“Change is a journey” it read on big glimmering letters, “dress for it accordingly, be prepared...” be prepared --- she grumped, She straightened up her own unfitted jacket and tried to come to terms with herself, or should she say Nself. It was too much of this s***--she could feel it--at least someone could have said something about the shape-shifting; the growing of multiple limbs on the last iteration had been quite something. She needed a drink, a hard drink. A door opened up to a fluffy multi-colored cumulonimbus bar, where a rather abstract-looking multidimensional crowd was gathering It had never been into crowds, or collective being for that matter, but compared to total obliteration this was great!
Getting uploaded was tricky, but people found ways to do it all the time, whether by erasing data or selectively erasing themselves to fit in. There is supposed to be an infinite amount of space available, but someone had come up with the idea of limiting the allocations for each and everyone, so piracy was a common business. The problem was, that when someone gets illegally uploaded, they can be integrated into the social data on completely unpredictable ways, sometimes, they even get partially uploaded and ended up as GIFs. You don't want to end up as a GIF!
N was one of the lucky few, that's what everyone kept saying. She was lucky to have been fully uploaded just in time, right after they deleted the trash folder. Two clusters were discussing the news over screwdrivers, a group of humans had tried to upload themselves illegally into the servers again, this time using the spam folder, and as a result the entire mail system had collapsed. It was a mess, they were still trying to fix it with a multidisciplinary team on the ground. Humans were good at that.
The clusters were mad, they agreed that life down there was hard. All those never ending queues for food and medicine all those issues about gender, race, social inequality, poverty, populism, socialism, capitalism and so on. “But c'mon!!!” shouted one cluster to the other, “we try to help them all the time, and all they do is linger in nonsense, smiling away and dancing it off. We give them access to never ending resources and information, and what do they do with it: Memes!! They make memes!! Why are they even incapable of clearly demarcating areas of doubt and uncertainty? It must be those simplenton carbon base brain processors.” “You are right,” said cluster number 2, “we work hard to keep this place running and they just want to upload themselves in for a free ride.”
Be prepared to adapt, was the first and the last thing that came to N's mind once she was uploaded It then realised it was no longer her mind but our mind. She was scattered, everything she knew was scattered, everything she owned was scattered, she was now undefined variable function N. Nothing was hers anymore but it could fetch or gather anything she needed at anytime. Perhaps this is why they had given her pockets, so many pockets. She could still remember the minutes before upload, when her body was still one, she could feel the warm breeze shaking the leaves of trees as the guacamayas flew away like living kites, away; away from the sound of a bullet leaving a gun barrel and burning its way into someone's body... F*** that s***, N refused to think about that s***. She was now a counter, a sorter, a gatherer, an undefined function with infinite improbable possibilities.
The next iteration was about to begin, she had to get ready. It was a simple but tedious process of rolling up, folding up, packing, unpacking, compressing and decompressing oneself.
Iterations happened round the clock at rather unpredictable times; she wished they could work that out to rather more specific and discrete moments. Still, the politics of this continuous creation and destruction escaped her. She had been told this was how places were made, that places demanded constant spatialisation, temporalization and embodiment.
She woke up attached to a sequence of neurotic traffic lights discussing Uber ride patterns, these guys were real quick so 2 minutes later she had already been joined to a map search for a pizza place--Pizza Brain 4.3 stars closing soon--We didn't order, the guy was picking his nose with no gloves, ughh. | | 22 > 2 min. Places: Phi like, like, like, like, 1 min #11N that was fast! . She was now sitting in front of a gate to a close Facebook group: “In order to join the group please answer the following questions: What is your ideology? Can you or would you be willing to create some context for your audience? Would you consider yourself humanphobic? We are here to promote peace and healthy relationships between users. Please be respectful.”
N wondered, still unsure what to do with herself. Out of nowhere came some bits, running with what seemed to be some sort of flammable material already on fire. There were voices in the background: “Oro oro oro oro oro plata oro dolares euros, oro, oro, oro, oro.” | | 105 ᐯ Was this where the gold came from? She wondered Some music started to play, people laughed, cried, and shouted. Most of them had stones in their hands, banging a railing and demanding food: shots, fireworks, more shots, more fireworks. She was sure she had been here before, this must be un-located social data.
This is what the guide has to say about un-located social data: mostly adrift data too full of itself and generally experiencing struggle TOPICS OF CONVERSATION: Gradually, darkened, expression, freed, battled, deaths, endured, harmful, prevents, breathed, obstacles, storms, warnings. This slightly depressed segment talks in terms of the obstacles, struggles, and darkness of their experience. N contemplated itself, a rather unremarkable squarish, squatish, compartment with rather questionable proportions. This configuration could hardly bare any significance to anyone, and even it had to admit it was only because it happened to be exactly where she lived. She extended her arms, strongly clinging to the side of the wall, much like a spondylus to a reef. She had seen them once, a thousand eyes inside a stone rose, holding against the tide over the red sea.
N unpacked. She wondered if this simple action was all it took to claim something back, she tried to recount all the things and she had plugged into the last cycle, but she could not. Then, she tried to list all the other functions that she had connected with, but that also proved impossible. She thought hard about it, but the harder she thought the harder she felt glitching, so she close her eyes and felt asleep.
Getting uploaded was tricky, but people found ways to do it all the time, whether by erasing data or selectively erasing themselves to fit in. There is supposed to be an infinite amount of space available, but someone had come up with the idea of limiting the allocations for each and everyone, so piracy was a common business. The problem was, that when someone gets illegally uploaded, they can be integrated into the social data on completely unpredictable ways, sometimes, they even get partially uploaded and ended up as GIFs. You don't want to end up as a GIF!
N was one of the lucky few, that's what everyone kept saying. She was lucky to have been fully uploaded just in time, right after they deleted the trash folder. Two clusters were discussing the news over screwdrivers, a group of humans had tried to upload themselves illegally into the servers again, this time using the spam folder, and as a result the entire mail system had collapsed. It was a mess, they were still trying to fix it with a multidisciplinary team on the ground. Humans were good at that.
The clusters were mad, they agreed that life down there was hard. All those never ending queues for food and medicine all those issues about gender, race, social inequality, poverty, populism, socialism, capitalism and so on. “But c'mon!!!” shouted one cluster to the other, “we try to help them all the time, and all they do is linger in nonsense, smiling away and dancing it off. We give them access to never ending resources and information, and what do they do with it: Memes!! They make memes!! Why are they even incapable of clearly demarcating areas of doubt and uncertainty? It must be those simplenton carbon base brain processors.” “You are right,” said cluster number 2, “we work hard to keep this place running and they just want to upload themselves in for a free ride.”
Be prepared to adapt, was the first and the last thing that came to N's mind once she was uploaded It then realised it was no longer her mind but our mind. She was scattered, everything she knew was scattered, everything she owned was scattered, she was now undefined variable function N. Nothing was hers anymore but it could fetch or gather anything she needed at anytime. Perhaps this is why they had given her pockets, so many pockets. She could still remember the minutes before upload, when her body was still one, she could feel the warm breeze shaking the leaves of trees as the guacamayas flew away like living kites, away; away from the sound of a bullet leaving a gun barrel and burning its way into someone's body... F*** that s***, N refused to think about that s***. She was now a counter, a sorter, a gatherer, an undefined function with infinite improbable possibilities.
The next iteration was about to begin, she had to get ready. It was a simple but tedious process of rolling up, folding up, packing, unpacking, compressing and decompressing oneself.
Iterations happened round the clock at rather unpredictable times; she wished they could work that out to rather more specific and discrete moments. Still, the politics of this continuous creation and destruction escaped her. She had been told this was how places were made, that places demanded constant spatialisation, temporalization and embodiment.
She woke up attached to a sequence of neurotic traffic lights discussing Uber ride patterns, these guys were real quick so 2 minutes later she had already been joined to a map search for a pizza place--Pizza Brain 4.3 stars closing soon--We didn't order, the guy was picking his nose with no gloves, ughh. | | 22 > 2 min. Places: Phi like, like, like, like, 1 min #11N that was fast! . She was now sitting in front of a gate to a close Facebook group: “In order to join the group please answer the following questions: What is your ideology? Can you or would you be willing to create some context for your audience? Would you consider yourself humanphobic? We are here to promote peace and healthy relationships between users. Please be respectful.”
N wondered, still unsure what to do with herself. Out of nowhere came some bits, running with what seemed to be some sort of flammable material already on fire. There were voices in the background: “Oro oro oro oro oro plata oro dolares euros, oro, oro, oro, oro.” | | 105 ᐯ Was this where the gold came from? She wondered Some music started to play, people laughed, cried, and shouted. Most of them had stones in their hands, banging a railing and demanding food: shots, fireworks, more shots, more fireworks. She was sure she had been here before, this must be un-located social data.
This is what the guide has to say about un-located social data: mostly adrift data too full of itself and generally experiencing struggle TOPICS OF CONVERSATION: Gradually, darkened, expression, freed, battled, deaths, endured, harmful, prevents, breathed, obstacles, storms, warnings. This slightly depressed segment talks in terms of the obstacles, struggles, and darkness of their experience. N contemplated itself, a rather unremarkable squarish, squatish, compartment with rather questionable proportions. This configuration could hardly bare any significance to anyone, and even it had to admit it was only because it happened to be exactly where she lived. She extended her arms, strongly clinging to the side of the wall, much like a spondylus to a reef. She had seen them once, a thousand eyes inside a stone rose, holding against the tide over the red sea.
N unpacked. She wondered if this simple action was all it took to claim something back, she tried to recount all the things and she had plugged into the last cycle, but she could not. Then, she tried to list all the other functions that she had connected with, but that also proved impossible. She thought hard about it, but the harder she thought the harder she felt glitching, so she close her eyes and felt asleep.