In An Automated Fashion

Veins

In a couple of million years (a pretty short time when you think about it), The New Dinosaurs will find some pretty excellent veins of aluminium ore on the sites of what The Middle Dinosaurs called “Landfill Sites”. Great towns will spring up around these most fruitful of veins, they’ll prosper, with all the New Dinosaur amenities, until the sources dry up and the towns begin to wither and die. There’ll be some real doldrums economically speaking before the service sector saves the day.

Aluminium will be shipped in while the residents write out receipts. It’s a pity there was no lightning back then, else they’d have had electric typewriters, Earth* willing.

*Steve, as they called her

“I wouldn’t… but I’m going to”

There’s none of what we (often quaintly) call rivalry among The New Dinosaurs; on the contrary, there’s a great communalism in their society, coupled inextricably with a pioneering spirit that would put our 18^th and 19^th Centuries to shame. It was quite by accident (with, of course, the requisite quotient of pure New Dinosaur Vigilance) that they (that’s they collectively) unlocked the secrets of Fusion. I shan’t bore you with detail, suffice it to say that it was most unfortunate, not to say ethically unwarranted, that the end came about; The New Dinosaurs cannot be blamed by any reasonable court of law. Natural curiosity can never be condemned, and it was and it was an unforeseeable happenstance that launched Steve into the Sun* while the rockets crept eventually into the orbit of the shoe factory where Mars used to be.

By this time aluminium could be synthesised quite easily and in an automated fashion.

*Croquet

Demon Means

Those demons up there, the head office heads, have long since developed a means of control so pure and so very simple, a transplant patient could quite contentedly eat her dinner off it. Truth be told, it almost had me, of all people, flummoxed. That could never have lasted, though. Their method is as follows:

Multiple organisations (at time of writing, these number seven), ostensibly rivals, enter into a wretched, underhand agreement regarding espionage and counter-espionage policy. Their first move is to insinuate, semi-publicly, that sensitive information has been leaked/acquired nefariously from their respective organisations. Next, over a period of, say, two months, they institute, in seeming reaction to each other, variants on the following policy:

“Any person/persons, be they employees or visitors, whether authorised or not, found in a situation deemed by Security to compromise the integrity and/or property (intellectual or otherwise) of the organisation, will be brought before a tribunal selected by the board of directors, and may be liable to prosecution under applicable laws in the jurisdiction governing head office.”

Needless to say, the combined clout of the various organisations in the aforementioned jurisdiction is more than sufficient to draw out legal proceedings for protracted lengths of time, indeed, indefinitely. This is the key to their control, when coupled with the following nugget of secret policy:

“As a member of this organisation, you accept that, should you be caught by a rival organisation in a situation that would seem to compromise the integrity of your intentions towards them, and by extension the integrity of this organisation, it is our policy to deny knowledge and involvement, as all and any infiltration of rival organisations is contrary to policy. You must therefore expect no assistance should charges be brought. Since all and any infiltration is contrary to policy, it will be assumed, should you be found in such a situation, that you are acting on behalf of a third party, and you may consequently be liable to disciplinary action before a tribunal selected by the board of directors.”

That’s right, people; the only aspect of the demon means to control that lies beyond their sphere of control is the assumption that orders, specifically orders to spy, will be followed by employees, or colleagues, as head office prefer to call them. This, however, is a safe assumption; we all know that. I got wise, though, and forewent the auld job security thing. I last ate seven days ago, and that was three beans in a salty sauce, but at least I’m free from litigation, and from paying attention, and from ever having to think about it, really. In fact, the above was never written.

The new social science?

The new social science, that is - hereby inauguarated - of wireless network nomenclaturology. Here in cosmopolitan Stroud Green, the following networks are 'visible' to me, now, as I sit. But what do they reveal about the society for which they speak?

Khoobsurat Ladkiyan
This Is Anfield
EuroNorth
SKY90360
Hobarts
mcfuck land
Axis of Evil
Livebox-2700