JFK Timeline Project

Fri 04 Jul 2014, 5:00 pm

First topic message reminder :

New JFK Timeline Project has been released. Deserves special mention here (apart from how useful it's going to be) because ROKC's very own Steven Duffy had a big part in making it. He gave years of his hard work from his index to the Project. Bookmark this puppy and use it lots!

http://www.jfk-timeline.org/index.php

Sat 26 Jul 2014, 1:23 am

Oops, forgot - give y'all some links:

The 2nd draft of the LHO timeline: http://www.jfk-timeline.org/timelines/262.htm

In addition, I'm working on the Motorcade Sequence -

The Event tree is here: http://www.jfk-timeline.org/jfk_explode_ebucket.php?buckettype=2&bucketid=642

And the Witness tree is here: http://www.jfk-timeline.org/jfk_explode_ebucket.php?buckettype=8&bucketid=1751

Trying to nail down the "official" anchor events before drilling down into the details.

(Julia Ann Mercer practically deserves a section all to herself - and maybe she'll get one eventually! What a farce! - slaps forehead in disbelief - )

(I can't get these links to come out, so please cut and paste as needed). Smile

Wed 30 Jul 2014, 4:31 pm

Evidence!

Clay Shaw Trial: http://www.jfk-timeline.org/jfk_explode_ebucket.php?buckettype=4&bucketid=1837
Orleans Parish Grand Jury: http://www.jfk-timeline.org/jfk_explode_ebucket.php?buckettype=4&bucketid=1757
Warren Commission: http://www.jfk-timeline.org/jfk_explode_ebucket.php?buckettype=4&bucketid=324 (warning: long!)
ARRB: http://www.jfk-timeline.org/jfk_explode_ebucket.php?buckettype=4&bucketid=456
HSCA: http://www.jfk-timeline.org/jfk_explode_ebucket.php?buckettype=4&bucketid=325

(login is required for these links)

The first two are fully cross-referenced and reconciled, the third one is at the tail end of a namespace adjustment and that'll be done tomorrow, and the last two are just getting started (and it'll only be a matter of a few more days on those).

At the moment these record are links to photographic PDF's of the original documents, they're not searchable text yet - however that feature will be added as well. For now the purpose is to enable cross-referencing, and there will be a programming upgrade to support that too.

Still working on the Odio end-to-end (that was the purpose of all this, had to get the evidence in place first Smile

). People still being added, and lots of "non-official" evidence. So far so good. bounce

Sat 02 Aug 2014, 6:00 pm

For Stan and others, I put together the beginnings of an answer to the "how does it work" question. I'd like to show you graphically, it'll save a lot of words.

First, we have an event. This one, is a "Point Event" (it has no duration). However, it does have a "variance" that goes along with the Event Time. So, the Event ends up looking like "point time, plus or minus variance", and that configuration defines an Event Window (a "window within which the event may have occurred").

Next, we have a more complex event, this one has Duration. In this case, the Event Window is defined by a starting time, and a duration.

JFK Timeline Project - Page 2 Event210

Actually the start time and duration both have variance, which is depicted in the next slide showing two events next to each other. Each event is shown with both the start time and duration having variance, which means the Event Window so defined has a minimum and maximum size.

JFK Timeline Project - Page 2 Event310

Sat 02 Aug 2014, 6:19 pm

Next, we can specify a "logical" relationship between the events, using an Event Relation. For instance, we can say the Second Shot "must come AFTER" the First Shot.

Now, here's where it gets interesting. DEPENDING on the variances, and the exact definition of the start time and the duration, the Event Windows for Event 1 and Event 2 may actually overlap. Depending on how we've set up these events, there may be a small but finite probability that because of a "window crossing", Event 2 may actually precede Event 1.

And, because of the Event Relation in place, such a situation would be non-sensical. (It's illogical that the Second Shot should precede the First Shot).

Therefore, the system makes this situation EXPENSIVE. Expense means "costly", and you can look at "costly" like the energy in the system, say... the temperature of a gas (a "global" property of the "system as a whole"). The system wants to relax into its lowest energy state, and anytime there is a window crossing the opposite thing happens (each window crossing "adds" to the temperature).

JFK Timeline Project - Page 2 Event510

Therefore, in the simplest case when everything is linear, you can imagine a process whereby the system counts the number of window crossings, multiplies each by an "expense factor", and thus calculates a "total cost" for the current configuration.

The "expense factor" is not just a number, it depends for instance on the width of the window crossing ("wider" window crossings are worse, they're more expensive because they're "bigger").

So then, after the global temperature is calculated, the system figures out each window crossing's contribution to the total amount, and it "adjusts" the event times and variances so as to SLIGHTLY reduce the cost in the next iteration. The word "slightly" is important because we actually want this process to converge so it arrives at an "optimal" lowest energy state.

There are other "constraints" on the Event Windows, besides just the logical ones introduced through Event Relations, and the boundaries imposed by the numbers in the Event Profile. But this is generally how it works - constraint violations are costly and the system attempts to minimize the cost by adjusting the allowable parameters.

"Anchor Events" are those with well defined times and very low variances (like, police logs or hospital logs or other cases with a time stamp). These help the process to converge, because they "anchor" the rest of the events as they move within their allowable Event Windows. And there are many events with very wide windows, like someone may say in testimony, "I don't recall exactly when it happened, it was in the afternoon, either Wednesday or Thursday because I remember having something else to do on Friday" and etc etc.

So, I'll stop there, this should provide a pretty clear answer (at the 101 level) to the definition of the Event Window and the concept of Window Crossing.

Sun 03 Aug 2014, 7:19 am

I like my model better, but I don't feel like testing it so I'll go with yours for now.

JFK Timeline Project - Page 2 Black_10

Sun 03 Aug 2014, 8:54 am

Stan Dane wrote:I like my model better, but I don't feel like testing it so I'll go with yours for now.

Jeez... well the least we could do is accurately describe the events we're trying to describe.

(Right?)

We do after all have time anchors, there's even audio tapes and all kindza stuff... well never mind. We don't need a "curved universe" to describe a few days in November, it's just the usual palace intrigue and somewhere there's a group of prime movers.

Hm. Did you see the Swiss study where they used this exact method to determine "who owns what" in the world? (I mean, who "really" owns what, the names behind the faces behind the front corporations, that kind of thing). That was pretty impressive, they used old data but they had a lot of it, so they came up with some interesting results.

Yeah, it's a bit of work. Just now I'm pulling my hair out trying to enter all the Evidence records, in fact I'm about to give up and go hire my keypunch people back at ten bucks an hour, 'cause I can't get this done fast enough myself. But the database IS getting better, plus there's a major software upgrade coming next week where many of the annoyances will be resolved -

And I promised the Odio visit as an example, and that IS the short term goal of entering all this data, is to make that work - so far we have three different versions of the story, plus several more that appear to fit with the available event stream, so that should be a great example where we can explore a lot of the power of what the math can do (and also see what it "can't" do, which is just as important). We have the Warren-era version of the story, the Garrison-era version involving Loran Hall's various recollections, and then the latest one with Angelo Murgado and all that. Three different "models" that people thought were compatible with the event stream, at one point or another.

'Mkay, so back to data entry. Trying to move all the text literals for "evidence" out of the events themselves, ... I'm not entirely sure why no one's ever organized the data in this way, it would seem to be necessary for any genuine due diligence (I mean, if we're talking about timelines and what happened when). Plus, I mean, .... quick now... what was the date on which Oswald first used the Hidell ID? How long is it going to take someone to Google that one, and become "reasonably certain" they have the correct answer? (The answer does matter, right? Smile

)

Stick with me, I'll try to give you something useful in appreciation for your willingness to spend time with the graphics. (Nice vortex, btw). pirat

Sun 03 Aug 2014, 11:36 am

Stan Dane wrote:I like my model better, but I don't feel like testing it so I'll go with yours for now.

Stan, the upside down trombone works for me

Thu 07 Aug 2014, 3:31 am

All right, for all you Skeptics out here in skeptic-land, the question is, "what's missing"?

This is most of the "official" stuff I could find on short notice, and I'm very much thinking this should be "enough" to start building a for-real database.

http://www.jfk-timeline.org/jfk_guide_evidence.php

btw, it's a good idea to be judicious (and specific) with the searches now 'cause all this stuff really exists, if you type "Oswald" into one of the search screens you'll get 1500 people, 4800 events, and over 12,000 pieces of evidence, in other words a very long list - which the database will happily provide but which will overwhelm the display on many browsers (especially the smaller and mobile kind).

An open question to everyone - what else should be included in the list?

I'm aware of the RIF system for "documents" (a la Mary Ferrell and such), but, what about YouTube videos and such, interviews, magazine clippings, etc etc, is there some kind of "formal" system for cataloguing such things that I may not be aware of?

I"d like to make this database as useful as possible, right now there still aren't many cross-references, but it seems to me that with the stuff on this list we could start building up at this point. What do you think?

(ps no login required for the link) Smile

Thu 07 Aug 2014, 9:25 am

I am not sure about citations for those sort of things but I am pretty sure Carmine would know. He's the citingest (if there is such a word) fellow around.

In an earlier thread he commented and cited the comment itself.

Self-referring may be a redundancy but it worked for me. (And no comments about this self-referring redundunce, okay?)

Anyway, Carmine's probably the best source.

Sun 10 Aug 2014, 6:06 pm

Is there a way to delete one's JFK Timeline Project account? I don't see one. I played around with it a little, but I'm not a researcher, so I won't be using it anyway. If I don't expect to be using something anymore, I'd just as soon close out the member account, if possible. One less thing to keep track of.

Good luck with your system. I'm sure it will benefit serious research.

Sincerely, Stan

Tue 12 Aug 2014, 4:53 pm

Stan Dane wrote:Is there a way to delete one's JFK Timeline Project account? I don't see one. I played around with it a little, but I'm not a researcher, so I won't be using it anyway. If I don't expect to be using something anymore, I'd just as soon close out the member account, if possible. One less thing to keep track of.

Good luck with your system. I'm sure it will benefit serious research.

Sincerely, Stan

Sure, I'll take care of it. I'm curious though... you say you're not a researcher... why do you say that? I mean, why are you here chatting us up if not for research? Do you consider yourself a "hobbyist", like idly interested or something (but not really to the level of serious research), or what do you mean?

We're at 41,000 evidence records as of today (there's over 7000 in the Russ Holmes Work File alone). So, we give you this neat feature where you can "zoom" in and out on whatever evidence you want to look at. Sure beats typing literals into Mary Ferrell. Smile

We "wrap" around the original evidence, so, things on History Matters and Mary Ferrell and the National Archives and like that. So, we're duplicating every single evidence record that's in any of those places, and as far as anyone knows right now, that is the totality of the official evidence.

One of the interesting things is, counting all that stuff up we get about 65,000-ish records, which is approximately equivalent to the number of documents the CIA is still withholding. They claim around 50,000 - so roughly speaking we're missing as many documents as we have. For instance if you peruse the "HSCA Segregated Microfilm Collection" you'll notice that half the reels are empty, they've been "withheld for national security reasons". Yuk. Sad

It's really a shame that we have to do something like this. Especially at this late date, fifty years after the fact. That's just ridiculous, it boggles the mind. What's the big deal? Everyone knows what our government is capable of, it's not like it's a secret or anything. So, y'know, we get confirmation that a false flag went wrong, and I'll betcha the interest level among people at large is a big fat yawn. As long as the paychecks keep coming, nothing's wrong.

Right?

Tue 12 Aug 2014, 5:42 pm

nonsqtr wrote:

Stan Dane wrote:Is there a way to delete one's JFK Timeline Project account? I don't see one. I played around with it a little, but I'm not a researcher, so I won't be using it anyway. If I don't expect to be using something anymore, I'd just as soon close out the member account, if possible. One less thing to keep track of.

Good luck with your system. I'm sure it will benefit serious research.

Sincerely, Stan

Sure, I'll take care of it. I'm curious though... you say you're not a researcher... why do you say that? I mean, why are you here chatting us up if not for research? Do you consider yourself a "hobbyist", like idly interested or something (but not really to the level of serious research), or what do you mean?

I have a strong interest in the JFK assassination, but I don't consider myself a researcher as defined as someone who conducts organized, systematic investigation. I am a consumer of good research. I am one who, hopefully, contributes "to a positive discussion on such research," including "suggestions for improvements, or giving additional relevant material facts."

To toot my trombone a bit, Lee Farley months ago asked if anybody had an approximate time that the Presidential motorcade passed St. Paul and Main. I checked Walt Brown's Master Chronology of JFK Assassination Book II, and came up with 12:21-22 PM. A couple months ago, I discovered a detailed floor plan of the 1st Floor of the TSBD Building, which I posted. A couple weeks ago, Martin Hay, having not read Into The Nightmare, asked if anyone could provide details of the author's interview with T. F. Bowley. I manually typed excerpts of all references to Bowley found, taking me about 1/2 day to do so.

Having made suggestions for improvements and occasionally giving additional relevant material facts, I think I've lived up to Greg's scrolling banner mission statement enough to earn my keep here. I am a staunch supporter and unapologetic defender of Greg and ROKC. I am loyal to a fault.

I try to do whatever I can to draw as many people here to ROKC as possible. Having fun and doing interesting—sometimes quirky—things is a big part of that. Because more visitors means more people get exposed to the work of the real researchers here. That's what it's all about in my book.

Tue 12 Aug 2014, 6:24 pm

You're trying to be humble. Okay, I appreciate that, and thank you for your contributions to the research community ('cause I'm the one reading those papers too). Smile

Well, I aspire to be a real researcher. So far I'm a n00b, I'm "getting familiar with the evidence", I can't help but read it as it appears on the screen. It's a rich dataset, it should be open to quantification. But I figure, if you're doing work, you're a real researcher. Even if you're in a support role - which is "not even" the role I'm in yet (I aspire to that too).

I like ROKC too. (Both the concept and the site). The thing is, ... I'm already pretty sure whoever did this was reasonably sophisticated. They would have covered the trail as much as possible, even to the degree of planting false paperwork and such... and, I don't hold up much hope for the cowboys in the CIA to ever release that information (even if it still exists - unless someone "forces" them to, and on the political side it doesn't seem like there's anyone left with those kinds of 'nads - probably 'cause they know they'll get assassinated or something). Smile

Well, before we can put anything into the vortex there's a "must-have" which is a complete and completely hyperlinked database, so hopefully that'll benefit the research community 'cause no such thing exists at the moment - which is mind-boggling in and of itself, but you can look through the literature and see how many times the "real researchers" have reinvented the wheel, y'know... beginning with the motorcade sequence, and that chronology, ... I mean, Mary Ferrell did a pretty decent job way back when, and since then there's been literally hundreds of reconstructions of that, none of which seem to differ very much. Hopefully it sold some books, anyway...

There's something missing in this "JFK Research" space. You've got sites full of evidence (like Mary Ferrell, NARA, History Matters, there's a few), and you've got a "community of researchers" who know how to make use of the evidence, and then the rest of it, is.... you Google on "JFK assassination" and the first thing you see is "JFK Assassination Solved" and the next few items on the list are McAdams Reitzes and Von Pein. Don't even think abo

And, if you're an armchair researcher and you'd like to know if there was a grassy knoll shooter or not, .... I dunno.... Snopes?

The majority of the theories - including specifically the Warren Commission's idiotic "magic bullet" theory - can actually be disproven by the evidence. (Unless you're willing to subscribe to the impossibly high standards being raised by the minions of orthodoxy, in which case "nothing" can be disproven and we'll still be having this very same discussion when we're old and gray).

So, even if you don't believe in voodoo math and all that, I hope you'll get a carefully organized and meticulously cross referenced public database, in the way of an "ante" as I'm learning the ropes. And, the opinions I spout up here on ROKC won't be reflected in that database, it'll be a professional "real research" thing. (However that doesn't mean we can't have fun while we're doing it, and it also doesn't mean there won't be other ways to use it).

Hm. I was reading about Loy Factor today (and the man named "Wallace" - and the woman)! Yuk. What a tale. The dollar amounts seem about right though. Smile

Tue 12 Aug 2014, 11:13 pm

Stan Dane wrote:I am a staunch supporter and unapologetic defender of Greg and ROKC. I am loyal to a fault.

I try to do whatever I can to draw as many people here to ROKC as possible. Having fun and doing interesting—sometimes quirky—things is a big part of that. Because more visitors means more people get exposed to the work of the real researchers here. That's what it's all about in my book.

Mon ami!

Such sentiments!! "Loyal to a fault" - you were talking of me, I think. I am always a little faulty...

I have written a book on the subject but I am not here as a researcher. I just saw a shingle that said someone was trying their damnedest to get the case reopened and the cause sounded worthy enough to me.

I am just one of the jauntily clad, foppish, musketeer cheerleaders of the site. I enjoy supporting Greg's research - his book is quite good, waiting now for volume two - I enjoy seeing Hasan explode - which is a sight to see - and I love to see Stan's humor... Wussup Haters? That still slays me!!

Some of the folks here are researchers some are just interested supporters who can ocassionally point out something someone may have overlooked.

Wed 13 Aug 2014, 12:57 am

terlin wrote:Mon ami!

Such sentiments!! "Loyal to a fault" - you were talking of me, I think. I am always a little faulty...

I have written a book on the subject but I am not here as a researcher. I just saw a shingle that said someone was trying their damnedest to get the case reopened and the cause sounded worthy enough to me.

I am just one of the jauntily clad, foppish, musketeer cheerleaders of the site. I enjoy supporting Greg's research - his book is quite good, waiting now for volume two - I enjoy seeing Hasan explode - which is a sight to see - and I love to see Stan's humor... Wussup Haters? That still slays me!!

Some of the folks here are researchers some are just interested supporters who can ocassionally point out something someone may have overlooked.

Tous pour un, un pour tous!

Wed 13 Aug 2014, 3:51 am

How can you write a book on the subject and "not be a researcher"?

I'm not sure what hairs are being split here, but... how can I say this... in science, there is very much the concept of the TEAM. Yes it is true that one person may actually be the one with the eyedropper, but there are other people doing calculations, and other people writing up the experimental evidence, and none of that would be possible if the person with the eyedropper were working "by himself".

Like, for instance, me as a n00b, I bring certain things to the table, that have nothing to do with the business of interviewing and field investigation. For instance, I bring a level of computational expertise that is apparently "entirely missing" in this field, so far. The simple idea that there is no publicly available set of cross references other than "on paper" (which is almost entirely useless in today's world) - so that's one thing I can do "quickly" with my expertise, is make that happen and give it to you guys for free.

Does it make me "not a researcher" because I'm not yet out in the field doing one-on-one interviews and asking old people what they remember from 50 years ago? Heck man, I sure "feel" like a researcher, I've learned more in the last month than probably in the entire year before that. It's like, before you can be the guy with the eyedropper you have to spend some time in the library, right? That way not only do you kinda-sorta know what you're doing, but other people know you know what you're doing, which is the only way you're going to get and keep a team.

We're all here, talking about the same thing, at the same place. That makes us pretty much a de-facto "team", doesn't it? The crazy idea that someone reads in a post here, might become a key part of the most important research paper of next year. If we're all interested in "re-opening the Kennedy investigation" that pretty much makes us like-minded members of a team with a common goal, right? And that's the best team of all! If the member have a common goal and are able to work independently toward that goal, then progress will be made in spite of any efforts to stifle it.

Wed 13 Aug 2014, 7:44 am

nonsqtr wrote:How can you write a book on the subject and "not be a researcher"?
Brian,

Terry's book does not get into micro-analysis and minute detail I think is what he means, though he may correct me.

I'm not sure what hairs are being split here, but... how can I say this... in science, there is very much the concept of the TEAM. Yes it is true that one person may actually be the one with the eyedropper, but there are other people doing calculations, and other people writing up the experimental evidence, and none of that would be possible if the person with the eyedropper were working "by himself".

Like, for instance, me as a n00b, I bring certain things to the table, that have nothing to do with the business of interviewing and field investigation. For instance, I bring a level of computational expertise that is apparently "entirely missing" in this field, so far. The simple idea that there is no publicly available set of cross references other than "on paper" (which is almost entirely useless in today's world) - so that's one thing I can do "quickly" with my expertise, is make that happen and give it to you guys for free.

Does it make me "not a researcher" because I'm not yet out in the field doing one-on-one interviews and asking old people what they remember from 50 years ago? Heck man, I sure "feel" like a researcher, I've learned more in the last month than probably in the entire year before that. It's like, before you can be the guy with the eyedropper you have to spend some time in the library, right? That way not only do you kinda-sorta know what you're doing, but other people know you know what you're doing, which is the only way you're going to get and keep a team.

We're all here, talking about the same thing, at the same place. That makes us pretty much a de-facto "team", doesn't it? The crazy idea that someone reads in a post here, might become a key part of the most important research paper of next year. If we're all interested in "re-opening the Kennedy investigation" that pretty much makes us like-minded members of a team with a common goal, right? And that's the best team of all! If the member have a common goal and are able to work independently toward that goal, then progress will be made in spite of any efforts to stifle it.

Wed 13 Aug 2014, 7:58 am

nonsqtr wrote:How can you write a book on the subject and "not be a researcher"?
Brian,

Terry's book does not get into micro-analysis and minute detail I think is what he means, though he may correct me.

I'm not sure what hairs are being split here, but... how can I say this... in science, there is very much the concept of the TEAM. Yes it is true that one person may actually be the one with the eyedropper, but there are other people doing calculations, and other people writing up the experimental evidence, and none of that would be possible if the person with the eyedropper were working "by himself".

Like, for instance, me as a n00b, I bring certain things to the table, that have nothing to do with the business of interviewing and field investigation. For instance, I bring a level of computational expertise that is apparently "entirely missing" in this field, so far. The simple idea that there is no publicly available set of cross references other than "on paper" (which is almost entirely useless in today's world) - so that's one thing I can do "quickly" with my expertise, is make that happen and give it to you guys for free.

Does it make me "not a researcher" because I'm not yet out in the field doing one-on-one interviews and asking old people what they remember from 50 years ago? Heck man, I sure "feel" like a researcher, I've learned more in the last month than probably in the entire year before that. It's like, before you can be the guy with the eyedropper you have to spend some time in the library, right? That way not only do you kinda-sorta know what you're doing, but other people know you know what you're doing, which is the only way you're going to get and keep a team.

We're all here, talking about the same thing, at the same place. That makes us pretty much a de-facto "team", doesn't it? The crazy idea that someone reads in a post here, might become a key part of the most important research paper of next year. If we're all interested in "re-opening the Kennedy investigation" that pretty much makes us like-minded members of a team with a common goal, right? And that's the best team of all! If the member have a common goal and are able to work independently toward that goal, then progress will be made in spite of any efforts to stifle it.

Wed 13 Aug 2014, 3:54 pm

Okay.

I found an interesting resource: text of Kennedy's speeches, including campaign speeches and releases from press secretaries.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/

Under Option 3, select "kennedy" and hit enter.

There's some very interesting stuff in the three month period prior to the assassination.

Sat 16 Aug 2014, 6:47 pm

Reading Stan's explanation pretty sums up my own feeling of where I stand on my own place in the community. I'd love to reach the level of what I consider a "researcher", I've got some plans to write, but I'm more than happy being a sometime contributor, and put myself and whatever books and such I have out there for others to use if needed.
You yourself know, Brian, as most do, what my plans for the index blog where... actually getting it to more than a sketchy first pass proved beyond my single abilities... so I'm grateful than not only have you and your team taken it on..but exceeded what it could ever have been.... and it's there for all to use freely. That feels like an achievement.
ATM, I have spoken to Gayle Nix Jackson on her further books, and think I may be able to help direct her on certain subjects, though her being on the ground, connected to many researchers and witnesses etc, the best I can do is maybe find a link or knowledgeable person to pass on to her... giving it another look through, so to speak, so we don't miss what's out there.
I also have a pretty sizeable library, and with many books duplicated on kindle, it's become easy to do a search on whatever someone needs. So...I put my hand up in that capacity. I've been happy to help Hasan in some small way, and continue to offer the same to anyone else.
It's a great team here. And I'm privileged to know most of you as real people with the same objectives.
Steve.

Sun 17 Aug 2014, 6:10 am

greg parker wrote:

nonsqtr wrote:How can you write a book on the subject and "not be a researcher"?
Brian,

Terry's book does not get into micro-analysis and minute detail I think is what he means, though he may correct me.

Greg,

Close enough.

Brian,

I have been an interested bystander since the event fifty years ago and read a lot of published material over the years. When I finally decided to write a book, I researched all the current material for two years before completing the volume.

Since it's release, I no longer have any desire to continue any research in the area. I am a writer and that book is complete, so I have moved on to other topics, other writing. There is not enough time to continue researching this topic but I have found another group of researchers that I feel compelled to assist with their researches.

So, though I have written on the subject, I am no longer what you would call a researcher into the case.

My present appearance here is to help others in any small way I can with what I have already learned.

And to get a chuckle from Stan Dane's incredibly insane wit, of course.

Sun 17 Aug 2014, 9:04 am

Stan is indeed witty. Smile

Let's see, I'm happy to announce a major new milestone in the JFK Timeline Project.

At this point, you can indeed "surf" through the Evidence. I had to raise this site quickly, so for a while you couldn't to all the neat stuff researchers expect to be able to do, but now it's coming to life. (The last guys did a decent job with the "from where" and "to where" logic for the pages, but we had to revamp that a little for research purposes) - SO -

If you go to the Evidence Guide posted previously (here it is again: http://www.jfk_timeline.org/jfk_guide_evidence.php ) you can now freely surf up and down the Bucket hierarchies, and you can also type in any old URL and surf back and forth from there as well.

There are still glitches, I'm going to have to back through every single page and make sure it works correctly - however, as of now it's "pretty good" and definitely usable on a minute-by-minute basis.

You'll find that the Evidence hierarchy exactly mirrors that of Mary Ferrell, History Matters, and the National Archives. I've done my best to keep everything "familiar".

So now, we're almost ready for the cross-referencing to begin, there's just a few more Evidence links that are being added - so when you surf through the Bucket hierarchies you'll notice the upper level links are mostly in place whereas some of the lower level ones are still missing... and those are being updated as we speak, and the whole thing will be done over this weekend hopefully.

Sun 17 Aug 2014, 8:20 pm

'Kay - so then, for my next trick, ... I'm a smartass &

Here's what I'm-a-gonna do: (still answering Stan's question about "how does it work" - even though he said he isn't going to use my system and even though I know he's eventually going to regret saying that, if he lives longer than it's taking me to load all these Evidence records) - anyway, here's what's happening:

(And, I can't answer Stan's question in less then 85,000 words so I'm just going to try to "show" you, and hopefully you'll see what it means).

So - the Window Crossings, that I tried to show you graphically. Well, the system can and does count them, and it will do that "For A Person". So for example - take Jack Ruby, for whom we already have a nice little prototype timeline. On the Reconcile page there is a button that says "Cost" which when pushed will show you all the Events That Conflict In Time - including, for example, all the cases where Jack Ruby was in two places at once.

You can plot these events on a timeline, and if you set the Event Display Type to "Show Duration", you can see exactly how and where they overlap. You can do this "now", there's a part I haven't gotten to yet which is making the Timeline itself a little more adjustable in terms of the resolution it's showing you when you're looking at these events (for instance, the entirety of the Motorcade sequence fits into a few seconds on the timeline, and shortly you'll be able to zoom in on that by just entering the desired resolution in a field on a form - and you can use this same feature to zoom in on the window crossings of your choice).

The problem is still that there's not enough data entered yet, to make all these wonderful features meaningful. However, you can try them on the sparse dataset right now, and hopefully you can envision their utility in the future. The bulk data entry has become a background task, there's just so much damn data that it's going to take a while. But, it'll be worth it, so I'm doing it. (First I thought "you guys" were going to do it, but obviously y'all are far too skeptical for that kind of thing - which is okay, I've thought of half a dozen ways I can charge you for the information when it's all there ha ha - charter members and beta testers get it for free of course). Smile

KIDDING! Just kidding. I know you're eventually going to like this - and use it - so I'm just plugging away for now. Lots of stuff is going on in the background, the Page Stack is already in, the Help pages are being fixed, and of course that idiotic Warren Commission hierarchy.... goddamit, if there's a bigger mound of more useless paperwork in the world I'd like to see it! Maybe they thought they could keep us so busy reading all of it that we'd never have time to look anywhere else. What a farce. The campaign of witness intimidation and evidence suppression though, that was impressive. The rest of it... not so much. Anyway, back to the grind. On Section 11 or so of Oswald's 201 file, will have the rest of it by day's end tomorrow -

You know, I've just been reading some of the other threads on this forum, it occurs to me we really need to be fighting the idea of "private silos of information". That idea is in fact the exact opposite of the concept of "reopen the Kennedy case", isn't it? Egos attached to the concept of "I have more information than you have" are probably a bad thing. That though, should be distinguished from the concept of "personal style", which may be abrasive at the same time it's generous.

What I think is, there needs to be a thorough and public set of cross references. Half the problem is there are bozos out there who still get away with arguing the Magic Bullet position and at this point they're just sucking up bandwidth, taking time away from real research and keeping the general public dumbed down on this particular piece of history - and at the end of the day this is still a political equation, which means we need votes to succeed. People are trying lawsuits, you can see how that's going.... I'm thinking reporters might be more important than lawyers... erm... that is, if there still any genuine investigative reporters left in the world... but even a sensationalist tabloid type can be used in a mutually interesting way...

But I mean, a book is not enough. There has to be more, there has to be an edifice of information that's so thorough it can't be assailed. So far our government has been largely successful in playing a "credentials" game, and I only know one way to beat that game and I'm engaged in it, and I hope you are too. Smile

Thu 11 Sep 2014, 7:36 am

Well, I said I would shut up and go away and work for a while, and I did.

So here I am, back with a quickie update for y'all - and, Welcome To jfk-timeline.org V2 ! Cool

Okay, so what's changed? Well, first of all, the data is there now. There are 65,000 Evidence records in place, including all the official evidence (every bit I could get my hands on, from Mary Ferrell, the National Archives, History Matters... all the "evidence sites", so to speak). And, you don't have to log in anymore, to get to it.

For example, here's the Warren Commission as a single Evidence record, in Bucket form, and as a fully exploded Bucket tree (in order):

http://www.jfk-timeline.org/jfk_edit_evidence.php?tid=146&function=View
http://www.jfk-timeline.org/jfk_bucket_details.php?buckettype=4&bucketid=321&function=View
http://www.jfk-timeline.org/jfk_explode_ebucket.php?buckettype=4&bucketid=321

And here is a guide to the full spectrum of Evidence that's currently in place:

http://www.jfk-timeline.org/jfk_guide_evidence.php

You can push any of the Profile, Bucket, or Explode buttons to 'surf' through the data tree, at the bottom of each page are the 'return links' to take you back to previous pages (please try not to use the Back button on your browser while you're doing this, I haven't hooked it yet and it'll mess up the return links if you use it - please use the return links at the bottom of the page 'only' while you're surfing, for now - and I apologize for the inconvenience, it'll be fixed shortly).

So, you're seeing the new Page Stack in operation, and you're also seeing the data, and you're also seeing the new publicly accessible functions and features.

None of the data is yet cross-referenced (except for a very small portion of the Warren Commission stuff), and there are still plenty of missing Evidence links. How you can tell, is the finished records have a status of either 'Submitted' or 'In Review', whereas all the rest are either 'Raw' or 'Pending'.

I am beginning the process of cross referencing all this data today. It will take several months to generate a fully complete set of cross references, but there are plenty of software tools to make the job efficient. And, I have been focusing entirely on the database and have not updated or enhanced any of the math functionality during this round, I'm waiting with all that until the database is fully ready.

Also behind the scenes, there is a lot of work going on in the area of Events. For example in the Events portion of the menu tree you'll see a Guide To The Events, with only one item in it, which is the MS Motorcade Sequence. That particular one is kinda interesting because the entire thing takes place within one minute of real time, so when you try to display it on a Timeline all the 65 dots are all together in the same place. So right now I'm working on a way to better define the visuals in the Timeline Profiles, so you can expand that one minute into a wider display and see all the Events as separate dots.

Also you can check out the LHO Biography if you wish, that's also sparsely populated for now but the interesting thing about it is it's the prototype for the "Display With Duration" functionality. Those periods labeled "Childhood" and "High School In New Orleans" and etc will turn into lines on the timeline instead of just blue dot points, and that way you can easily see which blue dot points are included in the red line period labeled "LHO Childhood".

'Kay? So, that's my update. This is hard work, not 'cause it's difficult but just 'cause there's so much of it. It's taking a lot longer than I estimated, so I guess I suck as a JFK engineer so far, but this is what I have at this point and you're welcome to make use of it. (Everything works by the way, I fixed all the nasty little bugs that were floating around, and I'm also putting together a 101-level tutorial for the basic system usage which you can find here: http://www.jfk-timeline.org/jfk_class_101.php )

I will now shut up and go away again for an additional little while, to do more work. Cheers - Brian

Thu 11 Sep 2014, 8:57 am

Thanks Brian and congratulations!. I'll be sure to go and have a play with it this week.

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