I really enjoyed this story. The reading was wonderful, and I like that style of writing, how you don't really get told what's happening, you sort of deduce it from the dialog.
The content of the story was nice too. I spent a while trying to think what kind of intelligence we were dealing with here. Some kind of Turing machine? A random amalgamation of code that spawned intelligence (isomorphs anyone?) but that didn't fit with it learning how to connect to the input that was provided for it. (Who gives a hint to a computer saying "ones and zeros"?) But then I was like, "Oh yeah, mold. We always joke about how last month's take out food is starting a civilization in the back of the fridge, so why not a water purification plant?"
And that of course explained how it could decipher analogue signals in coaxial cable easier than digital signals on the modem.
I just want to point out one thing to all you television producers: Look! It's mold! And it has limitless access to cable TV! And even IT doesn't chose to watch "reality TV".
I'm just saying...