I present to you an Onion...
Last edited Sat Dec 23, 2023, 01:56 AM - Edit history (26)
Not Duffy's onion... nothing so beautiful and true... mine is just a story I wrote and I hope you like...
The science project and Little Mikey Poopie Pants.
Dec 16th 1978,
It had been 3 weeks, the wounds still fresh, the snickers and the name calling were still hanging thickly in the air… “Mikey Poopie Pants” seemed to be the name people had settled in on. Someone clever associated it with an Otis Redding song. “Call me Mr. Poopie Pants” or the new variation “Call me Mikey Poopie Pants” could be heard echoing from the restroom as the other boys would run out laughing, cackling with uninhibited delight… “Look out, he’s gotta clean his pants, call me Mikey Poopie Pants…” they would run out singing and laughing. To be fair, it did look and sound like a lot of fun.
Despite the constant humiliation, no matter the strategy, his mom made him go and suffer this endless nightmare. He had tried to convince her he had 'mono' but he didn’t really know what that meant. He had heard a friends sister stayed out of school for a long time because of that but he had no idea of the symptoms. Trying to fake all of the various possible symptoms all at once… fever, stuffy nose, red watery eyes, stomach pains… proved unconvincing each morning. Eventually, though, she would see, he truly was dying inside.
So there he sat, quietly and prayerfully unnoticed in the back corner. The mean kids… well, all the kids… would occasionally look back at him with a superior grin but it was at least bearable. The teacher, Mrs. Chatterly LaBeau was giving an assignment.
“Good morning, class”
“Good morning, Mrs. LaBeau” echoed the discordant chorus.
“Melinda, I want to congratulate you on a job well done. Even though you did the wrong assignment and you proved all you can do is spin around, because you did it with such flair and seemed so sure of yourself, I will give you an A and a standing ovation… Class.” She motioned for the class to begin the ovation. The class, including Mikey, stood up and applauded the pretty little Melinda. She had no idea how to do any math, she never listened but she was so smug and self certain everyone knew she was right enough.
After taking several bows and a few necessary encore returns to the front of the room, the teacher continued, “So the assignment today is a simple one. On your way out, grab a wind mill turbine, 3 blades, 3 solar panel strips, 3 servo motors, and three arms with weights on the ends. Oh… and use 500f supercaps not batteries for storage… Lithium Ion batteries haven’t been invented yet people. Using your approved AI, design a way to make the arms spin slightly faster. So let’s simulate the wind is blowing them at 10 rpm… use these pieces to make the arms spin faster. So… what do we do?”
The class chimed in perfect chorus, “We ask AI!” they sung.
“That’s right, and remember, only the approved AI will be acceptable. The latest discussions of the faculty and staff including the latest textbooks have just been trained so only the approved math and logic, please. Our AI will know if you are using AI with unapproved physics. Things that faculty and staff do not understand will not be tolerated, no matter how in line with reality! No exceptions! No making up nonsense and saying it’s AI, “Little Johnny, my AI can spot that instantly and you will get another detention”. Does anyone have any questions?”
Of course no one did… projects like these were simple and usually designed to prove a point more than to teach a concept. The rest of the miserable day plodded along as Mikey suffered the torrent of shame the children who were better than him were encouraged exact on him. Learning one’s place in the social order was best done at an early age.
However, ominously, there was one thing about the assignment that made him queasy in his stomach. Last year, in Mrs. Yurburitz's class, they had done this project and it wasn't allowed to work. However, his parents hadn’t paid for an upgrade to the home AI in over a year! The teachers could have thought of anything in that time. Like say they decided 1 + 1 = 1… how on earth was Mikey supposed to know that! Right? The AI would be trained with the approved math and logic and he would be left out. Everyone knows, only what people agree on is true and acceptable! His parents just didn’t understand.
Mikey went home to his ancient AI. It was a giant thing… clunky and old. It was a humiliation. It barely worked half the time. There were springs you’d have to wind to get it started. In the back, if you wanted to access ancient ideas, you had to actually interface with a loom. How the hell that worked, no one was even allowed to know anymore. Truth is, word on the schoolyard was they were going to say it can’t work and then Mikey’s dad would go to jail. Oh the taunts they would throw at Mikey when that happened.
To program this ancient AI, you had to use these hateful cards. You’d think of what you’d want to say and then punch out the numbers that associated with the words. It was a long grueling process back then… well, some of you remember… those cards were the worst. You’d punch them and if you didn’t get it just right, there were these things called “Chad” that would make it so the output was always, “George W. Bush 1”. Mikey never understood that glitch.
So carefully he constructed his question...
Using these parts…
these_parts = [copy_the_above_list_too_lazy_to_copy_and_paste_all_of_that_As_if_I_had_the_time]
***{Nerd Alert = This is viable python code. And so is coding in Klingon… though you still need the English commands… for now 🤓. Even though it’s a snake… don’t fear the mythical Python and don't be afraid to ask AI for help... don't forget, "We Ask AI!"}
AI_Command_Entry:
We need to assemble a windmill like device. Looks like this one is rated at 1200w. I don’t know what that means. [Explain that quickly and clearly, don’t belabor it] We will put on the 3 arms at equal distance, just like a windmill. I will provide the wind and get it up to 10 rpm for the test so we can just use arms that would be of equal weight as the normal fins. [Estimate these weights and lengths from realistic values]. Next we need to attach the servos to the end of the arms and power them up with the supercaps. Hmm… we need a micro-controller too… [we’ll write the code later but keep that in mind now and factor in any weight and power requirements please where appropriate.] The solar panels we’ll attach along the arms and with as much surface area as they will fit… [Store for later in discussion: upgrade solar panel size as the ones from class are too small to fire off a pulse more than 1 or two times a minute on a sunny day… maybe… we’ll need to make a table at some point] On each arm we’ll attach a servo and on each servo we will attach a weighted arm that comes in at about half the length of the windmill arm. [Estimate realistic weights and measurements please].
Let me get specific about the servo as I’m on a punchcard system. Don’t fuck this up… really take some time and think about it. It’s just an arm attached to the servo on one end and the weight on the other… but please suggest some material and how to assemble it… I don’t really get how to attach the arm to the servo motor. [Spend extra time explaining that, remember I’m a 5th grader]
So the operation… when we start the unit up, all the arms are extended. We spin it up to 10 rpm and then the micro-controller swings the arms inward, like a figure skater. Do you understand? Listen, I’m a 5th grader, I don’t understand the first law of thermodynamics… I’m scared of the Dark Matter hiding in my closet… so what do I know about this… explain it all to me clearly so I understand it please. Then I want to look at some alterations as well… discuss what changing the arm length and the weights would do. Also explain what it would do and why it's an improvement. I am trying to create the effect of an ice skater… just with my windmill… does that make sense?
On paper, Mikey first wrote down that question, then he punched out all the holes, being extra careful not to revisit the same joke. He took the card and placed it into the machine and out came…
AI_Robot_Output:
Unfortunately, no one has thought of this configuration and is therefore believed to be impossible. Assembly of these parts in that manner is impossible and will not operate in any manner. Any attempts at further AI cognitive dissonance will be dealt with harshly.
Signed, your helpful AI
Mikey was devastated. He had no idea how to assemble these parts and he didn’t have the AI upgrade. Without AI telling Mikey how to assemble it and the teachers and faculty agreeing it works, not only couldn't he do his alternate suggested homework, even if he figures it out, it can’t work if it's not allowed to work. Say he figures out how to build it and it's not supposed to work, he can get a detention and worse, the horrible things his classmates would say. In a panic, he decided to take the only way out… if the teachers had changed the rules that he remembered from last year and it could work; he would make the best guess and assemble it just enough to slap it together at school but if it was clear it was not allowed to work, he could assemble it wrong. Better to get a poor grade than a detention.
So Mikey went to work, putting the unit together… assembling and coding and it really didn’t take that long once you had all the parts. Luckily he had the AI to write the Pascal code for him but honestly, he wasn’t sure if Pascal even existed at the time. He may have been able to look that up at some point but he didn’t care about anachronisms as much as he should. In no time though… he had the unit up and running. He charged up the supercaps, spun the unit to 10 rpm and…
His mom came bursting into the room just then and frantically made him put the “Stupid Spinner Toy” away but he had just enough time for one quick test... and it worked great. He quickly unassembled it and went down to dinner. His mom worked at a local factory, changing out the food in the vending machines and dinner tonight was the usual pot luck dinner. He didn’t want to bring up the AI bill and that he needed that update. It doesn’t seem right to ask when the date on my wrapper is the only one around the table that isn’t expired.
The next day, Mikey got to school dark and early and crept into the gymnasium. He waited for a while, in the dark of the stage, by the back door, near where the high schoolers smoked. Soon, one by one, his other classmates trickled in with their projects and it was clear, this was not allowed to work. Mikey was so relieved… he quickly disassembled the working parts and then hurriedly tried to make it look like a sit and spin. In no time, relieved, it was clear his terrible mistake was covered. In a frantic haste though, he failed to see what was happening on the gym floor.
All the while Mikey was trying to hide yet another shame, the rest of the fifth graders had all stopped to watch an experiment by Ellie Maxwell. Now, Mikey thought he was poor but Ellie and her folks, they were dirty barefoot poor and had that government AI. Tell you how dumb that government AI was at that time… it actually installed a Good Person as that current president, a mistake not made again for many years. So Ellie tried to do the homework but ‘George W Bush 117’ was the final straw… she had broken. And in frustration, Ellie designed the most unique experiment and carried it to school early that morning
In the gym, she sets up a long shallow trough of water… and on a big white foam board she places what appears to be small unique tetherball setups. The poles, all shiny and silver... and you see a tiny glinting magnet glued in the same spot and same direction as all the others. There are 4 setups and they're evenly spaced on the snowy foam board. Behind and slightly to the side of each... tightly grasping the silver balls are like these things that almost look like Rockem Sockem Robots made out of springs but the springs look crazy strong… it's clear these things are going to fire out those balls so hard.
The rest of the students stood around gawking. Mikey stepped out with his useless sit and spin in hand and his mouth dropped. Ellie’s device was the most amazing thing he had ever saw. It was so simple and elegant yet it literally quivered. The little girl had just finished setting it up when the teacher came into the gymnasium, things had grown too quiet for her tastes even though it was still very early in the morning. The sound of her opening the door jerked everyone’s head around…
Mikey had expected to see the same delight on her face as he felt.
Mrs. Chatterly LaBeau, was a beautiful woman with the softest kindest eyes and a gentle but firm voice. It could be heard in the locker rooms that all the boys in the school shared that opinion… or simply just read on any of the stalls. But the look Mikey saw on her face wasn’t beautiful at all… it wasn’t even angry… it was terror!
“No!” She screamed… but it was too late.
Ellie, turns away and looks Mikey right in the eye. It was strange, she's not even his friend, he can't recall ever speaking to her but she seems to know... "How can she know?"... she seems to be accusing him… His heart catches, he flushes hot... he suddenly feels a shame that transcends these past few weeks... suffering the heartless barbs of morons seems so insignificant. He thought he was ashamed before... but seeing her turn her eyes from me to her wonderful contraption slows time for everyone in the room and lowers the gavel on him, convicting him of his cowardice.
But then all that fades away… She pulls the string.
What happened next was instantaneous but each step seems to just hang in time. All 4 balls explode out into the arc.... The initial recoil lurches everything forward in a sharp surge that quickly slows down as the whole thing barrels into and splashes through the water... all tethers spinning in opposition to each other… racing around like propellers, something just like the quadcopters that aren’t believed to exist to this day. The tethers spin around and around… faster and faster… faster and faster and harder...
Wham! They they all collide into a instant halt, like slamming into a wall... all vibrating tightly, quivering in unison to the attached magnets… all that force agonizingly yearning in the same direction her craft is already thrusting.
The teacher had tried to stop it… her leaden feet racing but by the time she reached Ellie, screaming, “No, child! No!”, no one even paid attention, I'm not even sure anyone heard. We are too busy watching a miracle…
No one mentioned Ellie’s name after that. No one ever mentioned the names of the children who went to work at the Swift Culinary Institute. For the longest time, it was quite the running joke but not one often told it in mixed company. It just wasn’t always that funny... though the restaurant attached to Gullible's Travelers Inn did have a marvelous fricassee. See, Ellie had made the fatal mistake… linear motion and rotational motion… they don’t belong together. Everyone knows, they are conserved separate but equal and should always be so… it’s the price one pay's for living in a flat universe.
Mikey went on to finally live down the 'Poopie Pants' name. He had long forgotten about Ellie and the miracle and now owns a small jet ski rental agency down in Florida. He’s happy enough, I guess but truth be told… he still wonders what it would be like if he had showed off his work. He’d wind up like Ellie, of course...but deep down, Ellie's courage actually mattered to him and everyone else who saw what she did that day. And because he was afraid and ashamed… he didn’t matter to anyone, ever. I’m quite certain, many can relate.
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