The Internet Is Dead

Prof. Henry Madera and his friend Gene Donnelley sat on the “cool-down” bench adjacent the clay court on which they had just completed their weekly tennis match. Their socks and sneakers were caked a dusty red. The professor munched on a Bartlett pear while his opponent sucked on a smooth plastic bottle of Smart water.

“Ideal conditions today,” huffed the professor. “Good light, dry air, no shadow, little breeze.” He sounded like the five o’clock weatherman.

“Yeah. High Noon. And you remember what happened in that confrontation,” joked his challenger. “I might be getting too old for singles,” Donnelley added in a belated show of good sportsmanship, in that he consistently won the majority of their sets. This didn’t seem to bother the professor who needed the outlet and enjoyed their bull sessions at the conclusion of each game. The professor carefully removed and examined the tiny blue, oval label stuck on what remained of his snack.

“Hmm. Imported from Argentina. Interesting. Beautiful piece of fruit, come all the way to Tucson just for my pleasure. More importantly, a perfect example of the power of global trade as influenced by market conditions.”

“Spoken like a true teacher of World Economics.”

“Never underestimate the lure and elegance of supply and demand.”

“Uh oh. This is not going to be another lecture extolling Reaganomics is it?”

“If you mean arguing in favor of the advantages of ‘laissez-faire’ and the free market over flawed governmental intervention, well, I believe the way I couched that gives away my position.”

“And there is sure to be a view contra, supported by equally compelling evidence I’m sure.”

‘What did you just say?”

“A view contra…?”

“Funny you said that. Here. I want to show you something I’ve been messing around with.” The professor withdrew his iPad from his tennis duffel. He scrolled around for a moment and then handed the iPad to Donnelley.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a new program I’ve been playing with. The code is almost finished.”

Donnelley was used to being his friend’s test subject or “focus group” on new apps and inventions. Many of them involved rare principles of actuarial or financial science, sometimes including human factors, behavioral psychology or stock market trends. Most of the explanations were far out of reach of his comprehension, but he had learned to listen very carefully and glean the salient points to his own great benefit. Over time, this had meant achieving some real prosperity on the recommendations of his friend, specifically with regard to technology stocks. In the course of a modest three decades he had made a killing in only as many categories. The first was silicon chip research, development and manufacture. When Prof. Madera made the off handed remark sometime in the 80’s that his latest IBM annual report happened to mention it was starting a joint venture with a little known startup company called Intel, and that if he had any disposable cash, he’d throw in with the start up instead of sticking with Big Blue, Donnelley read up on everything he could find about the chip maker, and bought a thousand of its shares on the cheap. Then watched it expand exponentially and independent of its early giant champion. With stock splits and participation in the dividend reinvestment plan, Donnelley soon accumulated a nice cushion.

The next tip came on the heels of the p.c. craze of the 90’s during the battle between Microsoft and Apple. The underdog would have its day, cautioned the professor, noting his students’ favoring of the Mac with its synthesis of both ergonomic hardware and software, on a rough scale of about 2 to 1. Donnelley made note of it and held tight even when Jobs was pushed out of the company and then later rehired. The ultimate gains were well worth the wait.

The final and most resounding tip came after the dot com bubble burst and everyone was skittish about internet stocks. Prof. Madera was tickled about the choice of name by one search engine company about to make its initial public offering. Thinking aloud one day he remarked that if the program could do everything it claimed, the sky was the limit on how much it might accomplish. He was right about Google, but wrong about the part of the sky being the limit.

Donnelley had well learned over the years that although his friend was not a 4.0 caliber tennis player, there was much more to him than met the eye.

Contrary to the academic quality of most bloggers, self-appointed talking heads or cranky consultants of the day, Professor Madera was authoritative and reliable, if eccentric.

Thus, he took his friend’s hobbies seriously, whether or not this particular item would become a success (most did). “What does it do?” he asked.

“What doesn’t it do!” gloated his friend. “Makes order out of chaos. Takes an almost infinite volume of disparate data and turns it into the most likely outcome scenario.”

“For example, weather prediction?”

“A walk in the park.”

“What about geologic changes such as earthquake, volcano, shifting magnetic poles, tsunami?”

“All depends on your search parameters.”

“So if I had asked it what was the probability of the Washington Monument nearly being toppled by a 5.0, it would have warned me?”

“Of course. But that isn’t a good example, because it’s no longer merely hypothetical.”

“You mean, therefore the answer would be based on real information.”

“Exactly. Keep it theoretical and then test your results against a real event in the future.”

“Will it choose a winning lottery ticket?”

“Cute. It can’t foretell matters left to chance. It will give you the odds, though.”

“So will Jimmy the Greek. Big deal. Suppose I’m an angel investor. What’s your strongest pitch for this program. How does it differ from others not already in the works.”

“National Security Agency already trying out a beta version.”

“Impressive. That gives me an idea. Is there a limit to the subject string I can enter into the search pattern?”

“Does male pattern baldness manifest itself in a finite number of ways?”

“I take that as a ‘no.’ Alright, here goes.” Donnelley cobbled together all the nightmare crises he could conceive of in the space of sixty seconds and tapped them into the search line one by one.

IRAN-CONTRA/DIRTY NUKES/RUSSIAN BLACK MARKET/ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS/IRAQI FREEDOM

Then he cursored to the Enter button.