The water sprinkler in the woods

Yes, the new leader of the Committee is right.  I moved part of the supercomputer out of the sub-sub-subbasement and into the cave network stretched across parts of north Alabama, north Georgia, southeastern Tennessee and western North Carolina.

Some of my colleagues are investigating the feasibility of extending the network to subnetworks our subcommittees set up in Kentucky and Virginia centuries ago.

Just because I’m retired doesn’t mean I’m retired.  Although I am tired and losing my ability to maintain an understanding of this symbol set — the communication method you call the language of [American] English — to record these thoughts in the second decade of the 21st century.

I still keep in touch with my associates, of course.  After all, I have to eat and feed my family.

This very morning, I looked over some data analysis reports and found this tidbit of the future interesting.

A young boy, while watching “Real Steel,” came up with the idea of merging NASCAR, “The Last Starfighter,” “Real Steel,” and Google autonomous vehicles to give underutilised racetrack owners a way to make money when they aren’t hosting main events.

Without the need for human drivers and protective cages, racecars have taken on new shapes, much more interesting than the “win on Sunday, drive on Monday” models that have dominated the sport since its infancy.

Much more fun to watch, what with people sitting at home getting their fifteen seconds of driving their favourite car around the track, randomly picked throughout the race so that no viewer with special gaming equipment at home purchased just for this type of sport can leave the screen because anyone at any time can be picked to take over his or her (or its!) favourite car.

No one knows when other popular racecars have been taken over by autonomous software routines.

Seems like we have been here before, doesn’t it?

Didn’t Formula 1 already patent the invention of the robot driver called Michael Schumacher, discovering that even automatons like Mike deteriorate when pushed to the limit race after race, becoming less efficient, less successful, eventually?

Which brings us to the Olympics.  The sentient being we created for the U.S. Swim Team, Michael Phelps, is still performing well.  The early prototypes such as Muhammad Ali, Nadia Comăneci, and Lance Armstrong gave us trouble in the long run, but we learn from our construction projects no matter what they look like at the end.

How do we create these superstars of sports?

Easy.  We listen to the ignorance of the crowd.  Where they almost hit genius moments, like this writer, Jenna Wortham, who thinks interfaces with computing devices will only take place via our five senses.

Long ago, we learned how to put enhanced computing devices inside every part of the body, making individual body parts smarter, faster, cheaper.  Chemical, organic, undetectable — microorganisms that release designer molecules (phrases like “human growth hormone” are out of fashion, don’t you know?); microorganisms that clean up waste products such as urine, feces and sweat before they’re released from the body; microorganisms that attach to specific cells of the body (muscle tissue, for instance) without flooding the bloodstream with the appearance of banned substances.

Waiting for the slow feedback loop between our sensory organs and computing devices is just a plain waste of time and effort.

For now, we’ll let the populace believe their antiquated interface devices like mobile phones and tablet PCs are somehow making them more productive busybodies — not much better in retrospective than a group of Neanderthals sitting around the person who discovered fire, asking, “Okay, fine!  But can it cut up the meat for us afterward?” — because we know they don’t know better, and are stuck in this time period.

We’ll let dilettante comedians convince their audiences that they’re one step away from the great breakthrough, as long as you pay for their humour-filled advice.

After all, those who can’t see the future have only this moment in which to live.

Well, yes, I’ve told you you also only have this moment in which to live, but then that’s what I wanted you to believe at the moment I wrote it.

How else am I supposed to show you that every moment matters because no moment matters?

Anyway, I’ve an experiment to check.

If you put a water sprinkler in the woods and nobody noticed, would the birds that sipped water from dripping tree leaves have an effect on your future?

If I don’t humour myself, who will?  If I can’t humour myself, who can?

If a movie like “Into The Wild” is probably a false retelling of history, why tell it?

How can I find out?  Use an upcoming holiday trip to test the theories that supercomputers create to entertain themselves.

Repeating thoughts and news of natural events as a form of long-distance-over-time communication is more tiring than I first thought when I was invited to lead the Committee.  They hinted but didn’t tell me that a leader never stops leading.

Lucky me!

Back to my cup of hot tea on a day when 105 deg F is no big deal, watching a tick crawl up my leg and nestle into a break in my skin, releasing chemicals into my bloodstream that affect my immediate future, much less my future 1000 years from now.

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