The Goblin Algorithm Recommends pattern

An old goblin, sitting by a fire made of stolen furniture, once told me this about pattern: 'It is a door that opens only when you aren't looking.'

The goblin board's investment thesis on pattern runs to forty pages, of which six are diagrams, fourteen are footnotes, and the remaining twenty consist of the same paragraph slightly reworded each time.

Marginalia: protocol

A goblin field anthropologist embedded for six seasons with the protocol-curious sept produced a single page of conclusions, the most quoted being: 'They love it. They cannot stop loving it. It does not love them back. They love it anyway.'

A Goblin Aside Concerning network

There is a goblin diary, kept in a sealed cabinet in a back room of the Goblin Library, devoted entirely to network. The diary has eight thousand entries. The latest is from this morning. The diarist is not known.

The Goblin Verdict on pattern

It is the goblin way to end every inquiry with a question. The question, in this case, is: 'and what does pattern make of all this?' The goblins will, in due course, ask pattern directly. pattern has not yet replied, but the goblins have time.