Sebastians’s current problem was that he could not, no matter how sweetly he smiled or how wildly he gesticulated, attract the attention of the flight attendant. Perhaps the primary reason for this was that she was somewhat narrowly focussed on the striking brunette seated to Sebastian’s left. It had been a morning of difficulties for him and that usually didn’t bode well for the rest of his day, but Sebastian had eventually managed to check his luggage and came to be sitting in the seat he hadn’t booked that was neither a window nor aisle seat.

What Sebastian really needed was another little square single serve carton of orange juice. Actually he didn’t even need the entire carton, just the little plastic straw which was tidily wrapped and fastened neatly on the back of the box. Sebastian already had one carton of orange juice perched in front of him on the plastic fold out tray. Indeed, he already had a straw. The situation was a little complicated. His original straw had revealed itself to be defective, faulty purely on the basis of random manufacturing error. Sebastian hadn’t noticed the fault until he had struggled to puncture the foil covering the juice box’s straw hole. He then realized the defective straw, one might go so far as to call it a mutant, was cut squarely at both ends. There was no clever little sharp end with which to pierce the foil hole and allow him to drive the straw home and savour the juice box’s contents. If only the factory that made these straws had been running our software thought Sebastian.

Not to be denied fruity goodness on the basis of a mutant straw, Sebastian had grasped the plastic serrated knife sitting alongside his other breakfast goodies and hacked the straw in half at the required oblique angle to generate two fiercely pointed straw halves. These actions had been much to the amusement of the brunette woman to Sebastian’s left who was now engaging the attendant. The brunette had tried to conceal a genuine giggle as she watched the casually attired Sebastian at his antics. Gleeful and satisfied Sebastian had then triumphantly popped one, now lance-like, half-straw through the foil seal and begun to suck.

What had happened next was unfortunate for Sebastian but should not have been unforeseen given the fashion in which he undertook to solve his straw puzzle. As soon as Sebastian had consumed sweet juice from the carton down to its half-water mark the disheartening gurgling sounds that indicate a straw drinking session has ended were audible. His half-length straw simply didn’t measure up. What the band tee shirt wearing, scruffy, Sebastian needed was another straw and so far his attempts to attract the flight attendant’s attention had been futile. It was clear to Sebastian that to have any sort of meaningful exchange with the flight attendant, he must first distract her from the obvious lure of this 12D woman. From his location in seat 12E that should have been an easy thing for Sebastian to do.

Sebastian shuffled himself as close as possible to the flight attendant without invading the neighbouring passenger’s personal space. He raised a finger in silent query, observing this the passenger had briefly cast her green eyes in his direction. It had been one of those I-don’t-know-you-but-it’s-obvious-you-have-a-problem-and-we’ll-be-here-all-day-unless-I-help-you-sort-it-out looks. In fact it may well have been an even slightly more intimate you’re-kinda-quirky-and-cute-and-I-wouldn’t-mind-getting-to-know-you-a-bit-more looks. Then again perhaps Sebastian was just flattering himself; he had always found this sort of higher female communication difficult to translate. Many messages in female body language seemed, to him, to have no equivalent male language translations, like so much great poetry that loses all rhythm in a foreign tongue.

She winked at Sebastian, her gentle movement effortlessly transferred the flight attendant’s focus in his direction. With this strangers help Sebastian’s issue was solved. He had obtained a straw and a few minutes later, comfortably hydrated and far less audibly conspicuous, he pushed his remaining breakfast aside, mopped up the crumbs with his paper towel and settled back to watch the in-flight movie. This had just begun to play on a small television screen a little too far away from Sebastian for ease of viewing. As he strained his eyes to focus on the distant TV he couldn’t help but wonder why the film always began before everyone had actually finished their breakfast. People all around him were missing the crucial first five minutes of plot exposition. Sebastian couldn’t stand watching films as if they were television serials. Cinema could be so much more than simply background static.

‘Are you going to use those?’ Sebastian’s train of thought was suddenly derailed by a female voice. Brunette woman was pointing at the airline issue headphones wrapped in plastic sitting on his lap.

The woman didn’t really want to watch the movie herself and as such had no use for the headset. All she was interested in was starting a conversation with this guy beside her whose personal idiosyncrasies had been a constant source of amusement since their flight had departed New York.

Sebastian was unfocussed. His attention was torn between the screen and the attractive woman.

‘No, go ahead,’ he mumbled, suddenly realising that what he really meant to say was, ‘yes actually I’m about to settle in and watch the movie, sorry.’ Always the desire to give a woman the answer he thought she wanted to hear won out.

‘Oh thanks,’ replied the brunette with a smile, reaching over to clasp the plastic headset in her slender fingers. Once she held the package she hesitated as if waiting for Sebastian to say more.
Sebastian was suddenly confused. What should he do? What should he say? He loved movies, he was weary from a week working with the parent company in New York and he had a seven-hour flight ahead of him. He wanted nothing more than to relax, and lose himself in multimedia bliss. How could he have foolishly surrendered his source of indulging in the film’s soundtrack? He was again painfully aware of how easy it was for someone with a Y chromosome to act irrationally in the company of the logic nullifying double X.

Sebastian suppressed a groan as he realised the dilemma he was faced with. He dismissed the option of trying to attract the attention of the flight attendant again in order to obtain another headset, for admitting his error to a female would be a blatant violation of the male I-can-do-it-myself code, not to mention being frankly embarrassing. Of course there were two reasonable options. On one hand he could settle back and watch the movie without the pleasurable compliment of sound. Of course, at the same time he would have to pretend not to be watching the movie so as not to make the, admittedly, attractive woman beside him feel guilty for having robbed him of his entertainment. The other option was to begin a conversation with this intriguing brunette, if Sebastian was to miss out on his movie then perhaps she should too. Like some malfunctioning logic gate Sebastian was in a nether zone, neither on nor off. He took a deep breath.

‘So what movie are you about to watch?’ he asked brushing his drooping dark hair aside.

The woman turned to face him half her visage obscured by her wavy hair, but with what Sebastian was sure was a searching crispness in her eye. She looked like an attractive, effeminate, version of the mythological Cyclops when she angled her head just like that.

‘I think it’s the new Star Wars one. Why? Would you like to watch it too? I could get the stewardess to bring us another set of headphones.’ She cast him a subtle knowing smile as she said that.

Phil’s deliberating mind was again flipped into action. Again he had two choices. All Sebastian’s life he had the feeling of having two options, some sort of internal binary system regulating his every move. Appropriate for his line of work he thought. His dilemma was to either allow this woman, once again the humour of attracting the hostess for him, this would allow Sebastian to sink back into his favourite pastime of watching cinema, or to decline her astute offer and continue the conversation. Logic neurons fired violently in his mind.

‘Science fiction, a favourite of yours?’ he asked, suddenly noticing that she hardly seemed the type.

 Female sci-fi fans seemed to snugly fit into the moulds of either Gothic or Tech. Beside him, Sebastian could not see any long black hair, no pale foundation or caked on eye make-up, Goth seemed to be out. Nor was she vaguely a Techie. Heck, Sebastian should be able to spot those ones a mile off, he worked with them daily. The tech girls were usually sensibly dressed, over casual in jeans and T-shirt. The T-shirt, of course, would bear some quirky slogan in bold tall lettering, The geek shall inherit the earth or Adventure, excitement, a Jedi craves not these things. No, the female Sebastian was talking to wore a light, loosely fitting sarong skirt and a low cut white top. Sebastian couldn’t help but wonder if she was alone on this flight and what exactly was her business here.

‘Yeah, actually I love sci-fi, The Matrix is my all time favourite.’
She had placed the headphones down again, this time in her own lap. Sebastian wondered if this indicated possession. She turned to face Phil once more. He reciprocated and she could now clearly observe his slightly tousled brown hair and pale complexion.
Sebastian was intrigued by her reply. It wasn’t often that he met women who shared any of his interests. There really weren’t all that many hardcore sci-fi watching, Shiraz gulping, tech minded females about. However, he remained a little guarded. If anyone was to claim to be a movie buff or, more particularly, some morph of a Trekkie then they had to impress Sebastian with a little more knowledge depth than casually mentioning blockbusters like The Matrix.

‘Yeah The Matrix was great,’ said Sebastian. ‘But I’m more into the peripheral stuff,’ he baited her, ‘like that one where they all get off on rubbing those slimy little biological things and plugging themselves into a computer game.’ That was sure to either freak her out and put an end to the conversation, or arouse a little more interest.

‘You mean ExistenZ!’ she exclaimed.

Sebastian was stunned.

A jolt of turbulence made him reach and steady his breakfast tray.
‘Thought I didn’t look like the type?’ she continued, noting his momentary dumbness. ‘Well appearances can be deceiving. On that note I’m not even gonna try and guess what you do for a living so you’d better tell me. I’m Violet.’ She extended her hand.
‘Sebastian. Pleased to meet you. Actually I’m an engineer.’ Her skin was cool to touch.

‘What like bridges and stuff?’

‘Nah,’ Sebastian chuckled, ‘I’m not a pavement cowboy, I do software and electronics.’

 Sebastian didn’t like to talk much about his work. He told himself that this was because his company was developing intellectually sensitive technology and they had to protect their information capital, but in reality it was simply that no one understood anything about electronic systems. He was hoping Viloet wouldn’t probe him much further. She did.

‘So you’ve been in New York for work? What are you working on now?’

Sebastian wasn’t entirely sure how to answer that, the flight, after all, was only seven hours long. It had taken him a week to pitch the stuff to a bunch of Japanese academics but perhaps that wasn’t a true reflection of its complexity. He could dumb it down a bit, a lot, but then again she seemed to be the intelligent type, and he was probably never going to see her again after they landed, so Sebastian launched into it.

‘We make software, right. Lately a lot of focus in software has been creating what are really smart systems based on the structure of the human brain. They can be programmed initially by people and then learn to adjust themselves, with a little human help, in order to function better. These are neural networks.’

‘How do they work?’

‘We sort of copy the human brain. In there neuron cells can create electrical signals and pass that signal on to the next neuron cell. This next neuron will similarly be receiving electrical signals from many others at the same time. All this information from many messengers is collated by one neuron. Think of him as the interpreter. He records all this information chemically, little bits at a time. Some of the signals from other nuerons are even messages to rub bits of his recordings out. Anyway, eventually he has enough information to make some coherent decision like ‘raise hand’ or something. This interpreter neuron will then send out its own signal to, in this case, the hand and tell the muscles to move.’ Sebastian paused, he hoped Violet was keeping up.

‘Alright, I see, but how do the messenger guys know what pieces of information to give to the interpreter neuron? It can’t always be the same or we’d have pretty tired hands,’ said Violet.

‘You’re right, its not always the same, the messengers themselves are also constantly acting as interpreters and getting messages from all over including from the environment. Things like ‘my hand feels cold’ or ‘I’m getting sunburned.’ Obviously some messages are more important than others.’

‘Right, but how does all this relate to computers?’

‘Well I design software in which big programs are made up of lots of smaller communicating programs called neurons. These can be used to run machines that obtain lots of little pieces of information from around them and assimilate this into a single final instruction. The really clever thing about this sort of software is that it can learn and evolve to function better.’

‘I was always told machine’s can’t learn they only know what you tell them.’

‘Not true, for example one use of these networks is in quality control of goods.’

‘Uh?’

‘You saw me before struggling with that dud straw. Well imagine if the straw company had a machine run by a neural network that examined straws as they were produced. The machine is shown a video image of the finished straw and several small pieces of software examine the image. One piece is using some algorithm to assess the straws length, another its colour, or shape, or whatever. Anyway, these bits of information are all presented to the interpreter part of the program that then outputs an answer. In this case whether the straw is useable or a dud then it can be automatically discarded. Obviously some features of a straw are crucial to its ability to function as a straw so these pieces of information are weighted higher, they are more important.’

‘But how does the program learn?’

 ‘Well, once the software is written the straw company can expose it to a bunch of straws that are known to be good and bad straws. The neural network assesses these and outputs its findings. If it declares a straw good when it is faulty the operators can feed this information back into the software and allow it to adjust the weightings of all the input neurons that put it wrong until it agrees with the humans. After many examples the software fines tunes itself and evolves into a near perfect straw assessor.’

‘Okay, that seems useful enough, what else have you worked on?’ asked Violet.

At this point most of the people that Sebastian had explained his work to had switched off or given a nanosecond opportunity would change the subject. Sebastian could not believe that Violet had asked a leading question like this. Excitedly Sebastian seized an opportunity to prolong the conversation.

‘Well we are trying to come up with an anti-terrorist baggage scanner but how bout I tell you more later, tell me a little about yourself first.’

‘Sure, but that sounds like a good application of neural networks. I didn’t realize so many companies were into anti-terrorism software.’
‘After September Eleven it’s been big business everywhere, lots of government funding around too. The way you said that though…’

‘Said what?’

‘About not realizing so many companies were doing that. What field are you in?’

‘I’m a computer science student,’ said Violet, ‘sorry to let you babble on like that without mentioning it, but you seemed so excited about explaining to me. I guess guys tend to assume a girl wouldn’t know about these things, I just play along.’

Violet smiled again and flicked her hair back behind her ears. The alluring Cyclops then had appraising binocular vision. Sebastian’s gaze was reflected back, she looked curious and exciting to him.
Violet felt like a total idiot. This of course was nothing new to him and so he quickly cast the feeling aside, he smiled too, sheepishly.

He soon mustered the power of speech again and managed to ask, ‘So what have you been doing in New York?’

‘Ha, don’t ask.’

‘Oh okay, I’m sorry.’

‘No, I’m kidding, it’s all right. I’ve just been taking a bit of a post-exam break, bit of stress relief and all that. I met up with my girlfriend in New York and we just hit the shops and the clubs. Trust me I needed the time out after the way finals went.’

Sebastian was again placed in a position of evaluating two possibilities. There was an ambiguous phrase nested within what Violet had just said. That phrase was ‘my girlfriend.’ Sebastian hated the way that women just threw that term around. Didn’t they realize that it could be either a simple reference to a female friend or… the other option. Perhaps, thought Sebastian, that could explain the sci-fi thing. He was unsure.

‘The clubs, that sounds like a better way to spend time in New York than enduring temperamental conference room air conditioning which forces seminars outdoors into the open air beside the rooftop pool,’ said Sebastian, suddenly aware that roof top seminars by the pool sounded like a rather relaxing and civilized way to spend one’s working hours. He had of course meant to emphasise the over heated conference room portion of that statement. Like many of Sebastian’s statements the true meaning of his words just wasn’t quite there.

Nonetheless Sebastian managed to capture Violet’s attention, or amusement, for the duration of the flight. Neither of them got bored and they both missed the movie. Most importantly, through a sequence of very open-ended questions, Sebastian managed, to his surprise, to establish that Violet too lived in San Francisco, that she wasn’t a lesbian and that she would be delighted to have dinner with him.

They swapped cell phone numbers and after the plane touched down, parted with the simultaneous contemporary adieu, ‘Text me.’

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