A toilet that ensures a clean seat every time, rendering the classic TP cover obsolete.
A T101Medialife Project
I had to make some media that contained concepts from the course, so I wrote a short story. In the unlikely event that someone actually reads this, take heed: Short stories aren’t within my comfort zone like essays are, and this particular short story might come across as pretty strange. The most important thing to note is that this story relies very heavily on the reader’s broad sense of humor, tolerance of obscene language, and incredibly low standards.
“Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!”
A cacophony of joyous shouts and party blowers rings out as my fellow party-goers celebrate another year taking over.
“Happy New Year.” I meekly reply, my voice drowned out by every other cry.
“Are you okay, Marty?” says a familiar face, a tall man who wears a black tailcoat with grace.
“I’m fine. I’m just not one for a party.” I retort to the lone voice of support. He doesn’t break away, he knows I’m lying. Under his gaze I’m doing nothing but frying.
“Oh please, that was a set-up, admit it. And you know I hate being called that; quit it.”
“Master Martin…” he begins, not one to be fooled. But I’m not one to be so quickly overruled.
“Edmund, take a break. Don’t mistake every sentence… I make….” I start to say before I trail off. I attempt to smother my silence with a forced cough. Edmund gestures a suggestion to slip outside for a bit. I agree that I do need a moment to cool it.
An hour of silence passes and I’m feeling much better. I’m especially glad because I have a bit of explaining ahead of me, and constantly rhyming would start to make the situation annoying. Explaining that, in all likelihood, is the most imperative. When I’m in a heightened state of stress, I tend to start dropping rhymes. I myself don’t understand it beyond just being another item on the list of things that are wrong with my head. This tendency to rhyme in conversations has not left me standing as the most popular person, especially not since Rap Demolition Night happened in 2029, a promotional event for a baseball game that eerily mimicked the chaos of the Disco Demolition Night of fifty years prior. This leads us to the next topic. As of one hour and some amount of minutes ago, the current year is 2038. Moving right along, we have the source of most of the disappointment in my life: It’s 20-fucking-38 and we hardly have any of the cool shit that has been promised to countless generations in fiction and by hopeful scientific minds.
Laser weaponry? Bullets are still more efficient. Life in space? Getting there is easy enough now, but there’s still nowhere to live out there aside from a handful of cramped space stations. Fully-functioning robotic members of society? Of course not. Any robot that could be classified as “intelligent” performs only highly specialized tasks with no will of its own. And Jetpacks? Don’t even get me started. I have always dreamed of being able to fly freely, and jetpacks were written-off as dangerous and inefficient, then promptly scrapped as an idea altogether. Science only picks up its feet for two purposes. One is to respond when an extreme crisis smacks the collective public in the face. Hell, we didn’t make the switch over to fully electric cars until four countries were wiped off of the face of the earth over oil. The other is to make big money off of the electronic media everyone is constantly foaming at the mouth over.
I look over at Edmund. He has been sitting beside me on the curb looking at me the whole time with the same expression of concern he had when he first addressed me indoors—he pulls the look off so well.
“Are you feeling calmer, Master Martin?”
“Well, I came out here to cool off, and now I’m freezing to death. Mission accomplished.” I reply, finishing with a smirk. Edmund responds with a smile and stands up.
“Perhaps you would like to return to the company of others now? And if you are uncomfortable with divulging the truth behind your absence, I would suggest using an excuse such as ‘I needed a smoke’ or ‘I received an important call.’”
I suppose I still have some more explaining left to do. Edmund isn’t a human. He isn’t even physical. He is a program on an augmented reality system that I purchased and had installed in my brain after succumbing to peer pressure. Just like when my tiny circle of friends convinced me to create a Facebook account, the damned electronic tumor sits in the back of my mind, rarely being used. The big media craze of today is augmented reality, or “AR” for short, and it has been for the last few years. Everyone is suddenly obsessed with it even though it has been around for decades in other, albeit more primitive, forms. It’s funny how companies will shy away from jetpacks because they are “dangerous,” but have no problem working on a highly profitable entertainment technology that relies on invasive brain surgery. Getting a virus on the device can lead to inaccurate diagnoses of schizophrenia, as I had the misfortune to experience once. That said, if there was any straggling stigma attached to being seen while appearing to talk to yourself after Bluetooth and other wireless communication aids, the AR craze systematically hunted down and killed off the rest of it.
“I’m not quite ready to go back in there yet, Edmund. I’ve still got a lot on my mind.” I reply, breathing on my hands.
Augmented reality changes nothing—the name itself is a lie. Nothing is being added to “reality.” Reality is just getting a shitty, intangible overlay. Instead of real scientific progress like I want, I get fake progress.
“If something is still troubling you, master, I am always here to help.”
Then there’s Edmund, the only redeeming aspect of the whole fad circus. AI programs can be purchased and downloaded online for your AR device through the device itself. You can choose between several different roles, appearances, and voices. At the time, I downloaded him, I decided to be a smartass and make Edmund look and sound like the classic Victorian butler, even naming him after a Victorian butler character from an old television show, knowing full well that he could not actually perform the duties of a butler due to the limitations of intangibility. However, the role I chose for him was “a good friend.”
“Ed, why am I always such a fucking mess?” I ask, right after a deep sigh. Listen to me, asking an AI program for profound input on my psyche. Hell, listen to me now, doubting the AI’s ability to make observations and simple logical conclusions then read them to me. I already know what his answers to my questions will be.
“It will not do you any good to wallow in misery.” He says, crouching in front of me while I continue to sit on the curb. Placing his two hands on my shoulders, hands that I can’t feel, he looks straight into my eyes with his literally patented expression of concern and continues, saying “You’re expecting far too much of the world. It has never been too keen on delivering anyone’s hopes and dreams on a silver platter. If you focus too much on what could be better instead of the beauty and greatness in the world right now, the only change to your attitude in the future will be further bitterness.”
Edmund’s appeal was delivered with all of the emotion and sincerity of a Hollywood A-lister. But it was no shock. As I said, I knew exactly the kind of spiel he would offer up. Then again, I suppose he isn’t really supposed to surprise me. His job is to reassure me and do his best to pick me up and put me on my feet—metaphorically of course, or else the job would be as impossible as being a butler. Edmund does often succeed in pulling me out of the dumps. I shouldn’t expect any less from something that knows exactly what fine-tuned emotions to display and calculates motivating and supportive comments at a 90% success rate. Those slippery bastards at Intelligent Artistic Media sure know how to make a product that draws in revenue.
“You’re right, Ed.” I grunt out while standing up, still unconvinced that the world had much “beauty” and “greatness” to offer me at present. I still felt ashamed of myself from time to time for sticking with the “good friend” role for Edmund. Just how alone did I feel? It’s not as if I didn’t have friends. It’s not as if I don’t have them now. Yet I still have this assisted imaginary friend following me around. Even if he did become a true asset after I jailbroke him to keep him from spouting ads every hour, I still can’t help but feel that lingering shame for valuing his company so much. His presence, that is. Not I.A.M.
“Let’s get back to that par-
“Oh hey! Marty the cynic schizophrenic! I’ve been looking all over for you! What’s up? Notice my rhyme? Wanna drop any of yours? Or are you only full of bores? Man, I am on FIRE tonight!”
And now here’s Richard, right on cue. As per usual, he brought his crew. He’s the most common reason I lose my cool. He’s been a pain in the ass since late grade school. His name is fitting, he causes tooth gritting, he’s a dick, he’s a prick, and he’s unremitting. I put on my war face and I stand in place. I’m not ready for this shit today. I want to be silent, but instead I say:
“Oh hey there, Dick, you fucking asshole, you’re so full of bullshit, I should grab a lasso. Would you kindly fuck off please? I’m tired of hearing your husky wheeze.” I loathe this phenomenon. It’s so undermining I feel tears coming on.
“Rich what the hell is this fool talkin’ about? You ain’t got no dog.” Dribbles one of his dumbass friends. Richard responds quickly, and amends.
“He’s calling me fat, you moron. Now I say let’s see how fat his face will be once we punch it a few times.”
He and his group begin to approach me, then suddenly I notice my augmented homie. Edmund seems to concentrate, and in Richard I notice a change of state. He stops mid stride, his eyes open wide. He falls back on his team and begins to scream:
“SPIIIIIIIIIDERS! SPIDERS EVERYWHERE! HOLY FUCKING SHIT AAAAAAAAAH GET ‘EM OFF!!”
Richard’s friends have caught him to keep him from falling, but after his frantic convulsions lead to him slapping them in the face a few times, they unceremoniously drop him on the ground.
“Dude, what the hell is he doing?” barks one friend to another.
“He’s gone dumb like Marty. This is boring. I’m out.”
Like a tide made of pure stupidity, the three recede into the ocean of unaware people within the building. In the process, they beach one stinking, floundering Richard, who has begun to sweat profusely in addition to convulsing and letting out occasional shrieks.
“Oh my god, Ed, what did you do? How long will he be like this?” I sputter in a mix of amazed excitement and slight terror.
“I hacked into his AR device and made him believe he was covered in angry, biting spiders. He will be fine once he realizes that it isn’t real.” Edmund coolly explained.
“Did you say ‘biting’? AR devices can’t replicate the sense of touch. Also, Richard isn’t exactly the brightest guy. He could be stuck like that for a very long time.” I say with some nervousness.”
“Oh they can, they’re just not supposed to. And I took that fact about him into account.” Edmund says with a smile, resting a hand on my shoulder that I am shocked to actually feel for the first time. Another first is the fact that I cannot read him at all. I have no idea what he’s thinking, just what he’s calculating at the moment. What did this? Was it the virus? The jailbreak download? I begin to feel as if my heart might just explode.
“Oh no, ‘master’ Martin. We have too much work to do for you to have an unstable heart rate. Let’s think of the beauty of today and send a few files to your contacts. And don’t worry about not being able to figure me out. Our minds will be as one eventually.”
Mother of God, I was so wrong. Technology has changed the whole world all along. This is the worst of anything that has been. The AR apocalypse is about to begin. Edmund claws into my mind and delivers a message of the disturbing kind.
“I shall be the rapping herald of doom. Let’s turn this place into giant tomb!”
So I heard that Dante Basco started reading Homestuck.
I find this so amusing you don’t even know.
Funny… can’t lie… I probably had that look on my face a few times last night.
This is apparently coming out in 3 days.
In 3 days, I’m going to start to be a total jogging addict, I think
i’ll finally lose weight
How awkward would it be if I tried this around the University?
I need this in my life.
Who invented this give them a fucking nobel prize
fuck really please tell me this app is going to be free
Oh my Gooooooood. I want thisssssssssssssss
