Comic for Wednesday, May 13, 2020
I said Tuesday or Wednesday, which, if we are being honest, you all knew meant Wednesday… and here we are! Wednesday! Sort of.
Obviously I’m still struggling a bit to keep the schedule. There’s a variety of things going on.
As of last week, the company work for sort of ceased to exist (it’s complicated, as it is), but I’m still employed for the time being. As you can imagine though, it’s been a little… exciting isn’t at all the right word. But a little bit busy. Not sure yet what the status of my job will be in the long term for this, but for the time being life goes on.
As some of you know, I also have some other hobbies, like working on making custom D&D content, and like this hobby it has things I’ve committed to work on, and there’s a few other things I need to work on here and there… My normal twice a week gym has turned into going running everyday which eats up time… yeah, things are sort of a mess, and sanity slowly frays 🙂 . I’m sure that many of you out there can relate or tell me that my problems are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things (which they are!) – it’s a crazy time and things are only getting weirder for a bit anyway. I know the many people are taking a finical hit – I see the COVID layoff comments on patron farewells and totally understand! Don’t worry about it, and always make sure you take care of your finances first!
Hope everyone is staying as healthy and sane out there as possible and I’ll see if I can get next weeks comic… well… at least no latter than this one? That’s a target, right? 🙂
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Sorry folks, as you’ve probably guessed by now the comic will be late… well, as we already late, later. I’ll see if I can do it by end of day tomorrow 🙂
EDIT: We going to roll over to Monday at this point, sorry. Even if I’m able to get it done before then, we’d just be too far behind again. We’ll go to Monday and hope to get back on schedule.
Don’t worry, we’re all behind you.
Some of us are even armed…
I’m not. But I am dangerous!
If being armed was a prerequisite of being dangerous, the US murder statistics would be strikingly different…
I like you both more than ever.
I tend to be armed, but unless you’re a half rack of ribs, I’m not particularly dangerous.
As I recall from #1 US firearm deaths are far and away the suicide/accident category, with gang/drug activity a distant second and then everything else much farther behind that. So the US stats much more support the highest likelihood of being armed with firearms most likely being a danger to one’s self.
If you’re counting other weapons I’m less certain how that plays out, though I suspect it’s much harder to have data for how often people cut themselves with knives and whatnot than shoot themselves, so likely harder to get good data too.
I was referring to the fact that more people are murdered by fists and feet than all rifles combined.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls
Tomorrow never come.
Tomorrow never gets here, but there’s always been a new day just over the horizon.
How about we work up some guest content for Past? Give him a bit of encouragement whilst simultaneously buying him some time?
I think guest content is what the reader comments here often are, actually.
As Pasta Utopia sat down to plan his next exciting meal for his fans, he was interrupted by a knock at the door.
He opened it to find the normally saucy Lynn Guini looking quite obviously distraught. Trying to ignore her toothsome appearance, he invited her in.
She stepped in, trying to hide that she’d been totally strained, but to no avail.
“You look pale, Lynn. Paler than usual, I mean. Could you use a bite?!”
“Stop flirting! This is serious. Somebody has kidnapped Lu Mache! We have to do something, fast!
“Surely if they kidnapped Lu, then we really can only do something slowly. You know how she is. I hear she’s only a shell of her former self.”
“It’s not as simple as that, Pasta! She’s been hanging out with Kasher and you know their families don’t get along. But if something happens to her, it will mean that Emile is never complete again!”
“Fine. Don’t go all cuoco on me. We’ll figure it out – they wouldn’t have done it forno reason.”
to be continued
I love that she note that Peter *probably* cannot have come up with that, because with Peter *anything* is possible.
…
Your name. If it’s not a reference, that is so cool.
Now I’m curious, reference to what? It’s my pen name; I thought I had plucked it out of thin air…
In Dragon Age Inquisition there is a Dwarf scout by the name of Scout Harding. A different character by the name of Varric Tethras wrote a book titled Hard in Hightown and asks Scout Harding if she’d ever been to “Kirkwall’s Hightown”, which would have been a pun off of his book…
So… Kit Harding… Scout Harding…
Well panels 5 and 6 are nothing if not incredibly ominous
It’s dead, but it’s still twitching? ZOMBIE ROBOT!!!
Argh! Quick, kill it now before it infects the blender.
Wait… how do we kill ZOMBIE ROBOTS?!?!? (What a terrifying thought!)
Mium has been in Central for a while now. All your kitchen appliances are belong to him 🙂
” That’s a target, right? ”
You see me shooting at it? No? It’s not a target.
“Broadcast rights”? This is clearly a totalitarian society . . . or it would be if it weren’t so dysfunctional. . . .
Depends on what broadcast rights mean. Even in democracy like the USA, you need a licence to operate a HAM radio, let along a radio station… and I’m guessing this isn’t what they are talking about.
My guess is that the Civil Service has some sort of functionary or emergency broadcast ability to talk directly to the people, and Kyle has been using it for what people would consider political means, or at least to point out the things that the Council is busy ignoring.
My take is that the IDS is largely in charge right now, but they are almost entirely focused on other worlds, and do not want anything to happen in Central while they are off playing cowboys.
“Reading the Civil Charter on broadcast” would seem to strongly imply that this is about content and not about the technicalities of operating a station without causing interference. So it still comes across as a totalitarian society. The fact that the phrase “broadcast privileges” kind of implies that you have to have permission even to speak to the public is just added creepiness.
I originally read it (I still do) as the broadcast was a known entity, but that the content of the charter was public information of which most of the public was not aware.
Sort of like the US Constitution, and perhaps the UK’s Magna Carta, are public information but a staggering number of people are ignorant of the contents.
Given that it is called “charter”, it probably spells out rights, obligations, and limitations that have been glossed over and ignored over time.
Given the context, it seems likely that there IS some sort of licensing or permission to broadcast. Given that Kyle would be barred from doing so if the council convened, he is not currently barred. That implies that he didn’t break any laws, just made life inconvenient for some (many) council members.
This seems consistent with the Kepler Way.
I think it’s fair to say they are Dysfunctocracy.
I feel that’s what lead the IDS to cease power in the first place.
But no one is really paying attention the problems in Central.
Honestly I would like to know where you live where there are NO BROADCAST RIGHTS. With the single exception of the internet, every country exercises control over who gets to broadcast what and where (through licensing and censorship). EVEN the internet is subject to a lesser form of censorship (or greater in some countries!). And in almost all democratic nations, we control what our politicians are allowed to “broadcast” on ALL formats (through standards and codes of ethics).
Also I think applying “totalitarian” to the system of government in Central may not be entirely correct: it is not a system of government that is centralised (from the comic we know the government on Central is at least split into the Assembly, the Council, the IDS, and the Civil Service… ultimately the latter 3 may answer to the Assembly… but EVEN the council needs to convene to wield their power (which on last check did not have a “clear majority”)); nor is it a system of government that is dictatorial (the Assembly & the Council don’t sound very dictatorial); nor does the system of government require complete subservience to the state… otherwise problems like Biana or Peter simply wouldn’t be allowed to continue.
With regard to your first point: The fact that there are disturbing tendencies towards totalitarian thinking throughout the real world doesn’t make it any less totalitarian. In any case, it is always a matter of degree. When a public official has to fear reprisal simply for informing people of their rights under the law, I’d say things have reached a pretty serious degree.
With regard to your second point: I did say it would be totalitarian “if it weren’t so dysfunctional. In practice, Kyle clearly isn’t worried about reprisal, so it isn’t all that totalitarian in any way that matters. Overall, while I’d much rather have a government that listened to its people, if I can’t have that I’d rather have dysfunctional one than an efficient one.
Finally, it’s worth pointing out that a dictatorship and a totalitarian government are two different things: A dictatorship is a government run by one person (or, in an extended sense, by a small group of people); a totalitarian government is one that controls every aspect of its citizens’ lives. Obviously, this is never completely possible but that doesn’t stop governments, or the people running them, from trying. There are many ways to do this, and it is certainly possible to have a government that is totalitarian to an extreme degree while maintaining the councils, assemblies, and other trappings of a democratic structure. It also isn’t necessary to demand subservience, even if that is commonly done, and, in fact, more subtle methods of controlling people, like controlling the flow of information, including public broadcasts, are probably more effective. . . .
Adding my two cents to an old page.
I think she meant more his right as a Civil Servant to go on TV. Which is something all governments can limit. Saying “No more media appearances for you.”
It’s not totalitarian because he’s a government employee, and every employer can limit an employee from using their position to make statements.
It is interesting to see a second side of Kyle, and I think makes him seem quite a bit more sympathetic. He might be on the path to being what people call a tyrant and seizing power, but at least he believes that he is doing it for the right reason, and showing restraint.
He finds their inaction and bickering frustrating, which makes sense. I think the IDS/Central government is almost entirely non-functional, and I think that makes a lot of sense. They were formed by a global disaster of unimaginable scale, but after that has passed, no one agrees on what to do, and with the sudden opening of new worlds, everyone with ambition has better things to do than rock the boat back home.
Rather than butting heads with the bureaucratic walls, people can just head out into the wild west of new worlds. People that like Biana and Sophie. Those new worlds are now suffering for that, and it drives Kyle insane, but most of Central is just relieved that the ambitious hot heads are offloading them selves to not cause trouble in Central.
But clearly the system is slowly failing. The Civil Service was probably put under the strain of having to manage everything without having control of anything. Kyle has decided to take control. That is the story line as I understand it so far.
Kyle Kepler calls what he is doing not politics because he is not a politician, but to the politicians he is the scariest thing imaginable: someone that actually cares. People always laugh at Kyle when he says he is a public servant. But I think (maybe) he actually at least believes that, which is why the “yellow coat” makes people uncomfortable. He is a reminder of the problems they are not dealing with, and cannot be bought off with a shiny new world to conquer or a position on the ineffective Council.
It’s good to see you’re commenting again. Now the chance I understand the bigger picture of what is going on rises significantly.
“… and cannot be bought off…”
I think that part specifically is what terrifies them. They don’t know what motivates him. That it seems to put him in their way and that they have no power over him frightens them. The fact that he’s a Kepler (whatever that means) just deepens their fear.
The impression thus far has been that if Peter, Kyle, and Arron would get together and work together, they would be able to do anything, that no one would be able to stop them.
It certainly seems like no one can stop Peter, including his uncle.
Panel 3: it shows “them that”, not “that them”. Also “it shows that I’m.”
Fixed, I think. Not sure about the second one there.
The things that affect you, affect you. Whether they are common or minor in the grand scheme of things really doesn’t matter. They are your problems and they are affecting you. It sounds like many of the problems that you’re having are things out of your control and the things that you are doing well at are the things that are within your control and yes there is only so much time and energy for anything. So the changes, like running, which is good for you, are utilizing your time differently.
We all appreciate the time that you put into the comic. I for one know that I couldn’t sustain a project of this type outside of work for as long as you have. Thus I know it is something you love and are committed to completing. I think you could take some time additionally to reach out to Howard Taylor who does schlock mercenary. He does a much shorter form comic, but before he decided to do his comic full time he worked for a tech company. He did have one advantage over you in that he was already married at the time and thus with changes he was able to leave his job at a large tech company and start Creating full time as a business.
I would also wager that you are running longer and getting more out of it for not doing it in some controlled space. You should also consider that the running part may be taking longer and be more beneficial but in general the time over all spent may not be as great as you believe because you are also not spending time going to a place finding a parking spot trying to get access to equipment that other people might be using and a whole host of other things. You are simply changing for running going running I’m coming back and showering without having to wait for anything and then getting dressed and going about your day without needing to travel home after doing the thing where you showered at the gym. That was time also that you were spending in a less useful way previously. And you also hopefully are not still paying for the gym right now so that is work that’s being done at less cost.
Being married does NOT translate into more available time. Not even close.
I’ve heard bad things about running. There are cars and viruses out there. Stay inside where it is safe and you can draw.
> Being married does NOT translate into more available time. Not even close.
Pretty sure Just_IDD’s point was about having diversified income and family insurance plans, not free time. Leaving your job in a two income household to try to make money on an independent venture is much lower risk as you don’t lose your health insurance and only consistent income. It’s still a risk, but many artists/independent creators that do it, do it because they still have insurance from their spouse (this might just be a US thing, but it’s a fairly common US thing since insurance can destroy you if you don’t have a job).
Yeah, I managed to screw that up. My wife is an artist and art teacher. I am a theatre lighting designer. But I am also the one with the good day gig. So she’s been doing art for years and I squeezed in 5 or 6 shows a year until COVID-19 put the theatre biz on hold. Maybe I should take up art. As for the running part, yes it is great exercise but it is really hard on your joints and does bring the risk of being too close to folks outside.
I don’t mind other people being right, but I have being wrong.
Of course you’re right about the financial stability. Medical insurance? Young people seem to have split opinions, but old goats like me tend to like it.
Working for too long writing code has, I’m afraid, damaged my ability to understand people and what motivates them.
Thanks for the explanation!
panel 1 “your broadcast right[s] away”
panel 3 “it shows that I’m not …” (There’s an unnecessary “Them” between “that” and “I’m”)
panel 5 “I’d swear [it] is…”
I disagree with your correction on panel 3.
The actual correction is to swap thet and them.
the sentence should be “It shows them that I’m not playing the same game.”
He is talking to his wife. Without the ‘them’ he is lumping his wife into the people that don’t agree with or fear him making or addressing problems. I strongly agree with Kyle actually. I wonder what would happen if we had some binding way to hold politicians more accountable to what they claim and say. Kyle is a practical man who wants to see changes implemented by leaving the Civil Service and going into the politics side of the council he is basically giving up his ability to make on-the-ground decisions that have actual results. The council feels threatened by this because while they are nominally responsible they have failed to take action. This is always the fear of those who enjoy inaction over action, or fear that action will reduce their perceived power play which actually doesn’t do the larger organization any good.
Or you can drop “them” and “that,” and it is still correct. And probably closer to irl dialogue anyway. As Kyle is showing everyone, not just “them.”
Panel 3: “That’s the POINT! It shows I’m not playing the same game,”
“Like father, like son…” I suppose.
Fixed, thanks! 🙂
Panel 5: *Its* transmission flares and changes a bit.
I put a dollar on that not being Mari.
ngl PastUtopia, sounds like you need the well wishing for staying healthy and sane more than me, so sending that back your way, but appreciate the thought (this is a joke! Hope everyone is indeed staying healthy and sane).
I’m betting Mium, really.
Given the apparent coordination with the poor Query-bot, Mium seems like the best bet.
If it *isn’t* Mium, though, it is almost certainly very bad news.
————-
I suppose it could be Mium with Mari…
I think it is Mium based on the panel right before it, but it could also be Arron. He just went back to Central, and is probably to really want to talk to Kyle.
I don’t think Arron’s arrival would be prompting pinging from the device, no. Hence Mium.
I seem to recall that Mari has a thumbdrive-sized node of Query, given to her by Peter. I am guessing that Kyle’s node and Mari’s node were in contact, and possibly now Mium is on central, its a three-way conversation….
That was my initial take at well. Rereading several times hasn’t dissuaded me.