Macrodata Refinement

[CharlesW]

Please try to enjoy all comments equally, and not show preference for any over the others.

[teej]

This is a recreation of a fictional computer program from the excellent Apple TV show - Severance.

The work is mysterious, and important.

Season 2 is going now. It’s one of my top 3 shows of the last decade, highly recommend it.

[pavlov]

“The Americans” doesn’t get enough love as one of the top shows of the past decade.

The darkness sneaks up on you. The people who start out seeming like James Bond characters end up carrying the full intolerable weight of their lies and destructive actions. People who looked like side characters are followed up with entire life stories in the shadows.

[inopinatus]

I am enjoying the form and structure but still uncertain about the substance.

I do hope they have a narrative arc planned with a satisfyingly metaphorical conclusion and will not, like certain other shows in a similar genre, meander from one surrealist allegory to another because additional seasons were ordered. The only truly exemplary production I can name in this vein being the sole season of The Prisoner (McGoohan, 1967-68).

Be seeing you

[ethbr1]

"Patriot" (on Amazon Prime) https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4687882/

Criminally underrated. If you enjoy older Guy Ritchie films or In Bruges, do yourself a favor and watch it.

Also thematically similar, re: alienation and disassociation!

[gordon_freeman]

Same for me. Severance is probably the best show of last decade. The last time I had such an engrossing experience was while reading 1984.

My other two are:

- Shogun (The depiction of 1600s Japan is so real)

- Resident Alien (Funny and heartwarming to see an Alien getting accustomed to life on Earth dealing with complex human relationships with their flaws)

PS: I am sad to exclude Parks and Recreation which ran from 2009-2015 so probably considered outside of last decade.

[spaceman_2020]

Apple TV is silently killing it

Both my two favorite shows of the last few years are on it - Severance and Silo

[UncleOxidant]

Agreed. I think "The Americans" is still at the top of my list for the last decade then it's a tossup between "The Leftovers", "Severance" and "Mr. Robot".

Edit: I forgot "Andor". Easily the best Star Wars thing since the original 3. I like how it shows the hubris and infighting of The Empire and how that leaves openings for the resistance. Feels like a very real look into the workings of an authoritarian regime.

[steve_adams_86]

I’m routinely pulled out of it for a moment to appreciate how genuinely interesting and thought-provoking the writing is compared to what I’ve been seeing for years now.

Maybe I watch the wrong stuff, but I’m glad I gave this a chance. It’s so fun.

[philip1209]

I'd add in The Bridge - original Swedish version with subtitles - is another of my favorite shows. The Nordic Noir genre has mix of intellectualism and misanthropy that I love in shows (including Severance).

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1733785/

[tombh]

What are your other 2?

Severance could well get into my top 3, but currently I think mine would be: Mr. Robot, Breaking Bad and Wednesday.

[stevefeinstein]

Once I got to the chase scene with Fleetwood Mac's Tusk on the soundtrack of the first episode I was hooked.

[jrmg]

All these people in this thread listing great recent shows, and no love yet for Fargo?!

[pavlov]

Working at a startup before product-market fit can feel like this.

You don’t know why the work is important, but it must be done so we can at least discover whether it was important. You may not get that information, but you can take comfort in assuming someone does have it.

You’re mostly disconnected from your previous life.

There is a guy in the next office feeding baby goats, and your reaction is: “Yes, it makes sense that we’re also exploring feeding baby goats.”

People come in as blank slates and you’re grateful to have their companionship in the shared madness.

[UncleOxidant]

I find this more likely in a large corporation. In my experience, in a startup I know what we're trying to accomplish even if I don't know how we're going to do it, yet. I have a lot of control in a startup and I'm wearing a lot of hats which gives me visibility into how things are going.

By contrast, in a corporation you're handed a small piece of the puzzle and you're not sure how it's important or if it's really necessary and you're reliant on others in far flung parts of the company to relay how things are going.

I kind of think that people who haven't worked in a large corporation probably don't get Severance on a visceral level like those of us who have do.

[goaaron]

This completely misses the disturbing horror aspect of the show.

[simonw]

Huh, this was mostly written 3 years ago at the time of season 1: https://github.com/Lumon-Industries/Macrodata-Refinement/com...

Looks like it's not an official thing, it's a fan project: https://twitter.com/shiffman/status/1512075150857965574 - here's the YouTube video (2h52m from a livestream) where Daniel Shiffman introduces it, at about 34m in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vmcm25cSTU - then talks through how it works.

[int_19h]

It straight up says that on the website: https://lumon.industries/company/legal/

"This website is not affiliated with Apple, Endeavor Content, Red Hour Films, or anything else remotely official. It’s made by a dude in Kentucky."

[mattdesl]

This is by Daniel Shiffman aka The Coding Train, source code:

https://github.com/Lumon-Industries/Macrodata-Refinement

[dom96]

Guess this should get a "(2022)" in the title

[latexr]

That immediately explains why it was done in p5.js. And why the code is so organised and commented.

[timpark]

Here's a Pico-8 version that Liquidream did in 1024 (compressed) bytes of code for a game jam: https://liquidream.itch.io/lumon8-1k

[Liquidream]

Thx @timpark

[utopcell]

Pretty cool

[ninkendo]

Are there any fan theories of what the work is they’re doing?

My bet is on lumen “renting” part of their subconscious to train a computer, while their conscious minds see a sort of projection of the training, and the act of selecting the numbers has a mirror effect on the part of the brain they’re renting, affecting the model training. But that may be a little too “current events” focused, and the writers may have something totally different in mind.

[abetusk]

My theory is kind of the inverse. Their technology has the ability to "take over" the mind and implant a new personality but maybe at the current level it's unsophisticated and all they can do is make a "clean slate" of a person with some basic motor, language and other socialization skills.

"The work" is then not about training a computer model but seeing if they can induce a reaction into a person. That is, they're trying to refine their mind control program.

The characters talk about feeling things when they group numbers for binning. So the task is about refining their projection system, to induce a particular emotion or reaction, in a controlled way, over and over to dial in the technology.

From season 1, there's lore of MDR going crazy and killing a neighboring group. This could be when their experimentation malfunctioned or was too sloppy in some way and induced a killing frenzy.

I have no idea what "cold harbor" is though, or why Mark S. is so special among the other innies.

[frenchtoast8]

My theory is that all the severed employees are doing various maintenance tasks to keep the floor functioning. Like the hospital in Yes, Minister that is closed to the public but has 500 employees, all of them overworked.[1]

Take O&D for instance, their full time job appears to be to just create art and handbooks used on the severed floor. Perhaps all the departments are like that. MDR could be doing some sort of ongoing maintenance for the severed system itself, like emotion or memory control of the employees on the floor.

I believe the "point" of the severed floor is not the actual work that's being done, but the act of keeping them occupied while they are experimented on. Besides Mark S and Cold Harbor, I believe there are hints of other experiments being run. The dreams Irving B has during work seem unique to him, and it's uniquely affecting his outie as well. I also believe recent events in Season 2 with Dylan G could be the start of another experiment.

^1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAk448volww

[NeutralCrane]

My hunch is that Lumon is working on trying to transfer minds into new bodies and/or bring deceased people back to life, namely for the immortality of the founder. I think the MDR numbers stuff is somehow related to getting severed individuals to map memories somehow, hence their association with different feelings.

[jldugger]

It's been suggested that Mark S is adjusting the neural nets for a robot replacement of his wife. This supported by a few MDR UI screenshots showing acronyms that reference Kier's 4 fundamental tempers: Woe, Frolick, Malice and Dread.

[thegabriele]

My opinion is that the work they are performing it's not the point of them being there. It's about testing the limits of the exploitations of human beings.

[wmf]

We know the Cold Harbor file is related to Gemma/Ms. Casey. There's a theory that Mark is somehow resurrecting her by refining that file.

[neximo64]

Mark Scout's wife is in a coma, they want to bring her back and reconstruct her soul using MDR.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Best I can figure is that it's some form of cryptography. The "severed" thing would be to compartmentalize even more what the underlying work is, the outties are clueless, but even the innies don't get to know what they do because the work is encrypted. They're able to perform it because another part of their brain is severed even more, and just performs the raw algorithm work of decrypting/sorting.

But the rest of Lumen just seems like some bizarro "there's a spaceship hiding in the tail of the comet" cult.

[Unclasp3671]

I believe the folks in MDR are working on refining artificial consciousness.

I also believe the people in R&D help with refinement by inducing objects into the consciousness and testing the output via 3D printing.

Perhaps MDR works on the emotional side, while R&D works on the imagination or construction of thoughts.

[WorldMaker]

There are a ton of theories out there. A lot of mine relate to Whedon's crueler "Dollhouse" show.

Also, one of the rabbit holes for a bunch of the theories is the Lexington Letter, which you can find in Apple Books or wikis/PDFs.

[jiggawatts]

I had to explain to the missus — who’s never worked in a large enterprise — that the environs of Lumon and the apparently pointless and meaningless work is entirely realistic. She didn’t believe me.

She never had to “massage the numbers” to make them less scary to someone in management.

[Duanemclemore]

Huh.

I noticed that

https://lumon.industries/intranet/wellness/

Is a sub of just

https://lumon.industries/intranet/

There's some fun stuff to be found there too...

[IncreasePosts]

If every HNer does their part, cold harbor can be a reality.

[louthy]

The work is mysterious and important

[intrepion]

In refining A39672:14BF61 (Dranesville) in 00h 05m 34s 215ms I have brought glory to the company. Praise Kier. 4⃣7⃣8⃣0⃣1⃣ 3⃣7⃣4⃣1⃣1⃣ 4⃣3⃣3⃣1⃣2⃣ 9⃣6⃣7⃣5⃣2⃣ 1⃣7⃣9⃣4⃣1⃣ #mdrlumon #severance lumon-industries.com

[hongsy]

In refining 0x3890 : 0xE193C5 (Labrador) in 00h 06m 29s 468ms I have brought glory to the company. Praise Kier. 7⃣3⃣9⃣9⃣6⃣ 4⃣4⃣8⃣1⃣5⃣ 4⃣3⃣5⃣4⃣4⃣ 0⃣4⃣7⃣4⃣3⃣ 5⃣8⃣1⃣5⃣0⃣ #mdrlumon #severance lumon-industries.com

[Keirmot]

The board will not participate in the meeting, vocally.

[thekiptxt]

OP, please try to enjoy each upvote equally.

[SeanAnderson]

I would like my waffle party, thank you!

[mrinterweb]

When all the boxes were 100% I really was hoping to see that animation of Kier tell me I did a good job and then fly away. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6EUG22elbs

[ddtaylor]

I enjoyed the show a lot. I think it sparks an interesting discussion. I was surprised to see Ben Stiller was the director, but I think he's doing a steller job. I am fine with the pace of the show being slow and the story is more compelling because of it IMO

[kylecazar]

This is like playing minesweeper before I knew the rules

[trvr]

You get a nice screen of dancing Milchick gifs when you get done.

[shric]

Upon request, I can also perform a hug.

[fabian2k]

None of the numbers feel scary