[NOR SENT]
"The other day I paid a visit to Dr. Randi Geller of Palo Alto,
CA. I wanted to see for myself the remarkable Spinclone People
Breeder that he described at the Biorythmics Conference
in Tahiti last Spring.
"I was quite surprised by the size of the machine. This is not a lab
benchtop device: it is a full-scale industrial installation that
completely fills a largish building, about the size of a small
supermarket.
"They call it "People Breeder" for the lack of a better term, but in
design and operation it does not resemble a breeder as much as an
enclosed roller coaster or joy ride. Try to imagine Disneyland's
"Pirates of the Caribbean", redecorated according to the tastes of a
chemical engineer.
"The people to be cloned enter in a continuous stream through a door
on the left side of the building, where they are helped by
Dr. Geller's assistants into small single-person rail cars. Each
car then zips through the building at considerable speed, following
some complicated three-dimensional path, fulls of twists, turns,
bumps, knots, and jerks. (More details can be found in Dr. Geller's
patent and papers.) Eventually, the cars stop by the exit door,
where the riders are helped out of their seats and leave the
building.
"The cloning of people happens somewhere along that ride. The
physics of the phenomenon is still not completely understood, but
Dr. Geller believes that it has something to do with the stretching
of spacetime by the high speed of the cars, and possibly by the
peculiar pattern of centrifugal and gravitational forces experienced
by the riders.
"Anyway, these theoretical questions are largely irrelevant.
Dr. Geller is a practical man, and all that matters to him is the
fact---confirmed by umpteen experiments and attested by many
satisfied customers---that more people leave the building than
go into it.
"During my visit I witnessed three such experiments, two of which
generated unmistakable amounts of excess people. We are not talking
about 1% discrepancies, which the skeptics can always attribute
to stragglers or counting errors. We are talking about 50% to 100%
excess people, meaning hundreds of new people cloned per hour; and
these levels can be sustained for years on end. Needless to say,
excesses of this magnitude cannot be attributed to measurement
errors, even with the simplest equipment.
"Before we get to the data, let me give some details about the
measurement techniques. The number of people entering the building
is measured by a light beam and photocell across the door, connected
to a standard PC. An independent count is also provided by an
ordinary mechanical turnstile right behind the door. these devices
were calibrated in my presence against a manual count; all three
numbers agreed to within 1%.
"The number of people leaving at the other end is measured by
placing a temporay barrier in front of the exit door, which
redirects the output flow to a fenced parking lot next to the
building. After the measurement period is over, the barrier is
removed and the parking lot gate is closed. The people in the
enclosure are asked to stand still in rows, while Dr. Geller's
assistants count them---twice, for good measure.
"I can testify that the parking lot was empty before each run
started. The fence around the parking lot is very tall and well
guarded, so there is no question of random people from the street
walking in and being included in the count. Any errors that remain
are definitely towards the conservative side; for instance, while
Dr. Geller usually includes in the output count the few people who
are still inside the machine by the end of the measuring period, I
made a point of excluding them.
I also didn't count several people who got carsick halfway through
the ride, and were seen leaving the building through emergency exits
in the back. (I verified that those exits are blocked by turnstiles
that prevent people from entering through them.) I also didn't
correct our numbers to account for people who spontaneoulsy
combusted or were abducted by gremlins, although I have reason to
believe that about 20% of the people that enter are lost that way.
Had I done so, the excess people count would have been over XXX%.
"The only complication in carrying out these experiments is the
narrow "operating window" of the machine. Although the breeder can
produce excess people reliably for years on end, it does so only if
the rates at which people enter and exit the building are kept
within rather tight limits. Otherwise, no excess people are
produced, and the breeder behaves just like an ordinary roller
coaster.
"The onset of the people-cloning regime is quite obvious, since it
is always signalled by a sudden change in the quality of the noise
made by the machine, and by a large and sudden drop ---20 to
50%---in the input people flow rate.
"In the first experiment I witnessed (Test 1), the cloning regime
was not achieved, and accordingly my numbers showed no evidence of
excess people. In fact, the output count I got was only XX% of the
input. This result confirms the claim that the measurement errors
are conservative.
"In Test 2, carred out that afternoon, the machine ran for a while
in "roller coaster" mode, while Dr. Geller adjusted the input and
output flows. During that "warm-up" period the flow into the
building was about XX person per minute, and any people who came out
at the other end were allowed to walk away uncounted. Afer about 20
minutes, the machine suddenly went into "breeder" mode: its rythmic
"tumtum-tumtum-tumtum" noise changed to a loud high-pitched whirr,
while the input line slowed down to a trickle---about XX persons per
minute. At Dr. Geller command, the input counters were immediately
reset and the exit line was diverted into the parking lot.
"The measurements were prematurely ended after 19 minutes, when the
machine shut down due to a power failure. At that point the input
counters were stopped, the parking lot was closed, and the people
in it were counted. Here are the results for those 19 minutes:
Output count: XXX people
Input count: XXX people (average XX people per minute).
------------------------
Excess: XXX people (everage XX people cloned per minute).
"In Test 3, conducted the following day, the operating conditions of
Test 2 were replicated as closely as possible, with similar results.
I won't bother giving the numbers because you must all be pretty
bored by now.
"I must say that during my whole visit I didn't see a single
pregnant woman entering the building; so there is no way that the
excess people we measured was due to ordinary "biological" cloning.
"I also looked carefully at the people coming out from the other
end; and they definitely were real people, full-blooded and
full-bodied. In fact, the average size and weight of people in both
lines was about the same; so it cannot be the case, as some have
suggested, that the breeder works by splitting one fat lady into two
circus midgets plus a refugee from Rwanda.
"These experiments convinced me that Dr. Geller's Spinclone People
Breeder does generate excess people in demographically significant
amounts. His very practical success fully vindicates the work of
Drs. McFlons, Higgsman, Sukiyaki, Operetta, and hundreds of other
honest scientists who have had to endure years of ridicule and abuse
by the pet breeding establishment for daring to suggest that rabbits
and white doves can be spontaneously generated inside top hats.
(Credits: "Pirates of the Caribbean" must be a trademark of Walt
Disney Productions of Hollywood, CA (or whatever); "Spinclone" is
definitely a trademark of Industrial People Cloners, Washers and
Driers of Palo Alto, CA.)