xx49.07.17 | 11:23 | Thursday

Well, I was right, five hours of endless blue and not even a blip. The most exciting thing to happen was that I saw one ship.

One.

Ship.

It wasn't even a particularly big ship. Not even any islands! It's not going to be until tomorrow that we get more of them because we're doing it by this stupid 'grid system', there are about a billion tiny little squares to fill in—grrrr fine there are exactly one thousand, five hundred and twenty-two tiny little squares to fill in, STUPID pedantic honesty curse, guess how many I got to 'tick off' yesterday? Three. I KNOW.

About the only good thing to happen was that Daniel showed me this new upgrade for Opal he invented, or adapted or something, I wasn't paying much attention to be honest, but basically it will let me do 'live updates'. Apparently it'll read my mind and automatically translate whatever's happening to me into a journal entry! It sounds kind of wacky, right? I can't wait to try it out, he said it'll take a while for it to adjust to my mind so I have to do like 'practice runs' with it. My next entry will be directly from my brain, exciting!

xx49.07.17 | 13:11 | Still Thursday | [LIVE]

There's a tendency to overlook things when they're underdone if you wish the way to clear I feel I feel I feel strongly if you want me to be clear then everything comes back to this; try. Try. Rumblings of something new to be overcome, partridge of entropy. Partridge! Can't quite return to the beginning and find an overlooking emptiness, can you understand the intention of those who see? Intention. Intentions. Intentions of those. Trying to control but slip slip slipping away cannot find the exit—trying again but stop. Stop now. Stop.

xx49.07.17 | 13:22 | Still Thursday | [LIVE]

Trying again but never never over-never you were there at the start the end was the start the end was the beginning and that's why you're special special special interest of worse. Worse. Worse worse worse than before worse than—overlooking something, worse. Try again. Stop.

xx49.07.17 | 13:23 | Still Thursday | [LIVE]

BUNNIES! BUNNIES BUNNIES BUNNIES BUNNIES BUNNIES BUNNIES

[DATASTREAM LOST]

xx49.07.17 | 13:28 | Still Thursday | [LIVE]

Slow. Slow. Slower. Slower than. Slower than the other. Slower than everything. Slower than you. Slower than me.

Stop.

xx49.07.17 | 13:46 | Still Thursday | [LIVE]

I AM CHARLOTTE POWERS. I AM A HERO. I HAVE SEEN WHERE THIS LEADS AND WE CANNOT LET—

I am Charlotte Powers I am Charlotte Powers I am Charlotte Powers IamCharlottePowers IamCharlottePowersIamIamIamIAMIAMIAM

[DATASTREAM LOST]

xx49.07.17 | 13:48 | Still Thursday | [LIVE]

Red. Blue. Red. Blue. Green. Green. Black. White. White. Black.

Hello. Hello hello. Testing.

It's working—Daniel, is it working now? It's working! Oh YAY thank goodness. Do I have to keep doing the colours? Okay cool. Wow, this is really weird. I'm thinking this and it's coming up on the screen. I. Am. Typing. With. My. Mind.

This is kind of. Weird. And kind of. Cool.

What's with the wacky punctuation? What? Oh, okay.

RED BANANA MAUVE MUSHROOM COMMAND INPUT/EXECUTE EXTERNAL AUDIO TRANSLATE GREY BADGER PURPLE GIRAFFE

"—learn as it goes. Hm. I guess I have to repeat that, the processing and output AI will learn as it goes—hey, this is cool, I'm speaking and you're hearing what I'm saying and then your brain is outputting it to your Opal and your Opal is throwing it back to the big screen—talk about your roundabout, buffered interface systems!" said Daniel.

Why did it put 'said Daniel' at the end?

"Just an identification thing, don't worry about it," said Daniel.

It's kind of annoying. Can we turn that off?

"Just deal with it," said Daniel.

And how come when I talk it comes out like this? No quotation marks?

"Because it's a diary, it's in the first-person," said Daniel.

But it kind of looks like I'm just thinking things and you're responding to them, that's creepy.

"Fine, just a second," said Daniel.

"There, how's that?" said Daniel.

"I don't know—oh! Quotation marks! Cool! So if I stopped talking," said Charlotte.

And started thinking oh.

"I was hoping for something more, I don't know, seamless," said Charlotte.

"And if it's MY diary why is it putting 'Charlotte', shouldn't it just be 'me'? Or ... no, 'I'?" said Charlotte.

"Hang on, let me fiddle with the settings," said Daniel. "Try it now."

"Is this better?" I said.

"Yes, that IS better," I said.

"Huh," I said.

"Well, I guess it's pretty impressive but it looks kind of weird," I said.

"The post-processing stuff is just cosmetic, but I'm massaging it now. Uh, try 'thinking', as if you're narrating," said Daniel.

…

Hello. Okay. I am testing my new Opal live update thing. Hello.

"Look, stop laughing! It's not easy to narrate on cue!" I said.

"Try doing the talking-thinking thing again, it should be more natural now," said Daniel.

"I am talking—" I am thinking "—and talking again—" and thinking again oh wow "—this is cool."

"I bumped up the sensitivity and tolerance of the P&O AI, also I'm feeding it back into your diary files in a loop, it should learn your weird 'style' pretty quickly which'll make everything smoother."

"It didn't put a 'said Daniel' after that one, did you tell it not to?" I said. Oh cool, "—it put 'I said'!" I said.

Huh.

"Yeah, it'll take a while to get used to it," said Daniel. "But it'll get better as you use it more—hey, did you see that? It put the speech indicator in the middle of the sentence, this thing is smarter than I expected."

"I'm starting to get kind of a headache, is that normal?"

"Dunno. This is all experimental, I'm a little surprised it works at all."

"Maybe we should

[DATASTREAM LOST]