Steve Michel's Journal of
Lateral Modernism********************** Vol. IX No.1 Jan. 2008
Coolest tech trend to watch for 2008
How about online applications? Google didn't start it but they are building on it. Back in the 1970s, dumb computer terminals and slow 9600baud modems allowed students and faculty to log into Mainframes in University basements to run scientific applications. Now from home computers, anyone can access and run web applications like spreadsheets, word processing, and shared project calendars as well as enterprise class webmail, video conferencing and and scientific simulations on supercomputers without having to upgrade. Google is adding productivity software to the mix on a regular basis and Apple has been offering web based data back-ups for years. Amazon.com and others jumping in with their web applications. What does it all mean? In a not so distant future, computer users will only need a fast internet connection to run software they run today but at blazing speeds on supercomputer web app servers. This is news for many reasons: the most interesting is that someday users can keep their 'obsolete' slow computers and use them to run a browser and access any software and pay only per use then let some web app provider worry about upgrades- diverting tons of e-waste from landfills.
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fiction dept.:
Soil Mechanics: PART 3
by Steve Michel
"Peace to you Jof. Lector Crow told me to give you this,” I said pulling the letter of surety from my cloak.
"Ah yes. Come in, come in lad to the office." He said turning and seemingly dissolving into the interiors cool shadows. Timo followed him in. Behind him the Cargias murmured to themselves stacking the rest of the sacks.
When Timo came back out after transacting with the shopkeeper, the sacks were all neatly stacked but the Cargias were nowhere in sight. They were probably waiting in the Wheeler out front waiting for him Timo thought. He felt exuberant; the chore was done without fuss. Maybe the Cargias weren't so bad and they could stop at the stands on the way back. But his heart fell as stepped out of the courtyard: the wheeler and Cargias were gone.
Damn! Thoughts of diversion evaporated from his mind like a puddle at noon. The wheeler's absence was a glaring reality of trouble and blame. 'Wait! I'm I my brother's keeper?' The thought did not dispel the nagging dread of something awry from his mind. Timo ran up to the next square hoping to catch sight of the Cargias at some fruit stand ogling some girls. Then Timo walked aimlessly from the square looking up and down the crowded street to no avail. His mind felt dimmer than a blown out candle. He walked the central street to the outskirts of town where only a few carts and wheelers trod by carrying loads to and from distant farms. Timo perplexed head down in pensive thought rounded a corner.
'Eh watch your step monk!' Two youths stood before him. The biggest scowled down at Timo. He was maybe three summers older and that much taller. The one next to him thin and hatchet faced with a worse scowl. 'I said watch your step monk!' He repeated angrily Timo ignored him making to walk around. 'UIYF! I say I'm talking to you!' said the second. Two other youths had slowly circled noisily behind Timo.
One lunged with a blade. Timo snatched his wrist in mid flight and twisted him in some body contortion headlong into another assailant.
"Break it up. Break it up" A constable waded through with club in hand. One of the attackers lay curled on the ground groaning in pain. "What do you think this is some busker show?" He turned to Timo. "Every time you 'prentices slum into the town: trouble."
"What? I was on my way.." Timo interjected. He felt no anger, only incredulity at the circumstances.
"Spare me the speech lad; you're all coming with me to the station." The constable cut in "All of you move along. This isn't any show."
The constabulary was a cylindrical three-storied building next to a HoloSignal Cafe. A cursory examination and a quick inquiry to the monastery was all the constable needed to rid himself of Timo.
They let Timo ride back on a farmer's mule cart. It seemed the farmer, an old shriveled prune of a man, had a sudden errand to the monastery that day. He agreed to ferry him in exchange for Timo's blessings for his mule and forty hectares, and an earful. The farmer hunched over on a buckboard of his wrought ironwood mule cart muttering. "They's fresh them yams. You lads can use 'em. Put some piss in y'all."
Timo sat silent in a lotus among the straw crates in the back jostled by ruts on the road of dust, dried mud and gravel. He pulled at the amulet hung around his neck. Brother Jay would deride him on the incident, since he had been entrusted with the errand. Only one fact came through with clarity: the Cargias had played him by running off with the wheeler. There was nothing he could do except let fate unfold. "You lads are not bothered by anything, self control you call it. Some of them back there think you's chicken..." The old coot rambled on. Timo ignored his chatter. But the man was undeterred following a different line of conversation. "Everything science to you boys is that so? Turning desert into land -mind over matter." ...to be continued next month
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