Grrl Power #1078 – Disaster, more like… dismathter
You know, sometimes the titles to these pages are funny references or portmanteaus or repurposed idioms, and sometimes they’re “I can’t think of anything better and it’s been an hour.” It’s the equivalent of browsing Netflix for 25 minutes before finally clicking on something that barely surpasses the “I’m sick of scrolling” threshold. I will let you decide which kind this title is.
The equations floating around Deus are actual math I found after googling disaster recovery. Of course, without knowing what all those letters stand for, they’re probably not immediately useful. It seems to me that there aren’t nearly enough letters and symbols to cover all the needs in math. I mean, sure “c” stands for “the speed of light” in one equation, (which now that I think about it, is probably called “c” because it’s one of the few universal constants. Huh. That’s probably super obvious but I never really thought about it before.) What was I… Oh, right, so “c” means the speed of light in one equation, then it means “circumference” in another, and “number of accidental circumcisions” in another. Of course, the need to reuse symbols for variables is because we only have so many symbols in Romanized languages, but it makes me wonder if in Chinese equations for stuff like this just use the Chinese symbol? I mean, why memorize the what the fancy cursive “Q” in the equation means if you can just use a symbol that means “population” and instead of “Co” with a superscript “i” and a subscript “j”, just use the symbol for “local economic impact” or whatever.
Okay, sure, despite Chinese having ~106K characters, there’s probably not a singular one that means “local economic impact” but you get what I mean. And yes, I know I could probably just google the answer to my question, but I imagine the answer is probably no, Chinese math probably doesn’t look like a three dimensional sentence, but I think that’s a missed opportunity.
ANYWAY. Panel 5 there is just supposed to be a very truncated version of all the stuff going through his mind. He’s also considering environmental impact, cost of relocating population, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis prevention, etc. Basically doing a super computer’s worth of work, but guided by a creative, organic mind. His conclusion is that overall this is a net positive, but will take some effort to fully deal with.
The August Vote Incentive is up!
I’m a big fan of John Byrne’s run on “The Sensational She Hulk” and the imminent show looks very Sensational influenced. Therefore, I was inspired to draw some buff (pun intended) She Hulk, and threw in Red She Hulk for fun. Also, a wild Sydney for scale. Enjoy them posing in various outfits and lack thereof over at Patreon.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Nice to see Deus giving Halo some credit.
Oh I’m sure he likes her, but he’d like it more if she worked for him. Plus even with his super thinking I’m sure even he would get confused around her LOL.
The dude carries around a remote control that makes ominous lightning strikes on command. They’d love each other (platonically).
Sydney is a minor super- she radiates a field of plot powered thought control. (if an airship can be powered by the plot…)
maybe that’s the passive effect of the 7th orb?
there is evidence that she was doing this before the orbs. otherwise the dreaded mother would not have built a resistance.
Dues’s smile is MUCH smaller than it usually is. He’s a bit spooked, I think.
I think even Lex Luthor or Victor Von Doom might be a bit dumbfounded for a moment if they walked through a portal and suddenly saw THAT. Then, they would start to think VERY fast on how to use it. Just like Deus. Even they would likely do a double take at first sight of Sydney’s ‘solution’.
Darksied or Thanos, now? Not so much. Their level of villains are more used to such wold changing madness as a matter of course. They would instantly start considering options.
Would you not be? He just got a heads up on just how powerful Sydney is with his own eyes. Reading about it in a report is one thing. Watching it on a vid is another thing. Taking it in with your own eyes? And realizing the power that it took to do that while casually flying around saying “Nyyyyyyoooooooooooom” happily is a whole other level of “Holy Crap”!
At a guess: He expected Darude’s attack, likely sparked by Maxima’s arrival. He must have seen the aftermath of her fight with him in Afghanistan, and figured it would be a brutal fight, but with a bit of… strategic assistance, he could probably keep contained, and score some good feelings by the unofficial ‘joint operation’.
However, he was NOT anticipating Sydney’s move. He probably hadn’t even considered something like that as even *possible* outside of starship-grade weapons fire – something he thought he had the local monopoly on. It also means he’s going to have to consider fast-tracking obtaining and deploying the means of *defending* against that massive a strike.
Now that Galytn has the single largest Trinitite deposit on Earth, the one question on everyone’s mind is going to be, “Is there going to be another?”
from all the people in the comic the only one that has been able to consistently suprise Deus is Sydney, he does not seem able to totally predict what she is going to do next, he didnt knew that she was at fracture station (how could he had known that her orbs allowed her to open aetherium causeways after all) and she already forced him to change his plans once by attracting the Fel to earth which maxima later took out which caused the US to now have FTL capable spaceships and form actual relationships with alien goverments instead of just some “nod nod” with the alien representatives at the council
Considering that a lot of mathematics also borrows from the Greek script, and we STILL don’t quite have enough symbols to prevent overlap across all fields where mathematics is relevant… I feel like we’d benefit if we could come up with actual symbols ourselves. Sure, it would make advanced mathematics even more of a nightmare, but once you memorize it once you’d not need to get confused again.
Also, first? That’s a first…
We could use Emoji. Those are already in Unicode and can be displayed on most computers.
Just waiting to see what mathematical construct is represented by an eggplant emoji. Indentation hardness on the Rockwell scale?
are you talking about Rockwell hardness? thats usually HR.
oh dear….
Not just Greek. There’s Hebrew too. And Latin characters in various alternative representations and font-faces. And a whole zoo of made-up symbols. It is a right pain to typeset. In fact, TeX exists because Donald Knuth was dissatisfied with the math typesetting features in troff. He took eight years off writing The Art Of Computer Programming to write his own typesetter just to get the math typesetting right. I don’t think it’s a good idea to try and turn maths any more into some sort of Chinese script.
On another note, APL tries the math-y approach to computer programming. Wonderfully concise, but also wonderfully write-once-read-never. And you need a funky special keyboard to program in it.
Also, claimed first posts are stupid.
The only reason mathematicians and scientists used single character variables was because they were stuck on chalkboards.
Now they’re not, but it’s still TRADITIONAL to use SHITTY VARIABLE NAMES! Call it what it is!
Energy = Mass * SpeedOfLight
But nooo… “I had to study hard to memorize all these symbols, so you will too.”
Okay, I’m a programmer. I like to think I’m pretty good at coming up with useful variable names. But I’ve seen code written by mathematicians. It’s all SINGLE LETTER VARIABLES! AUGH!!!!
Move past the mid the 20th century! We have binary!
[/rant]
PS: Did you know the very first computer, ENIAC, was built to use decimal? Then someone figured out they could use far less vacuum tubes if they let the various permutations have meaning too. The second computer stored numbers in binary (4 tubes instead of 10), but converted to base ten so they could use the same match hardware. The third computer ever was pure binary.
Variable name fred, done this just to annoy teachers. Never got to use it with co workers, and yes I would use it.
Cries in neutron transport theory.
Long names aren’t a panacea, just like the incredible verboseness of jave (“execution in the kingdom of nouns”) isn’t a panacea. In this example you missed a “Squared” in there somewhere. Fixing this error in your calculation also means changing the variable name everywhere in the program, or create a new one. Replacing you can’t do by global search/replace unless you know that all uses of “SpeedOfLight” are the kind that need “Squared” attached, and never straight. You could instead write square(SpeedOfLight) or SpeedOfLight * SpeedOfLight, but that means at least one multiplication that could’ve been avoided because c is a constant so squaring it can be done once and never need happen again.
I use single letter variables, a lot. But in functions that fit on one page (“three to twelve lines of code”, originally expressed in the context of Pascal programs), so it’s easy to figure out, and to the rest of the program the function itself provides the full name. Being able to do that is what “scoping” brings to the table: Explicit boundaries across which name-meaning doesn’t cross, unless made to, explicity.
Interfacing through variable names (well, direct manipulation of data in various parts of the program) has its own problems, to the point they invented “object-oriented programming” to try and deal with it. Lots of programmers don’t get it, so there’s a lot of “object-oriented” code that puts on the trappings but completely misses the essence.
So it’s not quite such a solved problem, at least not for programmers.
And I suppose that mathematicians are still bound by chalkboards, or whiteboards, or really the area on which you can read as a human, encompassing at most a not-too-large room full of chalkboard/whiteboard walls. Or, smaller, a large sheet of paper, but if collaborating in person the boards are just that much more convenient.
The single-letter variables though are more of an artefact of convention, since multiple adjacent letters of the same size imply multiplication. If you run out of simple letters, the convention is to use sub- or superscripts or certain kinds of decoration (prime, star, etc.) since variable name re-use is harder without explicit scoping. If you would like longer variable names then perhaps letting go of that convention is a useful first step. But it’s extra writing effort throughout.
i didn’t see any numbers and somehow i was overwhelmed by the math explained. i wonder if Dave’s comment section is special because i can’t remember ever having so much sciency and smart people commenting on a webcomic. then again, then again, GRRLPOWER has become the only one that managed to stick with me. lol.
still, it is impressive to see the level of cognition and intellectuality displayed here.
NGL, makes me feel a little dumb sometimes.
Bottom line: Math is something humans do so its notation is limited by basic human limits, too.
The math is rather trivial, but you need a decent background in programming (practice and lore, some concepts) for the rest. If you search for that quoted reference, it leads to a blogpost with commentary on the programming language java in the form of a parable.
Oh, and I’d like to mention EWD1300 (another search term).
FWIW I don’t have degrees (I went to university, but flunked) but when they came on the scene did a few free MOOCs. You could do worse than pick one and do that, then pick another, until you’ve had your fill. Couple of hours per week for a couple months, so it does tend to keep one occupied.
FreeCodeCamp.org is my go-to free resource recommendation for anyone wanting to dabble with programming, and MIT and several other colleges have made their MOOC courses free as well (unless you want to pay to get the credits).
It’s also a lot more practical to write and manipulate by hand, and far less likely to be misinterpreted. Under this convention, writing a series of single-letter variables represents the product of all those terms, but if you started using word terms you’d have to distinguish them somehow. For example multi-var products (“f*o*o*bar”) and an unrelated single term with the same spelling (“foo*bar”) can’t both be written as “foobar”.
Also since I don’t see them yet, here are today’s relevant XKCDs on math symbols:
– https://xkcd.com/2520/
– https://xkcd.com/2606/
– https://xkcd.com/2343/
And, for math symbols from Greek: https://xkcd.com/2586/
I dunno if this guy is a genius or a moron, yes him and Sydney will be quite the odd pair.
Out of curiosity: What do you mean by “or a moron”?
The “genius” part looks quite obvious to me: Deus calculated the values & problems of Sydney’s action and tries to adapt to it – within about a minute!
To me, the “or a moron” is the way he consistently fails to motivate Max in the right direction. It would not be difficult for him to annoy her less…but I’m pretty sure he’s calculated the angles on all of that and decided he gets better results and has more options by just keeping her “reactive”, so even that may be craft and pose.
“Annoy Max” is a smarter move then you are giving Dues credit for. Remember he keeps trying to flirt with her? Well… the two best ways to permanently “friendzoned” by a woman is to A) be afraid of her and B) bore her. Deliberately poking Max’s buttons in a harmlessly annoying way EVERY time they meet is a good way to do that.
After all… how does Dabbler interact with Max? Contrast that with Sidney, where Dabbler presents an unflappable calm with “cool ideas” dropped into Sidney’s attention to focus and interest her. There is a REASON why Dues’s interactions with Max mirror Dabbler’s.
Because he’s also a sex pest who gets a pass?
I didn’t recognise Opal with her new look.
But that’s okay.
You are allowed a new look :)
I think its more of her not having had time to get into “uniform”
I wonder when Halo will get a “prison” option on Mr. Bubble.
That whould be a very nice upgrade node.. Question is whould it be a 2th bubble or a just moving it to a new target. Max and Arc whould most likely not want her in any kind of battle without her bubble around her.
I swear I’ve seen ELon Musk make that same face in the second to last frame.
That explains so much
The history of “c” for the speed of light is complicated, and can be trace back to both “constant” and “celeritas” (Latin for “speed”). Google search on “Why is c the symbol for the speed of light?” and find the old Usenet Physics FAQ entry on this by Philip Gibbs.
In this case “Co” probably stands for cost……
I thought “c” meant “causality” these days. Light moves at the speed of causality (the maximum possible speed you can effect anything)
Fun fact: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis was made up for a spelling bee. There was already a term for the exact same condition: silicosis. You only use the longer word if you are pretentious and/or want to sound silly.
So, every time then?
Turning a Disaster (Bad Star) into a Proaster (Lucky Star), maybe that’s Deus’ superpower!
(According to some Disaster literally means “Bad Star”, as in a walking Disaster is someone born under a Bad Star.
Proaster is my attempt at finding the opposite of the Bad Star. Although it does sound like something Sidney would come up with.)
dis PREFIX
– apart/asunder, in different directions; separation/dispersal/process reversal
ast.er V 1 1 PRES PASSIVE SUB 1 S
asto, astare, astiti, – V (1st) INTRANS [XXXBO]
stand at/on/by; assist; stand up/upright/waiting/still, stand on one’s feet;
From an online Latin Dictionary I use, dunno if that’s the correct etymology or not, as I basically typed an English word into a Latin-English dictionary to see what it spat out, but it isn’t really correct to say that Dis- in Latin means “bad”, that’d be Malus, although I don’t recall if that was used as a prefix in Latin or just derivatives. I do wish Whittaker’s words still went in both directions, but sadly now it’s only Latin-English and not English-Latin, which significantly lessens it’s utility, and I cannot find a functioning older version.
Thank you. My inner grammar Nazi feels better now :-)
I was about to mention that if you must, and there’s a disaster, there should be an aster. That would be the fortunate/positive event/outcome.
(Much like since there is intelligence, there should be telligence. There shouldn’t be just a word for the opposite or lack of something that doesn’t have the non-lacking name.)
I hope that’s a Young Justice reference :)
English makes NO sense far too much of the time and I grew up speaking it!
“English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.”
From a t-shirt I bought at Comicpalooza.
And, if https://www.paulingraham.com/loose-grammar.html is to be believed, they stole the quote, slightly modified it, and likely didn’t compensate the originator in any way.
Still a good line, though.
Intelligence comes from Latin, as well, but it isn’t in + telligere (not a real Latin word) the way you’d think from English, it actually comes from inter + legere. Inter means between and legere means to read, but put them together and you get intelligere, which means to understand. So basically it means to read between the lines and come to an understanding, or perhaps since legere can mean to collect (although it’s usually read) it could be that between bits of information that you collect you can put together an understanding. I think that’s a very fitting origin for intelligence since it’s all about the speed at which you collect, process, and collate information to achieve comprehension.
Why do everyone here have to be much more educated than me?
i hear ya bro.
I have multiple degrees and spend my free time here making puns, so clearly education doesn’t have any significant implications. You are already living your best life.
I mean, if education were any more relative, it’d be homeschooled in Alabama.
Deus already explained what his superpower is, though he worded it as a hypothesis, of course.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1040-benevolish/
Really nice to finally see it in action.
And they get horrible radiation poisoning because Sydney never tested this effect before.
Dabbles has a fix for that.
I am not on Maximas side on that “hand him over” issue. He was captured on Deus territory which is a sovereign state. She has no official duty here. The Cative belongs to Galtryn(sp?).
America could file an official request for extradition (Not sure of the right word. I don’t speak English.). But not more.
She is in effect making that official request right then.
As MIP and outstanding rendition orders or warrants she can exact exactly what she did as an officer and direct rep of us govt. Man in place rules have a long precedent. And ranking mip have temp plenopotential powers. Validated after the fact usually.
I have so many questions.
What is a MIP?
How do you exact exactly?
Does “rep” mean representative or republican here?
Or maybe it should be a verb. So… represent? repress? I’m going with represent.
What does it represent of you? Is the period after “govt” to show it is an abbreviation or is it the end of a sentence? i.e should I read that as “represent US government” or “government man”?
Wait, does MIP stand for Man In Place? That would have been nice to know at the start.
From context I can guess that temp here means temporary and not temperature.
So should I read this as:
”
She is in effect making that official request right then.
Maxima as Man In Place and since Darude has outstanding rendition orders or warrants she can do exactly what she did as an officer and direct representative of the United States government. Man in place rules have a long precedent. Ranking Man In Place have temporary plenopotential powers, which are usually validated after the fact.
”
Cool, reading comprehension level up!
I mean, would they even have *grounds* to consider him a criminal under US law? Like, dude was an enemy combatant in a war that is currently over, do we have warrants out for OTHER enemy combatants in the Iraq war? I think it was Iraq, maybe Afghanistan? I think it was Iraq, but now I’m doubting myself.
I’ve heard that America has a rule written down somewhere that when an American is tried for war crimes in the Hague, that American forces have to free ’em, if needed by military force. Given that, it all amounts to, whoever has the greater number of tanks and nukes can basically do whatever they want – in our world. But I wouldn’t be surprised if this applies (at least to some extend) to a fictional world, too.
116 Stat 820, Section 2001.
US is not a signatory to the ICC due to negotiation issues on deficiencies in the agreements, so it’s an actual law that the ICC has no jurisdiction over US servicemembers or any US official.
So, yes, there is be a standing order that the US military would use force, if necessary, to get back a US servicemember to be tried at the ICC, since the US doesn’t recognize the court.
It’s actually a pretty simple rule: everyone and everything in the entire universe is under the jurisdiction of US laws, and fuck you. Inversely, US stuff is under no one else’s jurisdiction and also fuck you.
That’s why when a USMC aircraft sliced a ski lift’s cable in Italy, killing 20 people, the pilots were acquitted — as no Americans were harmed, there was no penal offense being committed. However, since they had destroyed the videotape of their flight, and that was a piece of US equipment, they *were* dismissed from the Marine corps for “conduit unbecoming an officer”. And so justice was served for the real crime: depriving America’s Funniest Home Video of some very marketable footage.
Other non-signatories include: Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey, Cuba, India, China. A few more players.
And presumably they’d use the same force to get their people back if they were taken.
Depends on what he did and how he did it.
There’s that whole enemy combatant (based on international law) versus spy versus somebody who blew up a shelter for emergency cuddle kittens next door to an orphanage. Remember Munich war crimes trials? Not to mention how pissed off the US government is.
Nurmenberg, not Munich. Close (topographically speaking), but not quite.
Look at how many Germans were tried when they were in their 90’s because it took the ‘authorities’ (ie, Jewish Bounty Hunters) that long to track them down
And it was in Afghanistan
Captured by American personnel. Also note she says ‘Return him to my custody’. Meaning she accepted he is properly Galytn’s. Granted she is hot headed, but she did ask for him back to answer for his crimes. And she is the highest ranking US representative there that she knows about.
And, of course, he’s weighing the potential benefits of cooperating with Maxima. Outside of the value in terms of negotiations, there’s also avoiding additional infrastructure damage due to fits of pique from her.
And, maybe future dates. Or not.
And giving her a “yes” immediately, before qualifying it, leads to positive feelings on her side towards him. Win win win.
She captured the guy while he was attacking them. Fair play.
They confiscated the captive based on presence on their sovereign territory. Fair Play.
She demanded they turn him back over, based upon his status vis-a-vis the US. Fair Play (to ask).
Deus agreed. Fair Play.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
****
The one thing I’d like to see is Deus occasionally getting smarter about Max. He likes to keep her off guard, but he should occasionally “forget” to do so, and let her see him as being a good guy. Intermittent positive enforcement is the strongest kind of psychological conditioning.
This is his chance to do that… which I’m sure is in that math somewhere.
Gonna disagree with the appropriateness of popping in to snatch him at the last moment, clearly kill stealing.
Alas, finally the freedom fighter Darude were captured.
Lets hope he manages to escape eventually.
Exactly. Now as usual the arrogant corrupt capitalistic Americans demanding people and property be handed over to THEM while in someone else’s country. She fought him in Afghanistan, oh you mean the country you invaded for 20 years so of course those defending themselves are criminals.
You’re so funny. Now do why Darude was with mercenary forces attacking another country 5000 miles away.
Darude was helping fellow freedom fighters attack imperialist scum (shown by Galytn’s willingless to invade other countries) as freedom fighters tend to do. Global solidarity is important to most freedom fighters.
The resident Capital S Socialist, I would submit that we – the readers – should have more information before automatically concluding that Darude is a comrade, simply because he engaged American imperialist forces.
The enemy of my enemy is not, necessarily, my friend. Darude may in fact be just as bad, or even worse, in terms of committing crimes against humanity, or genuine examples of things often lumped under the ludicrously vague umbrella of “war crimes,” than Uncle Sugar.
I will wager that he is simply a merc, generally speaking, and his reasons for being here are strictly financial. He likely has no real decision making authority in developing strategic operations, and likely has minimal tactical input, outside of providing what is, essentially, supporting fire. Of course that doesn’t mean he can’t have deliberately or negligently harmed non-combatants, or engaged in torture, or any number of other actions independently.
And all _that_ being said, yes, it is most likely that the real reason he is a special target, is that the US needs to constantly prove that it is the biggest, baddest kid on the block, and that nobody can ever escape its power and reach. The worst sort of egotism, and hubris.
Exactly. You have this rich, white Capitalist running over Africa with the whole “I am making it better”, gives them seconds to decide before attacking them. Then any one who does not follow him has his execution crew using dark methods to suck their life force out on his “terms” for who is good. So basically judge, jury, executioner. Go on Viva Darude!! Down with Capitalist and American aggressors!
I have a sneaking suspicion he will… “Escape” Deus’ captivity during the “Debrief”
only if in the escape he is forced to leave his boxers and pants behind.
I would also accept an abandoned attache case or legal summary.
if he leaves a legal summary, can Pander write a voluminous explanation of the summary?
A very long brief. :)
I like the fact he thought of Halo’s safety first, he seems to have a soft spot, for Sydney.
I think he mostly thought of Halo thinking about her own safety first really.
But that doesn’t rule out that he might have a soft spot for her, because tbh who doesn’t have that? :-)
Well if you think about it if she had done that and was killed Darude would of been freed anyway so not an option. plus now the orbs would been up for grabs!
Indeed, it’s been established that he likes her. And at times it a bit put off by her in ways that normally you only see in family or best friends since the womb types.
My thought was that he was considering whether the damage to the area was justified. As in “Halo could have stopped him by taking him into the shield, but since she wouldn’t be able to deal with him inside the shield I guess that wasn’t an option”.
He is as much of a fan of the superhero genre as she is. I suspect he have some kind of ADHD too. He loves playing the rike of a supervillain as much as she loves playing superhero.
He’s not playing a supervillain. He’s what supervillains would be if they weren’t total morons.
“You can invent a portable ray that freezes people in time reversibly, and the best thing you can think of is to use it to rob a frigging bank? It will take me 30 minutes to figure out how to limit it, meter it, build it into a vehicle or room, and every frigging ambulance and hospital on the planet will be paying me license fees forever. I will own that frigging bank and the next three down the street.”
For anyone enjoying this premise, I recommend How to Suceed in Evil.
Or just be single minded like Sauron.
“But I Don’t Want To Cure Cancer. I Want To Turn People Into Dinosaurs!”
I quite enjoyed She-Hulk. I’m also a fan of John Byrne’s take on the character and so many superhero shows take themselves so seriously; a bit of fun is welcome. Spiderman used to be like this, once….
numbers are the same throughout any language right?
1-9 and 0
Roman numbers lack the 0, they know X, L, C, D and M though.
Actually, pure Chinese has different symbols for each number. I am not sure about the other oriental languages. Otherwise, all “modern” languages use Arabic numerals. You will find languages spoken by “primitive” tribes that don’t use Arabic numerals and/or may not have numerals at all.
It may be an example of 1960’s anthropology but I recall hearing of an Amazonian tribe counting 1,2,3 and many.
The Night Watch has their own method as well.
“Sound off!” “One, two!”
“Sound off!” “Many, lots!”
“Sound off!” “Er, what?”
It is not entirely uncommon to have number systems based on 12.
That does even make mathematical sense. 3 divides more numbers than 5 in a finite interval.
I can remember in 7th or 8th grade back in the 70’s my math teacher introduced various base number systems. Base 2 (binary) makes sense as does base 6 (hexadecimal) given the pending boom in computing but we also got base 8 and base 12.
JD:
Numbers are the same everywhere…well, no.
The Maya used base 20 (almost). They also invented the zero, independently
1-4 were dots
5 is a horizontal bar
19 is four dots above three bars.
20 is (except their zero looks like a line sketch of a foot ball 0 . <–the period represents a 1
Read right to left, iirc, except the third number is vertically below.
Remember I said 'almost' base 20?
100 base Maya is not 400 base ten. It is 360, because their third digit (and no other) is in base … 18.
Very ancient languages, and some languages used by insular civilizations who don’t interact with global society, don’t necessarily use the ten digits we know. There was a specific point in history where the concept of zero as a number was invented. However, the concept of place value – and the concept of zero that enables the concept of place value – are too useful in doing calculations of large numbers. Civilizations that start interacting with global society tend to adopt the common digits because they’re too useful not to.
Are you really looking forward to the She-Hulk show? I’ve seen clips of it, especially the anger management scene where she mentioned cat-calling, and it looks like woke trash tbh. Or are we talking about different shows?
I generally believe that when a woman shows dominance by being disrespectful to a good man, be they Hulk or Reed or Boba Fett or whomever, then she’s not strong or independent at all, and behaving this way is doing actual feminism a disservice. I mean, in this day and age it’s offensive to hold a door open for a woman. That just can’t be right, right?
Why are you bothering to determine if it’s a woman? If *someone* is close to as I pass through the door, I hold the door for them, period, no checking. It’s just good manners.
save the effort of thinking about it; open the door for everyone
or keep thinking “what if a man was doing this would i be angry”
No one who uses the word “woke” as a pejorative should be taken seriously. Especially not one who prefaces it and then follows it up with misogyny.
No one who uses the word “woke” without irony should be taken seriously.
↑This↑ as well❗
↑This↑❗
Yep and when a ‘man’ acts that way that to a ‘woman’ (I am a man, btw), it is perfectly acceptable and proper behavior?
I have three sisters and NONE of them have EVER had a problem speaking their minds. She Hulk has NEVER been politically correct and that offends a LOT of people. Frankly? I don’t care. I think this is true to the comics, so I am going to enjoy it.
(I am also going to enjoy all the douchebag chauvinists/bigots/other assorted people grinding their teeth far more than I should lol)
“I have three sisters and NONE of them have EVER had a problem speaking their minds.”
That’s kinda the point. When MCU Jennifer claims that she’s already good at controlling her anger because of microaggressions… to a guy who watched his abusive father murder his mother, and who spent years on the run from the U.S. military… that rings rather hollow.
Coupled with some of the other bits, like the male chauvanist lawyer condescendingly putting down Jennifer at the start just to emphasize “this is a world where all men are sexist to all women,” and it really comes across as forced and badly handled. (Especially the whole “I’m going to derail my career by committing a blatant display of sexual harassment just so the audience can know that men are pigs. Now please excuse me, because I have to go meet with Human Resources on account of what a stupid thing I just did.”)
Personally, I prefer She-Hulk’s depiction here: https://youtu.be/sNHNCx9hcrE
It’s already out on Disney Plus (episode 2 dropped today), and it’s actually pretty good IMO. If the “woke” bits in the trailer bothered you, rest assured there isn’t really any more of it, and in context it’s not really about “showing dominance” – she’s annoyed with Bruce because she wants to go home but he insists she can’t leave until she understands her powers better. That argument does feel a bit forced (basically an excuse to show a Hulk vs Hulk fight) but I think the show overall does a great job of making her a believable, likable character.
But that is the whole POINT, isn’t it?
According to many these days, no woman ANYWHERE has the RIGHT to get annoyed when certain people talk down to them or act the way Bruce did in the trailer, do they?
If someone acted that way to one of ‘my’ sisters, said person would be LUCKY if all they get is kicked in the crorch, male and female alike. Stern words are the least of it!
Developing her as a 4th wall breaking character, maybe. But to me so far She Hulk (and Ms. Marvel) feels more like a advertisement/set-up piece for Marvel’s future projects (X-Men, Thunderbolts, Daredevil Born Again, World War Hulk) rather than something able to stand on it’s own.
I have found it useful for some time to (in my head) switch gender orientation, ethnicity, or gender in various scenarios whenever I ask myself: what is the right thing to do? Or: what on Earth is this person thinking?
If you’re holding the door because she’s a woman, then yes, you’re clearly implying that she would have trouble with it because she’s female. If it’s a situation in which it would be the right thing to do if she were male, then good on you, and thanks for being civil. Your use of the word “woke” is a little worrisome – when not used as snark or humor it’s generally used as a pejorative. Opening a door for a female when it would be insulting for a male might seem polite on the surface, but it’s frequently part of a “package” of attitudes which also deride a woman’s ability to be a voter, or medical doctor, or lawyer.
“would have trouble with it”? Nonsense. No such implication is reasonable. I’ve never seen any male think holding a door open for him was an insult, and I’ve been doing it for at least four decades without regard to sex.
Anyone who uses the word “woke” unironically deserves to be ridiculed. However, people should refrain from doing so if the person is black, as the wokester will not realize that the ridicule is not based on race.
Does a servant holding a door for a king do it because the is unable to do it himself?
You’re presuming a LOT regarding the origin of a practice. “Chivalry” was a term more-or-less invented by women of noble rank. They got men to treat them as their _betters_ in lots of small ways, and until about sixty years ago, these practices were well understood to imply that.
Of course, if you _want_ to attack Western culture generally, you can always rely on the abject failure of our culture to educate and then deconstruct practices and assign evil motives. Create whatever myths you like. Doesn’t change what actually happened–or happens.
I have held the door for people who I see having difficulty walking, male and female alike.
I know, I should not. I should be a conceited, lying chauvinist, racist douchebag like so many in the modern US of BOTH sexes seem to think is ‘proper’ manners now.
But frankly? Why should I care what they think when they don’t care what I think?
I act the way I think I should. I treat others as I want to be treated. That is enough for me.
another thought just popped into my head….Jennifer Walters is RELATED to Bruce Banner. The demand for respect sounds a little strange in that context.
Wow. I’m not mad Alex, I’m just disappointed.
Hah hah. ::thumbsubicon::
That scene is bullshit.
Jennifer: “I’m better at hanger management because I get catcalled”
To someone who watched his father kill his mother, suffered an sbsurd mutation, have been separated from his first girlfriend by her shithead father that also hunted him for years using USA military, had his second love interest sacrifice her life to save half the universe population from a guy Thor could have killed with one hit (ore at minimum removed the arm with the gauntlet) but he wanted to brag.
No it’s not, first the abusive father killed the mother is not from the MCU movie it’s from the Ang Lee movie, and comics, but not established in the MCU. That said, you are confusing trauma with anger taboos. Women in general have to deal with more BS just as she described and socially pressured to control their emotions, especially in professional circles, or be ostracized Having to control even basic anger.
I don’t even know how to respond to all the she-hulk hate I’ve seen online. So much of it seems to come in the form of men being terrified that a female character might be better at something than a male one, then lashing out with the term “woke” which… can we just stop using that word please? I think the left started using it to label themselves as ultra progressive, then the right immediately co-opted it to make fun of the left, but now it’s only used by conservatives who don’t realize the only one they’re making fun of when they use it is themselves. It’s just embarrassing.
Women get cat-called all the time, and their options are to suck it up or call the guy out. If it’s just her and 10 construction guys, that can be fucking dangerous, and if she’s trying to shame him on a busy street then she gets labeled as a crazy bitch.
Maxima is largely built around the idea of how I think I might handle the constant negative attention women have to put up with. Either I’d totally clam up and rock that “I’m imagining you falling off that scaffolding onto a sharp pipe” angry blush on the back of my neck – OR – I’d start calling guys out every time and insulting their manhood and hygiene and all that, and honestly, if I was strong enough to pull the engine out of his F-150 and crush it like an accordian, I’m positive I’d have the confidence to go the “crazy bitch” route.
Fun fact, Maxima’s unofficial codename when she was in the Air Force was “That crazy, insubordinate bitch,” which eventually evolved into “That gold-plated bitch.”
I really think dudes wildly underestimate the amount of bullying women put up with, most of which they have to just kind of laugh along with, or at least adjust their purse strap so it’s not emphasizing their cleavage, and walk away quickly, hoping some random dude on the street doesn’t take offense that she wasn’t delighted by his yelling across the street that her “tiddies bangin.'”
As far as Shulkie S1E1 went, I thought it was decent? In the comic she got a life saving blood transfusion from Bruce, which I think is better than her getting 3 drops of blood in a cut, and stuff like the car wreck caused by an alien space ship which… immediately fucks off was a little… like, “We need them to get into a car wreck.” “Okay, what’s the ship doing there?” “Making them get into a car wreck, duh. I just said.” Stuff like that could have been better thought out. And the bit at the end with her transforming in the courtroom was ridiculously rushed. Honestly it felt like there was just a little too much for one episode. I mean, it was 38 minutes long, but it’s not like it has to fit in a time slot. Just make it 45 minutes long.
I don’t think it’s going to be the next Wandavision (I think Marvel might have shot themselves in the foot a little coming out of the gate with a show that strong – nothing else so far has been close. Well. Loki didn’t suck, but it still wasn’t on WV’s level.) but I think it looks fun and it has a lot of potential.
*looks down at the shattered remnants of the mic dave B dropped*
I recently got a chance to watch the ‘controversial’ He-man Revelations. I was horribly confused. the show was reasonably well written. the premise made sense given where the story started. the characters were more believable than He-man deserved to have. granted I had the 1st and second halves together. but, I don’t see it as an agenda driven show. its almost as if there’s a large group of people in media who NEED to be offended in order to be profitable. is this who we are? really?
BINGO!
If they cannot take offense at what they see/hear/read, what will they talk about?
LOTS. do you want a list of youtube channels that do not do this? offense media is a quick path to profitability I guess. I weep because a channel I liked and was doing an interesting take on entertainment media as fallen down that dark path. now I listen to other things. also the offense media groups have claimed the scalp of one of my favorite youtube channels.. and it is now gone.
LOTS! there are several Youtube channels that manage to do critiques of pop culture without resorting to almost exclusively offended content. want a list of my favorites? there’s even some that do other subjects without a lot of offended content. many even manage to do (gasp) real criticism of bad media. smelling salts are available if you, dear reader, need them.
note: many of my posts feature sarcasm. I don’t think this one does. in any event please read (and watch) responsibly.
I think Max should realise that Deus is particularly dangerous because he’s already planned out every eventuality in detail. If he stays in the boundaries of what he cam and can’t do all of her powers can’t do anything against him.
I was sitting here, trying to come up with a different title. And flailing around. Trying to come up with something off of some sort of monetary reference/pun, or calculation.
And right as I’m about to give up: Cost and Effect.
I’m not sure if I should feel proud of coming up with it or not.
Best I could come up with was “War of Addition”, liking yours better.
Oh and I think Opal’s streamlined makeup makes her look much nicer.
How would Deus’s fortunes be if he had these two in his employ…?!
https://www.yojoe.com/images/resize/w/MAX/imagestore/94/85918.jpg
Deus looks… younger? Thinner? On this page. Something different.
If those equations are about disaster recovery, then the C is for Cost, not the speed of light. He’s thinking finance, not physics.
Co = Cost (of replacement elements)
D = Damage (to elements of the organisation)
Q = Quality (of the elements being assessed)
The different equations relate to assessments of different types of risk and their potential impact, which can then used to inform the development of risk mitigation controls and a more holistic disaster recovery plan.
I swear, Dues looks loke Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I was gonna say the same thing.
Fun fact, the C actually describes the speed of light in a vacuum. Light slows down when passing through mediums, which is an important tidbit for explaining things like Cherenkov Radiation.
I suspect it explains lensing and total internal reflection, too. But those are just my suspicions.
So that’s one of Deus’ powers? Being a super genius that can do math like that quickly in his head?
Yes. I believe he has a PhD in Math, which was mentioned when he was discussing his guesses about the nature of the superhero phenomenon and the reason that metahumans appear to be able to manipulate a field that Dabbler didn’t know about.
ah, it starts here – https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1032-physics-501/
and the PhD is here – https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1038-superion-phd/
You missed the equation that calculated the probability of accelerating motion with regard to Max’s underpants.
I wish he would just step up to her and say, “No. Caught in my country. You get no crack at him.” and leave it at that :p
Not if he wants to get in her pants. Judging by the background as he stepped through the portal, he Really Really wants to get in her pants.
She’ll respect him more if he doesn’t just give in to her :p
Nothing wrong with getting stuck on a title. iirc, there was actually a Far Side comic called “It Was Late and I Was Tired.”
Watch him actually be really hot under his headwrap.
‘Oh no. He’s actually hot.’
I have a T-shirt that has 2 mathematicians arguing over the “c”. One says it belongs in A^2 + B^2 = C^2. The other says it belongs in Tau = (1-V^2/C^2)^0.5 (The equation for time dilation.) The truly funny part is, if you know how it is derived, the first equation is used to derive the second equation.
In the equasion frame. Early 90’s version.
The Chinese use the same mathematical and scientific symbols as everyone else; mostly because that way they understand what other mathematicians and scientists are saying and vice versa, and partly because they wouldn’t gain anything by using Chinese logograms. It is approximately true that the Chinese have symbols that express an entire word, but analysis has shown that on average it takes about as many operations to write a Chinese symbol as it takes to write the equivalent word in English or other alphabet-based writing system.
I can’t help but feel like Deus’ little *cough* before calling it a “debrief” was a hint and hit that he knew the wordplay Max had to use after the diner fight with Vehemence and the pack of supers.
I think it was a subliminal suggestion to Max that planted a tiny increased probability of a quim pro quo.
Absolutely. The fight and its aftermath were being televised, even if the sound wasn’t picked up he’d be able to infer the term from watching Hiro and Max’s exchange.
Okay, Sandy Crack may have been caught in Galatyn, but… he attacked US military personnel
and then, they find a super that can change it back,! or transmute it to topsoil…
it just takes weeks, because of the size..
Sparkling Maxima is best Maxima.
I wonder if Max is particularly shiny on account of having been sandblasted.
That’s a possibility, we know she has used similar treatments as cosmetics/camouflage in the past. I can’t remember the page but it was the one where they decided to just make her wear a ‘clava.
Forget the tourism. Harvest the obsidian. It is in demand for surgical instruments. An obsidian blade is sharper than a scalpel but they wear out faster.
Turns out there AREN’T enough letters in the Latin and Greek alphabets to tally the infinitely many variables out there. That’s why we use Hebrew letters to count infinities.
ok, if I were to ask how one goes about counting infinities what sort and amount of intoxicant is required to handle the answer? please assume low exposure levels in prior events.
It’s actually fairly simple…well, relatively.
The old adage that “infinity plus infinity equals infinity” is true. For example, the infinity of all positive integers, plus the infinity of all negative integers, equals the infinity of all integers, which is just the exact same degree of infinity. ∞ + ∞ = ∞.
Infinity times infinity also equals infinity. The infinity of the integers, times itself, gives you the infinity of all rational numbers, but you’re still at the exact same level of infinity. There’s a method of proving this that involves drawing a spiral on a graph, that I won’t bother explaining. ∞ × ∞ = ∞.
However, things change when you raise infinity to the infinity power (∞^∞). That raises you from the infinity of the rational numbers to the infinity of the Real Numbers, and that is a truly more advanced form of infinity.
We use the Hebrew letter Aleph (א) and a subscript number to designate different levels of infinity. אₒ, pronounced “Aleph-Null”, is the infinity of the integers and rational numbers. Aleph-One is the infinity of the Real Numbers, and it’s also the Infinity of the Imaginary Numbers and the Complex Numbers, since you’re just adding infinity plus infinity at that point. You’d have to raise Aleph-One to the Aleph-One power to achieve Aleph-Two, and humanity doesn’t have a number system vast enough to describe that.
I asked ‘what sort and amount of intoxicant is required to handle the answer?’ you gave me the answer… now I need the intoxicant.
ok, your answer clearly indicates that some infinities are more equal than others. how do we know that there are more imaginary numbers than real numbers… wait…. are there more fiction books than nonfiction and can that be used as proof?
I have to drive later….