Essay by Yesbot, as provided by Roger Pattison
Graphic work by Katie Nyborg
Setting up my business hinged on one pivotal piece of equipment that didn’t exist at the time.
Having gone into the marketing strategy in some depth, it had become clear that this was an opportunity in a completely undeveloped niche market. There was just nobody you could call if your spaceship broke down. This was a situation of which I had some first-hand experience, having owned a second-hand ScubaStingray that spent nearly all its life being stationary. I could never find anybody in the Yellow Pages who would come out to fix it. You should try pushing one of those things in space.
It was on one of these unfortunate outings that I realised how wonderful it would be if somebody actually turned up to repair it. It was through this that I discovered the “Proposition of the Infinitely Sliding Scale” and its mathematical connection with another proposition, that being the calculation of the “Infinite Profit Margin.” These two expressions can be logged in graph form and, although this is not the place to extrapolate, the logarithmic interaction of these two expressions is clear.
To read the rest of this story, check out the Mad Scientist Journal: Autumn 2012 collection.
Curriculum Vitae.
Name: Yesbot.
Qualifications: Screw-on arms and legs: M.D.- Spaceship Repair Man Inc.; not open on Sundays; cheerleader for Martian Chess Championships; best taken with water.
Born: No (Optional)
Previous Experience: Generally bad.
Hobbies: Anything you have to oil. Fridge magnets. Breaking telephones.
Ambitions: To be a cuckoo clock. Who doesn’t?
Brief bio for Roger Pattison.
Musician, teacher, electronics engineer, writer on bad days. Retired on good days.
Interests/obsessions:- keeping away from things (e.g. Hot air balloons, moving stairways, stationary stairways, stairways of alien origin, all stairways called Allen).
Ambitions:- to fail at aqua ballooning. To fail at failing. To fail at black belt cake decorating. To have a cake named after me. To spell my name right. To spell anything right without the aid smoke signals.
