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.txt"Or Moravec s  Pigs in Cyberspace ?""Or Galouye s Simulacron-3?""Or Vinge s deathcubes?"Now that the  twins were not in perfect synch, their words were a building,rapid-fire chorus, climaxing with:"Brin s  Stones of Significance !""Or Kiln People!""No, it couldn t be that." Abruptly they stopped, and nodded at each other.Alittle bit grimly, Dixie Mae thought.In all, the conversation was just asinscrutable as their earlier self-interrupted spasms.Fortunately, Victor was there to rescue pedestrian minds."It doesn t matter.The fact is, uploading is only sci-fi.It s worse that faster-than-lighttravel.There s not even a theoretical basis for uploads."Each Ellen raised her left hand and made a faffling gesture."Not exactly,Victor."Page 18ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlThe token holder continued, "I d say there is a theoretical basis for sayingthat uploads are theoretically possible." They gave a lopsided smile."Andguess who is responsible for that? GerryReich.Back in 2005, way before he was famous as a multi-threat genius, he hada couple of papers about upload mechanisms.The theory was borderlinekookiness and even the simplest demo would take far more processing power thanany supercomputer of the time.""Just for a one-personality upload.""So Gerry and his Reich Method were something of a laughingstock.""After that, Gerry dropped the idea just what you d expect, considering theshowman he is.But now he s suddenly world-famous, successful in half a dozendifferent fields.I think something happened.Somebody solved his hardwareproblem for him."Dixie Mae stared at her email."Rob Lusk," she said, quietly."Yup," said grader Ellen.She explained about the mail.Michael was unconvinced."I don t know, E-Ellen.Granted, we have anextraordinary miracle here "gesturing at both of them, " but speculating about cause seems to me a bitlike a sparrow understanding the 405 Freeway.""No," said Dixie Mae, and they all looked back her way.She felt so frightenedand so angry but of the two, angry was better: "Somebody has set us up! Itstarted in those superclean restrooms inOlson Hall ""Olson Hall," said Michael."You were there too? The lavs smelled like ahospital! I remember thinking that just as I went in, but hey, the next thingI remember is being on the bus, coming up here."Like a hospital.Dixie Mae felt rising panic."M-maybe we re all that s left."She looked at the twins."This uploading thing, does it kill the originals?"It was kind of a showstopper question; for a moment everyone was silent.Thenthe token holder said, "I don t think so, but Gerry s papers were mostlytheoretical."Dixie Mae beat down the panic; rage did have its uses.What can we know fromhere on the inside?"So far we know more than thirty of us who took the Olson Hall exams and endedup here.If we were all murdered, that d be hard to cover up.Let s suppose westill have a life." Inspiration: "And maybe there are things we can figure! Wehave three of Reich s experiments to compare.There arefile:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vernor%20Vinge%20-%20The%20Cookie%20Monster.txt (18 of 34) [10/18/2004 5:34:22 PM]file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vernor%20Vinge%20-%20The%20Cookie%20Monster.txt differences, and they tell us things." She looked at the twins."You ve already figured this out, haven t you? The Ellen we met first isgrading papers just a one-day job, she s told.But I ll bet that every night,when they think they re going home Lusk or Reich or whoever is doing this justturns them off, and cycles them back to do some other  one-day job.""Same with our customer support," said Victor, a grudging agreement."Almost.We had six days of product familiarization, and then our first day onthe job.We were all so enthusiastic.You re right, Ellen, on our first day weare great!" Poor Ulysse, poor me; we thought we were going somewhere with ourlives."I ll bet we disappear tonight, too."Grader Ellen was nodding."Customer-support-in-a-box, restarted and restarted,so it s always fresh.""But there are still problems," said the other one."Eventually, the lag indates would tip you off.""Maybe, or maybe the mail headers are automatically forged.""But internal context could contradict ""Or maybe Gerry has solved the cognitive haze problem " The two were off intotheir semi-private language.Page 19ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlMichael interrupted them."Not everybody is recycled [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]