meadowlark | @ian.fowler | morningstar network

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@ian.fowler | morningstar network

Hey
Stop me if this is a stupid offer, I'm still trying to figure out how this whole thing works, but
I heard about the whole gate problem, and the whole simulation thing, there's probably more going on too that I don't know about yet
I'm an engineer
You guys might already have a few, but just in case you're shorthanded
If there's anything I can do to help, I want to

I can also apparently do a weird tools thing now so that's
something

edit: if anyone's in the market for crazy experiments in there
you guys glitch the sim when you do your chest thing, right?
anyone tried organizing a group glow-off? overwhelm the system with too much at once, DDOS it into crashing?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Right. No lumping. William's unique enough to not commit a repeat suicide, much less a first one.

You're not missing much.

It's worth trying. Exploring, finding, and trying.

What's it like in the real world?

I'm curious about that word choice, any significance behind choosing the word unique?

the real world's pretty great, man. lots of electricity. they have street tacos here. I found a kazoo. really can't complain.

Only the significance in the kind of person who'd do that, with good intentions. But, that's a road paved to hell, if you believe in old proverbs. I'm also unique. Always have been. I never fit in, not really, but I never asked to, either.

A kazoo. I don't think I've ever seen a kazoo. Maybe on a weird throwback Facebook commercial back in 2020 but not in person. Do you play the kazoo?

Interesting take, maybe something to be proud of considering the vast majority of normal people aren't all that great.

What year is it where you're from?

Everyone can play the kazoo, man. They're the world's easiest, worst instrument.

I am. Am I not showing it? Through text to a stranger? I should really work on that.

2040.

Maybe focus on worst.

No, you are, I just wanted to make sure I was picking it up right. More like confirming rather than outright asking. Don't change a thing, you're nailing it.

2040, jesus, you're like 20 years ahead of me. More than that slightly. What's it like?

I nail most things.

I mean.

Kind of like this, when not in the simulation. But a bit less high tech. ID comes from the wrist, not our joined minds which is something I really had to get used to.

I still might not be. Also I'm William. Obviously.

Glad you're so successful when it comes to nailing.

Ian. Obviously.
Is it always William, or is it sometimes Will?

And, by the way, this fucking neural mesh is CRAZY right?? Jesus, the combination of neuroscience and electrical engineering and I can't even guess what else that must have gone into it

The kind of stuff that tech could be used for is flat out scary

Yep. That's... me. Nailer.

Some days I can't even wrap my head around it, what it takes to enjoin us and connect everyone neurally, much less, ocularly. I'm used to be there being little to know privacy in identity, but not to this degree. The electronic screens, fine, but everything else? I'm used to being the smartest one in the room, but this tech is lightyears past anything I've ever taken apart just for fun.

Also, it's always William. Has been ever since I can remember. But, you can sometimes call me Will. Nobody does, so I'll know who it is.

What do you make of our chest plates? The glow? Our emotional connections?

Edited 2020-06-14 06:57 (UTC)

the ocular part's tripping me up too, jesus, the overlay
I'm like 75% sure they didn't do an optical implant, so it's all input directly from mesh to occipital lobe
how in the fuck do we manage that?

I Will.
^ high comedy

Honestly, I don't even know how to start with that one. I've been hearing stories from people that come from alternate dimensions, alternate universes. In some of them they have what we'd consider magic where I'm from. I don't think anyone's taken the time to break it down into science, figure out what the actual
principals are but

anyway my point is it could be beyond technology
I can't even fathom how skin to skin empathy could be done through tech, I just
I can't
not real skin, not organic skin that still goes through cellular reproduction

I don't know. My expertise is in tech and not, like, medical tech. I need to do reading up, but even if we learn how, what will it do but, make it clearer how insane this all is.

You're a regular Molière.

They didn't replace our skin. I don't think. And, yeah, it reads more magic than anything. But, unstable, mass-produced magic which doesn't... track when it comes to magic. Where I come from abilities are either based in science, a particle accelerator explosion, or, more mystical, too. But, not like this. Not in any of this form.

Going from being the know-it-all in the room to the guy who knows nothing inside this simulation has been quite the ... is downfall too far a stretch. I feel like I've fallen far. I also don't know anyone here. That's .. I guess not a difference to my everyday life.

Not that you asked about any of that.

Gonna have to say I'd prefer to go by Charles Perrault if we're keeping it French.

I'm also a huge busybody, so feel free to lay out all your thoughts and feelings on the table. For what it's worth, I don't know a single fucking person here either except the ones I met when I woke up. You're not alone on that one.

Actually, not alone on the other part, either. Not exactly a great hit to take to my ego going from teaching engineering at UC Berkeley to being five hundred years behind...

Keep it positive, though, right? Hell of a lot to learn, kind of like being back in grad school. Once you get caught up, imagine all the creative shit you can do with all the tech these days we don't even know about yet.

or maybe the blue magic in our chest explodes and we all become a sentient human-based sludge, at this point it seems like anything's possible

We don't have to keep it French. Good call, though.

You were a professor at UC Berkeley? Engineering, really. I guess we both have a lot to learn from this year.

I can't wait to get my hands actually on this tech. Because all of it is enmeshed neurally and ocularly which... is it the code? Is it something in the code that's written in? Is it frequency or something in the signature, that we can see advertisements and TV and well, everything.

I'm going to vote against becoming any kind of sludge, although I'd rather be sentient if I were sludge.

I'm a fan of everything the french have given us, I'll stick with it.

Adjunct, but yeah. More and more that toward the end before the world fell apart.

Please let me know if you crack the code on the brain to brain wifi before I get the chance to read up on it. Maybe we can start a knowledge pact. Do a little collaborative uploading.

sentient sludge > sludge
not sludge > sludge
sentient sludge < not sludge
that established, what are your thoughts on sentient jello as an alternative

You stick, I'll nail.

Before you were ripped out of your world or did something else happen?

All for it. Sometimes, collaboration is what's needed. And if anybody can get under any of this, maybe it's the engineer from Berkeley and the geek from Star City.

Similar to the sludge, especially if there's eating involved. Can't we go to the bionic well? At least then parts of us would be preserved.

I feel like we're building something here.

Before. Unfortunately where I'm from we're never gonna make it to wrist IDs. The planet's probably gonna be a husk by 2040, or close to it.

Ah, man, I'm sorry, bionic well isn't one of the options. I can try to write it in, but they say that's just a waste of a vote really. We gotta get past this two party system, especially when at the end of the day your only choices are jello or sludge.

What that something is hasn't revealed itself yet. But I like it. As much as I can like the disembodied words of someone I've never met face to face. You're like clients I used to speak to directly before I had underlings and an assistant.

What happened?

They? Sludge over jello, then. I've never met sludge I'd eat. Jello, on the other hand.

Underlings is another interesting word choice. Were you a super villain? I feel like that's something you should disclose before we start project planning.

In a word? Aliens.

Who probably would have eaten us if we were jello, so I guess you have a point.

Vigilante, yes, on a team of vigilantes. But, for the greater good.

That is a word.

Are you choosing sludge?

Wait, seriously? Like how Batman is a vigilante?

The jello campaign has been making some really promising points...

What's a Batman?

Don't give in to the jello.

He's a famous fictional vigilante that runs around in a cape and kevlar fighting bad guys but for some reason the cops hate him

jello's promising a firmer, more consistent environment, I gotta tell you, that sounds appealing

Because they do his job better than them or because they're corrupt?

But, it also promises the real possibility of being eaten.

A little of column a, a little of columb b

the POSSIBILITY of being eaten < the extreme likelihood of taking a gelatinous upright form.

I don't know about Batman. But, in my world there are vigilantes. And superheroes. Metahumans...

Then that settles it. Jello reigns.

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