"The Hologram" - A Story of Injustice and Retribution in Three Acts.
Act One: The Publicity Agent's Office.
The office is filled with a tangle of computers, cables, video projectors and video cameras. The Publicity Agent is at his computer. The Capt'n enters.
Capt'n
Give it away, Giro. Mary Shelley invented Frankenstien in 1818.
Publicity Agent
No. No. That's behind us now. This is the Information Age. We assemble, not bits of dead organic matter to produce a living monster, but bits of living inorganic information to produce a New Way Ahead to Greater Things.
Capt'n to himself
I best do a stocktake. He's been into the Water Wheel.
to the Publicity Agent Tell me more.
Publicity Agent
I'm right into this Information Transfer and Distance Teaching Technology. I've been reading about some of the exciting stuff that L. C. Winner has been working on.
His Automatic Professor Machine for example. [see APM, - ed.] There's got to be a DTNM for us somewhere in cyberspace.
Capt'n
An DTNM?
Publicity Agent
A distance teaching niche market. I've been looking at all the tertiary disciplines to find an discipline on the LTUB campus that the other DTs have overlooked or crossed off as too difficult.
You see I've achieved a Technological Break Through in the FTF [face to face -ed.], aspect of DT. Look at Business Studies, clearly there's no need for FTF there.
Since the eighties most corporate business men have gone to a lot of trouble to avoid it.
DT works perfectly for geology. If students need hard material for study, there's rocks everywhere. And let's face it, one rock is much the same as another. Why, even in New York you can pick them up by the ton.
If you go through all the courses that we present here, then it is perfectly clear that conventional DT can handle the lot with just one exception.
Capt'n
Pottery and Ceramics?
Publicity Agent
Come off it. With plastics developing the way they are, how much longer do you think ceramics can last? Imagine a palmtop with a ceramic case! No, the answer is Bar Tendering.
Capt'n
We don't offer Bar Tendering. We'd have to get it pass the APC. [sorry, not on my list, Academic Policing Commission? - ed.]
Publicity Agent
No, not yet. But a new problem is an new opportunity. One door closes, another door opens -
Capt'n
- and another fool steps through. How about you Cut To The Chase.
Publicity Agent
What's essential for Bar Tendering training? Stacks of FTF. There's no way round it. And to deal with that I've developed HIT.
Capt'n
HIT?
Publicity Agent Hologram Information Transfer. The 3D image of the student is projected into the bar, the Campbell Bar of course. The course presenter, you of course, can see the student and by inverse HIT the student can see you and the bar. If we pull this one off we'll get the TCDTP [Teaching Committee Distance Teaching Prize - ed.] for sure. Imagine what that amounts to in bottles of Water Wheel.
Capt'n
I'm sold. Let's Run With It.
Act 2: The Campbell Bar.
The Bar is set up as usual except for equipment looking a little like complex video projectors in the top two North corners and laptop computer. Only the Capt'n and the Publicity Agent are present. The Publicity Agent pins a notice "HIT Training Session" to the door and closes it.
Capt'n
First student eh? Ruby, an American. It'd be good if we can crack the Lucrative American Market. Now I handle the bar training, you do the technical bizo, right? Call her in.
Publicity Agent
Roger.
The Publicity Agent keys a code into the laptop. There is a shimmer at the bar which steadies into a hologram of an attractive young lady.
Hologram
Hey! It really works. It's just like I'm really here!
However there appears to be a problem. The publicity agent is suddenly absorbed in studying the shape of the spacebar on his laptop and the Capt'n begins to read the back label on a bottle of 555. The hologram is puzzled.
Don't be coy boys. Let's start the training.
Capt'n without looking up from the back label
We'll just do a few exercises to loosen up. Can you touch your toes?
Hologram
Sure, look - EEEK!
The hologram has discovered that it is naked. It snatches a booklet from the table and attempts to cover itself up. The booklet is titled "La Trobe University - Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Policy & Procedures".
(on web)
The door flies open and the EOO [Equal Opportunity Officer - ed.] enters.
EOO
Hello, hello, hello. What's going on here, then? I heard a woman's cry.
she sees the naked hologram, and with a flick of the wrist whips down a curtain, wraps the hologram in it and leads it away
Never mind, sister, we have a procedure to handle this sort of thing.
speaking over her shoulder from the door
Get yourselves a good lawyer, boys.
Publicity Agent
Boys? She can't say that!
Capt'n has his mobile phone in hand, he's in business mode
Forget it. Nick round to your office and get a phone book. We need to make some phone calls.
Act 3: A normal Friday night at the Campbell Bar. Clients abound. The Capt'n is serving, relaxed with light beer to hand. The Publicity Agent is sitting on a bar stool, also relaxed, elbow on the bar, glass of red in hand. A Seekers track is playing,
"
And I think it's gonna be all right;
"
Yeh, the worst is over now;
"
The mornin' sun is shinin' like a red rubber ball.
Client K
You blokes are pretty laid back. I thought you two were in deep shit [sorry, social realism - ed.] over that blonde in a curtain business.
the Capt'n and the Publicity Agent laugh
Publicity Agent
That was no blonde, that was a hologram. [cf. the Lew Fields vaudeville line, "that was no lady, that was my wife" - ed.]
Capt'n
Yeah, it was full on for a while. Eagle-beagle hargie-bargie. They didn't wear our argument that though you can sexually harass a person, you can't sexually harass a hologram.
Publicity Agent
Yeah, they said it was just an image, no different from having a picture of a naked student in your office.
Client X
Oh. departs hurriedly un-noticed
Client G touches Publicity Agent lightly on the arm
I don't get it. Why on earth was she undressed in the first place? That's what I want to know.
Publicity Agent
She was dressed. It was a bug in the HIT system. It only transferred images of living organic material. Her clothes weren't transferred. It's the sort of problem you can have with Cutting Edge Technology.
The upshot of the whole thing was that we were required to pay Ruby ten kilobucks compensation.
Capt'n
U.S. that is. It amounted to nineteen thousand, two hundred and thirty Aussie.
Client K
And yet you're laughing?
Publicity Agent
Yeah. We simply generated a hologram of a ten dollar note and sent it one thousand, nine hundred and twenty three times.
Capt'n
We figured if we could get fined on a hologram, then we could pay by hologram!
This comment produces animated discussion amongst the clientele on the validity of the process. In the meanwhile the CD has moved on to the next Seekers track.
"Oh, sinner man, where ya gonna to run to?
"Oh, sinner man, where ya gonna to run to?
"Oh, sinner man, where ya gonna to run to?
"All on that day.
Publicity Agent to himself
Run to the Bar, the devil's gonna to find you,
Run to the Bar, the devil's gonna to find you,
Run to the Bar, the devil's gonna to find you,
All on that day.
Run to the Campbell Bar, Applied Science II, via Baker Street, 5:00 Friday.
About this site . . . . Site Contents