Our lens in modernity is steeped in complexity. In times of trouble, what is needed is simplicity. Tech can help, but useful tech will have a rich, proven standards lineage, particularly for data and visualization. Useful bits will be sharp tools that can be expressed in a handful of lines and quickly combined and adapted to current challenges.
Heptads are inspired by NIP-01. But, I use Ed25519, since it is native in Deno and Web APIs. I'm also using the new Uint8Array.fromBase64. Again, I'm not particularly interested in growing this by taking a layer 7 app and emulating the lower OSI layers (reaching around my back to scratch my elbow), nor do I focus on social networking. I *do* like the old idea of Scuttlebutt, but in a scenario where we assemble for a crisis rather than for dev conferences. I know these aren't exclusive, and the network of relays is important for that, but I figure it is just as easy to route these over *whatever* exists. MQTT will work as well. Frankly, I think it might make the most sense to just publish maps over HTTPS in many cases. Regardless, Nostr tech is the closest overall, and NIP-07 solves many headaches I've had in the past (particularly WebID and TLS client certs).
Nostr has 3 of the same elements as a heptad (time, sig, npub), but the rest of the event object is a semantic knowledge proposition (graph, subject, predicate, object), basically an N-Quad. Anyway... the first step beyond theory is getting the heptads to verify, which I did today. To scale, I suppose I wouldn't re-import every single pub... I'd store them somehow.
If any heptads signatures fail to match, they will be printed to the console.
```
const heptads=JSON.parse(Deno.readTextFileSync('heptads.dat_mat.json'))
for (const h of heptads){
if (!await crypto.subtle.verify({ name: "Ed25519"},
await crypto.subtle.importKey("raw", Uint8Array.fromBase64(h[5]
,{ alphabet: 'base64url'}) ,{ name: "Ed25519" }, true, ["verify"]),
Uint8Array.fromBase64(h[6],{ alphabet: 'base64url'}),
new TextEncoder().encode(JSON.stringify([...h.slice(0,6)]))
)) console.log(h)
}
```
Many people that are concerned, intellectually curious, and have enough time to dig deep, come to the same general conclusions about our situation as humans-in-biosphere. Mostly, though, when they touch and understand the wisdom, it is like a fleeting thought while meditating. Their day-to-day life doesn't appear to match. They fall right back into old patterns.
We often downplay culture, as though we are super-rational beings able to re-invent ourselves under will. It doesn't work that way for humans, though. It takes much training and discipline. I don't possess that discipline myself. I'm not that good at meditating, either. I can see the culture part. I understand the river that pushes me along. That's a start, I suppose.
I have a single idea I cling to. My idea is that cognitive maps that are easy to create quickly and flexibly can help with understanding and counter culture. Perhaps it will help us in emergence during times of extreme change. So, I'm content rattling down the river like one of Richard Bach's limpets, clinging to my idea of heptads for emergent knowledge, four more than triples. It is a hack, right? I cling but still flow down the river? I certainly don't believe that the current knows where it is going.
