The Nervous-Lee Feedback
Today too, the future of the Mytel Cartel is bright! When people think of the internet, they usually picture Google or Naver connected through LAN cables or Wi-Fi. But the 20th century is different. The World Wide Web, or WWW, was announced in '91, and it wasn't until '94 that government policy began spreading internet access. Before that? PC communication services were everything. The engineering club has been independently researching internet-related topics for the past year. Since KAIST created Korea's first website in '94, let's assume our engineering club's output will properly emerge around then. Can we catch up to the engineering club with research done without a professor's halo? Of course, if I had a cheat key I could manage it, but it looks like the engineering club already has their research halfway done. If we try to catch up now, the only thing we'll get in return is the label of "scooping," not praise or official club approval. In the first place, more than half our members are from the engineering club, so if we're not careful, it won't just be scooping—we might even get accused of stealing ongoing research. In other words, what we need isn't the engineering club's on-campus internet distribution, networks, or website building. We need something internet-related that doesn't overlap with their activities, yet achieves quality equal to or better than theirs. Augh, this is seriously damn hard. If it weren't me, this would've been impossible even in dreams. Anyway, to satisfy all these conditions, we're going to directly mess with the WWW and its corresponding communication protocol, HTTP. By contacting CERN, the British scientific research institution where the WWW originated.
"Is that... possible?"
"Yes."
"..."
Everyone looks stunned. Well, that's understandable. Starting a club and the first thing we do is foreign collaboration. "First, we'll need to look at the papers. It probably won't be easy to get them by asking the engineering club..." "I'll bring them." As expected of Kim Jeong-jun. His performance is reliable.
"Kill... me..." "Gruuuuuurgh..." What the hell, in just two days everyone's turned into zombies. "You seniors have only read half of it. Stop whining and make sure you learn what you need to learn." "You... calling yourself... human...?" "Zzz... snore..." "Ehehe... eheheheee!" Once we get into actual work, everyone will be ground down by crunch time weeks before launch anyway. Losing it over this much means they're disqualified as coding slaves. "Then everyone who's still here, go home. Most of you live in the dorm right in front anyway." I should let them go even if they're struggling. No matter what, if I keep pushing them when they're this exhausted, I'm the one who's disqualified as a human. "Kiiiiiiaaahooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" "Is Yoon I-seo a god? Is Yoon I-seo a god?" "Home...! I'm going hoooome!!!!!!!!!!!!" But seeing them this happy makes me want to mess with them a little. "What are you doing, I-seo? You said you were leaving." "...? When did I say that?" Everyone grabs their bags and files out. The last one to leave... um... whatever his name is... turns around and calls to me. "Not going?" "... Of course not? I'm short on time if I want to review the papers and find improvements." That senior looks at me like I'm insane, then finally closes the door and leaves. Can't blame him. Truth is, I deliberately pushed them hard. I need to burn the image of me as a "superhuman" into their minds so they'll believe I can single-handedly conceive not just this paper but countless future projects and lead them through it. Now what I have to do is take HTTP/0.9 from '91, which everyone already understands, and upgrade it in my head to HTTP/1.1 from '99. I organize all the parts to improve, add, and optimize by cutting. Then I deliberately leave some content out. It can't be perfect from the start. On top of that, I leave room for it to be utilized in other fields as well. With this, my perfect super-upgrade manual is complete. It was morning.
The next day, the first member to arrive at the temporary club room is Kim Jeong-jun. 'What the hell, should I report this?' He stares at Yoon I-seo sprawled across the desk like a corpse and faces the dilemma of a lifetime. If she'd been sleeping normally there wouldn't be a problem, but with her long hair scattered everywhere, one arm dangling off the right side, severe dark circles under her eyes, and skin so pale it looks bloodless, her overall haggard appearance combined with the papers piled on the desk and the notes she'd written provides more than enough evidence for him to conclude she's died of overwork. But that incident is brief. The powerful light source of the ceiling lamp appearing in the dark club room—even in broad daylight thanks to the blackout curtains—is enough of a trigger to wake Yoon I-seo from her nap. Of course, the sight of her rising while still disheveled is more than enough to evoke the ghost that crawls out of the TV in the Japanese horror movie Kim Jeong-jun had received through Kim Mu-sik and watched recently. "Kiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Kim Jeong-jun, already in a state of heightened anxiety, lets out a high-pitched scream no one would imagine coming from a man, forgets to even close the club room door, and bolts without looking back. "... What's with him?" Of course, Yoon I-seo, unaware of her own appearance, is simply bewildered.
"You did all of this by yourself?" When I show the super-upgrade manual to the members, they all say the same thing. Well, that's to be expected. "Everyone look through it together and speak up if you see anything that needs fixing. I made this half-asleep, so there might be weird parts or things I missed." In truth, I've deliberately left out or made beginner-level mistakes in several places. It's like a test—if they can't spot even this much while struggling together, they're done for. "This part, if the header-related file gets lost midway..." "At this rate, adding this here should improve that problem..." And fortunately, everyone passes safely! This junior is proud of her seniors. Of course, they didn't notice the parts I deliberately omitted. I'll throw those in during collaboration discussions. "Then, as I mentioned before, we'll send this final version to CERN in England. International mail costs a bit, but we can cover that with the activity budget." Everyone looks at me with envious eyes. Yeah, keep looking at me like that. Later it'll serve as proof that I'm a superhuman with promising potential. "Alright, anyone good at English?" "Can't we just send it like this?" "We have to translate all the Korean comments and keep communicating in English, so we don't have a choice." Actually, I'm decent at English too. I had to learn some because even translation tools don't work for technical papers or GitHub comments. But I don't have the stamina for that right now. Pulling three all-nighters means even I get tired. Besides, the English I learned back then is a bit fuzzy. Still, since someone raised their hand, I'll put them to work. "Your name...?" "... Park Seung-hyeop." "Great, Seung-hyeop senior. From now on, you're our club's official translator and interpreter." "Eh...?" Nice! I got a high-performance translation slave!
Time flies, and before we know it, midterms are over and the university festival season arrives. "Are we setting up a festival booth?" "We don't really have anything we could do at a booth... It's not like we're running a pub or anything." "Therefore! We'll breeze through the festival! And we'll find new work in our dark corner where no light gets in!" Everyone looks relieved. Truth is, I'd already given up on forcing a booth long ago because it would've created a world where no one was happy. "Perfect timing! An international letter has arrived from England! The sender is! Drumroll! Team Nervous-Lee!" Not a typo. Team Nervous-Lee. That is, the academic research team centered around David Lee. It's quite different from the original history's Tim Berners-Lee as an individual, but at least this isn't my butterfly effect. And the moment they hear my words, their expressions unfold and then immediately rot. "Our club's official translator, Seung-hyeop senior! Come translate this!" Correction—Park Seung-hyeop's expression has completely rotted. He must've remembered that I'd even gone to the English professor for feedback on the letter's content.
"We received your team's feedback well... Our team is... uh... nervous about the appearance of a new strong and powerful research team—not just Lee, but everyone is on edge..."
"Pfft"
A few people, including Seung-hyeop, who roughly understood the joke, let out small laughs. Of course, I was also laughing because of the Waldo-style writing. "We attempted to accommodate this feedback, which could be called near-perfect, to the maximum extent possible...? However, we felt there were parts that were difficult to understand and... insufficient parts... We would like to receive more detailed feedback..."
As he reads this part, Park Seung-hyeop's expression rots even further. Has he sensed his own ruined future? When the slowly read letter finally ends, everyone except Park Seung-hyeop looks at me like they've seen the light. "Yoon I-seo!!! Yoon I-seo!!! Yoon I-seo!!!" "Is Yoon I-seo a god??" "Jesus? Ah, are you referring to Yoon I-seo of Nazareth?" "Among the world's three great saints are Yoon, I, and Seo, and they reign as the Trinity—both God and the Holy Mother..." "From today onward, the Korean identification header is [Yoon I-seo]. No objections accepted." No, this is a bit embarrassing. It reminds me of being worshipped on Mytel... Ah, these are those same people. Hmm. Today too, the future of the Mytel Cartel is bright! ... Hey, Mr. Seung-hyeop, loosen up that expression.