@Unixbigot@aus.social
·
2d ago
Kit Bashir
@Unixbigot@aus.social
Hacker. Parent. Scientist. Rantist. Atheist. Roboticist. Treehugger. (they/them ⇉ she/her). At Accelerando Lab I research, design and build custom IoT and electronics solutions...fast! Every day I write a #PowerOnStoryToot over morning coffee, as a self-test of my brain. If you like them, buy me another coffee? (Link 👇)
aus.social
“Can you change the battery on this?”
I sigh. An increasing percentage of what people bring to Mistress Minit for repair is things that were never fit for purpose.
“It doesn’t have a battery. Those are fitted with an Imp Turbine. As you’ve learned it stops working once the imp starves.”
“Uh, that sounds a bit cruel?”
“Yes, which is why we don’t replace them. I can teach you a simple charm that will make it run on your mana”
“Oh, but I’m not magical”
“Common misconception; everyone is magical, sweetie”
#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Beyond_Repair
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@Unixbigot@aus.social
·
3d ago
Kit Bashir
@Unixbigot@aus.social
Hacker. Parent. Scientist. Rantist. Atheist. Roboticist. Treehugger. (they/them ⇉ she/her). At Accelerando Lab I research, design and build custom IoT and electronics solutions...fast! Every day I write a #PowerOnStoryToot over morning coffee, as a self-test of my brain. If you like them, buy me another coffee? (Link 👇)
aus.social
“Yeah that’s a cool effect, but it if you make a digital postprocess the whole gimmick of your song, it will sound like ass live. “
“What do you mean?”
“Well it’s a negative reverb filter, right; it feeds the next bar back into the current bar. Only works on recordings—obviously—You can’t have a time machine effect pedal”
“Hah, Shows what you know.”
“You don’t!”
“I do.”
“How?!”
“Bought it from one of *those* shops.”
#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Preverb
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@Unixbigot@aus.social
·
Dec 30, 2024
Kit Bashir
@Unixbigot@aus.social
Hacker. Parent. Scientist. Rantist. Atheist. Roboticist. Treehugger. (they/them ⇉ she/her). At Accelerando Lab I research, design and build custom IoT and electronics solutions...fast! Every day I write a #PowerOnStoryToot over morning coffee, as a self-test of my brain. If you like them, buy me another coffee? (Link 👇)
aus.social
I signed up for a black-market time-travel tour as soon as I heard about them. (The first rule of Time Club etc.)
There’s an hour long pre-mission briefing on how you must be extremely careful in what you say or do as the smallest event could have future-changing consequences.
After that, they give you back your money, admit that there is no time machine, and tell you “now go and do the smallest thing you can to make the future better”.
I’m not even mad.
#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot
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@Unixbigot@aus.social
·
5d ago
Kit Bashir
@Unixbigot@aus.social
Hacker. Parent. Scientist. Rantist. Atheist. Roboticist. Treehugger. (they/them ⇉ she/her). At Accelerando Lab I research, design and build custom IoT and electronics solutions...fast! Every day I write a #PowerOnStoryToot over morning coffee, as a self-test of my brain. If you like them, buy me another coffee? (Link 👇)
aus.social
I wheeled the toolbox into the driveway, opened the bonnet of the car and left a packet of tim tams, a five litre bottle of fresh oil and a new filter on top of the engine. Then I went inside. I mean, I know how to change my own oil, but it’s been a cold week and the pixies will appreciate the chocolate. Can’t fault their work, either.
#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Service_Plan
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@Unixbigot@aus.social
·
Jun 04, 2026
Kit Bashir
@Unixbigot@aus.social
Hacker. Parent. Scientist. Rantist. Atheist. Roboticist. Treehugger. (they/them ⇉ she/her). At Accelerando Lab I research, design and build custom IoT and electronics solutions...fast! Every day I write a #PowerOnStoryToot over morning coffee, as a self-test of my brain. If you like them, buy me another coffee? (Link 👇)
aus.social
“I-is that a guillotine? I thought this was going to be a bloodless revolution!”
“It used to be a guillotine; we’ve removed the blade and added a rack and pinion drive instead of gravity”
“Ooo-kay, so what does it do now?”
“It implants a prosthetic empathy chip in the brainstem”
“You couldn’t just use a hypodermic implanter?”
“Oh, for sure—but understanding that there /could/ have been a blade there is part of the treatment. They all /say/ they’d rather we amputated their head than their billions, but that’s the sickness talking.”
#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Bloodless_Revolution
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@Unixbigot@aus.social
·
Jun 11, 2026
Kit Bashir
@Unixbigot@aus.social
Hacker. Parent. Scientist. Rantist. Atheist. Roboticist. Treehugger. (they/them ⇉ she/her). At Accelerando Lab I research, design and build custom IoT and electronics solutions...fast! Every day I write a #PowerOnStoryToot over morning coffee, as a self-test of my brain. If you like them, buy me another coffee? (Link 👇)
aus.social
Rather than demolish it, the city council (and I won’t say it didn’t take some extensive lobbying bordering on bribery) decided to open up the enormous disused tram depot as municipal allotments. Local tower block residents can apply to reserve their own portion of workshop or switchyard to maintain and use. I’m not sure if anyone remembered that the tram lines had been buried under city streets—not removed— but we dug them up anyway.
#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #hopepunk #Title_Rail_Backyard
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@Unixbigot@aus.social
·
Jun 10, 2026
Kit Bashir
@Unixbigot@aus.social
Hacker. Parent. Scientist. Rantist. Atheist. Roboticist. Treehugger. (they/them ⇉ she/her). At Accelerando Lab I research, design and build custom IoT and electronics solutions...fast! Every day I write a #PowerOnStoryToot over morning coffee, as a self-test of my brain. If you like them, buy me another coffee? (Link 👇)
aus.social
Ugh, if you are moving to a new life in the Off World Colonies, use reputable removalists to transport your stuff. Do not hire a u-warp and try to operate the cargo transporter yourself. My good dancing shoes are embedded in the coffee table, and that’s not the worst of it.
#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot
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@Unixbigot@aus.social
·
Jun 03, 2026
Kit Bashir
@Unixbigot@aus.social
Hacker. Parent. Scientist. Rantist. Atheist. Roboticist. Treehugger. (they/them ⇉ she/her). At Accelerando Lab I research, design and build custom IoT and electronics solutions...fast! Every day I write a #PowerOnStoryToot over morning coffee, as a self-test of my brain. If you like them, buy me another coffee? (Link 👇)
aus.social
*Crunch* ❖SNAP❖. Well, now we know what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object. Whatever goddessforsaken alloy this part was made from just broke my last solid carbide round nose bit. Fuckity fuck with fuck sprinkles on top.
Only one thing left to try; I put on all the safety gear—all of it—and open the diamond-glass tube containing my newest cutter. Degenerate dark matter mined from a captured interstellar comet. Doesn’t /cut/ so much as stimulate the weak nuclear interaction to decay the metal atoms. Not fast, but reportedly indomitable. Will probably have to replace the shielding on my workbench after this job.
#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Cutting_Edge
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@Unixbigot@aus.social
·
May 17, 2026
Kit Bashir
@Unixbigot@aus.social
Hacker. Parent. Scientist. Rantist. Atheist. Roboticist. Treehugger. (they/them ⇉ she/her). At Accelerando Lab I research, design and build custom IoT and electronics solutions...fast! Every day I write a #PowerOnStoryToot over morning coffee, as a self-test of my brain. If you like them, buy me another coffee? (Link 👇)
aus.social
“STOP! Were you just gonna paste that command you got from Interdimensional Relay Chat into your Subspace Command Line?”
“Uh, yeah”
“Let me see that!”
“C’mon, It makes your planet form chocolate sauce volcanoes! What’s not to like?”
“Uh, no, it opens a backdoor to the cthonic realm in your upper mantle. I’m revoking your sudo rights.”
#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot
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@Unixbigot__dup_20463@aus.social
·
Jan 31, 2026
Kit Bashir
@Unixbigot__dup_20463@aus.social
Hacker. Parent. Scientist. Rantist. Atheist. Roboticist. Treehugger. (they/them ⇉ she/her). At Accelerando Lab I research, design and build custom IoT and electronics solutions...fast! Every day I write a #PowerOnStoryToot over morning coffee, as a self-test of my brain. If you like them, buy me another coffee? (Link 👇)
aus.social
“I’m not in the right headspace to do this.”
“You’re the fold operator on duty, nobody else can do it.”
“Then, Ma’am it is my recommendation we lay over and reassess tomorrow. Let’s not add to the Rolls Of The Lost.”
“You know what this means, right?”
“Yes. Computer: Navigation officer raising Condition T. Captain, do you concur.”
“I do. ALL HANDS NOW HEAR THIS. ALL HANDS. CONDITION T, I REPEAT CONDITION T. ITS TACO NIGHT. NAVIGATOR JONES ON THE GRILL”
#tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot
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@Unixbigot__dup_20463@aus.social
·
Feb 06, 2025
Kit Bashir
@Unixbigot__dup_20463@aus.social
Hacker. Parent. Scientist. Rantist. Atheist. Roboticist. Treehugger. (they/them ⇉ she/her). At Accelerando Lab I research, design and build custom IoT and electronics solutions...fast! Every day I write a #PowerOnStoryToot over morning coffee, as a self-test of my brain. If you like them, buy me another coffee? (Link 👇)
aus.social
You might think working a phone repair kiosk is a waste of my skills. Yeah nah.
Today, this kid came in with an iPhone that was more than cracked, it was banana-fied.
“What happened?” I asked, turning the wreckage over in my hands. I don’t think there was a single salvageable part. “And have you considered just upgrading?”
“My novel’s on there”, the kid said, wringing his hands anxiously. “It got ran over by a hauler bot.”
“Got a backup?”. The tears in the kid’s eyes were all the answer he needed to give. “Okay, event rebasing is the only way to fix this”, I gestured at the price board, “can you afford that?”
He gulped. “Uh, just.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Can you really fix it?”. Hope flickered in his eyes.
“Let’s see, no win no fee”.
I held the smashed and bent phone-ana in my hands and turned it over, feeling its shape in space and time. With my /other sight/ I saw its lifeline leading away from where the kid had been, a shimmering trail of history leading back in time. With the fingers of my mind, I felt back along the lifeline until i felt the bump, beyond which the device had been a flat rectangle. Exploring the shape of the damage event I twisted the lifeline into a loop. Now here’s the tricky bit; if you have the knack, and you dig your nails in /just so/ you can pinch out a moment in time and detach it. I rubbed the lifeline with my mental fingers, smoothing out the join where the excised moment had been.
Blinking back to the present, I powered on the phone and handed it back to its owner. “All good?”
The kid’s fingers flew over the screen as he checked on his preciousss, and breathed a huge sigh. “All good. That’s incredible, can you fix *anything* like that?”
“Almost. Like?”
He avoided my gaze, staring down at my hands on the counter with their iridescent nails, matching the highlight colours in my hair. He made eye contract briefly, wide eyes again a bit teary. “Even…..me?”
Oh, that. “Absolutely not. *wink* Such things are not done and definitely not by me. Clear?”
*nod*
“Okay, hold still.” It’s a different technique than rebasing, especially because i like to spread the change over a few years to conceal the edit.
“All done”.
“Oh wow”, she said, reaching up to feel her shoulder length mauve hair (clearly I’d nailed that detail), then taking a twirl. “How, how much do I owe you?”
“On the house and you weren’t here. “
The tears were back. “Thank you thank you, this is the best. “
“My pleasure, have a great life”
“Thanks, you too” she said. “Bye!”
“Wait! Don’t forget your phone!”
#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot
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@Unixbigot__dup_20463@aus.social
·
Jan 01, 2026
Kit Bashir
@Unixbigot__dup_20463@aus.social
Hacker. Parent. Scientist. Rantist. Atheist. Roboticist. Treehugger. (they/them ⇉ she/her). At Accelerando Lab I research, design and build custom IoT and electronics solutions...fast! Every day I write a #PowerOnStoryToot over morning coffee, as a self-test of my brain. If you like them, buy me another coffee? (Link 👇)
aus.social
We used a card catalogue to take the census, just to be safe. The results were hand tabulated three times for error checking, the cutoff frequency is four point three MegaHertz, plus or minus two percent. Any clock signal faster than this will eventually attract an infowasp swarm. They primarily feed on those high frequency radio emissions, but when they are driven into a frenzy state any nearby radiator (say, a human brain) will be attacked. Look, by all means try shielding your high performance computer, let us know if you live, we’ll stand well back. Or maybe check your attic for something below the Langerfeld Limit.
— Sent from my Amstrad CPC6128
#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot
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@Unixbigot__dup_20463@aus.social
·
Dec 31, 2025
Kit Bashir
@Unixbigot__dup_20463@aus.social
Hacker. Parent. Scientist. Rantist. Atheist. Roboticist. Treehugger. (they/them ⇉ she/her). At Accelerando Lab I research, design and build custom IoT and electronics solutions...fast! Every day I write a #PowerOnStoryToot over morning coffee, as a self-test of my brain. If you like them, buy me another coffee? (Link 👇)
aus.social
I didn’t have “time travel” anywhere near the top of my “next grift after AI” list. The chronomigration bubble came out of a confluence of developments; gamma ray telescopes sensitive to the 500 keV electron-positron annihilation energy allowed us to spot the inbound antimatter comet 67i/Fermi as soon as it began interacting with the solar wind. Gravity tugs brought 67i to lunar orbit, where laser ablation was used to direct a stream of antimatter dust onto fuel pellets (just moon rocks, in fact). The plume of energy liberated by quantum annihilation acted as a giant rocket motor, slightly perturbing the moon’s orbit in such a way to tug the earth farther enough away from the sun to cool the climate. It will take four hundred centuries, which is where the time travel (also facilitated by the matter/antimatter energy fountain) comes in. If you can afford the fare, you can deposit one dollar in a savings account, blip out of our climate ravaged world and arrive rich in the clean, comfortable future. No, you cannot deduct the cost from your future fortune, it doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t work at all. The kind of person who would take this offer can’t be expected to know the difference between a time portal and a disintegration field. And they just won’t believe you when you warn them.
#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot
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