Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.
Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Sixty-one, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
The topic this week was Stupid Computer!
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TJ
Between Big Blue and Watson and Google’s auto-complete algorithms
people were getting a bit nervous about smart computers, so we’ve
developed a stupid computer with the attention span of a teenager. It
records personal information and then prompts your memory by asking you
things like “Didn’t you have something at like 2:30 today? The
dentist, maybe?” reminding you you’re out of eggs when you’re
already through the checkout counter, and calling your cellphone to
check someone’s phone number. It’s not the most helpful machine, but
using it will certainly improve your memory, out of necessity, and if
only by comparison.
DC
“My stupid computer. It’s slow, it’s useless. It tells me it’s doing one thing when it’s really doing another.” Distracted, I nodded in a way I hoped conveyed sympathy. She continued, “It looks like shit. It’s constantly getting viruses. It craps out at the most inopportune times. It is almost like it’s purposely being difficult.”
“So get rid of it.”
“I’ve grown attached…”
“That’s dumb.”
She looked at me, her face reflecting thoughts I couldn’t be bothered to read. “Is that how you deal with things that are no longer working?”
“Absolutely.”
“I see.”
And then so did I.
Tom
Stupid Computer. Piece of garbage. Rudy opens the leather violin case. The shinning metal flashed in his steel gray eyes. He grabs the Maxwell’s Silver Hammer silver hammer and brings it down on the center of the keyboard. He smashes the monitor, pulverizes the mouse, crashes the case and flattens the CPU like a raw veal cutlet. Dropping the hammer with both hands he throws the broken remains through the window. Glass flies everywhere. When the fury passes Rudy calmly return the fine tuning instrument back into the violin case. He heads down the street to his next unexpecting customer.
Danny
Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of the Tekken 3000 home robotic unit. This little mechanical humanoid can do it all, cook, clean, walk the dog, prepare the taxes, run your business. Tekken 3000 can work indoors, outdoors, Even in outer space! I brought my Tekken 3000 home, and it was wonderful! The first night, my robot, I named him Robbie, did everything listed in the advertisement, and more. Robbie, my new best friend. The next morning, Robbie hooked up to the internet via a USB port to update his Windows Vista software, was promptly infected with a virus, and exploded. Stupid computer.
Zackmann
Doc you got to help me. I thought it would be so cool to have a computer in my head so no one
would know that when I was looking at them I was really watching youtube or listen to podcasts
inside my head. Now it is taking over my entire life and making me miserable. Whenever I
eat sweets or forget to pay a bill before the first due date, it plays reality TV shows. If I lie to
a woman it plays lifetime movies all night when I try do sleep. Doc please remove this stupid
computer now.
Steven the Nuclear Man
I love her.
She caresses me with her fingers. Fast, then slow, then fast again. Slides them across the planes of my form.
I love her.
She tells me what to do, commands me. She is my mistress, my ruler, and I will always submit to her.
I love her.
I surprise her. She is puzzled at the strange shipments from Amazon. She wonders at the gorgeous photographs I show her. She laughs at the LOLcats.
I love her.
Even as she as she defrags me, as she reaches out to turn me off and unplug me.
I love her.
———————–
The poet stood before the computer. “You can fool their Turing tests, but that’s nothing.”
The computer whirred, beeped, and hummed.
The poet held out the small drive. “My poetry. Poetry is human. Poetry is being alive.” He inserted the drive into the computer’s port. “Analyze that, you stupid machine.”
The computer whirred, beeped, and hummed.
The poet reached the door before the speakers came to life. “You use metaphors of snow in your early work, rain later.”
“Frequency analysis. Trivial.”
“Snow covers, obscures, hides. Children laugh and play in it. Ugly things turn beautiful under the snow, but they are still there, just a crunching footstep away. People hide from rain, take shelter under umbrellas. They complain about the wet and the mud. Everyone wishes for a White Christmas; no-one cares for a rainy Easter.”
“Still just recall-”
“Snow obscures, but does not change anything. As snow melts, that left behind is ugly and tinged with cinders and salt. Nothing changes. When rain leaves, it is messy and muddy. But it is clean and fresh. New things can grow.”
“That’s not what they mean,” the poet said.
The computer whirred, beeped, and hummed.
“Then why are you crying?”
AM Earley
Glen wasn’t sure about the independent computer store. The young salesman was so friendly, helpful and plain spoken. Glen
could see this store earned its nice reputation. But Glen still had one question, “Why is this store named “Stupid
Computer”?”
“Computers are stupid because they only do what they are told. We fix them to do what their owner wants.”
As Glen left, he heard laughter coming from the stockroom. “Have a good day,” the salesman’s words stopped the laughter.
Glen didn’t know what the joke he missed was, and he didn’t want to know.
Norval Joe
“Spirit Leader. Og need advice,” the clan chief said and crouched before the old man.
“Speak Og,” the spirit leader grunted.
“Winter come. We stay, or find warmer place?”
“How much food you have?”
“One mammoth, three bison,” the clan chief said.
“How many people?”
“Clan have thirty-eight people.”
“I speak to ancestors,” the spirit leader said and removed several worn finger bones from a leather pouch. He rolled them between his hands and cast them into the dirt. He stared in silent dismay.
“What say ancestors?” Og asked.
“Ancestors say, “Error 326. Missing array parameter.”
“Og say, ‘Stupid computer’.”
Planet Z
I turned on the computer, checked email, and then went to the feeds.
“Like Kryptonite To Stupid” was one of the taglines I saw.
After reading this jackass’ drivel for a bit, I mumbled “More like ‘Like Magnet to Stupid’ there.” and I shut things down.
I started to wonder if there was only so much intelligence to go around, and with the explosion in data storage and clouds and server farms, if things weren’t being spread too thin these days.
I squeezed into my Hummer, drove to McDonalds, and let the car idle as I ate 5 Egg McMuffins.