Unixbigot

Unixbigot, 4 days ago to random

Me: accidentally deletes hash symbol before pragma

C++: 47000 lines of error output. Building shakes. Cloud of foul smelling vapour emitted from keyboard. In the distance, sirens.

Unixbigot, 5 days ago to random

The cheque said “AMOUNT: two dollars and forty cents BEING FOR: classified ad”, rounded block letters in green ink amid the printed prompts. My mother never wrote cursive. “Thanks Mum“ I said, “I’ll pay you back from my paper round money on Saturday”

“No need” she said, “I’m going out; if you have the ad ready I’ll post it for you.”

I folded the cheque and the form I’d clipped from the newspaper. It had been tricky writing on the newsprint with a pen “HOME COMPUTER Amstrad CPC6128 with monitor, printer and external 5.25 inch drive. Original software plus over 30 games. $425. Ph 551806”.

After Mum left I went to my room and booted up my new PC, with its Extra Beige system unit and Different Beige monitor. I patted my 6128’s screen sitting on the floor under my desk. “Sorry old girl, no room to keep you but I’ll find you a nice home”.

Before I even got Kings Quest loaded the doorbell rang.

The visitor was a woman with amazing purple hair, and cat ears. “Hi, she said, I’m Kit, here about the Amstrad”

“But…it’s not even posted yet. And I only listed a phone number!”

“Never mind that”, she smiled, bouncing on her toes “do you still have it?”

I nodded, too flabbergasted to speak

“Four twenty five, right?” she said, thrusting an envelope at me, “here’s five hundred, keep the change. Now, what I want-“

“Wait, what are these things”. I’d opened the envelope to find five slippery rectangles of plastic bearing “100” in large letters, coloured variously green and yellow with a transparent region in the middle. “These aren’t-“

“Oh shazbot!” my visitor said, snatching the envelope back. “Bee Arr Bee”. Then she vanished, with an electric ZZZZAAPP sound.

ZZZAAAPP. She was back, holding out a sheaf of five grey paper rectangles, the recently introduced but rarely seen $100 notes, thick linen paper with subtle colours - easy to photocopy and colour in with textas, I’d seen on TV. I held the note up to the sky to see the metal thread and watermark. “Are these real?”

“Trust me,” she said, “they were hard to find but totally legit.”

“Okay, uh do you want to see the computer running?”. I felt like I was running to catch up with this interaction.

“No need” she grinned. “I’m giving it to you. Box it up and stash it in Mum’s roof. You’ll be glad to have it when you’re older.”

“Wh…what?”

“Do they speak english in what?” she muttered half to herself?

“what?”

“Exactly! Right on script”. She poked me in the chest. “You’ll be alright kid. Forget about the ‘strad for a couple of decades, OK?”

She ran hand through her brilliant purple hair, vibrating like she was having the best time ever. “Oh yeah, you’ll need these”. She tugged at her cat ears and i realized they were a headband. She handed me the band with its two ears. “One last thing“—a suddenly serious look—“listen to your dreams. You’ll know when it’s time. See ya!”

ZZZAAPPPP

I spent the $500 but I kept the ears.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Unixbigot, 5 days ago to random

When I broke my leg in three places tripping over a fallen palm frond while walking to lunch with cow-orkers, I reasoned that the truth was far too prosaic to be allowed to propagate. Since local brewery XXXX beer was at the time featuring an animatronic elephant in their TV ads (remember TV?) I concocted a tale that a commercial-shoot at the local Royal Exchange hotel had led to an escaped elephant rampage, with my injury but the mildest of consequences.

NanoRaptor, 5 days ago to random

What are some numbers in your field that anyone else in the field would identify without even thinking about it, but folk outside may have no idea. Just the numbers, no explanations. Yet.

105 148 210 297 420 594 841 1189

Unixbigot, 6 days ago to random

“Excuse me”, the waitress noted in passing, “you’re on fire”.

She wasn’t being complimentary to my appearance; my encounter suit was leaking oxygen again. I hate fluorine planets.

I swatted at the flame and stepped up to the bar. “Cylinder of pure H₂O please” I asked the barkeep. “and, uh, have you seen Captain Zhang tonight? I arranged to meet her here and…” I waved away another flame and applied a quick-seal patch to the crack in my armor “…I’d rather not wait too long; no offense but your bar’s atmosphere is not really my thing”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

foone, 6 days ago to random

So there's always the debate between QWERTY and alphabetical keyboards, but everyone is missing the obvious way to solve this disagreement.

There's no reason the alphabet HAS to be in that order. It's arbitrary, and English would work almost completely the same if the alphabet was in a different order, you know?

So, let's just put the alphabet in QWERTY order!
It'd solve all our problems from Q to M.

jpm, 6 days ago to random

Anyway, as a little treat, please look at this completely brain-munted cat. We still love him though. #CatsOfMastodon

Unixbigot, 6 days ago to random

You're doomscrolling because you're bone idle. I'm doomscrolling because I'm testing TCP keepalive code and I need to watch this tcpdump for a timed 15 minutes to make sure I see what I expect to see. We are not the same. #TwoMinutesToGo

Unixbigot, 7 days ago to random

I for one welcome our new “iTerm2 AI plugin generated the command that deleted my employer’s entire cloud resources” overlords.

Unixbigot, 7 days ago to random

Yaas, I found the drive belt for my lathe that I lost about a year ago, and had to order a new one from the UK. It was in the box of safety equipment (gloves and visors etc) in which I clearly never look. :sus:

Unixbigot, 7 days ago to random

Your periodic reminder that when throwing out kitchen waste, you should arrange it into an interesting tableaux for future archaeologists. For example, put those eggshells inside an empty tomato can and drop in some fragments of that plate you smashed. If you carefully pack an intact but unwanted coffee cup in leftover rice or pasta, and dispose of it unbroken, you will make some future dig volunteer's day!

Unixbigot, 10 days ago to random

“Emerald 457 Scaley this is Tower. You are clear to approach paddock 22 east”

Air traffic control used to be a fairly unexciting, though important job. After I retired and joined ATC Sans Frontières, I learned just how precarious air travel has made the life of dragons. Dragonkind was driven almost to extinction before ASF provided radio collars and traffic guidance.

“457 please also be advised of helicopter muster operations to your north. Our records show this flock is BSE negative. Good hunting”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

cstross, 10 days ago (edited 10 days ago) to random

#WordWeavers 18: What kind of dragon would your MC be?

The kind who studies for their PPL and instrument flight rating, never flies without an airband scanner, GPS, and transponder, and stays well out of controlled airspace. Also spends a lot of time looking over their shoulder nervously and tries not to fly through clouds in air traffic corridors.

Remember: there are old dragons, and bold dragons, but in the age of 250 ton jet airliners flying at 500 mph there are no old, bold dragons!

Unixbigot, 12 days ago to random

Here in the Precrime Division we solve crimes before they happen. There’s a rumour that we use psychics, and it serves us well to let it spread uncorrected. Just between you and me, we mostly monitor search engines for queries like “statute of limitations” and “countries without extradition treaty”.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Unixbigot, 12 days ago to random

There are two voles inside you because your village shaman is dyslexic.

Unixbigot, 13 days ago to random

“Whosoever”, proclaimed the wizard Merlin, “pulleth sword from stone shall prove to all their rightful throne!”

“You’ve got this, Kid”, I reminded my protégée, “Remember the Rule of Two and you can’t go wrong.”

I handed her the roll of duct tape and the can of WD-40, both still half full ten years after my time slip, “Now go get your destiny!”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Unixbigot, 13 days ago to random

Hi folks, a periodic reminder that if you enjoy my daily #PowerOnStoryToot #MicroFiction posts, you are invited to consider enabling my bullshit with more coffee via https://ko-fi.com/unixbigot , and—special guest offer, this month¹ only!—perhaps assist with these current not-covered-by-insurance medical expenses.

¹ hopefully!

Unixbigot, 14 days ago to random

It’s a /little/ bit harder than reverse-parallel parking, but once you learn to complex-park by rotating your car at 90 degrees to reality, you can park pretty much anywhere you like. Just be really careful to remember where. And stay out of the Mandelbrot set!

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Unixbigot, 15 days ago to random

I don’t know when I stopped breathing. I first noticed yesterday when I climbed the stone stairs leading up to the pedestrian overpass near post office square. I wasn’t panting in the slightest. I can breathe if I want to, and obviously I need to for talking, but otherwise the nanopores pull oxygen right through my skin.

I’m gonna get in so much trouble if the lab finds out I’ve been contaminated.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Unixbigot, 15 days ago to random

I see it all the time, and I've no idea why, but I wonder what Chinese component suppliers think they are saying when they describe a connector in english as "Brick Nogging"?

jpm, 15 days ago to random

Ok computer-touches of the fediverse, I’ve had enough of the Windows fucks and will be installing Debian <soon>. Maybe 20 years has been enough for a viable Linux on the desktop, who knows…

So what window manager are the cool kids using these days? Is Enlightenment still a thing? I want to not have fuck with things

Unixbigot, 16 days ago to random

“What the hell is THAT thing?”

“They call it a carriage. It, uh, carries stuff”

“Looks like somebody bolted two bicycles together and slung a platform between them”

“Basically yeah”

“FUCK IT’S LOUD”

“Propelled by exploding aerosolized hydrocarbons, would you believe it?”

“What’s it doing on the street?”

“Some techbro startup makes ‘em. Reckons there’s no law says they can’t”

“We’ll see about that. Those things could kill people!”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Unixbigot, 16 days ago to random

Venture Capital is dynamite fishing. You sprinkle some “free service” on the waters until you have a nice thick shoal of users. Then you detonate.