Category: Uncategorized

Pirates of the Southern Cross

December 5, 2020

Let’s try that again…

Here’s another captivating scene/story from D. Roe Shocky’s hundreds of posts.
I’m boost-posting this as I’m a fan, think others should be fans too and the fact that I’m still brain-slammed by Rust, Angular and Lambdas.

Go check out more of his work.

Warmup Pages

Nerissa was hungry; a state not unfamiliar to her. Hunger in perpetuity. It was a lifestyle choice—came with the whole space pirate thing. She wanted to eat, sure, but she was hungry for more than food.

Everyone knows space is mostly empty, knows it logically, but most everyone doesn’t know know it like Nerissa does. It’s not just empty; it’s totally and completely bone-crushingly emp-fucking-ty. It was as if after God made the Earth She decided it was way too much work and gave up on the whole rest of the universe. Leave it empty, go get high for a hundred billion years and maybe try again. Or maybe don’t.

Nerissa’s little black ship, the Lasciate Ogne Speranza, hung cold and motionless in the darkness of the nebula like picked-over carrion. Twenty-sixth century piracy relied on the treasure coming to you, not the other way around. It was a…

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Writer’s Log: 2336 a lull

November 5, 2020

SepSceneWriMo was a success. And rather entertaining, aside from the heart attack, cough, cough.

And then in October a few stories dribbled forth, gonorrhea of the mind.

And now November and the unpleasantness that has first bludgeoned and then strangulated the country. Yuck!

Not to mention this new job and the fact that I’m like, “uhhhh, I fergetted how ta progrum. Cain you hep me figgur out what the hell this’um means?”

use std::thread;
use std::time::Duration;
fn simulated_expensive_calculation(intensity: u32) -> u32 {
    let expensive_closure = |num| { 
        println!("calculating slowly..."); 
        thread::sleep(Duration::from_secs(intensity)); 
        num 
    };
}

But, what about writing? Well, my Indonesian artist friend emailed me, distraught. It seemed he was at wits-end regarding some life decision. “Moi? You want to know /my/ opinion? Well, sure.” Turns out he’d applied for a job at the Ministry of Communication (5000 applicants, 500 jobs) and was in financial straights without it. So, I sent him some money (to have him draw some illustrations for a novel I’ll prolly never finish) and waited.

He created a nice picture and informed me he’d gotten the job. Whew, was he happy. Now I’ve got to buckle down and get back writing on this followup novel of mine.

Veren the trickster after he duped some ruffians in flooded Reno, Nevada. (He’s got dreadlocks and is pretty much an urchin/orphan.)

Rust: your next software language

November 4, 2020

Just so y’all stay on top of the tech world, I wanted to let you know that this relatively new software language, Rust, is gaining traction around the business and software world and, due to its advancements, will probably be what your computers will be running in the coming decades.

  • It’s fast and runs on most hardware/platforms (IoT and embedded, too).
  • It’s memory and thread safe (no more dreaded buffer overflow).
  • It’s obvious in its structure and construction and has a growing cadre of dedicated task packages.
  • And it’s got support for writing WASM – webassembly, which is  writing fast binary code to run in a browser (instead of HTML & JavaScript).

This new company I’m working for is training all of its developers in Rust, they’re betting big on a young language. But then, so are many industry players.

I know this is fringe for many of you, but I consider it a good thing to be aware of.

-Mole

https://www.rust-lang.org/

Rust Logo

One day on the river

October 25, 2020

A little memorabilia for an autumn day.

Dave Cline - lost and found

A skim of ice, peanut brittle thick, rimmed the banks of the Rapidan river. It crackled when Tom slid the camo-painted canoe into the December chilled water. He swung the canoe parallel and held it steady while Ted boarded the front and the boy scrambled into the center, his .22 pointed safely across the river.

“All set?” Tom didn’t wait for a reply. He stepped in and shoved off, his own shotgun nestled alongside him. He shifted to get comfortable, rocking the boat.

“As soon as you get comfortable, there Tom… Anymore rockin’ and the boy’ll paint the inside a’ your boat a shade of runny eggs and toast.” Ted, the boy’s father, looked back. “You alright there, boy?” 

The boy nodded silently. He was wrapped in a faux-sheep’s-skin coat, thick gloves and a dark knit hat. He sat on a cushion and leaned back against a cooler full of…

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Cosmic voices

August 29, 2020

You’ve heard the phrase: scary – (serious) as a heart attack. Let me tell you, scary? No. Fuckin’ painful? Hell yes. (And yeah, serious.)

I must have pissed off the gods somehow as that’s exactly what happened this morning.

First the job then this. Bad things come in threes, or so has been my experience. What’s to come next? And please don’t say the reelection of Dimwit Donald.

Yes. Heart attack. STEMI with four stents. Shee-it, I thought I was healthy. Not over weight, mild exercise, generally healthy diet.

Hope the company healthcare plan doesn’t crap out before I have to pay for all this. Gonna be like $50 grand.

I will have you know I made my stoic peace before the catheter plunged into my forearm. The Great Void, here I come.