Work routine is settling in. In this job, OCD is a definite advantage. I will soon have that shop up to laboratory standards of cleanliness although it would be easier if I could make the customers pass an entrance exam.
Samuel’s Girl edits are done and sent back to the editor, and I’m not working Saturday so Friday’s smoky-drinky evening is all systems go. I’m going to splash out on a good bottle now that I will no longer be reliant on the eBay stuff to pay bills. Normal activity should resume next week and I can get back to other projects.
Speaking of which, in Panoptica I had not considered allowing the Coalition (the government is permanent coalition in Panoptica and it doesn’t matter who you vote for, they all get in) total control over people’s movements, only total observation. However, it seems that might be possible. Going somewhere you’re not supposed to go? An implant can give you a ‘nudge’ to send you in the right direction.
Right. One more day and that’s the first week done. I must be doing it right because I’ve already been asked to take overtime to cover for someone on holiday in a few weeks.
Before you know it, you’ll be Chief Exec of Local Shop empire :>
XX (the government is permanent coalition in Panoptica and it doesn’t matter who you vote for, they all get in) XX
Aha. The wonders of P.R! You have been reading up on German politics then.
The only system where 5% of the vote can get you a couple of “Ministers seats.”
I think you’d need more than a vibrating glove to really control people. Perhaps a shock collar if the style used to train dogs. I suppose that would be a torc then.
Of course then the inhabitants of Panoptica would be able to say that politicians are nothing but torc, torc, torc.
I’ll get my coat….
That’s rather good Andy! I had to laugh…except it’s serious.
Ta, but sadly, not original with me.
It is serious of course, but I’m hoping that the publication of Panoptica will in some way avert that future, in the same way that the publication of 1984 effectively prevented (or at least delayed) the world described in 1984. It’s a lot to ask of a book, or an author, but its quite clear that the world that Leg Iron has imagined is plausibly within the grasp of the political classes. Sooner or later our civilisation will have to make an explicit choice between ubiquitous surveillance, or some notion of personal privacy.
I made a few extremely nasty suggestions last year in the hope that the ideas in the hands of a skilled author, would horrify all the readers sufficiently to prevent them ever coming pass.
Books like Panoptica outline the choice explicitly. It has the potential to show one future so that we will not simply drift in to a decision by default.
Keeping ahead of the buggers is proving difficult…
“….total control over people’s movements…”
Introducing, The Tazer Bracelet
Now that really is scary stuff. And of course, would prove totally ineffective in terms of stopping a determined terrorist, since they would very quickly find a way to neutralise any technology of that type.
However, it would prove very useful for subduing passengers who want another beer or who are otherwise interfering with what the aircrew see as their role. Or monitoring them pre-flight to make sure they don’t spend too long at the bar.
“Another beer, please”
ZAP! Wriggle, flop, wriggle.
“Ok, cancel that beer…”
I wince every time you characterize yourself as having OCD. I think that if you administered psychological tests at a ASH symposium you’d find that 90+% of them have extreme OCD.
Instead I think you just so happen to have a very advanced knowledge of spores, fungi, bacteria and the like, and due to a well-honed self-preservation streak you take necessary precautions.
You just don’t come across as a full-blown OCD sufferer, you’re way too relaxed and loosey-goosey.
Here’s two distinguishing traits I’ve observed of the many (seemingly epidemic) old friends I have that now have late onset OCD. One quit smoking and now is a spastic hand-waver, the other continues to, but constantly self-deprecates himself over it.
A.) Do you have two locks on each and every door in your house? One normal and one deadbolt, with a different set of keys for each one.
B.) Do you double bag things before you dispose of them in the refuse bin?
You’re way too cool to have real OCD.
That last symptom is the clincher.
I have three locks on each outer door, one normal and a deadbolt top and bottom. The deadbolts are the wind-in ones with keys that look like cogs.
When I roll a cigarette the filter is always on the right. Always.
I spent a quiet half-hour at work cleaning all the ‘wet floor’ signs. They were filthy. I have also cleaned all the brushes, mops, buckets etc. How can anyone have confidence in cleaning staff who use dirty equipment?
I don’t double-bag kitchen stuff unless the first one looks like it might break but the little bin in my office has two bags in it, one inside the other.
The best model-makers all have some level of OCD. As do most real scientists. When you have to do the same set of tests 60 times in one day. when you need to construct coach bogies that at are all the same, you can’t do it unless you’re OCD. Normal people would get bored and try to vary things and they’d mess it all up.
Oh, and anyone at an ASH symposium isn’t OCD. They are sociopaths. Their attendance is enough to prove it.
When I roll a cigarette (with a little blue Rizla cigarette tube filling machine – no model number that I could find) the filter is always on the left. Always. That’s because I’m right-handed and the side-to-side motion dictates it. However, I just tried to do it the other way and it didn’t work. Now I’m going to keep trying until I get one to come out on the right. And I’ll keep trying and trying and trying until I get it to work.
That sort of thing brings out the OCD in me.
I was doing some remodel work for the aforementioned spastic, hand waving ex-smoker (a very cute little Italian-blooded ex-girlfriend) just last year. She has double locks on even the interior doors. The project took forever as a result.
I was cutting some boards up in garage preparing to nail them in place inside the house. She came out to tell me something and the door from the kitchen to the garage slammed shut behind her. All of her keys were inside. We were hopelessly locked out.
We had to call up a locksmith on a Sunday no less from a pay phone booth, as her cellphone was inside as well. Two hours and $65 later I resumed work and nailed the boards in place.
No, I don’t own a cellphone, never have and never will.