SJellen

Scott Jellen

Independent Researcher · Protocol Designer · Infrastructure Systems

I study systems whose inherited rules no longer fit present conditions, then develop research, protocols, mechanisms, and reference artifacts for alternative structures.

My work focuses on protocol design, rights modeling, institutional mechanism design, transition systems, and infrastructure-oriented research.

This GitHub profile is the development surface for Jellen Protocol Lab, an independent research lab publishing specifications, registries, reference artifacts, simulations, and supporting software alongside a broader public research archive.

Research archive:
https://scottjellen.com

Jellen Protocol Lab

Jellen Protocol Lab develops inspectable systems rather than conventional products.

Work typically begins with a structural problem and may progress through:

research papers and analytical frameworks
institutional mechanisms
protocol specifications
RFCs and schemas
registries and reference datasets
simulations and implementation models
lightweight reference tooling

The objective is to make an idea precise enough to inspect, criticize, test, extend, or implement.

Research Programs

Universal Sports Graph

Active Protocol Program

The Universal Sports Graph (USG) is a protocol stack for representing sports broadcast rights as structured, interoperable data.

It defines a neutral machine-readable layer for:

rights definition and ownership
entitlement and access authorization
registry-backed auditability
settlement and clearinghouse primitives

The core architecture is:

rights graph → entitlement enforcement → authoritative registry

Published work includes:

The Universal Sports Graph — Blueprint Edition
RFC 0001 — Architecture
RFC 0002 — Entitlement Token Profile
RFC 0003 — Registry Architecture
USG Registry
resolver and reference tooling

Canonical protocol artifacts are maintained in:

sjellen/protocols

The Shorter Working Life

Active Research Program

A research program examining whether advanced economies can reduce the amount of lifetime labor required from individuals without treating income replacement as the sole policy objective.

The work focuses on retirement, transition design, fiscal conditions, labor participation, and the portion of life released from mandatory full-time work.

Published artifacts include the core framework, implementation outline, transition simulation, fiscal conditions analysis, retirement mechanism, UBI comparison, and Free Phase memo.

The Twenty-First Slav Epic

Active Research Program

A public-memory and institutional-art research project examining what a contemporary successor to Alphonse Mucha's Slav Epic might represent a century after its completion.

The project explores memory, sovereignty, war, displacement, common work, and the relationship between cultural inheritance and contemporary Europe.

Shutdown Stabilizer

Published Mechanism Stack

A policy and institutional mechanism designed to reduce the economic disruption caused by federal government shutdowns.

The stack includes:

policy whitepaper
implementation outline
draft legislative language
operational simulation

Media & Platform Infrastructure

Research Cluster

Research into the economic and institutional architecture of media, entertainment, platforms, and access systems.

Selected work includes:

The Shadow Subscription
The Fourth Act
The Content Layer
The Hybrid Season
The Sports Spin-Off

Selected Institutional Research

Something for Something

Capping Americans' Exposure to Healthcare Risk

A healthcare and tax-system proposal centered on a simple guarantee: nationally covered medical care should have a finite annual limit on an individual's financial exposure.

The framework combines household-level liability limits, continued private insurance participation, public-program coordination, and a federal backstop.

Protocol & Reference Infrastructure

The protocols repository contains the standards-oriented development surface of the Universal Sports Graph.

Authoritative artifacts

protocol specifications
registry object schemas
entitlement and settlement schemas
canonical identifiers
deterministic indexes
registry metadata
digest and integrity conventions

Reference tooling

schema validation
integrity verification
digest checks
index inspection
resolver interfaces

Reference tooling demonstrates protocol behavior and inspectability. It is not presented as production infrastructure.

Authoritative state remains in the registry rather than the resolver or interface layer.

Research Methods

Recurring methods across the work include:

protocol design
rights modeling
institutional mechanism design
transition simulation
incentive mapping
standards-oriented documentation

A recurring systems model is:

rights → access → incentives → coordination → outcomes

Publication Model

Research artifacts are published with explicit version, status, scope, and archival information.

Depending on the project, outputs may include:

Research

whitepapers
analytical essays
briefs
simulations

Specifications

RFCs
schemas
registries
reference implementations

Institutional artifacts

implementation outlines
mechanism designs
legislative language
operational models

Canonical research publications are available through the public portfolio and DOI-backed archival releases.

Earlier Software Work

This profile also retains earlier software projects, experiments, and development history.

My background in software and interface development informs the current work, particularly how I approach systems as collections of interfaces, states, rules, dependencies, and failure conditions.