Long ago and far away, well, that\u2019s what they would have you believe, lived and man and his son, alone in a small stone cottage.
\nOne day, the father asked the boy to go and collect some kindling for this evening’s meal.
\nThe father, as best he could, made a modest living hacking into secret government files, then selling the information to competing countries.
\nHis work was hampered by not having NBN, and so had to rely on a satellite connection for all his data transmissions. Totally off grid, the two lived a quiet and peaceful existence, their Swiss bank account now generously proportioned, still, the money itself was not the driving force.
\nThe boy had revised the Turing laws at five, and together they had built a computer system with some twenty nineteen inch racks of processing power. One side benefit of the scale of the computer was they were never cold in winter, in fact, the snow never came within ten feet of the house, the heat load was so great.
\nThe lake up on the mountain feeding their Hydro power system, was able to supply the hundred kilowatts they consumed daily.
\nWith seven monitors flickering, the father became anxious, as his son was late returning, so with the last NATO files decrypted, he decided to call it a day, and went looking for the boy.
\nThey didn\u2019t need the kindling to start the fire, it was for smoking the roast pork they had planned to have for dinner.
\nAs he wandered through the peaceful woods, he heard voices coming from near the lake. Now, if you know anything about code breaking, you will know that \u2018Loose lips sink ships\u2019. He had taught the boy from an early age not to talk to strangers, of course, living where they did, the potential for that to happen was highly unlikely.
\nEntering the clearing near the water, the father smiled, there was no security breach, it was Horace the duck, discussing high altitude disturbances with his son.
\nSome time before they had discovered an interesting side effect of their main work, a translator for animal speech.
\nTrouble was, now you just couldn\u2019t shut Horace up once he could learned to communicate with the boy, still, he did bring in useful weather information.
\n\u201cAfternoon Horace,\u201d the man called out cheerfully.
\n\u201cAfternoon George, some high cloud coming in from the west, but with little chance of precipitation.\u201d
\n\u201cThanks Horace, maybe we can get some fishing in tomorrow.\u201d He suggested to his son.
\n\u201cDad, Horace and I think we have found a way to bounce signals off ice crystals in Cirrus clouds to block satellite data transmissions. Could be a new revenue stream for us, much like Malawear, only bigger!\u201d the boy smiled.
\n\u201cWell done you two, but seriously, I\u2019m more concerned with getting the roast on.\u201d
\n\u201cOh gosh, sorry Dad. I did get the branches off the apple tree, but got side-tracked with Horace on the way back.\u201d
\n\u201cNo harm done, let me have them so I can start the smoker, you two work out the finer points for the high altitude cloud seeding we will need, if we are going to start this new venture.\u201d
\nTurning, he walked back to the cottage, whistling in the afternoon sun.
\nLife was good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Long ago and far away, well, that\u2019s what they would have you believe, lived and man and his son, alone in a small stone cottage. One day, the father asked the boy to go and collect some kindling for this evening’s meal. The father, as best he could, made a modest living hacking into secret […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palAbp-1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":53,"url":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/2018\/11\/19\/trouble-at-the-well\/","url_meta":{"origin":1,"position":0},"title":"Trouble at the well","author":"Rob","date":"November 19, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Long ago and far away, a young boy carried a heavy load from the market, there, his father traded vegetables for meat, and other family necessities. \u201cMind you go straight home now,\u201d his father commanded, \u201cand don\u2019t go near the well.\u201d However, the day being hot and dusty, the boy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28,"url":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/2018\/10\/24\/the-frog-and-the-ibis\/","url_meta":{"origin":1,"position":1},"title":"The Frog and the Ibis","author":"Rob","date":"October 24, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"One sunny afternoon, a frog was sitting on a rock, the cool clear stream, which was his home, lapped gently as it passes by. The frog sighed, \u201cWhat a wonderful world it is, everything in it\u2019s place and a place for everything\u201d he said out loud. Now, philosophical frogs being\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":115,"url":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/2018\/12\/03\/sorry-im-late\/","url_meta":{"origin":1,"position":2},"title":"Sorry I’m Late","author":"Rob","date":"December 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I hate waiting, no, I mean I REALLY hate waiting. Waiting for trains, waiting in lines, waiting to find a car park, anything to do with not being able to do, what I want to do, when I want to do it, got it? You will always know when I\u2019m\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72,"href":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robclarke.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}