I am on the top floor of the Rankine Building, at a geographically-altered University of Glasgow. I have been enlisted to try out a new technology that is being developed. I am to control a remote-controlled boy. I stand before a giant television screen, which relays pictures from the boy's helmet camera. I have also a handset with a small display of meaningless text, and an array of button with legends like "rotate" and "move left". (The "move left" being more of a strafe than a forward walk.)
The aim of the task is to work out where the boy is, and then guide him to where I am. The inherent flaw is that the boy is attached to where I am by a long (but not long-enough) cable.
I quickly ascertain that the boy is on level 5 of the same building. I guide him (clumsily) across an array of chairs, set up for some sort of seminar. I think he also walks through a hospital ward en route to the stairwell.
At this point, the vital electronic tether comes loose, and the boy goes careering off into the Boyd Orr car park, where mothers come to collect their offspring at the end of the day, and several people are quad-biking. Several academic staff run after him, and ask him to plug himself back in, despite the fact that this would render the "maze" experiment rather pointless. Nevertheless, control is resumed.
I instruct him to come to the top floor of the building. The video link shows that he is standing on the roof, in the snow. I despair.
| 
home
blog
dreams
photos
ducks
pastry
