I’ve stopped work on this project several times to prioritize family.  

As a father, I have a perspective on culture that is generational. This is an important perspective.  Not only because of what has come before but because of an awareness of what is coming after.

I have often felt that I am living in a memory of my son‘s past. I feel the weight of that responsibility.

This is why Dune has become part of the focus of my now. Generational development is at the core of Dune’s Bene Gesserit breeding program. I perceive it as an advanced AI perception technology in that far-out setting.

(I love that term, far out, so rich in speculative fiction history.)  If we consider that AI is advanced perception then the thought of breeding to develop traits of advanced perception could be paralleled with AI advancements.

The engine of Dune’s AI is spice.

Spice is the key to advanced perception in Dune’s far-out setting. Dune’s galaxy is post AI apocalypse. Spacing Guild navigators and spice-stained mentats rely on the advanced perception spice enables to calculate the advanced algorithms of wormholes and treachery. CHOAM is the business, Kanley is the game, and galactic travel is the boon of the Herbert’s spice culture.

What is the engine of our emerging AI technology?

Pages in Screen view provides a good full-screen view that approximates what I liked about taking notes.

I went ahead and enabled the AI in the app.

Screen Cap (Shift-CMD-5), storyboard, and fill in the gaps.

The Copy, Paste, and Delete key commands are gone from the operating system. It’s messing with me. CMD-S has been a safety blanket for so long.

I dialed up Storyboarder or Freeform to old school storyboard this narrative with some screen caps. I start to build a tracker for the boards and realize this will take too long. I am on the clock.

I adjust and edit in a numerical sequence into the board titles. My tracker becomes narrative guidance. Tracking the sequence order of my narrative threads, subjects and subtext.

I find that as I try to structure my narrative with numerical labeling, I’m struggling to keep the story in my mind. Part of that is the fact that I have several intertwined narratives. I’m trying to build posts in a short social media-like structure. 

I’ve decided to use this approach because of my observation of how we consume media now. —Flick. Flick. Scroll.— Can I write in a medium that can communicate to our quick attention span?

Well, shit. 

My initial thought was to get involved with Dune Pt. 3 as a bridge to retirement. But it’s already well through production with a release date of Dec 18, 2026. 

This is something that I would like to take a shot at doing. Large scale feature films, so I am sending this note to legendary as they finish production of Dune Pt. 3. These films have been some of my favorite film works. And the book is absolutely one of my favorites novels. 

I had fanticized, in the midst of my Furlough discontent, about sending this awesome note to Legendary and inspiring them to bring mer on for Dune Pt. 3. But in all likely hood I’ll finish out my time with the Ohio National Guard. Maybe I’ll make a move to the Cyber Wing here in Mansfield.

I have not yet decided who I am as an adult. But being an adult is a recent state of being. 

I don’t know if I can capitalize on this impulse to become a narrative story technician. 

But I have captured the moment of this furlough.

We received the first snow of the season tonight.

It has been a moment of instability and change. I now prepare to return to an IT profession of managing mobile and multifunction endpoints, developing technology solutions and executing their procurement.

But I know that mobile phones, AI and the perceptions around these technologies will drive my story going forward.

More and more, we are what we do online, how we interact with these emerging technologies is important. 

We must take responsibility for our now. We must focus on how we behave online. I believe the stories we tell, with words and in our posted imagry, will shape the perceptions of emerging AI technoogies. These percerptions of our now, focused by the purpose of the apps we most use, will inform what AI may become.