Grendel programming in C. (click for full size)
Oh the pain of reintegrating into the real world! Every step of my paranormal exploration had to be undone! I changed my name and burnt my past. I rejected my metaphysical learning and experience and discovered computers. It all began with an Apple IIe at the local library. Science fiction had arrived! A few loops in Basic and I was hooked.
I went back to Uni. And there for those few years I was free to fly! Some special power there denied my curse. For the only time in my life. My doom was silent! Wiiiiiiiiiii!
I mastered all my subjects and felt the secrets so close that I could touch them. Maths was fun and I loved Fourier transforms into Hilbert Space. Finally I found teachers who knew their stuff and it was exhilarating!
I was there when the first IBM PCs arrived. The world changed overnight! We latched onto those machines like the Word Of God! I programmed and programmed: C, Pascal, Assembler, Lisp, Cobol, Prolog... Software engineering, recursion, data structures, processors, microcode, hardware, operating systems, signals and systems, cybernetics... One arcane world replaced by another.
But coursework was but one aspect of my liberation. There were computer games, computer tools, home computers & computer peripherals. And then there were my classmates: A brighter class of friends. Friends to last for many years. Friends with whom to discuss the arcane. At last: Fellow monsters of the mind! The Ancient Art Of War, Space Quest, Zork, Wizardry; the die was cast! A lover of RPGs from that day on. Soon proper D&D...
Grendel drinking beer. (click for full size)
I led the Computer Science drinking team. We trained hard down at the pub during lunch hour in preparation for the annual competition and almost we won! I threw up the excess, still cold, into the drum. Then duty called and I rocked up to electronics prac, plastered beyond all hope. I acted inappropriately... Then, I rode home and almost hit a stationary car...
We are the boys from old Swinburne, we've got the biggest balls of all!
Our arms are the strongest! Our dicks are the longest!
We have no pride at all, for
We are the boys from old Swinburne, we've got the biggest balls of all!
When we see a sheila, we always wanna feel'er.
We have no pride at all, for
We are the boys from old Swinburne, we've got the biggest balls of all!
La Marseillaise! Those were the days! When men ruled the campus and did as they liked. When student union fees went on beer, bands and a good time! Proud we were to perpetuate the male traditions of a hundred years! Then the feminists took over and the male culture was destroyed overnight. Gone forever! Those misandrist vandals had no idea what they were wrecking. They didn't understand it so they killed it. "What has the Patriarchy done for us?" Only built the entire world in which you stand; seen and unseen. Philistines!
I moved on but modern physics was closed to me and I found it frustrating. My best loved subject had betrayed me. Though empirically correct, Special Relativity was clearly wrongly founded and the derivations were unconvincing. Einstein's most of all... I dipped into Schrödinger's equation but a 1 dimensional potential well was clearly absurd. Why? We don't live in 1 dimension and where are the edges of the well in the real world?...
Again I moved on. I concentrated on computing and electronic circuits and topped my course. I developed true AI in the final year without recourse to neural nets. It was decades ago that I solved the problem of consciousness but no one understood. I sent a paper off for publication but it was rejected by the blind.
"Morons! Caterpillars! Philosophasters!" The bell tolled again! "This world is not yours! You will never achieve recognition!" I heard the toll this time but still hoped to rise above the curse. Ah the optimism of youth!
I worked at R&D part time in those years and we wrote C libraries for the first touch sensitive screen, hand-held device device back in '89. Long before the iPhone. The future was bright but just before graduation the boss went mad, cut the project and I was fired. The dead hand of God showed its power once again.
I wore the gown and took my degree. A proud day for my parents.
Surely the world was my oyster now!