I'm working this up as possibly the basis of a story, so let's pontificate, prevaricate and create, although not necessarily in that order.
Okay, H. G.Wells kicked all this off with his Time Machine Macguffin, which was able to move forward and backward in time with equal facility.
WRONG!
Well, I can say this because nobody has yet invented a time-machine, so my input is as valid as anyone elses, and if you don't agree THE EXIT DOOR IS THAT WAY! Art!
Okay, Conrad asks that you imagine The Present as an infinitesmally small moment in time. Thus you have The Past and The Future. Are we clear?
Now, someone once said that the past is another country and you cannot go there, which doesn't apply seem to be if you have a time machine or time portal or a TARDIS. You see, the past is fixed in place. It's already happened, so you can't change it even if you try; the dead weight of all previous existence will prevent that from happening so the future remains the same. Art!
What happens if your Clumsy Oaf of a Time-Traveller DOES in fact change the past, I hear you ask? You know, as in Ray Bradbury's "A Sound Of Thunder" where a traveller to the Paleozoic steps on a butterfly and allows a modern-day Herr Schickelgruber to attain power. Art!
Well, if you do change the past, you generate another future completely different from the one you are in, causing a process of infinite bifurcation and alternate universes. Don't contemplate this too closely, there are scads of padded rooms full of physicists who tried too hard.
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| CAUTION: padded room imminent |
Now let's look at the future. Pretty obviously it hasn't happened yet, or it wouldn't be the future, would it?
Take a look at the infinite bifurcation diagram above. Also imagine that the time-frame it takes place within is a pico-second from now. If one moves forward one micro-second there are an almost infinite number of potential futures, so the chances of anything you send into the future remaining in your own, specific time-line are infinitesmal.
That's my current theory on time and time-travel. I'll probably have another one by next week.
ANYWAY of course none of this is anything to do with what I really meant to talk about, which is how we are living in the future, which seems to have arrived a bit early. Art!
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| Guarding Estonia |
The Ukrainians are getting 14 of these things, which frankly resemble Terminator prototypes a little too closely for comfort - Art!
Be reassured, technophobes, the Ukrainian versions are unarmed; half of them are for evacuating battlefield casualties, which means less exposure for Ukrainian medical staff on the front lines, and given the conditions around the Donbas this can only be a good thing. Art!
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| 1917 but similar |
The other half are designated 'Route-Clearance' models, which means they clear booby-traps, mines, obstructions, fill in holes in the road, and look slightly less intimidating than the Terminator version. Art!
Hmmmmm interesting - I wonder if these things could be programmed to work in the back yard?
Motley! I don't need a TheMIS when I have you - here's a pickaxe, a shovel and a bag of sand. Get busy.
Houston, We Have A Visitor
Yes, since Darling Daughter is looking for gainful employment she's able to visit us without having to missing work. And here she is. Art!
Edna, of course, was delighted to have another human who can fawn over her. DD also brought along a free gift from her work. Art!
Welllllllll we now know why they were free. No English translation. Don't worry, Conrad the pedantic hair-splitter will work through the instructions in translation. I think it's a variety of Angel Delight but we shall see.
"It's A Knockout"
Conrad was describing in thumbnails to DD what worthwhile K-Drama to watch, and had "Squid Game" down as "It's A Knockout + Death", which is pretty accurate in my opinion, which is the one that counts.
Then, of course - obviously! - Your Humble Scribe realised that he'd have to explain what IAKO was, for I seriously doubt it's been around for decades. Art!
There were teams from different towns who competed against each other in spectacularly daft games, frequently wearing giant foam-rubber suits as above. The winning team went through into the next round. Art!
And absolutely nobody died.
"The Sea Of Sand"
The Doctor has been whisked to temporary safety via trans-mat, leaving his fugitive accomplice Sorbusa behind, involuntarily.
Elegant, he
felt. Keeping the sledge horizontal with
part of it projecting beyong the platform took a huge effort, which was less
elegant. Nor could he tell Thedoctor
what his plan was. Sharing a cell with
the small alien meant Sorbusa knew what the small alien would approve of, and a
glorious last stand would not be approved of.
What would be
approved? That might was not right. It was not, and never would be, and never had
been, and he had to make up for the fact that he had practiced the creed
utterly ruthlessly. He had Thedoctor to
thank for that, a view into the world beyond the narrow boundaries his
upbringing imposed, where fear and suffering had been commonplace.
If might was
not right, then his race had no right to export their miserable ecological
blight to other worlds, no right to plunder and murder endlessly, no right to
degrade and despoil. This planet Earth
ought not to be reduced to a million miles of desert slab.
So,
when he materialised on the platform, Sorbusa deliberately attracted as much
attention as possible, shrieking loudly, threatening nearby Warriors with the
stunner and shard-thrower, warning Thedoctor to flee. He leaped from the platform, still shouting,
and went for the nearest bio-vores, who simply stood, frozen with
disbelief. Five of them died before the
remainder scattered.
Who said aliens can't be noble and self-sacrificing?
Ooooh!
Here's an interesting news item that's just come up on the BBC's News website. You may recall Citizen Trump, when he was Prez, claimed that he couldn't hand over his tax returns because the pistachio harvest in the Sanjack Of Novi Pazar wasn't in yet? Or some such shizzle. Art!
I declare this man the winner in the Tribble-Topped-Beer-Keg-In-A-Suit Category. I know, I know, I've used that joke before. It gets funnier EVERY SINGLE TIME (a nod to "Beetlegeuse").
ANYWAY he has been wriggling like a worm on the hook since 2016, refusing to hand over his tax returns. He's been taken to court, been judged against, appealed, failed the appellate court, gone to the Supreme Court and been rejected - one of his go-to legal tactics is to delay, delay and delay. Well, it hasn't worked this time, and you can bet your bottom dollar that these details are -
- going to leak.
Currently watching "Everything Everywhere All At Once" which is entertainingly bonkers and features the Multiverse, which is where we came in.
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