While simplicity is key in communicating vital information to ensure minimal loss of useful content and maximum data integrity, systems like the InfoGlyph and the infamous Post-I-TTS notes have shown that there are genuine issues in dumbing down too far. While most instances of Neuro-Cascade_Failure and Genuine Occupational Oversight Nausea cause little more than headaches, irregular bowel movements and small explosions, there are wider ranging, long-term consequences.
One specific instance of this is Mnemonic Meltdown, a condition which causes infected Citizens to suffer from progressive discombobulation and psychotic outbursts. The trigger is the common use of mnemonic recognition sequences. Over time such mechanisms have undergone review and analysis, leading to supportive systems intended to ensure better recognition without misunderstanding. For example, the standard mnemonic for Security Clearances is:
ROY G BIV (Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet)
Given the similarity between this and its possible usage as a standard designation for an Alpha Complex Citizen, a supportive mnemonic was defined by the CRAMPS1:
ELECTRIC ("Each Letter Extant Categorically & Typically Represents Individual Colours")
While some success was found in its usage, Power Services raised valid concerns that the term might be confusing for Infrared reactor workers. A review board was convened and a supplementary mnemonic was posited:
TINPRAM ("This Is Not Power Related: A Mnemonic")
While this initially solved the problem, the term was uncomfortably similar to several other words, like the familial Tinman, used to reference a trusty Bot; the experimental HPD & MC mobile hygiene facility Tinbath; and, the networked ComBot heavy assault units developed by Armed Forces, the Tactically Integrated Nuclear Projectile-fitted Assault Mechs ("TINPAM"). As the other terms were being used regularly already as words in their own right, referencing the items and artifact intelligences involved, Citizens were simply getting confused about what a Tinpram was and whether it might in fact be some kind of HPD & MC transport device used to ferry junior Citizens to and from local Creche facilities.
Not to be swayed by this setback, and facing similar issues with other recent developments in mnenomics, the review board consulted extensively on a solution and came up with:
DUSTSAW ("Don't Use Stated Tip Simply As Word")
Unfortunately, this proved to be a mnemonic too far. Infrared Citizens, already maxxed out on the joys of their lot within the communal hug that is Alpha Complex, apparently found comprehension of the new layered mnemonic support system too much to handle and promptly set about dribbling, falling over and hitting people with large pieces of precious, and often delicate, Alpha Complex machinery. The first instance of Mnemonic Meltdown was recorded at the a HPD & MC waste disposition re-engineering facility in ROM_Sector. The site was working on finding new means to minimise space being used to store non-recycleable materials - as part of the ongoing Reconstitution_and_Recycling initiative - and was piloting use of a monomolecular particulate waste splitting tool, called - oddly - a DustSaw.
-- Costin-U-MOR-8
Footnotes:
Commission for Registration of Acceptable Mnemonic Prompts and Stimuli (1)
Cross-Ref: InfoGlyph, Neuro-Cascade_Failure, ROM_Sector
Commentary:
AO1 is a serious problem-- just look at the HPD&MC2 mess-- and we're going to see a lot more of these MM3 cases as LIAC4 continues to get EMC5; the LSMs6 of our SCs7 are simply not equipped to handle such SHADOs8. Really, the problem stems from having to impart IIM9 for proper LIA to our SCs through IIM10. The amount of IIM being compressed into acronymal and InfoGlyphic form is growing all the time, on an upward curve that suggests an ASB11 just a couple of years in the future. What will happen then? Well, for one thing, I expect we will see MMMD spread to higher and higher Clearances, as the EMC nature of the data-- even taking LICC12 into account-- effectively means that even GICs13 have LSMs compared to the AO-ed SHADOs they are trying to take in. Eventually, our DTR14 may make SCs out of all of us.
Fortunately, the latest LTPs15 are looking good: HPD&MC16 indicates that an AMDE17 will be available within the next two years that will make IIM far more "mentally digestible", R&D18 reports that FTs19 which will allow for OOME20 of the brains of GICs, and Internal Security believes we are no more than six months away from DCC21 of the SCs.
So it should be AOK!22
1 Acronymal Overload. Sometimes referred to as ANOL by Syllabalists.
2 Homologous_Psychic_Dissidents_&_Mutant_Citizens
3 Mnemonic Meltdown. Sometimes referred to as MMMD by Syllabalists
4 Life In Alpha Complex
5 Even More Complicated
6 Less-Sophisticated Minds
7 Simpler Citizens. GREEN and lower Clearances.
8 Supra-Highly Abstracted Data-Objects
9 Information and Instructional Material
10 Inefficiently Indirect Methods
11 Asymptotic Boundary
12 Loss of Informational Comprehension Compression
13 Genuinely Intelligence Citizens
14 Data-to-Text Ratio
16 Housing Preservation, Development, and Mind Control
17 Alternate Method of Data Encoding
18 Robots and Deathrays
19 Forthcoming Treatments. Also referred to as FTCs in some early drafts of the latest LTP report.
20 Orders of Magnitude Expansion
21 Direct Cerebral Command
22 Absolutely and Objectively Kosher
-- Knok-U-OUT-6
I'm sure that having footnotes longer than your entry is punishable by summary execution somewhere...
You're sure everything is punishable by summary execution somewhere.
-- Knok-U
Can you prove that's not true? If you can prove that "having footnotes longer than your entry is punishable by summary execution" doesn't exist in all 700 pages of the "Other Violations" section of the Laws_of_Alpha_Complex_ed._39/B.3.9 and the 5000+ Law Expansions that Friend Computer has issued (at an average rate of 2.3 per hourcycle), I'll transfer 5999 credits to you.
On the other hand, if any of my fellow High Programmers can prove that such an entry exists, I'll transfer 5999 credits to the first one to do so.
Of course, I won't quickly pass such an Expansion to ensure you fail, Knok. That wouldn't be sporting.
Aw, I don't need yer money, honey! Don't we have better things to do than scour the LAC for a single violation? I mean, isn't there a bug somewhere whose legs you haven't picked off with a pocketknife yet or something?
Anyway, even if such a statute exists, it's irrelevant in this case owing to Section 4C ("Productions, Logistics, & Commissary") , Title 34 ("Specific Crimes, Punishments, & Exemptions"), Chapter 11 ("Exemptions for Senior PLC Staff"), which states (in verses 6 through 10) that owing to the inherently paperwork-heavy nature of their specialty, PLC senior staff are exempt from punishment of any sort for any normally-punishable offenses involving the length of documentation of any sort, in any format. I believe that handily covers footnotes to a secure digital report.
And even if it is normally punishable by execution, and even if the exception for senior PLC staff didn't exist, or even if 4C.34.11.6-10 doesn't cover this particular case, what would you do about it? Send the Legion_of_Ultraviolence after me? Flood my Sector with Men_in_Infrared? Lure me onto the XOR-I/Ent_X-Press and vaporize me to seven decimal places? Mail a bomb to my old office? Chillax, man! You haven't even been here a day and already you're stomping around in your big boots waving your arms at everything. Take a stress pill or you're going to blow a fuse like your Number One did.
I was just trying to make a point about how easy it is for acronyms to induce stress in others and, well... point made, it would seem!
-- Knok-U
Drake-U: I cannot prove such an entry does not exist - in fact, it may well - but I can demonstrate that if it does exist, it is obsolete. The most recent overhaul of the permissible footnote-to-entry ratio statues clearly overrides previous regulations, and indicate various forms of deprogramming as punishment, not termination.
However, despite the somewhat...lengthy...footnoting for this entry, Knok-U remains well within the approved ratio for ULTRAVIOLETs. Not to mention the exemptions he quoted (which may have been overridden by the overhaul, but it's a moot point in this case).
-- Err-U