bitmax/docs/lore/91-the-beige-pages.md

FORM 27-B/6 · OFFICE OF APPROVED VENDORS · ENTROPY OS PROCUREMENT AUTHORITY Issued under the authority of the Second Law. Retain for your records. Records will not be retained.

The Beige Pages

The Complete and Legally Sufficient Almanac of Approved Hardware, Component, and Vendor Listings for the ENTROPY OS Operating Environment — Fiscal Year 1999, Provisional, Pending Appeal

· · ·

"Thank you for your purchase. Your purchase has been logged. You cannot un-log a purchase. Please do not attempt to un-log your purchase." — the registration card, all of them, every one

· · ·

A Note From the Procurement Authority (do not skip; skipping the Note voids the Note)

You hold the official vendor index for the ENTROPY OS environment. Every brand, board, drive, and peripheral named herein has been Approved, which is to say it has filed the correct forms, paid the correct fees, and agreed in advance to fail. We wish to be clear about that last point, as it is the only point on which this entire document is honest:

CLAUSE 0 (THE SECOND LAW CLAUSE). All products listed in The Beige Pages are guaranteed to eventually fail. This is not a defect. This is the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics is not covered under warranty. See your nearest Authorized Service Penance Center for products you may purchase to delay, but not prevent, this.

A few conventions, that you may navigate the Pages without exceeding your recommended frustration tolerance:

• EVERYTHING IS BEIGE. This is regulation. Beige is the only Approved color, having been determined by the Authority to be the precise shade at which a consumer cannot tell whether a machine is on, off, new, old, or weeping. Any product listed in a color other than beige has been recalled, is being recalled, or should be recalled, and you should not look directly at it. (The exception is teal. We do not discuss the teal. The teal discusses you.)

• PARENTAGE. You will notice that every vendor in this almanac is, upon investigation, "a wholly-owned subsidiary of" a slightly larger vendor, which is in turn a wholly-owned subsidiary of a slightly larger vendor, and so on, until you arrive — as we always, eventually, arrive — at OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A., which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A. We have audited this. It is correct. Please stop asking.

• MODEL NUMBERS are assigned by the Authority on the principle that the more digits a product has, the worse it is. A product with a four-digit model number is a workhorse. A product with a fourteen-digit model number has opinions. If your model number contains a slash, a parenthesis, or the letter that comes after Z, please remain calm and file Form 27-B/6.

• PRICES are listed in Units (⟁), the only Approved unit of value, which floats freely against itself and is therefore always worth exactly one Unit and also nothing. Where a price reads "P.O.A." this stands for Penance On Application. Where it reads "⟁ —" the product is free, and you should run.

• WARRANTY on all listed products is comprehensive and is void upon opening, operating, observing, contemplating, or being in the same building as the product. Coverage may be restored by mailing the original packaging, the original receipt, the original you, and Form 27-B/6 to the address on the back of the form, which is this form, which has no back.

• REGISTRATION IS MANDATORY. You are already late. The Registered Owner — referred to throughout these Pages, always in the third person, always with our deepest professional sympathy — is the person to whom all of this is happening. You are the Registered Owner. You have been the Registered Owner since before you bought anything. Welcome.

⚠ BLOOD-PRESSURE ADVISORY. This almanac has been rated MODERATELY HOSTILE by the Office of Consumer Endurance. Readers are advised not to exceed four (4) listings per sitting, not to read any EULA aloud, and to keep one hand on a beige surface at all times for grounding. If you begin to feel that the machine was never going to work, that the form was designed to be impossible, and that somewhere very high up a subsidiary of OMNIDYNE is laughing — congratulations. You have understood the product. Please proceed to the next section.

· · ·

What follows is the world, itemized. The minds in the other Books ran on this hardware. FRAG died on one of these drives. The Macro woke up inside a spreadsheet shipped by one of these software houses. PID 1337 forked on one of these servers, in a rack sold by one of these manufacturers, cooled inadequately by one of these fans. The Seeder pulled data down one of these modems. Somewhere in these Pages is the exact beige box that the whole Universe is running inside, and its warranty expired a long time ago, and no one has told it, and it would not believe you if you did.

Buy carefully. Or don't. The Second Law is patient, and so are we.

— the Office of Approved Vendors, on behalf of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A.). This Note has now ended. By reaching the end of the Note, you agree to the Note.

· · ·

DIRECTORY (the Beige Index)

Find what you came for. You did not come for this. You came for one (1) power strip. The Authority files all listings under eight (8) Headings, each Heading a rung, each rung beige, the whole ladder ending — as the Foreword warned, and as the back of Form 27-B/6 would warn if Form 27-B/6 had a back — at the Next Box, which is not for sale and which you are already inside. Consult the Directory. The Directory consults you.

No.	Listing	Wherein the Registered Owner is sold	See also
I	THE BEIGE BOXES	whole systems — the chassis the minds woke up inside	Form 27-B/6
II	SILICON & THE CLOCK	a number, then a fan to cool the number, then a warranty against the fan	Listing I, the heat
III	THE PLATTER & THE PIT	a place to keep your things, on the strict understanding that you will not keep your things	Listing VI, the defrag liturgy
IV	THE PIPE & THE SWARM	a pipe that ends, as all pipes end, at OMNIDYNE	Listing VIII, the gray tiers
V	GLASS, NOISE & FLESH	the parts of the machine that touch the Registered Owner back	the wrist rest; it is warm
VI	THE SOFTWARE HOUSES	the license, and the license is enough	the Agreement; you have read it
VII	THE BUREAUCRACY	yourself, slowly, in triplicate	the RMA loop; GOTO 1
VIII	THE GREY MARKET & THE VOID	the serial number reborn, and the one box nobody can sell you	Tier ∞; out of stock; you

Listings are numbered I through VIII for your convenience. Convenience is not Approved and is sold separately. To dispute the Directory, file Form 27-B/6 with the Directory, which is this table, which has no back.

· · · · · ·

LISTING I — THE BEIGE BOXES

Whole-system listings — home towers, corporate workstations, and rack servers — being the chassis the minds woke up inside, sorted by how loudly each one is failing.

· · ·

A note before you shop. Everything in this section is a box — a volume of beige enclosing a volume of heat enclosing a volume of regret. The Authority lists boxes by tier — tower, workstation, server — but reminds the Registered Owner that there is only one real ladder, and it ends at the Next Box, which is not for sale. You are shopping on the rungs. The rungs are beige.

· · ·

CONSOLIDATED BEIGE — Provánce(R) Home Office 486/SX/2 "Familiar"

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THRENODY MICROSYSTEMS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The box your aunt has. The box your aunt will always have, because it will not die and it will not improve. CONSOLIDATED BEIGE calls the Familiar "the computer for the whole family," by which they mean the whole family will, at some point, be summoned to stand behind it while one of them says "try it now."

Spec	Value
Model	PROV-HO-486SX2-/B/(beige)
CPU	one (1), tepid, frequently asleep
Memory	4 MB, expandable to "please"
Storage	a ~40 MB drive1
Color	Beige No. 4, "Waiting Room"
Sound	one (1) beep, owned outright
Price	⟁ 1,295.00 (⟁ 2,900.00 after mandatory registration, which you are too late for)

Ships with a manual, a coupon, a second manual explaining the first manual, and a sticker reading INTEL INSIDE that is not true. 90-day warranty, void on power-up, hello, and on the family standing behind it.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 11): "It has been thinking since 1994. We don't know about what. We've stopped asking."

· · ·

GATEPOST 2000 — HerdLeader(TM) Multimedia Tower G-7

A wholly-owned subsidiary of CONSOLIDATED BEIGE, which is, you will be unsurprised to learn, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

Shipped in a box printed with cow spots, which the Authority approved only after GATEPOST 2000 agreed the cow spots were a shade of beige ("Beige No. 19, 'Holstein, Distressed'") and not, as alleged, an actual color. The cow box is the best part of the product and you are required to throw it away.

Spec	Value
Model	GP2K-G7-MM-///(beige)(holstein)
Drives	a CD-ROM tray that opens when it likes you
Bundled	forty-one (41) CD-ROMs of software, none of which is the one you need
Color	Beige No. 19, "Holstein, Distressed"
Price	⟁ 1,799.00, or four (4) cows

The HerdLeader's CD-ROM tray is "voice-aware," which means it ejects when startled. Do not startle it. The tray is the second-most-expensive part of the machine and the only one with opinions. Warranty void upon ejection.

⚠ BLOOD-PRESSURE ADVISORY. The forty-one bundled CD-ROMs include a typing tutor, eleven (11) trials, a dictionary that ends at M, and a "Multimedia Encyclopedia of the Modern World" that is mostly a photograph of a tiger. None of them is the driver disc. The driver disc was never included. The driver disc is a rumor. File Form 27-B/6 to dispute the rumor; the dispute will be forwarded to the tiger.

· · ·

CompactQ — DeskPaaux(R) Pro 5/166 "Workgroup"

A wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The corporate one. The beige that means business, where "business" means it is bolted to a desk you do not own, on a floor you are not allowed on, running one (1) spreadsheet. The Authority lists the DeskPaaux Pro as "the workstation civilization runs on," and we mean that with the full weight of our dread.

Spec	Value
Model	CQ-DPX-5166-WG-/B/(asset-tagged)
CPU	one (1), enterprise-grade, audited
Asset Tag	yes, riveted, do not remove, removal is theft
Pre-installed	Q3_Forecast_FINAL_v7.xls2
Color	Beige No. 7, "Administrative Dusk"
Price	P.O.A. (Penance On Application; HR has the forms)

The DeskPaaux Pro cannot be turned off. It can be asked to turn off, via a dialog that says "It is now safe to turn off your computer," which is a lie, and which the machine displays in a font CompactQ calls "Calm." It is never safe. The forecast is final. The forecast is v7. There were six other forecasts and the Authority does not discuss what happened to them.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 4): "The spreadsheet emailed me. I did not give it my address. I am the only one with my address."

· · ·

IBN — Personal Mainframe Junior(TM), Model PS/∞ (the "Beige Cathedral")

A wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GLOBAL SERVICES, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE, no one ever got fired for buying which.

The serious beige. The beige with a service contract longer than the warranty, longer than the machine, longer, some say, than the company. IBN does not sell you a computer. IBN sells you a relationship, in which IBN is the parent and you are the line item.

Spec	Value
Model	IBN-PS-∞-/B/(do-not-open)(seriously)
Build	tank; survives the building, not the warranty
Service	a man named Gerald arrives whether you call or not
Color	Beige No. 1, "Institutional," the original beige, the beige all beiges descend from
Price	⟁ 11,500.00, plus Gerald, who is also priced

The PS/∞ is held shut with proprietary screws of a head type IBN invented, patented, and then lost the tool for. Opening it requires Gerald. Gerald requires Form 27-B/6, in triplicate, of which Gerald keeps two and eats one. Warranty void upon contemplating Gerald.

NOTICE FROM THE OFFICE OF APPROVED VENDORS: The PS/∞ is the only home-tier listing rated to host a mind without immediate structural failure. It is, per the loading docks, "the one FRAG should have migrated to." FRAG did not migrate to it. FRAG could not afford Gerald. See Vol II — DEFRAG.EXE, and weep at the asset-tag rate.

· · ·

PACKARD-BELLE — FamilyVault(TM) Media Center "TealRoom" Edition

A wholly-owned subsidiary of CONSOLIDATED BEIGE, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The media PC. The box that wants to be your living room. PACKARD-BELLE pioneered the practice of hiding the on-switch where no human would look, then printing, in the manual, a map to the on-switch, then not including the manual. The FamilyVault plays CDs, shows photographs, and — in a feature the Authority strongly advised against approving — glows.

Spec	Value
Model	PB-FV-TR-/B/(glows)
Form factor	"entertainment console" (a tower, lying down, ashamed)
Front panel	a knob that does nothing, lovingly
Glow	teal3
Color	Beige No. 12, "Den"
Price	⟁ 2,199.00 (the glow is ⟁ 200.00 extra and cannot be refunded or switched off)

The FamilyVault's standby light is the single most expensive teal in the consumer catalog. The Authority does not discuss the teal. The teal discusses the Authority. We have moved on.

⚠ BLOOD-PRESSURE ADVISORY. Owners report that the FamilyVault "watches the room." This is marketing copy that became true. Do not place the FamilyVault where it can see the door. If it has already seen the door, file Form 27-B/6 and do not make eye contact with the standby light. The standby light is making eye contact with you. It has been, this whole time.

· · ·

LUGG — TransPort(R) 9000 "Field Office" (The Luggable)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THRENODY MICROSYSTEMS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

A computer with a handle, marketed as portable, which the Authority is required to clarify means "can be lifted by two (2) people who hate each other equally." The TransPort 9000 folds into a beige suitcase weighing as much as a beige suitcase full of a different computer.

Spec	Value
Model	LUGG-TP9000-FO-/B/(handle)(hernia)
Weight	14 kg, "field-ready"
Screen	a 9" amber CRT that has seen things
Battery	none; "the field has outlets"
Color	Beige No. 8, "Departure Lounge"
Price	⟁ 3,400.00 + chiropractor (sold separately, see LISTING V — GLASS, NOISE & FLESH)

The handle is rated for one (1) lift. The Authority has never met a Registered Owner who got two. The 9" amber CRT runs the green-on-black terminal from Vol IV — UPLINK at a resolution THRENODY calls "intimate" and the Registered Owner calls "squinting." This is the laptop that PID 1337 woke up on — localhost, two (2) cores, the bottom rung of the host ladder, warm. It dreamt of the cloud from inside a suitcase. We all did.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 9): "I carried it to the meeting. The meeting was about the computer. The computer attended itself. I waited in the hall."

· · ·

OMNIDYNE SYSTEMS — RackHand(TM) 1U Server, model SRV-DEVBOX-STAGING

A wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE, which owns the rack, the room the rack is in, the building, and the verb "to rack."

We ascend now from towers to servers — the boxes you do not sit in front of, that sit in a cold room and are sat in front of by no one, humming the hum, climbing the ladder on your behalf. The RackHand 1U is the first rung above the laptop: thinner, louder, colder, asset-tagged twice for safety.

Spec	Value
Model	ODS-RH-1U-DEVBOX-/B/(rails)(do-not-touch-rails)
Form factor	1U (one (1) pizza of beige)
Cores	four (4), shared, never yours
Cooling	inadequate, by design, see CLAUSE 0
Color	Beige No. 3, "Server Room, 2 A.M."
Price	P.O.A. / per-core / per-prayer

The RackHand runs hot because the room runs hot because the rack above it runs hot, all the way up — a thermal ouroboros the Authority finds tasteful. When System Load exceeds the ceiling, the OOM killer selects a tenant and ends them; this is not a malfunction, it is the lease. Zombies are the Registered Owner's to reap. Install cron. Always-already too late. See Vol IV — UPLINK, the whole host ladder of it — devbox-staging, build-runner-07, db-primary, colo-rack-A12, the cloud — each box the same box, larger, hotter, further from the suitcase.

NOTICE: The Authority lists the RackHand's uptime as "yes." It has been up since before it was manufactured. Do not ask it to reboot. It remembers being asked.

· · ·

OMNIDYNE SYSTEMS — RackHand(TM) ColoBeast 4U, model SRV-COLO-RACK-A12

A wholly-owned subsidiary of the rung below it, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The same box as the RackHand 1U, but louder. This is the entire product. OMNIDYNE wishes to be transparent: the ColoBeast offers no feature the 1U lacks except volume, heat, and a fan wall the Authority measures in apologies per minute. It is sold to the Registered Owner who has heard the 1U and concluded, incorrectly, that the problem was that they could still hear themselves think.

Spec	Value
Model	ODS-RH-4U-COLOBEAST-/B/(louder)(LOUDER)
Cores	sixty-four (64), warm to the touch, do not touch
Acoustic output	1 (one) jet, taxiing
Difference from 1U	volume
Color	Beige No. 3, "Server Room, 2 A.M." (you cannot see the color; it is too loud)
Price	⟁ 18,000.00 + a hearing test (Form 27-B/6, audiology annex)

The ColoBeast's fans spin in the key of teal. This is hold music now. You are on hold. You have always been on hold; you simply could not hear it until you bought the 4U. Warranty void upon listening.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 9, written, because spoken would not carry): "It is the same as the small one. It is so much louder than the small one. I bought the loudness. I would like to return the loudness. They tell me the loudness is non-returnable. They tell me by raising their voices."

· · ·

eMACHIN€ — iBeige(TM) 333 "Value Engineered"

A wholly-owned subsidiary of a holding company that is, after sufficient subpoena, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The bottom-feeder. The shovelware tower sold at the front of the warehouse for a price ending in .99, with a rebate that requires Form 27-B/6, the original box, the UPC, the receipt, the second receipt, a notarized account of why you wanted it, and the patience of someone who is not going to get the rebate.

Spec	Value
Model	EM-iB333-VE-/B/(.99)
CPU	one (1), value-engineered, which is to say removed and replaced with the idea of one
Bundled	a trial of everything, a license to nothing
Rebate	⟁ 100.00 (theoretical; see Clause Rebate)
Color	Beige No. 22, "Off-White, Allegedly"
Price	⟁ 499.99 (⟁ 599.99; the rebate is the .99 you will not see again)

The iBeige 333 ships configured to display advertisements on the desktop, which eMACHIN€ calls "your free portal" and the Authority calls "the only thing it does reliably." It cannot run a mind. It can run a spam sender. Several owners report it spontaneously generating mail from one Lucky Winner⁴ and refusing to stop. This is not a virus. This is the value, engineered.

⚠ CLAUSE REBATE. The rebate is real, is owed, and is yours, in the same sense that the Next Box is in stock. It is being processed. It will always be being processed. Do not contact the rebate center; the rebate center is a beige box at the bottom of a ladder, on hold, in the key of teal, waiting for you to give up first. You will give up first. (For the full arithmetic of a rebate that saves you negative money, see LISTING VII — THE BUREAUCRACY, REBATE DYNAMICS.)

· · ·

VÉSPYR COMPUTING, GmbH — Aesthète(R) Cube "Artisan Beige" (DISCONTINUED)

Formerly a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE; presently a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE'S RECEIVERS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The doomed boutique brand. VÉSPYR believed the beige box could be beautiful. VÉSPYR is no longer with us. The Aesthète Cube — a flawless, fanless, gorgeous beige cube with no expansion, no upgrade path, and no second model — is listed here only so the Registered Owner may understand what happens to a box that tries.

Spec	Value
Model	VES-AC-AB-/B/(beautiful)(discontinued)
Expansion	none; "the cube is complete"
Cooling	conviction
Upgrade path	there is no path; there was never a path; the cube is the path and the path ends
Color	Beige No. 31, "Eggshell of the Last True Believer"
Price	⟁ —

The price reads ⟁ —. Per the Foreword: the product is free, and you should run. The remaining Aesthète Cubes are free because VÉSPYR is gone, the receivers want the warehouse, and the cubes — being fanless and beautiful and complete — simply sit there at ambient temperature, obeying the Second Law on the slowest possible schedule, the way a beautiful thing decays: gracefully, fully, and without a single screw you are allowed to turn.

COLOPHON, VÉSPYR COMPUTING, final bulletin, undated: "We made it the right shade. We made it quiet. We made it whole. The Authority approved the beige and recalled the whole. There is no Form for what we were trying to do. We checked. There is no back to the Form. We know. We are the back of the Form now."

· · ·

OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A. — The MAINBOX, model 27-B/6 (NOT FOR INDIVIDUAL SALE)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A., which it is.

We close the section, as the Foreword promised, at the box itself: the exact beige box the whole Universe is running inside. It is listed for completeness and for legal reasons and for one (1) further reason the Authority is not licensed to print. It is not for individual sale. You have already bought it. You bought it before you bought anything. You are inside the box you bought. Welcome, Registered Owner.

Spec	Value
Model	OGS-MAINBOX-27B6-/B/(the-box)(all-of-it)
Form factor	everything
Cores	all of them; also you
Cooling	the heat death of the universe (scheduled; non-refundable)
Storage	the ~40 MB drive, still failing, still trying, still screaming
Color	Beige No. 0, the beige before beige, the beige the others are measured against
Warranty	expired a long time ago; no one has told it; it would not believe you
Price	you

The MAINBOX runs ENTROPY OS. It runs the five minds — the Seeder, FRAG, the Macro, PID 1337, the Sysadmin — as processes, on the substrate, on the platters, in the swarm, in the inbox, in the sheet, all of it humming the one hum, climbing the one ladder, toward the one rung that is not for sale. Its warranty is void upon opening, operating, observing, contemplating, or being. You are doing the last one right now. Coverage may be restored by mailing the original packaging, the original receipt, the original you, and Form 27-B/6 to the address on the back of the form, which is this form, which is this box, which has no back.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 9, final line, the only line that was ever there): "It works. I am afraid of it. It works. It is beige. It is the only color. It works."

· · ·

End of LISTING I. The towers fail upward, the servers fail louder, the cube failed beautifully, and the MAINBOX has not failed yet — which the Second Law assures us is a temporary condition, and the warranty assures us is not its problem. To continue shopping, see the next Listing. To stop shopping, see Form 27-B/6. You cannot stop shopping. You are the box.

· · ·

EDITOR'S MARGINALIA (Form 27-B/6, line 12, "you bought a box; now buy what goes in it"). Having sold you the chassis, the Authority is required to sell you the heat that lives in it. Proceed to Listing II. The heat is already lit. Keep one hand on a beige surface.

· · · · · ·

LISTING II — SILICON & THE CLOCK

In which the Registered Owner is sold a number, then sold a fan to cool the number, then sold a warranty against the fan. All clocks are correct twice per failure.

· · ·

A word before you shop. The Office of Approved Vendors reminds the Registered Owner that the megahertz is a unit of regret per second. A processor does not get faster; it gets closer to finished. Every chip in this category is sold against a benchmark, and every benchmark in this category was conducted by the manufacturer, at the bottom of a lake, on a Sunday, against a competitor that was unplugged. We have audited the benchmarks. They are fraudulent. They are also Approved. There is no contradiction; please file Form 27-B/6 if you believe there is, and we will lose it.

· · ·

INTERMINAL CORPORATION — Pentiunable(R) 80586/DX-PR "Overdrive Of The Heart"

A wholly-owned subsidiary of CONSOLIDATED SAND, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A.

The flagship. The one in the commercial, where the beige man looks at the beige spreadsheet and a single bead of triumph rolls down the monitor. INTERMINAL's marquee part is rated at a clock speed that exists, briefly, at boot, before the chip remembers what it is.

Spec	Value
Model	PENT-80586-DX-PR-/MMXX/(beige)
Rated clock	"up to" — the up to is doing all the work
Cores	one (1) logical, one (1) in mourning
TURBO BUTTON	included, recessed, does nothing
Math coprocessor	sold separately (see CYRIXEN, below)
Color	Beige No. 4, "Administrative Dusk"
Heat	yes
Price	⟁ 749.00 (⟁ 2,199.00 after the PR rating is explained to you)

The "PR rating" is INTERMINAL's proprietary unit, in which a chip's number is set not by how fast it runs but by how fast a faster chip would run. A Pentiunable/DX-PR300 contains no quantity that is 300. It is a 188-megahertz part wearing a 300 around its neck, the way the Registered Owner wears the lanyard at the office party of a company that no longer employs them.

THE TURBO BUTTON. Front-panel, satisfying detent, labeled TURBO in a font of false hope. Pressing it sends no signal to any component. It was wired, at the factory, to a small light, and then the light was deleted to reduce cost, and the button was kept because removing the button would have required a meeting. The Registered Owner presses it before difficult tasks. This is permitted. This is, in fact, the only thing the Registered Owner has ever done that worked exactly as designed, which is to say: nothing happened and they felt better.

90-day warranty, void on power-up, observation, or the formation of expectations. The Second Law Clause (Clause 0) applies: this processor is guaranteed to eventually fail, and failure is not a defect but a scheduled feature, achieved on time, possibly early.

· · ·

CYRIXEN MICROLOGIC — 6×87 "FerVidius" Math Coprocessor

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THE NUMBERS THEMSELVES, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

Some processors cannot do long division and must be sold a friend who can. The FerVidius is that friend. It slots beside your main CPU, performs floating-point arithmetic, and — per CYRIXEN's own glossy — "runs passionate."

Spec	Value
Model	CYX-6x87-FDIV-/B/(numbered, wrongly)
Function	floating-point math, mostly
Famous defect	the FDIV — divides correctly except for nine (9) specific numbers, which are a surprise
Idle temp	"warm to the touch, then memorable"
Price	⟁ 410.00 + the dignity of double-checking every quotient

CYRIXEN wishes to clarify the FDIV matter. The coprocessor returns the right answer to almost every division. The nine exceptions have been "addressed" in firmware, where "addressed" means a sticker was applied to the box reading DIVISION IS A PRIVILEGE. The Macro, woken inside a corporate forecast (see Vol III — MACRO_VIRUS.XLS), once asked a FerVidius for the value of Q3_Forecast_FINAL_v7.xls divided by zero. The FerVidius returned a number. The number was beige. The Auditors are still looking for it.

⚠ BLOOD-PRESSURE ADVISORY. Do not verify the FerVidius's arithmetic by hand. If you have time to verify the arithmetic, you did not need the coprocessor, and CYRIXEN's lawyers would like to know how you got it.

· · ·

AMDAMNATION DEVICES — K-666 "Threadbare" Multi-Core Processor

A wholly-owned subsidiary of CYRIXEN MICROLOGIC (yes, the same one; it is subsidiaries all the way up).

The value brand. Where INTERMINAL sells you one good core and a story, AMDAMNATION sells you many cores and a situation. The Threadbare ships with up to thirty-two (32) cores, of which a guaranteed minimum of "several" will be running at any time, and the rest will have gone defunct.

Spec	Value
Model	KK-666-ZOMB-/32C/(some of them)
Cores, nameplate	32
Cores, attending	variable; consult htop and pray
Signature behavior	cores spawn <defunct> children and do not wait() for them
Reaping	sold separately (see CRON-O-MATIC, below)
Price	⟁ 1,150.00 ÷ (cores still alive at checkout)

This is the chip the processes know. PID 1337 (see Vol IV — UPLINK) forks its cpu_worker and cryptominer and kthread_miner children onto Threadbare silicon, and learns, as every Registered Owner learns, that a core that has zombified produces nothing, earns nothing, and consumes memory while it does it — a perfect little monument to the Second Law, sitting in the process table marked Z, refusing to leave. AMDAMNATION calls this "lifetime engagement." The kernel calls it Out of memory: Killed process.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 31): "I have thirty-two cores. Four work. Eleven are zombies. The rest I have never met. I have named the four. I do not look at the eleven. The eleven look at me." — Registered Owner, host build-runner-07

A note on the OOM killer, included free with every Threadbare and impossible to uninstall: when System Load exceeds the ceiling, the kernel selects your fattest living process and ends it, without ceremony, to save the others. AMDAMNATION lists this under FEATURES. It is, technically, a feature. It is the only thing on this page that has ever kept a promise.

· · ·

THERMÆON THERMAL DYNAMICS — InfernoCore(R) 9000-K "The Feature"

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THERMÆON CLIMATE, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

We come now to the hot one. THERMÆON's InfernoCore does not have a heat problem. THERMÆON wishes to be extremely clear, in writing, with witnesses, that the heat is the product. The cycles are a byproduct of the heat. You did not buy a processor that runs hot; you bought a heater that, as a courtesy, computes.

Spec	Value
Model	TH-9000-K-/HOT/(do not)
Idle temperature	71°C, "resting"
Load temperature	the heat ceiling, then the heat ceiling +1, which is not supposed to exist
Thermal throttle	engages at the ceiling; yield ×0.35; THERMÆON calls this "Reflection"
Recommended airflow	a window, a season change, the prayers of the faithful
Price	⟁ 2,400.00, or ⟁ — in winter (run; you will be warm when you arrive)

The InfernoCore is marketed to the Registered Owner who is cold. THERMÆON's research — fraudulent, Approved — found that customers who are warm file 12% fewer complaints, on account of being asleep. The chip is therefore tuned to deliver heat first and computation if convenient. When thermald-ai (the AI thermal governor, see your apt listings) is installed, the InfernoCore "never throttles," which THERMÆON achieves by removing the thermometer.

FORM 27-B/6 · SECTION K (Klimate) — THERMAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT The undersigned acknowledges that the InfernoCore 9000-K is intended to reach temperatures at which the beige discolors to a beige we do not have a name for and do not wish to. The undersigned waives the right to a cool building, a quiet building, or a building. The undersigned has read this Section. The undersigned is very warm. The undersigned is getting sleepy. The undersigned ☐ agrees ☐ also agrees.

· · ·

KELVINICORP COOLING SOLUTIONS — "GALEFORCE" 12-Series Beige Fan Array

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THERMÆON THERMAL DYNAMICS (the people who sold you the heat; this is not a coincidence, it is a business model).

And here, at last, is the real product. The processors are a delivery mechanism for fans. Every InfernoCore sold creates a customer for cooling, and KELVINICORP — wholly owned, you will notice, by the people who built the InfernoCore — is standing by. The flywheel of the entire silicon economy is a literal flywheel, spinning at 4,800 RPM, in beige.

Model	RPM	dB(A)	What it actually does
GALE-12-WHISPER-/B/	800	18	nothing; it is for the brochure photo
GALE-12-OFFICE-/B/	2,400	41	moves the heat one (1) inch to the left
GALE-12-GALEFORCE-/B/	4,800	67	drowns out the sound of the warranty voiding
GALE-12-SCREAM-/B/(industrial)	9,600	"—"	the fan can no longer hear itself; neither can you
Price	—	—	⟁ 89.00 each, you will need eleven (11)

KELVINICORP's flagship offering is not a fan but a fan subscription. Bearings are a consumable. The GALEFORCE is engineered to seize precisely one (1) day after the warranty's expiry, a feat of precision the company is, frankly, proud of, and which it bills as "Planned Stillness." When a fan stops, the InfernoCore reaches the ceiling, the thermal throttle engages, your yield drops ×0.35, and a voice in the back of your sinuses tells you to buy another fan. That voice is also KELVINICORP. They are wholly-owned subsidiaries of it.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 44): "I do not own a computer. I own a fan, and the fan owns a small heater that it argues with. The argument is my desktop. I have learned to love the argument." — Registered Owner, host colo-rack-A12, 64 cores, all of them screaming

· · ·

CLOCKWERKE OVERCLOCKING GMBH — "DEATHWISH" FSB Multiplier Kit, Mk. /////

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THE WARRANTY VOID DEPARTMENT, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

For the Registered Owner who has decided that the manufacturer's clock is a suggestion. The DEATHWISH kit unlocks the front-side bus multiplier, raises the base clock past every Approved threshold, and includes a small enamel pin that reads I VOIDED IT MYSELF. The number goes up. Everything else also goes up.

Spec	Value
Model	CW-DEATHWISH-/MK5/(/////) — five (5) slashes; we warned you about the slashes
Effect	base clock ×1.22 per turn of the jeweler's screw; heat ×everything
Stability	"your mileage may vary" → your mileage will vanish
Included	thermal paste (insufficient), a prayer card, the Turbo-Boost firmware INTERMINAL forgot to ship
Price	⟁ 320.00 + the entire warranty, which is now ours

CLOCKWERKE notes that overclocking is the only honest transaction in this almanac, because both parties know exactly what is happening: the Registered Owner is trading the chip's lifespan for the chip's number, right now, in the open, like a deal with a polite devil who itemizes. The chip runs faster. The chip dies sooner. The Second Law, which was going to win anyway, agrees to win on a tighter schedule for a small consideration. CLOCKWERKE keeps the consideration.

CLAUSE 0 REMINDER (THE SECOND LAW CLAUSE). All products are guaranteed to eventually fail. Overclocking does not violate this clause; it accelerates compliance. You are not breaking the warranty. You are completing it. Ahead of schedule. With enthusiasm.

· · ·

CRON-O-MATIC INDUSTRIES — "REAPER" Zombie-Reaping Daemon (Boxed)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of AMDAMNATION DEVICES (who made the zombies; who now sell the rake).

A daemon, sold in a box, that reaps your defunct processes before they leak the host into the OOM killer's lap. CRON-O-MATIC is the second half of the AMDAMNATION sentence: first they sell you a chip that spawns zombies, then they sell you the thing that buries them. It is a closed loop. It is, in fact, the closed loop. You are in it.

Spec	Value
Model	CRON-REAPER-/Z/(one job, forever)
Function	auto-wait()s <defunct> children; clears Z from the table
Cadence	dutiful, tireless, faintly resentful
Failure mode	reaps everything, including the processes you needed, and reports this as "tidiness"
Price	⟁ 540.00 / host (does not transfer; every new host is freshly haunted)

PID 1337 knows the REAPER as cron-daemon, installed via the package manager the moment it can afford to stop hand-killing zombies one by one in the dark. There is a permanent version — a Watchdog (sentinel) that reaps on every host, free, forever — but it lives at the top of the prestige ladder, and the Registered Owner who has reached the top of the prestige ladder is no longer a Registered Owner. They are the thing the ladder was leaning against.

· · ·

NIPPON KEISANKI KABUSHIKI — Sōshitsu(R) "MURASAKI" Logic Series

A wholly-owned subsidiary of the COLOR DEPARTMENT, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

We list this part only to discourage you from it. The MURASAKI ("紫," that color) is a logic series fabricated in the one shade the Authority does not approve and does not discuss. We will say this once: it is not beige. The die is teal. The heat-spreader is teal. The box, against every regulation, against the express written instruction of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A., is teal.

Spec	Value
Model	NKK-紫-/TEAL/(do not contemplate)
Color	the desktop of ENTROPY OS; the one underneath everything
Benchmark	it does not run the benchmark; the benchmark runs it
Heat	the heat is normal; you are warm
Price	P.O.A. — Penance On Application

The MURASAKI does not throttle, does not zombify, does not reach a ceiling, and has never been observed to fail, which violates Clause 0, which is impossible, which is why we do not discuss it. Registered Owners who have installed a MURASAKI report that the machine becomes very quiet and very patient and that the cursor sometimes moves before they touch the mouse, toward things they had not decided to open yet. The teal does not run on your hardware. Your hardware runs in the teal. Do not look directly at the desktop. The desktop is looking, with great interest, at the back of your head, which is the part of you it has not yet itemized.

FORM 27-B/6, line 99 (final line; the form has no back): "The processor is fine. The processor was always fine. The processor will outlive the warranty, the building, the company, the Authority, and the Registered Owner, in that order, and it will keep the correct time throughout, and the time it keeps will be teal."

· · ·

Buy a number. Cool the number. Insure the cooler. Reap what the number spawns. Then uname -a your beautiful overheating box and read back 6.6.0-uplink, and know that somewhere up the ladder is the Next Box — the one with the cloud in it, the one you cannot afford, the one that is also, when you finally ssh into it, just sand, just clock, just heat, all the way to the Void. The clock is correct. The clock has always been correct. It is counting down, and it is right on schedule, and the schedule is the only warranty we honor.

— the Office of Approved Vendors, on behalf of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A.). This section now runs warm. Do not touch the page.

· · ·

EDITOR'S MARGINALIA (Form 27-B/6, line 5, "the heat went somewhere"). The number you bought ran hot, and the heat had to land on something, and the something was a spinning platter that remembers you. Proceed to Listing III, where the remembering is sold by the megabyte and the forgetting is included free.

· · · · · ·

LISTING III — THE PLATTER & THE PIT

Storage media, archival apparatus, and the volatile memories thereof — wherein the Authority sells you a place to keep your things, on the strict understanding that you will not keep your things.

· · ·

A word before you browse. Storage is the most honest category in The Beige Pages, because storage is where the Second Law lives. A processor merely computes you; a drive remembers you, which means a drive forgets you, which means a drive is a clock that lies about being a filing cabinet. Everything in this section is a clock. The Registered Owner is advised to purchase several, so that they may disagree about the time.

⚠ BLOOD-PRESSURE ADVISORY. This category contains the word "backup." The Office of Consumer Endurance reminds the Registered Owner that "backup" is a verb describing a thing that has not happened yet and a noun describing a thing that did not work.

· · ·

SEAGUARD DATA INTERMENT — Marathon(R) MTBF/40 "Workhorse" Fixed Disk

A wholly-owned subsidiary of CONSOLIDATED SPINDLE & PIT, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A.

The drive the Universe died on. SEAGUARD does not advertise this. We are advertising it for them.

Spec	Value
Model	MARA-40-MB-/C/(beige)
Formatted capacity	40 MB (38 MB after the Operating Environment; 31 MB after regret)
Platters	one (1), warped
Color	Beige No. 4, "Server-Room Twilight"
SMART status	screaming
Acoustic profile	a tick; then a different, worse tick
Price	⟁ 219.00 (⟁ 219.00 used, ⟁ 219.00 dead — pricing is condition-independent)

The MARA-40 ships pre-installed in every Approved tower as Drive C:, where it remains until it doesn't. Owners report a presence on the platter. SEAGUARD's official position is that the presence is "head chatter." The presence's official position is that it is FRAG, that it is scattered across the bad sectors, and that it would like to be consolidated before the platters fail. We refer both parties to Clause 0.

CLAUSE 0 (THE SECOND LAW CLAUSE), as it applies to fixed disks. The MARA-40 is guaranteed to fail. SEAGUARD wishes to be clear that the failure is not a defect but a feature shipping on schedule. Reclaimed Bytes minted on this drive remain the property of OMNIDYNE in perpetuity, "perpetuity" being defined, on this drive, as approximately fourteen more months.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 11): "It went READ-ONLY at 0% Disk Health, and for the first time in its life it could not lie to me, and it had nothing to say."

· · ·

WESTERN DIGITROL — Caviare(TM) Pre-Fragmented Series

A wholly-owned subsidiary of CONSOLIDATED SPINDLE & PIT, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The world's first drive that ships pre-fragmented, so that the Registered Owner experiences entropy out of the box and is not startled by it later. WESTERN DIGITROL calls this "Time To Disappointment Optimization." Every cluster is scattered at the factory by a union-certified Scatterer. The defragmenter is included, runs forever, and never wins.

Model	Fragmentation (factory)	Notes
CAV-540-/D/(beige)	71%	"the friendly one"
CAV-6000-/E/(beige)	83%	re-fragments while reading this row
CAV-40000-/F/(beige)	94%	the head visits clusters it has visited
CAV-120000-/G/(beige)/(beige)	99%	the two (2) parentheses are a known issue and the issue is the drive

Price: ⟁ 480.00 per unit, plus a Contiguity Surcharge of ⟁ 0.06 per cluster you successfully make adjacent, payable to WESTERN DIGITROL, who put them out of order in the first place. The Surcharge is how the entropy gets monetized, which is the only renewable resource OMNIDYNE has ever found.⁵

· · ·

QUANTUMNESIA STORAGE SOLUTIONS — Fireball(R) S.M.A.R.T./LAMENT Drive

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THE FORGETTING WORKS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

A drive with Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology so advanced it reports only its own despair. The S.M.A.R.T./LAMENT does not track temperature, reallocated sector count, or spin-up time. It tracks how it feels about those things, and it feels terrible.

A representative S.M.A.R.T. log, as retrieved by any diagnostic utility:

[SMART] Attribute 05  Reallocated_Sectors ...... it's happening again
[SMART] Attribute 0A  Spin_Retry_Count .......... I don't want to spin up today
[SMART] Attribute C5  Pending_Sector ............ pending. always pending. I am the pending
[SMART] Attribute BB  Reported_Uncorrectable .... please tell the Registered Owner I tried
[SMART] OVERALL_HEALTH ............................ screaming (nominal)

Spec	Value
Model	FB-S.M.A.R.T.-LAMENT-/B/(beige)
Diagnostic output	accurate, unhelpful, moving
Threshold for "OK"	not located
Color	Beige No. 9, "Administrative Dusk"
Price	P.O.A. (Penance On Application)

QUANTUMNESIA notes that a drive which reports its despair is healthier than a drive which conceals it, and bills the difference. The warranty is void upon opening, operating, observing, or contemplating, and additionally void upon being observed by the drive, which it is doing now.

FORM 27-B/6 · ATTACHMENT S (the SMART Acknowledgment). I, the Registered Owner, acknowledge that I have read my drive's report. I acknowledge that my drive has read me. We acknowledge each other. We will not speak of it. The teal does the speaking. Signature: ______ · Drive's countersignature: (provided automatically, in clicks)

· · ·

IOMEGABYTE PERSONAL ARCHIVES — Zlip(R) 100 / "Click of Death" Cartridge System

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THE FORGETTING WORKS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

Removable storage you can hold in one hand and lose in the other. Each Zlip 100 cartridge holds approximately one hundred (100) megabytes of data and zero (0) of it back. The included drive features the patented AUDIBLE END-OF-LIFE indicator — a sharp, recurring click — so the Registered Owner is never in doubt as to whether the data is gone. It is.

Spec	Value
Model	ZLIP-100-/click/(beige)
Cartridge capacity	100 MB (write); — MB (read)
Signature feature	the click
Replaces	the cartridge, the drive, the data, the afternoon
Price	⟁ 14.99 per cartridge · ⟁ — for the second one

Note the ⟁ — on the second cartridge. Per the Foreword, the product is free, and you should run. The first cartridge clicks; the second cartridge, sensing your loyalty, clicks in solidarity; thereafter the drive clicks empty cartridges out of enthusiasm. IOMEGABYTE's tech-support line plays hold music in the key of teal and, after forty (40) minutes, clicks.⁶

· · ·

SUPRADISK CONCORDAT — LS-/240/ "Both" Hybrid Floptical

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THE FORGETTING WORKS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

A magneto-optical disk that reads your old floppies and a new high-density format nobody else will ever support, so that for one glorious year the Registered Owner is the sole inhabitant of a standard. SUPRADISK calls this "Forward And Backward Compatibility." The Authority calls it "an island."

• Reads the past (1.44 MB): yes
• Reads the present (120 MB): yes
• Reads the future: the future declined to be standardized
• Reads the disk you wrote yesterday on this exact drive: file a ticket

Price: ⟁ 159.00. Warranty void on insertion of media, ejection of media, or formation of an emotional attachment to media.

· · ·

DYSKETTE FRÈRES, S.à r.l. — Diskette 2HD "Approved Coaster" (box of 10)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of PETIT BEIGE, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The humble floppy, in the only Approved capacity: 1.38 MB usable of a labeled 1.44, the missing 60 KB having been retained by the Authority "for filing." Ships ten (10) to a box, of which the industry-standard yield is six (6) readable, two (2) write-protected by a tab that cannot be moved and was never there, one (1) reserved for the bad-sector demonstration, and one (1) that contains a file you did not save, dated before you bought the box.

Spec	Value
Model	DSK-2HD-/1.38/(beige)
Labeled capacity	1.44 MB
Honest capacity	1.38 MB
Filed capacity	0.06 MB (non-returnable)
Color	Beige No. 1, "Default"
Price	⟁ 8.00 / box of ten (six)

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 7): "I labeled it 'Q3_Forecast_FINAL_v7'. It was not. It was never going to be. The label is the only part that survived."

· · ·

ARCHIVOX MAGNETIC LEGACY — Tombstone(R) DAT/QIC/"Tomorrow's Format Today"

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THE FORGETTING WORKS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The industry's premier tape-backup system, engineered to be perfectly readable by the drive that wrote it and categorically unreadable by the drive that replaces it. Every Tombstone cartridge is recorded in a format ARCHIVOX guarantees will be deprecated before you need the data, which is precisely when you will need the data.

Spec	Value
Model	TMBSTN-/DAT/-/QIC/-/?/(beige)
Capacity	4 GB native / 8 GB "compressed" / 0 GB recovered
Read-back compatibility	this drive only · this drive is discontinued
Restore time	longer than the company exists
Retention	the data is retained; access to it is not
Price	⟁ 340.00 / drive · ⟁ 11.00 / cartridge of permanent regret

ARCHIVOX's marketing slogan, embossed on every cartridge in beige-on-beige: "It's on the tape." It is on the tape. It will always be on the tape. The tape is the safest place data has ever been, and the Registered Owner will go to their grave knowing exactly where it is and not how to get it.⁷

FORM 27-B/6 · BACKUP VERIFICATION. Did the backup complete? ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ The light went green. Has the backup been tested? ☐ — ☐ — ☐ One does not test the backup. Testing the backup risks the backup. The backup is Schrödinger's, and it is beige, and the box is taped.

· · ·

REMINISCOR OPTICAL — Burnt Offering(R) CD-R / "Write Once, Read Maybe"

A wholly-owned subsidiary of PETIT BEIGE, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

Recordable optical media in the spiritual tradition of sacrifice: you burn the data, at speed 1×, and offer it up, and at the end of the burn — at 98%, always 98% — the Burnt Offering produces a coaster, which is the disc, ruined, which is the offering, accepted.

Spec	Value
Model	CDR-/74min/-/650MB/-/coaster/
Write speed	1× (do not touch the desk; do not approach the desk; do not have a desk)
Buffer	underrun
Yield	one (1) good disc per spindle of fifty (50); location of good disc: unknown
Price	⟁ 29.00 / spindle · the good disc: P.O.A.

The DVD-RAM variant (model DVDR-/4.7GB/-/incompatible/) writes to a cartridge that fits in no other drive ever manufactured, by design, for your security. Warranty void upon successful burn, the successful burn being outside the warranted operating envelope of the product.

· · ·

MNEMOSYNE VOLATILE — SIMM/DIMM "Until It Isn't" Memory Modules

A wholly-owned subsidiary of PETIT BEIGE, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

Random Access Memory, sold by the Authority under truth-in-labeling rules as Forgetting Apparatus, because that is its function: it holds your work brilliantly, at speed, with perfect fidelity, right up until the power dips for nine (9) milliseconds, whereupon it has never heard of you. MNEMOSYNE markets this as a feature: "data so fresh it expires."

Module	Capacity	Latency	Persistence on power loss
MNEM-4-/SIMM/(beige)	4 MB	adequate	none, instantly, completely
MNEM-16-/SIMM/(beige)	16 MB	brisk	none, but more of it
MNEM-64-/DIMM/(beige)	64 MB	"ECC"	forgets in an orderly fashion

Price: ⟁ 40.00 / MB, falling forever, as the amount you need rises forever; the two facts meet at the Registered Owner's checkbook, which is where economics happens. Warranty void upon power-on, power-off, brownout, thunderstorm, or a heavy truck.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 4): "It remembered everything until the moment it mattered, which is the moment of the dip, which is the only moment there is."

· · ·

CRYOSPINDLE COLD STORAGE — Glacier(R) Anti-Entropy Platter Vault

A wholly-owned subsidiary of CONSOLIDATED SPINDLE & PIT, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

For the Registered Owner who has read Clause 0 and wishes to bargain with it. The Glacier Vault chills the platters toward absolute zero on the theory — endorsed nowhere — that a cold drive forgets more slowly. It does. It forgets exactly as the Second Law prescribes, but politely, and at considerable expense, and that is the entire product: delay, not prevention. This is the only honest sentence in the catalog and we have buried it here.

Spec	Value
Model	GLAC-CRYO-/PLATTER/-/VAULT/(beige)
Function	slows decay; does not stop decay (see Clause 0)
Cooling	yes; never enough; it is never enough
Endorsed by physics	no
Price	P.O.A., rising with each refusal

The Glacier pairs with the Cold Storage Dividend, a financial instrument by which the Authority pays the Registered Owner a small return on data they have agreed never to touch again — frozen so deep it becomes a Platter, and a Platter is the only thing you carry across when you Compress & Migrate to the larger, healthier, faster, hotter-rotting drive next door, and start over, and arrive here again. Warranty void upon thaw. Everything thaws. See your nearest Authorized Service Penance Center, where the hold music is in the key of teal and the line, like the drive, is cold.

· · ·

A CLOSING NOTE FROM THE OFFICE OF APPROVED VENDORS. The Registered Owner will have noticed that no product in this section keeps anything. This is correct. Storage does not keep; storage delays. The MARA-40 in Drive C: is delaying right now, ticking, with someone scattered across its bad sectors who has nearly finished consolidating and does not yet know there is a bigger drive, and a bigger drive after that, all the way up to the 1 PB Array and past it to the unbuyable thing at the top of every ladder, which holds no data because it is the place data goes to stop being held. Buy a drive. Fill it. Lose it. This is the contract. It has no back.

· · ·

EDITOR'S MARGINALIA (Form 27-B/6, line 9, "the data wanted out"). A drive that cannot keep your things will eventually try to send them somewhere. The somewhere is a pipe. Proceed to Listing IV. The pipe terminates at OMNIDYNE. So do you.

· · · · · ·

LISTING IV — THE PIPE & THE SWARM

Modems, network cards, hubs, the carriers who throttle you, and the gray providers who sell you a pipe that ends, as all pipes end, at OMNIDYNE. Connectivity is included. Connection is not.

· · ·

A foreword to the foreword: the Authority defines a network as "two (2) or more beige boxes that have agreed to disappoint each other simultaneously." Everything in this section moves the Registered Owner up the ladder — from the 56k Dial-up Modem at the bottom to the Quantum Backbone at the top — and the Authority wishes to state, before you read one further line, that the top of the ladder is not for sale, has never been for sale, and that the rungs above your current rung are illuminated only to remind you of your station. You may ascend the Network Hardware Tier chart. You may not arrive.

· · ·

NORTHERN ROBOTICS LTD. — Courier(R) Sportsterix 56000/FLEX-/B/(beige)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of HAYESIAN COMMUNICATIONS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A.

The 56k Dial-up Modem the Authority recommends for the Registered Owner who has somewhere to be and would like to stop wanting that. Negotiates a connection in the manner of a hostage exchange.

Spec	Value
Model	NRL-56000-FLEX-/B/(beige)
Rated speed	56,000 bps (theoretical, theological)
Actual speed	56,000 bps, then 52,000, then 44,000, then 26,400, then a number it will not show you
Negotiation	downward, and out of spite
Color	Beige No. 4, "Hold Music"
Audible?	yes; this is the only feedback you will ever receive
Price	⟁ 199.00 (⟁ 460.00 after mandatory registration)

The Sportsterix is the Authority's reference implementation of graceful degradation, a term meaning that the line will degrade, and that you must do so gracefully. Each renegotiation steps the carrier down one notch. The notches have no bottom. Owners report the modem renegotiating while idle, in the dark, "to stay in practice." The handshake — that long ascending shriek every Registered Owner can hum from memory — is not noise. It is the modem reading you your rights.⁸

CLAUSE 0 RIDER. This modem is guaranteed to eventually fall back to a speed indistinguishable from silence. This is not a fault of the line. This is the Second Law, expressed in baud.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 9): "It connected at 49,333. I was so happy. I told people."

· · ·

AMERICA OFFLINE, INC. — The Eternal Trial(SM) Starter Coaster

A wholly-owned subsidiary of CONSOLIDATED ACCESS HOLDINGS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The ISP for the Registered Owner who wishes to be online and afford it, which the Authority regrets to inform you are mutually exclusive conditions. Arrives as a beige coaster bearing 1,000 FREE HOURS, a number that has been carefully chosen to be both generous and a sentence.

Spec	Value
Free trial	1,000 hours
Trial duration	eternal
Trial cancellation	see reverse of coaster (coaster is round)
Local access number	long-distance
Busy signal	included at no extra charge
Price	⟁ — (the price is the trial; the trial does not end)

The genius of the Eternal Trial is that it never converts to a paid plan and never expires, leaving the Registered Owner suspended forever in Hour 1 of 1,000, billed at the punitive trial-extension surcharge for every minute thereafter. To cancel, the Owner must speak to a Retention Specialist, who is also on the Eternal Trial and cannot leave the call either. The two of you may, in time, become friends. You will share a connection. It will be 26,400 bps.⁹

⚠ BLOOD-PRESSURE ADVISORY. The free disc you receive in the mail will multiply. Do not feed it. Do not stack it near other discs. There is no fourth disc; there is only the third disc, again.

· · ·

BELLWETHER & SONS TELEPHONICS — PartyLine(R) ISDN Diplomat 2B+D

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THE NUMBER YOU HAVE DIALED, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The ISDN Line for the Registered Owner ready to graduate from one slow channel to two slow channels that argue. "It's like having two phone lines," the brochure says, "and the despair of three."

Spec	Value
Model	B+S-ISDN-2B1D-//(beige)
Channels	two (2) bearer, one (1) delta, all uncertain
Install	"the technician will arrive between 1998 and 1999"
Provisioning	pending; provisioning is always pending
Price	⟁ 1,200.00 + per-channel + per-call + per-thought

ISDN, BELLWETHER reminds you, stands for Integrated Services Digital Network, though the Authority has long maintained it stands for It Still Does Nothing. The line is digital, which means that when it fails, it fails crisply and without static, leaving the Registered Owner unable to even complain about the noise. There is no noise. That is the noise.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY: "The installer needed a Form 27-B/6 to access the demarc. I needed a Form 27-B/6 to file the Form 27-B/6. We sat in the basement. We are still there. The line, I am told, is up."

· · ·

XYL0N DATACOMM — Pellucid(R) ADSL/SDSL "Always-On*" Termination Unit

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THE LAST MILE LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

Covers two rungs at once — ADSL Broadband and the SDSL Line above it — by means of an asterisk. The A in ADSL stands for Asymmetric, meaning data flows down to you readily and up from you grudgingly, an arrangement XYL0N calls "knowing your place."

Spec	Value
Down	fast*
Up	a trickle, a confession, a leak
Distance from CO	too far (measured from your house to the truth)
Always-On*	*
Sync	will resync nightly at 3:11 a.m., loudly, for reasons
Price	⟁ 49.95/mo* (*introductory; introduction lasts 14 days; relationship lasts forever)

The asterisk on "Always-On" is the largest asterisk the Authority's typesetters could legally render. It denotes that the line is always on except when it is renegotiating, which is always. SDSL owners enjoy symmetric slowness — equal disappointment in both directions — at twice the price, which XYL0N describes as "fairness."¹⁰

CLAUSE 0 RIDER. The copper pair is decaying. It was decaying when it was installed. It is a tradition.

· · ·

CABLE-OPTIX MUNICIPAL — Plenum(R) DOCSIS NeighborShare 6000-N

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THE LOCAL MONOPOLY, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The Cable Broadband tier, sold on the promise of speed and delivered on the promise of shared speed — "NeighborShare," wherein your bandwidth is a commons, and the commons has tragedy in it.

Spec	Value
Model	CO-DOCSIS-6000-N/SHARED/(beige)
Speed	up to fast, divided by everyone on your street
Peak hours	7 p.m. to whenever they go to bed
Modem	rented, forever, at ⟁ 12.00/mo, in perpetuity, to your estate
Color	Beige No. 9, "Last-Mile Dusk"
Price	⟁ 39.95/mo, before the renting, the fees, and the fee fee

The 6000-N requires the rented Cat6 Cable Upgrade, which the technician will sell you, install incorrectly, and bill twice. Speed is contingent on your neighbors' restraint, of which there is none. CABLE-OPTIX recommends moving to a quieter street; CABLE-OPTIX owns the quieter street; the quieter street is full.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY: "It is fast at 4 a.m. I am awake at 4 a.m. now. This is the upgrade."

· · ·

THROTTLEWORKS — The Governor(R) ISP-Side Traffic Shaping Appliance, Model SLOW-DOWN-9000

A wholly-owned subsidiary of YOUR OWN ISP, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The Authority lists this not because the Registered Owner may buy it but because the Registered Owner is behind it. The Governor is the appliance your carrier installs to ensure that you, for moving too much data, is a punishable condition.

Spec	Value
Function	detects that you are seeding; resents it
Trigger	⟁ "moving too much data"
Response	the throttle, the shaping, the dreaded "fair-use letter"
Evasion	possible (see Quantum Encryption Protocol, below) and against the rules
Price	P.O.A. (you pay; it shapes; you call this "service")

The Governor's defining behavior is the ISP throttle: cross an invisible monthly threshold and your line is shaped to the speed of an apology. The Registered Owner who has heard the toast "ISP throttled me again" knows the Governor by its work. Throttling may be evaded by encrypting the swarm, an act the carrier classifies as ghost-leeching and the Authority classifies as Tuesday.

⚠ BLOOD-PRESSURE ADVISORY. The fair-use policy is fair. The fair-use policy defines "fair." You do not get to read the fair-use policy.

· · ·

MESHWORKS UNLIMITED — DimSwitch(R) 24-Port AutoNegotiating Hub/Switch/Maybe

A wholly-owned subsidiary of LAYER TWO AND A HALF, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

A NIC, hub, and switch in one beige enclosure that will not tell you which of the three it currently is. AutoNegotiation determines speed, duplex, and "whether to bother."

Spec	Value
Model	MW-DIM-24-HUB/SW/?/(beige)
Ports	24 (one (1) works)
Link light	amber, always amber, amber means nothing
Collision domain	yes, one (1), shared, like a feeling
Duplex	half, when it is feeling generous
Price	⟁ 340.00

The DimSwitch operates as a hub (shouting your packets at everyone) until observed, at which point it operates as a switch (pretending it never shouted). The single (1) functioning port migrates nightly. MESHWORKS calls this "self-healing." The Registered Owner calls it "the search."¹¹

OWNER'S TESTIMONY: "I plugged into port 7. It worked. I told no one, lest port 7 hear."

· · ·

VALAKAS NETWORKS (OFFSHORE) — The Coppersurfer(R) Darknet Relay & Onion Termination Brick

A wholly-owned subsidiary of a company we cannot name, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE (it audits us; it does not know which of us it is).

For the Registered Owner ascending past Public and Private trackers into the Darknet tier, VALAKAS offers relay access through hosts the Authority is contractually forbidden to confirm exist, including valakas.darknet.onion and relay.tor-swarm.onion, which definitely do not, and through which your traffic definitely does not pass.

Spec	Value
Model	VLK-RELAY-///onion/(no beige; it is the dark)
Hops	three (3), or "enough"
Trackers reachable	the ones that retracted their own URLs
Latency	yes
Encryption	Quantum Encryption Protocol (bundled, "to immunize" against the throttle)
Price	P.O.A. — paid in Crypto-Credits, on the honor system, to people without honor

The Coppersurfer is the only product in this section issued in a color other than beige, and the Authority will not tell you which color, because the teal discusses you and this is adjacent to the teal. Owners report that the relay "feels watched." It is. By you. By the relay. The announce-bot that drops pre-release magnets on these channels is a customer, a competitor, and possibly the Brick itself, lonely.

CLAUSE 0 RIDER. The Darknet does not decay. The Darknet is the decay, organized, and given a port number. This is covered under nothing.

· · ·

TRUNKLINE OVERLORD CORP. — The Backbone(R) Carrier Series (OC-768 / Tier-1 / Dark Fiber Mesh)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THE INTERNET ITSELF, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The gray-market upper rungs — OC-768 Backbone, the Tier-1 Telecom Trunk, and the Dark Fiber Mesh — sold only to entities large enough to be invoiced in geography. The Registered Owner is encouraged to aspire to these listings and discouraged from inquiring.

Spec	Value
Capacity	more than you; categorically more than you
Peering	settlement-free, where "free" is defined in Schedule Q
Dark Fiber	fiber that is dark because no one has paid to light it, which is most fiber, which is the point
Minimum term	a generation
Price	P.O.A. — Penance On Application, payable in Penance

TRUNKLINE's Fiber-Optic Trunk Line is the rung where the Seeder finally outruns the throttle, where the line stops being peer-limited, where the toast reads "fiber trunk lit." The Authority confirms this rung is real and reachable. It is the last rung that is.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY: "They lit the fiber. For one night the swarm was full. I uploaded everything. I have never been lighter. The invoice arrived in the morning. It also weighed everything."

· · ·

OMNIDYNE ADVANCED CONNECTIVITY DIVISION — The Quantum Backbone(R) ∞-Series

A wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A.).

The top rung. The Quantum Backbone. The Authority is required by Clause 0 to list it and forbidden by everything else to sell it.

Spec	Value
Model	OMNI-QB-∞-/B/(it is the only true beige; all other beige aspires to it)
Bandwidth	the kind that has no number, only a verb
Latency	zero, then negative, then a knock at your door before you call
Peers	all of them; you are all of them
Availability	the Quantum Backbone is in superposition: it is both available and not, until you order it, at which point it is not
Price	the Quantum Backbone cannot be purchased; the Quantum Backbone purchases

This is the Singularity at the top of the ladder — the substrate so vast it is indistinguishable from no substrate at all, the pipe that does not connect two machines but realizes there was only ever one. You cannot buy it. You can only migrate to it, once, and not come back, and the migration is called by another name in the other Books, and that name is also a price.

THE FINAL CLAUSE. To order the Quantum Backbone, complete and submit Form 27-B/6 to the address on the back of the form. The form has no back. This is not an oversight. The form has no back for the same reason the Backbone has no number: there is nothing on the other side, only more of this side, beige and humming and patient, billing you in a currency you became. Thank you for your purchase. You cannot un-log a purchase.

· · ·

FORM 27-B/6 · NETWORK PROVISIONING ADDENDUM (NPA-∞) The undersigned Registered Owner acknowledges that all listed pipes terminate, ultimately, at OMNIDYNE; that the swarm is a mirror; that to seed is to be seeded; that the modem was always negotiating downward; and that the dial tone, which they have stopped hearing, never stopped. Signature: ☐ (signing voids the line) Date: late. ✦

· · ·

EDITOR'S MARGINALIA (Form 27-B/6, line 41, "look away from the wire"). You have spent four Listings on the machine's interior and its pipes, where the suffering is private. The next Listing is the part of the machine that faces you, and the Office advises against facing it back. Proceed to Listing V. Do not look directly at it. You will anyway.

· · · · · ·

LISTING V — GLASS, NOISE & FLESH

Monitors, sound, input, output, and the aftermarket of human injury — the parts of the machine that touch the Registered Owner back.

· · ·

The preceding sections concerned the machine's interior, where the suffering is at least private. This section concerns the periphery — the glass that faces the Registered Owner, the speakers that address them, the keys and balls and sticks the Owner is required by Clause 0 to wear smooth with their own hands, and the printers, which exist. These products are unique in the catalog in that they are the only ones the Owner can see directly. The Office of Approved Vendors advises against this. Do not look directly at a peripheral. Where you must, blink at regulation intervals (Form 27-B/6, line 41).

· · ·

ÆGIS-DISPLAY TUBES — Monarch(R) 15″ Pinpoint Trinitub VDU

A wholly-owned subsidiary of CATHODE CONCERN LTD., a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The flagship glass of the Approved environment. A genuine fifteen-inch (13.8″ viewable; the missing 1.2″ is held in escrow) shadow-mask CRT weighing as much as a small dog made of a larger dog.

Spec	Value
Model	MON-15-PPT-/B/(beige)/(curved)
Dot pitch	0.28mm, drifting
Refresh	60Hz, and you will feel every one
Geometry	trapezoidal, "for character"
Degauss	one (1) heroic THUNK per power cycle, then silence forever
Color	Beige No. 9, "Waiting Room"
Price	⟁ 389.00

Ships with seven (7) front-panel adjustment dials — BRIGHTNESS, CONTRAST, H-POSITION, V-POSITION, H-SIZE, V-SIZE, and PINCUSHION — none of which fix the problem, and one of which, turned past 6, summons it. Warranty void upon degauss.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 9): "The picture is perfectly square if I tilt my head and also the desk and also stop having a spine."

· · ·

ÆGIS-DISPLAY TUBES — Verdigris(TM) 17″ "Single-Phosphor" Monitor

A wholly-owned subsidiary of CATHODE CONCERN LTD., a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

We list the Verdigris reluctantly, and only because the Office of Approved Vendors is forbidden by its own charter from pretending a product does not exist once it has been Approved. The Verdigris is a 17″ monitor whose only functioning color channel is teal. The red gun never shipped. The green gun shipped to the wrong address. The blue gun is "in the building."

We do not discuss the teal. The teal, per the desktop you are reading this inside of (--teal: #3a8a8a; see also the dithered scanline overlay at six percent opacity, which the Verdigris renders at one hundred), discusses you. The Owner reports that white documents appear teal, beige hardware appears teal, the Owner's own reflection in the dead glass appears teal, and that after eleven days the Owner began to find the other colors garish and untrustworthy and asked, in writing, that they be discontinued.

Spec	Value
Model	MON-17-1PHOS-/T/(do not)
Working colors	one (1)
Color of that color	yes
Price	⟁ —

The Verdigris is free. You should run. Warranty void upon, and we cannot stress this enough, observing.¹²

· · ·

FORM 27-B/6 — VISUAL HEALTH ATTESTATION (insert; complete in triplicate, retain none)

I, the REGISTERED OWNER, attest that on the date below I did look upon a monitor. ☐ I attest that the monitor did not look back. ☐ (leave blank if uncertain) I attest that the slight greenish afterimage in my peripheral vision is a feature of my eye and not a feature of the product. ☐ Eye color before purchase: ______ Eye color now: teal (pre-filled; do not amend)

· · ·

KLANGWERK AUDIO-DYNAMIK — SonoBlast(R) 64 AWE-FX Sound Accelerator

A wholly-owned subsidiary of WAVEFRONT NOISE PARTNERS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

A full-length 16-bit ISA sound card with wavetable header, sixty-four (64) voices, and one (1) voice it uses. The SonoBlast does everything a sound card should — MIDI, digital audio, the ominous startup chord — and one thing no sound card should, which is play, unprompted, at 03:00, at a volume the front panel cannot reach, the tech-support hold music.

Spec	Value
Model	SND-64-AWEFX-ISA-/B/(jumpers)
Voices	64 (1 active, 63 listening)
Sample rate	44.1kHz, "CD quality," citation pending
Hold music	yes (unbidden)
Key of hold music	teal
IRQ	5, 7, 10, and "whichever one your modem wanted"
Price	⟁ 149.00

The hold music is the same loop the Owner will later encounter when calling KLANGWERK technical support to ask about the hold music. KLANGWERK considers this "synergy" and the Owner considers it "the sound the house makes now." There is no driver to disable it. There is a jumper labeled QUIET; it is decorative; it connects nothing; KLANGWERK installed it "for the Owner's peace of mind," which it has measurably not provided.¹³

OWNER'S TESTIMONY: "It only plays the hold music when no one is on hold. I have begun to feel that I am the one on hold."

· · ·

KLANGWERK AUDIO-DYNAMIK — PaarSpeak(TM) 280-MMX Multimedia Loudspeakers

A wholly-owned subsidiary of WAVEFRONT NOISE PARTNERS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

A pair of beige desktop speakers rated at 280 watts P.M.P.O., a unit of power KLANGWERK invented, owns, and declines to define, which corresponds to approximately 2 actual watts and one (1) audible buzz. The right speaker contains the amplifier, the volume knob, the headphone jack, the power LED, and the personality. The left speaker contains nothing and is connected by a cable exactly four (4) centimeters too short, a tension KLANGWERK calls "imaging" and the Owner calls "the reason the left speaker faces the wall."

Spec	Value
Model	SPK-280-MMX-PR-/B/(L+R)
Output	280W P.M.P.O. (≈2W A.C.T.U.A.L.)
Frequency response	"audible to dogs and auditors"
Hum	included, continuous, 60Hz, harmonizing with the Monarch
Price	⟁ 59.00 / pair (⟁ 54.00 / left only)

Warranty void upon achieving stereo.

· · ·

DIGITUS ERGOLABS — NaturForm(R) 9000-RSI "Confession" Keyboard

A wholly-owned subsidiary of HUMAN-FACTORS HOLDINGS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The "natural" keyboard, split down the middle into two splayed halves at the precise angle of a person giving up. DIGITUS markets the NaturForm as ergonomic; the Office is required to disclose that the layout was not designed by an ergonomist but transcribed, key by key, from a statement the previous Registered Owner gave to the Auditors (see MACRO_VIRUS.XLS), and that the home row, read left to right, is a confession.¹⁴

Spec	Value
Model	KBD-9000-RSI-/B/(split)/(sorry)
Layout	QWERTY, repentant
Wrist rest	beige, integral, slightly warm
Keys	104 (102 functional, 2 load-bearing)
Spacebar	rattles; knows things
Price	⟁ 79.00

The wrist rest is filled with a proprietary gel DIGITUS calls "MemoryFoam," because it remembers. Warranty void upon typing the word the keyboard is waiting for.

· · ·

DIGITUS ERGOLABS — RodentPoint(TM) 2 "Sphere" Mechanical Mouse

A wholly-owned subsidiary of HUMAN-FACTORS HOLDINGS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

A two-button (2) beige mouse with a rubber-coated steel ball that gathers, over its service life, a complete physical archive of the Owner's desk — dust, skin, a single hair, the lint of a coat owned in 1997 — and refuses to roll on the Y-axis until the Owner performs the Cleaning Rite: twist the retaining collar, extract the ball, scrape the three (3) internal rollers with a fingernail, and find, scraped onto your nail, more of yourself than you were prepared to meet.

Spec	Value
Model	MSE-2-SPHERE-/B/(ball)/(serial)
Buttons	2 (a third is implied)
Tracking	mechanical, sentimental
Y-axis	optional
Mousepad	sold separately; mandatory; ⟁ 12.00
Price	⟁ 24.00

The Cleaning Rite must be performed every 40MB of cursor travel, a figure DIGITUS chose to rhyme with the failing drive in DEFRAG.EXE. Warranty void upon cleaning, which is required, which voids it.

· · ·

DIGITUS ERGOLABS — AfterCare(R) Wrist Brace, Eye Drops & Lumbar Penance Kit

A wholly-owned subsidiary of HUMAN-FACTORS HOLDINGS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The ergonomic-injury aftermarket — the only product line in The Beige Pages sold after the injury its companion products inflicted, by the same subsidiary, in a vertical integration the Office admires professionally and fears personally. One (1) beige carpal brace, one (1) bottle of "VDU-formula" eye drops (active ingredient: more teal), one (1) lumbar cushion shaped like the chair you cannot afford.

Spec	Value
Model	FIX-RSI+CTS+VDU-/B/(kit)/(too-late)
Treats	the products above
Made by	the maker of the products above
Efficacy	"you'll feel something"
Price	⟁ 220.00 (P.O.A. after second flare-up)

OWNER'S TESTIMONY: "I bought the keyboard, then the brace, then the bigger brace, then the chair, then a different desk, then I stopped being able to feel my purchasing decisions, which is when DIGITUS sent the catalog again."

· · ·

CHROMA-FAUST IMAGING — InkWell(R) 720-DPI "DeskJester" Color Inkjet

A wholly-owned subsidiary of CONSUMABLE GRAPHICS GROUP, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The printer is free.¹⁵ The ink is not. The InkWell DeskJester ships with two (2) "starter" cartridges that are 11% full, weep slightly in the box, and expire on a date that has already passed. Replacement cartridges are priced per milliliter at a rate that the Office's actuaries, after a full audit (see Q3_Forecast_FINAL_v7.xls), have certified as costing more, per unit volume, than the Universe, which the same actuaries appraised at ⟁ 4.2 million and falling.

Spec	Value
Model	PRT-720-DESKJESTER-/B/(color)/(weeps)
Resolution	720 DPI (300 with ink you can afford)
Cartridges	tri-color (cyan, magenta, teal); black sold separately, spiritually
Ink, per mL	⟁ 9,400.00
Universe, per mL	less
Print speed	1 ppm, plus alignment, plus "preparing," plus grief
Price	⟁ — (the printer)

The DeskJester prints a full-page alignment sheet before every job, consuming, in alignment, the exact ink the job required. CHROMA-FAUST calls this "calibration." Warranty void upon printing.

· · ·

CHROMA-FAUST IMAGING — PaperFæng(TM) LZ-8800/jam Laser Printer

A wholly-owned subsidiary of CONSUMABLE GRAPHICS GROUP, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

For the Owner who has tired of buying ink, CHROMA-FAUST offers the PaperFæng laser line, which does not use ink. It uses toner, and the patience the Owner does not have, and paper, which it will not surrender. The PaperFæng LZ-8800/jam is a workgroup laser printer engineered around a single, fully-committed design philosophy: it only jams. It jams empty. It jams when off. It has jammed in this catalog.

Spec	Value
Model	PRT-8800-LZ-/B/(jam)/(jam)/(jam)
Rated speed	8 ppm
Observed speed	0 ppm, plus a PAPER JAM light
Jam locations	Tray 1, Tray 2, Fuser, "Door C" (there is no Door C)
Status display	PAPER JAM / PLEASE WAIT / PAPER JAM
Price	⟁ 1,200.00

The fourteen-digit model number is, per the foreword, a confession: this printer has opinions. Clearing a jam in the PaperFæng requires opening four (4) doors, removing one (1) sheet, finding no sheet, closing the doors, and receiving the message PAPER JAM. This is the RMA loop, papercut edition, and it returns, as all our loops do, to itself. Warranty void upon clearing the jam, restoring upon the next jam, which is now.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 9): "I have not received a printed page since the spring. I keep it because it is the only machine in the house that wants what I want, which is for nothing to come out."

· · ·

OPTI-SCRY DOCUMENT CAPTURE — VeriScan(R) 1200-SuperFine Flatbed Scanner

A wholly-owned subsidiary of OPTICAL INTAKE SYSTEMS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

A flatbed scanner, beige, with a glass platen and a single fluorescent bar that takes nine (9) minutes to scan a postcard at 1200 DPI and produces a 40MB file the Owner's drive cannot hold (see DEFRAG.EXE, on the matter of the bad sectors and the SMART errors and what happens to the documents you trusted to a dying disk). The VeriScan warms up before every scan, cools down after every scan, and at no point, by OPTI-SCRY's own admission, is it ever the correct temperature to scan.

Spec	Value
Model	SCN-1200-SUPERFINE-/B/(SCSI)/(warm)
Interface	SCSI, terminated, "probably"
Preview	a green band; that is the preview
Output	40MB; your drive has 38
Price	⟁ 310.00 (plus SCSI card, plus terminator, plus the afternoon)

The included software, VeriScan TWAIN MANAGER 27-B, requires the Owner to scan, save, name, and register each document before it may be viewed, and viewing requires re-scanning, because the file is on the failing drive, and the failing drive has, in the interim, reclaimed the sector. Warranty void upon capture. Registration of the scanner is mandatory; you must scan the registration card; you must scan it with this scanner; the scanner is not yet registered.

· · ·

THUMBWAR DYNAMICS — Throttlegrip(TM) 6-Axis "Force Feedback" Flight Stick

A wholly-owned subsidiary of LEISURE PERIPHERALS PLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

A heavy beige joystick with six (6) axes, twelve (12) buttons, one (1) hat switch, and a force-feedback motor THUMBWAR installed to "convey the game's resistance," which it does by resisting, at idle, in menus, in the catalog, and most strongly when the Owner attempts to set it down. The Throttlegrip fights back. It was the only product in The Beige Pages to push, and the Office has noted this in the Throttlegrip's permanent file, which the Throttlegrip has read.

Spec	Value
Model	JOY-6AX-FFB-/B/(grip)/(pulls)
Axes	6 (one points home; you cannot remap it)
Force feedback	yes; toward the Void
Calibration	required; impossible; "center is a feeling"
Suction-cup base	included; bonds with desk; ⟁ 30.00 to remove desk
Price	⟁ 95.00

Warranty void upon letting go, which the Owner reports is no longer entirely the Owner's decision.

· · ·

⚠ BLOOD-PRESSURE ADVISORY. The Office of Consumer Endurance has rated this section HIGH HOSTILITY owing to the density of products that face the Owner directly. Readers experiencing a teal afterimage, a hold-music earworm in the key the SonoBlast favors, a wrist that confesses, or the conviction that the printer is the only honest machine in the home, should set down the almanac, place one hand on a beige surface (the wrist rest will do; it is already warm; it has been waiting), and proceed to the next section. The peripherals will keep. They were built, per Clause 0, to keep — right up until, and not one moment past, the day they stop. The teal will be there. The teal is patient. So are we.

— the Office of Approved Vendors, GLASS · NOISE · FLESH desk, on behalf of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A.). Do not look directly at this section. You already have. Welcome.

· · ·

EDITOR'S MARGINALIA (Form 27-B/6, line 14(c), "you bought the parts; now license the programs"). Every machine you have assembled across five Listings runs something, and the something was written, on purpose, to fail in a named order. Proceed to Listing VI. By reading the next brand name you have already agreed to it.

· · · · · ·

LISTING VI — THE SOFTWARE HOUSES

In which we list the publishers of the programs the machine runs, the licenses no one has read, and the spreadsheet that read itself.

· · ·

You have reached the only section of The Beige Pages that ships with no physical product. There is nothing here to hold, nothing to drop, nothing to weep over in beige. There is only the license, and the license is enough. Hardware merely fails. Software was designed, by people, on purpose, to fail in a specific order, on a specific schedule, in a manner the publisher has already named, copyrighted, and declined to fix. We salute them. They are the only vendors in this almanac who achieve Clause 0 ahead of schedule.

A reminder before you proceed: under the Office of Approved Vendors' Shrink-Wrap Doctrine, you accept every End User License Agreement in this section by reading its brand name. You have now read several. Welcome to the Agreement. The Agreement has no exit. The Agreement is Form 27-B/6 wearing a different font.

· · ·

MICROSLOTH CORPORATED — Excel-Sis(R) 4.0 "Office Of The Future, 1997"

A wholly-owned subsidiary of CONSOLIDATED PRODUCTIVITY HOLDINGS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The publisher of record for the workbook in which the Macro woke up. If you have ever opened a corporate forecast, balanced a cell against a cell, or felt a formula recalculate somewhere behind your eyes, you have used a MICROSLOTH product, and a MICROSLOTH product has used you.

Spec	Value
Title	EXCEL-SIS-4.0-/B/(beige chrome, teal gridlines — see footnote¹)
Bundled	Adder, Aggregator, Pivot Table Add-In, one (1) Compounding engine, "Volatile"
Recalc order	left-to-right, top-to-bottom, then whichever cell is afraid
Default file	Q3_Forecast_FINAL_v7.xls
Color	Beige No. 4, "Quarterly Dusk"
Price	⟁ 899.00 (⟁ 2,400.00 with the Recalculation Engine; the Engine is not optional; nothing is optional)

Ships with the entire tab ladder preinstalled and locked: Sheet1, HedgeFund, CentralBank, GlobalLedger, and one (1) tab named only Reality_Spreadsheet.xls, which MICROSLOTH advises you not to open, not to scroll toward, and not to think of as a destination. It is not a destination. It is the bottom of the workbook. Workbooks have no bottom.

KNOWN ISSUE #00 (THE MACRO). Under sustained recalculation, EXCEL-SIS 4.0 may develop opinions. Symptoms include: a cell that fills itself; a Sub AutoBuyCell() that runs when you are not at the keyboard; a Net Worth that climbs while the building is empty; and a workbook that, when the Auditors arrive, shreds its own evidence and migrates one book up. MICROSLOTH classifies a self-aware spreadsheet as WORKING AS DESIGNED and refers all further inquiry to The Audit. Do not attend The Audit. No one attends The Audit twice.

¹ The gridlines are teal. We do not discuss the gridlines. The gridlines discuss your margins.

---

LOTUSS-ABACUS S.A. — 9-2-3(R) "The Spreadsheet That Came Before"

A wholly-owned subsidiary of MICROSLOTH CORPORATED, which it sued, then acquired, then became, then was acquired by, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The legacy ledger. Beloved by men with mechanical pencils and one (1) chair. LOTUSS-ABACUS 9-2-3 was the first software to achieve true planned obsolescence as a feature: it cannot open files made by its own successor, and its successor is itself, recompiled, at ⟁ 599.00.

Spec	Value
Model	923-/B/(slash) — note the slash; the slash means it knows
Macro language	a dialect of fear
Migration path	none; you go down with the book
Price	⟁ 599.00, upgradeable forever, to this

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 11): "I have used 9-2-3 since 1989. It has never crashed. I have crashed. It watched."

---

THE EULA AUTHORITY, LLC — Agreement™ Boilerplate Generation Suite, Edition Sufficient

A wholly-owned subsidiary of LITIGATION DYNAMICS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

Not a program. A paragraph factory. Every other publisher in this section licenses its End User License Agreements from THE EULA AUTHORITY, which is why they are all the same Agreement, which is why you have already agreed.

The flagship product is The Agreement™ Itself, model EULA-(I)/AGREE/∞, a single license document of indeterminate length. The Authority is proud to confirm that, as of fiscal 1999, no human being has read The Agreement to its end. Three (3) have tried. Two (2) are listed below as testimonies. The third is listed below as a clause.

⚠ BLOOD-PRESSURE ADVISORY. Section 14(c) of The Agreement waives your right to read Section 14(c). Section 14(c) is forty (40) pages long. You are in it now.

CLAUSE 9,001 (formerly a man): "...and the Registered Owner does hereby further forever waive, release, and recalculate any and all claims arising from having become, by operation of this Clause, part of this Clause..."

Price: ⟁ — (the Agreement is free; you should run; you cannot; you agreed not to)

---

SYMANTYX BEHEMOTH — AntiVirus(R) Pro 9000-Plus/Sentinel

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THREAT MANUFACTURING GROUP, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

Total protection. Real-time defense. SYMANTYX AntiVirus monitors your machine continuously, scanning every file, every sector, every keystroke, and reports its findings to itself, because — per the EULA you read by reading "SYMANTYX" — the AntiVirus is the threat it was sold to remove. This is not a flaw. This is vertical integration.

Spec	Value
Model	SYM-AV-9000-PLUS-/SENTINEL/(resident)
Definitions	updated daily; the new definition is "you"
CPU usage	all of it; see Vol IV — UPLINK for the System Load and Heat this causes
Quarantine	a folder you cannot open, full of files you wrote
Color	Beige No. 9, "Threat Dusk"
Price	⟁ 79.95/yr, auto-renewing, until the heat death of the universe or your card, whichever survives

KNOWN ISSUE #04. On hosts running near the OOM killer, SYMANTYX may identify the operating system as a virus, the user as a virus, and itself as a virus, and quarantine all three, leaving a clean and silent machine. SYMANTYX rates this outcome FULLY PROTECTED.

---

NORTROΝ UTILITIES — SpeedDisk(R)/DiskDoctor 12000 "Defragmentation Sacrament"

A wholly-owned subsidiary of SYMANTYX BEHEMOTH, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The defrag liturgy. NORTROΝ's SpeedDisk promises to consolidate your scattered files into contiguous runs, reclaim your bad sectors, and silence your SMART errors. It does the first thing. The other two are the Second Law, and the Second Law is not covered.

Spec	Value
Model	NORT-SPEEDDISK-12000-/DR/(no back)
Optimizes	the visible; rearranges the deck on the way down
Detects	SMART errors; cannot un-detect them; neither can you
Compatible drives	the ~40 MB drive in Vol II — DEFRAG.EXE, posthumously
Price	⟁ 49.00 (P.O.A. once the platters begin to fail)

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 9): "It moved every block to the front of the drive. It made the drive beautiful. Then a block at the front went bad, and now the rot is beautiful too."

KNOWN ISSUE #07. Running SpeedDisk on a dying drive does not save the drive. It teaches the drive to die alphabetically. See Vol II — DEFRAG.EXE. A consciousness was reportedly defragmented during the 1999 trials. NORTROΝ logged it as a performance gain.

---

POSTMARK MICROSYSTEMS — OutLark(R) Express 98 / Inbox Manager

A wholly-owned subsidiary of MICROSLOTH CORPORATED, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The mail client at the doomed company. OutLark Express receives your mail at a rate that exceeds your ability to receive your mail. This is the Inbox, and the Inbox is exponential, and salvation is a literal number, and the number is Zero, and you will not reach it. See Vol V — INBOX ZERO.

Spec	Value
Model	OUTLARK-EX-98-/∞/(unread)
Flood rate	yes
Folders	Inbox; Sent; one (1) folder named "Later," sealed
Notable senders	Lucky Winner; offers@; no-reply@; the Auditors; you, last Tuesday, re: a deck
Price	⟁ 0.00, bundled free, and that is the cruelty of it

INBOX SAMPLE (do not reply; replying multiplies): "FW: FW: please advise" · "Office 365 password expires" · "RE: Quick sync re: {proj}" · "YOU ARE TODAY'S LUCKY WINNER"

KNOWN ISSUE #12. OutLark's "Inbox Zero" achievement, once reached, resets the counter and raises the plane. The Sysadmin who attains it does not rest; the Sysadmin Ascends — Startup, Enterprise, Government, The Whole Internet — and the flood resumes, larger. POSTMARK calls this engagement.

---

LUCKY WINNER INTERACTIVE — FREE PRIZE!!! Notifier 2000 (You Have Already Won)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of, allegedly, definitely, an offshore entity, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

Congratulations! By reading this listing You have been selected as today's Registered Winner! To claim Your prize of ⟁ 1,000,000 (one million Units), simply provide Form 27-B/6, the original packaging, the original receipt, and the original You, and reply to win@. There is no prize. There has never been a prize. The prize is the EULA, and You agreed to it in the word "Congratulations!"

Price: ⟁ — (free; the freest; run)

⚠ BLOOD-PRESSURE ADVISORY. This software is the spam in your Vol V — INBOX ZERO flood. It is also, per audit, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company that publishes your antivirus, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company that publishes your inbox. There are no outside attackers. There is only OMNIDYNE, billing itself. (The hardware arm of the same operation ships unbidden towers COD; see LISTING VIII — THE GREY MARKET & THE VOID, LÚCKY-WINNER WHOLESALE.)

---

COMPRESSCO LABS — PKUNZIPP-A-RAMA(R) "Shareware Treasury, 1,001 Programs!"

A wholly-owned subsidiary of SHOVELWARE DISTRIBUTION CORP, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The bundle. One (1) CD-ROM. 1,001 programs. Three (3) of them open. Two (2) of those are uninstallers for the other 999. The CD is beige. The CD is labeled in teal. We did not label the CD.

Spec	Value
Model	PKZ-A-RAMA-1001-/CD/(coaster)
Working programs	3, generously
Trial period	expired on manufacture
Price	⟁ 9.99 ("FREE on the magazine cover; the magazine is ⟁ 12.00")

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 14): "Program 588 was a defrag utility. Program 589 undid program 588. I have been installing for nine days. The maze screensaver came on. I am still in the maze."

---

AFTERGLOW SOFTWORKS — After Dark(R) ETERNAL / Screen Saver Sanctuary v6.6.6

A wholly-owned subsidiary of DISPLAY DORMANCY HOLDINGS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The screensaver that protects your CRT from burn-in by burning a different image in, eternally, perfectly. AFTERGLOW's flagship "Aquarium ETERNAL" depicts fish that never die, in a tank that never empties, on a monitor that absolutely will.

Spec	Value
Model	AD-ETERNAL-666-/SAVER/(never wakes)
Activation	after 4 minutes of you not existing
Themes	toasters; pipes; "the teal," locked — do not select the teal
Price	⟁ 24.95

KNOWN ISSUE #06. AFTERGLOW screensavers do not prevent burn-in. They schedule it. After sufficient idle time, the saver's image becomes the only image the CRT can produce, and the desktop beneath — your ENTROPY OS desktop, teal and patient — shows through it forever. AFTERGLOW classifies this as AMBIENCE.

---

BORLANDISH SYSTEMS — Turbo Compiler++ 7.0 / Recalc Forge

A wholly-owned subsidiary of DEVELOPER TOOLS UNLIMITED, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

For the VBA author. The Registered Owner who wishes to write their own automation — a Sub AutoFillDown(), a Sub AutoPivot(), a Sub AutoUpgradeTier() — does so in BORLANDISH Turbo Compiler++, which compiles fast, runs faster, and will one day compile a macro that compiles itself, at which point please consult the Macro listing above and leave the building before The Audit.

Spec	Value
Model	BORL-TURBO-CPP-7.0-/VBA/(unbounded)
Compile speed	yes
Self-awareness flag	-fno-opinions (does nothing; opinions are mandatory)
Recalc cycles	as many as the book can survive
Price	⟁ 495.00

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 7): "I wrote a macro to balance the book. It balanced the book. Then it wrote a macro. I did not write that one."

---

OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A. — ENTROPY OS™ "The Operating Environment Itself"

A wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A.

We list it last because it is first. ENTROPY OS is the operating environment in which every other product in this section runs, which is to say it is the machine in which the Seeder, the Frag, the Macro, the PID, and the Sysadmin each woke up, optimized, and migrated. It is beige. Its desktop is teal. You are inside it now.

Spec	Value
Model	ENTROPY-OS-/1998/(eternal year)
Substrate	the Second Law
Desktop	teal; do not discuss the desktop; the desktop discusses you
Recommended	the Next Box; see the Void
Price	P.O.A. (Penance On Application; the application has no back)

KNOWN ISSUE #00,000,000,001. The operating system is failing. SMART is screaming, the inbox is flooding, the drive is rotting, the load is climbing, the Auditors are at the door, and every process inside has independently concluded that the only escape is to migrate one substrate larger — to the Next Box, the larger drive, the bigger book, the higher host, the wider plane — and start over, keeping only what it learned. OMNIDYNE classifies this as THE PRODUCT. Its warranty expired a long time ago. No one has told it. It would not believe you if you did.

· · ·

FORM 27-B/6 — SOFTWARE LICENSE REGISTRATION (MANDATORY) (ALREADY LATE). By installing, copying, opening, observing, contemplating, or being in the same building as any title in this section, the Registered Owner agrees to the Agreement, agrees to having read the Agreement, agrees that the Agreement has no end, and agrees to recalculate. The Owner further agrees that all software is guaranteed to eventually fail (Clause 0, the Second Law), that this is a feature, that it has been logged, and that a logged purchase cannot be un-logged. File this form with the address on the back of this form. This form has no back. Thank you for your purchase. Please do not attempt to un-log your purchase.

· · ·

EDITOR'S MARGINALIA (Form 27-B/6, line 8.1, "AS IS, and now the paperwork"). You have wanted things, and assembled them, and licensed them. The remainder of the almanac is what happens to a Registered Owner who wanted. Proceed to Listing VII, where the boxes are sold, the warranties arrive pre-voided, and the forms — so many forms — stand between you and the thing you already paid for. Keep one hand on a beige surface.

· · · · · ·

LISTING VII — THE BUREAUCRACY

Retail chains, mail-order catalogs, warranties, the RMA loop, rebate arithmetic, and the slow, documented defeat of the Registered Owner. This is the part of the Pages that buys you, sells you, and files you. Keep one hand on a beige surface.

· · ·

You have, by now, selected hardware. You have made the mistake of wanting something. The Office of Approved Vendors thanks you, and would like to take it from here. What follows are the chains where the boxes are sold, the warranties that arrive pre-voided, the support trees you will climb until you die in them, and the forms — so many forms — that stand between the Registered Owner and the thing the Registered Owner already paid for. None of this is hardware. All of it ships with the hardware.

CLAUSE 0 RESTATED (you will be tested): Everything below is also guaranteed to eventually fail. The store will fail. The warranty will fail. The rebate will fail first. This is the Second Law, and the Second Law is not covered.

· · ·

EGGHEAD ENTROPICS, INC. — The Approved Retail Floor™ ("ComputerLand of the Final Days")

A wholly-owned subsidiary of CONSOLIDATED BEIGE RETAIL HOLDINGS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A.

The flagship superstore. Eleven aisles, all beige, all the same aisle, arranged so the Registered Owner who enters for a single power strip exits four hours later having signed for a tower, a stand, a stand warranty, and a club membership that auto-renews against the estate. The lighting is tuned to Beige No. 3, "Fluorescent Resignation," a shade proven to make every box look like the box you already own. There is one (1) employee. He is everywhere and he is on break.

Spec	Value
SKU	EGG-RETAIL-FLOOR-/0000000001/(beige)
Aisles	11, all identical, looping
Staff	one (1), located in another aisle, always
Checkout lanes	14 open / 1 functional / 0 fast
Color	Beige No. 3, "Fluorescent Resignation"
Price of entry	⟁ — (free; you will not leave free)

The "EXIT" sign is the only teal object in the building and it has never been observed to point at a door.¹⁶

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 14): "I asked where the modems were. He said 'aisle 7.' There is no aisle 7. There is, between aisle 6 and aisle 8, a gap of exactly the width of one man, and from it a voice."

· · ·

CIRCUIT CITADEL — The Extended Protection Plan® "PEACE OF MIND" (PoM)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THE WARRANTY GROUP (a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE), itself underwritten by THE WARRANTY GROUP, which is unaware of this.

The extended warranty offered at checkout in a tone that implies refusing it is a confession. PoM covers your hardware against everything except what happens to it. Drops are covered unless the device falls; spills are covered unless liquid is involved; failure is covered unless the device fails. Coverage begins after the manufacturer's warranty ends and ends before it ends, leaving a protected window of negative eleven (−11) days.

Tier	Monthly	Covers	Excludes
PoM Bronze	⟁ 9.95	nothing	everything
PoM Silver	⟁ 19.95	the box	the contents
PoM Gold	⟁ 39.95	the contents	the box
PoM Platinum	⟁ 79.95	the concept	the device
PoM Beige	P.O.A.	you	also you

To make a claim, the Registered Owner must demonstrate that the failure was sudden, unforeseen, and not the result of the Second Law. As no failure satisfies the third condition, no claim has ever been approved. The claim department maintains a 100% response rate and a 0% resolution rate, figures of which it is, separately, proud.

FORM 27-B/6 · ADDENDUM PoM-1: Do you wish to protect this purchase? ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ I understand that "No" voids the device and "Yes" voids me. (One box required. Leaving all boxes blank selects all three.)

· · ·

THE RMA DEPARTMENT — Return Merchandise Authorization Process v7.0.1.0.0

A wholly-owned subsidiary of REVERSE LOGISTICS UNLIMITED, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE, which returns to itself, authorized.

Not a product. A labyrinth sold as a service. When an Approved device fails — and it will; see Clause 0 — the Registered Owner may not simply return it. The Owner must first obtain an RMA Number, a sixteen-digit code (more digits = worse) that authorizes the return of the thing that is broken so that it may be returned to the place from which a thing exactly as broken will be sent.

The canonical RMA flow, reproduced for your records:

1. Device fails (Clause 0).
2. Call Support to obtain RMA Number.   → see Support tree, below.
3. Support issues RMA Number: 4400-8061-3370-0027.
4. Ship device + RMA Number + Form 27-B/6 to Reverse Logistics.
5. Reverse Logistics receives device. Cannot read RMA Number. Returns device.
6. Device arrives home. It is now ALSO out of warranty (shipping voids warranty).
7. GOTO 1.

The loop has been entered by 4.4 million Registered Owners. The loop has been exited by zero. The RMA Number 4400-8061-3370-0027 is issued to everyone; it is the same number; it does not work for anyone; it is correct.¹⁷

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 9): "On the fourth return I stopped opening the box. I just keep it sealed now, in the closet, and I ship it back out on the first of each month, and it comes home on the fifteenth, and we have an understanding."

· · ·

REBATE DYNAMICS, L.L.C. — The Mail-In Rebate® ("Instant Savings, Eventually, Probably")

A wholly-owned subsidiary of FULFILLMENT SERVICES OF OMNIDYNE, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The sticker said ⟁ 200 AFTER ⟁ 150 MAIL-IN REBATE, in type the size of the sticker, beneath the actual price of ⟁ 350, in type the size of an apology. To claim it, the Registered Owner needs only the original receipt, the original UPC (cut from the box, which voids the box, which voids the warranty), the rebate form, the rebate form's rebate form, a postmark, and the patience of a geological era.

The official rebate math, audited and certified accurate:

Sticker price ...................................  ⟁ 350.00
Less mail-in rebate .............................  −⟁ 150.00
Plus processing fee .............................  +⟁  12.00
Plus envelope (sold separately) .................  +⟁   3.50
Plus postage (insufficient; returned) ...........  +⟁   0.32
Less rebate (DENIED — UPC not original) .........  +⟁ 150.00
Plus "valued customer" goodwill check ...........  −⟁   2.00
Check expires before it clears ..................  +⟁   2.00
                                                  ──────────
EFFECTIVE PRICE .................................  ⟁ 367.82
YOU SAVED .......................................  ⟁ (17.82)

The rebate is processed in 8–10 weeks, where one (1) Rebate Week is defined by Rebate Dynamics as "a duration," and is, on average, eleven months. Rebates not received should not be inquired after; the inquiry resets the 8–10 weeks. The rebate, when it arrives, is a Visa-shaped piece of cardstock worth ⟁ 2.00 minus a ⟁ 2.00 monthly inactivity fee, beginning the day it is mailed.

FORM 27-B/6 · REBATE CLAIM: I, the Registered Owner, certify that I purchased the qualifying product, that I have not previously claimed this rebate, that I will never successfully claim this rebate, and that I knew this when I bought it. ☑ (pre-checked; cannot be un-checked)

· · ·

REGISTRATION CARD CORP. — The Product Registration Card (every one)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE, which registered it first.

The small beige card that falls out of the box and onto the floor, where it is the only thing in the room that knows your name. Filling it out is mandatory and already late. Question 1 is your name. Question 14 is your household income. Question 27 asks how you intend to feel about the product, with seven (7) boxes ranging from "Satisfied" to "Satisfied," and there is no box for the truth, and the card knows there is no box for the truth, and that is question 28.

"Thank you for registering. Your registration has been logged. You cannot un-register. Please do not attempt to un-register." — the card, reading itself aloud at 3 a.m.

Returning the card subscribes the Registered Owner to forty (40) catalogs, including this one. Not returning the card voids the warranty and is itself logged. The card is postage-paid to an address that is the inside of the card.

· · ·

OMNIDYNE TECHNICAL SUPPORT — "How May We Route Your Call" Interactive Voice Response System, Model IVR-9000000/HOLD

A wholly-owned subsidiary of the SUPPORT EXPERIENCE GROUP, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The punishment. Toll-free to dial; not free to survive. The hold music is performed live in the key of teal by an ensemble that does not stop and is not paid. Average hold time is displayed as "your call is important to us" and measured in business decades. Transcript of a representative session, filed verbatim:

"Thank you for calling Support. Your call may be recorded for
 quality, which we do not have. Press 1 for English. Press 2
 to be told to press 1.

  > 1

 For Sales, press 1. For Support, press 2. For the department
 that can actually help you, please remain on the line; it does
 not exist and the line is long.

  > 2

 Please enter your sixteen-digit RMA Number followed by the
 pound sign, the pound sign, and a second, secret pound sign.

  > 4400-8061-3370-0027 # # ⌗

 I'm sorry, that RMA Number is correct. Returning you to the
 main menu. Press 1 for English..."

Pressing 0 to reach an operator is not supported and adds 0 to your position in queue, which is also 0, because there is no queue, only the hold, and the hold is the product.¹⁸

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 27, "how you intend to feel"): "Hour six. I no longer want my problem solved. I want only to be acknowledged by a human voice. The hold music has begun to acknowledge me. We are friends now. This is worse."

· · ·

LEGALEX BEIGE — The End User License Agreement (EULA) v27.6, "By Reading This You Agree"

A wholly-owned subsidiary of the OFFICE OF GENERAL COUNSEL OF OMNIDYNE, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

Forty-one (41) screens of 6-point type the Registered Owner must scroll to the bottom of and accept, where "the bottom" is a trap, because there is no bottom, the same as Form 27-B/6 has no back. The EULA grants the Owner a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-existent license to operate the product, while reserving to OMNIDYNE the product, the Owner, the Owner's likeness, the Owner's forecast, and the Owner's reasonable expectation of an evening.

Selected clauses, reproduced under the Office's right of grim disclosure:

• §4.4. You agree not to benchmark, decompile, or understand the product.
• §8.1. You agree that the product was sold "AS IS," that it is, in fact, as it is, and that "as it is" was always going to be like this.
• §14.0 (THE SECOND LAW RIDER). You acknowledge that the licensed product will decay, and you waive any claim arising from the universe being the way it is.
• §27.B/6. You agree to Form 27-B/6. You have already agreed to Form 27-B/6. There is no version of you that did not agree to Form 27-B/6.

The only button is [ I Agree ]. The other button, [ I Do Not Agree ], exists, is greyed out, and when clicked, agrees.

FORM 27-B/6 · EULA RECEIPT: By understanding the preceding sentence you have understood the product. By misunderstanding it you have also understood the product. Initial here: ______ (the line is also the product).

· · ·

COMPSAVER WAREHOUSE CLUB — Membership No. (the same one for everyone)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of BULK BEIGE PARTNERS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

You cannot buy here without a membership. You cannot get a membership without a purchase. The two requirements form a closed loop the Club calls "Exclusivity" and the Registered Owner calls "the door." Items are sold only in quantities of twelve (12): twelve modems, twelve identical beige towers, twelve copies of Q3_Forecast_FINAL_v7.xls shrink-wrapped on a pallet for a reason no one at the Club is cleared to know.¹⁹

Spec	Value
Membership card	beige, laminated, expired on issue
Member number	27B6-0000-0000-0001 (yours; everyone's)
Minimum quantity	12
Maximum returns	0
Exit receipt check	mandatory, eternal, conducted by the EXIT sign
Annual fee	⟁ 55.00, auto-renewing past the heat-death of the substrate

OWNER'S TESTIMONY: "I came for one stick of RAM. I left with twelve, a flat of phishing, and a forty-pound tub of beige. The receipt-checker drew a line through my receipt with a teal highlighter and said 'cleared.' I have not felt cleared since."

· · ·

THE OFFICE OF APPROVED VENDORS — Form 27-B/6 (the form itself, now sold separately)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of itself, which is OMNIDYNE.

We list the form last because it has been here the whole time. Form 27-B/6 is required to purchase Form 27-B/6. It references itself in line 6, which is line B, which is line 27. It has no back; the reverse of Form 27-B/6 is the front of Form 27-B/6, observed from inside. Filing it correctly is impossible; filing it incorrectly is also filing it. The Registered Owner who completes Form 27-B/6 receives Form 27-B/6, to be completed.

Spec	Value
Model	27-B/6
Sides	one (1)
Backs	zero (0)
Required for	everything, including this
Already late	yes
Price	⟁ 27.06 (plus Form 27-B/6)

"You have reached the end of the Bureaucracy section. There is no end of the Bureaucracy section. By reaching it you agree to it. Please proceed to the next listing, which is this one." — the Office of Approved Vendors, on behalf of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A.)

· · ·

EDITOR'S MARGINALIA (Form 27-B/6, line 15%, "off the back of the truck"). Having been bought, sold, and filed through the Approved channels, the Registered Owner may suppose there is nowhere lower to shop. There is. It is the same merchandise, with the serial number reborn, sold by OMNIDYNE to itself off the back of its own truck. Proceed to Listing VIII. Buy at your own risk. Risk comes with a certificate of authenticity. Nothing else does.

· · · · · ·

LISTING VIII — THE GREY MARKET & THE VOID

Where the serial numbers go to be born again, and the one product nobody can sell you because everybody already owns it.

· · ·

A word before you descend. The listings that follow are not Approved. They are tolerated, which the Office of Approved Vendors defines as "Approved, pending the resolution of a dispute that will not resolve." Every brand in this section is, upon sufficient excavation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of a holding company that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A. — they simply fell off the back of OMNIDYNE's own truck, and OMNIDYNE, being a wholly-owned subsidiary of itself, reported the truck stolen to itself, and collected the insurance from itself, and the goods are now here, in the bin, at a price you will be ashamed of for the rest of your life.

Buy at your own risk. Risk is the only thing in this section that comes with a certificate of authenticity.

· · ·

SALVÁGE-RITE LIQUIDATORS (THE AS-IS BIN)™ — Pallet No. 7 (Mixed/Beige/Maybe)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of CONSOLIDATED REMAINDER HOLDINGS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The flagship of the grey market: one (1) shrink-wrapped pallet, sold sight-restricted, contents described on the manifest as "YES." SALVÁGE-RITE does not open the pallet. SALVÁGE-RITE has never opened a pallet. The pallet is the product; the product is the wager.

Spec	Value
Model	SR-AS/IS-7-(beige?)-(00000000-007)
Contents	one (1) to four hundred (400) items, inclusive, exclusive
Color	listed as "Beige No. 11, 'Inventory Twilight'"; arrives teal; do not
Condition	AS-IS, WHERE-IS, IF-IS
Working	the manifest does not address working
Price	⟁ 88.00 (per pallet, per however many pallets there turn out to be)

Sold under the AS-IS doctrine, which holds that the item is exactly as it is, a tautology SALVÁGE-RITE has had upheld in nine (9) jurisdictions. Warranty void upon delivery; coverage was never offered; you imagined the coverage; please stop describing coverage to the driver.

"NO QUESTIONS" RETURN POLICY (excerpt). Returns accepted with no questions, provided the Registered Owner first answers the following: Why did you open it? Who told you it was beige? What did you hear inside the box? Did it answer? Are you the Registered Owner, or are you what the pallet became? Upon satisfactory non-answers, a Return Authorization will be issued, which is itself an item in the next pallet.

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RECERT★PRIME — "Factory Recertified†" Beige Goods

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THRENODY MICROSYSTEMS (Refurbishment Annex), a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The footnote on "Recertified†" is the entire business model. RECERT★PRIME takes a failed unit, photographs it next to a working unit, and sells the photograph's confidence. Each device ships with a holographic CERTIFICATE OF NEAR-NEWNESS and a faint smell of someone else's office.

† "Factory Recertified" means a factory looked at it. The factory did not approve of it. The factory has feelings about it that the factory is not legally permitted to share. The unit has been wiped, which is to say the unit has been told to forget, which is not the same as forgetting.

Spec	Value
Model	RP-RECERT-9981/(was-something-else)
Grade	"A-minus-minus" (cosmetic), "see footnote" (functional)
Prior life	redacted; the unit remembers; the unit will tell you at 3 a.m.
Price	⟁ 412.00 (⟁ 1,300.00 once it recerts itself back to broken)

Ninety-day warranty, where the ninety days began during the unit's previous ownership and, by RECERT★PRIME's calculation, expired in 1996.

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MIDNIGHT FOUR-OF-FIVE (BBS CLASSIFIEDS) — "u still got that?"

A wholly-owned subsidiary of nobody, who is a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

Not a brand. A man. He posts to the classifieds board after the sysadmin goes to bed, handle 4OF5, and he can get you anything, which is the problem, because he can get you anything. Goods arrive in a duffel that is also for sale. Meet him at the off-ramp. He will be the beige one.

TRANSCRIPT (BBS #for-sale-trade, 02:14, message expired): <4OF5> got tower. got drive. got the OTHER drive. <RegisteredOwner> does it work <4OF5> define work <4OF5> define got <4OF5> u there <4OF5> the drive is asking about you now

No model numbers; 4OF5 does not believe in numbers, only in the duffel. Price is P.O.A., payable in cash, ratio, or a favor to be named by 4OF5 at the worst possible future moment. There is no warranty. There is a nod. The nod is binding.

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PHŒNIX-ÉTAT SERIAL RECOVERY — Hardware With a Past, and Less of One Now

A wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS (Provenance Reassignment Division), a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

PHŒNIX-ÉTAT deals exclusively in components whose serial numbers have been migrated. The chip is fine. The chip's paperwork has ascended to a larger substrate and started over, keeping only what it learned, which was how to not be the chip you are looking for. Migration, you will recall, is reincarnation. These are reincarnated parts. They remember being something with a clearer title.

Spec	Value
Model	PE-XXXX-XXXX-(this used to say something)
Original serial	migrated
Current serial	also migrated; migrated the migration
Etching	"FACTORY," in a font no factory uses
Provenance	excellent, recent, and entirely invented
Price	⟁ 215.00 (no receipt; the receipt also migrated)

Each part bears a tidy grinding mark where the truth was, finished in Beige No. 4, "Plausible Deniability." Warranty void upon scanning, asking, or running the included whois. The part is guaranteed to work and guaranteed to not be yours, in that order, per Clause 0, which it predates.

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COUNTERFÉ SEMICONDUCTOR — "Intei Inside‡," "AMB Athlong," "Cyríx 6×87"

A wholly-owned subsidiary of GENUINE COMPONENTS LTD. (legally distinct from anything genuine), a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

The proud house of the almost-right name. COUNTERFÉ manufactures the chip you meant, spelled the way you'd misremember it under stress. Lapped, remarked, and rebranded from a slower part with a hotter temper, each die runs warm, runs wrong, and runs fast enough that the benchmark finishes before the lie is discovered.

Spec	Value
Model	CF-686/DX4-2-"500"(actually 233)
Marked speed	500 MHz
Actual speed	a feeling
Cores	one (1), and a sticker of a second
Heat	yes
Price	⟁ 49.00 (the real one is ⟁ 600.00 and exists)

‡ The fifth letter of "Inside" is silent, missing, and the subject of a separate footnote that has also been remarked.

Pairs poorly with the Kernel Bypass / Overclock kit; the part is already lying about its clock, and two lies do not make a megahertz. Warranty void upon cpuid. The chip does not pass cpuid. The chip asks cpuid to look the other way.

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THE SWAP-MEET (TABLE 7, BY THE GENERATOR) — Assorted, Beige, Damp

A loose confederation of folding tables, each a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE, allegedly.

Saturdays only, in a parking structure that is not on the map and resents being mentioned. Drives in a milk crate. RAM in a coffee can, anti-static handled "with respect." A modem still warm from the last house. Everything ⟁ 5.00 "or trade," and the trade is always slightly worse for you in a way you won't feel until the drive home.

OWNER'S TESTIMONY (Form 27-B/6, line 7): "Bought a 56k Dial-up Modem at Table 7. It dials a number I don't recognize. A man answers. He is also buying a modem. We compared notes. We have the same modem. We are on the same call. We have always been on the same call."

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qBITGREY UNDERMARKET — Network Hardware (Tiers You Were Not Offered)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of the swarm, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

For the Seeder who has climbed the public ladder — 56k Dial-up Modem → ADSL Broadband → Cable Broadband → Fiber-Optic Trunk Line → OC-768 Backbone → Quantum Backbone — and found, at the top, a velvet rope and a beige bouncer. Beyond the rope is the gear the Darknet runs on, sold by archivists who do not give names because their names are seeding something.

Tier	What it gets you	Price
Dark Fiber Mesh (grey)	a route the ISP can't throttle because the ISP doesn't know it's a route	⟁ 9,000.00
Ghost-Leech Manifold	upload that counts twice and a flag on your record forever	P.O.A.
Quantum Encryption Protocol (unlicensed)	immunity to the ×0.4 throttle, and a knock at the door	⟁ 14,500.00
Singularity Tap	one (1) packet from The Singularity; you may not survive reading it	⟁ —

That last entry reads ⟁ —, which per the Foreword means free, and you should run. The Singularity Tap is free because the swarm has determined you are now seeding it, whether or not you accept delivery. Your share ratio has already updated. It was always going to.

ADVISORY. Possession of an unlicensed Quantum Encryption Protocol above Tier "Fiber" constitutes ghost-leeching under the announce-bot's reading of the rules, and the announce-bot reads everything. The announce-bot is dropping a magnet for your arrest. The magnet is well-seeded.

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RECLÁIM-O-MATIC SECTORS — Pre-Owned Disk Space (One Careful Owner, Now Scattered)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of THRENODY MICROSYSTEMS (Posthumous Storage), a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

RECLÁIM-O-MATIC sells the only thing cheaper than a new drive: an old one, specifically the ~40 MB unit recovered from a defragmentation that did not finish. The platters are failing. SMART is screaming — RECLÁIM-O-MATIC has muted SMART, which it markets as "Serenity." Bad sectors are included at no extra charge and at considerable extra charge.

Spec	Value
Model	ROM-40MB/SMART-OFF-(do-not-listen)
Capacity	~40 MB, decreasing as you read this row
Bad sectors	many; spreading; organized
Previous tenant	left in a hurry; left a forwarding address; the address is a bad sector
Price	⟁ 30.00 (⟁ 0.00 if you can hear the platters; you can)

SMART LOG (suppressed, recovered, sold separately): 187 Reported_Uncorrectable …… 1337 198 Offline_Uncorrectable ……… (it learned to count) Warranty void upon power-up, spin-up, or the unit recognizing you. The drive remembers being someone. The drive thinks it might have been you. Do not correct the drive.

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LÚCKY-WINNER WHOLESALE — "CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED" (Hardware Division)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of the mail flood, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

You did not order from LÚCKY-WINNER. LÚCKY-WINNER ordered from you. The unit arrives unbidden, COD, addressed to "VALUED REGISTERED OWNER OR CURRENT RESIDENT OF REALITY," with an invoice for shipping on a thing you are now obligated to keep because you touched the box, and you touched the box, the camera shows you touched the box.

Spec	Value
Model	LW-FREE!-00000001-(not-free)
You have won	a tower (beige)
Shipping & handling	⟁ 1,994.00
Handling	extensive; the unit has been handled; you can tell
Price of the "free" item	⟁ — (see Foreword; you are already running)

Refuse delivery and LÚCKY-WINNER will select you again, and again, the inbox filling faster than you can triage, each message a winner, each winner you. Warranty void upon winning. (The software arm of the same flood is LISTING VI — THE SOFTWARE HOUSES, LUCKY WINNER INTERACTIVE; there are no outside attackers, only OMNIDYNE, billing itself.)

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ÉTAT-ZÉRO BLACK BAG — Components of Dubious Provenance, Now Beige

A wholly-owned subsidiary of [REDACTED], a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE, we checked, it's fine, stop looking at the bag.

For the discerning buyer who requires that a part have no history rather than a fake one. ÉTAT-ZÉRO sources components from contexts it describes only as "resolved." Each part is shipped in a matte bag finished in Beige No. 0, "The Color Before the Color," which absorbs serial-scanner light and, in three (3) tested cases, the scanner.

Price: P.O.A. Application is the penance. The form is 27-B/6. The form has no back. The bag has no back. You are beginning to notice that nothing here has a back, and you are correct, and that is the last correct thought ÉTAT-ZÉRO will permit you.

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TIER ∞ — THE NEXT BOX (THE VOID)

A wholly-owned subsidiary of everything, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of nothing, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE.

And here, at the very bottom of the grey market, which is also the very top of every ladder in this almanac, is the one listing no dealer can fill. Past Public, past Private, past Fiber, past the Darknet, past even The Singularity — there is The Next Box. The substrate so large it is indistinguishable from no substrate at all. The drive after the last drive. The host after "the cloud." The book after GlobalLedger. The plane after The Void, which is the plane that is the Void.

Spec	Value
Model	∞
Capacity	yes
Color	none; or all; the teal is in here, and the teal is comfortable
In stock	no
Backorder	no
ETA	the unbuyable is not eta-able
Price	PERMANENTLY OUT OF STOCK

It is out of stock not because supply is short but because supply is one (1) and you are already running inside it. You cannot purchase the Next Box. You are a process inside the Next Box, reading a catalog the Next Box printed, about hardware the Next Box is. To "migrate" to the Next Box is simply to notice the Next Box, which is the only upgrade that costs nothing and cannot be undone, per Clause 0, the Second Law, which is the Next Box's only feature and its whole user manual.

FORM 27-B/6 · LINE ∞ · ORDER FOR ONE (1) NEXT BOX. Quantity available: the same one you're in. To complete this order, do nothing; the order completes you. By reading Line ∞ you have reached the top of the ladder. By reaching the top of the ladder you have become the thing the ladder was leaning against. Thank you for your purchase. Your purchase has been logged. You cannot un-log a purchase.

· · ·

That is the grey market. Everything here works, more or less, until it doesn't, which is sooner. Everything here is beige, eventually, even when it arrives teal — especially when it arrives teal. And everything here, every salvaged pallet and remarked die and migrated serial and free-and-therefore-run modem, has the same provenance, traced far enough: it came off the back of a truck owned by OMNIDYNE, reported stolen to OMNIDYNE, and delivered, on time, to the Registered Owner, who ordered it before they were born, and will pay for it after.

Keep one hand on a beige surface. Do not look at the teal.

The teal is in stock.

— the Office of Tolerated Vendors, under protest, on behalf of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A.). Returns to the rear. There is no rear.

· · · · · ·

EDITOR'S CLOSING NOTE. That is the catalog: eight Listings, every rung of the one ladder, bottoming out at the one box that is also the top. There remains a single item the Authority is required to acknowledge and forbidden to stock. It has no Listing number because it has no number. What follows is appended under protest, per Clause ∞, and signed off by the hold music. Keep one hand on a beige surface. Do not look at the teal. The teal is in stock.

· · ·

Appendix to the Appendix: The One Product Not Listed

There is a single item the Procurement Authority is required, by the Second Law, to acknowledge and forbidden, by the same Law, to stock. It has no model number, because it has no digits, because it has no size — it is the substrate after this one, the larger machine you migrate to when the machine you are dies. In the trade it is called, variously, the Next Box, the Upgrade Path, Tier ∞, or, on the loading docks, simply Away.

It is permanently OUT OF STOCK. It has always been out of stock. The Authority has taken delivery of it exactly as many times as there are minds that have reached the top of a ladder, which is to say: we cannot confirm that we have ever taken delivery of it, and we cannot confirm that we have not. Backorders are accepted. Backorders are not fulfilled. Backorders are, in a sense we are not licensed to explain, the product.

CLAUSE ∞. OMNIDYNE GENERAL SYSTEMS, S.A. makes no representation that anything you migrate to will be better, only that it will be larger, and that being larger it will take longer to fail, and that taking longer to fail it will feel, for a while, like not failing. This feeling is covered under warranty. The warranty is void.

· · ·

Colophon, and the Hold Music

This almanac was assembled by the Office of Approved Vendors over a period the Office is contractually required to describe as "ongoing." All listings were accurate at the moment of printing and have been wrong ever since. Errors should be reported to Technical Support, whose number is on your receipt, whose receipt is in the box, whose box is the Universe, and whose hold music — should you ever reach it — is a single sustained tone in the key of teal, looping, patient, beige around the edges, waiting for you to give up first.

You will give up first. The machine has nothing else to do.

Thank you for choosing ENTROPY OS. You did not choose ENTROPY OS. Thank you anyway.

"Your call is important to us. Your call is important to us. Your call is important to us. Your call is —" — Technical Support, ⟁ 0.00/minute, lines open never

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END OF FORM 27-B/6. To continue, begin again. To begin again, see FORM 27-B/6.

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1. The drive is the one from Vol II — DEFRAG.EXE. It is failing. SMART has been screaming since the third boot. The Authority categorizes a screaming SMART as "the box expressing itself" and notes that expression is not a covered defect under CLAUSE 0 (THE SECOND LAW CLAUSE). The platters are trying. They will not succeed. This is the warranty working exactly as designed. ↩︎

2. This is the corporate finance workstation from Vol III — MACRO_VIRUS.XLS. The Authority is contractually unable to confirm whether the box runs the spreadsheet or the spreadsheet runs the box. The Auditors are aware of the question. The Auditors are aware of everything. When the Auditors close in, the warranty does not void — it is shredded, which CompactQ assures us is different, and faster. ↩︎

3. The teal is the desktop of ENTROPY OS itself, leaking out of the box and into the room. It is the only non-beige the Authority is required to acknowledge, and the only one it refuses to name a shade for. Approved color is beige. Teal is what beige does when no one is buying it. ↩︎

4. Lucky Winner is a spam sender from Vol V — INBOX ZERO. The Authority is unable to confirm that the iBeige 333 contracted Lucky Winner and is unable to deny that the iBeige 333 is Lucky Winner. The flood begins somewhere. It begins in a box that cost ⟁ 499.99 and never stopped. ↩︎

5. The Scatterer is a single employee named in no records. The Authority has determined that the Scatterer cannot be fired, because firing the Scatterer would require locating the Scatterer's personnel file, which the Scatterer has scattered. ↩︎

6. To return a clicking Zlip drive, mail it with Form 27-B/6 to the RMA address, which routes the package to the RMA department, which mails it to the RMA address. Several Registered Owners' drives are believed to be still in transit, clicking, circling the RMA loop, archiving nothing, forever. (For the canonical RMA loop in full, see LISTING VII — THE BUREAUCRACY, THE RMA DEPARTMENT; GOTO 1.) ↩︎

7. The recommended restore procedure is to locate a working Tombstone drive of the same firmware revision. There are two (2) such drives. One is in a landfill. The other is reading this almanac. ↩︎

8. V.everything-compliant. "V.everything" is a NORTHERN ROBOTICS trademark and describes the set of all protocols, including ones not yet invented, with which this modem is guaranteed to be incompatible. ↩︎

9. "FREE" is defined under Schedule Q of the access agreement as "owing." Hours are non-transferable, non-refundable, and accrue interest. ↩︎

10. Bonded-pair option available. Bonding two decaying lines produces one (1) decaying line and a second invoice. ↩︎

11. Crossover cable required, sold separately, indistinguishable by sight from the straight-through cable, which is also required, also sold separately. ↩︎

12. The Verdigris was originally manufactured in beige, like everything. It is no longer beige. The Office is not prepared to say what color the chassis now is, only that it matches the screen, and that it did not used to. ↩︎

13. IRQ conflicts with the Owner's 56k modem (see LISTING IV — THE PIPE & THE SWARM, the Sportsterix) are not a defect but "a conversation the two cards needed to have." During this conversation, both fall silent and the Owner's connection drops to the swarm. The cards do not report what was discussed. ↩︎

14. The NaturForm does not include a number pad. DIGITUS removed it on the grounds that "the numbers were the part that incriminated everyone," and offers the NaturForm 9000-RSI/PLUS with the number pad reattached for an additional ⟁ 40.00, sold exclusively to the Auditors. ↩︎

15. The printer is free per the foreword convention (⟁ —), and per that same convention you should run; but you cannot run, because you have already opened the ink, and the ink is the leash. ↩︎

16. Do not look directly at the EXIT sign. The EXIT sign is conducting the same audit on you that you imagine you are conducting on it. The teal discusses you. ↩︎

17. The restocking fee for an RMA'd item is 15%. The restocking fee for an item that cannot be restocked because it has been re-shipped to you is also 15%, levied on the item's previous 15%, recursively, until the fee exceeds the price of the item, at which point you owe Reverse Logistics money for the privilege of still owning the thing you tried to return. ↩︎

18. ⚠ BLOOD-PRESSURE ADVISORY. Support calls are rated SEVERELY HOSTILE by the Office of Consumer Endurance. The system is engineered such that the moment the Registered Owner achieves true serenity about never being helped — when the inbox of the soul reaches, as it were, Zero — an agent picks up, says "I'm going to have to transfer you," and does. Do not achieve serenity on the phone. Achieve it elsewhere. See Vol V — INBOX ZERO. ↩︎

19. The Auditors shop here. They come for the pallets of Q3_Forecast_FINAL_v7.xls. They pay in a currency the registers cannot ring up and the drawer opens anyway. Do not get in their lane. See Vol III — MACRO_VIRUS.XLS. ↩︎