The Diatek-Lifescan Brain Activity Monitor

Pinder lived in a dimly lit east-side apartment decorated with only an old Metallica poster his brother had given him and a tower of old computer parts. Living in a small apartment was no bother, he grew up poor and was used to the tight quarters. The apartment’s only luxury was a bay window opening to the city; the curtains were always drawn so the light wouldn’t reflect against his monitor. He often indulged in the stereotypical programmer diet, consisting of coke and junk food, but for the most part he was healthy and kept himself fit. He dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt and seldom combed his black hair.

Pinder spent hours in front of his computer each night after work. He was creating what he deemed the most logical solution to all programs ever created, U.S.E.R. (Useable Software En-coding Remedy). It was a program that wrote programs. This wasn’t going to be your average software tool that aided in the development of writing programs. No, his program would actually write programs. He intended that someone would type in a brief summary of what they wanted their program to accomplish and U.S.E.R would take that information, process it and begin to ask the questions necessary to complete the assigned task. If it looked like the program was not doing what was intended the programmer could simply hit a function key and type in what the program was doing wrong and what modifications to make in plain English. At it’s heart U.S.E.R. was to be a natural language processor.

The last two years had been spent meticulously hashing out algorithms and rewriting lines of code that at this point were becoming so convoluted that Pinder had to keep track of it sub-consciously. He wrote his code from instinct, almost like he had the muse of a poet. Pinder had studied artificial intelligence and programming in college, but he found the courses too limited in breadth and usability. Why spend hours writing a program that takes just as long for someone to figure out how to use, a program that would be obsolete in six months, at the most? U.S.E.R required a unique programming language, one that grew as the program grew. The language he developed was only going to be used for this one program, but of course, that would be the only time it was ever needed. The program would be self-contained, but portable, much like some of the more common programming languages, but this language would be intuitive, at least to Pinder. The bulk of the program had been written in about a year. The second year has been spent trying to get everything to work perfectly. The program was surprisingly good at understanding simple variables and assigned tasks, but was unable to write programs that did more than a few simple iterations. The foundation was in place, but something more was needed, the ability to create beyond the reach of the initial logic of U.S.E.R..

It was late Sunday night and Pinder had been at it for hours. The sun was beginning to peak through the far horizon. Going to work with little sleep was nothing new, but the last couple months had been particularly bad. His progress seemingly stalled with no end in site. His mood soured more from frustration than lack of sleep. After taking a quick shower Pinder dressed and left for work. He worked across town at family owned bookstore. One might ask why Pinder isn’t working with computers. Surely he could earn a decent wage. But he actually preferred the time to think. He found out years ago that it was no fun to be sitting in a cubicle all days writing useless programs for large companies that only wanted to turn a profit. The bookstore gave him a chance to relax and untangle his mind from the night before. Pinder usually took the Subway to work, which stopped only a few blocks from his house. This morning it was raining, so rather than walk he ran to the underground entrance. Full-speed he ran past business men with umbrellas scurrying along the crowded side-walk. The Subway stop was across the street, so he made a break for it when the coast was clear, only it wasn’t so clear. A speeding BMW ran a stoplight and screeched on the brakes. It was too late. Pinder flew fifteen feet before tumbling to a stop along the curb.

When Pinder woke he was in a hospital connected to tubes, wires and everything else the hospital could find to hook to him. Apparently he had been unconscious for the last few days and was now in critical condition in the intensive care unit. He tried successfully to move his arms and legs, but only with excruciating pain. For days he lay there — three ribs had been cracked, his leg broken and his head split across the center. If it wasn’t for modern science and a little luck he wouldn’t have survived the crash. He was hooked up to every kind of monitor imaginable. One to measure is heartbeat and blood pressure and another to monitor brain waves. There had been initial swelling of his brain, but there appeared to be no permanent damage. The constant beeping and the over-head fluorescent lights were beginning to wear on Pinder as much as the pain of his injuries, but slowly he began to heal. After a week in intensive care he was moved to room of his own. It was another month before Pinder was cleared to leave the hospital. There had been a fear of infection that required he stay much longer than probably necessary.

Pinder took a taxi back to his apartment and breathed a sigh of great contentment when he opened his door and saw his computer still on from the morning of the accident. The time in the hospital had given him a chance to really meditate, time to rest and regain the strength he needed to continue working on U.S.E.R.. He immediately sat at his computer and began working. The bookstore had given Pinder a week off, so that he would have a chance to fully recover and get back in the swing. For days he worked on the program without leaving the apartment. He ordered take-out when he got hungry, and showered when he couldn’t stand the smell, but that wasn’t very often. U.S.E.R quickly left its infancy, growing exponentially in size and complexity. Pinder transferred entire digital encyclopedias into the program base of U.S.E.R. Most tasks could be completed by U.S.E.R in a matter of seconds — complex programs self-written with only a little prodding in the right direction. There was still a problem. The program was limited to only the knowledge that Pinder programmed into it. U.S.E.R had no way to combine the information in a rational and logical process, no way to learn.

Pinder still sore from the injuries scratched his head. How could he allow the program to expand beyond his input? Than a thought struck him, or should I say, beeped at him. His computer froze and needed be rebooted. While the computer loaded the typical beeping noise reminded him of his stay in the hospital. What if he could transfer his brainwaves into the computer? U.S.E.R would then have a method of understanding the thought process necessary for intelligent reasoning, would have a useable numeric format to learn from. Pinder would have to write an application interface to connect the brain wave monitor to the U.S.E.R program. This would be easy enough and once the connection was made it would only be a matter of giving U.S.E.R the data it needed. Essentially it would be like filling in the points of a graph until there were enough points to complete the curve in a reasonable manner. It was basic math. Once U.S.E.R had converted enough of the brain waves to numeric format — the program would write itself.

The next morning Pinder ordered the G. Diatek Lifescan brain activity monitor from usedmed.com for $1,750.