[Sca-cooks] Computers and the Demons of Disorder

[Marilyn Traber]

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Of course that is Why St Vidicon is so useful...

http://www.dandello.net/vidicon/vidicon.htm

Praise God, from Whom electrons flow!
Praise Him, the source of all we know!
Whose order's in the stellar host!
For in machines, He is the Ghost!

Little is known concerning the origins of Father Vidicon. We do not know
whether Vidicon was the name given him by his parents or a nickname given
him reflecting his love of all things technical. It is, however, the only
name we know him by.

We do know he was a Jesuit priest and a teacher whose success at urging
young people into choosing the Church as their vocation, and his odd,
sometimes heretical, sense of humor, earned him the dubious honor of
becoming the 'Chief Engineer of Television Vatican'. We know he was
frequently in trouble for such things as stating that Christ was acting as a
civil engineer when He declared that Peter was a rock and upon that rock He
would build His church, and calling the Creator 'the Cosmic Cathode'. He was
noted for invoking Murphy's Law, the Imp of the Perverse and Finagle. We
also know, in some detail, how he died for the Faith.

In the Year of Our Lord 2020, the Church was in dire straits. Besieged on
the one hand by non-believers jealous of the Church's authority and property
and on the other accused of being old-fashioned and out of step with the
times by those who demanded salvation without repentance, the Holy Church of
Rome was faced with the unthinkable prospect of having several major tenets
of Catholic Church being outlawed - the celibacy of ordained priests, the
Church's stand against birth control and the tax exempt status of Church
land.

What was looming on the horizon, at the demand non-believers, was the
abrogation of the civil rights of those faithful to the Catholic Church
(indeed, any group demanding a higher moral and ethical personal standard
than the lowest common denominator) and the destruction of the physical
presence of the Church itself.

In response to this threat, Pope Clement determined to go on the air in a
simultaneous world-wide feed to call the faithful together to combat this
horror and to let them know that the Council of Cardinals had chosen to
accept certain new theories and interpretations as being compatible with
doctrine.

The Vatican's equipment was outdated, but adequate, thanks to the
outstanding efforts of Father Vidicon and his assistants. Even when the
time-table for the Pope's speech was pushed up, Father Vidicon and his crew
had everything in order.

Then, the Imp of the Perverse, Maxwell's Demon and others of the Powers of
Darkness catalogued by Murphy, struck. The power converter, a resistor that
stepped down the power from the Vatican's television transmitter to
something the satellite ground station could handle, failed. So did the
first replacement and the second, even though they had both tested out as
being perfectly sound only hours before. Too quickly for his chief
assistant, Brother Anson, to respond, Father Vidicon took the lead from the
transmitter in his left hand and the lead to the ground station in his
right, saying as he did so: "This is perversity."

Pope Clement finished his speech and within moments, calls were coming in
from all over the world telling of how the faithful were returning to
church, calling for priests. Calls came in from governments, sending the
Vatican and the Pope their highest regards and assurances of continued
friendship. And from the transmitter room, Brother Anson announced Father
Vidicon's death.

The miracles began very soon after. A French programmer, knowing his program
was tricky and likely to glitch, asked Father Vidicon to intercede and the
program ran flawlessly. A television director handling coverage for the
Superbowl found eleven of his twelve cameras down and number twelve was
showing faults. He sent up a quick prayer to Father Vidicon and five cameras
came back on line. Ground control lost track of the newly-launched
satellite. An unknown controller cried out: "Father Vidicon, protect us from
Murphy!" and the satellite reappeared on the trackers.

It's hard to prove these are miracles - they could be coincidences, that's
always a possibility with electronic equipment. But, over the years the
engineers and programmers and technicians began to count the prayers and the
programs and projects saved and word got around and finally, Vidicon was
declared a saint in the finest tradition of sainthood. And, the day after
the Pope announced Vidicon's canonization, signs went up on the back walls
of every computer room and control room in the world:


Saint Vidicon of Cathode, pray for us!
Saint Vidicon and his story are the intellectual property of Christopher
Stasheff. The story of Saint Vidicon is found in The Warlock Unlocked by
Christopher Stasheff, C 1982.

You may purchase any of Christopher Stasheff's (and other authors') books at
the Dandello's Bookstore, using Amazon.com's secure ordering facility.
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