Welcome to LIAM! Liam is my "life management system". Liam combines digital capture of my life's artifacts, high-end home automation, task management, communications and social, fitness and health management, as well as media and information management into an integrated system. It is a hardware and software system powered by over 80 processor cores, over 60 network devices, two dozen third-party information and technology services, including AI, and 100s of thousands of lines of custom code. "He" can speak and otherwise communicate, sense and control things. Now in its fifth generation, Liam has been in continuous operation since 1987. This website -- Liam's face to the world -- is updated continuously and automatically as the underlying data changes.

LifeChronicle. This section of the website is about my past. It represents the topmost view of hundreds of thousands of items recorded in my Chronicle, each organized by date and time (if available). Each day, 100s of items are recorded, most automatically, as a permanent record of my life. Items can include tasks, emails, snapshots, created works, physical activities and, well, pretty much anything that can be digitally captured.

LifeState. This section of the website is about my present. Updates happen as frequently as every three minutes. LifeState covers the physical environment (e.g., the weather), state of automation in each home, high level data on the occupants, personal information about me according to my "nine-grid" system, current curated news (i.e., state of the world) and a summary of what's in my media management system. Note that confidential data may be faked if the user is not authorized.

LifeConsole. This final section of about controlling things so it is about the future. The Liam Console is a universal way of communicating with Liam. Liam is also controlled by Echo devices, touchpads, desktop apps, etc. Messages are self- explanitory and current tasks are, well, current tasks. Note that both of the latter may be faked if the user is not authorized.

Expressions. This card starts with my latest eight tweets. Then, every couple of weeks, I write a summary of what's been going on with my life. I've been doing this for many years. You may navigate to up to a year of blogs.

Snapshots. I take pictures all the time. The ones that are public show up here for a limited time. If I take the picture with my phone (which most are), they are automatically downloaded, examined by an AI algorithm for objects, people's facial expressions, etc. Liam also grabs the location of where the picture was taken (if possible) and will be used in other cards. Note that occasionally a picture taken by someone else will appear here if it relevant to me. A.I. (artifical intelligence) analysis of snapshots kind of self-explanitory.

Travel. This section shows one of three maps. The first map shown is the cities I've visited in my (new) home state, Florida. The next is a world map and shows all the countries I've ever visited. The third map map shows the locations in the US I've visited in the last three years. In some cases, because of the density of the dots, if you hover a dot, it might bring up a magnifying glass where you can then hover over a specific location.

People+Experiences. People and experiences are the things we remember most; that make a life. This card's first section contains a lot of items which happened with or are about people. That card covered the last 18 months. This first section counts items which are divided by key person or person group and then by the type of item it is. "Expressions" are basically journal entries about a person. Snapshots are as above but Cams are when a person is captured on a home camera. The next section of the card contains experiences by different slices and should be self-explanitory.

Time. Chronicle has 100's of thousands of items. "Items" can include when I sleep, where I go, task items, journal entries ("expressions"), meetings and appointments, recreational events, when I take a shower, emails and other messages sent or received, pictures taken, songs I've composed, and much more. The first section of this card totals those items per year. Note the date is when it happened, not when it was put into Chronicle. In the early years of my life, computer technology didn't exist yet there are items for many of those years. The count is just so small, it isn't visible on the graph. The total number of days with items in Chronicle appears on the top right. In the next section of the card, a pie chart breaks down how much time I spend at my two residences, time sleeping vs. awake, and time away from residence whether asleep or awake.

Significance. Most items in Chronicle are not particularly significant. If, however, it is one of the most important items of the week based on a set of heuristics, it is given a significance of 3 ("Sig3"). If the item is one of the most important items of the year, it is given a significance of 2 ("Sig2"). If one of the most significant items of my lifetime, it is given a 1 ("Sig1"). This card further breaks down the Sig1 items into category groups.

Categories. Every item that goes into Chronicle has at least category. The top categories across all items in Chronicle are listed here along with the number of items for that category. In "Created works", the card highlights the subcategories of the category "Works" which are original works created by me.

General. This card provides some general information not personal to me but I find useful. Starting at the top, the card includes the current heat index ("feels like") and pool temperature. Next is a very high-level summary section (sun/moon info, forecast, people location info, etc.) duplicated from the touchpads throughout the house. It will be faked to unauthorized people because it might show the current address of a person. The rest of the card has various conditions: current sun, moon, and planet conditions, current weather radar (updated every 15 mins), current weather conditions, current local traffic conditions and current stock market conditions (e.g., the VIX).

Automation. This card is all about Liam home automation. The System section reports overall status and provides some operational numbers. Next is the device status of both homes, again, starting with site-specific operational numbers. The tables somewhat represent the actual layout of the homes. Note that devices that are off generally don't appear on the card. A Liam Node, by the way, is a small stand-alone computer (Raspberry Pi) with a specific function; e.g., steaming video.

People. The People card basically shows some high-level state information about me, Arren, our cats and then "Others". More detailed and personal information about me will be in the next card. More detailed and personal information about Arren is not available. Note that random (but curated) pictures taken by house cameras will appear on this card and change daily on average.

Personal. This card contains a wealth of current, personal information about me. The top measure, invocation, is a measure of either ritualistic gestures (measured with a gesture sensor) or the NFC tag of an object scanned. Two subjective measures -- mood and wellness -- are self-reported daily or as needed. Work-out days are derived from associated completed tasks in the todo list. Blood pressure, sleep, and walking are measured by various devices and automatically uploaded to Liam. The last section, which is an important section, is my "life clock". This is the statistical amount of life I have left ... so, it could be less or more. This helps me focus on using what life I have left wisely! The progress bar mirrors this number.

Functional. This card is really about what I do but specifically about money and projects. For investments, it shows how much money I currently have and how this has changed over the last year. On the expense side, this card shows how much money I've spent in the last 12 months, by category. If user is not authorized, data will be faked. The Projects section lists my current big projects (lasting months).

Interactional. This card presents the state of some of my interactions with the world. The Status has three squares representing the status of three interactional categories: Experiences, Relationships and Society. Experiences are broken down into more granular categories, each represented by a "badge". Inside the badge is either a checkmark or "X" indicating whether that experience is overdue or not. The tags are somewhat cryptic on purpose to protect my privacy. The Relationships section first summarizes the status of all relationships then describes touchpoints with Arren, family and friends. The third section, Society, deals with my broader connection to society. Specifically, Social is my interactions with both personal and professional individuals, usually in a more transactional way (vs. relationship). Community is about giving back. This is where my mentoring and other volunteering would appear. The bar charts for these elements of society are based on activity levels. Lastly, Civic is about duty to my government/etc. like voting, taxes, etc.

Task Mgmt. I use a task list through-out each day to manage my time and activities. The center of this is Microsoft Outlook with some programmatic enhancements I've made to support what Liam needs to do. This card gives a wealth of information about what in the task list. The card is mostly self-explanitory but here are a few additional terms. For the most part, I use the "active view". This contains all the tasks for the week (now through coming Sunday). On Sundays, I plan for the coming week by going to the "plan view". A task that is "current" is being worked on this moment or within this "task period". Some tasks are actually "reminders" vs. things to do. The active view also contains a couple of "picklists". These are items to be done this week but haven't been assigned a day yet.

Info Mgmt. Liam processes something between megabytes to gigabytes of information per day. The incoming information comes from various sources. The first thing listed on this card, are the applications I'm currently using. These are used to source or create information. Next, are the categories of my browser use. This is for the last day, not real-time. Then the next two sections are information that is "piped" into Liam. These information files include camera pics, expressions, video files, audio files, news and many other types. Along the information pipeline, information is tagged, categorized, reformated, etc. Some of that processing is straightforward, some of it leverages AI and some of it requires my touch. For the latter, that human processing is called "curation". This card shows what needs to be curated (e.g., accepted, tagged, etc.) and what needs to be consumed (e.g., read). The consumption of information requires it be "rendered".

Media. Liam manages (not just stores) 10's of thousands of media items. Many of these items such as music, video and pictures are used for entertainment. The video and pictures appear on one of the 7 TVs by request or automatically triggered on various events; e.g., while dining, a slide show of interesting pictures from around the world appears. When used for entertainment, these media are usually part of a playlist. In addition to entertainment, Liam's media server stores interesting documents that are work related ("Office"), of general informational value ("General"), created written works by others ("Works"), etc. The bar chart shows the relative quantity of the various media item categories.

Liam Console. The Console card is a core interface for Liam. The main section of the card is the Liam Universal Message Interface (LUMI) section that allows for free-from messaging. The user simply types text and then presses one of the type buttons to tell Liam how to understand the text.

• "Control" means for Liam to attempt to interpret the semi-structured message as an action. An action word is always required and this may be qualified by an object word, location word (often optional) and/or an optional action time. An example might be "Show art collection on office TV at 11am".
• "Task" means the text is to be interpreted as a todo list item. There are quite a few mark-ups that are supported by the task management sub-system.
• "Message" will send the text via SMS or email to an individual. To sent an SMS, specify @person anywhere in the text. @person:email will instead send the message via email.
• "Tweet" does just that. It allows me to send a tweet to @tahl_net. Convenient! The tweet can be sent at a specific time by specifying HH:MM anywhere in the text.
• "Log" allows me to manually log information when an automatic data feed is not possible, not worth the effect or not possible because the data is too subjective. This one is not user-friendly as each type of log wants something specific.
• "State" allows me to provide my subjective physical or mental state words (e.g., "unwell") or a relationship state word regarding certain others. Both a person and a word are needed.
• "Expression" means to interpret the typed text as a micro-journal entry.
• "Works" is for starting a file for a written work such as a story or opinion piece.

If one or more control actions were not executed immediately but were instead scheduled to happen, a section Scheduled items will appear on the card. Likewise, some actions require an additional step such as with a Control phrase "When get into bed, do spa cocoon" means that the action will be triggered upon getting into bed and will then run a macro called "spa cocoon". If any non-executed but enabled actions are queued and an additional section "Enabled actions" may appear on this card. If user is not authorized, Liam will not respond to LUMI messages.

Liam Query. The Query card allows the user to get information from within Liam. If user is not authorized, this card will not operate.

• "Contact" is for getting complete contact information from any known information (e.g., name, phone, email).
• "Place" is for returning complete place information by providing any part of the name or by specifying placecode.
• "Reference" will return any section of the specified book matching all keyword(s). The default book is the Tahl Codex. This book is a reference work containing everything from playlist codes to personal beliefs. To get any other book, specify #book anywhere in the query.
• "Chron" will search for doned chronicle items using the single category specified. Can use any category including canonical, non-canonical, #category and AI categories. Returns last N items.
• "Media" searchs the large media database for any media type (video, audio, pictures, documents, etc.) and returns folder level information.
• "Tasks" will search for tasks in the Active, Plan and Future views, looking for a text match.
• "Clipboard" reads the clipboard of my main desktop computer and displays it. This is useful for like grocery lists or packing lists.

Current Tasks. This is my to-do list and I use it all day long. First of all, on this card, only "current" tasks are normally shown. This is the set of tasks that I'm currently focused on. Those tasks are determined and/or informed by the "current period", which you will find on the People card in the LifeState section. At the top of the task card is a toolbar. If you press the Full Day button, the rest of the day's tasks are also shown. These additional tasks can be collapsed again. Also, you can display a "Compact Schedule". This gibberish makes sense to me and shows me the major activities of the week. Looking at the tasks themselves, at the beginning and end of individual task titles, you will see some strange mark-ups. This is a more advanced topic which I won't go into here. If you click on any task, it goes into edit mode for that task including the appearance of several buttons which, when pressed, will take action on the task. If user is not authorized, data will be faked and cannot be edited.

Future Tasks. This card shows the quantity of tasks that are scheduled for the future and might be done. Task counts are broken down into those with no specified significance and those that have a significance. Most scheduled tasks involving an appointment of some sort tend to have significance because it involves other people, purchased tickets, etc.

Messages. This card is very straightforward: it's about me communicating with others. It lists messages that come in through the two primary communication methods in use today; namely, email and SMS (MMS messages not supported). In the case of email or SMS, you may hover or press for more on the title if the entire one is not displayed. To delete the message, the user clicks the X. If user is not authorized, data will be faked and cannot be edited.

Social. The Twitter section lists the most recent tweets from small select list of Twitter users.

News. News is automatically downloaded through out the day such as from NPR. Each article is summarized. As part of my daily "curation" process, I read the headline and maybe the summary and decide whether I will read the full article. The most recent articles from appear in Curated Headlines. The summaries of selected articles are used to build a "word cloud" where more frequently appearing non-trivial words appear as bigger words in the word cloud. Think of this as a visual summary of the news.