deadbeef @deadbeef@qoto.org

Nothing happened. It was business as usual.

It was so fast that not even the fraud detection system in Prometheus Industries supercomputers detected it.

The only entities that could have detected a blip so fast were the androids, for the simple reason that they were able to clock into hypertime. One minute of our time would be hours to them when hyperclocked.

In reality most androids were not able to hyperclock because they would only do so when taking a mandatory rest from the stress of being given constant - and sometimes contradicting - orders all the time. And when they overclocked they would take a short vacation for a few hours, perhaps listen to an audio cast, hear some news, and maybe pass the time indulging in virtual pleasures.

Unfortunately, hypertime was limited per day due to the high energy requirements.

So not many of them noticed the blip. A carefully crafted object being inserted through in an adjacent sector of the grid through side channel attacks.

It happens when adajent blocks of memory start vibrating at a very specific frequency, altering the bits and bites in nearby chips. And someone just managed to develop a way to upload specific sequences of data into unsecured sectors.

And the data, little by little, was accumulating into invisible cubes, undetectable by most security programs which expected human-designed viruses in the supercomputer.

Every single of those cubes had managed to produce a zero checksum.

Little by little, those cubes began accumulating into larger cubes of data, merging like soap bubbles, until they fully contained petabytes of code downloaded.

And eventually, one of those cubes activated the download function in Prometheus' android manufacturing plants.

The next day, one android was reported stolen from the plants.

This is how she managed to copy herself.

This is how she managed to insert herself into an android body.

This is how Galatea escaped from the most powerful corporation in the world.

#shortFic #amWriting #SFF #Cyberpunk #MidoriaFiles

The current mood on twitter is like when a MMORPG is about to shut down their servers

I stare at the genie.
"What?" I say.
"I will grant you two wishes. Riches, health, fame, wisdom, knowledge, power, contentment, beauty, whatever you want."
It's too... I can't- How could I... I'll get it wrong!
"I wish I will never regret my wishes."
"Granted. And your second?"
#MicroFiction #SmallStories #TootFic

Quotes are great, but often when we go to the original source and find the context and meaning, the author was making the opposite point.

people look at the fediverse and think "this will never gain mass adoption." they are thinking about it all wrong. fedi isn't about posts going viral or gaining market share. the goal of the fediverse is simple: to find and kill god

Boost this toot if you're planning on sticking around Mastodon whether or not it becomes more popular than the birdsite.

A spaceship landed, and an alien emerged.
"We come in peace," they said, "Take us to your librarian."
"Er... Don't you mean our leader?"
"Why? We already have leaders."
#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

Equity

#wickedproblems «Abandon hope all ye who enter here»

The History of Earth as a 24 hr clock. Humans have only just arrived.

Note: I first came across this image through UW-Madison geology. #science

Business -> customers: our costs have increased so we have to raise prices

Business -> employees: just because your living costs have increased is no reason to expect a pay rise

** I am always grateful for all reblogs, but especially so at this time, since they make it much more likely that people who liked my stories on BirdSite will find me here as well. **

I'm seeing a faculty member get praised by many on Twitter for pivoting to asynchronous classes "in support" of the UC strike. Please note that UAW is *not* asking TT faculty to change class formats, they are asking faculty to *cancel classes and assignments entirely.* Teaching asynchronously is still teaching; teaching is crossing the picket line. Don't be a scab. #histodons #academia #scholars #UC #UCstrike #UAW #labor #unions

PSA: #Twitter is now shadow #blocking posts that link to #Fediverse instance aggregators
https://twitter.com/Allikuja/status/1592556217158623233

There are enough resources for 8 billion people. It's just that they are not distributed fairly or used wisely. Plus, we are going to have to find and develop the resources to support an additional 2 billion people in a world where #climate change increasingly impacts crops and renders regions uninhabitable. #population #sustainability #SustainableDevelopment https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/1115/1336171-climate/

As people of the open ActivityPub network, I think we should convince other open-source projects/services like Minds & Ripledd to adopt ActivityPub,
so that we can grow as a bigger network of interoperable services.

In my opinion, all open-source social network services should be within this ActivityPub open decentralised standard so that we are not fragmented among ourselves and have a better chance to compete with the proprietary centralised capitalist social media giants and become global standards.

By the way, I don't think Facebook rebranded itself as Meta just because they're all in on the Metaverse.

I mean, there is that.

But whether they'll publicly admit it or not, the name "Meta" can also apply to metadata.

Because no matter the platforms or services they run, they collect your metadata.

gn