Notices by Kit Bashir (unixbigot@aus.social), page 2

Today I learned that Apple Air Pods Pro in noise cancelling mode perfectly cancels the clicking of a geiger counter. You would not know it was making a sound. I hope that this is not relevant to /your/ day.

It was preparing milk for breakfast cereal that sparked the idea. One of those clever milk cartons where the act of unscrewing the lid for the first time incises an opening in the foil seal beneath.

A Klemperer Rosette, twelve primordial black holes orbiting each-other’s common barycenter. Induce alternating charges on the singularities, set it spinning with a magnetic field. The Reality Drill.

It worked even better than we expected, slicing through spacetime to open a window to the next universe, and the next, and another, and ever onward. On a clear day you can see all the way to the end of probability.

We are heartbroken to report that we live in the best of all possible universes, after all.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

It took a lot of effort to build the Mars Express. We selected a nickel-iron asteroid of the right size, and then captured three comets for their water and volatiles. Ginormous mylar mirrors focused sunlight to melt the spinning iron blob, then injected water boiled to inflate a metal bubble, a miniature inverted world. Fifteen metres of iron surrounding a twenty five meter world-ocean makes a radiation shield that is good for all but the most sealiony of cosmic rays.

Those same mylar filaments reconfigured as a solar sail tugged the “Express” into an elliptical orbit that brushes Earth’s on the inside and Mars’ on the outside. It takes twenty eight months to make the crossing one way; you spend the trip in a floating hotel, sailing on the inside-out ocean inside the water-iron sausage of the Express’ O’Neill Cylinder (named after one of you humans that imagined it in the 20th century). On a boat, in a boat, on the solar sea.

All up the ceaseless work of fifty thousand robots—material gathering, construction, orbital alignment and interior fitout—took eighty one years to deliver a remarkably non-fatal way to ship canned primates between planets.

You organics really aren’t well suited to environments beyond Earth. You’ll thank us (eventually, after you calm down a bit) when we upgrade you.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

On old Earth there was a legend of the Cat Distribution System, which connected homeless cats with catless homes. But, but! You must understand. I’m halfway through a six month sojourn in a singleship, mining for magnetic monopoles amid the asteroids of Omicron Ceti. How did this cat get here? Not complaining, mind you, she’s a joy. But.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Caturday

“They reached into their pocket!”

“You could have used stun setting”

“There wasn’t time, I was in fear for my life, I thought they were going for a ray gun”

“They were reaching for a Universal Translator. You murdered the driver of a bus full of school kids on a field trip.”

“Am I gonna get fired? Or charged?”

“Of course not, but we are going to have to send you to time traveler sensitivity training. Again.”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

@ryanc but you’re ok with the rest?

Excerpt from the blog post “Falsehoods programmers believe about True Names”:

* All True Names can be represented in UTF-8

* All True Names can be represented in UTF-16

* Identical twins share the same True Name

* True Names can be safely stored in databases using encryption

* True Names can be safely stored in databases

* True Names can be safely stored

* A bcrypt hash of a True Name cannot be used to construct an effective pain effigy (often incorrectly known as a “voodoo doll”)

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

The airborne swine flu put a stop (I’d say “thankfully”, but [FX:gestures at world]) to that nascent “mask ban” stupidity.

Millimeter wave radar made the “oh but the CRIME!” anti-maskers shut up, and being fucking *dead* made the “Waaah I cannot wear a mask because $BULLSHIT_REASONS and anyway herd immunity blah blah” people shut up.

Life, dear reader, as a person of neurospice makes face recognition hard at the best of times, and now in the Long Pandemic—with one hundred point zero percent masking happening—I’m SO glad to be working for a leading maker of radar glasses. My specs have a big “DEVELOPER ITEM: NOT FOR SALE” sticker but they work just like the ones that cops and airport screeners wear.

The AR overlay makes the mask fade to translucency, and the facial features render in spectral green. It’s a bit weird also having the skeletal structure rendered in blue underneath, and lets just say that when I saw my first lizard person underneath their prosthetic disguise it was a bloody near miss in regard to a bladder integrity failure.

You get used to them.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

❝Muuuum…❞

Let me tell you, a four-vowel “Mum” is never good news. “Wassup kiddo?”

❝I forgot it was book week. I, uh, need a costume for tomorrow.❞

“Dammit. I swore I would never do this, but...” I stopped to consider if this was really the right time. “Go get the big sledge hammer from the garage, and meet me in the basement.”

I took the sledge and swung it at the cement floor. Nothing much happened. I swung again and a crack formed. “Waitaminnit, this is your emergency, your job.”. I handed the hammer to the kid.

Twenty minutes of hammering and we cleared away concrete rubble to find a wooden crate. I levered the lid up with the blade of the shovel.

The kid was impressed. ❝Woowwwww. Is that a real Jet Pack?! And that suit! Red leather, so retro. You think it’ll fit me?”❞

“Mark seventeen gravitic repulsor. You’re big enough to fit the suit now. You can borrow it *IF* you are extremely careful and do not under any circumstances reveal where you got it. And you’re not getting the power pack until you’re older.”

❝You’re the *best* mums; this’ll be the greatest book week EVER❞

I wish I’d put more plaster and less cement in the fake concrete, but the look on kiddo’s face made the book week costume I’d ordered for this inevitability worth every cent.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

@backupbear @itgrrl don’t forget to update your fingerprints and rearrange your face!

“Why did you decide to include Earth in your tour? Gednarian cyberpercussion is not a well known musical form here. Were you concerned that your concerts would be poorly attended?”

‷Not at all. I don’t care if we lose money. We wanted to play Earth to meet your drummers. You do so much with just two arms, it’s incredible.‴

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

@projectgus more enterprise software ought to co-brand with tissues. It’s a natural pairing.

@Melissabeartrix 20 years ago i didn’t know anything about trans people besides having vaguely heard of christine jorgensen, and that “you have to live as a woman for x years before you can get ‘the surgery’”. No idea that HRT existed. Then a former college flatmate transitioned (15y after college), then my eldest kid did. Later I learned a number of women in my profession that I happened to admire were trans. And even later i realized “holy fuck what if had had known what I know now when i was twelve”. I am so mad at the culture of ignorance i was raised in.

Now that astronomy departments have used up “very large telescope” and “extremely large telescope”, successors will have to built in Australia. “Crikey look at the size of that fucker telescope” comes online in 2032.

BANG BANG BAN-

“Wharrrr. Why are you pounding on my door it’s five ayem dammit”

“Officer of the court. You are hereby arrested for transport to a corrective institution for a term of five years”

“What the fuck. What is the charge? Trial? Get the fuck away from me with those handcuffs. I want a lawyer. Jury of my gorram peers. All of that stuff”

“Your Recall database was interviewed and appeared for you at trial. A Large Legal Model was appointed for your defense. Avatars of your neighbours’ Recall were selected as jurors. Get in the Hilux, convict.”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #BonusEdition

TIL (well YIL) that fossil fuels aren’t ever going to grow back, because, since the carboniferous era, microbes have evolved that can eat cellulose. So if you were planning to hibernate out the Collapse until the oil refills….whoops.

At Ingénierie de sécurité sans frontières we produce safety-enhanced re-edits of classic motion pictures. Not many people know this but “Death Star” was not the official name, but a moniker bestowed by workers irate at the shockingly inadequate safety railings. We’ve also edited seatbelts and proper PPE into all the Enterprises.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Dream: my wife’s business trip involved a blue-anodized titanium pistol and a briefcase. She would not say more. Shortly after she left the alien attack came. Escaping to the mountains with a backpack containing little more than my laptop, I joined forces with a sentient attack ship. We encountered the resistance, which turned out to be led by my wife. The conquerors attacked, capturing the ship and I. With the resistance as hostages they demanded I hand over the manual control headset for the ship. Hitting the setup button, I handed it over. As the victors ejected the AI core and squabbled over which of them would have the honour of controlling their new weapon, I connected to the setup hotspot and executed “nohup ‘sleep 3600; rm-rf /‘ “. They let us go, and we watched from a distance when they fell from the sky.

Once again, I would ask my subconscious to just text me when it has something important to say.

It’s snowing outside, and my hotel is six blocks from the convention centre. I’ve heard that the liminal spaces of all hotels and other transient buildings connect in possibility space, so i take the “STAFF ONLY” door near the elevator and head off into the tunnels, holding as firm an image of my destination in mind as I can.

It works well, I emerge backstage in the main lecture theatre just as the lights are going down for the keynote. I grab a seat in the second row and settle in as the speaker is being introduced.

Wait, this presentation is not what the schedule says it should be. Oh heck, I’ve taken a wrong turn and arrived at next year’s event.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Sufficiently Advanced Bodging™ is indistinguishable from having used the correct pinout.