Hello, everyone — thought I would try to squeeze in a quick blog about what’s going on before I watch a speed run of BioShock: Infinite (which is one of the story-telling games ever) on gamesdonequick.com.  Please take a look at it and feel free to donate to Doctors Without Borders.  It’s a good cause and where can you see someone try to play a game that took me almost a day to do in three hours?

I’m still working on some things in my head for “Mind of Man” — there is going to be some advanced tech, but I don’t want it to look like something out of Shadowrun.  Not a whole lot in physical modifications…no metal plated skeletons and things like that.  Neural computers?  Maybe.  Smartlinks?  Yes.  I’m thinking that anything in the head is tightly, tightly regulated.  Given that the last time there were computers slipped into someone’s brain — all hell broke loose.  If the Main Character has a computer in his head, it’s not going to be all that powerful (keeping in mind the times).  Something more than likely to look over the programming and see what’s salvageable and what can be discarded.  Maybe something like the headspace version of a mobile phone.  The real stuff is back in the universities and our Main Character’s private lab that’s going to house the future AI.

I’m still trying to figure out the threat that the AI is going to be in the story, which I guess is going to come back to the themes of this book…which is something that I am working on.  Normally, I’ve got the themes down at this point and I’m working more on the arrangement of the dock chairs.  Not this time, and the reason is a fairly simple one.

I don’t want to re-tread themes.

With most of my books, it’s man vs. society.  Society sometimes taking the form of your evil boss and the crappy company you have to work for, or an honest-to-goodness society.  I’m trying to find something else to rail against in my fictions.   What do I want to say with the AI?  What do I want to say with the Main Character?  As my professor would ask: what is the universal theme?  When I was in college, the universal theme was: alcohol.  I’m afraid I’m going to have to change that up a little.

Well, the AI was constructed to help people, but it got out of hand — especially when it was closed away in the arcology (I may or may not keep that, who knows?).  “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” and all that.  Particularly if someone really, really wants to do good and something keeps that from happening.  Think about it: you want to help others.  It’s in your DNA (heh) and every time you try to do something good, someone or something gets in your way.  Would drive you batty after a while.  heck — might even drive you to murder?

Can I machine be struck with hubris?  I think this might set everything up fine.  It’s also one of my favorite wallpapers.  All I need to do is think who’s the king, who’s the god and who’s the unbeliever.

Ooh — the speedrun started.  Thanks for reading and y’all have fun.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello, all — I’m continuing on with the brainstorming for “Mind of Man”. Last time, I talked about the main character’s profession a little: information archaeologist. Now I’m going to run some ideas by y’all about the world that the main character and why the idea of AI is a problem.

What I’m looking for is something that would put a screeching halt on AI research — to the point where actually trying to recreate AI would be seen as a cardinal sin, but I really want to avoid “AI War 4.1.5” or anything else like that. Yes, war is horrible, but it’s been overdone. I would like to think that something would happen in which AI is strictly verboten. I’m considering something along the lines of “…and history turned into legend“. Something that would put AI on the brink of annihilation and dragging Mankind along with it, but trying to avoid the usual routes that have become rather ham-fisted as of late.

Well, if I wanted to draw a link between “Game of Chinese Whispers” (Facebook stand-in + Direct Neural Interface + Paranoid Schizophrenic = Societal Meltdown), the extrapolation of this would be that the crude sort of AI that came out of that particular computing kerfuffle would be quickly shut down. After that and a few tests, it was discovered that there is a critical mass to sapience (a term I am going to use rather than intelligence for the purposes of this posting).

After that, it was decided that there would be a hard limit on processing speed, numbers of nodes in networks, number of running networks, number cat pictures allowed at one time — all the important things.

Of course when anyone sets a limit to something, there are going to be people who are going to say “You’re not the boss of me!” These are also the same people that usually yell “OK — I was wrong! Help!”, but we can get to that later.

So, in the far future of this particular little world, computer systems are much regulated. Trust me, piracy is the least of IT’s issues. Networks are watched very carefully for that tipping point…which makes the information archaeologist a useful profession in as far as trying to retrieve records from the past — getting clues as to what information technology was like before everything went severely pear-shaped. In academic way, this is vital to keep society from having to re-invent the wheel every time someone decides to hook up their computers in parallel and an interest in keeping the past alive – unlike what those ass-hats in ISIS tend to believe.

In a mercenary way, there is a black market for Pre-Page Wave programming (Page Wave is what I’m currently calling the event. Those of you who have been reading this for a long time know that I’m going to go through five or six names before settling on the right one). Programming in “Mind of Man” is set up to be purposefully limited. Yeah – it can do great things and even mimic human intelligence, but it’s not going to be able to make value choices without a lot of preset functions…kinda like today, but a little better. I’m toying around with the notion that by this point we have trinary computing (-1,0,+1 rather than 0 and 1) so computers can do a lot of fuzzy logic, but they’re still running programs just like the PC I’m working on.

As far as how the soon-to-be sentient and sapient computer AI comes around, it’s going to need a specific set of systems. Another thing that Information archaeologists are looking for are what sort of old hardware can be cribbed. Modern archaeologists do this in re-discovering old ways of doing things. Information archaeologists are out there too, combing through old scraps and lost sites for a clue to what’s going to be the “Holy Grail” of this time period.

Trinary quantum computing. The difference between trinary quantum and regular trinary is power useage (making systems smaller and depending on less power to function would be great for exploration and/or military applications) and… you know, I’m going to end up having to do a lot of research into this, but this particular iteration of Trinary Quantum Computing could bring about a Sapient and Sentient AI.

So – I hope that I didn’t bore the heck out of you with this. It helps to just talk about stuff here when I’m working out the kinks for the novel.

Thanks for reading, y’all have a good day. Tomorrow, I’m going to continue on with the main character as a person.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

I’m having technical issues, so there will be no blog today.

Seething Apathy (except when it comes to my computer breaking down)

Hello, everyone — this is the third installment of my whirlwind weekend report.  Here and here is where you can catch up.  Onward!

I am going to skip over the drudgery that is work because frankly, nothing really noteworthy happens there.

Saturday, however, is  a whirlwind of papers and soft drinks.  Keep in mind that I normally don’t get up before 11:00 AM (I work late nights).  In order to get to the first writer’s group that meets on the third Saturday of every month, I have to get up at 7:00…after going to bed at the earliest of 2:00 AM.  So, there is one Saturday of the month where I am a little sleep deprived.  With this new group, they get together at the civilized time of 10:00, which means I can get an additional hour of half of sleep.  Yes, I am still going to be a little addled, but not that bad if I get to bed at 2:00 AM, wake up at 8:00 to get out the door at 9:00.  A couple of cups of coffee From Dunkin Donuts and I can relax a little in my car.  This group is meeting at a library and is made up of some members from an older group that I still go to on the third Saturday of every month.  It’s 9:45 after I finish my breakfast of coffee and egg…like material with cheesy substance and ham…I hope.  Still a few minutes left after the meal and thanks to the coffee I don’t feel sleepy.

I amble my way up to the library a few minutes before 10:00 and I am met by one of the members who invited me to join the group.  You can infer that I am not really a social person by the title of the post.  Thankfully, this is a group of people I know, so I knew I could relax a little.  The group is nice and they were pleased to hear my latest work (still unfinished! But closer to getting finished than any others I have).  I am definitely going to stick around with this group.  It’s hard for me to break ice with people (or is it break bread?)…which will become apparent in a few minutes.

I head out to the grocery store because I can’t just show up to a party with nothing (even if they say they’re fine with it).  The grocery store I like to frequent had a spirits section separate from the rest of the grocery store.  I found a nice peanut butter pie and paid for it, then jaunting three doors down to see what wine goes well with peanut butter pie.

To answer your question: yes.  A chocolate wine goes well with peanut butter pie if there is no chocolate drizzle. Otherwise, a dark red would work (apparently, the people in the spirit shop know their goods.  Also, did you know that they make pink lemonade vodka?  Do svidaniya, soberity!).  I purchase everything, rather inexpensive as far as wine, vodka and pie goes.  I come back home, putting everything away in the refrigerator and change back into my inside summer clothes: t-shirt and shorts.  The party isn’t until later (I’ve got several hours), so I set aside some clothes for the party.  Nothing bad, really — what I usually wear for work…nice short sleeved polo shirt and the best pair of jeans I own.

Still have several hours.  Time for Borderlands 2!  Saturday is my big gaming day (Monday through Friday are gaming days as well, but not the biggest) and I plunge into it…for a few minutes before the coffee gets metabolized and I almost fall out of my chair.  OK — maybe not fall out, but I got real tired real fast.  So, I crawl to bed and take a small nap.  Coffee doesn’t last long in me.  

The nap is over as I wake up enough time to get a shower (Welcome to Kentucky!) and double check my directions. Dressed and squeaky clean, I get the pie and the wine for the party and make sure everything is clean and fresh.  Getting into my car I turn the engine over and drive off, being guided by my Android phone which thinks that not only am I fifteen feet from my real position, but I am driving on the left hand side of the road sidesaddle.

Go, Android.

Traveling to my host’s place, I realize that I am not only moving laterally towards the east, but upwards in the socio-economic scale.  Seriously.  I’m also driving through the country.  I can tell because I see goats, cows and better cars than what I am driving now.  Way better.  

My Android is as stunned as I am about the new surroundings, since it forgets a couple of turns.  I manage to get back on track and still not lose any time.  It tells me that I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes, even when I have to remind it that it is navigating for me and that I only turn when it tells me to turn.  As I travel on, the houses grow farther and farther apart, but still look better than where I am staying now.  I’m not jealous (maybe a little) as I roll through the countryside.  While I take in the sighs, I keep expecting to Take another turn and find myself staring down a checkpoint designed to keep the hoi polloi out from wrecking the property values with their early model cars, their numous kids and basic cable packages (“On this chart, point out the salad fork.  No, you swine — that’s a fish fork!  Seize him!“).

I manage to get to the right place and boy…do I not fit in.  Each of these houses is at least twice the side (vertically) as my house and the smallest one here is about the size of my current one-floored house.  The one the host lives in a a little larger than my house in at least three dimensions.  As I cruise around the block to make sure that I am in the right location, I see some people staring at me.  No doubt they were memorizing the license plate, make and model of the car in the event there was a rash of burglaries later on in the week.

Still two minutes early to the party (“early is on time, on time is late and late is unforgivable” as the nuns at school told me…who apparently were never invited to a party.“) and I was trying to figure out if the thin sheer of sweat I was developing was from the humidity or from the panic I was trying to fight now in the pit of my stomach.  I am not really one for new things that disrupt my routine.  Yes, I am a crotchety elder.  I like my beets and strained peas, thank you for getting off my lawn.  I at least wait for a couple of minutes reminding myself that this is also a great way to network and maybe find other people with inroads into publishing.  After all, the hostess is also a reporter for the local newspaper.

I get out of the car, making sure that I have everything and reminding myself that running screaming aback to the car and speeding away is not going to help me either short term with the gawkers running my plates against a database of people known to lurk here or in the long term when I might need my hostesses’ help in something writer related.  I walk up the the front door and knock.

Hopefully tomorrow will be the conclusion of this unpresidented glimpse into my private life, so I can get back to talking about writing.  Thank you for reading (if you’re still here), and feel free to take a look at the offerings that my friends and I have for you.

I hope y’all have a good day.
Sincerely,

Seething Apathy.

Hello, all — I’m just gong to pick up from where I left off with me getting everything out of the Z: drive (still can’t find the pictures or the Art Bell Files on the Y: drive, but that’s not important) and getting out to the local copier place to get everything printed, stapled and shiny for Saturday.  At that point, I was trying to consider my options as far as traffic.

Where I live is not really all that convenient for travel.  I am smack dab in the middle of two Interstate Highways.  At the copiers, I was just two blocks away from I-65.  Getting on it would be a straight shot (somewhat) down to work, but that particular highway was alway congested like you wouldn’t believe.  The route I take to work normally is a little twisty and roundabout, but the streets are relatively open for me (with the exception the on again / off again merger of I-64 and I-65. When it gets choked up…make no plans).  The downside for Friday as I’m getting everything printed and stapled is that I’m quite a distance away from the usual route to work.  Also keep in mind that I still haven’t had anything for lunch, so my judgement is a little wobbly.

I figure that I can go on ahead and take my normal route to work, since I pass by a couple of gas stations, it’ll be no problem to get something quick to eat.  I pay for the papers and head out to the car.  I’ve got everything I need for work (cell phone, iPad and dinner).  Paying for everything, I head out the door.  Since I thought I was going to have more time in the afternoon than I would in the morning, I’ve already showered and shaved (I usually  wait until an hour before I need to leave).  I hop in the car and drive for the Interstate.  Over the radio, I hear that there is a very bad tie-up on I-65 on one of the bridges.  I’m heading in a different direction, and I am doing so as quickly as I can.

I get through the shopping area and zip by the gas stations.  It doesn’t hit me that I need to get something to eat until I make the turn onto the Interstate.  Now it’s too late to turn around, so I’ll just have to get to work as quick as I can and get something there.

Let me quickly explain how the typical driver in Kentucky drives:

• It’s not a speed limit, but a speed guideline.
• Right-of-way is determined by the mass of the vehicle you drive, or how willing you are to risk life and limb to make that merge.
• Looking before crossing lanes is considered unsporting.

I can get an idea as to whether or not I’m going to be badly late by what I’m driving by before 5:30 pm.  If I pass the train tracks by the finger nail polish plant (they don’t make finger nail polish, but that’s what the place smells like) around 5:30, then I’m going to be there on time.  If I’m passing the airport, then I’m going to cut it close.  It’s 5:35 and I am now just crossing the bridge.  Yeah.  I’m gonna be late.

The best thing I can do right now is goose my engine to move up to eighty miles an hour and stay in the right lane.  However, in a moment inspired by low blood sugar, desperation and not paying attention, I found myself drifting towards the middle of the road.  Missing an exit would put me even later.  I had to cross two lanes of traffic very soon.  The only thing that’s keeping me from making the crossover is a slow truck dragging a mowing tractor.  I can’t speed up to go around him, because every time I try to move forward to get around the car on my right, he slows down.  So, I do what I have to do.

I slow down, peer over my shoulder quickly, goose the engine and cross the two lanes of traffic going eighty-five in a fifty-five…ish sort of zone.  To my amazement, when I go over the painted off section and cut in front of a car with only a half-car length to spart — I don’t kill everyone involved.  I press down on the gas some more to give the guy behind me some more room.  As I creep into the low nineties, I see the “check engine” light come on.  Not a little ‘dude, you might want to get me checked’.  It was the ‘Scotty screaming at me that she cannae take the strain, Captain as my hair’s on fire’ red light.  I keep looking from the light, to the speedometer which I am trying to ease back down to sub-light to the traffic ahead.  By some miracle, the engine stays in the car and the usual choke point here is flowing free.  Slowing down, I creep into the exit lane.  Thanks to my daring heroics, I think I’m going to be merely two minutes late.

Wow — it’s beginning to look like that the telling of the weekend is going to be longer than the weekend itself.  I will continue on with tomorrow.  I’m also going to talk about my upcoming sci-fi project which I am calling “The Mind of Man”.  I’m just going to try to hash out somethings online here.  Hopefully it won’t be too burdensome.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to see y’all tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello, everyone — sorry for the late entry, but I have had an action packed, frustrated weekend.  I learned quite a bit over the past three days.

On Friday, I had a minor panic that reminded me that I need to backup all my important files (writing, music, cat pictures).  I have a wireless drive that I put all my stuff on because I had problems with previous hard drives.  I thought I was being clever in storing it offline.  Yeah — fast forward a couple of years and I discover Spotify, so I think that I’ll just post all my music files (all 113 Gb) up there.  So I go to my Z: drive which houses all my music and writing and start loading the files.  No problem.  As I look through the loaded files, I see some things that aren’t really for public consumption.  So I discontinue the upload, going about my merry way.  Speed forward past a few days and I want to get into the Z: Drive so I can print something for my writer’s group.  I double click on the ‘computer’…

No Z: drive.  No Y: Drive (has my photography files and Art Bell .mp3s).  No X: Drive (some .gif files and my computer files backup).  Nothing.  I don’t panic because I’ve had this happen before.  I lean over my desk and power cycle the drive — turn it off and turn it back on thirty seconds later.  85% of the time, this solves it.

God rolls an 87 on the percentile dice.

I still don’t panic.  I turn off and turn on the router.  Nothing.  I restart the PC.  More Nothing.  I unplug the computer and plug it back in going through a hard reboot.  I have a plate of nothing, with a side of nothing and a tall, cool glass of dammit, nothing.  OK, I start to panic a little.  I’m not concerned (greatly) about the music.  I still have all my CDs, so I can just re-rip stuff, re-download from places where I purchased them.  I am way more concerned about the file labeled ‘Writing’.  Everything — rough drafts, final copies, notes, playlists — was in that file.  I have very limited sorts of back-ups for that.  Notes on several blank books, what I can remember, but other than that — if I can’t get to the Z: drive and that writer’s files…I’m done.  The only things that I can call back are the finished and formatted versions of my books because I stored them online.

Monday through Thursday, this wouldn’t have been a big problem.  I would have just gone on with the rest of my day and tried to fix it at night.  However, it was Friday — I needed to still print copies of my first novel selection and get gas for the car and possibly get some lunch.  My computer had a different agenda for me.  It was mostly cursing, begging — the whole five stages of death done in about 3 hours.  I kept clicking on the disk manager, the file manager and every other manager I could get feverish access to by mouse.  I am panicking right now just because I’m going to be late for work if I don’t leave right now.

Miracle of miracles, I clicked on the right thing and got a prompt for my hard drive on the wireless network.  Huzzah!  I can get to it through that!

Or I could if I remembered the name and password I gave that it.  I think I just let it have the default password which I don’t remember.  Before all of this (and I think Spotify has something to do with this, it was working fine before I uploaded the files) I never needed to log in, it showed up in my computer as the labeled drives.  Password?  I have no idea.  I uninstall and reinstall the drivers for the dashboard.  Still asking for a password.  Did I use the default password?  I don’t know.  I click on the dashboard — maybe there is something that I can do.

Create New User?  I click on that little tucked away button on the dash board.  What’s the worst that can happen now?

User Name?  I type in my first name (which I never use).

User Password?  I type in my usual password.

Grant new user admin rights (view and change files)?  Hell, yes!

I go back to the main dashboard and login under my new name.  I don’t see the X:, Y: or Z: drive, but I do see the folders marked “Writing”, “Music” and “Daughter of the Mountain” (The sequel to this book).  I just had installed a new hard drive that I was going to use as more storage.  A bunch of clicks later, I was moving files from the recently liberated Z: drive to the J: drive.  I open up my writing program and try to get to the project.  The relief that I felt was almost tear-inducing.  I copy and paste the first 2,000 words to a word document file for printing.  I can breathe again.  I can get the file printed and copies.

I can also be ten minutes late to work from all this.  That’s OK — I’m good for now.

That was the beginning of the weekend for me.  Next time — I become social!  Drinks!  Dinner!  Panic Attacks!

Tune in!

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy