0→1Technical Fluency
The Story Path/Act I of IV

The Lottery

Registration morningThe window opens at ten, and the entry becomes real.15 scenes · ~44 min

Registration day at depth. Eighty thousand people want twenty-five thousand places, and Case's finger is on the button at ten o'clock.

Previously

3 claims the story has made so far, with a piece of each left out. Reach for it before you read on; if you have not met them yet, the answer tells you where they happened.

  1. The chip is blank. It holds a number and shouts it when a mat gives it the power to shout.

  2. Everything that decides what the number means is blank.

  3. A number arrives, something thinks about it, something else appears on a screen. That shape is blank.

The scenes

  1. Two windows, open at ten9:58 on registration morning, in two houses three states apart.2 min
  2. The name and the number10:00:00. The tap leaves Case's thumb with an address it cannot use yet.3 min
  3. The address, taken apartThe same fraction of a second, one layer down.2 min
  4. The envelopeThe same fraction of a second. The parcel itself, outside and in.3 min
  5. The payload, openedWhat Case actually sent, readable at last.3 min
  6. What came backA fifth of a second after the tap, an answer with a number on it.3 min
  7. The two halvesWhere the morning's work actually happened.3 min
  8. View sourceMolly right-clicks the route page, three states away.3 min
  9. Staying logged in10:01. Case closes the app on purpose and opens it again.3 min
  10. One backend, many doorsThe same Traversal, answering every door at once.3 min
  11. The supporting castWho else is awake at ten o'clock.3 min
  12. Doors, catalogued10:01. The race director walks through a different kind of door.3 min
  13. Who is askingEvery parcel this morning carried proof. Time to look at it.3 min
  14. The padlock and the cardThe part Act 0 skipped in the retelling.3 min
  15. Charged onceThe spinner keeps spinning, and Case presses Pay again.4 min

What lights on your story map here

0/80concepts lit

one cell per scene · width is its conceptsreading a scene lights its cell

71 fluency — say them in a meeting9 recognition — nod when you hear them

Show all 80, scene by scene
internetwebbrowserclientserverIP addressdomainDNSURLprotocolHTTPHTTPSrequestresponseheaderbodyGETPOSTPUTPATCHDELETEpayloaddata typelistobjectJSONstatus coderedirectbandwidthbrowser cachingfrontendbackendfull-stackclient-sideserver-sideinput validationHTMLCSSJavaScriptstatic contentdynamic contentapplication statecookiesessioncacheAPIAPI endpointRESTXMLCSVparsingserializationdeserializationGraphQLinternal toolthird-party serviceintegrationdependencybuildbuyinternal APIexternal APIthird-party APIAPI contractAPI documentationAPI versioningauthenticationauthorizationlogintokenAPI keyOAuthcertificateHTTPS padlockSDKrate limittimeoutretryidempotencywebhook

Act I — the boundary

The half-second at the matThe trip in between

480 msMolly's phone shows the split.

  1. 0 msThe chip wakes inside the mat's field.
  2. 2 msIt sends one number: 11208.
  3. 9 msThe mat's reader asks Traversal to record the crossing.
  4. 38 msTraversal answers the reader: recorded.
  5. 480 msMolly's phone shows the split.

5 steps so far. The rest of the half-second arrives in later acts.

At 9 ms the mat's reader asks Traversal to record the crossing. At 38 ms Traversal answers: recorded. What is that pair of messages called?