Chapter 20 - The Left Hand Finally Knows

Andy stared across the room at Imogen and Daniel. "It's true I would prefer to know more of what is going on in Jerro without taking too much of Tracy's time. However if your system is so good, why isn't everyone using it?"

Daniel looked a little flustered, but Imogen didn't even pause. "That question has been asked about a million good ideas over the ages. Suffice to say that if everyone made the best choices for themselves we would have a very egalitarian society which, to put it mildly, just isn't the human way."

"So run this by me again. How does it all work?"

Daniel answered. "The data is stored in one place, the best place for that to be stored is where anyone who needs to access it can do so independently of other users. The farm has only 4G access to the net, which does not give you a dedicated IP address. The only way you could access the server at Jerro would be by remote tunneling. However the mobile data network drops connections quickly with non use. So every time you get on to the server you would have to interrupt Tracy who would have to go to the server to create the tunnel. Not very good when she's trying to run a farm.

Things are a lot different when the server's at your house. You can access it 24/7. Tracy's at her device, creates a local ssh tunnel through to the server at your house. No need for you to do anything, no need for you to be in the house. She then creates her entries, uploads photos etc and she's done. All that you need is a fixed IP address, which you already have. If this shit sounds complex, and I won't deny that it is, we could run the database over an insecure line and it will work just as well. But you have indicated that confidentiality is a big deal for you."

"And the cost of all this? And when I say the cost I mean the motherfucking total cost?", Andy asked sternly.

"Your costing request was anticipated Mr Corbin", Imogen began in a sophisticated tone as she handed him a print out. "I have prepared both variable and full costing for this." Tracey looked a little confused. "The difference Tracy is that the internet connection is already being paid for so the full cost is $90 per month but the variable cost is zero. Your mobile plan will need to be upgraded from $15 per month to $30 per month so the full cost is $30 but the variable cost is the extra $15.

Then there are capital costs. These are once off costs. The only one being the the Raspberry PI and SD Card. All up about $200 there. Backups from the Raspberry PI can be done to Tracy's laptop. No allowance has been made for replacing Tracy's laptop as she can have hand-me-downs from your office with linux installed. This detailed budget clearly ascertains that the variable motherfucking total cost is inconsequential."

"You don't have a line item for services rendered. What's your cut?"

"Well the first two years are free at least financially. We want to be able to query the database so we also know of Tracy's good work. Once we are eighteen we can move independently without adults needing to know anything. Then we can discuss continuing the service or whether you want to keep your fingers crossed and hope that nothing breaks down."

"How soon can we get the wagon rolling?"

"We already have a Raspberry PI. We need a list of projects ..."

"Here", said Tracy.

"...a list of users..."

"Just Tracy and myself. Tracy needs to be able to do everything on this and so do I just in case, but I want a restricted user for day to day querying where I can't stuff anything up."

"Done"

"When will it be ready?"

"By the weekend. Tracy will be using it before she goes back."

Brian finished having a close look at the Raspberry PI and caught Andy's eye. "Did you catch the news about the Indian government a few years back who sent a satellite to Mars for only $78 million. I'm getting the same feeling now. You don't need me to tell you that this is a shoe string budget, but the bits and pieces are thrown together in such a creative way that it quietly gets the job done. Whether or not you will be happy with the final reports you get will be up to you to decide. But users can type away and you will be able to query it as described. Time will tell."

"Could you maintain it?"

"I am confident that I can. Not hugely difficult to do. I wouldn't like to try and improve, or even change, the scripting though. They've done some very weird shit in order to minimise bandwidth. List data and some of the webpage template is stored as javascript variables. Anyway all that aside, if you're happy for me to dedicate some time to replicating the whole setup then I've got plenty of spare time in the office. It's the only way to meet any nasty surprises before they meet you."

He had indeed. Brians IT strength lay in choosing the good work of others. Since he had joined the team the IT frustrations had slowly evaporated. Freeing up his time. Andy had been worried of late that the boredom may make him move on. Not good. With him volunteering work this would kill two birds with one stone. "OK, you've got a $1,000 budget on this without having to ask."


"The cost of the PI should do it for $200."

"Just one more thing. No one else at the office is to know of this. Keep the PI off the work network."

"Got you. A few dollars more, but $1,000 is still heaps."

Tracy arrived back at "Andy's Ark". She was a little surprised to see Roger and his team there already, busy with getting the house in order. She had her gas stove and the fridge had battery backup. She was relieved to see it still working. This had it's own circuit into the solar panels with deep cycle batteries in the event of power failure. The system had worked well. She also had some refrigerated food in the back of the SUV to keep her going for a few days.

She went out the back to the nursery and the Acacia saligna seedlings were on their last legs. She had got back just in time to hand water them. The prickly pear cactus were, of course, doing fine but they their growth had slowed. Most of the annuals had died but these were mainly grown for practice and serve as 'canary in a coalmine' plants for the perennials. If something wasn't right the annuals would show it first. All in all it could have been a lot worse. The project would go on without much delay.

With the plants watered she checked the BNF compost. A little dryer than she would have liked but the worms had gone deeper. Phew there were a few snails in that lot. She watered down the compost and had a bit of a look around the rest of the property. Needed a bit of a tidy up but still everything in order. Now for recording everything. She went back to the SUV and fired up her Ubuntu tablet. She tapped the "Tunnel" icon. The screen flashed "connected". She clicked on the Projects bookmark in her browser and she was straight into the system. Things were going well as she expected a few teething problems. She wrote up her notes and introduced herself to Roger who was taking a break.

"My two big questions are when can I put my feet up in a nice clean bedroom and how can I keep out of your way?"

Roger gave her quick tour of the repairs being done. "As you know this is the outside wall of your bedroom. We have re-cemented this in place, not using concrete, but using biocrete. This does the same job as normal concrete but being made of different stuff. According to the brochure its self healing concrete which can fill up any minor cracks that may form by calcium precipitating bacteria. It's all very revolutionary stuff and Andy gave it the go ahead as a trial run. While I've given Andy six weeks, being our old estimate, we just might get this done in four. We've got this new computer system that takes the shit factor out of the job. My daughter, Imogen and her boyfriend got this up and running. As a proud dad her briefly held up his phone and Tracy immediately recognised Corvine Projects, the same software she was using. She kept quiet about that, because Imogen didn't want her father knowing about her involvement with Andy. "I tell ya Tracy. These kids have got all this tech stuff under their belts. Of course you'd know all about that too. Another bit of good news is that I've got sole distribution rights in Australia to the biocrete, thanks to Imogen. It's going to be a big earner for me."

Don't assume too much mate, she thought as she considered Rogers opinions on tech, this is Australia not Kazakhstan. He then asked her what it was like being out here on her own. "Mr MacBeth I really don't think its appropriate to give a married man the sufficiently blunt answer that honesty requires."