Chapter 10

Kevin the Programmer

It was the most amazing thing Kevin had ever seen. "Even more magical than waking up as a chicken!" he exclaimed. "Well, not quite as good as that", he then said. Kevin was watching a girl in the street using some sort of device, like a phone, which projected in 3 dimensions anything you were interested in. You could ask it anything at all and it would understand it and recreate it in 3D. Totally amazing! The 3D projection looked almost real. It could even show you the inner working parts of things, so you could explore any part of it. And the colours, they were incredible. Kevin thought to himself that there is hardly any difference between technology and magic. He squawked very loudly "I MUST HAVE ONE!"

This was Kevin's new challenge for himself - to learn all there is about technology. But how could Kevin learn about it? He was a brilliant keyboard surfer, but he didn't know about the internals of the machine. Kevin didn't think colleges or universities would accept a chicken either - well maybe to do experiments on. Kevin didn't like that idea and said to himself "nobody is putting soap in my eyes". "But I must learn how to do this!" Kevin exclaimed. The question was how? From where? And potentially from whom? Kevin hesitated for a second and thought about school and his time there. The teacher would talk and talk using long words Kevin didn't understand. By the end of the class he was nearly unconscious and certainly didn't feel as bright as he did before he went in. What was the point of that? And exams, what is the point of those? Not even worth talking about. Another thing school did was dictate most things for him. It told him what classes he would study, told him where to be and at what time. That made him feel disempowered about this new idea of learning for himself. Plus, schools and universities seem to think that it takes a long time to learn something, like silly years. Kevin learned things fast, like how to ride a bike and play football, and also music and art, how to be a writer and reporter - Kevin learned these in days. So Kevin had a lot of experience of school, so at least he knew what not to do. It wasn't all bad, there were some good things at school that he could use in life, so it wasn't all bad. One teacher used to talk about dictionaries and the importance of looking up new words (even sometime looking up words we think we know). One time Kevin was reading a book called "The Wizard Dancer" by James Duke Durrell. The author had included definitions for all words used in the book, like "Gerunjerurrel". The book had it defined like this: Gerunjerurrel (gerr-un-jer-urrel) - "A small magical creature that is a good friend to its owner, but plays tricks on everyone else." So to learn the word Kevin started making up sentences that used it; "That is my gerunjerurrel", "You stole my gerunjerurrel", "Your gerunjerurrel wears hot pants!". Kevin laughed and thought "learning is fun". So that is one thing to keep in mind, but sometimes we need a person to learn from - someone good who has learned a lot. Like a mentor. Kevin began his quest to find a mentor, and soon was on the trail of a great inventor - Professor Tinkle.

Professor Tinkle was working in his laboratory when he heard a tapping on the window. "Oh, that's a funny looking pigeon" said Professor Tinkle. Kevin flew through the open window and exclaimed "I'm not a pigeon, I'm a chicken!" The Professor was flabbergasted. "I heard you're the best programmer in the business and I would love to learn how to make amazing things" burst Kevin. "Well, usually my students fill out an application but I can tell you are a very industrial young chicken" said Professor Tinkle. "Consider yourself enrolled!" he exclaimed. "First things first, lets teach you binary and Boolean logic, the basics of electronics, transistors, And gates, Or gates!" "Wooohooo!" squawked Kevin. They got started straight away and Kevin made notes as he went along (these will be available soon as Kevin is working on his own website as well as a game now). Not only did Kevin learn about programming, logic, problem solving, how to test, he also realised he knew a lot about project management, based on his past experience. He is a total whizz.

It got to a point where Kevin had learned enough from Professor Tinkle that he could start making things. Part of the course was to build something for a real company. These were chosen quite at random, some were for amazing companies, however, some were for not so good organisations. Kevin didn't know it at the time, but his client was a not such a good one. It was for the government. Kevin went along happily and eager to build something great. He met the people involved and they told him about the situation they had.

We have 1000 parking spaces in the centre of our town. The parking is free at the moment. We have 20,000 people who live in the entire city. At the busiest times we have over 1500 people looking for parking spaces. As you can see this is not ideal, so we need a new system. We want a computer system to start charge people for parking. We estimate this system to cost 1 million pounds. We will need to employ parking enforcement staff. We estimate 50 inspectors, with wages of £20,000 per year, 12 managers at £30,000 per year, 30 administrators at £19,000 per year, running costs of the system and any upgrades to be £100,000 per year. So as you can see, we will need to charge people. This didn't make sense to Kevin. "How much would it cost to build a multi story car park? And how much to have an improved public transport system so people wouldn't have to drive into town? I don't think you have thought this through. Charging people for things they should be free to do is not constructive, or leads to any productive or gainful activity. All staff involved would not be very happy as they would not be working on anything worth while. And that is how I feel. Sorry, Kevin the Chicken is not the bird for this project. I hope you take notice of my recommendation, but from experience that is not usually the case. Best of luck anyhow." And with that Kevin flew out the window and headed for Professor Tinkles college.

"I'm sorry professor Tinkle, that project is not for me." Professor Tinkle replied "Kevin, I respect your judgement, and not every project fits the bird. We haven't many options for you now, however you can go off and build something yourself." So off Kevin goes, starting to work on Apps and Games.

"It is not the most exciting world when you are sitting in a room all night, tapping away" Kevin thought. "It's only exciting when you write some code that works, or release something that really takes off."

Kevin is still in his room, working away. He promises to finish this story when the project is released. But the question is, when is the release date? And will it be released on time? There is no budget so that won't affect anything. Will something similar be released before Kevin's and steal all the glory? Who knows in technology world. But watch this space.

Chapter 9

Kevin the journalist

Kevin had only been living in his part of the woods for 3 days when he first heard the noise. Right in the middle of the night he was awoken by "bbrrrrm, crank, crunk, splash, crank, squeak, bbrrrrm." 10 minutes later a smell that came from somewhere Kevin didn't want to know where, filled Kev's nest. "OH MY GOD!" Kevin squawked as he ran around holding his beak. No amount of flapping got rid of the smell so Kevin had to fly away and come back a few hours later. It was then that Kevin discovered what was going on. Some nasty people had came in a big truck and dumped a huge amount of chemicals and waste materials right there in the woods. "This is unacceptable! Something needs to be done about this!" Kevin declared. But what could be done? Maybe the police would help, Kevin thought. So off he went searching for the nearest Police station.

The police were more interested in a talking chicken. They were laughing at him and giggling to themselves. They also asked Kevin if he had a police record, "the sheer cheek of it!" Kevin exclaimed. When Kevin started getting angry they laughed even more. "What sort of world do we live in?" Kevin sadly said to himself. "I'm reporting some terrible goings on and you are behaving like children" was only met with more laughter and "aahhhh"s. This was no good. If the police were not going to listen or do anything, then someone else will, Kevin decided. Kevin left the police station and was quite relieved to do so.

As Kevin was walking along the street he passed a newsagents. There were lots of newspapers on display and that made Kevin think. "Ah hah! Maybe I should tell the newspapers about it?" said Kevin to himself. The people should know about the goings on recently, and then they will do something about it, after all, the people have the power. He decided to ask the newsagent for the address of the best newspaper. The news agent obliged and off Kevin went.

"I wan't to see the big chief head boss of this newspaper" Kevin said to the receptionist. The receptionist must have liked Kevin as she said she couldn't let him see the "big chief head boss" of the newspaper as he was just the owner, but she would introduce him to the chief editor instead - which would be much better anyway. She picked up the telephone and told the Chief Editor that he really should come to the reception desk, there was a very special visitor here to see him.

The Chief Editor was a very busy man, time was an asset he savoured and was shared sparingly. However, when Sheila the receptionist spoke like this he knew it meant one thing - a very important guest. 

It wasn't long before the chief came down and introduce himself. Kevin felt like he was in the middle of a tornado, but a nice one. The chiefs language painted pictures in Kevin's mind, and Kevin admired this quality immensely. Kevin couldn't get a word in edge ways. "I've met a lot of chickens in my time Kevin, but never one like you" exclaimed the chief mid-flow. "Kevin, tell me, can you write?" the editor bursted. Before Kevin finished his sentence the editor exclaimed "yes! Good, Kevin I have a story for you to report on. And we will do a great story on you." Kevin splurted "I already have a story to report!" Kevin started then was Immediately interrupted with "You see Kevin! You're a natural! Come let me introduce you to the team!" And off they went to the top floor.

The entire floor was filled with telephones ringing, chatter and banter, and the crunching of keyboard keys. Kevin was introduced to lots of people like a video fast-forwarding, until they came to the top reporters desk. It was more like a hospital Kevin thought as the woman was surrounded by plastic, in a mini plastic room that surrounded her desk, with a large pipe that went out of the window. The reporter was addicted to cigarettes. She looked about 75 but she was only 24. It was illegal to smoke cigarettes inside any building, but somehow the woman managed to get her space classified as it's own building, like an airport being international land, just so she could smoke and write at the same time. She was that good at persuasion and getting what she wanted. "Welcome to the team Kevin" the woman growled. It must be all those cigarettes she smoked, thought Kevin. "I will be your mentor and get you up to speed" she continued. "My secretary will get you set up." As soon as she had finished she put her head down and continued typing at an incredible rate. The secretary took Kevin to his new desk. He had all the kit set up for him. A big shiny computer, telephone, the lot. Just think, he was sitting in a tree 1 hour ago.

Kevin got stuck straight in writing the article about the dirty polluters. Kevin had used a computer before, when he was a boy, but now, the home keys were not home anymore. "asdf" and "jkl;" just didn't cut it. Without fingers Kevin needed to use the 6 feather tips on his wings, and use his right foot for the space bar. It wasn't long before a machine gun tapping sound started overtaking the other office tapping. Chicken brains may be small, but they work faster than human brains.  He was able to do 180 words a minute. The office workers started gathering around his desk staring in awe. The big chief saw through the blinds in his private office and decided to take a look at what was going on. Within a couple of minutes of the chief coming over Kevin had finished his piece. The whole floor applauded at Kevin's first article. Kevin was elated and did a little dance on his desk. The editor asked Kevin to email him the article, and his next job was to write an article on something very important. Kevin couldn't wait for his article to be printed.

3 days passed by and Kevin's article about the dirty polluters hadn't appeared in the newspaper. However, 3 articles Kevin wrote about "current affairs" had appeared. The stories Kevin wrote just reported about bad things that were happening, and the solutions Kevin had suggested in the post had been removed by the editors. This is not good, Kevin could smell a rat - or a fox or two. Kevin burst into the editors office. "I'd like to have a word with you" demanded Kevin. Since working at the newspaper Kevin didn't beat around the bush. "I've written 4 articles so far, my first one has been swept aside. The other three are doing no good for society, only giving people bad news and upsetting them. This is not what I signed up for." "Kevin, Kevin" began the editor, "you have a lot to learn about our business" he continued. "We are all a demographic, a statistic based on our age, education, location, and many other variables. We are a stimulus response mechanism conditioned from day 1. Our emotions are played to, dreams are given to us that are not ours, false standards and metrics of success. All these things the media uses to suggest and direct your views of the direction we want society to go. 90% of the views people have are not their own. The people don't want to know the truth, or hear good things. They want to be told how bad things are, because they "know" things are bad. If we told them good things they wouldn't buy our papers. It makes them feel good that the bad things that are happening are happening to others and not themselves." Kevin was stunned. "So newspapers just want to make people upset and helpless? And you plug ways people can "do something about" the bad things they see such as "make a donation" or "let the government bomb places". This is not good at all! This cannot be right?" Kevin said. The editor said "Kevin, I'm afraid it is." Kevin couldn't believe it, and felt very sad. "Well, this might be the way things are now, but it is not something that I am going to contribute to, and it is not how things are going to be. I'm leaving. And I'm going to find a newspaper that fits in with my ideals." Kevin didn't even listen to what the editor had to say as he flew for the closest window.

Kevin did find a newspaper that did good things, the "Feel Good Times". It is a newspaper that reports the best of mankind, the resilience of the human soul, paradigms of ethical behaviour, respect and integrity. All of the wonderful and good things happening around the world. The newspaper itself actively calls to arms and organises groups, petitions, boycotts. Generally doing something about it. It actively brings around positive change. They published his article on the dirty polluters, and the people reported the company who dumped in the woods. He continues to regularly contribute to the "Feel Good Times."