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The Nuclear Letter
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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.
>
>
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...
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.
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
Mars, Ho! Chapter Eight
Fire!
"Shit!" I said. "A fire! Oh, hell!" I took off running toward the burning cabin. I heard screams as I approached the door. Horrible, blood-curdling screams of terrible pain. And then, even worse - the screams abruptly stopped.
The door wouldn't open. "Computer," I said to the tablet. "Open that damned door, there's someone in there that's hurt."
"Unable to comply," it said.
"Reason?"
"Danger to the ship and cargo, crew, and passenger."
"GOD DAMN IT!" I yelled. "There's a woman dying in there."
"Containment in approximately two minutes." This must be a bad one for the automatic suppression to take hold – but of course, since the cabin was occupied it couldn't just let all the air out like if the engine room had caught fire.
"OPEN THAT GODDAMNED DOOR!" I screamed.
"Unable to comply" the computer answered programitically. God damend piece of shit computer! God DAMN it!
A cot rolled up behind me and the door opened, air rushing into the smoke-filled quarters, its pressure already lowered but not enough to harm a person. The cot lifted the woman, who I recognized as the Billie whore, on itself. It put an oxygen mask over her face and a needle in her arm and she and the cot left for the infirmary.
I walked around and saw what caused the fire – the stupid whore was trying to make an ancient drug called "methamphetamine". Even on Earth making that shit is dangerous, in space it's a fucking crazy menace. I guessed that since she couldn't get angel tears she figured she'd make a substitute, as if all drugs were alike or something. Dumb whore.
My fone buzzed; it was Destiny. "Is everything OK?"
"Yeah, sugar, just one of those stupid whores trying to get high. Blew up her quarters and burned herself up pretty good."
I went outside. As soon as I closed the door I could hear the smoky air being blown out to space. Maids were already waiting outside the door to clean up the mess. I started walking back home. A dozen whores were coming down the hallway towards me. "What's going on?"
"Billie blew herself up trying to make drugs," I said. "I catch anybody else doing that and they're in deep shit. Now excuse me."
Wait! Is she OK?"
It was that one broad, the one that was fighting with Billie the first week. Apparently they'd not only made up, but were lovers. Lesbian hookers? That don't make no sense to me, but I ain't went to college. The bunch of them went on to the infirmary and I went back to drink some wine with Destiny.
The robots would take care of Billie.
As I walked back to my cabin I pulled out my fone and hailed the ship's communication stuff. "Attention, ladies," I said. "There has been a fire caused by someone really, really stupid. Pay attention, now. If I catch any open flames whatever, the lady with the fire is locked up 'til we get to Mars. So if you're going to try to make drugs, you damned well better not need fire to do it. And even if you don't use fire if I catch you with drugs you're alone until we get there. So be good."
As I passed the commons there were two naked women having oral sex with each other. "Hey, you two. Get a room," I growled. What was wrong with these whores?
They ignored me.
"You wanna be locked up?"
"Fuck off, Joe."
"That's Captain Knoll to you," I said, and pulled out my taser.
"You're an asshole."
"Get. Both of you. You're alone the next twenty four hours."
They weren't paying me enough for this shit. Fucking droppers!
Well, Destiny would cheer me up, she always did. I was pretty cheerful when I got back.
"Took you long enough," she said slyly.
"Oh, them whores," I said. "I had to lock a couple up."
"What did they do?"
"They were eating each other, I told 'em to go somewhere else and they told me to fuck off. Look, hon, there's two hundred of them and they act like feral children. They'll take over if I let 'em."
"Feral?" she grinned.
"You're rubbing off on me, Brainiac!"
She giggled. "Here, I got some cheese while you were gone."
I picked up my glass. "To cheese!"
She laughed. "I'll drink to that. Want to watch something?"
"Nah, put on some music and we'll cuddle."
"Cuddle?"
"Well, I know where cuddling goes."
This is a crude, rough draft of an upcoming book that is less than 10% finished. Continues.
I posted reruns from fifteen years ago at my slashdot journal. New material will be posted here at Soylent first.
DRAFT: The Moderation Talk
NOTE: This is just a draft copy of my post, likely still incomplete. Once edited and reviewed, I'll post to the main index.
Ok, so first, I want to apologize that this is a few days late. Due to real life insanity (involving, but not limited to, 30 hours of flying, horrible jetlag, and seasickness), I wasn't able to get this discussion started when I promised, so please accept my deepest apologizes. Anyway, here's the moderation discussion, as promised. I've made it clear multiple times that the current algo is something of a temporary hack. I've been reading comments on my journal, and on the articles we've had discussing in-depth.
Before we begin, there are a couple of things I'd like to go into first before we go into rewriting the algorithm. A lot of people have suggested alternative moderation systems (i.e., something Reddit like, or a tag-based system) instead of trying to "fix" slash's system. While I'm not inherently object to replacing moderation wholesale, it would require someone to actually implement a new system, get it setup somewhere, let people review it, and then perhaps roll it out to the site. As the saying goes, talk is cheap. I'm personally not going to replace what I see as a "good enough" system without the community deciding that they want it, and that requires that said system exists to be evaluated. If someone is seriously interested in still perusing this, I invite them to drop by #dev, and discuss it 1:1.
*big exhale*
Right, now that we got that out of the way, I'd like to address what I've seen the biggest concerns towards moderation. I recommend that people read my writeup about the current system before diving in, as I will be referring that post considerably.
I've got some pretty graphs here that show how points are being spread through the system, and that, for the most part moderation is mostly working as adversed.
*FIXME, put graphs here*
Point expiration: Oh boy, people really have let me know about this one. I've written a fair bit about this, but to sum-up, modpoints with a short half-life *are* a good thing. On Soylent, we post upwards of 10-20 articles a day, and once an article is no longer in the "top 10" so to speak, the number of new comments essentially drops into single digits. With a smaller userbase, we need lots of mod points in circulation to make the system work, and even then, generally half to 3/4th of all modpoints expire out without being used.
*graph to points expiration table*
That's not to say that the current four hour period isn't short. My largest concern at the moment is that any large increases of mod point expiration has something of a cascading effect. At any given moment, we have a specific number of slots of people who can be moderators, and if someone doesn't bother to moderate at all, that slot is effectively taken until the points go "POOF". I'm tentatively willing to increase the duration to six hours, to relief some of this pressure, and then see how moderation spreads are affected. Any large scale increases in the expiration however means making more of the userbase eligible to moderate at a given time. I'm open to thoughts on this one.
Mars, Ho! Chapter Seven
Confession
I'd brought a bottle of wine from the storeroom and almost dropped it. "Destiny! Oh God, no! Not you!"
"Huh?" she said with a concerned look on her face. "What's wrong, John?"
"What's wrong? You're a dropper! Oh, God..." I was devastated.
She looked at the dropper and laughed. "These aren't angel tears, silly, they're antibiotics."
"Antibiotics? What, you got pinkeye?"
She laughed. "Don't worry, I don't have any diseases. I had lens implants put in my eyes before we left. I have to put these in my eyes once a week for six months. It was three times a day for the first week and once a day for the first month. It's just to prevent infection."
"Why did you have to get Implants?"
"I was nearsighted, my vision was 20/40. I had a little astigmatism, too. These new lenses are great, they're like having strong binoculars and a built in microscope. I never would have believed how sharp and clear everything would be. I can see a blood cell, and the doctor said I should be able to see Earth's moon from Mars if the planets' orbits are close."
"Wow. Did it hurt?"
"Did what hurt?"
"The surgery."
"No, it's painless. You don't feel a thing."
"Still," I said, "I'd have just worn contacts rather than let somebody stick needles in my eyes."
"Well, I used to wear them but they said they'd get in the way on Mars. And I can see so good now... I'm really glad I had the procedure."
Procedure. Folks who went to college talk like that. I thought of something... "You told me once you were planning on taking advantage of me. How and why?"
"Oh, John, you're going to hate me."
"Well, look, you already confessed."
She sighed. "I work for the company. My job was supposed to keep the whores from taking over your ship. But I didn't expect to like you so much. Actually, at all. They told me you were an asshole."
I laughed. "I am!"
"Is that for me?" she said, looking at the wine.
"It's for us. Got a screw and glasses?"
"Robot, screw and glasses" she said. A square box with rounded corners wheeled across the room with two wine glasses sitting on top of it. I set the bottle on it and the thing opened and poured the wine. I started to take a sip.
"You have to let it breathe," she said.
"I gotta what?"
She laughed. "Let it sit for a couple of minutes. It'll taste better."
"You never did tell me why you were going to Mars," I said.
"I'm an astronomer. There's too much light on Earth, there hasn't been a useful telescope there for a century. So it was the moon or Mars, and they have plenty of people on the moon. Mars isn't just short of women, it's short of everything. Almost everybody there is a scientist; there's no unemployment on Mars at all. It needs more robots, too. It needs more everything. It's a real frontier, I think it's really exciting, like an adventure."
Adventure? It was old hat to me. I'd made the Mars trip lots of times. Now Saturn, that was an adventure. I'd been on my way back from Titan one trip and the damned engines quit and the robots couldn't fix them. I had to wait six damned months for a tow tug and I'd almost made it home when the boat crapped out on me.
Mars was usually a six month trip, but it was on the opposite side of the sun and we were going to be gone a year and a half. That's a long time to put up with dropless whores.
Destiny raised her glass. "To Mars!" she said.
"Nah," I replied. "To us."
She smiled. "I'll drink to that!"
An alarm went off. It never fails. I grabbed my tablet.
Shit! A fire!
This is a crude, rough draft of an upcoming book that is less than 10% finished. Continues...
Mars, Ho! Chapter Six
Drops
I'd been with Destiny for a month and a half now. We were talking over coffee before I had to go to work.
Yeah, my job is work. I have to go to the pilot room and make sure we weren't going the wrong way, then I have to inspect the whole ship, and I have a pretty big boat. You think the people part is big? It's tiny. Yeah, the cabins are like apartments but storage and machinery takes up ninety percent of boats.
And I had to inspect all of it except the passenger quarters, and I only had one passenger. Twice a day. It's a lot of walking, believe me. Even though we only have three quarters gravity; we get the gravity from acceleration. When we get more than halfway there the boat will turn around and we'll have the same kind of weird gravity until we get there.
Anyway, I asked her if she was really going to be a hooker. She giggled. "You're not going to turn me in to the company, are you?"
Shit. "Uh, what? I mean, turn you in for what?"
"You'll keep it a secret? If you can't we're done."
Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit.
"Yeah." Sweat was running down my cheek.
"Ok, John, I have no intention of becoming a hooker. I just signed up because it was the cheapest way to get to Mars."
"But your contract..."
"Cheaper to break than buying passage. I have a pretty good lawyer, John. She teaches me stuff."
"Well, OK" I said. "As long as nobody knows, I don't know. Kinda wish you hadn't told me."
"I don't want to keep secrets from you, John. I think I'm in love."
"Lets get married!"
"Lets take it a little slower, OK, John?"
"I guess," I said. "Better go to work."
"See you, lover," she said, kissing me. God but I liked this woman.
The pilot room was close to the Captain's quarters, of course. Hah! Captain! My crew were a bunch of robots and other machines, I only had one passenger and my cargo was whores.
Shit.
While I was walking through the boat I heard cats. What the hell? There weren't supposed to be any cats in my boat, but it sounded like two of them were in here fighting. I ran toward the sound, which was coming from the Commons.
It wasn't cats. It was Lek and Lek, two whores from Thailand. Lek could talk English OK but Lek only spoke pidgin English. Wouldn't you know it, two people from the same country with the same names. I couldn't pronounce either of their last names.
And they were in the throes of violence. Lek punched Lek so hard she flew all the way across the room and hit a wall. It was like some of the ancient 20th century movies me and Destiny like to watch. Of course, those movies were silly and the boat's at low gravity. So it looked really silly when that whore knocked the other whore across the room like in one of those stupid old movies.
I'd talked to Lek before, the one who spoke English pretty good. It seems that in Thailand, prostitutes are revered for their service to humanity. I'm sure all those horny guys on Mars will agree wholeheartedly.
I think she's full of shit.
"OK," I said, "What the hell is this all about?"
"I don't know," said the semi-fluent one. "She just attached me!"
"You tenee drops! Cuen me drops! Me ow! the other one said. At least that's what it sounded like she said.
"She thinks I have drops and she wants some. I guess she ran out."
Uh, Oh. "There are drops on my boat?"
"Are you stupid? Yes. Everybody got them."
"You?"
She laughed. "Come find 'em," she said with that twinkle in her eye that, well, I saw in most of them when they boarded.
I gave the less fluent Lek an hour of confinement. Kids, you gotta ground 'em sometimes. I didn't have a clue what to do about the drops. I should have went to college.
I went and inspected the engines... shit, I had no idea how they worked but I was supposed to inspect them? OK, just follow the checklist on my tablet and I don't have to have a clue.
A robot was working on one, and I noted it. Standard procedure. Even though there's always a robot working on one, seems like.
I was still chuckling about the Thai chick flying across the room in the boat's reduced gravity. We could do one G but the bean counters say it would cost too much, so I fly 'em like they tell me to. Times like that I'm glad gravity is reduced, that was hilarious!
See, they tell me the gravity is from propulsion, we're always burning fuel. Or acceleration or something, I ain't never went to college.
I walked back to our quarters. I opened the door – and saw her with an eyedropper.
SHIT!!!
This is a crude, rough draft of an upcoming book that is less than 10% finished. Continues...
Mars, Ho! Chapter Five
Catfight
Three days after liftoff we had docked with the ship, quarters were assigned to the women, the rocket went back down, the tube was jettisoned in a trajectory that would burn it up, and we were on our way to Mars.
I was watching a movie, Destiny cuddled in my arm. God, I liked this woman. She was like a female me, only refined, she'd went to college.
Of course, the tablet had to ruin the mood, damn it. I had to go to the commons area.
Right now the commons area was a bar and the robots summoned me because there was a damned bar fight.
I like having company but I hate being a babysitter.
Tables were overturned, two women were fistfighting so I tasered and handcuffed both of the dumbasses. "OK," I said, "Who are you girls and what's this about?"
"I'm Billie and that bitch called me a cunt so I hit her," the blonde with the black eye said.
"I'm Sparkle," the other one said. "And I was just defending myself from that cunt."
I sighed. "Look, bitches, there ain't gonna be no violence on my boat, get it? Billie, you're confined to quarters, and that means the door's locked, for twenty four hours. It happens again and you're locked up for the rest of the trip. Got it? That shit don't happen on my boat.
"Sparkle, you get two hours and you better stay out of trouble." I escorted them to their quarters and removed their handcuffs, locked the doors and returned to Destiny.
If I'd gone to college maybe I'd known about drops.
As I was going back to Destiny's, Tammy walked up. Tammy, my sole passenger. "Trouble?" She asked.
"Nope, just a couple of pissed off whores," I said. Yeah, I held this woman in contempt. A dropper whore was... well, you don't want to know one. Believe me.
"That's what happens when they don't get their drops." she said.
"Huh?" I hadn't known whores or droppers. But I knew I didn't want to.
"Droppers get violent when they don't get their drops."
"You?"
"Best not fuck with me, asshole."
Shit, no wonder the company gave me a raise. Droppers and no drops.
I was in trouble.
Or maybe not. It was a month before another such incident occurred, and was quickly quelled; I didn't have to ground the kids this time.
When I say "babysitter" I'm not kidding. These fully grown women acted like spoiled children. It's like they weren't raised right, I don't know.
Hey, can I go to the bathroom? Thanks.
OK, where was I? Oh, yeah, drops.
I knew those damned things were addictive, but I didn't know that withdrawal from them caused violence. And, it seemed, every time. I was in trouble and didn't know it.
This is a crude, rough draft of an upcoming book that is less than 10% finished. This short chapter will be enlarged for the book. continues.
Someone anonymously commented in chapter three that "I'm a sucker for spaceships in the solar system, so thanks for posting!" As he was AC there was no point in answering since he wouldn't have seen the answer, but had he been logged in I'd have said he should read "Nobots" if he hasn't already.
I hope if anyone sees any typos, misspellings, grammatical errors (unless it's the uneducated Knolls who's speaking), incongruities, or contradictions, please comment; I have no editor or proofreader. Also if you have an idea for some crazy stunt one of the droppers pulls, comment and I'll consider it.
Thanks for reading!
