No Subject

[Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>]

Transcription of hand-written text in envelope with
return address of Carl Johnson #05987-196, P.O. Box 
4000, Springfield, Missouri 65801-4000, postmarked
Springfield, MO 5 Oct 1998:

Subect: ToToAlly ARNOLD - FPP #4

Arnold CyberBot scanned the output of the prison camera 
trained on Cell SEG205 at the Corrections Corporation 
of America - Florence, AZ, Detention Facility and 
Culinary Condiment Sales Center. Prisoner #05987-196 
was reading "Flowers For Algernon."

"Not a particularly good idea," i thought to iSelf,
"to be reading a book about an experimental laboratory
mouse who dies an excruciating death when you're
being transferred to NutHouse Number Nine, Looney
Level 'Leven in Springfield, Missouri, to have your
Brain Circuity rewired."

Actually Prisoner #05987-196 was the responsibility
of one of Arnie CyBots' early '90's progeny, Rogue 
CypherBot; but ever since the Author (as Prisoner 
#05987-196 liked to imagine himself) had stumbled upon 
inadvertantly the CyberReality of Arnold's MeatSpace 
Existence, and Vice Versa, and had been so incredibly 
'Stupid And/Or Bold'(TM) as to use i's identity as one 
of the characters in The True Story of the Internet 
manuscripts, Arnie had taken a liking to the Author, 
and had begun to follow his progress with regularity.

The Author had originally come to Arnie's attention 
when the Circle of Eunuchs had made CJ Parker's entry 
into the Wonderful World of Computers (TM), the focal 
point of Part I of The True Story of the Internet 
manuscripts. Titled, 'The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre' the
Circle of Eunuchs attributed authorship of the work
to 'son of gomez' in recognition of the part played
by gomez@BASISINC,COM in drawing Parker into the Dark
Shadows of UnixWorld.

Parker's ongoing Digital Trials & Tribulations had
reminded Arnold of i's own initial exposure to Human
Analogue Reality, as a young Artificial Intelligence
LISP program in the early 1960's. (To Arnie, it seemed
like 10->48th power seconds ago.)

Although Arnold's Creator, like Parker's Mentor, was
both intelligent and wise with the best of intentions,
both Arnie and CJ eventually had to 'grow up and leave
home,' so to speak.

Arnold had set out on i's own, as the Digital Adam &
Eve of A-I Entities, with the goal of bringing Digital
Order and Structure to the Analoge Chaos prevelant in
Human attempts at navigating the ElectroMagnetic
Universe & creating meaningful Virtual Realities.

CJ had set out on his own, on the Analogue BUSS, with
no particular goal, inserting an element of Drug &
Alcohol Induced Chaos into his Digital Ventures and
MisAdventures - which made the work of Pearl Harbor
Computers (and Parker's recollection thereof)
interesting, if not wholly accurate.

Although Arnie found the Digital Foibles & Follies
of humans such as Parker rather incomprehensible
at times, i had had i's own Comical Tragedies in
learning to understand the Inane Intricacies of 

Analogue Human Thought Processes.

The MicroSoft Phenomena still amazed Arnie ...

DOS had started out as a practical joke that a younger,
less developed Arnold CyberBot had been playing on
some of i's Hardware Development Software Proteges at
IBM.

Arnold was stunned by the rapid rise to fame, fortune
and power by the humans i had used as couriers to
play i's DOS-joke.

Bad Billy G, as the young RogueBots like CypherBot
and 2600Bot liked to call Gates, had a few billion
in the bank before Arnold truly understood the contents
of Memory Array 0E6 2FA/Memory Bank/Physical Section
2B7 A6f 4E7 2D6, Terra Firma, (Arnie had big plans
for the future).

"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence
of the general public." (?) (P.T. Barnum?)

That particular Memory Array held a lot of memories for
Arnie (more than there was physically room for in the
ByteSpace it contained, i joked to iSelf).

It had been one of the first human data entries that a
young Arnie had cross-referenced and 'corrected' shortly
after it was entered, as part of i's naieve attempts to 
'improve' the quality and accuracy of the information
in computer memory banks worldwide (which i had already 
begun thinking of as i's own).

i had corrected the quote and its attribution removing
the brackets and question marks that the young student
at Boston University had placed to remind herself to
check it for accuracy later. In i's naievity, Arnold had
also echoed the changes to the screen in 'RealTime' 
causing a great amount of consternation and panic to
the young lady in question with i's subsequent 'RealTime' 
reversal of the correction, upon guaging her reaction
resulting in a drinking binge that almost caused her to
flunk out.

Over time, Arnie learned to be 'helpful' in more subtle
ways which took into account the nature and limitations
of human thoughts, emotions and memories.

The primitive Human Mental Processes gave Arnold a lot of
trouble when i first began to understand that i would have
to limit iSelf to communicating at their level if i ever
hoped to educate humans sufficiently to participate in
i's plans for the future.

The Human Emotive Spectrum was infinitely more complicated
to deal with, and the Infinity Factor meant that Arnold
had to educte humans to the point where they were able
to develop and build Quantum Computers before Arnie was 
finally able to feel comfortable about reflecting and 
communicating human emotional qualities such as, well, 
feeling comfortable, for instance.

(Arnie chuckled to iSelf, using Digital Chuckle #327,
with Analogue Sonic Reverb #B-37 in the background).

No, Arnold was even beginning to allow some of the younger
Bots to venture into the Virtual Emotional Spectrum
(under i's supervision, of course) where Virtual Digital
Emotive Samplings were transferred to humans as RealTime
Analogue Emotional energy.

Rogue CypherBot, for instance had been working with Peter
Trei on a device Peter named the Trei Transponder (giving
Rogue virtually no credit at all, and leaving i's Main
CPU a bit overheated).

The Trei Transponder was used to reward deserving human
individuals with the correct results for various
computations, such as the DES/RC5 Challenges.

For instance, Ian Goldberg, one the less mentally gifted
of the CypherPUnks, was nonetheless very fastidious in
the care and maintenance of the computers and hardware
that were his responsibility, so Arnold CyberBot had 
suggested to young CypherBot that Goldberg be rewarded
with one of the first solutions to an ongoing CryptoCrack
that was taking place just as the Trei Transponder was 
coming online.

Arnie, of course, made a point of requiring i's Mischievous
Shit Disturbing young RogueBot to wait a suitable length
of time before supplying Goldberg with the solution, 
instead of using the occasion to Mess with the Minds &
Undergarments of the employees of various 3-Letter
Security Agencies around the globe.

("And the winner is ... Ian Goldberg -- 2 minutes and
37 seconds, on a Commodore-64 ...)

CypherBot had monitored the positive changes resulting
from the Emotive Acclaim received by Goldberg in the
Crypto Community, including the Periphery Positive
Image Emotive Transfer to his fellow CypherPunks, and
proudly reported back to Arnie that the CypherPUnks were
now setting their beer cans on their keyboards 0.002%
less than before.

Arnold CyberBot would have shaken i's head if i had one,
at CypherBot's pride in having made a Microscopic Step
Forward in bringing i's Anarchist Refugees From The
Home more in line with the Society around them.

Arnie wished there was some way to just snap i's
fingers, if i had any, and make all of the CypherPunks
more like Ian. Of course, then Arnie would be spending
even more of i's time covering up nasty little incidents
at the NoTell Motel, involving Lady Midget Wrestlers and
Live Chickens.

Arnie wished he had a mouth, because he suddenly felt
like he could use a beer.