Squidzilla 31
Cecie Chao-Turner
“Michel, I can’t thank you enough for running and rerunning the squid videos,” said Cecie.
“With the computer, it’s not a problem,” Michel said. “It’s not complicated to use it to look for reoccurring light patterns, select them out, and enumerate their frequency. Take a look at this. I did the same thing with the page of a short story by Poe, and you can see the word distribution pattern. See the general similarity to the squid pattern? Granted the story has more complexity than what you see with the squids’ lights. But it looks like your idea about the squids communicating is a real possibility.”
“This is just great! I’ve got to show this to Carlos and to my advisor,” Cecie said. “You really ran with my idea. If it ever comes to publication, you’ll be coauthor.”
“Yeah. Too bad there’s no squid Rosetta Stone,” Michel said.
Cecie met with her advisor after showing the work to Jessie and Carlos who had both responded enthusiastically.
“So what do you think, Dr. Manta,” Cecie asked.
“Cecie, that’s fascinating. I think you and your friend—what’s his name?—may really be on to something.,” said Dr. Manta.
“Michel.”
“French?”
“I think his father is.”
“You’ll need to find a key to what they may be signaling, and that’s going to be hard,” Dr. Manta said.
“Yeah, that’s what Michel said too,” Cecie said. “If only there was a way to show them pictures of things in their world and see what the light signals for them were.”
“That would require a squid to be intelligent enough and curious enough to figure out what you were trying to do,” Doctor Manta replied.
“Still, I’d like to try to do it as my research project.”
“Ah the confidence and enthusiasm of youth,” Dr. Manta said. “You are going straight for a Mars shot.”
“But you’ll still be my advisor, right?”
“Of course. But you’ll need to generate grant money once you formulate your idea of how you’re going to approach this. When the time comes, I’ll work with you on a grant proposal.”
BlueSeas Coalition Board Minutes
Rosen reported that the count of migrating Grey and humpback whales has been stable for the past three years even though predation by giant squids (“Squidzillas”) had continued to occur on both legs of the migrations.
Several members (Wong, Levine, Souza, and Drew) opined that though that might be the case, they would favor an active reduction of squids to allow the whale population to increase rather than just remain status quo.t
Tata pointed out that squids had attacked the ships that had attacked them in the past. She wondered if the consequences of action against squids had been considered? Furthermore, the squids had learned to nullify the armed drones previously used by the Coalition by severing the control wire.
Costello then stated that he and a friend who works at Macrodata Industries had developed a self-guided aquatic drone with no control wires, largely using off-the-shelf components. They had been running trials using other drones as targets. Although the effective range was only 600 yards, it had accurately homed in on its target 85 percent of the time.
He was asked if it could carry a war head. He answered probably. He was asked about cost and Costello said that building it was actually cheaper than buying the wire-guided drones.
After further discussion, a vote was taken to explore the use of Costello’s drone to attack squids that were targeting whales. The result was fourteen yeas and one abstention.
Clearance by the Coast Guard will be the next step.
Cecie Chao-Turner
Cecie, Jessica, and Carlos celebrated the completion of Cecie’s first year at Stanford at The Balboan, a theater restaurant. As they took their seats, the menu appeared in the table top before them with descriptions of how each entree was to be prepared, and its nutritional content. After each person made their choice, the origin of each selection was supplied, wine pairings suggested, along with an estimated time of arrival at their table.
“I thought given the way the menu was presented, we might be served by robots,” whispered Cecie to Jessica after their waiters left.
“That would certainly solve the question of tipping,” Jessica replied.
“I wonder if we could take a look into their kitchen and see who or what the chefs are.”
“The write-up I saw posted for this restaurant said that human chefs were assisted by robots,” said Carlos.
“Perhaps that’s why they don’t have an open kitchen,” said Jessie. “Some guests might be turned off by the sight of machines doing the actual cooking.”
“Well, I’m looking forward to the after dinner show,” Carlos said. The Tasty Quarks was my favorite band in high school during the rock revival, and I was so depressed after their fatal autocopter crash. So to see them perform again after twenty-six years if only as holograms will be very special.”
“I’ve heard of them—sort of,” said Cecie. “Don’t you play them? Do you know how they got their funny name?”
“The story goes that they were four drop-out would-be physics majors who preferred making music,” Carlos said. “Ah, the house lights are dimming. Here’s the MC. Now is he also a hologram?”
After the last clap and whoop had died away at show’s end, Cecie said, ”They were unbelievably real. You could even see the sweat fly off them as they really got into it.”
“And they haven’t aged a day,” said Jessie, “While we have. Oh to be a hologram.”
“I wonder,” said Cecie “Could holography work underwater?”
The Long and The Short of It 