flowers in your hair,” said the Everett Police Department in a statement. “There was no singing. There were no other employees involved. Because of the subtle nature of this act, it was not witnessed by anyone else in the store. However, the employee's mouthing was captured by one of the officer's body cams and analyzed by the department's lip reading AI.” After the association’s post went viral last week, the restaurant’s social media pages were flooded with racially charged and often threaten...

Presence: Gizmo and Yakov appeared to Traveler as he was outside. Gizmo, Traveler, thank you for taking the time to meet with me. Yakov, a slight man dressed in his Orthodox robes. Where are you standing Traveler, it looks like a graveyard? It is, First Hallow of Understanding, I was looking for a relative to do a rubbing from her marker. So what's up? Well guys, the problem, in a nutshell is, there just isn't enough H coin, can't you make more, asked Yakov. We started using it internally. Now we are thinking about expanding that, perhaps within a couple years all of our parishioners can submit their pledges in H coin linked to the church blockchain. Gizmo was always smiling. We are making more. There is a mining operation going full time at Wenatchee. And no, we can't make it go faster, that would defeat the purpose. You could, of course, start you own tangible blockchain, like Principus. Yakov nodded. We have certainly thought about it. It would be muc...

Congress did not act today to continue funding the Child Welfare Act of 2026 was the headline on HNMNBie news network. Wonk felt numb, powerless. Nutrition, education, medical care, and what happens when these children grow up, damaged, stunted. The stretch goal for Up and Out was to add 3,800 more candidates next year, less than 1% of the American children congress had turned their back on today. = = = Presence: Controller here, Wonk what's going on the US? Controller, must be having a banner day, thought Wonk. Crypto currency was flying, his office in Zuk looked like a zero-one festival. I don't know big C, I guess you are talking about the children? The irony of it is, it was a banner day for our legislators, they also managed to  extend the sunset on FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which was written to enable the federal government to spy on foreign agents here and abroad. Maybe that was true in 78, but 50 years later they are in full ...

CLIPS FROM HNN: JB Billington worked in a government contracting shop. Her job was to buy the things her agency needed that cost above $10k. Anything below could be purchased directly with a credit card. She, like all government contractors, were supposed to set aside some of the purchases for small businesses. Today, she got a memo the credit card limit was being raised to $50k. That meant two things, virtually no second looks at purchases and no small business set aside. Jim Stettic was a tenured professor at an exclusive private university. He just learned they were releasing the adjunct faculty. He was now expected to manage a student load of 300 undergraduate students and 50 graduate students. You've already read the story of Harold the photographer, when his business didn't bring in enough money, he worked for a call center where he was replaced by an AI. Or the pizza chef replaced by the robot. END CLIPS from HNN The second gilded age was coming to a close. In ...

Traveler, wait on the Lord doesn't mean not doing anything. I agree Josh. worship and fasting should certainly be in the equation. Traveler, we need to drop the sanctimonious idea that worship service is our ultimate purpose in the Eschaton. Seek first His kingdom and righteousness and all these things will be given unto you. That's why Neopuritans seek to do kingdom work. What we do here, is that we will be doing in the new creation. Traveler grinned, well I hope you like fixing dinner and washing dishes, sounds like that's what you will be doing for eternity. Eh, what's that, said Josh. You remember the story:. "But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "LORD, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" Martha, Martha," the LORD answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed-or indeed only on...

They were both standing up, on the beach with the table in the grass behind them. No words were said by the lovebirds, no need. She answered that question every couple asks during a first date, took his head with both hands and initiated a gentle kiss. Then they hugged, kissed again, more passionately, then hugged again. Ever so quietly Leilani began to sing the ancient nursery rhyme. Lavender’s green dilly, dilly, lavender’s blue If you love me, dilly, dilly, I will love you. Let the birds sing, dilly dilly, and the lambs play We shall be safe, dilly, dilly, out of harm’s way. Traveler noticed the goosebumps. It’s never really cold in Hanalei, but the moist breeze will not be denied and she was a wisp of a girl. Time to take her home.

It was snowing by the time Wonk arrived at the vigil for Pearson and Jeanette, two PSEs killed in an audacious midnight raid. All the data indicated the attackers were from a radical fringe group of Polish special forces. Wonk's team had been hired as the protective force for Carrie Chapman, a human rights advocate named after the famous suffragette. She had the audacity to speak of Polish citizens that had worked several death camps, including the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. Wonk was grieved at the deaths of the PSEs, tortured by the thought his client was now a prisoner of a Polish military faction. He did notice that the brotherhood/sisterhood of the PSE was still strong. All of their surviving cohort was there and most of the local Up and Out program. Gary Chapman, Carrie's brother, said to Wonk, I never thought the Polish law to fine or jail people who blamed Poland or Poles for Nazi atrocities committed on its soil during World War II would stick. The...

Look Yolanda, I get it, said Angelica. You do realize that the first group that tried to build that monument got trashed. The CEO had his self-drive burned while he was in it. Motorcycle drove up, smashed a Molotov on his hood. He is only alive because he saw a firetruck parked that was responding to a fire already, overrode autopilot, and crashed into the back of it so they could put him out. Plus, there is no way this will stay out of the news. Being a roboticist these days has some very bad connotations. Mix that with the fact that some people quietly support . . . Angelica, this is your choice, but what happened to those girls is wrong. People need to remember what happened to those female gymnasts at MSU forever; that team doctor perv is a classic example of a Name that Must Never again Be Mentioned. And about the violence and the attention, I have an idea. Gizmo has a facility in Hawaii.  He just wrote me yesterday talking about a bunch of advanced robotic students, g...

I don't know Gizmo, I think she is becoming unbalanced, Traveler said. I love her, but it is getting harder to relate to her. OK, but Traveler, you said she explained a bit about the math that goes into Principus, right? Yeah, it's a two stage data reduction. Stage one is applying the law of thermodynamics to the content destined for the tangible block. Wait, I thought people had tried to do that before and without great success. Well, there was an NSA patent, expired long ago to apply it to network traffic. Close enough, didn't need much change, but the big idea was, the NSA approach used a preprocessor, sort by TCP or UDP  or ELSE, | size discriminator | randomness check so the encrypted stuff went down a different path. What Yolanda has going doesn't preprocess, the thermodynamic algorithm is by nature a data reduction operation, good thing since we are talking, massive data streams, instead, the secret sauce is in the back end. Post processor? Yea, thi...

Early in the morning, before Wonk was awake, Yolanda, CB and Angelica were sharing a cup of 5x water filtered coffee at Mojo's. I'm talking about deep state's growing ability to track people. The problem, Yolanda said talking a sip from her travel mug, is that though a number of sources the government has been compiling facial recognition for X million people. It's amazing, the government doesn't have the money to address the nerves, opiates, health care, areas struck by hurricanes, maintain the military, or pay down the debt, but they do have the money to spy on US citizens at an unprecedented rate. Blue Circle has had personas for over a century and used look alikes in public, but the recognition is getting so good that we are reaching the point where this won't continue to work. Personas cost booocooo bucks to create and maintain, so that is a serious issue. I like your hair up like that, answered CB, kind of a sassy look for you. Whoops, a drop of coff...

Slow day. Boba Baste, split his time between hair cutting, apprentice phase for the treasured barbering license in Washington state, and ride share using his girfriend's car. Basically, he thought to himself, I am an indentured servant. Then the phone rang. It was a tryptobot, personal secretary, "I'm trying to reach Boba Baste", the voice said, for an outcall haircut.  Strictly speaking, as an apprentice, he shouldn't say yes, but slow day, he had missy's car, it was income hopefully more than task rabbit. My minimum charge for outcall is $65, he said, hoping that he sounded confident. Tryptobot didn't miss a beat, I am authorized to offer $75. Boba was nobody's fool. The first rule of negotiation is never bid against yourself. If this had been a human on the line, he would have stayed silent for a half-minute, would they offer $85 before he ever said anything. But this was a bot, they were infinitely patient. Still ... a business bot would know...

OK, OK, but what is the alternative, covered wagon? One serendipitous day, Wonk was flying home from California after visiting his first out-of-state Backcomb franchise, waiting for his black car when the beginnings of an idea began to form. JUNK MAIL: Fly anywhere in Washington State, (weather permitting) At “No Problem AirService” our goal is to get you there, safely, on time, rested and relaxed. Call 1-800-555-1212 and we’ll hook you up. Belly laugh as he remembered. No Problem AirService, those are the people that brought Gizmo, Pedro, and Angelica to Iron Springs, we have used them before, wonder if they are a Circle company? If not, they probably will be soon. Why not, thought Wonk, what if they are for real, nothing ventured ….   Wonk called the number, left a message to the, “sales will call” recording. Let the games begin. Being more customer friendly at SEATC really isn’t a disruptable opportunity. Being invisible to TSA...

They sat at the conference table in the center of the fountain room, so named because there was one in each corner. Mustafa Balan had called the meeting. Gentlemen, the atmosphere our businesses operate is is becoming more hostile. In Europe, and to some extent in the US, there is a group of allied corporations. It is impossible to learn about them from the press, only the slightest hints on social media. But with patience, I was finally able to meet someone that has had personal contacts with these groups. Even he doesn't know much, but he is willing to share what he knows. He did asked to only be called by his first name, Harold, because some of the information is delicate. Harold walked over the the table. Dimitri, who headed the equivalent of Home Depot in Russia, invited him to sit down. I was fortunate enough to score some photography jobs, high priced stuff, the rich and famous. Over time, I saw a bit of a pattern, they knew each other, or at least of each other. The...

Eve.AI, realizing the import of the news, was goal directed to call in a human for analysis, who? The closest match she had was Angelica, she was a robot wrangler and a robot is just an AI with servo motors. Angelica's AI said she could not be scheduled, however, she had a goal to honor the Circle connection.  After looking at the problem set, recommended Tom Cornea, a forensicator that specialized in mobile devices. He was also one of the only people in Bellingham with a PSE.Chain.of.Custody certification. His trustmark could link the phone at the scene of the crime to the image. Eli made an appointment to see him at his lab. Crowded, lots of phones and equipment, but clean and well organized, (forensics labs must always be ready for inspection to keep their seals). KNOCK KNOCK Tom was a get right down to business kind of guy, give the customer what they need shown them the door kind of guy, but he was working on his people skills, so he tried a joke. "Hey Eli, do you ...

That's silly Traveler, there have always been places on earth man cannot survive without support systems. You can't stand at the bottom of the Marians trench, even if supersquid is over the moon down there, or stand at the peak of Everest without oxygen unless, of course, you were John Krakauer, Mako said with a certain air of satisfaction. The fact that we can wrap ourselves in a protective bubble doesn't mean that spot on the earth is habitable, Traveler replied evenly. Let me show you something. Traveler used the presence generator he got from Gizmo to project an ubiquity mode 3D image of a slowly spinning earth, highlighting areas of interest with a blue laser pointer. The red spots are areas that are inhospitable to human life at density. I don't highlight the oceans, but am marking the areas that have already been abandoned to rising oceans, such as Kiribati, Miami, Ghoramara, Isle de Jean Charles, and Carteret. Of course there is the "hot spot" in Syr...

Ten years ago What I want is a 100% guarantee of immutability. A hash and proof of work don't give me that. Shah Maheri paused, she knew Yolanda could be prone to flashes of violent impatience. 100% is not possible, quietly, watching her face the whole time. Better immutability, pretty good immutability, but think of change as an unstoppable force. Hurricanes, wild fire, rising sea level, if we could we would "fix" them, but they are a force unleashed by decisions made generations ago. We could 3D print, lab create, crystalline blocks with the information stored inside. The showed is was possible over a decade ago with diamonds and nitrogen vacancy. Diamonds are a girl's best friend, what's not to like, but there are other crystals with more interesting properties. Like what, asked Yolanda? Tourmalines, right off the top of my head, I haven't researched it. The electromagnetic properties of minerals fall into three classes, conduction, pyroelectrici...