[chirrp][chirrp][cheeerp](whirring noises)[chrrreeep][cheeerp]

It started out as a humorous RFC, something that you would share with your friends and have a quick chuckle over.

[chbeep][chrsssssh][weeooweeoo][bloooop?]

But then the solar flares started. They only caused small problems at first, a little more static on your VOIP call, your conference calls became a little more annoying.

[maaa][maaaa]

Soon, it was all they could do to keep the electrical infrastructure in place. It would have to all be refit, and that would take years, if not decades. A different solution had to be found. Luckily, someone had managed to cross pigeons with mockingbirds.

[booooeyp][booooeyp]

You were limited to the speed of sound, but with creative sampling and filtering, you could train the ‘Mimidae Columbida‘ (or MimiCos, as they were called) to only listen for specific types of sound, and to re-chirp them as soon as they heard them.

[beeyooop][chiiiip?]

Many things became simpler. When you could only send data at 300 baud, IRC and MUDs flourished again. Twitter shortened its character limit to 100, then 50 characters. Emoji encodings became even more compact. People became adept at ‘hearing’ the messages before they were decoded, some were even forgoing the decoding stage, and speaking only ‘beakspeak’.

[yeeebeep!][gshhhhh][yeeeniiip]

Oh, that’s an urgent message coming through! Gotta run! [yeeeneepneep!]

#internetofbirds

From S