Wrenches, books, and dreams

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I scream!
You scream!
We all scream
For basin wrenches!

I just completed the nastiest, grungiest, dirtiest, smellyist job EV-AR. The bathroom faucet needed replacing. The bathroom faucet is also older than I, with the smelly grime underneath and inside to prove it. In the process, I picked up a basin wrench–basically a wrench at one end that flip-flops 90 degrees in either direction to fit into tiny spaces and a T-bar at the other end for torque. Had I known such a thing existed, I would have picked one up years ago.

I need to stop reading science and science fiction stories about creepy human/computer biotech interfacing. They are starting to give me spooky dreams. Just recently, it started with a Wired news article about a blind guy with a QuickCam plugged into his noggin. Sure, the resolution is 5 pixels by 5 pixels in shades of grey–but it is far more advanced than zero-by-zero.

Next, we have 0wnz0red, a novella published at Salon about a government project to write code that runs in your brain (along-side or in place of the existing autonomous routines there), complete with an API to interface with your body. It might be kind of nice to hack your brain such that you did not need to sleep and the “routine maintenance” that gets run while you would be sleeping get kicked off as Cron jobs with a higher “Nice” value. That, or adjust some constants in there that affect the dendrite density in your brain so you can remember more or become more smart. On the other hand, when you start futzing with the UI (ears, eyes, touch, pain, pleasure, anxiety), you start dropping into a scary realm where Descartes might fear to tread.

Finally, we have Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, which is not so spooky, but has some really nifty bits o' technology to think about. People have both organic and silicon memory in their head, which they back up routinely. If you get killed, die, or feel you need a newer younger body, the backup is written to the silicon memory of a clone, and you continue living. You can live hundreds of years, throwing out an old body, replacing it with a new one–like buying new clothing. If you get killed, you remember everything since your last backup. You can also get access to any security footage or the incident, or if anyone wants to share their points of view, you can get a copy of that segment of their memory.

I forget what dream I had two nights ago about biotech, but last night involved me doing some work, then going to court as a defendant. I recall something about enabling fingers to grow emerald or ruby instead of normal fingernail material so that rich folk could grow shiny gemstone fingernails and never have to paint their nails. (In conscious waking retrospect, that would have probably made a manicure a bitch to perform, and the payment direction would probably be reversed!) I really do not remember many more specifics other than someone was trying to “steal the formula” and someone else thought I helped them get it and a bunch of it took place in hotels in and around a futuristic Vegas-like city during the daytime (the same locale that several other of my dreams have taken place).

Posted in: Books Dear Diary Dreams

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