Draped in grey as was everyone else in the hallway, zhe left the cube to go to work as zhe did every day, along with all the other drones in the building. The mouth patch had been put on squarely, to remove all temptation to say anything offensive, breath on anyone by accident. Eye blinders were set to the correct angle to ensure seeing below anyone else’s face while making sure one could still walk. Zhe had a freshly shaved head, though zhe had started to fill in parts to make the widow’s peak less pronounced. It would never do to be noticeable; one must only let the work shine.
Getting on the tube transporter, zhe noticed that the only seats available, even on this early trolley, were the ones reserved for the pregnant and as this did not apply, zhe continued to stand. Reaching up for the handhold strap zhe momentarily noticed the face of the passenger standing alongside, a nicely shaped oval. This face also had a mouth patch and blinders on and seemingly had not noticed the covert glance. Quickly looking down, zhe stared at the shoes of the other passengers, noticing the winter model was on a few of the people’s feet. Hoping that the glance would remain unnoticed, as whenever zhe accidentally let zher gaze stray.
* * * * * * *
Fluorescents buzzed above all the cubicles in the great room, occasionally flickering as the ballast for the light tubes started to age out in the distant parts of the hall. The padded kneepads of a utility suit allowed a full range of movement as zhe pushed the angled tip of the hand broom into each corner, allowing the slight amount of dirt to rise to the surface in this hard-to-reach spot, a spot each wall space had. Zhe would brush a small space and follow along shortly afterward with a hand vacuum, then shuffle along to the next section of wall. There, the worn carpet would still hold dirt though it had been cleaned in this manner the day before. As zhe worked along the edge of the room, the voices of the Greaters became a background hum, neither interesting nor distracting but still allowing a Lessor to pick out the voices on the overloud in the chance that it was something concerning.
About three-fifths into the normal day’s circuit, a pair of boots appeared within the vision of the blinders. Directly looking down at zher, the greater had a vague smile, polished hair, and the deliberate slouch of the upper caste. Young though, as if having just recently been certified by university.
“Please finish up and apply to Opportunity in one tenth. It has been noticed and needs discussion. Oh, and please be to wash up first.”
* * * * * * *
Fiddling with his screen, he didn’t look at zher when lecturing. “…The wall covers also need a deep scrub, and as your job is wiping down the glass at the atrium, this should be a pretty simple opportunity for you to shine at your job. Of course, cleanliness is your goal here at the center, which you have done a great job at as one of the window team. But there have been a few reports of your looking through the glass at objects and the Greaters beyond. As that is obviously the case, I would ask you to take the opportunity to tighten the field of your blinders to ensure that the looks up do not continue. And as you were asked to wash up but left a streak under your left pinky nail, I feel that there is increased opportunity here to again teach you, again, that your job is necessary. Thus, the increased use of blinders, along with heavy scrub. Thank you, that is all.” His eye’s never left the screen in front of him.
* * * * * * *
Arriving back in the cube late that night, delayed due to the need to finish zher circuit of brooming and vacuuming, zhe set about disassembling an old pen. Taking the ink cartridge out, bending back an old safely pin that was twirled in string. Dipping the pin tip in the ink, allowing it to swell into the thread, zhe slipped the primitive tattoo needle up under the fingernail. Feeling the small but bright pain, allowing zherself the only control zhe had.
Well, that look into the future wasn’t depressing at all, nossireebob.
Good job, Zwak.
Fuck yeah.
There is always a way to rebel.
Nice story, Zwak!
But ugh tatts.
?
Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma
I love dystopian stories, thanks Zwak!
FTG (Greaters).
Well done, that was quite disturbing. Needz moar Beatles to achieve perfection, however.
Troublemaker!
This means war!
Great story Zwak. It’s hitting too close to parts of this reality for my liking, as I’m sure was your intention.
Cube to Tube to Circuit
GOTO Cube
Sorry missed this. It was on 10th and Rockwell. A real hole in the wall that was frequented by FAA in training (I think at one point, owned by an FAA employee). Haven’t been in years so no idea anymore.
Thanks. Near the airport, I see.
“Dead People’s Stuff: Architectural Salvage”. John Cleese, I hate to correct you, but Okies do have a sense of humor.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/log4j-vulnerability-big-deal-expert-143529585.html
Well this is really going to cause issues. It has already affected Kronos to the point where it is going to be down for weeks.
For every weapon there is a counter weapon. Being totally illiterate I have very little idea as to the problem and no idea as to the countermeasure.
Kronos is a third party timecard/time clock management service. With it down companies have to use alternative means to track hours and pay employees.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/13/ultimate_kronos_group_ransomware_attack/
https://www.komando.com/security-privacy/kronos-ransomware-attack/819958/
Alternative means for time tracking
Tell me about it.
“It has already affected Kronos to the point where it is going to be down for weeks”
MUH GYROS!
It’s been the subject of daily meetings at my company. Remediation of the vulnerability is the top priority right now (as patches and fixes are released).
My team has been running around and just found false positives (not actually exploitable because the vulnerable classes were not there)
Same here. Unending stream of emergency changes. I wouldn’t have guessed so many of our business systems were written in/dependent on Java.
On the high side, our EMR vendor says “no worries about log4j here.” What they didn’t say out loud is “because Java is new-fangled jibber-jabber compared to the technology we’re using.”
“We employ an army of gnomes with iron filing magnets to aligh the bits that get fed directly into a 1hz processor.”
We’ve got a couple of systems that have been out of support long enough that they wouldn’t get patched regardless, and so far appear to be old enough to be using a different library without the vulnerability.
You don’t happen to work for me, do you?
Very unlikely. As I don’t believe we do any support for the state of New York.
You know, for some reason I get paid even if I forget to fill out my timecards for a few weeks. Not that we use Kronos. We use a crappier imitator from a previously connected contracting firm.
Klingon women and children hardest hit.
*whistles past the graveyard* No Java in anything I work on.
https://youtu.be/pBLsEjKYEoQ
Sounds like an issue of titanic proportions.
Ah, stories like these make me glad I won’t live long enough to see it – at least not in its entirety.
Razorfist is having fun,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTlNxxOOpGE
If no one’s lost their taste, how to you explain Dune 2021?
Owie.
Thank you, everyone! I wrote this about 4-5 years ago, for a dystopia thingy for when Trump was elected (I was moderately amused by the whole election, certainly not afeared). All of the other stories were epistolary (the form of letters or documents) stories showing the panic of people who voted against him, and the weird fears they had. In the end, it seems that my story held up pretty well.
“…my story held up pretty well.”
Particularly the caste system! I never would have predicted that the caste divide would be based on whether or not one bought into an entire belief system based on a not-very dangerous virus and the accompanying utter destruction of the economy and redefinition of the relationship of government to individuals.
I think it’s the other way around; the ‘vid is used to show class solidarity, it doesn’t for class solidarity.
It’s the new Jim Crow, mixed with a Nazi armband. People were already racist before either of those systems or fetishes came about.
Sorry for the OT.
Joan Didion has died, of Parkinson’s. Having grown up in and lived through the 60s, I maintain my belief that the truest mirror of those times is found in Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem, especially the title essay.
I believe it was you who recommended her to me. Thanks for that. Her writing is captivating.
Yes, it was. I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Ugh. The panickers seem to have gained the upper hand here. At least the parking lots will be emptier for a while.
Why would it matter if we travelled out of state, when this state is one of the worst places omie-wise?
Because you’re spreading it!
Local places have been announcing temporary closings due to staffing/’vid fears. One of the places was one of the bars I was going to get a gift card for my niece, so I had to order it online. Place that the girlfriend and I have tickets to for New Year’s Eve has announced no closings, as I expected, which is why I suggested it as a destination.
Several major west coast universities have announced remote learning in the spring.
I was reminded of Festus and how his life is going when I read this.
#metoo
I dislike it when people claim experience they don’t have and then try to bluff their way past me at interview.
Dude, I’m not even a DBA and I can tell you’ve never touched a database directly.
LOL. Oh, the stories I could tell…
I always wear gloves before touching a database. Can’t be too safe.
You’re right, those are naughty bits in that raw data.
We had a guy claim database expertise but couldn’t demonstrate a table join. We didn’t expect error-free code, but he was nowhere close. We also rejected a candidate who bullshitted experience that was out of scope for the position. He didn’t expect anyone on the panel to probe.
We were asking basic questions about high availability strategies when this guy bombed.
I’ve built them.. I’ve run them.. I’m not a DBA. The last one I really had was Oracle HA on 2 DEC servers, it was touchy.
I’ve *seen* a copy of Oracle run on a N-cube 1024 Node system.. But it took the Oracle development team all morning to poke it into place on our system.
We ran queries and created and deleted some tables. Our research didn’t need a relational database, they were just showing off their parallel tech.
Could they explain two stage commit?
Um, two-phase commit? /pedant
Oracle will tell you you need to buy a SuperCluster for each environment.
I must be doing it wrong, I’m always honest at interviews.
Verdict in on the Kim Potter trial. Should be read any time.
Buckle up, Minneapolis.
On the first day of Christmas the jury gave to me a mostly peaceful protest.
On the second day of Christmas the jury gave to me… two piles of bricks, and a mostly peaceful protest…
On the third day of chirstmas the Jury gave to me… Three burning cars…two piles of bricks, and a mostly peaceful protest…
Disregard. Guilty on both 1st and 2nd degree manslaughter.
How can someone who killed one person be convicted twice of manslaughter?
Beats the hell out of me. Do they sentence on the 1st degree?
She fucked up and needs to be held responsible (even for killing a piece of shit), but I don’t know how this works.
Reminds me of my substantive law class, and analyzing a given situation for all of the potential charges. I never got why some were lesser included and some were acceptable for the same charge twice.
On the fourth day of Christmas the jury gave to me… four gutted storefronts, three burning cars, two piles of bricks, and a mostly peaceful protest.
This is from Taibbi’s reporting on Loudoun Schools – apparently a video for anti-racism training that all of the school district employees were subjected to.
You’re going to get quite a few laughs out it.
Wow that is stupid.
I liked “poor schooling” given that it was a video school district employees were subject to.
This, also “School to Prison Pipeline”.
Also the standardized tests…shitty for everyone, not just certain people. But hey, gotta grift.
NY has more or less ditched all testing. I can’t wait for the first class with a 110% graduation rate to enter the workforce.
lol. I like that.
And they all vote
I am a bad person for not including Taibbi’s line about the video:
OMG. Soviet propaganda had nothing on this.
Hard core propaganda, it stinks of Commie.
I laughed when it got to the drug testing part and the person drew a concerning face on the black person….I don’t think that conveys the message she thinks
I couldn’t watch all of it. Didn’t account for all the left behind white kids because they chose a different path, with different parents and the success of the newly arrived Asians, Nigerians and Middle Easterners and others.
Yep – the Loudoun schools controversies had a huge Asian component, South Asian in particular. And they are completely invisible in every bit of the DEI propaganda – talk about marginalization!
Not yet watched, but (c) 2010?!
Hey, I’m convinced. So, we start with school choice and vouchers. Legalize most recreational drugs, and decriminalize the rest. Abolish Social Security in favor of a savings program that allows the generational transfer of wealth. Liberalize or outright remove land use regulations and zoning laws to encourage more affordable housing. Come one, let’s do this thing.
You got the wrong message from the educational material, comrade. Re-education camp for you!
Slow down there, Big Guy, we gotta take this one step at a time. We need a committee first, then a panel of evaluators, then a bureau or a department. Before we can start, though,we’re gonna need a ton of money. Affordable housing, that’s an easy one, build some Cabrini Green apartments but we’ll keep drugs and riff-raff out and no guns allowed either.
Thots on parade!
https://archive.md/l0tmy
Thot Thursday.
NJ will pay compensation to some early Covid victims:
https://www.nj.com/news/2021/12/nj-agrees-to-pay-529m-to-families-over-covid-deaths-in-states-hard-hit-veterans-homes.html
Of course taxpayers will foot the bill. Murphy should pay this out of his own pocket, it’s chump change to an ex-Goldman knucklehead.
I don’t like this precedent one bit. Yet another incentive to chalk up more deaths to “Covid”. Where’s the proof? Well, it says so on this piece of paper. Oh, OK.
Covid’s the defendant, she killed about a hundred, and she follows wherever you may go.
Great story, Zwak. It being not-impossible makes it extra terrifying.
Somehow I wandered into this (Sadbeard of all people) about a prime source of DEI drivel (I think the reference was “even Yglesias thinks this is stupid”).
Honestly, this is one of the best, funniest reads you’ll ever stumble upon. None of it intentional – just his dutiful earnest leftist attempt to be reasonable with the unreasonable. If you want to experience derp at it’s purest – click through on the white physical education major from Oberlin link. It’s almost like a Tom Wolfe pastiche.
How bad is Okun’s stuff per MY?
If I want to make fun of special needs college students, I can just head over to Oberlin for the afternoon.
Yes, not real progressivism! It’s still innocent. JHC, the hoops he jumps through to avoid the realization that he and his preferred worldview are getting what they’ve asked for, good and hard.
The saddest part of the piece is where he mentions he has a kid now.
I see the lines of people on TV, waiting in the cold , for something. They are waiting to be tested for Covid. Do they want to pass or fail?
If they have no symptoms why are they standing out in the cold? If they have symptoms why are they standing out in the cold?
I’m missing something. Are they hoping they have the big C? If I have no symptoms I’m assuming I don’t have the C, why would I need a test? If
I have the symptoms I’m assuming I have the C and need to go home, stay warm, etc.
A positive or negative test is meaningless, except for some bureaucrats power lust.
I stood in line at the liquor store this afternoon.
Nevertheless, he persisted
A worth while line standing event and not outside, presumably