<html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
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--></style></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Since you have indulged me in telling old man stories, I have a good one for you.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>I mentioned a few days ago about sitting alone in the airport at San Jose, not even reading a book, then realizing the punchline of the joke months later, and BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA followed by the other passengers crowding against the opposite wall to stay as far away from the apparent psychopath as they could get.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Here’s what caused that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Damien Broderick published The Spike in about 1997, which was about the singularity, but he was not satisfied with it and immediately started a second edition with many changes, which was published in about 2001 and was a big improvement. As I recall the second edition sold better than the first. Writing books about the future is exhausting hard work, because it is done under intense time pressure: the future is charging toward the author, and he must publish before the material is outdated.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>After the first edition came out, I liked it. Had a lot of stuff he mined off of ExI-chat. Cool! Damien and I became friends, I invited him to come to the states, stay at my house, we would mess around, lots of stuff to do around here. He came over, but it wasn’t nearly as I thought because he worked constantly on the next edition of The Spike.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Damien wrote about other science futurist writers, such as Ed Regis, who wrote the Great Mambo Chicken. Writers good enough to make a living selling their words study each others’ work, the way rock stars listen to other rock stars’ music. Damien wrote about a local professor by the name of Rudy Rucker. He had made the contact, and Rucker invited to his house for dinner. Damien, my bride and I went up to his house, where the man himself grilled the best salmon with all the trimmings. He was a master chef in addition to his other talents, and turned out to be the nicest guy you ever met. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>His bride and mine immediately hit it off, visited like they had been friends all their lives. After dinner, those two ladies went to the other room so they could hear each other, leaving the three fellers to talk math and futurism and computers, such as that, the stuff that we liked. Damien and Rudy are about the same age, and they had a common language, so the Australian guy and the American guy were talking and I was listening and learning, in awe of myself for being in the same room with these two giants. They understood each other, and knew stuff I could only read about in the history books, if history books contained that material. Those two shared a language and a world view that happened before I was born.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Rudy was a computer science professor at San Jose State U, nearby. I looked around at his lavish pad and wondered what he really did for a living, because being a professor wouldn’t explain all this. That comment is an introduction to the rest, but is part of the story really.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Rudy asked me what kind of writing I like and did I like SciFi, yes, but I like hard SciFi, the kind with lots of math in it, or that obeys the known principles, such as Arthur C Clarke wrote. He asked if I like math, and sure, of course I do, such a powerful tool kit it provides for understanding. I suggested there should be a subfield of SciFi, perhaps MathFi, where it is still speculative and futuristic, but it is an extension and extrapolation of math rather than just technology. He asked if I had found any good examples, which I could only say only one which really fit, the title of which is Mathenauts. It was a collection of short stories, which might be described as MathFi.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>With a straight face, Rudy Rucker asked me for details about the book, such as my favorite story in the collection. I related the bursting out in maniacal laughter in the San Jose airport upon suddenly getting the joke three or four months after finishing Mathenauts. The story was so strange: a man set up a mathematical research company, where researchers looking for work would come to him, no effort on his part, no recruiting, they came on their own. They would come and volunteer to work for a pittance, doing mathematical research. The evil mad… mathematician… had discovered a way, invented a machine of some sort, to control the emotions of his employees. If they worked hard and found the answers which made the mad mathematician money… he could make them happy, and if they failed to work hard enough, he could make them sad, with his sneaky mad mathematician device. He was prospering, controlling the willing employees. The story goes on to describe one of the employees figuring out what he was doing, becoming disillusioned, telling the others who likewise became disillusioned, then how they managed to escape the controlling mad mathematician, who was getting crazy rich off of their work. After his employees broke the machine and escaped, the mad mathematician repaired his device and soon, new volunteer researchers came. He resumed his mad mathematician career. It was a very strange story.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>I went on to tell Rudy and Damien I was sitting quietly alone in the airport, when I suddenly realized the whole story was an allegory or parody of sorts, about post graduate school, where a professor would oversee PhD research by his students, profit off of their work in some cases, and control them thru grades, dangling the PhD on a stick, etc. When I suddenly realized it was an allegory about post-grad university life, everything suddenly fit perfectly, and all of the subtle gags and veiled humor in that weird story hit me from all directions at once, causing the explosive, uncontrollable (and perhaps alarming to normal people) mirth on the part of me, at the airport. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>I have kind of a deep voice, so even genuine amused happy laughter can sound a bit evil and maniacal. Can’t help that really, for it just sounds a little Boris Karloff-ey MUUWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA like I just brought Frankenstein’s monster to life or something SciFi often treats as evil (but for crying out loud (a DOCTOR just sewed together a few pieces from DEAD people (and created a LIVE person, sheesh, (how does Mary Shelley figure THAT IS EVIL? (technology brings a few pieces of corpses together (gives them a few more years to mess around and maybe have some fun (honestly what’s the harm in that (assuming your idiot assistant gets a HEALTHY non-murderous brain? (but I digress ( at multiple levels.))))))<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>This all happened in about 1998. It is part one of a two-part story. The second part is amusing too, if you are the kind who is amused by this sorta thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>If I get time, I will post it tomorrow, for it tells you what kind of person Professor Rudy Rucker is, and his subtle sense of humor.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></body></html>