A fragment of a thing I will probably not finish but which I like to look at once in a while
C.E.M. - The Cause & Effect Machine (or, Eric.)
Featuring: Engineer!Jared, Reporter!Jensen, Stoner!Mathemetician!Chad. And Sophia. And maybe Sandy.
Summary 1:
Jared invents a machine that can predict the future while he is at college. Jensen is interviewing him for Time Magazine. Chad is a mathematician. Also, there is a beeramid.
Summary 2:
In its second year of operation, C.E.M. successfully predicts an earthquake, three tornados, an algae bloom off the coast, and the collapse of an indestructible bi-level bridge. Also, it predicts Chad making it with Sophia Bush.
Author’s notes: Everything in this story is made up. I mean everything.
Also, lots of swearing, so PG-13 ok? And standard disclaimers apply.
____________________________________
“I mean who even says that anymore? Making it. I seriously just flashed back like, thirty years.” Jared is amused even though he’s only 26.
“How did Eric even know what making it is? It’s a fuckin’ computer!” Chad is not amused, like, at all.
“CEM dude, it’s CEM. Not Eric.”
“Whatever, my point is, where the hell did it learn thirty year old colloquialisms? Did you let Sera do the goddamn language programming?”
“No, of course not. I’m not even done writing it yet.”
“Well…?”
“Well what?”
“Well what the fuck, then?”
“I don’t know man, but you’re giving me a headache. Just, toss it with the rest of irrationals and we’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
“Dude, I can’t just sit idly by while Eric goes around broadcasting my sexual conquests.”
“OK. One? Conquest has not yet, and probably will never, happen. Put it with the flying toaster pile. And two? I will kill you in your sleep if you don’t stop calling it Eric.”
___
“It’s kind of hard to explain…” Jared starts, unsure.
“Try.” Jensen prompts.
“Well it’s not like it just popped into my head over night. I mean, Chad did all the math. If anyone deserves the credit for CEM, its him.”
“Damn right bitch.” Chad, well, adds, sort of.
“ I just built it, like, you know. Assembled. Over time. I built it up and you know, we aren’t programmers or anything, so that first year, god that first year I had to learn fucking JVX code man. That was brutal. Do you have any idea how hard it is to learn that shit on the fly? It’s like doing calculus in Japanese. Took like seven months just to get it together. Anyway, eventually we had it fleshed out sort of and Chad, he did the math and I just wrote the architecture and built the hardware to run it and it’s just grown from there. Just freaking exploded. Now CEM’s got thirty three people putting in data full time, plus we just got approval for a foreign language expansion and now we’re flying people in from all over, like all over the country, in the last few months to try to expand the footprint from SoCal. So now, you know, now its like, this big already done thing, so it seems like it just popped into existence all refined and shit, but that’s not at all like how it went. Those first couple tries man, they were so bad. So bad. I had to scrap the whole thing and start from scratch like, twelve, thirteen times.”
“Nineteen.”
“Nineteen times. It was crazy. But once it got going, once it got plugging along, maybe, a year into the data pile up, it stabilized, and we just kept feeding it, you know? Putting in everything we could. And it was going along ok, you know, pacing pretty well with reality. And then, we got these guys. Delta Kappa? Kappa Theta?”
“Phi Theta Kappa”
“Yeah, the Kappas, they had this thing where they got suspended and the house was under review and there was this hearing or whatever and, basically, they had to do 1,000 volunteer hours on campus. Every single one of them. Like, 40,000 man hours. So, Sera, uh, Professor Gamble, my advisor, she knew about the project and she said we could use them to put in data.”
“Oh holy fuck was that a bad idea.”
“Yeah, kind of a disaster actually.”
“Why was that?” Jensen asks, kinda knowing where this is headed.
“Well…They weren’t like, an academic house, you know? Kappas are mostly athletic scholarships. Lotta football, lotta baseball, some of the lacrosse team. It’s not like - I mean. They just - They were just -“
“Dumb as fucking rocks, man.”
“Chad you fucker, shut up. Anyway, it wasn’t really their thing. They didn’t do too well with the primary data, and we didn’t find out for the first couple of weeks until the machine started spitting out an apocalypse every eight minutes.”
“Fucking Biblical man. Biblical.”
“But they were all committed to it at that point, so we just wrote an add-on for them to input their lives, like day to day. Or their history. Or opinions, thoughts. Whatever. Whatever they wanted to put in, CEM would take and then break it into pieces and give it values and then these things would be tallied up and included in the primary simulations. Eventually. We’re still working through it.”
“Assign values, how?” Actually curious now.
“Well, I mean, Chad’ll have to give you the math run down, I don’t really know how that all works, but like, say you put in ‘I hate Chad’ -“
“No you don’t you fucker. You love me.”
“I’d kill you if I could get away with it. So anyway, say you put that in. What happens is, it assigns a value for the interpretive terms. ‘I hate’ indicating a level of hostility. ‘Chad’ indicating hostility towards a male. The entry itself indicating an interaction between two males, regardless of nature. Uh, all these things are pieces it takes and it gives them these little numbers -“
“Fractal modifiers man. How many times have I got to fucking tell you? It ain’t just numbers you retard.”
“It gives them the modifiers and then those get categorized and calculated, extrapolated out over the probability of similar occurrences of course, and then plotted into the model.”
“Extrapolated? You mean like, multiplied, right? By people?”
“Yeah! Exactly. Exactly like that. I mean, ultimately, the human experience is pretty straightforward, right? There aren’t any really unique experiences out there. Most people live fairly predictable lives, even if they are unpredictable compared to others, they are still, pretty much, following a path, you know. And on a day to day basis, that predictability is even more pronounced. All we’re doing is taking what we know either happened, or what we can infer from the by-product, and drawing it out over the population.”
“Huh. I thought Chaos theory said that was impossible, but you’ve said in the past you’re an ardent believer?”
“Yeah. The thing is, the thing with Chaos theory is that it’s not saying that things aren’t predictable inherently, it’s saying that humans can never have all of the knowledge collected and applied in a meaningful way. And in a lot of ways, that’s pretty much right. We know why a butterfly flapping its wings in China can cause a hurricane, what we don’t know is whether or not all of those factors have been met, or not met, or which ones, or in what order and so on. That’s where the math here comes in. Aside from the statistics, this is really kind of Chad’s baby with those modifiers. I mean, CEM only works because, somehow, he figured out the modifiers for life.”
“Damn right bitch. Now fetch my beer.”
___
Spoiler alert! (Hah!)
And this is where I am headed with it:
Jensen types I love Jared into the machine. Nothing happens. It’s really kind of anti-climactic.
Featuring: Engineer!Jared, Reporter!Jensen, Stoner!Mathemetician!Chad. And Sophia. And maybe Sandy.
Summary 1:
Jared invents a machine that can predict the future while he is at college. Jensen is interviewing him for Time Magazine. Chad is a mathematician. Also, there is a beeramid.
Summary 2:
In its second year of operation, C.E.M. successfully predicts an earthquake, three tornados, an algae bloom off the coast, and the collapse of an indestructible bi-level bridge. Also, it predicts Chad making it with Sophia Bush.
Author’s notes: Everything in this story is made up. I mean everything.
Also, lots of swearing, so PG-13 ok? And standard disclaimers apply.
____________________________________
“I mean who even says that anymore? Making it. I seriously just flashed back like, thirty years.” Jared is amused even though he’s only 26.
“How did Eric even know what making it is? It’s a fuckin’ computer!” Chad is not amused, like, at all.
“CEM dude, it’s CEM. Not Eric.”
“Whatever, my point is, where the hell did it learn thirty year old colloquialisms? Did you let Sera do the goddamn language programming?”
“No, of course not. I’m not even done writing it yet.”
“Well…?”
“Well what?”
“Well what the fuck, then?”
“I don’t know man, but you’re giving me a headache. Just, toss it with the rest of irrationals and we’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
“Dude, I can’t just sit idly by while Eric goes around broadcasting my sexual conquests.”
“OK. One? Conquest has not yet, and probably will never, happen. Put it with the flying toaster pile. And two? I will kill you in your sleep if you don’t stop calling it Eric.”
___
“It’s kind of hard to explain…” Jared starts, unsure.
“Try.” Jensen prompts.
“Well it’s not like it just popped into my head over night. I mean, Chad did all the math. If anyone deserves the credit for CEM, its him.”
“Damn right bitch.” Chad, well, adds, sort of.
“ I just built it, like, you know. Assembled. Over time. I built it up and you know, we aren’t programmers or anything, so that first year, god that first year I had to learn fucking JVX code man. That was brutal. Do you have any idea how hard it is to learn that shit on the fly? It’s like doing calculus in Japanese. Took like seven months just to get it together. Anyway, eventually we had it fleshed out sort of and Chad, he did the math and I just wrote the architecture and built the hardware to run it and it’s just grown from there. Just freaking exploded. Now CEM’s got thirty three people putting in data full time, plus we just got approval for a foreign language expansion and now we’re flying people in from all over, like all over the country, in the last few months to try to expand the footprint from SoCal. So now, you know, now its like, this big already done thing, so it seems like it just popped into existence all refined and shit, but that’s not at all like how it went. Those first couple tries man, they were so bad. So bad. I had to scrap the whole thing and start from scratch like, twelve, thirteen times.”
“Nineteen.”
“Nineteen times. It was crazy. But once it got going, once it got plugging along, maybe, a year into the data pile up, it stabilized, and we just kept feeding it, you know? Putting in everything we could. And it was going along ok, you know, pacing pretty well with reality. And then, we got these guys. Delta Kappa? Kappa Theta?”
“Phi Theta Kappa”
“Yeah, the Kappas, they had this thing where they got suspended and the house was under review and there was this hearing or whatever and, basically, they had to do 1,000 volunteer hours on campus. Every single one of them. Like, 40,000 man hours. So, Sera, uh, Professor Gamble, my advisor, she knew about the project and she said we could use them to put in data.”
“Oh holy fuck was that a bad idea.”
“Yeah, kind of a disaster actually.”
“Why was that?” Jensen asks, kinda knowing where this is headed.
“Well…They weren’t like, an academic house, you know? Kappas are mostly athletic scholarships. Lotta football, lotta baseball, some of the lacrosse team. It’s not like - I mean. They just - They were just -“
“Dumb as fucking rocks, man.”
“Chad you fucker, shut up. Anyway, it wasn’t really their thing. They didn’t do too well with the primary data, and we didn’t find out for the first couple of weeks until the machine started spitting out an apocalypse every eight minutes.”
“Fucking Biblical man. Biblical.”
“But they were all committed to it at that point, so we just wrote an add-on for them to input their lives, like day to day. Or their history. Or opinions, thoughts. Whatever. Whatever they wanted to put in, CEM would take and then break it into pieces and give it values and then these things would be tallied up and included in the primary simulations. Eventually. We’re still working through it.”
“Assign values, how?” Actually curious now.
“Well, I mean, Chad’ll have to give you the math run down, I don’t really know how that all works, but like, say you put in ‘I hate Chad’ -“
“No you don’t you fucker. You love me.”
“I’d kill you if I could get away with it. So anyway, say you put that in. What happens is, it assigns a value for the interpretive terms. ‘I hate’ indicating a level of hostility. ‘Chad’ indicating hostility towards a male. The entry itself indicating an interaction between two males, regardless of nature. Uh, all these things are pieces it takes and it gives them these little numbers -“
“Fractal modifiers man. How many times have I got to fucking tell you? It ain’t just numbers you retard.”
“It gives them the modifiers and then those get categorized and calculated, extrapolated out over the probability of similar occurrences of course, and then plotted into the model.”
“Extrapolated? You mean like, multiplied, right? By people?”
“Yeah! Exactly. Exactly like that. I mean, ultimately, the human experience is pretty straightforward, right? There aren’t any really unique experiences out there. Most people live fairly predictable lives, even if they are unpredictable compared to others, they are still, pretty much, following a path, you know. And on a day to day basis, that predictability is even more pronounced. All we’re doing is taking what we know either happened, or what we can infer from the by-product, and drawing it out over the population.”
“Huh. I thought Chaos theory said that was impossible, but you’ve said in the past you’re an ardent believer?”
“Yeah. The thing is, the thing with Chaos theory is that it’s not saying that things aren’t predictable inherently, it’s saying that humans can never have all of the knowledge collected and applied in a meaningful way. And in a lot of ways, that’s pretty much right. We know why a butterfly flapping its wings in China can cause a hurricane, what we don’t know is whether or not all of those factors have been met, or not met, or which ones, or in what order and so on. That’s where the math here comes in. Aside from the statistics, this is really kind of Chad’s baby with those modifiers. I mean, CEM only works because, somehow, he figured out the modifiers for life.”
“Damn right bitch. Now fetch my beer.”
___
Spoiler alert! (Hah!)
And this is where I am headed with it:
Jensen types I love Jared into the machine. Nothing happens. It’s really kind of anti-climactic.