Grrl Power #134 – Sobriquet Quest
OMG So many word bubbles!
Again, my inexperience with writing/presenting something in a sequential fashion is showing here. I thought I would get through all this first day content long before I built an appreciable audience, so I didn’t think to make this a “reveal” of sorts. It would have been fun to have everyone join in with suggestions in the comments, but oh well, lesson learned.
I had the idea of orbs that grant powers floating around someone, but the rest of the character never really coalesced, partially because the name never did. A lot of the stupid names on this page are things I had thought of over the years. Not seriously considered obviously, though I do kind of like Nucleus. Sometimes I build a character around a cool sounding name or power set, sometimes their look or personality comes first. In Sydney’s case, despite her, let’s say… personality concentrate, the power set came first. I have a oooold drawing or two of someone who had the orbs, (which I’ll probably save for a vote incentive or bonus material for the eventual book) but she was older and Indian. Also she was named Nike, after the goddess of victory, not the shoe company obviously. I never really liked that since the name is ubiquitously tied to shoes now. I bet most of you didn’t even know there was a goddess named Nike. In the very early days of this comic, I was planning on using that character in Sydney’s place, but I dropped the idea because when it comes down to it, I don’t really know enough about India to do a character justice, certainly not a main character.
I’ve broken my own rule here by adding characters to the Who’s Who before they were properly introduced in the comic, but I also have Hiro and Stalwart hold an extended conversation on this page so best to add them. I’ll have to give them an actual intro soon.
Thanks to everyone who voted in the ComicMix tournament, we made it to the sweet 16 but couldn’t keep up with the deluge of votes from Ava’s Demon. Not bad for the comic’s first showing. Next year we’ll have to strive to get to the quarterfinals at least.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
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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.
i’m waiting for a combat situation where she gets to tell someone to “grow a pair!” it would probably make her whole week. :P
Spectrum?
Nitro?
Rainbow Brite?
Highballs. ;)
Only if she’s drinking on the job.
I know when you have auxiliary characters, you don’t want to make their abilities be too awesome, because then you might be more and more tempted to move them into main character status, so this is not a criticism, just an observation. It seems to me that in this super hero world, super strength is to super heroes like brown hair and brown eyes is to normal people. I say that because of the people pictured, I count four people that qualify(Anvil, Maxima, Stalwart, and Hiro) But I suppose having super strength is nothing to laugh at anyway, so I’m game.
On a side note, has Jiggawat(the dark girl on the balcony with the white hair) had any lines yet? I know she has been in multiple pages, mostly background, and I think she had a who’s who once, but I don’t recall her saying anything yet.
that’s what superstrength is to ANY superhero world. Its just varying levels of superstrength. Think of Marvel or DC and think of how many characters have some form of superstrength.
Spiderwoman (each of them), Spiderman, Iron Man/Warmachine (power armour, not the man), Blob (he needs super-strength just to stand), Thor, Thing, She-Hulk, Juggernaut, Silver Surfer, Hulk (is strongest there is!). Plenty more that I did not mention.
ALOT more that you didn’t mention, especially when you include “enhanced strength” and enhanced durability which also tends to create a hightened level of strength.
Power Man is a good example. Even though his main power is unbreakable skin, he has strength on par with the likes of say The Rhino and other characters of that nature.
Some amount of superhuman strength and durability are basically required to survive being a superhero. Even Gambit is made of sterner stuff than the ordinary mortal.
I suppose. I guess I always thought the activities a super would engage in would just naturally lead to a work out or just plain cause a person to be more fit then the average person. Kind of like how everyone who is involved in the rebel group fighting an evil dictator just kind of end up bulking up out of necessity. (Bonus points to those who caught that KP reference)
if you got knocked out as often as many of these superheroes do, and taken unconcious to another location taking hours to get to before coming to, your brain would be mush.
they survive falls from over fifteen feet on a regular basis and only need some bandaging.
I’d say enhanced durability and strengh even if only F or D-class is required for most superheroes just to survive the basic things we see.
An ordinary human can easily die from a fall of thirty feet. Storm who is supposed to have a human body and strength despite her powers has been shot by a plasma beam and falled over forty feet to the ground and only needed minor bandaging with no long term physical handicaps.
Like I said earlier, increased strength and toughness would be quite common. You’d need those just so your body could handle some of the other powers you might get.
Ah I haven’t had the time so far to read all the comments. Though if that is natural simply to deal with other powers you might possess, then why mention super strength or increased toughness at all unless its even further above and beyond the norm for supers? And that extra step further to make it worth mentioning is what I was thinking of. Ah well. I guess that comparison sounded funnier in my head then in text :P
I see it as happening as a result of two factors. First there’s the basic needs of the power you wield: If you’re shooting energy bolts from your hands the tissues of your body have to be able to channel that energy, right? That suggests it’s made of something stronger than normal flesh & blood.
The other factor would be simple attrition: There are just too many ways to get killed in that line of work. The guy who can fly AND is tough enough to survive a rough landing will live longer than the guy who can fly but just relies on his skill.
You and Rhuen make good points. And I agree upon thinking about it that yea most supers probably have extra strength and durability to go with their powers. A body would have to naturally adapt to, for example, be able to withstand the counter force from running fast enough to break the sound barrier. I never really thought about real world implications of super powers much until I got into reading the grrlpower comics so some of the assumptions I made as a child I’m sure are still stuck in my head until someone brings it up. It’s more fun for me to just enjoy the fantasy anyway, but sometimes conversations like this are fun to be apart of too.
Little insane me does his own character creation and stories. One of the characters I have is the typical brawler because I needed one for the group. Oddly, he doesn’t have super strength, he has the power to control kinetic energy around him, and uses it to simulate super strength and invulnerability. He just isn’t very creative with his ability, but when another character copies it, he uses it to time-travel…
so, super strength without any actual physical abnormality…
I think Marvel’s “Maverick” is like that.
No she hasn’t had any lines yet but you could probably attribute a few of the names for Sydney being thrown out to her. I’ve been putting in a lot of characters walking by in the background (like Jiggawatt and Stalwart) so the base doesn’t feel too spartan, but of course every one wants to know about “the chick with the white hair playing pool with Math” or whatever, which is understandable. I make them real characters because they will eventually have parts to play and I want to keep it consistent. I should probably add some more drones here and there though.
I do not know how many votes might have been lost at TWC, because of it not accepting Grrl Power votes yesterday, but it let me vote today, at least.
yup, voting is back, and over 16,000 and #3! Post another page and see if you can hit 32,000 and #2! 3 pages and 48,000 and #1!!! Naw, need 86,000 for #1….
I’m kidding of course, I don’t know how many lost, but I’m so tickled that at least we got to pick up from where it got dropped instead of losing the whole months votes.
Spazicus? Bangs? Dragonbreath? This is harder than I thought it would be. Halo sounds good.
I didn’t like being told that this comic might harm my computer, by the way. It was traumatic. Made me wonder what kind of sick individual would do such a thing. My theory is that the person in question was the product of an accidental encounter between a woman in prison for atrocities and a circle jerk biscuit abandoned by her deviant guards and/or fellow inmates, and this person grew up being hated by his or her own mommy and ridiculed/despised by everyone else. Wouldn’t that explain it? It’s still no excuse though.
Hah, Spazicus would have been an awesome name! Maybe someone will call her that later on. On another note, you forgot the part in your story where this hated person rose up and usurped his current throne by trolling the previous king of internet trolls to death. I’m certain that whatever his insufficiant reasons may be, if the nameless bastard who did all this (not to be confused with the Nameless Bastard who comments here) continues his evil ways then he will likely transmorgrify into a real flesh and blood troll. I mean really, if someone actually goes through the trouble of messing with a website (rather than simply posting disparaging comments) just to cause misery to others, they’re already starting to lose their humanity.
I am Spazicus!
I hate to say this, given what I am reading in the comments about the voteing. Think perhaps the attack on this page that resulted in that was intentional from a jelous comic strip owner to remove this site from the running?
It is a possibility. Or a revenge attack. Emotions do get stirred up with such competitions, for some strange reason. And they were running high because of buying of votes being allowed. Regardless of it going to charity.
But, equally, it could just be co-incidence. Such things happen. It is probably best to assume the latter, as there is nothing to be gained from being paranoid. I am sure that DaveB has tightened up security regardless.
I doubt it. It was probably just some prick shotgunning a hack out across the web indiscriminately.
I’ve been spammed by people from addresses I’ve never seen. Addresses ending in .ru/de/ua/at and a bunch from the .com people. I have not seen one as of today.
Spammers have gone to war. Including the world’s biggest internet attack yet. Fortunately four divisions of internet cops have been deployed to counter it.
*Idly nudges a piece on the ‘chessboard of the world’* Mmm, that looks a bit better. Some messy stuff coming up in a few moves time though.
*sighs*
Attacks like this could ‘clog’ the internet a bit, but has nothing to do with what we saw here on monday morning. A dns amplification attack does not cause visiters of a webcomic to be redirected to an ‘adult-entertainment’ site.
Yea. Was just relying to Forestshadow‘s comment, which was about spammers. And the domains he cited overlap with the areas mentioned in that article. It was just a point of interest, rather than anything more profound.
*sigh*
Yea. Was just relying to Forestshadow‘s comment, which was about spammers. And the domains he cited overlap with the areas mentioned in that article. It was just a point of interest, rather than anything more profound.
She would want a name that had a pun in it… or at least a play on words… she’d want it to be subtly intimidating but at the same time sound cool… not to mention something that wouldn’t endanger her Geek-Cred…. I humbly offer her super hero name as… SPHERE-FACTOR !
David, I have a question. well a few questions actually.
1. How fast [RPM] can Sydney’s balls orbit inside the area of her usual halo?
1a. if the balls were divided into two slightly smaller halos. 3,4 or
—– seeing as two of the balls are currently unusable — 2,3 would this change the Rpm of the the balls?
2. what is the charge time for activation of an ability upon hand contact?
2a. and what is it’s dispersal rate upon leaving hand contact.
—- Assuming the Dispersal time for the Arcane energy is longer than the charge time for the same energy.
3. if Sydney touched two sides of her quickly spinning halo [or smaller halos]
could Sydney use all her powers by way of Alternating Activation? [similar to producing an Alternating current by way of brushes and a split ring in an electric motor.]
4. could Sydney use more of her powers if she was mutated to have six or eight arms?
How about a pair or two of Dabbler-style cyber-arms? Would those count as hands?
Sydney hasn’t really experimented with a lot of that stuff yet, but they can move a lot faster than she was making them go on the previous pages (good thing for her shin). Having them whip by and skip off her hand wouldn’t do her any good, she has to hold them, just touching them with her fingertips isn’t enough, but assuming she got the angle exactly right, it would still be of limited use to her. She maybe could slowly lose altitude by swapping out the flyball with the forcefield orb for instance really quick, those effects take place as soon as she touches the orb, but if someone’s shooting at her, it’s probably not a good idea to interlace the forcefield with something else. The energy blast one takes a moment to focus and aim. It’s fast but not instantaneous, and the energy tentacle and comm-ball have to send the tendril/mini-orb out, again they’re fast but trying to skip through powers like that would be of limited utility I think.
BTW Dave, thanks for fixing the stuff that was causing the problems yesterday.
Seconded. Promptly and effectively dealt with thanks. Good going for an artist with a day job!
I almost skipped out on work cause I couldn’t find my FTP login info. :P That’d be a sucky reason to miss a day of work.
More questions !
What is the Distance limit Sydney has between her and her balls?
This distance is = D
Round room. Radius = D*(3/4)
Balls bolted to walls in titanium covers equal spaces around room.
—- you don’t even need walls. you could encase the balls in Titanium Pillars
Perfect prison from which Sydney can never escape.
because she could never reach any of the balls, wall or pillar border
because her attachment to the other six would prevent movement past 1/4 distance from center.
perfect for future super villain or for Archon itself to Imprison Sydney.
even worse is you can leave the door completely open. mind games.
you also wouldn’t need a Floor under Sydney.
she could just be left floating in midair.
That reminds me of an old joke I heard. Just do not click to reveal, if you are of a sensitive disposition.
Statisticians examining expenses in the U.S. army, discovered that it costs more to feed and transport a bigger soldier than a smaller one. They also noticed the benefit that if you have smaller operators, you can reduce the size of the cockpit in fighting vehicles and make a further cost reduction. So suggestions were made about how to encourage larger soldiers to retire early, thereby allowing longer term savings.
One of the schemes suggested was to base early retirement benefits on measurements of body size. A test scheme was trialled, which allowed the soldiers to choose two points on their body, and the distance between them would be multiplied by a fixed figure to generate their retirement bonus. Bigger soldiers would be able to get larger incentives, and would thereby be more likely to leave than smaller ones.
The first soldier chose to measure from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. The second one was more inventive, and chose the tips of his fingers and his toes, then stood on tip toes with his arms outstretched. The planners had been counting on such tactics, and had budgeted accordingly, so were chuckling to themselves and happily paid out.
Then they were puzzled when a grizzled, short, veteran stepped up. He was about as small as a soldier could be, and still get in the army. Not who they were expecting to be attracted to the scheme!
“Measure from the tip of my cock to the base of my balls” he announced. All the other troops on parade laughed. Irritated, the planners told him “You do realise that this forms a genuine contract, and is irrevocable. If we agree to your suggestion, no matter how generously proportioned you are, you will only get paid a fraction of what these two soldiers just received?”
“Yes” he agreed, and both parties signed the contract. He then dropped his pants, for them to measure. “Measure from my balls here. But I hope you have a real long tape measure. The tip of my cock is in Vietnam!”
VERY old joke, they were telling that one in WWII.
Prima classicorum Latinorum in dixissem de exercitu Romano. Ego autem figurabatur non esset nimis multos qui comprehenderet iocus!
Et si ego have iustus insultaverunt ulla lectores, mea purgando. Google Perfruere vita subit alienis et phrases aliquando.
Eh, eius Licuit. Suspendisse ut multi interpretantur, ut putent dubito quid latine dictum quis elit.
Facit mihi admiratio quis evigilabit quamvis ….
They were making jokes about Vietnam during WWII? How prescient of them!
Not really, all the hipster soldiers were telling that joke in WW I. You know, before it became main stream and all.
Don’t forget, we don’t necessarily know what the abilities of two of the spheres are. In fact, her powers are actually pretty limited by that fact, and until they’re discovered, she could be just as powerful as Dabbler, if not more so. Also, from what I can tell, the maximum distance appears to be about three meters max, if you remember when she tried to leave the orbs in the car and she got tugged flat on her back.
The one problem with that is we also don’t know how strongly she can ‘move’ the spheres – after all, she did yoink them out of Maxima’s grip in Jedi Yoink. It’s entirely possible that this setup would just result in her smashing whatever restraints you put on the balls.
No, she yoinked them in Maxis grip, which caused her to fall over (comically :P), the big test would be if Sydney could do the same if Maxi was ready for it (and in the appropriate stance, which again, would be comical when Sydney stopped pulling on the balls :P)
I agree. The orbs seem to operate under the friend principal that they get to mess with Sydney, but no one else does. I suspect that if someone tried to imprison Sydney this way, the entire building would be destroyed as Sydney walked out. Also, how do you get all the orbs away from Sydney at the same time?
It’s my first comment here and I’d like to thank you for the effort you put in this amazing comic.
Anyway, I guess I like the concept of orbs floating like electrons, so how’s “Atomica”? :)
Why thank you. You’re so kind and we do try to do our best. . . oh wait! You mean Dave’s efforts?
Nevermind.
**Face palms alvin with both hands**
Why thank you. You’re so kind and I do try to do my best.
Gibbs-slap is probably more effective.
Thank you Larry & Curly.
Welcome to the community.
You have been warned, normal we ain’t!
Normal? What is this normal thing? The only ‘normal’ I know is, Abby Normal. She kind of lost her mind to a doctor. I think his name was Frank or something, he was really into body building. :p
Normal: The force perpendicular to a surface in response to another force pushing against the surface, such as a table pushing up to balance the force of gravity of the objects on it or the downward force provided by the ceiling to a helium filled balloon pushing up due to buoyancy.
Abnormal: The kind of craziness that goes on around here, even without the cyber-attacks.
Welcome to the club, good Sir. Glad to have you on board!
Yes come in, grab a chair….NO REALLY!! GRAB A CHAIR, someone animated them all! We need to get them all into the fireplace.
The replies above are a fair sample of what you expect from this group. Scared yet?
If not, then you should fit in well :D
A few more suggestions to add to the name game.
Since the Orbs are basically munitions that need to be rotated into firing position, I’m surprised no one so far has come up with Gatling. (possibly Revolver, but that makes her sound like a Beatles album)
If we want to expand to acronyms, how about B.O.S.S. (balls orbiting Sydney Scoville). That way, the only way for a bad guy to beat her would be to press ‘up down up down left right select’.
Were I in the audience my suggestions would have leaned heavily on the multi coloured aspect of the balls. Spectrum, Prisma, Rainbow Apocalypse…that sort of thing.
“Rainbow Dash.”
Call her Goku.
A minor point. Assuming straight fights are common among the group [and they might be, as either training or as the desire for ego points] Math should lose fairly often. Percentage-wise he can do quite well, but you have to be extremely superior to win all the time. Winning 9 times out of 10 means you lose that 10th time. My own experience is with chess, where I have found that even in a 5 round event it is distinctly more likely than not that one will lose to an inferior or beat a superior [or both].
And since we have such a wide variety of powers around, there will likely be somebody with an anti-Math kryptonite, who would be rather so-so vs most of the crew, but quite effective vs Math.
Thus Maxima is likely “forgetting” some Math losses [ which may not have “really counted”].
Your point is certainly true about those who are in the middle of the bell curve of skills. But Math is clearly at the edge (although, actually checking the small print, not “the best martial artist in the world”). There are some folks who are so far ahead of the game that the normal assumptions break down.
The once in a generation scientists, artists, musicians or sportsmen. Such individuals can, and do, consistently outperform even other experts in their field. That is Math’s thing. He is just so good at his speciality that even those with the unfair advantage of superpowers cannot compete!
But, that said, note the qualification that Maxima uses about a “straight fight”. Obviously only innate superpowers that cannot be turned off, or ones which would not seriously unbalance a sporting fight, would be reasonable in such a bout. He probably does not fare any near as well in a “no restrictions” bout with them.
One other point to consider, is that super heroes will be spending most of their time practicing how to use their powers to best effect. In a sporting match where they cannot use their core abilities, they are actually getting a severe handicap. Any highly trained individual (say a special ops soldier) will be better than a super hero who cannot use their powers (for those who have most of their powers banned in a fair fight, that is). So the figures are not as surprising as they might at first appear.
Being at the edge of the curve doesn’t change the conclusion. Math wins more for being at the top, but more and always are different. He is going to lose to #2 at times, and also to #3, 4, 5, …
I see this all the time at my local chess club, where a win streak of over 10 games is rare. Of course, nearly everybody plays up during those 10 games, but even #1 rarely gets thru the event unmarked.
Alternately, we can look at March Madness. The #1 team rarely wins it. They win a high percentage of their games, but the final 4 has never been made up of the 4 teams ranked as #1 in their division, unless it was in the early years when there was not so many rounds. One year #1 [Las Vegas as I recall] had been winning all its games by huge margins and had one off night during the tournament. It is mostly propaganda when some official proclaims that any team in the league can beat any other, but if we allow for some long odds, it is true.
The story to date also makes dubious that Math always win. He nearly lost the earlier fight we see. True, mostly overconfidence, but the favorite often suffers from overconfidence.
Then there are the needs of the story. Batman should be easy meat for Superman, but any story makes this a serious conflict, with Batman winning a few. We can have 1 story where X is unbeatable, but what do we do for an encore? There are reasons why the villains win a lot of fights in the comics. They would just be dull otherwise. The hero wins the money round, but he struggles along the way. So if Math is to be featured in a number of fights, he is going to have to lose at time
Given Math’s general behaviour versus females, have to wonder just how effective ‘The Nailer’ (as practiced by one Modesty Blaise) would be against him.
I forgot about your “anti-Math” powers statement, when responding to the first part of your comment. Which is wholly reasonable. Assuming that Maxima is not forgetting (and bear in mind just about everyone is around, so I am sure someone would have piped up if she had), I think that gives us canon that Math is seriously good, in a straight fight. But Dabbler’s Sticky Air is obviously Math Kryptonite.
I am willing to bet, that Math has lost to Harem at least once.
Case in point…
Math is going in for an attack, and another Harem “Flashes” him. I say, he would trip over his own tongue at that point.
Highly likely, but if a “sttraight fight” still allows her to use all her copies then she might as well go for a fatality and do the pose she did for playboy magazine that Dave had as a vote incentive. I think after the head on his shoulders exploded, the one in his pants could be used as a handle to carry the rest of him out of the building.
So, we can just nick-name him “Kick Stand.”
I don’t think they’ve been together very long at all, so it’s possible that Math’s number hasn’t come up yet, particularly depending on the definition of “straight fight”
Myriad!
Hmm I think halo was a good Pick. Personally with her mix of powers and abilities and the fact she can use two simultaneously, Id have named her mix and match.
God, you’re right, this is only the first day of the story. You’re not related to Tolstoy by any chance, are you?
Or Dan Shive?
At least Dan’s putting out 5 pages a week, which is pretty amazing.
Powerball leaps out at me as a potential name.
Or Lotto?
Twinkle Globe Doom Bunny (Globes/Sydney’s Bangs). Think of the merch. Evil bunny with an eye patch spouting vulgarities. I’d buy it.
Lol This is where Math jumps in and calls her “Halo”. He IS looking down on the top of her head, after all.
Math : The way the balls are orbiting look just like an angels halo. But she is no angel.
I think she is *. Just a very weary looking one.
* Some angels break the mould.
I was thinking more along the lines of Christopher Walken, in the movie The Prophecy.
SWC taught me how to do these (was a great site, also allowed me to enter URLs for people too lazy or who lacked the knowledge to make clinkies*, before they killed and effectively banned me)
{a href=”https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114194/”}The Prophecy{/a} (just replace the {} with the lesser/greater than signs)
Another name for Sydney: “The List”
How about She-sphere? I haven’t seen that one yet.
The Tongue’inator?
Call her orbit, system (like solar system) or nucleus.
maybe orboid? (orb-oid) it just seems to fit the character personality so well her tentacle orb got me thnking of the tremors graboids and her personality really fits the name. its great for an off the bat hyper hero.
it almost seems like something she’d choose for herself
Hmm she’s erratic enough and enough nuclei things flying around her – She could be a BEER MOLECULE!
Just pray no one tries to split her :P (oh wait, no, that was a Beer Atom, nvm)
Not sure if anyone suggested it already but how about Orbita, Focus Point, Ego (both her ego and as an egocentric model), Quantum, etc and onwards.
I know her code name is Halo but still I came up with these over the course of reading the comic.
Some really good names there.
does Sidney have complete control over where the balls go?? if so she could cheat at pool :P
She did earlier realize she could cheat at skee-ball, so pool would also be cheat-able, except that her orbs look bigger than pool balls and they don’t look the same. No numbers on Sydney’s balls and the colours aren’t layout properly.
While reading the archive of another one of my favourite web comics, I found somebody who can clearly challenge Sydney for top spot on the swear-o-metre. Murphy the Android of Quantum Vibe. Quite a good science-fiction series. Updates 5 days a week.
Ooh. You have just reminded me of a webcomic I put on my ‘spread the word’ list. Plus points include some cute characters, a dark sense of humour and, if you subscribe, fresh strips get emailed when updated.
It gave me enough chuckles to feel that it warrants more exposure. If you fancy a fantasy parody, check out Dungeon Grind.
Used to read that as a ‘when the link shows up on another comic’ basis, kept meaning to add it the growing list of regulars (going to do that now)
Liked it better when Tom Baker was in it :(
Oh yeah, it was actually the issue David Nuttall linked that got me reading it (was linked in Spinnerette :))
THE ROLLER.
Because the balls roll, and… she play rol
Chaos might be a good super name for her (personality, and multiple abilities which she seems to use to create chaos)
Dave, your word balloons work grandly here. Helps in the back and forth of the characters talking. I like the use of insider material as part of it. Keep it going. Maybe some day Sydney may have to wear that eye patch permanently. It makes her look tougher, feistier.
I keep coming back to “Orbweaver”
Yes it has to be something with “Orbit” in it – Mizorbit, missorbit, inorbit, space orbit, halorbit – yeah that last one! Halorbit. with a long line over the “a” for correct pronunciation.
Recurring themes have popped up in here, from time to time. One has been about creating new names. This week, legal issues have cropped up. A news story has inspired me to create another new word.
To help in this, I used Google translate (in the spirit of the article) to get the Swedish equivalent of “overbearing”. This turns out to be “TYRANNISK”. Dictionary definition (courtesy of the same programme) being “tyrannical, domineering, tyrannous”. A bit stronger than I had intended, but as it is intended for a laugh, even more appropriate.
So I then created the portmanteau word “googletyrannisk”. Or “googleoverbearing” for us English speakers. I was curious if there might be a similar, more appropriate term. Knowing neither new word would be in the translator’s dictionary, I tried keeping a space in between the two component words, and asked for the Swedish equivalent of “google overbearing”.
Weirdly enough, the translation on screen changed from “TYRANNISK” to “Google dominant”. Which really made me laugh. Ok, I know that it is just a function of the way Google’s algorithms work. Associating words that commonly appear together, rather than building up by translating each word individually from a dictionary. But I can see how it would make the paranoid think that Google’s own translation engine had been programmed to tweak results to be more favourable to themselves.
Of course, algorithms have to be programmed in, and there have been news stories about Google being accused of biassing results to suit their own purposes. But, that aside, I think we should stick to the new word.
Obviously, I want a word to be as wide reaching as possible, and apply to all big corporations attempting to dominate the people of the world into acting the way they want. But I am afraid of the possible legal ramifications if I make such a definition.
So I shall act in accordance with the precedent already set, and define the new word as follows:
googletyrannisk “the act of Google dominating the people of the world into acting the way they want”.
That was hilarious! Love the build up :)
OK a little off topic but I think I may have found a real-life Sydney (well her eating preferences anyway) she ate a Sriracha brownie and LIKED it. She’s also kind of a nerd with her own Youtube channel.
watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9TmDE8QM7g
Her channel is The Brain Scoop.
So, I have a question. Do Sydney’s orbs move relative to her or can they move spatially independently? Basically the question I am asking is if she can “fly” or “float” or jump really high by holding onto two orbs (not the flying one). If she is in the air, can orbs under her feet support her?
Good question. Anvil could toss her around like a super cheerleader. (She does have those spontaneously appearing pom-poms. Has she got unsuspected skillz?) Maybe she could get some good hang time, if she practices.
Powerstunts. All shall be revealed!