other hall was that I might as well see the whole horror
story. In some small corner of my heart, I had some tiny insane hope for it to
be true. Who wouldn't?
The desktop he showed me was an ordinary
desktop, with a text editor already open. Plugged into a USB port was a bush of
brilliantly colored wires dense enough to give an electrician a heart attack,
and the wires ended in some cross between a stone tablet engraved with bizarre
lines, a robot arm, and a 3D printer. I could have sworn I saw real gold in
parts of the thing. Then again, I was within one of five tall office buildings
within the expansive gated complex, and who knew how much all that had cost.
Someone very rich must be very insane, I
thought.
"Go on," Sean said, motioning
to the chair. "Write a hello world. I recommend C++."
"Python is simpler," I said,
sitting down.
He frowned. "The Python binding
is... inefficient. But if you insist."
"Fine," I said and didn't add
that he just wanted me to work with python. My mouth had already lost me enough
jobs. "I'll use C++." I began to type.
A hello world program is considered the
most trivial program there is, one that does nothing but output "Hello,
world!" I had written more hello worlds in more ways than I could count,
and my only issue then was including the various parts of the API of the Gods
that Sean instructed me to add. The final program was bizarrely large for
something so simple.
When I finished, I went to the menu,
hovered over "build" and hesitated. "Is something wrong?"
Sean asked.
"One sec," I said. I waved at
the mass. "Is this thing safe?"
"Well, in a metaphorical or
philosophical sense, no, but—" he began.
I wasn't listening. I had been a stage
magician briefly in college, and while he was distracted looking where I did I
typed " \n\n\nFOOLS! "
over " world! "
with one careful hand behind me. "Seems good," I said, turned to the
screen, and started the build before he could react.
The strange thing began to whir and hum,
and I watched in freaked-out fascination as it began to assemble a
symbol-covered gray plastic cube. When it stopped, the guy took it out and
handed it to me. I could swear the thing it looked the most like was one of
those cuneiform tablets. Except this was a cube of gray plastic with what
looked like a printed circuit board from another dimension. The crisscrossed
"wires" were so tiny they hurt my eyes to squint at them. My finger
felt a small round hole at the top.
"Okay, this is neat, but—" I
said.
"Hold it still," he said in a
voice beyond that of a manager, like that of a distant ocean. I did what he
said. He took from his pocket a sheath and took from the sheath a needle-thin
dagger. He unrolled the shirtsleeve of his other arm and held on his arm over
the cube, and I saw tiny scars all along it. Though I was squeamish then, I
didn't flinch when he pricked a new one, and a tiny drop of shining blood
dripped through a groove in the dagger into the hole.
Let me explain. What I had expected was
some trick; some "impossibility" designed to spectacularly say
"Hello, world!" and fool a lesser mind than mine. (Yeah, I'm
arrogant. So what?) But I had specifically changed the printed string to
something else and put in a bunch of carriage returns (the ' \n 's) for good measure.
What happened was that the word
"Hello," (with comma) appeared in light and floated in front of the
cube, and down by my knee "FOOLS!" appeared and then disappeared
again.
I somehow didn't drop the cube.
"Do you believe now?" Sean
asked. He did not even seem surprised at what I had done.
I looked at him, the screen, the cube,
then again, then again. "I—can I try something else? Um, ninety-nine
bottles, the Fibonacci sequence—"
"No." The voice like an ocean
was stormy.
"But—How am I supposed to know that
this is really—" I protested.
"What I have shown you as a
demonstration could never be done with human power, nor could all humanity ever
pay for what I paid to show you this. If
story. In some small corner of my heart, I had some tiny insane hope for it to
be true. Who wouldn't?
The desktop he showed me was an ordinary
desktop, with a text editor already open. Plugged into a USB port was a bush of
brilliantly colored wires dense enough to give an electrician a heart attack,
and the wires ended in some cross between a stone tablet engraved with bizarre
lines, a robot arm, and a 3D printer. I could have sworn I saw real gold in
parts of the thing. Then again, I was within one of five tall office buildings
within the expansive gated complex, and who knew how much all that had cost.
Someone very rich must be very insane, I
thought.
"Go on," Sean said, motioning
to the chair. "Write a hello world. I recommend C++."
"Python is simpler," I said,
sitting down.
He frowned. "The Python binding
is... inefficient. But if you insist."
"Fine," I said and didn't add
that he just wanted me to work with python. My mouth had already lost me enough
jobs. "I'll use C++." I began to type.
A hello world program is considered the
most trivial program there is, one that does nothing but output "Hello,
world!" I had written more hello worlds in more ways than I could count,
and my only issue then was including the various parts of the API of the Gods
that Sean instructed me to add. The final program was bizarrely large for
something so simple.
When I finished, I went to the menu,
hovered over "build" and hesitated. "Is something wrong?"
Sean asked.
"One sec," I said. I waved at
the mass. "Is this thing safe?"
"Well, in a metaphorical or
philosophical sense, no, but—" he began.
I wasn't listening. I had been a stage
magician briefly in college, and while he was distracted looking where I did I
typed " \n\n\nFOOLS! "
over " world! "
with one careful hand behind me. "Seems good," I said, turned to the
screen, and started the build before he could react.
The strange thing began to whir and hum,
and I watched in freaked-out fascination as it began to assemble a
symbol-covered gray plastic cube. When it stopped, the guy took it out and
handed it to me. I could swear the thing it looked the most like was one of
those cuneiform tablets. Except this was a cube of gray plastic with what
looked like a printed circuit board from another dimension. The crisscrossed
"wires" were so tiny they hurt my eyes to squint at them. My finger
felt a small round hole at the top.
"Okay, this is neat, but—" I
said.
"Hold it still," he said in a
voice beyond that of a manager, like that of a distant ocean. I did what he
said. He took from his pocket a sheath and took from the sheath a needle-thin
dagger. He unrolled the shirtsleeve of his other arm and held on his arm over
the cube, and I saw tiny scars all along it. Though I was squeamish then, I
didn't flinch when he pricked a new one, and a tiny drop of shining blood
dripped through a groove in the dagger into the hole.
Let me explain. What I had expected was
some trick; some "impossibility" designed to spectacularly say
"Hello, world!" and fool a lesser mind than mine. (Yeah, I'm
arrogant. So what?) But I had specifically changed the printed string to
something else and put in a bunch of carriage returns (the ' \n 's) for good measure.
What happened was that the word
"Hello," (with comma) appeared in light and floated in front of the
cube, and down by my knee "FOOLS!" appeared and then disappeared
again.
I somehow didn't drop the cube.
"Do you believe now?" Sean
asked. He did not even seem surprised at what I had done.
I looked at him, the screen, the cube,
then again, then again. "I—can I try something else? Um, ninety-nine
bottles, the Fibonacci sequence—"
"No." The voice like an ocean
was stormy.
"But—How am I supposed to know that
this is really—" I protested.
"What I have shown you as a
demonstration could never be done with human power, nor could all humanity ever
pay for what I paid to show you this. If
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