Wednesday 25 May 2011

This is not mine, I found it on the web somewhere and I don't know who originally wrote it. Anyway, this is the best succinct summary of World War I that I have ever seen...

Germany, Austria and Italy are standing together in the middle of a pub when Serbia bumps into Austria and spills Austria’s pint.

Austria demands Serbia buy it a complete new suit because there are splashes on its trouser leg.

Germany expresses its support for Austria’s point of view.

Britain recommends that everyone calm down a bit.

Serbia points out that it can’t afford a whole suit, but offers to pay for the cleaning of Austria’s trousers.

Russia and Serbia look at Austria.

Austria asks Serbia who it’s looking at.

Russia suggests that Austria should leave its little brother alone.

Austria inquires as to whose army will assist Russia in compelling it to do so.

Germany appeals to Britain that France has been looking at it, and that this is sufficiently out of order that Britain should not intervene.

Britain replies that France can look at who it wants to, that Britain is looking at Germany too, and what is Germany going to do about it?

Germany tells Russia to stop looking at Austria, or Germany will render Russia incapable of such action.

Britain and France ask Germany whether it’s looking at Belgium.

Turkey and Germany go off into a corner and whisper. When they come back, Turkey makes a show of not looking at anyone.

Germany rolls up its sleeves, looks at France, and punches Belgium.

France and Britain punch Germany. Austria punches Russia. Germany punches Britain and France with one hand and Russia with the other.

Russia throws a punch at Germany, but misses and nearly falls over. Japan calls over from the other side of the room that it’s on Britain’s side, but stays there. Italy surprises everyone by punching Austria.

Australia punches Turkey, and gets punched back. There are no hard feelings because Britain made Australia do it.

France gets thrown through a plate glass window, but gets back up and carries on fighting. Russia gets thrown through another one, gets knocked out, suffers brain damage, and wakes up with a complete personality change.

Italy throws a punch at Austria and misses, but Austria falls over anyway. Italy raises both fists in the air and runs round the room chanting.

America waits till Germany is about to fall over from sustained punching from Britain and France, then walks over and smashes it with a barstool, then pretends it won the fight all by itself.

By now all the chairs are broken and the big mirror over the bar is shattered. Britain, France and America agree that Germany threw the first punch, so the whole thing is Germany’s fault . While Germany is still unconscious, they go through its pockets, steal its wallet, and buy drinks for all their friends.

Monday 23 May 2011

HUMAN RESOURCES

So, here is a thing. I have been reading lots of Philip K. Dick recently, and also Ellison's "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream", and since I appear to be on some kind of sci-fi kick, I hereby present my tribute to Dick (no sniggering, please).

HUMAN RESOURCES

It was half past three on a Monday afternoon when Adam Seven entered the seclusion area near the region's human resources station. The day was cold and grey, but then the weather was like this all the time these days. As far back as he could remember, the dust cloud had been settled over all the former European Union states.

Adam could remember being a proud member of Britannia, located in the North West of the Union, back before it was simply designated Region #576 by the victors. Although who knows who the victors were any more.

Back when it was still thought that the fledgling EU could compete with the Asian Alliance and the USNSA, Britannia had led the former Western European territories under the leadership of Prime Minister Hill. The first true AI, "Winston", was developed in Britannia, to advise on negotiations with the right-wing government of the huge American continent. Nobody even considered whether it could sync with the American networks, let alone whether it could assasinate both leaders of these superpowers. Assumed of course; no bodies were ever found. With all the propaganda that was released by all sides, and then later even by the machines, it was anyone's guess as to who had actually won this war. Perhaps nobody won.

It was the third time this cycle that Adam had visited for the aptitude tests. It was commonly known among the ever-dwindling sapiens population that nobody came back from a third visit. But what could he do? If he tried to go anywhere else, his vehicle module would simply receive a signal from 01 and take him to the human resources station anyway. If he tried to stay at home, the rest station would provide "disincentive" shocks on every surface. Maybe he could stay with a friend, but who? His neighbour, David Eighteen, was the closest sap he knew, but he would never help. He had only just failed his second aptitude test himself, and nobody wanted to raise their own head above the parapet. Maybe he could try and escape the union; he had heard of one sap reaching the USNSA, even going so far as Region #12, before he was caught and executed. He could try somewhere else, somewhere more remote. Weren't their stories and half-rumours that Pyongyang still existed as a free city?

Still, there was no use relying on what-ifs and pipe dreams now. The walkway had already transported him past the cast iron gates that marked the boundary of the human resources station. As usual, there were no other saps around, and Adam felt the scanners of the surrounding Peace Units play over his ashen skin. The moment they detected any movement away from the designated entrance walkway, he would be hit with 160 joules of concentrated energy - not enough to kill, not even enough to maim, but certainly enough to paralyse him. This he knew from experience. The machines were clear with their intent; letting someone walk to the assessment desk was a privilege and not a right. They needed him conscious for the assessment itself though.

As the mechanised walkway stopped with a faint grinding of gears, Adam spilled on to the steel floor of the recieving hall. In the days before the war this had apparently been a great debating chamber, where heads of humanity discussed international relations. He tried to picture it, as described to him by his Care Unit way back when he was a child at the Home. Men and women with huge intellect and presence, debating and discussing all the topics that were important before. It didn't seem possible that this very room played host to these booming discussions. This cold and draughty room, now filled with the sort of silence you can only hear when a thousand electrical circuits faintly hum in unison.

He walked slowly through the hall, his footsteps echoing over the faint buzz of the tiny wall-mounted optical units as they swivelled their black gaze to follow his slow progression. He expected to feel more fear than this. Instead, he felt gripped by an inescapable sense of longing for a life that no longer existed. The human race had survived, of course, but it didn't seem to Adam that "humanity" had survived. Whatever that word meant, anyway.

In time, he came to the familiar reception desk at the end of the hall. The desk itself was metallic and oblong, and existed primarily to conceal and order the mass of wires that Adam knew lay beyond it. On top of the desk, squatting as it had always been, was 01-NodePL/6N, only one of many nodes connected to the de-facto prime intelligence of 01. It was known among the sap colony where Adam dwelt as "Napoleon", although anyone who originally understood the reference (if any of them ever did) had long since been removed. As Adam approached, Napoleon stirred into life, as inaccurate as that description is. Nothing outwardly changed - no lights flickered on, no mechanical whirring began. Instead, there was simply an indefinable feeling that this thing, this box, was alive.

"Adam Seven, Region #576". The voice was emotionless and tinny.

"This will be your third aptitude test, correct?"

Adam said nothing. He didn't need to - his input was clearly never required. On his first visit he made the mistake of asking questions and trying to interact with Napoleon. It didn't get him anywhere. Napoleon just continued describing the aptitude test, speaking over him.

On his second visit, he stood his ground and argued with Napoleon, demanding answers. The only answer he got was a rigid energy shock to the base of his spine. He didn't even try this time, he just stood and listened.

"You will be aware that all sapiens subjects are required to undertake aptitude tests to discover their worth in the region. Most subjects are assigned their role within the first three seconds of their first test. Those that cannot discover their role on this original assessment are granted two further tests. This is your third test. If you are found to be malfunctioning, you will be recycled."

Adam gulped at the word. Normally, the machines avoided euphemism, but it seemed to him that everyone else that ever got recycled never came back. How would it even be possible to recycle a sap like him? His eyes flicked to his left and right, looking for an exit he knew wasn't there.



A shimmer of heat ran through Adam's body, warming his extremities and freezing him to the spot. He felt, at least in some vague and nebulous way, the probing electronic fingers of 01 as they grasped his nerve endings. Searching incessantly for some clue as to his use in this personal dystopia, slithering around his brain stem.




Adam gasped. An intense cold had surrounded him, making his teeth chatter. He had never been this cold in all his life. He heard Napoleon's voice as if from a thousand yards away; "Please mark for recycling". Adam's eyes screwed shut as a dull thud began thumping at the back of his head. He felt his blood cease circulating, could feel his lungs and diaphragm ceasing to move. His synapses stopped firing and he saw in his mind's eye a soft light beginning to fill his vision. He stopped caring...




------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




"Goddammit Jerry, that's the seventh one in as many weeks!". Captain Mike Henry's normally calm and lined features betrayed his frustration. He had turned a bright, almost cherry red, and spittle had settled on the edges of his greying mustache.




Jerry Zucker had been Applied Intelligent Systems' fastest rising new star, and was the youngest pHD on staff. Just last year he had been compared to Einstein, and at only 28 years old, he had already pioneered investigation in to so-called "true AI". He was known throughout the Euro Union as an intelligent, stoic, young man but his famous unflappable attitude was, right now, being tested to the limit.




"I...I don't understand it, Captain. They all pass the Turing test but as soon as we attempt to apply protocol, they just shut down."




"I don't want to hear it! If we don't crack this soon, the bloody Yanks will and we'll never have an empire again. I don't give a shit what it takes, you get these machines bloody working, and I want it done yesterday!".




Captain Henry slammed the lab door with enough force to topple the stacks of notes surrounding the assigned workspace. Jerry removed his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes as he leaned back in his office chair and listened to the sound of Captain Henry storming down the corridor, frightening lab assistants and shouting at nobody in particular.




Why didn't this work? It had been a nightmare getting AI to rise above the level of a fairly competent pig, but he thought he had solved that issue by incorporating stem cells from the cloning labs in conjunction with the circuitry. This had seemed to provide an incredible boost, heightening reasoning and deliberation skills in all test machines. At least initially, Project: Adam had seen incredible success. But after around two weeks, all of them had shut down and refused to be powered back on. Adams one through six had failed in the same way, and now even machine #7 had gone the same route. What the hell was missing? It was as if they all just gave up, betraying a listlessness that couldn't be mechanical in nature.




He needed another promotion, more recognition. He needed to keep his wife interested; God knows she was only with him for his fame and fortune. He needed another short cut.




Maybe it was because the stem cells had no experience comparable to existence in the real world. Maybe there needed to be some indefinable quality of "life" to make these damned machines work properly. Synapses fired inside Jerry's mind as he grabbed for a pencil and a notepad. He needed a real human intelligence, basic enough to be controlled but with enough experience to reason and make decisions. And for that he needed a real brain. He had some friends in the Britannic Gaol who could help him out - nobody would miss the psychos in there, and most were on death row anyway; it wasn't like anybody would miss just one prisoner. Anyway, didn't people die in mysterious circumstances in there anyway?




Jerry licked the tip of his pencil and carefully wrote "Project: Winston" at the top of the blank page...

Wednesday 18 May 2011

Existentialism and Acrostics

I've been mucking around with acrostics lately. And also reading Camus. So, perhaps unfortunately, this has resulted in a few existential acrostic poems. Here is one of them; it needs work, I know.

Existence: an Acrostic

Elaborate thoughts of life and existence -
Xeroxed repetition of thoughts of love and sex
Imply a plan that may not exist, and I
Seem to spend too much time on these subjects
Though perhaps its not necessary to discredit
Entire philosophical tenets, to see
Nothing is planned, just chaos to begin,
Chaotic accidents, making nothing stoic.
Except it works. Perhaps thats all it means to "be"

Saturday 14 May 2011

Red Wine And Coke

So, I am putting up my first poem. On this Blog thing, I mean. Not the first one I ever wrote. God no, that one was awful. I mean, I'm not saying this one is amazing, but its better than that. I think. Anyway, its about how I went to a gig recently that a girl I quite like was going to, and I was all worried beforehand and everything. But then, the night was great, and the day after I wrote this. Its called Red Wine And Coke

Isn't it strange how worked up you can get,
Imagining the worst of what hasn't happened yet?
Maybe its too much to wonder, indeed,
Especially when quoting the pessimists creed -

"Don't bother. Give up. This isn't for you.
That way you wont be let down if you do
Try to act cooler than a North Pole Elf
And end up just making an arse of yourself"

I think the issue with pre-planned events,
Is much like those plans of mice and of men:
Something Scottish about things going wrong
But I honestly believed that my thesis was strong

No major plans, just a band with a show
With some friends who also wanted to go
But then I find out that she will be there
And I start panicking about how I don't like my hair,
Or my face or my my beard or the things I could wear

So fuck it, I think, just go and have fun
So shes cooler than you, and has a great bum
So you will probably trip up and fall on your face
Or manage to cause some kind of social disgrace

But then the night happened, and it went really well
It was not at all close to the Dante-esque circle of hell
I had envisaged earlier on, while watching the sky
(Though drinking did help, I'm not gonna lie)

Long story short, we had a great time
And when I offered an invite to come back to mine
To laugh and to kiss and to drink some red wine
(With some coke, which she learned of while visiting Spain)

And listen to music, and to smoke cigarettes, and I'm
So very glad that, despite the pessimist side of my mind
and despite the evening's very late time
And my ridiculously self-critical traitorous brain,

She seems to like me.

And I like her.

And I like red wine and coke.

Wednesday 11 May 2011

I suppose the aim of this blog, which I haven't provided details of to anyone yet, is to provide some kind of outlet for my writing. I used to be pretty good at writing when I was in school, whether creative or factual.

I wrote an awesome paper once, comparing and contrasting Orwell's "1984" and Shelley's "Frankenstein", likening them to the modern encroach of CCTV and genetic engineering. I forget what conclusions were drawn from that, but I remember it enough to know that I was proud of that piece of work.

So, I suppose this would be a good place to put all the random short stories, poetry and other detritus of my often un-focused and relatively un-creative works. Therefore, my entirely anonymous reader, this is where this information will stored.