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A vault

The Mesa Ranch observation desk: journalism as intelligence, in a vault

The method in the slides, working, on synthetic records, in a vault you can open.

One desk, three ways in

The idea, the tour, and the vault itself: read them in order, or open the vault straight away.

1 · The ideaWhen journalism becomes intelligence, builtFrancesco Marconi's argument and slides, and why we built them as an observation desk in a vault.
2 · The tourInside the Mesa Ranch deskEvery page of the vault in turn: what it shows, what to click, and what it proves.
you are here
3 · The vaultThe Mesa Ranch observation deskSeventeen pages and five graphs, on synthetic records, in an sgit vault you can open and clone.Open the vault ↗The vault page
Everything in this vault is synthetic. The campus, the county, the companies, the agencies' names and all sixteen records are invented. The vault is modelled on the data-center example in Francesco Marconi's INMA talk, When journalism becomes intelligence, and describes no real organisation. The real project the slides drew on is described in public reporting linked from the article; the tour walks through every page.
Open it yourself. The key is the whole credential.
Read key: sgit_public_read_4f77e3b19832f0435da5310eb2ae925defd9e59d51bc41b6510ce494493b3818:hn1s3h6q
In the official UI: open it read-only in a new tab · From the CLI: sgit clone sgit_public_read_4f77e3b19832f0435da5310eb2ae925defd9e59d51bc41b6510ce494493b3818:hn1s3h6q
Published deliberately under the sgit_public_read_ prefix, and derived one-way from a vault key that is not in this repository. Read back with this key before it was published: 63 files, the same pages.

Open the vault, full screen → or see it here, below

Opens in the vault's own app, read-only, with the published key: seventeen pages, a menu on the left, details on the right.

See it live, here

The vault opens as an app of seventeen pages: the eleven slides, each working on the vault's own data, and five graph pages. Every marker, folder, record, observation and node opens its details on the right.

What is in it

PathWhat
index.html and 16 more pagesThe desk, one page per menu item; inlined CSS and JS; every illustration and graph drawn as SVG in the browser, in the deck's pen-and-ink style; the data inlined as a fallback.
instances.json, compares.jsonThe knowledge graph, each relationship with the observation that made it, and the delta chain.
atlas/12 event families and 78 event types, each with a definition and an observable signal.
ontology.jsonSix entities, their attributes and six relationships. An event changes a state or relationship in this model.
records/16 synthetic source records: an air permit and its application, a public notice, minutes, an abatement application, statements, building registrations, a deed, an investor presentation, oversize-load permits.
observations.json17 observations, each a subject, a change, a time and its evidence, matched to an event type.
tracker.json, outputs.jsonThe community impact tracker and the article and alerts it produced.
tools/The scripts that build all of it. Replace the families, entities and records with your own beat; the app does not change.

A tour

The cover, one of seventeen pages: the menu on the left groups them as the deck does, the synthetic campus is drawn in pen and ink with orange markers, and details open on the right.
The cover, one of seventeen pages: the menu on the left groups them as the deck does, the synthetic campus is drawn in pen and ink with orange markers, and details open on the right.
An atlas of events: twelve families around the buildout; Power and utilities is open in the panel on the right, each event with its definition, its observable signal and how often it was seen.
An atlas of events: twelve families around the buildout; Power and utilities is open in the panel on the right, each event with its definition, its observable signal and how often it was seen.
A domain ontology: six entities and six relationships, each entity a pen-and-ink vignette; click one and the observations that changed it open on the right.
A domain ontology: six entities and six relationships, each entity a pen-and-ink vignette; click one and the observations that changed it open on the right.
Every observation adds to what the newsroom knows: the four headline folders and the full history; the selected observation, its comparison and its records open on the right.
Every observation adds to what the newsroom knows: the four headline folders and the full history; the selected observation, its comparison and its records open on the right.
The fractal semantic graph, level 1: the campus opens into the twelve event families; the number on each node is how many more it opens into.
The fractal semantic graph, level 1: the campus opens into the twelve event families; the number on each node is how many more it opens into.
Level 2: Power and utilities opens into its seven event types; the breadcrumb leads back to the question.
Level 2: Power and utilities opens into its seven event types; the breadcrumb leads back to the question.
Every level at once: the question at the centre, then families, event types, observations and records in rings; orange lines are evidence.
Every level at once: the question at the centre, then families, event types, observations and records in rings; orange lines are evidence.
The knowledge graph, in time: the ontology instantiated, played one observation at a time; here at the acquisition, with the new relationship in orange.
The knowledge graph, in time: the ontology instantiated, played one observation at a time; here at the acquisition, with the new relationship in orange.
Records to observations: sixteen synthetic records on the left, seventeen observations on the right, and the evidence between them.
Records to observations: sixteen synthetic records on the left, seventeen observations on the right, and the evidence between them.
The delta chain: observations on a time axis by the entity they change, with an arc to the earlier observation each was compared with.
The delta chain: observations on a time axis by the entity they change, with an arc to the earlier observation each was compared with.
Observations anchor the AI workflow: observe, compare, check, report, update, stepped through one cycle, with the graph growing at each step.
Observations anchor the AI workflow: observe, compare, check, report, update, stepped through one cycle, with the graph growing at each step.
The community impact tracker: jobs, water, power, land and public commitments, with the article and alerts they produced.
The community impact tracker: jobs, water, power, land and public commitments, with the article and alerts they produced.

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