Notices by Kit Bashir (unixbigot@aus.social)

Yes I know the process is called “spaghettification” but it’s not actually spaghetti. Okay it does look a bit like a mop of spaghetti on the end of a stick, but I assure you it’s a highly technical and rather expensive graphene-cored silicone microfilament. We call it a gravity-gradient visualization probe. When placed in proximity to an event horizon the filaments align with the gravity gradient, not unlike how iron filings reveal the shape of a magnetic field. The graphene core allows the magnetic resonance imager in the probe positioning armature — NOT a broomstick shut up — to determine the field strength, and with careful positioning, the exact boundary of the event horizon.

It might *look* like we’re just waving a bundle of spaghetti around in a lab full of synthetic black holes in the hope that they don’t eat our fingers, but I assure you it’s a very sophisticated piece of safety equipment.

How often do we lose a researcher? Oh, hardly ever since we developed the spag-uh gravity gradient probes. Not for weeks.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

It always takes a while for an older cat to warm up to a new kitten, or at least reach cordial coexistence. But it’s been three years and a face to face encounter between these two still results in snarling spitting and general stress, especially for the Old Lady of the house. So i’ve had to make hard decision.

No I’m not getting rid of one, what kind of monster do you take me for. The older cat gets a vortex manipulator collar and they time-share the living room. If they try to use the room at the same time, she gets bumped forward an hour. Once they get closer in age they will hopefully coexist better.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

"You know, those things used to just be a bunch of nichrome wire and a bimetallic strip, no electronics at all"

"Toasters? That's preposterous, how would they calculate the ideal cooking temperature? How could they verify the Darkening Rights Management proteins in the bread?"

"Oh we never worried about that crap"

"Wait, did they not even cryptographically sign the char layer? How did your butter sprayers know how heavy of a coat to apply?"

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Back in the dirt ages, computers were enormous things. Some of them were the size of your hand. Really enormous ones could be the size of your torso. They hooked up to household power, hundreds of volts (and people TOUCHED these things!). They were so inefficient they needed cooling fans, like they were some sort of information furnace.

These days we kind of forget computers exist, they're just there, woven into the nanomaterials of our homes and furniture and appliances. Only those of us who write software for them really notice them. This can be a problem, if you've had one rice-grain-sized compute unit go berserk and start sending out spurious notifications. I'm wandering around the building with a scanner, but I did too good a job implementing stealth mode, I can't find the little blighter. I really hope I don't have to EMP-burst the house (again) to make this one JUST. SHUT. UP.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

I was patting gracie and she interrupted me to lick my hand (she ALWAYS grooms back) and then fell asleep on it. And that’s why my homework is late.

The arctic seed library was unequivocally a good idea; when you think about it, the fact that stable biospheres exist at all is a fucking miracle. The folks sitting up there in the snow clearly had a lot of time to think about this fact, before they went rogue.

The lab equipment and grow-tanks in the library were intended for testing the long term viability of stored seeds. The giant refrigeration units were mostly there to supplement the natural refrigeration during the height of the brief arctic summers.

After the Diaspora we reconstructed what they did: the gene sequencers in the lab combined all the millions of collected genomes into the Metaseed. Cannibalism of refrigeration coils made a handy linear accelerator to propel soda-can sized metaseed parcels toward dozens of targets in the solar system, and hundreds beyond.

All¹ these verdant worlds are yours.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

¹Except Europa, something ate the metaseeds that impacted there.

There was a tray of brownies on the bench, and I could feel the heat from the cooling oven.

I knew what this meant. An exchange.

It tried a brownie. Delicious as usual. I have no idea how they get them out of the oven and i don’t want to know.

I directed my voice to the unseen Pictsies that live in the pantry. “My compliments to the Kelda, and thanks for the brownies. These are very good. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Oh, nae a thing, Missus. We ken ye could use some cheer is all!”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

I’ve created a monster. I made a mastodon account for my cat Mister Vortex. I rigged up a camera with a selfie button, that posts the image. Every ten likes on his selfies result in a treat being dispensed. I’m not STUPID I made sure there was a limit to how many treats it would dispense per day, saving up treat credits for later.

Anyway, now he has treat credit to last until year 2361, and more followers than me.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Catunday

(A commission gift for Moon Rover @BathysphereHat)

The FastFood HF 3D printer uses the unique patented process of injecting high fructose corn syrup into a build chamber that is a block of low density gelatin. Additional extruders inject powdered cocoa and textured vegetable protein.

Promotional material claims that the machine can accurately reproduce over 1000 kinds of american snack food; the machine is proving popular with american refugees. The machine is not officially available in the united states due to an ongoing lawsuit from Hershey Inc.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Astrophysicists really suck at explaining this simply, but stars are basically a gravitational collapse and an explosion happening at the same time. Gas contracts under gravity, gets so frickin compressed and hot that a fusion explosion begins, which perfectly balances out gravity. That explosion goes on for a long time, and the star shines happily; then fuel runs out and it starts to splutter. Everything from variable stars to supernovae to white dwarfs is part of that spluttering process.

Some eons I just want to give up, and collapse; make myself tiny and invisible and cut myself off from the rest of the universe. But there's a power in me to outshine the Galaxy if I choose.

I understand you organics sometimes face the same choices.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

“Hey void, just checking in. How’s it going?”

⌜Busy day⌟

“Figured. We’ll skip game night this week.”

⌜Thanks, Your cat around?⌟

“Yeah, she’s just murdering a mushroom, why?”

⌜I could really use a co-purrlot for a bit⌟

“Sure, she loves hangin’ with you. And the voidmice don’t hurt.”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Observed: "we love CoPilot because it makes us so productive!"

Outcome: So much babytalk code is repeated. over. and. over. because it autocompleted and nobody had to stop and think about refactoring.

Corollary: Any given comment is wrong because it was part of the template completion and nobody customised it.

Conclusion: Copilot enables bloated code and unreliable documentation.

tl;dr: having to type code in like it's the Dirt Ages causes you to want to make it shorter, and smarter.

Why the heck does Neuralink even *have* an expansion socket if they are going to blacklist all the best extensions? Last month they pulled the plug (or should that be pulled the socket?) on the Playstation emulator, and now they’ve banned AdBlock Extreme. I can’t even walk down the street without an ad blocker chipped. I should have got a fucking FireSlot instead of this garbage.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

The Hume Freeway is mostly 840km of straight sailing between Sydney and Melbourne. After the Hookistan Secession[citation needed] a checkpoint was added where the freeway crosses the Murray River. A 2400m long endless loop of light rail shares the southbound lanes with up to eight heavily armed and armoured autonomous trams continuously circling the loop. Traffic leaving New South Wales must complete two right turns across the tram lines without tram-involved incident in order to successfully negotiate the border interchange. Northbound traffic is unimpeded, though there is a spectators’ lookout that is a popular rest-and-charging stop, also home of the famous Last Good Coffee van.
#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

@kg6gfq safe disposal of faulty lithium batteries requires ensuring they are fully discharged. Immersion in salt water is a gentle way to discharge them. Otherwise… https://infosec.exchange/@catsalad/113153936056786478

"Hello, you have reached the voicemail of Alacrity Jones, consulting witch. Don't hang up. In fact, you can't hang up, you may find that your hands and tongue are bound until you have acquitted yourself. Now, if you have called on Witching Business, please leave a message now. If you have called to sell me something, please stop struggling, it will only make this more unpleasant. Our records show this is a second call from this number. On our escalating scale of response you will be a toad for 72 hours. Do not call again."

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

It was a a bloody fiddly process to dissolve a Go Card in acetone to extract the chip and antenna, and then reencase it in a smaller fob that can hang from my cat’s collar. But it means she can hop the train and visit me in the office on those pesky work-from-work days.

Looking at the journey records on the Translink website, I see she goes to the fish market on the way home. Clever girl. Better give her an allowance I guess.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

I was making the Universal Sign of Waiting For A Ride: standing on the roadside with a travel case and my phone held in front of me, watching an icon of my ride approaching on the map. A really laggy map, apparently. because the icon wasn’t lining up with streets at all, it was just heading straight toward me over what the map showed as canefields.

Then I felt my feet lifting off the ground. A blinding light shone from above. I looked up in alarm seeing, as I squinted to reduce the glare, a dark disc with an iris-like central opening.

I was drawn into the iris which closed. leaving me in a round room with a red sofa and a curved wallscreen showing the view out across the fields. There was a glass-doored bar fridge beside the sofa.

A disembodied voice with the telltale cadence of an autotranslator spoke.

“Hello, this is Vl’than your Uber Driver.
Feel free to sit down and help yourself to a beverage.”

“Uh, I ah. Wha-what. Is this an abduction?”

“Oh, no, just a rideshare. I was in the area doing some circle work when I saw your job come up. Heading into town, yes?”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

@foone WONTFIX

“Hello, this is Kelsey, we have been trying to reach you about your vehicle’s extended warranty”

*sigh* “Where did your life go wrong?”

“Ma’am?”

“What life choices led to you working in a call center reading these scam scripts”

“Um…I don’t have a answer for that on my script. And we work from home. Uh, are you aware that our service can…”

“Stop, Kelsey. Put the script down. I’m trying to help you here. Just think, what would you rather be doing? When did you turn away from that?”

“Um, I guess, ah, why am i telling you this. When I gave up playing bass guitar”

“What year was that?”

“Must have been 2033 or early 34”

“Okay, please hold”

“Wha-“

I punch a code into my vortex manipulator. *ZZZAAPPPP*

*ZZZAAPPPP* “Okay thank you for holding, are you i still there?”

*silence*

“You’re welcome, Kelsey. Have a nice life.”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot