EPCOT

EPCOT, at the Disney Parks in Florida, is quite an interesting place. One of the most interesting things is that it was never intended to be a theme park.

The name EPCOT derives from the acronym Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, and it was intended to be a planned, utopian city complete with residences, transport system, schools and recreation facilities. It was to be a testbed for new building materials, city planning systems and futuristic improvements. It would have it's own short takeoff/landing runway (that was built but is now closed to air traffic) - no doubt for the flying cars we should have had by now and the original plans called for an international airport/jetport to be built. Remember that Orlando International was still just an airforce base at this point.

It was also indended to by fully managed and controlled by the corporation, whom would own all the properties and rent them to residences. Therefore, all propterties would be fully maintained and, incidentally, none of the residences would have any voting rights in local affairs.

The plans were all set to proceed, but conditional on Disney building the Magic Kingdom theme park first to attract tourism to the area. Walt Disney died before the park was complete and at that point the corporation decided that it didn't really want to run a city, so it shelved the plans and turned parts of it into the Epcot Theme Park instead.

Even so, it is interesting to reflect on what was built, as well as what might have been. The theme park which is there costs exorbitant prices to enter. Once you enter, passing through the x-ray machine and bag searches, you of course need to wait in queues anywhere up to an hour to see the good things, and the price of food and drink is also through the roof.

Everyone is happy there, the customers are, the staff are (probably at risk of being fired if they are insufficiently perky). Thousands of people work behind the scenes to make sure there is not a hint of upset or a single tear. But why would you be unhappy? After all, this is the happiest place one Earth! Not a blade of grass is out of place in the perfectly manicured lawns that you can admire, but never sit or walk on - an attempt to do so would certainly be picked up by the watchful attendants or the myriad of concealed CCTV cameras that monitor the area.

It makes you wonder.... perhaps Mr Disney did indeed give us the template for the society of tomorrow, after all.

Would you care for some sea kitten and chips?

PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, are of the opinion that you shouldn't eat fish. Well, any sort of meat, really, but let's stick with the fish for the moment.

They've also noticed that people, in general, don't eat kittens. With me so far?

So, they've decided that henceforth fish should be called "sea kittens". The logic being that if people identify fish with cute furry kittens, then they will feel badly and not eat them.

I use the term "logic" here rather loosely, because PETA seem to have missed out on a few basic points here. For one, the first couple of things people notice about a fish is it's distinct lack of paws, whiskers, ears, fur, etc. Likewise, kittens are regularly noted for their dearth of scales and their failure to breathe underwater.

More to the point, PETA seem to be of the opinion that if you change the name of something, it fundamentally changes its nature. It's understandable, given the popularity of this concept in recent years.

Shakespeare, now he knew a thing or two about this. In Romeo & Juliet, he wrote: 'What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name, would still smell as sweet." And that which what we call a sea kitten would still taste rather good if sauteed in some butter and herbs, methinks.

In her Earthsea books, author Ursula K. LeGuin has it that when a wizard knows the "true name" of someone or something, he holds power over over it, and can change it's nature by changing its name.

The US Government, in recent years, has had more success in this area. For example, by changing the name of "prisoners of war" to "enemy combatants" did it indeed change the nature of what rights under international law these people held. But it did not (despite dissenting opinions of some of the guard at GITIMO) stop them from being human. Their species remained intact.

The attempt at renaming "french fries" as "freedom fries" in protest of the French Government was somewhat less successful. Possibly because french fries originated in Belgium, and the French have been trying to get us to stop calling them that for years.

The political correctness movement has also attempted a similar feat. However, renaming a person without sight from "blind" to "visually challenged" has not magically given the person sight.

And calling a fish a sea kitten is not going to stop it being battered, deep fried and put on a plate, any more than changing the term "a bunch of morons" to "PETA" has changed the nature of that.

If you think about it further, the term kitten only refers to a juvenile cat. So, only newly spawned fish could be called sea kittens. Or really small fish. Bigger fish need to be called sea cats, one would think.

And then there's the problem of the sea lion. They eat fish too. So, if a lion (being a cat) eats another cat, isn't that cannibalistic? Not to mention cat food. Land cats eating sea kitties.

And what of the brave fishermen, those gallant sea dogs. Oh... dogs chase cats. That one works, let's leave it in. Less good news for seakittenmongers down at my local market, though.

Budgerigars, too, will be more than a little confused; they spend their lives in fear of land-cats, but yet sharpen their beaks on a piece of cuttleseakitten.

Dr Seuss will be scratching his head trying to work out how to write 'One sea kitten, Two sea kittens, Red sea kitten, Blue sea kitten" without needing extra paper, and which one is supposed to be wearing the hat.

Still, my thanks should go to PETA for brightening my otherwise dull day by making this suggestion. I can't wait to see what they come up with for veal.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused

In the future, we are told, computers will become artificially intelligent. They will be capable of the speedy correlation of facts from various sources, and be able to make a reasonable ad-hoc judgement based in them, without the need for human involvement or oversight.

Perhaps, even, they will be able to experience emotions, much like Marvin (from Hitchiker's Guide) or (Data from Star Trek) did.

Complex emotions, such as elation, grief, love, etc. are far beyond the realm of current technology. But, it is pleasing to note that scientists have now been successful in getting a computer to experience sadness and contrition.

Yes, you heard it here first, dear reader! The media outlets have been noteably silent about this, no doubt to prevent the populace fearing a Terminatoresque rise of the machines, but I have seen and experienced the results first-hand.

Last weekend, I sat on a train station, watching the minutes tick by until my train arrived. It was a cold night (sub-zero), an outdoor platform and few lights to brighten my evening; the garish illumination of the clock, and the destination board, were my only source of entertainment.

I watch the list of stations at which my train would stop as it scrolled along the screen until.... blank. But, within a heartbeat, the board had changed: My train was now running 2 minutes late. The display now showed the scheduled time and the later expected time. Much as you'd expect. But, as my heart sank at the thought of the tardy locomotive, these words appeard on the screen:

We apologise for any incovenience caused.

Huh?

What?

I pondered these words as I waited... as the 2 minute delay grew to 10 minutes, then 15. But, as the delays grew longer and icicles begain to form on my nose, the words remained.

We apologise for any incovenience caused.

Curious, I stood and wandered over to the top of the flight of stairs. From thence, I could see into the ticket window, and saw the station master enjoying a hot beverage while completeing some paperwork. He did not, in my view, appear the slightest bit apologetic. If he were contrite in any way, he might have offered me something warm to drink, or invited me to wait in his warm, well lit office. But he did not - it was obvious that HE had not written this message of apology.

Suspecting a person in the central control room may be responsible, I phoned their complaints line the next day. Not wanting to let on my suspicions, I was cagey about what I asked. The operator reiterated the the apology for the inconvenience, using exactly the wording that was on the sign. But there was no genuine emotion or empathy in her voice: she was sitting in a nice warm call centre, and was clearly reading out the pre-written party line from her computer screen. In the background, I could hear the chatter from other call takers. Clearly she, nor anyone in her department, was very apologetic about my inconvenience.

In the newspaper, the Minister for Transport was discussing a new rail link or something. There was a photo of him, shaking someone's hand. They were smiling and laughing. Laughing, I tell you! Not even in the corner of his twinkling eye was there even a morsel of regret. And if the man at the top, with ultimate responsibility, was so patently unrepentant, then there was clearly no one else in the chain of command whom would be.

From whence did the message come? From the only intelligence that shared my plight, of course. The only one who had walked a mile in my moccasins, and experienced the endless eternity of waiting on a cold dark platform for the train that would not come. For, as I sat alone there, my only companion was the computer than ran the display board.

And there we have it, gentle reader: A pure apology. One completely untouched by human hands, issued by the computers themselve to a human. They apologise. They regret the inconvenience that I experienced.

After trying to deal with the humans working at National Rail, it's nice to know that something cares, even if it's just a computer.