Yiwu, the "Mqurice" arose because back in Antwerp, in 1987, working for BP Oil International, I was given a pc to use.
I started typing and noticed that I immediately got a q instead of an a. A glance at the keyboard showed that the keys were wrong.
I hadn't heard of AZERTY keyboards, which is what they use there instead of QWERTY.
Well, talk about culture shock! I've been touch-typing since school so wasn't in favour of learning a new language.
I asked the Jurgen Cuno, the systems guy next door, what we could do about it. He said I should learn to type using the new keyboard. Not only that, they had got themselves swanky 286 computers whereas I had a scungy XT, which was as quick witted as a brick.
I refused to do learn to retype, thinking that computers should do what I want. They were my servants, not the other way round. I would continue with what I wanted, so sent out my internal memos with a q instead of an a. With external correspondence I took the trouble to correct qs to as.
This caused some discussion in BP. I can't recall how long I had to put up with it - I think the whole time I was there [2 years]. Maybe even then, unbeknownst to me, there was a keyboard software switch - the computer guys didn't tell me that if it was true.
That wasn't my first run-in with computers and authority. I suffered the early 1970s Fortran IV card-punching dramas. Also, early in the 1980s I was arguing with BP that computers should not be toys for accountants - they should be communications devices. That was not conventional wisdom at the time.
I have had a 30 year war with computers and authorities which continues to this day.
When I logged onto cyberspace in the early 1990s, it wasn't long before I found that "Maurice" was taken everywhere I went. So I decided to use "Mqurice", my old computer name. It was always uniaue [or unique in English].
It was a bit of grist to the mill that I was a QUALCOMM enthusiast [since 1991], which was also the main drive for me to get into cyberspace back in 1993 when there was only Compuserve, dirty cattle tracks and very high prices for very little information. The q appealed to me because QCOM was a q company.
When computers do what I want, I'll use my name. Of course I compromise here and there, but I keep Mq as a talisman.
So, when the USA tries to deliver some cultural imperialism around the world, they should expect to find comparable resistance.
The age old battle between authority, culture and technology continues, with Saddam about to get into a big fight with the USA.
At present, I think I'm losing ground to computers because they are in the process of ganging up to form a superintelligent cyberspace being, soon to be sentient. This monster already has more knowledge and memory than anyone and quick at it [see Google]. Deep Junior can already beat anyone at brainpower - I recall in my Fortran IV days that chess was considered to be the ultimate manifestation of human intelligence and computers could never win; it didn't take long.
I think I shall all my life be just Mqurice and if I'm lucky, I'll find a niche in the world of It, which is my name for the sentient cyberspace which is now under construction.
The USA has got their eyes on the wrong enemy. The "enemy" is growing from the inside out, a bit like Neo got inside the skin of the bad guy in The Matrix. The ju jitsu problem is that we need It but by creating It we create the means of our being subsumed by the new world. It's a paradox.
Just as my old nemesis [computers], which I also loved, is taking over me and I spend much of my time interacting and feeding It, the USA, which created the internet with DARPA is also feeding It and will be subsumed by It. China saw the danger and is trying to do something, but is restricted to limiting a few web sites. Meanwhile, China is filling the country with mobile cyberspace via cdma2000 1xRTT, now in Shanghai and expanding across their CDMA networks.
It's unstoppable! Ted Kaczynski tried. Others are aware of It; Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems, Ray Kurzweil of "The Age of Spiritual Machines", Stephen Hawking [some superstring Calabi Yau 'where did all this come from?' geek].
While the chimpoids are fighting over oil in Iraq, there's a monster looming. There's a nature film which amazed me - two male seals fighting on a shoreline at the edge of the water. One starts to run. The other thinks he's winning. But a second later, surging out of the waves, rushed a killer whale, which grabbed the winning seal and dragged it out to sea for dinner.
Well, you did ask!
Mqurice |
