Author: Adam S

Anniversary Email 14

Happy Anniversary, <NAME>! Congratulations on the accomplishment. I have news to share of the most dire import. We have recently received astropathic message that the black ships of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica are once more approaching our world to claim their tithe of souls. The Imperium of man can only be maintained through the valiant effort of countless billions across the warzones of our many worlds. The deathless Emperor of man sits enshrined in his golden throne, ever vigilant. He powers the light of the astronomicon, our beacon in the immaterium, through sheer will and the sacrifice of innumerable psykers. As you are free from the taint of the warp or vile mutation, and given your many years of selfless service, you have been chosen to serve in his glorious Imperial Guard. You will be dispatched to battle the enemies of mankind wherever they can be found among the stars. Will you find yourself pitted against the voracious Tyranid, who hunger for all life to supply their massive hive fleets with precious biomass? Or the pernicious Eldar, vile xenos who ply the ancient webways aboard their craftworlds, searching for their maiden worlds? Perhaps the Orks, savage and vile greenskins on a rampaging Waaagh, a slaughter writ large across the stars that comes without warning? Or will it be the most dangerous enemy of all, the heretic, those who have turned away from the light of the Emperor and embraced the ancient gods of Chaos? The rampaging berserkers of Khorne, who seek blood for their lord and skulls for his grotesque throne. The pitiless hedonists of Slaanesh, whose very touch can bring indescribable agony or waves of bliss. The mysterious sorcerers of Tzeentch, who will test your very soul with blasphemous lies and even more blasphemous truths. The seething plague bearers of Nurgle, who bring rot and pestilence to any who stand against them. None can say for certain. These threats and more orbit the Eye of Terror. Take solace in knowing that whatever foe you face, the children of the Emperor, the Adeptus Astares, wage war among the stars, fighting the most desperate battles of all. Clad in power armor, adorned in purity seals, armed with bolters, ever ready to teach fear to the enemies of man. They represent the best of humanity. If they have not yet taken the field of battle, your struggle must not yet be unwinnable. If they have landed, then victory is assured. Remember the Imperial creed. Anoint and assuage the machine spirit of your las cannon. Guard your very soul, lest the Inquisition seek you out. For the Emperor!

Also, try not to stand in front of a Leman Russ Battle Tank. It makes an awful mess.

Scorpion Chronicles 14

Tonight’s kill count: 3. Gehenna. Ragnarok. Apocalypse. Choose a name, scorpions. Choose a name for my home. Any of these spell ruin. You continue to come. I continue to kill. My bloodlust burns in my throat. I thirst for slaughter. It cannot be slaked. Send your multitudes. Come by the dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. It matters not. I cannot ever be sated. I will butcher you. I will bring on you the end of days. I will open my mouth and from it will issue the discordant song that ends your universe. Come. COME YOU ARROGANT FOOLS. My hatred for you burns, and there is no balm to soothe this conflagration.

Scorpion Chronicles 13

Tonight’s kill count: 2. Have I been unclear, scorpions? Has my message been obfuscated? Or are you simply obtuse? I am ruin. I am the executioner. I bring you desolation. Death. It is a systematic purging. There is no chaos at work here. No random pattern of misfortune. I assure you, my every act is exceedingly deliberate. There will be no armistice. I will not shirk my duty. The patrols will continue if I find you or not. You consider yourselves hunters. I am he who hunts the hunters. If you come to this place, you shall not leave. I will not allow it.

Anniversary Email 13

Greetings, <NAME>, and congratulations on your recent anniversary! As you know, <COMPANY> is a world leader in new and exciting employee reward programs. But did you know we have a brought back a popular old program available to everyone celebrating their anniversary this week? Yes, it is true. The following MANDATORY program is: FREE CYBERNETIC UPGRADES. You too can be like your favorite William Gibson character with these exciting technological enhancements.

  • Non prehensile, incredibly heavy tail
  • Brain computer interface that only works with the Amiga 500
  • Super strength – But only when you are sobbing hysterically
  • Flight – limited to two inches off the ground. Movement speed is 1cm a minute. Does not work over water. Or sand. Or anywhere except over this gigantic fan platform we built. Basically we attach you to the platform and wheel you around.
  • Fingertip missiles – Please note, these are non replaceable. Once you fire them, they are gone. Also, they tend to go off when doing things like typing. Or scratching your temple.
  • Non retractable roller skate feet
  • Chainsaw tongue
  • Chainsaw arms
  • Chainsaw legs
  • Chainsaw torso – Don’t ask how this works.
  • Chainsaw eyes – Or this.
  • We really like chain saws
  • Releasable nano machines that will reform any other object into a spatula. Spatulas will be reformed into a slightly worse spatula.
  • High intensity laser built into the inside of your chest cavity – Like behind the bones and stuff.
  • Improved taste receptors that only work for bitterness
  • Detachable head – Please note, this says detachable, not re-attachable. I guess technically your current head is already detachable.
  • Replace your tongue with a robot cobra – Cobra is venomous.
  • Cobra does not like anyone.
  • Even you.
  • Especially you.
  • Seriously, that cobra is PISSED.

We trust you are excited to get these installed at your earliest convenience, so we have dispatched a team to your location. Congratulations again!

Scorpion Chronicles 12

Tonight’s kill count: 2. You are resurgent in your numbers. Is this an attempt at a siege, or merely the result of a new generation? You have boiled forth from whatever fetid holes you have hidden yourselves away in to test yourselves against me. You have found ruin. You are unmade. I have crushed you in the most literal sense. You cannot hope for victory. You cannot even hope to be left live. There is nothing here for you, unless you are some kind of emo suicidal scorpion, in which case my home is a veritable festival of suffering. A dark carnival. In which case, step right up. I have such wonders to show you.

 

Scorpion Chronicles 11

Tonight’s kill count: 1. Did you think I had forgotten, scorpion? Did you hold the false hope my vigil had lapsed? Or were you arrogant enough to believe you could enter my lands unchecked? Yours was a fool’s errand. I greeted you with poison and stone. Your broken body was left spasming along the fence.Do you now understand the folly of your ways? There is no mercy here. This is no place for your kind. I will not bother to break your spirit. I have no illusions that you can be taught. I will give you only death. I will never stop. You have unleashed a titan. Do you feel the heat, scorpion? Do you mistake it for the lingering remains of the summer day? Simpleton. It is my wrath, and it burns brightly for you.

Anniversay Email 12

Congratulations on 8 years at <COMPANY>! That is twice the average life span of an opossum, and nearly 81x the lifespan of a honey bee! You have also provided more value to <COMPANY> than either of the above, several fold! Unless we have some secret rabies project. In that case then the opossum might win. I mean, you can’t compete with a rabid opossum in the field of rabies. The opossum is going to win on experience alone. I guess I could try contracting rabies and testing that theory out. That would be the scientific thing to do. I’ll be right back.

One last thing: You haven’t seen any rabid opossums running around, have you? Probably not. Thought I’d check. Maybe I can find some bats or something…

Ragnar Trails Endorses Racism

The following were recently shared on the Ragnar Trails Facebook page. It is a running group called Team Cannibals that wear tribal makeup and in one case full on blackface. It looks like young people, so I’m going to assume this was done out of ignorance, not malice, but the people running Ragnar’s social media presence should certainly know better. This is cultural ignorance/misappropriation at best, and worst case overt racism. Shame on the Ragnar organization. I am rethinking running their McDowell Mountain event if this is the sort of thing they not only endorse, but celebrate.

06/13/14 UPDATE: In fairness they did finally remove the video (I contacted them about it) but they did not issue an apology in any form.

ragnar 01 Ragnar 02

Anniversary Email 11

Greetings and happy anniversary, <NAME>! Your work here at <COMPANY> is highly valued, and consequently you have been selected as the lucky recipient of our MANDATORY body upgrades program, our most popular employee rewards program among those not eligible to receive it! Please select no less than THREE of the following:

  • Slinky legs
  • Randomly timed, high velocity ejection bladder
  • Reverse porcupine quills – When something touches you, you get stabbed
  • On fire hair
  • We duct tape two VERY angry wolverines to your thighs – Admittedly we got sort of lazy on this one
  • Excessive sweat glands
  • Swarovski Crystal skeleton – So we were watching the newest Indiana Jones movie and were trying to find a way to workshop something with the fridge, but then we thought “Those crystal skulls have gotta come from some place” so we decided on this.
  • Constantly bleeding eyeballs
  • Sandpaper skin – Such that you might constantly, gradually abrade everything you come in contact with. In good conscience we won’t apply it to your thighs to avoid hurting the wolverines.
  • Butter fingers – Not like you are clumsy or anything. We just replace your fingers with sticks of butter. This is not recommended for Arizona summers.

I’m sure you agree these high value body modifications will be a welcome addition to your daily life. Just think of all the things you will be able to do! Things like… uh… wait… hold on a second… Well, ok, so if you know anyone who has never seen a wolverine, you can show them TWO. That is pretty great. I’m going to just go ahead and mark you down for that one right now.

Our surgeons will be with you shortly! Please note, they don’t believe in anesthesia. Not that they have issues with it, they just don’t believe it exists. Or maybe they have never heard of it. I don’t know how they train surgeons in Tajikistan. Either way, you aren’t getting any.

Congratulations again! I am sure you are as excited as we are about these upcoming changes.

Silicon Valley and Efficient Problem Solving

This is in reference to the following clip, which is INCREDIBLY NOT SAFE FOR WORK:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zYWyXwKrHg

First, any good engineer would have determined that the sorting process alone would take more time than they have available. You would be better off using the other guys to spin up multiple instances of the same two handed process. Then you don’t have to account for hand dominance, either, you can just swap them out easily. And this is entirely ignoring blowing dudes at the same time. Just really shoddy problem analysis.

Basically, this is like trying to brute force a password. Now obviously variables like password length, mixed case, alpha numeric, special characters, etc all effect the time to crack it, but all of those are outside of your control. You could find them out, but that takes time and a different skill set. You are better served focusing on what you can control: number of threads attempting the crack and/or better hardware/faster algorithm. In this case better hardware/faster algorithm would mean hiring a professional. More threads is more people. They can realistically expect a portion of the audience to be female, and of the remaining men only a percentage will be gay or bisexual. Further, if they only need a plurality to win, they don’t have to jack off everyone, but rather a subset, controlling for those who would accept the hand job but then vote for someone else anyway. I don’t always recommend just throwing hardware at a problem, but this is one of those instances (tight time frame/brute force) where it would apply, giving you time to sit back and engineer a better solution later, once the immediate need is fulfilled.