"Hello, world.

"I got a few interesting messages, recently.

"One's from one of my trusted contacts on Titan, finally clueing me into the why of the black shiny outfits. I really should have thought of it myself... actually, it's one of the rumours I heard, but it wasn't any more plausible than any of the others. And now I know that there's a coterie of Titanians who've created a set of AIs specifically dedicated to muddying the waters on this.

"I'm still going to need to review my real-world applied puzzle-solving skills, and check for any relevant refresher or upgrade courses I can order in.

"Also, now I get to decide whether to actually share what I've learned, or to switch to being on the inside of the long-running joke myself. Hm... well, I do have that corset from the floor-show scene that I could fix up, if I want to transmit a video to Titan - I'm over half a light-hour away already, so I couldn't really call it a 'video-chat'. Hm again... others have leaked hints, so as long as I keep any of my own leaks within those bounds, I can enjoy the 'I know something you don't know' feeling I'm sure a lot of Titanians appreciate. So: it seems that I have something in common with most Titanians that I didn't even realize, and I've even mentioned it a time or two on this vlog. There, that should be sufficiently cryptic.

"Moving on to the main point of today's vlog: I'm seriously considering activating my backup copy on Titan, at least part-time and on some specific days. There's going to be a convention soon that I'd like to attend, dedicated to small-scale shipping and transport concerns like mine. Space truckers, to be more blunt. Corporations showing off their latest gear, competitions of all sorts, and, most important, enough in-person networking that I'd have at least a sporting chance to pick up any important rumours.

"Sure, almost all interplanetary and interlunar cargoes are carried by unmanned craft piloted by cheap, subsapient AIs. But those craft are mostly dedicated to cargo runs known well in advance, like Titan shipping its abundant CHON resources to organics-poor colonies, who usually load the cargo-ships with metals for the return trips. But modern life has enough complications, including the occasional business trying to trim costs at the expense of reliability, that any group in the solar system might develop a sudden need for, say, selenium and some optical-grade corundum. So there's still room for a variety of owner-operated tramp cargo vessels, each of which is working as hard as I do at finding opportunities to keep the bill-collectors at bay for a few weeks longer.

"I've got the quals to make better cash by fixing gadgets rather than just pushing objects around, but I still do enough of the latter that it really helps to keep me above water, financially. And this venture to the sun-lens point isn't going to last forever. Any one detail that I could learn at a con like this one could be enough to make the difference between bankruptcy and eventually paying off my mortgage. And since all I'd lose is a couple of days of generic study time... the payoff isn't guaranteed, but it seems likely enough to be worth getting a ticket.

"I've got a few more details to check and arrangements to make, but there's a good chance my next vlog will be made by my Titanian backup self."