It’s an era when, thanks to technology, the English language, as well as the acronyms that render most computer publications unreadable to the novice, is expanding at a record rate.

So it’s somewhat surprising that a July 4, 2000 software patent, issued to Malibuite Francis Jeffrey, perhaps the first awarded by the U.S. Patent Office on an entirely new software technology, is described in familiar words.

But see if you can figure out what Jeffrey patented from the description under his entry in “Who’s Who in America:” “… a system providing for programming and communication of programs as an integral part of cultural transmission and human communication, based on teleportable packages of relationship … that are swatches of virtual brain tissue transplantable between neuronal environments …” Uh, huh.

Last week, seated with his huge, snow-white Pyrenees Mastiff, named K-2, after the Himalayan peak, in his beachfront home, Jeffrey attempted to explain this and a later, Internet-related patent.

Difficult to understand or not, we’d better listen. If technology evolves as Jeffrey, and his friend, science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, believe, in the next decade his patented software will impact everyone using a computer. It will do so by making today’s technology seem as primitive as the famous pre-human-era opening scenario of Stanley Kubrick’s film, “2001,” originally based on Clarke’s “The Sentinel.” Indeed, Jeffrey’s software breakthrough has the potential, he estimates, to drive a trillion-dollar business.

The core words in the patent description seem to be ” … swatches of virtual brain tissue …” It is a software technology based less on the present binary system, than on, admittedly primitive, model of how our brain operates.

“The software replicates a patch of brain linkage in highly modularized form,” he explains. “It’s a simplification and an abstraction, based on what we have learned about how the brain and nervous system tissue operates.”

“Today’s computer is based on a 1950’s design by John von Neumann,” Jeffrey continues. “He also abstracted a very small aspect of brain structure he got from a friend, the neurophysiologist Warren S. McCulloch, who showed you could construct a simplistic model of a neuron, an abstraction of a real nerve cell, that could do things we know the human mind does like logic and counting.”

Jeffrey adds: “von Neumann then built the same little units out of electrical components, which first used vacuum tubes and, later, transistors as logic gates.”

“My patent is directed at the construction of software with a much broader, updated spectrum,” says Jeffery. “[It] uses parts of McCulloch’s design, advanced 50 years, to incorporate what we know today about how brain and nerve tissue function. But it is still an abstraction so it can be simple enough to use it for a purpose. My software, basically, upgrades a conventional computer system to this new vision.”

Basically, this software that Jeffrey describes, will make computers behave more like a brain; computer programming and operation will be much easier — a Piper Cub vs. a modern jet plane, as an example.

Are thinking robots next? Not quite, but close.

Says Jeffrey: “It embodies an elementary set of requirements to build something you might start thinking of as intelligence.

“In theory,” he adds, “you could construct the same thing out of traditional computer programming. But it would be incredibly tedious.”

Jeffrey, 50, has been in front of a computer, thinking, most of his life. A 1972 graduate from U.C. Berkeley, with one of the first degrees in Computational Neurophysiology (a study of the brain and the computer and what each can tell one about the other), the software developer and “forecaster” — an obviously essential talent for someone working so far ahead of contemporary technology — founded the technology corporation, Elfnet, in 1987.

The name is a hybrid of “network” and “elephant,” whose survival is a passion of his; appropriately, his software is dubbed “Elfi” and “Elphin” (elephant/dolphin). Committed to saving the whales and dolphins, Jeffrey is also the chairman and co-founder of the Great Whales Foundation.

He is also co-founder of Arthur C. Clarke Communicators, founded last summer during a visit with the writer in Sri Lanka, where he lives. The company was founded to develop a new generation of personal computers under Clarke’s name and using Jeffrey’s software.

However proud he is of the patents, and optimistic about the future for his software, Jeffrey is also aware of the problems exploiting his inventions.

“I think I’m in a dangerous category,” he laughs, “where there are only about a dozen people in the world who understand what I am doing, and most of them are competitors.”

Consider how computers have changed … from the tube-driven behemoths of the early years, to today’s palm-sized powerhouses. Progress won’t stop, and Jeffrey sees that to his advantage.

“If the transition [to more comprehensible software] isn’t done in the next five years, there is going to be a severe impact on the economy from the inherent problems with the old software,” he says. “For every year that goes by, the demands on the old software paradigm are accelerating exponentially. It must change for survival reasons.”

Note from the authors:

This book contains historic facts long captive to the darkness of unused books, documents, reports and photographs. Laced throughout is much previously unpublished Malibu history. Though the focus is on the maritime history of Point Dume, the accounts presented reveal the factors which have shaped the Malibu of today. Illustrations, photographs and documents abound to complement the stories. Footnotes, a bibliography and an extensive index complete this work, the result of decades of experiences and research by the authors.

The Earliest Years

The majesty of Point Dume as a vista out to sea is equaled by its imposing aspect as seen by navigators at sea. For thousands of years the Chumash used it as a point of reference as they guided their canoes among the Channel Islands and the villages of the Malibu and Ventura coast. Their finest technological achievement was the splendid tomol (planked canoe), unique in the New World.

Tomols enabled the Chumash to travel and fish offshore and to carry trade goods along the coast and to the Channel Islands and Catalina.

The southernmost village of the Chumash was Humaliwo, [the Surf Sounds Loudly], located at the mouth of Malibu Creek. On October l0, 1542, the Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo named this village el Pueblo de las Canoas [the Town of the Canoes] because so many canoes came from shore to greet his ships. Three days later Cabrillo left Canoas, sailing up the California coast. He passed Point Dume that day. His log noted:

Always there were many canoes because all the coast is heavily inhabited, and there came many Indians to the ships.

Vancouver name Point Dumetz

In 1793, the explorer George Vancouver conducted a survey of California’s Spanish settlements for King George III of England. He sailed southward along the coast in his sloop Discovery, accompanied by the armed tender Chatham. On November 18,1793, he left Santa Barbara for the Mission at San Buenaventura. Vancouver’s diary recorded:

On our entering the mission we were received by Father Francisco Dumetz and entertained in a manner that proved the great respectability of the Franciscan order.

On Saturday, November 23rd, Vancouver left Ventura and continued sailing down the coast. Because the winds were calm, it was not until noon on Sunday, November 24, 1793, that he rounded Point Dume, and his diary recorded:

… by noon on Sunday the 24th, we had only reached the latitude of 33¡54′, on longitude 241¡42′. In this situation, Point Conversion [modern-day Point Mugu] was still in sight … Here the coast took a direction of S.67E., sixteen miles to the north point of a deep bay, off of which lie two or three small rocks. This point I called “Point Dume”.

Francisco Dumetz was born in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, in 1734 and came to New Spain in 1770. He is credited with bringing the first sheep to Alta California. He died on January 14, 1811 at Mission San Gabriel where he is interred. At the time of his death he was the oldest missionary in the territory and the last surviving companion of Fr. Jun”pero Serra, the Spanish missionary under whose leadership the California missions were founded. Since November 24, 1793, Point Dume has carried the name of Fr. Dumetz, though the spelling and pronunciation of this Malibu landmark have been debated for decades.

Further excerpts will be published in the following weeks. “Maritimes Stories of Point Dume and Malibu” is on sale at the Malibu Lagoon Museum Gift Shop.

‘Twas the night before Christmas and Santa was a wreck …

How to live in a world that’s politically correct?

His workers no longer would answer to “Elves,”

“Vertically Challenged” they were calling themselves

And labor conditions at the North Pole

Were alleged by the union to stifle the soul

Four reindeer had vanished, without much propriety,

Released to the wilds by the Humane Society.

And equal employment had made it quite clear

That Santa had better not use just reindeer.

So Dancer and Donner, Comet and Cupid,

Were replaced with four pigs, and you know that looked stupid!

The runners had been removed from his sleigh;

The ruts were termed dangerous by the EPA.

And people had started to call for the cops

When they heard sled noises on their roof-tops.

Secondhand smoke from his pipe had his workers quite frightened.

His fur-trimmed red suit was called “Unenlightened.”

And to show you the strangeness of life’s ebbs and flows

Rudolf was suing over unauthorized use of his nose

And had gone on The Rosie Show, in front of the nation,

Demanding millions in overdue compensation.

So, half of the reindeer were gone; and his wife,

Who suddenly said she’d enough of this life,

Joined a self-help group, packed, and left in a whiz,

Demanding from now on her title was Ms.

And as for the gifts, why, he’d ne’er had a notion

That making a choice could cause so much commotion.

Nothing of leather, nothing of fur,

Which meant nothing for him. And nothing for her.

Nothing that might be construed to pollute.

Nothing to aim. Nothing to shoot.

Nothing that clamored or made lots of noise.

Nothing for just girls. Or just for the boys.

Nothing that claimed to be gender specific.

Nothing that’s warlike or non-pacific.

No candy or sweets … they were bad for the tooth.

Nothing that seemed to embellish a truth.

And fairy tales, while not yet forbidden,

Were like Ken and Barbie, better off hidden.

For they raised the hackles of those psychological

Who claimed the only good gift was one ecological.

No baseball, no football … someone could get hurt;

Besides, playing sports exposed kids to dirt.

Dolls were said to be sexist, and should be pass;

And Nintendo would rot your entire brain away.

So Santa just stood there, disheveled, perplexed;

He just could not figure out what to do next.

He tried to be merry, tried to be gay,

But you’ve got to be careful with that word these days.

His sack was quite empty, limp to the ground;

Nothing fully acceptable was to be found.

Something special was needed, a gift that he might

Give to all without angering the left or the right.

A gift that would satisfy, with no indecision,

Each group of people, every religion;

Every ethnicity, every hue,

Everyone, everywhere … even you.

So here is that gift, its price beyond worth …

“May you and your loved ones enjoy Peace on Earth.”

From the Internet

I have not been following the litigation over the issuing of building permits, but it seems to me the buyers who purchased the Lechuza Beach property did so at their own risk. If the Coastal Commission has legitimate reasons for not issuing a building permit, then the property has very little value and the speculators lose. However, the Coastal Commission agreed to pay $10 million and the state agreed to pay $12.5 million for this property. Based on the speculators purchase price in 1991, that is an approximate 500 percent return. Not bad, considering they purchased the property at the peak of the market and since then, the market has dropped approximately 30 percent with only recent upturns.

Can you imagine anyone paying $10 to $12.5 million of their own money for this property?

Thank God for us stupid taxpayers!

Fred Alexander

It would appear from Arnold York’s postscript to the correction run in last week’s paper that the editor prefers to cling to allegations even when they are overturned by facts. Truly the mark of a thoroughly professional journalist! It isn’t enough for the editor to accept the word of the President Emeritus, the Chairman of the Board and the legal attorney representing Malibu Stage in regard to the false allegations recorded by his reporter, Laura Tate. As Inspector General of the City, he demands to see the Company’s full audit — which if he were any kind of journalist at all he would know is publicly available to him under the laws governing not-for-profit companies registered under a 501-C3. He slyly hints “there might be some innuendoes” drawn from the paper’s erroneous first story and so long as “innuendoes” can be drawn, he, in keeping with the tabloid mentality rampant on The Malibu Times, will draw them.

Seeing himself as the Official Tribunal to which all defendants in Malibu disputes must submit their briefs, York magnanimously declares, “If there is anything incorrect in our previously run stories we would be happy to publish corrections.” Had his staff properly researched their stories in the first place, there would have been no need either for a retraction or further corrections. But that would involve diligent fact-checking, legalistic examination of potentially libelous statements and the kind of editorial overview which is utterly alien to The Malibu Times.

Well here are a few other bloopers from Laura Tate’s story of Dec. 14 in addition to the ones grudgingly acknowledged by Mr. York’s published correction.

1. Ms. Tate wrote that “the turmoil” at Malibu Stage was caused by “conflicts with the Artistic Director” — despite the fact that previous published accounts also attributed these problems to an attempted take-over by a small cabal from the previous board. There were two sides to this story; Tate zeroes in on only one. Selective facts is one of the first no-nos taught in Journalism 101.

2. The audit was not, as Tate writes “suggested by the previous board” but by the City Council in its meeting on Sept. 27, 1999 as a corollary to its grant, and voluntarily agreed to by all parties. (See Council transcript.)

3. Tate wrote “many charges incurred by Marowitz were used to take people, including some of the former board members, to lunch.” Which blithely by-passed the fact that ALL expenditures were theater-related, invoiced and duly accounted for. But then, an “innuendo” is far more sexy than a fact.

4. Tate reported that “only one play ‘Stage Fright’ had been produced in the 10-year existence of the theater” which is untrue as “Shakespearean Salad” was also a full-fledged production as was Donal MacDonald’s “Lord Chesterfield.” Many of the “Staged Readings,” with full costume and scenery, were themselves tantamount to “productions.” Over the years, there have been, in fact, over 20 such presentations; several of them performed on the stage of the Smothers Theatre in Pepperdine. In preparing her story, Tate never once checked her facts with the Artistic Director (a primary subject of the story) nor tried to obtain corroboration of information gathered. This is the kind of behavior which, on a “real” newspaper, would have gotten her fired.

The motive behind that story, I am reliably informed, was that the Times considered itself a “friend of the theater.” With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Charles Marowitz

It’s the start of a New Year and I’m looking into my crystal ball to show me the future.

In the future, I believe that:

1. We’re finally going to get a Local Coastal Plan, but it may not be the one we want because, the truth is, it’s not going to be written by us. It’s going to be written by the California Coastal Commission. The reason we’ve lost the local control of the plan, via legislation, is that we’ve diddled around with it for 10 years and everyone got tired of waiting for us to come up with an acceptable version. Well, their version, I suspect, is going to be heavy on visitor access, beach visitor parking, visitor-serving commercial projects like restaurants, food stands and maybe even hotels, and perhaps something very visitor-serving on the Bluffs Park site, which means our ballfields are going to have to find another home. They’re probably going to consult with us along the way, but the truth is, if we’re not happy with the final version of the plan the answer is “Tough.”

2. We can also expect the Regional Water Quality Control Board to be giving us a hard time in the coming year. This could get to be a very expensive hard time because they really don’t like septic systems, and that’s not just with us, that’s everywhere. Officials from the board think septics leak, pollute the creeks and the surfzone, and pose a safety hazard. Research would appear to indicate that they’re partially right. It’s not that septics can’t work, it’s just they have to be maintained and updated, and they have a limited life-span of maybe 25 to 50 years. There are some areas, like in and around the Civic Center, where we need a package plant, which is a nice term for a small sewer.

3. Look for a few more personnel changes around City Hall, though the council appears pleased with Interim-City Manager Christi Hogin, and it doesn’t appear that they’re taking any steps to find a replacement. What’s not at all clear is that Hogin has decided to make a permanent career switch. If she ultimately decides to go back to lawyering, we’ll be looking for a city manager again. In the meantime no one appears to want to rock the boat.

4. The council’s going to have to make some tough decisions about the Civic Center very quickly because there are about one-half dozen projects in the pipeline and the pressure to get more commercial space is growing. Vacancies are down to near zero, rents on existing space are escalating and the mom and pops are being squeezed out. For example, one reason Malibu doesn’t have a bookstore is that no small, local bookstore could afford $5 to $6 or $7 a square foot in rent. If the council says “No” or tries to stall too long, they’re going to end up in court. This is one that could get very expensive because the city already have a General Plan and a Zoning Ordinance that allows a certain amount of development. The city is going to be hard-pressed to defend turning down things it already agreed to when it passed the General Plan.

5. There probably are going to be several new construction projects approved and maybe there will be early construction activity by year-end. Look for the city to approve some alternative access to Rambla Pacific probably, initially, through Las Flores Canyon. Most likely, work will begin this year on the Las Flores Canyon Park and community building once parking problems are worked out. The state should be wrapping up the Malibu Pier Renovation by year-end or early 2002, and it is hoped a restaurant will be back on the old Alice’s site by Spring 2002.

6. The code enforcement problems, which have been quiet because a citizen task force has been working on some solutions, promises to get hot again when the proposed solutions go to the council. They’re still struggling with unpermitted structure questions, rental units, and what to do with the residue of an overly-tolerant county. The county pretty much let the city do what it wanted, as long as it wasn’t crazy, and then didn’t enforce much, unless it became a problem. It’s really a question of philosophy. Do we want to replace the old rural ‘live and let live’ Malibu, with a newer, yuppier more bureaucratic Malibu where there’s a big book of rules?

7. The council is going to have to do something about resolving the ballfield problem and the Civic Center problem, because they’re only going to get worse. Then, when you add in that the city is getting kicked out of City Hall by the Sheriff’s Dept., which wants its building back, they simply have to start making some deals or raising some big dollars via bond issues.

It’s going to be an interesting year.

A letter to Mr. Fakehany:

You’re clever at putting your words on a page

Are you a comic, a seer or a sage?

Are you short, rotund or tall?

Or are you really you at all?

Geraldine Forer Spagnoli