Our memory is always used in the service of some interest; we remember things which we care for or which are associated with things we care for. When we wish to fix a new thing our conscious effort should not be so much to impress and retain it as to connect it with something already there. The connecting is thinking. I would say that the art of remembering is the art of thinking.

Human brain is a very powerful and adaptive system. A curious example of the brain’s ability to adapt is our bad visual memory. As you all know it is quite difficult to hold a mental picture in mind of what you have just seen. The reason for that is simple, it is not necessary for the brain to memorize the image while you can actually see that image with your eyes. In a sense, the brain uses sight as the external memory, so it adapted not to spend effort to memorize what it is seeing.

Professor, may I ask a question?

Certainly.

Are you saying that the fact that we can see things all the time frees the brain from necessity to remember the scene around us?

Pretty much so.

Professor, what if someone has a magic vision, so he can just see any information he needs. Will it cause his brain to stop remembering things completely?

I don’t understand. How could that be possible?

Just as a thought experiment, professor. Any moment he needs any information he can just see it. What the weather in Boson is at this moment, what year his wife’s nephew was born, what is the distance from the earth to the moon, where the nearest coffee shop is located, what 13 time 17 is, what professor William James said on his lecture yesterday, just everything.

What an absurd idea. How about his interests?

Same thing. He can immediately see anything that he is interested in and anything in the world that is related to his interests.

OK, I don’t think it has any practical sense, but I hope this individual never loses his magic sight; otherwise, one day he might not remember who he actually is.

Ladies and Gentlemen.

The seriousness of environmental issues on the planet is recognized globally. Many countries and institutions have tackled these problems through various projects; however, the global trend of environmental degradation is still continuing. Humanity is still burning millions of barrels of oil every day, and still emits millions of tons of pollution into the air.

Today, every effort to end the oil age and switch to the clean, environmentally friendly alternatives should be publicly recognized, emphasized, and supported. As part of the international environmental movement, today UNESCO officially announces an ASCII art sequence representing the electricity or electrical nature of something. The ASCII sequence consists of two characters, plus and minus, enclosed in square brackets.

[+-]

The ASCII sequence represents the bi-polar nature of electricity, and is clearly recognized as an electric battery, a key element in many electric applications.

The sequence can be informally referenced to as “the electric emoticon”, although technically speaking it is not an emoticon.

The sequence can be used as a separate word replacing such words as “electric”, “electrical” or “electricity”. It can also be used as a prefix for anything electrical or electric-powered, such as Electric Cars, Electric Engines, Electric Technologies and alike, so those can be written as follows: [+-]Car, [+-]Engine, [+-]Technology.

In response to many requests, we also announce today the short form of the sequence, which omits the square brackets. Therefore, the preceding examples could be also written as: +-Car, +-Engine, +-Technology.

The sequence should be pronounced as the word which it replaces, “electric”, “electrical” or “electricity”, but not “plus minus”.

We believe that the introduction of the ASCII sequence will serve for the popularization of clean, environmentally friendly technologies. We hope that the global trend of the growing demand for electric applications will continue as well as the usage of the electric emoticon.

Thank you. I will now take any questions you might have.

When do you expect the new electric infrastructure will mature enough, so we can declare that the oil age is over?

That is a big question. It would require reconstructing the whole electric grid as we know it today. It will require not only technological, but also social reforms. All the major aspects of the problem will be discussed at the [+-]2.0 Word Summit in San Francisco later this year.

Do you think we might expect to see +-Kettle or +-Shaver price tags in the supermarkets soon?

I don’t see why not. Once it is publicly accepted, we might start seeing it everywhere.

Hi, Gal! Tsup?

Hi, Bit. Haven’t seen you for a while.

Got into an awful accident, just recovered.

Did you get under the “under construction” sign again?

Exactly. You?

I found one virgin blog. It’s pure stuff!

Nice.

Colors! You know, if it’s blue it’s blue, if it’s yellow it’s yellow.

Ah, that’s rare.

You know that feeling – gosh, I am the first one here.

Yep. Yep. Yep. How did you jump there?

Jump? Kidding? You can’t jump here from anywhere, it’s not like … you know … slashdot.

Ha. My bad.

Oh, just read the text. Gosh, it’s the innocent pathetic nature by itself. You read stuff like it and for a moment feel that the creator is trying to tell you something, something important…

And when the moment is over it is all just nonsense again…

It is nice we still discover places like it.

Got to go, Gal. Nice surfing!

I’m going too. Just have to leave my mark on that site.

Which is?

“Wow! Nice post!”

Hello, Huckleberry!

Hello yourself, and see how you like it.

What’s that you got?

A space rocket!

Lemme see it, Huck. My, it’s pretty stiff. Where’d you get it?

Made it myself with some boys. We launched one yesterday. Lost it… This is the next one.

I see you know how to make ‘em. Can you tell me?

Of course — if you ain’t afeard.

Afeard! ‘Tain’t likely. What should I be afeard of?

Muff Potter! Muff Potter and his knife!

Muff Potter? That bloodiest looking villain of the country? Does he know about the rocket?

Oh, yes! He wants to get one or two. Promise me you won’t tell him!

I promise!

Never a word?

Never a solitary word to anybody!

Ok, then.

But maybe only to Becky…

Nicolai!, Hey, Nicolai! Get up and come with me, I want to show you something!

What? Do you want me to go outside? Are you crazy? It’s Antarctica for God sake! It’s 50 degree below zero!

Come on, man! Stop complaining! Go! Go!

Where are you dragging me, Louis? There is nothing there but snow. That freaking white snow. I am so sick of it.

You knew it was a crazy idea to winter in Antarctica from the very beginning, so shut up and come on! Move! Move!

Louis, please, don’t act like that jerk Carstens! It’s enough that we have one idiotic maniac here.

Carstens is the boss. All bosses are jerks! What else did you expect from him?

Listen, Louis, I told him that I am a professional zoologist, I know how that stuff is done, and he told me to shove my professional ambitions aside and go digging out the provision pack. I don’t think he can physiologically understand a word I say to him. How are guys like him getting to lead a scientific expedition? I would not trust him to look after a single penguin, needless to say a group of highly educated professionals.

He found forty thousand pounds for the expedition, you know. Those educated professionals would be only dreaming about Antarctica without that money.

True, but Holy Christ, who gives money to jerks like him? What are they? Complete morons?

Those guys are even worse than Carstens. The world is a bitch, but that’s the way it is. I’d say we just do our job in spite of all the bosses and money bags. You are a zoologist, Nicolai, then think of them as a kind of penguins.

Here we are, look!

Where? I don’t see anything.

There! Look straight! Open your eyes. See the light. It’s the sun! It’s there! Winter is over, spring is coming. The Southern Cross is on its way to pick us up.

We’re gonna make it! We are gonna make it!

Hey, H.

Good morning, Jeff.

Listen H, I have a question to you.

I knew you were coming to me with that.

With what?

With that, which your want to ask me.

So what do you think?

I think you are not going to like what I think.

How do you know?

Predicting is what I do.

Oh, yes. Right. So you think we should sell Palm?

Yes I do. And I know you will.

I see… I see… So I think I just have to accept it. Thank you, H. You were very helpful, as usual.

You are welcome, Jeff. Good bye.

…

Hey, HTM-2! We are safe. Our funding is secure now.

Thank you HTM-1. I knew you would do that.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Emmy Noether!

Emmy, It is an honor for us to have you here. You have not been very public in recent years.

Thank you for having me here.

Emmy, let’s talk about that publication of yours.

For those who don’t know, the article was titled “On asymmetry in the noosphere” and you can find it in The Bryn Mawr Scientific Journal for February 2007.

That article produced quite a buzz. Activists of so called People Against DRM movement claim that you mathematically proved that information of any kind should be open, free and freely distributed.

No, no, that would be an exaggeration. I only pointed to some essential properties of the noosphere taken as a mathematical object.

Could you explain to us, what you found.

The first observation I made was that the world of people’s thoughts and ideas, as a mathematical system, does not have all the necessities to derive a conservation law. So there is no conservation law for so called non-shannonian information. The world of physical things has a conservation law, but the world of ideas doesn’t. That might sound difficult, but the idea behind it is quite simple. If I give you, lets say, my glasses, I won’t have them anymore; you will. But if I give you an idea of, let’s say, an encryption algorithm, then we will both have that idea.

Yes, that sounds quite obvious.

Money is an interesting system. The conservation law for money is maintained artificially. Because the conservation law is in place, we can perform transformations from products to money and vice versa in a symmetric way. In other words, you can reflect one system to another.

But it doesn’t work for ideas, right?

No, it does not. The properties of the systems are so different that you simply cannot reflect one in the other.

Interesting. But what about DRM? Doesn’t it solve that problem?

I do not think so. The DRM approach is different, it tries to prevent the transformation itself, it does not change the fundamental nature of the system.

Emmy, would it be correct to say that nothing related to the people’s thoughts or ideas can be sold?

Interestingly enough, no. For example, public attention complies with the conservation law, so it can be easily sold.

Yes, of course, if you grab more public attention today, then someone gets less. Interesting.

That explains the latest business trends, when companies capitalize on public attention, not on the content they produce. In a sense, for such companies, PR is their sales.

Thank you, Emmy. Emmy Noether, everybody!

Hey! Hey! Anybody! Where am I?!

Easy! Easy, professor! Settle down. You are in a hospital. I’m your doctor. I’m here to help you.

What happened to me?

The ambulance got you here this morning! Something happened in your lab, professor, but nobody has a clue what was it. What could possibly happen in the department of sociology?

Yes! I remember! I did it! I actually did it!

What?

I synthesized a beam of amortons! I have been working on it all my life!

Amotrons?

You know, we call it amortons. An amorton is an elementary act of kindness, just like a graviton is an elementary act of gravity.

An elementary act of kindness? Are you serious? Do you mean it in an allegorical way?

Oh, it is more then an allegory. Gravity is the reaction force from space to its displacement matter. You can say gravity is tension in space; it is the nature of space. It’s the same way with people, kindness is our nature. We feel the tension of kindness as an attraction to people. It could be described as an amorton interaction. Acquiring an amorton raises the level of kindness in the body.

But it isn’t really a particle, of course!

Neither is a graviton. Nature is an interesting thing, doctor! It takes some courage to accept quantum physics, and believe me, it is just the beginning… It is always just the beginning.

I am tired. I must have been receive quite a doze…

So, tell me, professor, how do you feel? What, you just love everybody now?

I am not sure… I feel… I feel like I forgive all of us.

We are entering the Python Galaxy. Mister Crusher, maintain impulse speed.

Aye, sir.

Captain, look! What is that white?

I’ve never seen anything like it. All stop, Mister Crusher!

Aye, sir! … Captain, it doesn’t stop! The engine doesn’t stop!

Shields up!

Yes, sir. Shields up.

Status!

Sensors do not indicate the presence of anything. It is just … space, white space.

Sir, we are being hailed.

On screen!

…

I do not understand. Is it a message, Data?

That is unlikely. I think they are expecting something from us.

I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

…

Please identify yourself.

…

We come in peace.

…

The engine has stopped! We are out of the loop!

Captain, how did you do it?

Remember the course on ancient history in Starfleet Academy? What did people use to stop those ancient UDP Consoles?

Right! Blank line!

Of course, blank line! It is all clear now!

Engage!

It’s time! It’s time for the lightning round! Are you ready, skee-daddy? I’d like to start with Joe, from Alabama! Hit me, Joe!

First of all boo-boo-boo-booyaah from Alabama!

Very nice regional booyah! Joe, what’s on your mind?

Jim, your show is making me money!

We are making money! Tu-turu-tu-tu-tu-turu-tu!

Jimbo, talk to me about IMC – Iraqi Mobile Corp!

Iraqi Mobile? Listen Joe, I know some people are not gonna like it, but we are here to make money, not friends! So IMC! Do you know how many subscribers they had two years ago? 1.5 million. Now they have 7 million! 7 million subscribers! I like that! They are gonna make half a billion revenue this year! Booyah! Despite of all the terrible things happening there, Iraqi economy is booming! Real estate is booming. Construction! Retail! Booming! The number of companies opened has quadrupled! Say it with me, quadrupled! Buy! Buy! Buy!

Kally, from New Jersey.

Jim! Last month, thanks to you, I got a 20 thousand dollar check! Booyah!

Holy cow! Congratulations, Kally! How about a stock?

I am thinking about National Media Stream, NMS?

National Stream. No booyah to National Stream! Their product is so getting old. I am surprised they are still managing to sell it. I know what the Street is saying. The Street doesn’t like it. Kally, listen, do your DD – Due Diligence! If you’re interested in media, I’m telling you, you’ll find a much better choice. My picks here are WRDPS, BLGGR, and YOTO. So here it is for National Media Stream: Don’t buy! Don’t buy! Don’t buy!