Fusion
As I was floating back to the pilot room, Tammy was waiting outside her quarters, hanging from the doorway with one hand. "Is Destiny OK?" she said with a worried tone.

"She will be," I said. "A little anoxia." They'd warned us about anoxia in Captain's training and I'd seen it before. "She's in the infirmary getting oxygen. You can see her if you want but she was still unconscious when the robot took her."

"Thanks. I would have thought you'd have stayed with her."

"God knows I'd like nothing better, but I have to make sure we get to Mars alive. We're off course and I have to inspect the ship to make sure it isn't about to blow up or anything. Look, I gotta go," I said as I continued to the pilot room.

We were even farther off course than I'd feared. Now it was a matter of juggling speed and fuel usage to the company's specifications.

Back in the old days, way before my time, these boats weren't so automated. Crews were human rather than robot, and the Captain had to calculate all this stuff by hand, with their primitive computers helping.

Captains had to go to college back then, and some of the crew, too. The Captain had to figure out all that shit almost by hand; he needed to know calculus. Hell, I ain't even took algebra even though I could have in high school.

I made the adjustments the computer read out, and we had gravity again and were going the right way. I didn't look at what gravity was, and it was hard to tell since we'd been so heavy before weightlessness.

The empty crew's quarters were first, then cargo pens. I wondered why they call them that.

"Who is it?" a voice said at my knock. Presumably Kathy, which was the name on the doorplate.

"Captain Knolls. Ship inspection, you girls should be used to this by now."

"Yeah? You should be used to us telling you to fuck off, too."

"Door, open. I can lock you up any time I want, you know. I don't even need no excuse."

"I ain't got no drops, bitch."

I suddenly realized why they called them "pens". They were designed to house any species of animal, and a word Destiny had teased me for using came to mind.

Feral. From what I'd read of Tammy's book, some of these whores were more animal than human, especially when they didn't get their drops. It had driven Billie wild enough that she'd wound up blowing her quarters up, with her in it.

I sighed. "I hope you're lying. From what I found out I'm better off when you have them."

"Well, cough 'em up, Joe!"

I laughed, and replied "I ain't got no drops, bitch!"

I did wonder why they hadn't run out. Where were they getting them? They shouldn't have been able to get them onto the boat in the first place.

Billie's quarters were next. She, along with some fifty odd fellow cargo were confined for the duration. Of course, I just opened the door and entered, taser in hand. This would have been a "brig" back when Captains had diplomas.

The robots had done a good job, but they always did. Except for making coffee. They suck at that. But you couldn't tell that she'd almost burned to death. Well, except that her hair was really short and frizzly.

"Inspection."

"I ain't got no drops, bitch."

"Whatever," I sighed, and inspected the quarters. It was obvious she was lying, her eyes gave her away. I wondered again where the drops were coming from.

After hearing "I ain't got no drops, bitch" so many times I didn't even hear it any more I went to inspect the infirmary, the one part of the inspection I looked forward to. I wanted to see how Destiny was.

Tammy was sitting there talking with her. "John!" Destiny said. "Tammy told me you saved my life."

I blushed, and grinned sheepishly. "It's my job."

Tammy laughed. "Bullshit, any other 'cargo' wouldn't have made it. Destiny almost died, and she would have if you weren't moving so frantically. God but you're fast!"

Destiny pulled me close and kissed me. "Thanks, Johnnie," she whispered, then said in a normal voice "go ahead and finish your inspection, I should be able to go home in half an hour. I'll meet you there."

I walked back to the starboard generator and wondered why in the hell I had to do this. I mean, I don't know anything about a fusion generator. There was a stairway to get there, as the generators and engines were on the "bottom" of the boat. It was the "bottom" because the ion engines pushing against the ship pushed everything else the other way. Something about "three laws of thermoses" or something but I think I was hung over that morning's training and don't really remember. Something about actions and opposite reactions or something.

I went over the checklist and checked the first engine. These things were huge and there were a lot of them. A hell of a lot of electricity went through those things.

I had two more engines to go when an alarm went off. "Damned whores, not now!" I thought.

But it wasn't the whores, it was the port generator and I couldn't get in; the computer said it was an inferno in there. Hell, that damned thing should have shut down automatically. I pulled the breaker and there was a sort of thump. Damn. Another trip to the pilot room, we were going to be off course again.

It would have to cool before the robots could start repairing it, if it was repairable at all. Damn, if the other generator went out...

I called Destiny. "Honey, I'm really sorry but this is going to take a while."

And thus the sins of the past are recycled with new labels. Bravo.

Feel the awesome subversion of representative democracy that is the Amorphous Care Act.

They have shown the wisdom in avoiding the Left:
http://priceonomics.com/why-ups-trucks-dont-turn-left/

UPDATE: Canning 250 drivers, including the King of Queens (not really)? FedEx laughs.

Update II: posting here since it was written, but some karma over-ran my dogma :-(

I support the right for a grand jury review of UPS every bit as much as in the case of Benghazi.

Covered here.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2050300/High-heels-men-rise.html

Private sector unions are a matter of free assembly. Public sector unions are a godforsaken mutiny that even the generally wrongheaded FDR understood were a lousy idea.

No more witty rejoinders today. Fustakrakich, stay beautiful. Damn_registrars, borrow a sense of humor from somewhere, at least for the duration of your Slashdot sessions.

Pagan gods always seem to have the munchies:

Remember: the rights of the pregnant female always trump the rights of the one she may carry. Because #ShutUp, or something.

Oxygen
The cargo hold door was open. That wasn't right, that door should always be closed. I went in, scared to death about Destiny, straight for the airlock.

The outside hatch of the airlock was open, which meant somebody was outside the boat. That relieved me a little, I'd worried one of the whores had thrown her out the airlock without a suit. But the open hatch said that thankfully hadn't happened

It also said that I wasn't getting outside here. Thankfully there were three airlocks that doubled as boat docks. One was for the Captain's houseboat connected to the pilot's room, and the other two were at opposite ends of the ship. Sometimes dozens of ships coupled like this traveled together. It's supposed to be cheaper that way for big loads.

I flew as fast as I could to the other wing, put on a suit and went through the other docking airlock, closing it behind me.

The climb on the skyscraper-like boat was a lot easier without gravity. It was probably stupid of me but I was in a hurry to get to Destiny, who was probably dying by now so I didn't bother with tethers, I just moved as fast as I could. My God but this woman was my life! The thought of losing her... I climbed faster.

I kept trying to call her on the suit radio, knowing it was useless. Her radio probably wasn't even turned on or she would have tried to call me rather than following me out.

I finally made it around to the airlock she'd left open and saw her floating about six or so meters from the boat. I hooked two tethers to a rung next to the airlock and one to my suit and pushed off towards her. She wasn't moving and that worried the hell out of me, if she was conscious she'd be thrashing around in a panic. She was obviously out of air.

You would think climbing a tether without gravity pulling at you would be easy. You'd be wrong.

There's no gravity but there's still mass. There was the mass of two humans and two suits, which weren't all that light. I climbed the tether to the lock and pulled her in behind me.

Finally inside the airlock I shed my gloves and her helmet. She took a big gasp of air - she was alive! I got our suits off as the medical robot wheeled her away with an oxygen mask on her face.

I floated back to the pilot room to make the course correction. The ship's inspection would be a little late today.

I should have inspected the ship first.

Trying to point mysqld to some shared storage in lieu of /var/lib/mysql. I'd like to keep the data off of the virtual machine.
The precise reason the synched_folder isn't working is really unclear. Just an error 13 in the log. Wish I had all the time in the world to comb Google and find the proper magic spell.

http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4974321&cid=46634091
Sukkahz

It's almost as though the editors are taking orders from someone.

A GOP Congress is going to have to lead. While we can gripe that it was sold as pure rectal sunshine, Obama's agenda HAS, in fact, been more audacious than any in memory. Attempts at GOP leadership in the Paul/Cruz vein are vilified.
Anybody who thinks that the GOP is going to do anything dramatic 2014-6, or even upon regaining the White House, must be anticipating much more regular gluteal stimulation from the boot of the people to the GOP backside than is likely to be delivered.

I've been a little busy this week, too busy to spend much time soylenting. I've only written about three more paragraphs of Mars, Ho!; I've been working on Nobots and The Paxil Diaries. The Paxil Diaries was waiting on my porch when I got home from Patty's Tuesday evening, and boy was it a mess. I've mostly been working on it. It's funny how much easier it is for me to notice mistakes on paper I miss on screen.

I finished editing it again last night and am waiting for another copy, which they haven't shipped yet. When it comes I'll go over it again, upload the revisions and buy another copy. It may be green outside before you can get a copy after all.

Nobots needed more sales outlets, so I worked on that, too. You should be able to get it at bookstores in a few weeks. If you bought a copy last year, you may own a rare book. If my name is on the bottom right of the front cover instead of right under the title, you have one of fewer than two dozen copies. It should be worth something in a decade or so.

I may work on the Mars book today, but then again I might just take the day off, take the computer to Felber's and watch Cosmos on Hulu since channel 55 was off the air last night; their web site said there was equipment failure. And drink beer in the beer garden and listen to music and enjoy the 65 degrees they're forecasting.

Or maybe sweep the floor... nah.

http://nooooooooooooooo.com/