The Hurricane, the Tree and the Skull

For many generations, people will talk about the story of the skull.  You know it well.  There was a storm the size of Brazil in the mid-Atlantic that hit the Jersey Shore, wiped out Atlantic City, and not to mention turned Staten Island into a marsh while flooding the NYC Subway System, breaching all seven tunnels between Manhattan and Brooklyn that run underneath the East River (nevermind what it did to the Rockaways).

In New Haven, however, the storm was not as bad.  Aside from some Quinnipiac River flooding, and an occasional fallen tree, nobody barely lost power and we made it unscathed.  That night, the wind was really howling, and in the morning the sky was nearly clear.  We all walked outside that day to assess the damage.  

One of the fallen trees happened to be the Lincoln Oak, which was planted on the New Haven Green in 1909 to celebrate the centennial of Lincoln’s Birth.  There was even a plaque for it, hanging vertical in the air amid the large chunk of grass and dirt the fallen tree had uprooted.  I took a photo and put it on my website as the intro photo to the Hurricane Sandy aftermath article.  

What a surprise happened next.  

I have two friends that are bone collectors, and they both live on the same street.  But they do it for different reasons.  One is an art creator; a sculptor.  The other is a historian, but a good  illustrator in his own right.  They both have an interest in bones, although for different reasons.

Their names are Silas Finch and Robert S. Greenberg and they are the most down-to-earth you are ever going to meet.  Both extremely talented and cursed by the lock that fate would see their names repeated throughout history.  In this case, here was their involvement in the events which shaped a story which reached national news, that a tree, overturned by Hurricane Sandy, would reveal a skeleton on the day before Halloween.  How could that not be a story with long term significance?

Many will claim credit for the homeless girl who was mentioned in the news for her discovery.  But few, if any, knew of what proceeded in the early hours of the morning after Hurricane Sandy.

Silas claimed in a conversation with Greenberg that he saw the tree fall, while in the cubby of the Anchor, and he came back the next morning looking to see if the tree had unearthed any of the human remains we all knew were all around the Upper Green.  He and Rob both knew the whole Upper Green is full of skeletons, some of which are just feet from the surface.  And as pwer Robert’s public relations stunt with Occupy New Haven in March of the same year, I was aware of it too, but fate would decide that I missed all of this action until later.  

At 2 in the afternoon, I saw a twitter post by Ben Berkowitz, announcing the discovery of human remains on the Green.  He tried to SeeClickFix it, and that’s how I found out.  Even though I had gotten there early before the skeleton commotion and not noticed anything.  Rob Greenberg got a phone call from Silas Finch, and it probably went something like, “Yo Rob, get down here, we got bones.”  And Rob probably asked him “Human or animal?” to which Silas said in all likelihood, “I don’t know, you better get down here quickly,” as he stashed a bone behind a different tree after he had been poking around the roots for hours which were now protruding horizontally in a four foot deep hole in the ground.  

But Robert had arrived too late.  By the time he got there, the people who he called “ the heathens” (namely the homeless people who had represented as Occupy New Haven just months earlier the same year), despite the months of protesting media and government, were the first to call the police and the news.  That ruined it for Robert, because at that point it became a huge commotion with “Crime Scene” tape and a van from the TV station along with a few squad cars.  He showed up with his shovel just in time to see Silas getting interrogated for stashing that femur behind a tree.  He told the officers he was looking for old pennies.

Robert was eventually called by the police also, but only because the town historian was not available.  he went down and met with an officer and provided information about who the dead possibly was, and how they possibly died.  That’s where I found Rob, Randomly.  I was riding my bicycle past the green when I noticed the blinding floodlights illuminating the “Crime Scene.”  I found him describing the scene to a police officer, both poring over historical documents about who was buried where in that particular section of the New Haven Green.  

The police officer listened intently to what Robert S. Greenberg was saying, and it became the news, by anyone’s standards. It was quoted in USA Today and misquoted on Saturday Night Live, all in the same weekend.  Robert told the officer that I was his cameraman, and let me within a breath’s distance from the forensics expert and the archaeologist, who were exhuming the bodies of men, women and children who in their time while alive probably witnessed America win its independence from Britain.

The reason that Robert was quoted in those articles, and not the town historian, was because everyone after the hurricane had the day off from work, even though we all had electricity and all the flooding had subsided.  It wasn’t even rainy the next day.  As a consequence, the police called Robert because they needed the historical information for their incident report.  

The report made the news, and all of those reports about the potential historical significance of the find were facts that Robert had provided to the police out of his own sense of duty.  He also had a three ring binder on hand with all of the information he needed to prove beyond just hearsay what facts he proposed.  

Robert pointed to a print-out of all the information in the binder, which had a map in it of all the bodies that were buried in that part of the Green.  He personally had deduced that it was during the time of a mass small-pox epidemic, basing this map as his source for that conclusion.  

It turns out he was right, because the forensic expert and archaeologist whose home was now that pit had began to notice a redundancy in the types of bones they were finding.  

The big question in the life of a man who thinks he’s great is, “Will I be remembered?”  Because if not, then surely life was full of self-deception.  

I think Robert S. Greenberg will be remembered.  

Student Services

Chapter 1.  Access “Student Services”

There was once in the 1990s a thing called “Student Services.”  It was the Yale IT program’s way of essentially testing the waters for future online grading information availability.  At the time, the only computers that were available were those like the Tandy TRS-80.  Monochrome, often tinted green, with no mouse or windows; just a cursor, blinking at you, asking you...  begging you, to tell it what to do.  

If you were lucky enough to both (a) be aware of the existence of the online grading system known as “Student Services” and you were also able to (b) obtain a copy of the manual so that you understood how to use it, then you were able to access your grades from a computer system outside of the school.  But it was well known to be faulty, and not all professors used it.  At the time, it was more like a test to determine how such a system might work in the future.

Mandy frequently used Student Services because she was in the Computer Science department, whose funding helped build the original system.  She had the official manual, and it was required of her introductory level course to test out her ability to enter into the system and find information.  It essentially worked like this.

First, you’d install some software with a floppy disc.  The disc came with the instruction manual, so there was no way to install the software without the manual, and nobody without the manual would know what to do with the software.  First, you’d enter the disc.  It would run a program and ask you:

Are your connections plugged in (RJ45?) []

if you typed “no” it would say “Please install your RJ45 plug now.”

If you typed “yes” it would say “Make sure all lines are hung up.”

If you typed anything other than “ok” it would repeat “Hang Up All Lines.”

But once you typed “ok” (not case sensitive) it would open up into an Ascii-art graphic.

“Welcome to Student Services.”
Please dial your number now.

At which point you would enter the phone number listed in the manual which corresponded with which college you were in.  If you were in Morse, you’d dial something to the effect of 203-432-1999.  If you were in Saybrook, it was the same, except 1998 at the end.  And so forth.  

Mandy dialed her number.  It connected.  She said, “Yes!”  out loud as the computer screen began to display more information.

“Please enter your user name.”

She entered Mandy.Ardmore1993

“Please enter your password.

She entered her password and the screen shuffled around again.  Now she was in Student Services.  She was particularly concerned about a computer science class entitled “Artificial Intelligence for Dummies.”  It sounded like an interesting class, and she assumed that it would be an easy way to get an A.  But it turned out to be harder than she expected, and now she was very intent on discovering what grade she had gotten on the most recent quiz.  

Welcome Mandy (Class of 1993).  (Silliman).  

What would you like to find?

And a cursor was displayed.  No other explanation, other than at the bottom of the screen:

Type “Close” to exit menu.

Type “Hang Up” to end connection.

Mandy typed the code for her course.  “ComSci-1005.”

“Welcome Mandy.  Please re-type your password.”

Mandy re-typed her password again.

“What would you like to know about this class?”

Mandy typed “Schedule”

“The next time “Artificial Intelligence for Dummies” occurs is TOMORROW at 12pm.

What would you like to know about this class?”

Mandy typed “Professor”

“Professor is David Frog.  

Tenure = Yes

Years = 5

Alma Mater = MIT

What would you like to know about this class?”

Finally she stopped messing around with it and got to the point.  “What are my grades this semester?” she said out loud as she typed “Grades.”

“Please select:  Tests, Quiz, or Cumulative”

Mandy typed “Cumulative.”

2.1

“That can’t be right,” she said out loud.  “That can’t be right...”  She typed it again.  
“Cumulative.”

“2.1”

“Cumulative.”

“2.1”

“Crap.”  She spins around in her swivel chair and looks away at the room.  There’s a ceiling fan by the window.  She’s there by herself, feeling like she’s about to cry.  Helpless and alone.  Hapless and with poor grades at an early age, seeming destined to fail at even the simplest course in the catalogue of computer science classes.

“Quiz”

“Your Quiz Grades are:

81

74

63

22.”

“Twenty-Two?  That’s almost how old I am!  I can’t possibly have scored a 22.  Something must be terribly wrong with that.”

That’s when the phone rang.  It was her friend Todd, who said that there would be a really fun concert that evening and that she should try to attend the

“I don’t know Todd, I’m really bummed out about this grade that I got in my computer science course.”

“Do you have any upcoming tests or quizzes this week?”
“No.”
“Well alright what good is it going to do for you to just sit there and pout?  Come out with us!”

This, in effect, was partially the reason for the 22 but Mandy desperately wanted to be tapped for a society that Sam was rumoured to have ties with (his uncle allegedly was a member, he spilled at a party one night).  And she valued that just as much as anything else in the world.

Without turning off the computer, she grabs her keys and heads for the door.  Sam leaves his place and heads to the meeting spot.  The door shuts behind Mandy.  The computer stays on.

Chapter 2.  The Space Pirate Party

“Who is this guy, ‘SpacePirate?’”

“They say he’s the greatest DJ on the planet, but nobody has heard of him, and nobody knows his real name.”

Mandy:  “If nobody has heard of him, how is he the greatest DJ?”

Todd:  “He’s not famous for being on the radio.”

Mandy:  “Then how did you find out about it?”
Todd:  “There’s a network of cassette tapes that extend all around the globe of his work.”

Mandy:  “That’s weird.”
Todd:  “Yeah, you’ll never hear his work on the radio, but it’s all stuff you’d recognize from the radio.  And that’s why they don’t play it, partially.”
Mandy:  “Why?”
Todd:  “Well, because technically he - or they, don’t have the rights to it.”

Mandy:  “That’s interesting.  So that’s what we’re going to see?”
Todd:  “Yes, absolutely.  You have to hear the performance, it’s amazing.”
Mandy:  “Where’s it going to be at?”
Todd:  “It’s in a basement at a party.  We have to make it there in 2 hours so take another sip of this high-powered Seltzer Water.”

Mandy sips the seltzer deeply and feels the buzz of bubbles on the back of her throat.

(In the film, this party happens quickly and is alluded to at later points, but in this segment, the night ends early after a blur of visuals of footage from a SpacePirate show).

At the end of that, Mandy goes back home.  The screen is still lit on her Tandy TRS-80.  She sits down at it and writes, “What are you up to” on the screen, just as a ruse, while she put her keys down next to the machine.  She hit enter without looking at the screen, and walks away to the kitchen to fix herself a glass of water.  “Ho boy.  At least this water isn’t carbonated,” she says, taking a refreshing sip.  

That’s when she looks back at her screen and says “Oh my.”

There is a response on screen.  

“Not at the moment.”  it said.

Chapter 3.  CoffeeShop Exchange

Mandy meets up with her roommate at the coffeeshop on the first floor of her building.  “Hey, Sasha,” she says, already sitting down.  How is your weekend?”

“It’s good, so far.  Pretty good.  Went to a couple of parties, had a tremendous headache from drinking copious amounts of seltzer water.”  
“Me too.  Have you tried ‘Ginger Ale?’

“Oh my goodness, I can not do shots of ginger ale.  I get so hyper.”
“I have a confession.  I was popping skittles last week.  All day.”
“In class?”
“Yes, in class.”

“What if you dropped one?”
“I almost did, and I thought, it would make so much noise if it hit the ground, it would sound louder than a marble if it fell out of my hand.”
“I particularly like the orange ones.”
“They almost taste like tic-tac’s.”
“I know!  Almost like they must be using the same identical candy coating.”

“Maybe it’s the same company,” said an eavesdropper, lowering his headphones.  He hadn’t been listening to music the whole time at all.  In fact, the headphones he was wearing went into a unit which was attached to a high-density condenser microphone.  

He could hear the whole room, only amplified by his headset.  It looked from every other instance of him that he would be just a huge music fan, the way he wore his big old headphones above his beat-up trucker cap, tattoos of random objects pointing down his arms in every direction.  It was as if there was no making sense of him.  

“If you don’t mind, we’d like our privacy,” said Sasha, turning around barely.  The man flipped through pages of his comic book and stated, “It’s a free country.  I can do what I want.”

“Guys are such jerks,” says Sasha to Mandy.  “They think they can just barge in on any conversation, invited or not.”

“It’s as if they would just rather be the ones having the conversation,” chimed in Mandy.

“If they weren’t so busy being alone all the time because they suck at it,” said Sasha, looking dead at Patrick, who now looked legitimately intimidated.

“If you don’t mind, I have to go call my girlfriend.”  Said Patrtick, as he packed his comic book into his messenger shoulder bag, the kind with the seat belt clip in the middle.  He gets on his phone.

Sasha laughs.  “

Mandy gets up while Sasha is laughing and presses the seat belt in the middle of Patrick’s chest.  His bag falls to the ground, and everything stops.  The music stops.  Sasha stops laughing.  Mandy looks horrified, and Patrick says, “My laptop was in there.”  And Mandy walks over to the bag to try to pick it up for him.  He stops her and picks it up himself and says, “just kidding,” as he looks her in the face while leaning over to scoop up the bag.  

He says, “See ya later, ladies.” and put down his shades, and walked out the door.

Sasha said to Mandy, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”  They both grabbed their belongings.  

“How do you know eachother?”  says a woman, just outside.
“He lives upstairs,” said Sasha, as she lit a cigarette, and spoke to the lady who appeared frazzled, who had apparently left to do the same, only to initiate the culprits in conversation outside.  

Mandy said to Sasha, “I’ll meet you upstairs,” and she hastily ran inside the building and then into the elevator.  

She turned on the TRS-80 and opened up Student Services.  She types:

Hello.  

And it responds, some 5 or 6 seconds later:

Hello.  Enter Your Name.  

She types,

“You know what my name is.”

“When was the last time you logged into this computer?”
a.  “Yesterday.”

b.  “Today.”

c.  “Last Week.”

if A then “Thank you Mandy.  Welcome Back.”

if B then “Sorry, that is not true.  Good bye.”

if C then “Please re-enter your user name.”

Mandy chose A.

“Thank you, you stupid machine,” she said out loud.  That’s when Sasha came up the stairs again.  “Are you cursing at your dumb computer again?  What’s it telling you this time?  Is it trying to go out on a date with you?  What does it say, “I’m already in your house, don’t spill coffee on me?  Sounds like a long-term relationship.”

“I’m not in love with my computer.  I’m just fascinated by this thing it said to me last night.  Are you sure that it’s not a real human being controlling it?”

Sasha said, “Mandy, think about it.  There are 10,000 students at this university.  Do you think that there’s one person fielding all of those inquiries by his or herself?”

“Yeah, but how many people use Student Services?”
“Good point.  You’re in the Computer Science department.  Why don’t you find out?”

Chapter 3.  In Class

Mandy went to class the next day in the morning.  It was a bright, sunny spring day.  One of the nicest all year.  It had been a long, cold winter and the warm air made the journey to class finally an entirely pleasant experience.  

The professor was Dr. David Frog and the class was titled “Artificial Intelligence for Dummies.”  It consisted of no textbook, just a series of lectures and writings by Dr. Frog, who was known to have revolutionized the wheelchair as well as was responsible for some formidable robotics patents.  

One of the things he had in his posession was a collection of Armatrons.  He won a bet back in the early 70’s that he could program a computer to beat a friend at BlackJack.  That friend gave him what he wanted:  a bundle of robotic arms from a name brand electronics store.  His friend’s father was apparently an executive at said electronics store, so the arms were easily transferrable.  Nobody was really sure what he wanted them for.  Some said that he was interested in providing these for his students before he even got them from the wager.  Others said it was a dumb idea in the first place, and that he continued to insist on encouraging people to be participants in the same dumb ideas he’d held onto forever.

He had been known, throughout his career, to bring these out to his students as part of his eccentric class, with the following lesson.

And this was apparently the day of all days.  Every student had an original 1985 Armatron, in the box, on the desk in front of them.

“I want you to take these home.  And I want  you to try to pick up your keys with it.  You can stand the keys up any way you want.  But try to use the arm and the controls to pick up the item.  There are a series of questions I’d like you to answer when you take these home with you.  And do not break them!  You are not permitted to break them.  If you do, then you will not be able to pass this course.  Instead, you will be enlisted in a different course, entitled ‘How to Fix An Armatron.’  Few students ever make it out of there alive.  Don’t laugh.  It could be you.  Don’t spill beer on it, don’t try to pick up shot glasses with it, don’t let it hold any joints.  I mean that!  If this thing comes back smelling like a dormatory dungeon, you get a bad grade.  That’s how important these things are to me.  So don’t break em.”

“Also, batteries are important.  Don’t leave it on, this class does not provide extra batteries.  Again your tuition does not account for things that are left on.  Don’t let it click.  Hey wait a minute, does anyone know how to use these?”

Throughout Frog’s lengthy speech, each of the more adventurous students, one by one, began turning on their machines, one by one.  By the time the speech was over, several of the students had turned on their Robotic Arms and Frog was now talking over them with a slightly louder voice than he had started with.  

“Here is your assignment.  These are the things you must respond to, in a document, on my desk, by the end of the week, with the Armatrons.  These things do not stay with you over the weekend.  They must all return to this classroom when you hand in your papers on Friday.”

“What are the questions?”  asked a student, over in the corner, impatiently awaiting a point.

“Ah the questions.  That’s a good question.  Here they are:

1.  How could this be better?  In other words, how could this robot’s design be improved?
2.  What are its similarities to your anatomy?  What are its dissimilarities?

3.  Can you beat “Rock Em Sock Em Robots” with it?

The same impatient student responded, “That’s not a real question.”

“You’re right.  It’s not a real question.  Here’s the real number 3.  Are you convinced that your own biological hand, which took thousands of generations and millions of years of evolution to be the design that it is, will always be better than anything that you can buy in a store?”

Said same student, “Is that a trick question?”

“You’re right.  It is,” said Frog, “depending on if you are deceived.”
“You mean you are going to judge whether I’m deceived by the way I answer that question.”

“Let’s just say, you’re not deceived, and you can answer it any way you want.  I’m looking for punctuation and grammar, not content.  I could care less what you write, just as long as I have a huge stack of paper on my desk, each with unique handwriting, when the Tenure Committee visits my office at the end of the year.  Sound good?”

Class ended.  Mandy got up from her seat, her mind simply dizzy from imagining the next 2000 years in her head while that kid argued with the professor.  She walked up to his desk with her machine in the box.  Before she could initiate conversation, Frog said, “Do you have any questions about the machine?  One of my assistants is hosting a tutoring session on Thursday Evening about using the controls.  

“Oh a tutoring session.  I love those.  Are they for girls who don’t know what they’re doing?”

That got his attention.  But Dr. Frog could not look up from his pre-occupied state as he tried inadvertently ignoring Mandy’s staredown.  

“No, there are some tricks to it that are not written in the actual manual.  I teach it to my classes, and my better students from previous classes stick around to help out subsequent groups.  It’s a very efficient system and there’s no predetermination about your academic fortitude for your attendance.  I mean, you are taking a class entitled “Artificial Intelligence for Dummies.”

“Yeah, I thought it was a joke.  You’re one of the leading scientists on robotics.  Why are you doing a class on artificial intelligence?”

“I’m here to conduct research and prove a point.”

“I have a question, and I have to go.  Who programmed Student Services?”