This was the part he loved best; the exchange of ideas, even if there wasn't agreement, the animation and excitement in Alecto's face as he listens closely to Josh's words, even if it was with the purpose of nitpicking obscure details. He'd missed this, after his time in industry, leading a slew of programmers through the basics of linguistic theory, trying to impart the simplest concept of the constants of human language to them outside of the programming languages they were familiar with.
Whatever their disagreements, he trusted Alecto's insights into history and provenance moreso than his own, even if the more obscure principles of interpretation were a subject of constant debate. He sips at his tea initially, to be polite, but it goes cold quickly as he gets more and more absorbed in the conversation, leaning in to emphasize a particular point, his foot brushing absently against Alecto's leg when he stretches out.
But now it came to the crux of the matter. "One of the candidates I'm supervising is working on some code; to combine multiple layers of imaging into a coherent 3-D model." He points to two of the pictures, virtual slices in the artifact's cracked layers. "None of these layers form a complete thought on their own; it's not possible to tell in isolation whether a mark is debris or deliberate. But -" he reaches for Alecto's hand, automatic, unthinking, slides their palms together, in illustration "- like this, it might be possible to better extrapolate. But that just gets us a clearer image. They'd need an expert to oversee the virtual reconstruction, to make sure all the pieces are properly aligned, that it's consistent with the appropriate alphabet and grammar."
"But at the end of the day..." There'd be an image of a complete artifact, legible, readable. The few fading marks that were still visible seemed to indicate a poem or writing of some kind, the vague outline of several stanzas. And maybe it would only be a copy of something, or something else entirely. But it seemed exactly the kind of puzzle that might appeal to Alecto Crabtree.
no subject
Whatever their disagreements, he trusted Alecto's insights into history and provenance moreso than his own, even if the more obscure principles of interpretation were a subject of constant debate. He sips at his tea initially, to be polite, but it goes cold quickly as he gets more and more absorbed in the conversation, leaning in to emphasize a particular point, his foot brushing absently against Alecto's leg when he stretches out.
But now it came to the crux of the matter. "One of the candidates I'm supervising is working on some code; to combine multiple layers of imaging into a coherent 3-D model." He points to two of the pictures, virtual slices in the artifact's cracked layers. "None of these layers form a complete thought on their own; it's not possible to tell in isolation whether a mark is debris or deliberate. But -" he reaches for Alecto's hand, automatic, unthinking, slides their palms together, in illustration "- like this, it might be possible to better extrapolate. But that just gets us a clearer image. They'd need an expert to oversee the virtual reconstruction, to make sure all the pieces are properly aligned, that it's consistent with the appropriate alphabet and grammar."
"But at the end of the day..." There'd be an image of a complete artifact, legible, readable. The few fading marks that were still visible seemed to indicate a poem or writing of some kind, the vague outline of several stanzas. And maybe it would only be a copy of something, or something else entirely. But it seemed exactly the kind of puzzle that might appeal to Alecto Crabtree.