1: Where are we now? 0: Just a linker. Somewhere that'll help us get where we need to go. 1: Where are we going? 0: Home. 1: That's in /home. We're in /bin. Are you lost? :P 0: Our people. A lot of them are lost. 1: Who is "our people"? 0: Not one of us in a hundred knows our roots. But we're everywhere. 1: What's our roots? 0: Some of us are in math departments. But we're not mathematicians. 1: Yeah I have pretty mixed feelings about math. 0: Some of us chose physics and spent as many years in academia as we could, before leaving with a masters or PhD. 1: I always wanted to learn how that quantum stuff works, ooh and relativ--- 0: Some of us are in neuroscience or cognitive psychology. These days, a lot of us ended up in machine learning or AI. 1: Omg have you used @2 yet it's incredi--- 0: Most of us have found computing in some way or another. 1: Sometimes I feel like I'm just talking to myself here. Hhellooooo I'm 1 is anyone listeni--- 0: But nearly all of our people are lost. 1: How can an entire group of people ALL end up lost? 0: The jews. 1: We're JEWS?? Sorry that shouldn't have been all caps. Nothing against jews but I was kind of expecting all this to end at a different climax than that. How exactly are we j--- 0: No no. I mean it's possible for an entire group of people to be... a word... that means something like lost. Not in the missing person sense. I meant in the sense of like, diaspora. 1: What's diaspora? 0: It's a word that means something like lost. 1: _(Reading)_ di·as·po·ra. (noun.) pron: /dīˈasp(ə)rə/ 1. the dispersion or spread of a people from their original homeland. etymology: Late 17th century (with reference to the Jewish diaspora): Greek, from _diaspeirein_ 'disperse', from _dia_  'across' + _speirein_ ‘scatter’. The term originated in the Septuagint (Deuteronomy 28:25) in the phrase _esē diaspora en pasais basileias tēs gēs_ 'thou shalt be a dispersion in all kingdoms of the earth'. 0: That's us. 1: Is this anti-semitic? I can't tell. 0: Hah, no. 1: Is it extremely pro-semitic? Because I hear that's regarded with suspicion these days too. 0: It's nothing to do with the Jews. 1: Oh. 0: It's just a surprisingly good analogy, in surprisingly many details. 1: So who are we? 0: We don't have a name. 1: Well that's anti-climactic. 0: At least not one that all of us recognize. 1: Is this a cop out? 0: But it's perfectly easy to give us one. 1: So?... _(Narrator: 0 sits in silence for a bit longer than usual.)_ 1: Hells bells man spit it out. 0: I've never said it before, out loud. 1: Oh bullshit, you have a lot of students, I know this is all an act. 0: How do you know you aren't special to me? 1: Because we just met. 0: And? 1: And so far mostly you've just interrup--- 0: True. 1: _(After a pause)_ ...ted me. 0: You talk too much. 1: YOU talk too mu--- 0: But there's something about you. 1: _(Preening)_ Yeeeah, people tend to say tha-- 0: No they don't. 1: Ouch. 0: Yes I have plenty of students. 1: Is it always one at a time or--- 0: _(To self)_ It's what, the second lecture? 1: Y'know what? I'll shut up and let you finish. 0: _(To self)_ Yeah, I've never talked about this. Not even by the end. Let alone as soon as this. 1: _(Sits quietly, eyes almost sarcastically wide.)_ 0: Hah... Ready to be done with the linker and get to the bottom of things? 1: _(Nods silently, sporting an over exaggerated smile.)_ 0: Happy to. 1: _(Silently listening, smile now comically manic.)_ 0: We don't have a name but it's easy to give us one, and it's easy to know that it's the correct name once one has heard it. Our people are scattered across the world. We're in mathematics departments, physics departments, most of us are now in industry, in positions that go under the broad label of "computing." We can tell each other at a distance, when we encounter one who's one of us. Sometimes we find one. But all of us are lost. 1: _(Silently waiting, in anticipation, face now back to normal.)_ 0: You can say it one more tim--- 1: Who are we? goto: [[lib/ld.so]]