Person of Interest: Mining The Machine

If you’ve watched the show since its premiere you probably once had the same thought I did, “What do the yellow boxes mean on Person of Interest?” We caught on quickly to the way The Machine detects faces and assigns them a box based on their classification. Yellow boxes know about The Machine, white for regular people, etc. The Person of Interest wiki has them all listed, plus other boxes for cars, boats and more. Check it out for a good background on POI’s most mysterious character.

I am not going to repeat the information from the wiki, but I do have several screenshots from the first five episodes of season three that provide insight on how the machine works. Some of them have probably been present since the beginning. Some are new to this season and really open up the way The Machine picks out numbers and judges threats.

The Opening Sequence

The opening sequences features Finch explaining The Machine over a series of shots showing the cast.

Person of Interest - The Machine
The Machine accesses a camera.

The Machine taps into everything to gather information including a camera on this NYPD helipad.

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This slideshow shows the records The Machine will analyze when it tracks someone. In this case the lucky subject is Fusco.

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These shots show The Machine classifying subjects. Reese, of course, is not missing just like Shaw is not dead. These shots were from the season premiere when The Machine may have believed she was but it still identifies her that way five episodes in.

The Machine analyzes Fusco's finances
The Machine detects Reese’s camera.

The Machine doesn’t just find a camera, it identifies it. In this case it accessed the wifi in Reese’s camera to determine what it was shooting and details about the camera itself.

Person of Interest - The Machine
The Machine gathers all kinds of information on a potential threat.

Being able to access so much information in its databases allows The Machine to identify the type of gun this threat is holding (it is hard to see the red triangles around the weapon). Like Reese’s camera, The Machine reads all kinds of information about the gun.

Gathering Information

This slideshow shows four ways The Machine gathers its information and uses it to connect dots between subjects.

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Tracking Root

Episode three was Root-centric and gave us the best look into The Machine we’ve ever had. First it showed how it identified her and connected her to her different aliases. The Machine then went into its archives to show her walk with Finch last year when he neutralized her threat, albeit temporarily.

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This sequence is interesting. It shows Root answering the yellow phone at the end of last season from The Machine’s perspective. Notice how her box goes from yellow to yellow and black. According to the wiki: Possibly indicates individuals who not only know about the Machine, but have the ability to communicate with it. The Machine internally designates these individuals as “Analog Interface.” The third photo shows it in her meeting with Dr. Carmichael.

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Person of Interest - The Machine
The Machine begins to generate predictions.

This is the shot that prompted me to do this post. I don’t recall the show ever giving us a look at exactly how The Machine goes about determining potential outcomes and their probabilities. It is The Machine on all cylinders, tapping into all of its databases and its vast amount of predictive ability.

Person of Interest - The Machine
The first calculations surrounding Root.

These are the initial predictions. Violence at 30.19 percent, asset activation at 28.44. I’m not sure which asset it means, I assume Root?

Person of Interest - The Machine
More possibilities come from The Machine’s predictions.

The predictions begin to branch out. Notice how they maintain the color coding system. Red for violence, yellow for assets. Blue is labeled “OPERATIONAL RELEVANCE.” Blue boxes are for government agents pursuing numbers, so this could mean The Machine predicts an outcome where Root will cross paths with someone pursuing The Machine’s true purpose. Note that the percentages have changed. Violence is now more likely, Dr. Carmichael is in serious danger, an administrator may die and asset activation has edged up slightly.

Person of Interest - The Machine
The Machine continues developing predictions.

The predictions really begin to sprout. Dr. Carmichael is marginally more likely to survive and a mass casualty event is now predicted at 9.54 percent. Look at all the yellow predictions. Almost 63 percent odds that the asset gets captured, 17.56 percent the crisis is averted and 2 percent for something called Aux Admin. Notice, too, the probability of violence eeks upward.

Person of Interest - The Machine
The Machine sees Valentine’s Day.

While The Machine predicts a small chance Root will trigger global thermonuclear war look up in the left corner. The Machine covers all possible outcomes, even the 0.04-percent chance that Root and Dr. Carmichael will get married and have kids. Aww! ❤

Person of Interest - The Machine
The Machine assesses the likelihood that Root escapes.

The Machine sees a good chance that Root will successfully escape the hospital and a small chance she will die. It’s not pictured but Dr. Carmichael’s percentage changed to 19.9. Things are looking up for the doctor! In the final scene before her escape Root tells him she won’t kill him. The Machine is giving her instructions not to kill people, including Hersh.

Person of Interest - The Machine
The Machine believes it is likely Root will be intercepted.

A new and very likely outcome is predicted: Asset interception.

Person of Interest - The Machine
The Machine reaches a conclusion.

This is big. The Machine predicted a 97.23 percent chance of violence and determined an intervention is necessary. It then found Harold near a pay phone and alerted him. Look at all the lines connecting to various bits of information The Machine relied on for its predictions!

Look at this slideshow as The Machine continues to analyze data and make predictions. The data connects different subjects and even identifies the possible death of a subject who’s name is redacted. Hmmm.

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Target Proximity

Having determined Root is in danger, The Machine plots her location on a map with Hersh’s as we see Hersh leaving a hospital after failing to find Root. The Machine identifies other places he might look before finding the quickest route between his location and Root’s. Another great example of all the information The Machine can pull, process and interpret.

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Archives

The Machine has gone back in time throughout the series to show us things that happened before the show began. This slideshow tracks The Machine as it scrolls through its timeline to tell Shaw’s story. Again going back to the wiki, when The Machine sees this old footage it analyzes it for the first time, but I’m more interested in where the information comes from. Harold began to train The Machine in 2001, it didn’t go online until 2003. Is it accessing some vast archive? Could it be linked to previous attempts at mass electronic surveillance and data gathering? We don’t know.

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Thank you for making it to the end of this marathon post. I appreciate it. I really enjoy these little details they drop into TV shows. Lost did it all the time. It gives fans something to examine that yields a better understanding of the show and shows the producers take the most minute details seriously.

This post took the better part of a Saturday to put together. I reviewed all five episodes this season and went slow-motion through every image we saw through The Machine’s eyes, pausing to scour the screen and take photos. They are iPhone photos and it wasn’t always easy to pause the show at exactly the right moment for the text to be sharp.

I’ll have a future post about what’s going on with Root and the unique relationship she has with The Machine.

Fall catch-up: Person of Interest season three

Shaw on Person of Interest
Samantha Shaw (Sarah Shahi) on
Person of Interest Photo: CBS.com

The final episodes of Person of Interest’s second season were fantastic, but as I look back on them they feel more like a series finale. The start of season three reinforces the feeling. The two-man team of Harold Finch and John Reese is now a team of five. We knew it would expand to three with the addition of Samanatha Shaw, but I did not see Fusco and Carter coming so fully under Harold’s umbrella. The plots The Machine involves them in are more complicated now and require the extra people. This is great for the show. The Harold and Reese duo was beginning to grow stale. I think it is better to shake that up now before it turns into a drag the show can’t recover from.

Shaw’s snarky and no-nonsense style plays well against Finch, and Reese appreciates her style for the way it knocks Harold off his guard. The most recent episode gave us the background we need to appreciate her character and her…odd…range of emotions. The writers did a great job of showing how her personality was present at a young age and contrasting her childhood and adulthood with a young girl from Russia who fancied herself a spy. The end of the episode took care to show us that Shaw has emotions, they’re just muted. Now we can wait to learn more about how  she became involved with Hesch and Northern Lights.

Detective Fusco got his new lease on life late last season and is now a normal enough detective that he has the freedom to answer Finch’s every call. Joss Carter on the other hand was demoted for snooping too close for HR’s comfort after it took out her boyfriend and fellow detective Carl Beecher. The HR storylines have never been my favorite part of the show. I hoped after both seasons it would recede from the show, and it appears that hope will again go unfulfilled this season. Officer Carter’s partner is, you guessed it, in HR’s pocket, but she was onto him and forced him to work for her in a great scene at the end of this week’s episode. HR wants to find Mr. Reese and I have to say I have no desire to see this storyline.

The most mysterious character in Person of Interest has always been The Machine. Last season climaxed with it rebooting and self-relocating out of its original hiding place inside a nuclear facility. How it came back and how it changed was set to be a major part of the season, but it has been almost nonexistent.

When it does play out, it comes via Root. She got the final scene last season to answer a call at a yellow pay phone a psychiatric hospital. The “new” Machine took it upon itself to help her break out by speaking to her in the same “God mode” it did while ,it rebooted. Amy Acker’s perfection for the role of Root shined in her counseling sessions with the hospital’s psychiatrist. After telling him for weeks that “God” was talking to her, she predicted to him exactly what was about to happen before she escaped during their final session. His reaction was fantastic and Acker played up every bit of the patient curing the doctor.

How The Machine interacts with her could provide clues to its new personality. We have no reason to think Finch created or knows of a way for it to access its own God mode to interact with anyone. In fact he seemed bewildered when he arrived at the hospital after Root’s escape. Is this a new ability it created for itself? A side effect of the virus-within-a-virus Harold created that infected it last season? We will find out.

We will also find out who the mysterious Ma’am was that Hesch visited at the end of last season. He and Ma’am view her as enough of a threat to warrant his attempt to eliminate her in the hospital; Harold obviously feels the same because he locked her away in an institution. Maybe those two will team up this season to ensure she isn’t able to achieve her goal of freeing The Machine?

I have one bone to pick with some of the early storylines. Not long after last season ended, the Edward Snowden story launched government surveillance to the top of the world’s radar. Every time a new revelation came out about the government tracking phone calls, reading emails or hacking bank accounts I couldn’t help but think, “That’s The Machine!” It was kind of spooky.

The Machine’s mystique — fed by its secrecy — is integral to the show’s make up, not just within the show but in viewers’ minds. The thought that government could be capable of the electronic dragnet Finch uses helps us believe in the story. It is too fantastic to be real, therefore it must be entertainment. To find out it exists in real life is as if Harold would turn to the camera in the middle of an episode to confess that he is a real life NSA employee.

How the show deals with this, if it does at all, could elevate the show even higher or sink it. That’s why I would prefer they ignore it entirely and go on with the story exactly as they imagined it before anyone heard of Edward Snoden. Maybe that is what they are doing, but too many of this season’s episodes have devolved into a lecture about online privacy.

I think we are one or two episodes shy of seeing everything we need to know about what this season will contain. For the most part, it’s on the right track to maintain its position as the most enjoyable show I watch.

Thoughts from the Minnesota Bloggers Convention

Minnesota Blogger Conference

I am new to blogging and, to be honest, I don’t have an enormous audience. The Wandering Lostie just notched its 1,000th view and most of my traffic comes when I tweet a link. It’s a very modest endavour in that regard, but it is something I want to be more serious. To that end, I attended the Minnesota Blogger Conference a few weeks ago in St. Paul.

I could fill a mountain of screen space with my eight pages of notes. One of the things I like most about blogs and blogging is being exposed to other people’s perspectives, so I want to use this post as an opportunity to provide mine about some of the questions and topics the presenters and panelists covered. It is outside the normal course of topics for this blog, but it’s about blogging. I think blogging about blogging is always germane to blogging.

Blogging as a passion.

I used to work in politics, a very passion-driven line of work. I left because even though I am still very passionate about it my passion diminished enough that I could imagine myself doing something different. It’s a fine line, to be sure. Blogging strikes me as very similar. I talk in my About page about how I became interested enough in television to write about it. Listening to more successful bloggers talk about how passionate they are made me wonder if this is something I am passionate enough about to put in the time and effort to attain the audience and respect they do. I believe it is. I enjoy this. However…

I’m in a rut right now, and it is all Walter White’s fault. I binged the entire series in the four days leading up to the finale. From the pilot at 7 p.m. Wednesday to the finale that ended at 9:15 p.m. Sunday I watched nothing but Breaking Bad. It totaled about 48.5 hours of program time in 96 hours with the longest break being 6-hours for a wedding. Put another way, that’s two full days of watching one television show in a four-day span. Insane! (I’ll have more to say about Breaking Bad and binging TV shows when the TV year slows down.)

I loved Lost so much it boosted how much I enjoy other shows. Breaking Bad caused the opposite effect. I was enjoying FOX’s new Sleepy Hollow until Bad made it feel like a children’s book. Even an 8-season stalwart like Criminal Minds can’t work up the drama for me that it used to. All of this means I’m less excited to write, which is why there hasn’t been much new content lately. I hope this is a temporary post-Bad phenomenon.

How do you write? 

I was surprised to hear Ed Kohler and Purple Jesus Diaries writer Aaron Wahlstrom say they write directly into their platform. I compose everything in Pages so I can write in a word processing mindset. When I type right into WordPress it is much more difficult to get in the part of my mind where the writing lives. In that way I’m with Kate in the Kitchen and Kate Arends, who talked about shutting the world out and finding a quiet place to do their blogging. If I am writing a review or a column I almost always shut out the world and dig in.

Typos.

“When people email me about a typo in my blog…I just don’t care.” – Ed Kohler. I care. I obsessively care. I loathe typos. If you see one, please email me about it. I will feel bad about myself but it will help in the long run.

Making a connection. 

A question from Missy Breggren’s session addressed how you know your blog is making connections. Style and fashion writer Zhenya Hutson and happy person Jennifer Prod of talked about comments and outreach from other bloggers as things that tell them they are on the right track. This is something I’d like to attain. Right now I’m me talking largely to me. Forming connections with other bloggers in the television field and boosting site comments are long-term goals.

Other topics. 

Rich Neumeister has been fighting for open government at the Minnesota Legislature for well over 30 years. He asked a great question I want to touch on: What about adding other topics to your blog? Like I said, I worked in politics for a long time and still have strong feelings about it. But I promise you will never read a political post on The Wandering Lostie. Ever. If I’m writing about a show that is heavy on politics, such as Scandal or The West Wing, I will use my political experience as an asset for writing better posts. That does not mean you’ll see me espousing a position on taxes or Obamacare. You can take this promise to the bank.

People have asked me if I plan to blog about politics, and I appreciate the compliment in saying they would be interested in what I have to say. My answer is if I wanted to be immersed in politics I would have stayed in it. I also want to reduce the impact politics has on my online identity, most of which came through Twitter via my previous jobs. Now I’m trying to use the Twitter equity I earned (is there such a thing?) over the past several years to become known for other things. Such as this.

Analytics. 

I can’t begin. Go to http://www.jeffalytics.com and read everything.

The future of blogging. 

This was a great panel with Blois Olson, David Brauer, Lee Odden and Greg Swan and moderated by Julio Ojeda Zapata. It was pretty heady stuff, here are some highlights.

“Blogs should just be called media.” – Blois Olson. I tend to agree.

David Brauer rarely goes to the local papers’ homepages anymore. He finds news from links in his Twitter feed. I tried doing this a while back and found that I missed too much news. I also tried exclusively using the papers’ iPad apps and had the same experience. I want my online newspaper reading to feel as close as possible to scanning a regular newspaper. Twitter has potential for that if I took the time to make a list of all the news sites I follow, but they update so much it would be impossible to digest all of it. There is a new social links feature in the upcoming release of Safari that will aggregate links posted by people in your social network, so that has potential as well. Flipboard replace the void Google created by dumping Reader. It is probably the closest to a real newspaper experience.

“Social media shouldn’t make you sad.” – David Brauer. He’s right. We have the Twins and Vikings for that. How many times did Josh Freeman look at the sidelines after a play Monday night with his hands up like he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing? I think he’d be right to feel angry about being thrown out to play in that situation. And the Twins, don’t even get me started.

Talking about the plethora of social networks available, Greg Swan said think about what ones will be around in the future. This is why I stick with the big ones. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn give me everything I want from social media. I am not inclined to join others until I am clear about what they offer me that these three don’t. Tumblr is a great example. I’m on it but rarely use it because it duplicates Facebook and Twitter. I mostly use it for posting things that I don’t think are worthy of the other three. I’ve also used it to post thoughts on a variety of topics that don’t fit anywhere else. I briefly considered putting The Wandering Lostie there but decided WordPress is a better long-term solution.

“Figure out a way to reach people who care.” – Blois Olson. Great point for building your blog audience. I will need to do this for my blog to grow.

Revenge “Confession” recap: Conrad rises, Emily sinks

Through confession and forgiveness, redemption.

“Some believe confession helps a guilty soul find peace, releasing us from the shame and regret of our mistakes. In the face of mortality, many feel the need to seek this closure to make things right. Because if death doesn’t kill us, our demons will.”

That is the Emily Thorne voiceover to begin last Sunday’s episode, Confession. Here is the one that closed it:

“A guilty heart is silent, it’s pulse muffled by the secrets it keeps. While some believe confession can release a tortured soul, others view it as a sign of weakness. Because ultimately whatever you say, however you feel about what you’ve done, it’s irrelevant for the hand of death is equally unforgiving.”

In between Revenge stuck to the religious theme it established last week as Emily manipulated Conrad toward a confession. I love this and think it’s great for the show. Creator Mike Kelley described the show as a modern day telling of The Count of Monte Cristo and chose to open it with a quote from Confucius. But those themes were rarely referred to and I would say forgotten by the end of his time as producer. Adding a religious base reminds me of the way Lost’s writers made heavy references to religion, literature and philosophy. All three provide universal themes from which you can tell any story and give it much more depth.

Revenge could have spent several episodes developing a plot line that led to Conrad’s decision. Instead it mixed themes of confession and forgiveness to do it in two. In scenes with Emily and Father Paul, Conrad is very much a man representing the Bible verse I cited in last week’s piece. He believes confession will wash away his sins and tells Father Paul, “I welcome death now.” Conrad’s decision is sealed by believing a confession will give Charlotte back the father he took from her in sin. Through confession and forgiveness, redemption.

This is such an improvement over last season that I am almost ready to declare Revenge to be “back.”

But of course while Conrad attempts to find God, Emily continues to defy it. Instead of seeking forgiveness and redemption for framing Father Paul, she doubles down on her alleged regret and blackmails him into working on Conrad. Convince him to confess or be exposed again, she tells him.

He succeeds, but their journey to confession ends in a fiery crash. Father Paul is dead. Conrad, though weakened from Emily manipulating his drug regimen, survives. What happened? We don’t see. I believe Victoria Grayson happened.

Scroll back up to the final voice-over. “A guilty heart is silent, it’s pulse muffled by the secrets it keeps.” That is Victoria, a heart turned so wicked by guilt that she hurts her own children without flinching. “While some believe confession can release a tortured soul, others view it as a sign of weakness.” This line is meant to symbolize the perspectives Conrad and Victoria hold at this point in the story. Remember what she told Patrick last week when she sold her painting: “The world I live in, if they sense this vulnerability they will use it as a weapon. So, I part with the things I love.” She believes facing mortality made Conrad too weak, and therefore vulnerable to what she would perceive as religious foolishness. Enough so that she would “part” with Conrad? Consider her rationalization to Patrick: Some sacrifices are easier than others.

The final line in Emily’s voiceover should convince us that the crash was not a case of reckless driving. “Because ultimately whatever you say, however you feel about what you’ve done, it’s irrelevant for the hand of death is equally unforgiving.” Sorry, Father Paul, you do not get to confess, there will be no cleansing for your soul. The hand of death got you first.

Now Emily’s twisted sense of redemption has led a reformed man to his grave. She continued her moral downward spiral by laying a new layer of lies on her relationship with Daniel and leveling Victoria with a humiliating public revelation of the Grayson’s financial troubles.

Emily Thorne’s descent resembles Walter White’s in Breaking Bad. We began the show rooting for her to get revenge on the evil Graysons, but now she has turned into the people she came to the Hamptons to destroy. Her takedown of Father Paul is meant to represent what happened to her own father and show that she has, for all intents and purposes, become a Grayson. She lies to the people she loves. She plots with no regard or remorse. I can’t root for her to win any more than I could root for Walter. She is sealing her fate in one of the graves Confucius warns about. Maybe not representing physical death but a life with no one to turn to. The life Conrad tells her of when he admits he has no relationships to fall back on in his dying days. Father Paul told Conrad no one wants to die alone. That is exactly where Emily is headed and right now it is exactly what she deserves.

If death doesn’t kill her, her demons surely will. Two graves, equally unforgiving.

Revenge is actually mine, says Emily Thorne

Season three, episode two takes a turn for the church

I’m out of town and don’t have time to do a full write up for Revenge S3E2, “Sin,” so we’ll jump right into some Memos to a Character.

Dear Emily, Romans 12:19: Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” When you decided to devote your life to this course of revenge did you foresee the way it would turn you into a cold and remorseless villain? You may not see yourself that way, but the people who lived at the generosity of Father Paul do. This was the first of your takedowns that gave you the opportunity to see what you do to people. Will it change your way of thinking or will you continue to take from the Lord his vengeance?

Dear Charlotte, Ezekiel 16:44: Behold, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb about you: ‘Like mother, like daughter.’  Despite all that he has done to tear apart your family, what you said to Conrad was exceptionally hurtful. You are the only Grayson with clean hands. Don’t become your mother.

Dear Jack, Galatians 5:13: For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. Keep this in mind as you and Charlotte grow close. She is your dead brother’s ex-girlfriend who is the biological sister of your childhood sweetheart after you thought she was the biological sister of your dead wife who you thought was your childhood sweetheart. Also mind the age difference. I would like you two became close friends because you are the only decent people in this saga, but that is as far as you should really go. She has the genuine qualities of the father she never knew. You were also shaped by your father and became a father to Declan. As a team I think you two could be good morality checks for Charlotte’s parents and Emily. They need it.

Dear Nolan, I John 2:16-17: For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. Who do you think you are Derek Jeter? Do you send your conquests home with a basket full of autographed computer disks? Keep trying to rein in Emily when her quest for revenge takes her down a dark path. That is where you will find your purpose, not in the arms of strangers.

Dear Conrad, I John 1:8-9: …8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Your visit to the church tells me your exposure to mortality is causing you a crisis of conscience. Follow it. Confess your sins. The ramifications will shatter your family and the world around you, but you will experience the truth you need if these indeed are your final days.

Dear Victoria, Ecclesiastes 5:10: He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity. I’ve never learned more about you than when you said you have to keep up the appearance of being wealthy. You spend so much of your life trying to keep up appearances. Family, happiness, wealth. It’s almost like a job for you. There will come a day when you realize these things are not appearances but values.

Dear Daniel, 2 Timothy 2:22: So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. I am in awe. Resisting a redhead the way you did was damn near a miracle. You are strong where I am weak, and it shows you are beyond a life of youthful passions. I am very happy to see you pursuing work with Margaux’s magazine. Stepping away from the Grayson shadow will bring you rich rewards. I am, however, suspicious of the timing though I can’t quite put my finger on why.

Dear blueberry muffins, Zechariah 9:12: Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double. Watching you be passed around the Hamptons summed up the Hamptons better than I ever could. Come to Minnesota. We will treat you right and give you the reward you deserve, the reward of being eaten.

Sincerely,

Kevin