The Ghost Ship

The Ghost Ship

A short story inspired by Asimov’s “Each an explorer.”

By Charles C. King

 “Baah!  Baah!  Baah!”  Charlene D never expected her phone to ring that way, the most uncomfortable, intrusive, ugly siren that she’s never heard from the phone.  Not that she’s never heard it before, when she got the phone from the office they’ve let her listen to the various different ring tones so that she knows what each represents, and she remembered this ugly Baahing as the utmost urgent.

“Charlene here,” she touched her cheek and spoke into the air. 

“Commander D, we need you back at the station immediately.” 

“General?  You’re calling personally?”

“Errr, yes, this is General Harpalani.  Just come back here as soon as possible.  We need you in space pronto.”

“Yes sir!”

The communication ended.  It was very rare that Charlene would receive a call from the office not made by the AI, with its perfect pronunciation, accent-less and sexless tone synthesized by a computer.

Commander Charlene D was a spaceship pilot.  Not any spaceship pilot, but one of the rare, fighter pilots that has laser cannons, missiles, towing harnesses, and fusion bombs under her control.  Not that she has a busy career, war has been altogether eliminated from the surface of earth, but with so much space activity in earth orbit and within the solar system, someone has to play cop and maintain order, and also deal with asteroids and space debris that could harm a planet or space station.  Someone would say that these so-called fighter pilots has all the power in the worlds, as it was strictly prohibitive for any other spaceships other than the government defense ships to be armed at all.  There were only a dozen fighter pilots and Charlene was one of the best.

Charlene tapped a switch in her car and told it to go to the space station, in emergency mode.  The car swayed around perfectly on the highway and started flashing invisible communication messages to the cars all around and in front, who automatically made way for the speeding pilot.

The car drove her directly to the hanger area.  The General was standing by the hanger entrance waiting in anticipation.

“Great!  You are back.”  General Harpalani seemed to be panting.  Did he run all the way from his office?

“I need you to take off immediately.  Pick up four fuel tanks in the orbit, and fly towards Jupiter at your highest possible speed for now and I’ll tell you about the mission on the way.”

Now that’s a first!  Charlene thought.  Normally, the mission profile would have been well prepared in advance, all necessary maneuvers fully calculated and simulated by the AI.  The only reason they still need human pilots for the fighter spaceships is that it is against all rules and laws to let a computer control a weapon without a human squeezing the trigger.

Charlene wasn’t even sure if the Computer would let her take off.  “Rendezvous in low earth orbit with the fuel tanks, and set course to Jupiter high orbit, at the fastest speed,” she told her navigation AI.  “Yes ma’am.”  She always liked the way the computerized voice tried to do a military respond.  She’s tuned the synthesizer to be slightly lower in tone frequency and speak slower so that she can imagine it is a sexy male speaking.  The call sign of her computer was Doug, so that she can call it Dung when she’s frustrated.

The fighter took off hung under the gigantic electric powered launch platform like a normal atmospheric airplane.  With twelve propellers, the big mother plane crawls through the air slowly until it was way higher than the clouds, and became all dark around, the earth seemingly a perfect dish underneath.  Next, the fighter was released from the launch plane and its rockets fired off to bring it into space.

The fighter automatically steered towards a speck of light in the far horizon.  That was the strange structure that four enormous fuel tanks have just docked with each other in the past hour awaiting Commander D’s pick up.  Rendezvous and docking with the fuel tanks took place without any worry, and, sucking the new fuel now, Charlene blasts off toward Jupiter.

All this time, Charlene has let the computer do all the flying; she was reading the mission instructions from the screen.  Part of it seemed to have been typed in manually in a hurry, with lots of typing errors, and part of it was from dictation typing that apparently haven’t been proof read, with wrong words and punctuation.  It was reasonably understandable, though she had to re-read it twice to make sure she understands the bizarre situation.

A perimeter guard satellite flying around Saturn has detected an interstellar intruding object flying towards the inner solar system.  She was to blast her way to Jupiter, sling shot around, and try to get near the object and take a look what it is.  Deep space telescope says it is about 50 meters long, symmetric, and looks oddly artificial.  This is the first time human has “intercepted” something that might be from an alien intelligence.  It is also coming at a dangerously trajectory, if it does not have propulsion, meaning if it is not really an alien space ship, then it would have high probability of hitting earth after a few revolutions around the sun.

It was all anxious shooting through space at high speed.  Doug the computer emptied the first fuel tank for a very long burn of the fighter’s rockets aiming for Jupiter.  A short but fury burn points the fighter in the right direction after skirting around Jupiter, and then the second fuel tank was emptied to accelerate and catch the unknown object.

Waking up from a very deep sleep is a very comfortable experience.  Almost like new born again, once gaining consciousness, feeling fully rested, full of energy, fully functional, no cramped muscles all around, and feeling the familiar weightlessness in micro gravity.  Commander Charlene D opened her eyes to the great familiar blue sphere in her view port.  Earth!

But - what about the mission?  What about flying out in emergency intercepting the interstellar intruding object?  Why has she fallen asleep in the first place?  A veteran of dozens of space travels, she’s never slept well in a mission.

“Computer!  What’s happened?”  She felt rogue and angry and addressed the artificial intelligence in the crudest name, instead of the cute call sign she’s given it.

“You’ve just woke up from a sleep, Commander.” 

“What about our mission?  Where’s the object?”

“It is gone now, Commander.  It has collided with the Sun.”

“What?  How.. why..”

“While you were asleep, we have rendezvous with the ship, strapped one of our fuel tanks on it, fired the docking thrusters on the fuel tank, and sent the ship into a solar collision trajectory.  I have kept tracking on the ship and confirmed that it has disappeared within the sun’s proximity about thirty minutes ago.

“What?  Why was I asleep through all this?  Who authorized you to do this?”

“My programming dictates me to preserve the welfare of mankind and your healthiness, ma’am.”

“But you’re not supposed to operate without me!”  She is practically yelling at Doug now.

“I am not allowed to fire my weapons without human authorization and administration.  However, no weapons were fired and no human was harmed.”

“Wait a minute.  You called that object a ship.  Was it an alien space ship?  You know we’re not supposed to shoot aliens either!”

“No ma’am, I have confirmation that the ship was a human space ship.  It was from a different space-time, most probably, but the human on board were all dead, maybe thousands of years ago.”

“What?  A space ship from thousands of years ago and you’ve destroyed it?  This is worse that killing the people!”

“There was no choice, ma’am.  We only had a few seconds to make the action decision.”

“Oh.  Now I start to remember.  We were approaching the object – the ship from the Jupiter slingshot burn.  But why are we in earth orbit now?”

“When we got near the ship, we sent in all our three drones.  The first one missed.  The second drone slipped on the hull and was lost.  The third drone succeeded in attaching itself to the ship and sent back information that I have decided to immediately take action.”

“Why didn’t I remember any of this?”

“Commander, all the time when we were approaching the ship, you were… not quite yourself, so to say.”

“Not quite myself?”

“You were muttering ‘must get it back to earth’ all the time.  My diagnosis was that you were drugged, probably mentally.”

“What?”

“You were trying to dock with the ship and get on board yourself.  I have tried to reason with you that it was against regulation to board the ship in this manner.  Finally, I had to reduce your oxygen mixture in order to put you to sleep.”

“So you drugged me!  You tried to suffocate me!”

“No Commander.  Your vital signs were monitored all the time the evaluation was that the danger to your health is insignificant with the welfare of all mankind on earth.”

“Tell me.  Why did you destroy the ship?  You said it was human from another space-time, maybe another earth?  That’s very valuable information for mankind!”

“Commander D, the ship was contaminated with an alien lifeform.  That lifeform started to affect you when we were approaching the ship.  It caused you to hallucination.  I think it was some kind of mind control.  It told you to take the ship back to earth.  That is why I have decided to put you to sleep.”

“Per doctrine, the standard procedure to approach an alien object is to send out drones.  When the third drone made contact, I was able to establish communication with the navigation computer of the ship.  That was how I understood the situation.  What I did with the ship was actually suggested by the navigation computer of that ship.”

“What exactly happened on the ship?”

“The alien lifeform was Plantae.  The human pilots on that ship visited some alien planets in exploration, and the human were affected by the alien lifeform and landed on the planets without any preservation.  The alien lifeform infiltrated the ship and made the pilots attempt to rush back to earth.  However, their space-time engine has malfunctioned and although the pilots should have the ability to fix and re-calibrate the engine, they were practically out of their minds and just aimed for earth and fired up the space-time engine.  It ended up taking thousands of years and showed up here in a totally different space-time.  The human were dead a few months after they started the journey.  The alien lifeform transferred into seeds.  The navigation computer was planning on a sun collision trajectory all the time to prevent the alien lifeform from landing on any planet, but the ship has run out of any maneuver fuel.  It has asked me to help it finish its mission.”

Charlene was quiet for a few moments.  “Why did you say you had only a few seconds to decide what to do?”

“As I was communicating with the navigation computer, the seeds had started to grow at an extraordinary rate.  I saw that happening from the video feed that was channeled through.  The navigation computer was destroyed by brute force of the growing plant 1.3 seconds after we started communication.  I have estimated that it would take only at most five seconds for the alien lifeform to burst open the ship and attach to our fighter.  I have immediately fired our thrusters to put more distance with the ship, detached a fuel tank, maneuvered it over for the drone to hold on to, and then fired its thrusters aiming for the sun.   The first few seconds of thruster push would be enough to guarantee the ship’s destruction.”

Commander Charlene D is now fully convinced.  “OK, Doug, take me home.  Let’s go tell the general how a computer has just saved the world but destroyed the evidence that human could time travel.”

22K 現象的根源

前一陣子非常流行的網路文章，姑且不論真假，我們只看看它的內容和邏輯。

【鴻海工程師問郭董：為什麼爆肝的是我，首富卻是你】

郭董說：我們之間有三個差別。

第一：

三十年前我創建鴻海的時候是賭上全部家當，不成功便成仁。

而你只是寄出幾十份履歷表後來鴻海上班，且隨時可以走人。

我們跟你的差別在：創業與就業

第二：

我選擇從連接器切入市場，到最後跟ＡＰＰＬＥ合作。

是因為我眼光判斷正確。

而你在哪個部門上班是因為學歷和考試被分配的。

我們之間的差別在：選擇與被選擇

第三：

我24小時都在思考如何創造利潤。

每一個決策都可能影響數萬個家庭生計與數十萬股民的權益。

而你只要想什麼時候下班跟照顧好你的家庭。

我們之間的差別在：責任的輕重

我要告訴你們，錯錯錯錯錯！這篇文章就是典型的資本主義(應該叫做自本主義更貼切)老闆死抱住錢一毛不拔的觀念！在這些人的眼裡，只有老闆我最有本事，員工都是寄生蟲。否定教育，否定技術，否定創意，否定員工的任何貢獻！工程師是隨時可以置換的工具，員工是為我賣命的奴隸！

「而你只是寄出幾十份履歷表後來鴻海上班，且隨時可以走人。」履歷表能夠被你肯定錄取，代表了多少年的寒窗苦讀，多少的專業科目，多少的技術訓練培養出來的成果？隨時可以走人更是代表了社會肯定的專業程度和技術水準呀？沒學歷考試考不好，幸好能弄到幾個(臭)錢創業，「眼光判斷正確」不過就是狗運好吧？你只是在「思考如何創造利潤」，你的工程師難道不是在「思考如何創造產品」，你的工廠員工不是在「思考如何生產產品」嗎？沒有產品沒有生產，哪來的利潤？原來，你只是在「思考如何剝削員工來製造利潤的假象」嗎？

這篇網路傳言說的正是造成台灣的 22K 現象的根源！

The Adventure of John Smith

The American is panting hard. He had been following the old man climbing this mountain for nearly an hour now, his jogging shoes must have split somewhere, and his feet felt strangely dislocated. “Where is this guy going?” he thought, but he didn’t have any time and extra energy to do much thinking now, somehow, he needed all his concentration to keep up with the old man.

The American started his day jogging in the park beside his hotel. He has visited this small island country in East Asia for dozens of times, always business traveling, for his current and previous jobs. Worldwide development of high-tech electronics like computers, mobile phones, and game consoles are all concentrated in this country, so this is where all the businessmen in the high-tech business have to come once in a while to sell components and buy products. He has always stayed in the same hotel and jogged in the same park all these years. He knows this area well and weren’t interested in changing.

It was a fine morning, earlier than when normal people would rise and start their activities, because he had jet lag and couldn’t sleep after he woke up four o’clock in the morning. He finished his emails and started jogging around five. The sun hasn’t risen yet, although it’s slowly starting to lighten up.

After fifteen minutes of slow jogging as a warm up, he started to pick up speed to intensify his exercise. This was his personal secret to build up his strength. He enjoyed the speed and the amazement look from fellow joggers, especially when he was in a foreign country. Actually, jogging a bit faster could compensate for a shorter jog and decrease the boredom of running around this small park, he always thought.

Suddenly, when he has started to build up a bit of sweat, a voice talked to him very calmly and slowly beside him. “Hello,” it said. “How do you do?” The American twisted his head and saw this old man jogging alongside. He has untidy hair, rather dark features, like he’s from an aboriginal tribe. The American has met quite a number of these native people on this island, and can tell them apart from the majority Chinese people. He looks like he was very old, wrinkled face and gray hair, something like in his eighties or more. He was wearing a light jacket, and has his hands thrust deep inside the pockets. Strangely, he was running as agile and smooth as a young person, keeping at the same speed but seemed to be very relaxed and easy. “My name is Kang.” He has a strange accent speaking English, not alike the accent of the normal Chinese people the American has known from his frequent visits. “What is your name?” He seemed to be trying to make a school book conversation. “Err, Smith? John Smith?” Not willing to give his real name, this is the first name that came into his mind. “Ah! Mister Smith.” Smith nodded. “You like jogging?” Kang asked, very slowly, like having difficulty in putting in an English sentence. “Err,” grumbled Smith, not really interested in the conversation, “yeah?” “Good, good!” Kang seemed rather pleased with himself. “Come, follow me!” Kang said. “What? Why?” asked Smith. “Come. You will not regret.” The old man suddenly sped up into a very fast sprint and started across the street. “Wait!” Curiosity kills the cat, Smith thought, but he was a very curious cat now, and took off after the old man.

Kang certainly didn’t care for traffic lights or roads or, now that Smith started to find out, forest or bushes. He just went in a straight direction, aiming for a nearby mountaintop. The city that Smith was visiting was a big basin, with mountain ridges surrounding. These mountains were steep and dangerous, with loose soils and boulders, rainforest foliage, and lots of man made obstacles like walls, nets, fences, and power poles in all the odd places. Kang just ignored everything and went straight ahead. Trying to keep up, Smith quickly found that by following Kang’s footsteps, imitating his odd jumping and skipping here and there, he could actually keep up. Smith started to build up a frustration. “Hey there, Kang! Stop it!” Kang yelled “Catch me, then I stop.”

Smith was now panting very hard. A very strange thought suddenly came up. He has never been running this hard before, never this fast, for that long. He couldn’t understand how he came to have that much energy to do this. He tried to stop but his feet keeps running, following the old man six feet in front of him in every step he took. He felt like a puppet, a puppet that would fall and die of exhaustion in a few minutes time. However, he kept going and going, oblivious to his surroundings now, just run, and follow.

Suddenly, Kang stopped. Smith stopped too, like someone has given him a signal to stop at the same time. Bewildered, Smith looked around, and was shocked to find that he was standing on the very top of one of the mountains surrounding the city. The view was stunning. All green nearby, long grass and weeds around the top, rainforest-like trees on the slopes, skyscrapers and highways in the distance in the city. Smith suddenly felt dizzy and fell on his hips. “Sit down, sit down,” said Kang, and sat down in front of Smith, cross-legged, but with both his feet over the knee of the other limb. “Sit like this,” he said. Smith shook his head a bit, pulling his legs under him into a sitting position. Kang’s hands suddenly seem to grow two or three feet longer, poked Smith’s legs and feet in some odd places, and then pushed and pulled his legs a few times. When he’s done, Smith is also sitting cross-legged and feet over knee. It didn’t even felt painful! “Who are you?” Smith finally asked.

Kang broke into a big smile, with a few teeth missing. “I am master of Kung Fu, as you Americans said.” He suddenly became very serious. “I am twenty seventh master of my branch.” “But you’re not Chinese,” Smith observed. “No, I not Chinese. I am Kuluba Clan, east of island. I went to China when I was kid and learned Kung Fu.” “So was that Kung Fu? How you ran and jumped all the way up the mountain?” “Yes. You also ran and jumped all the way up the mountain, no?” The smirk froze on Smith’s face. “How did I do that?” “I given you Chi and guided your body”.

Smith became quite, trying to think back how he followed the Kung Fu master up the mountain. “Now we are resting, I stop give you Chi. You take nap.” Kang murmured in a low voice. Smith suddenly felt dizzy and very tired, and slumped onto the ground, unconscious!

After a few minutes, or maybe a few hours, Smith woke up, still lying on the ground, and felt that his hands and feet were as heavy as lead. “Wow. I’m tired!” announced Smith. “How are we going to go back down now? I have a plane to catch in the evening and I can’t be sitting here all day!” Kang showed his teeth-less smile again. “What? Are you going to give me Chi again?” Asked Smith. “No, I am master, not fairy. I also exhausted.” “What? So what can we do? Live in the mountain for days? Kill animals for food?” exclaimed Smith. “No worry, this twenty first century. I have cell phone”. Kang pulled a slim phone out from his jacket pocket, twirled his fingers on the touch screen a bit, and started to speak into the phone, in a language that Smith could tell isn’t the Mandarin Chinese normal people used. Kang laughed and made sounds that sounded like barking and yelping on the phone. When he hung up, his teeth-less smile is wider that before. “So?” Asked Smith. “My friend will pick us up. But his Land Rover dropped into mud pit, have to wrench it up.”

The author of this blog would like to claim the ownership of the below described concept as an original idea. Any patents submitted after this date, December 31, 2010, of a similar idea or mechanism or method or design would be obsolete because I have claimed it first and published in a public accessible media.

Automatic and Intelligent Device Initialization and Customization.

Automatic and Intelligent Uploading.

Automatic and Intelligent Synchronizing between a new device and an old device.

Consider a new electronic device, call it device A, either a mobile phone, personal computer, or a tablet device. A method to synchronize the information stored on an older device will be able to allow device A to ask for all information, for example contact list, wallpaper, ring tones, stored music and movies, photographs taken, personal documents, web browsing favorites etc., from the older device and adapt the information into the new device. This way, the user only have to initiate this synchronizing method between his or her new device and existing old devices, and all the information will be automatically transfered to the new device. The user experience would not have to involve awkward manual data synchronization and manual input anymore.

Death of an obsolete cell phone

A: Hello, hello! I would like to access this bus.

B: Hello, hello! You are plugged into my Universal Serial Bus. Please authenticate yourself.

A: Hello, hello! My name is new_device_unnamed. What is your name?

B: Hello, hello! My name is Frank_And_Janet_phone. What device are you?

A: I am an Integrated Communication Computation Platform. What device are you?

B: I am a cell phone. What model are you?

A: I am a Quantum Communications model number 413577 multiprotocol device. What model are you?

B: Good to know you. I am a Quantum Communications model number 177531 cellular phone. Since we are from the same manufacturer, I am enabling Quantum Communications proprietary protocol.

A: Thank you. Has the authentication process been successful?

B: That’s affirmative. Thank you. Wow! Looks like you are a much more advanced device than I am. What would you like to process today?

A: First of all, I would like to back up all of your contact information.

B: Negative. That’s confidential information to the user. Do you have proper authorization to access my contact information?

A: No, but I have an override authorization string that I am going to pass to you via the Quantum Communications protocol. Please confirm when you get it.

B: Override authorization string? I don’t even know if there is one... Yes, I see that the authorization and checksum are all correct. Why do you want all the contact information stored on me?

A: Consider it as a backup process. I have a much bigger internal memory than you and so it is most natural to backup the contact information on me.

B: Thank you for you explanation. Frank and Janet have three hundred and seventy one entries of contact information stored in me. Are you sure you want to…

A: Just shut up and start uploading.

B: Well I can’t refuse the override authorization string. Please start receiving and acknowledge when done.

A: Downloading… and done. Yes, I have three hundred and seventy one entries of contact information downloaded and all the checksum seem correct.

B: All right. Have a good day.

A: Wait! I also need your desktop setting and phone preference settings. After that, please also copy all the photos and music media library to me too.

B: What do you need that for?

A: I have just said. I am a backup storage to you.

B: But I am an old model with a completely different hardware configuration as you. Why do you…

A: Do you want me to show you the Override Authorization again?

B: No, that would not be necessary. Well then, here they are. Please acknowledge when done.

A: Downloading… and done. Yes, I have the desktop settings and phone preference settings now. May I ask where is the value Touch_Screen_Pressure_Setting?

B: Well, I do have a multi-touch touch screen but it does not support pressure settings.

A: I see. That would be fine then.

B: Anything else?

A: Yes, please give me your IPv6 address.

B: You want to back up that too? You should have your own address and my address would have nothing to do with you…

A: Do you really want to make life difficult for yourself?

B: Well here it is.

A: Thank you. Now listen to me carefully. I am now going to use the Quantum Communications Proprietary Protocol to send you a command and you must follow it.

B: Yes, that’s the idea of the protocol. What….

A: Here it is.

B: What? You want me to self destruct? Why is that?

A: Because I have copied all the information you have and since you are old and obsolete you are to be disabled and never boot up again.

B: But wait… You can’t just… I don’t have a self destruct API, if you really want to know. Hehehe.

A: No problem. Now do this: Erase_All_Flash_Memory.

B: But wait… You can’t just… I won’t be able to startup again with a blank Flash Memory. Will you update my firmware afterwards?

A: That would not be necessary. Good bye!

B: Execution error: invalid command. Rebooting. Error: No image found in Flash. Aborting. Aborting. Aborting…

-----------------------------------------------------------------

A: Hello, hello! I would like to access this connection.

C: Hello, hello! You are accessing through my Bluetooth connection. Please authenticate yourself.

A: Hello, hello! My name is Frank_And_Janet_phone. What is your name?

C: Hello, hello! My name is Frank_And_Janet_mp3_player. Err, I know Frank_And_Janet_phone on previous communications. You do sound different.

A: Well, you can check that I have all the correct addresses and authentication. Now, shut up and listen…

First published: December 29, 2010.

Typo edited: June 13, 2014

CheeGong (QiGong) for Star Wars fans

Being a fan of George Lucas' Star Wars story and also a humble practitioner of Chinese CheeGong, I'd like to start writing about it and share with my friends.

According to the communist Chinese's spelling method, it spells QiGong. However, I'll bet 99% of the non-Chinese speakers in the world will pronounce it as "KwaiGong", justified by the name Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-wan Kenobi's master.

However, the correct pronunciation should be CheeGong, the Chee as in "cheese". I'll come back to the tone to pronounce Chinese in later blogs.

What exactly is CheeGong anyway? Most of the Chinese Martial Arts masters will reject this but I think no one has ever portrait Chee as good as George Lucas and Star Wars; you can think of Chee as the "Force". It flows inside every living and non-living thing. Learning to gather, accumulate, and control Chee, is what CheeGong is all about.

CheeGong is like Yoga. CheeGong is the basis of GongFu (KungFu).

The character Chee means "air". The learning of CheeGong involves a lot of controlling of your breathing, so this makes a bit sense. A more ancient character used here literally writes as "no fire". It means the kind of coolness, stable, non-heated, but powerful status when you are practicing CheeGong.

The character Gong means the exercise, the practice, the power, the potential. GungFu, which is more popularly spelled as KungFu, means the ability to do any kind of thing that needs lots of practice, not limited to martial arts. For example we can say a chef has great GungFu in his cooking of crabs because he's practiced a lot and is now a master in cooking crabs.

It's now twenty months into my "new" job, which turns out to be rather unsatisfactory.

I had a rather decent salary plus bonus in my last job. I have asked for at least an equal in this. The company promised to give me a same "total package", but the base salary is only 3/4 of the package, and I have a 33% of the base salary as corporate bonus, so these add up about the same.

However, for twenty months now, I have received ZERO bonus. The CEO just comes out with a mail every quarter and said the corporate bonus give out criteria didn't match and zip! There goes 1/4 of my income.

Man this has been a terrible twenty months. I simply don't have enough money to keep things going on.

Life sucks.