Grrl Power #146 – Opossum Ocomitatus?
So much text…
Since I know someone will mention it, apparently both “possum” and “opossum” are correct. They’re actually two similar but different animals. Opossum refers to the North American variety, they’re gray and have a bare tail. They sort of look like giant rats with white faces. Possums are natives of Australia and some of the surrounding island countries, have fuzzy tails, and look more like chubby brown lemurs, though there’s a lot of variety among the 70 subspecies.
Poor Suzie, she may be a little underprepared for this. She’s wanted to be a reporter forever, but doesn’t quite have the requisite banked knowledge yet.
In my head, Maxima’s teacher with matches comment was longer and a bit more antagonistic, but the editor in me said she’s probably at least trying to play ball a little here and not make an enemy of the press right off the bat. Certainly there will be lots of hyperactive reactionary radio talk show and internet comments and wringing of hands about that topic and others, but I think for the most part, those battles will be fought outside of the comic with just a mention here and there.
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If memory serve me, The National Guard is under the DoD and they get deployed domestically all the time.They have mostly bin deployed to deal relief for disasters, this have included acting as a police force when the situation have called for it.Then there the Army Core of Engineers.They are directly affiliated with the army but they get deploy domestically too.Again though, under disaster relief situation.This is probably the closes thing to what Arc is like.So I don’t see Arc comatosing possums any more then what have bin happening for the last 100 years or so.You can also argue who is more dangerous an engineer working on dam who had a really bad day or some guy with super strength.One can kill a single person at a time, the other can wipe out a town.
As far as I understood it prior to the ME crap domestic deployment was all the national guard was for. To guard the nation. Not to guard some oil barons bank account.
My mistake was assuming the Guard was all ways under the DoD (though far as I can tell ACE has bin), though I did know they acted as a military for the state under extreme circumstances, but from what I could find, they act more of a kin to the army reserves currently, so they don’t typically see combat deployment.Then again the US military all ways had low enrollment so it might be more common then I know.My knowledge of the military is limited to what I can look up in 30 sec and a year in Navy JROTC back in high school.All in all still don’t really change the fact units under the DoD still get deploy domestically to comatose all kinds of possums.What? I find that line funny OK.Also if I recall right the Navy went in to give relief after Hurricane Catrina.It probably have more to do with how the military can be deploy with in the States then rather then saying they cant be deploy at all.
I suppose they don’t consider Afganistan and Iraq “combat deployment” then. I’m pretty sure the corpses do.
Pretty sure Viatnam Counts, too. The Guard can, in fact, be deployed overseas. when NOT deployed overseas they are typically called up by state governors for emergencies.
( https://www.nationalguard.mil/about/ )
I did not meant it like that nor was I trying to shit on the Guard I was saying they act along the line of the army reserve and you know, America normally dose not fight a 7 year war or how ever long it bin nor is it something common and like I said I don’t know how frequently they get called on and I’m very aware they do get called on.All I’m stating is that units under the DoD do get deploy domestically whether they are working under the local government or not,dose not change the fact they are part of the DoD nor do I even have a problem with that and why is this about the Guard when I gave a second and better example with ACE?Also their combat deployment is irrelevant to any thing I’m trying say.I just included it to give a overly simplified definition of the Guard.So can you please point out what aspect of my statement you finding false or wrong so I can properly explain my point of view?
Also the Guard was not part of the DoD during Vietnam but they could still fight if they chose to volunteer.A lot of people got out of seeing combat by joining the Guard at the time. Then again I cant blame them for not wanting to fight in a war were the average chopper pilot life expectancy was 2 months.Only 8700 men from the Guard was deployed to the conflict out of the 2mill that was sent.So no typically they did not see combat at that time.They probably also change departments to when they did so, because their chain of command when they were not part of the DoD mean they would report to the local government of their own state or at the very least they report to an CO under their division.
This is the most complicated I have ever seen comments get, I feel REALLY dumb since I had to Google half the words in each comment.
Do not feel that! :-( It is impossible (really impossible) for anyone nowadays to know everything. So that means that people are forever coming across things they did not know before. I had never even heard of “Possie Comitatus” before it came up in comments and the comic. The only dumb people are the folks who choose not to look things up that they do not understand. What you are doing is learning.
Do not feel bad, unless you live the military lifestyle ‘currently’, then few in the civilian world understand the craziness that is the guard and reserve.
I say ‘currently’ because it changes all the time. For instance, the US Army reserve could not be pulled up for civil disaster relief. But after a number of high profile disasters where the State National Guard were undermanned from deployments overseas, the DoD (Department of Defense) was allowed to start deploying reserves for civil relief.
Slightly off-topic, I had a Great-Aunt (God rest her soul) who swore a woman could not be Governor. Until, Governor Kathleen Sibelius (Of Kansas) demanded that President Bush deploy Regular Army or Reserve Army forces after the Greensburg tornado. After that my Great-Aunt changed her mind,
Well I was using acronyms because I’m lazy and did not want to type out those organizations names and beside you looked up the parts you did not understood,that’s not an action I associate with incompetence.
until of late (around a Decade ago) the National Guard where State Forces who’s Commander In Chief was their individual State Governors, they could be impressed in to federal service but they remained State Forces and therefore not restricted under Posse Comitatus unless impressed in to Federal
Service, since the National Guard have bean folded in to the DoD and made a Federal Military Service more and more states are raising separate State Militia to replace their Guards.
That would explain why the current definition of the Guard sounded some what different from what I understood back in the 90’s.
Actually, it is all on how the Guard is mobilized. As long as the State Governor activates them for emergencies, posse comitatus does not come into play. Only if they have been federalized (activated by the Pentagon/President) would the Guard be considered in violation of the posse comitatus (e.g. the challenges in New Orleans, the state did not ask for Martial Law to be declared and kept the guard under state control for awhile…only the guard could carry weapons and pass out food. The Army forces nearby had to twiddle their thumbs and do nothing…the “Ragin Cajun” could just advise, he could not direct). As long as the Governor calls out the guard, the can detain citizens and perform law enforcement type activities. The Active forces cannot.
The Guard is seeking to maintain federal funding levels seen during this latest period of war by trying to augment the active forces more often than they have in peace time, but that has not been decided.
The Guard still answers to their governor, with each state having a TAG (The Adjutant General). There is more of a voice for the Guard and Reserve in the Pentagon, but nothing has really changed about their employment within the Continental United States (CONUS) at the behest of their governors.
I did not know that.
What states are doing this, and are they taking volunteers?
Btw, who would be interested in helping buy into a Kickstarter to put the first book of Grrl Power (i.g., everything up until just before that lovely establishing shot outside of the Archon building with Sydney not wanting anybody photographing her butt) into an actual printed dead-tree format?
*waves hand enthusiastically*
The spirit is willing. But there is a distinct lack of dead-trees, with the faces of heads of state printed on them, in my pocket. Had I the means, I would not hesitate, of course. But, still, I enthusiastically encourage any and all to participate. If merchandising goes well enough, DaveB may be able to eventually cut back on, or even give up the day job all together. More updates per week AND your own personal printed copy! Awesome stuff.
In principle yep! However being outside the US means things tend to get really expensive once you’ve added shipping and import tax. Although I guess the kickstarter method might change that a bit.
count me in, though the impression I get is that the limiting factor is less money than time. Unless Dave has one of those variable-hours types of jobs (he probably doesn’t), his employment status is a boolean construct and unlikely to be broken down into smaller units. Therefore, raising a few hundred, or even a few thousand simoleans is unlikely to improve his ability to apply more hours to the end product. -.-
I was just thinking of the (rare) folks who manage to give up the day job and switch to earning a living from their hobby. That frees up a lot of time. I get the impression that the XKCD guy pulled it off. But he does have a vast audience and it is not a niche market. But, Grrl Power is good enough that it could have mass-market appeal. With appropriate marketing.
Yeah off the top of my head there’s a few who’ve managed it: Randall from xkcd, Tim Buckley from Ctrl-alt-delete, Jeph Jacques from Questionable Content, Howard Tayler from Schlock Mercenary, Tycho & Gabe from Penny Arcade (sorry if any of those are wrong, haven’t checked the spelling or factuality). But none of those have the quality/detail of artwork, and thus can update more, and they’ve all been around a long time. I dare say it took quite a while before they could ditch the day jobs. It proves it’s possible, not that it’s easy or even necessarily the right thing to do.
Anyone know of any one-man comics of similar art detail that have made the jump? Just wondering. Not intending to pressure Dave, no complaints about weekly :)
The closest comic i can think of is Girl Genius, but it’s not one man. They have a writer, penciler and colorist. And they also update 3x a week. I’m sure once I get to the first book/kickstarter one of the extended stretch goals will be to allow me to hire a colorist.
Tom Siddell of Gunnerkrigg Court fame comes to mind. Full colour, thrice a week. Not so colourful but updated seven days a week for a year or so, five thereafter, is the recently finished Dominic Deegan. I don’t know if Michael Lee Lunsford does it full time, but Supernormal Step recently switched from two to three times a week because he found a production process that agreed with him.
Anyway. Don’t worry about frequency, just pick a schedule that’s good for you. Then stick to it, no matter what. Some can get away with flaky schedules, but for most it’s a killer.
Ashley Cope of Unsounded is a very impressive example.
Wow I had never heard of that one. The art is great, and apparently 3x a week? The about page says it’s donation driven, so it’s possible (probable really) it’s the artist’s full time job.
Heh, actually I have recommended it here in the past. Giving it the highest possible compliment. It is the only webcomic which I think would be an a par with Grrl Power for contention for the Hugo award. Given that Girl Genius has stood down from future nomination.
I think I need to actually finish a story arc before I start courting that sort of accolade. :)
Yeah, I thought of a few more after I posted that. Questionable Content (flat colors but full page 5x a week) Flaky Pastry, several of the other comics in the Collective of Heroes I’m in fit the bill. Really given how many comics there are online, there’s probably 100’s.
It appears Jeph of Questionable Content makes most of his money by selling merchandise related to the comic. By his 100th strip he was turning a profit on that stuff. By 178 he ended his day job. Based on his news posts, shipping merchandise took a lot of his time. By 629, he hired an employee to help with merchandise.
Dave B, I invite you to consider that approach.
Yea, unless hits are in the millions advertising revenue is unlikely to make enough for a living. But sales of physical goods, on the other hand, can keep you living comfortably.
elgoonishshive is one man but is alo in gret
EGS isn’t drawn in as much detail as Grrl Power (no offense, Dan Shive, 6+ panels five times per week is impressive even if you don’t colour them in), and Dan doesn’t make a living from it.
Chris Muir (Day by Day comic) is Dave’s closest analogue that has made the leap: he operates to a fairly narrow niche, has a razor-sharp wit, and is a very good artist that operates solo. The difference is his day-to-day work is MUCH simpler (allowing for a 5-updates-per-week schedule), with his high-detail-high-quality work reserved for special occasions and as rewards for his annual “membership” drive. (unfortunately, his other difference is he’s pretty preachy, and would alienate some of our less idealogically-tolerant members pretty quickly)
I had a peek. A bit too rooted in real-life to appeal to me too much. Likewise heavily political and American oriented. The latter does not bother me on it’s own, but in conjunction with the other two, especially pitched from the common man’s point of view, meh.
The West Wing and that comedy with Michael J. Fox as a deputy mayor being exceptions. But the former dealt with things from the very top, which is a big plus. Similarly with the latter, if pitched at a more modest level. Plus it parodied politics from the inside. But, going back to the comic, he did have some witty jokes even in the few pages I read through. Which shows it does have merit, despite me not being in his target audience.
If you start from the beginning the tone is significantly different – Muir has always waved his politics boldly, but something changed in the last few years… it’s become much more… angry? disaffected?
in any case, it certainly isn’t for everybody (like I mentioned before, it caters to a pretty narrow niche).
all that said, my original point is unchanged – it’s difficult, and absolutely involves risk, but the leap CAN be made to full-time, even operating solo, and in a niche market.
don’t forget Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance and Fred Gallager of Megatokyo. Pete is even considered the first person to make webcomics a full-time job…and Fred quit his job years ago.
You may be interested in Wikipedia’s List of professional webcomic artists
Lol… my comment is on the first slide instead of this one. But I meant every word or it, I have reread this comic several times and love it.
heh, this strip shoots down the Painkiller Jane universe too. Although I always suspected the whole the superpowers gene is linked to sociopathic behavior was just an excuse the phobic authorities used to lock up people with powers. which if memory serves was the plot twist eventually.
Yes it’s refreshing to see a “this is how it is, how do we deal with it?” approach rather than the all-too-common “this is wrong/new/different, how do we control it?”. For me it makes the story that much more engaging. It’s like an origin story for the whole of super-kind, and with the authorities actually acting the way you’d hope they would (ie sensibly, without knee-jerk reactions, and in the best interests of its citizens). I’ve always liked stories that show people being a little more… enlightened? And in this case, less clichéd.
Of course there’s still room for some (potentially) bad guys with shady motives of their own. Life would be so boring otherwise.
Like the guy with the double-click lightning-machine
Unfortunately I think in the real world people wouldn’t act nearly so sensibly, but as you say the people reacting poorly has been done to the point of being cliche, and I wanted a different direction for the comic.
I would expect a wide variety of responses in response to culture and media exposure.
You would have the (Ancient Aliens hybrids) guys, the (mutants and meta-humans, wow its just like the comics), the (government experiments, fearful), the (they ARE aliens using our comicbook ideas to blend in and show off their powers), mix that one and the first one for that guy on History Channel. different governments would likely react differently with the most alarming being the religious possibility.
the they are gods, demi-gods, angels and demons in human flesh, ect…and the fact that many WITH these powers might believe this as well.
I wrote a character once called himself Messiah who believed he was the reincarnation of Jesus, had simular but much weaker powers, and created a cult believing the mutants were all angels and demons reborn on Earth preparing for the rapture.
Shhh! We have already figured out that DaveB is actually just a front for the real Arc and is testing the water for public opinion on their structure, proposed laws and so on. But don’t let the media know, until the server is upgraded enough to handle the massive jump in readership, when the world at large finds out. ;-)
Of course, if he could arrange an introduction to the real Sydney, well gosh… that would be awesome!
Thinking about server capacities, you may well wish to look into that, DaveB. Ensure you have the capability for increased volumes, should something cause an unexpected jump in hits. Say a favourable review in a major publication, or mention on a TV program or some news report.
For example, XKCD has been mentioned in more than one BBC article. And you can measure the impact of such an apparently minor link, when you see them in action in other examples. For instance a piece on a fire-works display going wrong. The various clips of the incident on YouTube all had the usual number of hits you expect, but there was a massive surge in numbers on the one with the BBC article.
The same would be true of any media outlet, and I am sure the American ones would result in a much bigger impact in this instance. Trouble is, if the server gets locked up by traffic volumes and the infrastructure not being able to handle it, then the free publicity is wasted. Something that would be a real shame, especially given that increased readership would bring you closer to having enough numbers for merchandising to be profitable.
I am mindful of it, having seen the BladeBunny servers lock up, following the recent launch of his kickstarter. Thankfully he got it sorted, but who knows how much funding he may have lost out of because of potential investors not being able to log in? That happening despite the fact that it was a pre-planned event. Going to show how big jumps in traffic can cause serious problems.
You should probably remember that archon are the ones having the press conference, that doesn’t mean the government doesn’t have a weapon x program in the works. Arc-dark perhaps?
X-weapon? X-Machina? If you need to produce shady weapons, you need to employ a shady weapons manufacturer.
Shamefully, it is mostly like that in our real world.
We’re still a species that goes wild for bread and circuses (aka burger and TV).
What we don’t know or don’t want to interfere with our carefully crafted view of the world, we try to make it go away at any cost, even completely denying and/or ignoring it.
Examples from movies / TV that fit perfectly fit:
-nobody ever notices a certain blue phone-box (why it’s so easy to use)
-how can anybody actually NOT NOTICE(!?) a dozen giant alien robots duking it out with the military just down the road/ a block away? (Transformers 1, Battle of Mission City–> story later twisted so much around that it “didn’t happen, in LA”)
Real life:
-Nazi death-camps (People in nearby towns/cities claimed they didn’t notice anything, such as the bone-soot or permanent smell of burnt flesh, or trains bringing thousands of people and never taking them away)
-My-Lai
-people complaining in the supermarket about the store not having coke (and them standing right before a large/wide wall full of several flavors and brands of said product, curtesy of my own experience)
Fanta is not Coke. As far as most people are concerned each flavor of soda is made by an entirely different company.
It was Coke, pure and simple. Just about every flavor availlable in these parts and every brand my store had (allowed by the chain). No Fanta, no Sprite, nothing similar; Coke.
It was like demanding to cut some trees down because you couldn’t see the forest.
There’s only one flavor of coke, otherwise it wouldn’t be coke. Diet coke is not coke, coke zero is not coke, vanilla coke is not coke etc. Likewise, pepsi obviously is not coke, nor is any other type of cola. If they had walls full of coke, actual coke and not some imitation or alternative flavor, and people still couldn’t find it then it’s either a matter of them screwing with you, them having some sort of mental issue, or that you re-arranged your damn store so the coke wasn’t in the exact same place it was the last time they were there. I frelling hate it when they do that crap!! How would you like it if I brought a team of movers over and rearranged your house. To the ghetto?
Will agree with you about Coke Zero not being Coke (tried it once, but without the fizz it’s just caramel water), but Diet/Vanilla/Raspberry/Lemon are still Coke, they may not be regular but they are still Coke, and maybe those people complaining wanted plain old regular Coke
Ahh, the stuff with cocaine. I believe that is likely to be illegal in those parts nowadays.
Remember the My Lai massacre was just one of dozens if not hundreds. It just happened to be the one stopped by our own valiant troops. M-16s pointed at their own people! The top military brass tried to cover it up but failed this time.
And those who tried to do the right thing got lynched afterwards by the civilians and media at home; or almost.
To quote some good people (as far as I can recall, several vrsions of it): “In our society those who don’t follow the rules are called trash; but those who know what the right thing to do is and don’t do it are worse than trash.”
The Pain (bad guy, psyonically able to make others in a short range feel various forms of pain) enters a bank and comes up to a teller.
Pain: Give me all the money or I will hurt you.
Teller: What? How? -> OW! <- (weakly) Okay. (side panel, teller presses the button under the counter.)
6 purple shapes appear behind The Pain. 3 Harems, each holding one of Maxima, Halo, Heatwave.
The Pain: (turns around hearing the sound) What?
Harem: Looks like Leon was right about this being one of ours.
Maxima: Archon! You are under arrest! You have …
The Pain: Burn! (projects the pain of fire onto the Archon agents)
Harem * 3: Youch! (all three bodies teleport away to escape the pain.)
Maxima: Arrg! (She hasn’t felt pain like this in several years and is not sure what to do, so just stands there trying to figure out what is going on.)
Heatwave: (Looks a Halo beside her) Did you just feel something like a little tingle all over your body?
Halo: (Charges and tackles The Pain to the ground) Hey mother-#!^%#%, you can’t go around threatening and hurting people, you sick ^@$^%@. You are under arrest @!#%#^%&# $%&%#^@#^$! I have one thing for you to do before we go. (cherub image) More please, right here. (sticks out her tongue and points at it).
Wait. Word of god answer needed here. Can Harem teleport other people with her? Because if she can, and she doesn’t destroy the original….. Golden Amazon Army!!! Srsly, the apocalypse has arrived.
Hmm, and infinite spare organs for everyone I suppose. And what if she took a brick of gold with her? Infinite gold hack?
mmm, interesting exploit. There is no implicit reason why she should not be able to create duplicates of the small items she can carry. Given that she can replicate her own body by leaving the old one behind, when she does teleport. She should be able to do the same with the object(s) in hand.
Even with her limited carrying capacity, she could carry diamonds or other stuff which is actually more valuable than gold, by weight. For example top end silicon chips or graphine (until manufacturing economies come into effect and bring it down drastically).
Of course, employing old dungeon mastering skills, it is easy enough to find a way to stop Harem getting unlimited wealth if DaveB does not want that. Simply say that although she can replicate herself, she cannot do the same with the objects she carries. A variety of different justifications could be used to support that ruling.
The simplest of which being that there is a difference between our mental images of ‘self’ versus other things. If her power draws on that image of self in order to be able to project herself to another location, it may explain why it is so easy to move her body (which is, in essence, simply a big mass) but much harder to move any objects with her, even though they are far less massive. Manipulating your mental image of self being easier than that of a strange object. Likewise when applying power feats such as leaving the old body behind.
It is said that Harem loses mass/strength/speed for each “copy” she leaves behind, though she gains multiple sources for it.
If you assume the objects she “copies” are similarly weakened (structurally, for instance, or molecularly) then she isnt so much duplicating something as cutting it in half.
I was only aware of the strength aspect (which is listed in her cast list details). If the rest is also true though, in particular the mass, then you certainly have a good point.
DaveB, I could not find the special which talked about Harem’s powers on the archive list. That is not to say that it is not there mind, as I might have missed it. I do know that Dabbler’s Science Corner does appear on the archive list though, so it would be consistent to add the Harem one, in the event that hers is not there.
One other place it could do with going in is, as a link, in the “notable appearances” box on Harem’s entry on the cast list. Given that it would be a handy resource for anyone specifically interested in her.
Yeah I need to figure out where to post that. Maybe I’ll put it up as a kind-of-but-not-really bonus thursday comic once we’re past this part of the press conference.
Harem can’t teleport other people with her. Her TP powers are pretty cool to begin with and there are just too many exploits if she could TP others as well so I decided that she can only carry about 20% of her body weight extra with her. She’s taller that the average woman and very fit, so she probably weighs 140-ish? I’m bad at estimating that sort of thing, but I’m surprised by how little some women weigh, the malnourished skinny actress types. Harem’s more of a crossfit type. She can clean and jerk 125 in sets of 8.
What about a baby? At 20% she might be able to carry a baby. Extra points if you decide she can’t cuz if she got pregnant she’d have an abortion next time she ported.
Trick: Use BMI. It gets iffy with very muscular persons, and apparently asians have a lower upper limit on “healthy”, and there’s lots of other problems with it, but as a rough estimator of acceptable weight given length it’s useful. If you speak metric.
Also, yeah. She would have to be able to take something with her, else she’d go nekkid. But notice how the destroy/create mechanic means she can destroy/create things like clothes? Something to think about.
Always figured the reason her copies are clothed is because they are stored clothed (otherwise they would be wearing the same outfit)
“…so what is your wish, master?
:I wish for infinite wishes!!
:umm… no – you can’t do that
:Okay, then I wish for infinite genies!!”
He he. I have not come across the latter version before. Different ways of achieving the same means, yes. But that has an elegant simplicity.
Rather than either of those options, just wish that “Whatever I say I wish for, will come true.”
NOOOO! That one has been tried before. And it always ends very badly!
Think about it, and how frequently we say such idle things as “I wish you could see your own face”. That might just cause a mirror to pop into view. But saying “I wish I never had to see you again” could have very nasty results. Either for the person you are talking to or yourself. Probably terminal.
How would making a mirror appear out of thin air right in front of them be easier than ripping of their face and handing it to them?
Eeew!
That’s one of the main reasons avoid using ‘wish’, also avoid using ‘want’
Would a decrease in the passengers stats be operating on a quantum level? If she ported Maxima once, thus creating two still really powerful Maxima’s, then ported the copy nine times would only the primary copy and resulting clones be weakened further? Or would it weaken all versions of Maxima? Just thinkin, one still really powerful Maxima and ten weaker yet still somewhat powered Maxima’s could be quite useful in the field.
Also, as a horrifying thought, if she did take passengers and destroyed the copies, wouldn’t that be murder? Assuming that destruction is a conscious action, Harem might wind up needing alot of counseling. It’s one thing to have to kill in the field, it’s quite another to have to kill your friends every time they need to go somewhere.
When she destroys her own copies does that operate in any way similar to Jamie Madrox destroying his by absorbing them? Could alleviate guilt if she’s simply arranging a neato transporter accident. Which of course brings up two more points….this will never end I swear. One: if she absorbs her copies and can cause a passenger to absorb thiers, then couldn’t that be used in training to allow an entity to train in two fields in different bodies, then merge, and have all the training? Two: Could she potentially learn to use the merging aspect in order to merge two entirely separate beings in a Tuvixesque fashion? And three: If she does not merge the copies but rather literally destroys them, could she learn to use that aspect against enemies in the field, simply poofing them out of existence?
Well, unless somebody found a way of making them really teeny or reduce their mass, they would not be light enough for her to teleport them anyhow.
You do raise an interesting theological point though. Assuming she is Catholic, she may have committed a mortal sin the first time she teleported and did not leave her body behind. If destroying the original body kills it, and the replacement is just a physical copy. Had she suspected that then, technically she committed suicide. And the original Harem’s soul would now be residing in Hell!
Would the copy even have a soul? If it did, would it be considered to have murdered it’s original self? If so, it too would have committed a mortal sin and likewise be damned. Either way, nicely explaining why she appears to be a traitor in league with somebody who (possibly) consorts with a succubus.
Even viewing her situation from a materialist atheist point of view, thus taking God out of the equation, so long as she believed that she was soulless or damned, then she would behave accordingly. Sydney should nip off quick, to find those nuns she saw earlier today and see if they can organise some mojo to convince her she can be redeemed.
Actually I think the infinite wealth issue is solved by the fact that A: she’s not a bitch and B: everyone knows that if you found a way to create gold out of thin air and weren’t absolutely secretive about it, the global economy would crash within a couple years. Or gold would suddenly become worthless and you’d be broke like everyone else in record time.
The small amounts she could create, although it would make an individual incredibly rich, would probably be less than the average output from one of the bigger gold mines, say in South Africa. Agreed, if she was not discreet about it, the price of gold would drop. But it would stabilise once they figured out her capacity.
And even if they believed she could create vast amounts and the price plummeted, it would never become worthless. Gold is a noble metal, which does not corrode. As such it will always be useful, in industry and in many other roles. Likewise, she could just shift to producing something else, such as platinum, rubies, rare earth elements and so on. Jewellery of different types and small enough to be within her capacity, such as ear-rings would likely be more valuable than simple lumps of gold anyhow. And there is greater demand for top-end silicone chips than even she could dent!
She could even avoid entanglement with copyright issues, by commissioning one of the manufacturers to construct such a chip to specifications she devises, thus giving herself the copyright. Such chips to be made exclusively with intrinsically precious materials such as gold and rare-earth elements. This would allow her to maximise her capability. The chips that she would sell would not only be on a par with the best the competitors could offer, but, when they reach the end of their useful life, they can be re-cycled into their highly valuable components. Thus allowing her to charge more than existing rivals.
If she were really clever, she could make something unique. Convince Dabbler to provide her with small alien technomagic, that would be of use on Earth, and then collaborate with somebody who has artistic skills like Fabergé, to make it into a work of art. Her product range would literally be priceless on Earth. And perhaps beyond. Probably profitable enough to tempt Dabbler to join the scheme, for a cut.
Unless she were prevented somehow, such as my suggestion above, her own morals as you suggest, or by assassins from mining corporations or other vested interests, then she really could have unlimited wealth.
See it’s proly just as well I don’t own a replicator, I’d be making 12 core laptops for everyone for free. And then demonstrate my evil side by putting linux on all of them.
We are entering the era of replicators which can replicate themselves. With 3-D printers that can, with appropriate feed-stock, pretty much do that. With only a few parts they cannot build themselves, but I am sure that will be overcome soon enough. All we need to do is build liquid thorium reactors to provide them with power, and make robots which are intelligent enough to do the work but not so intelligent that the feel the need to replace us, and we could end up with…
… either Utopia, a means to wage endless war on each other or utter boredom. Let’s vote for Utopia. Mind you, we do not seem to be well suited to utopian society. But at least we could free up time to work on that task, with those advantages.
Ya but for a utopia we’d need a true socialist government. With all that workforce essentially doing nothing that can be itemized and therefore paid for, there’d be no reason to pay them, so they’d all eventually starve off and die without support. I suppose it might mean that more jobs would open up in entertainment but eventually someone somewhere is going to be entertained purely by bloodsports and the torture network. Adding to the problem is the obvious boredom factor leading to wars. With nothing to war over however they’d be warring for entertainment, which would lead to horrors worse than Auschwitz for ratings.
Gold and silver are fine but not the rarest nor most expensive metals. Gallium, platinum and iridium would be of far greater worth than the two holy metals. Don’t let me forget chromium, only one known mine of it and that is in China!
Most of the rare earths are currently mined in China. And they are somewhat limiting production to keep the prices high. Harem could actually be doing the world a service by introducing competition ;-)
True – most rare earths are mined in China… that’s not necessarily because that’s the only place they’re found – we actually have a lot of rare earth deposits in the USA, but our environmental policies make it prohibitive to mine them… (I’ll leave it to your personal internal biases to decide if that’s a good or bad thing)
All that means is that china will run out of deposits far earlier than we will, if it takes long enough we’ll have the tech to mine without ecological damage. And then we’ll be able to set the price. Of course, china could decide to take the states those deposits are in as payment for the trillions we owe them…..
I understand she can only carry small items, like we saw when she popped into the ambulance. So people would be out.
(God is busy now, but please feel free to leave a message and he will deal with you shortly)
Errr, I think Harem needs her own thread, too much potential. And has anyone ever noticed that it’s the ones that aren’t tanks that bring up the most thought?
My thought on this (I know, wrong Dave, but here is my speculation) is that when she teleports, she can take things she is holding, up to a certain mass, which may or may not include Maxima. If she is deliberately making a copy of herself during a teleport, then her clothes and the things she carries will either go with the teleporter or stay with the remainder. It is only her own body that duplicates. She may even have to wait for the hair to grow out; as such, she would be reluctant to make a new copy as she has to wait for her appearance to normalize and not look like she just finished cancer treatment. She may also want to teleport from a private location to avoid other em-bare-ass-ment.
From the bio: Harem can teleport, but unlike most teleporters, she doesn’t have to ‘destroy’ the original in order to reappear at another location, effectively creating duplicates.
This would imply that the duplication is not a quirk of her brand of teleportation but rather how all teleportation operates in this reality. The only quirk she has is that she can refrain from destroying the original. Since this is how it operates on her biomass it can be assumed that she creates a copy of her clothing in the new location as well.
Awwright, it’s terminal nitpicking time.
“Teleporting without destroying the original”.. IS NOT TELEPORTING!
It’s… something else.( psionic matter duplicator?)
Teleporting, is transferring (X, at position Y), to (Position Z).
If “X” itself is not moved, It’s NOT TELEPORTING. GArglefrazlgumblegrmphphphph…
Dave sneakily gets around potential problems with that whole “communal mind” thing. but to allow her to duplicate anyone else, would cause… plot/metaphysical issues that he’d probably prefer not to deal with.
As such, there needs to be some limits on her. Really, the most appropriate thing consistency-wise, would be to make it only *her*. which would mean, no clothes :P Cop-out, boo :)
If you’re gonna allow clothes, you have to allow jewelry. If you’re gonna allow jewelry,;
“Hello, Cartier? I’d like to ..umm.. rent.. your quaint little $10,000,000 ring you have there?”
Take it to a fence, fragment it into a few separate pieces, and you have unrecognizable, yet ludicrously valuable stuffs to sell. Kaching.
Side point: we’ve never seen her actually DUPLICATE, I think. we’ve only seen her dematerialize and rematerialize individual personalities.
As such, Dave might make the plot holes a little smaller, by choosing to either to do some serious rewriting of the “about” stuff on her, or say, “Oh dearie me.. due to persistant use of her 5-fold personality.. she seems to have somehow ‘lost’ the ability to consolidate, or split any further. From now on, she can only truely TELEPORT”
Actually it is. Or at least in a lot of sci fi, that is the basic principle. You scan the subject, transmit the scanned information to the destination, where a duplicate is constructed.* Meanwhile, the original is destroyed. Either simultaneously, or with a slight delay, to make sure the subject has materialised safely. The destruction being done purely on ethical grounds when cloning is frowned upon. And if you do not want to have to split legal right to half your possessions and wealth to a copy, each time you want to do something that involves teleporting.
Net result is something that looks like teleportation. And is referred to as teleportation, because “disintegration booth” has less public relations appeal and, if used, somehow discourages passengers.
Rationales where the matter is physically transported, if they want to base it on some kind of plausible science, tend to go with wormhole travel. Where the subject is physically transported via a wormhole to the destination. But wormhole travel now carries a lot of cultural baggage with it, so I imagine most folks do not consider that to be “teleportation”.
Obviously I am only talking broad brush-strokes, where commonality can be found between rationales. Individual authors (and script writers) often come up with their own unique takes on things. As demonstrated by various examples cited in previous discussions about Harem.
* Ignoring any “behind the scenes” explanations or “official word of god” stuff, not having seen such, but just going by what I remember when watching it, years ago, that is what appeared to happen in the Fly. You see the sequence of the computer reconstructing the scanned/destroyed matter and deciding to mix and match the two subjects into one. Likewise (with the same caveats) that seems to be the way it works in Star Trek. In particular, their settings repeatedly show the ethical dislike of cloning, hence making my take more plausible. I am sure that will have Trekies up in arms, but that is just the impression I got personally.
As a note on teleporting going wrong, the scenes with Bones freaking out about it in one of the Trek movies is not bad. But the best has to be from Galaxy Quest.
Scientists now say warping space-time is possible. Basically you don’t move you warp space-time until you touch your destination then let space-time return to normal and suddenly you are where you want to be with no time of travel. It actually doesn’t break relativity because all you really did was change position so no “traveling” faster than light. Perhaps this is how teleports and aliens get around. Of course warping space-time would use tremendous amounts of energy and/or gravity but any sufficiently high technology will seem like magic.
Yea. When I was looking for loopholes in my own comment, I decided that warping space was a big category I had missed out. Dune being a classic example which uses that tech. But decided it was akin enough to wormholes, that it was not worth me posting yet again.
But, you are right, if it were done at an individual level, rather than the more traditional starship drive style, it may well look like teleportation. As for energy costs, well those are always rather blurred over in the supers genre.
Though, I can cling to a technicality. Because it is not teleportation, despite appearing like it. You stay in one place and the universe moves around you. ;-) As the narrator in the film version of Dune puts it “travel to anywhere in the universe, without moving“.
Well it can always be said that it taps into a heretofore unknown source of energy. Maybe Dark energy?
I really hope that, once they have done all the experiments, and crunched all the numbers, that they come to the conclusion that, despite early indications seeming to show it is likely, that the Higgs-Boson does not actually exist. No Higgs-Boson, no Dark Matter/energy.
Not that it is an anti-science thing. It is just a pro-science fiction thing. In my dream, it turns out that the missing mass of the universe is simply the prevalence of Dyson shells in all the observable galaxies. There are actually enough stars out there for the galaxies to behave the way they should under existing models of the universe. It is just that a high proportion of them are fully enclosed in Dyson shells, courtesy of advanced alien civilisations. Meaning that no light escapes from them and thereby we cannot observe them. Seeing less stars than there actually are then throwing out our astronomer’s calculations.
Yes, yes, I know, they probably have other ways of supporting the Dark Matter hypothesis than just the observation of stars in galaxies, but the idea amuses me, realistic or not.
Or maybe a natural phenomenon like small Black holes and wandering/rogue planets. Actually if the size of the universe is larger than projected a lot of matter could be out of viewable range. The same if our position is off. A lot of these theorems and ideas are built on top of each other if one is wrong or even off by a small margin it could bring down the whole house of cards.
Darn, I did not notice that my link to Dyson Shells was broken.
Given the size of galaxies, I have always wondered how astronomers are able to be so confident that they can count up every star, accurately estimate its mass and then assume that comes to an accurate total mass for the galaxy? Especially when the galaxy, as you point out, must have a lot of non-luminous natural sources of mass in it. Not forgetting dust, which must be really hard to factor in.
Ok, black holes they can pick out due to their gravitational influence. But given how long it took them to spot the super-massive ones at the middle of every galaxy. And the very, very, long interval between them being theorised and any actually being ‘spotted’ (by inference, if not direct observation) makes me dubious as to how good they are at picking out smaller ones. There could be many thousands, even in our own galaxy, that they are unaware of.
And yet they do not factor that in as a significant factor when confidently stating the mass of a galaxy? Well, at least in their interviews with, and summaries to, the media that I follow, anyhow :-D Mind you, it is just an idle peeve that I have not bothered to follow up seriously.
Making duplicates via some quantum means having gained popularity in more recent years, I should add. The previous comment having been on the more traditional versions.
Well, I was trying to communicate what she can do in a very terse method. She can teleport and create duplicates. By which I mean each of the duplicates can teleport, and any of the duplicates for all intents and purposes is functionally the original. And when a new “her” appears for the first time, it’s nude. When it unteleports, everything it was carrying effectively doesn’t exist until she re-ports it.
Ummm, if teleportation and tele-cloning operates on the same principles then why would her tele-clones be nude when you’ve already depicted her teleporting fully clothed? Is SoD required here?
Dave said “When a new ‘her’ appears”, she has not (either because she can’t, or simply stopped) ‘created’ a new self after the 4th ‘alter-self’ appeared
He has also mentioned, somewhere some time ago, that when they are ‘stored’, they are stored with whatever they are wearing/carrying upto her storage limit
Strong points Guesticus. Those can neatly stop the various replication exploits.
Hmm, the clothing doesn’t tele-port until she’s destroyed the original perhaps? But then we have the problem that she’s creating clones which consist of matter so why couldn’t she create new matter based on clothing worn by the original? I don’t think the part of her body bit fits since anything that is in physical contact is as close to being part of her body as her hair is. i suppose you could say that it needs to have her dna, but if that was the case then since the two concepts operate on the same principles then she’d be unable to teleport the clothing to her as it does not contain her dna. Also, if she can essentially summon clothing then why not other things? Like the detenators from all of the worlds nukes?
I’d try to analyse that, but I am stuck mentally picturing Harem’s origin story.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Well, she made her first copy when she was 8, so…
Eeew, don’t go ruining a mental picture like that!
@Dave.
NOW look what you’ve done! ;)
That was funny! Thanks!
*delurk-ificates*
egads I think with one comic you just debunked and de-legalled Marvel’s Civil war! (yes i’m still miffed about it, OMD and OMIT came from that :/ )
Congratulations on your de-lurkification. And welcome to the community.
Welcome Kladyelf! Please make yourself at home
I always thought that opossum and possum (‘possum) were basically the same word. The Australian ones that I’ve seen at first glance look like feral cats on steroids.
Spare a thought for the poor Opossum
If you should chance to run across ‘im;
He eats the bark of trees, and nuts,
And tin from off the roof of huts,
Which constipates his little guts.
DaveB do it at your own speed to create the product you are happy to display for us and nothing less. Now “Lovecraft Is Missing” was doing okay a page every week to a few weeks or so until recently. Only one artist/writer Larry Latham. who did everything including color. Lately he has hit a snag and I don’t know when his next page will come out.
You have managed to produce a page a week for several years. That is just fine with me. No complaints.
is it just me or does Suzy News look a lot more asian than she did back when we first saw her during the bank robbery?
DaveB’s just getting better with his drawing.
Yay! \o/ <– (for the better drawing) :)
All it would take to make ARCHON not covered by posse comitatus is have it attached to the Department of Homeland Security, just like the Coast Guard
seems like suzie [and mayhaps some others] might have been a few questions ahead of time.
Oh it may just be a co-incidence. Something like Suzie overhearing that phrase in a conversation her aunt and a family friend had recently. She is probably wondering why Arianna seems familiar.
I’m willing to bet that Suzie did some research in the few hours there have been between the bank robbery and now – If she’s anything of a reporter, she knows that she stumbled onto the story of the year with that bank robbery interview, and if she can keep her face as the ‘go-to’ person for ARCHON news/info she’ll be set for life. To do that, she needs to show she’s competent, intelligent and prepared right now.
If she’s being set up for the role by Arianna, Arianna will definitely bail her out here: It was a good question, on what can be considered an obscure point of law.
panel 7: excuse me im lifting weights here do you mind hiding somewhere else?
Completely unrelated to anything : could Halo use the hentorb to grab and thereby activate the other orbs?
No, as has already been explained (and demonstrated) she has to hold them in the palm of her hand with her digits firmly caressing them
mmmm… caressing…
My apologies. My computer got hijacked. Order has been restored.
On that note is the tentacle made merely of energy or is it corporeal like a real tentacle? To give a non-sexy example, could she jab the tentacle through someones chest, then whip it to the sides and rip them in half? Or is it only somewhat solid in the regions that make physical contact with an object, similar to telekinesis?
Eeew again!
I was going to say that’s puts me off my dinner. But actually, I am feeling rather peckish now.
can it be grabbed or is it only the grabber?
I guess we will have to wait and see.
It’s solid and can be grabbed, but it disappears if Sydney lets go of the orb.
I’ve I’ve been too busy to do more than drop in to vote lately, but I just noticed something that’s got my curiosity percolating. S. Wen spelled backwards = news. Was that deliberate, or just a coincidence?
Oh cool, I had been wondering what an earlier comment alluding to something clever about her name had been hinting at. It whooshed over my head. I have never been much good at spotting anagrams.
I’m not good at it either, apparently, since it took this long for me to get it. Even then, it was mostly because I was yawning over the posse comitatus thing. There have been ways around that since them good ol’ western days, roundin’ up a posse to go git them horsethievin’, murderous outlaws, or what have you. Blah, blah, blah, whatever. Arianna better watch out. Syd’s been good, so far, but she’s already looking unhappy on the stage. I’m amazed that she hasn’t succumbed to the blistering rays of the sun yet. Wait a second. Ari saw that fit she had on video, didn’t she? What has she done/is she planning to nip that reaction in the bud? Count on Syd to tough it out? That’s risky.
Sydney’s able to function in sunlight if her eyes are shaded and she’s wearing long sleeves and pants. It’s like pulling a hood over a falcon. Calms her right down.
Not sure if anyone’s brought it up, but I do believe that, under current interpretations of Posse Comitatus and other statues including but not limited to the National Defense Authorization Act of FY2007 (a fancy way of saying the law that authorized the U.S. defense budget for the 2007 financial year) all that’s needed to use federal forces in a law enforcement role is for the President to make a determination that there has been an incident – natural or man-made disaster, terrorist attack, public health emergency, and so on – that local and state forces are unable to maintain law and order.
Bah. The HTML for the citation broke. The quote was from HR5122, the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. The text is available here and the quote can be found on pages 322-323.
I think it is similar to martial law in that its intent is to allow flexibility in the event of a serious incident. The implication being that once the incident is over that the normal state of affairs should resume. In particular people want to avoid the (all too common) historical examples of regimes declaring a state of emergency or martial law, which then allows the military to do things they cannot under normal civilian law, but then decide never to return to normal. In the last couple of years we have seen regimes toppled which had kept such laws active for decades, in order to stop normal civilian regulations from curbing their powers.
In this case, there will never be a return to the status quo. Super heroes are here to stay in the Grrlpowerverse. And, unless he were seeking to replace civilian rule with military rule, no president should use a law intended to overcome a temporary crisis as a way of dealing with a permanent situation.
Even so, I don’t think that establishing Archon as part of the DoD would necessitate a permanent state of emergency – not all metas are necessarily operating at the power levels of Max or Dabbler. It’s quite possible that you could have bad-guy metas with additional abilities that, while they may be “powers,” are not “super” enough to keep them from being taken down by non-meta local authorities. And in those situations where those local authorities aren’t enough to take down whatever meta threat arises, the request goes up, the President gives authorization, and Archon swoops into the rescue. It’s quite similar to how a mayor requests National Guard assistance from a state governor.
That said, it’s also quite possible that, as mentioned in other comments, that Archon may simply be used in a similar manner as the Coast Guard – they’re attached to Homeland Security normally, thus stepping around Posse Comitatus entirely. And when a meta threat arises overseas, Archon gets seconded to the DoD to deal with it.
Everything you are saying is true. But I believe DaveB has thought through the implications in his particular setting very well. Because there are a limited number of supers, there are not enough to go around and fill all the roles you may need. Ideally you would want to keep the super-cops separate from the super-army. Each fulfils a different purpose. But without the numbers to make both organisations effective in their own right, you need a single one that can adapt to both roles.
Which means you also have to make the decision are they principally a military force or a civilian one? Bear in mind that this is not just for a possible war, but that some supers out there might be stronger than an army on their own. Planning for a worst case scenario, you must face the possibility that some threats (be it foreign invasion or top-end supers) will need the combined powers of all friendly supers and the full might of the armed forces.
Plus super powers are a great unknown. Unlike conventional warfare, where you can monitor deployments and (usually) get a clue before fighting starts, a super-aided crisis can be on you with no warning. So it is best to have the structures in place, in advance, if you want to stand a chance to survive.
By example (and not meant as a criticism, just to illustrate the difficulty in changing roles from civilian to military) it took over a year (in some aspects closer to two years) for the US to shift from a peace-time economy to a war-time one, after Pearl Harbour.
It is easy to visualise the chaos if Supers were initially structured under a civilian agency then, only when a such a devastating emergency started, being required to adapt to operating under military orders. The military would not know how to take advantage of the powers of the supers, there would be no co-ordination, the supers themselves would likely lack discipline and so on. It is why most countries maintain a regular standing army, in the first place.
Very, very true. The mind boggles at Sydney actually being expected to operate under military discipline. (The act of grabbing someone’s tongue to judo-toss them is traditionally frowned upon.) Either way, we should get a sense of how Dave plans to handle this over the next week or so.
Hmmm, if she had grabbed anyone other than Mr.Amorphous, she would have only succeeded in ripping their tongue out. Tho it would have be far more likely that she’d just lose her grip on said tongue. I don’t think she’d even make it as a cop after doing something like that a couple times.
I am trying out a couple of RSS viewers and alternatives. One of which is https://goodnoows.com/ . Of interest, although they focus on news-style articles, they have “Comics” section. Although it is highly appropriate if building your own, personal, on-line newspaper.
Something you might want to take particular note of though, DaveB is that it also includes a selection of default RSS-feed comics in it. Dilbert, by example. But, most notably XKCD, which I recall also being on Google Reader, way back when I originally set up my options there. I remember, at the time, thinking that was a cunning way to get new readers. Possibly (over and above just being good) helping to account for his massive readership. Whether it was free to get his included there, or not, I do not know.
Good News is small-fry compared to Google-reader mind. But, it would be a great way of advertising. Assuming either no charge or a nominal one, to add a RSS feed to one of their default categories. And, I am sure other readers can suggest more readers which include default sites that you might be able to approach.
If it turns out to be a quick matter to apply, it might be worth doing so promptly, as Google Reader finishes at the end of the month, and I am sure there will be lots of other people, like myself, who have put off switching, despite the reminders. You could end up giving yourself a nice boost in readership.
I’m desperate to find a 1:1 replacement for Google Reader. The best bet so far seems to be The Old Reader, which is functionally almost identical but a lot slower. Commafeed.com is another but it seems to be even slower than TOR at the moment. I don’t like the “clump everything in a feed together” style of goodnoows like flipboard does. At least that looks like it from goodnoows’s screenshots, but I’m willing to take a look and see how customizable it is.
Sorry, this is a very long post, but it may save hours worth of testing on your behalf.
I have been working my way through some recommendations made by freewaregenius. I have been following their advice for years, and they have never steered me wrong.
My only feed experience is with Google Reader and these, so I am just comparing them versus each other.
Good Noows is geared towards making a newspaper-like reading environment, and does a very good job of it. You can create separate tabs for different purposes, so can tailor each type of feed you use to best effect by treating them differently in their own tabs. Having eight different styles to choose from.
In testing, I have set up four media sources to provide headline news. That section being displayed in a 4×4 grid, with a small thumbnail picture, if any. But with the headline and a enough of the body of the text that often you do not need to even click on the link to get the gist. As the layout is easy on the eye, it is easy to scan a whole page worth of 16 articles and easily pick out any of interest.
I have a tab each for science and tech news. Even with multiple sources, there are not as many articles to go through, so it is worth having larger articles with bigger pictures. I display those in a 4 column by 2 row grid. Oddly RSS feeds appear to support two different types of picture, which can be viewed in different modes, so it is worth experimenting with the types, to see what each feed source provides and how well they fit each layout.
Weirdly, half the movie trailer feeds have text-only descriptions. Whereas the other half have big photos, in addition to a text description. So I have the former set up with the newspaper headlines style 4 x 4 grid. The latter in a 2 column by 4 row grid (the opposite to the above) as that matches their layout better.
For feeds which provide little more than a headline, such as many podcasts and a high proportion of comics (presumably, in the latter case, wanting to ensure that readers go to the website in order to get their advertising exposure and clicks on voting) you can have feeds which only gives the one line to each item. Cramming in a lot per page.
However, where Good Noows beats both the others is that, for comics such as Grrl Power itself, YAFGC, PS238 & Blade Bunny, where you can view the comic directly from the reader, the aptly-named “comic” mode provides exactly enough space for each comic. Which for the ones that do not have standard page sizes (YAFGC can vary between 3 panels and 8 or more, including huge ones) means that you avoid vast areas of blank for the smaller pages that do not fill up a pre-set size (as happens with the gadgets for Proto Page).
The minus side is that you cannot undo viewing an article (even if the linked website has a problem and crashes before loading, it still marks it as read). You can work around that issue though, as you can always change the preferences to display, rather than hide, read items, until you locate it. Sadly those work global, rather than per tab. So you need to re-set it if you have a lot of news feeds like I do.
A very nice feature is that you can pass on any article to Evernote or other site which can store and organise things you want to keep permanently, add notes to them and so on.
Whereas Proto Page has some of that functionality built into it. Being able to put sticky post-it style notes where convenient, for example. If you are familiar with both, I would say that it behaves much more like (the now defunct) Google Home Page, than Google Reader (although it can emulate the latter ok). Specifically as regards being able to set up gadgets.
So there are a host of things like weather displays, clocks and so on you can incorporate in addition to the RSS feeds. Each being customisable in exactly where you can place it, colour, and (to some degree) the style of layout. The last bit being a lot more restrictive than Good Noows though, in my opinion. As yet, for example, I have not found a way to ensure that each item is clearly linked to any photo. You get several lines of text, each being a single feed, but just the one photo from amongst them. So it falls well short on the readability of Good Noows for news items.
One nice touch though is that, for things you are likely to want to refer back to later, is that the viewed items do not disappear but (other than comics) get a line striking through if they are read. As such, unless FeedDemon (or another reader suggestion) turns out to be better, I am likely to get my news feed and RSS readable comics on Good Noows. But use Proto Page for anything I am likely to want to refer back to later, like podcasts and those comics which I prefer not to follow weekly but instead catch up with a batch at a time. Giving each their own dedicated gadget allows me to easily see how many have built up unread, and allow me to go back to the struck through read ones if I want to as well.
Here is freewaregenius’s review, which includes the above two:
https://www.freewaregenius.com/three-awesome-online-rss-aggregators-that-you-probably-didnt-know-about/
And this is the article (their top picks list) which recommends the one I am just about to try out, namely Feed Demon (I suspect that this will meet your needs best DaveB if you want a direct replacement for Google reader, without the extra frills either of the above two provide):
https://www.freewaregenius.com/top30/#FeedDemon
One other that you might consider is a plugin for Google Chrome:
https://www.freewaregenius.com/read-rss-feeds-right-on-the-chrome-toolbar-with-rss-feed-reader/
I liked what I saw of goodnoows after playing with it for a bit, but one must have feature it didn’t have that I’m shocked isn’t standard in every RSS reader, is the ability to sort feeds with the oldest ones first. It makes sense for any news feed, but it’s critical for reading comics. I’d be happy to give it another shot if that feature ever gets added in, or if hopefully it’s something I missed, but it makes no sense to me to not to have it.
But why would anyone want to read old news? Old news isn’t news, it’s olds. I get that you want to use it for viewing webcomics, but if that isn’t what it was originally intended for then why would it have a feature that’s most important to reading webcomics?
It just makes sense to read old news first so you don’t see “Udpate: The important thing we posted earlier has changed” then after that “Important thing”
I agree that it would be a useful feature, and is the kind of thing you would expect as standard. But, given that it does sort it in date order, that alone would not put me off, as it is very easy to scroll down to the bottom, to work up from the oldest news that way. Likewise comics remain in chronological order.
But I do appreciate that it is easier working from the top down, if only because if you want to mark items as read the remaining items move up to fill the place of the one you deleted. Meaning you never have to touch the scroll bar.
If you do not find a better option though, the above is a simple work-around for that issue.
Speed wise, I should mention, that I have not noticed any problems with my testing. And that is with a obsolete laptop and slow internet connection (via radio, not a ground line). There is a delay when switching tabs, but none when working through the articles, in either. In fact, Grrl Power is quicker to read in Good Noos than in its home!
Obviously though testing volumes are low so I cannot say how they would stand up if large amounts of data built up. When I had all my science and tech feeds in a single tab on Good Noos, it warned me that there may be lag with that many feeds and advised splitting it up into separate tabs. Which I did.
Thoughts on Maxima’s argument: Matches may not be regulated but bigger fire-causing/related-thing is regulated. Gas furnace or something like it (don’t for sure but there’s surely some safety regulation of these stuffs. At least those of certain size or type), explosives, firearms, ect.
I’m commenting on this as I read it, so maybe this has since been addressed, but it bothers me a little whenever someone arguing against power registration in comics is portrayed as being in the right, so:
The matches=fire power isn’t a fair comparison. It’s the same deal as guns vs. knives; you can’t stab someone across a room, and even if you could, you wouldn’t be able to do it as accurately as with guns, and even if you could, you can’t stab someone over sixty times in as many seconds, and even if you could, you couldn’t shatter bones with it, and even if you could, you couldn’t… etc. You can’t instantaneously light someone on fire with matches or a lighter, you can’t do it from a large distance away, etc. And while, yes, there are going to be people who can put out fires with their minds, there are also going to be people who can blast holes in walls/flowers/people with their minds. You’d want the former registered too anyway, because now you know who to call if there’s a massive forest fire and your firemen are having trouble dealing with it quickly enough to stop it from spreading.
A registry isn’t a way to Oppress the Masses, it’s a way to make sure that if someone has powers, people know about it. It means that if there’s someone in the area who can start fires with their mind and suddenly there are a lot of fires being started in the area without any sort of firestarting device found at the scene, the police have somewhere to start. It’s the same deal as with guns. I can’t see any legal reason that someone wouldn’t hire someone who could start fires with their minds, assuming that their powers are stable enough that they wouldn’t go off on their own–and that’d be a legitimate reason to deny them a job where there are a bunch of children around; kids can be really annoying sometimes, and if you’re a person with a power you can’t completely control you’d have to be incredibly irresponsible to apply for a position in that field. The employer would deserve to know.
Ahh, so you are perfectly happy to be placed on a sex-offenders register? And be obliged to regularly report into a police station and have your name address and photo published in the local newspapers, to warn people that you are living in their neighbourhood.
Why am I asking that rhetorical question? Because scientists are looking to see if they can find genetic predispositions to behaviours. With particular emphasis on criminality and sexual behaviours. Should they decide that they have found a link, it will not take much convincing, for one political party or another, to decide to take the actions I mention above.
And you might have one of the markers that they decide gives a pre-disposition to paedophilia. So, despite that fact that you are not, and have led an unblemished, law abiding life, you will find yourself being placed on the register. Just because you were born with a particular set of genes.
If that seems unfair to you, then look at your argument about registering super heroes again. They have done nothing wrong. Why should a pyrokinetic super be constantly harassed by policemen every time there is a suspicious fire or actual arson, somewhere in the state? Regardless of their capabilities, they have every right to be treated as innocent as everybody else.
This is exactly the same reason why we do not require people to register their religion. And why people are allowed to vote anonymously. So that people, who use arguments like yours, cannot harass them, or easily round them up and put them in prisons and/or death camps.
In short you place people who have demonstrated criminal behaviour and a pre-disposition to certain types of crime on a register. You do not do that just because someone is born black, Jewish or able to run faster than anybody else.
The other reason being that the Marvel writers are perfectly right to indicate that it would lead to war between the normals and the supers. Nobody likes being oppressed. But supers have the capability to fight back against majority oppression. I would put my money on the supers winning.
So, if you want to advocate such a law, kindly ensure that you, and everybody who supports the bill, places their name and addresses on a register. So that they will know who to round up and place in the death camps. I am a firm advocate of proactive defence, and it is not like you were born oppressive. It is an active choice you are making. And I would not want to see the rest of humanity being driven into extinction because of your decision.
I’m not arguing that they’d have to report to a police station regularly, or have their picture put in a newspaper. I’m arguing that the government should have their name on a list, alongside what abilities they have, and that such a list should be available to employers. Please don’t put words in my mouth.
If I was designing this system, I’d also create support groups for individuals with less stable powers. These groups would be primarily focused on helping them find a work environment where their abilities would not be harmful to those surrounding them.
Okay, wait a moment, are you seriously comparing me to a Nazi? This isn’t even remotely similar to an issue of religion or ideology. I compared this to a gun registry deliberately; you cannot faith your way through a wall or use your ethnicity to run at a hundred miles per hour. I guess I understand why you might be opposed to the idea of the government having a list of people that they can look at if something suspiciously ‘unnatural’ happens in the area, but I don’t think it’s fair to turn this into a discussion about oppression and death-camps, especially in this universe, where they already have a police force composed of supers. Clearly, the government isn’t against their existence.
Indeed, I was not trying to put words in your mouth. Merely showing that similar arguments are used in contemporary real life situations. And the places that they end up going. There are plenty of people who would support publishing names and addresses for everyone to see. It is regularly argued by certain segments of society, politics and the media. Always preceded by establishing a registry.
And I am not comparing you to a Nazi. You just happen to be choosing to support a line of argument that parallels the ones they used. It is not a co-incidence that in the X-Men movies Magnito was shown to have been a child survivor of a death camp. It was a blunt way of driving home the analogy. And one that is, as such, well established in the genre. So, if supporting super hero registration, it is you who are drawing yourself closer to that camp. Not me pushing you.
I note that you have reduced it from all police having access to it, to just a select few in the government. Sadly, even if you have total faith in the government of the day, they change every few years. But once a registry is created, the people on it are marked for life. And if the next government wants to start exterminating, they know exactly which doors to kick down.
And that is not to mention the fact that even apparently benign governments use black ops. Like rendition and torture. I certainly would not feel happy knowing that kidnappers and torturers had my name on a list somewhere.
Where you do make a better argument is the gun registry line. But there are several counter arguments to that one. For instance part of the reason for the gun registry is to ensure that guns do not fall into the hands of people not approved to carry them. So that if, say, a house is burgled and the owners killed, then the police can tell that the robbers have stolen weapons, if they are no longer on the premises. But supers are people. They cannot be stolen. So that aspect is out of the window.
The other aspect is that guns are dangerous. So if we narrow it to that point, then I may find an area of agreement with you. If somebody is not in control of their power, and thereby poses a constant danger to people or property, then steps need to be taken. So an institute to help them, as you say, would be a useful and laudable step. And keeping track of them whilst they are unstable would be necessary too. So a registry, in that context would be acceptable. Provided that once they were taught how to control their powers or otherwise make them safe, that they are removed from the list.
Why? Because people are not objects. The gun registry tracks objects. Not people. It just happens that people are the ones who own the objects, and need to fill in the form. But if they get fed up with being on the registry, they can sell the guns, and will be taken off it. A super cannot. So using that as a precedent for your registry is not valid, it applies to something completely different.
As a point of law, you cannot argue that means which are justified for containing and tracking criminals, who are deemed likely to re-offend, can also be applied to other members of society. No matter how great their personal power. Otherwise you will need to include Bill Gates on the list. He has massive power, through the amount of money, and social/political influence he wields. Likewise you would need to include everybody who owns a pen-knife. Because that is all that the terrorists who destroyed the Twin Towers used.
It is immoral to isolate and track individual people just because you think they might do something. Unless you have proof that they intend to do so, or they have a past history of such behaviour (voluntarily or through lack of control) then they are innocent. And no innocent person should ever be put on a registry, against their will.
Please note, I am not having a personal go at you. Merely the argument you are supporting. Grrl Power fans are nice people, after all.
Any policy, that has both visible, but superficial, benefits and substantial hidden drawbacks, needs to have the latter pointed out. And the more dangerous the deficiencies, compared to the apparent advantages, the stronger the counter-arguments need to be made. Registrations is a very bad idea. One that totalitarian governments might employ, but which enlightened societies should fight against. Very hard.
Just saying – in the comic, it says ‘book of matches’ not ‘box of matches’, second panel.
Enjoying this immensly!
A book of matches is the foldy-over kind.
It just occurred to me that being a firestopper would be the most dangerous power. If stopping a fire means arresting oxidation, then if one were to arrest oxidation in another person’s body they would die of hypoxia in very short order. And for a firestopper to be effective, they would need to be able to stop fire in a wide building (or larger) sized area, so they could conceivably kill a building full of people with just a thought.
I’m sure someone said this years ago, but the obvious way a “put out fires with mind” power could be used to hurt people – switching off all engine combustion in a given vehicle as it tries to merge into rush-hour traffic.