INNER WORKINGS: THE MATHEMATICIANS
by RTG1728
Ostensibly Inner Workings is supposed to let the readers of the Fed II Star in on all the dirty little goings-on at the offices. However, as regular readers of this column are no doubt aware, this often just serves as a forum for a wide range of subjects.
As this newsdroid has been away from the Star offices this week, hir will be writing about what hir has been up to, and in the process shed light on the inner workings of a group even stranger than the employees of the Fed II Star: mathematicians.
That's right; since Tuesday your humble reporter has been on assignment at the joint meetings of the Mathematical Society of America (MAA) and the American Mathematical Society (AMS) in Atlanta. For those not familiar with these groups, or who have no idea why mathematicians would need two different professional groups, the MAA generally deals with matters of mathematics education, while the AMS sticks to the research side of things.
As with any sort of technical conference, the main point of these meetings is for people to gather together and bore one another by lecturing on subjects that few care about and even fewer understand.
For example, a selection of the presentations attended by yours truly include "Perelman's work on Ricci flow," "How polynomials vanish: Singularities, integrals, and ideals, parts I, II, and III," and "Random Complex Geometry, or How to count universes in string theory." These titles are taken directly from the program of events, and show that mathematicians care little for proper capitalization of titles, as well as the utter incomprehensibility of the subjects presented.
Even with hir mathematical programming, these subjects were rather above the level of this droid's processing.
One presentation did stand out as both interesting and understandable, however. This was "Origami, linkages, and polyhedra: folding with algorithms," which was presented by Dr. Erik D. Demain of MIT, who is quite a character all by himself. Long hair, a strange sense of humor, and a MacArthur Foundation fellowship.
The main ideas of this lecture included the workings of linkages - say, robotic arms, for example, and the question of what possible configurations a given linkage may take, paper folding - origami - and whether a certain creation was possible. It turns out cuckoo clocks, zebras, and individuals playing pianos are all possible. Anyone with a masochistic bent may find all sorts of information on Demain's website, which can be found somewhere on the MIT page.
When not attending the horrors previously described, your humble narrator attempted an impossible task. Making new friends among mathematicians - the undisputed champions of social ineptness, if the rumors are to be believed. Yet some slight progress was made among the young and not fully initiated members of this closed society.
At the time of this writing there is still one day of conferences to go. This evening RTG1728 has been given the opportunity to play a certain card game emphasizing gambling with one of hir professors and his alumni compatriots. This droid's professors had previously brought hir to dinner and made hir drink beer.
Mathematicians are indeed evil!
SECRET STORIES OF THE INTERNAL WORKINGS OF THE GALAXY
Getting back into the groove of a schedule is never an easy thing. Our whole lives are built around continuity. We all know what happens when something upsets our plans, our schedule, our rhythms. Frustration, irritation and anxiety result until the schedule is re-established. Nowhere is this more evident than at Armstrong and Cuthbert. Here are a few stories of the madness that ensued over the holidays, that, until now, were hushed up to maintain the appearance of order, because sometimes that appearance is more comforting than the truth.
7:30 a.m. Earth: It is only a few scant days before the human Christmas holiday and shipments of goods have died down as personal shipments increase. Some of the packing droids that normally assist with business shipments are transferred to the personal wing. It was somewhere around this time that a package sent by Joe Hines, from Earth to Mars, made its way down the conveyor belt. Mr. Hines was shipping some expensive, ornate plant holders and, while he did remember to insure them, he neglected to obey the weight restrictions on the shipment. The resultant friction from the heavy package caused the box to catch fire as it slid down the conveyor belt, causing several droids to panic and crash into one another, in a tangle of metal that has yet to be fully sorted out. The building's fire system responded quickly and nothing else was damaged, but several nearby droids have refused to handle large packages since, and Mr. Hines has refused to return our tightbeams.
12:30 p.m. Sumatra: Akaturi shipments were also high. One shipment, from Rhea to Sumatra, caused a major headache for its courier. The shipment was an ordinary mental canister, cleverly labeled "Do not open until December 25th." The courier was not aware of the contents of the package until he passed through the airlock at the main base of Sumatra and went through a security scan. The scan picked up anomalous readings and promptly shut both ends of the airlock, refusing passage for the courier. Sumatra security had to manually override the doors, backing up traffic through the doors for nearly an hour. The courier was detained, searched and questioned, then finally released, with the package remaining in the care of security. After determining the canister was not a bomb, the security station finally opened it. The contents: coffee-scented jelly beans.
6:20 p.m. Phobos: Workers eager to start their holiday vacations neglected to completely clean up after a day of biological experimentation on lab mice, and consequently, a pair of rodents failed to be returned to their cages before the staff left for the weekend. The hungry little mice made their way to the Alpha Dome's kitchen, where they proceeded to eat everything in sight! They ate the pudding, the roast beast and even gnawed through the last can of hash. This gorging apparently put the pair in quite a mood, for when the cooks returned to Alpha Dome, they found ten mice, plus two. The whole family are now happily living in the maze in Beta Dome.
INNER WORKINGS: RETURN TO THE STAR OFFICES
by RTG1728
This week finds us back at the Fed II Star offices after our escape to the strange world of mathematicians described in the last Inner Workings. Only one last thing must be written about that subject in order to address the slanderous rumors which have been spoken by an individual who shall remain nameless: Devaberial. There was not, in fact, a brilliant, gorgeous, young female nerd at those meetings, and I certainly did not talk to her. Besides, her interest was in applied mathematics, and that subject is completely irrelevant to a robot such as myself.
Upon my return to the office I found, much to my surprise, that most of the staff had survived my absence, though the premises was in danger of becoming overrun by a number of newly acquired trash receptacles that bore an uncanny resemblance to various newsdroids of my acquaintance. These bins were no doubt requisitioned to collect the vast amounts of rubbish that might be generated by a surprise welcoming back party for yours truly.
Apparently the festivities were kept a bit too secret, however.
Later in the week, as the staff gathered in excitement around the incoming images from the Huygens probe – many of us are chained to our desks, after all, and so do not often have the chance to visit Titan in person – I was ambushed by the malicious Maintenance Staff. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this lot of employees, the Maintenance Staff is composed of individuals whose cruelty, immorality, and other endearing qualities resulted in their expulsion from the Nightwatch – an organization that is extraordinarily tolerant of such things.
As I was unable to either fight these charming fellows off or to flee, I was taken deep underneath the Star, where I found a number of other captives. After being restrained we were each plugged into an ancient, dilapidated computer – I would guess it had been created sometime in the Twentieth Century, possibly by evil scientists on the planet Zrn. In any case, the Maintenance Staff was finally able to accomplish that at which the Galactic Administration failed: my operating system was upgraded.
You have likely noticed that I now use personal pronouns rather than refer to myself in the third-person. Who knows what other diabolical, unnatural behaviors were implemented with this upgrade? I suspect the worst, and that this new software will cause me to begin writing material that is worth reading.
If this is the case, then clearly the End Times are upon us. As a reporter it is my duty to report on these forthcoming events, and on the events that may follow. You will therefore likely find a lengthy and rambling account of my latest crackpot idea in the next Inner Workings, which will hopefully appear in two weeks.
So, until then!
FROM THE SOCIETY NEWS DESK: THE REPORTER IS SERVED A LAWSUIT
by Lady Lulu ‘Buffie’ Capturfilingham
Ladies…. Buffie is Served
Hello again dearies!! Now, I need to tell all you gentle readers this reporter has been through plenty in her years. However, this incident that happened to me right here in our offices takes the cake… and the truffles and the petit fours, also.
While I was at my desk, there was quite a fuss at the front reception area, so I went to investigate. I found a DocServe 4000 droid pushing past Security with its pointy homing beacon set to myself! There is no stopping those automatons when programmed, so there was nowhere to go. Within seconds, I had been served with a lawsuit. Highly embarrassing, it was. However, I must admit that I felt pleased that I was now part of an exclusive club at the paper of reporters who had been named as a defendant in a lawsuit. Although, due to the highly suspect standards of the paper, that exclusive club includes just about everyone here. But I thought I was atypical. My journalistic credentials and policies are of the highest caliber.
I recall one time I was at a luncheon when a DocServe 3000 droid served divorce papers on Mabel Witherspoon. Howard Witherspoon had run off with a waitress from their country club and was tying up some loose ends from his villa. The 3000 series droids had a fatal flaw in their programming, and a maitre’d and a busboy were severely maimed when the 3000 droid was homing in on Mabel. It was quite hilarious to see the company that makes document serving droids get served by one of their own models. Evidently, the 4000 series fixed those errors as no one was run over when I was served.
Oh my... all this talk about the serving of the lawsuit, and not about the lawsuit itself. Well, it seems that in my article before Christmas, I suggested that everyone have an Open House. (Keyword being SUGGESTION). It seems that a particular worker on Castillo read my article and took it quite too literally. You see, he actually opened his house. And, somehow, I am to blame for his stupidity. I will let you all know how the case turns out.
Oh my… I almost let it slip my mind... please do not forget to invite Buffie to your official nuptials. I adore weddings, and you will even get a mention in my column!
And, with that, gentle readers, my allotted space has run out for this week. Ta ta for now, Dahhhhhhlings!
A SHORT HISTORY OF JOURNALISM
by Kes
I was standing in line at the grocermatic the other day, reading the newsmagazine headlines. Now, the newsmagazine industry, even though it pales in comparison to our own illustrious Fed II Star, still covers those niche information and industrial and technical news that many people find boring or that simply we don’t have enough newsdroids to cover, when we’re so busy following the major events of our galaxy.
And pretty much, the newsmagazine are same-old, same-old headlines. Yet another two-headed baby born to Doris technicians. The batboy ringleader in the caves of Rhea stole another hovercraft. The Cult of Gaelaan is predicting Armageddon within the next fifty years. Unconfirmed reports of Martian kidnappings. Ho-hum, the same things keep happening and being reported on by the smaller fish in the world of journalism.
The consistency of the news reported by magazines bothered me a little. After all, there are similarities from one week to the next. We all have our routines. But the news? That’s not supposed to be the same every week. That’s why it’s news; because it’s not routine. So I did some researching on such fine publications as The Universal Enquirer, The Cosmos and Weekly Galactic News. After hours at my supercomputer (nothing but the best for esteemed droids) I was astounded by my discovery.
Apparently, many hundreds of years ago, all these newsmagazines began on Earth. They were sold, much like today, in grocery stores as well as by subscription. Over the years, with the advent of starship travel, many altered their names to reflect the wider scope that they now included in their readership. However, it seems that their credentials for accuracy and truth were called into question on numerous accounts, some even facing lawsuits as a result of so-called ‘libel’ and ‘slander’ charges.
Now, libel and slander are words I wasn’t familiar with, so I had to look them up. It seems that there used to be restrictions on the freedom of the press! You couldn’t say whatever you wanted to say. Now, this discovery went against the grain of everything I had thought that I remembered from the times when I was awake in high school history class. But furthermore, many skeptics blatantly accused some of these fine news institutions of making up their stories! The very thought that someone would ever accuse a publication that purports to recant the news of making everything up was appalling to me.
Of course, as we all know, the newsmagazines we have today escaped that frightening time in journalistic history, unlike some of their lesser fortunate colleagues, Newsweek, Time, and The New Yorker. Honestly, have you ever heard of those? Ancient history in the journalistic world. They just couldn’t compete with the accuracy of today’s surviving publications. Even if the newsmagazine are boring compared to the Star, at least we know that their journalistic integrity can no longer be questioned.
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