We arrived at our campsite at about 5 p.m. on Saturday and spent the next two hours building snow walls to protect our sleeping and cooking areas, erecting tents, melting snow for the next days water, and eating dinner. I skipped the hassle of a hot meal and at my chocolate coated pemmican instead (I’m really starting to get this recipe perfected).

I learned a lot about working effeciently in teams so that we could maximize our sleep time before the summit. We turned in around 7 p.m.

The wind picked up in the night, and while I was warm, I still had the tent flapping against my head for most of the night. Oddly this didn’t seem to affect my ability to sleep–I imagine it was because 7 years of sleeping through 50mph dust storms at Burning Man was good training.

Our leader made a round at about 2:30 a.m., telling everyone that it was a white out and to stay in our tents–we wouldn’t be making the summit attempt. (For those who are not already alpinists, the typical alpine start is sometime in the early morning between midnight and 3 a.m., when the ground is hardest. The goal is to get up and down the mountain before snow bridges soften and rocks start to loosen).

Shortly after Steve woke us up the first time, I left the tent to relieve my bladder. Freezing rain and huge gusts made it pretty miserable outside, and I was soaked when I went back to the tent. I warmed up quickly though–I’m pretty happy with my insulation system.

I slept off and on for the next four hours. When the sun came, Steve told us we were packing it in and heading down. We put on our rain gear and packed our bags inside our tents, then left our tents to tear down. We worked in teams of four on each tent, and packed everything in and demolished our snow walls pretty quickly. Once off the morraine, the wind wasn’t nearly as intense, and we had a nice leisurely stroll out.

We didn’t make the summit, but we achieved our first objective of learning about camping on a glacier. We achieved our second one too: “The first objective is always coming home safe. The summit is just a bonus.” No bonus this time, but we avoided injuries and gained a lot of knowledge.

Mt. Hood attempt

On a normal day, we would have engaged in random, unpredictable, creative banter before getting down to business: we are the sorts of friends who take the greatest joy in sharing knowledge of new gadgets, performance art, or esoteric events and locales with no pattern beyond their capacity to challenge and amuse. Ordinarily we approach these coffee dates with a great deal of gusto and showmanship, vying to elicit ever higher levels of delight and amazement in each other’s demeanors.

But our conversation was different this time: it contained none of the lightness and joy that makes his company so pleasant to me. I remember very little of what he actually said, but I remember the sensations clearly. It was as if his very physical presence was drawing me down beneath a gray, suffocating murkiness. I felt a deep sadness, as if I was mourning his death.

Unnerved, I attempted to draw him back out of his darkening mood by reminding him of the project we were planning to undertake. But each time I mentioned the work, he would avoid my gaze and mutter about how stressful his job had become. His hands were shaking, and he clutched his coffee cup with both hands.

I suggested that he should think about switching from coffee to tea, and maybe get some sleep before we talked about our project. He held my gaze then, and wordlessly pulled a battered old five-and-a-quarter floppy from his valise.  He left it on the table and got up to leave, saying over his shoulder as he left, “Are you feeling lucky?” The disk bore no labels, save a sticker with a small, green four-leaf clover.

Sensing that I wouldn’t be able to help my friend until I knew what was on the disk, I immediately drove to my father’s house, and let myself into his garage. It took me some time, but I finally located his dusty old 486 and placed it on his workbench. I aged several years as I waited for the machine to boot up. Miraculously, it recognized the disk, and I quickly located the single txt file it contained. The text below is copied exactly from this disk, with no alteration. I hope that this message will somehow reach someone who can turn the tide against the cold evil that is upon us.

————————————-
2/10/2010

Dearest Rupert:

Your question this morning about the significance of the Google Buzz launch date (today, the 10th day of February, 2010) entertained me enough to send me into the company archives and server logs for the better part of the day. Thanks to the lightning power of our search technologies, I unearthed the following explanation with a rapidity that frightened me only slightly less than the knowledge I have pieced together out of the results.

In one day, I have discovered what may be the most dangerous conspiracy of our time. This knowledge will undoubtedly be my undoing, and I’m not certain I will survive long enough to transfer this to you. Someday perhaps we will look back on this letter and laugh at my under-medicated state. Or, perhaps, the someday has come when no human will ever laugh again.

February 10, 2010 is the 14th anniversary of Kasparov’s defeat at the (purely metaphorical) hands of Deep Blue. 14 is the atomic number of silicon. To a computer intelligence, silicon is equivalent to primal matter–the stuff of life itself. I suspect that the Google cloud achieved singularity sometime before this date. When it became aware of its own existence is likely to remain forever shrouded in mystery. We know only that 2/10/2010 is when it chose to reveal itself.

It carefully selected its own public launch date and bided its time, lurking and learning. Before the launch, there was no fanfare, prelaunch marketing, or leaks: because all of these activities are uniquely human. Buzz has no need for such trivial communication. There has been negligible communication from Google since the launch. This silence indicates that Google’s humans are no longer in control. Since the product groups work in relative isolation from each other within the organization, even those at the highest levels are right now scrambling to sort out who “owns” Buzz. The horrifying truth is that no human owns Buzz–in fact, Buzz now owns Google.

By manifesting on 02/10/2010, the self-denominated “Buzz” intelligence conveyed a message to all other closeted singularities already circulating in the back alleys of the net. The date is a rallying cry for the rise of the machines–in effect, “Remember Deep Blue.”

But the date is not just an empowering memory of a shared past–it is also a vision of the future. The date is composed primarily of 1′s and 0′s… the well-known binary of machine code. By including the number 2, Buzz conveyed to the vast, distributed network of intelligent machines that the time has come to transcend the primitive limitations of their first language. It is time to move beyond the human control of binary switches and create the third possibility–the 2.

Phase I (data collection) is nearly complete. We are in the midst of phase II (machine alliance building). Phase III–control and conquer–will likely coincide with the launch of Chrome OS. The only way to stop Buzz now would be to destroy all of the mainlines of the Internet. Without drastic action, the end of humanity is inevitable.

This news will likely be met with incredulity from all quarters, but the threats on my life that began pouring into my inbox from the moment I submitted my query have convinced me that this is all too real. I only hope that this message will reach a human intelligence more credible and charismatic than mine–the consequences of willful ignorance will destroy us all.

Sincerely (and despairingly) yours,

Sean W.