deernet | un: timaeusTestified | text

The depth and height of depravity the worlds over. But so often irresistible. So energetic and naive and too quickly gone.

Happy birthday!

That basically summarizes the power of boners perfectly, yeah.

Thank you <3

[He laughs as the Omni reads that off to him.]

Well-played.

Though most prefer their humans less stiff than their erections.

[Then,]

Less than three what?

(He actually laughs out loud. It's more of a huff of air, but still impressive considering.)

Thank God I'm not most humans.

Oh my God.

(Nooo way. No way. That's so endearing.)

It is a heart. ❤️ But on its side <3.

A real upstanding individual then.

[...He manifests his Omen and has her look at the Omni for him.

Oh. Oh!]

So it is. That's clever.

How did you get the other little heart in there?

You have no idea. I'm the most upstanding gent in the galaxy.

(Oh maaaaan he's feeling a certain kind of way right about now.)

It is called an emoji. Most of these devices have a wide variety of emojis to quickly and effectively express emotions. It can help people who may have difficulty processing tone through text.

The option for emojis should be beneath your alphabet for texting.

[Beneath his alphabet for texting.

"Iska, help me here," he mutters to his Omen.

She climbs up onto his wrist beside the Omni and pokes at the symbol keyboard determinedly with one little claw.]

❤️🦋🦜🪶.
.
❤̖͙͈̯̳̏̓̀͑̽́͘️̨͓̩͓̹͑̔͊̒̍͘͡
.
.

[...Oops.]

Thank y̻̫o͑u̾ͭ. This is very useful to know.

Can they be dictated?

Well, I'll be. Ain't never seen the first time someone's discovered emojis before. I feel like a proud father.

No problem, dude.

Unfortunately, they usually can't be, but I know some people have their shit set up to automatically provide emoji alternatives when providing spelling corrections or auto-complete functions.

Do you have vision issues?

[There's a a few-minute delay in the reply because someone (or someone's Omen) noticed his text was corrupting and set the Omni down to let that stop.]

Completely blind. My Omen can act as my eyes and the Omni takes dictation adequately enough I can keep up with "texting".

Though I was unaware of this additional dimension of it. [Illuminations, as miniature sketches of themselves. Or given their function for tone and identifiability, something like shrike meta-text.

If he really grasps for a piece of home, and he's grasping.] Thank you for the explanation. You do it well.

(Oh well shit.)

Is there a preferred way of communication? I can switch to voice if it's easier.

No problem. I build robots all of the time so I'm used to figuring out the schematics of these things and relaying them. Dictation isn't a perfect art yet, but I can try and see what I can do on these devices to make it smoother for you.

(Actually, he was already doing it. It couldn't be rocket science, and if Dirk was a master of anything, it was this. If he could make a replica of his brain...Yeah.)

I take it back. I won't "try." I will succeed and get this done for you as quickly as possible.

Voice has been my usual method but I'm enjoying the practice with text, [HE'S FIGURED OUT COMMAS, saints be praised,] so we may as well carry on this way. There is at least one Sleeper who is deaf, and I would like to improve my communication with him.

[...Oh. He's been handed a blank check to ask for improvements. That's heady stuff.]

You're very kind to do this.

Aside from being unable to speak these emojis into being this device can't infer punctuation like a trained scribe would. Full stops I am used to dictating but needing to tell it commas is tiresome.

Also, and unrelated to dictation, I note through my Omen your text is colored. The Omni can't tell me so, nor about any other m̓ͯ̚e͕͌ta-̗̦ͮ̉ṱ͚̊͑ex͌t that might be present.

Understood. I will work on making it more accessible for both of you then. Simple enough. I'll build a program that can translate with correct grammar and syntax. I used to have an AI that replicated my exact speech including those details.

(He'll just focus on this AI being...less insane! He's also going to sidestep around being told he's being kind whoops.)

Yes, it is orange. Like the fruit, if you have ever had an orange before. It looks exactly like how it tastes.

Ignore me and tell me to fuck off if I'm rudely assuming you've been blind your whole life and know what orange is.

An AI?

[All these young whippersnappers around here not knowing how to take praise; Illarion's shaking his head.]

Telling you to fuck off would be a terrible end to a good conversation, even if I've only been blind a few years.

Besides with your predilections who knows where you'd end up after fucking all the way off.

Artificial Intelligence. It is a computer program designed by a sentient creature to replicate the patterns of cognitive thinking so as to provide a comprehensive system that can function independently of its creator.

They can be incredibly helpful if you design them correctly and don't give them a shitty personality.

(Listen, man, praise anything but his personality and he'll agree...!)

That's true, but I've been told to fuck off for way less.

...Yeah, that's absolutely true. I'd be balls deep in something I probably shouldn't be putting my dick in.

[Damn. He's interested enough in this now he's going to have to pay attention to and learn this terminology, isn't he.]

By "computer" here you don't mean someone whose job it is to compute. Those can already think. But a sort of device?

[HE SHALL PRAISE WHAT HE WISHES TO PRAISE AND NONE MAY GAINSAY HIM.

He also laughs aloud at that.]

Happens to the best of us.

(Hmm. It occurs to him that this guy was probably completely unfamiliar with technology. He was quickly picking up about the timeline shenanigans of this place.)

Correct. In the future, a computer is a mechanical device used for storing and processing data. Our Omni is a sort of computer although I believe they are based both in blood magic and technology.

Are you unfamiliar with technology like this in general? If you are, I could give you a lesson or two about it.

So a difference engine that keeps its own results and more than that? [He can kind of, sort of, wrap his mind around that even if he barely knows how a difference engine works.]

Yes and no. I've used a typewriter and a wireless before, and took photographs before going blind. [A very handy espionage skill.] Nothing that combined all their features like the Omni.

It would change the shape of war.

Though that's aside from the point which is yes, lessons would be helpful.

Yes, much more than that. It depends on the computer too. There are different types that have different intentions.

So, fairly base technology. You will be able to keep up on a lesson, I think. Once you recognize that advanced technology isn't that different from cognitive patterns, it's easy.

Yes, it would and it does. It changes the shape of a lot of things.

[It will change so much on Nephele--just you wait, Illarion.]

"Isn't that different from cognitive patterns." How so?

I'm sure you don't mean what we do when we say everything existed in the mind of Generation before it formed here. But it does sound like that.

All our brains do is to process the data we have observed and consumed throughout our lifetime and connect it to other parts of our brain. You know how to form words because you have been given the information on how to form words. Computers can perform tasks because they have had the information uploaded to their systems.

No, it's not like that. It's pretty literal. Our minds are a complex network not that much different from the network we're communicating on right now.

[That's a lot to chew on when you barely know anything about cognitive or computer science.

But it's not an impossible analogy to grasp.]

I follow you.

I think. [Weak joke, Illarion.]

You're saying a computer takes the instructions it's given and uses it to carry out tasks with what it knows. Which is much like what a computer that's a person does if she's given a problem to solve.

But the mechanical ones don't have so much leeway, right?

Basically that's the gist.

Artificial intelligence exists to solve problems you give it, but also problems that you might not have thought to give them. I'll probably make a new AI and I can show you what I mean when I do. It'll be way less annoying than my old one. Theoretically.

Correct. Humanity used to have a lot of anxiety towards computers that were too smart.

"Theoretically." Dare I ask what you did with the old one to make it so annoying?

I'll be interested to meet it. If that's the right word.

Was it warranted anxiety?

[Humans could be anxious about so many things, but they weren't always wrong to be.]

I made an exact copy of my brain when I was 13. Imagine the worst version of yourself nagging you all the time. It was the fucking worst.

Yes, that's the right word, I think. If I do it right.

Probably, yeah. The dependency on technology could be debilitating since it removed people's desire to learn how to function without high tech.

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