Comic for Monday, December 20th, 2021
Dec21
on December 21, 2021
at 1:31 am
Comic. Poll should be up. This will be a shorter poll than usual; I’ll run till about Wednesday night/Thursday morning as I’ll need some time to draw the winner. As no queen can rule forever, the time for a new champion has come – who shall inherit the floppy red crown of fuzziness this year?
EDIT: Questions for Q&A are open – have a question, ask it below!
Loading ...
did i vote for Kally and Miko, along with my choices? If so, then i’m sorry they didn’t win, and if they attack me… *growls* they’re gonna need more than magic when i get through with them.
Ummmm … I really wouldn’t throw a challenge in their faces. You might want to rethink and apologize. Both are formidable in their specialties. If you disappear in the next few days, we’ll know that either Miko hacked you or Kally got you with a kinetic strike. Will also be watching the news for reports of a red dragon. LOL
I’m not sure I understand a single coherent thread through your response, but it seemed pretty clear to me that both Miko and Kally have an aversion to winning this particular contest.
I for one will attempt to remember that for next year. That gives me two other people to vote for. Hmm..
Not sure if you are replying to Willis or me but I’ll explain a different way. Willis shouldn’t have challenged Miko or Kally. He should apologize. Both Miko and Kally are extremely good at what they do. If Willis disappears, Miko might have hacked him or Kally might have nuked him with magic or sent her dragon after him. I will be watching for reports of Kelly’s Fluffy dragon. LOL
Bear in mind of course that magic appears to be literally just hacking the data that makes up “reality” to your benefit.
When Miko finally figures out how to access that data directly, this is going to be bad for basically everyone who isn’t Miko…
I don’t see that being a problem for Mium, and he isn’t Miko.
Actually, I see it being good for quite a few people whom Miko has never interacted with, so long as they continue to manage not interacting with Miko. Not, of course, *everybody* who Miko doesn’t interact with. Just those people who don’t interact with her and are opposed by people who *do*.
Avoiding interacting with Miko will become rather easier once Miko becomes fairly well versed in directly accessing and editing Eidos data. Some new god emperor types would make everybody kowtow to them, but Miko just wants to be left alone.
Two other people? If you haven’t already, consider Miss Holmgren.
And if you did, thank you for giving me an opening to bring her up again!
Um, wait, what? I see down below that Miss Holmgren only had one vote. She’s got lovely hair and braids it in an interesting way, and so of course I voted for her. If you voted for her also, that suggests the voting system may not be working 100% correctly.
Hey Folks-
Sorry for the late notice on this, but I think I’m going to take this week off in updates. I ended up fairly busy this weekend/monday, and don’t see a good window to finish up the comic.
I will be back with an update on the 3rd. In the meantime, for the celebration of the Holidays, we can do another Q&A, as it’s been awhile since we’ve done of those.
You can leave any question in the comments as a reply to this comment, or email them to me at pastutopia@pastutopia.com
As usual, I won’t give any direct spoilers, but other than that questions can be fairly open ended. I’ll share the answers to the questions in a future update (probably next week or the one after depending on my schedule).
Happy holidays and I hope you all had a good Santa Hat day!
-PastUtopia
Oh! A Q&A! Awesome!
Did Peter use an autocaster when he levitated the pencil for Miko? This may be a spoiler.
Woohoo Q&A!
My question this time is: How fast is magic.
My understanding is that a prepared mage can react and calculate superhumanly fast (and that how fast is an important measure of a mage). From Kally blocking bullets, to Ashvault’s quick draw the standard human reaction times seem woefully inadequate.
So just how fast are these things in real world times? What is considered a good score for a mage? What is average?
I’m curious for reference numbers.
1. Please provide detailed plans for a device to open a dimensional gate.
2. Please provide the configuration necessary to open a gate to Palindra, preferably to Malsa specifically.
3. Is the technology/magic to encode extra data into an otherwise inanimate object (staff, crowbar, etc) still known? Or all such objects are now effectively artifacts?
4. How are the items from #3 different from an autocaster? That is, how is Nathan’s staff different from an autocaster?
5. Is the production of a staff fundamentally different from the creation of a demon? Are there similarities in creating a staff/crowbar compared to creating a stabilized dragon?
6. Are dimension jumpers / path finders always innate? Or is it a skill that can be passed down?
7. Follow up to #6. I get the idea that however teleportation is accomplished, and assuming there really is no formula/ function known for it, it still seems that it might run in families, and be teachable. Or at least teachable from family member with the knack to family member with the knack? Are there similar knowledges/wisdoms that are known from Central? Perhaps the Summers family Seat is heredity at least in part because they have spells that can only be taught within the bloodline and the function (formula? ) hasn’t been discovered yet?
8. What’s the major religion on Malsa? Palindra overall?
9. Do they use vi there? Vim? Or are they all emacs using heathens? Note, THIS might explain why Kor’s world sought to destroy Central.
10. What does Mium have to say regarding the 4 laws of robotics? I’m including the 0th law here. It’s reasonable to assume he has more to say than can fit in a webcomic, so general high level guidance is still great.
11. What does Mium think the most important question Kally could ask would be, and what is the answer? This isn’t a spoiler, because the Santa Hat poll is over, and we’ve got no way to tell her.
12. What does Mium believe is the best question for an earth dweller to ask in Jan 2022, and what would his answer be?
13. Can Peter _actually_ control the weather? Accurately product it?
14. Is Naomi currently dating anyone? I hear there’s a brand new Family just recently founded, and the head of it is both single and remarkably attractive. Sure, SHE might not have aspirations of power, but she might find Tyler attractive anyway. And her little sister clearly wouldn’t mind being a princess. Also, Naomi’s saving the world, and having the backing of a Family can’t hurt.
15. Did ANY of my questions come close to starting a war?
For those interested, yes I typed all this on a phone. It would not have been even this legible had Past not provided a 2 hour edit window.
Happy Santa Hat Day, folks!
Kally and Miko in the background is too good.
At first, it seemed that Miko was going to track the people who didn’t vote for Kally. But something didn’t seem right about what Kally said. After reading Miko and Kally’s conversation a few more times, it seems they are going after the people who voted FOR them! What am I missing?
I think what you are missing is that Miko is very anti-social, and Kally thinks the hat doesn’t fit her image or some such.
Different personalities.
The Santa Hat is a 4th wall breaking thing, and none of them really grok it. Naomi, and presumably her little sister, see something unusual and think “cool!”
Kally and Miko both perceive it as an annoying distraction and possibly mildly demeaning. No one is going to force them to wear a funny hat!
And of course Ila sees it as a contest to be won. So like all contests she wants to win it.
Woohoo! Thank you!
Someone is getting some serious purple back in her hair!
Ila seems to be embracing the Santa Hat. Give that girl a cookie!
Merry Christmas!
Thanks for pointing out Naomi’s returning purple hair. It wasn’t as light purple as her sister’s hair and my old eyes didn’t register the color change to my old brain. On close examination, it appears that her purple hair may be growing out naturally. From her bangs, it appears that about 1/3 is black and 2/3 is purple.
The canon value of these pictures is somewhat in question. I believe they’ve been described as “quasi-canon”, so I’m not sure what we’ll see next out of Naomi.
I’m also not sure how many days have passed, now Naomi’s hair growth rate. It has occurred to me that as Mium’s hair appears to have changed back (mostly?), Naomi may have reasons to continue to dye her hair. On going ops?
I don’t know. I just found the purplishness here interesting.
Kally might be angry since a nameless person tied her vote count. That and the frustration of dealing with Peter may have made her a bit insane. Also, ILA may usurp the Doll of Destruction name. Let’s hope Kally is joking but it looks like Miko is tracking down people who did not vote for Kally.
I voted for ILA this time but if Artem and She Who Shall Not Be Named run on a joint ticket next year, I may change my vote.
“if you are one … behind the whirlpool virus” should be “if you are *the* one … behind the whirlpool virus”, I think
Team Kally for 2021! Vote Kally!
Such “wise” dialog! LMAO! Absolutely beautiful! So natural I can just hear them talking. Your best yet.
If one was sure of a truthful & helpful answer, ask the meta-question:
“What is the best question I should be asking you?”
However, if “helpful” is not assured, one might get the meta-answer:
“The best question to ask is the question you just asked, and the best answer
is the answer I am now giving you.”
How about just “please tell me one useful piece of information, that you consider the thing I should have asked you for” ?
Although that might just lead to “of COURSE I will marry you… eventually” 😀
Hmm. “Organize everything you know based on two priorities: your estimation of my interest, and how complete you will answer. What are the 10 highest items in your list?”
If my fellow readers could simulate Peter, how would you anno…..err… answer her?
SiliconWolf, I’ll take a crack at it. There are others here that “do” Peter and Mium better, so hopefully we get someone else to improve over this. PastUtopia, obviously, but I think that would just be spoilers. 😉
I’ve written a lot of SQL statements in my life. There is an ORDER BY clause. You can give it more than one argument, but it sorts first by the first argument, then uses the second argument as a tie breaker. If there’s a third argument, it only gets used if there is a tie with both 1st and 2nd arguments. And so on.
In effect, assuming for simplicity that Mium signs an integer value of 0-10 for “estimation of Kally’s interest”, and assuming that the top 10 are all values of 10, then “completeness of answer” is the sorting factor for the list.
If “interest” has five 10s, and five 9s, then the “completeness” may decrease from 1 to 5 on the list, then go back up for 6, as we go down a notch on “interest”.
If the values assigned are not integers, but decimal values, then the “completeness” may not factor in at all.
Peter and Mium both have warned people that the specified query may yield an answer outside of expectations in the past. I can see that happening in this case.
The list is going to be the answer. If she actually wants to ask a question from the list, she needs to win (or cajole) another question. The list itself though… knowing what questions you should be asking is huge.
All in all, if Kally is aware of the Consul’s spreadsheet from Mium, she might well be asking for a version of that catered to Kally. Yes, she’d be handing over a lot of control to Peter. But the Consul is already on board, and Kally has already expressed a willingness to follow her unerring meteorologist.
I think I edited this like 15 times. Thank you for that, Past.
In case I’ve used terms unfamiliar to someone:
SQL: Standard Query Language
Integer: often referred to as a whole number. 1, 2, 3, but not 1.5 nor 1/2.
Sure enough, I miswrote my query! Let’s try again.
“Organize everything you know based on two priorities: how complete your answrer is, and your estimation of my interest. What are the 10 highest ANSWERS in your list?”
There we go. by reversing my order argument, I wind up with all of the complete answers at the top of the list. Then the query will then prioritize all of the most useful questions. Finally, instead of the questions as the output, I’m now requesting the answers. ‘Most complete’ answers should be verbose enough to make the output useful.
Edit: I think it only took me 5 rewrites to get this in its current form.
Well, the most complete answers include “Yes” and “No”, so I’m not sure that sorting by completeness necessarily helps as much as you’d like.
For example, “Are you behind the whirlpool virus?” “No.” It’s a complete answer, but it doesn’t tell her anything she shouldn’t have known already. Alternatively, “Are you still working for the IDS?” “Yes.” Same deal.
Admittedly, the latter question is one that I’m pretty sure he’s not going to answer if that answer is correctly tied to the question. I mean, one of the big things about being undercover is you don’t *tell* people, apart from the ones who really need to know. Based on how I’ve seen the characters acting so far, I’d guess that’s probably more likely to be Kyle than Arron. Maybe Arron’s poker face is better than I think it is, much like Sidney Scoville’s poker face is better than those around her tend to think. But I’d think that Arron would be more likely to confide in Kally, unless he deemed her poker face to be awful… Which it probably is. Sigh.
@Glider: Um, I think you mean “Structured”.
I probably did mean structured. I was too lazy to look it up, and I’m too confident in your skills to question you!
Structured Query Language it is!
SiliconWolf, I’ve seen too many episodes of jeopardy to think the answers will be useful without knowing the questions. And telling Mium OR Peter you are willing to accept answers without knowing the questions? That seems like the sort of challenge where they excel.
Tgape, pick a spouse or a parent or a significant other. Wait for them to be mad at you and they ask you a question. Will they be happy with a yes or no answer? I’m going to disagree with you that yes and no answers score a 10/10 on the completeness scale. In fact, I would put them at a 1/10 on the completeness scale.
Glider, it could be argued that Jeopardy answers are deliberately reduced on the completeness scale so that the question cannot be easily inferred. But you’re probably right and I in fact would expect this from those two. But Peter did invite her to try. And I get the impression that Peter is in a sharing mood.
I get where you might think that. But I’ve found they tended to get angrier about the stuff I filled in because it felt like they were looking for a more complete answer.
So, am I the person who posted that thing to that site? “No.” Done. It doesn’t matter if I never saw the site before, I don’t need to explain that. It doesn’t matter that I’ve identified at least one other person who uses the handle ‘Tgape’ online at various other sites. Anything beyond the simple yes or no gets me into more trouble.
Does it work like that for everyone? I’m guessing from your post that it doesn’t. It could just be that I’m bad at communicating, and worse at communicating under pressure. I don’t know.
Definitely rigged. Naomi didn’t even make the ballot this time. I can’t believe this injustice!
As Naomi has won all the Santa Hat polls so far, I decided to add term limits.
Though so far it seems like voters are royalists who think the crown should be inherited by the bloodline.
In our defense, her little sister is weapons grade cute-onium.
Yeah, not really a fair fight there.
This is the first vote I’m conflicted on. Ila is the best, but how can not also vote for Naomi’s sister?
This. This exactly.
The poll seems not to be accepting votes now? It’s just showing the existing 10 votes from 4 voters in bar graph form without any apparent means of casting any new votes. Some of the names are in bold italic, so I thought perhaps it thinks since I voted on the last poll that that vote applies to this one, except it still does that in incognito mode and in guest mode in the browser.
Past did say it would be a lightening fast round. It looks to me as though it is over. Ila wins!
Fortunately I voted, apparently randomly. I don’t remember it.
WOW! Loading the page to reply… the poll is reset.
Fortunately, though there are clear signs of irregularities, it is also clear that there wasn’t enough cheating to alter the results. As long as my client, er, choice, wins!
Remember! Vote Holmgren!
It seems like the poll was not working for any IP address the voted on the last poll. I’ve disabled IP checking as I cannot find any other way to fix it. Seems like there should be, but I don’t see an obvious solution to it, as it shouldn’t do that in the first place.
I’ll manually clean up duplicate IPs after it closes though, so be good people when it comes to voting to save me effort there.
I hadn’t originally noticed as it seemed fine to me (probably as I don’t vote in my own polls), so let me know if it’s working now or not. I have asked one person to test, and it seems like it was working for them.
Yeah, it worked. You rock.
Except it only let me vote once. I thought this was a democracy!
It let me vote 10 times. Though, it did require those 10 votes went to different characters. Looks like only two of my 10 are in the top five at the moment. Well, 3, if you consider all ties to be of equivalent rank.
Therein lies the issue. EVERYONE is going to be like, well only 1 of my 10 votes went to Naomi’s little sister, and she does possess weapon grade cuteness.
And BOOM! It’s the Bush-Bush dynasty all over again.
Well I’m not actually claiming that Bush Jr was cute. Okay, just never mind.
I didn’t vote for anyone whose name I don’t know at all yet. But I did vote for Vera, and I don’t know if she’s Vera Feline, Feline Vera, if she just has a nickname of Feline, or if Vera and Feline are two separate newscasters.
And Kally runs into the big issue with one question, there is just so much you want and how do you phrase it to get the maximum usable information back
Kalli’s question. It is magic, of the quantum sort. You cannot measure both speed and mass. You must choose only one.
Also the poll issue appears to be a caching issue, I think. Sometimes it shows me a poll, mostly it shows me an answer page with someone else’s answers in bold.
Past will no doubt fix it shortly, but I’m posting this here so folks know to check back frequently.
No, it’s like the riddle about the two guards.
The key here is to get Peter to both select the question AND provide the question Kally should have asked as part of the answer. This gives him more leeway in selecting what he wants to disclose, but given you have to sorta assume he would have manipulated the situation if he hadn’t gotten the question he wanted/expected anyhow, it just saves time 😀
I like that, it’s good.
I also like this…. Kalli has already argued, successfully it seems, to be able to ask her question later. Now she just needs to ask Mium/Query what an optimal question would be. I find it difficult to believe that Mium would deny her this. Cheating? Perhaps. But we’ve already decided that within this crew, cheating is just being as efficient as possible.
And maybe not cheating, as I believe Mium would provide that information outside of the framework of a contest. He seems to genuinely seek the best interests of Peter, and it isn’t a big stretch to consider that Kally and Peter are good for one another.
Mium “not cheating would be giving you a handicap” Efiate?
Yeah, I don’t think he has much regard for other people’s rules …
Oh, I feel like Mium has a great deal of regard for other people’s rules. He just doesn’t actually *follow* them. But you want regard? He’ll give you all the regard you want. 😉
Well, at least, up until the point where you start asking him about why he didn’t follow your rules. Oh, wait, no, wrong character. Mium will respond to such questions by explaining how he did follow your rules. He also doesn’t gaslight people, because emitting incandescent vapors just isn’t something he was designed to be able to do.