big file storage

Bleak Week/0 - Monday.md

@@ -1,110 +0,0 @@
-## $I$
-Overnight, a frigid wind had moved in silently from the ocean to the south.
-It descended from a height above, was channelled toward the east, and passed over a series of jagged glassy peaks that lay perfectly aligned along an axis to the north.
-The oppressive dry of the antarctic wind had suffocated the morning dew into a thin layer of crystal ice that capped each of the peaks but for one.
-The sharpest of them was slick with deep red blood, clinging on to liquidity as the wind, bolstered by a cold blue August sky overhead, eroded away its residual warmth. 
-Walking westward, soft silent footsteps gave way to the rising sound of glass cracking resonantly underfoot. 
-
-Visible through the shattered pane: the deep green grass of the courtyard, interspersed by thick  weeds resembling spinach and furry tufts of moss that had been torn up by blackbirds in search of worms in the early morning light. 
-Beyond: an ailing lemon tree, parasitised by wasps and leaking fragrant sap from its limbs, yet heavy with fruit in protest of its condition.
-The scene of green foliage and citric yellow backed by the wintry blue sky cut against the red puncture wound and shimmering whites of the broken glass,  it was accidental in its composition, and absolute in its devastation.
-
-An alarm was ringing. The source of the noise reported the time as 8:49am. For four minutes he must have stood transfixed by the damage, oblivious to the harsh square wave shaped beeps and vibrations of the device. 
-More noises filtered into consciousness as a return to awareness began. 
-A generator was humming dimly. Then, a popping sound. Another, louder and somewhat closer, then the first again. Soon the sounds were rapidly alternating, although devoid of rhythm and with no fixed cadence. 
-
-Nail guns. Construction had resumed on the lot next door. An unfamiliar shadow was being cast on the faded courtyard bench seat by the back door. Stepping through the door to investigate, the usual sensation of the morning sun flashing from right to left across his face, weak as it was this time of year, was absent. Scaffolding now towered overhead, obscuring the light, clanking when it was mounted and creaking while it was being traversed.
-
-The frame of the building had risen to a second storey and four wide voids in the timber work made clear where windows were to be set for the rooms of the upper floor.
-One of the tradesmen paused as they reached the top of the scaffolding and turned to look down at him standing on the courtyard pavement. 
-The sun had risen slightly and was now partially eclipsed by the tradesman, who was visible only as a dark expressionless silhouette. He waved. The shape made no motion in return. Abruptly it resumed climbing the structure, seemingly without having turned away.
-
-A third nail gun began firing.
-
----
-## $II$
-
-Returning inside there was no relief from the chill. The wind no longer needed the cover of darkness and had begun to gather in strength. It was pushing its way inside past the now exposed faded and yellowing vertical blinds of the kitchen window. They were bunched to one end, of poor quality, and designed so that a pitifully small piece of deteriorating plastic was all that attached them to the rail above.  The lines that formerly held the bottoms of the blinds in array had lost their anchors and become a tangled mess, constantly wet with an increasing number of barnacles the farther they draped down into the kitchen sink.
-The same brand of blinds covered every piece of glass in the house. In the bedroom, three of them had been tied back onto the railing with kitchen twine. Morning streamed in as a potted vine plant forced its tendrils through the gaps between the untethered blinds.
-
-A different series of beeps signalled five minutes until nine, and the day's first meeting: the morning report. Yesterday he had slept until midday, and consequently gone to bed without eating anything that could be considered a dinner. He had planned to eat a significant breakfast upon returning home but there was now no time.
-
-The scene in the kitchen would have to wait. He grabbed a piece of under ripe fruit from the bowl atop the counter and went to his desk to attend the report. 
-His workstation had cost his organisation an absurd amount of money and was state of the art, however, inexplicably, it would cycle its power precisely three times before accepting input or showing any indication that it was working at all.
-After the first cycle he began pressing buttons at random on the keyboard:  
-
-`esc` `esc` `esc` `l` `a` `l` `a` `l` `a` `lemom`
-
-until the login terminal greeted him with the time at the top right of the display: `8:58am`
-
-It took two attempts - better than the average of 2.45 - to correctly enter the randomly generated password that had been assigned to his workstation: 
-
-```
-Y,Sy-W$Cx;s%p]~9FL!r`:(
-```
-
-A failed attempt meant a five second wait until trying again.
-
-> [!WARNING]
-> Mandatory Software Update Required
-> ...
-> Restarting now.
-
-After another three cycles he logged in once again, this time on the third try, and prepared to join the report.
-
->[!INFO]
->The Morning Report has already commenced. 
->A notification of your request to enter has been sent to the already present attendees.
-
-He sighed and waited for somebody to accept the request.
-
-The camera light blinked on one second before a cacophony of voices erupted from his headset. He tore it off, his ears ringing as he scrambled to find the volume controls. The volume had been raised listening to music in the early hours of the morning whilst preparing the requisite details that were required to be delivered first thing.
-
-> Ah, the afternoon shift has arrived.
-
-a tinny voice quipped from the dangling headset as it swung rapidly back and forth. In its fall it had somehow become taughtly tangled between various pieces of desk and chair, without out a doubt damaged in such a way as to appear completely functional for weeks, if not months, then cutting out momentarily for the first time, almost imperceptibly, only on one side after a slight turning of the head, carrying on innocently for another week without interruption and then rapidly worsening, some key section of cable hastilty fastened with tape at an oblique angle in an attempt to last out the time until its replacement arrives, before finally failing catastrophically at some critical moment.
-
-> nice of you to join, had yourself a little sleep in?
-
-chided a second. the sound of a child throwing a tantrum in the same room as a button sized microphone beckoned as he continued lowering the volume, the headset onto his head, and the microphone to his lips.
-
-> I've been at the facility...
-
-All manner of domestic noise carried on in the background until the attendees gradually became aware of each other's presence. Had he been logged into his workstation when the clock struck 9am he would have seamlessly, and quite without any notification or input, been coralled into the report just the same.
-
-The attendees numbered between 6 and 10 on any given day. Those present were constantly being rotated in and out. Cameras of questionable quality or cleanliness, as well as outright missing faces, made it difficult to form any kind of attachment with the names. He often resorted to associating a general feeling and sense of the person with the colour of the small panel bearing their name on the list of people connected. Yet no sooner would he come to recognise a sugary female voice eminating in time with the glowing of a dark green panel then it would be absent the next day and replaced by three elderly and bespectacled strangers.
-
-In actual fact though, almost everybody on the call seemed to know one another if not personally then at least as a professional acquaintance of some time; the report usually consisted of gossip and rumours being exchanged until **the manager** would come online and interrupt the conversation to make some announcement.
-
-> good morning all, i'm pleased to announce the business has presented us with a tremendous new opportunity to start off our week:
-> in addition to some generalised high level downward economic pressures across the sector, a recent media cycle promoting negative sentiment for units of varying sizes has lead to an updated downgraded prediction of quarterly sales targets as well as an accelerated slowdown of advertising resource earning potential being the results of an increased reduction in tolerance for inconsistency of size between individual units within a packet.
-> what are some viable strategic tactics the routine could initiate to maintain present production rates whilst uplifting a drop in variance of unit shape and volume?
-
-**the routine** was the name given to the sophisticated monitoring software maintaining stasis within the faciltiy.
-written entirely by hand, it had brought to completion 182 yields in the 14 years since it entered production, one every 28 days; and in fact the previous night had been pitch black, with the moon's unilluminated side facing the earth making it completely invisble. it was a new moon and it marked the halfway point of the current harvest.
-
-what was being asked was of course impossible.
-the routine did not accept parameters, there was nothing to be done.
-while the yield would be produced to a specific weight predicted several cycles earlier, the number of units would be completely random as would their size.
-
-under no circumstances however, would it be acceptable to relate this information during the report.
-many "opportunities" such as these presented themselves, usually coinciding with a calamity of a more direct kind at the facility itself and today was no exception.
-
-> ohh i hate it when they're too big
-> or too long!
-> no, not long, too big! too wide!
-> but also too small is very annoying
-
-the elderly attendees, seemingly already the victims of an effort to psychologically manipulate the population into demanding changes in their assigned units, thereby depriving its manufacturer of any opportunity to improve their quality or quantity, blathered on unaware that they were contributing to the struggles of their own employer.
-
-packets had always, as a matter of efficiency, contained a mixture of different sized units but in following the precedent of its greater whole, maintained a specific weight.
-
-what was actually being asked for was a palatable alternative, something that could nominally address the issue though it may have no actual consequence, like sorting the harvest after collection to ensure that packets would contain units of roughly the same size.
-
-make no difference
-get a random packet
-will be big or small
-
-
--- it will be 4 units --
-        of exactly the same size

Bleak Week/02_commute.md

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+## commute
+
+the burned out shells of ruined cars line the street while you are given a parking ticket for overstay in your own driveway.
+_television screens, mattresses, broken glass cabinets line the street_
+
+your electronic vehicle measures its speed in kilometres per hour as whole integers even though it runs on a 64bit platform.
+it increases its speed from 59km/h to its new set point of 60km/h. there is a heavy clunk as the battery surges, overshooting its target to 62.1779103879933km/h and your meagre savings are obliterated by an automatically enforced speeding ticket unleashed upon you from a medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aircraft traffic surveillance platform.
+
+you drive on and the drivers you share the road with are completely insane
+every one of them out of their mind in some way. video games, gambling, drugs, or pornography adorns the dashboard displays of enormous trucks, with heavy duty wheels they crush all in their path.
+
+the troubled youth joyride whatever they can get their hands on.
+they knock on the ports of the ignition systems with their low energy frequency hopping spread spectrum phreaking boxes.
+snow encrusted demons on motorcycles, they frequently lose it on the ice and slam into parked cars, erupting into a lithium hellfire.
+
+acid rains from the sky.
+the air is filled with sulphur and an infernal smell clings to the icy slurry that covers the roads.
+_more about the air_
+
+the people cower in their crumbling plasterboard homes, or in a megalithic brutalist block of units, with crisscrossed walkways to its neighbours: a data centre with a backup natural gas generator that is always running, and a slaughterhouse.
+
+we get to the entrance. there's some kind of error getting in.
+"the organisation has changed something," states the gruff exmilitary watchman from his pillbox guardpost, "they say the last system was too simple."
+there is a lot of shuffling in and out of the post. a brusque call is made to a service provider. lastly, a blood sample is given. identity confirmed, the heavy steel gate lowers and we pull into a carpark at the base of the building.
+
+snow falls on the courtyard outside [[the_facility]].
+one of _nine hundred and thirty eight_, the name of this firm: `growtein garden` is milled into the steel face of the building.
+its edges are sharpened to cut the ropes of attackers attempting to abseil down from the roof onto to the floor to ceiling glass windows of the board room below it.
+
+on the snow below the board room, the severed wings of bats and birds that have tried to nest in the logo alcove. they are drawn by the warm exhaust being vented from inside, their warm blood melts the snow they rest on.
+
+we enter the building. back in the guard booth our photos and personal details appear on a monitor.
+in the corporate headquarters they appear among scores of others in the bottom right 16th of a panoramic operations centre, briefly, before being added to a chain of times and locations that stretches all the way back to birth.
+the corporation amasses gargantuan troves of personal information on everyone that comes into contact with it. everything from medical records and genetic data to crass itemisations of sexual liaisons.
+
+a copy is immediately exfiltrated by an advanced persistent threat's worm festering in the state manager of the neural network powered facial recognition subsystem. they list it on a deep web market in a bundle with 2 million others.
+the corporation's automated scraper of the market buys a copy and adds it to the training data of the facial recognition subsystem.
+
+i sit down at my desk. the headphones are still tangled from the morning report.
+
+i glance at my todo list. a remarkable tool, one of unquestionable utility. it should be a comfort, a girder upon which to build a productive and satisfying day of labour for the mutual benefit of both the self and the greater whole.
+
+... but it has become corrupted. in times such as these, where productivity is being deleveraged, for every item crossed off, 2.28 will have been appended. this is the economy under the management of the todo list that only gets longer.
+
+it senses my presence.
+...
+
+### the todo list that only gets longer
+taunts you
+ink like the tar of a lifetime smoking cigarettes oozes out of its mouth as it speaks
+the universe is playing against you. every time you play this card increase the number of items on it by 2
+get another notebook? i can't. that would mean believing that an inanimate notebook has the power of speech. making an economical decision based on the subjective experience of something out of reality.
+
+## desk
+
+i can't separate the facility that sucks and the one that rules
+because they are the same place.
+the office.
+
+---
+sharp steel signage milled into the building
+same way that anti ergonomic benches aggrieve ordinary people, skateboarders and the homeless, the sign was designed to prevent people scaling the walls but also cuts the talons off birds that attempt to perch on it, feeding them bloody arms of a different sort
+---
+
+spotify changed its ui again
+    - smart shuffle
+    - stops playing the album to play music video
+
+what to do in the face of so many minor inconveniences
+
+- driving in the morning to [[the_facility]]
+
+_where the fuck i am_
+
+is it competitive dog barking
+are there really monstrous lovecraftian hounds stalking the countryside
+
+well for one thing it's fucking cold
+like driving in antarctica. but then it will get warm,
+which is not very pleasant because the air is full of sulphur and extremely humid
+so there is a constant icy sludge and a foul smell
+there is junk all over the place, not just at home

Bleak Week/1 - Tuesday.md

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-- driving in the morning to deliver <<thing>>
-part of duties
-
-competitive dog barking
-parking fines
-speeding tickets
-
-organisation changed something
-they say our system is too simple
-
-spotify changed its ui again
-    - smart shuffle
-
-what to do in the face of so many minor inconveniences
-
-medical transport officer
-monitoring organs being transported
-

Bleak Week/September.md

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-It is September and the Olympic Games have commenced their second week.
-
-- frozen, cold outside
-    - nuclear winter
-    - global warming came, fked shit up for a while
-    - volcano went off
-        nature showing man how it's done
-        man in hubris believed he would kill himself
-    - now everywhere is cold except <x> which is a lava covered hellscape
-
-## Gymnastic Weightlifting
-
-athlete steps up to a standing rack with a barbell
-120kg division, two red 25kg plates on each side
-steps up, gives the bar a quick caress 
-gracefully racks it on his chest
-clock starts at 01:00
-bar barely moving as core tenses and spine prepares itself
-performs perfect front squat very slowly, then 2 more fast
-
-another slow rep and then lowers it to the ground
-one quiet but solid thump as it lands
-good points for that, bounces are deducted
-
-routine clock ticks 00:45
-does a solid sumo deadlift, good triangulation in the legs, very symmetrical 
-lowers it, 2 thuds, imperceptibly winces
-( brief interlude of some kind of trauma )
-
-blinks as the routine clock ticks 00:40.00128s
-feet come to shoulder width
-camera tech shows an angle of 1.58deg  and -0.89deg on left and right respectively
-does a second deadlift, this time conventional
-strong back engagement, no noticible spine curling
-movement finishes with hip to skull angle of 4.322 deg past vertical 
-lowers once again, almost silent, 43db
-
-deep breath, dignified exhultation of
-> hup 
-power clean, very smooth catch
-
-a short pause, gathering of breath
-flashing of cameras
-tiny flecks of chalk floating through the air visible in the beams of the stage lighting settle upon the eyelashes 
-
-eyes widen ever so slightly as athlete inhales
-overhead presses the bar, strict form obviously
-returned to the popularity of previous years due to this very event
-bench press which was preminent king of lifts maintained its status in powerlifting but the overhead press as a common part of the gymnastic routine became much more popular for amateur lifters and reclaimed some of its former prestige
-
-bar brought down to the front rack where it began the routine
-bounces just above the crest of <country> flashing silver on the uniform
-
-some competing schools of competition in how a routine should end
-
-### as it began
-
-shows great symmetry
-aesthetically satisfying
-
-### behind the head
-
-allows for an extra back squat with the weight, demonstrating endurance
-back squat also very popular as a first move in heavier divisions
-no bar between athlete and judges makes for a more artistic finish as the athlete is completely visible
-(the author's preference)
-
-### on the ground
-places importance on a clean and solid ground placement 
-auditory element makes for an emphatic finish
-
-<somehow> racks are behind the athlete and they strongly, but somewhat awkwardly back into it and unrack
-
-clock strikes 00:00
-
-solid performance, crowd cheers etc

Bleak Week/_characters.md

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-- the facility
-    - the technician
-    - the routine
-    - the engineer
-
-another two members spread across the city / country ?
-** THE TROIKA **
-
-- the business
-    - the manager
-    - the estimator
-    - the cleaner
-
-

Bleak Week/_concepts.md

@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+
+dystopian nightmare black comedy
+crystallise
 ## setting
 
 DMC on stan lee:
@@ -17,10 +20,19 @@ growtein garden
 ## struggles
 
 ### noise
+drilling at night
+dogs
+garbage trucks (some kind of weekly disturbance that recurs)
+
+
+### incompetence
+offshore team that can't/won't do anything themselves
+have to figure out what kind of stupidity they are doing
+given clear instructions and errors will just ask for somebody to fix for them
 
 ### dystopia 2025
 opsec
-
+rent increase notice with a beautiful blue beach picture on the front ![[Pasted image 20251029090819.png]]
 ### psychomedia
 
 unnamed overseas villain trying to destroy the food
@@ -44,10 +56,14 @@ dostoyevsky going to the gallows
 serge
 aaron
 alex
+when jt leaves in the evening for the night shift
 
 ## style
 
 ### hallucinatory
 barnacles in the sink
 holes in people
-parasites
+parasites
+ahab's splintered brow and features
+   the sails
+   captain's eyebrows themselves, splintered timber

Bleak Week/_principles.md

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-- the passage of time is whatever i want
-    - hours, days even, can pass immediately
-
-- detours in the story are ok
-    - this is for the freaks
-
-- nothing gets better, nothing gets worse
-    - things happen but nothing changes
-
-    .. except..
-
-- programmers have essentially become wizards
-
-- even when things are obviously completely fucked they will keep going
-    - crypto
-   - the routine is immutable