schizophrenia

i struggle with this blog. I want it to be so many things, but my demons have set up their own version of Fight Club on my shoulder and it has been going some time now. Today one of them must be winning, because i am typing something new at last.

So far I have identified five of them:

random thought (an orange, friendly looking thing)
injustice (a red, angry ball of fire)
speakers corner (bright yellow, loud, demanding)
vivre (yellow, happy)
the poet (purple, brooding)

I wonder who will win in the end...

i, robot

the thing about thw word disease is that it seeps. the very sound of the word is odious and portentous. a pus-filled word - it is almost too appropriate for its designated meaning.

Let's not dwell though - I want to talk about another word. Influenza. Seems to be on everybody's lips at the moment, although not literally. At least not for now.

A strange word though, don't you think. Influenza. Influence...a? I wondered why it was called something that seemed a little jarring, out of place. Ok, so you get sick and feverish. From a very technical perspective I suppose it has influenced you. A bit. Maybe. But really, is this an appropriate name to have used up already?

In cyberspace, viruses are self-replicating programs that transmit themselves from computer to computer. Sometimes this is an exercise in ego by the author; just as often they desire power. If you command a great 'bot network' of infected machines, you can direct them to spam, attack or number crunch.

Machine code and DNA are not so different. One day, maybe sooner than you think, another self-replicating program will transmit itself between machines. But the machines are biological; the network social. Without even knowing my foe, I am conquerered.

I have influenza. I am a bot.