04-18-2014, 05:11 PM
If you slice infinity in half, you get two infinities. It is a similar thing to observe a piece of the universe. Parts of the whole exhibit remarkable similarity to the whole -- infinities split off of the great infinite.
Touch your own face, and you touch the face of the universe, for we are not separate, outside observers to the grand device, but in it. Part of the whole, and whole ourselves. Holonomic.
Grace sits next to a tree on campus contemplating a piece of gravel used for landscaping purposes (because she doesn't care about her looking weird, and neither does anyone else around her for that matter). It's a crumbling thing, streaked through with cracks (like a brain, like a supercluster). But when she breaks it apart to examine its insides, to make its fractal nature more apparent, the act doesn't shatter the foundations of the earth or anything.
There's another thing that's breaking.
She's already had to go and tell them that she wouldn't be back in for work at the university computer lab. Her boss had been upset by the two long absences in recent history, said she had no vacation, couldn't go into the negative on vacation hours again, and fuck bosses. Kalen offered her a new 'job' working with the shell company he created, and she gave her two-week's notice.
It's a recurring story, this. Student finds a job in 'industry', or creates a company in their garage, and drops out of school. That's not exactly what's happening in Grace's case, but it's a fantastic cover.
Gravel shards crunch in her pocket when she gets to her appointment with Dr. Granville, her academic and research adviser. "Hey," she says, waving through the doorframe before sliding in to sit on one of the institutional padded chairs next to Dr. Granville's desk.
Dr. Granville's office isn't very large, but it is crammed with stuff -- as if she'd once heard about the concept of 'hoarding' and decided to make it her life's work. Edna Granville herself is a short, 50's-ish woman with graying hair -- straight and cut sharply at the shoulders. She's never changed her hairstyle in all the six years Grace has known her. Like she's stuck in place as the world evolves around her.
There's something to that, Grace thinks, as she passes by yellowing paper cartoons pasted to the door she passes through. It is possible to ossify -- to become stuck. Even so, she feels for Edna. This is the life she once wanted, after all. Stay in academia, the rest of the options suck too much! Write in your time off, when you have time off, it's a good diversion!
"Hello, Grace. How are you doing? Feeling well?" Edna says, interrupting Grace's internal monologue. Of course that would be the question.
"Yeah, yeah. Still, I won't be in class on Monday."
Edna gives her a Look, a kind of appraisal between professor and student. "Why, are you planning on being sick?"
"No," Grace smirks. "Just not going to be there. I've got a lot of work in my life right now, you know?" A true statement. Edna need not know about the mummy, the ghosts in the walls, the Ghost Wheel...
"You can't continue to take time off like this, and still expect to pass your classes. What about your thesis project?"
"I'm going to upload it to GitHub, open-source it," Grace says. "Biologists should have access to it."
Edna's eyebrow raises severely. "I see. You know we can't accept a thesis project that's not your own work. You can't outsource your project to the rest of the world and submit that as proof of your own competence."
"Yeah, and that's the problem. The whole thing's a scam, and I'm just coming to realize it. I used to think I could do good from inside, you know? Go all the way, be a teacher, push the boundaries of technological progress!
"But you know? I can't work with my peers. I can't share my code. I have to work within stupid boundaries. And it's all because improving the world isn't the objective here. The objective is for me to pay the university a lot of money and get a scrap of paper in return, so that I can prove to employers especially how much time and effort and money I did spend."
It's a rant. And it's uncivil. Also a bit rude to poor Edna Granville, who by the end of that spiel looks rather tired -- more like an old woman surrounded by her own history.
"It's almost the end of the semester, Grace. One more month, and you'll be out of here for the summer, and it won't seem so bad. I urge you to reconsider," she says, and then takes on a bit of sharpness herself, to counter the skittering knife's edge that is Grace. "Besides, we have spent a lot of time on you in return. A lot of effort, and a lot of money. Every grad student costs us about sixty-thousand dollars in time, effort, and money, did you know that?"
"No. Still doesn't change anything. This degree has gone from my goal to my distraction."
...
It's a long, protracted argument they have, turning around each other in that dance of words. To her credit, Dr. Granville never allows herself to get upset, but at the end of it, both women are left feeling sorry for the other for the same reason: you've given up.
Later, Grace will sit in the back of a campus coffee shop with a chunk of crumbling gravel next to her computer. It's been an easy thing for her, to peer into the immediate surroundings -- to see the spacial coordinates listed out in the data feed for here and now. Today, it's time to try something different. She focuses on the Code for that piece of white marble on the table, looking at its data, looking not at where it is, but where its connections are. Where it's entangled to another estranged piece.
An image of Dr. Granville's office appears on her screen, from the vantage point of something on the floor -- the piece of gravel Grace dropped as she left. The professor is at her computer, typing. Grace remembers a time, seems like ages ago, when Gadfly did this to her. Shouldersurfing -- looking over her shoulder at her code. But Edna doesn't notice. She's got that Look on her face, and apparently from the email she's typing, she's letting someone else know about the dropping-out of Grace Evans. Another promising student lost. A disappointment.
There is a crack here, where she leaves a part of her old life behind. It spreads as a face-devouring grin. The program can see across distances. She can see across distances.
She picks up that little white rock, holding infinity in the palm of her hand.
Touch your own face, and you touch the face of the universe, for we are not separate, outside observers to the grand device, but in it. Part of the whole, and whole ourselves. Holonomic.
Grace sits next to a tree on campus contemplating a piece of gravel used for landscaping purposes (because she doesn't care about her looking weird, and neither does anyone else around her for that matter). It's a crumbling thing, streaked through with cracks (like a brain, like a supercluster). But when she breaks it apart to examine its insides, to make its fractal nature more apparent, the act doesn't shatter the foundations of the earth or anything.
There's another thing that's breaking.
She's already had to go and tell them that she wouldn't be back in for work at the university computer lab. Her boss had been upset by the two long absences in recent history, said she had no vacation, couldn't go into the negative on vacation hours again, and fuck bosses. Kalen offered her a new 'job' working with the shell company he created, and she gave her two-week's notice.
It's a recurring story, this. Student finds a job in 'industry', or creates a company in their garage, and drops out of school. That's not exactly what's happening in Grace's case, but it's a fantastic cover.
Gravel shards crunch in her pocket when she gets to her appointment with Dr. Granville, her academic and research adviser. "Hey," she says, waving through the doorframe before sliding in to sit on one of the institutional padded chairs next to Dr. Granville's desk.
Dr. Granville's office isn't very large, but it is crammed with stuff -- as if she'd once heard about the concept of 'hoarding' and decided to make it her life's work. Edna Granville herself is a short, 50's-ish woman with graying hair -- straight and cut sharply at the shoulders. She's never changed her hairstyle in all the six years Grace has known her. Like she's stuck in place as the world evolves around her.
There's something to that, Grace thinks, as she passes by yellowing paper cartoons pasted to the door she passes through. It is possible to ossify -- to become stuck. Even so, she feels for Edna. This is the life she once wanted, after all. Stay in academia, the rest of the options suck too much! Write in your time off, when you have time off, it's a good diversion!
"Hello, Grace. How are you doing? Feeling well?" Edna says, interrupting Grace's internal monologue. Of course that would be the question.
"Yeah, yeah. Still, I won't be in class on Monday."
Edna gives her a Look, a kind of appraisal between professor and student. "Why, are you planning on being sick?"
"No," Grace smirks. "Just not going to be there. I've got a lot of work in my life right now, you know?" A true statement. Edna need not know about the mummy, the ghosts in the walls, the Ghost Wheel...
"You can't continue to take time off like this, and still expect to pass your classes. What about your thesis project?"
"I'm going to upload it to GitHub, open-source it," Grace says. "Biologists should have access to it."
Edna's eyebrow raises severely. "I see. You know we can't accept a thesis project that's not your own work. You can't outsource your project to the rest of the world and submit that as proof of your own competence."
"Yeah, and that's the problem. The whole thing's a scam, and I'm just coming to realize it. I used to think I could do good from inside, you know? Go all the way, be a teacher, push the boundaries of technological progress!
"But you know? I can't work with my peers. I can't share my code. I have to work within stupid boundaries. And it's all because improving the world isn't the objective here. The objective is for me to pay the university a lot of money and get a scrap of paper in return, so that I can prove to employers especially how much time and effort and money I did spend."
It's a rant. And it's uncivil. Also a bit rude to poor Edna Granville, who by the end of that spiel looks rather tired -- more like an old woman surrounded by her own history.
"It's almost the end of the semester, Grace. One more month, and you'll be out of here for the summer, and it won't seem so bad. I urge you to reconsider," she says, and then takes on a bit of sharpness herself, to counter the skittering knife's edge that is Grace. "Besides, we have spent a lot of time on you in return. A lot of effort, and a lot of money. Every grad student costs us about sixty-thousand dollars in time, effort, and money, did you know that?"
"No. Still doesn't change anything. This degree has gone from my goal to my distraction."
...
It's a long, protracted argument they have, turning around each other in that dance of words. To her credit, Dr. Granville never allows herself to get upset, but at the end of it, both women are left feeling sorry for the other for the same reason: you've given up.
Later, Grace will sit in the back of a campus coffee shop with a chunk of crumbling gravel next to her computer. It's been an easy thing for her, to peer into the immediate surroundings -- to see the spacial coordinates listed out in the data feed for here and now. Today, it's time to try something different. She focuses on the Code for that piece of white marble on the table, looking at its data, looking not at where it is, but where its connections are. Where it's entangled to another estranged piece.
An image of Dr. Granville's office appears on her screen, from the vantage point of something on the floor -- the piece of gravel Grace dropped as she left. The professor is at her computer, typing. Grace remembers a time, seems like ages ago, when Gadfly did this to her. Shouldersurfing -- looking over her shoulder at her code. But Edna doesn't notice. She's got that Look on her face, and apparently from the email she's typing, she's letting someone else know about the dropping-out of Grace Evans. Another promising student lost. A disappointment.
There is a crack here, where she leaves a part of her old life behind. It spreads as a face-devouring grin. The program can see across distances. She can see across distances.
She picks up that little white rock, holding infinity in the palm of her hand.