ARSELoch
Technologies Inc FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: ARSETECH Announces Time-space Breakthrough ARSELoch Technologies Inc, a Bangladesh-based computer research company, today demonstrated the beta version of its new ARSE search engine technology which raises the search engine bar to unprecedented heights. All previous search engines enabled access to information stored on clumsy, technologically primitive hard drives around the world. ARSE (Akashic Records Search Engine) for the first time allows the ordinary user to access ALL available information in THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE from the comfort of his or her own home computer. Hamit Jahoudi, Ph.D., CTO of ARSELoch, said, "Previously, the Akashic Records were accessible, if at all, by highly unreliable and greedy mediums who would charge an arm and a leg to go into a trance. Results were in no way guaranteed and often, well after the pigeon had paid big bucks for the session, turned out to be at least misleading if not wholly fraudulent. Today, with the release of the beta version of ARSE we put a stop once and for all to such unfortunate practices." Jahoudi noted that the "Akashic Records," while well-known in psychic circles are generally pooh-poohed by Western science. According to South Asian religious and philosophical belief, the "Akashic Records" exist on some higher plane and contain a complete transcription of not only everything that has happened in the universe but of everything that will happen. Dr. Jahoudi elaborated, "According to Hindu theory, the recording medium is the ‘akasha,’ which we might English roughly as ‘soniferous aether.’ In fact, one of our younger researchers a few years back, herself a devout Hindu, came across that term in the works of the notorious Western thinker, Thomas Pynchon. She, having observed odd repetitive, recursive behavior on the part of her Windows 98 machine whenever she was playing a certain Ravi Shankar cut, began wondering about possible relationships between present-day dullardly computers and cosmic vibrations of all frequencies. This researcher already having proved her merit by finding easter eggs in the Windows program whose existence no one had previously guessed at, we accepted her proposed research project, which she presciently named ‘PRE-ARSE.’" HARDWARE
Setting to work in late 1997, the PRE-ARSE team tried any number of configurations of the hardware available to them. A delay of some months occurred when, having achieved the difficult task of programming the Commodores so that they could function in parallel with each other, the team discovered whole new, unguessed-at levels of Space Invaders. THE BREAKTHROUGH ARSELoch must here acknowledge its gratitude to the long-suffering and patient citizens of its home country. Every time we switched on all three MRI’s simultaneously a good 60% of Bangladesh would undergo a rather severe brown-out which, if we left the machines on long enough, would in fact turn into a black-out. Following explanations to the media and the passing of a few small gratuities to certain technologically hip government officials, no further complaints were heard. A fine-tuning of the system and the development of an appropriate interface led directly to this beta release of ARSE, which allows the user to enter ANY term in ANY language and then retrieve all related incidents from the Akashic Records. In its beta version, the system has of course some limitations. Thus far, we have viewed only results from the past, including however I must proudly add, the deep past. The future has thus far eluded us, though the team is optimistic that the final release will allow such access. Another limitation comes from the low-resolution nature of graphic imagery handled by the Commodore 64. We can, alas, input and receive only extremely pixelated images, which means that views of past events, while recognizable (yes, you can see Shakespeare standing to one side during the first performance of Hamlet; yes, you can see the three crosses of the Christian crucifixion), require an unfortunate squinting of the eyes to get the full effect. Again, our team is hoping, with the added funds coming from release of this beta version, to upgrade the entire system. REVOLUTIONARY INTERFACE Using the latest translation and voice-transcription software, ARSE locates the time and the place, then searches for audio vibrations matching the search terms. If those vibrations were created using a language other than English, ARSE instantly (well, almost instantly—as instantly as you can hope for with C-64’s) retrieves, translates, and transcribes the utterance. Following user-testing of the beta release, ARSELoch anticipates the commercial version will be available in Wal-Marts around the world by the end of the year at a probable MSRP of US$19.95. (The Geochronic Parameter Handbook, which of course is essential, will be available at slight extra cost which we haven’t yet determined but will most likely be in mid-four-figure range.) Attachments: ACTUAL SCREENSHOTS CONTACT for Further Information:
geruch@arseloch.com
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128 pages of the best satire
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817 much-used Commodore 64’s (shipped a few years
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