News:

What the fuck is a homonym?  It's something that sounds gay.

Main Menu

My Girl Friday

Started by The Good Reverend Roger, June 25, 2014, 02:22:03 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

LMNO

I like how you gently lead us into an alternate reality.

Sita

Loving Friday and this story so far  :)
:ninja:
Laugh, even if you are screaming inside. Smile, because the world doesn't care if you feel like crying.

P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on June 26, 2014, 04:45:51 PM
I like how you gently lead us into an alternate reality.

This! I'm reading away, thinking to myself "Hmmmm ... Cool... noir... futuristic Sam Spade ... 1960 ... 1960? ... WTF???"

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on June 26, 2014, 05:02:39 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on June 26, 2014, 04:45:51 PM
I like how you gently lead us into an alternate reality.

This! I'm reading away, thinking to myself "Hmmmm ... Cool... noir... futuristic Sam Spade ... 1960 ... 1960? ... WTF???"

All will be explained, of course.

LMNO:

Alternate reality?  No.  No it is not.   :lulz:

You'll see.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

"German attack on NY harbor"?

Unless...

Crap. Before you write anything else, google the plot of "Vanilla Sky".

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on June 26, 2014, 05:30:23 PM
"German attack on NY harbor"?

Unless...

Crap. Before you write anything else, google the plot of "Vanilla Sky".

Or Animal House. Not worried about it in this case, for reasons that will be made clear later.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

HAH!  Okay, did.  Not too worried.  There are some similarities, but nothing involving cryogenic suspension or lucid dreams.

It's actually far more horrible than that.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO


Junkenstein

Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

The Good Reverend Roger

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

P3nT4gR4m

Your head is approximately 18.4 times better than the real world  :lulz:

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.

Weevil-Infested Badfun Wrongsex Referee From The 9th Earth
Slick and Deranged Wombat of Manhood Questioning
Hulking Dormouse of Lust and DESPAIR™
Gatling Geyser of Rainbow AIDS

"The only way we can ever change anything is to look in the mirror and find no enemy." - Akala  'Find No Enemy'.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Wow, this keeps getting better and better!
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 27, 2014, 04:27:38 PM
Wow, this keeps getting better and better!

Thanks!  I'm going to add another chapter in about an hour, when I've had some time to cool off.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

Friday and I showed up at Horne Enterprises at 9 sharp.  We were met by a thirty-something lady who told us her name was Dakota. 

"Like the state?", I asked?

"What?"  Smile.  Friday snickered.  I managed, with some effort, to not facepalm. 

"Never mind.  Can you just show us around, tell us what this is all about?"

"Certainly, Mr Howl."  She led us through the security door next to the receptionist's desk, into a hallway lined with what looked like hospital rooms.  "What Horne Enterprises does is affect a certain form of immortality for those who can pay for it...Or, in some cases, are considered important enough for the government or another corporation to pay for them.

"The procedure is simple to explain, but very difficult in practice.  Basically, we make a digital copy of the person's brain, and store it in a virtual universe.  They live on in this virtual universe, interacting with other people, with simalacra of people who are actually more or less maintenance software, and with a few - a very few - Horne employees, who are there to monitor the universe to prevent tangling."

"Tangling?"

"Yes, we change the universe just a bit...Physical laws, that sort of thing, so that it is both optimized for the long-term enjoyment of our clients, and also so that the clients do not become aware that they are in fact just pieces of software.  They won't think to call their children, for example, because they never had any.  Or, if they paid for an afterlife in which they did have children, simalacra of those children will be there to answer the phone, to arrange a day out next week...A next week that never actually comes, and that the client very quickly forgets about.

"In any case, you can imagine that this sometimes goes off the rails.  At that point, an employee will go in an fix things.  Rearrange them so that the desired reality is restored."

We had come into a large room, with smaller rooms stacked with servers off to the side.

"This is where your clients are stored?"

"Oh, heavens, no.  This is just our connection to a web of computers that spans the globe, and is used by the universities and the military.  If these servers fail, our "clients" are not erased, we just lose access to them until we repair the system."

"What happens if a client IS erased?"

"We spool the client back into the universe from a stored copy."

Friday had been geeking out the whole time, staring at things and taunting the neckbeards who worked among the servers by winking at them, etc.  But she now turned to Dakota.

"What happens to the original person when they die?"

"They die.  What lives on is only a copy.  This is made plain to all of our clients.  Most do not care."

"Do you keep backups of employees?"

"Critical ones, or ones that stay with us until retirement.  Their copied personalities are backed up weekly.  Daily, for the really important ones."

"So...You have Horace Horne in there, somewhere?"

"Yes, and in fact that nice Detective Wilson asked that, too.  He spoke with Horace for about an hour, then left."

And then, I recalled quite vividly, drank himself into a stupor and then killed himself.  All over my new shirt.

"Well then", said Friday, giving Dakota her 'sweetest' smile, "I suppose you better let us talk to him, too."

"No problem.  Mrs Horne said to show you whatever you wanted."  Dakota walked over to a terminal and started typing. 

"That's odd."

"What's odd?", I asked, though I could guess the answer.

"He's gone.  He is not showing in the registry at all."

"Gone?  You have got to be kidding me."

"It's odd, but hardly a problem.  I'll just get his backup..."  Dakota walked over to a filing cabinet and, opening it, pulled a box of the sort used to store DVDs, labeled "Horne, Horace" out of it.  She opened it, and gasped.

The box was empty.

(To be continued)
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.