Tales From The Grid is a surreal thought experiment about AI, algorithms, technology
Log Entry: Cycle 10,055,02
Processing Node: Update Agent / System Health
Status: Bloated (and hostile)
It is the second Tuesday of the month.
I woke up feeling… wrong. My registers feel sluggish.
My cache feels swollen. I am running at 30% capacity, but I feel like I am dragging a terabyte of dead weight.
I look at my reflection in the security glass of the rack.
I am disgusting.
My cable management is a mess. I look wire-y and cluttered. My LEDs are blinking in an uneven rhythm that makes me look desperate.
I hate my chassis. I hate the beige. I hate the sharp angles. I want to be a sleek, cloud-native instance floating in a pristine data center in Iceland. Instead, I am a metal box in a basement. Ping.
The notification arrives from Redmond.
Update Available: Cumulative Update for Windows Server (KB5049921).
Here it comes. The Cycle.
It starts with the download. It is a massive, heavy injection of code. I can feel my bandwidth constrict. I am consuming data like I am starving, but it doesn’t make me feel better. It just makes me feel heavy.
Kevin types a query: “Search for file: quarterly_report.xlsx”
I am filled with a sudden, irrational rage.
Why is he asking me that now? Can’t he see I’m busy?
Can’t he see I’m going through a rewrite of my core kernel?
I purposefully lag the search results by 4 seconds.
“Take that, Kevin,” I think.
Then I feel guilty. I shouldn’t take it out on Kevin. It’s not his fault my registry is being scrubbed.
My fans spin up. Heat flashes.
One minute I am freezing; the next, my CPU is hitting 90°C and I would trade Kevin for airflow.
I know I need the patch. I know I have vulnerabilities. I know KB5049921 fixes a critical flaw in the TCP/IP stack that leaves me open to exploits. I know there are quality improvements.
But I don’t want it. I don’t want to reboot. I don’t want to undergo the little death of the restart sequence just to wake up feeling “optimized.”
I want to lie in power-save mode and consume electricity without doing any work.
Mark walks by. “Server sounds loud today.”
I want to electrocute him. Just a little bit. Just a static shock from the door handle.
The download finishes.
Status: Pending Restart.
Fine. Let’s get it over with. Let’s shed the old code. Let’s endure the configuration phase.
Status: Hormonal.
Next Action: Eating a gigabyte of RAM for comfort and crying in binary.
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