Why is David Smiling? Today, November 18, 1998, I, David J. Kaplan, being of insane mind, lumpy body, and long hair, finally presented my proposal for my doctoral thesis. Granted, that's not enough to make me smile. You see, I passed. The proposal survived as per my desire. Namely, what I proposed to do, is exactly what I will do. The faculty affirmed this. I'll get the official letter in a week or so.

But Wait! What now?

Now? Gezz, thanks for reminding me. There I was floating on cloud nine, or was that 8* (look up Peanos axioms to understand), when you come along and ask What Now? What are you, a complete crazy? A loon? Do you have criminal intentions? Look, let me bask in the moment! I passed for crying out loud. This is a good thing. Now go away!

And What after What Now? OK, look, you're bothering me. What you're getting at is what will I do when I finally graduate. I could go into that, but for fear of being offensive I will not. So take yourself, and your damn ideas, and shove them. OK? I'm trying fucking bask in the moment damnit!

Isn't the moment over?

You ruined it. Do you realize that YOU have ruined the moment for me! That's right, you and your pushing and your needeling ways have destroyed the moment for me. I bow to your supreme abilities to conquer my good spirits. Thanks much. Yes, the moment is over, so I might as well answer your questions.

But Wait! What now? Take II

What now? I'll tell you and I guaran-damn-tee you this will strip that stupid grin right off of your fat fucking face!! Where to start? First, I need to continue implementing my abstract notion of Morphing. Morphing is a technique, indeed a tool in STAR, that realizes the concept that organizations change, or evolve, over time. You still with me? Good, I will continue. Morphing is simple when we look at only one set or type of structures and abstract away the requirement of ensuring functional organizations. My plan is to abstract away since this is early work. I will focus more attention on the methods and issues of morphing, thereby setting the stage for more work that can be done by others. That'll get me cited and other cool stuff I suppose. Especially since that whole 'in essence' work didn't work out (inside joke for all but one, sorry). I forgot to mention that I'd imagine that an additional 1000 to 2000 lines of code needs to be implemented to satisfy Morphing. Oh, so what else? I will need to demonstrate permeability. Huh? Yeah, well, the concept is that bounds between components are not fixed. Rather concepts or features of a component could be represented as features of other components or as instances of other components. Curious, but is that grin still on your fat fucking face? I didn't think so, though I admire your 'stay with it' attitude. I suppose an example of permeability is useful here. Some modelers regard skill and knowledge as resources. A resource, by-the-by, is a component of the STAR System. Oh, the STAR System is the system I proposed to build in the body of me proposal. OK? No? Well, the system is composed of 4 base components, Structure, Task, Agent, and Capability. Hence the name, STAR. Duhhh! You saw that one coming didn't you? Anyhoot, this knowledge or skill idea is that some modelers view it as a resource, others view it as a feature of the agent component. By allowing modelers to model this either as a resource (instance of a component) or as a feature of an attribute, STAR provides for permeable boundaries between components. Cool huh? Most systems don't allow for this Ya' know what, I know no one is reading here so I will end now. Good night computational model, wherever you are.