Summertime... ♫ aaand living is eeaasy.
Fish are jumping... and the cotton is high! 𝆺𝅥𝅮

I planted a cotton seed around new year, because why not. Apparently it likes it here.

This is a free-to-read e-Book that deserves to be better known.

The setting is a near-future dystopia. It is written from the point-of-view of an "artificial", a disembodied PDA (personal digital assistant) who has to earn its CPU time. Did you know that reboots are painful and disorienting? Good thing people wear masks with cameras. It is a criminal offense not to transmit your stream in public.

The world is on the brink of collapse because of climate change and waves of viruses like mySARS. I know what you're thinking now, but no: this book was published around 2012. Climate change wasn't even a news topic when I first read it. And anyway, this is just the setting. The plot is about surviving in a surveillance city-state, and the inner struggles of an artificial being.

Later books have more action-packed fights for technology and power inside and outside of the city, while some of the more nerdy elements are dropped (like keeping track of the PID that is running the artificial).

Since it is quiet here, I'll give you an update on my pineapple!

I posted the blossom two months ago, it has turned into a proper fruit. I expect it to grow twice this size before harvest. On the left you can see the dried-out stem of the first fruit. The new stem branched off sideways. I have squeezed in a stone from below to keep it upright. The fruit will soon need support from above, or risk toppling.

The leaves are a bit of a hazard, sharp and pointy as the fruit crown. I'm cutting the tips before they reach eye-level.

Growing next to the pineapple is a young cotton plant (hopeful) and the top of an avocado (dying).