An Unstable System

 

 

There's a few things I didn't ever tell the others about the invention of the cyber-mining device. 

 

The most obvious one is the way that I was boosting my thought processes. Those that know me will understand. Writers and other artists sometimes use substances to boost their creativity. 

 

Native American Indians said that peyote took them to heaven, but white missionaries would say, with equal assurance, that it offered them only a glimpse of hell.

 

Jean-Paul Sartre tried mescaline, and according to his companion Simone de Beauvoir, had a very bad trip: ‘The objects he looked at changed their appearance in the most horrifying manner: umbrellas had become vultures, shoes turned into skeletons, and faces acquired monstrous characteristics…’ 

 

By the 1950s, Aldous Huxley was writing Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell under the influence of mescaline, the synthesised version of peyote. Then he moved to LSD, which became available to adventurous writers, intellectuals and therapists. 

 

William Burroughs and the Beat writers of the 1950s and 60s reconfigured the psychedelic landscape by moving hallucinogens out of the drawing room and into the streets, pursuing their organic roots in the third world. 

 

Burroughs wrote portions of Naked Lunch under the influence of yage, or ayahuasca, the DMT-containing hallucinogenic brew concocted in South America: ‘New races as yet unconceived and unborn, combinations not yet realised pass through your body. Migrations, incredible journeys through deserts and jungles and mountains... The Composite City where all human potentials are spread out in a vast silent market’. 

 

Allen Ginsberg, the beat poet, took peyote in Mexico and yage in South America. His poem Junky describes Burroughs’s peyote experiences, and portions of Ginsberg’s epic poem Howl were also written under the influence of peyote. 

 

And we shouldn't forget Earnest Hemingway, who first coined the phrase 'Write Drunk, Edit Sober.'

 

My approach whilst trying out new ideas had some similarities, although I used electronic instead of chemical stimulation. I'd seen several brain booster devices on eBay and in Wired magazine and decided 'How difficult can it be?' to make one.

 

The technical term is transcranial direct current stimulation (or tDCS), and it involves hooking up electrodes to the skull and then turning on a small electric current, typically powered by a 9-volt battery.

 

There's a small community citing this as its inspiration. Some studies that have found tentative promise for tDCS to enhance memory, alertness, and the ability to learn new tasks, and to decrease symptoms of anxiety and depression. Anecdotally, users report that tDCS also helps them ease into a flow state (i.e., being “in the zone”), where they can get many tasks done without distraction. Others will do this by listening to Mozart.

 

Of course, I'd read the literature. The jury was divided. Some said it would boost thinking, others said it would create limits. There were further warnings about the voltages. It wasn't like overclocking a cpu. The desired maximum voltage seemed to be 9 volts or the equivalent output of a single PP3 battery. That's oblong battery you find in the old-fashioned smoke detectors. Then it would be at around 1 or 2-milli-Amperes and to run it for about 10 minutes.

 

I priced up some components and ordered them from a couple of electronic specialists. The electro-pads were hardest to get, and suppliers wanted to prove they were medically certified, which added cost.  I improvised instead with some Medium Wave ribbon antenna and a few Band-Aids. The entire system, including power transistors and some veroboard, cost me less than £20. 

 

I'll be honest. At the time I didn't want the others in the flat to see me wired up, so I hid everything around the back of a chest of drawers, which was conveniently in the middle of the floor in my room. And I had the whirring clicking machinery of the cyber coin miner on the other cupboard which made a great distraction. 

 

Now I could fulfil my dream to play Tom Waits and attempt to jack my brainpower at the same time. Maybe listening to "What's he building in there?"

WandaVision

 

I've just been catching up with WandaVision, which is a show about superheroes trapped inside decades worth of sitcoms. 

We get a very 50s-style laughter track 4:3 format mono episode to start, reminiscent of old Dick van Dyke/I love Lucy shows, and then by Ep2 we've moved into Bewitched territory and in Ep3 into the world of Hey Hey we're the Monkees style color, with the end of the episode already drifting out to a 16:9 format.

I'm not really a fan of the superhero genre of shows with everyone flying around and bashing things with big mallets, but I quite like this show with its teasing hints of a parallel universe. 

I've only seen three episodes and it reminds me of a riff with Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma whilst strange events occur in the World As Portrayed. Or maybe in British terms the idea from Life on Mars or its follow-up show?

I get the feeling that we are watching something from inside someone's projection, but I could be wrong and haven't read ahead to find out. Because I'm not familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there could well be other characters already lurking in the cast about to pop on their superhero suits. 

I also enjoyed the series Jessica Jones, which was another sliver of MCU, but similarly played for real instead of with whizz-bangs all the time. Admittedly WandaVision has a few more Bewitched style moments, but I assume some of that is playing to the genre of the individual shows. 

Anyway, sufficiently intriguing for me to watch the next six episodes with interest.

Update: It eventually broke the 4th wall, slightly too soon for my preference,  and then we were able to see outside into a fantasmagorical Real World, with superhero hardware sprinkled throughout it. 

I suppose it needed a superhero vs villain punchup at some point to be able to use all the special effects. I wonder if it could have been more enjoyable if they used the secret powers covertly. Still, an interesting show.  

The House always wins

I notice the omission of non-dom restriction tightening in today's budget. 

Mind, there's only 113,000 non-doms in the UK. 

It must weigh on Sunak's mind, what with his wife holding income-generating assets abroad and being a shareholder in her father's company Infosys? 

And the hedge fund that Sunak owns with his Swiss-resident buddy. Luckily they invested in Modena, one of those virus-busting drugs. But of course, Sunak is now the 'blind trustee' of the fund, so we'll never know what goes on. 

 Those last couple of items would play against the positive brand that the Chancellor has been at pains to curate. 

 But, of course, it's other news today of the hike in Corporation tax unless your business makes less than £50k, in which case it stays the same at 19%. 

And then there are the free-ports where one can import items without incurring tariff charges. Less paperwork? I'm sure there will be other advantages to be gleaned, once the lads have had a look into it. 

The Casino is quietly opening.

Blank cheque special purpose acquisition company

Now London is to become the global centre for SPAC.  I'd better buckle my swash ready for this buccaneering and casino lifestyle.

Special Purpose Acquisition Corporation 

The founder of a SPAC pools money from investors and may contribute to the SPAC to form a blank cheque company with the sole purpose of acquiring another company—or companies. 

The money raised through the IPO of a SPAC is put into a trust. The funds are held until the SPAC successfully identifies a viable merger or acquisition opportunity to pursue with the invested funds.

Investors may not have full knowledge of how their money will be spent, so they issue blank cheques to the SPAC. In turn, the SPAC must receive shareholder approval for all acquisitions and 80% of investor funds must be used in any single deal. If the SPAC fails to find a shareholder-approved deal within two years of creation, it is liquidated and the SPAC's founder loses the investment.

Blank Cheque Preferred Stock

Some companies may issue blank cheque preferred stock as a way to raise additional funds from investors without the need to first seek and obtain approval from shareholders. In order to create blank cheque preferred stocks, the company is required to amend its articles of incorporation to allow for the creation of a class of unissued preferred stock. 

In some cases, a public company may choose to issue blank cheque preferred stocks as a form of defence against a potentially hostile takeover bid. 

the plush march of the cuddly machines

I'm writing a novel about the inventor from Coin, who gets tangled up in another adventure, which involves Artificial Intelligence and HCCI (Human to Computer, to Computer to Human Interfacing). 

It deals with some of the issues to make the HCCI work, as well as the march of militarised robotics. 

 I was looking at the Chinese systems, like the one that looks like an old-school petrol pump, but can be used for facial capture/surveillance. I noticed that the Chinese have another system like a kid's motorised car, and they were deploying it in Wuhan after the virus subsided so that they could yell at people not wearing face masks. 

 I wondered about humanising the systems so that they are more readily accepted, but then I saw the above cuddly toy, available in Wal-Mart and Giant in the USA. 

It's a cuddly toy replica of the Marty robots that are being deployed as aisle monitors in an increasing number of US stores. They say that the devices are only good at monitoring spillages, but it wouldn't take much to add a few cameras and Bluetooth scanners. I'm not sure how I'd react to one of these peeking around the aisle or coming toward me.

Oh yes, and there's another type that looks suspiciously like Daleks. I'll find a picture later.

I think I'm on another world

 

I'm writing a novel about artificial intelligence at the moment. 

I decided to merge the Coin novel's characters with the Triangle folk. 

I had sneakily left a trapdoor to achieve this in Coin, by the use of Amanda Miller and Grace Fielding who happen to know both sets of characters, so all it needed was something sufficiently dark to bring them into the same storyline. 

I described the story to my sister the other evening, but she remarked, "Hmm - you're not exactly selling it." 

Maybe it was the bit about rats? 

Or could it be that I couldn't remember the title of the novel, which I do tend to change about five times during the writing process? 

I can remember that Coin was called Harrier, then Coin Operated and finally Coin. 

This one has gone through several similar changes and its current working title is "an unstable system." I'll have to post the current cover design here too.  

I'm just on my way to Madrid for the Expo, and Kjeld is going to use some industrial theatre to present the scientific findings. 

They've even chosen a walk-on track, and its 'Another Girl, Another Planet,' by the Only Ones.

 I found the Coal Porters' acoustic version and couldn't resist putting it at the top of the post - and maybe the original by The Only Ones below:

 

jabbed

Well organised, friendly, efficient and effortless. Thank you, NHS.

Quarantine

It seems strange that the discussion about Hotel quarantine is only just taking place. 

We were around London Heathrow almost a year ago. We'd booked into a hotel before a flight and a man in a tin hat came out of a booth when we arrived. He told us the hotel was closed and that we should go along the road to another one. I should have noticed that the windows to the hotel were boarded up.

In truth, I'd gone to the wrong Holiday Inn.

He handed me a piece of paper, which explained that the original hotel had been taken over by the NHS/Public Health England as was to be used as an isolation location for people suspected of carrying COVID-19 to the UK. 

I remember thinking at the time it was like something out of the X-Files.

Contextually, it was ahead of a lockdown or even general awareness of the COVID pandemic.

What happened to those early preparations?
 

Up to no good?

My latest novel is back from the printers earlier than I expected, so I now have Corrupt, by Ed Adams listed as a Kindle on Amazon and available also as a re-assuringly expensive paperback, although not available in that format until 6 April 2021.

This one is a political thriller about the corridors of power in Whitehall and some dreadful lobbyists, who try to make money via sleaze and corruption. I know it sounds a bit far fetched, they are even doing it by manipulating healthcare.

The baddie organisation in the novel is Brant, which is a subsidiary of Raven and they seem to be up to no good. Clare gets enlisted as an MP Researcher, to help Amanda Miller to investigate.

Snake in the Tunnel graphs

Interesting that the latest Public Health England/New York Times graph for the vaccinations shows the completion date of the total vaccinations for all adults between May 22 and June 18. 

Admittedly it is only the first of two jabs - with the second jab trailing at around 2,500 per day, but it is encouraging news. 

I'd previously reckoned on it taking 4 quarters to inoculate everyone, based upon about 11 million jabs in 3 months for annual flu vaccine, so this is considerablly faster.

New Novel: Ed Adams : Corrupt

It looks as if my next book (officially released on 6th April 2021) is already available as an eBook in pre-release on Amazon. It will make its way to good booksellers everywhere over the next few weeks and then also be available as a paperback. 

Hear, speak and see no evil. 

Can power, greed, and money create corruption? 

Could an honest politician ever win an election? 

How does a politician hold his value?  

Clare joins Parliament as a Researcher. 

See her, and her friends, uncover a ruthless plan

and realize a single politician can’t make a government. 

He needs accomplices.

 *****

“a conspiracy theory that is dangerous” 

“a reality that is way past speculation” 

“feels like I’m in it” 

“they lied to us” 

“Clare’s got the moves” 

“blows the lid off what goes on in the corridors” 

 I've used the same gang as in the original 'The Triangle', plus Christina Nott. In this story (kind of Archangel series number 5), Clare joins her sister Samantha in Parliament as a Researcher. 

The customary mayhem breaks loose. 

 My plan is to show a lineage from 'The Triangle', via Archangel, then Corrupt, to Pulse and then eventually onward to the Edge series. 

The one book that is hanging out on the edge of everything now is Coin, but I do have a plan to bring that into the series too. I'll have to start 'The madness is creeping over me.'

peaceful transfer of power?

Reminds me of that old movie during which Joni Mitchell sings The Circle Game. 

Yesterday a child came out to wander 

Caught a dragonfly inside a jar 

Fearful when the sky was full of thunder 

And tearful at the falling of a star 

And the seasons, they go round and round 

And the painted ponies go up and down 

We're captive on the carousel of time 

We can't return, we can only look 

Behind, from where we came 

And go round and round and round, in the circle game 

The Strawberry Statement - although it paints a very difference picture of the conflict from the current trauma.

Meanwhile 70-year-old B52s circle the middle-east on so-called presence patrols.