Twenty-One
The K-101
Kadastrattik XII was beginning to become impatient. He’d taken time for a meal in his quarters, and now bounded back onto his Bridge, barking at his Signals officer. “Signals, has there been any word from Lieutenant Akillistrak?”
“No, Commander. No word from the surface.”
“He’s been killed,” Kadastrattik muttered.
“It’s soon to assume that, Commander,” the frigate’s Subcommander pointed out.
“It’s not,” Kadastrattik disagreed. “He’s three cycles overdue, and he’s never been so much as a millicycle overdue in reporting before. No, he’s been found and killed by the humans. They will know now that the Empire is involved. We’ll proceed with our second option. Subcommander, see to the preparation of the Weapons station.”
“By your command.”
Central Signals, Tarbos
While the main radio tower for the Mountain View area was on the same hilltop as the base of the Skyhook, Central Signals was in the same building as Director Pritchard’s office. Three video and ten audio channels provided news and entertainment for the settlers on Tarbos, but the station also had the ability to transmit on a wide range of frequencies – including the list of likely frequencies provided by Clomonastik.
“Send a standard hail on all these freqs,” Pritchard ordered, handing the list to a technician. “Use all the power you’ve got.”
“You want a directional signal, sir?”
“Yeah, if you can. Focus on about a twenty-degree arc centered on a geosynchronous orbit over Mountain View. That’s where our target is likely to be.”
“A moment, please, Director?” Nearby, Clomonastik was jotting something down on a notepad he’d picked up from a desk. “Send the following, if you would, in binary code,” he told the technician, handing over a notepad page with a series of ones and zeros. “It’s a standard fleet hailing code; their computers will recognize it.”
“Yes, sir.” The technician programmed a quick multi-frequency standard hailing code and punched to transmit.
“Sending now, sir.”
It took a few minutes, but after that time a message-return indicator blinked on the technician’s terminal screen. Clomonastik leaned over to look at the code. “Send this in reply,” he handed over another notepad page. “This requests voice communication.”
Two minutes passed, then three, before the message-return indicator blinked again. A tap of the key and the technician reported, “Sir, you’re on a voice channel.” Pritchard picked up a headset, motioned Clomonastik to do likewise. “I’ll probably need you to translate.”
“Unidentified ship, this is Tarbos Ground. Please identify yourself.” Beside the Director, Clomonastik translated into the chittering Grugell language. In a moment, the high-pitched, rattling reply came, also in the Grugell tongue. Clomonastik translated again: “If you are calling us, then you already know who we are. Who are you?”
“This is Director Bob Pritchard. I’m in command down here on the planet.” That wasn’t a perfectly accurate description of Pritchard’s level of authority, but he correctly assumed that it would be something the militaristic Grugell would understand. Again, Clomonastik handled the translation:
“Indeed. This is the Commander of the Grugell Imperial Navy warship in orbit. What is it you want?”
“I require you to drop your cloak, and to leave orbit and depart this system without further delay.”
“Or you will do what?” Clomonastik’s translation couldn’t quite disguise the contempt in the reply.
“You are in violation of Tarbos space,” Pritchard evaded.
“We are, Director? And exactly by what authority,” the voice replied, “do you claim right to control passage through this space? What governing body do you represent?”
Pritchard paused for a moment, confused. Clomonastik scribbled another note and handed to him, whispering, “you should pronounce the names ‘Kad-ah-strat-ick’ and ‘Ah-kill-ah-strahck.’ It’s the closest approximation you’ll make in English.” Pritchard examined the note, nodded.
“Commander Kadastrattik,” he barked into the headset’s mike. Beside him, Clomonastik translated in a voice that was strangely calm and composed. “Your agent Lieutenant Akillistrak is in our custody. He has told us what your intention is and who you are. You are currently under the surveillance of our defensive systems.” Which was true, as far as it went. “I ask you a final time, you will drop your cloaking field and leave this system at once.”
“I think I will not comply, Director,” Clomonastik translated in reply.
“Sir, the signal has been terminated at the source,” the Signals technician announced.
“Well. I wonder if I could have screwed that up any worse,” Pritchard groused.
“You have done better than you think, Director,” Clomonastik assured him. “Kadastrattik has been handed a piece of information that will surely make him uncomfortable. He now knows that we know something, which he assumed we would not. This will cause him to consider his next action carefully; we have succeeded, for the moment at least, to force him to react to us, instead of the opposite. We should take advantage of that.”
The Cachalot
The Cachalot’s duty helmsman called out, “Captain, we’re on station as ordered.” The deep rumble of the drive faded away quickly to nothing.
“Good. All stop. Hold station here. Navigation, are you still able to track that ship?”
“No, Captain – too far away. We lost him about a hundred thousand kilometers out.”
“Great. Just great. How fast do you think you’d be able to pick him up if we move back?”
“No idea, Captain. This is kind of a makeshift rig; you know?”
Janice Benton muttered a curse under her breath. “The whole situation is rapidly going from bad to worse.” “I have a really bad feeling about this,” her Executive Officer agreed.
To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.
Innovative out-of-the-box thinking
Unusual ideas may be called for to keep society afloat, given the scale and breadth of the expected AI revolution. One would be to directly distribute the equity of artificial intelligence ventures. Taxes might be collected in shares rather than cash, to amass a public stake over time. Rather than tax the returns on AI investments, a more radical proposal would be for the government to expropriate a chunk of equity upfront to redistribute among the population and directly grant Americans a share in AI’s promised cornucopia.
Steal from the rich and give to the government, distributing just enough to the peasants to keep them docile.
Genius!
That’s going to be the path we end up going down. The government and corps will negotiate how their respective cuts and they’ll try to kick back as little to the rest of us to survive so people don’t get all French Revolution-y and start lopping off heads. At least until the robot armies are made which probably means we’re only a small step away from the singularity in which case the government and corps lose control of the AI and we end up in Terminator Salvation.
The best minds who have governed humans throughout history would struggle to adapt to these changes. What the fuck do people expect from the current clown show of ineffectual, grossly incompetent eunuchs we have ruling over us? Well, I guess I can’t call them eunuchs. They DO still have functioning junk that they like to stick in drugged up teenage girls.
Drugged up teenaged girls.
Circa 2000 small town USA. Meth was king.
Parliament of Polanskis.
‘“I have a really bad feeling about this,” her Executive Officer agreed.”
Skywalker agrees, what with that damn ‘moon’ thingy.
“That’s no moon… It’s a Grugell buttocks, pressed against the viewing port!”
I can only get *so* erect, R.J. However, through the looking glass… I might be able to make penetration…
The real take away from the BATFA shit (and I don’t know what a BAFTA is…how many fucking award ceremonies is Hollywood going to create to fellate itself and its supposed brilliance?) is that being black, even a wealthy, famous, and in Michael B. Jordan’s case conventionally attractive black is considered more of a cross to bear than being white and having a socially crippling and apparently still wildly misunderstood neurological disorder. Hearing about Michael B. Jordan’s “pain” as if he lost even a moment of sleep over that and not the attention of the two whores he probably shared a bed with that night (or maybe a dude or two if he swings that way, if the Diddy files are any indication) in celebration of winning that illustrious BAFTA award.
Final bit of snark – Sinners seems to have been a fine little movie. Plenty of people enjoyed it. But it’s both a testament to just how shitty the average Hollywood product is and how much people in that sphere will fall over themselves to praise anything done by black people that we have to pretend as if it’s a fucking masterpiece of cinema. It was basically a medium budget horror movie with a b-movie style plot that said not a single god damn thing new about anything. It’s not “brilliant” you are just an uncultured mouth breather whose stupidity probably does qualify as a bigger disability than not being able to control when you shout out the n-word at people.
For my part, I’m First and have complete and utter control over my use of the n-word. Because I’m a member of the one and only true master race. The First race.
Being black should be its own category in the Special Olympics at this point because it’s the most crippling disability one can have judging from the responses.
Social media is a cesspool filled with idiots who are way too confident to say what they’re thinking. From always reliable race baiter Jemele Hill to Grace fucking Randolph they all feel free to chime on without doing so much as a cursory Google search on what they’re opining on.
I think 98% of the times in my life I’ve heard that word it’s still probably come from black people talking about or with other black people. So if the guy with the neurological disorder shouts it out involuntarily and with no intention behind it, you can probably trace the source of it right back to that.
My only other real thought on recent events, regarding tariffs and uh the whole issue of refunds. The court basically said fuck if we know on that subject. Let me just be blunt – if the court doesn’t lose your respect for any specific decision it makes, waiting this fucking long to rule on this subject and then refusing to even touch such a basic and fundamental question with regards to their ruling should really do it.
I once had a judge tell me that three weeks was a long time to me, but for him it was fucking nothing so just pound sand and wait. Paying tariff money and then seeing the top court in the land kick the can on the question of whether you get your money back when overturning it is nothing more than a slap in the face.
But it’s not just the courts who deserve ire here. All these spineless fucking Congress critters who suddenly grew a pair after the ruling could have, instead of waiting for the courts to weigh on whether a 1977 legislation that still gave the executive pretty big fucking leeway to impose their economic will on the country, could have just passed their own bill and taken control that way and saved us all a lot of fucking time and money and energy. But no, that would be doing something and taking a risk with voters.
Eh. I don’t expect SCOTUS to put forth procedures. That’s really not it’s job, contra various Hawaiian judges who think they get to set immigration policy.
I’m just a bit surprised that everyone just assumes that refunds are even required. When the executive branch kicks down the door at a wrong address of a drug stash that never existed based on a lying CI (who also never existed), there’s no responsibility to make the homeowner whole.
You’re very good at firsting yourself. The thirst for first lives on.
I bet you make a loving and lovely recipient of your own firsting. I’m sure your sinister hand gives you your own reach-around (or under?). (Tickling is encouraged.)
I don’t expect the Supreme Court to lay down “procedures” as to how the payments should necessarily be done. I expect them to address the basic question of whether refunds are or aren’t owed in this situation rather than kicking that back to a lower court to answer and decide.
And the reason the scenario you outlined doesn’t have the expectation of a refund despite government causing damages is because courts have ruled on whether or not people were owed in previous cases like that. So yea, you kind of made my point for me there.
So, since it’s already been ruled that the executive branch doesn’t have to make people they’ve screwed over whole, why would it be assumed that there need to be tariff refunds? The default would be “nope, if you think this is different take it up with the lower court.”
Gotta say, I’m with the Bro on this one.
“The President never had the authority to impose these tariffs” naturally raises the question of “since he never had the authority to take that money, should he refund it?”
A sane person might think that, but we’re living in a world where when the FBI seizes property that they had no right to take, and that they were explicitly told not to seize, they were not required to give any of it back without the rightful owners filing suit to recover it.
To the extent that POTUS is different than the rest of the executive branch, he’d claim some form of sovereign immunity.
I didn’t feel the need to go on with Not Adahn. It takes a lot for me to find arguing with a particularly person tiresome, but…
Regardless, it was obviously a question the Court new that people had, would ask, and needed to be resolved. It was mentioned in the dissent by Kavanaugh. No one is even opining as to what side they should have taken in these comments. It’s just a matter of whether they should really pass the buck to a lower court when it’s kind of a really pertinent and relevant constitutional question. I don’t know how to paint that as anything but buck-passing.
If it was anywhere near as simple as Adahn wants to make it to where they consider it a resolved matter because of how they’ve ruled with regards to assets seized by law enforcement (as if the courts view those things as the same, I don’t any of them would or that such logic was used behind closed doors which is why I find what he’s posting tiresome), they could have written one single sentence to specify that. But reality is that the courts don’t view economic activity or large corporations paying the government undue fees/taxes the same as shit the government takes from people they view as almost certainly criminals regardless of any actual facts at hand.
The explanation I have is that they simply didn’t want to wade into those waters yet. Let the fallout happen, make people continue to litigate this in the lower courts, get some other opinions you can use as cover or just rubber stamp as your own at worst and move on from this whole troublesome affair. The more minor the precedent set here the better because while they find the tariff nonsense icky they don’t want to tie future courts to having to restrain the executive from doing things they deem proper in a willy nilly manner.
That’s how I parse all this, at least. Happy to hear alternatives.
SCOTUS has a long history of not answering questions that aren’t put to it, except that have come to them from the lower courts. This is not a mystery.
Sorry to not join you in your self-righteous circle-jerk.
It’s really hard to square how someone writes both
and
Without being a pure solipist.
Perhaps you could write up your deep insights about Pokemon? Or maybe how you were trained to shoot up civilians? Or combine them both?
Someone the other day nailed it: They’re fucking syllables, and my Harry Potter generation insists on not ever saying “Voldemort” and they ‘learned’ nothing from He Who Must Not Be Named.
A group of people have decided “nigger” is an evil sound and gives them permission to be complete bitches, often violent, and not a goddamn thing will happen as a result. That people can be so easily “triggered” kinda does put them in a special place. I’ll be polite, “Emotionally Fragile. Do not touch.” It’s a sad continuation of gov schools purposefully(?) “graduating” illiterate and innumerate high schoolers.
Play ‘Victim,’ reap rewards. Rankles me, particularly that being ‘one’ is tremendously rewarded because White People are absolutely *addicted* to sorrow and ‘their’ affect on slaves 200 years ago. Such nastiness, being white, surely is.
One fun thing about living in Asia for 12 years: Being part of a slice of “absolute minority” status. The casual anonymity of being The Other was rather freeing. (All white folk look the same. ‘Tis known. See also: Asian schoolchildren in uniform w (mandatory) haircuts.)
Don’t be niggardly with words. Gotta be spic ‘n span to avoid chinks in the crackers.
Fucking grow up? How about that, to those who voluntarily *allow* themselves to boil over when hearing (certain) sounds. Kinda a reverse “Get Out of Jail Free” card, but a ‘I’m too fragile to adjust to adulthood’ card, where folk can kinda realistically be discounted from adult conversation.
“I’m too much of a dullard, mixed with complete wussitude, to listen to about anything. Yep. Thanks and take care!”
(Gets you out of a lot of shit. I’d like “voting” to be one thing you get out of.) Net tax “payers,” or land-owners, or something similar, should be the only voters. As much as I love *my* thoughts, I’m ok sacrificing my voting privileges for the cause.
More black folk need to be screaming at their own, showing and convincing them to STOP acting like whitey’s bitch at every ‘opportune’ moment. First focus? Get blacks *screaming* at govt for “graduating” fucking illiterates like the vote-chattel they are to the people “sincerely” trying to “help” minorities.
Things That Won’t Happen for $10,000, but this boy can dream. (Why are there no (fewer?) black voices *screaming* about illiteracy in govt schools? Uh. Crickets? Huh. The Plan is working, eh?)
“how many fucking award ceremonies is Hollywood going to create”
FWIW: BAFTA is a British thing.
“I’m First and have complete and utter control over my use of the n-word”
Odd claim, since you seem reluctant to actually say/write “nigger”.
No fear of saying it. And I don’t even particularly care about offending people with it. Just not something I feel compelled to say as some do just for some faux shock value. It’s honestly all over social media these days to a degree where I definitely feel the vibe that racism and sexism of all kinds are making a roaring comeback after having a few down decades there.
Not because of Trump as the left smugly nods. He was just a symptom of people being fed up with the bullshit coming from the thought censors.
I’m having an odd day off, questioning my sanity and ‘purpose.’ I likely should write to occupy myself. Only working Tues, Fri and Sat this week, with Thurs being a bit of a psychoanalytic day, hopefully to again result in a fresh Rx for “amphetamine salts.” Should be IV’d into my veins.
Did go to a ‘free’ dental clinic and have an appointment to crown an aching tooth. (Two are likely necessary. Chewing kinda sucks right now.)
Thanks for these and the change of pace ’round here. I should probably think about Singapore Part 2, and I’ve got chunks of “The People of Walgo” already written, but not organized, yet. (That reminds me of someone…)
The Cachalot? More like the Letimgoalot, amirite?
Alas, it’s respirator fit test time again. Gotta take off the beard.
More AI doomporn
Citrini is at pains to point out at the start of their note that this scenario is not a prediction. “This isn’t bear porn or AI doomer fan-fiction. The sole intent of this piece is modeling a scenario that’s been relatively underexplored,” they say.
The piece generated a wave of reaction. One founder, John Loeber, penned his own essay in opposition, arguing that as AI challenges white-collar labor, governments will fund large-scale physical re-industrialization.
</em?
Embrace your morlock future.
So, since it’s already been ruled that the executive branch doesn’t have to make people they’ve screwed over whole, why would it be assumed that there need to be tariff refunds?
Exxon doesn’t have to give you a refund when gas today is cheaper than gas last week.
Life is not fair. Or simple.
“Fair” is such a bullshit, empty and meaningless word. If “fair” = “Playing by the rules,” I suppose I’d agree, but then we have to talk about who’s rules and who’s playing. Yuck.
Favorite bit to poke vegans, etc: “Is it ‘fair’ that lion ate that gazelle? Did the gazelle ‘consent’ to that? Or should lions starve?”
(“THAT’S DIFFERENT!!#@#!!”) No, we’re mammals. Same universe, cupcake. Deal w it.
Parents are embarrassed their grandkids ‘think’ there are 55 states and don’t know shit, cuz my bro (and not intellectually ‘stellar’ SiL) don’t push such knowledge. They have no idea where they are, let alone what *they* actually ‘think,’ rather than being Told by others. I imagine knowing you’re incompetent (in certain ways) isn’t a good feeling. I’m gonna have to start needling them in my own way so they actually have a concept of Self and what They actually believe and think.
Everyone knows it’s 57 states.
57 Channels
And there’s nothing on.
Scott Adams always said “fair” was invented so idiots and children could participate in arguments. I’ve said this before, but when my oldest kid was little, I had a conversation with her where I discovered her version of “fair” means she gets what she wants.
Damn you Kinnath!
Now I have Springsteen in my head.
I’ll have to do a Tom Petty cleanse.
Google says:
adjective 1. impartial and just, without favoritism or discrimination.
adverb 1. without cheating or trying to achieve unjust advantage.
I think it’s safe to say that humans can construct systems, games, institutions, etc that can possess the quality of being fair or not fair.
But life . . . . life itself is inherently unfair and cannot be made fair.
Less not fair is about the best one can reasonably hope for.
“Fairness” does seem to be a basic part of primate psychology. As does revenge. Natural doesn’t mean good but pretending it doesn’t exist leads to bad results by those who think they have a better version of psychology that everyone should adopt.
Thanks for the story Animal.
Thanks Animal! I’ve always wondered if the Grugell are less technologically advanced then they should be because they invest everything into maintaining their militaristic empire? And that the price of failure is so harsh that you’ve created a risk adverse culture.
her version of “fair” means she gets what she wants.
What else could it mean?
It’s like the phrase, “paying their fair share,” which generally means more than what I pay in taxes.
It’s all base feelings like greed and envy disguised as morality. Don’t you want things to be fair Ed?
tl;dr they always want more
***
We want eight hours and nothing less. We have been accused of being selfish, and it has been said that we will want more; that last year we got an advance of ten cents and now we want more. We do want more. You will find that a man generally wants more. Go and ask a tramp what he wants, and if he doesn’t want a drink he will want a good, square meal. You ask a workingman, who is getting two dollars a day, and he will say that he wants ten cents more. Ask a man who gets five dollars a day and he will want fifty cents more. The man who receives five thousand dollars a year wants six thousand a year, and the man who owns eight or nine hundred thousand dollars will want a hundred thousand dollars more to make it a million, while the man who has his millions will want every thing he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day. We live in the latter part of the Nineteenth century. In the age of electricity and steam that has produced wealth a hundred fold, we insist that it has been brought about by the intelligence and energy of the workingmen, and while we find that it is now easier to produce it is harder to live. We do want more, and when it becomes more, we shall still want more. And we shall never cease to demand more until we have received the results of our labor.
***
-Samuel Gompers
Fair share means everyone else pays more so govt can fund all the things I think are good.
Amen Derpy, and I have no problem with it.
May we all get more.
Photo illustrating “epic NY blizzard” story shows somebody on cross country skis in what looks like 3 or 4 inches of snow.
Emergency travel restrictions!!
“they invest everything into maintaining their militaristic empire? And that the price of failure is so harsh that you’ve created a risk adverse culture.”
I’ve been reading Thucydides, and in a way this mirrors Spartan culture during the Peloponnesian wars. They had built this gigantic myth of invincibility, enhanced after the Battle of Plataea, that they became terrified of defeat. Result: an extreme reluctance to engage in land battles with hoplite infantry.
Saw this on Wikipedia about that Sinners movie:
***
Michael B. Jordan as the Smokestack Twins:
Elijah “Smoke” Moore, the older, more serious, pragmatic, and straightforward twin
Elias “Stack” Moore, the younger, more cheerful and charming twin
***
Uh, I thought twins were always the same age. Anyway, the movie seems like a low effort rehash of From Dusk Til Dawn. Vampires in a bar, etc.
I’ve known at least three pairs of twins that made a big deal about which one was older.
Minutes apart or seconds apart doesn’t matter.
One of them is the senior twin.
But only guys. The girl twins in my schools did not do this.
I have known twins that have different birth dates — separated by minutes — before and after midnight.
My buddy Sam is the younger twin.
Knew a pair of identical twins in school that did that too. Five or six min apart but they played the game.