Velvet Marauder, why you no post?

I think you have me confused with someone else. Someone gay else.

Anyway, been working on Tadashi's secret project. It got boring pretty quick, actually; I'm just sorting through "ontological data," which means I'm evaluating how well the memetic algorithm is reading my co-workers' emotional states.

Back in the beginning of last week, the company put all the English-language employees through a "health screening" as an excuse to slap holograms on their foreheads. And, yeah, it's the holograms that are apparently doing the mind-reading work; they're obviously more than just holograms at this point, but the ability to read information in three-dimensional space was apparently derived from the basic hologram's ability to create a seemingly three-dimensional image.

I'd love to be able to explain it. Tadashi told me I wouldn't understand, and I said "try me," and he explained.

I learned exactly one thing from the ensuing jargon-soaked spiel, namely that Tadashi himself didn't really understand how any of it worked either. He read haltingly from a printout, translating on the fly, until I gestured for him to stop.

"Never mind," I said. "I'll just get to work."

And then he asked me if I knew how to use Excel.

Yeah, that's what I've been using. Microsoft Fucking Excel. Was I expecting to do my work on something cooler? Oh, maybe. Since you're asking, I wouldn't have said no to a hovering crystal with a three-dimensional multitouch UI. Or a robot catgirl maid with a Dance Dance Revolution interface, as long as I'm getting the Japan experience.

But Excel is technically all I need. And strictly speaking, my actual workstation isn't my PC, it's...

Well, as Tadashi explained, what we're currently testing is the algorithm's ability to discern thoughts and emotions through the lens of an English-speaking mind. So, until we've established that it can do that, the only thing capable of bug-checking the algorithm is...

An English-speaking mind. So... me, basically. It kind of puts Tadashi's assertion that I'm not a test subject into a dubious light. I spend most of the day with a hologram stuck to my forehead too, except instead of getting mind-read, I'm mind-reading.

It's hard to describe the experience of having another person's emotions written into your brain. Let me see if an allegory comes to mind. Uh... it's like, if you were in a cave, backlit by a bonfire, and you watched your own shadow dancing around on the walls.

Yeah, that works. That just came to me, just now. Can you copyright an allegory? Because I smell licensing deal. Soft drink tie-ins. Michael Bay, director.

Anyway, you distantly identify the shadow as "yourself," and whatever it appears to be doing, you sort of feel like you're experiencing it. If I didn't know it was coming from outside of myself, I guess I could mistake it for the real thing.

The algorithm's pretty smart about cherry-picking positive emotions; sorting through them means braving an onslaught of warm fuzzies, interspersed with the occasional misfiled instance of sarcasm or irony. If there's any work for me to do at all, actually, it's teaching the algorithm to understand those things. All it would take is one sarcastic comment from a user, and suddenly the algorithm thinks that human happiness is derived from "being talked down to like I don't know how to do my own fucking job, oh, and being yelled at, that really fucking helps."

I'm making some headway as far as that goes, which suits me fine. Tadashi's gotten kinda cold to me in the past few days, and having something to report to him takes the edge off. I don't know what his deal is lately - trouble at home, pressure from above, whatever - but he's recently taken a serious, professional interest in swooping over to my desk and assaulting my workspace with his X-Ray Glower until I assure him that I'm not getting high and trying to teach the algorithm about boobs.

The algorithm already knows about boobs, by the way.