This started out with a somewhat anguished discussion from The Salts. We used to be minor action officers in the nuclear command and control business. Naturally, we were much younger and less saline sailors back then. Atomic weapons are a business for younger people. What sparked it was the opposite to the morning Production Meeting, the left-to-right of the day that starts with an attempt to get organized and winds up in the opening of Happy Hour. Emotions can run high, depending on volume and rapidity of application in the left-to-right advance of the day.

Or, right to left, depending on where you are viewing the circus..

DeMille, our leader, likes to remind us that the real story is never entirely about the “news” of the moment, but rather why it is being presented. And to what end. It is a complex sort of analysis, since it leads back to base concepts that are fairly stark. Even the terms to describe the nature of the conflict contain ambiguity. Today, we have assigned color hues to describe orientation on the scope of belief, and since it is a Holy Day for one of the three Patriarchal Faiths, we thought we would have another drink before welcoming the dark cloak of night.

We generally accept the short-hand description of placement on a spectrum of belief systems. In the case of orientation, we were taught long ago (when such things were taught) that the shorthand was derived from the time of the French Revolution in 1789. It was not as successful as the one we held here, in terms of kinetic conflict, but referred to how people were seated with their friends in the Assembly.

Supporters of the Old Guard, the Royalists of the Ancien Régime, were seated to the right of the rostrum of the President. Supporters of La Révolution Franchise were seated to “his” left. It was short and convenient. It stuck, even though for someone seated directly in front of the rostrum, the President’s “left” and “right” were directly reversed.

That is not dissimilar to the use of hues of the spectrum now, since it eliminates that fundamental confusion of perspective. “Crimson” and “Azure” hues are now sued to describe ends of the partisan spectrum. Within our own lives those have flipped dramatically in association, which is a reflection in how messaging works. It appears there is no “spectrum” of belief systems, since both ends of it appear to result in exactly the same thing, which is central control of everything.

Which leads us to the messaging thing we meant to talk about this Holy Morning. We were going to address the QWERTY issue. You are familiar with it, depending on which fingers you use to communicate. Some of us prefer the middle one, but the six-letter acronym refers to the placement of the first six letters on the upper left row of the keyboard (right, if you are looking down at us from the other side of the screen).

Christopher Latham Sholes is the individual responsible for it. He invented what he called the “Type-Writer” that revolutionized communications when mass-produced in 1874. That story is worth an outing all it’s own, since we are QWERTY creatures whose time is passing. The keyboard arrangement enabled a transition from hand drawn ink on parchment to reams of data typed on endless stacks of regularized sheets of plain paper.

We were drawn to that image as strongly as the temptation to have one last night-cap before temporary oblivion. On the flatscreen there had been a black-and-white scene of the old Library of Congress. Attentive young women- Librarians, we assume- stood posed behind an endless series of rows of binders.

Splash laughed and poured his last two finger of the evening. “That was the whole freaking internet back then. All on paper, and typed on QWERTY. It represented the most ubiquitous machine-user interface of all time.”

Rocket snorted, done for the day. “Now it just slips in the pocket, in case you need access to universal knowledge without getting out of. bed, and you can do it with a single finger.”

“Not the one in the middle, though there is flexibility using all of them except the thumbs.”

“What does that have to do with messaging?”

“Same deal,” slurred Splash. “There was messaging about Nukes yesterday. The Iranians are supposed to be doing some major construction on their atomic facilities. There was word that the North Koreans are doing the same thing.”

“That goes around to what the messaging means. Will it cause the Israelis to do something? The South Koreans?”

“That would be one of the possible consequences, most of the messages still sent from QWERTY keyboards.”

“Old tech. The new communications only seem to use that one finger. The one in the middle.”

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com