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The Universe Bug
The current estimated population of the world is 6,251,691,537. Or just over 6 billion people if you want the abbreviated version.
When designing intelligent lifeforms and their respective environments, Universe creators have to work within certain constraints, the main limitation of course being a financial one. So we have limits.
There's only so much code you can squeeze into a strand of DNA, there's only so much density you can squeeze into the core of a Black Hole before it sucks itself into non-existence, and as every kid knows there's only so much Lego you can squeeze into a Lego box before you end up with bits of plastic blocks all over your bedroom floor.
We're now approaching one of these crucial limits. The space allocated for the Earth's population wasn't an arbitrary figure. Various consulting committees discussed at length what the maximum population at any one time could be, independant groups were petitioned for their feedback, and finally it was decided that an 8 digit long Hex number would be perfectly adequate for this particular feature.
So the limit imposed is 8,589,934,591. But the Earth's population continues to grow at an ever increasing rate (currently 6 million new Earthlings arrive each month). So there is now a worry, because in about 30 years time the world's population will finally reach its design limit.
Many design theorists have been contacted for possible suggestions as to a workaround. But it took a long time for the solution to arrive. Simply adding a 9th Hex digit to the capacity limit isn't financially viable, it would require a major overhaul of all planetary population systems in existence. The 'population patch' was another suggestion, where on reaching the aforementioned limit an alternate Universe would spontaneously spring into existence to take the overflow. Again this idea has been discarded due to the fact that there are already too many alternate Universes about, not to mention alternate dimensions and planes of reality.
Perhaps the most exciting idea came from an usual source. A team of catering workers proposed simply a tweak of the human genetic code to make all future arrivals so ugly that the rate of mating would decrease, thereby preventing an overflow altogether. The idea came to a member of the nouveau cuisine team as he turned down the heat on a saucepan of creme caramel to prevent it spilling over.
Authorities have run some trials of this scheme over the last few years, and the results are promising, particularly in Croydon, Surrey and Brierly Hill in the West Midlands where the people are said to be so devastatingly unattractive that even God himself said, quote: "Oy vey, I wouldn't even touch that with an Immaculate bargepole!"
So it seems that the scenario of Earth's population overflow could be stalled by a fuller implementation of this proposal on a wider scale.
Existing measures that were previously working include the Console Scheme, whereby a large proportion of the Earth's population became so engrossed in manipulating zeros and ones via a control pad that they stayed indoors for long periods, thereby preventing sex altogether in some extreme cases. SEGA won awards for it.
However the advent of Sony's PlayStation, which was deemed to be 'cool', put an end to all this, as gaming once more became a respectable pursuit, and therefore an attractive one.
MicroSoft Corporation were commissioned with producing a solution, and they came up with the XBox, which did the trick. Whilst gaming was still a 'cool' pursuit, XBox gamers were particularly stigmatised by the gaming community, labelled as 'geeks', and therefore not worthy of passing on their genetic code via a fireside romp after a 2-player session on Halo.
Nintendo, of course, are still the experts in catching humans whilst they are too young to realise what is happening, and getting them hooked on gaming early on.
Lessons have been learned by Universe developers, who always try to ensure that from now on in all intelligent lifeforms created they always include at least 98% of Bill Gate's genetic code.
The current estimated population of the world is 6,251,691,537. Or just over 6 billion people if you want the abbreviated version.
When designing intelligent lifeforms and their respective environments, Universe creators have to work within certain constraints, the main limitation of course being a financial one. So we have limits.
There's only so much code you can squeeze into a strand of DNA, there's only so much density you can squeeze into the core of a Black Hole before it sucks itself into non-existence, and as every kid knows there's only so much Lego you can squeeze into a Lego box before you end up with bits of plastic blocks all over your bedroom floor.
We're now approaching one of these crucial limits. The space allocated for the Earth's population wasn't an arbitrary figure. Various consulting committees discussed at length what the maximum population at any one time could be, independant groups were petitioned for their feedback, and finally it was decided that an 8 digit long Hex number would be perfectly adequate for this particular feature.
So the limit imposed is 8,589,934,591. But the Earth's population continues to grow at an ever increasing rate (currently 6 million new Earthlings arrive each month). So there is now a worry, because in about 30 years time the world's population will finally reach its design limit.
Many design theorists have been contacted for possible suggestions as to a workaround. But it took a long time for the solution to arrive. Simply adding a 9th Hex digit to the capacity limit isn't financially viable, it would require a major overhaul of all planetary population systems in existence. The 'population patch' was another suggestion, where on reaching the aforementioned limit an alternate Universe would spontaneously spring into existence to take the overflow. Again this idea has been discarded due to the fact that there are already too many alternate Universes about, not to mention alternate dimensions and planes of reality.
Perhaps the most exciting idea came from an usual source. A team of catering workers proposed simply a tweak of the human genetic code to make all future arrivals so ugly that the rate of mating would decrease, thereby preventing an overflow altogether. The idea came to a member of the nouveau cuisine team as he turned down the heat on a saucepan of creme caramel to prevent it spilling over.
Authorities have run some trials of this scheme over the last few years, and the results are promising, particularly in Croydon, Surrey and Brierly Hill in the West Midlands where the people are said to be so devastatingly unattractive that even God himself said, quote: "Oy vey, I wouldn't even touch that with an Immaculate bargepole!"
So it seems that the scenario of Earth's population overflow could be stalled by a fuller implementation of this proposal on a wider scale.
Existing measures that were previously working include the Console Scheme, whereby a large proportion of the Earth's population became so engrossed in manipulating zeros and ones via a control pad that they stayed indoors for long periods, thereby preventing sex altogether in some extreme cases. SEGA won awards for it.
However the advent of Sony's PlayStation, which was deemed to be 'cool', put an end to all this, as gaming once more became a respectable pursuit, and therefore an attractive one.
MicroSoft Corporation were commissioned with producing a solution, and they came up with the XBox, which did the trick. Whilst gaming was still a 'cool' pursuit, XBox gamers were particularly stigmatised by the gaming community, labelled as 'geeks', and therefore not worthy of passing on their genetic code via a fireside romp after a 2-player session on Halo.
Nintendo, of course, are still the experts in catching humans whilst they are too young to realise what is happening, and getting them hooked on gaming early on.
Lessons have been learned by Universe developers, who always try to ensure that from now on in all intelligent lifeforms created they always include at least 98% of Bill Gate's genetic code.
LL Cool TT wrote:
> Interesting, different, and yet...something not quite right...
Agreed!
> Interesting, different, and yet...something not quite right...
Agreed!
Interesting, different, and yet...something not quite right...
Classic reading! Well done on a thought provoking opost!
Fantastic. How this didn't get a GAD I don't know. One of the most original ideas I've read around here in quite some time.
Brilliantly crazy.
what the!/ that made no sense whatsoever to me apart from the Ninty bit at the bottom and the 6 million a month thing
Heh, that was really great.
Do what Sheepy said.
Do what Sheepy said.
HAHA
You should have put this in chat
You should have put this in chat
The Universe Bug
The current estimated population of the world is 6,251,691,537. Or just over 6 billion people if you want the abbreviated version.
When designing intelligent lifeforms and their respective environments, Universe creators have to work within certain constraints, the main limitation of course being a financial one. So we have limits.
There's only so much code you can squeeze into a strand of DNA, there's only so much density you can squeeze into the core of a Black Hole before it sucks itself into non-existence, and as every kid knows there's only so much Lego you can squeeze into a Lego box before you end up with bits of plastic blocks all over your bedroom floor.
We're now approaching one of these crucial limits. The space allocated for the Earth's population wasn't an arbitrary figure. Various consulting committees discussed at length what the maximum population at any one time could be, independant groups were petitioned for their feedback, and finally it was decided that an 8 digit long Hex number would be perfectly adequate for this particular feature.
So the limit imposed is 8,589,934,591. But the Earth's population continues to grow at an ever increasing rate (currently 6 million new Earthlings arrive each month). So there is now a worry, because in about 30 years time the world's population will finally reach its design limit.
Many design theorists have been contacted for possible suggestions as to a workaround. But it took a long time for the solution to arrive. Simply adding a 9th Hex digit to the capacity limit isn't financially viable, it would require a major overhaul of all planetary population systems in existence. The 'population patch' was another suggestion, where on reaching the aforementioned limit an alternate Universe would spontaneously spring into existence to take the overflow. Again this idea has been discarded due to the fact that there are already too many alternate Universes about, not to mention alternate dimensions and planes of reality.
Perhaps the most exciting idea came from an usual source. A team of catering workers proposed simply a tweak of the human genetic code to make all future arrivals so ugly that the rate of mating would decrease, thereby preventing an overflow altogether. The idea came to a member of the nouveau cuisine team as he turned down the heat on a saucepan of creme caramel to prevent it spilling over.
Authorities have run some trials of this scheme over the last few years, and the results are promising, particularly in Croydon, Surrey and Brierly Hill in the West Midlands where the people are said to be so devastatingly unattractive that even God himself said, quote: "Oy vey, I wouldn't even touch that with an Immaculate bargepole!"
So it seems that the scenario of Earth's population overflow could be stalled by a fuller implementation of this proposal on a wider scale.
Existing measures that were previously working include the Console Scheme, whereby a large proportion of the Earth's population became so engrossed in manipulating zeros and ones via a control pad that they stayed indoors for long periods, thereby preventing sex altogether in some extreme cases. SEGA won awards for it.
However the advent of Sony's PlayStation, which was deemed to be 'cool', put an end to all this, as gaming once more became a respectable pursuit, and therefore an attractive one.
MicroSoft Corporation were commissioned with producing a solution, and they came up with the XBox, which did the trick. Whilst gaming was still a 'cool' pursuit, XBox gamers were particularly stigmatised by the gaming community, labelled as 'geeks', and therefore not worthy of passing on their genetic code via a fireside romp after a 2-player session on Halo.
Nintendo, of course, are still the experts in catching humans whilst they are too young to realise what is happening, and getting them hooked on gaming early on.
Lessons have been learned by Universe developers, who always try to ensure that from now on in all intelligent lifeforms created they always include at least 98% of Bill Gate's genetic code.
The current estimated population of the world is 6,251,691,537. Or just over 6 billion people if you want the abbreviated version.
When designing intelligent lifeforms and their respective environments, Universe creators have to work within certain constraints, the main limitation of course being a financial one. So we have limits.
There's only so much code you can squeeze into a strand of DNA, there's only so much density you can squeeze into the core of a Black Hole before it sucks itself into non-existence, and as every kid knows there's only so much Lego you can squeeze into a Lego box before you end up with bits of plastic blocks all over your bedroom floor.
We're now approaching one of these crucial limits. The space allocated for the Earth's population wasn't an arbitrary figure. Various consulting committees discussed at length what the maximum population at any one time could be, independant groups were petitioned for their feedback, and finally it was decided that an 8 digit long Hex number would be perfectly adequate for this particular feature.
So the limit imposed is 8,589,934,591. But the Earth's population continues to grow at an ever increasing rate (currently 6 million new Earthlings arrive each month). So there is now a worry, because in about 30 years time the world's population will finally reach its design limit.
Many design theorists have been contacted for possible suggestions as to a workaround. But it took a long time for the solution to arrive. Simply adding a 9th Hex digit to the capacity limit isn't financially viable, it would require a major overhaul of all planetary population systems in existence. The 'population patch' was another suggestion, where on reaching the aforementioned limit an alternate Universe would spontaneously spring into existence to take the overflow. Again this idea has been discarded due to the fact that there are already too many alternate Universes about, not to mention alternate dimensions and planes of reality.
Perhaps the most exciting idea came from an usual source. A team of catering workers proposed simply a tweak of the human genetic code to make all future arrivals so ugly that the rate of mating would decrease, thereby preventing an overflow altogether. The idea came to a member of the nouveau cuisine team as he turned down the heat on a saucepan of creme caramel to prevent it spilling over.
Authorities have run some trials of this scheme over the last few years, and the results are promising, particularly in Croydon, Surrey and Brierly Hill in the West Midlands where the people are said to be so devastatingly unattractive that even God himself said, quote: "Oy vey, I wouldn't even touch that with an Immaculate bargepole!"
So it seems that the scenario of Earth's population overflow could be stalled by a fuller implementation of this proposal on a wider scale.
Existing measures that were previously working include the Console Scheme, whereby a large proportion of the Earth's population became so engrossed in manipulating zeros and ones via a control pad that they stayed indoors for long periods, thereby preventing sex altogether in some extreme cases. SEGA won awards for it.
However the advent of Sony's PlayStation, which was deemed to be 'cool', put an end to all this, as gaming once more became a respectable pursuit, and therefore an attractive one.
MicroSoft Corporation were commissioned with producing a solution, and they came up with the XBox, which did the trick. Whilst gaming was still a 'cool' pursuit, XBox gamers were particularly stigmatised by the gaming community, labelled as 'geeks', and therefore not worthy of passing on their genetic code via a fireside romp after a 2-player session on Halo.
Nintendo, of course, are still the experts in catching humans whilst they are too young to realise what is happening, and getting them hooked on gaming early on.
Lessons have been learned by Universe developers, who always try to ensure that from now on in all intelligent lifeforms created they always include at least 98% of Bill Gate's genetic code.