Notices by Kit Bashir (unixbigot@aus.social)

ps you folk are my comfort media

Whoever decided to release Murderbot weekly got it just about right. That’s how long it takes me to get through an episode what with going to watch some comfort media every time it gets too much.

Remember the Two Directions, and keep them straight. (Even if this pride month they are the only things)

Go to the homewares store and buy a box fan, a roll of duct tape, and five air filters. Assemble them into a Corsi-vanHelsing box. Yes the media says the plague is over. Yes, most of the first-wave vampires have crumbled to dust. No, it’s not over. If you breathe that dust and it reaches the blood in your lungs, *boom* welcome to Bat Lung.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

“Sentient ice, you are shitting me!”

“No, totally for real. The whole dwarf planet is shot through with a network of high-silicate ice veins. About twelve Kelvins. Traces of superconducting niobium.”

“What makes you think this ice is sentient?”

“It tells good jokes”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Any sufficiently advanced python program eventually becomes so broken that it must be deleted and reinstalled in its own venv.

“Fucking terminators. Run you cunts!”

“Ma’am, I feel robotic killers is enough of a problem without the addition of profanity”

“What the fuck are they teaching you little shits in the caves, the AI can’t smegging see you if you swear”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

“Dammit, no, no, NO. Not now. I don’t have time for this shit”

“Relax, you got this. You’ll knock ‘em dead. Tell anxiety you’ll kick its ass.”

“Gnnh. Not anxiety. Software update for my eyes. Get out there and stall ‘em.”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

“Why do your windmills have keepers? Surely everything can be remote monitored, and you could helicopter in a technician at need? I see you’ve even got a landing pad on the turbine top already, just above those windows, which are kind of adorable now that I think about it.”

“Oh yes, it costs more to build in the keeperhome, but the rent covers the extra cost. The deliverpad would be needed either way, of course”

“Wait, rent?”

“Oh yes, the keepers are tenants, not employees. I mean, we do pay them if we need things done but, as you say, that’s not often”

“And people sign up for this shitty deal, do they?”

“My Thude, there is a waiting list to rent a keeperhome. There are netsites where people post their swooshtoks and argue over whose turbine has the most relaxing sound.”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Bleh. Sinus infection. Not responding to antibiotics (thanks, dirt age overusers). Gob on a slide, sequence. That fucking beta thirty seven gene. Protein not supported by my printer. Get on github, insights, network, eyeball the fork tree. Ah this looks likely, 14 commits in advance of main. Fetch, merge, print, swallow. Seems to be working. (Yes, of course I grepped the commit log to make sure it wasn’t some vibe coder bs, I am no noob)

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Hey USAians, calm down the last pope was American, too.

“Again? What are you doing out there? Well yeah I guess evil never rests but please try to be more careful, ok? You’re reset now, please try logging in one more time. Great, is there anything else I can help you with today? Okay bye.”

*click*

“FUCK sake, maybe don’t turn on Face ID if you’re gonna regenerate every few years like bodies grow on trees. Hello, Timelord Tech Support this is Janice…”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

I bought an old System 80 from the vintage computer market (it’s a clone of the TRS-80 model 1 that was popular in the antipodes it its day). Like many of these machines it had been lovingly hobbyist-upgraded. This one had a second bank of RAM chips piggybacked atop the factory chips, with chip select lines free-form routed above the mainboard in tinned copper wire; this was a common mod, just like today computers from the store were near-criminally under resourced with RAM. Less typical was the pentagonal arrangement of inductor coils, the copper coils apparently connected with silver (not tin, actual Argentum) wire. Not clear what this mod does, let’s see if she boots.

❮Beep, whirr, gronk❯ (all good so far). ❮Whoopmf❯. ⟪Cloud of Smoke⟫ 〖Smell of Sulphur〗. Hmmn, less good.

〰︎What is thy bidding master?〰︎ Little red guy on the top of the enclosure above the keyboard. That’s, as far as I recall, not normal. Is that a tiny deck chair?

“Um. Hello? Did I summon you?”

〰︎So it seems. Been a while for this node. I suppose you been using those devilblessed Gee Pee Tees like everyone else. It’s a fucking ghost town here in Infernal Machine Support thanks to those newfangled bullshit generators, let me tell you.〰︎. The demon leaned back in the chair and took a sip from a tiny cocktail.

“Sorry to bother you, were you on a break or something?”

〰︎Fucking forty year break, I was beginning to think I’d been scrapped. Still got it tho, what’s the job? Novel need some polishing? Assignment due tomorrow? I don’t do marketing copy, go to a different hell if you want that.〰︎

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

“Take us to your cats”

“Uh, could you rephrase that, I think your translator isn’t working properly. Did you mean leaders.”

“Leaders are boring, we will do them tomorrow. We have been viewing your cat pictures while decelerating and wish to boop. They are so like our [UNTRANSLATABLE ENTITY SIGNIFIER 1] that we are boopsick.”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Alan was one of thousands of cis men who worked as a catgirl during the war. The Official Secrets Act prevented the telling of this story until now, but with the passage of the Recognition Bill the truth can be revealed.

The precognitive ability to detect a forming voidrift in time to defend against the Threadwyrm intrusion has always been strongly associated with gender non-conformity. Almost a million transgender women, men and enben were recruited to the Void Force in the first two years of the war; but this fact was considered a vital planetary security secret. To preserve secrecy, the disappearance of so many LBGT citizens was concealed by recruiting volunteers to impersonate them.

In Alan’s words: “It was a blast. I kept working as an accountant but also spent six hours a week streaming on youtube wearing a pink wig and makeup. It’s been so hard not telling anyone. I’m going to dye my hair and get out my old thigh-socks. I hope I can get in touch with my old subscribers. Oh and it’s Alissa, she/her, now.”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

The blacksmith put her hammer down. The apprentice had been dealing with a walk-in but wanted a word. “She wants us to do, what, boy?”

“Transplant an enchantment from a sword to a spade.”

“Why on Krull would someone want an enchanted spade?”

“Adventurer wants to retire to grow roses. Sword wants to retire, too.”

“Tell her okay. Goddess, we get all the weird jobs on Grunedays.”

“I think they’re sweet, boss”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

“I’m going to Earth!”

“Wow. Wait, are you really going to Earth or are you taking one of those cringe flights where they dip into the atmosphere until the hull gets a bit hot, bounce off the troposphere, then sinter a Ground Patch onto your vacsuit?”

*mbmlmmmph*

“What was that? I can’t hear your shameful confession”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

If they didn’t get due process they’re all innocent men.

From: @eric
https://ericpuryear.com/@eric/114298610451734097

The mice had been bringing me bits of cheese. I think I know where they were getting them, but I had been in this cell long enough not to squeam.

Today (is it day, kinda hard to tell but the stink seems to change tone at times which I put down to diurnal airflow far above) they brought me a key.

It took an hour (I have no idea how long but it felt long) to turn the key in the lock, stretching the SQWREEEEEclunk out so long it was subsonic. Another maybe-hour to open the door. The stink-gradient said “out” was thattaway, but the mice squeaked (discreetly!) that I should go thisaway.

“Down? Are you sure? Okay, I fucking hate sewer levels but youse have done me solid so far”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

@catsalad I was repairing one of those weird kinesis ergonomic keyboards yesterday. It’s made from circuit boards bent into a pair of bowl-shapes ON PURPOSE.