Dysmey Post Archive > Pages for 2003 > The Late May Edition

Late May 2003 Edition

holiday

The Memorial Day weekend has come and gone. It was a pleasant weekend, even though I had to work Saturday morning.

The folks had carry-out chicken and the usual picnic food for Sunday lunch. After that I went to Muncie to see the Matrix Reloaded for the second time. The next day we had homemade pizza.

work

At work the order for forty-five computers that were supposed to come today came Friday. I had to spend my Saturday morning unpacking accessories for those computers, and slapping on workstation labels.

The company gets several big software systems this past month. The systems make for a more crowded server room. Techies and reps for the companies that made the systems have been here for the past couple of weeks. Since I am so out of the loop on these, I don't know if they are online yet. The most annoying thing about all this is that when those systems are online, people will call and ask me how to use them.

I have started on a new workstation inventory to replace the one I did three years ago. (Time fly, eh?) I was told in no uncertain terms to get on with the inventory at least for the main office. The inventory for the main office and three branches is done, and I plan to finish the other branches over the next couple of weeks.

I figured that every other Andy West in the world has had enough time to claim andy.west.name, so I have done so. My About page is now the home page of www.andy.west.name. You can also now reach me at andy@west.name.

more of The Matrix Reloaded

In the recent Matrix movie, Neo has to jump through a lot of dangerous hoops to reach the System Core, where the Architect of the Matrix awaits. Everyone believes that when Neo reaches it, the war between the humans and machines will be over.

H'mh!

The Architect of the Matrix is a chatterer who looks like Colonel Sanders. He is somewhat grumpy because the world he brought into being is not as perfect as he would like. The gist of his wordy conversation to Neo, whom he calls a 'predictable anomaly', is most disturbing.

1. The first Matrix was a heaven. Agent Smith said as much in the first movie. He also said that people found it so incredible that they died en masse ('Whole crops failed', to quote Smith).
2. The second Matrix was a hell, on the grounds that maybe people wanted to live like that. Again, another mass die-off.
3. After an investigation by a sentient program that would become the Oracle, the present Matrix was built based on the idea that people functioned better if given even the illusion of choice.
4. From time to time exceptional persons would choose to reject the Matrix, evade the Agents, and break free. As a spillway for them a refuge was created: Zion.
5. When Zion became too much of a threat, the machines would destroy it. Before that, the Oracle would predict that the One would come, who would have mastery over the Matrix. When the One appears, he lead a small seed colony of newly-released men and women to found a new Zion. The One would do this, for the alternative is the death of the human race.
6. Therefore, the issue is control: The human race may live on, but only on the machines' terms.

There have been five cycles of creation and destruction for Zion. Neo is the sixth One. The Choice is given to him: Zion dies, or the human race does.