Bug

[tylik]

I probably need to go back and review Not Alone, but I've been intrigued a bit by the choice appellation regarding the Bug. Because people have pretty much universally adopted the model that Hafs is trapped in her head with the Bug, and refer to them as separate entities.

Which may very well be accurate.

But... Hafs is a geek. Bug could be like a bug in the code, or a bug in a design. Maybe the bug isn't something that moved in with her. Maybe the bug is made out of her. (By whatever agency.)

[Elizabeth Bear]

I think Tylik gets a gold star for this one....

[Foxipher Jones]

I think Tylik gets a gold star for this one....

I agree.

[el_jefe]

I was mulling along a similar train of thought on my run today, but I didn't make the association with software.

The station it was heading to regarded the faraday cage, but it dovetails with this nicely. By cutting off her access, she is essentially stuck in her head with the bug (or the same lines of bad code). But what if they gave her a nice heavy duty server or some other rig to "lean on"? Don't allow it access to the outside (I would even use a battery power supply), and see what she does with it. Would she be able to seperate herself from the Bug with the extra space?

I would even consider giving Hafs her laptop back (minus certain bits of hardware). Techies always have backups. . . .  

[tylik]

I was mulling along a similar train of thought on my run today, but I didn't make the association with software.

The station it was heading to regarded the faraday cage, but it dovetails with this nicely. By cutting off her access, she is essentially stuck in her head with the bug (or the same lines of bad code). But what if they gave her a nice heavy duty server or some other rig to "lean on"? Don't allow it access to the outside (I would even use a battery power supply), and see what she does with it. Would she be able to seperate herself from the Bug with the extra space?

I would even consider giving Hafs her laptop back (minus certain bits of hardware). Techies always have backups. . . . 

Mm. I don't know if anything we've seen from how Hafs uses computers indicates that she can offload that kind of processing to them. Mind you, I like the idea (John Barnes' Mother of Storms did a particularly nice treatment of it, I think) but considering how brains work, and how computers work, I really have trouble seeing it. Yes, you can build an interface between the two - and Hafidha has a stellar interface. But I really don't see them running eachother's code natively. ^{I'm TAing a computational neuroscience class this semester. You have to do all kinds of weird shit to computers to get them to act even like vague approximations of actual neurons, and they don't do it that well...}

But I do think that if anyone is likely to be able to hack their own brain, it might be Hafs. And we can hack our own brains, that's pretty well demonstrated. The limits of such hacking, and the limits of such hacking in different situations, that's less well demonstrated.

Hm. Maybe someone should bring in a yoga instructor... Hm. I have a friend who is a hacker and a Zen priest...  (Well, for some definitions of hacker - he hangs in those social circles and works as a software engineer.)

I've been puzzling over the logistics of the faraday cage. I mean, she can still see the television? What's it made out of? How fine a mesh? Because I can't think of anything conductive enough that's clear, right off... (Ooo, oo! I mean, one of the guys in my lab works with conductive diamond. But... um, I don't think it works that way. That'd be so cool, though.) I've always like the mesh faraday cages best, myself, though there's the whole wavelength limitation thing. (My rig has a faraday cage made out of heavy copper foil, complete, of course, with verdigris splashes where salt water has hit it.)

[miminnehaha]

Blame any errors herein on the not-an-aop (it won't let me read what I've written) but:  thanks, Tylik, for putting it into words- a golf star from Bear, yes! I, too, have a feeling that the big is more internal disruption... I've been thinking along the lines of the anomaly resembling, not a parasite, but a cancer- disruption of integrity of pattern? The software analogy is good.
?speaking of parasites, even if I maintain that the anomaly is not- anyone know the (un)likelyhood of getting a tapeworm in midwest USA? And would it show up on an ultrasound?

[Elizabeth Bear]

Tylik: Transparent aluminum.

[Cal]

But I do think that if anyone is likely to be able to hack their own brain, it might be Hafs. And we can hack our own brains, that's pretty well demonstrated. The limits of such hacking, and the limits of such hacking in different situations, that's less well demonstrated.

We were having a conversation along similar topics a while back and I remember advancing the theory that, when she's working with her anomalability, Hafidha doesn't hack the internet as such, she hacks reality in order to be able to do her stuff.  If that's the case, it's entirely possible that she might, given time enough, be able to turn it back on herself and hack her own brain/mind.

Unless the Bug has interfered to the point where she can't, of course.

Part of the team's mythology is that the Anomaly acts to protect itself.

[Felicia1066]

Of course, another question to keep in mind is just how far we can trust anything Hafidha says - even when it appears to be "the real her" speaking. For all we know, she could've invented Bug as a monster inside her she can pretend to fight, then conquer, so they will trust her again and let her out. Or she's imagining it's there - a voice in her head. Or she antropomorphizes something that is in fact an integral part of herself, so she won't have to feel responsible for what she says or does. Or, or, or.

[el_jefe]

Tylik: Transparent aluminum.

  I was wondering what that multi billion dollar blip was in DOJ's budget this year.

[Jezabella49]

Blame any errors herein on the not-an-aop (it won't let me read what I've written) but:  thanks, Tylik, for putting it into words- a golf star from Bear, yes! I, too, have a feeling that the big is more internal disruption... I've been thinking along the lines of the anomaly resembling, not a parasite, but a cancer- disruption of integrity of pattern? The software analogy is good.
?speaking of parasites, even if I maintain that the anomaly is not- anyone know the (un)likelyhood of getting a tapeworm in midwest USA? And would it show up on an ultrasound?

If some has eaten uncooked fish (or cold processed pickled fish) it is possible.
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/volunteer/janfeb06/raw.html
There are also other sorts.

I don't have a good answer for the ultrasound question.  Yes, it might very well show up on an ultrasound, but I don't know for sure.  Quite a few other things show up on an ultrasound pointed in the right direction, so... *sigh*

[Edmund Schweppe]

FWIW, there's at least one reference to the Anomaly as a "bug" prior to "Not Alone". In Act I of "The Sin Eater":

Reyes spread his hands wide over the documents in front of him, as if he could absorb clues out of the ink through his fingertips. "Don't go into this assuming we're on a bug hunt. If we focus on the anomaly, we could miss the ordinary emerging psycho killer." Reyes might have been perfectly serious. If so, Brady was pretty sure Reyes was the only person alive who could say a sentence like that with a straight face.

[txanne]

But Reyes is a geek. Couldn't he be quoting Aliens?

[glinda_w]

But Reyes is a geek. Couldn't he be quoting Aliens?

Oh. I was thinking further back, to BEMs (Bug-Eyed Monsters), which are a... is trope the word I want?... in older Space Opera SF.

[Elizabeth Bear]

But Reyes is a geek. Couldn't he be quoting Aliens?

He might, in fact, be edging over into "nerd". He just hides it pretty well at work.

(*Both* versions of the SHAFT poster? *Stephen.* Really.)