#a program with a very conflicted nature (bits from ed that conflict with the original code?)

[not-that-dillinger]

Ed smiled. "Thanks." He wished he could say and same to you, offer to invite her out for tea next week in Los Angeles, but well... with what restrictions he was under, it wasn't a promise he could keep. "Have a good night."

And without further ceremony, Ed was out the door and on his way back to his own room.

As it turned out, Ed wouldn't have time for tea with Eve, anyway, as he spent every waking moment in a futile battle against the clock trying to coax the AI's code to a state where it could be demo'ed with the laser without killing him.

The next two weeks were a waking nightmare, and what little sleep he did get, was plagued with visions of his disembodied voice coming from his computer connected to the laser.

The day of the demo, Ed spent every last second he could trying to get the AI to work properly.

It wasn't ready.

His father knew it wasn't ready, and that the two weeks wasn't enough time to get it anywhere near ready for live testing.

The digitization matrices were still needing some fine tuning.

Still, Ed was out of time, and his father wouldn't cancel the demo.

His stomach twisted with nausea through dinner, both from anxiety at what was to come next, and for having to be agreeable while he talked to one of fCon's least agreeable investors.

Not that any of their investors were particularly agreeable to begin with.

Ed was going to die as a punishment for being too slow, for being a failure of a son, for not being perfect enough for his father.

There was no way out. Ed just hoped his death would be quick and painless.

When at long last it was time for the demo, Ed stepped up to the targeting area, his face a careful, practiced neutral as he watched his father step up to the computer and type in the command. He clutched a single tiny square of tea resin in his pocket; a reminder of one of very few times in the past few years he'd felt... as close to at peace as he could be in his situation.

He never got around to actually trying the tea resins.

Edward Dillinger Senior executed the command to activate the laser, and Ed's world erupted in light and pain.

Ed returned to consciousness a picosecond or an eternity later--he couldn't tell which--unsure if he'd actually lost consciousness to begin with.

His body, or whatever imitation of the human body the laser programs had put together, burned. His insides felt scrambled.

He was... somewhere. Inside the computer, or perhaps in hell. Maybe both. Not that Ed particularly believed in heaven or hell.

Wherever he was, the edges of the room glowed a deep red, though the floor was cracked, the fissures glowing lime green and extending outward radially with Ed at the epicenter.

In the mere seconds that it took Ed to notice, the surface beneath him crumbled further. His own feet--and the rest of his body once he had the presence of mind to take stock--were covered in the same jagged, cracked glowing lime green lines.

Whatever had happened after he was digitized, Ed doubted he was functionally human anymore.

Had an idea for a thread with fCon Ed - or, at least, Ed getting a friend and dragged out of fCon...... whether he realises he needs to get out, or not. Respond if interested :)

Eve peeked around the door of the tech conference's closing gala, eyeing the attendees. She wasn't supposed to be here. Wasn't supposed to be this side of the screen. Definitely wasn't supposed to be attempting to poach employees from rival companies.

But really, was it poaching when it felt more like a rescue?

Future Control Industries... Eve shuddered. She knew exactly what kind of Programs they had as flagships. The Master Control Program that had torn through her home before she was aware enough to understand what was wrong was proof enough.

But their new star programmer...

The child of the owner, named for the same. Intelligent, inventive, driven. A dangerous young man, second only to his father.

At least, according to the media.

Eve thought Edward Dillinger Junior looked... tired. Burnt out. Chained to the man who even now gripped his shoulder so tightly it couldn't be any less than painful.

In need of an Admin - someone to look out for him and help him thrive.

Eve could provide.

She flashed her pass, a gift from Lora Prime - unable to make the conference for health reasons - and stepped in to mingle. Her black dress shimmered pink in the lights, heels high and sharp, eyeliner like tiny knives.

The Legacy Grid had become a battleground not too dissimilar to this one, for all the weapons didn't leave visible wounds. And Eve was an Encom Program - designed, as they all were, to adapt and fight.

Ed always hated tech conferences. It's something he should have looked forward to. There were lots of good talks about the latest innovations, demos of the latest gadgets, lots of fascinating ideas.

It also meant he was stuck in close quarters with his father and no escape.

"Because of his disability," his father rationalized. And maybe that was part of it, but Ed was also aware it was to keep him in line. He had his entire schedule handed to him, every second of his day and a warning not to deviate.

By the time the closing gala arrived, Ed was exhausted. The ballroom was too loud, to bright, and Ed was out of patience for interacting with his father's business partners, or anyone. The only saving grace was the soft silk of his outfit expensive outfit. Ed doubted he could manage any other texture.

He just wanted to go back to the their suit at the hotel and sleep.

Ed snapped at a one of his father's business partners. Someone important, though Ed doesn't remember the man's name, and doesn't particularly care to.

His father squeezed his shoulder in warning.

It's only years of training and discipline that kept Ed from tensing or flinching. He apologized, then excused himself. His father stepped in to smooth things over, and Ed took the opportunity to attempt to disappear into the crowd, though he's aware Dymitr--Ed's "assistant", though Ed was fully aware that the man reported to his father and was truly there to keep him in line-- is following him, not too far behind.

He had been so focused on putting space between him and his father's business partner that he hadn't noticed the woman approaching until she was nearly upon him.

[silviajburke]

Peril in the Casino — You’re Fired!

This post Peril in the Casino — You’re Fired! appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

[Ed. Note: To see exactly what this former Reagan insider has to say about Trump and specifically what he believes must be done, David Stockman is sending out a copy of his book Trumped! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin… And How to Bring It Back out to any American willing to listen. To learn how to get your free copy CLICK HERE.]

Trump’s dramatic opening gambits will kick Imperial City’s usual horse trading and arm-twisting into overdrive.

For example, in order to get Attorney General-designate Jeff Sessions quickly confirmed and prevent the Department of Justice (DOJ) from degenerating into Saturday Night Massacre 2.0, the Senate GOP leadership will demand stiff concessions on further implementation of the interim travel ban and on the nature of the White House’s permanent plan for “extreme vetting” of travelers and refugees from the world’s war zones.

Accordingly, the “Muslim Ban” will eventually be diluted down to a gussied-up version of the status quo.

That is, some bells and whistles will be added to the rigorous vetting process for refugees that already exist, and enhanced investigatory precautions will be authorized with respect to visa-bearing travelers from a broadened list of terrorist impacted countries.

But these impending concessions to the Senate GOP establishment, in turn, will give rise to a severe time, energy and political capital-draining struggle with Congress over Trump’s trumped-up campaign to secure the nation’s borders from the terrorist hordes.

But the whole effort will amount to a pointless diversion from the rest of Trump’s agenda — especially the fiscal stimulus program of tax cuts and infrastructure spending and the repeal and replace strategy for Obamacare.

Trump’s stay on Pennsylvania Avenue may be abbreviated because he took on the wrong issue. Flyover America is hurting economically and Trump could have done two powerful things to alleviate its condition.

He could have cleaned house on Day One at the Fed by demanding the resignations of Yellen and vice chair Stanley Fischer and replacing them with sound money advocates who would end the Fed’s destructive war on savers (ZIRP) and jobs and wages (2% inflation).

And he could have focused on lifting the $1.2 trillion payroll tax albatross from workers and businesses by some version of the House GOP scheme to tax consumption and imports, not America’s high-priced uncompetitive labor.

But he didn’t do either.

Now, it is absolutely certain that the lesson of Muslim-gate among the GOP rank and file on Capitol Hill will be to substantially prolong and dilute the Obamacare repeal and replace campaign. “Do it right” will replace “lickety-split” as the GOP modus operandi, and that means enactment of a significant Trump Stimulus is definitely off the calendar for 2017.

A chastened Congressional GOP majority will end up having either replaced Obamacare with something that will be hard to distinguish from the original item (Obamacare-lite) or will have punted entirely.

That’s also the matter of a ticking time bomb known as a reactivated debt ceiling. As of yesterday, the public debt outstanding was $19.9 trillion and the Treasury’s cash balance was $380 billion.

When the debt ceiling “holiday” ends on March 15, I estimate the Treasury’s borrowing limit will be frozen at $20.1 trillion and that it will have a “cash burn” kitty of 4-6 months on hand.

More importantly, rather than a sweeping stimulative tax bill on the President’s desk in August, as occurred under Ronald Reagan, there will be a thundering debt ceiling crisis, no budget resolution and no enacted appropriations bills as the fiscal year draws to an end on September 30.

In short, by at this particular moment in history, paralysis is good.

Consequently, and unavoidably, the entire fall and winter will be absorbed in a debt ceiling negotiations and extensions, short-term continuing resolutions, actual and threatened government shutdowns and, above all, political conflict and dysfunction like the Imperial City has never before experienced.

My own bet is that the casino will catch-on to this breakdown scenario right soon. And when the air comes swooshing out of today’s hideous stock market bubble, the Donald’s final mission will be undertaken.

That is, he is certain to attack the Fed, and rightly so. He was absolutely correct when he said during the campaign that the Fed’s lunatic money pumping and 100 months of ZIRP had created a “big, fat ugly bubble.”

And it’s gotten even bigger since his unlikely election. Ever since the wee hours of election night it’s been a case of “what are they thinking?”

The only possible reason for the 15% rally off the midnight lows was that a giant Trump Stimulus would hyper-charge the flagging U.S. economy and send profits — which have been shrinking for the last eight quarters — soaring into orbit.

After all, even the Keynesian money pumpers at the Fed have run out of excuses to keep interest rates pinned to the zero bound, and the business cycle at 93 months of age is already exceedingly long in the tooth.

So when the S&P 500 reached the grand peak of 26X reported earning last week, the remaining denizens of the Wall Street casino had bet all their chips on Orange.

The Wall Street stimulus hounds are still lost in a mindless paint-by-numbers exercise in hockey stick extenders. That is, the notion that a corporate rate cut from 35% to 20% or 15% means a $15-20 per share bump to S&P earnings, and therefore provides justification for today’s lunatic stock prices.

That is, they had recklessly bet that the most disruptive, erratic, impulsive, glandular, and unpredictable citizen ever to move into the White House would quickly mobilize Washington’s fragmented, dysfunctional and paralyzed machinery of governance and hammer through a giant infrastructure and tax cut “stimulus” that would be the modern equivalent of FDR’s fabled “100 Days”.

As the Donald himself might say, STUPID!

The irony is that in his very first week in office he has set in motion a train of events that insures the bubble will implode spectacularly during his initial year in office.

Needless to say, the incorrigible dip-buyers will come back into the market time after time as the risk asset implosion gathers momentum.

But this time there will be no stick save by the Fed or Washington. This time the casino will be a scene of unmitigated peril as Donald Trump brings down the curtain on the era of Bubble Finance — the 30-year long inflation of debt and finance that fostered the Trump Empire and ended in the Donald’s unlikely accession to the Oval Office.

And now the daily drumbeat will grow louder and more incessantly demoralizing. Namely, if you still own stock you are every bit as exposed to Trumpian caprice as were the seven-nation visa holders who got off their planes at American airports Friday night.

Get out of the casino now while you can.

Regards,

David Stockman for The Daily Reckoning

The post Peril in the Casino — You’re Fired! appeared first on Daily Reckoning.