Clique Space(TM) and the argument for regional, rural and remote economic sustainability.

A friend of mine quizzed me on the utility of a system like Clique Space in relation to non-metropolitan economic sustainability. The argument is a corollary of that earlier post.

• Clique Space would provide an environment in which physical is replaced with virtual collocation. Contributors in this environment would be earning an income commensurate with any other physically collocated contributor, and hence, would be bringing this money in to the community where they live. This money would flow through their community, in turn fostering wealth, jobs and the opportunity for others who possess skills that don't readily lend themselves to the same degree of autonomy to stay where they may prefer to reside.

Currently, the persistent trend has been away from this ideal; people are coming together which is putting pressure on others to do likewise. This pressure creates a kind of a gravitation that interferes with the wishes of those who respond negatively to this growing stimulus to be physically bounded together.

The malaise created by what in many respects is a kind of social claustrophobia becomes, if reversed with the help of a system like Clique Space, a means by which an environment of economic self-sustainability might flow to regional, rural and remote communities and individuals. Money starts flowing toward rather than away from people who wish to keep themselves at a distance, because these people have greater latitude to contribute in occupations that derive incomes, yet without having to consider what the greater loss is: to give up the prospect of an income, or to forego the solitude they desire.

An open question for people to consider.

I have a PCT patent, and this patent is due to expire on 15 July 2010. I applied for this patent because I decided that a concept, which is very simple, may have eluded the minds of 6.5 billion others.

Now, my question is this: If my idea is so simple, why hasn't anyone had a go at it before I applied for my patent?

If anyone can show me that my assumption that no one has done anything like this before I applied for my patent is wrong, then please point this out to me. Alternatively, if anyone out there might be in a position to help me implement it, then approach me.

You have until 15 July when my PCT lapses. There will be no prospect of ownership after this date because if you try, your competitor will point out to you this blog, my lapsed PCT, and all the other stuff I have published and assert that the knowledge is in the public domain.

Get cracking people. What else can I do but disclose the concept publicly. It appears as though the concept is mine. To assert this, and remove the possibility of anyone else making a claim, I can do little else than publish, and invite others to help me realise it because I don't have the means to realise the concept in its entirety myself.

Clique Space(TM) and the self.

From what I've put here, my Facebook page, and elsewhere, it can be seen that Clique Space defines something that has thus far been a hard concept to pin down: the self.

Anyone (any thing) that wishes to assert the quality of selfness in a Clique Space does so through an Account. Anyone who possesses an account asserts this quality through a Connection to a Client Device and an Affiliation to an Account Profile (some type of group-role representation). The Connection and Affiliation are associated through an Active Affiliation before the Client Device can be used on a Clique Space.

So, what is a self? On a philosophical angle, I don't ultimately know. However, if approached from a pragmatic angle, one might think of it as the origin of one's actions, and that which is ultimately responsible for these actions. In this case, I have a self because I assert this quality to you. Hence, in order for me to do this, I perceive you as another self to whom I assert my quality of selfness. I therefore perceive us as being two distinct selves, and would therefore expect that if you wished to use Clique Space, you would like to have an Account because this is the way one asserts that they are more than just a device to a Clique Space - or more factually, to other selves from a Clique Space.

So, if you want an Account, then you are a self.

Still, what is there to prevent you from having more than one Account? I suppose very little. However, in the "Public" Clique Space, people may want to know that you are who you say you are; that you're not two or more different people at different times (or even simultaneously) whenever it suits you. No one would accept this, and to masquerade as two or more different identities, changing them at your whim would inevitably erode the definition of your self to yourself as well as to others. At least it would to me. Clique Space has a few solutions, but I'll talk about one of my favourites...

Clique Spaces can be federated. In the public Clique Space, anyone can grab any old Account and start generating Client Device activity with it. On the other hand, a proprietary or government administered Clique Space could offer stronger authentication so to guarantee that people who are using it are the people that the government or proprietary organisation intends.

To offer people a level of assurance that I am who you say I am, I might Connect a Client Device to two Clique Spaces: the public Clique Space that everyone uses (a place that might not have strong authentication mechanisms - unless one is willing to pay for them) and to a Clique Space administered by an Australian federal government authority. Obviously, I would obtain these Connections under the same Account.

This Australian Government Clique Space would be a federated neighbour of the public Clique Space, and anyone on the public Clique Space might be able to see that my devices were also logged on to the Australian one, so people could see that my identity was endorsed by the Australian government. I would perhaps be providing my Australian citizenship to others as an endorsement of the Connections to Client Devices I possessed on the public Clique Space. I, for one, like this idea.

I also like the idea of remote authentication and "Connection Limbo". A device (a Client Device) cannot be seen by other users on Clique Space unless the Connection has been Activated. One Activates a connection by associating the Connection with an Affiliation in the process described at the start of this blog entry. A Client Device that has an inactive Connection is in a kind of a limbo state.

Now, a device that is in a limbo state might not authenticate directly. The Clique Space within which a Connection has been obtained might instead, notify another Client Device that the Account holder can authenticate against, and request that the Account holder validate their credentials on this Client Device to authenticate the Connection of the first Client Device. If authentication succeeds on this other Client Device, the first Client Device's connection is Activated along with the appropriate Affiliation. If authentication fails, the first Client Device is disconnected from the Clique Space. Now, there might be a single device through which authentication might be given, and hence, a single and hence simple way to authenticate every Connection to a Clique Space for any Account holder.

Even Connections may not have to be requested by a Client Device. A user could instruct a Clique Space to issue a Connection to a device, and this device might respond in any way it is programmed to respond to Connections from Clique Spaces.

Using Clique Space(TM) to Support Regional, Rural and Remote Sustainability

Two days ago, I had a conversation with someone from the university where I live, and they identified Clique Space as having qualities that make the concept suitable for enabling rural and remote economic sustainability. This is something I have believed for some time; in providing a system that allows the integration of any device into an organised collaborative activity, Clique Space is a vital tool of the telework enabling puzzle.

Until now, society has relied on collocation to achieve cooperative activity necessary for many organised tasks. Such activity has historically been achieved by providing a central business hub, and locating necessary resources as close as possible within this centre both to maximise the speed of response to changing conditions, and to minimise the handling time to products as they move through a process.

Today, factory floor automation is reducing the necessity for humans to be directly involved in the production of physical goods, yet society still relies on these established mechanisms of collocation to engage in activity that is largely divested from the necessity of physical collocation. Common occupations have largely shirked physical activity. The blacksmiths, farm hands, wood turners, mill and factory workers of 100 years ago have either been made completely redundant, or are well on their way to being replaced by mechanised, robotic devices. Today, occupations such as information workers, secretaries, office hands, and other vocations that involve more of one's intellectual discipline than physical stamina are common place. Basically, people would rather be thinking and planning than making and doing.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I like it - thinking and planning is more engaging and more self-determining than is making. Thinking and planning is what comes before making and doing, and it is a normal extension of human nature to desire the former two things over the latter two. Thinking and planning also make for better living due to the reduced strain placed on the body, and therefore the prospect of a longer existence in which one doesn't have to battle an existence where chronic pain, fatigue, injury, or any combination of these are factors that result from physical labour.

Now, should these goals be reserved only for the city dwellers? Has such a question been asked of those who live elsewhere? While it isn't always productive to generalise, I would think the desires of everyone, whether from an urban centre or not, are in this case, generally directed away from repetitive activity; the desire to move away from repetitive physical activity is generally the stronger aversion.

In addition to what we try to move away from, are also those desires we are attracted to. We desire company of the familiar and the familial. Many (I would say most) people desire constancy over dynamism. In saying this, I have no wish to interfere with those who desire the converse; in fact, there is no reason for anyone to fear the diminution of a lifestyle in which change is a continuing factor by recognising that this lifestyle is neither for everyone, nor even for specific people all of the time.

So there might have been a time when humanity might have done well to physically collocate. Personal experience indicates that people are being drawn together by forces that are an anachronistic vestige of an era now past. Although I might not banish coming together on occasion for the esprit de corps of one's colleagues, no "special sauce" that executive or operational managers think might be wrung out of their plebs will yield any ultimate social or economic good from the continuing practice of physically collocating people in the bygone age of factory floor management. None at all.

People who do not live in metropolitan centres are being wrenched out of their communities by anachronism. Clique Space is my answer to this in that as long as one can coordinate, control, and audit activity over devices involved in modern human mediated processes, one might yet be able to choose where (and maybe the when) one gets involved in such collaborative endeavours. I believe such opportunity will enable people to stay in their community, and receive consideration in occupations as would befit someone who did something similar in a metropolitan office block who was subject to an anachronistic management structure.

Bugger Big Brother. The age old maxim to work (whether in an office block or from one's home) remains: getting the work done is usually prerequisite for guaranteeing one's continued employment. The totalitarian practice of huddling people together in an office block for a minimum 40 hours per week is not effective in guaranteeing productivity. This is actually far less effective than letting the individual determine an individual level of contribution in accordance with the individual's circumstances.

Clique Space(TM) and Silicon Valley Bullshit.

My prime motivation for coming up with something like Clique Space was that in no way was I going to continue to participate further in the software development industry if my participation required becoming a corporate nomad to serve the interests of a management structure that was pathologically attached to the notion of physical collocation.

Together sucks. It really does suck arse. I would rather be getting a pension than participating in your life of corporate nomadicity; wedded to my work so that I can pay off a credit card that affords me nothing more than the ability to accrue a debt that is serviced by the work that I am wedded to.

I have talked to people, and they say to me that in order to promote my idea, I should consider going to Silicon Valley to give it a hearing. You can hear my idea from me now. I am talking about it right now. Anyone on this planet can start talking to me.

I will not be pedalling my idea from anywhere else on this planet unless I get commitment that I will get something from the inconvenience first, and that doing so will not leave me stranded anywhere else on this planet. If it seems that others would rather wait for my patent to lapse than to help me register it world wide, I will frustrate and confound you all when I register my patent in the US and Europe.

In all other respects, I hope to be philosophical.

Clique Space(TM), a social nervous system, and moral good.

For those who might be following this blog, a question that I have been asking myself is with a system like Clique Space, is it possible to create a system that may express an evolving degree of nervous complexity? If such a concept might be so powerful, then what responsibility might be incumbent on its inventor to offer advice that a system like Clique Space may have undesirable moral consequences?

Firstly, I have stated before that the use of an invention leaves the control of the inventor the moment it is publicly disclosed. I decided that I would publicly disclose Clique Space when I applied for my patent. Now that it is patented, and I have subsequently disclosed it, I feel that I have limited responsibility of its use; such things are now the responsibility of the society in which I live, and like everyone else, I am subject to these decisions.

Now, on the technical side, I think Clique Space is a specification for a nervous system because one connects devices to it to make it function. Devices (Client Devices) are anything that can connect to a Clique Space, including the Clique Space Agent Devices - which may be thought of as the individual neurons that make up the nervous system of a Clique Space - themselves. Not only can a Client Device be something that one person might use to talk to another, but they can be things that might not be collaborative; things like cars (mentioned in my previous post) television sets, golf balls, robotic devices of any type, etc.

So, we have Client Devices that connect to a cluster of Agent Devices (themselves Client Devices) which comprise a Clique Space. The human body is comprised of cells that make up muscles and organs of various types that connect to a special type of cell (called a neuron) of which large numbers of these collectively function as the body's central nervous system. This has to be more than a trivial coincidence.

Clique Space(TM) and MUVEs.

Another question was raised through an ongoing conversation with the same person who raised the question of Clique Space and Google Wave. What's the difference between Clique Space and a Multi-User Virtual Environment, or MUVE?

Specifically, the statement was made that anyone can connect to a MUVE through "any device", so I think the definition of any device needs to be clarified as it may relate to both a MUVE and Clique Space.

The fact that MUVE and Clique Space both provide a virtual environment is obvious. A device, however, in a MUVE provides a gateway for a user to interact within that environment, whereas in a Clique Space, the device provides activity state to a Clique Space, and may be controlled by the Clique Space in ways that are specified by the Media Profile that the device is Connected through.

In a MUVE, a device provides user access to a virtual environment where that user can do things with others in that medium according to the way that medium functions. The Clique Space environment, however, connects with a device to collect changes in device's state according to its native medium, and control that device in the medium in which that device is operating. Clique Space does not attempt to provide a substitute for an existing media; it compliments a device's functioning so that changes in device state might be centrally recorded and possibly controlled according to concerns that cut across media into issues such as user preference and organisational role.

In this way, a user in a MUVE might use the device one uses to connect to the MUVE to additionally connect to a Clique Space. The MUVE connection is expressed as a Clique Space Connection to this device (known to Clique Space as a Client Device; possibly the device that the user uses to obtain access to the MUVE, or possibly the MUVE provider itself) over a Media Profile that is appropriate for that MUVE. The Clique Space can collect status from the Client Device, and may also control the way the Client Device operates. All this may depend on which other users this particular user is working with, which other Client Device(s) the user has Connected to the Clique Space, which users are affiliated to which organisations in Clique Space, amongst a combination of these and other degrees of access freedom.

Any device has possibly a much wider scope in Clique Space than it does in a MUVE. Can, for instance, a physical car have any meaningful place inside a MUVE? On the other hand, a car might be connected in Clique Space, and its status (engine on/off, speed, fuel level, fuel mixture, tire pressure, engine temperature, etc) might be recorded by Clique Space. This information might be relevant, for instance when placed along side the chatter that happens between the driver and the driver's pit-lane mechanics, the driver's physical condition, the driver's (and car's) location, and the weather. All of the devices that collect this information might be similarly connected to Clique Space to particular Media Profiles, through particular user Accounts, and under particular organisation Affiliations. Fuel mixture might be monitored while the car is racing, and may even be adjusted by mechanics in the race to maximise fuel efficiency and power. All of this information could be available on one device activity log to be reviewed after a race.

To what extent might one also connect other non-collaborative devices to a MUVE? A MUVE is designed to represent an individual's interaction with objects and other individuals in some type of virtual environment. I contend that this concept is different to Clique Space in that a Clique Space collects data from a whole host of virtual and physical environments, and facilitates both an identity and device activity coordination layers on top of all devices so connected.

MUVE's are apparently used as teaching environments, and so to compliment, enrich, and diversify the learning that might be done in these environments, users might connect their MUVE session, as well as other other physical devices they may be using in the exercises being conducted to a Clique Space so the instructor can see and possibly control the functioning of all his or her pupils' devices.

I think a Clique Space is definitely something thoroughly different, yet complimentary, to a MUVE...

Clique Space(TM) and Google Wave

I have had a recent conversation with someone that seemed to me to slightly degenerate into a defence of Clique Space against Google Wave. As I am only one person (one who doesn't exactly revel in the chance to defend himself in the spontaneity of a verbal conversation), here are my arguments in writing so that I might have a chance to defend them after considering any counter-argument that might be given. Clique Space hasn't been defended yet, so I'm taking the conversation I had earlier as the opportunity to do so here.

I'm usually a better person in writing.

Yea, I know I might be pitching a battle against a pernicious software leviathan which can cover a multitude more angles than I might to protect and advance their market interests. However, I believe there is no point in doing this because 1: I feel that Clique Space will complement Google Wave, 2: I don't think I have the energy to make a gallantly effortful but fatefully doomed defence against a software giant with an army of lawyers, 3: etc.

Google Wave looks very functional and useful. Google Wave, however, is not Clique Space. If Google Wave tries to become Clique Space, Google might render itself in breach of my patent, but I don't believe that has happened yet.

Let me list a few differences:

1: Google Wave uses a centralised model. It appears as though Google exclusively owns the implementation, manages its content, and keeps record of all of the content and contributors for ever. Clique Spaces (specifically, as I intend, the public Clique Space) are designed to be real-time systems which do not keep the information they capture. Apart from where caching might be necessary to ensure the stability of a Clique Space and the continuity of its activity stream, no device activity would be persisted by the Clique Space system itself. It is the user's responsibility to record their own interactions while connected to a Clique Space system. In fact, I envisage that an activity stream might be added to a wave that shows the coordinated activity of several collaborations over different media.

2: Google Wave does not model different media so much as aggregate the content generated by different media. Hence, Google Wave does not model itself. As far as it appears, this concept appears foreign in Google Wave. Clique Space, however, can be thought of as a set of devices who's individual and collaborative behaviour is itself modelled through the provision of a set of specific Media Profiles. Every device that Connects to Clique Space needs to work through a Media Profile. Some devices might not extend the Clique Space's functionality, but rather introduce completely separate functionality of their own. Media Profiles model this functionality in the Clique Space device activity stream, and this activity stream is available to any device that, through connecting to a Media Profile that extends the Clique Space functionality, is equipped to capture (and possibly persist) it.

3: Google Wave appears to be able to control the interaction between individuals, but not to the degree that it can in Clique Space. While there appears to be some way to withhold a whole or parts of a wave from the view of individuals, I can see no facility through which access might be suppressed based on membership of a group, or the functioning of a particular media. This might evolve, but yet its granularity might not reach the degree that is achievable on a Clique Space where collaborations can be mandated, permitted or denied depending on the characteristics that comprehensively cover device activity of any type.

These characteristics include the functional characteristics of a device though a Media Profile, the user's individual identity given in an Account, the user's membership of some organisation in an Account Profile and particular attributes of their membership through an Affiliation, the association of a particular user to a specific device or a particular set of technical characteristics of two or more devices through a Connection, the association of a group of users associated particular organisational membership to a particular medium and its technical properties through an Active Affiliation and, the origins of a particular collaboration members through a Participant that is either anonymous or from a foreign Clique Space.

4: Google Wave has no concept of anonymous users. All users must have an account to use the Google Wave system. Because a collaboration under a defined medium might contain members who are not connected to a Clique Space, Clique Space might be configured to permit anonymous Clique Participants. Let it be stressed again: Clique Space has nothing to say about the medium over which a collaboration happens. It simply collects and it might also have the ability to control changes in device status through a Media Profile that devices have connected to.

5: Yea yea, Google Wave does show some type of time-based device activity (the thread grows as time advances) but the concept is not so developed when illustrating a time-line of collaborative activity. Clique Space records activity of as many collaborative and non-collaborative devices as Media Profiles might exist to capture information from them over an interval of time, and to the extent that a Media Profile has been designed to capture this activity. This recording has the ability to be depicted in reference to that time interval, and would map the relationship between device usage, user identity and affiliation, and Clique Space origin.

6: From a purely technical perspective, I believe Clique Space draws on a similar phenomenon (a Clique) that the nervous systems of animals (including ourselves) use for doing things from coordinating muscular activity to encoding memory. I remain to be convniced that Google Wave uses this same phenomenon in any way demonstrably useful to its function.

PS: All possible trademarks mentioned in this diatribe are the property of their respective holders and no revenue has been, or is ever expected to be received by me through their use in said diatribe apart from any revenue that may result as an indirect consequence the success of any argument I may have made. I had to use these marks for the reader might not have known who I was talking about had I not.

I have no knowledge of the technical details of the Google Wave implementation.

The "Clique Space(TM)" of Clique Spaces.

I have found it necessary to put a lot of thought toward expressing my concept in its implementation, and the most current (and possibly by all measures, the most intense) thought has been put toward the idea of a particular Clique Space manifestation that is used to group other Clique Spaces that a particular device (Agent or Client Device) knows of.

Now, an Agent Device might have complete access to all the Clique Spaces to which it is a member. That's good for the Agent Device, but not so good for the Client Device; if any Client Device had the same freedom, implementing security and anonymity may be a trickier proposition. Additionally, a particular Client Device might certainly not have the capacity to share in access to all the knowledge contained in a Clique Space, even though as just one cooperating member of a collaboration, an Agent Device doesn't require total knowledge of a Clique Space.

Anyway, for any given Clique Space, a Client Device is given information about elements that relate to the activity of users in that Clique Space that the device's operator is interested in, and has the privilege to view. The most obvious candidates are all the elements that relate to the Client Device and it's operator, and any other Client Devices that are Connected under the Account of the first Client Device's; i.e., other devices that have been registered by the same operator.

The Client Device hence receives a subset of the Clique Space through which it is connected. This Clique Space is (or rather, the relevant parts of it are) 'Projected' into the Client Device. Hence, I have called the Client Device's copy of the Clique Space it is Connected to a "Clique Space Projection".

So, how does an Agent Device manage its membership to more than one Clique Space? This question had me thinking for several weeks, and I have come up with a nice use of the Clique Space Projection to do this.

You might think it sufficient that an Agent Device simply have a collection (an map, perhaps) of Clique Spaces. That might work, but I've evolved this simple model a bit. I thought to myself that it might be better if this collection (which must exist if an Agent Device is a member of multiple Clique Spaces - it has to know each of them) were itself, a Clique Space. One might ask one's self, for what point?

Well, for this point: a Clique Space contains Clique Space elements. A user might want to view and operate all these elements (no matter from which Clique Space they may be derived) together. Similarly, the elements in one Clique Space might be related to what is transpiring in a federated neighbour. All of this activity might only work properly if it were able to be grouped together in a super group (I think this is a subset of the power set) of Clique Spaces.

Now, a device can capture all of its own activity within any Clique Space if it were to have a Clique Space that was a single point of access to the elements in the projections of all the Clique Spaces that the device was Connected to. Hence, an Agent Device, being a member of (Connected to) several Clique Spaces, not only possesses a corresponding Clique Space Projection for each, it possesses a Clique Space that contains every element that is in each of these Clique Space Projections.

Similarly, a Client Device contains not only a Clique Space Projection for every Clique Space it is Connected to, but a Clique Space that contains every projected element of every Connected Clique Space.

I have been droll, and called this Clique Space the "Clique Space Projection Clique Space".

Before I go. Some time ago, I solved the following problem: how does one administer an Agent Device that is connected to zero Clique Spaces. My solution was to distinguish real (as opposed to projected) Clique Spaces between "Device Clique Spaces" and a "Collaboration Clique Spaces". This concept has a similar Agent Device - Client Device symmetry when I realised that a Client Device must be connected to at least one Clique Space before it can be used within this environment. It is quite dandy to realise that a Client Device can be administered within its own Client Device Clique Space.

So, the elements of a "Client Device Clique Space", and, as they are known on Agent Devices, an "Agent Device Clique Space" can be projected into a Clique Space Projection on both the Client and Agent Devices respectively, along with similar elements on connected Collaboration Clique Spaces, and all these projections of Connections and other elements that the device possesses can be accessed from the one Clique Space as manifest on Agent and Client Devices: the Clique Space Projection Clique Space.

Sounds good to me...

Passwords suck!!! Clique Space(TM) solves this.

I went round to my mother's earlier today to use her wireless network. I could not log on owing to the fact that I had deleted my connection to her network. and had forgotten the WPA password. After getting frustrated that I could not recall the password, I reset her router, and comprehensively stuffed every thing up. I left, indignant in my conviction that she needs to record her password somewhere.

Now, one should be able to connect one's router to a Clique Space. Once obtaining a connection to one's Account, the router's Connection would then be Activated against an Affiliation between the given Account and an appropriate Account Profile. One accesses one's router by Connecting a web browser under the same Account and either Activating an affiliation between this Account and an Account Profile that gives the requisite access, or by Activating an Affiliation for a different Account and a similar Account Profile if connected under a different Account.

Something really has to be done about the password garden. I hesitate to register with software services because I don't want to manage all the passwords this saddles me with. Yea yea, I know there are things like OpenID that might do this, but they're not as powerful as Clique Space, which might probably compliment OpenID's functionality.

Telephony integration and Clique Space(TM).

I'm a little more relaxed in this post; my computer has been returned and I have found my data to be intact.

Now to the substance of this post...

People may confuse Clique Space with telephony integration toolboxes like the open source Asterisk or identity systems like OpenID, only to ask themselves what the difference is. I have been asked similar questions before, so I will try to explain the difference here.

Telephony integration has recently become popular as organisations try to integrate all the communications technology that have grown organically through the ebb and flow (or should that rather be flow and ebb) of technology trends. Obviously, organisations are looking for a way to integrate all this technology so a user doesn't have to remember different ways of operating different devices; a growing frustration.

As far as I can tell (I haven't truly studied the subject, so come to these conclusions from a position of ignorance) a telephony integration toolbox is a library of middle-ware adaptors and other gadgets that allow a device of one type to interface with a device of another type. This is something that adds value to the current and ever increasing types of devices, and its value is probably justified as far as I have been able to understand. One might use a telephony integration library to integrate mobile phone networks with VOIP networks, or to translate between IM text and audio.

I'm not good at remembering thousands of trivial facts, and telephony integration requires the developer learn by rote, a lot of protocol minutiae. Minutiae is something I have habit to avoid, and instead, prefer to remember general concepts. Clique Space is a concept that generalises user, device and collaborative behaviour.

Clique Space does not facilitate telephony integration, or any other middle-ware function known to me when I registered the patent. I am still yet to find a technology that approaches what Clique Space is at this point in time. In fact, Clique Space is so very different to any middle-ware technology. A Clique Space may sit above a middle-ware platform and may even straddle different ones; multiple competing platforms exist even though this contradicts their existence. The use of Clique Space over any middle-ware platform or platforms would at least be orthogonal to, but may even compliment the platforms over which it is used.

This is how.

I don't believe I have to know about how a middle-ware platform might function, yet I know that it must function through the cooperative action (a collaboration) of a collection of hardware and software devices. Needless to say, these devices could Connect themselves to a Clique Space system as Client Devices. Each Client Device would use one or more suitable Media Profiles that would model the Client Devices' individual behaviour and their collaborative behaviour as Cliques so this behaviour could be controlled and recorded.

A Clique Space merely models (and may, depending on the way particular devices function, control) the individual and collaborative behaviour of devices which are registered within it. It might be considered a tool for telephony integration itself, although it can be used in many more contexts than this. In this sense, Clique Space is not middle-ware in the same sense as telephony integration is. Unless a Media Profile might make use of Clique Space's own transport mechanism, Clique Space does not facilitate a transport layer allowing one kind of device to talk to another. However, it does allow device compatibility to be modelled in a hierarchy of Media Profiles so this compatibility might be communicated to any other Client Device that has the ability to View a Clique Space.

Hence, I believe it can be demonstrated that Clique Space occupies its own valuable niche in a world where the management of a growing number of devices will impress on users the practical necessity of Clique Space's use. Clique Space also integrates this management of devices with management of user identity and affiliation in a seamless whole. I'll probably talk about user identity and affiliation in a later post although I've already covered it somewhat in earlier posts like this one.

... and if proof can be shown, I'll gladly accept proof that I'm wrong. I'll be able to let this go if I am.

My Laptop's in for repairs.

My laptop is being repaired. The mother board seems to have a problem. My laptop's hard drive has my work on it. It is encrypted. Although I made a backup of my work a day or two prior to the malfunction, I would rather resume work on the active copy on my laptop's hard drive. Hence, I want my laptop repaired promptly.

Paranoia sets in. Although I think these fears unfounded (the people who I have given my laptop to seem genuine), I still fear that the password for the encryption will be discovered. My rational mind is wrestling with the paranoia. I want my computer back so this battle can cease.

Might this posting act as inducement for the people who have my laptop to try to break my encryption? I doubt it. I have given them my laptop so that it might be fixed. They know this, and so do I. If they intended to break the encryption, they would have most probably come to this conclusion beforehand. Pointing to this posting as inducement would not stand up. They are individuals too, and as such, have a moral identity that should not be swayed by my actions here; the actions of another individual.

Now that my paranoia has been relieved somewhat, I will retire to some other activity until my laptop is fixed and returned.

Clique Space(TM) and control of one's life.

I'm not consumed by bitterness... yet. Maybe a seethingly large corporate body with tentacles and lawyers might be pernicious enough to steal my IP. Maybe then things might change... oh another story...

Now, to the story of this post.

People to whom I've been able to sufficiently communicate what Clique Space is have often queried the moral worth of a system like Clique Space. The prime fact that causes most consternation is the following: user activity can be tracked and controlled to the extent permitted by devices' capabilities for control. This perceived infringement on one's autonomy is cited as a source of resistance against Clique Space's uptake.

If I have invented anything, then that is merely a tool. As such, my powers are rather limited in regulating its use. This is something society will have to deal with, as issues like the introduction of a new technology have done for ages past. In fact, it isn't necessarily the introduction of Clique Space per se that society must deal with, but rather the use of Clique Space to direct further social evolution.

Anyway, I will speak about a few myths that I have heard about. Some of the assertions I make below must obey a technical consideration: an Active Affiliation can only be created if the component Connection and Affiliation are against the same Account. This could be broken in a proprietary Clique Space. However, I here restrict my discussion to how I believe the "public" Clique Space (which would set this Limiting Constraint) should behave because I would only trust a Clique Space that obeyed this consideration.

The first myth is that individual freedom will be lost. This is simply untrue. Clique Space was forged (much like a stone monkey) from the wish to have the individual Account as the prime arbiter. One cannot obtain a Connection in Clique Space without an Account. While one can create an Affiliation against any desired Account for an Account Profile to which one has the authority to do this, a Connection must Activate this Affiliation. One will not be able to create an Affiliation against an Account if a Limiting Constraint prohibits this.

The second myth is that anonymity would be lost. Again, untrue. A Clique space can handle anonymous Participants. Participants may elect to be anonymous, or they may simply not be connected to the public Clique Space or a federated neighbour. The Participants of a Clique where everyone asserted anonymity might not care to use Clique Space as Clique Space would likely be redundant in this situation. Anonymous Participants can either be permitted or prohibited simply by setting a Limiting Constraint.

A third myth: clandestine activity might be more likely to happen in a Clique Space. This is the opposite of truth. While I have mentioned before that listeners might be "clandestine" - possibly a bad choice of words, all Participants are known to Clique Space provided the medium (as represented by the one or more Media Profiles) through which the Clique has formed can reliably convey all members of the underlying collaboration.

And a fourth myth: Big Brother will record your every action. Not in the public Clique Space. Although Clique Space is an environment in which devices report their activity, each Agent Device that makes up the public Clique Space is just a Client Device that moderates the stable operation of the public Clique Space. Each Agent device is a real-time device, and no Agent Device would be keeping a log of any Client Device activity beyond any caching necessary to ensure the stability of the Clique Space. Any device that was going to record any activity would have to be connected to the public Clique Space as thought it were a Client Device.

There are probably other myths, and I'd like others to point them out to me so they could be debated.

Now for some caveats, and advice on dealing with them.

It might be wise for all users to assume that any contact they may likely have with any other user may be recorded by that other user. The public Clique Space may have limited scope to control the actual Client Devices that use a particular Media Profile, though a Media Profile itself may go some way toward restricting which devices can be Connected.

The public Clique Space may also allow users to merely observe a Clique or other activity by a Clique Space element. In this instance, a Limiting Constraint could again be set to prohibit other users from merely observing a Clique. Likewise, a Limiting Constraint may be set to prohibit other users having any knowledge of the activity of an Account, an Account Profile, a Media Profile, a Connection, an Affiliation, an Active Affiliation, or any other Clique Space element.

A particular Clique could be moderated according not only to the capabilities of the Clique Space system, but also the additional operational capabilities of the Clique's medium. This would be determined by the set of Enabling Constraints that have been introduced by the the one or more Media Profiles that are active in a Clique, just as Enabling Constraints expose the functionality of the Clique Space in all Cliques (the activity of all Clique Space elements) through a "basic" Media Profile.

Finally, on a personal note...

I conceived Clique Space as a system that I imagine would protect me against perceived and real evils that exist in a world where my dependence on networked devices is replacing my dependence on physical collocation. With a system like Clique Space, a world of virtual presence would be preferred over one taken up by travel, chronic dislocation and being forced to do something I would like to do if only I could do it from my own home as I had always desired.

What is the difference between Clique Space(TM) and an iPhone?

A question anyone with a bit of knowledge about these things soon comes up with. What does Clique Space offer that some gadget like an iPhone doesn't?

Clique Space would not compete with a device like an iPhone. As I don't possess an iPhone, I can only say what I have been led to believe one functions as. Therefore, as I understand, an iPhone is a piece of hardware that physically bundles multiple hardware-based media, and allows a user to use their iPhone or similar device to run different applications. An iPhone is versatile within the capabilities of its bundled hardware.

Clique Space is a totally different idea. A Clique Space is an abstraction of any device. A device in the sense of Clique Space is known as a Client Device. A Client Device is anything that can obtain a Connection to a Clique Space. A Client Device may hence be an iPhone, a car, an email server or client, a golf ball, an electronic whiteboard, one's Facebook profile, a concurrent document editing environment, a PC, etc.

A Clique Space Agent Device is also a Client Device in the sense that a Clique Space system is a collection of collaborating Agent Devices. This Agent Collaboration - like any other collaboration - can be modelled as a Clique in Clique Space.

Device vendors (probably Apple in the case of the iPhone) would create a Media Profile that can be installed on a Clique Space. The Media Profile informs the Clique Space how the device and its media works, and how this device might be compatible with other devices. Users obtain Connections to a Clique Space through a Media Profile that their Client Device can use.

The Media Profile customises the behaviour of Clique Space so that all users who possess one or more Client Devices that can display a Clique Space View can see how other Client Devices might work with each. A Clique Space View can also show what one user might be doing with a particular Client Device, and any Cliques which users - yourself and others you have expressed interest in provided you have access to this information - may have engaged compatible media in.

A Clique Space View would represent the activity of any device, even if the Client Devices being observed cannot communicate directly with the Client Device that is conveying this activity to the user through its View. In this sense, Clique Space can also be a powerful tool for the individual user to record interactions with the devices of others if future circumstances require a log of these interactions to be presented.

Clique Space identifies each Client Device to Clique Space users who, connected to a Clique Space through an Account on any one or more Client Devices, can be represented as an individual through their Account, and as a member of an organisation through an Affiliation that they elect to Activate against their Account.

Hence, it can be seen that a Clique Space is not another iPhone or Blackberry; Clique Space is a phenomenon all of its own.

I'll probably talk about Clique Space and Big Bro in my next posting.

Why do this?

It's about time I wrote something small in my blog again.

Why, might you ask - if only you might care enough, am I doing this?

The first reason I suppose is to claim my idea as my own. As far as I know, I am the first person to have independently conceived a system like Clique Space describes. So, without knowledge of any other idea that is similar, I thought it would be prudent (if not profitable, but one hopes) to lay claim both to the concept as a patent, and to the name Clique Space as a trademark.

More about Clique Space(TM) as a Nervous System

In my previous posting, inspired by an abstract I read of an article, I decided to comment about how Clique Space could be looked at as a type of nervous system.

The article I alluded to in the previous posting was published late 2005 by Longnian Lin, Remus Osan and Joe Z. Tsien called "Organizing principles of real-time memory encoding: neural clique assemblies and universal neural codes". It can be found here.

Now, I thought the publication could have been related to my concept, but I didn't actually check this out until nine days ago when I decided to read the article. I was surprised to find that the phenomenon disclosed in the article (viz how neurons band together in "Cliques" to perform some memory encoding function) was a significant part of what I had conceived on my jog between Bellambi and Bulli in 2004.

The authors of this article discuss how this phenomenon relates to how we might remember things, but I see nothing in what I have read about the phenomenon (one article) to say that this isn't how a coordinated nervous system performs many functions. In fact, I would say that a nervous system wherein individual neurones participate in Cliques is probably the pre-eminent characteristic of a stable nervous system.

I'm not trying to pass myself off as someone who knows much. I just have a habit of thinking about this stuff because it's kind of interesting. Clique Space was thought of long before I knew of any debate on the phenomena that I might think it models. The article was very interesting in that at least it may confirm that I'm not stupid.

Clique Space(TM) as a Nervous System

Yes, I think I have it. Clique Space is a specification for a nervous system.

A Clique Space can connect, aggregate, and co-ordinate the activity state of any device that can connect to one. In this sense, it surely acts as a nervous system.

Subsequent to my coining the name "Clique Space", I discovered firstly (I've possibly been reminded) that Cliques are a term in graph theory and secondly, the actual name is used in research based on neurological behaviour.

I don't know what all these coincidences may mean to my patent or trademark.

We'll see...

Clique Space(TM) and a sustainable future.

Okay, a rant about how I believe Clique Space would help humanity in some important areas of social decay/crisis/whatever else might pique the reader's interest...

Firstly, without a doubt, I believe this Clique Space concept will help society lift non-metropolitan communities out of poverty. Clique Space was born of my frustrations at the pig-headed nature of management practise to physically collocate. There may have been a time when the work that needed to be done required the labour resources to come together to do it, and I wouldn't try to doubt that in many occupations, this is still very much the case. But physical collocation is less of a concern, and more of an appeal to the status-quo in a post-industrial society. The factory floor is an anachronism that clings to work management practises, like a drunkard to a light post.

Clique Space will let a company (with individual consent) coordinate work in a highly flexible way that combines the capabilities of multiple media with role-based and individual behaviour preferences. All of this behaviour is controlled ultimately by the individual who logs on to a Clique Space system through the one or more devices they possess.

A person who has access to a Clique Space, and can connect any media to it can communicate a virtual presence to anyone else so connected. This presents the practicality of virtual offices and workplaces to management in a way so that they receive all the information they may ever need about their labour force extracted and distilled from the noise and distraction of an office or factory floor.

The individual employee doesn't have to travel to an office. The individual needn't have to consider relocation. The individual needn't have to weigh up a life of displacement against one of poverty. The individual is earning the same type of money that their highly skilled city-brethren might have without having to leave their rural or remote home community.

The community benefits because this individual who is earning the same type of money as their city-dwelling colleagues is spending their money in their home community. This money circulates in their home community, and brings prosperity, and a reason for others to stay in the community they have selected as their home.

Hence, Clique Space would provide a way for rural and remote sustainability, and would act as a facility through which members of any community would exercise their discretion when connecting to a global one.

Mountebanks and their Claques' Cliques.

A book titled Explaining Hitler by Ron Rosenbaum has introduced two new words to me: mountebank and claque; the second of these words being merely a coincidental fit with the concept of a Clique. I knew neither of these two words nor their association in Rosenbaum's book before I picked it up and read it.

Saying that, I'm probably a bit, unfortunately, of a claqueless mountebank. I have a few supporters for my idea, but sensing yet no one so bold as to be counted a member of the claque that I lack. Maybe others are waiting for this claque to materialise before they join.

Witnessing the phenomenon of mountebanks and their claques in many of my exchanges on email groups, the concern that I lack one of these appears a considerable obstacle to the promotion of Clique Space(TM). Saying that, I think it is only a concern to me insofar as I currently have less than 11.5 months to garner a well-moneyed claque before the PCT lapses.

In regard to lapsing PCT's, one cannot commit too much emotion to this process; the tax to one's sanity would otherwise be too great. I have done my best, and if no one likes my idea (I accept the possibility that my idea might be crap, but am yet to accept the substance of that possibility itself) I will have to be philosophical about this outcome. The idea that I need to spend 150 thousand dollars to secure national phase patent applications is unattainable by me as an individual. Maybe, also, my idea might be too abstract to be sufficiently enforceable, but I doubt this one currently as I still have not seen another make an adversarial move which might indicate this possibility.

I believe society will embrace Clique Space, or a similar idea that empowers individuals with the facility to control their virtual presence and collect activity logs of their interactions with any other individual over any electronic medium capable of being represented in any number of Clique Spaces. Whether or not society responds to this embracing inevitability in time for me to see a consideration for it will be decided by others.

Somewhat unsurprisingly...

I'm going to have to give the uni avenue up, at least for Spring session.

I had a talk the University's Director of Corporate Relations because I was given his contact details as someone who had industry contacts. On 13 July, he sent a message to the Informatics Faculty's Manager of Innovation and Commercialisation (someone with whom I already had contact with earlier) who didn't get round to contacting me directly until I called him on Tuesday 28 July.

I don't think there'll be enough time for me now to talk about equitable terms to share Clique Space with the University before 8 August, the time by which I need to enrol for Spring session. Hence, I'm going to give up again. House of mirrors.

Maybe next session... maybe never. If someone doesn't help me properly by 15 July 2010 Clique Space (now an internationally recognised prior art) goes begging.

We'll all see what happens here...

Owen.

The First Media Profile

Media Profiles are a central component to my implementation of the Clique Space(TM - can't do that too often) concept.

Any device that wants to talk to a Clique Space must connect to it through a suitable Media Profile, a customisation of the elements that Clique Space uses to represent various physical and conceptual artefacts in the world that it models. The first Media Profile that I am crafting will model the Clique Space implementation itself so a Clique Space system can model the cooperation of its own component devices. Without casting disrespect to Americans, I hesitate to use an American cliché. Alas, no other phrase seems appropriate for this context: This is very neat.

I might be a bit of a smarty pants.

The possibility of business startup support at uni.

Spring session at my local uni begins in two Monday's time. I think I've done two subjects toward a coursework postgraduate degree. I'm not too hot on progressing this coursework degree because I think I have jumped over, round, and through enough obstacles now. I think that I might want to do research on something that interests me. Even though one has tried to appeal to various academics at the uni for supervision in a research-based degree where Clique Space(TM) was the topic, none have offered to be a supervisor.

I have become aware of the possibility, if I were to re-enrol in my coursework masters, of attracting some access to business start-up resources offered through the university. Hence, I think I might take one subject next session. As a coursework student, the work that I'll be doing is only going to drain time that I'll need to work on Clique Space, so I don't find this idea of coursework to be very attractive.

Hence, the only reason I am considering re-enrolment is to get access to these promised business development resources. If this access doesn't materialise, I'll see no reason in being a student in a coursework degree.

Clique Space and A Lucky Country.

I am Australian. It's good to be Australian.

I grew up in Wollongong, and consider this urban offshoot from Sydney (separated by an escarpment that runs between Stanwell Park and Helensburgh) my home.

People that have been in leadership positions to me (employers and politicians) have conspired (either with intent or through ignorance) to get me to live in Sydney. I have tried more than once to please the forces that cajole me in to a foreign urbanity, but each time I have tried, the same result has eventuated: I have become a scared, cowering shadow, haggered from intense social interaction and chronic displacement.

I got interested in software development when I was 12 because I could see it as a great way to do something interesting, whilst keeping away from others, and the intense demands of having to interact socially. On the other hand, I often feel lonely. This is not because of my preference for solitude, but because others appear to find my preference for solitude as hard to understand as I find their preference for chronic socialisation hard to understand.

Never have I warmed to the thought of living the life of a corporate nomad that proponents of the software development industry would currently advocate is necessary to produce good software. I want to work from home, and I won't take a job that does not allow me to do this. So, I came up with Clique Space before I named it Clique Space, in about July or August 2004 on a rainy day while I was jogging north along the cycleway between Bellambi and Bulli. I don't yet know whether or not it is good or crap, but it seems that no one's tried it before either, so no one knows.

By January 2008, I'd kept an eye open, but hadn't seen anything that might approach what I had conceived nearly three and a half years before. Armed with a part-time 30 hours/week software developer's job in Wollongong, I decided to register it, and claimed January 15 2008 as my priority date.

My patent is now a PCT which will be published in six days time. It is my best attempt at claiming this concept as my own. I think I have spent not less than 10,000 dollars to get it to this stage. I left my part-time position in Wollongong, because this employer started to dicate the terms of my employment. I have no more money to move my concept further than this, but I believe I might have just enough time to convince people who do have money and contacts (better people than me) of this concept's efficacy. I'm currently developing a proof of this concept in Java on my laptop.

We'll see...

Clique Space(TM)

I'm not sure if this is going to last, but here's to try.

I suppose this blog will be my attempt to showcase my current exploits in getting an idea I call Clique Space to the masses. It might be more (or less) than this, depending on what how I might find myself with Clique Space in a little over a year from now. I have registered a PCT which will be published next Wednesday 15 July. I have 12 months from then to find some one or more backers who can help me realise the idea as I have envisaged.

Will I care enough to have one of these? The prognosis doesn't look good...