A work in progress...
I really must do something about that alarm, a more pleasing tone that can still wake me must be found.
'Ursula, switch that thing off' I said. 'Yes Sir', replies Ursula 7, my ever faithful house server android unit (HSAU).
My HSAU (an acronym which probably makes some sense in Japanese) is based on Ursula Andreas from the 007 movie Dr No. Although she is only the second release of that unit the manufacturer has lost no time in upgrading her series number to 7, just for the tie-in with the classic 007 movies, obvious, but so are the units attributes. They're not the first company to have done such things, many years ago software companies jumped version numbers of their products, just to seem ahead of the competitions current version, at least my HSAU is the latest spec.
Ursula 7 is a very neat piece of kit, a soft supple and extremely life-like exterior house an aluminium-titanium alloyed skeleton which encases the multi-processor, multi-tasking, multi-interface system which can do the housework a small army of houseworkers for a fraction of the running costs. She never complains, never forgets a task (unless ordered to do so), is always polite and patient, and addressed me in the way in which I liked to be addressed. Talking of which, I really must do something about the default 'Sir' she came programmed with, perhaps at the same time I fix my alarm.
Time for a wake-up shower, 'Shower' I say to no one in particular. The bed responds with the first phase, an ultra-sonic course designed to clean and wake up my body without all the fuss and effort of actually having to get up out of bed and get into a contraption which would cover me with water. Any particles which should not have been there are then removed by the second phase, the nanobots, or nanobugs as the bed-living, cleaning robots are affectionately known.
To those not quite as lazy as me, the second phase of nanobots roving through the bed removing unwanted materials, dead skin, real bed bugs and other such particles, the nanobugs phase is usually skipped as they do make a lot of people nervous. Personally I rather like the idea of my own personal army of robots sanitising my environment without the use of chemicals. The idea of the nanobugs fighting in a glorious battle the other occupants of my sleep dwelling, killing off and dismembering all those microscopic life-forms which rely on us for their existence, gives me a comfortable feeling of power and control. Finally the bed finishes off with a quick ultra-sonic phase, just to shake everything up, including me.
I stumble out of the bed and still sleepy look across the room to where Ursula is waiting by the curtain control. I was planning to tie that control into the house system voice activated controls (HSVAC), but since Ursula came along I've never bothered to wire up the house, it just isn't necessary, I just tell Ursula what I want and she makes it happen, cool.
I smile at her and the curtains open, the heuristic predictive software incorporated into Ursula has already learned my habits, likes and dislikes. It seems I really am that predictable, or perhaps it's my fuzzy, chaotic manner, which makes me fit in so well with her algorithms.
I look at the nearest screen to my bed, it comes to life and displays the local weather, travel and news channels. I have multiple partitionable screens all over the place, I can move around and my favorite programs will follow me, at my mearest whim I can add or remove channels and watch any program available on the massive server farms out there in ivspace (NOTE: infovision space, or just IV, pronounced as in the name Ivy, replaced television approx 30 years ago).
Even better, I can interact with it, and even play games with other people, although I still have to get myself a full immersion suit for true virtual reality playing. Dungeons and Dragons was coming back with a vengence, until that kid was killed in the US by some kid in another country, they never did track him down, but all the VR suits got recalled and came back out at double the price. The holographics systems are still way to expensive, although the Music guy has one.
On a second screen a selection of channels lay in wait, poised to show whatever was streaming at that moment, "random watch" as its become known, to think everyone used to watch infovision this way - nuts!
"Sci-History", I said.
On the Sci-History channel there's usually a good show this time of day, all about the past but looked at from a strictly sci-tech point of view. The channel tries to be educational and funny, it works sometimes. What's on now, oh yes, I've seen this bit a few times, its a discussion between the brain stem and a neuron, the person is watching the musical film My Fair Lady and is trying to remember what the original book was called ...
The Neuron Show
Neuron, "Yawn ... what do you want"
Brain Stem, "want to know what you're holding"
"I'm holding links, you know, relationships"
"yes but you have a base idea don't you"
"yes"
"what is it"
"Pig something, hold on gotta ask my neigbours"
"get on with it then"
"hey, you woke me up, I haven't been disturbed for ages, need to wake up"
"so"
"hey buddy what are you linked to"
"Rex Harrison with suggestions of Audrey Hepburn and Julie Andrews"
"Oh yes, I remember now, Pigmalion that's me"
"Thanks"
"no problem, while we're at it he talks to the animals you know in Dr Dolittle and she sings really well, under an umbrella or something"
"It's OK we have the answer now"
"The other one has a very skinny neck"
"Thanks, but we don't need to know any more"
"You started it, you asked me for info, I am a neuron, linking is what I do, ask me one question and you always get many answers, just took me a while to remember, after all I've got more connections than atoms in the universe I have, you can get anywhere from me, try, go on have a go."
"Yes, yes, thanks anyhow."
"come back soon"
"in your dreams my little data provider"
"probably ..."
I always liked that last bit, the rest of the show wasn't so good, I usually switched over to The Simpsons channel at this point. Today I added a news feed to the right of the screen to see what was going on. The US was invading some country again, insisting they hold democratic elections which return the US backed regieme as the winner, somehow I couldn't help feeling we were all missing something there, but I just couldn't remember what it was, perhaps the Political-History channel could explain.
"Add window to screen 3 for Political-History, search for Democracy, previous century" A list of programs were displayed "Limit to European" A smaller but still very long list was dislayed, usually the searches were in most matching order, plus my personal biases "Play first one", the program started. My short attention span (I could have sworn it was longer) cut in, and I had to do something else,
"Switch to book one and continue.", I said
Ursula started to read the latest Star Wars book, book 325 or something I think, anyhow it was nice to be able to keep up with the story lines. I found it on someone's IV home and managed to get a copy before the icops scrubbed their disks. It's a game we all play, someone gets it out and the rest of us rush to get it before the icops wipe it, I don't think it harms anyone, afterall shouldn't information be free. I suppose books are different but hey, I didn't ask the guy to write it, and it's not like they use trees to distribute them anymore.
Ideas bit ... Jump Games on cylindrical space ship, person to jump from one end to other long-wise complex, needs accuracy in jumping, judgment, air resistance etc, round-wise try to land on same spot as jumped, needs v.skill in direction & timing put image (Vue generated)