5.6 KiB
[RT, HSF] Programmer at Large, Chapter 7: Who wrote this?
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Author: u/DRMacIver *
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URL: http://www.drmaciver.com/2017/03/programmer-at-large-who-wrote-this/
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Score: 34
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Created: 2017-03-10T09:08:22
Post:
Comments:
u/PeridexisErrant [+7] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (44 minutes later)
Oh, I wrote this.
reads chapter
Yep, I've been there. Why, earlier today I spent half an hour staring at a one-liner bug I'd just introduced, and an hour or so designing a manual config option, realising I'd done that in 2015, and working out how to use it again. (I blame the flu)
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (5 hours later)
Just spent a week tracking down a memory corruption problem that was due to a missing reference count call in some code I imported last year.
Hopefully they don't have to deal with manual memory management in this future history.
u/DRMacIver [+7] (5 hours later)
Well, the story opened with them having to work on some C++ (which they promptly threw away)...
In general the ship is probably running at least one instance of every bad idea programmers have ever come up with, but new code probably gets to be a little more respectable.
u/shougo007 [+3] (3 hours later)
Just started reading the first chapter and gotta say, I think I'll stay :)
As a software developer that is only just maturing in the field, I laugh and cry at how hopeless some of the institutions of our society are and how small minded a lot of people can be.
(Sorry for the rather generic comment, I'll read more, beyond the first chapter related to copyright and comment again haha)
u/brmj [+3] (7 hours later)
I noticed that in this chapter, you had Arthur put their hair in a bun, but in your notes you said that they have "straight black hair that they wear quite short". My mental image of "quite short" is much too short for a bun. Is this an oversight, or did your thoughts change since those notes were written?
u/DRMacIver [+3] (13 hours later)
The latter. It amused me to decide that despite their otherwise very masculine presentation Kimiko had a fancy updo, and from there it was a short step to deciding that actually fancy hair styles were the default despite the otherwise fairly functional appearances of the crew and I decided to take that step because it was consistent with the rest of my world building and why not.
(In general a great deal of the world building in programmer at large is the result of a repeated cycle of me deciding on things on the fly because it would be funny or it seemed neat and then thinking through the implications to their logical conclusions)
u/Chronophilia [+2] sci-fi ≠ futurology (a day later)
I'm sure Arthur can explain why hairstyles are a universal part of human nature, how neat hair makes a first impression, and that doing someone else's hair is a classic bonding ritual going back to prehistoric times.
... either that or it's just a quirk of the ship they're on. Or both.
u/DRMacIver [+2] (2 days later)
... either that or it's just a quirk of the ship they're on.
Mostly this with a little bit of both.
My vague reasoning for why it makes sense is that a) Closed ecosystems will tend to exhibit random weird variation just 'cause and b) Having a distinctive look for your ship is useful for creating a sense of cohesion, so where weird quirks occur they will often get exaggerated.
Apparently one of the weird quirks that the Eschaton Arbitrage crew ended up selecting for is really good hairstyles.
(My supplemental reasoning for why this made sense is that I think that it makes the Lesbian Space Pirates joke/world-building work even better)
u/None [+1] (2 hours later)
[deleted]
u/DRMacIver [+3] (4 hours later)
Hmm. I'm not aware of it being noticeably difficult to float face down in the water. Is that a having breasts thing? When I did free diving this wasn't something I noticed the women having a problem with, but I wasn't really paying attention!
u/None [+1] (4 hours later)
[deleted]
u/DRMacIver [+3] (5 hours later)
I think the way the dynamics of this work is that if your arms dangle down they're more than enough to counterbalance any flotation effect from breasts unless you have a fair bit of body fat.
But, well, I have no practical experience of having breasts (other than default male body plan sized ones) so I'm not really sure either.
u/None [+3] (11 hours later)
Clearly this calls for a mythbusters-style experiment. Fill some water balloons with lard, duct tape them to your chest, and jump in the local pool.
u/DRMacIver [+4] (13 hours later)
Or, you know, we could ask someone who already has breasts
ETA: I've now run this experiment and my n=2 sample size unanimously reports that this isn't a thing and floating face down is easy.
u/None [+2] (18 hours later)
I still think you should do the water balloon thing, for the comedy value.
u/brmj [+1] (7 days later)
Not to be greedy, but are we expecting a chapter 8 at some time in particular?
u/DRMacIver [+2] (7 days later)
Next Friday, sorry. They're every other week at the moment.
u/brmj [+1] (7 days later)
That's entirely fine. I'll be looking forward to it.