Ah, to have the balance of world power in my hands…to be a citizen of Slovakia…to [bleep]: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the drubbing the EU will take if it’s not careful.
Signed, Anonymously Alcoholic
Tag Archives: chapter excerpt
Ginger, Bread, Man
Should we commend or condemn the inventor of the office wall partition?
What does the height of your partition wall, like the length of your belt, indicate?
In the knowledge economy, where knowledge factory workers sit in front of flat electronic panels and try to make sense of pixelated information, what characterises a sense of decency?
Is there enough oil in North Dakota to eliminate America’s dependence on Middle East politics?
What does Eurussiasia, Putin’s latest political alliance, mean for the future?
Will Oceania, Eastasia and Eurasia ever make peace in this postProust 1984 global conglomerate?
Now that my Arduino is controlling sensors and feeders, monitoring the nutrient/microorganism mix for individual trees and shrubs in my wooded front yard, will I influence the random interaction of plants and animals that give me a sense of decency while I sit in front of a notebook PC next to the front bedroom window?
Back to the ol’ circle of influence and control – do you keep your thoughts on what you want and off the things you don’t?
Do you set your goals as high as possible or completely out of reach?
Yesterday, after the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of a large office complex at the local military base, I toured the facilities, greeting several people I know and meeting new ones in corridors and office cubicles.
Except for specific products in the pictures hung in hallways, I could have been in any office anywhere in the world, where artificial lighting, central heat/air, wall-to-wall carpet, suspended ceilings, cafeteria, barber shop, coffee shop, exercise facility, Internet lounge, conference rooms, windows with a view, water fountain in the courtyard and raised floors are the norm.
A yellow redbud leaf blows past the window like a butterfly on a mission.
One thousand years from now, what will the view from this part of the world look like?
One thousand years ago, we did not anticipate the globally-connected cities and military forces of today. We were primarily engaged in regional, not international, affairs.
Right now, we’re building the galactic equivalent of pea shooters, flinging little metal objects into various parts of the solar system, or up-and-down in our atmosphere.
The universe does not operate on the level of fair play and a sense of decency – we have created and imposed these imaginary concepts (is any concept not imaginary?) on ourselves.
All I can do is take the resources available to me, construct a viable timeline full of doable milestones in order to reach an impossible goal, and encourage us to achieve some, many or most of the milestones in our lives full of distractions and delays.
Hopefully, including bigger pea shooters that get us (or our reengineered equivalents) off this planet.
In the process, for those who want them, I will give you the opportunity to feel a sense of fair play and decency in your daily lives, using humour, history and future projections to nudge us forward in this storyline of our species.
Sometimes, when I’m bored, I’ll make fun of us insensitively. I would apologise for my behaviour ahead of time but I know you’re mature and strong enough to handle any unintended insult, respecting the right of personal opinion and free speech.
Well, there’s a call coming in on the MORTIE network – gotta go.
Thanks to Beth and Austin at Publix; Aramark workers, including Timichalla (?), Stephen Austin (regional executive chef), and the guy who said, “Pardon me, coming through”; Bub, Tara, Suzie, Haley, and Rebecca at Brookdale Place Jones Farm; U.S. taxpayers.
Branches Falling Off Trees
The two little birdfeeders in the backyard attract avian friends from all across the suburban landscape.
While I was verbally sketching out what the Book of the Future planned for our Martian expedition, a Committee member interrupted.
“Look, I understand the importance of longterm planning but we have a crisis on our hands. While we look ahead decades from now, we have an uprising of people protesting against financial elites. What’s to prevent them from declaring our Martian exploration project elitist?”
What can I say? I’m both an adherent and opponent of technology dependence, like everyone else on the Committee.
“Well, [name removed], do you have a proposal or are you just whining to hear yourself heard?”
“Good point. Actually, I do have an alternative. Why don’t we show sympathy for the protesters, instead of arresting them, and offer them jobs they can’t refuse? It always works in my line of business.”
“Ha ha. Folks, what do you think? Does [name removed] have a valid idea?”
A mix of grunts, nods, shakes and blank stares served as responses, depending on which Committee members were paying attention, tapping on their communication devices, using enhanced brain wave technology to converse with members of their subcommittees, or catching a quick nap.
= = =
In 2005, after a lot of “encouragement,” I formed a group we jokingly called Black Ops Network Services. We have an official name I can’t share with you unless you have a serious death wish (and those who have a death wish, let me know – we want to channel your feelings/thoughts for a special experiment currently in progress).
In order to protect the group, we use the acronym of the joke name and go by BONS, which has a special meaning to our entrepreneur members.
And yes, we get plenty of ribbing, hearing jokes about our similarity to a fictional spy, such that a catchphrase has caught on, “BONS, not Bond.” Also, “BONS, just BONS,” “‘Bond?’ ‘No, BONS,'” and some I won’t repeat hear here because of international censorship issues we’re negotiating to eliminate.
Members of BONS are found in all walks of life, most especially in such innocent places as nursing homes, retirement villages and independent/assisting living communities.
Take yesterday, for example.
I took my mother in-law to an Oktoberfest celebration at a local independent/assisting living community. While a three-man polka band played popular music familiar to anyone who enjoyed the Lawrence Welk Show through the years, community members ate bratwurst, sauerkraut, boiled potatoes and apple strudel. Some drank bier. Some drank Pepsi. Some drank wasser…err, I mean water.
I found a convenient place to sit against the wall next to my mother in-law and enjoy the scene. A couple of the workers wore dirndl-like clothing and danced with those who were able and willing to attempt the polka or a facsimile thereof.
Most importantly, I was there to make contact with some retired professionals, a few who worked for the precursor to BONS.
You see, one never really retires from the business.
We may look retired or act retired but we’re always working our network connections to ensure the greater good is being served up to the end of our days.
= = =
In this morning’s Committee meeting, I reminded the members, after getting their full attention, that we have the means to influence the protesters, using their parents and peers who are connected to BONS or its predecessors.
The member who was involved in starting the worldwide riots asked us to give the member’s subcommittee an opportunity to recruit some more people before changing the direction of the protests radically.
We’ll reconvene tomorrow.
In the meantime, I’ve got to find out from my BONS team how many mentally active former members of BONS’ ancestors want to influence global affairs again, even if they don’t [know how to] use all the modern technological means that BONS has at its disposal.
= = =
A nod to the family, friends and coworkers of Steve Jobs, a prime example of a positive influence on others, if there ever was one. Sometimes, the best way to change the flow of mainstream thinking is to build a viable alternative path using resources available to both mainstream and alternative thinkers.
Fau Vey
I haven’t played with a spaghetti-coated breadboard in a long time.
Amazing, those days I spent in my parents’ basement, looking at schematics and converting them into breadboarded computing systems, mainly with the RCA 1802 and Intel 8080/8085 CPUs.
In our day, switches, relays, light bulbs, and later, transistors, LEDs, “pots” (potentiometers) and other parts, mixing analog and digital signals for alarm systems, oscilloscopes, and finally, desktop-sized personal computers, occupied our idle teenage years.
These days, kids load up a GUI programming system and off they go.
We used to tune carburetors and exhaust systems by hand to improve our straightline and slalom speeds. Now, they use chip programmers to tune hotrods for speed and fuel efficiency.
They’re even flying electric aeroplanes that can carry human-sized “cargo.”
What’s next?
Will preschool kids take online courses like these?
How does/can technology improve an event like Oktoberfest?
I homebrewed beer back in the mid 1990s. What has technology done for the homebrew business?
Is the price for decreased demand in the marketplace simply higher unemployment? And is unemployment the words we really want to use to describe those who aren’t tethered to the flow of labour credits we call wages?
I purposefully retired in 2007 so I could focus on what’s important to me. Sure, that made me, an active member of the workforce at the age of 45, unemployed because I wasn’t relying on a steady stream of investment income to compensate for the cutoff of labour/salary/wage-based income.
However, unemployed does not equate to inactive.
I haven’t sat still for the past four-plus years.
I’ve written a bunch of books, blogged daily, consulted for a friend who wanted a formal test lab at his startup company, written business plans for potential startups, worked for the U.S. Census Bureau, donated blood, supported charities, aided my mother in-law and managed my investments that I haven’t yet tapped in order to build principal as much as possible before siphoning off dividends and interest in my old age.
I’ve also played with my childhood toys – electronic parts, books, RC planes, balsa wood models, hiking boots, electronic keyboards, computers.
All while staying in touch with my network of friends and associates.
Unemployment is a mindset. Lack of a means of paying for the cost of living and maintaining a comfortable standard of living is a practicality.
Should we expect our fellow humans to support clean water, affordable food, personal privacy/property rights and a safe, crimefree society?
Very little of my life is magical.
Pretty much everything has a ready explanation or a line of reasoning with which I can pursue answers.
Like snapping connectors into a solderless breadboard.
Or managing a whole species.
Propose a solution, experiment with a prototype, roll out an alpha/beta version to eager testers, observe and report, make a golden version for private/commercial/public use and go on to the next question(s).
States of energy in flux.
Convincing young people to serve in professional, paid, military roles to protect us from ourselves, serving hidden purposes for the greater good, including clean water, affordable food, personal privacy/property rights and a safe, crimefree society.
If you don’t know what you’re doing, someone will tell you or convince you what you’re doing, usually to someone else’s benefit.
Those who accumulate wealth for the sake of personal power and wealth are vulnerable to the barbarians at the gate whose lack of basic amenities denies them a sense of decency.
Are you serving yourself or others?
Are your states of energy connected at the self, family, subcultural, cultural, planetary, solar system or universal level?
Are you more interested in inflating your ego or feeding and establishing the egos of those around you?
What am I going to do with these wires, electronic parts, Arduino and breadboard that’ll improve the longterm survival of our species within the solar system ecosystem?
Unemployed? Not me.
I’m a set of states of energy in motion.
Fahrvergnügen!
After the Bridge Game
In the suburbs of middle-class America in the 1970s, adults gathered for bridge club games, serving hors d’oeuvres that showcased popular supermarket products and recipes of the time – crackers, soda, wine, cheese spreads, minisandwiches – while children played outside, downstairs, in their rooms or back at their homes while babysitted.
It was a special time.
Men and women reminisced about their college years – sorority socials, sock hops, late-night study sessions, sports injuries, choral performances.
Now, sitting in an independent/assisted living community with your peers, you recall both the college years and the ’70s reminiscing.
Your children, grownup with children (and grandchildren) of their own.
Computers, email, electronic social networks…words and phrases you’ve heard about on TV or read about in newspapers but otherwise completely unfamiliar to you.
Your time is free and yet paid for.
Still more comfortable with friends your age than being the “wise” [great]grandmother/aunt.
Social graces your specialty – polite discussions about sports, wishing all players a safe game, no extreme fan behaviour or rude demeanor; religious beliefs assumed, not worn on your sleeve like a badge; politics a personal decision, not an in-your-face confrontation.
In your day, this seemed to be the most common form of conversation.
Now, rudeness and crudeness prevail. Headlines blast drug abuse, sex scandals and economic turmoil like a disease run out of control.
When did the least common denominator become most prevalent?
Why can’t we raise everyone up instead of putting people down?
Finally, you stop subscribing to newspapers, magazines and cable/satellite television.
Instead, you increase the number of weekly bridge club games and reminisce with people who understand your desire to live in simpler, quieter, kinder times.
A lifetime of experiences you share and compare, not preach to younger generations.
Staining My Bowling Shoes Red, White and Blue
The Committee’s weekly agenda is loaded down with minutiae.
For instance, what are the official colours of the Committee’s standard/shield/flag? Should there be a symbol that represents the whole solar system at this point? Would the planets in orbit suffice as a symbol set and, if so, should we have a side-on profile of the planets or a tilted plane with a snapshot of the planets’ position? What point in time should the snapshot show? Are there official uniforms for our security personnel or is incognito our motto as well as our dress code?
One of our longterm agenda items is education. We have allowed the wholescale random education of our children for thousands of years because we’re fully aware people will choose to use education for their own edification, accepting or rejecting what they’ve been taught. Some (many) will waffle between accepting and rejecting – adding, subtracting, and modifying portions of their “programmed” thought sets at will, based on the mood of the crowd/mob/subcultures they expose themselves to.
In the Futures Lab, our construction expert is working with scientists to architect a building that is ready for robotic maintenance and repair, including HVAC, computing, communication and security systems. We laughed when a simulation showed a building could be maintained much more efficiently if it didn’t have to be designed to accommodate humans. We saved that simulation to show we humans may not always be as indispensable as we pretend to be to one another.
When you replace your invisible deity/deities with technology…well, we’ve read enough books and seen enough movies to know what can happen…we improve the manufacture of gods in our image until the gods become omniscient and can manufacture themselves in their own image, whatever that may be, most likely amoral and nonethical.
Lead, follow or get out of the way.
Does it make sense to get robots to grow and process food for us or keep using cheap, imported labour (and/or exported jobs)?
Does the downy woodpecker on the shagbark hickory tree outside the window care about anything I’m saying, especially words like singularity and future shock waves? No. That’s a lesson I always take back to the Committee – anthropocentric ideas and technologies are dwarfed by the random acts of universe.
Even the squirrel walking down the tree with a hickory nut in its mouth knows that much.
When you think big, think REALLY BIG. Otherwise, we’re just bigger versions of squirrels and woodpeckers subject to randomness at the same scales/ranges our ancestors have faced for innumerable generations.
The Game of Risk, Redux
Here we are, in the future.
As we’ve seen before, it was a corporation that established colonies on Mars.
How did we get there?
Easy.
First of all, the U.S. Congress demonstrated the U.S. had no international power of its own, anymore, conceding and bowing down to the megaconglomerates that disapproved of setting tariffs on Chinese goods in response to China’s lack of concrete effort to let the yuan/USD exchange rate reach its true fluctuating market value.
After all, we’re dealing with reality here. There’s no grassroots movement strong enough to get millions of people to force Congressional candidates to sign unbreakable promises on this issue or risk not getting [re]elected.
Sure, we have the potential start of a massive uprising, starting as they often do, in small-scale protests on the East/West Coast, but is there enough spark to light the flames of a full-scale US Autumn to rival the Arab Spring?
What is your desire – a) trying to repair the system we have, avoiding an undeniable double-dip, or) b letting chaos seep into the system and cracking it apart, destabilising market prices – stocks, foods, bonds, property, fuel – causing waves of riots over multiple chronic issues?
I get bored at times but do I want economic war on my doorstep?
Does the Lost/Unemployed Generation have the wherewithal to stand its ground against City Hall?
Does the Generation-In-Power have the foresight to make corporate/government policy changes that benefit the people in every socioeconomic level?
Meanwhile, I’m envious of deaf people and those with whom they use sign language. They can talk at the table with their mouths full and be fully understood.
And what about those Martian colonies if the U.S. Congress believes in the words of Old Hickory, Andrew Jackson, showing that banks/corporations aren’t fully in charge, and risks starting a trade war with pending legislation?
The supercomputer predicts that price increases (the aftereffect of tariffs/duties) would have a marginal effect on the global economy if the U.S. takes a unilateral approach on this issue, pushing China to increase exports to other countries interested in buying cheap goods, and encouraging the Obama administration to push harder for NAFTA-like status for countries like South Korea.
Pebbles in a pond – frequency/amplitude shifts.
Bottom line: The COTS equipment on Mars will simply have a different “country of origin” mix – everything is the same, everything is different, mass and energy are conserved, or are they?
Breaking the seal on an old new Arduino Duemilanove
Subtitled, “When in Rome, you feel like you’re designed by tinker.it”
Digging through a pile of old electronic parts, I found a packaged Arduino kit, which includes a solderless breadboard, USB cable, resistors, LEDs, switch and some connectors.
What are we grown-up kids learning and teaching?
I know all seven billion of us are connected so I wonder why a person wants to turn remote-controlled airplanes into flying bombs and break some of our good connections.
That’s not the way a well-educated hacker should think.
When someone says, “You’re the bomb,” they mean you have what it takes to make a positive influence on others, not that you’re literally a future newsworthy glob of spontaneous combustion.
Some days, I have to show how to be a positive influence by example.
Yes, an Arduino-based watch is interesting, and certainly scores points in the right social circles, but let’s think about the bigger picture, where engineering, design, social entrepreneurship and fun meet.
I’ve thought about setting up a photocell in the window of my study, connecting the cell to an Arduino and broadcasting to the Internet when enough sunlight is shining on the window to trigger the cell to “talk,” thus setting up a discussion about when solar power is appropriate for someone living in a cabin in the woods who’s connected to the electronic social network.
We’ll see. Hacking is not just breaking in or breaking down maliciously – it’s also about cutting away the dead wood to find and nurture a living center seeking new ways to prosper.
Maybe I’ll program my solar cells to do something interesting, program an automatic birdfeeder that detects and scares away squirrels (thought: what’s the difference between birds and mammals? hmm…). Maybe those high tech rednecks down the street can propose a useful idea for all the electronic junk in this room – CRTs, LCD monitors, old Macintosh computers, old laptops, electronic keyboards, model rockets, model airplanes, telescope, audio equipment, floppy disks, capacitors, resistors, transistors, Book of the Future, crystal ball,….
I’ve also got a storyline about our solar system to write, managing the location of killer asteroids/crashing satellites, my unhappy mother in-law, my wife’s stress load and an economy that’s naturally cooling down cyclically (the supercomputer shows that economies are like weather systems, with “seasons” that can’t be stopped, no matter how much we want to pump nutrients into trees (on which money grows) whose leaves are falling in autumn – winter is as normal in some parts of the world as air and water – are you part of an ant colony or a happy-go-lucky grasshopper?).
As 2011 draws closer to its end, I am closer to releasing the information some of you requested. Think I’ll need the month of November to put it all together.
Well, there’s a call coming in on the secret network – the Committee wants my attention again.
Talk to you later.
Gotta see if the new Kindle lineup is worth prepurchase. Most of them cost the same as a nice dinner date – which to choose?
Braves and USS New
A nod (if not another one) to the fellow who served aboard the USS New and dances with his wife at KCDC.
Can Atlanta win and St. Louis lose in the same last day of regular season MLB? Can the Arch withstand a D.C.-strength earthquake?
Does the cracked Washington Monument really have symbolic meaning?
Has the fog burned off yet?
A list of books piles higher in the house.
Piles of books rise higher, the reader reluctant to dive in during the warm summer months, content to lie down on the sofa in the sunroom, watch the world go by, snooze, check Nothing off the daily to-do list one more time.
So a book had to be moved into the bathroom to be read.
The writer – Geerat Vermeij. The story – his life story, the story of a boy blinded by disease as a toddler and going on to become a successful scientist.
Other stories he has told: one explanation of the diversity in ocean systems, for instance.
Adaptation, competition, genetic drift, specialisation – more words with multiple meanings in our continuing conversation as the proverbial blind people standing in one place describing a single aspect/feature of an elephant.
However, we tend to wander around, observe from multiple locations, regardless of physical abilities.
I had vivid dreams last night, sparked by a challenge to myself to give the widest diversity of input to the supercomputer, network of hackers and business associates so they can help figure out what is wrong with the idea that our current economic problems can be solved by motivating people to consume more and take on debt in order to motivate them to work and pay off the debt, preferably revolving debt while consuming/buying more and more and more and more.
What if the produce/consume model is wrong, regardless of its implementation in societies that are primarily capitalistic or primarily communistic?
Setting aside religious objections to the model of life as evolutionary biology, what is the next revolution in the evolution of our born/eat/reproduce/sleep/die social interaction set?
While the BRICS presumably builds upon the old middle class stabilisation model, what can the EUSA do to establish a more successful model of sustainable species growth?
Do we throw out everything and start over; that is, foment revolution on a massive scale, disrupting the global economy to create something we hope, from our angle that only includes a detailed analysis of the past and a limited view of the future, is better in the longterm?
Or is it only a matter of shifting perceptions?
What was once, in this country, a democratic republic that partially regulated the capitalistic economic system, becomes a democratic republic that is controlled by a centrally planned capitalistic economic system?
In other words, people can still vote for legislators to write laws about our social behaviours, creating rewards and punishments for how we treat one another as individuals or perceived members of groups. We separate the management of our economy from the government, voting with our money for the companies led and/or owned by those who dedicate themselves to plan the best allocation of resources – raw material, land, people.
What is the effect on an economy/society if more public roads became private toll roads?
What is the effect on an economy/society if other public services – schools, common defense (police/military), firefighting, social safety net (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food assistance) – become privately managed, meaning you have to directly pay and/or work for the service(s)?
How do we promote love and compassion instead of selfish greed, hoarding and fear?
How do we provide a sense of stability rather than prey on insecurities?
With seven billion different behaviour sets (and growing), how many different ways must we describe the new tools we’ve created to ensure everyone understands we can have access to adequate sustenance, if we want it.
And if we or you don’t want it, that’s okay. No system or systems will accommodate every want and need, no matter how inclusive it may try to be.
More later – the analysts who run the supercomputer are ready for input, the hackers have found a way to tap into more computer systems to increase the supercomputer’s virtual processing power, and my business associates…well, I can’t talk about what they want me to talk with them about right now.
treetrunkdings 