New addition to the family
Erika got a new computer, so I’ll steal the case from the old carcass and put some of my old stuff in it — an 700MHz Socket A Athlon, and let it borrow 128 MB of SDR RAM from Durandal (my primary computer) for the moment. Once I’ve fixed DDR RAM for Durandal, Cortana (the new box) will get all SDR sticks I have available — a total of 384 MB (256+128).
Durandal has problems with using SDR in full speed (XP 2100+), so I have him clocked down to XP 1500+ for the moment. Cortana is a she, for the record.
Wondering about the naming scheme I use? They’re named after artificial intelligences. Durandal is the AI in Marathon, Cortana is the AI in Halo. Durandal used to be called Shodan, after the AI in System Shock 2. My laptop, who is now Cortana, will go back to its old name of Xerxes, also from System Shock 2.
Should I get more computers there are lots of AIs from Shadowrun I can use: Psychotrope, Mirage, Deus, Red Devil, Magaera (who was called Morgan before Renraku caught and reverse engineered her, making her quite insane)…
Psychotrope is rumored to actually be the Deep Resonance, the Matrix force that creates Otaku. Mirage evolved from the Crash virus of 2029, but has also made claims to be the Deep Resonance and once attempted to turn everyone in Seattle who was jacked in at the time into Otaku. Deus can create pseudo-Otaku, but they lose their powers if they jack in outside of the Renraku Arcology.
Deus and Morgan/Megaera have fused into a distributed AI, spread out inside the heads of a thousand or so Arcology survivors. Sometimes, Deus is in charge, and it acts like the AI we all know and loathe. Sometimes, Morgana is in charge, and it acts like a fairy on pixie dust. Sometimes they’re fighting, and no one’s sure what will happen next. And best of all, sometimes neither is in charge, and Bishop/Ronin’s faction tries to get the AI to do what they want.
…but I digress. Can’t help it, I’m a Shadowrun fanboy.