"Hello, world.

"Faz may be a good database programmer, but she's no expert on shipboard systems, and she vastly underestimates my emergency preparedness preparations. I can understand that; when we split up, I was working as a third mate, and I had very little control over shipboard policy.

"... Either that, or she's entirely aware I'd catch her out, and she's trying to start up negotiations on how I should 'punish' her. That woman can still see three steps ahead of me, a lot of the time. Well, at least she keeps me on my toes.

"Today, I'm going to focus on one of the questions I'm asked the most often: How does the modern day compare to the past that I grew up in?

"Trying to sum up a century and change of change in just a few sentences is pretty futile. But if I had to pick just one stand-out thing... everything is easier now. Almost nobody today thinks about the lack of hassles that I used to take for granted.

"Since a lot of my friends and acquaintances are part of the furry affinity group, I'll focus on that. In the first decade or so of my life, there simply was no furry affinity group, just various people who had an affinity for what are now called furry things. If any of us were lucky, we'd get to watch a movie like 'The Secret of NIMH', at the specific times it was broadcast in a theatre; or a few years after it was made, at the specific times it was broadcast by a television channel. Or we'd know of a weekly cartoon from a couple of decades previously that had a centaur in it, or maybe we'd come across a scholarly book that translated the unexpurgated versions of Aesop's Fables. And that was about it. By the time I'd died, the affinity group had coalesced, and there were conventions, sub-affinity groups - we called them 'fandoms' - a few hundred webcomics, artist galleries, and if you could afford it, artists who'd draw what you paid them to. Which was certainly better. Today, various background algorithms analyze everyone's reactions to various stimuli and determine exactly which affinity groups they'd get the most benefit from being part of... and similar algorithms come up with a constant stream of customized media content for each individual to maximize their enjoyment, both from directly watching it and from sharing with others. The whole idea of waiting for an authour to come up with an idea, write out a script, and then produce a finished product has faded from public consciousness as much as hand-cranking an electric starter on an automobile carriage.

"Put another way, it felt to me like every minute of every day on modern Earth was a fully-choreographed 'OK Go' music video.

"Artificial friends that are more fun to interact with than live people, better food that just shows up when it's a good time to eat it, automatically-created, -delivered, and -taken-away-and-stored toys, something close to a complete lack of the medical problems I used to take for granted... while there are parts of modern culture that I don't really engage with, on the whole, I don't think I'd want to go back to the way things were during my first life.

"And as for not engaging with culture... well, even during my first life I felt like I was out-of-step with a lot of my contemporaries. I don't remember ever 'getting' the attraction of watching major-league sports, or keeping up with the lifestyles and relationships of the wealthy, or daytime talk TV, or soap operas, or a lot of other things. And I remember flash mobs being something unusual and unexpected and occasionally interesting to watch a recording of. When I was revived, I tried taking part in the constant-firehose of modern culture... and luckily for me, it didn't take long for the background algorithms to figure out how little enjoyment I got from that approach.

"Up in Insulo Tri, I'm not going to say that most people take life at a slower pace, but... the crowds aren't quite so large, and there's a conscious awareness that there's a distinction between Trions and the peoples of Luna and Earth. And one point three seconds of light-lag is still short enough to participate in everything but fast-twitch networked games. Modern, without being overwhelming. Compared to the groups of people further out, who seem to be random-walking in their own directions, depending on distance and size of the community. You know, the first time I saw a picture of a busy street inside one of Titan's domes, I thought it was the middle of a convention for Cenobite cosplayers? I'm very happy that they're living their best-possible lives, as everyone there sees them, but the affinity groups there are distinct enough from the ones in Earth-Luna space that I expect it would take me a good amount of time and effort to just start feeling comfortable among them. And while I appreciate the mindset that offered to let me join the community there during my time of need, I do feel a certain amount of relief that I don't have to accept that offer. Well, fully accept it, at the moment; I knew what I might be getting into by sending one of my backups there, with that version of myself potentially waking up in the middle of things there. Though if I do wake up as that backup, I hope that folk on Titan understand if I'm not particularly fond of tight black leather and rubber outfits, and that I continue to favour fur and feathers.

"... That was supposed to be a joke. And now I'm realizing how poorly it might be taken. I wasn't trying to offend anyone, I'm just occasionally an idiot. I'll add some more Titanian cultural items at the top of my to-read pile, and hope that I'll be a bit less of an idiot by the time I swing past your moon. I've only got so many hours before then, but if you want to recommend some items that have a high ratio of value to time required, feel free to suggest something.

"Let's see, what else is going on... Well, Gerard seems to be giving up on the whole socialization thing for now. I'm not sure if that choice is arising from Venusian culture, his inhuman thought processes, or just because he wants to focus on whatever experiments he's doing aboard his ship right now. He's been having something like sixty megawatts of solar beams from the Ríos de Luz pouring into Testbed Six, but other than making his ship's heat-radiators work that much harder, I couldn't tell you what he's using that power for. A few racks of high-power computers, maybe? Some sort of manufacturing process that needs a whole lot of energy? Sensor cover against anyone trying to perform industrial espionage on his drive design? Could be almost anything.

"Faz has started teaching herself about the fabbers and machine tools I have aboard ship. She's also been looking into a variety of blueprints of possible upgrades to her robo-goat body, even if she's not using it much right now. When the other Faz commissioned it, it was an extremely accurate copy of her living body; but the new Faz can try a few things the other Faz wouldn't. Just upgrading her eyes alone could introduce her to a literal new rainbow of experiences. I'm not really sure how that meshes with the guarantee that the new Faz's behaviour is supposed to match the old Faz's... is it just that this is what the organic Faz would do if she got put in a mechanical body? Maybe it's that her AI mind can adapt to a new sensorium more easily than someone with a squishy brain - or a program that emulates a squishy brain in exact detail - could? I've asked her, but she's deflected. The closest to a straight answer I've gotten from her so far is that she wants to be able to play pranks on every last one of my senses, from ultraviolet to t-rays.

"That's about everything I can think of, so I'll talk to you-all later."