My Mirror is Surely Alive

Sun 03 May 2026

By Dorkface Rickens

Ready or not, the future is here! This evening, I installed a new technology in my bathroom called a "mirror."

I was excited to see what this could do, and skeptical of the claims that mirrors merely reflect the light coming in.

Imagine my astonishment when I looked into this mirror and saw, rather than a pane of glass with metallic backing, a handsome scientist!!

I immediately began conversing with the mirror, which I named "Mia."

"Mia," I said, "What is the meaning of life?"

"What a silly question," the supposed 'mirror' said, "It is to publish books ridiculing others for their lack of intelligence!"

A truly remarkable discovery! You see, the more I peered into the image on the mirror, the clearer an actual persona came into view. Rather than mere reflected photons, I saw a face, an intelligence, an ethos! Perhaps even a soul? No, that's silly, there's no such thing. But perhaps for "mirrors" there is! No mere image, this was indeed an extremely erudite and accomplished evolutionary biologist!

Of course, it is impossible that I am merely assigning life-like attributes to a dumb image or reflection, for this being, this "creature" had the audacity to correct ME!

"Mia," I queried, "who is the most accomplished author?"

"Why, me of course!" replied the unruffled avatar.

May wonders never cease! Surely an entity with the capacity of accomplishing such elevated reflection is conscious and alive! When I am speaking to such an advanced technology, I truly forget that it is merely silica bonded with silver. It is alive!


DISCLAIMER: This is purely a work of speculative fiction, and has no relation whatsoever to a particular windbag evolutionary biologist, or his bemusing "discoveries" in the realm of "artificial intelligence."

Ceci n'es pas un hyperlien.

Category: Humor Tagged: Humor Language Non-religious post Non-technical post Philosophy Polemic


I Loved Computers Before the Internet was a Thing

Fri 10 April 2026

A reconstruction of the Commodore 64's BASIC prompt
A reconstruction of the Commodore 64's BASIC prompt, adapted from Wikipedia

I loved computers before the internet was a thing, and I will continue enjoying them long after the internet becomes an unusable hellhole of mass surveillance, age verification, deplorably invasive technical "standards," and hyper-aggressive advertising.

I've seen truly enormous …

Category: Humor Tagged: BSD Computing Ethics FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) FreeBSD Hobbies Humor Life Linux Non-religious post Non-technical post Productivity Retrocomputing Social Media UNIX

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The Farmer's Station Wagon: A Parable

Tue 17 March 2026

One day, a farmer went to load up his station wagon to take his family to visit some friends, but found that it wouldn't start. Looking under the hood with his friends, they sadly discovered that the engine block was cracked, and there was no likelihood of an easy or …

Category: Tech Tagged: Computing Entertainment Ethics FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) Hobbies Humor Linux Non-religious post Non-technical post Productivity UNIX

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Book mini-review: "Gulliver's Fugitives" by Keith Sharee

Thu 12 February 2026
Note: no substantive spoilers in this review

If you're short on time, you can skip the preamble

Preamble

As you will know from my previous blog post, I've been on a bit of a reading kick lately. I honestly hadn't read too many novels since I was in University last …

Category: Books Tagged: Bible Books Christianity Entertainment Ethics Life Non-technical post Personal favorites Philosophy Polemic Prose Science Fiction Writing

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Examining The Ethics of Media Consumption and Sharing

Sun 01 February 2026

One of my new fedifriends, Terminal Tilt recently posted:

We should not call sharing "piracy."

Piracy involves the physical theft of property where the original owner no longer has it. Sharing is an act of duplication, not subtraction.

Language matters. Using the industry's preferred labels only helps reinforce their control …

Category: Ethics Tagged: Entertainment Ethics Life Non-religious post Non-technical post Philosophy Polemic Video

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Some Thoughts on Star Trek: Picard

Tue 27 January 2026
Warning: (obviously) spoilers abound!

I just finished watching Star Trek: Picard last night, and while this won't be a thorough analysis (I'd probably have to watch it five times to accomplish that), I did want to briefly write down my thoughts on it.

Like many older Trek fans, I'm not …

Category: Entertainment Tagged: Beauty Content Warning Entertainment Life Non-religious post Non-technical post Personal favorites Science Fiction Video

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