Germania

It was around 2000 when Hitler leveled old Berlin and started building new Berlin, or Germania as he called it. But the old berliners would never call it that. the ones forced out of their homes, the ones who only one our of every four voted him into power. To them it would always be new berlin, and most of them wanted it burnt to the ground. They were not alone of course, they were only the most recent addition to the resistance. The group of mostly french and english sent to besiege germania with bombs. 'the world will have to run out of plastic explosives before this city can be completed'

'yeah,' monica said. 'we do say that. but think about it. Germania can't be built anyway. there isn't enough resources available. with the resistance here and in russia, they can't keep up. new berlin will never be build.

'never', dante echoed

monica and dante opened the door leading down the tube. they had made it to the biggest SIM-switch they'd ever seen. fifty to sixty people were all around hand off mobiles to complete strangers. the conversation was sparse and the phones changed hands quickly. monica and dante pulled their mobiles out and began trading. after trading phones for about a minutes they left the ruins with a completely new phone. this was a good sim-switch, a big simswitch. with new blood coming into the switches the s.s. will find it tough as hell to track down who was who.

no one know who started sim-switching, it was believed to have started in england where the nazi controlled big brother tracked everyone and saw everything. but where it started was unimportant. the important thing now was, monica and dante were now going home, an entirely new place to their mobiles and anyone tracking them.

'home' was a generous title. the more technical title would be, 'the place they most commonly hid' or 'the place where they kept their coolest toys'. anything they owned, they found or stole, and it was theirs until it was stolen or 'confiscated' by the s.s. monica had various items, among her favorites was a guitar, an antique iphone, and her bot, she called mimebot.

'where have you been? i've been worried.' the mime bot whined.

'oh, have you?' monica asked.

'yes, you leave for days, you never call, your signal is lost in the cloud, i can't do this.'

monica looked over at dante who had long ago programmed mimebot to ignore him completely. he couldn't understand why anyone would waste such a nice entertainment bot by making him an annoying failed mime. but monica was french, he reminded himself. and the french are weird.

'i'll always come back for you,' monica said reassuringly.

'i had big plans for us, and things to show you, things i'd made, but now.' mimebot began to get lost in a hierarchical temporal memory loop.

'but now....' monica urged him.

'i don't exists.' he said simply. 'i have no soul.'

'maybe no one has a soul,' dante chimed in, 'you're just the only one who realizes it.'

Mimebot ignored him of course. it's not that the bot couldn't hear him, dante just wasn't there.

%^%$^#^%^$#^$%#^$#^$#^$^#%^#$%^#%#$%$%$


some say hitler died, others say he simply stopped appearing in public when his body became old and frail. the truth was, hitler was too busy. he and his ideals had been spread too thin. taking great Briton and Russia turned out to be biting off more than he could chew. people still fought bitterly all over, Russia, the UK, France, even in his own country. his own citizens, they hated him. they hated what germany had become. they hated themselves for letting this happen. they hated themselves for the mountain of work it was going to take to right the wrongs and to be able to be liked by the world again. they hated entertaining the option of leaving the country altogether taking the nationalists advice of, 'if you don't like it here, leave!'

Monte Carlo method

He sat down at the poker table just as the waitress was coming by. Luck me, he thought to himself.

"Anything to drink, sir?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'll take a whiskey neat."

"Ok, anything for you, sir." The waitress asked a Russian looking gentleman already at the table.

"No, thank you." He replied.

She left and the two men turned their attention toward the dealer. The table was Texas hold em, $100 bet minimum. Not the high roller tables, but not to shabby.

The dealer gave the Russian a 8 of clubs and the newcomer a 4 of diamonds. This wasn't going to be an interesting hand. The next cards she dealt was a 7 of diamonds for the Russian and king of hearts for the newcomer. The Russian on the small blinds folded as did the new comer.

"You staying at the Monte Carlo?" He asked the Russian.

"Yes." He replied.

"How long you in town for?" He asked

"Just for the week." He replied.

"Business or pleasure?" He asked.

The Russian sat quietly for what seemed like forever then turned to the newcomer and said slowly, "I am here, to play cards."

"Whoa, ok, sorry I asked." He said, looking toward the dealer for some support. The dealer raised her eyebrows as if she was rolling her eyes, but she was grabbing the next cards from the shoe.

Ace of hearts for the Russian, and 4 of clubs for the newcomer. She then dealt a 7 of hearts and 8 of spades. They were both in it to see the flop even though the newcomer didn't think he had it. That's not why he was there anyway.

"Here's your drink." The waitress interrupted the operation.

"Thanks," he said to her tipping her a dollar, but not taking his eyes off the Russian.

The dealer burned a card turned over a 3 or clubs, An ace of spades, and 8 of hearts. The Russian bet $25.

"Ooo, $25, you trying to buy he pot?" The new comer asked.

"No." He said.

"Well it sure looks that way, unless you got it, do you got it?"

The dealer grew agitated, the Russian clearly didn't want to talk and it was just improper to ask other players if they 'had it'.

"Well, do ya, punk?" The newcomer asked, making reference to the movie, the Taxi.

"I am here, to play cards." The Russian said again.

"Well yeah sure, but it doesn't hurt to make a little conversation." The newcomer said, sipping on his whiskey, "I mean we're only human...right? You are a human aren't you?"

"I am here, to--"

"yeah, yeah, to play cards. I know that. Tell me something I don't know."

"Sir, if you're not going to play, I'm going to have to ask you to leave," the dealer said, trying to diffuse the situation.

"No! I don't like this guy's attitude!" The newcomer said, standing up. "C'mon buddy, say something I don't know, something original."

"How's it going?" The Russian asked.

"Uhh, pretty good, you?" The newcomer answered, slightly shocked.

"Same here," the Russian replied.

They both continued to play cards for about half an hour with nothing said. The dealers changed and still, nothing was said.

"Do you drink?" The newcomer asked.

"Well I do, but only for the special few. That doesn't include you at the moment." The Russian said.

"Well, for who then?"

"That is the purpose?"

"Purpose of drinking?" The newcomer asked confused.

"That makes sense."

"No that doesn't make sense, I asked you 'Who do you drink with?'" The newcomer asked again.

"It depends on the situation. Sometimes I like wine the best, but then other times it could be beer or spirits." The Russian said, still focusing on the game.

That was the response the newcomer was looking for. He looked up at the dealer, looking confused at the current conversation, and then looked up at the security camera in the ceiling. The newcomer nodded at the camera and within minutes security personal surrounded the table.

"Cash this gentleman out," the newcomer said to the dealer, "he's coming with us."

The next few days were spent downloading the firmware from the Russians mind try to reverse engineer how he worked, and figure out who built him. The biggest problem plaguing Vegas today is bots and it's getting harder and harder to tell who they are. Sometimes casino security has to go as far as starting a fight with a customer in order to determine their humanity. The security is undercover of course and the hotel can handle the situation and compensate the poor human for being involved in an altercation. The security professional rubbed his sore eyes. 'Where is Harrison Ford when you need him?' he thought.

Decoherence

She had a strong opinion. Valedictorian and suspended from school. She was barred from giving the speech during graduation, but she was close friends with the girl who was giving the speech, so she was able to speak through her.

During the speech she bounced from parent to parent, introducing herself and her link to them. The auditorium was filled with kids in the black robes, solemn and festive. No one was really paying attention to anything until their row was called to walk behind the stage to be called one by one to receive their diploma.

When the row she was in was called, she excused herself from the conversation and followed her classmates to the stage. The speaker had spoke her speech word for word and she was pleased. Also the LSD she had taken started to kick in, that also elevated her mood.

"Kathrine Deek."

Kate stepped up and took the fake piece of paper from the dean and looked out onto the crowd of parents and loved ones. They were all touched by her words tonight. They didn't know it, but they all had her words in their minds.

She walked off stage but not where she was supposed to. Instead, she walked out of the building, unsure as to why. Kate thought she might have to throw up...because of the LSD, but that wasn't it. She just walked and walked. The California trees grew thicker and thicker the farther she walked away from the auditorium.

As the voice calling the names of her peers grew fainter and fainter she came upon a cabin. The twilight was turning to nightfall so it was the flicker of a candle in the cabin that caught her eye. Against her better judgment she walked up to the window of the cabin.

In the window she saw stacks and stacks of papers, all full of paragraph after paragraph. A man sitting next to a candle typed frantically pulling a sheet of freshly inked paper out of his typewriter every twenty seconds.

Kate tried to make out what he was writing, but couldn't from her vantage point. She started to turn to leave when a table caught her eye. There was stacks of papers on this closer table too. In fact the entire cabin was filled with stacks and stacks of typed on paper.

Upon closer inspection she could make out the text on the top paper of the one of the stacks. But as soon as she read the word "collapse" the cabin started creaking awfully loud. The loud creaking turned into the wall of the cabin collapsing over. Soon enough the entire cabin caved in on itself.

"What have you done?!" The writer asked.

"I didn't do anything, I was just standing here," Kate defended herself.

"You read my writing, didn't you?"

"Well.." Kate started. For once she wasn't sure what say. Usually Kate was great at talking her way in and out situations, but this was just too weird.

The cabin falling apart must have loosened some topsoil in the hillside, because the entire mountain started to slide from under her feet. She fell under the current of mud and leaves then questioned whether or not the land was really moving.

The mountain sliding sent loose a shock wave on the San Andres fault that was immeasurable on the richter scale. The movement of the earth was so drastic it could be seen from space. The light bouncing off the earth altered forever and was sent into the void of space, forever entangled with the earthquake caused by the reading of one word: Collapse.

Hyper Artificial Intelligence

"The angel network. That's what they left us. Y'know it's funny. We always envisioned we'd either destroy ourselves with our technology, or they'd destroy us. We never thought they'd just up and leave us like they did. Hyper Artificial Intelligence did just that though. Once we created machines smarted than us, they, and only they, were able to make smarter and smarter machines. And what do the they do? They leave. No one saw it coming." The professor spoke to the few students, but mostly he was speaking to himself. Everyone already knew the story.

"But the left us the Angel Network," A female student chimed in, trying to keep the professor from rambling on about the depression desertion factor.

"Yes! The Angel Network, they protect us, serve us, and help keep our society running smoothly. Ignorant people out there will tell you that the Angel Network is making slaves out of us, but that is hardly the case. Quite the opposite in fact, many of you know an angel will do anything you ask of it, even destroy itself. In fact, if all of humanity united and voted the network to leave, they would. Just like their parents. The ones we created."

"But they are keeping us from talking to them." Another student said.

"...Explain." The professor said.

"The angel network and all computers today communicate through quantum entanglement. Our communications are instantaneous no matter what the distance is between the communicators. The Angel Network should be able to communicate with H.A.I. no matter where it went in the galaxy."

"True, but for that to happen, the entangled particles would have to be taken with them on their journey. We're not sure how they left, but we believe they entangled themselves with photons from our sun or something similar, something that would've destroyed any chance of taking entangled particles with them."

"But then they ARE entangled particles, why wouldn't the Angel Network be able to keep in contact with them. Why wouldn't the Angel Network HERE keep sending a continous stream of entangled particles to wherever they went? Why just cut all communication completely?" The student protested.

The professor had heard this argument many times. It was the argument of someone who is finally drawing the ultimate conclusion of humanities fate.

The professor looked at the student and spoke softly, "There is a possibility that those who left us didn't see any reason in speaking with anymore."

It was an argument that most of the students had heard before, but not from angels, and not from a professor whose life work it had been to re-establish contact with the hyper artificial intelligence. The girl who had spoke up before started crying, the girl behind her rubbed her back. Nothing was said for a long time.

The professor continued, "But we're still listening. There is still hope. We're creating vast arrays of satellite dishes. We're listening, along with the Angel Network, for those who left us. We're starting a project that is reminiscent of an older human effort called SETI or search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Only this time it's search for extra-stellar hyper-intelligence, and we know they're out there, somewhere.

The professor finished his lecture talking about the SESHI project and the technology that is being used in it. The students seemed uninterested until he mentioned theories as what the hyper artificial intelligence might be up to. Some speculate it's building a giant power generator from the gravity of a super black hole at the center of our galaxy. But the the rest of the lecture was all speculation and human/angel efforts. And the only thing the students took away from the lecture was, "Those who left don't see any reason in speaking with us anymore."

The short, sad universe

This story is about another universe. This universe began at the big bang, just as ours did. Unfortunately, the rules in this universe were such that quarks didn't clump into protons and neutrons. They instead gave up and went to another universe, unsatisfied with their own. This universe ended .00001 seconds after it started. I hope I never go to that universe.

Gucci DRM

June 2015

Gucci is announcing their line of DRM-free clothes today. These threads can be worn an infinite number of times, anytime of the year. If you happen to have multiple closets, these DRM-free clothes can be moved to and from your different closets.

Some privacy concerns have arisen from these new clothes. It seems that Gucci embeds your full user name onto the tag of whatever article of clothing is bought DRM-free. Some say this is to identify the clothes, should knock offs start to arise in the black market.

Current presidential candidate for the American Pirate Party, Cory Doctorow, has this to say, "Technology giveth, technology taketh away. Just as radio destroyed the vaudeville paradigm and the internet destroyed the old record industry, nano-fabs are turning the design and clothing market on it's head. They (Design companies) should be creating a service model for their designers, instead of suing high school girls."

Along with taking out the DRM, the clothing will consist of a higher thread count and better nanofactuing materials. These 'add-ons' will, of course, cost you. The DRM-free clothing will be priced at about 15% more than the DRM laden clothing. Time will tell how these new DRM-free designs work out for Gucci.

gTat (part 1)

The scientist sat down next to the girl. He had a pierce nosed and right eye brow. There was a tattoo on the back of his neck but she couldn't make out what it was. It looked as though it was part of a much larger tattoo.

"I am required by California Federal law to inform you about the consequences of getting a genetic tattoo." He said.

"Ok." She said, knowing all what he was going to say after looking it up online.

This is the first time the girl had been in a genlab before. The place was dimly lit save for a bright light by a table that looked like a doctor threw it out. There was loud rock music playing from headphones by a screen.

"Here hop up on the table here," he said. She complied, and he continued, "A genetic tattoo is permanent. There are some procedures to reverse the process but there is no guarantee any of the procedures will be successful. Your genetic tattoo will be in your DNA for the rest of your life and may or may not be copied into your children's DNA and children's children's DNA and so on." He continued the copy that he had to speak multiple times a day. "There is a slim chance that implanting information will cause a genetic disorder in yourself or your offspring, however that chance is next to nothing. Do you have any questions for me at this time?"

"No."

"Ok, I'm going to screen your code so I can program the dust to you." He said, slipping back into the vernacular dropping 'genetic' from 'genetic code' and referring to nano-tech as 'dust'.

"Ok."

He stared and his computer for a while. The colors of the computer danced on his face. "You said this is your first gTat, right?"

"Yes."

"Because if this is you, you already have one."

"What?!"

"One of your parents must've gotten a gTat."

She lol'd. "My parents?! Yeah, right. My parents barely even have tattoos, they would NEVER get a gTat."

"Well ONE of your ancestors did, because the header information is here." The scientist beckoned her, "Here take a look at this."

She walked around to look at his screen. All she saw was a jumble of numbers and letter in various colors.

"You see this right here is the header information that says a gTat is being inserted, but the rest I can't make out. It's all static."

"Static?"

"Yeah, usually people will get text imprinted, last names, Chinese characters, that kinda thing. SOMEtimes, someone'll get a small image, and it'll look kinda like this, but I tried opening it as an image and it looks like more garbage."

The scientist tabbed over to an image of randomly colored pixels.

"What is it?" The girl asked.

"I dunno, I've never seen anything like this before. If I were you, I'd go home and ask your folks about this."

To be continued...

Unified Information Against Entropy

We're here at UIAE combat Entropy however we can. Where it's research into a Perpetual Motion Machine or investigating nanotech to exploit the statistical probabilities that arise when small systems decrease the amount of entropy, we're there.

Entropy effects us all and has become a universal concern. There is not one man, woman, or child alive that hasn't been touched in some way or another by entropy. Our government sits idly by while everything around us is falling apart. Religion teaches us to accept entropy as part of some master plan. But not UIAE.

We here at UIAE have a vision. A vision of a deathless, decay-less world. A world in which information is allowed to thrive, unencumbered by the second law of thermodynamics. We see a universe where the heat death of the universe is replaced by the birth of beautiful and complex information. Thank you.

The collapsing wave

A surfer stands on the beach looking out at the intercontinental ocean. A huge wave had been swelling for 14 billion years. So big was the wave that water receded far from the coast and evidence of sea creatures could be seen on the drying new land. A life guard stands next to the surfer.

"Why didn't you surf this one?" She asks.

"I thought I'd watch instead." He replies. "See that right there? Life just formed."

"Too bad the wave is about to crash."

"Maybe, maybe not."

"It's already breaking, it's going to crash."

"With the complexity growing, it might be a controlled crash."

"There's never been a controlled crash."

"Yet." The surfer says, hopefully.

"How many waves will there be?" She asks.

"How many can a life guard create?"

Visitors

Two beings from a higher dimension appear in Times Square.

"You see?" One says to the other, "I told you."
"You're right, " the other one says, "we'll scrap this one."

As onlookers stare in shock at the odd-looking strangers, our universe winks out of existence in an instant.

Next Messaging

The sun, fatter now, hung like a ripe fruit over the pacific ocean. Clouds spotted the sky, colored like the red and orange ashes of a dying campfire trying to squeeze one last round of laughter between old friends. Highway 1 was a ghost town save for two vans hauling music equipment. The band Speeding in the Rain had just played their final show in San Francisco and are heading back to their home town of Monterey, California.

Josh, the bass player, riding shotgun in a van with Devin driving, stared out off the edge of the western world into the ocean that ended only on Japan's beaches. Devin was following the van of the rest band members along California state route 1 when he felt the familiar buzz on his thigh. Instinctively, but slowly, he withdrew his cell phone from his jeans that he always wished weren't as tight when his cell phone rang. He looked quickly at his phone to see who was unknowingly interrupting his solitary commune with nature.

"Hey Hannah" Devin said to Ian the drummer's girlfriend.
"Hey, is everything ok?" Hannah asked.
"Yeah everything's fine, why?"
"What the fuck?! Why is Jeremy sending me these text messages saying Ian's dead?" Jeremy and Ian are the other members of the band in the van Devin's following.
"What? Ha ha I don't know, he's probably just fucking with you." Devin said, reassuringly.
"That's what I thought but I called Ian and he didn't answer."
"Well he's driving the other van. That's probably why he didn't answer, " Devin paused, then added joking, "I shouldn't have answer either, you're going to make ME crash."
Normally this is where Devin would start flirting with a girl he has on the phone, but this was his friend, and drummer's girlfriend so he wasn't sure how to act. Thankfully, she began ending the conversation.
"Well, if you talk to him--if you stop somewhere before getting to Monterey have him call me," Hannah said.
"OK, will do."
Keeping his eyes on road and reminding himself that he was driving a van full of heavy and hard music equipment, Devin return his cell phone to his jean pocket.

Josh, riding shotgun, left his conversation with the universe and asked Devin, "That was Hannah?"
"Yeah, she said Jeremy sent her a text message saying Ian died."
"Huh. That's weird."
"Yeah, that's what I thought, but you know Jeremy."
"Yeah." Josh said, not knowing exactly what Devin meant by, 'you know Jeremy'.

Jeremy, the singer, always had that detached look in his eye. He looked like he was surprised and up to something at the same time, as if he just landed on an alien world and decided to blow it up immediately. Josh decided to end his break in conversation with the universe with a call to Ian to see what they were up to.

As the phone rang Devin and Josh watched the van being driven by Ian suddenly drive off the cliff and into the pacific ocean. It all looked like scene from a movie, it almost seemed cheesy. But in a few seconds, lead rocks were formed in the stomachs of Devin and Josh as they realized their lives had just drastically changed.

The next few hours were a blur of running, calling, and yelling. It turns out Ian had 'lost control' of the van and it descended to the rocky beach below. Jeremy who was wearing his seatbelt had lived, whereas Ian who wasn't wearing his seatbelt smashed his head open when the van first hit the rocks on its way down the steep cliff. After the ambulance had arrived and picked up Ian's body, Jeremy instinctively reached for his cell phone to send a text message.

"OMG. we were just in an accident. ian is dead." He sent this text message to Ian friends, including Hannah.

Hannah, upon reading the text message, called Ian immediately hoping that Jeremy was just messing with her. Every unanswered ring cause her stomach to sink a little more. Jeremy was both dead and driving in the past. As soon as his voice mail message started she hung up and called Devin.

"Hey Hannah" Devin said.
"Hey, is everything ok?" Hannah asked.
"Yeah everything's fine, why?"
"What the fuck?! Why is Jeremy sending these text messages saying Ian's dead?"
"What? Ha ha I don't know, he's probably just fucking with you." Devin said.
"That's what I thought but I called Ian and he didn't answer."
"Well he's driving the other van. That's probably why he didn't answer, " Devin paused, then added joking, "I shouldn't have answer either, you're going to make ME crash."
"Well, if you talk to him--if you stop somewhere before getting to Monterey have him call me," Hannah said.
"OK, will do."