Comic for Wednesday, February 12th, 2020
Okay… bit short on the panel count and the art is sketchy, but it’s a page. Unfortunately what started as an effort to trim this page down a little so I’d get to the next one before I left ended up being an effort to trim this page down to get this one before I left.
I am about 3/5ths done the next page, but I still have a lot of packing to do, and I just finally closed my work computer down… so I think if we are being realistic, probably that’ll be the page I finish when I get back. There’s a chance I will post something (like a continuation of Tyler’s story) while I’m gone (I’ll have a lot of downtime on planes and trains and stuff), but not sure yet.
I will still be around to approve comments (and read comments) and the like, but I’ll be travelling for the next two weeks.
As always, appreciate the patience, and hopefully will have a better time situation when I get back to draw more, as I’m looking forward to continuing the story as much as I hope some people out there looking forward to reading the rest… we still got a ways to go 🙂
Loading ...
Just wanted to update that I am back from travel, but we probably won’t get a page until Monday. Sorry for the long delays.
March is looking fairly good for a consistent schedule so far at least.
Welcome back – I hope it was a productive and mostly pleasant trip!
The strip is still here. We kept an eye on it for you.
Monday would be great! We’ll look forward to seeing it then. And if March works out to be a model of consistency, we will celebrate, but we won’t then demand more of that in April, merely hope for it.
I hope that Naomi’s knowing people use the insides of the building-to-building bridges for direct access does not mean that will be taking one of more of them out of operation!
Yup! We watched the strip, and no one stole it.
I can’t back Josh on April behavior though. I’ve seen some pitchforks and torches being readied.
Got to admit though, not really sure how they could be used. They worked great to encourage Dr Frankenstein to make less monsters. Not really sure they would have helped encourage the creation of MORE monsters.
Perhaps we should consider beer and cigars? Easter candy might be a bit pricey, but maybe we can still pick up some cheap Valentine’s Day chocolates? How do you feel about McDonald’s shamrock shakes?
The original Dr Frankenstein was horrified by his creation… honestly I don’t remember any torches or pitchforks being described here.
It’s not till the 2nd movie that we get the angry mob carrying torches. Yes, that is right, pitchforks are a later addition (done by poorer studios who could not afford torches for everyone?). Most importantly, Dr Frankenstein himself is one of the mob leaders: he really didn’t want to create any more monsters.
In fact it is only in more recent media that Dr Frankenstein is portrayed as a lesser genius intent on making monsters (or at least keeping The Creature alive (I note the alignment of the creature has also drifted to “neutral” than the original “evil”(barely: but it does seem the original intent)): the original Dr Frankenstein is more of a wuss of a genius (creates a monster, is horrified by it, seeks to destroy it). A proper genius would have simply created a bigger better monster to bring the original creature to heel. A proper MAD genius would have become the better monster.
Perhaps we could, utilising Dr Frankenstein’s secret techniques to impart life to non-living matter, animate the pitchforks & torches… and send them to work for Past?
………has Naomi actually attempted that jump, without that jump being in the effort to fly?
(Oh come on I totally could see her trying to make that jump just to see if she could. Heck, if she made that, I fully expect she tried to make diagonal jumps, too. Just because “it would be faster”.)
Been thinking about that one for a while. I’m thinking that yes, she’s tried and yes, she succeeded. After all, if mere matter can span that gap, why wouldn’t Naomi be able to?
However she also knows that others travel by rooftop but don’t quite have her skill. And she prefers not to exert that much effort.
And if she can’t make it to the far rooftop, she may be able to make it though a window. or possibly a wall, going by what happened to Arron’s office…
Well I suppose if the world around you had always been tender and soft, it might get challenging to remember the difference between wall and door.
I’m not sure. I mean, I’m sure she’s done jumps that were *like* it, but in this case she didn’t need to, as there was a bridge.
It’s not just her durability to consider, there’s also the durability of the building on the other side. If she’s using flying techniques, at least, she can certainly jump off of the first building with less impact on it than a leap from one building to the next would take, and might be able to slow her fall enough she doesn’t impact the target building as hard.
However, it would still be something of a risk, and this is a building that she knows to be belonging to someone important, and the hospital is clearly important also. I do realize that there was probably a time when she didn’t know of the importance of both buildings. She had to find out about their importance *somehow*.
I think I can easily enough imagine a smaller Naomi attempting this jump and managing to land in one building or the other and finding out what the buildings were that way. But that’s not the normal way people find out the importance of buildings. Of course, Naomi frequently doesn’t do things the normal way, so I suppose that’s a point for her having made this attempt.
The real question is, have bears used the word “delicious”” in the context of YOU?
^_^
Excellent question. I don’t know.
But it would be fair, wouldn’t it?
Fun fact: most bears don’t speak English. Their vocal systems really aren’t well suited to it. So for any given bear, it’s unlikely they’ve said that particular English word ever, let alone in relation to Glider.
That having been said, it’s possible that Ursine has a similar word. (As far as I’m aware, it’s not possible for humans to speak their language(s?) to any significant extent. Rendering their language(s?) adequately in alphabetic characters is completely impossible. It’s also possible that every lifetime I remember trying to speak Ursine I simply just managed to only say things like “Kill me now” and “I’m tasty food”. It’s tough to say. But in any event, given the difficulties with using their word for their language(s?), I have no issues with using our word for it to talk about it.)
I don’t technically speak English either. I’m fluent only in Murkan.
I am mostly conversational in Canadian, eh? But maple syrup I’m told that I have a beaver strong accent. Sorry aboot that. Hockey, eh?
Actually the concept, yes; the word, probably not (see Tgape’s post on bears and language). Polar bears are one of the few animals to actively hunt humans.
“Animals Make Us Human” by Temple Grandin references work done in canine communication where a number of “words” or distinct communicated ideas are in the natural language of wolves.
Some dog breeds preseve all or nearly all of these words. The King Charles spaniel, which I understand to be heavily neotanized, preserves only a very small subset.
So while I suspect the word delicious is not terribly useful to a bear, I would be surprised if there is not some concept of it in inter bear communication. It might be almost as unwieldy a trying to say delicious in Klingon, but I bet it is there.
On the bright side, she is trying to be more presentable…
….just, not more “normal”….(then again, she probably wouldn’t be her at that point.)
Typo, 1st panel, Naomi: “…just to not be the places…” likely should be “…just to not be AT the places…”
Yeah, I think you are right. I think Past should change “be” to “go” so that it is the same thing Arkady said in reverse. And not subject to your correction.
“I might suspect you hang out with me just to not [go] the places you are supposed to be.”
Naomi’s dialog continues to make me laugh. I wonder if she is labelled “a Naomi” in Mium’s system (like the inverse of “a Kardus”).
I think Mium may have put Kardus in the category of “a Kardus” because when dealing with “a Kardus”, Mium doesn’t have the same constraints that he might have when dealing with someone who is not “a Kardus” and is instead something else.
That certainly seems to have been the intent. However it doesn’t seem to have worked completely, as he still had to return control to Ila. He wasn’t able to simply future proof his plans by killing ‘a Kardus’.
Shortly after positioning Ila to do the work he couldn’t, he then positioned Miko to do other work he couldn’t do directly.
But now we’re on a tangent. I’d be shocked if Naomi wasn’t tagged with a lot of exceptions, as she really doesn’t fit into a standard ‘human’ mold. Not for Mium not most others. At the very least she almost certainly has the friends and family exceptions.
Well, I’m pretty sure that the restrictions against future proofing plans by preemptive killings are both comprehensive and extremely high priority.
Especially since future proofing via preemptive murder can very strongly devolve into a mass extinction event.
But yeah, Naomi is in a special category, even amongst those classified as friends and family.
It’s my recollection that her special category is “moral compass”. Which I seem struck her as odd until she realized that Peter doesn’t really have one of those. His pragmatism is congruent in many respects, in the current context of a civilization that mostly works. But one should never mistake that for a moral compass.
I feel like this is the biggest mistake his opponents are making: they’re attempting to change the context into a civilization that doesn’t work, so the IDS can take over. However, in the context of a civilization that doesn’t work, I feel like Peter would very quickly become very nasty. He’d still tend to want to work through tools, and some of his tools would still tend to want to work through tools, just like now. But I feel like one of his first steps would be to explain to Naomi why, in this new context, her whole moral compass thing was probably ill advised.
no, she is a unique individual – missnaomi
Mium *values* friends 🙂
Indeed. I recall just after the Arpon counterattack, Peter explaining to Naomi that she could ask Mium to do things and he would likely comply. In other words, that she has “standing” with Mium and that is no little thing.
Indeed. and then there is Naomifriend_Arkady who is apparently a *confirmed* Naomifriend and that Ila *really* wishes to keep alive.
This basically seems to indicate that Naomi has the ability to extend the friends and family clause. In fact, this is the second time she’s done that, as the first time was asserting that Ila was family.
I’d say this is particularly notable because Miko is highly unlikely to extend friends and family, and Peter seems at least unlikely to extend it. As such, if Mium has any desire to extend this particular privilege escalation loophole, he needs to leverage Naomi. That definitely makes her special.
(I expect that Marigold probably also could extend friends and family, except she’s quite isolated from most of the rest of the cast and has only had 5 appearances. She does appear to have a Query, of sorts, which could potentially be in communication with MYM and everyone. Also, F8 is somewhere near her at the moment. But these advantages will not mean anything unless she can up her appearance count.)
It could also, given Marigold’s disposition, be an indication of her low page count. If you are getting page count you are in the forefront of action. No one would be trying to kill her (only her father) and the only reason that she has that thumbdrive is because Peter addresses every issue. Mari doesn’t even have a cast page entry and she’s Peters sister.
Oddly enough we never see him called “Pete” I wonder how that reaction would be.
Hey, it’s a page and it’s Wednesday. I’m still catching my breath. Hope you’re going somewhere interesting. One of the best things about my job is that I occasionally get sent to Alaska. Heading up there early next month.
Woohoo! Comic!
I used to like travel. Now, I do not.
Good luck in Alaska. Bring us back pictures!
Actually Alaska might be okay. I heard they have big bears there, and bears are delicious.
I generally enjoy travel though I am not too crazy about some of the places I am asked to visit. I do like Alaska, though if I never see another bear again that will be fine with me. I have never used the word “delicious” in the same sentence with “bear.” I will have to give that some thought.
I have had bear meat as well. It was a little fatty, but I do agree with Glider. Bear Meat is delicious.
I’ve never been to Alaska, only bear I’ve eaten were ones other people shot. All were black bear, but I trust that brown bear tastes about the same. I don’t want to get racist or species-ist about it.
So I don’t really have an opinion about meeting an Alaskan bear. The black bear that I’ve encountered, I wasn’t particularly well armed against. But they also weren’t particularly interested in making a close connection.
So? Stay safe and enjoy your travels!
So, um, pro tip: Alaskan brown bears are grizzlies. I know you’re probably more used to the thought of grizzlies in the Rockies, and those have black fur, but apparently the fur color changes with the diet.
Grizzly bears are to black bears as super saiyans are to humans, more or less. They don’t normally fly, but don’t let that fool you: they can. They usually only use their incredibly deadly chi blasts if they’re sure there won’t be any survivors to report this ability. (However, they apparently either don’t care about or can’t tell if someone’s a longrunner.) Also, they’re prone to unpredictable rage. If you do something to make them angry, they will get angry, but if you don’t, they still could.
In short, the best thing to do around an Alaskan brown bear is the same thing as around a grizzly bear: don’t be perceived.
Actually Alaska brown bears fall into two subspecies. All are Ursus arctos, but split into the grizzly bear (U. a. horribilis) or the Kodiak bear (U. a. middendorffi).
Ah. That would explain why I’ve seen so much disagreement about it online. I just went with the side that seemed to always win those arguments, if ever there’s a winner to an Internet argument.
(This is not to say that the people who said grizzly bear === Alaskan brown bear always won those arguments. I really mean I just asked someone who maintains one backbone ISP’s part of the Internet backbone that runs through the city I live in. It seemed like the best way to pick a side as any.)
The really important thing is: if the bear is not black, you don’t want to be anywhere near it.
Eh, IIRC, the running joke* about how one can tell the difference between a black bear and a grizzly is to kick it in the ass, and go run and climb up a tree. If it climbs up after you, it’s a black bear. If it knocks the tree down to get at you, it’s a grizzly.
Note: Do not actually attempt this in real life. It ends badly no matter what the answer is.
*At least in some areas.
I’ve tried this in a past life. I didn’t make it to the tree, though, so I don’t really know what kind of a bear it was.
I think we’re okay with splitting hairs here, right? We’re all a bunch of geek-nerds that love getting into the details?
The species that is black bears (looks like Eurasian and American are considered separate species?), can be black, brown, even white (search for Kermode).
Likewise brown bear (U. arctos) can be black, brown, blonde. They also hybridize with polar bears, in which case they tend to be white.
So I stand by my original assertion. Evading a bear based solely on color seems suboptimal. I am more and more convinced that all bears taste about the same, delicious.
So being geeks, we have established two deets about bears:
1. They are dangerous.
2. Their taxonomy is complicated as all get out.
It’s OK to split hairs, but don’t split any hares, unless you’re prepared to clean up the mess that results.
Odd. I thought it was:
1. Bears are delicious.
2. Their taxonomy is complicated as all get out.
As far as splitting hares… how else does one get them into the frying pan?
I’m not saying you *can’t* split hares, just that it’ll be messy, so you should be prepared first. You don’t need as much preparation to be able to clean up after split hairs.
As far as the point 1 goes, it looks to me like you came to this discussion with that belief a priori, and nothing stated has either confirmed or refuted that point. So it feels untested. I feel like there are several of us who agree that bears are dangerous.
I feel like the bears == dangerous was also a priori. I personally have tested the bears == delicious theory on multiple occasions.
However I don’t think we’re looking for logical conclusions so much as consensus. To that end I concede that I’ve not argued against bears == dangerous, and in fact I also agree with it.
I’m willing to accept all three points. The taxonomy == complicated is the unexpected result in my mind, but appears clearly accurate.