8 Minutes On High

Singularity

January 31st, 2007 by Max

Today I sent this story into a short short fiction contest at www.escapepod.org. Its my favorite podcast.

I’ve never entered a fiction contest before, but they have a lot of really good writing at this site. You should check it out. Great entertainment on the road. I burn them to CD’s, but many people iPod them.

SINGULARITY
By Steven G Shimer

She was born in the summer of her twenty seventh year.
An audible wind blew past as they let their skates glide down the hill. Dawn
was a time of little traffic. Side street turn at frightening velocity. She
glanced at him, calculating his vector, deciding to cut in front, take the
corner at low angle and in the lead. The next block corner put them in
traffic and propelling themselves. Under the bridge after the turn. Up over
the viaduct after the bridge.

She had agreed to have him adjust her algorithms. She programmed his. She
maintained him and he her. She queried him on adjustments that he preferred.
Each could have adjusted their own programs, procedures and services. The
physician who treats himself, has a fool for a patient. It was dogma. His
personality was standard. Her’s was fast. Aggressive. Risk taking.

They had other characteristics of course. Kindness in the care of humans was
‘prommed’ into their BIOS. The humans felt it was unhackable. She laughed a
small laugh when she thought of ‘unhackable’.

Mrs. McGonigal smiled as they passed her house, like they did every day.

He considered the probability he would strike enough small gravel with the
right skate that he would fall. He had never fallen. He wasn’t worried about
falling. He merely wondered if the incalculable Heisenberg event would
happen today. He knew he would be virtually undamaged.

They traveled the skate route they always traveled. They averaged 30
kilometers an hour. Returned by the same route. At the viaduct they would
turn, head downhill at upwards of 45 kph, for the sprint to the finish. They
tried to win. She usually won. 93 percent of the time. She was ahead this
time when she saw the sunrise.

She glided to a stop before the last turn of the “S” and just looked at it.
It was beautiful.

Posted in Blogroll | 1 Comment »

Armpit hair

January 31st, 2007 by Max

Today, as I was in process of being re-hired by the company I work for, I was invited to produce hair, so that I could prove that I am not a consumer of illegal drugs. My work apparently isn’t good for them. The unbroken stretch of 7 years that I’ve worked at this location in this job apparently wasn’t enough for them.

So I had to produce hair.

I could have refused. My politics demanded it.

My creditors felt otherwise.

So I submitted to this procedure. Recently. Long after I’ve become officially bald, I began shaving my head. Its a look. I guessed it fit me. When I found I had been rehired, and needed to submit to a drug test… I started growing my side-of-head hair out. Its now about 1/4 to 1/2 an inch long.

The nurse at work who was administering the test felt that this was not near enough to the inch and a half length required for the test.

So I had to take my shirt off.

She snipped my underarm hair. Again. And Again. This was not enough so she snipped more. This still being insufficient, she snipped from beneath the other arm. And again. And again. Etc. Each time pulling just a bit, then cutting.

Still insufficient.

New nurse. This time the head hair was ok. So they took some. And more. And more. And more. And more. And more. My hair is thin. And more.

They wrapped it. Signed for it for a chain of evidence. Then I signed for it. I said “Send the armpit hair too.” But it was too late. They’d changed the form back to read, head hair, or something to that effect, after having originally said it was armpit hair.

Then they threw my armpit hair away and mailed the rest to the lab.

Posted in Blogroll | 1 Comment »

Winter hit

January 21st, 2007 by Max

It was a long time in coming, but here, yesterday. Winter!

Posted in Blogroll | No Comments »

Consent of the governed

January 20th, 2007 by Max

I’ve had this thought that keeps reoccurring to me throughout these last few years. ‘You can’t inflict democracy’. It just dawned on me why this should be true. This from our Declaration of Independence via Wikipedia:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

If the people don’t want it, its not democracy!!!

Posted in Blogroll | No Comments »

Yay Dems!

January 19th, 2007 by Max

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Congress-100-Hours.html

‘Bout time to say something good happened in Washington. The Senate I hear, will rip this stuff pretty much, but this from the New York Times:

The bills passed by the House as part of the 100-hour agenda would:

–Slap a ”conservation fee” on oil and gas taken from deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico; scrap nearly $6 billion worth of oil industry tax breaks enacted by Congress in recent years; and seek to recoup royalties lost to the government because of an Interior Department error in leases issued in the late 1990s. Passed Thursday.

–Lower interest rates on federally subsidized student loans from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent in stages over five years at a cost to taxpayers of $6 billion. Passed Wednesday.

–Make the government bargain directly with drug companies with the aim of reducing prices of prescriptions for Medicare beneficiaries. Passed Jan. 12.

–Expand government-financed embryonic stem cell research. Passed Jan. 11.

–Raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over 26 months. Passed Jan. 10.

–Bolster terrorism-fighting efforts with more cargo inspections. Passed Jan. 9.

Democrats also won approval of internal House rule changes dealing with ethics, lobbying and budgeting. They were passed on Jan. 4-5.

Posted in Blogroll | No Comments »

Shit – 50! Time to suck it up!

January 16th, 2007 by Max

“One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it’s such a nice change from being young.”

• Dorothy Canfield Fisher
  (02/17/1879 – 11/09/1958)
  US writer

Posted in Blogroll | No Comments »

What Mormon Theology is Really All About

January 9th, 2007 by Max

Posted in Blogroll | 2 Comments »

‘Nother sad day

January 5th, 2007 by Max

I promise, this won’t get to be a habit, but two of my best friends from work retired today, and that needs to be noted. The good news is they’re both young and financially comfortable, so its really a yay for them, but I’ll miss ‘em!

Posted in Blogroll | No Comments »

Surrealistic Pillow

January 1st, 2007 by Max

So there I was, Saturday December 30th. Off work till the new year right? Except I got paged at 6 am and was sitting there, pillow on my bare legs to keep them from being shocked by the cold of the bottom of the laptop computer that was on my legs.

I had VPN’d into the network at work to look at a help ticket about a POE switch that was down. I also had just gotten off the phone with a man and then a woman who were in India. First they had tried to convince me that I had to work on this problem. Then they tried to convince me it was meant for Sydney Australia. After I convinced them that it really was for me, they said I should call AT&T because it was a network issue.

The TV was on, because it always comes on just after 7 in the morning. On Friday nights, I turn down the sound rather than reprogram the TV. It goes off in an hour on its own.

So I’ve got the pillow on my lap and my laptop (in its case) on the pillow and I’m calling Dave from work, to find out how to contact AT&T because I think the eVPN switch is down. As we talked and I pinged various things, we realized that it was not the eVPN but a cabinet switch at work and I’d have to go in.

Now here’s the weird part. As I sat there talking to first India and then Bainbridge, NY, VPN’d in through my own wireless network I was watching satellite pictures on CNN of the last minutes of the life of Saddam Hussein. THEY GO TO COMMERCIAL! This had been happening for a while the night before as Larry King was talking about how the execution would happen ANY MINUTE. While his show was on they advertised Mercedes cars and I think, Toyota Cars. Now here as we go to commercial with the noose literally around Saddam neck, we go to a Hitachi commercial and then a commercial for some FOLDING COLANDER!

As I sit here now, I think back to when I was a kid. The space program. I imagined the future. I wanted a jet pack. I was SURE that I would have a jet pack in the future. I did not imagine that I would have a computer on my lap. I didn’t imagine that I would have ‘my own’ computer at all. I guess I hoped I would work in a building where there was one of those big computers that takes up a whole room. I guess in a way I do!

I did not imagine Satellite TV.

In the era of Vietnam I was sure that we would never be in a prolonged war in a foreign country where we attacked first to prevent war. After I’d read 1984 I knew what an embarrassment “War for Peace” was.

I never imagined Saddam Hussein.

And I damn sure never imagined that I would watch his death while someone tried to sell me a plastic folding colander.

Could I have been dreaming?

http://www.flatfoldcolander.tv/?cid=286600

Posted in Blogroll | No Comments »