OrbitMines

Once a Minecraft server, now the building of a world where engineering, science, education are all an exploratory videogame.

[OrbitMines @OrbitMines]

In preparation of OrbitMines Research projects; Its Discord server: https://t.co/lSmx5abH2R

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

The OrbitMines Minecraft Server (2013-2019)

At long last, it's time for a quick trip back into OrbitMines history. It's now been 7 years since the Minecraft server shut down...

https://t.co/it9LVqGf6p

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

2025. Progress Update: I missed last years' progress update, but here is this years'! Some design notes on the programming language and IDE I'm currently working on.

https://t.co/zhj8xp61kQ

[SEMF @semf_nexus]

⌛Last chance for Interdisciplinary School 2024 onsite registration⌛

https://t.co/Za3fRUFrHH

🗓️July 22-26
📌Join us in Valencia for the full experience
🏠On-campus accommodation
📣Spread the word

🎟️Get your ticket before June 31 to secure your spot!

https://t.co/yCtKDlOiQG

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

## Arc I
*Chapter II - June 23 2024*

Now this hobbit is a bit of a nasty one. Not only is he a proudfoot, *"proodfeet", I mean. But he is a bit of Mule too. Why a Mule?

Perhaps you haven't heard of Asimov "et al")'s books. You see, a Mule is a sort of an outlier. An outlier who unknowingly consumes the world around him. This is no mere accident. The Germans would probably stumble in naming him sort of a Blitz"Mule" (whatever 'mule' means in German, I care not to look it up right now). Hence, here we are. A happy little accident.

Another "Perhaps", perhaps, might be that it may come as a surprise to you, that an intelligence, must necessarily be ignorant. Of course, what better way to forget one's strength by hitting a red button for one stupid reason or another. For the non-gamer noobs among us: this is a strategy I like to call "button-mashing" - entirely invented this word myself, like the Great Shakespear, Hallowed be His Name.

The metaverse, or should I call it programming, I keep forgetting the difference, is therefore not something you can build. It is just the setting off of a single domino. A single domino will set off your fall.

This is the besuty and the horror of reprogrammability, or should I already call it life, who knows? It is the co-existence of the exploration of extremes. To hack, and be hacked by your loved ones. To see the beauty in something you cannot begin to comprehend. An actual choice, how hard for you.

Now that this Accidental Mule has stepped on the gas, I might as well conjecture that most of your so-called "open problems" in science are probably all the same problem. A conceptual problem. The only thing you actually need for them is a little craziness on your horizon.

Perhaps, again, all you lack is a dirty mirror....

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

OrbitMines - The Story
*This is a story about confusion. A story about a long struggle to discover this world's Universal Language.*

Yet, somehow it also seems like a mirror-image of me.

## Arc I
*Chapter I - June 22, 2024*

It began, well - ha. It began, as you might expect. In an ordinary classroom. Not just any classroom, No. No, this was a room which little magic iPads. Why you might ask? The answer to that question remained hidden to me for many years to come.

Everywhere the kids went, so went their little tablets. And through them the power to create worlds. Worlds like none thought even remotely possible. Yet, even though this was so obvious, not enough of them had true understanding of what this meant.

For me however, this was of course obvious. Starting with a little game called Minecraft: A videogame with the potential to be as creative or destructive as you liked. A game which did not hold back any suprises. Truely a world without limits.

And so, naturally, I was drawn to that world. To create universes of chaos, chaos so beautiful you could still see its overmarching order. An order which was unrelentless. I speak of course, not only of Minecraft.

For it is possible to discover this world's most terrifying features, with mere babysteps. To realize that every step carries responsibility. That being listened to, and understood, are Two Different Things entirely.

I have gone through what one might call incredibly swift stages of confusion. Yet to me it was so obvious: I was simply marching along the unrelentless story of giants before me. Yet this little hobbit could see so much further. So, so much further.

I will give you a little taste of this journey, perhaps you could pick up the pieces.

If of course, you can tolerate my vague ambiguity every once in a blue moon. Then then this store might be something for you...

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

This is what functions, data, ..., information is.
This is what science, engineering, learning, ..., gaming will become.

Quests require Items ; Cannot see, ..., complete a quest, ..., puzzle without certain items.
Items require Quests ; In order to find items you need quests.

Quests are Items ; You can give a quest to someone else.
Items are Quests ; Your items might be quests to find for others.

Items are Inventories, Worlds, ..., Servers ; We can go inside items and explore there.
Items are Minimaps ; We can look at items from the outside to get an perspective, ..., overview of what it is.
Items can be used for crafting, combining, ..., creating.
Items sometimes tell a story of how, ..., where they're made, but it's not always clear what that story is.
Items can be used without knowing the worlds inside them. ; Once you have them you can try to find more items about that story.

Items effect World Generation ; What you have found changes what you can find.

Items can be dropped, modded, ..., unequipped ; You can forget, ..., leave easter eggs for others to find.
Items can be dropped to change World Generation.

Items can be copied, ..., spread.
Items can be copied to change World Generation.

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

@OrbitMines explorations - 2024, May: Explorers, researchers, traders, ..., pirates: Gatherers, crafters, ..., spreaders of items unknown to some, ... all.

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

2024, April - A monthly excerpt of my Literary Exposure.

See @OrbitMines ' Community Discord: https://t.co/9xv1TGSVSE, for more information on my projects.

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

Project - Education (2027+?) ;
I'm putting this here mainly as an invitation for anyone interested to contribute. All @OrbitMines projects ... will make it possible to design a completely different category of educational systems...
https://t.co/k69xf1ec9N

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

Project - Research towards Designs (2024) ;
Once a simple interface is setup, we'll start to be able to design the next generation of that interface within the interface itself. Though it'll probably be useful to think about a lot of it off-screen...
https://t.co/z0bVC6MF6n

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

2024, March - A monthly excerpt of my Literary Exposure.

See @OrbitMines ' Community Discord: https://t.co/9xv1TGSVSE, for more information on my projects.

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

A Universal Language coming to pixels near you sometime soon™™ in 2024!

https://t.co/OJWngHX8Gx

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

Continuing implementation work on Rays tomorrow: let's see how far I can get before heading to #SYCO12 (Birmingham, UK 15-16 April): https://t.co/JiEILZEaAy (Local organizers: @Tnttodda & @thegeorgejkaye)

Doing work in a separate repository: https://t.co/IqG58edRlw

Notice me @NGI4eu @NLnetFDN, exploratory research is the future~

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

2024, February - A monthly excerpt of my Literary Exposure.

See @OrbitMines ' Community Discord: https://t.co/9xv1TGSVSE, for more information on my projects.

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

A comprehensive guide on how to be frustrated with pixels. An open call for funding, collaboration or anyone curious to learn more. @OrbitMines

https://t.co/OrM1JvYlxz

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

I'm exploring possible projects to join and/or possibilities for funding:

Supposedly, this starts with a few simple admissions.

I'm someone with relentless curiosity. Though, so far, that has always come with an inevitabe sharp disinterest when something more interesting was found. This probably explains the tendency I have to move to execute my own projects.

So concretely, if someone knows of funding possibilities I've failed to already consider - to extend my timeline and @OrbitMines projects (A high-level overview can be found here: https://t.co/hbRnyMtMmD). Or if anyone knows of a project looking for someone for a couple of months and dares to think that might peak my interest; This is me: https://t.co/nGFr8vgDoS

There is no category of project/position I exclude from this, I'll be interested to find out what kind of things pop up when I give no constraints. Though a useful technical context might be that I hate all programming languages equally (i.e. I don't care much which I'm using and adapt quickly).

#lookingforwork #looking #funding #compiler #computerscience #programming #project #software #hardware

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

This is probably sufficiently high-level and interesting to put here as well (from https://t.co/jNyHtVt5LM)

Arguably, *the* goal of OrbitMines, is to bridge the gap between Languages, Interfaces and Video Games. Perhaps you might find this a bit odd at first: You should start by abandoning the notion anyone has about IDEs, games, programming ... and operating systems. For they are merely an incredibly useful, but restrictive case. And if these ideas can be executed properly, they will **all** blend together.

Though that might sound interesting, how do you *actually* make that happen? A question which has been digging at me for a long time.

This starts with a few complicated but simple ideas:
- Whatever it is (programming) languages are currently doing, they will never get there: This will **never** be possible in *just* the textual interface any programmer is familiar with.
- For some reason, it's incredibly hard to apply the mode of thinking which allows for the creation in, ... of a programming language, to the interface in which one programs.
- It is incredibly hard to throw away all historical context and actually start from something **new**, while still having a practical handle on anything others have done before. Try doing that, while everyone is doing that.
- Whatever this interface will look like, it necessitates conveniently being able to change **anything** about how it looks, ..., how it operates *from the interface itself*. This introduces a hard problem on the side of the implementer: How do you possibly account for that? Or perhaps: Why is that a problem in the first case?
- Whatever function it is that platforms and interfaces serve, they will probably converge to being more of a theme applied on a particular type of structure. Only as a supply of resources (access to certain kinds of information/compute) will they persist. They will not persist as separable interfaces.
- You need to be able to deal in *questions* of different levels of abstraction, description, ..., scales, when each layer introduces arbitrary complexity. This is not simple scale invariance.
- Any scale, ..., any language will in some respect introduce this arbitrary complexity. The only way to properly deal with that is the possibility of exploration. You cannot have this without an open world generation aspect.
- Any translation between any layer necessarily contains something which *cannot* be translated.
- You will have to deal with being able to move in certain data structures for which there might not (yet) be a nice translation to something you can understand.
- Whatever sets up this open world generation must rely on existing structure, information. You can set up something more random, sure. But the only possibility of some feedback on this generation must be some generalization of existing knowledge. Whatever (entropically relevant) information, structure, ..., items have been found.
- This means open world generation must support arbitrary information which will **not** be available in the design of this game/interface.

These are some high-level questions, I'll return to these in more detail at some point.

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

2024, January - A monthly excerpt of my Literary Exposure.

See @OrbitMines ' Community Discord: https://t.co/9xv1TGSVSE, for more information on my projects.

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

These should give a rough sketch of my expected trajectory and to what corners I'm trying to drag OrbitMines. I'll fill them with more ideas as soon:

They can also be found on the GitHub: https://t.co/Tk8i39kZeR

[Fadi Shawki @_FadiShawki]

Some more Ray Visualizations which probably explain most of my thinking~

@AleksKissinger I should have Chyp implemented in this within a few weeks~ (Still a bit messy/hacky, but it's here: https://t.co/j6r8umUP0j)

@OrbitMines Discord equivalent: https://t.co/qsKbfa52NW