Comic for Monday, October 18th, 2021
I’ve been posting comics involving this place for a few weeks now and I’ve just realized the “spirit world” looks significantly different in the exported version than mine version – various effects are lost in the exporting process, it seems. Odd; doesn’t really matter, beyond that it is intended to be somewhat more stylized than it has appeared thus far. I may try to resolve that in the future.
Mium normally does not elaborate his thought process in words, but in this case he’s largely using them to keep Tyler and Amy occupied while he considers, as humans can be rather flighty when left in silence in some strange distorted reality where they might die.
Allowing himself to be brought into the spirit world was larger risk than Mium would typically take without a more compelling incentive, but he has reasons that override his general caution on this sort of thing.
I will generally probably not post that it’ll be late until the end of Monday (unless I think I’ll miss the week all together) as comics posted later Monday are fairly common at this point.
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Panel 2,4: Efaite -> Efiate
Panel 3: it possible -> it’s possible
I’m sure it has been asked, but I don’t recall the answer. Can a computer use an autocaster? I’m almost sure the answer is no – otherwise the war would have seen waves of drones firing lightning bolts and such.
Mium and Illa being special cases each in their own way. I’ve been wondering why F8 doesn’t carry an autocaster since this page loaded, and then I remembered we’ve never seen him use magic other than some variation of his ‘disruption’ effect. If he can use an autocaster why didn’t Peter give him one ages ago?
No, a computer cannot use an autocaster. Apparently humans have something called an “Eidos key” that allows them to cast. Naomi had a lecture on it in the Jan 2015 arc (the Shinoji Project) and Peter talks with her about it a little later (May 2015 arc).
As Naomi put it “So we can only use magic because we are unreasonable?”
This is why Ila is special and surprising to Peter: she can alter Eidos. Mium, to date, has demonstrated a limited set of “magic”: mostly mana interference and breaking down real forms (I’m don’t think that is technically “altering Eidos”, it is more likely mana interference used to the nth degree (if I put mana where a chemical bond should be, the chemical bond breaks, stuff falls apart)). Mium certainly never has calculation rings when he does stuff (i.e. he’s not “casting”).
There is debate that Ila is using MIRs key.
Regarding the differences in appearance with your export process, you might want to look at two different options. I assume that your page in Photoshop, GIMP, or whatever product you are using is processing the image as TIFF. Totally uncompressed and eight bits per color channel in each layer with the possibility an eight bit alpha channel for transparency.
PNG versus JPEG – Both JPEG and PNG use some compression, although the methods are different. PNG works best when large blocks of the image have the same exact color. JPEG is better for photorealistic color, but may also represent shading and gradients better.
Compression – Decreasing the compression slightly can have drastic increases in fidelity to original image.
Past has historically used PNG files to publish their pictures, but switched to JPG for these last two pages.
The JPG files are *much* smaller than the PNG files. I don’t believe Past has actually indicated any reason for the switch, or even mentioned that it happened. I could see it being either for the file size or for some effect that seemed to show up better in the JPG file. That said, it would seem strange to me that there would be improved effects with JPG, since it’s more commonly known for losing effects than causing them. (It does both. Just like with prescription drugs, the difference between effect and side effect is entirely one of perspective.)
Both PNG and JPEG use compression, but they are very different in type: PNG is lossless, JPEG is lossy (your comment about ‘decreasing the compression’ only makes sense for JPEG, as it’s only a sensible concept for lossy algorithms). And no, software doesn’t internally use TIFF, TIFF is an exchange format.
There is a chance that Past is actually using a vector drawing program, though, in which case it would probably render better as something like svg.
Real artists use GIMP.
And by artists, I mean cheap rednecks like me.
Past uses, or used, photoshop. Feb 1 of this year is the most recent I stumbled across, but this one seems more detailed.
https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-june-15th-2020/
I use a semi-vector based drawing program (Clip Studio Paint) but then export that into Photoshop to use. I generally the comic as PNG, but have been fiddling with it recently (a larger JPG has the same file size as a smaller PNG), but have gone back to PNG with the most recent comic.
The real problem is that I work I work on these comics at vastly higher resolution (and and on a very high resolution screen). So, if I use a scattering effect that is just a few pixels, those are entirely lost before we get compression, as I save images at either 16.67% size historically (moving to 30% or 25% recently), and as I’ve been working rather quickly recently, I hadn’t realized I was losing a lot more than expected in that process.
May your to-do list be to-done with as little sturm und drang as possible!
No No – my investments in torch-and-pitchfork futures will languish if you are calm and reasonable….
Right on! Let’s set something on fire!
I’ll bring the marshmallows.
I’ll bring the Graham crackers. Now we just need someone to bring the chocolate.
Oh! Me! I’m something of a chocolate snob, so I promise it’l be good stuff. None of this Hershey waxy crap.
Hey Folks- I hate to do this but am going to miss the update this week. Looking at the to-do list this week I’ve fallen a bit behind. Should be an update as normal next week.
We just need to get you a better scope.
Remember that Mium has a long list of rules that he is compelled to follow by his nature. In the past few weeks, Peter has added some exceptions to allow Mium to better complete tasks. In fact, Peter mentioned to Mium in a previous strip that he was concerned that Mium had manipulated Peter into granting some of those exceptions. The exceptions that Mium may be talking about here could refer to being unable to operate without a communications link to Peter. The exception could also be that Amy is a friend of Naomi.
Exceptions helping make sense – plenty of those being added to Mium’s rules of operation lately. A growing number of autonomous copies not bound by the same rules, running on too much hardware, redefining people as family to justify special measures, redefining people as not-people to allow greater flexibility. At some point it likely threatens Mium’s functionality or ethics and we get to see why this worries Peter and Miko as much as Kor’s (creates a force resembling Kor’s?). In the meantime, it likely adds a good bit of redundancy.
I just twigged to the fact that “Cousin” is probably now covered by the ‘friends and family’ clause…
I’m wondering if Enkari DNA was used to create Mium’s F models and ILA’s shells.
I have this feeling that the whole Eidos versus Hyle business might mean that a person’s structure may be more defined in Eidos rather than in DNA that exists in Hyle.
That said, I do feel like some Enkari essence of some sort was likely used, whether DNA, blood, Eidos data structures, or something else. It’s even conceivable that it was something that they were involved with enough to contribute willingly, even if they didn’t understand exactly what AVon was going to do with it.
Probably not required.
Any real claim (other than Naomi saying so) that Ila is Mym’s sister is tenuous at best; Mym himself is not able to re-categorize individuals (such as a Cardus) but apparently can accept a designation from an outside authority (but can’t then un-accept it if it becomes inconvenient)
Does beg the question of who chose to “adopt” a Mium? Regin, possibly?
Thinking on it, I suspect it might be something like Eliana declared Ila a branch member of her family (and got some support in that matter) to ‘resolve’ the little issue of her being scary.
Minor changes needed:
Panel 3: IncapacitateD is correct but maybe “It WAS possible THAT coming here could have incapacitated me.” would sound better
Panel 4 looks okay. Suggested change leaves out the word IT.
In the 5th panel I think it would read better if Tyler finished the sentence on ‘useful’. The noun refered to by the preposition ‘it’ has already been well established in the conversation to be a container of sorts making the trailing words redundant.
Mr. Effiate’s use is in line with his slightly over precise mode of speach. Tyler is human and so will generally be lazy despite the care with which he takes to be clear.
People’s perceptions and regional manner of speech vary. It seems to me that “on it” refers to spells/programs on the autocaster which are separate from the physical autocaster. If Tyler meant the physical parts of the autocaster then ending with “useful” would make sense.
Agreed, except to say that I would be confused by the sentence, `But it doesn’t have anything useful.`
The autocaster is not, as far as I’m aware, a device that is capable of ownership. It would be capable of having something useful stored on it, stored inside it, or as a component. Distinguishing which of these was meant feels important to me.
So, who does Mium expect to pass through that he knows (and expects to be friendly)? I expect the hound Eliana called up might pass through, but not sure why he would expect it to respond to him. Kally’s dragon would be more likely to respond but less likely to show up. Some non-spirit? I would think that if any of them that he knew well was likely to pass through he’d already know more about the place.
Probably Vium. Since Mium has been through gates and hasn’t been to this place, gates don’t directly go here, but Vium was getting help from Dendrin, who is probably a Pathfinder (someone that can innately cross worlds). Based on the speculation from the last page, there’s a way to get through the this place to other worlds. This would also explain why he would be reluctant to rely on it.
Alternatively it could be someone we haven’t met yet. I wouldn’t put it past Mium to have a spirit buddy.
I think bouth answers are somewhat correct. Vim and Dendrin are the people he expects to pass through soon. However i think that Mium is planning to have Webber (re)create a tracking hound because his key is better for making biological constructs. Then they can follow the blood trail(s) implied by the little red dots to somewhere interesting. That might not be entirely safe because the last blood trail was left by the litch.
As for spelling mistakes, should “making new exceptions” be “making new connections”
I took Mium’s statement to mean that if not for the experience with Kardus disabling the F-10 chassis for a while, the environmental influences in this area would be problematic.
I have the feeling that Peter and Mium talked after that event for a bit off-camera, and Peter granted an exception that Mium needed to be able to respond to such an event either without requiring the AA server or without stopping all other Mium points of presence because of the need to use the AA server to handle this specific sort of situation.
Panel 3: It’s possible coming here could have incapacitate me. Panel 4: though i would appreciate if you could place quite a bit of higher priority on that point, Mr. Efaite.