The Unexpected
Copyright© 2025 by Technocracy
Chapter 8
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 8 - "If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out, and difficult." -- Heraclitus of Ephesus
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Consensual Heterosexual Fiction
[Writer’s Note and Disclaimer. Readers that were associated with MIT during the late 1990s will recognize some of the places and names and titles. While some of the characters’ names and positions are historically correct, none of these people were involved in the described events of this written rubbish. This is a work of fiction, and is total bullshit, and is not intended to have any social or literary value. Please return to your doom-scrolling and maintenance of your blank minds. Do not forget to wipe the drool.]
Needham, Ma - 08 December 1999
Lizzy was playing with a virgin Mac G4 on the rickety kitchen table while Benny and Harry had six more G4s on the floor in the living room, in various stages of disassembly, but all connected to mains power and running.
Benny mentally did the arithmetic for power consumption while configuring the BSD boot for each machine. He had quickly come to dislike Apple’s launchd and its associated madness. He could think of no rationale for replacing the BSD Unix startup daemon. Benny continued to configure the new machines as Harry peppered him with non-related questions.
“ ... do not know, Harry. We will simply consider this to be our tax dollars at work. Hand me that BNC crimper.”
Harry handed the center-conductor crimping tool, thinking out loud.
“The Lincoln Lab bought them at full retail, then stuffed them to the gills with RAM and hard drive upgrades ... Man, I’m gonna say that we got these computers at around eleven cents on the dollar. Where’s the receipt?”
“Ask Lizzy, she is the one that ripped apart the pallet downstairs ... Reminded me of that Looney Tunes Taz character. She went through those boxes like a little tornado.”
Harry yelled into the kitchen.
“Lizzy. Read me the receipt transaction prefix.”
A disembodied voice yelled back.
“Which receipt?”
“The one with ‘MIT Equipment Exchange and Storage Warehouse’ on the top.”
“Okay ... it says ‘B4590781’.”
“Ya hear that Benny? The receipt has a ‘B’ prefix. They screwed the pooch.”
“Give me the small wire strippers ... What do you mean?”
“They sold this stuff as surplus. It was supposed to have been placed into the school’s inventory for inter-lab transfers.”
“So?”
“They lost about sixty thousand freaking dollars, man.”
“Inconsequential to us, Harry. Make sure all of those receipts go to Northrup’s accounting people.”
“Why are we not using these machines for our main compute engines?”
“Latencies. All manner of weirdness going on in hundreds of daemons. Power consumption. And I do not have the time to re-write all of the low-level stuff for the PPC processors.”
“You said that GCC can compile for PowerPC chips.”
“It does. But the emitted code does not, at least with any inherent granularity, take advantage of the onboard cache. That and I do not have the time to learn a new processor architecture and re-write all of the low-level hardware stuff. So they will be data servers.”
“MacOS is up to being a server?”
“Harry, MacOS is nothing other than BSD Unix wearing fancy clothes.”
“So why not Linux, like all the other machines?”
“LILO is too primitive; it would choke on these boxes. And I have no idea what to do with syslinux wanting to start off with a FAT file system. I am not going to turn a simple configuration task into a project for a masters in the Information Sciences. We have no idea if we can expect that...”
“Yeah, yeah. I know, only the unexpected problems will occur in any systems development project. I’m gonna call that Benny’s Third Law of Engineering.”
“And what would be the first two laws?”
“‘Expect the unexpected’, and ‘do not use hammers’, or something like that.”
“I never said anything such as that second supposed law.”
The disembodied female voice from the kitchen rebutted.
“Yeah ya did, Benny. You always say to use minimal force and minimal effort, or something like, if it’s already broken, ya don’t need to keep hitting it.”
“My allegories and allusions and aphorisms are hardly suited for ‘laws’ ... Okay, now plug these into the flow monitors while I give these fancy boxes a static address.”
“Ya really think so? Doris cites your ‘laws’ to her thesis advisor.”
Benny stood up from the floor, paused to give Harry his best stink-eye, before sitting in front of the monitor system. After about 30 seconds, Benny pointed to the graphed data lines taking shape on the CRT.
“Latency has decreased about nineteen per cent with no special configuration. Best six thousand we ever spent.”
“You’re right about that, Benny. But still can’t believe how much you spent on that thing.”
“What thing? The HP3458? Harry, you are full of it. You said you wanted me to do calibration-grade verification for our voltage references. That level of precision and accuracy does not come cheap.”
“Why is it so much better than our three 8060 hand-helds? And I still don’t understand your need to do all of this in analog circuits.”
“More reliable and deterministic than the complex code that would be associated with an all-digital solution to our data-flow monitor problem. And the Fluke 8060 is four and a half digits. The HP is six and a half digits, and the HP gives me sixteen bits of valid data at high sample rates. That, and the HP meter has a HPIB port, so it can talk to the monitor computer.”
“On the subject of our monitor computers, did you tell Northrup?”
“Tell him what?”
“About the last batch of SCSI controllers from CompUSA.”
“Why would he care? They were buggy, subject to intermittent bouts of variable-bandwidth latency. We junked them and bought the Adaptec controllers. It is something for the accountant to worry about. So what is your issue?”
“That’s not what you told me. You said that that the embedded processor on the board was trying to talk to the outside world.”
Lizzy ears perked at Harry’s statement, abandoning her new computational toys to get the full scoop. Lizzy bounded out of the kitchen, into the ‘living’ room.
“You saying someone hacked the disk controllers, Benny?”
“We do not know that, Lizzy. It does not matter, as they were installed but a few days, and only saw two test runs. Like I said, we installed new controllers. No longer a problem.”
“We still have the boards?”
“Probably in that junk box. Why?”
“Something to dink with. And a reason for me to use the new logic analyzer.”
“Whatever flips your bits, Lizzy ... Harry, go home and log in. We need to run some round-robins.”
“Which data set?”
“The test data from last week, with the double puts.”
“Ya got it, Benny. See ya later, Lizzy.”
School of Engineering, MIT - 13 December 1999
Benny was surprised to see Dr Sorensen’s ex-wife in his office; not because she was his ex, but because he could think of no reason that an anthropology professor would be interested in, or qualified for, sitting on an electronic-design review.
“Uh, hello Doctor Kimberly ... Doc, where will do this?”
“We will go to the small conference room as soon as everyone arrives ... You are wondering why she is here. I want Samantha to listen to your rationale. She has no previous exposure to previous test data, and she has not read Harry’s papers on trade theory. Thus, a fresh opinion.”
“Okay, doc. Uh, Northrup said he will not be able to make it, but he will call you later.”
“That is fine ... Ah, yes, here they come. Our band of merry men are complete. Shall we, Benson?”
Benny was becoming exasperated, having to stop and explain every detail. Benny fully expected that her unrelenting, self-evident questions had been the root cause for Sorensen’s and Kimberly’s divorce.
“No, ma’am. This is very simple.”
Benny drew the simple equation on the chalkboard.
N(effective) = (S/(N + D) – 1.8)/6.02
“Where S/(N + D) is the ratio of the signal power of a full-scale input to the total power of noise plus distortion, expressed in dB. Notice that the effective bits rating and the signal-to-noise ratio expressed in dB are both logarithmic scales related by the constant 6.02. This means that increasing the resolution of a measurement by one effective bit results in a six dB improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio.”
Benny was interrupted by another question from the anthropology professor. Grinding his teeth, Benny wondered what insight the woman could possibly provide to the design review.
“How does this relate to the noise figure you cite for the data sets?”
“The system noise term, N + D, is the rms result of the power contributions of harmonic distortion and noise from various sources. For an otherwise noise-free, distortion-free system, there is minimum noise component because of the fundamental quantization error of the converter. If this is the only source of error, the number of effective bits approaches the basic resolution of the ADC, which is, of course, purely mathematical and theoretical.”
“So that is your basis for thirteen point five bits of effective data?”
“Yes, ma’am. Okay to continue?”
“Please do, Benson.”
Dr Kimberly reminded Benny of his mother. Always interrogating, always questioning his every action to cast aspersions and doubt. He had learned early in his life to ignore his mother. Before he had turned 11, Benny had learned to shunt any such doubt and indignation, thus moving these similar doubts and criticisms, as received from Dr Kimberly, into that same isolated section of his id, that he had partitioned out for people of her ilk.
“At this point in the break-over, the current mirror circuit will be modulated by CPU activity due to the trade-put latencies, and will eventually become asymptotic. See figure twelve. Note the curve in blue. This will be monitored as a separate process, but will not drive how we will chase the curve on the back side, but will be a principal real-time indicator for the trade volume that leads the first bounce.”
“And after the first bounce?”
“Indeterminate, Doctor Kimberly. After that, I do not have a clue and will be quite happy to do nothing else.”
“What happens if they halt trading prior to this?”
“Harry wrote a few paragraphs on that, Doctor.”
“Will your system automatically re-start shorts or long-term buys after the last bounce using this feedback loop?”
“To be clear, Doctor Kimberly, The PID loop is, essentially, the process that emits the numerical convolution. Thus, an immediate re-start would not be practical.”
“What is a convolution?”
Benny almost responded with a question asking the semi-learned professor if she wanted someone to change her diaper and burp her.
“It is the process of taking a time-varying signal, passing it through a dynamic processing element such as a filter, or maybe phase variance, to obtain the output in the time domain. This process is required because the output at any given instant depends on the history of the input over all preceding time.”
“When could you re-start the data feed to the controllers?”
“After the down-side has stabilized, we shut it down until Harry says to start it back up.”
“Mister Spoons? How will you determine this?”
“Benny and me have developed a separate system. We will not discuss it, unless Benny gives me a go.”
“Benson? What eventualities did you have planned?”
“We will not discuss post-bubble system implementation.”
“Why?”
“By that time, the fund will have been closed and dispersed. Further actions would require a separate, second-issue fund.”
“I see ... I am in, Davy. When do you need it?”
“Not yet, Sam. Benny?”
“Sir?”
“Is Samantha in?”
“Is she in what?”
“The fund, Benson. She has a significant amount of money that can be moved at this time.”
“Into our skipper accounts, sir?”
“Correct.”
“Harry?”
Harry detected his friends distaste at bringing in an outsider with big money on what could be the eve of their Big Move.
“I don’t think so, Benny.”
Dr Kimberly stood up, looking indignant and insulted. As she had scoffed at these young turks, they had scoffed at her.
“And why not, young man? I have the resources to make you people a once-in-a-lifetime gross take. You physical science people have little understanding of the investment world, of the nature of profit. Whereas, I have the experience, connections, and the wherewithal.”
Benny wondered of the attitudes and expectations of the wealthy. He had observed a similar response in Doris’s parents. He further wondered why this woman was posing as an academic. Benny decided that he was not about to let another woman de-rail his world. Fool me once...
“Doctor Kimberly, I resent your attitude and disrespect, and while we do fully intend to reap significant profit from our research, we have no intentions of allowing large institutional investors the sole and controlling access to our research. And I will remind you of the NDA bearing your signature.”
“That’s it? That’s your reasoning? You have no long-term investment strategies? You are foolish children ... Do you have legal counsel?”
“We do.”
“I will talk your lawyer.”
“That is acceptable. Harry, what do think of this? If Robert Northrup says yes, we take her money for twenty percent of the gross?”
“Okay, have her talk to Robert Northrup. I will go along with whatever Robert says. Doctor Henderson? Doctor Simpson? Have not heard anything from y’all.”
“I agree, with Benny. Paul?”
Sorensen, with a resigned exhalation, addressed his ex-wife.
“I agree. Go ahead, Sam. Talk to the lawyer. But be careful with what you say to others.”
Dr Samantha Kimberly walked out, feeling sullied that she had to deal with her ex-husbands piss-ant physics friends. Believing that she had these academic innocents by the short hairs, she was certain that she would steam-roll their lawyer in negotiations.
“Uh, doc. Just how much money does she want to throw in?”
“Uncertain, Harold. As of last year, she was worth over a hundred mil, and had about thirty in some form of liquidity.”
Harry and Benny exchanged raised eyebrows at the wealth of an anthropology professor.
“Benny? Now is the time to state your concerns.”
“There are three reasons I am not in favor of admitting Doctor Kimberly, sir. One, is trust. I do not know her. And you should have informed, per minima, Northrup of your plans for her inclusion. Two, is volume. Tens of millions could become the tail wagging the dog. It could de-stabilize my control loop. Also, Harry’s models indicate that any successive movements over a few mil can cause tracking by the big institutionals, perhaps even garnering the SEC’s attentions. And reason three, is her arrogance. Arrogant people, in my experience, tend to leave much debris and damage in their wake. Harry? Have anything to add?”
“Nah, You pretty much said it all. But, hollee mollee, boys and girls. Freaking tens of millions?”
Dr Sorensen slowly exhaled through pursed lips, realizing that he had, once again, allowed himself to be subject to Samantha Kimberly’s machiavellian manipulations.
“I made a mistake with Sam, people. But there may be a way out of this sticky situation ... Harold, tell me about how Northrup set up the parallel fund for Doris.”
“Nothing much to it, doc. Doris took the trust fund settlements in a discounted lump sum, and set aside half of it. Her outbound account simply runs in parallel with our master monitor.”
“Benson, are you still running a separate monitor and controller in high-risk mode?”
“We are.”
“What if we separate out Sam’s money, put it into a high-volume hedge that is also a short-put specialist, someone that is on Wall Street? You could configure a stand-alone monitor computer, controlled using the high-risk model.”
“Not a bad idea, doc. It could be done, but for external accounts where we have to go through an institution, we would be looking at a worst-case peak latency of over 200 seconds. Harry thinks that anything over fourteen seconds for the high-risk model is courting disaster.”
“Good enough. My former wife, and there is no other way to state it, is a greedy and manipulative bitch. In any case, she would not be able resist such an offer, regardless of her money being in a fund external to ours.”
Benny looked to his friend with concern.
“Harry, do you believe that using a high-volume New York firm will isolate us?”
“Yep. Was gonna say that it would be unlikely. Wouldn’t track us because we’d always be at least 200 to 300 milliseconds ahead of an external institutional trade, more likely an order of magnitude more.”
Benny took Harry’s synopsis as a go-signal, thus taking leadership of the group.
“We all appear to be in agreement. I will call Northrup. I will tell him to offer a fee rate of at least 30% of her gross, if she gives him a load of crap, he can raise the rate. Doc, after we close out the funds, you must walk away from Doctor Kimberly. NDA or not, I believe that she is an extreme risk.”
“Agreed. Let’s go do it, Benson.”
Needham, Ma 31 December 1999
Harry and Benny were sitting at the rickety kitchen table, sharing another 5 AM pile of ham and cheese sandwiches, plus beer, with Lizzy sound asleep on Benny’s small mattress in his bedroom.
“Freaking crazy, man. NASDAQ looks like its heading to 5k in about seventeen days, and we’ve been bouncing around 4k for a few days.
“Interesting. What did we make with yesterday’s runs, Harry?
“We made 42k yesterday. But more volitive, like it was earlier last week. Ya know, maybe you can take a little of our net and buy a decent kitchen table?”
“That it is a good idea. The Catholic thrift store has sturdy used furniture.”
Harry rolled his eyes at his friend, wondering if he was being miserly from paranoia, or just did not care about the comforts and affectations intended to improve daily life.
“So ya wanna tell me why the heck you’re taking another math course this semester? As if you need more math? We’re just six months away from our thesis defense. Scale it back, Benny.
“It is the advanced math of quantum mechanics. Particle physicists and astronomers claim that will be the future model for just about everything. In particular, I want to understand group representation theory, as seen through Hamiltonian Mechanics.”
“Yeah? Didn’t ya say that there is no such animal as a model for everything?”
“Perhaps not within our lifetime. And likely not for several generations, if ever. With much luck, and no unexpected contradictory cosmological discoveries, we might eventually come to know what that we cannot, ever, know.”
“You’re saying that we will never have the grand unified theory of everything?”
“I tend to think not. Our species is too limited in that regard. We are too stupid to know that we are stupid. As I said, we would need to know what we do not know, which would require a higher form of abstract reasoning not available to our current neural architecture.”
“Ya know what? I’ve now heard that several times, so we’re gonna call that Benny’s fourth law ... wait, I’ll start a new set of Benny laws. The laws of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Physics. That will Law number one of ‘LLP’.
“Will this be analogous to ‘Doris’s Laws of Life and Economics’? How many Doris laws have you encoded to date? Three?”
“Four. I added one yesterday. It’s...”
Harry was interrupted by a bleary-eyed Lizzy.
“Benny? How did the short runs go?”
“There were no surprises. Made more money. Want some eggs and toast or something?”
“No, I going to my room. Back to sleep.”
Harry glanced at the kid, then smiled at Benny, pointing to the girl. Benny shrugged at the half-naked girl, then noticed a large bandage over her left knee.
“Lizzy, put your clothes on before you go to your apartment, it is too cold. And what happened to your knee?”
“Nothing much. Was kicking it, the bag hit me when the cable broke.”
“I told you, no legs on that bag. It is too small and is intended only for punching. Not an issue that cannot be fixed, I will stop by Harbinson’s to get a body bag. But wait until I show you how to use it.”
“Okay, Benny. Luv ya. Bye.”
Harry and Benny watched Lizzy return to the bedroom, then heard her exit the apartment, then go into her apartment.
“Damn, Benny. Is the kid gonna get better? She was literally sleep-walking. And every evening that I come over here, she is underneath the stairs beating the crap outa that punching bag.”
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