EXCERPT The Tic Xenotation Daniel C. Barker’s Tic Xenotation emerged during the highly obscure phase of his life when he was working for ‘NASA’ (some hesitation is appropriate here) on the SETI-related ‘Project Scar’ in Southeast Asia, tasked with designing a ‘general purpose decryption protocol’ for identifying intelligent signal from alien sources. This project necessitated the formulation of numeric conventions independent of all cultural conditioning or local convention—radically abstract signs…