Today I had several interactions by email with reporters. One wrote, "I'm still not clear on the Brahms system. You wrote: ''The Brahms system was developed for modeling (describing) and simulating work practice, including people, groups, locations, tools, communications, documents, etc. This was a collaboration of social and computer scientists that began in 1992.' Can you describe specifically what this means, perhaps with an example?" Having written dozens of papers on this topic, and having hardly three minutes in which to respond, where does one begin? My mind tends to sputter and come to halt in such a moment.

Needing a break, I stood outside for a few minutes after adjusting the generator with Maarten. A gentle breeze blew on my legs, as I stood shielded from the sun by the rear door. The air in the shade was soft and warm. I thought what a shame not to experience fresh air while living on Earth's moon or Mars. But maybe if you aren't brought up enjoying the outdoors, you wouldn't mind. My grandfather used to sit in his living room on the most sunny days, the heavy drapes drawn, and the TV on. He might have been a good candidate for long flights.

While Vandi and Paul were giving a talk this afternoon about procedure formalization, the nearby laptop (running the Brahms/Mobile Agents system) was listening for voice commands. Vandi and Paul read off some steps, "Reduce MDRS loads" and "Recharge the batteries." Somewhere in there, the agent spoke up, "The inverter is only drawing power from the generator." It felt like the computer wanted to participate in the meeting.

Later, someone said, "But wait!" And the agent said, "I am listening." So begins years to come of funny interactions with computer programs that speak. Mix a very complex program with sophisticated context, and the errors actually make sense.

Well, no worries about running out of challenging puzzles. The very event we had designed the agent system to detect did occur today. I wrote in my Check-In report on April 14 last year:

"Noticed about 1530h that inverter was cycling, switching back and forth between batteries and the generator. Shut off generator, found it needed oil (30 wt), which should have been changed last week. Fine tuned generator's output by examining inverter's meter. Generator is now performing fine."

Today's event wasn't caused by oil most likely, but perhaps by vibration over four days, necessitating some fine tuning. Ironically, our agent system couldn't detect the oscillation because the OneMeter data wasn't available frequently enough. Yet, we are close. The idea, the scenario, the system design and programming, all are slowly being realized. Many people contributed to these parts, and still more will help before it works.

I felt more with it today, in the groove. I think the first few days are always tiring, and it takes awhile to feel normal. I know in the Arctic it takes about four days until I stop wondering what I am doing there. Maybe tomorrow I will write about analog missions. Maybe instead of 330pm I will write 1530h again.

Bill Clancey
Commander, MDRS Crew 49