From head to head

The known method of digitizing the EEG record in a form of a generalized Fourier-Shumenkov order is invertible. Initial results on the level of "listening with noise". Directions of further development: filtering and improving the signal / noise ratio. Extracting pure information for archiving and/or transferring scientific knowledge, ideas, bulletproof testament etc. Ref. Shnya and Owdick (Sh'na, O'Dick): "EEDG salad on the table" ("EEDG salatha a tisben"), Jedda community of FGZ, works of fourth congress of EEDG, cat. num. wor. bibl. *112420014/4221.

The works of the famous Shnya-Owdick couple recently draw the attention of the whole world's community of scientists dealing with studies on EEDG (electro encephalic digitogram). Their last congress abstract indicates a very interesting direction, which is, actually, impossible to follow, for two simple reasons: the work it is taken from doesn't exist at all, or at least no traces of its publishing exist, and secondly, they maybe do have some idea, but they haven't exposed it anywhere. This may mean another famous white noise experiment (where we all think we have heard of how to make gold, but missed few details, but since we're convinced the thing is already done once, we don't have the psychological barrier of facing an impossible task, therefore we rush on it and solve it). In a way this may deserve some merit if someone really gets the credit, or come out as a big shame, if nothing comes out of it. The two are risking a lot, at least their good name in the scientific world. It would be interesting to know what really happened and why didn't they publish their announced work. The only trace of the matter itself is when some "inversion of method of digitizing the EEDG recording in a form of a generalized Fourier-Shumenkov order", but this method has at least fifty invertible items. Maybe the intent was to get the whole of the science brotherhood to try out the multitude of combinations at random? Who survives, gets old.

Hassan Valahovich: EEDG salad with excess vinegar, Jedda community FGZ, cat. num. wor. bibl. *112470014/4223

If you find this article in the humor column, it will confirm the old tale, which says that even the psychology column editors aren't immune to bad taste. The situation is far from funny, and the editors will be the last to know.

Similar things may have happened in other times, when the primitive industry was built, and the colleagues had to go through the new psychoses induced by technology. This is far worse.

According to the black box of our colleague Sarah Menraabe (Sarrakh Manraabhe), a patient came, having one of electromanias; nothing new, nothing to get alarmed at. Diagnose, as the fashion has it, "virtual space syndrome", or, in layman's terms, he was crazed with computer games to the extend when he often didn't know whether he's in a game or not. Session after session, everything went typical and normal, as far as a case in our branch can be normal. The key moment comes when the patient says that he has no intention of paying a yellow dime to the analyst as long as he refuses to share his experience ("how can you have any idea what am I talking about"). Poor Sarah agrees, gets hooked to the patient's pocket terminal, flies right into the game... and he's still there. We suppose that, if he ever comes back, he will be unrecoverably lost, or, even worse, unrecoverably precious for the profession.

The patient tries to justify himself saying he couldn't have the slightest idea of "doc being so lowly calibrated", because he has already played on "far higher reality levels" without adverse effects, that he has won a gravity emulator in just two months while regularly passing exams.

The new wave of psychotechnology brings us new mental aberration; considering it all we will have to solve the few following problems:

a) how to be more sane than our patients, and yet to understand them;
b) how to get the public to know the problem (repeat the story with alcohol and other state owned drugs) in spite of the fact that the same public (read: state) keeps the media under its paw:
c) how to improve diagnostics in parallel with the development of critical software; what would the diagnostic software look like (two kinds of it: one to test the patients, other to test the critical software);
d) to decide whether we are doing the hardware or software this time (can we search again for an organic profile or should we look for external influence);
e) finally forbid dirges during a congress. Twenty years we have mourned the good old classic paranoia, which nobody dares mention anymore, five years the screen anxiosity, and starting tomorrow we'll mourn the virtual space syndrome.

I fear that the ilusority of these requests will be sufficient pretext for the editor to classify this article where it shouldn't be.

p.s. I'd like to suggest to my colleagues of the Society to rethink the name. I also don't like to attend meetings where mental health of London is discussed - couldn't we be called just „London mental society“? Or someone can word it better?

Respected colleague Sowl,

The resistance you mention exists among younger colleagues - they have all been through it during their studies. Colleague Sarah has, kind of, tried to run faster than his years permit. Some things must, by their nature, be left to the young. True, we do have many real-time sense emulators, but I remember virtual space myself (wouldn't mention my age, though...). It wasn't as real as today's one is, but it had its ways of pulling you into its topology. Gambling, that you mention, is a tradition in our profession - let's not dispose of things our patients expect us to have. Fashionable diseases don't exist without a corresponding obsolete set.

The dilemma of what are we dealing with - hardware or software - is serious. Allow me to express myself in classic hackers' (anyone remember the meaning of the word?) jargon: public or net software impacts all of our patient's systems THROUGH his software, hitting indirectly his hardware. Which one do we cure? I'll toss a coin.

With respect, Ben Andersov, editor.

Along with your P.S. - I had seen more stupid titles. What would you think of an association for veneric diseases of France?

It was about time I started writing. Even if the whole thing fails, I'll have proper memoirs for my old age. Hari and I started off deep into the night few days ago over our old Dragon Mark 12.4. Even its version number is worn out. They say that anything worthy is version three to seven; before that it behaves as a spoiled brat and needs courting all the time, after that it's too much living in the past, knows too much and has too many elderly habits. Around third version, there's no more child diseases, around seventh, it has everything it takes and it's working properly. Then they start inventing bells and whistles, out of simple lack of sense of good measure... and they go into eighth, ninth version.

We're transferring everything to the new AlfaStar 4.21. We'll have to manage another optical disk from somewhere, because we'll simply run out of space again real soon, and we still don't know what to delete and what not. We have plenty of those inerasable ones, but simply have no time to transfer the archives to them. AlfaStar as such is much faster and has better hardware data compression - it does something with global tables and heuristics; the old data will shrink to a quarter of the previous space, at least that's what they said in the shop. How did we get the AlfaStar? I wouldn't leave that in writing.

Mush does lack imagination, but goes a bit faster than me. I've come to the same idea, the diary thing, but came along a dozen seconds later, midnight passed, and hers is the first. And so will the last be? I'm late, matter of fact, because I sat by the teeveephone to call an old pal of mine to rewire some things for me. Not a close chum of mine, I know him since low grade, but he's one of the very few freaks you can call around midnight without having them send you something disgusting on screen. Should be here any moment. I've sent Mush for wine and herrings.

As far as yesterday, any idea of making a diary would have been perverse to me, but nevertheless (hear the stylist me: nevertheless), if we succeed, this diary may bring glory even beyond our profession, specially if we make only a technical success and don't lift the dough. If, however, we fail (I hope we don't, mention it just to disperse bad luck), then the diary's worth as a reading isn't much. Maybe it could be useful then just for building up style and analysis (/paralysis). Mush would say now that I'm making a back off path - well past the age of twenty-five, Nobel nowhere in sight, think of your old age.

I thought this little city lives by night. I've called at least ten places until I've found one which is still open this time of night. The suffering get saved - they had quite an assortment. I've found Mariano's Ford twelve years old. When I got back, Looysek (Lewisack Sol'Dervaw) has already opened the output side of the AlfaStar and our EEDG recorder. He looked like a crazy Italian cook, all in colored spaghettis. I supposed all three rows of pockets inside his jackets hold various mysterious tools (where are the good old computers when you needed just a screwdriver and a solder). When I thought he got completely tangled, he produced, from one of the mysterious top row pockets, a pipe, then a cleaning knife, tobacco and other trinkets one by one. When he pulled a microlaser from the last pocket, he disappeared in a cloud of smoke. He emerged twenty minutes later with a regularly connected sensor tape around his head.

The idea is banally simple. This is kinda some kind of pleonasm? Oh well. The idea is that we're killing ourselves for months, trying to think up any software or hardware or anything that would be capable of getting some sense from the forest of bytes that make a digital EEG. We've overstuffed all of our optical and other disks, tapes, threads and other media with loads of recordings and still - nothing. We got just few general outlines, but never came up with anything specific. The "Fourier-Shumenkov order inverting" was a total failure - nobody nowhere tried that track, so we're alone again. At least, we were fair as much to report to Jedda this is a dead end.

Then one night it crossed my mind that we're born with an organ capable of understanding these signals. The same one who got it all tangled and bangled, our dear big brain (when the little one wasn't at home). If we could get it to understand at least one recording without a computer... there would be hope. As is, we are only left with a hope that AlfaStar's speed will bring some advantage. We also rely on its compression tables - I wouldn't be surprised if we found some change in them every day. In the end, the whole thing may rather be analyzable as a long file to compress, than as a fearfully respectable EEDG.

Shouldn't we have addressed the houses who supply tools for the writers? They seem to have made a better guess what's going on in heads. We'd confess then that the merchants were better psychologists than the psychologists. We still stubbornly write our analyzers in GAS (Generator of Analog Simulations), which we have somewhat customized to our needs. Be it by the way, GAS was written in GGen (generator generator), which in turn was done in FGen (FowlGen - source of the name was never revealed). Digging further down the various remarks spilled down the code, we've found seven generations of generators having left their traces on the generator. We do look pretty archaic to ourselves with our routines written in MAK. It's probably a part of our house folklore, just the way the embroidery covering the pillows of the seats in an orbital station is.

Boss, I've run into something incredible. You got the technical description in the encrypted part of the message, but the intimate experience is undescribblable. When that tape started rolling, it all came back to me - the smoke and the wine. Don't try to convince me I was overdosed, I'm well past that age, but if you can imagine receiving the same dose over the same channel with a two minute delay, with all the subjective reactions as the first time, with new reactions added, and all that without any additional molecule of anything but air... everything repeated. I felt the strike of the first smoke simultaneously with the yecch taste of an extinguished pipe; I watched the cold pipe and felt (SAW! - along with what I saw otherwise) myself pulling another smoke - I had four hands, two I moved and two which dragged as remembered, the same as it was two minutes ago. Everything I thought, I thought again. Man, they need no drug. I know, nobody does, but this is the first effective electric drug ever since screen that I know. Most of all, you make your show. Think of the implications, and I'll think of my percentage. Your Looysek Solydervaw

The dice tossed on to Hari to describe the general part. His mindset mishmash may be described as a confused subway - it's not clear at all how can it possibly work, but it gets you where it should. His logic tends to stick stiffly to the classical Aristoteles' template, and then all of a sudden it leaps out into some intuitive labyrinth and reappears from behind some unexpected corner. The next experiment is mutual listening live - who said eegyphone?

We're getting along well with production of an internal EEDG dictionary. "Dictionary" should be taken very conditionally - it's more of an internal interbrain (!) convention on general methods of common (communal?) thinking methods. Maybe we're losing some variety here, but gain far more on the speed of mutual tracking. It seems it used to take centuries before, until we understood each other. The variety is unavoidable, anyway. By analogy with standard speech - we speak standard languages, but have our own voice color, accent, and probably, we ourselves think up what to say.

By the way: Looysek drops in sometimes, but it seems to me/us he's sold his back to someone. He doesn't look like someone who'd drop in often just to check if he's got it all wired properly - those guys usually wire it roughly and disappear, and if they receive no panic phone calls next day, it was probably good. We've found a couple of beetles he inserted; we have found a way to fool them. We mostly play the recordings of old Guinevere (buried two months ago on the university cemetery for experimental monkeys).

Sometimes we insert some excerpt of our communication, the parts we first laboriously re-read/re-think. Mostly telling jokes on these recordings - he'll probably manage to understand that much, though I don't believe he succeeded in simulating our conversation programs. It's not much of a program, but at least we got rid of the heartbeat, blood pressure and breathing generators, which we actually had to do - Mush once fell into a heavy counterrhythmia (and so did I, but I took control over myself somehow, which immediately helped her, too).

Boss, those two worry me, or fool me. EEDG shots I sneak out are worse all the time, and the sound channel emptier. They started coding their conversation, I mean the voices, and for EEDG they invented some portable models, now they have only some sort of tape over the forehead, with cables to the batteries in the pocket, they almost never take them off. I've wired the bathroom, too. Play it, and if you understand a thing then I'm Bill Gates. They've never been particularly normal, but this is beyond realms of tolerable. They talk in such codes that nobody can understand. I wander if they're just fooling me, or they really talk like that. We must do something, because a thing like this can't stay undiscovered for long. It's gonna leak somewhere. They're the sloppy scientologists, they can't keep their mouth shut and not brag before their kind. And then someone will be quicker than we are and you can bid your profit farewell, and my percentage all the same.

Waiting for an answer.

Kid, you seem to have worked off for all those years I've spent futilely banging my head with questions like "why do you pay that smoke bomb", "are you a corporation or you've become a sister of mercy", "did Brainexpand get it's name after what it does or what it lacks" and such. Moreover, I assign you to a post of a genius with only one thing to work on: to boy a demonstrational, perfect, unfinished, polished, unpolished or any other version of patent from them, and think a way of making money out of it. Since it's almost two years since the last time we gave the media world a real good shake, I count on your tequila, pipe and invention. Shake it all well (the third, more than the first two) and you will get a net 0.5% of the profit.

...and once they invented the wheel, they had to rush the invention of the axis, and by the time they got to the railway, they ran out of inspiration. I feel we're in a similar situation: this sounds ingenious, and can't find a smart use for it.

We have just been elaborating possible implications on espionage. The scheme is roughly like this: they catch a spy, put a sensor on him, another one on the inquirer. If he's not a spy, they have to shoot him anyway, because they don't know if he overheard what he shouldn't have from the inquirer's head. If he is, then the inquirer becomes a suspect, because the guy may have had a stronger idea on his side, or he's just a trained fanatic and/or brain washer, which ultimately leads to the old questionnaire "who will guard the guardians?". This time, it's not only that the guardians should be guarded from taking too much pleasure from their power, but also from swapping a mindset and changing sides during regular working hours.

Second variant: the inquirer questions him like on a lie detector, and re-reads the recording later. The inquiree is safe from overhearing something from the inquirer, but the inquirer can still be infected with ideas (to some extent, if the guy is convincing enough). All in all, the inquirer is a suspect. It could be handed to three inquirers to re-read independently, which is still not safe, because a good spy could hand them instructions over the tape on how to lie and what to do when they give their statements. This makes them subject to such an inquiry, which leads us to an insane number of twelve detectives just to minimize the risk of indoctrination and/or brainwashing by means of an EEDG replay. If we could do the thinking in words and coded images only, it could be cast onto the screen in some seventh version of our gadget (iv we make it), but the reality is for just one shade more complicated: there's no chance for a computer reading of it. Thing works only from head to head, no matter what hardware is wired in between.

Second and a half variant: this one takes hard guys, just like when the shits were off to chop wood, /does the instinct for associating to old jokes have anything to do with oiling all the gears in the head? /, er, really convincing chums could be found, whose recordings could serve the job of giving the just convincing chums a little wash (with and/or without boiling) of whatever bits of brain they have. Those would be played to police academy kids, and who ever becomes a people's enemy, may be arrested and questioned right on, and shot as needed. It's an enemy on the level of the noble savage - he's only got the idea, and never had time to do anything... and those who pass can practice inquisition right on them, spotlight in the face and bullet in the back of the neck included.

And what would we get with two machines; from one you play your old recording, and record the now to the other. Since in those moments you think it all doubly, or at least you think that you think, the new recording should have it both. Then you exchange tapes and listen to the double, and think your third layer of thought and feel your third layer of feelings over the first two, and record this triple thing to a new tape. It's roughly the technique used by those freaks when they record a symphony in the kitchen, simmering the geological layers of sound over the narrow track between the synthy and the computer. Does en passes (over our narrowtrack connection) give a preludium and fugue, or a brainstorm, or a panic/manic congress, or a pure schizophreak, or a dirty genius, or... still, I won't volunteer for that, yet.

Who knows what's it good for that we haven't decrypted the EEDG. Until now we should have convinced the AlfaStar that voice addressing is neither necessary, and have written it all right out from our minds. I'm holding my pencil just like a low-grade kid; neglected it completely. If we stumble across another handy technology, who knows what skills would we develop, and what would go into oblivion. I probably wouldn't be able to write my name without five megs of utility software.

You've never had some handwriting, and it's too early for atrophy - wait for another fifty generations. If you mean losing skills and habits and gaining new ones, we've done it so many times... Or another possible use: remote degustation: can one cheat that way? If I'm to be convinced into purchase by an officially approved taster's subjective sense, transferred via sensor, how much can i trust him: could be hypnotized, drugged, washed, blackmailed or kept hungry/thirsty for two weeks, and it's guaranteed I'd miss some of that on the recording. Or, can one be hypnotized by a hypnosis recording? If yes, is a recording of the condition enough, or it takes the recording of the process as well?

My dear, if ever my life becomes too simple, I'll ask your advice. Here's the counter: did ever anyone got fed by watching & fasting? Or, contrary, could it be patented as 1354th recipe for quickly losing weight - you record a good meal of yours, and play it when you're hungry, and have a feeling of having eaten well, and it's your genuine subjective feeling. How far could an illusion cheat your guts? Could it be used to build an Auschwitz in which the customers would be satisfied and die of illusion of a heart attack caused by an illusion of obesity?

Recontrary: you turn it into an unconditional reflex, and whenever you feel you filled your guts up, you know that you are hungry in reality and so ad infinitvm

I wouldn't reply with ad navseam, but with ad diarrheam. And, I've got those forehead stickers finished, shouldn't get in our way in bed

kid, you're becoming nasty, and if you think what I'm thinking you're also rude. Let's go try it right on.

//we just couldn't resist to record this - after all, he taped us. who deals with the devil.../

- Hi folks. How's doing?
- Crazy and unforgettable. Science goes further, we go after it. Whaddya drink?
- Better nothing.
- Then it's a beer, until the coffee arrives. What good brings you?
- I'd better go right on, makes me more direct: is the contraption working?
- You mean AlfaStar? Goody little Alphie, chews whatever you stuff its mouth with, doesn't leave crumbs around the plate and even washes the dishes.
- And the gadget I hooked into it for you?
- Never better, or better never.
- Why? Does it work or does it not?
- It works too well. It transfers what it should and what it shouldn't. The only thing we could find are works of some psychologists and others where these people clearly state that it's not filterable. We thought of making an immediate communicator for science teams and other places where ideas flow quicker than words, but...
- What? Can't understand? Too much noise?
- Understands everything, specially the noise. Take some of your time some day, concentrate and try to think of one specific thing only. Or not to think of one specific thing only. Try not to think of dinosaurs next ten seconds. Unmix the gunpowder away from the pepper. The ideas are so interconnected with the intimate way a person looks at the world, that, for instance, your rummaging through a wiring scheme can't get separated from your rummaging between Alinka's (Al Iejnca) thighs.
- Let's not get into personal matt... how do you know?
- You spied on us, so we took the reverse liberty of replaying some of yours - you left enough of your recordings.
- That thigh thing is a bit too much!
- And can't be avoided. Those things are inseparable. That completes the list of its drawbacks.

//he performed a dramatic pause very bad - we could nicely see, behind his eyelids, the intermittent totals, percentages and the grande totalmente sigma of everything. He calculated up and/

- Oh, well, if it's only that... Would you sell it?

//no hurting facts can stop a real, genuine and sincere love towards multidigit amounts/

- Under certain conditions, with a limited warranty...
- I can't offer much but
- We'll find someone who can
- Alright, I admit you got an ace up your sleeve... though there's some merit of mine, too... how much do you require?

name and last name: ****************

password: ***********
search message base since last read (enter=yes)?
(ctrl+Q) or (ctrl+H) exit, (ctrl+S) stop.
searching main (0) ................
messages for you: none, messages from you_ 725 746 779; # messages found:133
Abandon theme, Help, Operator page, Transfer Protocol, News review, Greetings, OPEn Door, Text Search, CHat, Jump to theme, Setup, Download, Upload, Quick message review, Find file (name), Read messages, Kill message, Write Resume, Send Message, Verbose on/off, File list, New Files (date), ReRead message #, X personal mail, G(oodbye) end, NEWs list, SCript, List Packed, Take Packed, _) advanced level

_OPN lumpus
checking setup... parameter changes... opening lumpus door... checking rights... found a 427 point bonus, working age 16452 hours of virtual time, 74 hours of real time... access approved, if you knew what you are doing so far.
welcome to lumpus. searching local messages... no new local messages; answer from sysop packed into anw24884234a.message, down immed? y
down anw24884234a.message, 1:05 errors 4 corrected 4 retries 6; you are left 28:55 for today
command: JG35; L "mandreo.lif" DSC
joining room G35 "Syberian roulette"... loading mandreo.lif... message to all players: we have introduced a time limit in some games to release lines for other things; rumors on some state control are unbased; moreover, we prepare a surprise with a capital "W". /sysop
situation view: you survived 425 days in Syberia; year 1951, 124 days left to exile to Irkutsk, unless you blow it somehow; you killed 5 guards, 3 traitors and 1 lover of yours; evaded 35 attempts to get killed, you own 35 cigarettes, 124 grams of bread, sapogs 35% damaged (will hold for another 64.7 days), eared cap size 52 (your size 56), tin pot, wooden spoon, fur coat and 45 rub. 27k.; you are at level #35 of the game, reward for a good plot around the camp chief's sister is another 12 cigarettes (it's mahorka! - exchange for 3 real ones). to get to the next level you should be out for one day, new gloves expecting you in town. chances to survive that 11%. You are threatened by Fosgenj, who resorts to some good tricks lately, and REUTL_3 is gaining hight rapidly since two days ago. Sysop suspects he's allied with MET3_OK and they may be using an eegycom while playing; if that's confirmed, they will be dispatched to Norilsk.
day 426, 02:30. You are in the inspector's office. He questions: "Where did you hide when you escaped Auschwitz?"
_g
Sorry to see you leave the game so early. You will miss a chance to self-criticize today in the barracks, which will cost you two overtimes in the north brigade. Goodbye
end - disconnected
review messages? y
message anw24884234a.message
if you care of progress in the game, you should know what's going on. five of you who are in an eegynet are in quite a danger - the thing seems to be heard of around, or another competing group uses the same trick i probably won't be able to play double for long, still a sysop needs to be neutral, but until the thing is solved, decrease your levels somewhat. this time limit thing is a little bluff - as long as i can hide real connection times. some players pull various data out of connection logs, hoping to get from the postprocessing whatever they failed to notice online; they pull all sorts of things from the stats, and it could be someone may compare his own online times with the others'... to add, it all seems they'll have some state guy hooked over me to control me, then it's goodbye game. by the way, sell your ear cap for bread and get fed well, because you have to beat uglakhov (that's fosgenj) in tow days due, before he organizes a plot against you. he'll go plotting anyway, but don't allow him get a good position for that. also eat well realtime, because if the trick i'm preparing works, you'll be able to play over the testing channel which counts nowhere, and that means 25 hours a day (prepare a good package aforehand to have the speed make up for the 24 hour limitation of the outer day). beware of murphy

minea is either kidding or playing a multiple game. the state controller thing is just a passing fuss, but i'd bet she's sending a similar message to other eegynetters. if only i could break someone's password, just to see what she sends to others. i doubt the state cares at all whether anyone plays with an eegycom, and not even to mention that nobody ever dreamed of us making an eegynet. it rather seems to me that the state is interested in some military use of virtual space (what generals could they cultivate if they kept them for two or three days in a three-month simulation of a world war with today's technology... they'd never need a real war)(for training, it is, but what if they start thinking they have well trained men they don't have a place to put to a test?), and if anyone of us gets hooked into psyberia or sirius for longer than one can survive, nobody of the state will be too sorry. until this is sold, i'll go sell my eegygram. they offer nice cash. just to play some of the "head hunter" on 97th level. they estimate that the subjective reactions of an experienced player may attract lots of young hot keyboard magicians. thurvie doesn't have an idea of what i'm doing, and if he does, who knows why he's silent?

Looysek ain't naive, unless he thinks all the scientists are sucking oars. Talking about oars, we rowed him over for some 28%, and all of his rights cover only the current model (we generated the docs on the way, and verified all the copies at the nearby clerk's - he was stunned when he saw us embraced all together). He even ordered a box of Dom Alexino to celebrate. Tomorrow sign the contract and test.

Further use of EGcom in state service is strictly forbidden, for either official or private purposes. State employees are free to use it off hours, but only with persons they can not get into an official contact. Details in circular message to follow.

Speaker of the Division, Sharp Eye McTroll

No business like state business. They have taken Thurvie's slogan "everything is heard perfectly" seriously, and even more seriously they filled they pants over the matter of their dear and precious "top sec" papers.

We managed to introduce the eegycom to our college colleagues just two days before the circular. It's a state college, of course, or the whole matter wouldn't touch them. I can hardly imagine what public confusion has that archiliar and cashsucker Thurvie has caused in public by hazing out the substance of the "side effects" of the eegycom. Though, it doesn't lack a warning, but they look like "we warn you that everything is heard" - people buy it, and then realize that the things they hear hurt more than deep tilling their subconscience. Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto...who found any joy in that.

Thurvie, you just picked a right moment to plug a classic recorder to your voice line! As if you don't have sound even in your bathroom - you are soaking in isolation, and I'll be happy if I don't end up boiling in a kettle - these lunatics could be capable of cooking me alive! I'm stuck at third and a half floor of the manager's building of Images on Sunday - somewhere between the editorial and the telerecord - when was the last time you heard of a lynch? - I just brought the EGcom Mark 3 to show to the managers, and they not only threw full boxes with crashed EGcoms Mark 2.4, but tried to throw me down the stairs as well. I think the owner is to blame for forcing the EGcom to become some kind of official intercom - now they take it on me for having found out what they think of each other. It won't help me if I told them their profit grew by 12% since, and that they are two hours ahead of other papers - SAVE ME ANY WAY YOU KN

In the course of human history, the ways to a new invention haven't changed too often. Since the antic thinker, whose ideas came while he meditaded outside, watching birds and waiting for an apple to fall on his head, up to the medieval brainstorm companions (so called "trust of brains"), the basic image, image of doctor Frankenstein or doctor Mabuse didn't change much. Lonely scientist, slightly strange, misunderstood by his neighbors... later, it's a whole team, composed of similar strange/weird guys. It is rarely mentioned the way it really is - more or less office job, with all the petty hostilities between the headmaster and his subordinates. A scientist's vanity can be measured to his importance.

I'm mentioning this, because it has lot to do with the invention of the year - ferrite magnetic kernel. A ferrite kernel are used in aerials for ages, and ferrite rings are among the oldest magnetic media for computers. The idea is quite similar; the difference is in achieving the same without cutting the ferrite bar into rings, but using the whole bar as an in-depth magnetized array of fields... the rest is known to anyone who wanted to know.

What is not known, is that this is the only known case when the invention was made using real teamwork. No matter that the original meaning of "team" included oxen, or maybe just because of that, this is the case where all teamed up their mental abilities to pull new possibilities out of an old substance. The invention which made this invention possible is, of course, eegycom.

As the legend has it, the eegycom was first intended just for this kind of inter-scientist communication - between people who think faster than they can speak. Noisily announced as "the best telepathy emulator", eegycom flipped with even more noise, due to its known property of complete lack of censorship. It transmits vertigos, formulas, grudges, loves, nauseas, inspirations and calculations equally well and equally mixed up and unorganized as the original is.

The whole project was about to split up five days after introducing the eegycom into it; on day six some wise head (the story says) brought some of lightweight drugs, threw a party with the drug mixed into the cocktail, and in the middle of it turned the eegycom retransmitter. The net result was that the day after they were all a bit more ready to accept each other, and next evening five new ideas crystallized. Two of them failed, three led to another nine... and the ferrite memory was born in incredible six months time, counting from the day of initial idea.

There are rumors circling around, that it was all financed by Thurvie Hyste, the famous magnate (in his desire to become a magnet, too), but he states that "no, I don't, unfortunately, have nothing to do with it, at least not financially. I just wanted to check if the eegycom may really be the right thing if it got into the right hands. The scientists seemed to be a good choice, so I gave them a house set as a present."

If he didn't fund the research, he'll fund the production - this is known already. Thurvie Hyste is a phenomenon of our ages - the last Rockefeller in the time when technology and economy don't support it.

In that technology, it comes down to your home system's value loss of 20%, because it uses outdated and outbalanced memories instead of ferrite block...

If my tracking is right, you are in your bathroom at this moment, curing your bruises or washing your pants. Or the guys hurried up and you're still in the vehicle taking you home.

It's not all that black - you were lucky there's a teeveephone in the elevator, and that we're tapping it just in case, and we did wire that building extensively, so our in-house hacker managed to take you to a random floor to floor ride, until you ended down in the garage - and you know who was waiting for you there. And watch your mouth: at that moment, I was already out of bathroom, wouldn't mention in whose company. When you recover, come and let's see what's next to do.

don't be mad - for your imperial percentage you only risk getting occasionally beaten at times. Besides, it didn't cost you much this time.

Your Thurvie

Looysek and fat Thurvie are in a quarrel, and only the burning love towards money, or the amounts at least, keeps them together. They insisted to, after all that happened, they try the eegycom themselves. Well, at least they know it works. It helped them think up some solution, or at least something to calm the public, if they can't completely avoid the damage. Now they understand each other better, and it will take them lots of wits to manage to fool each other next time. Strange couple. They're still together, even after the fight which demolished the whole of Thurvie's study, and his secretary's car, which got a flower pot thrown through a closed window. I suppose they realized how same they are, or that they are samer than they thought.

Addition to what occupies my mind for some while: what a... rubbish, frame, trick, panic (unnecessary to be ruled out) could make one of those liars who sincerely believe what they lie, while they are at it?

We'll build some gadgets into the AlfaStar and move it into some mountain cottage. We decided to disappear for some time. Not that we're afraid to come out in public, on the contrary: maybe it's time we should publish something - our colleagues already give us strange looks when we call.

...is based on the analogy with ancient membrane speaker - this speaker can serve as a microphone. In the same sense we use the human brain as the receiver and as the transmitter - all the equipment presented is just intermediate. In the initial phase it was used as a recorder, where the recording was later reproduced; in the current phase it is just a communicator. With this, a direct mind to mind communication is achieved, something like a mechanical telepathy, or a teeveephone from the head. I suppose someone will think up a more appropriate name, before the trademark of 'eegycom' intrudes into the languages of the world. We apologize to our colleagues for having the invention commercialized first, and then presenting it here, but even a small need may change the law sometimes, and we had quite a lot depending on it - about two years of work loaded into an expensive computer, and the payment was due. What else could we do, when selling the first version solved all of our earthly problems. Before you ask any questions, it is my duty to warn you against some side effects which we couldn't avoid, which originate mainly in the impossibility of filtering the EEDG. This implies that we couldn't understand the EEDG, for if we did, we'd have found some way to filter it. Since we didn't, with the current version it may happen that...

When the problem of a company's internal communication and information flow is considered, a question of purpose and intention of those informations inevitably occurs: what is the purpose of building an infosystem, what is the aim of knowing and analyzing the processed data. Those things usually slip the mind, and it is usually forgotten the the infosystem should support the basic business. This usually inverts into its contrary, so any hierarchy which establishes itself as an operating system of a company, with time gets the whole infosystem to support its own survival and reproduction. It creates more informations about itself, than it's capable of digesting about the world around it. The informations are finked up, filtered, twisted and tweaked, so the end result is not any better than some fifty years ago, when mass informatizing began. Some infosystems were known to be immune to these diseases (Kyrie's messengers, some political polices, terrorist groups, open BBS computers), but they had some others (narrow range of items, delays, cost).

It became possible to cut these troubles shorter with "Brainexpand"'s EGCom. The thing really is "the most direct and most complete means of communication of all times", the advertising doesn't lie about that. It's even substantially true, they're right even when they state that "communication between people is broadened beyond the limits of anything imaginable", they are so right, they have no idea. Where is the cheat you started expecting as soon as you saw so much advertising quoted in this article?

There's none. The supposed cheater didn't know himself what will it be like, because:
- A communication where there are no privacy barriers was unimaginable. Your co-speaker (if the word still makes sense, though "co-comunicator" or "co-thinker" make even less) learns from you whatever you want, and ten times more of what you don't. You learn from him, but it doesn't make you feel any better: he doesn't find you the one you thought he will. He's cheated on you many times, and worse than that - now he knows you cheated him.

They say the only eegycom's problem is this lack of selectivity - there's no bluffing, no aces up your sleeve, no false witnessing, even no comfort of a merciful lie - this could crash the civilization, or the manufacturer, at least.

The eegycom is in efficient use inside Yakuza only: the loyalty to the boss is literally for lifetime. Who doesn't pass the talk with the master, "sees the rest of his life in a day".

We managed to fix up the seventeenth version of the sensor (not the eegycom itself!), to turn itself on/off on a specific mental command, which is personal. I imagine the humming of a waterfall, while Hari calls a cab. That's the first filtering ever - let it be mentioned. Now when the need to pull some wealth out of the eegycom, we've made some progress right on. Besides, Thurvie has given it up, and our contract is impenetrable. No damage.

The simulation games are getting better all the time. I hooked into 1804 yesterday, and it was quite funny to watch New Yorkers and Kinshasans making fools of themselves on horsebacks, pretending to be Turks. The images the machine sends are retrieved from some nightmare-sized disk with images made by giving someone's EEDG recordings to some mouse riders to reconstruct as vector graphics. I've heard that soon the players will be enabled to send commands via EEDG sensor. I don't know how they think to do it, but it seems someone else finally got into this brain salad of ours.

Of course, it's completely away from our mind to let them try literally everything, but some of the wrong things may be tried for pure curiosity. Like the intercourse, drugs and such, and it's a parent's job to warn them of the consequences. Well, now they can try without trying. A new invention, recently offered by famous "Brainexpand" company, accomplishes listening of others' experiences at least so truly as the totalphonia transfers the concerts - as if you are really there. Experiences of others are sold on media such as classic floppies, cassettes and others - on all software media, including a terminal connection to a public library. That, of course, means you may get really surprised when you see the bill, if your kid knows your computer and home terminal better than you do. As any other novelty, it's not too cheap in the beginning (the most of 'research costs' are calculated in for the things which are based on pure inspiration), and your kids may have wished to live through 'descending on a delta wing down Chomolungma', 'abstinence shock', 'losing virginity in SriLanka' (and some fifty other places), 'Uzala Sterling plays gintar' etc. You yourself may think of many other things, what would you think of 'mystical experience of Great Moe' - no cheating this time, it's either truly mystical, or it's money back. Your tons prevent you from playing ballet - try how it feels to be thin and dancing. You can live through anything anyone else lived or felt, provided Thurvie Hyste and associates of his have included it among the recordings.

Along with the immediate advantage it will bring (finally an effective replacement for Braille code), new medium has all the chances to turn the world upside down from its basements, at least as much as had been done by telephone, teevee, rock, car and teeveephone taken together. I've forgotten the computers - see how we get used to everything with time. Maybe this will fill Hyste's pockets, and maybe it will be a failure - does anyone remember eegycom?

They started it, really, though I am disappointed.

***so am i***

I've expected they will really develop some set for recognition of basic commands from eegywrite or eegycom, but instead this is used just for interplayer communication during a game - all the commands still have to be issued by voice or hand. I don't know if anyone else came to the same idea as we did - we started recording other's talking. The net is public, anyway, it practically means they've brought their brains to the public square. They may have had a cozy feeling, sitting in their armchairs, but... what I think wasn't fair is that we didn't do the same, but hid our thoughts behind the recorder. We only read live, and send censored recordings. I'd leave this as a working note taken, and then we can do some less joking

** is ok, but I consider joking an elementary ingredient of work***

so do I, but this now seems serious:

...

Most of the players who use EEDG communications are serious people, with status, money etc; mentally not quite OK, but that's inexistent anyway. Second, they treat EEDG as a welcome chance to practice all the plots they're plotting. They intend to use eegycom during various critical events (negotiations, court trials - whenever they should lie consistently), ere they could gain some advantage.

This could be used, eh? Not the trick. I don't steal tricks as long as I have my own

*** It's the sweetest to rob a thief

*** you are reading my mind

*** Should I believe you're surprised? Not used to it yet?

*** now this is really gonna look like an official note

*** worknote

*** let it be a worknote, but what will history think of us

*** drop the history, better think of how can we use those games. it all seems to me that the game authors are on a similar trail

*** or the game generators' authors

*** they even before - more and more people come close to essence of brain

*** one could understand it as if they don't see further than their nose

*** the most important things are on this side, anyway

...
Having thoroughly considered all the pros and contras, this committee has reached these facts:

"Dr" Yol Odderd (Ioll Au D'erdh) has used a public library of EEDG recordings in his work, where he took about ten samples for his research, but also some twenty works of his colleagues;

failed to mention this in bibliography, and failed to invent eegygraphy;

the committee listened to the same recordings, and concluded that his scientific achievement is not enough to deserve a title of doctor of sciences, and since he received it already by withholding all this when he needed it, we suggest the title to be taken away and the act be published in media.

Further on, we suggest the whole matter should be reconsidered, for the following aspects:

- to establish the rules, proportions and limitations to the use of eegytheque in research
- to value the original achievement even more than until now
- to establish a duty of reporting of recordings used in form of an extensive eegygraphy;
- to bring up these subjects before other university and science institutions, including and copyright and patent rights institutes
- to have scientific works and other original works in eegytheques bear a visible warning on all these matters, specially if the copyright laws get extended

for the committee, Bilhelm Bilyemson (Bilkhelm Bigliamsson), dr. sci. omn.

Votvm separatvm: My opinion is that use of eegytheque should be encouraged; after all, as far as we know, it was initially intended to accelerate the communications between scientists. It is just the plagiators which should be discouraged by means of a well performed boycott and permanent expel from the Community.

Omikor Valomi (Ammikor Wallamye, dr. sci. log., committee member)

I've entered another circle yesterday - gosh, can't know which ones are crazier - these playing situation/plot games, or those who head into war simulations, manhunt and such. I must write this, even if Hari will say I'm unserious

*** no, you're poetic

*** ok, well, it began as a video game; a race where the contestants shoot at each other a bit. The race started from somewhere in the middle, from right to left, downslope, graphics mediocre but fast, mostly just wireframes. First I saw just a half-empty black screen with few lines symbolically denoting a track you run in parallel with - it was the opponent's track, and I ran on mine. That's about where I got in, and then I enlarged the opponent's picture to see him better; namely, he gained some advantage and started climbing up some hill; that's where I saw the graphic isn't that bad, because these few lines allowed me to understand it's rather steep, and that my part of the hill is partly blocking my view (all that with just about ten lines white on black - someone gave old masters a good study). I shot awfully, with mouse or stick and there I came to be on the slope "live". Probably some of my virtual bullets was precise enough to buy me a better reality emulation - it switched to 3d. Next moment I was running downslope over some pretty hairy grounds - some grass on a steep side - but without problems (still, this is a game). After an incredible slope (some 80° from the left, had to use my hand to hold on), the opponent was only ten meters ahead of me. The ground was stony, mostly covered with grass. The opponent entered some hole in the ground and left a paper there. I get in as soon as he went out.

The room is dug in clay (it's stony outside - is this the laziness of the author? probably copied the ambient from some library, not trying to fill it up too much), dried out and full of tiny holes from ants and roots; in the wall, a hole 30*15cm with somewhat dented archive A4 papers stuffed into it, three or four of them, folded at half along the length. I stash my papers too (it appears from nowhere - it probably says somewhere what I carry along, but I don't feel it) and look for exit. There are two three all at a meter away from me, but the right one is behind my back. I get out and run on. Didn't have any idea what to don next, the opponent wasted time by running out through the wrong hole (how do I know it's wrong) - there I dropped the connection and the game.

I wonder: where did I get so many defaults in my head during the game? How did I know it all in just ten seconds? Does it have anything to do with all the games that ate so many fine hours of our childhood time, or someone managed to deliver a synthetic information through the terminal connection directly into my gray mass?

*** don't panic, I wrote the game

*** when did you do it, and unbeknownst to me?

*** you sleep sometimes, and anyway I wrote almost all of it in some of the nineteenth generation generators. I accept the remarks - I did write it quick, and you weren't connected anywhere - this is the emulator on our machine

*** you doing experiments on me?

*** squse, but if you knew in advance

*** and what'd you get

*** the smurf effect

*** a?

*** there was a comic strip, granny leftover, there invented a language where almost any word could be replaced by a wildcard, one and the same every time - almost any noun becomes "smurf", and any verb "smurfing" etc

*** how can one understand that

*** with a minimum of normal language around it, you'd be surprised how little it takes; here in the game I gave just the basic outlines - the rest are the defaults from your head

*** I've invented the ambient?

*** not that, but I didn't know whether you'll shoot or play klis

*** what does that matter

*** dunno, but may serve to fill the gaps if we ever get some parts of EEDG start making readable sense

*** that!

...

Gentlemen, colleagues, our dear guests

To prevent wasting your expensive time, I'll get right to the point. Yol Oderd doesn't deserve a doctor of science degree, because he got caught. It reminds me of the old trickster's slogan, that "if you do something wrong, do it right, or else don't". We should comb all our diplomas and titles in last ten years, even before these inventions - it would bring us back into the old puzzling about the students' right to use at the examination things like abacus, book, computer, terminal, or a skilled friend with an eegycom. If I'm not wrong, it is not the problem whether we can be sure if the student had cheated or not, but whether he's capable of cheating real life with those and such methods - will he know how to use such turns when it turns on him.

As for Yol Oderd himself, I deem his title equally worthless as I do with other titles achieved for catching statistical regularities. We know that there are milions of such "laws of nature" and their common purpose is to fill the empty slots in the news during summer. Thank you for your attention.

what do you say about the uganda matter / nothing mentioned in uganda, that's the papers duck from bulawai / but makes sense / could make, if we, or anyone else, could interpret eedg / but we managed to run / that's in traces only / two commands. it is. it's not. how about you transferring hills and valleys? 3d image, dialogs, body motion, feeling of wind on face and other lyric / we use that to write a megabyte a day, just 0s and 1s / that's where we knew the language first, and invented the alphabet, here you have only two characters from an alphabet of unknown size, grammar and you don't know the language name either / still doesn't sound bad / yes, where's the bar with half-price drinks / where / dunno, but sounds great / still i think they didn't make anything there - this paper once published that Hitler died in 1977 / i know them, but... what if it's some voodoo trick? / voodoo has nothing to do with africa / but with cracked disks / you mean / your book "disk repair voodoo cookbook" / old magnetic disks required great peace of mind and unifying with the universe, really / no nostalgy! still, this is as tangled / for disks you could always read what the manufacturer says; the human brain's manufacturer has no idea / yes, the manufacturer is as stupid as a

our recordings are losing intelligibility / did you try to listen to our talk recordings / many times / i mean sound, not ee gee / oh that... no, this literary communication is welcome to keep normal language skills / but it's so / it is, but we need it / yes, we're not apart from the world / how do you like the new notation - space, slash and you go / it's good not to know who said what / yes but are we losing identity and getting an identicality? / how many languages can make this difference / since we speak one of those, we lose, you think, nothing / i'm still me and you're you / and vice versa / or mixed? / anyway you want / soft / i'd scramblegg / scrambled? / scrambled eggs / does word scramblegg exist? / yes, from now on / ah / how much stuff did we read so far? / some two gigs, recalculated as text; in images, about as much as one normal man sees in a lifetime / yes, but this information is far more complete / what you aim at / at classical system message "getting out of memory" / our machine is spacey enough for anything, and even if it isn't, we can always use the / and the head, what's the size of? / 52 to 58, but you don't mean that / how long does a jug carry water? / yes

(break)

does anything ever get forgotten? / did the poor ones who remained stranded in the games forget where they were before they plugged in; if they did, is it permanent? did any biological memory ever get written twice? / how do we forget, at all? close one street and open a new one? / how much we don't really know / but never remembered to ask ourselves / for now, let's share the workload so we don't burden both heads with the same - we'll exchange digests only, ok? / best, for now, so / good night.

It could sound like SF, if it didn't wear today's date. Let's recollect a brief history of graphic technologies: burned wood, handy tool which could be found on any fireplace. Brush, first technological revolution. Ten thousand years of mastering the color. Invention of stylus and caligraphy. Paper, naturally, before this. Drawing. Stamp, moving typeset, idea of multiplication, technologies of multiplication. Photography techniques. Electrophotography. Holo. Cartoon. Magnetic media. Spray, computer, EEDG conversion, 3d comics.

I left 3d comics to the end intentionally, but why? Can't know of a better technique. If in music, the rock could rely on arbitrarily chosen tradition, its own or out of itself, and had the liberty and duty to make something different out of it; if the writer of a historical novel had to reconstruct or resurrect the epoch (not to mention the purely reproductive arts), there are only three or four men who remained alone with an empty paper, which was to be populated with a new world. They are: the SF writer, who can be compared to the writer of the history novel only to the disadvantage of the later. Not that I disregard history as a science, it's just that he has to take just the hard facts and other writers on the epoch into account, either to comply or disagree with them. SF writer, on the contrary, must comply with only hardcore science and himself, which is far harder - he has to invent complete worlds, daily.

The cartoon drawer is a martyr of equal rank, facing a white paper. He's got it harder than a painter, because with a, possibly, same initial idea, he has to pay attention at the motion, timing and sound; ordinary painter has the trouble of his painting standing for hours under spectator's eye, and a cartoon lasts as much as it lasts. Everything else is against the cartoon drawer.

The third martyr, of those who came to my mind when I sat at this white screen, is the comic drawer. He's in trouble roughly as much as all of the previous ones taken together, except for not having to think about sound - he draws it only when he needs it. There's only all the rest to do: inventing worlds, complete people, make them last for years, and not get consumed in just two hours, must invent speed and time on an ordinary piece of paper, work without colour knowing some unknown will do the coloring (and who knows how), write the dialogs and some bits of dry text, imprisoned in little clouds as if writing a sonnet, and must keep the style the same to the end, never changing hand a bit, because the readers keep the old episodes and are ready anytime to accuse him of leaving the drawing at the mercy of apprentices...

The rules of art exist solely to be broken by artists, whenever they feel they have a good reason and (supposedly) know what they're doing. SF writers deal with hardcore science and evade it, or drill holes in it, if there are no real holes in it anymore, invent weird technologies and play with them, let the idea to work for itself and chase it over the keyboard... people find their ways. The cartoon drawers have long ago teamed the computers to multiply the faces and backgrounds for them, and, generally, do all the dirty jobs of the trade.

And then, 3d comics.

If you haven't noticed, this is no history anymore. Not the same one. This is something else, in other words, more of the same for those who don't notice the difference.

3d comic is a new, or, let's say it more gently, young art. It's completely depending on the computer and author's imagination, not in that order. It's done by author's outlining a three-dimensional scene on a computer (for advanced: it's all memorized in brief vector format, and what you'll see depends on what you use to see it - on a teledata signal between the regular holo channels, on the holo channel, on holo floppies, home terminal, home computer, or copied and/or printed from any of the above). Unlike the poor comic drawer, who has an empty paper trouble, 3d drawer has an empty space to fill. The whole 3d expression is somewhat understating the reality, considering a specially problematic dramaturgy (the reader/spectator can speed up or slow down the picture sequence at will), and this also has an exceptionally complex time dimension. I have no illusions. It is already too late to introduce the "4d comic" as a name.

The ordinary comics were already authored using libraries of background images, faces and other things found in a picture. You need much more for a 3d comic - 3d samples of complete squares, with all the details on houses, shops selling floppies or infochips, flashing holo ads and fog around them, landing bays with ships, interiors of all of those, night and day versions of light, models of clouds, and, above all, you can't scan and edit everything. For scenes from hell you MUST draw your private hell yourself, you must shake out all the details out of yourself, rusty sinner frying microwave ovens included, designed to straighten all of your hairs: 3d is realistic even when showing the unreal, or it's just not a real 3d, but a cheap way out sort of thing, which I used to gain some field while talking of SF: you can restyle and simplify it to some extent - if you know what you're doing, and you do it right.

If you don't, you blew it.

Maybe the amount of ideas, which are to be inserted into every scene, is the reason why 3d comic didn't give a great surreal work yet. So far, it's in the level of photo-comics of ancient times - lots of same, lots of bad acting and worse styling, or technical polish of emptiness. Few good things were born by wise combining of movie sets, but achieved a mild deja vu in the audience. Still awaiting a generation of masters, which will know how to express their gloomy back corners in this technique, before it becomes obsolete.

we didn't switch off before sleep last night / we didn't / i was dreaming / i too, of you, you were just nice / does this mean this transfers the subconscious too / not necessarily - what's operational when you dream? / that is the question, whether in soul to suffer from whips and arrows of my raging dear, or put it to end by pulling out the wire? / i know one who said it better / hey, one... tens. did we leave recording on? review the log, let's see / well, we didn't turn it on, the automatic did it - there's still something we couldn't recognize. what triggered it? / chances are... erotic dreams. / is it possible we always sleep through the best parts? / counterquestion: if we repeat it and play the last night's recording over it / we should sleep better - looks like those old experiments with playing the sound of mother's heart to calm the baby, or hypnopaedia / alright, but if the dreams repeat, is it just us two again, or is it a group orgy, or we're our own voyeurs, or we're watching a porn? / find an easier question

by the by, we don't have to worry about cash anymore, because we brushed the "brainexpand" bigheads well in the last contract, though they seem to become more dangerous as time goes. i'm afraid they may demand strictly specific things / you think directing the development / development is always directed - people research what they need or have interest in / i wonder what have various civilizations invented that the invaders never recognized as a fortune - imagine an industrial spy who comes here from tungusia. would it ever cross his mind to look for the major technical invention of the year in a public library or a game station? / and contrary, imagine our industrial spy in ancient china - would he ever think of acupuncture as of attention worthy? / let's get back to thurvie - he'd want us to make all the possible versions of modules to hook to public libraries; for bathroom, for airplane, for beach, for discrete listening in during boring classes, for at the hairdressers, password and not, big keyboard and no keyboard / he'd want to have a combination of a teeveephone, walkman and a library, portable just like glasses / about / what's he need that for / maybe he thinks we invented a new drug, wants to create addicts / the addicts are the worst advertising / he's unclear to me - i still think he wants to sell as much as possible, before smart replicators arrive or until we shove up such a perfect version which will force those who bought the old version to buy it just to remain connectible to the world / that's more likely - he's invented the oldest drug ever / anything, as long as it creates addicts? / no, money, any kind of, as long as the amount creates envy

why all those who have lots of money want to make much more money? / just like one wise guy said, collecting money makes sense up to the first hundred megs, after that one should try to see what he could use the money for to do something for the humanity, else it loses purpose / and what was it we wanted to do for humanity? / who ever said we'll push it to hundred megs - what the do we need so much money - you waste more time keeping it, than it gives you / we better work on some vaccine to / you mean immunize him / but leave him in place so nobody worse comes instead / are we touching the liberties / any greedy chum with more than twenty megs is danger to anyone's liberty - this one already started censoring his own games / should we pull him into one of those? / he tried already, but didn't get hooked / doesn't have to get hooked, just let's afford some education for him there / note this - games may become real education / yes, but for thurvie and looysek, some private lessons

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OPN_ lumpus
Checking setup... parameter changes... opening lumpus door... checking rights... found 478 point bonus, aged 17023 hours virtual time, 92 hours real time... access granted, if you knew what you're doing so far

welcome to lumpus.

local message search... no new personal messages; sysop's reply to question packed in ODG2488427FD.message, down now? Y
transfer ODG2488427FD.message 0:55 errors 0 corrected 1 retries 0; time left 23:05 for today
command: JG39; L "MANDREO.LIF" DSC;
connecting room G39 "criticizing and self-criticizing"... loading "mandreo.lif"...
message to all players: we have introduced a time limit in some games to release lines for other things; rumors on some state control are unbased; moreover, we prepare a surprise with a capital "W". /sysop
message to all players: thanks to our friends and sponsors from "brainexpand", who, besides, helped a lot in introducing the eedg plugins, the time limit is abandon in some games where it was introduced. you should all have got the printed manuals about new rules of the game so far - shortly, eedg connection between players is allowed as long as it remains unpublished within the game; violation of this gives a negative 500 virtual hours bonus for all members whose connection is published. mint good plots and get the hell out of psyberia - we need room for new players! /sysop wishing you good hunting

your situation: you survived 476 days in syberia; it's december of 1951, 102 days left before getting expelled to irkutsk, unless you screw up something; you killed 8 guardians, 5 traitors, 1 barrack commander and 3 lovers of yours; evaded 42 attempted assassinations; possessing 5 cigarets, 5600 grams of bread, sapogs damaged 75% (will sustain another 12.5 days), eared cap sized 56, tin pot, deck of cards, aluminum spoon, pencil and notebook, guard's coat, lined up leather trousers and gloves, iron knife and 125 r 8 k; you are at 39th level of the game, as reward for killing the barrack commander; group trust index is 5.8% now (nobody really trusts anyone else, this is big) and the chances you could become barrack commander are 54%; fosgenj very nearly escaped being killed by old commander, so he ows you one now - beware of those who owe you! reutl_3, metz_ok and guba leaked their use of eegycom while playing; got transferred to norilsk with diminished bonus, having lost half of the props on the way - we expect them to return after 250 to 320 virtual hours, one by one. advice: bribe someone to let you to the campus chief; once there, flirt with the guard chief's wife; camp chief will try to use you against the later (you find out why); if you use him you may find a document pointing to the one who reported on you...
command: go barrack lie sleep 3
_3 what?
command: 3 hours
_3 hours have passed; during that period you were robbed of 200 grams bread; you recovered 15%, energy index 13.4%, flexibility index 9.3% because you slept hungry
command: take bag opn pocket secret opn tak bread 50 gram eat environ watch
_ energy index 23%, flexibility 23%
command: speak up roommate "want a cigar, only two left"
_roommate wakes up, didn't hear well. autorepeat is on; he says, "and fire, do you have?"
"devil take you, where's the kalashnikov charge sparker of yours?"
_"exchanged for a lump of salt, and you have none?"
"eh, batyushka, I got your lighter, three cigars I gave for it. Isn't the world small?"
_"small, indeed" (both smoking) trust index increase to 6.05% good addressing tone 5 point bonus
"whaddaya think of the new guy, we could give him a good sift"
_"mind rules, power is handy. looks like a provocateur" Is the new guy ivan alekseevich badurin or oleg chernomorskiy klimov?
klimov. hands rub stand up jump around warm breath hand "cold today" cigar ext fag shirt pocket put inside
_"the wood, god's will, til the marrow froze"
time show "i'm out god's will to fulfill - someone should warm up the trees" challenge double "and our little provocateur could do it with an axe, strong he is, as if not fed only here, ay?"
_roommate shrugs, extinguishes the cigarette, puts the fag into his shirt pocket, buttons himself up and turns to the other side and sleeps, nods affirmative. time: virtual local 19:23, 19th dec 1951., virtual absolute 17027, virtual today 4:05, systime 2344510003421, processor time 20331:23455. challenge accepted, manouver successful, bonus 45. Probable destiny of Klimov, v1= you report on him for something and he goes to Norilsk or deeper into Syberia; v2=you denigrate him as a provocateur and he gets killed; v3=v2+he survives and repays to you. Moral reevaluation of next move recommended, for many aspects and a possibility of buying yourself out
hybern logout
_status frozen until continue

my god he hooked in / talking about god, how do you like this / well, at least he doesn't know we lead him / i think he leads, wait just while we take a look at what recordings he ordered after this / where did you get the idea to call the sysop carla? who's the girl? / the guy. boss of kay gee bee by joe of diamonds, ie. / john le car\E9, i remember. would better fit to gulag / simple inversion, fair play. one sysop ran the game of running all the city's systems - heating, electricity and others, named himself nero / that's better - ah, here's the report

what did you expect / don't know myself, psychoanalysis, emulation of marx / there are no emulations - if we could read, we could also write; if we can't read someone's thoughts, we can't reconstruct them in a computer either / you got actors, you can always find someone without identity / that's replica and not a / oh well, but this / no more nor less than Adolf Sese Pinochet. what's pulling him towards him? / iconic picture of the last great dictator, and how to survive without ethical problems / and the last great imitator - he just missed Mussolini, Franco, Stalin, Hoxha / who ever first invents the principle "hit before you get hit", forces the others to hit him first / everyone should be first in something / but look, when he got discretely slapped over his fingers for denouncing the possible provocateur, we pointed to him that nasty deeds may invoke a nasty punishment, and what's he doing / nasty is sweet to him, and he just practices running so the punishment doesn't reach him / it's just a lovely base for cultivating a psychop.. / we could pull looysek to do something generous and we'd give him a bonus / who gives it - a revisor? / sounds very russian - the great revisor, great inquisitor, czar bell and crime and punishment / should we insert an incarnation of dostoyevsky? / you could do bukowsky and sartre as well, he's too deep in it. no paternal figures help here. try with looysek, but i don't believe... off i go to bathroom to think up plan b

talking of revisors, should we still introduce a paternal figure / only sysop can, we may jump with a couple extra sentence at times, but only he can insert a new person / but that's just what we'd need. every dictator's subconscience has one / we could only appear as a new player and cheat a little / is that fair / is it fair to let a new dictator to develop his temper finely undisturbed? / i mean, fair to the rest of the world. if a halfliterate tramp has this inclination, he may terrorize a score of his mates, but scum with twenty megs in pockets / last eight he made from us / do we have the copyright to watch what he'll do with it? / or should we make the money ourselves and beat him with his own weapon / if it doesn't make us into being like him / we are two. i guard you - you guard me. c'mon sleep now / i better look for free personalities in gulag. i'll go type the payment / better lie down

though, who would know it - it's time for a talk with the sysop over the private line. insert recording here.

mpaconnect::calling number:? havatran hrebel huzaim'ta kuzar

::you dialed kuzar 3442#209-123382, computing chat and fishing, connect estimate 30 seconds... 20 seconds... connected at minus 18

- hey, ciao hari, are you looking good today, or it's your next year's projection?
- come on, don't fool, I got something for you.
- something liquid? solid?
- something foggy, but that's what you make living of, anyway.
- another colorful lie... if you're trying to hand me down some junk of a traffic program, I'll forget this conversation for old friendship's sake.
-listen to me well [This is a prescheduled signal number 34, valid up to today, for switching into encrypted speech; we change them regularly, in fact machines themselves do it, pulling out some frequently used vocal idiom from the previous conversation. We only have to watch if we should avoid it.], I will say this only once, and you can reread the recording later. Dick and I are inventing a new game. you know who we are and what you may expect. buying, or partners?
- partners.
- but we'll play the sysop for that game.
- for that - extra five percent?

connect time 1.00.05 (0.00.31) 0.003% amount 0.02

- as to a friend, we give you three. deal?
- deal. for four I also give all the procedure to enter back corners of the system.
- sold. start advertising 'the rise and fall of a billiardaire'.
- if this is a millionth version of Hamurabi, I'll have never seen you.
- naaaaw, this is more like "all president's men". the trick will be in everyone's having an illusion of playing the big boss himself, if they insist, but nobody knows if there's someone else above him. at times, orders are coming from some mysterious superboss. he's not played by anybody - that's the whole point. the program will do it.

connect time 1.00.05 (0.00.31) 0.003% amount 0.02

- wait, what's the sysop doing?
- what do you care, you're not the one.
- I'm interested in not being left jobless, if such games spread.
- ok, ok, sysop is supposed to induce a random event now and then, invent new persons, send anonymous letters to plotters and so on. impersonate the ghost of the castle - seeing everything, touching nothing. just shattering the chains.

connect time 1.01.12 (0.01.02) 0.004% amount 0.03

- ok, sign me in as a player
- it's three percent then
- woooow... I'll think it over for that money
- what money? you're getting a finished thing into your hands, half for nothing and half for free. you got the station, done your toil while you built it. sit and enjoy it's bringing up the fruit for you, don't be cheap.
- well you said. when do you start?
- tonight. open up one of those new disks for us, we'll populate ourselves to it, manager's authorizations and passes, and a parallel sysop holo line. er, yes, insert us into the main dish list for the newcomers, and send a circular to old players.
- everything's fine, but why the hell a holo line?
- the thing weighs few megs more than we thought, so if you think we load into your arms by tomorrow night, give the holo line, or wait four days. you could raise your fees, if you care about the money.
- ya, ya, "a game for special minds" and so on. don't worry about the subscription, just get the bugs the hell out.
- no bugs. whatever happens, fits in somehow.

Last few days the competition among public computer playgrounds is coming up strong. Caramba launches five new games a year, DeckNyet merges with Lumpus on the game-project "from Lubianka to Vladivostok", NetBetween launches one each month, EarthNerve still keeps its ten worldly games, where one doesn't exactly know the name of the game, but the people seem to be amused by imperfection of automatic translation; it's a famous variant of "deaf telephones" game, where twenty players pass a sentence to each other so it's translated twenty times until it returns, completely unrecognizable, to the sender.

The only real refreshment comes from the eccentric Kuzar. Kuzar has the manners of a pirate radio station, you're never certain of the sysop's identity, you can't even know if there's anyone alive, or are there ten of them; the games are rather original - and expensive. Average minute is charged at 3.59, while the others normally chare 2.31 (2.57 at EarthNerve's, because of the global network with translations). The audience is fewer, no doubt, but that's why Kuzar assumes attributes of a secret society or a cult station.

The novelty on Kuzar is "The rise and fall of a billiardaire". The word game is just as typical, you're playing a pool ball king, who should be making, in distant phase, millions, milliards, billions, and, of course, billiards. Aside of known problems with estimating the confidential staff, court plots and traps, this game closely reflects the real world: because of its size (and weight), our billiardaire influences, even unwillingly, the country he operates in, and some other countries as well. Whenever his action or lack thereof causes pollution, extended damages, death or any other mischief, our billiardaire is punished by paying gooooood damage fees. Program may be called "electronic judge", because it's the first justice emulator which works properly.

After a series of cruel, shooting or intrigue games, with plots and assassinations, finally one program where you have to put all of your brains - just to play fair.

For Kuzar: ***** (and in words: five stars).

if there is hope for understanding brain salad, it lay in text processing. translation programs, versifiers, smart tools or wise thesauri and other writer's periphernalia contain its germs. i just watched this dialogue between our sysop emulator and Thurvie. First, the trick with pushing an emulator in front of the emulator, surprisingly, worked. One attacking, overstyled and impersonal show comes first, and the old wolf is boiled into believing he talked with one of us. If this is not on the trail of Lem's lemma on evolving and gradually smarter machine...

it rather looks like the other classic lemma on insertion of spies into the enemy side - send two of them, and the one who denounces the other better, deserves the trust

and how did he fail to notice that sysop needed no voice recognition when he had the login code

we made it clear in the contract, that the sysop does not know who he's talking to, until the person presents itself, at least by voice

o, yea, if he believed it; second, the program which overcame the delayed response and... processed the text. this listing (the text of minute ago) is processed; we saw better ones already, like when five of them speak and in the end you get a readable text. in reality, all the players know that they are receiving a delayed echo of the messages sent thirty seconds ago (or less); they answer the messages as they arrive and launch new ones themselves meanwhile. One gets a very messy and low sense text, if one reads the messages in order of appearance; this program managed to polish that. It even looks like it was one voice recording, even though the voices were turned into text on each player's machine.

still, should we turn them into ideograms? i've found, in some obscure university's archives, that the graphopeds had trouble with some kids who couldn't get it that the characters which represent voices, may represent words and make sense if laid out nicely, grouped and separated by spaces... so they couldn't learn to read and write. the same kids learned chinese ideograms just fine.

maybe, but do the ideograms contain pure human logic or chinese cultural history?

could be distilled... maybe, or maybe it's easier to stuff it; we're stuffing our software for two hundred years with all sorts of garbage, a little bit more of history wouldn't hurt. the chinese already stuff their kids with it, right?

good afternoon, master. a message from sysop.

lemme hear it.

Good evening, thurvie sir. I suppose it's evening when you're reading this, and I expect that a man of your format won't find it too important to be addressed with a programmatically refined message, taking account of various circumstances surrounding your reading it, nor to have it know the time of day when you open it. We are skipping these formalities to tell you short and clear: what you proposed is, actually, an extension of the game. Both the game creators and the sysops agree that it does not jeopardize the Principle and the Idea of the game (the only actual requirement is that they be capitalized, always), and we can't control you all the time, anyway. Some of the control is automated (as done by game, i.e. the program, itself), and since it created no problems in simulation, we suppose it won't create them live.

You have a green to go from the human part of the team, a flashing yellow from the program, and a gradually lower subscription fee for each vassal of yours - 7% rebate for each, taking yourself to be the zeroeth. This fee is the base for calculation of special services (so they'll be proportionally cheaper for each of your vassals). We'll have to inform your opponents some day that you're creating an army, and that they'll have the same right - the inventor's advantage is a virtual month and a half. You'd be uncovered in that time in any version reality. In case you want to sneak eegycom talk with your cooperators during the game, keep in mind that you are never sure if he's the one you think he is.

Allow a proper quote for the occasion: "Jesus had only twelve, and one was a double spy", by John le Caré.
The secret handshake, specially for you, to know you're in the new version, is not a new prompt. You will still be greeted by "well, master". You will notice, though, slightly diversified grammar, and some other details as well. You have the eye to notice those things.

Greetings, authors & sysops

well, master:

call shoon for me, i have an assignment for him. until he comes, let me hear status on maracaibo, then call the new secretary to get ready for the morning torture; order one maestro di electronics to scan that pearly pool ball on my desk, just to check if it's infested with lice; and yell a double coffee so i'll survive until lunch. ah, shoon, you arrived already. what's up?

he bit

yes, and

yes, bait, hook, string and rod

all of that while wishing to swallow the angler

and that fooled him - we're not angling, we're fishing with a net

if we have this program catch his EEDG in parallel with what he speaks, if he's using it at all

he's using it, whaddya think, recording for Looysek. he and Looysek, alias Shoon, hardly ever talk without it.

but are they sitting next to each other, do they have a direct connection or they use the game

Looysek went away into some wilderness, sitting and thinking of new trick to sell the next trinket

if we make one

he's making minor enhancements himself, which boils down to nicer boxes and additional access to what's already there; well there where he hid himself, in those alps or desert, he has just a solar satellite gear, single channel, no more, which means they hear what we play for them.

do they log in synchronously

they try, but looysek has an unreliable clock anyway, so i cheat a little, feed him wrong dates and thurvie's last login recordings; i induce some noise so they can't transfer everything through the game, but have to speak directly a little; i'm not at my best in tracking all of that, because they can sniff out the trick anytime, but we can allways tell them that we don't know why did the game send them an emulation this time, in the end the game is an independent automat and we're not too involved, it may have calculated that the versions are to be synchronized with the others, let's say "less important" players, that would soothe him, so the version differences wouldn't burst the criticall mass limit

he'll think we're trying to fool him

first, he doesn't know it's us who are behind this game, though... by this time he may already know

what are you playing with, thurvie may come to think we managed to understand the EEDG readouts

if you do something wrong, do it right, or don't.

whenever you hit me with a wornout quote, i wander what's wrong this time

he should be persuaded to think that whatever the emulator may come to understand, it can't transfer to us, so he can have an impression that it plays intuitively as a blind automat, knows what he's up to, and adapts to him, with us left with no hint of it.

some day he'll figure we're listening to his ee ee deegies.

he may also not - we're the scientist

?

- exactly, he thinks of himself as of a dirty biztype guy, who turns anything he touches into equally dirty money; for him, we're the naive puritan kids, messing with the music of spheres

but we did turn him badly with the eegycom contract

and he subscribes that to his dirty hands, too; had we not been warned of the likes of him, we wouldn't behave so, ergo, he is the source of filthy water, not we.

and he wouldn't figure it then

he will, intuitively, but aware of it, no, until we step on him

which we won't

pressure? we won't.

and how come you know so much of his mental intestines?

hee, hee

can't you laugh for real, instead of this theatrical simulation of laughter?

i've listened him up

dirty you

doctor took the anamnesis

fine excuse. so how's the patient?

making progress... should be better soon. scratch my left shoulder a little

good idea - hey, don't turn it off

let's once be knowledgeless, for a change

snap

thurvie has an idea to try the next project in the game first

My dear employees, the announcement made it clear for you that this has to do with The Game. I have a new idea, which might have occurred to few of you these days: the next business enterprise for the real firm we shall first try in our imaginary firm within the Game. I know it's only a game, but most of the people who work for us there, or against us, are real, and behave just like in life, or even stronger than that. We'll play the eegytrim advertising campaign on Kuzar. Y'all know what we normally do in real life; we'll play that in Billiardaire - we'll sell mentally controlled cues. All eventual failures should be fixed during the game; only three days later we'll go live. This trick can fire only once, therefore be smart and dedicate this week to the Game; your office hours will be halved and your Game time will be doubled for as long as this lasts. Expect raises and promotions, or... but we haven't failed before either.

your Thurvie Hyste, the last business genius

where does he fit it

what, the greed

no, that's not greed anymore, it's passion. look at the signature - „the last business genius“. he thinks he's

the last business genius, word for word

does he think it entitles him

money entitles

we gave it to him?

conscience bites me, the „if it wasn't him, it'd be someone else“ doesn't help

we'd have raised another one instead then

had the granny had, instead of...

exactly, but i really wander, where does he fit it; what we talked about a month ago

quote yourself

does anything ever get forgotten?
have the poor creatures who were forever marooned within games forgotten where they were before they plugged in; if they did, is it permanent? does any biological memory ever get overwritten?
how do we forget? do we block a street and build a new one?
how much of it there is that we really don't know
but never bothered to ask ourselves
or we don't even know the first half of the answer which is required for a good question

how much does he swallow daily?

i think he eats about a half of what he gathers into his public eegytheques, while he has a few private ones as well.

how much did he eat so far

can't follow him quite; we did imprint each synapsor with a serial number, and we do have a secret service entrance where we enter at times

looking for talents

or lunatics like Thurvie is; from what we gathered, he has read about twenty years' worth of experience of others; that means that in the last five years he spent nine months with a sensor on him, reading available records

where did he gain the virtual time - there's no filtering, no compression

there is that much; silence is cut out

where will that take us

maybe to having found that our roundabout con with reeducation of an old horse will classify as the most expensive dead end of the century. is he able to learn anything

*** i have learned everything, but is that enough ***

who is this now on our house line

*** thurvie here. i busted your lines long ago

how do you mentally say 'a sudden hush'

this is not mentally, this is voice

aw, yea,... thurvie, for gossake, how did you make it

From head to head

On the possibilities of connecting the nervous system and digital recording /abstract/

On reading of a digital EEDG with a slight frame

How did the respectful S. Menraabe go off

Editor's reply:

//diary, day 12401./

//diary, day 12402./

Simulife - more than a life

//diary, day 12402.1/

//diary, day 12402.1 a bit later/

//diary, day 12402.3, almost 12403/

//separate note with 12402/

//diary 12403, from bathroom, voice/

//message 0f325ac3 for Tervy Khyste (Thurvie Andry Huyst) personally/

//diary 12420, Hari/

//diary 12420.1, Mush, simultaneously/

//diary 12432 Hari/

//message for Thurvie Hyste in person/

/reply to 0f32602a for Looysek Sol'Dervaw/

//diary 12441, Mush/

//12443, Hari/

//12443, Mush/

//12443.2 Hari

//12443.3 Hari, later/

//recording negotiations with Looysek, or against him/

connection log ::lumpus:hway:sm1tx started 23.22 day 12855

ed note 24884234a

//circular on the Wnet, day 12488/

//Hari. day 12485/

//Announcement from the Division of the State, day 12501/

//Hari, day 12502/

//ad/

//when you hear beep speak your message of two minutes at most/

//Readers' stew / "Ways of invention" - Pishtie dr Gyedosch

//answer:/

//Mush, day 12526/

//from the annals of Jedda community of FGZ: 'Transmission of digitized EEDG recording' (excerpt from Mush Owdik's speech at the fifth congress):/

//article from the book 'modern firms' by T. Z. Oopcut (T.S. Oepfckaght)/

//diary 12552/

//specialists wanted/

//Hari/

//article from 'mirror of the day': "New approach to bringing children up: Let them try it"/

//diary 12544/

Having listened to the tapes, we found strange things.

//letter of the university committee to the office/

//diary 12896, mush/

//Acta of Jedda community, speech of dr Sandasa Primalordanov (Zandazza Primalordanopf) at the congress, addendum to the "dr" Yol Oderd dispute/

//NEW PLAYMANIA - article from "Daily Telegramme of Bulawai"/

//diary 13001/

//"on the influence of new mental technologies" - Ben Andersov for 'Times of London'/

//diary 13002 /

//3d comic, pros and cons - Iusuf Watsonlik (Ioussufe Whatzonlick), for 'United international press'/

//connection log ::lumpus:hway:cm1tx started at 03.47 day 13055 /

//diary 13056/

well he's out of his mind

//diary 13056b/

//diary 13091/

Nothing new under disk's pickup

Good day, master

//13105/

//13128/

//message #445622x.25*2400/ to PR department, class "I" officials only

thurvie has an idea to try the next project in the game first

//13142/

History