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Joyometers

Happiness is mandatory. Are you happy, friend? No, really. Are you? How do you know? How do we know? And above all, how does The Computer know?

The Computer made a detailed study of the Physiological Effects of Happiness and determined (among other conclusions) that the three most readibly perceived common effects are the cheek contractions known as the "smile," an increase of personal energy and loosing of eye-muscle control giving a "glazed-over look." (I refer to the full Physiological_Effects_of_Happiness_Report for more detail.) Armed with the results of the Report, The Computer had VPR_Sector’s R&D develop a monitoring system that would scan all clones in a given area and determine if they were a) moving fast enough to be happy, and b) smiling. R&D figured the easiest way to identify smiles were to check faces for a certain value of whiteness… the teeth. This was known as the Joyometers.

Unfortunately, due to the poor Baseline_Dental_Health, the Joyometers were often unable to identify teeth that were not white enough. This led to the dreaded "Jubilation Runs" and the down fall of the program.

As a side note, chief Joyometer developers Skee-I-NER-3 and Mark-I-VES-5 could not agree on the pronunciation of the term. Skee-I-NER-3 favored "joy-OM-eter," whereas Mark-I-VES-5 preferred "joy-oh-Meter." This led to a friendly professional rivalry which finally culminated in the nuclear explosion destroying VPR Sector. While the fallout (if you’ll forgive the term) of the explosion had unpleasant lasting effects, Skee-I-NER-4 and Mark-I-VES-6 proved far more capable of working together.

-- Dursh-U-WTZ-8

Referenced by:

Commentary: At least they promise the sector will be rebuilt within a couple of yearcycles. I like the clones I'm working with in the meantime, but it's not the same sense of cohesion we had in VPR. Of course, this panel is (mostly) helping me keep my mind off that disaster, and the shock I experienced upon arriving at work that morningcycle. Thanks for letting us know about this, though; I hadn't been informed.

-- Paul-U-LEG-5

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2013-06-13 13:58