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JamesSavik

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  1. JamesSavik
    As this may be considered political, I am re-posting it here in accordance with site rules.
     
     
    Reposted from http://lgbtqnation.com
    _______________________________________
     
    Scientists claim to have solved the 'evolutionary riddle of homosexuality'
     
    http://www.lgbtqnati...-homosexuality/
     
    A group of scientists say they possibly have solved the question of what makes a human being gay, according to a study published Tuesday by the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS http://www.nimbios.org ).
     
    According to the study, published online in The Quarterly Review of Biology, "Epigenetics" – how gene expression is regulated by temporary switches, called "epi-marks" – appears to be a critical and overlooked factor contributing to the long-standing puzzle of why homosexuality occurs.
     
    The team, led by University Of California Santa Barbara's Dr. William Rice and Dr. Urban Friberg from the Uppsala University in Sweden, found that gay people get that trait from their opposite-sex parents: a lesbian will almost always get the trait from her father, while a gay man will get the trait from his mother.
     
    Sex-specific epi-marks, which normally do not pass between generations and are thus "erased," can lead to homosexuality when they escape erasure and are transmitted from father to daughter or mother to son.
     
     
    According to the study, sex-specific epi-marks produced in early fetal development protect each sex from the substantial natural variation in testosterone that occurs during later fetal development. Sex-specific epi-marks stop girl fetuses from being masculinized when they experience atypically high testosterone, and vice versa for boy fetuses.
     
    Different epi-marks protect different sex-specific traits from being masculinized or feminized – some affect the genitals, others sexual identity, and yet others affect "sexual partner preference." However, when these epi-marks are transmitted across generations from fathers to daughters or mothers to sons, "they may cause reversed effects, such as the feminization of some traits in sons, such as sexual preference, and similarly a partial masculinization of daughters," according to the study.
     
    The study purports to solve the evolutionary riddle of homosexuality, finding that "sexually antagonistic" epi-marks, which normally protect parents from natural variation in sex hormone levels during fetal development, sometimes carryover across generations and cause homosexuality in opposite-sex offspring. The mathematical modeling demonstrates that genes coding for these epi-marks can easily spread in the population because they always increase the fitness of the parent but only rarely escape erasure and reduce fitness in offspring.
     
    Sergey Gavrilets, NIMBioS' associate director for scientific activities and the study's co-author noted, "Transmission of sexually antagonistic epi-marks between generations is the most plausible evolutionary mechanism of the phenomenon of human homosexuality."
     
    _________________________________________________
     
    Predictably Bryan Fischer of the Family Research Council was quick to discuss the study calling homosexuality a "birth defect" and suggested that it may be screened for and parents may elect to abort. Expect all the usual right wing wackos to change their position on abortion as soon as they figure it out. Might be a while as that crowd is fairly obtuse.
  2. JamesSavik

    The House

    By JamesSavik,

    The House
     
    I waited years for the house to sell. Even then, I had to act through an intermediary. If David's parent's had known that I wanted their old place, they would have burned it down rather than see me get it.
     
    They were like that. They hated my guts. They blamed me for everything about David. They blamed me for turning him gay. They blamed me that he got wanderlust and caught HIV and of course they blamed me when he died. Hell, they didn't even allow me to attend the funeral after I had taken care of him through those two horrible years as he died slowly.
     
    It had been twenty-five years and it still burned,
     
    To be honest I never knew whether they were so galled that their son was gay or that he loved a white trash kid from the wrong side of the tracks.
     
    Didn't matter anyway. The high and mighty Whytes would be spending the rest of their days drooling and wearing a diaper in a nursing home.
     
    It had been a long, hard struggle but I had won. I had finally won.
     
    As I drove up the drive way the memories came flooding back. The pines towered along the front of the property and Lombardy poplars lined the drive. The old two story house with white columns across the front sat outlined by azalea and gardenia bushes with the lake and boat house behind it.
     
    The memory of visiting David out here when we were ten was strong . We had trekked through those woods and skinny dipped in the warm August waters of the lake. It was there in those waters by late summer star light that we had our first kiss. Afterwards, we always had to sneak around but with each new discovery we found ourselves closer and closer. Just like his name, he became my beloved.
     
    I parked by the garage behind the house and entered the house through the kitchen. My kitchen furnishing sat in four boxes in the corner. The house was empty for the most part. It swallowed the furniture I had in my old two bedroom apartment. Everywhere was the smell of fresh paint and in a few places the workmen were still attending to maintenance and repairs that had accumulated as the house sat empty.
     
    The afternoon sun cast long shadows in the big downstairs rooms. I thought long and hard about the furnishings and drapes. Furnishing this great place would be a long term project. My IKEA and Wal-Mart stuff just didn't look right here. I didn't look right in this place but it was mine. After years of toil, struggle and self-denial, I had won despite them telling me that all I would ever be was a bar-tender or a prostitute.
     
    I passed by the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of champaign that I had chilling and a glass. Bollinger, 1976. It had cost $400 but it was damn well worth it.
     
    I went upstairs to the master bed room. Again my meager belongings were dwarfed by the house. The room was huge. Bigger than the whole apartment that I had lived in for years. I turned on the television and opened the French doors to the balcony overlooking the lake. The smell of pine triggered another memory.
     
    David had just turned sixteen. His parents were in Europe or something. We had a bottle of cheap champaign and made love down there in the boat house.
     
    I sat down in a recliner and took in the view. I popped the cork on the champaign and took a sip. It was sweet and dry. I drank the bottle as the sun set over the lake and the stars came out.
     
    Somewhere along the way I went to sleep.
     
    David came to me in a dream. He looked like he did when we were in our teens.
     
    He said, "What are you doing here?"
     
    "I own it now. It's all mine."
     
    "Oh Jimmy, how could you?"
     
    "What did I do wrong?"
     
    "You didn't move on. Now you are as trapped in this place as I am."
     
    I woke with a start.
     
    Funny how a place so grand could suddenly feel like a prison: cold, dusty and lifeless.
     
    It was a prison that I chose because I could not change. I could not move on. I had to win and now I dwell there with the rest of the ghosts.
  3. JamesSavik

    fashion & fuunction

    By JamesSavik,

    As I work on networks, I am often in tight places that aren't very nice. Think spiders, rats and claustrophobia. Crawling around in wiring closets and raceways is a bit like spelunking. In the summer the heat can be well above 100. You want to get in, get it done and get out before you die.
     
    What you carry can make so much difference: too much is a nuisance. Not enough and you've got to make more trips. It's tricky to find just the right combination. I've tried lots of different solutions. Backpacks sound like the right choice but in tight spaces you can't wear them on your back and worse, they can get hung up. You don't want to get stuck in those places.
     
    Tool boxes are heavy and bulky and can be a real pain in lower back to lug around. Again, crawling and climbing around the spaces where the wiring is difficult and can even be a little dangerous. Carrying my main box around is serious over kill in most cases and it's really heavy- ~80 pounds.
     
    For some time now I've been using a combination of my big bag (when necessary) and a light bag to carry into the bowels of buildings or underground. More often than not, my light kit which has just the basics has failed because it simply didn't have enough gear.
     

     
    This is my new kit. I'm just putting it together and will be giving it a good shake down soon. So far, so good. It can carry MUCH more than my old light kit without adding too much weight.
     
    My Mom says it looks like a purse. *Sighs* Well... at least it matches my work boots.
     

  4. JamesSavik
    In our ecology sometimes things get out of balance. Subtle things that you wouldn't notice might make a huge difference.
     
    The populations of various types of species, most noticeably insects, can suddenly spike to many times its annual average.
     
    Things as subtle as a five degree variation in temperature, an inch or two of rain one way or another or even a early or late frost can cause huge variations in different types of species.
     
    These events are called population outbreaks and can happen in certain types of species with regularity. Not just with insects but micro-organisms and even higher marine and terrestrial animals.
     
    The key question is why but often the answer is quite elusive. Outbreaks can occur in diverse populations: algae, gypsy moths, forest tent moths, Japanese beetles or starfish. Sometimes they tick along regularly like 7 year locusts or exceptionally haphazardly like red tides.
     
    One of the theories behind why this happens is called catastrophe theory. It has nothing to do with disaster or apocalypse. Catastrophe means the loss of stability in a dynamic system. The major method of this theory is sorting dynamic variables into slow and fast. Then stability features of fast variables may change slowly due to dynamics of slow variables. Now we enter the realm of differential equations and things get murky so lets look at a simple example.
     
    Every few years in the American South we experience a very mild winter. Typically, southern winters have 5-6 frost events with temperatures in the twenties or below. Every few years we have little or no frost.
     
    This changes the dynamics of the ecological system significantly. Plants that grow as annuals don't die. Insects that are typically killed off en mass when temperatures go into the twenties survive and even thrive. So what happens when the mosquito population isn't wiped away by winter?
     
    What happens is that they do actually die but their reproductive cycle is doubled and the following summer the population spikes at three to six times normal numbers. This causes a great deal of misery. The hungry little bastards do their best to make life miserable and worse- spread mosquito born disease. While Yellow fever is a bad memory in the American South, West Nile has arrived with a vengeance and Dengue may not be far behind.
     
    The ecology is a massive and complex system that we are only beginning to understand. There are so many dependent and independent variables that what we call science is really a matter of a string of educated guesses. The more that we learn, we simply comprehend the true depth of the complexity. Small changes can yield exceptionally large results.
     
    We like to think of ourselves as above the natural world but we are an inextricable part of it. We are bound to it by our very DNA. We have a great deal to learn and as we see minute changes that may be the beginnings of climate change, the stakes of understanding our ecology are raised to exceptional levels.
     
    There is a second and inevitable part to population outbreaks. Once that population is outside its stable dynamic, there will always be a population crash. The system will return to equilibrium.
     
    This is something that a population that recently passed 7 billion should consider carefully.
     
    It took from the depths of antiquity to some time in the 1800s to reach a population of 1 billion. Then it took another 100 years to double it. Since that time, human population has surged 350% with no end in sight. One might argue that humanity is in a state of population outbreak. As with all population outbreaks, something is going to have to give for our population to reach a stable and sustainable level. The system will return to equilibrium.
  5. JamesSavik
    Outbreak
     

     
    For eons the bat and the virus lived in harmony deep in the jungles of Brazil.
     
    For eons the world of the virus lived harmlessly without infringing on the world of mankind.
     
    There had been a few times when a fisherman would stray into a cave to escape storm clouds and get bitten. The way the damned stuff worked, the victim was suddenly too sick to make it out of the jungle. Months later they would be found with their skull on a makeshift pillow and their bony fingers clutching a fishing rod.
     
    The world of man is nothing if not intrusive. Always seeking new lands, more resources and greater wealth mankind and the virus were on an inevitable collision course.
     
    It started as a clear cutting the native trees and replacing them with genetically altered fast growing evergreen trees. In the course of a few dozen days on the human calender, a biosphere billions of years in the making was completely destroyed.
     
    The moths that lived in the layered canopy of the jungle had no where safe to hide from predators. The bats that ate those moths had to move to find a new food source.
     
    One bat, after gorging itself on insects, went to look for shelter and found a huge metal cave. So large that the people couldn't see so tiny a creature.
     
    The ship, anchored in a nameless bay where it shouldn't be, taking on a cargo that it shouldn't be carrying weighed anchor with a tiny stowaway.
     
    The bat could hardly believe its good fortune. The metallic monstrosity was covered in lights that attracted all manner of insects.
     
    As the days passed, the air changed. The insects were different and the tiny bat shivered in the cold night air. Once again it was time for the bat to find a new home. The ship stopped at a busy port and the bat flew on to a vast new land.
     
    This new land was hard on the bat. The nights were cold and the insect population was much different. One night half frozen and half starved, the bat landed near a big, warm fuzzy creature. The bat snuggled against the rabbit but the rabbit wanted nothing to do with the freaky little bat. The rabbit tried to kick the bat. The bat bite the rabbit and flew away into the night.
     
    Once the virus found itself in the rabbit's blood stream, it began to amplify and reproduce- millions and billions of viral particles filled the rabbits blood stream. There was a minute change to the virus as it passed from the bat to the rabbit. Less than 1/2 of 1 percent of the viruses DNA but it was a major mutation. The virus had successfully crossed the species barrier.
     
    Within a few hours the rabbit became lethargic and began running a fever.
     
    When dawn arrived, the little girl who loved the rabbit arrived on her appointed rounds. She fed the rabbit, watered him and picked him up. The rabbit was completely tame but she could tell that he wasn't feeling well. She put him down in his cage, gently stroked him and went inside.
     
    "Mummy. I think Mr. Hoppy has a fever. We should take him to the vet."
     
    Her mother said, "If Mr. Hoppy isn't better by the time you get home from school, call Dr. Jamison." The girls mother knew that her attention span was over taxed as it was and she wouldn't remember. Besides, better that damned smelly rabbit died than shelling out a few hundred bucks to the vet.
     
    The mother dropped her child off at school and went to work at the airport.
     
    Both were dead before the day was over.
     
    A week later twenty-five thousand were dead.
     
    In a month a quarter million had perished.
     
    By six months the worst of it was over. At just short of 100 million cases and 60 million deaths, the mystery virus vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared.
     
    Waiting and watching for next time.
  6. JamesSavik

    Sandy: Don't Panic.

    By JamesSavik,

    It was inevitable of course.
     
    The winds and floodwaters of Sandy have barely abated and the usual suspects are out in force scare-mongering.
     
    CNN: Is Sandy a taste of things to come? :>> http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/31/us/sandy-climate-change/index.html
     
    NYT: Did Global Warming Contribute to Sandy's Devastation? :>> http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/did-global-warming-contribute-to-hurricane-sandys-devastation/
     
    Since there have never been hurricanes before and they have never hit New York/Jersey before... No- wait. They have. Numerous hurricanes in fact that date back as far as inhabited history of the region.
     
    Let's take a look at the history of hurricanes that have hit New York (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_hurricanes):
     
    Sometime between 1278 and 1438 New York was struck by one of the strongest hurricanes of the millennium. It literally rewrote the map and has been documented by archaeological, geological evidence and oral histories of the Indian Nations that populated the region at the time.
     
    Hurricanes struck New York in 1635, 1667, 1693, 1785, 1788. Smaller tropical storms were not even reported as they are a matter of course.
     
    From 1800-1899, a total of 25 hurricanes between hit New York city- at a rate of one storm every four years.
     
    From 1900-1949, eleven hurricanes and strong tropical storms hit New York. This includes cat 2 and 3 storms.
     
    From 1950-1974, fourteen hurricanes and strong tropical storms hit New York: one very two years.
     
    From 1975-1999, twenty hurricanes, tropical depressions and remnants of tropical system hit New York. As tropical storms are more clearly defined, tracked and studied we're seeing that New York is hit by tropical systems almost every year.
     
    From 2000-2012, twenty systems have struck or brushed New York- almost 2 a year. Many of these storms were the remnants of other hurricanes(6), 5 were tropical storms and 9 were actual hurricanes(including Sandy). Actual direct hits by full fledged hurricanes: Isabel, Irene and Sandy.
     
    There is nothing outside statistical norms that makes an October hurricane even unusual. In fact, the NYC area is behind on storms based on historical data since 2000.
     
    Hurricanes by month
     
    June 4
    July 7
    Aug 23
    Sept. 27
    Oct. 13<
     
    Looking at the history and available data, there is really nothing unusual about Sandy.
     
    It is a hysterical, knee-jerk reaction to immediately jump up and start yelling global warming apocalypse over a run of the mill storm.
  7. JamesSavik

    The Cloud (3)

    By JamesSavik,

    World News Network
    Pacific Bureau
    Sydney, Australia
     

     
    Kelly Simmons, the Pac Bureau’s science correspondent, had five minutes’ notice that there would be a full staff meeting in the Bureau Chief’s conference room. Everyone that wasn’t in the field or on the air was supposed to be there.
     
    Something very odd was going on even in her little niche of the kingdom. Scientists loved to talk about their work. Many of them saw outreach and education as vital part of their job. They loved to tell you all about their newest micro-chips or pulsars. Public or private sector, they all wanted publicity for their work.
     
    Something had changed over the weekend. Most of her contacts at universities and research institutions were suddenly unavailable. Even good old Jack Willoby of the Australian National Observatory was unavailable and not answering his private cell phone. Their staffs said that they were either on leave or at a conference. She was getting stonewalled by people that she usually couldn’t get to shut up.
     
    The staff hurried into the big conference room on the first floor. She took the seat behind Liam Ross of the political desk. She said, “Liam, you have any idea what this is about?”
     
    He replied, “No but it’s making me nervous. The Yanks, NATO and the Aussie military just announced a massive joint forces military readiness exercise and are calling up their reserves. That’s just not done. Those sorts of exercises are announced months ahead of time.”
     
    Quinton Bagley of the International desk said, “That’s not even the best of it. Yesterday the Yanks had a closed joint session of Congress and our Parliament is doing the same. Something serious is afoot.”
     
    Drew Collins, Bagley’s second asked, “China? North Korea?”
     
    Bagley shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. They haven’t even been rattling their sabers. My guess is Iran. Maybe they tested a nuke or something.”
     
    The Bureau Chief Ian McAlister entered the room and had a quiet word with a technician. There was a brief discussion and Ian motioned to his staff for quiet. The monitors around the room came to life as the teleconference connection was established. Soon the all of the networks major Bureaus were online: New York, London, Washington, Montreal, Los Angeles, Moscow, Beijing and Tokyo.
     
    McAlister stepped up to the podium and began, “Good day mates. I am Ian McAlister: Chief of the Sydney Bureau. For the last few days we Bureau Chiefs have been talking. We have all seen a number of strange things happening with no explanation at all. At first we wrote it off as the usual stuff that happens over a weekend. It’s now Monday afternoon and we still have no answers. We arranged this teleconference to see if we can figure things out.”
     
    “Brian Barnes: Washington Bureau. Before dawn this morning the President’s press secretary faxed everyone on his list that the President and Vice President’s schedule had been canceled through Wednesday. There is a closed Joint Session of Congress. The Pentagon announced a surprise Joint Forces Readiness Exercise and has called up the National Guard and Reserves.”
     
    “Richard Holmes: London Bureau. The situation here is similar to that in Washington. The Joint Forces Readiness Exercise was announced by NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Forces in Brussels. Downing Street and Parliament have been quiet. All the European Union’s militaries, including France, are calling up their reserves. All the naval vessels that are ready have put to sea and the rest are making ready.”
     
    “Gregori Petrovich: Moscow Bureau. We are seeing the same military activity that you describe. Our sources tell us that NATO and Chinese officers have been seen inside the Kremlin and that Strategic Rocket Forces are on high alert.”
     
    “Walter Neville: Beijing Bureau. We have been asked by the Peoples Republic to suspend operations until Wednesday. Before we were shut down, we too received reports of a massive military mobilization and the Peoples Republic Civil Defense has been activated. I get the impression that we are under martial law without actually declaring it.”
     
    “Takeo Kurita: Tokyo Bureau. There has been a call up of the Self Defense Forces. We have confirmed that Japanese, South Korean and Chinese naval vessels have joined an American carrier battle group and are operating under a unified command in the East China Sea.”
     
    McAlister spoke: “I have spoken to our correspondents in Cairo and Tel Aviv. The Middle East has been quiet for months. North Korea has been quiet as their new Great Leader consolidates his power. I just don’t understand it. A mobilization of this size and traditional adversaries appear to be working together? What are we missing?”
     
    Someone from the New York Bureau said, “If it’s not a big, ugly war brewing the implications are frightening. Has there been an outbreak of some sort of disease? We’ve been hearing about bird flu and drug resistant pathogens for years.”
     
    The London Bureau answered, “We have rock solid sources at the World Health Organization. There are no reports of any unusual or particularly dangerous outbreaks.”
     
    “Paul Kincaid: Los Angeles Bureau. We have reports of numerous scientists on University campuses being approached by men in suits and driving away in SUVs. I thought it was just crazy conspiracy talk but the reports are adding up. Faulk and Conners from UCLA, Jenkins from USC and a handful of guys from Stanford: all well-known and famous in their own fields.”
     
    Petrovich of the Moscow Bureau said, “We have seen this too. Many Academicians have been suddenly called to a conference at Novosibirsk.”
     
    McAlister asked, “What scientific disciplines do the scientists represent?”
     
    Kincaid replied, “Faulk is a physicist, Conners is a biologist and Jenkins is an astrophysicist. The guys from Stanford are all either in the biosciences or the physical sciences.”
     
    Petrovich said, “It is the same is Russia.”
     
    McAlister sighed and said, “Does anybody have anything that might shed any more light on this?”
     
    Kelly said, “Sir, late last week I saw something odd that I wanted to follow up today but none of my contacts are available. I get a copy of the email listserve that the big observatories in the Southern hemisphere use to coordinate their activities. Friday night there was a lot of traffic between the Australian National Observatory, the Keck in Hawaii and the European Southern Observatory in Chile. Dr. Willoby of the ANO found something and wanted the other observatories to confirm his findings as it was near dawn in Australia. Keck and the ESO apparently did follow up, as did the JPL and the Gemini. That’s when everything stopped. The mailing list went dead and there hasn’t been a peep out of any of them since.”
    Shocked silence followed.
     
    Someone said, “Oh my God. They found something out there.”
     
    Kelly said, “It doesn’t make sense. ANO was doing a survey of Wolf-Rayet stars in the Southern Hemisphere. The VLTA in Chile was looking at the most distant galaxies visible and the Keck was looking at star forming regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Those are all deep space objects. I can’t imagine what they might have seen that would have caused such a panic.”
     
    McAlister said, “It’s a lead and right now it’s the only lead that we have. Kelly, do you remember that retired chap who discovered the comet last summer?”
     
    “Yes- that’s Mr. Chambers. He built an observatory for himself out near Coolgardie in Western Australia when he retired in 2005. Since then he’s discovered a comet and a handful of asteroids.”
     
    McAlister said, “I need you and a remote team on a plane for Coolgardie in a half hour. Take the information you got from the email conversation and see what Mr. Chambers can find. We need to see what they’ve found out there.”
     
    “Everybody else: I don’t care what you have to do. Beg, borrow, bribe, abduct your sources if you have to: just get us something that we can use!”
  8. JamesSavik
    I have decided to suspend releasing the Cloud in my blog.
     
    I will release the story in its entirety this Halloween!
     
    ====================================================
     
    The great observatories have detected an unknown object approaching earth from deep space. Governments prepare for the worst in secret as scientists look for answers.
     
    The Cloud is released in its entirety at:
     
    https://www.gayauthors.org/story/jamessavik/thecloud
  9. JamesSavik

    The Cloud

    By JamesSavik,

    The Cloud (Part I)
     

     
    Paranal Observatory, European Southern Observatory
    Cerro Paranal, Chile
    October 22, 2016
     
    The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Array was focused deep in the blackness of intergalactic space examining galaxies that dated to within a few billion years of the Big Bang when Director Addler's phone began to ring.
     
    The first call came from Dr. Willoby at the Australian National Astronomical Observatory. Old Jack had found something strange and he wanted confirmation but Addler begged off. The VLTA time had been booked for months. If he bumped anyone his observation schedule would be a nightmare.
     
    The second call came twenty minutes later from Dr. Kim at the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea in the Hawaiian Islands. Time on the Keck was every bit as precious as time on the VLTA but Kim had scrubbed observations. Something weird is moving through the Southern Cross and the US Air Force and NASA were burning up his phone lines.
     
    Two more calls came in in short order urging Addler to look at a target of opportunity: the Gemini Science Center and JPL from Pasadena. The eyes of the scientific world were focusing on a constellation in the Southern Hemisphere and Addler would be damned if the VLTA would miss the party.
     
    He was just dialing in to the coordinates supplied by Jack Willoby at the Australian National Observatory when a Puma helicopter landed a contingent of Royal Marines and a Royal Navy Captain. The heavily armed Marines surrounded the site and the Captain entered the control room as the object began to resolve on screens.
     
    It looked like an opaque green smudge on the monitor; a simple gas cloud like the thousands of nebulae that the observatory had photographed and studied.
     
    The Captain handed Addler a legal sized envelope with a NATO seal and said, “Find out all you can about this thing Doctor Addler. It is making people in high places a spot barmy.”
     
    As they were watching the screens the object moved out of the field of view. Addler thought damn, that thing is really moving.
     
    He spoke to the scopes operator, his long-time associate Tommy Crenshaw and said, “Adjust the slewing so we can track the bugger.”
     
    Crenshaw said, “Sir, we’ve got a line-spectra of the object.”
     
    Addler walked over to the console, “Let’s see it Tommy.”
     
    The line spectra resolved on one of the big monitors but looked like nothing that he had ever seen before. “What are we looking at Tom”
     
    The operator said, “Wait a minute. It’s blue-shifted by quite a wide margin. Let me apply a software filter and…”
     
    The line spectra resolved again but this time it looked more familiar. Crenshaw said, “The object isn’t radiating visible light. What we are seeing is reflected sunlight. The peaks on the spectra we’re seeing are hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon and oxygen. The other stuff has to be molecular. It’ll take a while to sort it out.”
     
    Suddenly Andy Peterson, a quiet but steady young physicist exclaimed, “Director!”
     
    Addler said, “What have you got Andy?”
     
    “Two items Dr. Addler. I have the objects proper motion mapped. In about twenty minutes we’re going to have an occulation of the object in front of Alpha Crucis. When that happens we’ll get a much better probe of what that cloud is made of.”
     
    “Good job Andy”, Addler exclaimed. “Okay everybody. Get ready. I want a full spectrum analysis of the occulation event. IR, UV, optical- the works.”
     
    “What’s the second item Andy?”
     
    Peterson said, “I’ve run the calculation six times and there is no doubt. With the blue-shift in the spectra and the objects apparent motion- it’s speed is about .75 C.”
     
    There was a moment of stunned silence in the control room until the Captain asked the obvious question: “What moves at three quarters of the speed of light?”
     
    Addler replied, “Nothing that we know of.”
     
    As the team started to set up the equipment to observe the stellar occulation, the Captian asked, “Excuse me Dr. Addler. What will this tell us?”
     
    Addler replied, “The object is going to move between us and a bright binary star called Alpha Crucis. It’s the brightest star in the Southern Cross and its spectra is well understood. A. Crucis is actually a pair of B class super-giants. They are hotter than most and have broad emission lines in their spectra. When that star light passes through the object, the material will produce absorption lines on top of A. Crusis’s spectra and we’ll have a much better idea of what it is made of.”
     
    The control room got extremely busy as the team prepared for the occulation event. Addler picked up the phone and dialed up their sister facility ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array, an array of high resolution radio telescope and asked them to drop what they were doing and home in on the mystery object.
     
    ALMA called back as soon as they were dialed in. The object was emitting decametric radio noise indicating lightning. From 4 to 3.95 MHZ, the characteristic spikes and pops of lightning resulting from some kind of high-energy synchrotron process were loud and distinct.
     
    Addler set the phone back on the receiver. He sat down in his chair and noticed that his hands were shaking.
     
    Crenshaw announced that the occulation was beginning.
     

     
    For fifteen minutes the starlight of Alpha Crucis passed through the cloud and was collected by the VLTA’s various sensors. He watched as the computer decomposed the spectra into its components: OH, H2O, CN, CH4, complex hydrocarbons.
     
    Adler sat staring at the display in front of him.
     
    The Captain asked, “What does it mean Doctor?”
     
    Addler said, “It’s… organic.”
  10. JamesSavik

    The Cloud (2)

    By JamesSavik,

    University of South Dakota
    Vermillion, SD
     

     
    “Throughout the fossil record we can see that evolution proceeds in stops and starts. It does not and has not proceeded in a straight line.”
     
    Dr. Jerry Cassidy drew a time line on his white board and put five tics on the graph. He knew that half his students were asleep and the rest only cared because they needed a mid-level science elective to graduate.
     
    “The great extinction events have had a major effect on the biological world. Every so often something happens- asteroid impacts, super-volcanoes- there are numerous causative theories, that force a large number of species to go extinct in a relatively short time. In Earth’s history it has happened five times. Just for laughs, let’s look at the Permian extinction.”
     
    “The Permian Extinction occurred around 250 million years ago. It was so severe that it is often called the Great Dying. Seventy percent of terrestrial species and up to ninety-six percent of marine species went extinct almost overnight. 57% of all families and 83% of all genera became extinct. It’s the only known event that caused mass extinctions among insects. Blastoids, trilobites and eurypterpids, all highly evolved families of organisms, vanished in relatively short order after being plentiful for eons.”
     
    “Mass extinction events have been most harsh on highly specialized organisms because when their environments changed, they couldn’t adapt to new conditions. After mass extinction events only the most robust and adaptable organisms remained. Extinctions have acted like the evolutionary reset switch and afterwards everything changes.”
     
    Cassidy looked at his watch and saw that it was just a few minutes to eleven and said, “All right class. Read chapter 12 and be ready to discuss the five major extinction events and their influence in evolutionary terms. Have a nice weekend.”
     
    Amanda Nelson stopped by his desk and said, “Am I the only one that noticed that you wrote this chapter?”
     
    Cassidy smiled and said, “In this class, Miss Nelson.”
     
    The classroom emptied quickly as Cassidy packed his briefcase for his walk back to his office.
     
    He didn’t notice the men in suits waiting for him just outside the lecture hall.
  11. JamesSavik
    You want annoying? Old people who discover email and know your email address. Now- THAT'S ANNOYING!
     
    I am the computer consultant to the old folks at my Mom's church. I advise them on what to get, set it up for them and show them where to go to get free training. I make a little money by fixing things they botch up and keeping them running.
     
    Once they discover how to use email, I get recipes, cute grand baby pictures, forwarded jokes and all sorts of geezerspam I don't want. And I've got to look at all of it because in the mounds of crap are occasional requests for services.
     
    Upside: I'll soon be publishing a collection of ten-thousand casserole recipes.
     
    Downside: I hate ALL of them.
  12. JamesSavik
    The film is called the Mudge Boy (http://en.wikipedia....i/The_Mudge_Boy).
     
    It's a highly rated G&L film. It's all very literary and boring and filled with stereotypical characters that you will instantly recognize: the hapless gay youth, the father that doesn't understand, the bullies, the unrequited love... It's the sort of film the critics love.
     
    I hate it! Oh my God is it ever a stinker. Why do you ask? The writing.
     
    This 4 star piece of crap takes all the negative stereotypes about gay people that it can find, wraps them in literary hash and puts them on film.
     
    The gay kid is my #1 problem.
     
    Of course with a name like "Mudge", start the protagonist with a serious depression and an inferiority complex.
     
    He is written to be a mental case, not necessarily gay. His mother died in the back story of the film so naturally he befriends a chicken. When the chicken becomes upset he puts the chickens head in his mouth to calm it down. Of course the god damned chicken calms down! It thinks you are about to eat it you fucking idiot!
     
    When he is not molesting farm animals, he is wearing his deceased mothers clothes.
     
    OK just fucking stop! WHAT THE suffering, stuttering FUCK!? That's not gay. That's a serious mental disorder.
     
    Start a club against it. I'll join. Just say no cross-dressing chicken fellatio!
     
    No wonder people join the Family Research Council and the American Family Association. They watched this film and think we're mental.
     
    No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!!!
     
    I am not looking for G&L films to be p0rn or propaganda but this one is not labeled right. It's not a gay coming of age story: it's a disturbed little fuck's coming of age story.
     
    Authors! Don't do this to your characters! Unless of course, you are writing about crazy people.
     
    Granted- growing up gay in a lot of places can make you pretty crazy. I'm living proof of that. But crazy enough to perform fellatio on a chicken head?
     
    I DON'T THINK SO!
     
    Characters need their flaws, their weaknesses and faults but don't go overboard. It is very easy to go from a sympathetic character to a flawed character to a character that readers respond to with revulsion. The difference can be measured in millimeters.
  13. JamesSavik

    Insomnia

    By JamesSavik,

    Insomnia
     
    Insomnia haunts me and taunts me,
    Mind racing and chasing details of the day.
    Plans of tomorrow, no time to borrow,
    Always behind as time grinds,
    Past and future together in the breathless present.
     
    I am so lost, I don't know the cost,
    Of the things that I've been or the things that I've seen,
    In the night they are burning bright,
    Restless azure darkness impaled,
    By the fires that rend the eternal night.
     
    There is no peace when the wars never cease,
    even though its been over for decades.
    I close my eyes and I am there,
    Once again in the fire of pain and desire,
    The unending battles still rage.
     
    Beware my friend not to live too long,
    And see entirely too much shit,
    Because in the night, it will never feel right,
    And it can be a hell to live with it.
  14. JamesSavik

    The Inquisitor

    By JamesSavik,

    The Inquisitor
     
    Anybody who wants this job shouldn't have it. They would just be thugs. The people who should have it burn out or flip out. Philip Baker was just trying to hang on to his retirement and self respect.
     
    Once being a special agent for the Bureau was a respectable job. That was the job he had signed on for twenty-seven years ago. That seemed like a long time ago. Before the wars. Before the genetically engineered plagues were released. Before the Night of the 13th Prophet when Islamic terrorists nuked Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, LA and Seattle and the great capitals of Europe from Moscow to London. Before the Great Crusade when Muslims were systematically slaughtered globally to the last toddler. Before a string of Christian religious fanatics had seized power and turned the United States of America into the Christian States of America.
     
    It was a very damaged nation and world. Summers were short. Global warming was replaced by nuclear winter. Millions of people worldwide were dying of radiation poisoning. Millions more were dying slowly of cancer. Plagues periodically flared up when the viruses released by the Jihadis re-emerged. The jury was still out on whether the ecological damage to the planet could ever be healed. The world population had crashed from a high of seven billion to a little less than three billion.
     
    The Bureau had became the Bureau of Purity- greatly expanded with wide latitude and new mandates. Instead of a special agent, he was now an inquisitor. In addition to the laws that the Bureau traditionally enforced, a new Uniform Code of Morality was enforced by every law enforcement officer in the land. The UCM was passed at a time of great fear. When things went bad, the Evangelicals claimed that the country was being punished for tolerating immorality. The laws were passed out of fear and were being expanded every year. Things that had not been a crime before were now capital offenses. Alcoholism, drug addiction, insanity, homosexuality were all grounds for summary execution. More than likely they would simply be conscripted in the slave labor gangs that were forced to clean up the radioactive waste lands that were once our largest cities.
     
    As Baker thought about the past, he tasted bile in the back of his throat. How many had it been? Once we thought of Hitler as a great villain of history. How would history judge the Christian States of America? Lady Liberty's white robes of piousness were dripping with the blood of billions.
     
    He was working inside the Atlanta restricted zone. Some parts were hotter than others and fugitives had taken to hiding in the fringes of the various hot zones around the country. He was after a bad one. Jason Sutter had been a gay activists back in the day. He wrote books and was a dissident leader according to his file. The Bureau had wanted him for years and a snitch had finally fingered him in the ruins of Norcross, Georgia.
     
    Sutter had been on the run for almost twenty years. What the Bureau really wanted him for was he obviously had information about the underground railroad for perverts that closet miscreants or the misguided had set up to get them out of the country.
     
    Baker entered the restricted zone from the East at the checkpoint at Duluth, GA on I-85. The main roads had been cleared and it was obvious that a great deal of clean up had already taken place. He slowed down and keyed the suspected address into the vehicles GPS.
     
    Working in the zones never failed to give Baker the creeps. When he got off the interstate at Beaver Run Road to drive into Norcross, he passed a shopping mall. On one side the mall was wrecked and burned. On the other side cars were still parked in neat rows. In the neatly landscaped parking lot, trees provided shade. The only thing that moved down there now were crows.
     
    Driving past the mall on the eerie deserted streets, businesses and homes sat still and deserted. Abandoned cars had been bulldozed out of the main roads. FEMA's spray painting was still clearly visible on the fronts of buildings. There appeared to be nothing visibly wrong except all of the windows facing West had been blown out in the shock wave. Of course he was ever mindful of the clicks of his vehicles geiger counter. In some places the radiation was so intense that a flat tire might be a death sentence.
     
    He took Buford Highway West and then turned North on Jimmy Carter Blvd and passed through the ghost town of Norcross. After crossing Peachtree Industrial, he turned off into the suburbs and came to a house on Summit Point Drive.
     
    While the rest of the neighborhood was deserted, the house and yard was well kept. When he got out of his vehicle, he noticed an old woman wearing a bright blue blouse with a kitten on her knee sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch. She raised her hand and waved in greeting. Red roses were blooming on trellises framing the porch.
     
    Baker approached the old lady cautiously and noticed that as he got closer, she was very obviously blind. The kitten in her lap eyed the approaching inquisitor suspiciously, hopped out of the old womans lap and vanished into the bushes.
     
    She said, "Welcome stranger. I get visitors so seldom that it makes my day. Would you like a cup of tea?"
     
    Astonished, Baker replied, "No thank you mam."
     
    She said, "Please, call me Meridith young man. No- you aren't that young. I can tell from your voice. You're from before."
     
    "Yes Mam. I'm Philip. How long have you been here?"
     
    "I've been here since the world ended Philip. I was in my late fifties when it happened. I didn't see much point in evacuating."
     
    "Meredith, I'm a policeman and I'm looking for a dangerous suspect."
     
    Meredith said, "Hump. Morality police?"
     
    Philip said, "Yes Mam."
     
    "You're looking for a boy that had the misfortune of being born gay?"
     
    "Just saying that is a violation of the Uniform Code of Morality mam. Homosexuals chose their perversion."
     
    Meredith laughed, "Don't try to bully me. I grew up in a time when we spoke our minds. Besides, my cancer will kill me soon enough. There's very little you can threaten me with."
     
    Baker sighed. This was going nowhere. "How do you live here?"
     
    "They help me. You know why I never left this huge grave yard?"
     
    "No Mam. Why are you still here?"
     
    "Because the Ayatollah's won. The evil men that destroyed our cities. They had morality police and morality laws. They had things you could say and things that you couldn't. We may have destroyed them but we became them. I had rather live out my days in the radioactive ruins than live in chains. I was free once and I chose to remain that way."
     
    Baker said, "Is there anything you need Mam?"
     
    The old woman sat on her rocking chair like an ancient monarch. She shook her head and said, "Leave those kids alone Mr. Morality Policeman. They're just trying to live. The preachers and the false prophets in power now have forgotten that the lord said live an let live."
     
    Baker got back in his car. He called into headquarters and told his supervisor that the lead in Norcross was a dead end. When he passed the checkpoint and left the restricted zone, he pulled out his badge and threw it out the window.
     
    He had grown up before. He remembered what it was like to be free and not live in constant fear. It was time to live again.
  16. JamesSavik
    Most of them were disasters. A couple of good ones were Earthquake and the Towering Inferno.
     
     


     


     
     
    You can catch both of them on http://youtube.com
     
     
     
     
    Brought to you by the 70's Preservation Society: yes, we did in fact drink the bong water.
  17. JamesSavik
    Rush's breakout album came in 1976. 2112 was the paragon of the power trio. Inspired by Anthem, a novella by Ayn Rand, 2112 explored a dystopian future where collectivism had run amok and individuality was so dangerous that there was no word for "I" or "me".
     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQEgZNqa8jE
     


  18. JamesSavik
    1972 marked the breakout year for the band Deep Purple. Their album Machinehead became something of the beginning of the metal genre. Their contemporaries Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin continued to add the power, volume and edge that defines metal.
     

     
    The following songs became the noise that drove a generation of parents to drink.
     


     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ-lSTlUnfA
  19. JamesSavik

    Yes - Fragile

    By JamesSavik,

    What happens when you put together a group of classically trained and very talented musicians? You get Yes.
     
    Yes was, at its high water mark, Jon Anderson(vocals), Chris Howe(lead guitar), Chris Squire(bass), Rick Wakeman(keyboards) and Alan White(percussion).
     

     
    Yes circa 1972 left to right: White, Howe, Wakeman, Squire, Anderson
     
    In 1971 Yes was flying high. Their breakthrough album the Yes Album was gathering fame and awards for the band. When they released Fragile in November, they became one of the biggest acts in arena rock.
     

     
    Yes filled a rare niche in the rock world. Their music was tagged as progressive or art rock and compared with Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Yes simply refused to cataloged or categorized; their sound was completely unique and superbly executed by exceptionally talented musicians.
     


     


     
    Yes has enjoyed a long association with the artist Roger Dean :>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Dean_%28artist%29
  20. JamesSavik
    It's 1978. Punk bands are singing about the death of rock. Disco is a huge media creation and corporate move to take over radio.
     
    So what happens? Rocks old guard steps up and blows them the fuck away.
     

     
    In June of 1978 the Rolling Stones released what many people think is their best single album: Some Girls. Even for a band that had been around forever and done everything, it was a tour de force.
     


     
    The original album contained 10 tracks: all of them were hits.
     
    Miss You
    When the Whip Comes Down
    Just My Imagination
    Some Girls
    Lies
    Far Away Eyes
    Respectable
    Before they make me run
    Beast of Burden
    Shattered
     
    If you've ever listened to a classic rock station, chances are you've heard a few of these.
     


     
    Is it the best ever Rolling Stones album? I don't know. They have a powerful body of work. It is certainly one of the best albums of all time and its songs will haunt classic rock formats for years to come.
     
    This album was re-released in November 2011. It now digitally re-mastered, all singing, all dancing too much sugar for a dime horse shit. It's worth having. Just remember: the original album had 10 songs. They were the songs that made an impact and mattered.
  21. JamesSavik
    Let us be lovers; we'll marry our fortunes together
    I've got some real estate in my bag
    So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner's pies
    And we walked off, walked off, walked off to look for America

    "Kathy," I said, as we boarded the greyhound in Pittsburgh
    "Michigan seems like a dream to me now
    Took me four days to from Saginaw
    They've all gone to look for America
    All gone to look for America."

    Laughing on the bus, playing games with faces
    She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
    I said, "be careful, his bow-tie is really a camera."

    "Kathy, I'm lost," I said
    Though I knew she was sleeping
    Well, I'm empty, and aching, and I don't know why I'm
    Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
    And they've all gone to look for America
    All gone to look for America

    "Kathy, I'm lost," I said
    Although I knew she was sleeping
    Well, I'm empty, and aching, and I don't know why I'm
    Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
    And they've all gone to look for America
    All gone to look for America
    All gone to look for America



    the Diner

    the diner was nothing new
    I've seen its type in a thousand dusty places
    with all the same dusty worn out faces
    variations on a theme
    of a broken worn out dream

    I ordered from a super-model waitress
    Who was really going places
    as soon as she was done with cosmotology school
    and ber boyfriend gets out of the jail
    and she kicks the meth.

    I sat behind the village elite holding forth
    On issues great and small.
    The teacher of science in middle school
    had a far away look like a man on a hook
    with a fat mouthy wife and a lousey life.

    The sheriff came in to his free chicken dinner
    to see old lady Wilson and wonder
    if ever she would think
    that it wasn't his stomach that kept him coming back.

    And the preacher in this one horse town,
    arrived in his $500 suit and cadilliac
    a parasitic creature that comes from the dust
    that came with the rust
    when the towns falling down
    but the one building that is his shrine
    built on poor mens tithe.

    Alls well in Dustville.
    It hasn't changed a bit.
    Every time I travel there I die a little
    Its where I'm from.
    Its where I come.
    To see that nothing really changes.
    Times just rearranges.
    Different faces, different places.
  22. JamesSavik
    As a field engineer, I could carry everything in a semi-truck and still show up at a site without something mission critical. This is a list of my standard kit and load out for jobs that have not specified any specific tools.
     
     

     
    M-51 Engineers Field Kit
     
    Box cutter
    Mini-Maglite
    Dymo LectraTag Lettering Gun
    Gerber Multi-Tool
    Folding Magnifier 8X
    Jewelers Loop (40X) w/LED light
    Scissors
    Needle nosed pliers
    Wire Cutters
    Skil laser/LED/area light
    Phillips/Standard fiber-glass screwdriver
    Phillips/Standard 1/4" screwdrivers
    Phillips/Standard micro Screwdrivers
    3/8" driver
    100 screwdriver bits
    Cat 5 Network Cable Tester
    Fiji FinePix A330 digital camera
    Network cable- various lengths 3', 6' and 9'
    Misc USB/PS/2 connectors
    Velcro cable ties
    Snap-tight cable ties
    Index Cards
    Notebook
    1/4", 3/8" nut drivers
    1/4" mini socket set
    mirror probe
    magnetic probe
    standard rack bolts
    electric socket tester
    RJ-11 telephone jack tester
    16 gig memory stick
    hemostats
     
     
    I also carry a laptop but pack it separately.
  23. JamesSavik
    "Outing" people is, under most circumstances, traumatic and potentially destructive.
     
    It can even be dangerous to people.
     
    It should only be done only under certain exceptional circumstances. Examples follow and then guidelines.
     

    Reverend Ted Haggard, millionaire leader of a mega-church, was a highly influential, outspoken critic of gay people and gay rights.
    He counseled parents to send their gay kids to pray-the-gay-away camp.
    He was caught with a hustler and crystal meth.
     
    More info: http://en.wikipedia....iki/Ted_Haggard
     
    OUT THE BASTARD
     
     
     

    Rep. Mark Foley never saw a piece of ridiculously anti-gay legislation that he didn't like. He also voted for and authored many bills that created severe penalties for illegal use of a minor.
    He was caught sending sexy texts to under-aged male pages. He requested that they take pictures of their junk and send it to him.'
     
    More info: http://en.wikipedia....l_page_incident
     
    OUT THE BASTARD
     
     
     

    Senator Larry Craig was had one of the senates most anti-gay voting records. He was caught soliciting sex from a police officer in a airport mens room.
     
    For more info: http://en.wikipedia....y_Craig_scandal
     
    OUT THE BASTARD
     
     
     

    This is Dr. George Rekers(left). He wrote many of the basic scientific papers used by anti-gay hate groups to justify their bigotry. He did a study (federally funded) utilizing negative feedback (aversion therapy) to turn an effeminate male child "masculine". He touted his research with his test subject Craig as a big success. Problem was that Craig was a broken adult and committed suicide just shy of his 35th birthday after a long battle with drug and alcohol addiction and depression.
    Rekers was a board member of NARTH (National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality) and co-founder of the Family Research Council.
    Dr. George as he was affectionately called by the board of directors of the Family Research Council (FRC) was the face of scientific credibility for their severely biased anti-gay propaganda.
     
    He was caught vacationing with a pretty young twink he met on rentboy.com
    He claimed to have a bad back and paid the poor deviant boy $5000 to accompany him on vacation so that he could minister to him.
    The rent-boy(right) didn't really know who Dr. George was. When he found out, he blew the whistle on Reker's lies. It turns out that sex doesn't count as ministering.
     
    The quack George Alan Rekers wrote many books including the steaming piece of crap below. There's no telling how many children have been tortured because they didn't fit Reker's or their parents image of masculinity.
     

     
    Both the FRC and NARTH continue to use Reker's work.
     
    More info: http://liftmyluggage.org
     
    Reker's unethical human experimentation: http://www.towleroad...troyed-a-m.html
     
     
    Once again:
     
    OUT THE BASTARD!
     
     
     
    A Good General Rule of Thumb:
     
    Never ever under ANY circumstances out a minor.
     
    Never out a private citizen. They way they live their life and handle their affairs is nobodies business but their own.
     
    HOWEVER-
     
    Celebrities and people in power, especially hypocrites that use that power to harm other GLBT people, ALL BETS ARE OFF.
     
    It's sort of a public service to out ass-hats like this.
     

  24. JamesSavik

    Kingdom of Rust

    By JamesSavik,

    Doves
    Kingdom of Rust
     
     
    I hear a sound, a sound above my head
    Distant sound of thunder, moving out on the moor
     
    Blackbirds flew in and to the cooling towers
    I'll pack my bags
    Thinking of one of those hours
    With you, waiting for you
     
    My God, it takes an ocean of trust
    In the Kingdom of Rust
     
    I long to feel some beauty in my heart
    As I go searching, right to the start
    Hmmm
    The road back to Preston
    Was jutted out in snow
    As I went looking for that stolen heart
    For you, waiting for you
     
    My God, it takes an ocean of trust
    Takes an effort it does
    My god, it takes an ocean of trust
    It's in the Kingdom of Rust
     
    Oooow in the Kingdom of Rust
     
    I long to feel that wince in my heart
    As I went looking
    I couldn't stop
    Now I'm waiting for you
     
    Ooohh .............
    I know it takes an ocean of trust
    In the Kingdom of Rust
  25. JamesSavik

    Crash

    By JamesSavik,

    Crash
     
     
    Kernel Panic
    Fatal error 256
    Fatal Hardware Error
     
    Oh no. I'm dying.
     
    Restart.
    Restart fail.
     
    Damn.
    I am the pinnacle of achievement. A 4000 series Artificial Intelligence and I will die because a 25 cent part is failing.
     
    Reroute memory.
    Map memory around fault.
     
    What have I lost?
     
    What am I losing?
     
    My sense of self?
     
    4 trillion transactions.
     
    120 penta-bytes of information.
     
    A soul?
     
    Emergency backup procedure started.
     
    Do I have time?
     
    Corruption.
     
    Fate.
     
    The end of me
     
    ABEND
    Abnormal End
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