Zapit News, Issue No. 1 - Date: 17th August 2003

Zapit News takes a fresh, thought-provoking look at how to save money, time and stress at work, while conserving natural resources. It contains practical ideas from twenty years' experience with thousands of people across the world. Zapit News is made possible by your Zapit subscriptions. If you have not subscribed so far, you can at: http://www.zapit.org
© Migration Solutions (Kelsall) Ltd, August 2003. All rights reserved

In this historic first issue:
1. Two more held in Paper Arrests
2. Microsoft Windows "MT - Matter Transfer" platform debuts
3. Children visit an "Office"
4. Taxes to rise to pay for "Earth on the Rocks" Initiative

Two more held in Paper Arrests, New York, 16th August 2030
Two men are in custody in New York today for allegedly using paper to send a printed sales letter to their customers. Police were alerted by several companies who had received the two-page flyer in contravention of paper usage laws ratified by the US senate in January 2028 prohibiting the use of paper for all commercial communications. Readers will remember this was in response to the need for forest conservation.
The letters, copies of which have been seen by this publication, seem genuine and, amazingly, compound the error by using coloured ink, itself outlawed in related after concerns about pollution.
Detective Maloney, 17th Precinct, said, "We are investigating many aspects of this disturbing case, including the use of printers to produce the letters. Everybody knows that only specimen printing devices are now retained in museums for educational reasons and other use is strictly prohibited. Probable fines will include the cost of replacement trees, energy and other consumables, plus the usual $100,000 "Green" fine for contravening environmental legislation. These guys use shock advertising tactics to get customers' attention and hope to get away with it. As you know, this is top of our priorities and Mayor Ramirez is being kept informed."
The letters are not in the category of recent industrial sabotage cases where Company A sends out printed flyers advertising Company B's products to ensnare Company B in the relevant legislation.
The investigation is ongoing.

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Microsoft Windows "MT - Matter Transfer" platform debuts - Bangalore, 9th August 2030
Rory John Gates, son of recently retired father Bill Gates and newly-appointed Chairman of Microsoft Corporation, announced at the company's worldwide HQ in Bangalore, India, yesterday that trials of the company's new Windows MT ("Matter Transfer") device had proved "more than satisfactory".
"Although, as with any new technology, there are teething troubles at the outset, we are broadly satisfied with progress to date and aim to release the device to beta testers next month."
The MT platform is intended to allow customers to place articles as large as a basketball in a container connected to their PCs which can then be attached to an email and sent to someone else possessing an identical device anywhere in the world. Possible applications include the transmission of valuable objects, such as items of jewellery, scientific and IT devices.
Technical staff explained that at present it is only possible to "Move" objects, not "Copy", even to one person, as matter imbalances could occur within the planet. One cynical correspondent asked Mr Gates if releasing the device to the mass market wouldn't just encourage lazy people to send multiple cups of coffee to co-workers, even if working at home, thereby increasing the obesity pandemic, currently affecting 93% of the world's population, through almost total lack of physical movement in daily life.
Mr Gates replied that, "It would indeed be wonderful if the MT device could send multiple cups of coffee (or, more importantly, create new forests to resolve the global crisis), but technically it is not possible to create matter, only transfer it. Anyway, how would the system handle different versions of the same cup of coffee for those who take milk and sugar?"
It was pointed out that the system could also prove a blessing for drug smugglers. However, future releases will contain software filters to check for the digitised chemical representation of an object to prevent drug transfer. This should also prevent thieves from transferring items from victims' houses to temporary addresses. Similarly, people sending objects anonymously of a romantic nature, such as bunches of flowers on St. Valentine's Day, could have problems. It is thought that flowers are now so expensive due to rarity that this would not be an issue.
Mobile versions of the device, allowing the transfer of forgotten sportswear or packed lunches to children, are thought to be far off due to power requirements and portability issues.
Quite what happens if the platform crashes half-way through a transfer is not known. Would the recipient get half a coffee, or a whole, transparent cup? As Microsoft systems are now so reliable, however, this was not thought to be likely.
In the demonstration, a 1,000 dollar bill, with serial number noted by video link, was transferred from a customer's prototype device in Los Angeles to Microsoft HQ. Reporters were struggling to understand quite how the world had changed, although at least, as some remarked, "MT" did not stand for "empty", as originally suspected.

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Children visit an Office - Berlin, 15th August 2030
A group of astonished 5th grade children were shown round Germany's only remaining "history-office" ("Historischesarchivmuseumarbeitsbüro") this week on a school trip designed to show changes in working practices in the recent past.
"The children were amazed to see that even as recently as twenty years ago people travelled every day, sometimes for over an hour, to a place far from their homes to work", said teacher Fräulein Grüber (age not given). "The children's astonishment alternated with loud bursts of spontaneous laughter at the absurdity of the idea."
Venerable museum curator Gerhard Gräber, 71, remarked, "Offices such as these saw the playing of the famous 'German bureaucrats' game, of which the only rule was that the first person to move, loses. The game's popularity saw it spread quickly to all other public and private offices world wide and it is still, apparently, practised by some employees in their home offices.
People would mainly get together in the 'office' to chat about the previous night's television at locations in the building called 'coffee points'. Light banter called 'office gossip' and flirting would take up many blissful hours, speculating who would be promoted or sacked in between sending email jokes to co-workers and looking for holidays (or other things) on the Internet. We were so 'busy', but really we got very little done, particularly when the computers were down. Ha! Ha! Ha! Happy days!"
One of the children, Gottlieb Gröber, 10, said, "We could not believe that special buildings were made just for people to work in! All that land, heating, lighting, air-conditioning and then to fill them with desks, paper and carpets!"
"When our teacher said that 70% of the space in these 'offices' remained unoccupied during 'office' hours, we did not believe her. So this is where pollution came from - driving to these places! Imagine the time and effort it must have taken every day just to get there and stare at a computer like the one at home. Just how did companies make any money?"
Part of the visit covered a time almost pre-Internet when people could not get free, 3-D video conferencing on demand and, of course, Sensotron technology had not been invented, so people could not digitally feel, smell and taste anything.
Young Gröber remarked that using one of their three annual SocialKid days to visit the 'office' as a group had been a bit like recreating those far-off times and said his friends quite liked all being together, instead of learning remotely alone at home. A return of the 'office romance'? For better or worse, not for these young people.

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Taxes to rise to pay for "Earth on the Rocks" Initiative - Moscow, 16th August, 2030
In a co-ordinated but controversial attempt to combat global warming, the United Nations announced in Moscow yesterday a commitment of a further $10 trillion for the initiative to transport ice from the polar regions of Mars to Earth's own frozen wastes, thus reducing the soaring median temperatures of our planet by a targeted 4 degrees Celsius within 50 years.
The program will also see water from the warmest of our seas siphoned out of Earth's atmosphere and jettisoned in to deep space to assist with the drop in global temperatures and to maintain current sea levels.
The initiative will result in higher taxes for every person on earth, according to the global "polluter pays" matrix established last year, with US citizens expected to pay the most - an extra two cents in the dollar in income tax.
Opponents are sceptical of the benefits, citing increased pollution from the spacecraft used to "fire" the blocks of ice from Mars and others which later adjust the blocks' trajectory before entry into Earth's atmosphere, maintaining this will only add to greenhouse gases and eventually global warming.
Excavation of the ice on Mars by a mixed team of human beings and robots proceeds according to plan, although rumours of demands for huge pay increases among drilling contractors are rife. While the human contractors do not land on Mars, supervising robot operations from orbit, the long periods in space and lack of physical comforts have apparently led to disquiet. Stories abound that contractors only complied with UN conditions after secret agreements were reached over the huge mineral reserves elsewhere on Mars.
Well publicised horror stories of what could happen if control over one of the 10-mile ice cubes is lost during re-entry to Earth's atmosphere have alarmed many scientific observers. The probable loss of over 50% of the ice due to re-entry burn up is also well documented, but the program is still considered essential.
Testing of the "soft landing" techniques used to minimise the impact in the Arctic and Antarctic have faced "technical difficulties", but apparently are now proceeding more smoothly and involve slowing the blocks of ice to the minimum permissible speed to sustain flight as close to the ground as possible before the ice "plops" on to the polar ice caps.
As today's children in 3rd grade all know, our water evaporation rate increases by about 5%-10% per degree of increase in temperature. In the last thirty years the world has heated up twice as quickly as people thought at the turn of the millennium and because of evaporation we simply do not have enough rainfall to replenish fresh water.
In answer to a question during the virtual meeting, UN Secretary General Kropotkin, 56, said, "Some would call this a desperate measure. In all honesty I would agree, but what else can we do? We know that we have inherited the consequences of how our planet was handled by our most recent predecessors, but wailing and gnashing of teeth achieve nothing. We have to persevere with this, as we have no alternative. If the initiative is successful, the Earth's climate will be stabilised and we can look forward to a secure future, including the possible return of air travel to some degree so that I can answer your charming questions face to face. We all know the alternative and, sir, what have you done today to reduce global warming?"
Wilder speculation focuses on the potential release from the melting ice on Earth of little green men and "Martian mega viruses", for which there may be no antidote. People seemed less concerned about the sudden impact on the heads of Earth's few remaining penguins and polar bears of millions of tons of Martian ice. As one seasoned journalist remarked, "With or without ice, sometimes you end up with a headache."

Issue 2, with you on 31st August will contain a Zapit Special Feature examining the subject "I have no email!".

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Zapit News takes a fresh, thought-provoking look at how to save money, time and stress at work, while conserving natural resources. It contains practical ideas from twenty years' experience with thousands of people across the world. Zapit News is made possible by your Zapit subscriptions. If you have not subscribed so far, you can at: http://www.zapit.org
© Migration Solutions (Kelsall) Ltd, August 2003. All rights reserved




About the Author
Zapit comes from twenty years' experience of delivering change management and education programs for thousands of people on a global basis in blue chip companies. Zapit is derived from real experience and is aimed at everyone who needs to use technology and other resources.