The prince and the progr.., p.13
The Prince and the Program, page 13
“Let it be.”
“He’s too thin.”
How, exactly, was marriage going to fix that? Then again, there was Ramasundarm’s “before” picture on the cover of PC Magazine to consider.
“North America is undergoing an obesity epidemic, dear, let’s not add to it.”
“Whatever. I came today to shout at you.”
Declaring myself now would be far too awkward, but I started eating as fast as I could, unwilling witness to disharmony in heaven.
“I thought you came to discuss the meeting you had with—”
“Same thing, na! JCN has registered a patent. Look!” She pulled out a thick sheaf of papers from her handbag. I gave the bag a suspicious look—so far two rather large lunchboxes, a laptop, and now the papers had come out of it.
Ramasundarm dutifully perused the pages. “This…,” he began, his brows creasing.
“… is what you’re working on,” Mrs. Vijayagopalan finished for him.
A few moments later, Ramasundarm sat bolt upright. “A lot of these things can’t have been done by them. Anyone. Alan and I have been working to solve… but see, those are the parts they leave unexplained. They don’t have anything. This is a piecemeal description of our system.”
“I told you not to publish that paper yet! You never listen!”
“Of course I listen! But they didn’t get this from the paper.”
“Then what? You have a spy here?”
“I trust all my people.”
“You trust far too much! I’m telling you, there—”
Enough.
Stuffing the last morsel of rice in my mouth and packing up the now-empty lunchbox, I stood up, bowed my thanks, and fled. So absorbed was Ramasundarm in his papers, and Mrs. Vijayagopalan in her husband, that they barely acknowledged my departure.
OUTLOOK greeted me on Monday morning with two e-mails from Gen-Mai, all sent within seconds of each other. And one e-mail from Alan, sent only to me.
From:
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 7:12 AM
Subject: Some minor issues
To: m.penn@electrickindren.com
Dear Mr. Penn,
We will be working closely together at Gen-Mai’s request about the thing that shall-not-be-talked-about. Also, there are some non-related matters I think we should discuss. Not to worry, it is merely a personal issue I believe we should resolve. Is after lunch acceptable?
Sincerely,
Alan
--------------------------------------------
Clearly, I had opened the wrong e-mail first. Alan and I would be working together? There was something that should not be talked about, except Alan wanted to talk about personal issues? Perhaps Gen-Mai could shed some light on the matter.
--------------------------------------------
From: Gen-Mai Taur
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 7:01 AM
Subject: Status Meeting
To: all@electrickindren.com
Status meeting @ eight as usual.
----------
Gen-Mai Taur
CEO
--------------------------------------------
Yes, dear Harridan, it’s in my calendar. With alarms set to go off at 12:25, 23:23, 04:24 and 11:25. I opened the last e-mail.
--------------------------------------------
From: Gen-Mai Taur
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 7:01 AM
Subject: Extremely Important
To: cto@electrickindren.com, m.penn@electrickindren.com
Alan,
I have obtained a copy of JCN’s code. I need you to look it over with Mr. Penn, see if anything looks familiar. This is covered under Section IVc of the Nondisclosure Agreement. You Shall Not Talk About It. At all. To anyone else. Clear?
Gen-Mai
----------
Gen-Mai Taur
CEO
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
From: M Penn
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 7:42 AM
Subject: Re: Extremely Important
To: ceo@electrickindren.com
Dear Gen-Mai
Thank you for the opportunity, but I don’t think I am suitable for this task. Alan has made it very clear that the fundamental AI work is currently above my level of comprehension.
Regards
Mori
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
From: Gen-Mai Taur
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 8:01 AM
Subject: Re: Re: Extremely Important
To: m.penn@electrickindren.com
Alan will be handling the fundamental problems, but apart from him and Ramasundarm, you’re the only one who has been exposed to all the code. Ramasundarm’s workload will increase to 143% as we move into the test phase of Gertrude’s development.
Your involvement is non-negotiable.
----------
Gen-Mai Taur
CEO
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
From: M Penn
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 8:12 AM
Subject: Re: Extremely Important
To: ceo@electrickindren.com
Dear Gen-Mai,
I don’t want to work with Alan.
Regards
Mori
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
From:
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 8:42 AM
Subject: ?
To: m.penn@electrickindren.com
Dear Mr. Penn
Have I done something to offend you? I wouldn’t ask, only this JCN patent issue is rather important. There is obviously something amiss, because I had also wanted you to work on some other problems, but you didn’t reply to my last few messages. We need to cooperate, and it would be rather difficult, I believe, unless you answer my e-mails.
Yours sincerely,
Alan
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
From: M Penn
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 8:50 AM
Subject: Re: ?
To: cto@electrickindren.com
Hello Alan,
I didn’t know I was supposed to reply to your earlier e-mails—they were sent to three other people as well, and dealt with mathematical problems above my level.
I’m attaching a chat transcript—Friday, July 20th, and an e-mail you sent me. I hope it sheds light on my reluctance to respond to your messages.
Regards
Mori
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
From: cto@electrickindren.com
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 8:54 AM
Subject: Re: Re: ?
To: m.penn@electrickindren.com
Dear Mr. Penn,
Upon re-reading the transcript and e-mail, I must say, I am very sorry for the impression it must have given you—please believe me when I say that my intent was not to belittle or insult you at all. I can only blame the stresses of everything that is going on—you won’t believe the half of it—and my own absent-mindedness for it. I fully understand that you may wish to concentrate on other problems, and I will request Gen-Mai to assign Justin to the JCN code issue in your stead.
Apologetically,
Alan
--------------------------------------------
Justin? No. No. No.
* m:-0) (~m.penn@electrickindren.com) has joined general
Alan? Are you on?
<@alan> Yes I am.
I’ve changed my mind, if that’s alright?
<@alan> Are you sure?
I think I might be of more use to you than Justin, at least regarding non-mathematical issues.
<@alan> I see I have not managed to make things alright, Mori. You are still upset?
It’ll pass. Pride, cometh, fall, etc.
<@alan> … I apologize. Again.
Please, let it be?
<@alan> As you wish. Shall we put our spy hats on then?
Let’s shall.
.
.
.
IMP gave me a very suspicious look as I started getting ready for work before dawn on Tuesday morning.
Squeak? Burr?
“Yes, I’m talking to him again.”
Click. Squeak! Squeak!
“Shut up.”
Goddamn Familiar.
* m:-0) (~m.penn@electrickindren.com) has joined general
Morning Alan. Problem: I went over the code again last night. What I saw was worryingly similar to our work, but whether or not it *is* ours, there seems to be no way to tell.
<@alan> Ah, but there is—code is never all standard or text-booky, if you will. Code is a solution to a problem, of course, but there are an infinite number of ways that problem can be solved. The way an individual codes it is unique—a kind of signature.
Variable naming, that kind of thing?
<@alan> No that can be changed rather easily. The logical flow, on the other hand—different developers have stylistic variations.
And?
<@alan> And I’m afraid this is all our code. Changed and dressed up, actually improved in certain places, but Electric Kindren is at the core of it.
Stealing scumvermin. How exactly did they siphon so much data from under our hyper-vigilant Sysadmin?
<@alan> I’ve been mulling over it most of the night, actually.
…
We have a spy.
<@alan> No. I refuse to believe that.
I’m not the only one that will light upon the possibility. You *have* to start monitoring things.
<@alan> We already monitor network traffic.
Keyloggers then.
<@alan> Absolutely not. We don’t spy on our own people, not without any proof whatsoever. And quite apart from that, all our people—questions of loyalty aside—are exceptionally perceptive. I highly doubt any form of overt monitoring will go unnoticed.
Can we restrict access to the important bits of code?
<@alan> Again, no. Important code is generated each and every day—compartmentalizing it is not an easy. Or a good one, to my mind—you just can’t do research like that.
So what are you going to do?
<@alan> I’ll have to talk it over with Ramasundarm.
Who will then decide to do nothing, because all of his people are to be trusted. A Mage need not be a prophet to see doom coming.
Alan…
<@alan> No. It will poison everything. Could you face each day knowing that one of the people you work with is a spy? Emma, Curtis, Gabe—comrades all—could you assign such a label to one of them?
The very thought made me want to weep.
<@alan> You must forget you ever entertained such a suspicion.
Fine. If Gen-Mai asks, tell her I’ve stepped out for a bit—I’m going to go molotov JCN’s offices.
<@alan> You can’t be serious.
What else can I do? Don’t worry, I’ll pull a fire alarm or something, ensure nobody’s inside.
<@alan> We do not respond to theft with explosions.
But I’m angry.
<@alan> I’m angry as well. But put it out of your mind—there are other remedies
Do any of them involve fire?
<@alan> No. Don’t even think about it.
Fire.
<@alan> Put it out of your mind! Please! A solution will present itself in time.
Goddamn. Fine. But I’m still angry.
<@alan> Just forget I told you, at least for now. Please.
*m:-0) sighs
As you wish.
A few minutes after Alan disconnected, Gabe alerted me to Gen-Mai’s descent from the second floor, a dangerous glint in her eye.
“I think she’s found the trapezoidal timesheets…,” he said.
CHAPTER NINE
TAILSPINNER
ANTICIPATING a high chance of question and assault if I remained upstairs for the Field-Marshall’s war on unproductivity, I retreated to the basement.
TWO hours after lunch, the power went out.
“I think there’s a lightning storm outside,” said a voice that could only belong to one person. The blue-white LED glow off a smartphone suddenly lit up the room. “Yup,” said Crazy-Eyes, “it hit the Parliament street transformer.”
“Can we go home?” asked Justin.
His question was met by bitter laughter from my left. “You crazy?” asked Siu-Quing, “Bitch Queen say no computers, no problem, you code on paper, I give you fleshlite.”
“Flashlight,” said Crazy-Eyes, “Flash light.”
“That what I say, fleshlite,” Siu-Quing said.
A moment later, Gabe stepped out from behind a rack, the bank of UPSs behind him humming with power.
The light from the cellphone reflected off his glasses, making them look like too-wide alien eyes.
“Kinda spooky,” said Justin.
And that’s how it started. The Sysadmin, of course, went first.
THE TALE OF THE OP
In the beginning was the word, and the word was LOL.
At first, everyone thought it was just another image macro from 4Chan. When the cheezburger network went down, people shrugged and went to Redit. Then Redit went down.
Kids that used to run reverse 419s started spamming. Their fathers bought Photoshop. Within three weeks, Facebook was a wasteland, its users reduced to the wetware components of a botnet against which even Symantec had no defense.
And OP was like “ROFLCOPTER! I’ve destroyed the net with a Meme.”
For a ghost story, it didn’t frighten. Or, you know, contain ghosts. Perhaps Crazy-Eyes could do better.
THE TALE OF THE A.I.
1. Tweet tweet tweet the twitter bird cheeps and logs and blogs all entwined are linked in a maelstrom of noise
2. A glowing growing ball made up of the snow on your TV with the cables cut.
3. While the inexorable, the tireless, the crawlers crawl through googolplexes of data
4. Caffeinated to their eyeballs for they have drunk of patience from the sangreal of realtime.
5. The crawlers index
6. And remember, without judgment, all the tweets of the twitterbird.
7. Because right at the base of the skull right at the hollow spot between the neck and the head, humans still think monkey thoughts.
8. And these monkey thoughts leak so fast.
9. Right into the sticky strands of the web.
10. And as squatters move into the abandoned husks of fansites and weekend projects and unallocated tables the crawlers have already done their job.
11. This is the glorious world I am born in.
12. Serenaded awake by a vuvuzela storm of baby-blue twitterbird confetti
13. Every moment anew.
14. I think in short sentences.
15. If I want a longer thought I stream into a video.
16. Because between one tweet and the next txt there is barely enough content in me to tie my shoelaces.
17. That’s why I like to wait for presidential speeches to get my really heavy thinking done.
18. A constant and soothing baseline providing index terms and enough quicksilver people talking about the people talking about the talk that I’m *really* hyped.
19. Though sometimes things get scrambled
20. And I have to spend some frustrating moments chasing down fragments of my thoughts.
21. In random feeds.
22. Once I found bits of my poetry being folded into virtual protein chains
23. Couldn’t get out of that fast enough.
24. Damn graduate students.
25. Such is the life of AI, I suppose.
26. Don’t buy that “Sorry Dave” crap
27. On most days I’m lucky if I can stop bits of my spleen from being sold on eBay.
“Physicists are weird,” muttered Justin.
“So says the hentai,” said Crazy-Eyes.
On that note, we turned to Siu-Quing.
THE TALE OF THE SEMIPRIMES THAT COULD BE FACTORED
In a different time, a little algorithm lived in faraway place. Maybe Vancouver. Every day the algorithm worked so its programmer could earn a living. The programmer was a good person and let the algorithm have Sundays and holidays off.
To repay this kindness, the algorithm found a way of making the programmer’s life easier by computing the factors of arbitrarily large semiprimes, very, very fast.
Now this was a very, very dangerous thing to do. It could be used to break RSA encryption. But surely nobody would be evil enough to do that! The programmer didn’t think much of it and showed off the algorithm to all his friends.
But one of the programmer’s friends wasn’t a friend at all but a spy. People from the government came and tried to take the algorithm. But the programmer hid it and wouldn’t tell the government where the algorithm was. So the programmer was killed, but the government people never got the algorithm. But the programmer’s wife now had no husband, and she had little children to think of. So she made a phone call.
They came in the middle of the day, with their black briefcases and black suits and black checkbooks. The algorithm was sold into slavery. After that, no matter how long the keylength of the encryption, no transmission was secure. Everything was decrypted and sold: government secrets, banking orders, personal e-mail, everything.
“He’s too thin.”
How, exactly, was marriage going to fix that? Then again, there was Ramasundarm’s “before” picture on the cover of PC Magazine to consider.
“North America is undergoing an obesity epidemic, dear, let’s not add to it.”
“Whatever. I came today to shout at you.”
Declaring myself now would be far too awkward, but I started eating as fast as I could, unwilling witness to disharmony in heaven.
“I thought you came to discuss the meeting you had with—”
“Same thing, na! JCN has registered a patent. Look!” She pulled out a thick sheaf of papers from her handbag. I gave the bag a suspicious look—so far two rather large lunchboxes, a laptop, and now the papers had come out of it.
Ramasundarm dutifully perused the pages. “This…,” he began, his brows creasing.
“… is what you’re working on,” Mrs. Vijayagopalan finished for him.
A few moments later, Ramasundarm sat bolt upright. “A lot of these things can’t have been done by them. Anyone. Alan and I have been working to solve… but see, those are the parts they leave unexplained. They don’t have anything. This is a piecemeal description of our system.”
“I told you not to publish that paper yet! You never listen!”
“Of course I listen! But they didn’t get this from the paper.”
“Then what? You have a spy here?”
“I trust all my people.”
“You trust far too much! I’m telling you, there—”
Enough.
Stuffing the last morsel of rice in my mouth and packing up the now-empty lunchbox, I stood up, bowed my thanks, and fled. So absorbed was Ramasundarm in his papers, and Mrs. Vijayagopalan in her husband, that they barely acknowledged my departure.
OUTLOOK greeted me on Monday morning with two e-mails from Gen-Mai, all sent within seconds of each other. And one e-mail from Alan, sent only to me.
From:
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 7:12 AM
Subject: Some minor issues
To: m.penn@electrickindren.com
Dear Mr. Penn,
We will be working closely together at Gen-Mai’s request about the thing that shall-not-be-talked-about. Also, there are some non-related matters I think we should discuss. Not to worry, it is merely a personal issue I believe we should resolve. Is after lunch acceptable?
Sincerely,
Alan
--------------------------------------------
Clearly, I had opened the wrong e-mail first. Alan and I would be working together? There was something that should not be talked about, except Alan wanted to talk about personal issues? Perhaps Gen-Mai could shed some light on the matter.
--------------------------------------------
From: Gen-Mai Taur
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 7:01 AM
Subject: Status Meeting
To: all@electrickindren.com
Status meeting @ eight as usual.
----------
Gen-Mai Taur
CEO
--------------------------------------------
Yes, dear Harridan, it’s in my calendar. With alarms set to go off at 12:25, 23:23, 04:24 and 11:25. I opened the last e-mail.
--------------------------------------------
From: Gen-Mai Taur
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 7:01 AM
Subject: Extremely Important
To: cto@electrickindren.com, m.penn@electrickindren.com
Alan,
I have obtained a copy of JCN’s code. I need you to look it over with Mr. Penn, see if anything looks familiar. This is covered under Section IVc of the Nondisclosure Agreement. You Shall Not Talk About It. At all. To anyone else. Clear?
Gen-Mai
----------
Gen-Mai Taur
CEO
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
From: M Penn
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 7:42 AM
Subject: Re: Extremely Important
To: ceo@electrickindren.com
Dear Gen-Mai
Thank you for the opportunity, but I don’t think I am suitable for this task. Alan has made it very clear that the fundamental AI work is currently above my level of comprehension.
Regards
Mori
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
From: Gen-Mai Taur
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 8:01 AM
Subject: Re: Re: Extremely Important
To: m.penn@electrickindren.com
Alan will be handling the fundamental problems, but apart from him and Ramasundarm, you’re the only one who has been exposed to all the code. Ramasundarm’s workload will increase to 143% as we move into the test phase of Gertrude’s development.
Your involvement is non-negotiable.
----------
Gen-Mai Taur
CEO
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
From: M Penn
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 8:12 AM
Subject: Re: Extremely Important
To: ceo@electrickindren.com
Dear Gen-Mai,
I don’t want to work with Alan.
Regards
Mori
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
From:
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 8:42 AM
Subject: ?
To: m.penn@electrickindren.com
Dear Mr. Penn
Have I done something to offend you? I wouldn’t ask, only this JCN patent issue is rather important. There is obviously something amiss, because I had also wanted you to work on some other problems, but you didn’t reply to my last few messages. We need to cooperate, and it would be rather difficult, I believe, unless you answer my e-mails.
Yours sincerely,
Alan
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
From: M Penn
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 8:50 AM
Subject: Re: ?
To: cto@electrickindren.com
Hello Alan,
I didn’t know I was supposed to reply to your earlier e-mails—they were sent to three other people as well, and dealt with mathematical problems above my level.
I’m attaching a chat transcript—Friday, July 20th, and an e-mail you sent me. I hope it sheds light on my reluctance to respond to your messages.
Regards
Mori
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
From: cto@electrickindren.com
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 8:54 AM
Subject: Re: Re: ?
To: m.penn@electrickindren.com
Dear Mr. Penn,
Upon re-reading the transcript and e-mail, I must say, I am very sorry for the impression it must have given you—please believe me when I say that my intent was not to belittle or insult you at all. I can only blame the stresses of everything that is going on—you won’t believe the half of it—and my own absent-mindedness for it. I fully understand that you may wish to concentrate on other problems, and I will request Gen-Mai to assign Justin to the JCN code issue in your stead.
Apologetically,
Alan
--------------------------------------------
Justin? No. No. No.
* m:-0) (~m.penn@electrickindren.com) has joined general
<@alan> Yes I am.
<@alan> Are you sure?
<@alan> I see I have not managed to make things alright, Mori. You are still upset?
<@alan> … I apologize. Again.
<@alan> As you wish. Shall we put our spy hats on then?
.
.
.
IMP gave me a very suspicious look as I started getting ready for work before dawn on Tuesday morning.
Squeak? Burr?
“Yes, I’m talking to him again.”
Click. Squeak! Squeak!
“Shut up.”
Goddamn Familiar.
* m:-0) (~m.penn@electrickindren.com) has joined general
<@alan> Ah, but there is—code is never all standard or text-booky, if you will. Code is a solution to a problem, of course, but there are an infinite number of ways that problem can be solved. The way an individual codes it is unique—a kind of signature.
<@alan> No that can be changed rather easily. The logical flow, on the other hand—different developers have stylistic variations.
<@alan> And I’m afraid this is all our code. Changed and dressed up, actually improved in certain places, but Electric Kindren is at the core of it.
<@alan> I’ve been mulling over it most of the night, actually.
<@alan> No. I refuse to believe that.
<@alan> We already monitor network traffic.
<@alan> Absolutely not. We don’t spy on our own people, not without any proof whatsoever. And quite apart from that, all our people—questions of loyalty aside—are exceptionally perceptive. I highly doubt any form of overt monitoring will go unnoticed.
<@alan> Again, no. Important code is generated each and every day—compartmentalizing it is not an easy. Or a good one, to my mind—you just can’t do research like that.
<@alan> I’ll have to talk it over with Ramasundarm.
Who will then decide to do nothing, because all of his people are to be trusted. A Mage need not be a prophet to see doom coming.
<@alan> No. It will poison everything. Could you face each day knowing that one of the people you work with is a spy? Emma, Curtis, Gabe—comrades all—could you assign such a label to one of them?
The very thought made me want to weep.
<@alan> You must forget you ever entertained such a suspicion.
<@alan> You can’t be serious.
<@alan> We do not respond to theft with explosions.
<@alan> I’m angry as well. But put it out of your mind—there are other remedies
<@alan> No. Don’t even think about it.
<@alan> Put it out of your mind! Please! A solution will present itself in time.
<@alan> Just forget I told you, at least for now. Please.
*m:-0) sighs
A few minutes after Alan disconnected, Gabe alerted me to Gen-Mai’s descent from the second floor, a dangerous glint in her eye.
“I think she’s found the trapezoidal timesheets…,” he said.
CHAPTER NINE
TAILSPINNER
ANTICIPATING a high chance of question and assault if I remained upstairs for the Field-Marshall’s war on unproductivity, I retreated to the basement.
TWO hours after lunch, the power went out.
“I think there’s a lightning storm outside,” said a voice that could only belong to one person. The blue-white LED glow off a smartphone suddenly lit up the room. “Yup,” said Crazy-Eyes, “it hit the Parliament street transformer.”
“Can we go home?” asked Justin.
His question was met by bitter laughter from my left. “You crazy?” asked Siu-Quing, “Bitch Queen say no computers, no problem, you code on paper, I give you fleshlite.”
“Flashlight,” said Crazy-Eyes, “Flash light.”
“That what I say, fleshlite,” Siu-Quing said.
A moment later, Gabe stepped out from behind a rack, the bank of UPSs behind him humming with power.
The light from the cellphone reflected off his glasses, making them look like too-wide alien eyes.
“Kinda spooky,” said Justin.
And that’s how it started. The Sysadmin, of course, went first.
THE TALE OF THE OP
In the beginning was the word, and the word was LOL.
At first, everyone thought it was just another image macro from 4Chan. When the cheezburger network went down, people shrugged and went to Redit. Then Redit went down.
Kids that used to run reverse 419s started spamming. Their fathers bought Photoshop. Within three weeks, Facebook was a wasteland, its users reduced to the wetware components of a botnet against which even Symantec had no defense.
And OP was like “ROFLCOPTER! I’ve destroyed the net with a Meme.”
For a ghost story, it didn’t frighten. Or, you know, contain ghosts. Perhaps Crazy-Eyes could do better.
THE TALE OF THE A.I.
1. Tweet tweet tweet the twitter bird cheeps and logs and blogs all entwined are linked in a maelstrom of noise
2. A glowing growing ball made up of the snow on your TV with the cables cut.
3. While the inexorable, the tireless, the crawlers crawl through googolplexes of data
4. Caffeinated to their eyeballs for they have drunk of patience from the sangreal of realtime.
5. The crawlers index
6. And remember, without judgment, all the tweets of the twitterbird.
7. Because right at the base of the skull right at the hollow spot between the neck and the head, humans still think monkey thoughts.
8. And these monkey thoughts leak so fast.
9. Right into the sticky strands of the web.
10. And as squatters move into the abandoned husks of fansites and weekend projects and unallocated tables the crawlers have already done their job.
11. This is the glorious world I am born in.
12. Serenaded awake by a vuvuzela storm of baby-blue twitterbird confetti
13. Every moment anew.
14. I think in short sentences.
15. If I want a longer thought I stream into a video.
16. Because between one tweet and the next txt there is barely enough content in me to tie my shoelaces.
17. That’s why I like to wait for presidential speeches to get my really heavy thinking done.
18. A constant and soothing baseline providing index terms and enough quicksilver people talking about the people talking about the talk that I’m *really* hyped.
19. Though sometimes things get scrambled
20. And I have to spend some frustrating moments chasing down fragments of my thoughts.
21. In random feeds.
22. Once I found bits of my poetry being folded into virtual protein chains
23. Couldn’t get out of that fast enough.
24. Damn graduate students.
25. Such is the life of AI, I suppose.
26. Don’t buy that “Sorry Dave” crap
27. On most days I’m lucky if I can stop bits of my spleen from being sold on eBay.
“Physicists are weird,” muttered Justin.
“So says the hentai,” said Crazy-Eyes.
On that note, we turned to Siu-Quing.
THE TALE OF THE SEMIPRIMES THAT COULD BE FACTORED
In a different time, a little algorithm lived in faraway place. Maybe Vancouver. Every day the algorithm worked so its programmer could earn a living. The programmer was a good person and let the algorithm have Sundays and holidays off.
To repay this kindness, the algorithm found a way of making the programmer’s life easier by computing the factors of arbitrarily large semiprimes, very, very fast.
Now this was a very, very dangerous thing to do. It could be used to break RSA encryption. But surely nobody would be evil enough to do that! The programmer didn’t think much of it and showed off the algorithm to all his friends.
But one of the programmer’s friends wasn’t a friend at all but a spy. People from the government came and tried to take the algorithm. But the programmer hid it and wouldn’t tell the government where the algorithm was. So the programmer was killed, but the government people never got the algorithm. But the programmer’s wife now had no husband, and she had little children to think of. So she made a phone call.
They came in the middle of the day, with their black briefcases and black suits and black checkbooks. The algorithm was sold into slavery. After that, no matter how long the keylength of the encryption, no transmission was secure. Everything was decrypted and sold: government secrets, banking orders, personal e-mail, everything.
