“Jan Eirik, time to stand up!”. 15 seconds later, lauder: “Jan Eirik, the time is quarter past six”. And another 15 second, vey laud: “Jan Eirik, I said it is time to get out of the bed!”
“Terrorist-watch, I am awake” the man in the bed answered his speech controlled watch. “We’ll see, yesterday you slept in again” the watch answered. “Tell me when you are up”.
5 minutes later after moving around in the bed struggling for not falling asleep again, Jan Eirik left the room: “Terrorist-watch I am up”.
After finishing at the bathroom Jan Eirik goes down to the kitchen. Entering the room he says: “Coffee-machine, please make me a double espresso”. The coffee machine built into the kitchen furniture confirms with a “One double espresso is ready in 30 seconds”.
Jan Eirik turns on the 40” 3D-screen located on one of the walls in the kitchen by telling it: “Kitchen screen, please show me what’s up to day.” The screen powers up and show 9 mini screens each containing a different subject. 6 of windows in window showed news stories concerning stuff Jan Eirik had shown special interest of the late weeks, and the last 3 commercials for things Jan Eirik recently had search information about. This information was stored in a database common for all Personalized Units Jan Eirik had.
Of the news, 2 cases were concerning the DPT. The Dynamic Public Transport was a public transport concept Jan Eirik had been one of the major contributors to both the inventing and implementation of. With a Master of Science degree in control engineering, a long experience from the car industry and an ability to come up with practical solutions, much of the technical solutions were based on his ideas.
Jan Eirik told the screen to show them one by one. The first was telling the latest main figures for the DPT. The latest ratings showed that now 85% of all people used the system traveling in and out of Citopia, the 4,5 million people big city Jan Eirik lived just outside of. The second was the new intervals between the Transport Units which for the three lines out to the coast was changing more than the others and decreasing daily based on the increased traffic to the beaches now at the beginning of the summer.
Of the commercials, one paid special interest. A new House Assistant from Clean House Automated was released and Jan Eirik told the screen between his mouthfuls of bread with Hyper cheese: “Kitchen screen, show me the data of the House Assistant, and where I can have a look at it.” He read the data with high interest on the left side of the screen, with a demo video running in 3D on the right part. He saw that only some few of the Demonstration Arenas had got the House Assistant in, and he considered for a while what to do. If he had the time to go and have the assistant demonstrated. He considered it to be a too high risk just to order this one. He was especially unsure if the chemical substance the machine spread out in the room really reacted with the dust and dirt and made the final substance easy to remove as promised.
“Kitchen screen, show me today’s agenda”. The screen showed the common calendar and activity list in his personalized units’ database. The calendar entries and tasks for the date were shown. One of the tasks which were located in his “ongoing” banner, had deadline this afternoon without being more than 92% finished. The banner showed this would require him to work at least 2 hours more to finish the activity, but also that outsourced work of 5 hours remained. “Kitchen screen, show the ongoing load balance task”, Jan Eirik commanded.
The screen showed the complete content of the task with status on each element. Two animated documents he had made himself were finished. The algorithm itself and the source code for the application the same. The screen also showed all video calls and emails concerning the task, but none of them were marked for further actions needed. An appointment about presenting the solution for Mr Spock and associates at DPT Inc. was settled to 5 o’clock PM.
What was left for the total task to complete except the final review was easy to see. An outsourced task was to make the animated movie showing a simulation of how the DPT should act during the learning phase of the load balancing algorithm, and under influence of the weather-caused changes in travel habits during the autumn. Data which they already had good empiric data for, and which was extreme enough to really make a visible effect. This movie was not ready. Guy Smith who was his point of contact at the company making the movie was shown as “in public room”, but protected and available. Jan Eirik finished his bread and took a quick look at himself in the front glass of one of the kitchen cupboards. Not discovering anything not making him presentable, he commanded the kitchen screen to call up Guy.
After approximately 10 seconds Guy answered and came up in 3D on the screen. Jan Eirik could see he was wearing his Protected Space Helmet, just as he had expected. “Good morning, Guy. On your way to the studio?” Jan Eirik asked. “God morning Jan Eirik” Guy answered, “Yes, you are early. It’s regarding the load balance movie I assume?” “Yes, just want to make sure we are on track”, Jan Eirik replied. “Don’t worry,” Guy assured “I am ready to go through it with you any time after 2 o’clock PM”. “Then let’s say 2 o’clock” Jan Eirik answered “I am supposed to present the whole package to Mr Spock afterwards”. They agreed about this. “Calendar, video with Guy at 14.00 to 14.45” Jan Eirik told after they had finished the video conference, and the appointment popped up in the calendar. Some few seconds later the appointment changed color to “confirmed” which told Jan Eirik that Guy had confirmed the appointment.
Jan Eirik was considering his day again. The review of the movie he could do on the way back from the city if he brought his own PSH. And he would be home early enough for his presentation. Based on the reviews he already had with Guy he didn’t expect any need of changing the movie anymore. The simulation gave in any case the main contents of it, and the visual effects like light, camera positions, side information etc. was already discussed in earlier reviews.