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Rupert Goodwins

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Mixed Signals

Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise

Monday 21 July 2008, 7:00 AM

Science fiction nightmare reveals WiMAX as an alien plot

Posted by Rupert Goodwins

Today, I wake at 5am in something of a funk. I'd been having a bad and very vivid dream in which aliens disguised as IT marketing executives were trying to take over the world. Their technology was a combination of an MRI scanner and high speed wireless network that set up resonances in the brain and took control.

Trouble was, it didn't work very well. At the big industry launch where the aliens were going to reveal the tech and sell it to us as a great consumer boon, it became clear during the demo that it wasn't actually ready. The press conference quickly degenerated into a battle between the alien marketing directors and journalists – some of whom were taken over by the brain rays and turned on their colleagues, with varying degrees of success. During this rampage, the aliens dropped their disguise: they still looked like Americans in suits, though.

The details of the dream were rather engaging. The launch took place in a modern museum of antiquities, some of which turned out to have been planted thousands of years ago by the aliens in preparation for the take-over, and I can remember in dispiriting detail how the tech was supposed to work. I woke up just as I was being physically equipped with a dongle: I'll spare you the details, but I was very glad to find myself awake and un-modded.

It doesn't take a Freudian to untangle those themes – from the tin-foil hat brigade running scared of Wi-Fi to the tendency of the wireless industry to oversell itself on matters it doesn't really understand, it's all standard stuff. And as for aliens with Powerpoint; that makes rather more sense than Roswell ever did. I'll leave it to you to decide which journalists are really Pod People.

I don't think 7am is too early to call my therapist...


Comments on this post

J.A. Watson

Happy Monday, Rupert! Getting an early start on the week's blogging, before the demands of the new position overwhelm everything else? Such a vivid dream... I think the call to your therapist would be an excellent idea. Be sure to make it clear, however, that you want a percentage of either the psychology textbook or the B-movie that is the end result! "Plan 9" has nothing on this one!

Updated by J.A. Watson on Jul 21, 2008 8:08 AM

Rupert Goodwins

It was very movie-esque in my head, certainly. I'll put it on the stack of ideas for stories to write - if I ever manage to get out to my writerly retreat in Sweden this year, it might make a fun short.

Not sure how it'll end. Then again, who is?

Posted by Rupert Goodwins on Jul 21, 2008 8:37 AM

roger andre


That was great.....what a dream, left me wanting to know more,
would make a good movie concept as well.

It does feel like all this is actually going somewhere,could history be reaching some kind of conclusion? What will the posthistoric world be like? And finally will politics and polititians be sidelined, by more sensetive and caring people?

What better way to mask an unearthly visit than to keep a rumor going, that it s all going to happen in the future, when maybe it all went on in the past?

And really finally this time....if our unearthly guests were human, it would be hard for us to find out at all.....see your dream was inspiring.

cheers rog

Posted by roger andre on Jul 21, 2008 8:04 PM

Xwindowsjunkie

Darn I thought my disguise was great!
American aliens. Who are you calling alien? You alien! LOL!

Guess I'll have to inform Homeland Insecurity that our cover is blown.

WiFI and WiMax and Wi-who-knows-what its just like virtualization the latest buzzword cure-all for what they think ails you.

Updated by Xwindowsjunkie on Jul 27, 2008 3:01 PM

Rupert Goodwins
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