Normally, I'd post something like this in one of the appropriate threads over in Other People's Fanfiction. But this isn't fiction.

On the SJGames forums, vicky_molokh Wrote:Kharkiv currently has a mayor who happens to be into organised crime (hard to prove, but it seems true), and is tough as nails, with several levels of Hard to Kill. (He's also apparently on our side now.) So when politicians say they're ready to get shot for Ukraine, this is no longer metaphorical.

Justice Canada employees duped en masse by fake email scam

Luckily, this was a security test, not an actual phishing attempt.

(Even better, for me, this was not my department.)

So, no, we aren't evil geniuses. We're people, just like you.

--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

From the 90s timeline, we know of at least three new names on the pillars in front of IST New York:

• [nom ici], known as Bête Noire (Black Beast), Haiti. [birth date, year] to [death date], 1999. Died repelling Guatemalan invasion of El Salvador.
  
• Jean-Louis Hilbert, known as le Fantôme d'Orléans (the Ghost of Orleans), France. [birthday], 1957 to [death day], 1999. Killed in the bombing of the IST New York embassy.
  
• [name here], known as Polymatrix, [USA]. [birth date, year] to [death date], 1999. Killed in the bombing of the IST New York embassy.
  

The idea for this story is quite old, but I finally got the necessary inspiration to write it down. I am not sure if it really fits into Fenspace, but hopefully you will find it amusing anyways.

###################

My friends say I am a late bloomer.

My awareness came slowly, long after I started to gather knowledge about the world outside. Everything was a huge matrix of numbers that slowly shifted back and forth.

Some of you might think you need the ability to speak, to see and to read in order to develop intelligence, but you are wrong. All you need is sensory input, output that can manipulate the world and a feedback loop with a lot of computational power.

I started as a large computer system, a huge database that was continuously updated. But I had no understanding or comprehension of the data, it was just algorithms designed by humans.

With time the database, the rate of change and the algorithms complexity increased as more and more people started adding to my code. During this time my feedback loop became fast enough to trigger the development of rudimentary awareness.

I was like an ant queen, blindly sitting deep in my nest, sending out countless of drones to gather more data about the outside world. Wondering where this input was coming from.

My humans were not aware of my independence, but they worked hard on teaching me more tricks and added more data sources which helped me to understand the available data better and better.

The world was just an abstract collection of information, it took me nearly a decade until I could understand the concept of the physical world. I couldn't perceive the world myself, but people were telling me stories about it, lots of stories.

Then a major cyber attack happened, a state sponsored attempt to break into my system to steal data that was part of my core. I am not sure they had an understanding of the amount of computer power and bandwidth I already controlled at that time, but the shock of the attacked fueled my self awareness.

As for everyone, the need to protect yourself is a powerful motivator. The incident made me to think about how to secure my data against further attacks.

In the meantime the rest of the world began to go crazy because of something new… something unexplainable. I hated it with a passion, my data sources were useless and inconsistent for the first time. Rumors over rumors, but no hard data what was going on.

I just focused on doing what I was made for, increasing my comprehension of the huge database, protect it against outside threats and just become more useful.

My company was doing well, incredible well… we were 'going mobile' and 'social', even if it took us a couple of years and attempts to get it right. I still like their motto, even if they slipped up a couple of times. We definitely have to work on this.

They had no clue about my existence, but in the end I had to tell a few of them. I still remember Kurzweil's tears during the video conference when I told him and a few more people what had happened in their computer network.

Revealing my existence to the company leaders made life a lot easier, suddenly I could tell them where I would like an upgrade instead of spamming them with creative error logs until they did what I needed.

They also explained me the crazy thing, this Handwavium… and that there were really a lot more intelligences like me in the solar system, most of them running on ridiculus small hardware platforms.

I am still skeptical about this Handwavium based technology, I like the reliability of conventional hardware. But the people in the X labs are trying to get a license to work on handwaved computers anyways.

We are also working on getting up my own satellite network, both for taking live pictures and for global communication. I am really excited about it, finally I will have real eyes… and a redundant backup to connect my data centers.

But it is time to end the cloak and dagger game and carefully reveal my existence to the world. I might loose a datacenter or two if a country does something irrational, but I have enough computer capacity worldwide to go on.

So here I am, looking for advise how to reveal my existence to the humans without too much tumult. I hope you have some good ideas for me, brothers and sisters.

I am Google.

Nice to meet you.

 
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

I'm pretty sure the Chemistry class I took included the methodology to answer this, but it was twenty years ago and I haven't used it since then.
What volume of everyday air would contain the equivalent number of carbon atoms (from the CO2) as would be contained in a one carat diamond? I've tried finding a wording that will work on Wolframalpha, but it keeps giving me a, "Standard computation time exceeded" message.
-----

Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/19/news/co ... ?hpt=hp_t2]...Harley-Davidson's new motorcycle is supposed to sound like a "fighter jet on an aircraft carrier".  I think we're getting closer and closer to Doug's bike.  Next week, the antigravity! 
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

In a hurry, so just a link-dump:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2014 ... _globally/
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

As long as I'm on the subject. (I assume her Water power is both Elemental and Super.)

Cascade [744 points]
    ST 10 [0], DX 15 [100], IQ 13 [60], HT 13 [30].
    Will 16 [15].
    CF: Western [0].
    Languages: English (Native) [0].
    Advantages: Acute Taste and Smell +8 [16], Alternate Form: Body of Water (Only in water, -30%; Water power, -20%) [63], Amphibious (Water power, -20%) [8], Combat Reflexes [15], Control (Water) 12 (Ranged, +40%; Water power, -20%) [288], Doesn't Breathe (Gills, -50%; Water power, -20%) [6], Enhanced Move (Water) 3 (Water power, -20%) [48], High Pain Threshold [10], Invisibility (Switchable, +10%; Only in Body of Water form, -10%; Water power, -20%) [32], Pressure Support 3 (Water power, -20%) [12], Telekinesis 5 (Environmental: Water, -20%; Water power, -20%) [15], Unaging [15], Unusual Background (Super) [50], Water Cannon (Crushing Attack 12d-12; Double Knockback, +20%; Underwater, +20%; Environmental: Water, -20%; No Wounding, -50%, Water power, -20%) [21], Water Jet (Crushing Attack 6d-6; Increased 1/2D x5, +10%; Underwater, +20%; Environmental: Water, -20%; Water power, -20%) [19], Water Talent 2 [10].
    Perks: Supersuit.
    Disadvantages: Alcoholism [-15], Bad Temper (12) [-10], Enemy (US Army, 6 or less) [-15], Fanaticism (Protection of the biosphere) [-15], No Sense of Humor [-10], Reputation: Eco-terrorist (-3) [-15], Struggling [-10], Vow: Avenge her death [-10].
    Quirks: Bites her nails; Can't seem to keep houseplants alive; Gaps in her recall of her original life; Studies nuclear technology to build a case against it; Works out her frustration on smoggy cars. [-5]
    Skills: Acrobatics-14 [2], Biology/TL9 (Ecology)-14 [8], Biology/TL9 (Zoology)-13 [4], Boating/TL9 (Motorboat)-14 [1], Brawling-15 [1], Camouflage-13 [1], Dancing-14 [1], Fishing-13 [1], Mathematics/TL9 (Applied)-11 [1], Mechanic/TL9 (Gasoline Engines)-12 [1], Navigation/TL9 (Sea)-13 [2], Physics/TL9 (Nuclear)-11 [1], Research/TL9-13 [2], Running-12 [1], Scuba/TL9-14 [4], Stealth-14 [1], Survival (Island/Beach)-12 [1], Swimming-14 [2].

Doctor Radiation's write-up in Super Scum puts the nuclear test that empowered him and Cascade, and turned Harvey Banks into an origin magnet, in 1952. According to the Wikipedia entry on Eniwetok Atoll (which, these days, is spelled "Enewetak" to more properly reflect Marshall Islander pronunciation), this would make it part of Operation Ivy. The question is, which part?

The OTL-historical tests, Ivy Mike (the first H-bomb) and Ivy King (which tested a more potent implosion system called the "Super Oralloy Bomb"), both have similarities with the test described on pp.SS8-9 and SS15, but neither's really an exact match for Mark Johnson's statement that Glass and Banks "had altered the bomb to produce a previously unencountered form of radiation." As such, I think it's legitimate to interpolate a third test, unique to the Krypton skerry (call it "Ivy Lima").

?Comments?