Biotree Inc

Yes, I'm still tapping away...

The Biotree company they worked for was a producer of biotech equipment. It had developed several of the nanotechnology based products which had created a renaissance for British industry. The most famous was the Aport, which could be used within a bloodstream to manage the walls of veins and arteries. It had revolutionized healthcare since its originally controversial introduction and been developed into a range of products which could manage blood flow, cholesterol build-up and some aspects of cleansing of contaminated organs. The Aport ran as a series of nanobots, which were inserted into a person’s blood stream via the same type of cartridges that were used to manage general heath.

The company had made its fortune from both the devices and the complex software that was required to make them run successfully and without error.

London was still the global headquarters for the company, with other administrative locations in most major countries. The tentacles from the company spread wide and the product base was routinely customised to markets.

The huge secretive manufacturing plants for BioTree’s core nanotechnology were based in several locations around the world. Nevada, USA; Toulouse, France and Melbourne, Australia.

Research and Development had been moved to Bodo in Norway as a strategically safe location. Just within the Arctic Circle, it still had good infrastructural connections including fast land transit, extensive seaborne links and the small matter of a major NATO airbase nestled within the town. The origins as a strategic base went back to annual shows of strength known as the Cold Response, which still occurred under the less obvious title of CORE.

It had other advantages. A local population with their own language, whilst also possessing perfectly good English language skills for handling the incoming scientists. A university base, which had been developed extensively as part of the run-up to the creation of the research faculty.

The location also had an interest appeal for the people stationed there, who were attracted by leading edge research, the best facilities, no practical budgetary limitations and a world class lifestyle during their term. Many tried a six-month spell and then remained for much longer.

Added to this, the Norwegian government had been particularly understanding since the changes in global energy policy as they had needed to re-provision from the decline in North Sea oil and natural gas. They had granted the area a special status as a world economic development zone and it had boosted the relative ranking of the still sparsely populated Norway to a top fifteen economy in terms of its economic freedom.

The subtext was the immense security that surrounded the environment and the commitment of those employed to maintain the secure nature of their work. The Bodo environment was also small enough to mean that unusual activity would be quickly spotted and with the added incentives of the kriminalitetsforebygging (KRÅD) - the criminal intelligence organisation providing added rewards for useful intelligence.

In its heyday Biotree was simply a money machine as the demand was pretty much world-wide and the patents and manufacturing processes had been extensively locked down during the prototyping cycle.

Therefore the employees of the company were routinely subjected to heavy screening before they joined, were provided with extensive benefits and the equivalent of ‘golden handcuffs’ making it exceptionally undesirable to want to leave.

That had been the case until around year ago, when a Chinese manufacturer had started to produce the first clones. Strictly, they were not clones at all. They were a totally different way to produce the same outcome. It was evident that some very smart people had somehow reversed engineered the ‘bots and also the operating systems and now created something extremely similar in its function, but at what worked out to be one tenth of the price.

That had tipped the market and the little nest egg of un-vested shares that Janie and Karin had received when they joined the company were now worth less than one-tenth of their original value. These changes had heralded the management changes and the new people that now walked the corridors.

an insurrective kitten post

Some fat cats lived at the top of a hill.

They had a ball of string and messily wound it around everything. Some kittens took a look at the string but became tangled up in it. The fat cats laughed, pulled the string in and and somehow got fatter.

This made the kittens very angry and they managed break some of the string and chased the fat cats off the hill.

But the fat cats left their messy string behind and the kittens got all tangled up again. The fat cats decided they could drink tea and watch the kittens get in a muddle for a while.

The kittens soon realised the string was the cause of their problem. Unfortunately, the messy fat cats had left so much string that it was too much to clear. The kittens tried and tried but every time they moved some of the tangled string out of the way they found even more knots underneath.

The fat cats shrugged and pretended it was not their string. The kittens had been there long enough for it to look as if they had put the string there in the first place.

pulse

Scrive clicked the new cartridge into place in his forearm and felt the cold rush snaking from his arm to somewhere inside his head.

Next he checked briefly the small plexi inspection window and could see his blood already changing from a bright red back to orange and he knew that within another twenty minutes it would again be the safe yellow colour.

Like everyone, he knew that red blood spelt danger and he had been particularly careless to let his system deplete its supply of the tropus for so long.

He could now feel a pulse and almost a bubbling sensation on the side of his head above the eyeline on the left side. He knew this was his body regaining its equilibrium. He squeezed both his hands into a fist shape they way they were taught and used his two middle fingers to massage the fleshy areas below his thumbs whilst his system adjusted.

Another five minutes and he was walking to the Tube station. He lived less than ten minutes on foot from the nearest stop and his ride to his office was around fifteen minutes. He could feel the cartridge working and his relaxed acceptance of the day’s tasks was already returning.

He looked briefly towards the sky. A jagged spark had flicked across moments before and now there were what looked like gentle vapour trails crawling along behind what had been a brief tear shooting along the path of the River Thames.

Others walked at a similar pace towards the station, although he ducked to the right into a quieter street that also cut a corner and missed some traffic crossings.

He glanced as he prepared to cross the diagonal into the station and glimpsed someone he recognised.

She had a petite almost boyish build, dressed in black, dark hair in a black band. He’d noticed her for three days now, at exactly the same spot, the same pace and the same appearance. He knew she would look up and he’d see the small tattoo by her left eye. At least he assumed it was a tattoo and not a consistently applied daily make-up. As she passed, he thought he could hear her gently humming a tune. Maybe an iPod, but he couldn’t see any signs of her wearing one.

He descended in to the transport system. His new cartridge meant he had a good range on his transceiver again and could access the transport system without overtly waving his arm over the sensor.

Most travellers referred to the sensors as ‘oysters’ although this was a reference to a long defunct technology, much as the Tube itself was merely a reference to the shape of the original tunnels that formed the original wheel-based transport system.

He used the moving floor system to get to the high-speed transit level and stood for a moment waiting for the next transit pulse. He clipped himself into a free TPOD seat and punched in his destination. The system was pretty foolproof. His cartridge provided the main co-ordinates for his routine travel and a short personalized menu of options had appeared on the screen and he’d just tapped his planned destination.

Of course, he could go to other points within his normal routes or pre-authorise other destinations in advance, from the homelink system. Today was regular, though, or at least that was what he needed to suggest, despite what had happened yesterday.

harbouring intent

Back from idyllic harbours and tang of salt water, to a door that wouldn't open properly because of the accumulation of weekend mail and papers. That's in addition to the complementary hotel newspapers brought back theoretically to read.

At one point during the weekend we were chatting about Generation Zero, which has a premise to operate with a very low consumables footprint.

Minimalist possessions, tread the earth lightly and so on.

I don't think I'd pass the entrance qualifications. As I type this I'm looking at probably two kilos of papers that I might read, and earlier I wheeled the completely full blue bin of recyclables and a separate green crate of glass to be collected tomorrow.

Maybe the upcoming novel writing month will drive "create" over "consume"?

allentide's dark gathering

Maybe today we'll head along the coast to a couple of sleepy fishing villages.

Our current base camp has offers of spas and saunas as well as mysterious references to a dark gathering by scary little girls.

I shall be paying attention to owls, bats and broomsticks later today.

cornwall unplugged

Cornwall today, now that my stint at the London event has concluded.

It gave me a chance to try out the new car, although taking it straight to an area with lots of winding roads with narrow clearances and hidden stone walls wasn't necessarily part of the plan.

This car makes beepy sounds if it gets too close to things and various levels of flashing lights appear to encourage suitable caution.

I'm thinking that if that stealth submarine that ran aground had included some of the radar technology from my car then we still wouldn't know what it looked like. Instead, we can draw cutaway sketches of the latest British secret technology.

I don't have my usual computer with me at the moment, and am posting this by a typewriter which I've connected to the internet with clothes pegs and string. There may not be many pictures, until I return from being a friendly pirate.

a blurry week

Sometimes I take pictures that are sharp and in focus. Other times they are all over the place. I know how to take the sharp ones and my camera even has that point and shoot setting to make it easy.

But other times the blurry ones seem just right. This was one of those moments when the sun was breaking though in an early morning and I was stood watching the steam rising and still able to see my breath waiting for the air to warm up.

It seems too early for frost with the green leaves still dominating the scenery, but in another couple of weeks it will all have changed.

I took the blurry picture on Sunday. The rest of this week (like today) I will be up before the sunrise and on my way to meetings in subterranean rooms.

early bicycle winterisation

I know its early to be thinking of such things but with holly in the shops and Santa sighted on television, it's time to adapt the hybrid bike for the less clement seasons.

It is easier to do things with screwdrivers when it is still light and not horribly cold and wet (although I did manage to jag a hole in my hand which I didn't notice until I wondered what was sticky).

The bike has now got a front mudguard and a rear rack added (which also acts as a rear mudguard).

I also changed the handlebar grips to ones which are a bit more tactile. The bag has enough space for clothes and gloves and could even flip into pannier mode if needed. I'm thinking I should also add a rear mudguard, but I'm trying to use up spare parts and haven't found anything suitable yet.

The lights need sorting out, but that's the next stage.

mince pies 2010 calorie counts

The pub on Wednesday already had "New Year 2011" streamers and those little poppers strewn around and I asked the barman whether he thought it was a little unusual.

"It is really," he replied, "..and the owners will change it two or three more times before the new year in any case."

This year we have Christmas merchandise jostling next to a surprisingly green-themed Halloween (what happened to orange?) and security cabinets full of explosives ready for November 5th. There's also a few hot crossed buns around so I guess anything goes.

I decided to test reactions by buying some mince pies (99p standard version) but no-one is at all phased and I've been reliably informed that another store is selling star shaped Christmas cakes as fast as they can stock them.

Instead, I'll be preoccupied with the individual payload of a single 'shop' mince pie.

My first selection are an already respectable 245 kcalories and as they are the ''basic edition" I'm sure there will be others with higher counts. A single pack of these would blow out almost a whole day's worth of recommended daily allowances, according to the packaging.

The quest continues. Tip-offs welcome.

more fitting for cyclemeter daily

I seem to have had a recent blog post featured in the new "Cyclemeter Daily" which appears to be an aggregator based blog using paper.li.

As the Cyclemeter blog is (mainly) about cycling and my posted entry seems to be about music, I thought I'd post a gratuitous cycling entry today as a sort of means of support for Steven Healey's endeavour.

So the bike in the picture is a 'before' shot of a bike which I use but will shortly adapt for some of the harder weather. The main differences will be mudguards and a rear rack and maybe a clip on pannier. And then perhaps I'll put some shorter and more comfortable sticky-out bars on the front. Oh, and better lights.

Not the most earth-shattering items, but I'm sure there's plenty of people with similar ideas at this time of year.

I'll post another picture when its been converted into something more - er - practical for the upcoming season.

iTunes tidying with TuneUp

A pub interlude during the evening, time to catch up on some musical endeavours, and when I get a chance I'll cross post a link to another ambient tone creator.

Meantime, I set my iTunes to do one of those big tidy ups of all the tracks and although its been burbling away for about 24 hours tidying up album cover art and correcting spellings, the end result seems to be generally good, with a few of those unexpected errors built in that make it interesting.

Along the way a few 'Track 1' type entries have been rediscovered, such as a few missing PJ Harvey tracks that I must have accidentally renamed at some point in the past. Its all good though, and I've only accidentally posted one '#listeningto' across to twitter.

discarded plotlines

With Nanowrimo approaching, as in previous years, here's a few quick plotlines I won't be using...

THE RIP
Johnny uncovers a dystopian parallel universe on his way to the dry cleaners. His partner Sue doesn't believe him and considers that Johnny is progressively going mad. Then a couple of characters from the otherworld seep back into Johnny and Sue's world and realise that it's actually a lot better then the place they've come from.

One of them eventually seduces Sue as a ploy to stay on her side of the universe. To begin with Johnny is unaware but later discovers the affair via the second person who has has moved across. Johnny becomes so angry that he mistakenly chases the manipulator back to the other side. Sue realises that she has been led along and follows Johnny, finally conceding that the otherworld exists. The twist is that the manipulators know the only way they can move across is to find substitutes - who of course are Johnny and Sue.

WEAPONS OF MISS DEE STRUCTO
This one goes straight to video.

A hard-boiled ex-policeman has lost his nerve after a shootout in an abattoir, where his buddy met his end. He now lives alone by a lake outside of Chicago. One day a black helicopter arrives to ask him to come back for a special mission. They have found the Russian mafia gang that he was chasing and want to use him as part of a set-up to catch them and end their weapon traffic-ing.

The cop refuses but is then lured into the plot anyway by a stylish female detective who arrives at his doorstep one wet and windy night, ostensibly because her car has run out of gas.

Of course, this is the generic build up to the madcap actions of the hero and heroine as they get caught in ever more improbable situations culminating in a shipyard filled with oil tankers that needs to be attacked by the US Air Force.

LA FILLE GUY
Isabel lives in Paris, where she make a living as a waitress and occasional painter. One day, an American tourist is lost in the city and come into the cafe to ask for directions. He asks the maitre'd for help but can't understand anything until Isabella intervenes. Too embarrassed to do more than say thank you, he then leaves the cafe to find his destination.

Two days later, Isabella is in another cafe with a couple of friends. They are laughing artistically when she spots the same tourist across the street. This time he is walking erratically and appears to be holding his side. She notices a red stain on his coat. Could it be blood?