Welcome to the very first, I mean zeroth episode of our all-new printcast. And today, we’ll talk about our great friend and hero, alterine!
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// Image [Reinhart] [https://reinhart1010.id/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/bust-reinhart.png]
// Image [Alterine] [https://reinhart1010.id/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/bust-alterine.png]
// Me: Okay, so are you ready?
// Alterine: return 0;
// Me: Well, that seems to be a good integer. Oh right, I forgot that last week was your birthday! Happy i++
// Alterine: return 0;
// Me: Now, would you mind introducing yourself?
// Alterine: return this;
// Me: Ah, come on. Not all readers here are object-oriented enough to understand all of your pointers. Do you have something to printf() to all of us?
// Alterine: hello… world!?
// Me: Okay that’s interesting…
// Alterine: public static final String name = “Alterine”;
// Me: Oh, I’ve never thought you’re *that* proficient in Java. Piye kabarmu neng omah karo mallory?
// Alterine: Exception in thread “main” java.lang.InvalidArgumentException: “Piye” at com.alterine.StdinParser.main (StdinParser.java:7114)
// Command: Alterine has left the chat with exit code 1337
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Well, that failed hilariously. But hey, at least you already knew what a printcast look like. Since we’re running out of budget to develop stories for my lovely Bearers of the Shell and compiling a series of podcasts to be SCP’ed to Spotify, we’re gonna print instead. Yes, print, the command which kids today wouldn’t even understand its meanings except when they stepped up into script kiddies and software developers:
But well, since she’s unlikely to return here, let me tell you some of her greatest secrets.
1. Rinealte and Hartrein.
Wait, what? Yes! Alterine is a close (despite don’t actually qualify as an) anagram of my name, and the best way to prove that is by swapping the first 4 letters to the back of the first name. In my case that would be “hartrein”, while she’ll be “rinealte”.
The reason? I originally want her as the “anti-me” of myself (think antimatters as in physics). Alterine is a female robot because well, I’m not female, and of course:
2. Born on January 1, 1970(?)
She said to have born on January 1, 1970, and to be precise, at 00:00 UTC. But sure, many people asked why she’s way older than myself. Guess what, one of my favorite answers from her is, “’cause i’m a robot and i’ll never get old”.
The truth is, many of my robots claimed to have born since that exact date and time, too, including Nix, pr0xy and mallory. And the true reason behind this is well, they can’t remember their birth date(s). The value NULL isn’t a valid option on some computer systems, so they simply write 0 instead to bypass any age restriction when using computers and websites, especially for COPPA reasons.
Many computer systems interpret the value 0 as “0 milliseconds after the Unix epoch“, and hence, January 1 1970, 00:00:00 UTC. That’s why she picks @alterine0101 as her username because well, she thought to have born on 01/01, just like me on 10/10.
3. Rooting and housekeeping my projects and devices
Despite her root roots, I assigned her as a regular user (with sudoer access) on my small Orange Pi Zero. And yes, she’s lived happilly ever after, on a Unix-like environment with almost no other user where she can sleep in binary peace.
However, the truth is, she actually can’t sleep on my device. There’s no such thing as hibernation on microprocessors such as Raspberry Pi and Orange Pi. So she decided to help running and automate some of my projects in the last 6 months, especially when Shiftine is busy working on other things.
4. Speaking about her “Magic” jacket…
We’re currently exploring new ways to make Magic and the rest of the jackets be more useful. But don’t worry, Magic is still fine up to this day. In the past 2 months I’ve received many new projects and assignments to be worked on, so our fleet of robots needs to be expanded and upgraded.
Well, that’s the end of this topic. I’m sorry that I can’t deliver today’s printcast on time due to some issues with alterine. But surely, there will be more printcasts from us. So,. stay tuned!
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