Grrl Power #432 – Claim your crater
I should mention the icons on the map aren’t to scale, otherwise it would look like Sydney blew up an area the size of a small mall. There’s just a minimum size they appear as when you zoom the map out.
Arc-LIGHT is probably pretty busy with stuff like this. Investigating super powered crimes could potentially be enormously difficult. Some of them wouldn’t, obviously – vault doors torn off their hinges with deep fingerprints gouged into them for example. A vault door melted into a puddle would be harder to track back to the culprit, but still pretty easy to identify as being super powered in the first place. But a smart super criminal who could phase or teleport could be a thief or assassin who was tremendously difficult to identify or stop. Especially if they took the time to leave fake evidence behind. If they did it right, they could make it look like no super powers were involved at all. Phase through a door, unlock it from the other side, and make everyone think they had a key or it was an inside job. Or kick in a door or break a window on your way out. Arc-LIGHT keeps tabs on unsolved cases around the country, looking for patterns. Locked room mysteries, things stolen despite extraordinary layers of security, etc.
The Atypical Resource Commission has existed for a long time in one form or another as previously established in the comic. Individuals or small teams, then unofficially, then officially as a collection of different departments. Before the announcement of Archon as a unified and public agency, they were pretty much still doing what they’re doing now.
With the announcement of Archon, two things will happen. One, all the stupid super criminals will get caught and quickly rounded up. Obviously, some of them were taken down along the way before the announcement, but some of the ones that weren’t considered imminent threats to life were put on a waiting list of sorts, so the team could create a positive PR boon that will have Arianna dancing around in her office. Another thing her and Maxima were at odds about. Two, all the smart ones will expend that much more effort on not getting caught. Of course, the team knew this before the announcement, but they also knew the smart ones knew or at least suspected there was already an agency on the lookout for them, so nothing really changed there.
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Reminds me, again, of Bystander, where a girl with super strength got drunk, walked into a bank vault, and tried to rip it off the hinges.
And realized she had no other plan.
I can’t google this. What is this “bystander”? A comic book? A webcomic? A book? Some other form of media?
It’s a novel by Luke Green . Some of the earlier chapters can be found posted to his DeviantArt account (“Thrythlind”)
A fellow Grrlpower commentator.
Watch out for the ones that zoomed out spell out ‘Xuriel. I am Coming.’
Isn’t that what Greenie shouted out last night? Several times? >_>
I’m curious what the bluish neutron/molcule/atom looking one means. It’s obviously not radiation since they have the Rad symbol on the board. Is someone shrinking or maybe teleporting?
You mean the purple atom? Yeah, that is a good question. Matter distortion/general hinkiness, maybe? Or maybe Dave grabbed random clip art stuff to use…
Maybe Dave looked through my DA account and saw this:
https://orig10.deviantart.net/7a5b/f/2014/035/4/0/mite_05_by_kaeto1-d755ns4.jpg
Hee, she’s a lil cutie :D
Champions RPG character of mine.
Still voting for Ray Palmer sightings…
Size of explosion icon might also indicate relative power…
It is worth noting the opening paragraph of the author’s blog, above.
I would how the local rangers/park caretakers took that.
The same as any other fire. Once it was contained they would have tried to assess the cause. Given the unknown elements that they must have found (for it to appear on the layer as “possibly super in origin”), they could not narrow it down to more than “accidental fire or arson probably caused by human action using unknown means”.
Archon will now be able to give them feedback that the means has now been identified and brought under control (whilst holding their fingers crossed, behind their backs). Further they will be able to confirm that the cause was accidental.
The former means the park rangers do not need to waste further resources trying to prevent a repeat occurrence. The latter would relieve them of any need to press for prosecution. To aid that course, Archon can specifically advise and request that course of action and, request that the information remain confidential, on the grounds of national security.*
Provided that an internal Archon investigation can corroborate Sydney’s story (which need be little more than a formality, under the circumstances, and given her open co-operation), it is perfectly reasonable to do just that.
* Archon can even offer to pay compensation for any property damage that may have been involved, such as to picnic sites. But keeping it in accordance with park policies / regulations on how accidental fires, by private citizens, are handled.
Neat.
That bit of exposition was fairly unnecessary. She started a fire, the area shown could have been the area that burned, with her initial blast being ‘only’ as locally devastating as her shot on the tank.
That exposition was necessary to explain that her little testing wasn’t big enough to require four engines to put it out, and that Arc-Light’s map aren’t as detailed as Google’s
What’s next for Sydney???
Sydney will meet a dashing but eccentric Englishman and fall in love. Then go off crime fighting with a super-powered dog. Then she will wake up, forgetting all her dreams, in the realization that the day is not even half-way done.
Probably.
+5 pts
Close! Meets a dashing but eccentric dog and falls in love. I don’t think the Englishman has shown up yet, but it’s still early. They’ve probably met some sort of crime-fighting Englishman and I just lost track.
Someone who throws radioactive fire, apparently.
After her nap of course.
Radioactive fire is just nonsense. Radiation heats things up so it could start fires though.
Tell that to Godzilla.
Godzilla listens to no one.
Godzilla breathes pure radiation. The flames are air igniting from the intense radioactive energy.
Emergency services, responding to a fire, will be warned if it is a “chemical fire”. It means they need to take far more precautions, such as checking the nature of the chemicals before even attempting to put it out. As was disastrously demonstrated in the fire in China earlier this year, if you spray water onto the wrong kind of chemicals, you end up with an explosion that can destroy half a port!
I am pretty sure that they will be similarly warned if there is a “radioactive fire” and for similar reasons. Plus if something exists in the real world (and we have seen both Chenobyl and Fukoshima) then there is no reason why a super-power could not emulate it. In fact the individual might have gained their powers from either of those incidents.
So, whilst you are correct from a physics point of view (despite the fact that the Sun is a big radioactive ball of fire), I feel that it is perfectly reasonable to use “radioactive fire”, from a linguistics perspective, under several circumstances.
Some sort of ionised fuel-source which oxidises to produce a neutrally-charged residue and H+ Ions? (Proton emission counts as radiation :P)
Actually, ALL fires are radioactive in nature, in that they emit broad spectrum infrared and visible light radiation. If anything, it’s simply redundant.
That said, if it’s a fire involving nuclear materials or emissions in the gamma to beta range of the spectrum, that would certainly require special techniques to address, as well as special equipment.
It would also attract the attention of a variety of governmental departments as soon as such emissions were detected, ranging from the usual alphabet soup of investigatory agencies as well as various nuclear regulatory agencies, the Dept. of Energy, the military.. basically anyone with an interest in a potential Chernobyl type situation. Suffice to say it wouldn’t be a ‘wait till tomorrow’ kind of issue. Mostly because fire bad, cesium in the breeze far worse.
While all fires technically produce radiation, when humans talk about radiation we usually mean forms which are dangerous to us. Most fires do not produce alpha, beta, or gamma radiation.
Did Sydney… KNOW that the PPO was gonna destroy things?
Or was it just really fortunate that she was testing the orbs in the middle of nowhere?
They always give the hero a ranged attack. She would know that!
Sydney had no idea what any of the orbs did, until she tried them out. As such we cannot say that they have “always given her a ranged attack”. All she knew, on first testing, is that they were able to start fires. Halo could not know their full potential, until she had found a method to assess that. Such as lifting up successively bigger weights, to find the upper limit for her tentacle.
Whilst I could envisage Sydney getting carried away and deciding to blast trees, to see what the PPO can do, I do not feel that is the most likely scenario. She is not stupid and using something that emits blasts of fire, at full strength, without even being able to guess the upper limit, is a quick way to kill yourself.
Rather I imagine she started small, such as trying to start her camp-fire with it. That alone could have gotten out of control, if bits of camp fire got blasted out of her camp site/test area, and into the forest proper. But from the fact that she could say they were “pretty powerful” I guess she had reached the point where her blast punched through the target she was aiming at (say a big rock) and either the molten debris or the blast itself, then set the forest ablaze.
Note though that this is could be (and in my opinion is most likely) the point at which Halo realized, for sure, that it is more than just a fire-starter, but is actually a ranged weapon.
The fact that the incident appears on this layer of the map, as being of possible super origin, corroborates the latter (or a manic blasting spree, admittedly). Something about the ignition point left traces which were not indicative of a careless camp fire or similar normal cause.
The biggest support for my take is that Sydney was paranoid about being found out, so was trying to keep her activities secret. She did not want to leave traces that would point to someone with super-powers having been active in the area. What happened caught her by surprise!
My guess would be she tried for small, but got surprisingly big instead! Poke a few little things, get a HUGE result instead. I’m just glad they never worked out it was me… :P
Really? What’s Wolverine’s ranged attack? “Being thrown by Colossus” doesn’t count.
Umm, he uses guns, those still count, don’t they?
Wolverine: ranged attack: considering Wolverine isn’t a ‘hero’, but an ‘anti-hero’, or at best ‘vigilante’, he has no built-in range attack. however, he has used guns, shuriken, swords (mind you, throwing a sword isn’t really all that great an idea) and possibly grenades.
If it’s a straight sword, and properly balanced, shouldn’t be much different in principle to throwing a javelin (or spear, since spears are not typically used as a ranged thrown weapon)
In the era when swords were used they were a considerable expense. The majority of troops could not afford them. Throwing a sword is a very good way to ruin its edge, at the very least, or even breaking it completely. Simultaneously to disarming yourself and, worst case, arming your opponent!
However this guy argues very compellingly for the other side of the case.
A couple of his points had flaws mind. For instance I thought “never bring a knife to a swordfight”, when he talked about having that as a backup weapon. Having just given your sword to your opponents. Plus he placed quite a lot of emphasis on its usefulness in gladiatorial combat. Which does not really support the case for general combat. Although he did get around to that, in the end.
Other points were well made though. However I was surprised that he failed to point out the most useful option, when talking about throwing a sword beyond the front ranks of the enemy. Namely targeting an enemy officer or leader.
What he failed to address in his testing though was how effective it would be to try and throw a sword over a line of opponents. Especially given that , as he pointed out, parrying techniques were taught to protect against thrown swords.
Which was the most compelling flaw in his argument. That source did not teach how to throw a sword.* It taught how to counter it. Implying that the latter was the more useful practical battlefield skill.
* But one of the other sources he cited did. So, as he says, it is a useful option to have available. However rarely the circumstances might be optimal for it.**
** About once a movie, if Hollywood is to be believed.
Generally, it would have been a last ditch move, a very pointy and sharp ‘Hail Mary Pass’, and not part of a greater battle moment
Noting too that, regardless of wheter or not the throw move actually works, the person is NOW WITHOUT HIS SWORD. In a one-on-one (such as a duel) perhaps not a big problem, but anywhere / anyplace else …..
Like said, it’s a last ditch move, if the thrown sword misses, it should at least have made them duck or blink, giving you time to get away or hide, or just quietly die preventing the douche from having the satisfaction :P
The vast majority of “Bricks” (Thing, Hulk, Colossus, Wonder Woman) don’t begin with ranged attacks, and many never develop innate ranged attacks, typically relying on nearby objects as missiles (for example, Colossus often used Wolverine as a ranged attack).
I enjoyed seeing Wolverine as your example, as I would assume most would go to the more typical examples I cited.
Driving off cliffs on motorcycles and leaping
Even without momentum he could really leap he is the ranged weapon
That was her first really high-powered test. She already previously stated that the first test set her living room on fire. At a guess she decided to continue testing out of doors thereafter.
I’m going to need to request a source for that “first test set living room on fire” statement. I’ve read through Grrl Power from start to finish about ten times since I first discovered it, and I don’t remember ever seeing her say that. That doesn’t necessarily mean she didn’t (she’s verbose at times, and stuff can get lost in the mix), but I’d think having read it that many times I’d have caught it at least one of them.
I suspect Crimson is actually remembering the Maxima’s backstory–the flashback where she accidentally blasted a hole in her living room wall as a teenageer. The first reference to Sydney’s PPO is this flashback and that seems to be her starting the forest fire.
Agreed.
I guess she went out in the middle of nowhere specifically to test them
You see, I’d have made a Time Bandits reference, or maybe The Wiz. The 80’s were not kind to me.
Et Tu Shneekey? The 80’s my teen years I don’t remember them fondly they sucked geeks and nerds where not hip. Time Bandits I have it on DVD great movie.
I might have made a The Wild Wild West reference. That’s a show I watched as a kid, even though it was in re-runs before I was old enough to remember watching TV. Michael Dunn played an excellent villain in Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless. A unpowered Lex Luthor to the unpowered heroes. Plenty of ‘supertech’ however. For the day, that is. Batman creators might have stolen the idea of all his gadgets from that show.
Sunset Dawn, legendary thief and slightly drunk walks into a bank opens the supposedly impenetrable bank vault steps inside in full view of staff, customers and guards they hear a loud sigh of relief from inside and then she walks back out of the vault.
“Where’s the toilet paper?” she asks the nearest staff member.
“Toilet is down that corridor,” she promptly points out to her.
“OH! Sorry!” she replies as she quickly heads out of the bank.
It took most of the day before the bank could get anyone in to clean up the mess…
Heh.
XD Lovely way to test security… XD
So, is the plural of “foot”, “foot”, or is 4 considered so few it is singular?
In this method of phrasing ‘foot’ is correct when the number of feet is followed by the inches. I don’t know why, but it is. If you aren’t also listing the inches at all, or if you call out that they are inches then ‘foot’ or ‘feet’ are both acceptable. “Three feet, seven,” is wrong. But, “three feet, seven inches,” is acceptable.
If you ended with ‘foot’ do not add ‘tall’. “Three foot tall,” is not acceptable English.
English is so dumb. I mean, lots of languages are, but English is right up there.
Therein lies the beauty of our Sovreign language, sweet Coz …… enjoy :-)
I think that’s because English isn’t ONE language at all. It didn’t evolve in isolation – it came into being through a lengthy series of invasion and assimilation of lots and lots of cultures. Each with their own grammar and spelling.
“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
–James D. Nicoll
Try learning Icelandic. Apparently it’s so rough that even the natives aren’t fond of it.
In the comic Sheldon, Dave Kellett said “The English language was carefully, carefully cobbled together by three blind dudes and a German dictionary.”
Easier to use Metric. :D
I heard an interview, several years ago, with the head of the relevant authority in the UK, and he did not agree with that. Bear in mind that the UK uses both, so he has no particular axe to grind. More importantly though he gets to see all the research, opinion polls and complaints by interested parties.
His conclusion is that, whilst mathematics with metric is easier, people relate to feet and inches much more readily. If a witness gives a cop somebody’s height in imperial measurements, for example, it is more likely to be accurate. This was on a science program, so he backed up all his comments with compelling studies, rather than it just being his subjective opinion.
However it did lead him to a firm conclusion. “As long as I am alive, and in this job, we will not abandon imperial units”.
Talked about this with mum last night, and we came to the conclusion that, with height it is singular (foot), but distance it is plural (feet) ie you are five foot tall and six feet away
“five foot tall” is not actually correct. If it is a measure, units should go in plural: “you are five feet tall”. To use it in singular, thus as a compound adjective, it shoud be hypenated: “a five-foot-tall man”.
However people don’t speak following rules but customs, so variants indeed can happen (along time rules and custom become each other, back and forward).
“However it did lead him to a firm conclusion…”
I would bet that it was the other way around :) especially if he casually happens to be an old fellow.
That’s due height being used as an adjective and the rule that adjectives are singular. If you use a quantificable characteristic as adjective, the unit become singular. There’s a lot of examples of that: a five foot man, a ten foot rope, a five door car, a four pint glass, a six step ladder.
*epic fight with Reality Central Computer*
Take that, you impostificator!
I knew it smelt of trouble, when that power cut took me off the internet, last night.
Least you’re back on the net, kinda went a bit absent for a while there…
Bit hard for me to get online lately too, Daniel the Human’s PC refuses to start up with Windows 10, so he can’t let me online TT_TT …
Yea, I have got to do that shortly too, before we get too close to the deadline. I have already run the test to see that my machine can handle it, which it can.* Plus I have downloaded the upgrade, ready to install. But I am holding off clicking on the “install” button, for precisely the reason you stated. I have a couple of time-critical things going on at the moment, and cannot afford to be offline, until they are resolved.
But, if it does go wrong, at least it will give everyone another well-deserved break from my yapping!
* Quite a relief as m yprevious machine failed. “Sorry this computer is not Windows 10 compliant. It does not recognize tapestry graphics card nor abacus CPU protocols.”
I’m not convinced that Microsoft intends to end the “Get Windows 10 free” offer on the 29th. For one thing, they have released no pricing information of any kind, which you would expect they would’ve done by now (it’s less than two weeks away before the offer is supposed to end).
For another, one of the reasons that Microsoft is trying so hard to convince people to upgrade to Windows 10 is because they are transitioning to a new business model. They will not make the majority of their profits from selling operating systems anymore; instead, they are going to make most of their profits from services like OneDrive. *
I have a feeling that on June 29th (or the 30th), Microsoft is going to say “So many people have already upgraded to Windows 10” (because Microsoft didn’t give some of them a choice)** “that we’ve decided to extend the offer another year!”
Having said all that, I do plan to upgrade to Windows 10. Once you turn the telemetry off, Windows 10 is actually a good operating system. It’s fast, it’s compact, and it isn’t a resource hog like some other versions of Windows. If you use the Media Center to stream video to other devices in your house, be aware that the Media Center does not come with Windows 10.
Also, be aware that Microsoft does NOT want you to know that you can actually turn the telemetry off. Unless you’re using the Enterprise Edition, there is no way to turn off the telemetry from the Control Panel. If you don’t want Microsoft to know every time you fart in Cortana’s general direction, you have to hack the Registry.
* The shift to services is why Windows 10 sends so much telemetry back to Microsoft, to help them target their services more accurately. Every time you ask Cortana a question, Microsoft knows what was asked. Every time you start an app, Microsoft knows which app you started and how long you used it. It doesn’t send any information that can identify you personally, but it *does* send the computer’s unique GUID.
** When I say that some people didn’t have a choice, the latest version of GWX didn’t give you a chance to opt out until 15 minutes before it started downloading Windows 10. The problem is that some people leave their computer turned on while they’re sleeping, so they never saw the “15-minute warning” message. As a result, a LOT of people people woke up in the morning or went to work to find that their home computer or work computer was already installing Windows 10. On top of that, some of their applications had to be re-registered before they would work.
Very solidly reasoned. Especially given that they have already let it slide to 29th July!
That is one point that is in error however. Even meta data can precisely identify you.
1. You use an app to order a pizza. The evil corporation can then guess that you live or work within a few blocks of the restaurant you ordered it from.
2. A few more interactions like that and they can narrow you down from “someone in that area” to someone in your building, what times you are at work or at home, what your income bracket is (pretty essential for targeted advertising) and more.
3. When you use an app to contact your sister (yup, just using meta data they would easily figure out your relationships within your friends and family network) and have an hour long conversation, then your next use is to contact an abortion clinic, they then have very personal data on you and your family.
Sounds far fetched? Not at all. A researcher asked for volunteers to allow him access to the same kind of meta-data that mobile phone companies routinely appropriate for their own use. He was then able to pin point individuals within that group. Not with being able to eavesdrop on conversations, but purely with the meta data (who is calling who, when, for how long, and so on).
Including that last example. Ie being able to deduce that individual’s sister was having an abortion.
Yes, PC app is not the same as a mobile phone situation. But it is close enough that similar things can be done. Especially with anyone who uses computers as intensively as most of us on these comments probably do.
And it does not take a detective sitting working through it. Meta data is designed to be handled by computers. So it can be very easily sorted and compiled into a profile, with little or no human intervention.
If an advertiser, or a prospective employer, or a hostile foreign government, wants to know all about you, it can be provided to them, at the click of a button. For a fee, where applicable, of course.
Yes, but officially, in order to avoid government investigation (meaning primarily the U.S. Department of Justice and the E.U. Department of Justice and Equality), Windows 10 can not send any personally identifying information such as your name, address, or phone number along with its metadata.
The fact that the metadata can be used to profile individuals is irrelevant in the eyes of the law, probably because it’s so pervasive… almost every major multinational corporation carries out some sort of collection of metadata, even if it’s only to determine what products sell best in what geographic regions.
I would not be surprised, however, if the Department of Justice and Equality turns its attention to Microsoft, once they figure out that the metadata can still be used to profile individuals, due to the “Right to be forgotten” and all that. Though I have a suspicion that, at worst, Microsoft would be forced to make it easier to turn off the telemetry in ALL versions of Windows 10. (Or even set the telemetry to default to “off”, at least within the borders of the EU.)
In any case, there are all sorts of free tools you can download to turn off the telemetry; even a quick search for “Windows 10 telemetry” comes up with results like “Windows 10 Privacy Fixer”, “Windows 10 Privacy and S**t”, “DoNotSpy 10”, “Disable Win Tracking”, “Destroy Windows 10 Spying”, etc. (all five of those are freeware programs that disable MOST of the telemetry.* Or, you can do it the hard way and hack the registry.)
* By “most” of the telemetry, I mean that most of these tools leave error reporting turned on. But you can disable that, too… a lot easier than you can disable the other telemetry. You’ve been able to turn off error reporting from the Control Panel ever since Windows XP.
I will have to investigate the tools, to see if there is one that is from a trustworthy enough source. Even with a step-by-step guide, I would not trust my registry hacking skills as far as I could throw them. Which is not very far. It is one of the reasons we hang around with humans.
*picks up a ball, in mouth, and offers it eagerly, tail wagging*
True, not all of them are trustworthy, in my opinion. There’s at least one that I know of that actually does turn off Microsoft’s telemetry, but also installs adware at the same time. In my mind, that’s almost the same as saying “Don’t let Microsoft spy on you… let us do that instead!”
There are guides on the web that compare the best Windows 10 privacy tools; perhaps you should refer to one of those. I’ve linked to one below. The tool I personally recommend is “Spybot Anti-Beacon”, which was created by the same people who wrote Spybot Search & Destroy (which I’ve been using for years).
Here’s that link I promised.
https://www.ghacks.net/2015/08/14/comparison-of-windows-10-privacy-tools/
Fanku kindly. [mumbled around ball]
You’re welcome.
*Takes ball from Yorp and gives it a fast southpaw pitch downfield*
*chases after ball, tail wagging frantically*
Re: Yorp’s earlier comment, as a rural librarian who also helps locals with their computers, I recommend NOT upgrading to Win10 if you live in a rural area unless you have always-on, 24-7, high-speed wireless; you can guarantee that you will be on a wired connection when MS pushes their updates; or if you have enough Win10 machines on your network to compensate for any outages and are allowing them access to your machine for update purposes.
I have patrons frequently coming in after Win10 installs/updates where the system doesn’t load; they lose access to the system search, the browser or entire sections of the drive; or a variety of other calamities. Usually, a rollback will work, but in a bit less than 1/4 of the cases, it has required a complete OS reinstall. Some of these are due to the instability of a new OS, but usually due to the update being interrupted due to patchy wifi, or power/ ISP outages (frequently a daily occurrence in my locale) .
I’ve even seen computers borked because the update tried to use (and exhausted) the patrons’ wireless monthly data plans, even after MS said they wouldn’t use them for for updates!
And now that MS is pushing large bundles of updates as downloads instead of pushing them out out piecemeal, the connection has to be on and uninterrupted for much longer.
Until they have a stable version that requires smaller update sizes or the updates are spread out more evenly, I recommend that my patrons either completely image their system before upgrading and before each major scheduled update or block the download of Win10 entirely with GWX Control Panel .
And I second the use of Spybot Anti-Beacon, which should be installed on any machine running Win7, 8, 8.1 and 10, as MS has pushed the Win10 telemetry as updates into those older versions of Windows, as well.
…and sorry about the overuse of italics. :)
Or maybe I meant July 29th and, due to a sudden brain fart, typed “June” instead. :)
Okay, okay, I admit it. Truth is, I simply was thinking of the wrong date for some reason. ;-)
All you have to do is say no to the windows 10 terms of service and it uninstalls.
Or, at any time within the first 30 days, you can do a “rollback” to your old version of Windows, which is stored on your hard drive in its entirety, simply by going to Settings and clicking on “Update & security”. There will be an option there to “go back to windows 7” or “go back to windows 8.1”, but only within the first month. On the other hand, if you decide you’re happy with Windows 10 before the 30 days is up, you can run the Disk Cleanup tool and tell it to “delete previous Windows installations”, and you can reclaim approximately 30 GB of hard drive space.
My experience with Windows 10 was that it ran me fifty bucks over on my monthly data and then refused to acknowledge that such a thing as WiFi even existed, never mind that my computer is capable of connecting to it. Then months after I roll back it tells me that it is going to install in 15 minutes without giving me any sort of opt out option and I had to quickly find how to muck around on the innards of my software to make it stop. Then that still didn’t work, so I had to do more research to find out how to permanently stop it from trying to switch my computer over. I am now very tempted to make sure that I never own a computer running windows again.
*nods*
Thanks for your help, likewise everyone else in the thread. I think I shall just have to be brave, and hope for the best. If I miss out on the free offer, I will not be able to afford to upgrade later, if it becomes unavoidable, due to the programs I wish to run.
I hate upgrading windows. Every time that happens half my game collection ceases to work! And I have never had any of them work in compatibility mode. But, given that I have gone for years on a stone-age PC, and have set aside a little each year to buy games when I eventually upgraded, I can get a bunch of discount ones, at Christmas.
Plus I will ensure that they are all Windows 10 compatible. So I will be as future proofed as I can.
I will take the plunge, sometime next week.
*covers eyes with paws, in anticipation of the train-wreck*
It’s the spot where Lrrr of Omicron Persei 8 and his wife renewed their romance in that Futurama episode, the one with all the dick/fapping puns. ‘Withdraw to a safe 500 meter distance’
I want to know if Lucas is in the loop for knowing about aliens on Earth. A lot of the weird energy readings that may show up on his map may be due to off-world artifacts or standard biological functions of non-terrestrial organisms. Those radioactive traces in the woods may just be the result of one visitor taking his pet out for ‘walkies’.
As a matter of practicality I would say he has to have that level of clearance. It would be impossible to do his job effectively otherwise. Although Sydney should play it safe and not make such an assumption, until she has been told who has such clearances.
Or, even better, how to check someone’s security level, so she can look it up directly herself.
Unbeknownst to Maxima, Sydney has probably been granted a clearance level even higher than her own! As the only full member of Archon who could take down Maxima, should she ever go rogue (Math and Dabbler are civilian consultants only). If this turns out to be the case, fate will probably dictate that such is vermilion clearance. ;-)
Finally I demand that you retract your claim that walkies could be causing super-level hazards! Walkies, with a pet, is a state of enlightenment that all humans should be encouraged to aspire to!
Even pets who urinate concentrated acid? o_O
For those, just avoid walkies in a submarine or space-ship.
And the ironic thing is, only watched the movie “Planet 51” a few hours ago :P
See see, the… eer… doggy analogue protects against the big bad monsters!
Thought you would have used a clip with the donut-teasing evil postie
Hmm, comparing the trailer and the actual opening musical number, they removed the doggie’s back tentacle-thingies :(
Speaking of doggies, Yorp, thanks for the Dog & Scissors recommendation–I’ve read what I can find of the manga, have seen 1/3 of the way through the anime and, now that I am starting to figure out what’s going on, I am enjoying the heck out of it!
Though, I must say, as a cynophobe in real life, I am finding it an odd experience empathising with a dog, however human he actually is…
Sorry for the late reply! I felt too sleepy to give it proper attention, when I first saw it. Then forgot, until I was in the vets today (seeing if I could come off my low-fat diet yet) and remembered your phobia, on seeing all the assorted pets present.
I am glad to have been of service. And am very sympathetic for you having such a debilitating phobia. It must really hamper your life. I hope the fact that I link to so many doggy pictures does not cause you distress? I used to have arachnophobia so bad that my brother could scare me senseless by just surprising me with a photo of a spider!
I think you are brave in following a story focused on something you have phobia for. Hopefully, in addition to you enjoying the entertainment, it will help to lessen the condition, as a gradual step. I hope that you will be able to carry on down that path, at a pace you feel comfortable with, and end up freeing yourself from the fear.
If it is any comfort phobias are fully curable, if the right techniques are used. Which I can testify to from personal experience. I even enjoy watching movies full of giant spiders, and have no problems if a daddy longlegs or similar spider walks on my skin. I wish that someday will, someday, get to enjoy the pleasures of stroking a doggy!
I work on it–All of my girlfriends have been dog people, and most of my brothers and my mom own dogs. I’m never completely comfortable around them, but I can pet calm quiet dogs, and can usually refrain from flinching when a familiar dog jumps up on me or a when a dog I’m passing starts to bark. Compared to the worst it has been, I’d say my phobia is currently relatively minor.
That said, the small, aggressive, loud dogs make me very nervous, (I’m told I was bitten in the face by one when I was a toddler), and dogs running loose cause me to become quite wary–I haven’t been bitten in almost two decades, but, in the past, attacks have undone all the work I’ve done and I’ve had to start again.
I’m not bothered by pictures of dogs, though I tend to not read the positive emotions into them that others do, and I tend not to anthropomorphize them as much as other people do. I do read books on dog psychology and body language, etc, as part of my practice so I hopefully won’t give off wrong signals, and one day, I hope to take a self-defense course, as training myself to react correctly should give me confidence in dealing with them. (I do not, however, watch films/tv featuring dog or wolf attacks, if I can help it–nightmares ensue).
All in all, the phobia is an everyday part of my psyche, and generally I feel I deal with it pretty well, though sometimes, something like Dog & Scissors comes along and makes me think about it in a new way. It was entertaining on several levels (not just with the doggy issues, though those were interesting to work through). I did find that the last episode felt rushed–It would have been interesting with another couple of seasons to develop.
Thanks again for recommending it, and for your concern–Also, I’m glad your arachnophobia is under control (I’m also glad I don’t suffer from that–dogs and mice [eugh!] are enough for me!)
Interesting.
I agree that the series did come to an unsatisfactorily early conclusion, even to the extent of hunting around to see where the next season was, to no avail.
I doubt I am am up to handling a tarantula. But there again, who would want to? They are still ugly, poisonous and have hairs that cause irritation and rash, if they come into contact with your skin.
However when I scythe my garden, it does not bother me that there are lots of wolf spiders in it. The other day, clearing an area, just ten paces by ten, ended up with twenty of them sitting on the wall. Each of which was a couple of inches across. Looking very much like this.
If that is a typical density, in my
gardenjungle, I probably have several hundred surrounding me at the moment. Without it concerning me, in the least. Any that try to come into my house though will get a good squishing!Got to say that I love the second-to-last panel, with the “foreshadowing”. The shading on their faces provides a perfect aesthetic match, to the dialogue. Plus their respective expressions just tickled me.
“No, there is no Little Person conspiracy. And we don’t all live in a Little Village somewhere.”
Maps to return…*snigglefits!* Heheeheee!
Heh I can only hope there is a skunk with a green stripe waddling through the forest, and archon gets a cryptid containment center
Ahh, you mean you have not had the guided tour of the 13th floor yet?
*starts patting around on the floor*
I must have slipped through yet another inter-universal crack.
It’s just most of those Rad incidents are in the woods with one in the urban area, I kinda imagine a radioactive skunk that starts fires / explosions with its musk when startled. Depending on its recent diet of course.
Heh. Could be.
Why am I reminded of the news reports in the movie Daybreakers about animals that had contracted the vampire virus?
In Daybreakers, vampires tended to combust violently in UV light; blink and you’ll miss it, but one “news report” that the protagonist hears over his car radio reports that “exploding animals are now the leading cause of forest fires”.
That sounds like a possible ‘issue’ choice effect from the Nationstates game..
^_^
Actually really interested in how the judicial system will handle this. You think it’d be simple but like the mind control thing with everyone’s favorite rage-Mage, criminal law gets funky even with mundane crimes. My mom worked in the third circuit court of appeals as a law clerk and she and her coworkers were convinced that all they ever got were the stupid criminals because the smart ones either were so blatantly guilty with malice of forethought they couldn’t appeal, or they’d never gotten caught at all.
How do you deal with folks who commit super powered crimes of passion? Things which would only be damaging to certain people, might be lethal when a meta human does them. How do you deal with break through events? The kid who discovers he has super strength only after he accidentally kills somebody by skipping stones across the park pond? What about the 21 year old who punches out a wall because he broke through after losing his job and he just wanted to punch the wall?
There’s no cultural or universal underpinning for people with powers on a large scale. Even if somebody was knowing of their power, they might accidentally cause enormous harm, even death, when doing something that anybody else might do when angry, but with far more power applied to it.
I really hope we get to learn more about this stuff. So much of criminal law theory and practice, at least where it concerns accidents, non-premeditated crimes, is based on the idea that all humans have a very limited and similar range of physical capability.
better example of judicial weirdness: testing the ppo on land that didn’t belong to her and causing a minor forest fire like that is a big deal in almost every state. Granted, the laws cover -negligence- or -malice- but she’s still responsible for some fairly serious damage there.
though in theory… Case law for this must have been building on the downlow at least since the civil war… So it might not be so ground breaking or crazy…
With cases like that, same with ‘mundane’ incidents, a lot of it will come down to a little thing called ‘intent’: if they can prove it was an accident, then the punishment will be less (in the case of the kid who accidentally killed someone, the most they would be charged with would be manslaughter because they still killed someone, but then, hopefully, giving counselling and either monitored or sent to an Archon-school for training)
Just because they are just learning they have a power or damaged (or worse) property or life should not mean they don’t have to answer for what they have done
As for Sydney burning down some trees (initially thought she had tested that in a rainforest, didn’t her flashback panel show a monkey or some ‘exotic’ wildlife?) fairly sure that now she has been identified as the perp responsible she will make reparations of some sort
The ‘exotic’ wildlife in the flashback was a squirrel.
Gasp!
So now we know the Evil Squirrel Overlord’s origin story! Sydney is treading in Batman’s footsteps in having created her own arch nemesis!
A teenager gets their license, and the first time they get behind the wheel of a car they accidentally run someone over, killing them. Sure, it’s an unlikely scenario, but not impossible, and the law accounts for such things. And just because it’s easier to commit a crime of passion or accidental manslaughter as a superhuman, that doesn’t mean it should be dealt with differently. At most, they should be put into a specialized superhuman prison when applicable. Really, when you get down to it, the only difference is the method of the crime, and the fact that superhumans are always armed.
As far as mind control goes, I’d imagine that the person controlled would need to at least undergo mandatory counseling, maybe do some suggested volunteer work. The idea being that they’re just as much a victim, and to both make sure they are of sound mind and allow them to work out any misplaced guilt.
Not at all. The fist week or so, after a new driver gets their licence (even more so if they are driving without one) is the most dangerous time in a driver’s career. And many many accidents and fatalities have occurred on peoples’ first solo outing. This is not guesswork, by the way. Just look at car insurance premiums. They are heavily weighted to take this factor into account.
I fully agree with your remaining comments though. Barring the initial tone of the final paragraph. They are fully a victim, and must be given comprehensive victim support. Including counselling, if it is needed. Using terms like “mandatory” though is dangerous. That is what is used in criminal sentencing, not what you say for innocent people.
Worse if it is legally implemented, as there are bound to be circumstances where it would be wholly inappropriate. For instance if the type of mind control means that the victim has no memory of the incident, nor is even aware it happened.
In that kind of situation, there are plenty of circumstances where the victim would be better off being allowed to remain in ignorance of the situation, and carry on with their lives guilt free. Should such be feasible, anyhow. If however there is a likelihood that they will find out about it from third parties, somehow, then it is better that they be told and helped through the situation, as may be needed.
Any time you legally make something mandatory you turn it into a blunt hammer. You take away both common sense solutions and the opinions of all the experts involved in a case. Not to mention the free will of the victim. That has already been done once. It would be cruel to do it again.
Let us hope that Sydney, Mr. Amorphous and Achilles and the next time they horseplay in uniform while in public would lead Peggy to have them pealing potatoes instead of running around the track. They would have unenthused looks on their faces as they peel!
Out of the blue, Sydney sees that office clerk who tried to offer her a seat awhile back.She quickly looks away and yet she notices something else about him…! He walks toward Sydney…
Sydney:What are you doing here???
Former office clerk: Well,after what happened with the President, Colonel Leander had me busted to Private Second Class-Permanent Kitchen Orderly!!!
Sydney:Sorry about that!!! (To herself)Hard to believe that he got busted to kitchen police because of what I did?!?!
The former clerk walks off during all of this.Enter Peggy…!
Peggy:SCOVILLE!!! (Sydney,Achilles and Mr. Amorphous snap to attention)
Peggy:Is that all three yard-birds like you have to do?? I WANT THOSE SPUDS PEELED!
Sydney,Achilles and Mr. Amorphous: YES MA’AM!!!
Peggy:And quit breathing while I’m talking to you! You’re THE biggest bunch of….
(At that moment, Peggy trips over a bowl of peeled potatoes and falls flat on the ground,they help her up as she says…)
Peggy:I wonder how much Deus is paying her to be on our side?!?!?
I am surprised that Sydney has gotten away without spud peeling so far!
Although I can see that she is being cut some slack for her exceptional circumstances. Such as saving Maxima’s life and preventing the entire team from being beaten by Vehemence. Even the President clearly accommodated her good deeds, when facing her infractions.
But that can’t carry on indefinitely, for her own sake. As with Harem, once they have had fair warning, Archon need to keep them in line.
I very strongly suspect that spud-peeling, as either a chore or a punishment for the military, simply is not a thing in modern militaries now. Consider that, for the most part these days, they get pretty much all of their foodstuffs in a pre-processed ready-to-use form. Heck, just how many fast-food places or RESTAURANTS do that chore these days – most get their spuds from someplace in a pre-peeled condition, I suspect.
ALSO, many militaries now (I know this is certainly true of the Australian Defence Force, and probably is also true of the US) use civilian contractors to run kitchens and catering for their units. When in the field or high-risk situations, that is when the prepackaged stuff comes out instead.
So, sorry, certainly no spud peeling as such. Not often anyhow. More likely anyone in need of ‘attitude adjustment’ would be assigned to some sort of tedious clean-up duty (for which there is probably regular specialized staff anyhow, but still ….).
What about latrine duty or ditch digging???
You tell me.
All things considered, I would definitely think twice before telling certain supers to “dig a hole”. Unless that hole is W-A-Y out in the middle of nowhere and shouldn’t upset anyone else. Firthermore, (IMO) it kind of loses impact as a punishment chore if you have to catch a bus to get there and back.
And pretty much all such punishment chores can be short-cutted into non-existance by a little imagination and/or the right power combos. We’ve already seen how damn good Max is at creating a largish hole in the ground, for example. Someone with some kind of area control over water molecules (a water elemental?).could probably wash, rinse and dry a latrine area without blinking.
Or, if the toilet is fire-proofed (and explain to me, please, why an ARC bathroom would NOT be fire-proofed), just have Heatwave torch the whole thing. A few minutes of 400 degree flame should elimiante any smells and other nasties, just hose out the ashes afterwards.
Fairly sure they will be under strict orders not to use powers
Or better yet, not ordered not to, but the punishment increases if they do
Is it me or is he the one asking the question in the penultimate panel?
Well, there was no question (not even in the last panel), but yes, it was notGeorge who said “Okay, one question.”
Lucas has, correctly, deduced what question Sydney would ask. So skips straight to the answer.
It has several purposes. Firstly it is funny, as that left Sydney flat-footed. Secondly it shows that he is smart enough to deserve the position he is in!
Yes, he may have guessed that Sydney was going to ask something height-related, doubtless he is used to that in life. But he did not just predict it in general terms, he anticipated exactly the question.
Thirdly it saves her the embarrassment of asking the question herself,* either now or at a later date.
It is a clever thing for him to have done, even just from the last point. Sydney is still slightly embarrassed, which means she has learnt a lesson. But not so badly that she is cowering under a table, due to, yet again, fearing she has grievously insulted a team member!
* It is possible that she was going to ask some other silly height-related question. But providing this similar answer allowed her, even in her sleep-deprived state, to realize how impolite and unnecessary her own question would have been.
I strongly suspect that Lucas’s timing is not co-incidental. He will have known that the team, including Sydney, went out to the night club until late last night. And he
probably haswill have access to Halo’s telemetry (be it Pip-boy on duty, or her mobile off duty). So will have been able to confirm that easily (or equally by other means, such as just asking someone).This is an ideal time for a skilled interrogator to ask questions. People are both less guarded and worse at lying. So it is very clever to ask an incriminating question at such a time. Which Sydney complied with precisely as he desired. Fortunately I doubt this is a problem for her. But it does show that he knows his job well.
Just in case anyone thinks I am over-analyzing this, please do bear in mind that he is a data analyst. And Archon has assembled a team of the best that the country has to offer. So it is reasonable to assume that he is very good at his profession. Hence I am probably under-estimating him, rather than over.
Finally Sydney confirmed her sleepy state, at the outset. So Lucas allowed his “one question” knowing full well that she is in a sleep-deprived state. Thus we can view the last two panels at being a very subtle test of Sydney’s character.
It would be easy for her to bluff and pretend “Oh, that is not what I was going to ask at all…” However it would be simple for him to pick up on any lie made up at that time.* He now knows that she is not an instinctive liar, and is willing to be open about any mistake she makes, even if it incriminates her.**
* Or, if Sydney replied promptly, without evasion or any other ‘tells’ (which gave away that she was lying), he would find out that his own assessment of what she was going to ask was wrong. Which would allow him the opportunity to reappraise her.
** There were no indications that Sydney realized, belatedly. that she had said something untoward. And he should realise, from multiple sources, that she is smart enough
+10 pts for Thunderdome reference.
Lol, Peter Dinklage was the first person I thought of, but I wouldn’t have assumed he’d *know* him. XD
I don’t think the Peter Dinklage reference works. Isn’t this comic set in the year 2010? Peter Dinklage didn’t appear in Game of Thrones until 2011 and before that his career wasn’t exactly on the nerd radar with movies like Elf and Lassie.
It works with this audience, as we know about him.
And in a world with supers the chronology where successful shows appear can be radically altered. Just imagine Muse a super heroine who can inspire writers and other creative types. In this case the books were written a long time ago. I remember reading them before I emigrated, which was over 11 years ago.
Quite funny actually, as a friend wanted to show me this great new TV series, when I visited him after the first season came out. Naturally enough the title meant nothing to me (I have a problem with names). However when it got to the scene where the lord was cutting off the head of the guy, and telling him that ‘he who passes the sentence should swing the sword’, I was saying the lines of each person in the scene just prior to them speaking them.
So it would be easy for Muse as all she would need to do is inspire the screenplay, and whatever corporate executives had to sign off on the proposal. Bringing it out a few years ahead of schedule would have been easy to do.