Grrl Power #555 – One stop inconvenience shopping
It always bugged me in Buffy when the scoobys were looking up the latest demonic threat, they’d all be desperately scouring through stacks of books, and I always wondered why they didn’t scan them. Buffy was on the air a while ago, but it wasn’t pre-computer.
Edit: As about 2 dozen people have pointed out, they did scan some of the library in Buffy, to detrimental results. It’s been a while since I watched the series.
Sure, scanning books in ancient languages doesn’t make them instantly searchable. But it would have to save you some time, right? The Sunnydale library’s OCR software probably doesn’t do Sanskrit, but you can bet your ass that The Council’s and ARC-Light’s software does. Also Mesopotamian, Sumerian and Hittite.
It also does facial recognition on the drawings of demons in it, in case the person drawing them was particularly skilled and the demon in question is long lived enough to still be around when someone digs up the tome 2000 years later. Also they can use it to quickly identify creatures based on horn configurations, tusks, tails, number of eyes, etc. Assuming the resident demonologist isn’t all “oh yeah I know what that is.”
Scanning also presents the issue of potentially not capturing all the information in any given book. Some might have notes in the margins that can only be read under the full moon, or evil creatures see different coordinates on the ancient map than good creatures. So obviously you’d keep the original texts around, but it would still give you a head start in a lot of cases.
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Sad Succubi….
they finally agree on something other than (maybe later) kissing and triggering a supernatural orgy.
Well, they ARE both succubi. Whatever their differences, anything that lessens the amount of sexual energy in the universe diminishes them all.
now I am REALLY curious as to whats in the vault
I hope most of the Inventory is still in there. Sconia might have feared reserve-alarms on any of the more dangerous stuff.
But as this story goes, a lot of emptiness has to be expected.
What’s in the box? WHATS IN THE BOX?!?
I DON’T KNOW… it’s just labeled Pandora
This universe needs a confusing super called Schrodinger’s Cat
It might already have such a super.
It might not have such a super. (There’s really no way to know until we see him… or not.)
He may or may not be a hero
He is both. But no peeking!
Someone like Oberscharführer Schrödinger? https://hellsing.wikia.com/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger
I forgot him lol
Well, we were never told the name of Schrodinger’s Cat.
I’m guessing its name is Sydney.
It shares that distinction with Frankenstein’s monster.
His name is Frankenstein. Canonically.
Yes, the doctor was a monster, very true
YOU TOOK THE BOX!!! LET’S SEE WHAT’S IN THE BOX!!!
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?!?!?!?
Wrong movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KezvwARhBIc
I.O.U. 10,000 Doomsday Devices -Sciona XOXO
3 Weeks later,
“Thank you for you use of 10,000 Doomsday Devices. I finally got that lid off my cookie jar.” – Sciona
P.S. They still could not open the pickle jar… or make my mother love me. :( Sciona
Top. Men.
If there’s a mirror with a little girl in it then they should run.
Naa, just a girl crawling out of a TV screen.
There was an episode in Buffy in the first season where the computer lab lady was scanning all the books and willow was helping out. Giles didn’t like it. Scanning one of the books put a demon on the internet. There was also something about a robot and the dangers of internet dating. Good times.
You beat me to it. If I remember correctly the book would curse/posses whomever would read it first. The first to read it however was a scanner which put the demon IN the library computer and campus network.
Anyone remember Special Unit 2? Secret cops under a dry cleaner with a gnome and other various.. they had a pretty good digital database. Expect I think for one or two ancient monsters with little to no info.
That was a fun show, shame it didn’t last long.
I kind of miss Reaper.
That was great. The RC car didn’t matter; it was the controller that was the key.
With the twist that the controller had no batteries!
There’s also Supernatural, where the hunters kept dangerous magic items under wraps. Sam and Dean’s father had a bunch in special containment boxes with boobie traps in a storage locker in I think New Jersey.
I’m glad I am not a lone Antediluvian here.
I believe Arc is Prodiluvian.
From what I saw to this point, it would be extremely unlikely for ARC to make any initiatives towards reflooding the Earth for another forty days.
Oh I do not think they would actively enact that. But if it occurred, such as with the use of an apocalypse device, they would be well prepared to weather the consequences.
That does not make them prodiluvian, though – just pro.
The professional means of surviving a flood is the use of an Arc. They are professional deluvian survivalists.
Also – Torchwood.
And The Laundry, tangential it may be. Seeing the kind of work heaped up on Bob Howard’s shoulders after the Old George/TEAPOT incident.
You beat me to it too. The demon was originally not bound in the book. He was trapped in it way back, got out via the scanning (sort of – into the computer and from there into the internet) and had powers of making people love him. They got him to download into a robotic body and destroyed the body. His name was Moloch. I guess that is why they never tried that particular avenue again.
As soon as Dave mentioned Buffy and scanning books, I knew someone would mention this episode.
https://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/I_Robot,_You_Jane
Plus, there are also the problems brought up in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series regarding movable type. If the book you’re scanning (or printing) is magical, you may end up being more than just the text, and the magic can hang around. Then the next thing you scan (or print) could become magical. Print a book of spells, and then a cookbook? You might get a cookbook then when the instructions are followed, eating the tarts causes thunder storms. And if you scan a magical book, and then a maintenance manual, cleaning your gun using the scanned instructions could have… Side effects.
They tried that on Buffy. Willow was scanning the books into a computer, uploaded a demon (Moloch maybe) who became her internet boyfriend. Season 2 I think.
If I’m not much mistaken there actually was an episode in the later seasons where the red-head whose name escapes me was scanning all the lore books.
Much to Giles’ disapproval of course.
If I recall correctly, it went horribly wrong with a daemon turning into a computer virus.
There’s also the college incident where someone found a magical book and inscribed a spell in a dorm for a halloween party. Stuff on the net, once released through possible hacking, is hard ever to contain again.
The six-inch tall fear demon? It was a frat party, and the spell was set off by Oz cutting his finger on a piece of equipment and dropping blood on the seal.
Was it a fur seal? o_O
“Why take one
priceless holy relicMagical McGuffin when you can take FIVE…” or fifteen… or fifty…“… even if you have no use for it, except making them wonder which item you have use for.”
No use for it? You can always find some use for additional doomsday devices and other Magical McGuffin your enemies have tried to keep locked.
I got that reference! And for a second after I read your comment, I didn’t get it and was about to type. “Something like that happened in the Dresden Files once.”
Buffy did have them scan some of the books in Sunnydale Library (by accident); this released a demon into the internet, where it promptly transferred itself to a robot in a military facility and had to be slayed. There are thus some not inconsiderable risks to modernizing.
Same reply as to Francisco’s below:
The Twilight Council should easily have the experts and manpower to deal that potential problem.
God I miss Warehouse 13!
Wait… Why did that reply here?
case the person drawing them was particularly skilled
software for scanning artwork to compare to photos is a few kilometers down the road from conventional photo-anwlydis software. whatever that word is that means comprehensive scrutiny.
and, just in case noone’s even thought of it in the first 15 comments or so, buffy tried that.
De-lurking for the Friday the 13th: The Series shout out. :) Loved that show.
Same here, even if I could only watch it at like 2am.
Here as well.
Re: the computer-magical indexing problem:
I understand what they’re going through. I work for a relatively small company that has to keep a LOT of old records. Funding and time to scan documents were always lacking. We’ve only begun during the past few years.
That said, once you put magic into the equation with the resources and manpower (I use the term loosely) of the Twilight Council, I’m surprised they haven’t come up with a more efficient solution to the indexing. With beings whose abilities (whether super, supernatural, or mundane) cover both magic and technology, shouldn’t they have someone who could auto-magic-scan-translate all those spells into a PC index/system that also would have allowed them to keep track of things?
Come to think of it, even if they don’t have that system, wouldn’t it just be a problem of manpower, encoding all those spells and functions onto a mundane unified database?
Lastly… Are we seeing the clash of ancient, tradition-bound magical systems and the rapid development and obsoletion of human computer technology, hence this problem?
On that last note, part of my job also involves maintaining and purchasing computers for the office- I’ve seen a LOT of obsoletion on my job. The rapid development and wastage you see will get to you.
I used to work for a large company that decided to scan all its back applications and records for the last 30 years! We had 2 industrial sized Kodak scanning machines that cost about 100 grand each then every document had to be manually checked to make sure it was readable on the system and corrected if not, plus removing all staples, paper clips and getting them all to be A4 sized or at least able to go through the machine with just 2 of us doing it. It took years and this was at the time when windows 95 was still the main OS in the office and getting a third party system to read and view them because they were too tight to get adobe PDF licenses to allow you to read and view it. Yeah not fun. I think it took 8 hours+ a day for 2 years solid to catch up to the current year just on the scanning.
Oh Lordy. I had a job like that, scanning the same document in dozens of languages, translated at different times, in different countries, and with several different formats, and it was a combination of tedium and frustration, with periodic moments of absolute delight. Tedium for the “normal” versions of the document, frustration when the document was printed on nonstandard paper (though that’s a bit of a simplification. Some of the documents were handwritten on paper that was hand-cut from larger sheets), and moments of huge delight when I encountered a beautiful type of writing, or fun margin doodles.
Décolleté should remember that there are certain types of positive thinking that don’t work in a crisis. Being realistic about what their enemy may be doing makes for better planning than sticking your heads in the sand.
Totally agree. Where they don’t know what Sciona’s plan is, they have to cover all the bases to make sure she doesn’t surprise them with any possibility.
It’s logically impossible for an optimist to be pleasantly surprised.
Good things happen, but my money’s on crappy things first….
It’s completely possible. Just have a different good thing happen than the expected good thing.
Nope – see, an optimist expects the best possible outcome. Anything else is, by definition, a disappointment, even if still objectively good.
I disagree. Such a person would become a pessimist after a few years as the best possible outcome will rarely be achievable. The repeated setbacks would disillusion such a naive person. Or they would scale back their expectations. Hence why you hear phrases such as “it will turn out OK in the end” and “things can only get better”.
As opposed to “things can only get best” or “everything will be perfect on your first attempt”.
Personally I hope for the best, plan for the worst and am pleasantly surprised if things do not turn out to be a complete disaster. “Hey at least I only broke the one limb!” “Ooh, no firewood means I get to snuggle up in bed all winter!”
Another problem with scanning is that some magic books change their contents depending on why they were opened.
For example:
https://www.exiern.com/2005/11/12/the-book/
But the Twilight Council should have the right experts to deal with that.
but not Gault. He’s obviously way too undevious for that job.
There’s also the problem that some spells are cast by writing them… and scanning them and writing them onto the computer’s mass storage may count.
Another topic, lighter:
I like panel 1. I know it’s just an image in Sydney’s head, but seeing Gault wearing reading glasses, Iza with his coat off, and Elsbeth in casual work clothing is a really nice touch. They’re not always dressed and looking SO COOL all the time. This is a point most comics and media miss about characters- what do they wear when they’re not doing heroics or on an adventure, particularly while doing boring chores and work drudgery? Probably down-to-earth, comfortable, practical clothing.
I noticed the coloring of Halo in the last few panels, showing how the orbs highlight her hair. I’ve seen it before, but it’s really well done here.
Actually, there was a Buffy episode involving a techno witch scanning their books for easier searching which releases a demon from a book. The demon had the ability to possess the person who read the book and ended up becoming a cyber demon who got some local nerds/tech company to build him a robot body. Afterwards the whole gang decided to leave everything alone.
Warehouse 13! Loved that show.
Warehouse 13 would be nothing in comparison to trying to inventory Warehouse 23, but not as much fun as Warehouse 23.
SJGames used to have an online database with tons of random magic madness things things from Warehouse 23 – wish I still had the link to that…
I know. In its time, I myself stand guilty of adding a few extra tidbits to their inventory…
you are why they needed the additions? what are you mad? wish I could do a link or gif set to alice in wonderland now as we all know we’re all quite mad here.
Your wish is my command.
We’re getting re-runs of Warehouse 13 at the moment (UK), and when Claudia showed up I couldn’t help thinking of Sydney. Turning yourself into a human electromagnet in order to change a lightbulb, then losing control and almost wrecking a super-secret storage facility: yep, definitely sounds like Sydney.
I see Dabbler there and she has yet to make some sort of comment to Decollete…!
She did, panel two, that was a comment :P
*puts on black forepaw-band*
the First season of Buffy they were scanning books when Willow unleashed a demon on the internet.
he had then made himself a mechanical body while ‘worshiping’ Willow his ‘savior’
Well, as others already mentioned, they did scan the books on Buffy (“I, Robot… You, Jane”), which created a demonic computer virus Moloch. Also, if I remember correctly, in a much later episode there was an online demon database of sorts (was it Dawn finding it and showing it to Xander, or vice versa?).
But mostly, there’s a couple good reasons for why they didn’t scan the books:
– not enough people – scanning books is a very time-consuming process; the only organisation around who could potentially throw people at it (the Watcher’s Council) is highly traditionalistic and most likely would not want the potential breach of secrecy
– no access to technology – from the Scooby gang, there is one point when two of its members could devote most of their time to scanning the books in their possession – Giles and Xander during Season 4 – which is exactly when they don’t have access to (at the time) fairly expensive scanners (Moloch’s book was most likely scanned on a school scanner, I would imagine)
– loss of information – I wouldn’t be at all surprised if at least some information in the books was protected in some way (spells that turn the pages into gibberish when anyone not authorised by the book’s owner reads them, inks only visible to humans, &c.)
– easier theft of information: Just copy the data off, no one will notice.
Miss Scoville is positive the baddies will act in the most devious manner possible.
Poor girl, she looks so serious there. Her first appocolypsesesuses and she is not even taking the moment to note her milestone.
*puts paw on Sydney’s forehead*
I think you are coming down with something.
Sydney has a broad grounding in the fantasy version of Murphy’s law….
she knows her buffy apocalypse means thursday unless its during a full moon then monday.
WILLOW: The school paper is edging on depressing, lately. Have you guys noticed that?
OZ: I don’t know. I always go strait to the obits.
Giles’s cyber witch girlfriend did tease him about not using digital supernatural resources. So it is not a matter that the world did not have them, just that Giles was too stuffy and liked the smell of old tomes.
Just waiting for the vault to have nothing in it, but warps them up to that ceiling cubby Sydney was in earlier, which she could see and bypass the security via her truesight.
She found it because the door was left ajar and light was shining through onto the wall she happened to be standing at. No truesight or bypassing security when she just casually flew up there. She only activated the truesight once she was already in there.
Is there any significance to Decollette having an Archon-style choker?
Figuring she copied it from Dabbler.
Yes, it reveals that Dave has a fondness for them. Which we kinda knew before.
It is worth noting that it does not have a personal monogram nor the blank ‘name yet to be chosen’ alternative. Which makes it less likely to be an Archon choker.
Butt, it is a rainbow…
I am only making out gold and purple.
Min you, given their respective colouration (in their current appearances) either version could be a come-on to Dabbler.
There is also a thin indigo stripe between the other two colors, best scene in panel two of the previous page.
Ooh, Crimson gets an invite too?
Is Dabbler missing her ram horns?
They’re hidden by the orbs. if you look CLOSE you can see them.
Only 30 years since it was last opened? That’s a pretty short time to not be concerned about the vault’s contents, especially for an organization as old as this.
Hmm, OCR with text to speech resulting in a computer virus summoning demons all over the world.
Only if it can get the pronunciation right.
Anybody can say “Klaatu barada nikto”.
“Did you say ALL the words?” ‘Well…yeah…mostly…sorta.’
Numerous games deal with this, notably some of the Shin Megame Tensei games.
What’s Gault doing with his left hand in Sydney’s fantasy?
Levitating the book behind Whitey I think.
Not the one covered in faerie dust and being carried by Kylie Minogue. I mention that because I expect that to catch folks eyes more readily than the one lower down. Which is actually just the hollow tomb that they store the bottles of Absinth in (the real stuff, not the modern watered down version).
Thanks for pointing that other book out, was thinking he was doing something either to Iza or Elz :P
Absinth? I don’t recall seeing that, but it is Elsbeth’s Book of Holding, which always floats near her without Gault doing anything. (And I think you mean tome, not tomb.)
I did wonder if it might be that book. The character did not match my memory of her mind. Probably because we only saw her briefly, so I do not have a firm image of her. Plus the changed style might be contributing. But I am sure you are right.
The absinth was a reference to my link by the way. The green fairy is what you see when you have indulged in absinth.
By the way, because I did have said book in mind, I was thinking that it could provide them a tipple of the good stuff, to make the chore pass more … vividly.
However your points are good. So he is more likely to be controlling/summoning/communicating with the green fairy, to get the more obvious book, after all.
Okay the think is that in Buffy Willow had that exact same idea that you had. Except that apparently from a magical perspective, scanning a book is identical to reading it out loud. Which led to them accidentally summoning a demon who had been sealed away in one of the books they scanned.
I think in Angel they did take advantage of an online demonic database a couple of times, but they tended to be unreliable. The only good archive was the one that was once a human, magically modified to memorize millions of books and repeat any information within upon request.
Don’t worry, this is a job for THE LIBRARIANS!
Okay, I’m just amazed someone remembers “Friday the 13th the Series”.
Quite a few of us actually.
You never told us you were a librarian! Who is your guardian?
*waggles tail dewey decimally*
I’m a “Rogue”. =P
Police Dog Yorp, at your service.
*keeps a wary eye on the silverware*
I work in the back making sure that the shelves are all tidied up and everything is where it should be.
I guess that makes me a replacement Judson or Charlene….
(fun note, I actually do volunteer at my local library doing shelf reading, which is making sure the shelves are all tidied up and everything is where it should be.)
De-lurking to add this blip.
Having interned at a place that scans old law books, there is actually a good way to get around OCR funkiness: put the high-resolution scanned image side-by-side with the OCR’d version in the same PDF. The typical 85-99% accuracy of the OCR software is still good enough for the search function, and the absurdly high-res image is right there next to it. Translations would need to be done manually, but that’s what interns are for.
The company in question had an absurdly expensive proprietary scanner that would chop the book bindings off and the pages through tray-feed style at something like twelve pages per second. We pretty much just put the book in, hit “start,” and that WOULD have been it if not for the fifteen-year-old computer it was connected to. Apparently two full-time techies and three interns were cheaper than a modern card for the scanner’s proprietary interface, go figure.
I see no good reason why the Council couldn’t buy twenty of those stupid things.
Also, I need to make the obvious wisecrack of running a data line across the ocean floor for a bit (to keep the true location secret), tapping a satellite internet connection, and rigging an email alert as a backup. Hell, it wouldn’t even be that expensive given they already have the means to reach the vault in the first place.
End of Line
*scrambles to pick up baggage*
Uuh, the Mariana Trench… its kinda dark here… can I get a return ticket please?
wrong ocean, pupper. and besides, it wouldn’t be all that hard (all things considered) to patch in a line to the trans-atlantic cable, would it?
Patching INTO the existing run? Probably extremely difficult. I have no idea how that line is set up topology-wise, but I would be extremely surprised if it were anything but a one-to-one direct connection between two giant network hubs.
Granted, there are ways around that even without installing a proper junction, but just running a new line is easier, cheeper, and far less likely to damage the existing line beyond repair if messed up.
End of Line
End of Line?
Do you serve the users, or the MCP?
they did try to scan all the books in season 1. one of the books contained a demon and then he became a demon virus that seduced Willow and then he built a demon cyborg body… the book scanning was a project by the techno-witch that later became Giles’ girlfriend and also was related to the Rroma who put the soul curse on Angel so of course she was killed for plot convenience during the soulless arc.
IIrc, on Buffy 1) Giles hates computers and 2) one time when they tried scanning books into the computer, a demon that was trapped in one of the books escaped and basically became a magical AI computer virus.
So, I can see it.
DaveB, I think there was an episode where someone did start OCR scanning in ancient books and it horribly backfired on them by sending some sort of ancient spirit/monster/thing into the internet, and it sort of became a major threat or something.
So vampires have the power of mind reading? Well, there is a precedent for that. Lestat could.
Best reference would still be SCP Foundation.
Sydney’s underground “during” today’s eclipse? I can just hear her go, “awww…” :-)
She was underwater six years ago. But close.
The Brown Mystery Orb has had its power revealed! It is the Narrator Orb, which allows the user to step outside of the story and even to enter into an imaginary fantasy.
Considering Ariana’s PREVIOUS response to learning who Deadpool was, I can only see this going “well”.
“Keep a positive attitude” ??? OK… I’m positive it’s both.
Atom 1: Help! I’ve lost an electron!
Atom 2: Are you sure?
Atom 1: I’m positive.
Sorry but I never would trust an atom. They make up everything.
Even me!
wow, Yorp, you’re a real dog in that pic!
who says it can’t be a compliment?
reminds me of that movie about the musical instrument that was a lawyer:
Liar Lyre
@Dave, oh in later episodes of Buffy, when the computer geeky one joind the team, they started doing a lot more looking up of stuff on the internet.
Problem with looking stuff up on the interwebs? Someone has to have uploaded it in the first place…
Remember the Malcom episode of BtVS? They were scanning the books, and that unleaded a demon into the cyberspace that nearly absconded with Willow.
I hate to say it but I think I will be taking a prolonged break from the comic. What was once billed as a superhero type of comic with a little bit of supernatural has become saturated with it. I personally have found it hard to stay excited when I see that the “Magic Council” is showing up; when we had those strips recently that showed the training and interacting with ArcSwat – I was excited and enjoying the possibility of the comic getting back to what it was like in the beginning
In the beginning, the story was basically just huge amounts of slice of life stuff interspersed with dribs and drabs of plot. The comic was never going to stay that way.
I will admit though that the current storyline seems pretty off, thematically speaking, though. Dave just keeps putting really big ideas into the comic that really ought to be their own projects.
Both Marvel and DC have drawn heavily on the supernatural for inspiration, at times, so I find it odd when people think ‘supernatural is not part of the super genre’. One of the powers of Super stories is that they can take any other kind of story and see what happens when you throw supers into the mix.
One of Superman’s few weaknesses is to magic. Whereas Stephen Strange is all about magic. As are a whole host of other characters.
In this setting the assorted supernatural races provide a suitably challenging set of adversaries that will make credible opponents for even a team of world-class super heroes. No need to have a jail with a revolving door, to keep reusing the same few escaped villains. Dave can draw upon every monster in legend over and above the prolific number of super powered characters he has already drawn into the story.
But each to their own, if the story does not suit your tastes.
Also the “incredibly minor” detail that anyone who keeps breaking out of prison would likely just be put down permanently at some point. Anyone bent on destruction, dangerous enough to be worth the team’s time, AND who keeps getting out of the best containment methods available? Options are kinda limited at that point no matter how one feels about the death penalty.
End of Line
I sympathize. Superheros are cool. And werewolves are cool. And vampires are cool. And magic is cool.
But try to mix multiples of those elements together and you get something like Twilight, or Buffy (and I know it was popular but I believe that popularity had a lot more to do with a starring cast of attractive women than it ever did with an engaging story line), and it just jumps the shark a bit. Or a lot.
It takes something more than just a cast of pretty faces. There are plenty of shows that try that formula and flop.
Whereas Buffy was a hit in numerous countries, around the globe, won three Emmys and even served to revitalise Dr Who and serve as inspiration for Torchwood. Amongst other cultural impacts.
Basically they got the range of production values right. Of which a good looking cast, with chemistry and talent, was just a part of the formula.