Nine months ago, Devon discovered that humans were not alone in the universe and his family was killed for it. He mourned for his family alone. Devon had been altered but faced impossible odds as he was chased around the world by other world forces. Devon’s growing abilities were no match for these unseen creatures and he did the only sensible thing he could do, run. Devon ran from Them. He hid from Them, but he would never escape.
He returned returned home. In the debris and rain soaked rubble that was once his home, he found a half burnt stuffed butterfly. It had belonged to his one year old daughter Brianna, it was all that remained. Devon attached the butterfly to his backpack.
The Altered
By MG Hardie
The System, which, generally, refers to the governments across the world, is to blame…for…Them! And everything that happened thereafter! Coming from a second, more advanced earth, Them came to attack and destroy through any, seemingly, natural catastrophe that ultimately will end this earth. Why? Because The System had already done it to most of theirs by using nuclear bombs that blasted beyond and into another dimension where the majority of people were killed instantly and the radiation slowly destroying the rest, as well as animals and vegetation.
Devon has been murdered, altered by Them and has even met with Prime the leader of Them. Devon had lost his family…Prime, more or less, responded, now you know how we feel…
With a mixture of vengeance, empathy and sympathy, Devon began to follow after them, wherever there was a crisis, to try to save, as well as work to rid the earth of Them. Soon he realized, though altered, he still was not enough to fight back. He went to two of his old friends, one a lover, and shared what had happened, provided the means by which they, too, would be altered, and began their training…
Joshua had been saved from Them by Devon. “Will Power” had been coming into his mind at night… motivating him with what they wanted him to do…
Devon could see…Them…and he talked to them to free his mind of what they’d planted. Joshua is an interesting character that hooked into the stories and adventure of what Devon was doing…but he wanted to use violence in the process…Devon slowly was weaning his thoughts into more productive thinking. Later, he did the same activities with Gina.
This is a more slow-paced novel, where training and learning to deal with the future was uppermost in Devon’s mind…While, he also was moving across the world helping wherever a tornado or a hurricane had visited. Later, both of his friends did the same in local areas.
Devon had also been seeking out “rifts” that connected the two earths. He was slowly acclimating himself, and later, the others, to move from one earth to another… What he saw was devastating and yet wondrous and beautiful in so many ways.
Hardie presents many conceptual electronic and scientific issues that are amazing or beyond the norm for those who aren’t inventive… Either way, many are cool ideas and with the three together, they come up with exciting ways to keep working to fight Them… At the same time, Devon has never given up hoping to convince Prime that they are serious about working together…
Until, he is proven wrong…
~~~
February 2, 2011
Point Click Share (Part 2)
Posted by MG under interesting, media | Tags: 3D, 4k, apps, cell phone, commentary, digital, education, egypt, essay, evolution, G4, god, Google, hacker, internet, iphone, microsoft, nintendo, nintendo feel, omnitouch, part 2, photo shop, playstation network, security, series, Skype, Smartphone, social network, Sony, tablet, technology, twitter |1 Comment
(From Part 1)
Anxiety, Stress, Nervousness, Insecurity, Internet inactivity…Perhaps this is why we hide behind avatars and professional profile photos. Are our “Friends” really inside that gadget? If so, what happens to them when we turn it off? Are we really linked? Don’t look now, the App beacons. 3G, 4G, Android,3D, Windows, GUI, Laser Etched, 4K, App, Opened Sourced, Cellphones that double as tasers, omnitouch… consume or perish. Who doesn’t have a touch screen television with dashboard widgets, but we were promised the eradication of diseases, the finding of cures and the solving of age-old problems. Strangely, there are more diseases, no cures and more problems than ever before. There are those that say “Technology is not dangerous the way in which we use it is dangerous”, and as always the debate ends when something tragic happens. We were promised security, but there are even more security measures, concerns, threats and prisons. We were all promised more knowledge, but we seem a bit dumber. These machines were said to help us make decisions, but unwanted pregnancies and divorce rates are higher. 50 Billion searhces on Google each month and we still haven’t found the truth… the search continues.
Overlays, screens, processing power, virtual children, pets, exabytes, tickers, more distractions. You get a ticket for talking on your cell phone, but somehow the law doesn’t apply to police officers… it never does. And soon as we find a discrepancy, a fault, a sub routine error, we get sold on using technology to fight technology. We are, for better or worse, married to technology. It seemed reasonable to create thousands of nuclear weapons, but now it seems unreasonable for anyone else to have one. Skype. What did you call me? Technological advancement was supposed to free us, but are we not invisibly chained to our desks, LCD, Do-dads, interfaces, whatchamacallits and doohickies? A hacker can take down Sony’s Playstation Network for a month and compromise 20 million credit cards in the process and the news doesn’t make a peep because this it the new digital way of life, where these threats are common place. Twitter beefs have real life and death consequences. Entertainers tell their followers that “Google is God”. Nintendo’s new console wants players to “feel” shapes and objects in the game all the while we are trying to mentally project our digital self as a form of control, the illusion on control that is. Is there a such thing as technological oppression? How ironic it would be if your entire life were photo shopped…. Maybe you should post that.
Internet dependence. Labor-saving, hands free, fail, manage the inbox of the mind. We claim to treasure our individualism, but we own the same devices, made by the same companies… go figure. And now the gadets are more important than your safety, or the safety of others. Print is Dead and were it not for two wars, newspapers would have went the way of the Dodo. The web took the Music out of Music Television, which has now resorted to exploiting children for ratings, while marketing and early adopters have convinced us that with these devices is a better way to exist, than without. Revolutions in technology have innovated new ways to make a living. Yes, the world has changed, a job in the factory and mill is now one in the office and idea centers. It seems as though Tech pioneers have sparked and stunted creativity all at once. How did we get to the point when someone with a cell phone can shut down corporations, crippled the stock market and hamper our government? The technology can connect us and disconnect us, as a tool it can bring the world closer (see Egypt). The truth is that Revolution comes through the people not from the technology. It will all begin to dawn on you when you discover that you cellphone is actually spying on you.
(Cont)…