The underlined section heads are Lyrics are from “A Day in the Life” by the Beatles.
For a point of comparison, the entire human population of earth currently uses about 20TW of power (2.8kW each on average).



Woke up,

Chris woke up, he felt rested and refreshed. He wondered what the time was.

• 07:34

​

He knew the time now, his int had informed him. It wasn’t a flash of text, or speech or any of the usual sense, he just knew it now. He didn’t worry about why he knew that, but if he had, his int would have informed him thus: (indented italics used to denote notes that Chris did not actually access.)

Int.

Common name for the neural interface. The basic component of human computer interaction.
The int gives the machine access to the human’s though and desires and can also supply
information to the human.​

fell out of bed,

There wasn’t a bed to fall out of, Chris had been sleeping on an antigravity field the effectors had set up. He found that the most comfortable bed, a lot of people still preferred a physical bed, that was their choice. It was also the effector which ensured he had a good nights sleep, in concert with his int, it monitored and adjusted his biochemistry as needed. The effector had make a complete and thorough examination while he slept and adjusted his body as necessary.

He pulled back the cover, the cover disappeared, the effector had taken it back. Then he stood up as the effector reduced the bed’s effect.

Effector.

The basic machine of physical interaction. An effector controls matter and energy in its area of effect.
It can create, destroy or transmute matter in whatever format is needed. Transmuting matter uses the
least energy to effect, transmutation is usually a negligible cost to an individual’s energy budget. An
effector will store spare matter in the form of neutronium for compactness. The rate at which an effector
can transmute, or create matter in addition to its matter store is its energy rating, usually expressed in
kg/s. A typical domestic effector will have a rating of around 1 kg/s (equivalent to 90PW, 9x10^16 W).

Energy Budget

The amount of energy available for use, usually expressed in kg/day. Energy and matter being equivalent
and related by the formula E=Mc^2, so this is also the amount of new matter that could be created if
desired. A typical personal energy budget is 100 kg/day (approx. 100TW).​

Dragged a comb across my head

Chris went to the next room to shower. The effector had reconfigured the adjacent space as a bathroom with shower. Even though it would be much more efficient if the effector were to just remove all the dirt, Chris did like a good hot shower in the morning.

He stepped out of the shower and paused. The effector removed all excess water from his skin so he was now dry.


Found my way downstairs and drank a cup,

He stepped back through the door, the next room had now been reconfigured as his dining room. He sat down at the table and said, “Taergaha”. Pancakes and coffee appeared on the table before him. He knew using the word was childish, his int would recognize his desire for food without it, but it still amused him to say it. He tucked into the pancakes.

Taergaha

The traditional word used to trigger an effector to produce food. The origin of the word is lost in pre-history,
it was in common use on the Seedship. Speculation on the origin of the word include a catchphrase used
in a pre-historic popular entertainment, or an Origin World aboriginal word meaning “treasure” or "gift”.

Pre-history

History starts after the event when most of the data store of the Seedship was wiped out in an accident.
Events in pre-history are very uncertain.

Seedship

The sublight ship which created Dyson Prime and the origin of all know human life. The origin of the seedship
is lost in pre-history, the speculative origin of the ship is named “Origin World”.​

And looking up I noticed I was late.

• 07:55. Time to leave

​

Chris took a last bite of pancake and sip of coffee, it was time for him to get to work. Chris didn’t have to work, no one did, well no one with an energy budget anyway. You could survive on an incredibly minimal budget, maybe sub-gram per day. Working did provide him with an enlarged energy budget, but the difference between 100 and 110 kg/day budget wasn’t noticeable. It's not like he even made a dent in the 100 kg/day he had.

Chris worked because it made him feel useful, and it gave him something to do. Most work wasn’t strictly necessary, the AIs in the cloud could do most things. Physical labour wasn’t necessary when an effector could do the equivalent instantaneously.


Found my coat and grabbed my hat

Chris stood up, paused, and the effector created clothes on him. Clothes were currently the norm, these things went in cycles. Sometimes its nudity, body paint or just lighting effects.


Made the bus in seconds flat

Chris walked out of his front door. His accommodation unit was in a big development, so there was a hall outside. Earl was there mopping the floor. Of course, Earl didn’t have to work either, and an effector was much more effective at cleaning than a person with a mop. The AI’s humor Earl and were subtle when that they cleaned up behind him.

Chris nodded at Earl who saluted back. Chris then clicked his heels together, another childish affectation, this time to trigger the door. Though traditionally it was three clicks, Chris thought one was enough. There was the familiar disconnected feeling as the door transported him and he was standing in a different hallway, with a door in front of him. This one was labeled “Dyson 3-AF-2.”

• Congestion. Wait time 5 seconds.

​

Damn, rush hour again. Too many people trying to get to work, he had to wait his turn. The delay cleared and he walked to the door, before he reached it he felt that feeling again, always slightly more pronounced for a trunk route. Then he was in another corridor, two people were in front of him walking towards a door. The one in front reached the door and disappeared. Chris recognized the other, “Hey Ed.”

Ed turned, and said, "Hey Chris.” Then disappeared. Chris also walked to the door and disappeared, with the usual feeling. He was now standing in a lobby and Ed was standing there. “So did you catch the game last night?” Ed asked.

“No, don’t tell me, I’m going to watch it when I get back home.”

Ed agreed and the two walked off to their respective tasks.

Door

Transportation portal, interface to the wnet. Most transportation of any distance is via wormhole. The door
creates a local wormhole which connects to the network of established wormholes. The effect is that matter
in the vicinity of the door is transported to the vicinity of a different door. Once the transport is complete, the
wormhole collapses, returning most of the energy of its creation to the door. The cost of transportation is only
about 1 gram. The door needs a reserve of several kilogram on hand to create the wormhole, so a rapidly
used door may need some time to restore before it can be used again.

All inhabited planets have a wnet network of wormholes and there is a wider trunk network of wormholes
for transport between worlds. These are parallel to the enet for transferring energy. For an interstellar
journey, the user will have to first use the local wnet to get to the interstellar transfer facility
(colloquially called airports), and then use the local wnet at the destination planet. The airport
doors are connected to a sufficiently large enet connection that they can be used constantly. At
peek times travel may be delayed so that travelers do not arrive in the same space at the same time.

Dyson

A Dyson sphere. This is a sphere which completely encloses a star and channels all the energy the star
produces into the enet. The origin of the name is lost in pre-history. It is presumed to be a personal name
of the inventor. There are currently 35,423 Dysons on the enet and more are always being built. Building
Dysons uses a significant proportion of the total available energy budget.​

Found my way upstairs

Upstairs, Chris got to his office and called Don. Don was the manager of the previous shift and Chris was relieving him. His call was accepted, so now it looked to Chris like Don was sitting in his office. Conversely, to Don it appeared that Chris appeared in Don’s office. They exchanged the usual pleasantries and responsibility was transferred between them, then Chris cut the call.

Chris now checked the system. Its not like he needed to, if anything out of the ordinary were going on the AIs would tell him. But he was now responsible for the safe operation of the entire Dyson. His was a big one as well, it surrounded an A type star, it had a power output of 2x10^16 kg/day, enough for 200 thousand billion personal energy budgets. Not all the output was for personal use though.

Satisfied that things were going well, Chris sat and observed. Nothing much was happening. He was interrupted:

• Incoming call: Dad

​

He answered the call. Even though his folks had died a few years ago, they kept in touch from the afterlife. Dying wasn’t a big deal these days, and some found it more convenient than living. Each night an effector would make a back up of all the neural patterns in their human’s brain. If the body died that day, the backup would be booted into the cloud. There the consciousness of the person was run in simulation. A person couldn’t really tell they were dead unless someone told them. Not everyone was told, and it was considered rude to bring up the subject otherwise.

As the afterlife was all a cloud simulation, it took a negligible energy budget to run, like just Watts. That was in the rounding errors of most energy usage calculations, so no one ever cared about that energy. So in the afterlife you’d be rich beyond you wildest dreams. You could build whole planets if you wanted to. Anyone in real life could in theory build a planet if they wanted to, but didn’t have the energy budget. It’d take the entire output of his Dyson about eight hundred thousand years, so no one bothered. It was a lot easier to take an existing planet and move it and change it as necessary.

Chris shifted his viewpoint to be in his dad’s presence. His Dad and Mom were sitting on a veranda having a drink. The view from the veranda was utterly spectacular. Dying did have its compensations, he’d have trouble creating that view for himself in the real world. Also his folks were looking younger again. Dad had been accessing their earlier backups and introducing earlier versions of their bodies into the simulation.

They chatted about family matters, nothing important.


and had a smoke,

• ALERT! ALERT! Malfunction in sector 2k24b.

​

Chris was yanked out of the call into the real world. Was this a drill?

• This is not a drill.

​

“Christ!" Chris thought. Drills were bad enough, they’d usually simulate various malfunctions to keep the operators on their toes, but nothing had ever gone wrong for real. He took a deep breath, calmed himself and checked the status.

• ALERT! Malfunction sectors 5a31c. 4k34s, ….

​

The list of malfunctioning sectors continued. Whatever was happening was widespread. He looked up, he had a window in his office. Usually all you could see was black. He looked out onto the outside of the Dyson. He could see pinpoints of light erupting from across the sphere. He didn’t know what was happening, but it was not good. He hit the big red button to signal the alarm.


Somebody spoke and I went into a dream.

“Chris?”

Chris didn’t recognize the voice. He didn’t recognize the surroundings. He was in a featureless room, just a table and two guys sitting opposite him. One of them was asking the question. The two guys’ demeanor was frosty.

“Yeah, what?” responded Chris.

“We’re agents Adam and Barry of the disaster investigation team. We’re investigating the disaster at Dyson 3-AF-2.”

That was Chris’ Dyson, “Is she alright?” For some reason Dysons were referred to in the feminine.

“She’s a total loss, no survivors."


I read the news today, oh boy

The implications of that sunk into Chris. “So I’m …”

“Yes, you’re dead. We just ran your final day from your last backup, until you triggered the emergency backup.” The agent looked slightly less frosty when he said that. Hitting the alarm button also made emergency backups of everything and everyone. The backup was sent via dedicated wormhole to a safe locations, away from the Dyson. “This will make our job much easier, so we thank you for that. We would now like your help in examining the data and determining the cause of the disaster.”

“Yeah, anything I can do.”

“It does mean that you are going to have to witness your own death, can you handle that?” It was an unpleasant idea, but anything Chris could do to help find out what happened to his Dyson, he would.

 

I like, I have questions.

kG, kilograys?

I particularly liked your used of physics in this.

Seems well researched.

 

kilo-gram. I used standard SI units throughout. Any other questions?

Thanks for the like. The physics is all pretty basic, to me at least.

 

Yes, kilograms makes no sense.

You can't weigh energy. You can work out mass, but not weight.

 

I liked this one.

A high-concept hard SF story, my favorite. Very good take on a post scarcity economy. Kind of short, almost a vignette, somewhat simple, but it did have a lot ground to cover. It felt like it was going somewhere, then stopped.

Interesting interweaving of "A Day in the Life" to counterpoint the differences between Chris' world and ours. Actually where is should have gone is the 4000 holes, though I'm not sure how you could have fitted in the Albert Hall into it.

 

It makes every sense, I even added in Einstein's equation just to remind the reader of the mass-energy equivalency.

 

I'm not quite sure what your confusion is. The kg is a unit of mass. In fact its the SI fundamental unit of mass, SI uses the metro, kilogram and second as its basis (and maybe Ampere).

If you're using the kg as unit of weight, you are in fact using the kilogram-force (kg-f), which is the weight of one kilogram of mass, when subjected to an acceleration of 1g. So 1kg-f is roughly 9.81N. The Newton is the SI unit of force and really should be what things are weighed in.

 

Thanks @stex, I wasn't sure about the ending. Just "A Day in the Life" with no complications was a bit flat, so I added the death to make it interesting. It does read like an introduction now I think about it. Maybe I should have a part two.

I think you may be right about Sybil being confused by weight vs mass, I didn't see that in her question originally. I think we need Sybil to clear that up.

 

Jeez, the second KAW story to make me feel totally un-educated. I knew I was going to have trouble after the second sentence! I have highlighted the story parts that I took notes on.

In the story you have "int" with no period yet in the explanation below there is a period. This makes the reader confused and/or think there are typo mistakes.

FYI- If this were a non-technological story, I would say you don't need to tell people that "(indented italics.....)", but this story has so many aspects that warrant a definition, it's probably needed.

​

It's a little odd that he goes down stairs naked. I understand later he might or might not get dressed by the "effector", but for me, it was incomplete. Maybe if you had said the effector would dress him later, or had a robe on.... something.

He can be transported instantaneously, but can't open a door because of "rush hour"? I didn't know whether to laugh at this, or add another "I'm so confused" moment to this reading.

I was really trying to stretch my mind and follow everything, but this "afterlife" thing really tripped me up. I didn't understand how it was possible, or why..... I just got completely derailed by this aspect.

THIS! Was this first part of the story I finally felt as though I was totally understanding the story/ song connection. Then he has to few footage of himself dying to see what happened, when he's already dead?!?!

UGH... I really wanted to like this story. If nothing else, Somehow I was part of the reason you wrote an entry in the first place. I think what you (and others) need to remember is that no matter how easy you think technology/ super computers are, there are a whole lot of people reading your story that would rather eat dirt than attend an advanced calculus or physics class. I suggest you read your story, pretending that you never heard of a super conductor. That is what will make your story so much better, easier for your readers to follow.... and enjoy.

 

OK, an interesting point of view. I’m sorry it didn’t work for you, I’m used to hanging out with geeks who wouldn’t blink at a story like this.

“Int” is a noun, not an abbreviation. So when its used in the story it’s correctly written with no period. In the sidebar explanations all of the heads were supposed to have periods, I forgot to put them on the entries past effector.

This story really needed to be told in hypertext, I tried various formatting options to separate the sidebars and the int’s voice, but most of them just got confusing.

There weren’t any stairs, except in the lyric, but… You don’t walk around your apartment naked?

It was supposed to be humorous, his reaction to waiting five seconds. “Opening the door” involved being instantly transported to another location. It would be extremely bad to be transported to the same place as someone else, instant death for both. So the system is set up to prevent that. So sometimes you have to wait for a clear place to land, its like air traffic control, they tell jets when to land, keeping a clear separation between them. In this case you could see the congestion ahead of him, once he got through the door, at least two people wanted to land in the same place at the same time.

Sorry. Anyone’s consciousness is just electrical impulses running through a neural net. That’s neurons firing in your brain. This is a deterministic physical phenomena. So anyone with sufficiently advanced technology, and I’ve got some obviously very advanced technology in the story, could make a copy of the information which makes up your consciousness. That information has everything which makes you you.

Next your set up a computer program to model a physical brain. This is not very far fetched, its basically what Google Brain does. That’s a very primitive brain simulation, but its good enough to power Google translate and Google photos. Using software to model hardware is a common technique in use today, otherwise known as “simulation”. You can simulate electric circuits (like Spice does), or you can simulate one type of computer on another, companies like VMWare have made a lot money doing that.

Now you have the information which is in your brain, and you have the hardware which is your brain, in simulation. If you put the two together, you have what appears to be the original brain, and its consciousness, but its all in software.

Just as when you regularly back up the information on your computer, I have the effector make a back up of the person’s consciousness while they’re sleeping. That backup has all the information needed to simulate the person in software. Put that backup into suitable simulation software and the person could wake up and live just as they would normally do, without even realizing they were a computer simulation of themselves.

The only really far out bit of all that is we don’t currently understand enough about the brain to do it. Given time, this is going to be a reality. Downloading yourself into the cloud like this is not an unusual scenario in a variety of science fiction.

Did that help?

In this case, the afterlife is just the common name for running yourself in simulation once you’re dead.

My original idea was “What would life be like, if technology enabled you to have god like powers.” I would just describe “A Day in the Life” of an ordinary person. That doesn’t give you much of a plot. At the same time I started to think of the lyrics of the Beatle’s “A Day in the Life.” The middle stanza of the song is a description of an ordinary day in the life of an ordinary person. So I tried to mirror the action in the lyrics with the normal boring action of Chris’ life.

Then I thought of putting in the disaster and death, the next line of the song just fit perfectly with that.

Again, sorry it didn’t work for you. Adding in the sidebars was my attempt to make the story more accessible to that audience (and you in particular). This is as simple as I could make it. I did put the sidebars in, some writers would leave the audience to puzzle out what's going on. At least one of the other stories is like that. I shall think on your idea, but I don't think I could.

You are right, a physics lecture is my idea of heaven. The calculus depends on who’s giving the lecture, and exactly how advanced you’re thinking of. Somewhere around partial differential equations I come unstuck. I know people who love that sort of thing, like the Cosmologists, but that’s beyond me.

 

I see someone did fix my title. Was that you? Thank you.

 

"Fascinating."

[This is a totally serious post.]

What we have is a culture clash. There are several of us here on one side and at least N.E.W on the other.

I started thinking of the suspension of disbelief. and that N.E.W's disbelief suspenders are unusually fragile.

An interesting point in the linked article is that originally it was the responsibility of the author to facilitate it. It notes that over time it became a facility of the reader instead.

So maybe it's my side which has unusually robust disbelief suspenders. Reading of SF promotes that, and the reader is regularly challenged by it. To truly grok SF you must wholeheartedly embrace it. It is a virtue in SF.

Conversely conventional ("earthbound", I like that) fiction tight plotting and an absence of the need for disbelief suspenders is seen as a virtue.

I'm used to any discussion of SF to be with a self selected audience from my cultural group. So now we have interlopers and the reaction is "fascinating"*. (This is not a slight, thank you to those readers stepping out of their comfort zones.) I have never observed members of the other culture in this circumstance.

So, to those on the other side, is this a fair characterization?

As I said, I'm serious and trying to under stand something here.

*In case you don't get the reference: "'Fascinating' is a word I use for the unexpected." -- Mr Spock, Star Trek original series. He used the word frequently.

 

Before we totally get into this discussion about my supposed lack of "suspension of disbelief", I would like you to read Clarice's story kaw3-assault-on-narnia and give your critique of it as that was the other story that I found was over my pay grade.

The other thing I'd like to bring up concerns an 'earthbound' story from a year or so ago. In the plot, someone gets stabbed, then gets shot in the same exact spot. Well to the author, this was a tiny blip in the overall story, but to the readers here.... You may as well have thought it was the meaning of life. That "tiny blip" was discussed for pages. So if that little scene in a story could turn into pages. What do you think people's reactions will be if they don't understand 25%, 50%, 90% of your story?

 

Oh dear, I hope I haven't offended you, I was trying not to. But I am interested in a discussion.

I was meaning to get to clarise's story, so I did just comment. That was the one I was referring to when I said "At least one of the other stories is like that." Yes, it left out a lot of explanations, so I just filled in my own.

I can't really comment on the other story you mention without knowing which it is, or having read it and its controversy. It sounds like there was a mistake in the story which the author didn't own up to. I would argue that's different from not explaining sufficiently. So far I haven't seen a mistake in mine, except the missing periods in the sidebar heads.

 

Here we go again with thinking I'm offended..... I AM NOT. ok

(BTW- This is not a "bash" on Clarice's story, it is in this discussion purely since both these stories are of the same 'advanced technology/physics/PhD level mathematics level' I could easily be talking with Clarice about Tony's story instead.)

I know this is going to sound odd, but bear with me. Did you read it with your brain only, or since we started this conversation, did you read it with my "issues" in your brain as well? What I am asking is, could you see how a "lay-person" would have trouble reading it/ understanding what was happening?

As for the stab wound/gun shot you don't need to comment. My point was that it's not just Sci-Fi stories that people might have trouble with 'suspension of disbelief". Could someone get stabbed and then shot in the exact wound tract? Yes, it's possible, but there were members here who just could not believe it. Hense they had a huge problem with that story line.

 

The int gives the machine access to the human’s though

That was in the first 139 words. Using a spell checker is insufficient for proofing. Then again, by your post times, I think you wrote this entire thing and proofed it and posted it within about four hours, correct? That's pretty fast thinking, typing, formatting, etc.

 

I wrote it in 3 hours. Then posted an hour later.

I didn't say there weren't errors in the story, but that I didn't see them. I'll own up to errors if I know about them.

It's 3 errors now, posting so quickly is one as well. I wanted to join the party, I couldn't sit on it any longer.

 

I've read the story again, attempting your point and of view and don't see it. There are words which maybe unfamiliar, that's what dictionaries are for. There are points of theory that you may not understand. You can trust the author was right on these points or you can research the issue.

This is quatatively different from you wound track example. I agree that two wounds with one track is unlikely. I have read stories where this is a plot point, but that the author arranged for this to be plausible. That two wounds randomly share the same track could be implausible enough to break disbelief suspension.

The points of disbelief I'm seeing are not implausible, once you've accepted the basic setting. Then they are logical consequences.

Basic setting: You are far enough in the future that 3 mile long space ships are in use.

Point of issue: One could be grow from "seed" in two weeks once you've accepted 3 mile long space ships, why not growing them?

 

I have not read any other feedback, because I want to convey my own impressions.

Good story, tonybs.

I saw some little stuff, but I won't pick nits. On to the big stuff.

I love it.

The tech is reminiscent in many respects to that found in recent books by British author Peter F. Hamilton. This is not a criticism, and you may not even have read him. Just an observation.

The science to a great extent is solid. Of course there's always opportunity to bicker into the wee hours. I kind of chuckled at the notion that your Utility Fog (or whatever it is that is transforming matter) stores an inventory of raw material as neutronium (wouldn't the assemblers collapse under their own gravity?), but I just rolled with it.

The section headings - cool idea.

Here's my one "big stuff" quibble. Show. Don't tell. The story should not need the embedded glossary. And if it does, you are not doing your job. Try to convey the setting, surroundings, and bric-a-brac situationally.

As to the thematical premise and the storyline itself, I rolled with that, too. In my real life, in the field of computational neuroscience I've done a lot on the epistemological implications of phenomenal selfhood (Metzinger) and its application in models of transient core consciousness (Damasio), which of course have bearing on the practicality of the futurist/transhuman dream (Kurzweil) that we will one day be able to upload ourselves to a backup, die, and then "reboot" at some later date with no adverse effects due to the gap and no cognitively detrimental sense of loss due to the loss of continuity (Kosslyn et. al.). But I'm not here to work, I'm here to play, and I rolled with that too.

Final quibble: don't tell them you wrote it in three hours, fool! Tell them you burned the midnight oil all summer! Sheesh.

 

How is that we are TOTALLY missing each other's points? Is this the 'right brain/left brain' theory playing out?

I brought up the stab wound/ gun shot as an example of how if readers don't believe something, they will focus on THAT aspect instead of the story as a whole. I didn't bring it up for any other reason. I can't even believe you have broken down your story to 'compare' to that in terms of " suspended disbelief".

On to another topic... please.

I don't know who you think will read your stories on this site, but if you have a lot of words, phrases where someone will need a dictionary/ periodic table to get through it. I can almost guarantee you won't get many readers. Now if you were writing for 'your crowd'. I'm sure your stories would be well regarded.