We're going to sit down, you and I, and we're going to talk. And we're going to talk for a while—I'll be honest, I haven't decided how long I'm going to talk for yet—and we're going to see where that takes us. I'm not exactly sure who you are or why you're reading this; you might be an annoyed Isharian, or a real-world coworker, or someone from SL who just clicked far too many links because you read peoples' profiles even though it's vogue not to, or you might be a rather integral part of my life, past or present, wondering why I didn't mention this here thing sooner.

For now, though, let's see where it takes us. […]

Do not call your project 'Phoenix.'

Realistically—don't call it anything related to fire, explosions, awesomeness, or power.

In fact, if your favourite colour is red, orange, or anything else you or a friend might consider fiery, then if at all possible, get a new favourite colour. This advice extends beyond programming, but is particularly important in the context of application naming. (Mauve, crimson, maroon, tangerine, and amber are fine.)

After months of heated negotiations with the Shúthíma Federal Archives in Regenelía, the Memory is pleased to report that we have finally obtained permission to begin publication of material pertaining to Wanisin and especially its early history. Even though this material was declassified by the Hatel embassy in Tokaran over a century ago, the Wind government has attempted to control access to this material because of their sensitive nature. Over the next year, we hope to start publishing the available historical records for this remarkable place so that the greater cosmos can be more familiar with the exceptional details of the longest- and best-kept secret in known history.

After untold years of dormancy, the Commission on Disséan History has awoken, and brought with it this netpage, the electronic home of the Memory of the City. The red tape was fierce, but at long last reason has prevailed, and the Memory's collection will soon be accessible from anywhere in the archipelago.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, and whyever you're reading, we're glad you're here, and we hope the stories we have to tell capture your imagination and inspire you to discover more about the Cosmos we all share.

There are three categories of partitives in Lilitika:

(a) constructions where a set, general term exists; these are usually vague cases such as "some of the people" or "half of the night"
(b) constructions where a reference must be made to a specific quantity or fraction, e.g. "three of the walnuts" or "ten percent of the battery"
(c) constructions where a reference must be made to a subset which is distinguished by some attribute, e.g. "the wisest of the philosophers" or "the oldest (parts) of the tree" […]

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Íoya Tshúkoto. A woman as smug as her horns were straight.

She was an outcast of sorts, at least within the household and its staff; the last of a once-dominant bloodline, her kin had steadily been supplanted by Regsabta's cousins and sisters over the past three centuries. And she had not blended well, either: a strong, wedge-shaped chin and peculiar outward-pointing, flat ears made it clear to any visitor that she was not of the same stock. Her features rather reminded Regsabta of an inverted five-point star, which was a good omen in the far north and hence a bad one in the capitol and other equatorial metropoles. […]

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Sabta's shimmering greatness was particularly awful today; a pinkish glare that was harmless to the Ksreskézai themselves—but could easily burn and maim a slokdtaba if she stood in it for too long. Closer to night the sky would be a more bearable blue, but the pink tinge of high noon was truly pain embodied. After metal toxicity and childbirth, melanoma was, by far, the most common cause of death for the frail little servants. […]

The first Syngenesis multi-parter, A Crash Course in Evolution, is finally complete. Syngenesis posts should become more frequent and regular as summer evens out.

It's only a matter of time before any existing cryptographic method is cracked.

On the plus side, this seems to take longer than it does to invent good, new ones.

Why not keep the SSH or Tor protocol on a rolling update schedule, like web browsers? Encryption methods should expire just like passwords.

Counterintelligence seems like a good way to create a reliable job market for cryptography experts.

Obviously this is what secret agencies already do, but the commercial market could churn out new standards frequently with enough heads involved, flawed though they might end up being.

Analogy to a one-time pad, maybe?

The word robot comes from a Slavic root meaning "labour." The first time the word was used, by the Czech playwright Karel Čapek, it was used to describe what is today called an android or replicant—an artificial being capable of passing for human, with genuine emotions. The idea of machines that emulate animals and humans, to various degrees of accuracy, is of course much older, and writers have traditionally revelled in finding ways of making these characters behave more artificially and more obviously as machines, from speaking monotonously to ineptitude at lying. But increasing advances in machine learning are suggesting that, perhaps, this is the wrong way of thinking, and that, instead, our fallibility and organic behaviour may actually be essential to what allows us to think.

In part two, we examined peculiar ways of creating computers, as well as past computing technologies. This part concludes the "computers in science fiction" series.


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