Tim’rous beastie

Catherine appeared in his doorway, unreasonably composed in the hot soup that was the air on the top floor, today’s useless stack of files in her arms. 

“Last I checked I am not responsible for - “ she flicked through the top page of the first file - “oh yes, the sun.” 

“You get very chopsy in the heat.”

She rolled her eyes at him, which he felt only proved his point. 

“Why’ve we not got an air conditioner up here?”

“The Park won’t approve maintenance on an elevator that has been out of order for seventeen years and you think they’ll approve air conditioning for the building?”

“The lift’s a power play - Tavener’s hoping I’ll drop dead taking the stairs. And I didn’t say the building, I couldn’t give a fuck if that lot downstairs melt into a puddle and seep through the floor - be an improvement for half of them.”

“Oh so just for your office then?”

“Now you’re getting it.”

She went back to her office - hadn’t taken a single note on the matter which he’d have noted if he could have been arsed. 

He shouted “Your office too, gotta watch out for the elderly in these conditions.”

“You are four years older than me.” 

“I’m wearing it better.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

OpenAI scraped the entire web. All of which had been a labor of love from humans. Wikipedia is the backbone of a lot of LLMs, and that was volunteer human labor. They stole it and now they're selling it back to us.

Rules: Share the first lines of ten of your most recent fics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway.

I have somehow managed to write exactly ten Aleida Rosales-centric fics (!) so here are the first lines of all ten. ❤️ I will skip tagging people, but anyone who reads this, feel free to play!

Hold it against your bones: Aleida takes a deep breath, then slides the letter across the narrow tabletop with her fingertips.

Shape of things to come: Abuelo is in the kitchen. He keeps saying, Javi, ¡aléjate de la estufa! Juega en la sala familiar.

A matter of mind and heart: “For the tenth time, Mitch,” Bill stresses, wedging the phone receiver between his ear and shoulder so he can open a much-needed can of beer. “Lunar helium-3 exploration falls squarely under NASA’s science objectives. That’s a really creative yarn you just spun about Margo Madison’s super-secret vendetta against Exxon Corporation, but…”

Turns within me, turns without me: Bill Strausser bends over Margo’s desk, brow furrowed as he pores over the engine test results for the Pathfinder shuttle that’s headed to Jamestown next month. “I asked Aleida to join us because you both told me in passing, separately, that you’re concerned about one of the values, but I’m not seeing it. Chamber pressure, bypass flow, thrust all fine…”

Would it have been worth it, after all: “Would you mind,” Margo breathes from across the CSC conference room table, “uh - taking a second look at these trajectory calculations.”

It’s just what happens: Victor’s nearly at the end of the car pick-up line when his cell phone rings.

This hunger, it isn’t you: Aleida Rosales didn’t exactly volunteer for Flight on the Sojourner 2 rescue mission. But as it turns out, she’s now the only living NASA employee with the experience and capability to take the lead.

Kept on the inside: “All set, I think,” Aleida proclaims, turning her made-up face to Margo for confirmation.

If we didn’t do stuff like that: They’d kissed in the kitchen. It was brief, but more than a little hot. He’d tasted like perfectly-seasoned rice and the promise of later that night, Javi had been disgusted, and she’d retorted that their son wouldn’t be alive “if we didn’t do stuff like that.” Then her phone had rung.

- Anjal Prakash, the former research director at the Bharti Institute of Public Policy

I'd also like to elevate this linked study from the article: