Crossing

Here is the second story that I mentioned in the introduction to Memory Stick. The time is still a millennia or so hence and involves the same lead character.

I awoke to the same appalling sameness of my life. My youngest was stealing food, dried meat, from a basket I kept near my bed. I was hungry, my head hurt and the mouth ulcer still refused to clear. “Get the hell out you little bastard”. It hurt when I yelled but it was the only way to get him to pay attention.

I rose kicking my foot on some unseen obstacle. This dark space beneath the earth, built a thousand years ago, was secure, concealed and warm but a pain to live in. Once more I cursed. The little one was now whimpering in some unseen corner. “Come here darling” I tried to find the little brat concealed by the darkness of my home. I do love him but I just don’t need the extra stress in my life. Eventually he came to me and we felt our way to the curving ramp that lead to the surface. The entrance was nicely hidden and afforded a sizable area to work in out of the sun. It overlooked a broad valley in the foot hills of a towering mountain range.

It was mid morning and, thankfully, it had rained during the night. We busied ourselves collecting the various vessels that we had set the night before to collect condensation. At least the rain was a change. The boy ran of to find fuel for a fire while I set to work grinding some seed into a paste. I reflected on this task that had been done for millennia; with only a short break hundreds and hundreds of years ago, imagine living in the golden times.

As I worked a lone man on the other side of the valley caught my attention. A moving black spot some distance away. Apart from the boy he was the first I had seen in two long years. How could he have survived the plane beyond? That crossing had cost my partner and my darling daughter two winters before. And we were well equipped. This man was on foot, he did not even posses a cart. Was he from east of the mountains? No, that was imposable!

My husband had insisted on this foolish exodus. He believed the old men who said the world was repairing. He believed the traveller who came to our village; his claims that fertile land was to be had to the east. He believed that it was time; that we should found a new village. To start civilisations promise. I should have protested more, refused to go. Yes, the land is fertile, but, one lone woman and her child do not make a new civilisation. The others who promised to follow never came.

These were my thoughts as I watched the lone figure in concealed fascination. My boy, now beside me, pointed at the lone figure. “Be still”. I didn’t think we had been seen. “Quickly, fetch the glass”. He returned with my scope; it had been made by my partners father, a leaving gift. I spied the figure as he trod his way across the grass filled valley. He was in good shape. Clean, upright and strong but was not dressed in the way of my clan’s folk. Clearly he was making toward the southern end of our valley where some low trees grew. We had not been seen; I felt relief.

Triumph of the conscious

F0r most of my life I believed that being aware was good a noble ideal. Now I realises the error of my ways; being ignorant is a more than viable alternative. I spend my life concerned about things that I have no influence over. I worry about the state of the global environment and the rapid simplification of the global ecosystem. I am scared shitless by the rise of religious fundamentalism. I fear the one sided economic push. I loath the mounting restrictions on personal freedom.

I guess my problem is that my personal horizon is too big. I must only concern myself with the here and now, with my immediate gratification. I should disregard the future. When I see injustice (that doesn’t affect me) I will close my eyes. When I see climate or environmental assessments in the journals I read I will turn the page. When politicians start politicking I will only receive the message that appeals to my immediate needs and predaceous and ignore the long term impact of their short term policy. I will ignore the corporate hegemony of our lives or at least accept it as a gift from wiser people. In short I must endeavour to become one of the unconcerned, uniformed majority.

I will make my main concerns which prime time drama to watch. My sadness shall be reserved for dead celebrities or my favourite prime time drama being axed. I will only be outraged by what Rupert Murdoch tells me to be outraged about. I shall only listen to commercial adult-contemporary radio station (or may be even the commercial shock jocks). In all ways I will become a model citizen.

My only problem will be getting some genetic therapy to switch on my faith gene; how can I follow this doctrine without faith that, no matter what I do and what I ignore, I will be rewarded in some afterlife?

End of fantasy: we’re screwed.

Spectacular spectacular

Last night I went to an interesting show. It was a stage tribute to a TV music programme that aired from the mid seventies to eighties in my country. The TV show featured mainly local acts but also promoted international stars. The host of the show was credited with bringing a pile acts to a large audience. Over the years it aired every one in the music industry (that counted in my country). It was one of the top rating programs of the era (and well before MTV).

Some how the promoters of the live show got a heap of local acts, who featured on the TV show, to appear in a live tribute. These were the people who provided the sound track for my teenage years. I guess there would have been 50 or so songs performed over the evening by may be 150 musicians. Some songs were performed by the original line up, for other others the solo artist or lead singer from the original band would play with the ‘house band’ which was made up with other famous musos from the period.

Now if I had of seen any of these performers live in there peak I would have been happy. Seeing them, trotted out, doing their “hit” and then being replaced by an equally famous acts of from the past left me a little flat. True it tended to be the B graders that performed the show but there were a few who were very popular in their day and some of the songs were the anthems of my youth.

Some how it was nearly sad. These idols of a bygone age displayed on a revolving stage strutting their claim to fame. Don’t get me wrong. I have seen Mark Knopfler and Deep Purple recently and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. But, well, largely, they just didn’t capture It (whatever It is). Some of the acts were still great and I did enjoy them but they were only on for a song or two.

Maybe it is just me. I have a lot of albums and very few of my favourites are compilations. Well at least the tickets were free…….

Truthieness

The Al gore film, An Inconvenient Truth, opens in my country this week. The news feeds are full of it. The man has made the usual TV and radio appearances and the news organisations ask the usual questions. The sadly predictable thing is that the politicians from the two major parties are neatly following the party line – you know the right say bullshit and the left grant cautious acceptance. It is time to break this argument out of politics – this is about survival.

So we have then usual responses to the most important issue facing humanity. The science is done and dusted, consensus has been reached, there are no more arguments to be had. The only hold outs are a handful of non-climatologists funded by the carbon levy. The outstanding question is how bad it will be and even there the consensus is very strong. On our current trajectory the range is ‘end of civilisation as we know it’ through to ‘extinction’ of humans. By taking action now, and I mean now, there is a chance that our species and hopefully our civilisation can survive.

I have been convinced, but that wasn’t hard. It is easy for me to understand scientific and technological arguments and I have been reading those arguments and counter arguments for twenty years. I accept the evidence for human induced global warming. Even though I have a vested interest in the hydrocarbon economy I have an even bigger stake in ensuring the world is a good place to live. My DNA demands a future where it can continue to exist long after I am gone.

So the real question is how to convince the world leaders, the Bill Gates, Rupert Murdochs’ and the like, that with out change their achievements will be meaningless and that a world of low carbon emissions does not mean the end of making bucket full’s of cash. These are smart people with their own self interest at heart. These are the ones that need to be convinced, the ones with the power to change the world. Lobbying politicians is a waste of time and resources. The green groups need to get the mega capitalists on the team. This is where the game will be won or lost.

In Europe the CEOs of BP, Shell, BASF and others are in the game. That is why Europe is so much further down the path. This example needs to be emulated in the rest of the world.

The time to act is now. If you know any rich people pass on the word. Present the argument in terms of NPV, diminishing returns, succession and legacy. It is pointless sitting around with people who already agree wringing your hands, talking to politicians or getting on the local news media. This will achieve nothing without the agreement of capital.

Go direct to the leadership - talk to CEOs and other wealthy individuals.

Life stories

The other night I was visiting a friend. There were several of us sitting on his back patio having a chat over a few intoxicants. The evening was cool and still and we chatted about politics, religion and the environment. With out any waring a loud BANG rang out over the suburb. From the way the sound rattled around I guessed it was about 500m away from my friends house. “Do you think it was a gun shot” one of the others asked. I didn’t think so. It was too loud, too much percussion.

I very much suspect it was one of the local kids experimenting. I know I blew a few things up when I was a kid. We laughed as we and exchanged stories of blowing things up and other dangerous experiments we did as kids. These experiments were a memorable part of growing up as a geek.

I wonder if those involved in the explosion we heard will be sitting around in twenty or thirty years telling the tale of the night the let of the big one.

Memory stick part 3

Here is part three - you might want to read parts one and two first...

With one day to go we entered the chamber with the goal of coming up with an action plan. We made paper copies of the control panel and lists of translated word that might be useful. Vernon explained what he expected when the ON button was pressed and we rehearsed a hundred potential sequences. The day dragged on in this manner. We even started to speculate what this language sounded like.

I didn’t sleep well that evening. Restless hours tossing, turning, staring at the stars, swatting at insects….. I recall seeing first light and then, just after dawn, Vernon woke me. I was in no shape for this. He sensed my condition and prescribed some concoction of herbs.

I picked at breakfast but the herbal tea seemed to work. Although there were ten people sitting around our section of the camp no one spoke. And even though only Vernon and I knew what was going on our fellows seemed to be infected by this anticipation. The gravity of the day was palpable.

Vernons special compass, which he now carried constantly, chimed. The gears and cogs whirred. He consulted the dials. “I was afraid of this, time to move boy. Our six ours have been reduced to two.” The event had been rescheduled.

I made to pick up a pile of supplies for the day. “No need for those, just bring a water bag and fresh bucket”. I quickly grabbed the items that some unseen steward had left during the night and chased after him as he headed toward the cave entrance. ‘Once more into the wizards’ arena’ I thought as we descended in the moving room.

The lighting in the room had changed, gone was the familiar, almost cozy, warm aspect. The whole room was illuminated as brightly as if by sun light; the whole ceiling glowing bright white. I could also hear a low rumble.

“No time to waste, quickly lay out our parchments”

I fumbled and knocked over Vernons ‘instant table’. He did not comment but just started picking up the papers. His compass chimed, the cogs whirred “30 minutes boy, no time for niceties” The hum in the room changed note. The some of the buttons on the control panel illuminated. “Now boy, hit the ON button”. As my finger made contact the blank square in the panel filled with the strange text. I started translating. “Vernon, It, it is listing options…. Upload…. Delete…. Start new… Refresh”

Vernon approached and looked over my shoulder. “Hmm.. I suspect given there is nothing in the arena that we should upload”. He pressed the corresponding button A new list of options appeared. He elbowed me aside – but not in a rude or pushy way.

A list of names and dates. “Vernon this is sporting fixtures – I recognise the team names from the ruins”.

“Yes I see that.” He randomly selected one of the options. The arena in front of us filled with some crazy geometric pattern that resolved into what I am guessing was the ruins above, but in their glory days. A full model. I looked closer and could see people in the stands and on the playing surface. On the display the options were replaced by symbols – arrows, squares, a definite three axis that I remembered from geometry books, and others. It was my turn. I felt some connection with these markings. I pressed the axis button and a pair of clock wise and anti-clockwise symbols appeared. I pressed one. The whole model in the arena rotated. I then pressed others. I found I could zoom in to an area, spin it around on any plane, and make the people in the model move faster, slower or backward. I could even hear the words said by individuals when I made them come close.

Vernon grumbled “This is no good, it is just some record of the ancient past. I have read of such devices but could not fathom how they would look”. The time dial on his compass was reading 5 minutes. For the first time I saw Vernon looking forlorn.

I looked at the panel for some time. I had no option, this was now my show. I pressed the button with the symbol for option upon it. The model in the arena dissolved back into the crazy collection of lines and geometric shapes and then back into the grey grid mesh of its floor. Scanning the list of options that appeared one stood out – Refresh. I pressed it. Verons compass chimed zero seconds.

I can’t really describe the next few moments.

Everything changed. I was lying in some sort of sterile environment. A room. There were other people engaged in unfathomable tasks. One was working a panel, not dissimilar to the one I had been at moments before. A woman approached, she spoke in some foreign tongue. She then spoke to they man at the panel who nodded and proceeded to finger the display.

She spoke once more “Hello Zara, your sim broke down. Please relax it is perfectly normal to experience a lot of disorientation. Don’t try to speak just yet….” She looked down at some device. “It appears you found a glitch with one of the AI characters. That should of alarmed months ago”. I tried to speak but only some unrecognisable garbage came out.

My mind whirled. I was confused. I could remember things that were beyond my experience. I knew this facility. I think I knew the man at the console – his name was…Arthur, eys Arthur. It was a cute name he had adopted after his ….his out time?

I could remember my youth playing with the other boys I my fathers court, training with Vernon and….and my middle aged husband? I had lived two lives. No more, many more. I recalled living in space with aliens, a Neanderthal tribe, swimming the oceans as a whale and a dozen more. I finally recalled the real me; a 400 year old woman who lived on an earth where death was optional. Where you can only spend one tenth of your life living, the rest of the time you are condemned to a live a fantasy – of your own design.

I had booked in for another full life experience, my favourite. 100 years of sim, my husband was booked in for the same stretch. We had planned to save up a full ten years of life and loan another eight together to produce our first child. Now he lay somewhere in this facility with a couple of million other nominally dead minimally alive people while I wasted my up time.

I began to cry. The woman approached me. “it’s ok. We can restart, When you get back to the sim you wont even be aware that this has happened. It will be something to chuckle about when you come out to live. You don’t even need to prep – your already wired and plumbed’

She carefully re-arranged some tubes and leads. I felt a wave of cold over my body.

Vernons look of depression was replaced with elation. “My boy this is it. Look the arena is filled with book files. The ultimate artefact. The ultimate machine. It does contain all knowledge – well at least the useful things. We can analyse it, we can ponder its workings. This will finally allow our civilisation to break away from the curse, this crutch of magic to solve our problems”. I was only relieved that pressing the refresh button didn’t destroy the machine.

Vernon stayed at the cave site while I returned home to take up his post. Even though I was young Vernon greased the path, so to speak, appearing in the court and even to the masses.

Now, at the end of my life, I feel that it was a life well lived. I look back on all that I have achieved and the transformation of my society. Our life is free from wizards and kings. We live in enlightened times where all knowledge is shared and all can contribute. I am pleased. My natural death will conclude it well.

So that is the story where the technological singularity was reached and humanity uses a simple method to overcome environmental problems. The next one will be shorter – I promise.

Lazy kids

We are often told how lazy the youth of today are. They sit around in front of one screen or other while eating themselves to obesity. They don’t want to help with house work, don’t play much sport, get mum or dad to drive them everywhere and will not get involved with community activities. Now this may be a bad thing but there is an up side.

There is this guy in our neighbourhood who puts bird and bat breeding boxes up trees. He loves the native fauna and will do everything in his power to ensure their survival. Just recently my partner was asking him if he has much trouble with vandals; he locates the boxes in trees in isolated parts of the burb. His reply was no. Back, say ten years ago, he would have to mount them at least 8 meters above the ground. Even then the local vandals would still throw rocks at them. Now he recons that 5 meters is more than enough and that it is rare to find any sign of damage.

Apparently the local vandals are too lazy (or fat) to climb that high.

Steve Irwin

I have just heard Steve Irwin has died. I feel a little sad about this. He was a good bloke, may be a bit of a dork, but one of the few real genuine people. I have no real connection with him other than seeing him doing a show at his Australia Zoo earlier this year. I guess that was enough to catch some of his enthusiasm. I will also admit to have watched his TV shows and movie – having a young son gives one an excuse. Well, just maybe, I was a fan.

His exuberance and passion for animals and preservation made him unique. I know a couple who went to high school with him and apparently what you see on TV is him. It is not fake. His over the top enthusiasm is because that is the way he was.

It sounds like he died doing what he loved. I guess that is a good thing. I offer my sympathy to his family and friends.

I salute a life well lived. May his work continue.

Memory stick part 2

Okay this has become a is a multipart thing. youn might want to read part 1 further down first.

Vernon directed the work team to a cave entrance that hade been blocked off by a land side. Huge boulders were knotted together by vegetation. The heat and flying insects made a miserable existence for the guys. There wasn’t much space to manoeuvre and the men took their turn breaking up rocks and dragging away vines, roots and debris. By the end of the first day I was able to work my way into the entrance proper and started to explore a little way into the cave.

It was discussing. The smell was fantastic, small bats clung the low ceiling. The floor was crawling with all manor of creepies feasting of the thick layer of bat shit The oil lamp I had been provided with was next to useless. Several times I brushed into the bats causing a cascade of them to take flight. I guess I would have been no more than 10 meters into the cave where I discovered the remains of some unidentifiable animal as my foot sunk through its bug infested corps. This was enough for me and I beat my retread back to the crawl hole and mad a hasty exit.

Howls of laughter greeted my return. ’Laddie did you have young lass in there with yea?’ One of the men managed to get out between guffaws. Even Vernon was actually smiling, now that was a first. I dusted of and jumped fully clothed into the small creak fully clothed. I swear I could not get that smell out of my nose and could feel the bugs crawling across my skin for the rest of the night.

The next day the cave entrance was fairly accessible. A good portion of proof rum mixed with lamp oil was thrown in and ignited. It made a satisfying Woof followed by a cloud of black smoke and bats. The flames dwindled and a few of the more adventurous ventured into the cave. Loud cries of complaint issued from the crew: ‘Caw….did you drop one jimmy’ and the like. It was all a lot of fun but Vernon was starting to look serious.

‘Right you lot clear the cave’. His order was followed with no hesitation.

He called me to his side, lit his lamp and proceeded inside. The lamp was a marvellous contraption. It emitted the purest white light with no smoke or heat. Noticing my inquisitiveness he assured me that it was a scientific device, no magic involved. Still it was amazing and revealed the cave in all its gory. I noticed details that I had missed totally before – this was not a cave it was a structure. I could see beams and flat surfaces.

I could not fathom this place : ladder like foot holds were on all the walls and ceiling. Shallow glass protrusions glinted in under the glare of Vernon’s un-magic lamp. What I assumed to be guard rails where also apparent but made no sense on the walls. We pushed onward. May be 50 meters on we found the end wall of the cave/structure and what clearly was a door way, but unlike anything I had seen before. Vernon produced a wallet containing an assortment of intricate tools.

The door object was made of some moulded material. I reached out and touched it. This was surprising. The door appeared to be some sort of painted metal but had the same feel as finely finished wood. Vernon spoke ‘Until now you have assumed a passive role in this adventure. I have trained you these past four years in the ways of magic, mechanics and science. It is time you put those skills to some use.’

I didn’t have a clue what he was on about as he handed me his tools. ‘Fathom the mechanism of this door and open it’. Fair enough, he had directed me to lean the art of lock picking ‘as an exercise in logic’. I had excelled at this task, easily opening all the doors I could find, mind you most of this was done late at night in my fathers castle; you would be amazed at what junk people put under lock and key. Firstly I evaluated the target. It was like a flat panel fitted into the jam. There was no handle or key hole. I explored further, and, after dusting of the area surrounding the frame I found a small slightly recessed panel. There were what appeared to be words (in some strange language) inscribed in squares on the panel. Clearly they were the mechanism.

Simple things first; I pressed one and then the other. The door dissolved in front of my very eyes, clearly this was magic. Some strange magic that left no flavour. The revealed room was no more than a few meters square. It smelt strange, sweet but not pleasantly so. Vernon gestured me on. We entered and another of those strange panels was evident. This one was larger with two columns of numbered squares and unlike the other the symbols in the squires were illuminated.

We puzzled the markings for some time. Vernon reached out and pressed the one on the lower right side. The door re-appeared and my stomach started to rise to my throat Vernon steadied me with a hand on my shoulder. The illuminated numbers changed colour one at a time in a sequence down the panel. I believe we were moving down!

The chamber we reached was like some sort of mini stadium. A guar rail surrounded a round depressed pit. The floor of the pit was some sort of grid mesh. I spotted another of those strange panels mounted on the rail. We walked around. As we reached the panel it illuminated. There were many symbols in different colours.

I remember feeling very afraid. This are had the feel of some sort of cauldron of some powerful mage. I relaxed and heightened all my senses as per Verons teaching. I could feel no entity or presence in the paranormal aspect. This calmed me some what. I noticed Vernon busily setting up a small work table he had produced from beneath his robes. “Right lad we have seven days to cipher this mechanism”.

And so for the next six days we worked in this timeless room where neither light or temperature changed. I learnt the ways of the travelling room well in that period. Running errands back to the surface, bringing down supplies, emptying the waste bucket and the like.

The crew had established a fine camp and seemed very content with the area. On my frequent appearances they would ask of our progress as a way to glean some information as to what this mission was about. I always answered truthfully providing minute detail of the work of deciphering the strange script. Of course this did not help them in the slightest.

On the sixth day on one of my errands to the surface the captain of one of the minor ships ran up to me very excitedly. “We have found some ruins”. The crew had become bored and had taken to exploring the area.

“They are covered in glyphs and text, some of it is in very old standard, I have read it”

I knew immediately this would be useful. Despite Vernons astounding intellect, and my assistance, we were never going to decode the words on the control panel. I collected some tools, paper and measuring sticks then asked him to show me. Within an hour I stood within an obviously ancient structures. One wall contained text in several languages carved into grange granite. Could recognise the ancient standard and also the strange symbols we had been deciphering. Working carefully and quickly I made rubbings and highlighted details that were missed in this process. I immediately headed back to Vernon with this information.

He started to berate me for my tardiness but he saw the look in my eye and the rolls of paper I was carrying. Quickly I set them down on the ground and unrolled them. Vernon immediately understood what lay before him. He was elated and almost hugged me but caught himself mid act and feigned interest in his sleeve – this was the first time I had seen him at anything less than 100% in control of himself. I was proud.

“My boy, this is it. Look here – see the list of our numbers see the corresponding symbols – I know we already had that but look….” He went on for some time and yes it was obvious. We had stared at the strange marking for this long week and knew them all. Now we had meaning. The ancient text spelled out the rules of a team sport essentially the same as football. There were minor differences - each break in play, due to a goal score or time out would last exactly 15, 30 or 60 seconds. I don’t understand why. As we read the strange text it became intelligible. The syntax was the same as ours. Some words were much shorter than and they didn’t worry to much about gender, punctuation or joining words. But it was simple.

Now looking at the control panel was as if some one had relabelled everything. There was still a disturbing blank portion in the middle of the screen but the word “ON” was easy to understand. Vernon forbade be touching the console for a further 48 hours – this was a clear 12 hours in front of the event predicted by his contraption. “twelve hours will be more than enough to master this mechanism” were his final word on the subject.

We spent the next two days on the surface. This was a relief. The captain who had discovered the text was congratulated and Vernon awarded him two years wage for his discovery. In fact he was in such spirits that he awarded all crew a full years pay on our return home. There was much merriment and feasting than night. The next day Vernon and I inspected the ruins. It had clearly been a sporting arena. I don’t know who I failed to see this on my first visit. I guess the jungle growing in the play area might have disguised it. The text was in what I suspect was the entrance to the place. It was represented in twelve languages. Vernon said he recognised five of them but the others were a mystery. It is strange that on the whole world only standard is spoken (mind you some of the dialects are barely recognisable).

Veron spent most of the rest of the day examining the site while I was content to sit in the sun, watch the birds fly around and generally just be lazy for a day.

End of part 2

War on errorism

Just a thought. What about if the governments of the world banned all news reporting of any terrorist activity. A complete media black out of bombs exploding, planes falling and fools self detonating? They should still keep up the surveillance and intervention of persons of interest but publicly ignore that the problem exists.

My theory goes something along the lines that the terrorists are acting for groups, 99% of the time, that are trying to get control of some land they believe belongs to them. Religion is only used to recruit the dumb fucks that want to blow them selves up for a cause and not the reason for the terrorist activity. This view is backed up by the recent report and subsequent book by Professor Robert Pape (google him if you want a lot of statistics and analysis) who did has researched the past 460 odd suicide bombers and their motive.

The reason terrorism is used is to gain public exposure for their cause. This goal is to put pressure on the target government either to remove their troops from the disputed land or to stop supporting the government that is controlling the said land. So if you remove one of the cornerstones of the tactic then the problem should disappear.

I guess basically I hate to see terrorism succeeding. All the media hype and government scare mongering has thus far lead to new and novel ways to restrict our freedom. Basically they win.

End of thought