Autonomy Version (2007).(2).(20)

February 20th, 2007

Version XR.2.K (2007).(2).(20)

A new version of Volume 1 of the Autonomy Series, Autonomy: Freedom of Thought is now available. This version includes the following changes

  • Changed document to reflect EU English standards (EU/British spelling and punctuation)
  • Chapter i (44) rewritten. Earlier version was a mess.

Enjoy, and as always, constructive comments and criticisms are welcome.

Autonomy Version (2007).(1).(26)

January 26th, 2007

Version XR.1.Q (2007).(1).(26)

A new version of Volume 1 of the Autonomy Series, Autonomy: Freedom of Thought is now available. This version includes the following changes

  • Chapter Z (35) Edits Complete
  • Chapter a (36) Edits Complete
  • Chapter b (37) Deleted (I have never liked this chapter. It did nothing to move the story forward.)
  • Chapter c (38) and subsequent chapters renumbered as (chapter number)-1
  • Chapter b (37) (formerly chapter c (38)) Edits started.

Enjoy, and as always, constructive comments and criticisms are welcome.

Autonomy Version (2007).(1).(12) Released

January 13th, 2007

Version XR.1.C (2007).(1).(12)

A new version of Volume 1 of the Autonomy Series, Autonomy: Freedom of Thought is now available. This version includes the following changes

  • Chapter Y (34) Edits Complete
    • Tightened technical description of the new autonomous net and nano artery system
    • Added conversation between Michael and Kyle explaining the current political situation that has delayed the roll out of the new network.
    • Polished description of escape flier test flight.
  • Chapter c (38) Completely rewritten
    • Fixed a major flaw in the storyline by removing repeat of flier testflight (mae culpa!).
    • Dealt with the emotional fallout of Prime’s fate as the Community reunites and the news spreads.
    • This is a first draft of this chapter, still very rough. Will be polished soon.
  • Chapter Z (35) Edits Started
    • Thus far, only minor tweaks. More coming.

Enjoy, and as always, constructive comments and criticisms are welcome.

UPDATE of Autonomy: Version 2006.12.29 released

December 31st, 2006

Version XQ.C.T (2006).(12).(29)

Happy new year everyone! Now that the big move is over, and I’m settled in once again, work on Autonomy has resumed. As an xmas/new years treat, a new version has been released:

This version includes the following changes

  • Chapter V (31) Edits Complete
    • Cleaned up scene were Marguerite discovers Nolen’s clandestine activities
    • Rewrote second half of chapter. Now instead of Marguerite and Kyle bemoaning Nolen’s activites, we have Kyle and Michael grappling with the implications of what Marguerite has discovered. They agonize over what must be done with the copies Nolen is tormenting, and confront the great personal cost dealing with the situation will exact from them.

Some more very minor cleanup of Chapter V (31) may follow.

Enjoy, and as always, constructive comments and criticisms are welcome.

Autonomy Version (2006).(8).(26) Released

August 26th, 2006

Version XQ.8.Q (2006).(8).(26)

An update to Volume 1 of the Autonomy Series, Autonomy: Freedom of Thought is now available. This version includes the following changes

  • Chapter T (29) Edits Complete
    • Trimmed technical description, made it more concise
    • Added more physical descriptions of characters and their responses to events.
  • Chapter U (30) Edits Complete
    • General cleanup. Tweaked conversations between Katy and Robert.
  • Chapter V (31) Edits Started
    • Removed rape scene. Nolen is no longer a maniacal, laughing degenerate. Instead he is a cold, ruthless, vicious, irrational but nontheless calm and calculating individual.
    • Nolen now torments the original Marguerite by mutilating the mind of the copy he holds imprisoned.
    • Made Marguerite’s and Kyle’s emotional response to what Dr. Nolen has done more intense, and more realistic.
    • Added depth to everyone’s concerns about the implications of what Doctor Nolen has done, and may yet do.

Some more cleanup of Chapter V (31) will follow.

Enjoy, and as always, constructive comments and criticisms are welcome.

Autonomy Version (2006).(5).(28) Released

May 28th, 2006

Version XQ.5.S (2006).(5).(28)

An update to Volume 1 of the Autonomy Series, Autonomy: Freedom of Thought is now available. This version includes the following changes

  • Chapter R (27) Edits Complete
    • More realistic discussions and arguments between Robert and Katy
  • Chapter S (28) Edits Complete
    • Added depth to Mingmei’s explanation of the escape flier design
    • Added discussion on WHY the authorities favor the patent system despite KNOWING how it cripples technical innovation. Short answer: they don’t want unfettered technological progress.
    • Added important discussion between Prime and Mingmei on the implications of fleeing into space, and the possibility of the Community losing its ability to manipulate matter in the physical world.
    • Added depth to Prime’s confrontation with Marguerite.
    • Aesthetic changes (description of Prime’s architectural mods changed, more details on how the escape flier flies various maneuvers, etc.)
  • IMPORTANT: The name of Chapter T (29) has changed
    • The old title was “Our Fallen Comrades” (I never really liked it, though it was good enough as a place holder)
    • The new title is “What Price Success?”
    • The content of the chapter hasn’t changed appreciably, though it will undergo an edit similar to chapters R (27) and S (28). Again, it’s the SAME CHAPTER, just a DIFFERENT NAME.

Enjoy, and as always, constructive comments and criticisms are welcome.

UPDATE of Autonomy: Freedom of Thought

May 17th, 2006

Version XQ.4.T (2006).(4).(29)

An update to Volume 1 of the Autonomy Series, Autonomy: Freedom of Thought is now available. This version includes the following changes

  • Chapter Q (26) Edits Complete
    • Added depth to the emotions Prime and Marguerite are feeling as they go their seperate ways
    • Clarified the worries they have, and why Marguerite is fleeing to Alaska
    • Added some physical descriptions of Prime
    • Minor changes to the descriptions of the sex drive/celibacy overlay diagrams (colors changed from golden/red to red/lavender)
    • Simplified description of Prime’s new project (last paragraph)
  • Chapter R (27) Edits Started

Draft 4 Change Log

(Previous Revisions)

Version XQ.4.N (2006).(4).(23)

  • Renamed Karen Burton (leader of the Astronautics Group) to Mingmei Jiao. Her background is now that she works a day job for the Chines Space Agency and lives in parallel with a copy that manages her life in the Physical (Karen Burton had no background and was a generic non-person). This change affects Chapters P (25), S (28), T (29), h (43), and j (45).
  • Added descriptions of characters to various chapters
    • In particular, physical descriptions of Sarah and Michael Forest’s children in Chapter A (10), “To Gaze Upon the Horizon”
    • Other minor edits to flesh out physical descriptionis of people up through Chapter O (25)
  • Minor aesthetic changes to Chapter 0 (0)
  • Re-edit of Chapter P (25) “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt”
    • Gave names and some physical descriptions to the various Interest Group leaders who appear before the Strategy Group
    • Added a passage where Kyle wonders if the leader of the Networking Infrastructure Group is running one of the more radical new mental architectures, which would make her much smarter, but at the cost of slowing down her 3-g node to 2-g speeds or worse. Explains the possible tradeoff of speedup vs. mental complexity and intelligence.
  • Minor initial edits to Chapter Q (26)

Version XQ.3.C (2006).(3).(12)

  • Fixed some issues with Appendix A: Sexagesimal.
  • While working on the Author’s canon webpage, I spotted a fix that allows the sexagesimal nomenclature to address a wider range of numbers (now 60-160 through 59 x 60160). This required only a very minor change to the rule defining the derivation of the base syllable consonant.
    • Figure 2 of Appendix A, “th” now applies to 6020 through 60160, whereas before “tha” was unused, and other “th” base syllables referenced only 6020 through 6040
    • “thazend” now references 6020, “anthazend” 60-20
    • “thezend” now references 6040, “anthezend” 60-40
    • and so on, up through “thēzend” referencing 60160 and “anthēzend” 60-160

Version XQ.2.R (2006).(2).(27)

  • Made what are probably the final modifications to the sexagesimal numeral set.
    • Modified digits 2 (2), C (12), M(22), W (32), g(42), and q (52), such that now all sexagesimal digits are uniquely identifiable regardless of orientation. Previously sexagesimal “2″ and “6″ were interchangeable when viewed at 90 degrees to one another (similiar to how decimal digits “6″ and “9″, as well as combinations such as “6191” and “1619” can be confused if seen upside down). Now every sexagesimal digit is unique regardless of viewing angle.
  • Version 0.90 of the sexagesimal font is recommended (ebuild, tarball, and ttf files available for immediate download).
  • Updated Figure 1 accordingly
  • Some minor edits to Chapter P (25)

Version XQ.1.E (2006).(1).(14)

  • Edited Chapters 9 (9) through P (25).
  • Changes include merging a couple of chapters here and there. See unified diff for details.

Version XP.9.O (2005).(9).(24)

  • Minor Edits Chapter 8 (8)
  • Made modifications to sexagesimal numerals, changing “5″ to , “9″ to , and making similar changes to (15), (19), (25), (29), (35), (39), (45), (49), (55), and (59) respectively.
  • Version 0.90 of the sexagesimal font is recommended (ebuild, tarball, and ttf files available for immediate download).
  • Updated Figure 1 accordingly

Version XP.8.D (2005).(8).(13)

  • Edited Chapter E (14)
    • Added avatar descriptions
    • Fixed various typos
  • Edited Appendix A
    • Minor change to the title
    • Fixed various typos

Version XP.8.4 (2005).(8).(4)

  • Fixed boneheaded math error in Appendix A
  • Tweaked Sexagesimal font, reversing the orientation of the top portions of the ‘4 series of glyphs. This change eliminates the similarity between sexagesimal numeral (14) and the decimal numeral 4 and affects numerals (4), (14), (24), (34), (44), and (54).
  • Version 0.30 now superceded by Version 0.90 of the sexagesimal font.
  • Updated Figure 1 accordingly

Version XP.8.1 (2005).(8).(1)

  • Added explanation of “Short and Long” form for pronouncing large and complex sexagesimal numbers.
  • Added two more examples to Appendix A. This should round out the different integers and fractional numbers people may be confronted with, and how they are pronounced.
  • Corrected several typos and grammatical errors.

Version XP.7.V (2005).(7).(31)

  • Uploaded Version 0.2 of the sexagesimal font (along with new ebuilds and a new tarball). Changed the symbols for “4″, “14″, “24″, “34″, “44″, and “54″ to be more easily differentiated from “10″, “20″, etc. The “top” portion now resembles a decimal “4″ lying on its back, resulting in a better mnemonic, and characters that can be easily written with one stroke.
  • Fixed typos and errors in Appendix A.
  • Added examples to clarify sexagesimal nomenclature (also available in the Author’s Canon).

Version XP.7.O (2005).(7).(24)

  • Removed all references in Appendices A and B that might give away the end of the novel
  • Fixed more typos in Appendices A and B
  • Polished some of the writing in Appendices A and B

Version XP.7.J (2005).(7).(19)

  • Fixed typos in Chapters f-i (41)-(44), including one erroneous use of Sarah’s name when Karen was speaking.
  • changed a reference from “zettabit” to its sexagesimal equivelent (qarabit) in Chapter i (44)

Version XP.7.F (2005).(7).(15)

  • Fix typos in Appendices A and B
  • Minor edit Chapter 0 “The Dreamer”

Version XP.7.9 (2005).(7).(9)

  • Added Appendix A: Sexagesimal (Base-60) Numbering System

    • A complete Sexagesimal (base-60) numbering system (alluded to in Chapter 39 “Reunion”)
    • A powerful sexagesimal nomenclature for naming any number from 60-159 through 60159
    • A powerful metric-60 nomenclature for naming any unit prefix multiplier (akin to metric-10 milli-, kilo-, etc) from 60-159 through 60159
    • A systematically derived system of numerals for representing sexagesimal numbers with one digit for each numeral 0-59, and differentiating sexagesimal digits from their decimal (base-10) equivalents.
    • created fonts necessary to represent sexagesimal digits in the manuscript
  • Added Appendix B: Units of Measure
    • Explanation of Early Epoch Circadians, Diei, metadates, and virtual units
    • Late Epoch metric-60 system of measure based on “natural” Planck units
    • Explanation of Late Epoch Circadians, Meratocks, metadates, and virtual units
  • Modified Metadates, Chapters f-n (41)-(49), to reflect the Community’s use of metric-60 natural units
  • Edited Chapters 1-D (1)-(13), including changes to Chapter 9 (9) “A Giant Awakes” to reference the criminalization of patent law in the same manner that copyright law has been criminalized in the real world (cf. DMCA and similar laws in Australia, Europe, etc.)
  • Doctor Edith Cooldrige is being (mostly) edited out, with Sarah Forest taking on most of her roles. Cooldrige was always a peripheral character, and I wanted to develop Sarah’s character without increasing the complexity of the novel.

Draft 3 Change Log

Changes between earlier versions were unified diffs against the HTML version. More recent changes are unified diffs against ASCII TEXT versions. This is a quick and dirty way of tracking changes.

Draft 3 is complete. Work continues on Draft 4

  • 6/27/2005

    • Minor Correction to Chapter 39. A typo had “Dr. Nolen” saying something “Michael Forest” actually said (Thanks to Mathieu Mallet for pointing this out)
    • Removed some extraneous text from the end of the document (old quotes that never made it into the final text)
    • Made sure Licensing was consistent across revisions. All 3rd Draft revisions are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike *2.0* (or later) license. I plan to release Draft 4 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license *2.5* (or later).
  • 5/19/2005
    • The THIRD DRAFT is now finished!
    • Completed Edits of the last two chapters (48 and 49)
    • I will continue polishing the novel in the 4th draft, but I am quite happy with the third draft as it now stands.
  • 5/16/2005
    • Major Update! This is the bulk of the remaining edits for Draft 3
    • Renamed Chapter 23 from “Fear and Confusion” to “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt”
    • Edits more or less complete through Chapter 47
    • Removed Chapter 44 “The Face of the Future”
    • Draft 3 is now nearly complete. A little more editing is needed on the last couple of chapters, to clean them up, and of course typographical errors are still being searched out and destroyed, but otherwise this draft is finished.
  • 2/21/2005
    • Moved “Code” to Chapter 20 for story flow
    • Revisions completed for Chapters 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23
    • Edits continuing in Chapter 24 and beyond
  • 2/6/2005
    • Removed Chapter 15, “Newbies” (repeated stuff we already know and brought nothing new to the story)
    • Cleanup of dates. I discovered a bug in the utility I’d written to calculate metadates, and am using a formula in OpenCalc instead. Dates have been adjusted through Chapter 16 to be more accurate.
    • Cleaned up timeline of characters, based on speedups described in the last change (1/17/2005). I am maintaining a precise spreadsheet of each character’s personal timeline and speedup vs. objective time in the Physical. This gives me a precise value for the number of Circadians experienced by each character at each point in the story. Numbers (through Chapter 16) have been adjusted accordingly.
    • Chapter 13, 14 edits complete.
    • Chapter 15 (”Darkness Gathers”) edits mostly finished.
    • Chapter 16 (”The Hermit”) edits mostly finished.
  • 1/17/2005
    • Nuked Chapter 20, “Power” (useless to the story and distracting)
    • Significant Change: Speedup of Nodes changed to improve story flow:
      • Gen-one Nodes (Gold Cubes): S=30 Circadians/day (unchanged)
      • Gen-two Nodes (Green Cubes): S=200 Circadians/day
      • Gen-three Nodes (Blue Cubes): S=600 Circadians/day
      • Gen-four Nodes (Purple Cubes): S=1000 Circadians/day
      • Gen-five Nodes (Red Hexagonal Rods): S=1200 Circadians/day
    • All Chapters through the end of Chapter 14 updated to reflect speedup changes.
    • Chapter 11, 12 edits completed.
    • Chapter 13, 14 edits mostly done.
    • Made some fixes to Chapter 24 “The Dreamer Redux: Loss of Being” to better reflect the characters’ development. Prime and Marguerite are alone in a beach setting, when Kyle barges in on them. This reflects their growing love affair, and keeps Michael Forst (who is happily married and doesn’t belong there) out of the picture.
    • More work required on Chapter 20 “A late night drink” and others for continuity. Will fix those in order as I get to them during the main edit.
  • 1/9/2005
    • Chapter 10 “To Gaze Upon the Horizon” edits completed
    • Work continuing on Chapter 11 and beyond
  • 12/19/2004
    • Additional corrections to Chapter 9 “A Giant Awakes”
    • Chapter 10 “To Gaze Upon the Horizon” edits
  • 11/30/2004
  • Additional corrections to Chapter 8 “Mirror Image”
  • Chapter 9 “A Giant Awakes” edits
  • 11/23/2004
    • Chapter 8 “Mirror Image” edits
  • 11/21/2004
    • Chapter 7 “Strategy” changes completed.
    • Chapter 8 “Mirror Image” revisions mostly done
    • Work continuing on Chapter 8 and beyond
    • Fixed misspelling of Auckland, NZ
  • 10/31/2004
    • Page numbering cleaned up
    • Timeline audited, some chapters shifted in order, dates and metadates adjusted as necessary
    • Chapter 0 and 1 swapped order
    • “Introspection” and “Struggle” tightened and combined into one chapter “Introspection”
    • “An Invitation” and “A Day in the Sun” deleted, replaced with “Absence”
    • “To Gaze Upon the Horizon” now occurs later in the story.
      • Various other revisions
      • STATUS OF REVISIONS: MAJOR EDITS FOR THIS DRAFT COMPLETED THROUGH CHAPTER 6 “Soiree.”
        • Minor edits may continue to be backported to earlier chapters as needed.
        • Later Drafts may involve more edits down the road, but no major changes are planned to this point.
        • Work continuing on Chapter 7 “Strategy” and subsequent chapters.
    • 09/30/2004
    • 06/20/2004
    • 05/29/2004 (Last modification without a change log)