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More words from the Sumerian Markov
[Edit: Fixed the title]
The Nuclear Letter
Replies inline.
On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 4:14 PM, Rajstennaj Barrabas
<REDACTED> wrote:
>
> I'm told that my decisions are not communicated clearly, and that as a
> consequence I am perceived as a bad leader for not making any.
>
> Zak's choice of OS stands. He has technical reasons, he's got community
> consensus, and it's his group so it's his decision to make.
>
Where is this consensus? What are the technical reasons. Where was the
discussion. Where *are* the logs? Where is an IRC discussion, email
thread, or anything. I've been pinging zford until I brought this to
your attention, and I've been on IRC constantly for the last week on
both Freenode and here.
I said I would accept the decision *if* there was consensus, or if I
was overruled by vote. However, by definition, there can not be a
consensus if there has been no discussion. The *only* reason I'm aware
of the centos decision was because I got automated emails from Linode,
not because anyone said anything.
What really irritates the crap out of me right now is you have gone on
and on how we are going to be a consensus made by the community. The
community (as in the greater community involving staff and readers as
a whole) wouldn't have known about this, and to prevent airing our
dirty laundry, I haven't said anything, but if you want to see the
*real* community hands at work, I'll air this from the fucking
montanas.
The fact that you can write this is an email Jon really is fucking
hypocritical. As I've said before, my problem here is how you've gone
on and on about how we will make decisions. The reason the fucking
site got launched is that I sat down and made it happen, decided a
plan, picked the hosts, etc. What major decisions have we successfully
made from them? We're in damn bubbles flubbing around with our heads
so far up our asses its not even funny because we can't communicate
with the way things are; we don't even have a proper mailing list for
all staff.
I'm going to make this clear, this situation *has* to change, or we
will die because we have our collective heads so far up our ass we
will never see daylight.
> When I said that I don't micromanage the overlords, I mean that I won't
> override their decisions, I will instead remove them from their position. This
> situation doesn't come close to that level of action.
>
What happens when two teams deadlock? Who mediates the discussion?
Ideally, dev and sys should be using the same OS. One might argue that
decision of what we build on is dev's and sys's role is to build the
production version of was dev comes up with. This is a decision that
impacts multiple teams, and its been made in a void. I can easily get
a poll from current members of dev on their opinion. As far as I can
tell, only two people have talked about this, out of four members of
sys, and aside from myself, no one in dev.
> If Michael wants Zak to revisit this decision, he needs to show that either a)
> Zak is going against community consent, or b) present a list of reasons why
> choosing Ubuntu is more valuable than CentOS, and convince Zak and his
> community that his choice is better.
>
Jon, this is quite possibly the biggest load of bull I've read in
awhile, and we discussed it on phone on exactly these two points. I'm
giving Zak the benefit of the doubt here, and assuming that my words
have not been relayed, or my desire to discuss this has not been made
clear.
a. By definition, a decision that I find out about due to Linode
sending AUTOMATED emails due to the issues w/ cloud hosted CentOS can
not be considered community consent. I have asked about this, received
two short and terse emails about it, and that was that. Jon: I made
ths point to you on the phone, and I'm am utterly shocked that you are
considering this consensus. Maybe I'm sounding like a broken record,
but this isn't a management system, its a barely organized
clusterfuck.
You said that a decision must be made by consensus. I've hilighted and
illustrated what I believe a consensus requires, and the fact of the
matter is that by writing this email, and *loudly* making the point.
b. Part of the previous emails I have made have hilighted my concerns
with CentOS, and I have considerable technical reasons why I feel
CentOS is not a great fit here. Furthermore, at this point, I think
its not unreasonable to ask what technical or political benefits
CentOS brings. So far, the *only* two reasons I've heard for CentOS is
its what Zak knows, and that 389 Directory Service is suppodsely only
available for Fedora and CentOS. As I would have pointed out in a
decision of any time, that package is available supported in Ubuntu
12.04 (apt-get install 389)
We've had considerable issues with Linode due to the use of CentOS;
its clearly not popular for use with VPS or cloud providers as the
image itself has had issues due to /dev/shm, and is now having issues
being backed up. While these aren't problems specific to the use of
CentOS, I'm questioning the wisdom of not using something we know is
problem free.
I've not seen one person beside myself ask zford for a justification
on why a change is necessary. I was handed a PDF explaining the
technical aspects of how to build the final production cluster. What I
have seen is what essentially has been a declaration that this OS has
been changing. That document did not include anything relating to
operating system decision, and I had assumed based on earlier
discussions we'd be staying on Ubuntu 12.04. When that document that
posted to the wiki, a line was added about CentOS, which I never saw.
I would like to re-iterate on this point, as you currently have an
Ubuntu Core Developer *ON STAFF*, as well as access to Canonical
Corporate Support if we ever needed it. CentOS is a *community*
supported rebuild of RHEL, and can only fix bugs that Red Hat
Corperate fixes. For most other distros, if anyone comes up with a bug
fix, I can land it. Unless we're paying for RHEL corperate support, we
are in a worse position with CentOS than we are with any other distro.
> It's important to have a working development process - we need to show the
> community that they can contribute, and to start improving the site. Therefore,
> we will not revisit the OS question for some time, perhaps as long as two
> weeks. When development changes flow smoothly from contributers to dev to
> production, we can consider making changes.
>
> Michael has to come to grips with this.
>
That's fucking rich. You do realize I work in open source, with a LOT
of volunteers, and have to make a balancing act between corporate and
uncooperative, and I'm the one who has to "get a grip"?
I said that I would accept changing OS after a proper discussion has
been made, and a form where I can bring up the various issues I have
with CentOS. Please show me where any discussion on this was made on
an email I was either Cc-ed on, a chat in a public IRC channel which I
acknowledged it.
Incidently, this seems to be a good time to clarify the dev teams
operating system position. The dev team will be standardizing on
Ubuntu as our platform for the foreseable future, as we have already
gotten Slash working on it, it provides a good environment for
developers to work on (including basically all the DEs anyone could
want), and it is what the development VM, *and* development cluster
(which is clearly dev's domain) will be running.
The sys team is free to use whatever they like for systems within
their domain, but must understand that any support and help with Slash
will be limited as we're not personally using it. I'd be willing to
have a discussion on changing the operating system which clearly lists
specific technical problems with Ubuntu, reasons on why CentOS is a
superior system to work on for developers. Assuming the majority of
the community thinks its worthwhile to invest resources in changing
the environment over and recreating working settings, we can work out
a reasonable timefame to do so.
Until doing so, we'll be staying on what we've been using, known to
work, and easy to support.
(and if this sounds like soar grapes, let's make it clear that my hand
has been forced and yet I'm still willing to have the discussion. and
that's a fucking lot more than you've given me. However, until this
discussion happens, you can expect very little help from us as none of
us are using slash on CentOS, or know of what problems may lurk.)
> Zak has to communicate better. This situation arose from Zak sending a PDF
> which omitted the wiki information. Zak is a manager, he has to describe and
> frame his decisions clearly and definitively to others. Zak also can't avoid
> communicating - dealing with people is part of his job, so he needs to make
> firm decisions without avoiding conversation.
>
Let's not distort facts here. The PDF was sent first, I provided some
feedback on SSL and IPv6, then I signed off on it both as a member of
sys (that I agree with the architecture), and as a member of dev (that
our development can support this layout), the PDF was copied to the
wiki, THEN the CentOS line was added. The only reason I found out
about the CentOS business is because Linode started generating emails,
and then I send an email to Zak asking him about it.
I brought this to both your and Mattie's attention that I was
concerned about communication. I discussed the matter in depth with
mattie, with a clear note that after today, this discussion needs to
be email only due to TZ differences. I was offline on Wednesday due to
Panama->NYC flying. Looking at my email and IRC backload, I've seen no
progress on discussing things.
> Zak and Michael: Play nicely or I'll tie your tails together and hang you from
> the clothesline!
>
Jon: Look around you, and tell me this is a healthy setup for this site.
You're tone in this email makes it clear you have no idea what the
problems going on here, especially given the other email you sent
here. And this isn't a matter of sour grapes, this is you
fundamentally missing the point I tried to raise on Saturday. However,
as you've already cleared Zak's decision, it appears the sys team will
be using CentOS. Dev has not had a discussion if it will follow sys, I
have no desire to raise it with dev, but if the item is raised by
someone taking the time to write out a long email explaining why
CentOS is the best thing since sliced bread and our lives are better
for using it, I'll make sure its properly moderated, sent to all
active devs, and personally explain at length why I think its a bad
idea, and have the floor be open to others. If the general consensus
from the dev team is a strong advocation for, we can work out a
migration plan, and determine the best process to switching to CentOS,
having identified any possible problem points (like Linode itself)
well in advance.
> Mat Peck (Mattie) is general manager, he handles the day-to-day operations of
> the site. There will be an announcement in my journal today. He will handle
> disputes and has full authority to adjudicate between overlords.
>
Why then are you involved in this discussion? If this is *really* the
case, Mattie should have been one to send an email like this.
> Mattie is also the current head of dev, with Michael second in command, with
> the understanding that leadership will transition to Michael as fast as Michael
> can learn management skills. Mattie will defer to Michael on decisions of a
> technical nature, Michael will defer to Mattie on matters of management style.
>
I'm mostly willing to defer at this point because Mattie getting shit
done. Jon, you told me personally that during our bringup, I "pissed a
lot of people off", and "overruled you at times", and I agreed to have
Mattie as manager. Given your handling of this situation and our
recent management woes, I think its better to have pissed off people
and having someone who knows what they're doing running operations.
I'd like to know who specifically I pissed off, so I can go make
amends to them, and make it clear what's going on. I'm done playing
games because I'm beginning to question if these people existed. As
for the "overruled you at times", can you honestly say that if we were
running like this during launch week, do you think we will have gotten
out the door? To be frank, if I overruled you, its because I have the
experience to develop a project like this, and our inability to make
even simple decisions or discuss it.
> In public, I will announce Michael as head of dev, but this is the nuanced
> real situation.
>
There's truth and then there's reality. While Mattie on paper may be
the head of dev, realistically, I don't think he's going to have much
success in this role. He'd be far more successful managing entire
project into one collective well oiled machine. Dev is mostly informal
with drive by contributions, and slight encourgement that I give
various people in channel. As such, I've gotten a steady patches and
repair work which has helped reduced my workload. Until we get someone
else willing to put significant effort and not drive by contributions,
the dev team exists more as a theoretical concept then an actual team.
Furthermore, there's a concept of "code talks", where if you don't do
something and just bring it up (or demand it), you will likely either
be ignored, or run into resistance. I can ask nicely and sometimes get
someone to do something because I've got respect in that position. I
suspect mattie will have significantly more trouble in this
department.
> Mattie is a long-time professional manager with many years experience, and has
> successfully managed large and small groups. He's also ex-military and knows
> when to take charge and make decisions.
>
And who was working with me on this situation before you went and
wrote this email. I ended up taking today off from SoylentNews because
I was seething by time I was done with it. I do respect Mattie's
opinion, and ability to get shit done.
> Based on my vision of SoylentNews being a vehicle for people to grow, and
> perhaps to grow into new areas, I've asked Mattie to train people as managers.
> We have many brilliant and highly technical people who simply have little
> experience managing people, and Mattie's job is to help them learn and grow.
> The first practical example of this is Mattie training Michael to run dev.
>
> Mattie is a resource - use him.
>
I have been. However, by butting in here, I've had to draw my line in
the sand, and I talked to Mattie before sending this email. I'm
curious if you talked to him before sending yours.
I'm pretty sure I know the answer on that one already.
> That is all. I have spoken Let it be said, let it be written.
>
> R. Barrabas
>
Michael
> ==================================================
>
> It is much easier to get forgiveness than permission.
>
>
Black Hole which is Microsoft Support
While poking around in my account info I discovered that I could not add an email account I possess. It was listed as unavailable but I don't know how that could be since I only have one MS account.
So I went looking for a support email address. There is no such thing. There is "Chat" = 21 minute wait. There is "Phone" = 4 minute wait. Now all I need is simple information which is not listed on the web site. First is why did they send me an email that is meaningless or a possible phishing scam? and secondly why can't I add my own email address as an alias to my MS account? Neither of these things are of significant enout to invest 21 minutes to "chat" with some one or "4 minutes" for a phone call...
Microsoft why don't you innovate and actually make it easy to provide info and solve problems? Instead all you've done for me is wasted my time and made me angry because you don't believe in email. Alas...
Mars, Ho! Chapter Ten
Weightless
It would be a couple of minutes before we were completely weightless. I lowered the throttle and gravity slowly went away as I dropped it. The gauges said we were stationary so I killed the motors. Stuff started floating around.
Shit, I forgot about the coffee. I flew back to my cabin - and I mean literally, since there was no gravity. Destiny was floating above the couch. I pushed against the doorway towards her. "I like this," she said. "Lets make love, I've never been weightless before."
"Well, I have, but I never had weightless sex before," I said.
Having sex in zero G wasn't easy. Gravity makes almost everything easier.
An hour and a half later my fone buzzed. "John? Bill here, I'm almost at you, can you adjust speed to match?"
"Yeah, I'll be in the pilot room in a second." I set my fone to the shipwide speakers. "Attention, passenger and cargo. We will be experiencing low gravity shortly and then zero G again, so if you've been floating around with nothing to grab, now's your chance."
I docked with Bill's ship. He called. "John, you want me to come over?"
"You bet, old buddy. I ain't seen you in ages!"
"See you in a minute."
"I'm going to cargo," I said to Destiny. "Want to come along?"
"And meet one of your friends? Try to stop me!"
God, but I'd fallen in love with this woman. If it hadn't been for her the whores would have had me by now.
We met Bill at the dock. "Bill, meet Destiny. She's, uh, I guess my best friend."
Bill said "I thought I was your..." and looked at Destiny. "Oh. Damn I'm dumb. Pleased to meet you, Destiny. You hooked up with this guy? And I thought astronomers were smart!"
I laughed. "Fuck you, Bill. Want a beer?"
"You have beer? I was wondering what you were hauling. I thought you didn't do cargo runs any more?"
"Well, this one's different. It ain't your normal cargo."
"If beer ain't your cargo why do you have beer?"
"I like beer! I have wine, too."
"Hell... can you spare some, old buddy?"
"Sure, I brought plenty. I can spare a few bottles of wine, too."
Wow, thanks. No wonder I like you so much, you old asshole!" We both laughed. "So," he said, what's your cargo and why are you so rich right now."
"Whores."
"Huh?"
"I'm hauling whores. They gave me a fifty percent bump in pay to haul 'em."
"Christ, you always get the good assignments! How the hell did you manage this one?"
"Hell if I know, the fucking CEO himself called me into his office. Scared the shit outta me."
"you must be livin' right!"
I laughed. "Me? Damn, Bill, you know me better than that."
"Uh, 'scuse me, Miss, uh..."
"Name's Destiny, Bill."
"Uh, can I have a word in private with John?"
She looked at me and winked. "Sure, Bill." She took off, knowing full well I'd tell her what happened later.
"Ok, uh, look, John, I ain't been laid in like forever and you got hookers on board. Uh, you mind if I spend a little money on your boat?"
"Bill," I said, "I am about to make your day. No, I'm gonna make your whole damn year! You're gonna get laid and it ain't gonna cost you a penny. These bitches are horny as hell. They'd pay you if they had any money. If you want an orgy, just go to my commons area and take your clothes off. Meanwhile, I'll gradually accelerate for a while while those batteries are being moved to your boat and installed, no sense in both of us being late."
"Damn, buddy," Bill said. "You're the best friend I ever had!"
I winked at him. "All for the company's bottom line. Make sure that's in your report!"
"Christ, John, of course!"
"Look, Bill, have fun with the whores and I'll meet you in my quarters after you get your rocks off."
Bill owes me! ...and, well, I guess I owe him, too. Maybe the whores will leave me alone for a while, I got Destiny. I don't need no fucking whores. They're just a pain in my ass. I want a raise! Fifty percent more ain't enough to put up with these bitches.
It would have been a lot different without Destiny. The whores would have probably took over my boat by now.
I went back to the pilot room, recalculated the trajectory (at least that's what the computer said it was doing) and started gravity back up. We were moving again.
When I got back to my quarters, Destiny said "You should talk to Tammy."
"Huh? Why?"
"She's not a simple street hooker, she holds two PhDs, one in anthropology and one in psychology. She was studying the droppers when she got hooked."
"How the hell could that happen?"
"I don't know, ask her. "
"I can't, I was kind of an asshole when I first met her. I had to be of course, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it."
"She likes you, John. She said that's one of the reasons."
"Huh? She likes me because I was an asshole?"
"She likes you because you aren't one of the knuckle draggers that would have let her on your boat for a blow job. She said you had a good character, and I told her I wouldn't have been with you if you hadn't.
"She's really nice, really. I like her. Lets have coffee with her tomorrow."
"Uh, OK, I guess."
The doorbell buzzed. "Who is it?" Destiny said.
"Wild Bill Corpse. Jesus... them whores damned near killed me! But what a way to die!" he said as the door opened, smiling wider than I'd ever seen anybody smile.
"Did the robots finish moving the batteries?" he asked.
"No," I said. "Is anybody but me hungry?"
Bill grinned even wider. "I just ate! Damn, John, thanks! Hey, can I take a few with me?"
"Get paper from the company and I'll do anything you want. But not without it, you know that."
He laughed. "You thought I was serious? Damn, John, I'd never do anything to get you in trouble. Especially after tonight. God! This might be the highlight of my whole life!"
"It'll be an hour before the robots finish," I said. "Lets eat something, I'm hungry. Come on, Bill, pussy isn't very filling. How about pizza?"
"I could go for pizza," Destiny said. "Bill?"
"Sure. Got a beer to go along with it?"
"Yeah, didn't I tell you? Have a beer and take a few cases with you."
"Damn, John..."
"Look, Bill, what you did for me on that Jupiter run... you know. I couldn't have a better friend. You could have been ruined but you stuck up for me anyway. Ain't many people I know would do that." I chuckled. "My Mom, um, probably wouldn't."
A table with a sliced pizza and three beers rolled over to us.
We talked and laughed and ate pizza and drank beer and had a good time and promised each other to keep in touch.
Bill shook my hand again and went back to his boat, and the docking retractors retracted the docking mechanism. Or something, I ain't went to college.
I let him accelerate first, so he would be ahead if he had more trouble. Running on batteries... shit.
Destiny and me didn't bother with a movie. We went straight to bed.
This is a crude, rough draft of an upcoming book that is less than 10% finished. This is the last of the chapters that were posted at slashdot, and in fact has a little added to the end.
I just "finished" tomorrow's chapter, which will be a Soylent's Fiction exclusive for a few days or so. Continues...
What is the Fractal Dimension of Communication?
Why we marvel at the pseudo-communication of a filtered output is that the boundary between comprehensible and incomprehensible gets repeatedly gets crossed. What is happening is that the Markov filter showing "inconclusively" the boundary between communication and a stream of unstructured words. Sometimes the recombination of words creates something new and interesting-- which is why we appreciate it. One thing to remember is that the "newness" is not in the message itself but in how we have ourselves "filtered" the textual stream [see (e) below].
Understand I'm not a professional communication theorist. I'm a general specialist who knows a little bit about many things and a lot about nothing and possesses little or no real background in the theory, mathematics, or coding of information.
So forgive me while I think out loud for a moment and display my ignorance:
One might summarize Claude Shannon's information theory as: A text source contains a valid message [i.e. is comprehensible] when at least three things are present: (a) the components of the language contain "words" which represents abstract meaning of both tangible and intangible "things". (b) The message is composed in a specific language which is defined by its grammar and (c) the message is appropriately constructed in that grammar.
The meaning of the words, the language and its grammar defines a "dimensional boundary" along which a message "travel" to be considered comprehensible. Each language / grammar dimensional boundary is unique, hence translation between languages may have difficulty if there are no "words / grammar" which 'map' between languages. [An aside: One may wonder if we will actually understand the message if SETI were to discover a signal. Is their language and /or mathematics comprehensible to a human recipient?]
The dimensional boundary noted above might be considered the "entropy" of the message. One might also consider it as a kind of "fractal dimension" which the collection of words and letters must "fall along" to be comprehensible.
A further refinement of the expression in the textual content of the message comes from (d) the intellect and emotional state of the user of the language which composes the message which effects the composition of the message. This results in a unique assemblage and changes the message entropy [or dimension]. Sometimes this changes the entropy for better or worse. One might consider the best writers and orators [coders too!] convey their message with the least amount of information loss.
The receiver of the message must also possess a significant enough understanding of (a),(b),(c) and (d) to perceive if the message has reached a "dimension" to be comprehensible. Given that the recipient also has (e) their own intellectual and emotional state which effects the 'reception" of the message-- what may be a clear message at the source may change when it is "filtered" by the recipient.
The wonder here is that humans [and possibly other species] possess an "analog" information processor that can "comprehend on the fly" the entropy [dimension] of a message yet we have not been able to understand the process well enough to actually create an artificial language processor [in other words an AI] which possesses (a,b,c,d,e) above. We may understand that a message with a 'dimension' of "R" is comprehensible we have not yet discovered why this is so. Nor have we yet understood how that "R" might relate to messages of "S", "T", "U", "V", or the other dimensional boundaries which lie along the same coastline are related [or not]
I suspect that there may be a way to determine what the informational boundary for a set of works [books, essays, oratory, code] enough that a "processor" could be created to simulate the output of the "analog" creator. It remains to be seen if the next step could be taken to create a processor that crosses the line between being a "mimic" of a textual stream to becoming an actual creator of a communication stream.
If one can cross that boundary then it can be asked: If we assume that the boundary dimension of "R" represents a specific ability to emit output of information.... "Does a specific boundary dimension represent fully in a deterministic way the full ability of its possessor?
Which is to say can we make an AI smarter just by changing "boundary dimension"? Yes I realize that boundary dimension is created by the interaction of a possibly large set of variables... which brings on another one of those things to think about: what are those variables?
We can roughly measure the coastline of Britain and determine the dimension of that coastline. Can we do the same for language?
I'd appreciate your comments.
User numbers
Wonder how much I would have to bribe someone to get an insanely high user number. Some number in the hundreds of billions would do. Trillions or more would be better, but it would need to be in scientific notation. Damn near NO ONE would actually count the zeros. Errr - wait - there probably are anal retentive geeks out there. Or obsessive compulsive nerds. Yeah, some few would count the digits.
Anyway - with some crazy high number, I can post from the far distant future. Infuriating nonsense, like, "Yes, Apple is still around today. They haven't innovated anything for centuries though. About all that's left of Apple, is their manufacturing facility in orbit around Mars, where they make a few specialty items for the Chinese Space Marines."
icanhazjournal?
YES!! ICANHAZJOURNAL!
Of course, knowing me, this may very well be the last entry I ever make in the journal.
Sumerian Proverbs Meet the Dissociate Press
This module provides the function `dissociate', which implements a Dissociated Press algorithm, well known to Emacs users as "meta-x dissociate". The algorithm here is by no means a straight port of Emacs's `dissociate.el', but is instead merely inspired by it.
The Book of Proverbs has a worthy ancestor in the baked brick tablets which contain the Sumerian Proverbs. A good sampling of these can be found in The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature
I thought I'd give a sample of what Sumerian Proverbs look like after being "filtered" with the Dissociate Perl Script. If you are wondering the quotes were "cherry picked" but were taken verbatim from the output stream. I verified that none of the quotes below appeared in exactly the same form in the original input stream. Some punctuation has been added or removed but the "output streams were not tampered with.
An example: How lowly is the poor? It is the food basket.
You can find this at Markov's Wisdom
Mars, Ho! Chapter Nine
Hangover
I woke up with the worst hangover I had in years. Damn, that wine. I usually drank beer and I hadn't drank any at all in a few weeks.
I didn't want to get out of the spinning bed, but I really had to pee bad. I staggered into the head and peed like forever. I wanted coffee. Damn, I was going to have to make coffee, the robots suck at making coffee. I hate robot coffee.
I put on a robe and stumbled into the kitchen - and smelled coffee. It took a few seconds for my hungover eyes that I hadn't really used since I woke up, and in fact maybe I was still asleep, to see Destiny and two cups of coffee on the table.
What a woman!
"You're not hung over?" I said.
"Hungover? I'm still drunk."
I sipped my coffee. "What time is it?"
The table said "The present time is..."
"I wasn't talking to you, computer."
Destiny laughed. "I don't know what time it is. Tuesday, maybe?"
"Computer."
"Waiting for input."
Who programs these stupid things, anyway? "What damned time is it?"
"The damned time is oh eight fifty seven."
Shit, who programs... SHIT, I got fifteen minutes to get to the pilot room.
"Shit!" I said. "I'm sorry, honey, I have to run."
"Shouldn't you put some pants on first?"
"I'm wearing a robe, I gotta go." I kissed her. "Bye." I ran to the pilot room, coffee mug in hand.
I got there with two minutes to spare. All the readouts were nominal, which is egghead space talk for "everything is normal." At least, I think that's what it means.
I went back to my quarters, kissed Destiny, put on some pants, filled my mug back up, and went on the morning inspection while little men with jackhammers were busy inside my head making my brain hurt.
The reduced gravity didn't make my head less light or my stomach less queasy.
I inspected the passengers' quarters first, since they were up front. Except Tammy's, of course. Passengers deserved privacy.
After the little incident with the explosion I checked the rooms a little closer than I had been. Yeah, the doors stay locked but who knows what these drug-addled whores know? I couldn't even tell a whore from a real woman, look at Destiny, I thought she was a whore at first, just because she was cargo.
I'd billeted Destiny in the closest cargo quarters to the passengers, but it hadn't mattered since she'd only went there once after the takeoff. She's been in my quarters since.
This was the part I hated. I knocked on the door. Hell, I didn't have to since they were cargo but I don't want to be any more of an asshole than I have to. In some situations you have no choice, you got to be an asshole.
I'm a boat captain, I'm used to being an asshole. I don't like it, but it's a shitty part of a great job.
"Who is it and what do you want? I ain't got no drops, bitch."
"It's Captain Knoll. I'm doing ship inspection. May I come in?"
"No. Fuck off, asshole."
"Door, open." The door opened and I went in. She was naked. "I don't have to be polite, dumbass. I just am. I'll skip it from now on if you prefer assholes."
"I ain't got no drops, bitch."
Gee, I've been hearing that a lot lately, and usually from one whore to another. "I ain't looking for drops. Just routine, damage or danger of damage."
"I ain't got no drops, bitch."
"Whatever."
As I left for the next apartment two naked whores passed me, laughing. It was the two Thai chicks laughing about the fat blonde whose name I can never remember. Hell, there's two hundred of 'em and I ain't went to college or nothing.
Lately it had gotten to where the only people on the boat who wore clothes were me, Destiny, and that Tammy girl.
Nobody else was home, except Kathy and Dawn, who just yelled "come in" when I knocked and kept on playing with each other's pussy while I did my inspection.
I'd skipped the infirmary and commons, I'd check them when I got back. They were between cargo and passenger quarters.
Next was the engines, and they never had anything wrong with them. They should keep them in a vacuum, I thought, because I never once found a problem during an inspection and it didn't keep the engines on that Saturn run going.
That Saturn run... that's why I stopped doing cargo. Lot of good my inspections did there. Jesus, that's a long time to be alone, I almost went crazy. I almost quit, but headquarters said I'd have passenger runs.
It isn't like the boat stops moving when the engines stop. It's worse. You keep going but have no way to maneuver, you just keep going at the speed you were when the engines stop and they have to come to you to tow you to port.
I checked out all of the shit my tablet told me to check out and walked back to the infirmary. Next time I'm on Earth I'm getting a bicycle or something, this is a big damned boat.
"Hi, Billie."
"Um, yeah, I am" she said, looking at the IV tube.
"Don't get too used to it," I said. "You won't be in here long."
"Well, I guess if I want to get high I'll hurt myself!"
"Nope, that's up to me. Next time it's naproxin."
While I was there I got some naproxin myself; my head was still throbbing but my stomach wasn't as bad. Now to inspect the commons.
The commons area was huge, an eighth the size of the entire passengers deck with a full automated kitchen.
It was full of naked whores.
Half of them were practically begging me to have sex with them. Man, if it weren't for Destiny I'd be having a hell of an orgy right now. I hurried my ass back to my cabin when the inspection was over as fast as I could.
Destiny was sleeping, so I figured I'd go over the inventory list. The maid would be noisy in about ten minutes.
Right before the noisy damned machine showed up an alarm went off. Damn. DAMN! Fucking whores!
But this time it wasn't the whores, it was a distress call from another ship. "Knolls, here," I said to the tablet. "How can I help?"
I didn't know how far away the other boat was but it would probably take at least a minute for the signal to get to it unless it was really close. I laid the tablet down and opened a beer. Hair of the dog, you know. Halfway through the beer I decided to return the favor for Destiny; she was going to want coffee when she woke up, so I made a pot.
The rackity machine came in and started noisily cleaning. Destiny woke up. "Damn, that thing's noisy," she said. "Do I smell coffee?"
I handed her a cup and sat down next to her. "Thanks," she said "What do you want to do today..."
The tablet interrupted her. "Captain Knolls? Is that you, John? Kelly here. Thank God somebody's in range. I'm about thirty light seconds behind you and one of my engines shorted out. It didn't leave enough fuel for me to make the Mars landing. I'm just coasting, so I'm going to be weeks late. Can you spare a couple of batteries?"
Hey, it was Bill Kelly, an old friend driving one of our company boats. I'd known Kelly for years. "Wild Bill" they'd called him, even though he wasn't very wild at all.
"Hey, Bill, sorry about your luck. Yeah, of course I can spare a few batteries, you might even have enough charge that you won't be too late. I'll go dead stop for a while so you can catch me."
"Boat captains sure are busy," Destiny said.
"Sorry, hon."
I spoke into the tablet again. "Attention passenger and cargo. We will be enduring a short period of weightlessness, so be prepared. Captain Knolls out."
"I don't think I've ever been weightless before," Destiny said.
I grinned. "Get a barf bag, it upsets some folks' stomachs. I have to go to the pilot room. I'll be back shortly." I kissed her, threw the beer can at the noisy maid and walked to the pilot room.
This is a crude, rough draft of an upcoming book that is less than 10% finished. Continues
Proto-submissions
Ever come across something you think is worthy of submission to SN, but don't have time to research it and write it up into a nice summary? All you have is a news story + its URL and title + a few random thoughts?
I call these proto-submissions, and I'm thinking of using this journal entry to keep track of some. Other people are welcome to add theirs too - one per thread.
In each case, if anyone is willing to actually take the story and make it into a proper submission, then just reply and go for it!
