This is about my employee ID. My badge, as they call it. It’s made of hard plastic, bearing the company logo, my photo, my name, and a unique number, and encoded with a magnetic code. Used to open the company’s door. Or doors. For a while, I wore it clipped to my belt, at the… Continue reading The Monday Morning Feeling
Author: pompilian tofilescu
The Purpose Finding Machine
I recently came across this fragment from one of my favorite authors Kurt Vonnegut (when reading his novel “The Sirens of Titan”): Once upon a time on Tralfamadore there were creatures who weren’t anything like machines. They weren’t dependable. They weren’t efficient. They weren’t predictable. They weren’t durable. And these poor creatures were obsessed by… Continue reading The Purpose Finding Machine
A Dream
I found in The Book of Fantasy, edited by Jorge Luis Borges, Silvina Ocampo and Adolfo Bioy Casares this short text by Chuang Tzu: “The philosopher Chuang Tzu dreamed he was a butterfly, and when he woke up he said he did not know whether he was Chuang Tzu who had dreamed he was a… Continue reading A Dream
Working to Afford to Work
A friend writes on Facebook: “I go to my corporate job to make good money! But since the office is out in the middle of nowhere, the only place I can eat is the company cafeteria, where the food is expensive. So I have to buy the expensive food to have enough energy to work… Continue reading Working to Afford to Work
About Poets
I’ve always said poets are illiterate, but no one believed me. Otherwise, why are they always trying to invent their own language?
The Laundromat
My son told me he dreamt he was living in a laundromat. Totally unknown people would come in and do their laundry while he was sleeping or having breakfast or doing whatever.This is life, son, I told him. A big room where strangers come in, wash their dirty clothes, then leave.
I am
I am a cyclop.There is a big book written about me. It is called enCYCLOPedia.
The Unused Code
Information is stored in our genetic code we never use. The only scope of human life is to transmit further that information. At higher level that information is spread in bits across multiple individuals. The reason for sexual procreation is to put together those bits of info. All matings are not random but following a… Continue reading The Unused Code
Science Fiction and Geopolitics – Science Fiction as a User Manual
I would like to begin with a simple statement: science fiction is not about the future. It is about the present—but expressed in a language that the present can bear. Imagine a world in which the state monitors you constantly; algorithms anticipate your actions; machines make decisions in place of human beings; and war no… Continue reading Science Fiction and Geopolitics – Science Fiction as a User Manual
The Hemingway Challenge
A friend poked me to take the Hemingway challenge (it is said that Ernest won once $10 on a bet of writing a story in only six words: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”). Here’s my story, but in seven: Two plates on the table; one empty. I’m now passing on the challenge. I’m waiting… Continue reading The Hemingway Challenge