Poppy's Front Porch - in the Missouri Ozarks

Poppy's Front Porch - in the Missouri Ozarks
This photo was taken in 1949. My cousins and I remember the porch after our grandfather walled it in, added a door and big screen windows.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Micro story # 2 - Involvement



“Tom, I was already practicing on one of the big machines next door when they moved me, and I was starting to make progress.  Can you get me moved back over there, or can you get me an interface for over here?”

“I’ll have to check, Bob.  I’ll see what I can do.”

I knew Tom was good to his word, but it might take several minutes.  I don’t like to just sit and do nothing, not when I’m here being paid to work.  I can daydream at home.

Right in front of me on my desk was, of all things, an electric typewriter.  I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I’ve gotten more practical use out of my typing class than all the other high school classes.  The only sheet of paper I saw in the whole room was the one in my typewriter.  The room itself, though older and obviously smaller than the room next door, was kept in good repair.  It looked to have been cleaned within an inch of its life; if there was any more paper here, it was well hidden.

So I typed some practice lines.  None of this silly “quick brown foxes come to the aid of their country” practice stuff would do.  I thought, how about a fake weekly report?
 
Mon.:  1000 units shipped (16 returned)
Tue.:    812 units (Eric’s last day; party ensued) 
Wed.:  1204 units (made up for Tuesday)

That’s as far as I got.

Right then, a young woman (who looked like she could have been my daughter’s twin), walked into the room and stood at my left.  “Tom said to give you this, and you’ll need to work from here for now.”

The interface was a combination face mask and goggles, with what looked like a chin guard.  So I put it on, and was surprised to see a power on light and the outline of a keyboard appear a few feet in front of me.  Surprised and relieved.  I was concerned that the image might appear right on the goggles, far too short a distance for me to focus.

“Okay Bob, first look towards the blank wall straight ahead, it’s less distracting.  Next, what you’re going to want to do is reach your fingers to the chin piece.  Watch the keys in the image in front of you, and touch your fingers to the home row keys, just like back in typing class.”

When I touched the chin piece, I saw an image of my fingers.  When I was positioned on the home row, red dots of light appeared on my “fingernails”.

“Hold that steady until it registers.”

The red dots disappeared.

“Now, set your password.  The first letter is your initial.  The next bit you choose, five or six characters, something you can remember.  Then the numbers…18614 for today.  That will change fairly often, and we’ll tell you.  And that’s it.  I see you’ve been practicing.  Cute.”

She flicked the top left corner of my typewritten page with her finger (snap!) and my fake report text went away somehow.  She pushed the typewriter towards the back of my desk.  “Use the space in front here.”

“So I don’t have to tap the chin piece now?”

“No, just at the first of the shift to register.  Touch the top of the desk.  The interface assumes left pinkie = a, left ring finger = s, left middle finger = d, and so on.  Touch typing, right?  Stretch your fingers out to reach the other letters, numbers, symbols and like that.  All you need is a light touch.  In fact, if you watch the experienced people, they’re pretty much motionless.  They stretch their fingers to reach the letters and numbers, but they hardly move their hands at all.  You’ll pick up on it fast.”

She added, “Not everything you key in will make sense, not consciously.  Don’t worry about that, it will be all right anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you might type, ‘It will be orange except when it’s level’.  That’s one I did yesterday.  And there will be small stray groups of letters and numbers.  It might actually be ‘except L5X when it’s NY30*T level’.  Don’t do any editing, leave all that it; it’ll be used.  Remember, you now have access to a slightly different part of your mind.  Things you don’t realize.”

I recalled their motto, “Not knowing, you know”.  And I wondered how it was that I had this “slightly different mind access” here; maybe they put something in the water.  Or in the vending machines.  Probably both.

“Computers don’t have minds like that, so we people have to be involved.  Just go flat out as fast as you can.  Have no doubts.”

“Oh, one more thing.  Sometimes you’ll see an image in front of you, like an aerial photo in 3D.  Let the lights appear where they need to be.  You’ll find your fingers are typing five digit numbers.  Don’t fight it and don’t stop, that’s good raw data the computer needs.”

“So, you okay to start?”

“I’m good.”

It took me a while to get up to speed.  The first line was gibberish.
Eiouy ert6pip wopo  ty7upwen  i0p-sjhe0 uit6pj  tpy  euiop; t ws0elmj t08ul;j0w tgujppw 8-

The second line, more gibberish.  At least, mostly.
9078 John we’re up w0[j0] top without mph pjs-e7u parent day.  Bjhpdf took down pi’;’ west pocket u

Then something interesting.
“Your Calcium number will not double.”