by NANCY GONGLIKWANYEOHEEEEEEEH, Alternate Reality News Service Technology Writer
How many patents have Silicon Valley tech companies applied for in the last year? Three. One was for a faster than light propulsion system that looked suspiciously like a bug zapper. Another was for “A New Method of Removing Unwanted Hair” that looks suspiciously like tweezers. Nobody knows what the third application looks suspiciously like: it seems to have been written in English, but the words are strung together in incomprehensible ways that would make both Strunk and White blanch.
What happened?
“Well, you know,” mused Marc Buzzburker, founder of Farcebook and somebody you wouldn’t want to French kiss in a dark alley, “original ideas are like…something that is very similar to them. But, either way, sometimes they dry up – creativity is not an industrial process, much as we have tried to make it one…”
“Not a single real patent application? Just like that?” countermused Tim-Bob McBits, creator of the game Angry Crustaceans. “That’s not ebb and flow – that’s post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland! I wish I…I could take credit for that metaphor, but I read it in one of Frank L. Baum’s books. My point, though, is that it’s like…like somehow something that destroys people’s creativity got into our water supply!”
Actually, that’s exactly what happened.
“It is?” McBits mused. Unamusedly.
Two years ago, a janitor, having spent 176 straight hours mopping up the Zachary quinto-triticale containment tanks at the Bubbe Guy factory in southern California, wearily leant on a wall to look with pride on the work that he had done. He accidentally flipped a switch, which opened a circuit which sent a message to a storage tank to open a door that led to a sluice that dumped 1,200 gallons of RUR 312 (proposed commercial name: We Couldn’t Think of an Original Thing to Call This Drug: That is How Good it is!) into the South Bay Aqueduct, an important source of California’s drinking water.
Of course, RUR 312 (proposed commercial name: OUIdi…812) is the drug developed at the Bubba Ghee Foundation that interferes with people’s ability to formulate original ideas. Not necessarily “of course,” I suppose: it could have been the drug that makes people’s ears shrivel up and causes them to pronounce words with the letter “r” in them as though it didn’t exist. But, uhh, that would make this a very different article.
“Oh. Well, that might explain -” McBits started to muse, but I wasn’t finished.
A couple of days later, a train carrying 600 gallons of the brain disenhancing drug derailed thirty seconds out of the station from the factory. Its contents spilled into the Hetch Hetchey Aqueduct, which also serves California.
“Okay. Well. That might also explain -” McBits started to continue to muse.
This time, he was cut off by Amitabhy Backchanl, representing the Bubbe Guy plant, who mused: “What? You think that just because a drug that makes it hard for people to form original ideas is spilled into a waterway and that everybody who drinks from the waterway starts having trouble forming original ideas that the two events are connected? Do you understand nothing about cause and effect?”
A couple of stunned seconds later, Backchanl turned and mused quite loudly, “Uncle! I think I may not have been cut out for a job in public relations!”
The accidental release of RUR 312 (proposed commercial name: Creativity is for Nerds!) into silicon valley’s drinking water hasn’t hurt the tech sector’s bottom line yet. The release of Panes 27 – Revenge of the Empirical Subroutine, for example, was delayed for six months, but, when it was finally released, users found it generally more friendly and less bug-ridden than typical Microsquish releases. Rovipovich, the production company that produced Angry Crustaceans, was bought out by Japanese giant X Corp. and repositioned in the market as a North American games warehouse and distribution centre.
Well, it hasn’t hurt Tim-Bob McBits’ bottom line, in any case.
Are the effects of the drug permanent? “What good would a drug be that users only had to take once?” Backchanl mused. “Our stock price would plummet, that’s what! We’ve been testing the drug on lab rats for about 15 years, and none of them lived long enough to regain their ability to run mazes that they had never seen before. Still, I imagine it would only be a matter of time before – damn! I really suck at public relations, don’t I?”
“Hold on a sec,” Buzzburker mused, “I only drink bottled water.” Unfortunately, by then the common wisdom about RUR 213 (proposed commercial name: Aww, Do We Have to Come Up With an Original Name? Really? There’s Nothing Original Any More, You Know – You Need Something to Call it? Call it Bob. Or, Infidel. Or, Persuasion. Or, a Persuasive Infidel Named Bob. Or Give it Your Own Name – As Long as You Try Before You Take it Because…You’ll See…) had taken hold, and nothing so insubstantial as facts would move it.