Grrl Power #817 – Morning Q/A (Questions and Aerobics)
For those of you who were really looking forward to Aranea’s booking process, I guess, uh, just imagine it going down however you like. There’s a slew of charges that could be brought against her, complicated by the fact that she has killed several actual properly evil demons doing properly evil things. Technically illegal, but the sort of stuff The Twilight Council and their Semper Vigilatis would themselves be doing.
I spent a fair amount of time trying to google something a bit more clever to put on Anvil’s top, like an actual math equation that describes soft body physics, but for all my effort I mostly just found a lot of articles complaining about sexism in the video game industry… which is definitely there. On the other hand, boobs jiggle. Most of the time they way it’s implemented the woman looks like she has implants made out of flubber (for those of you old enough to get that reference) but I digress. Most of the rest of what I found was articles on implementing soft body physics in Unity. Maybe I need to subscribe to scientific journals or something if I want to get that deep in the weeds – for a joke that like, 3 people would get. Those are the best kind of references if you’re one of the few people who do get them though. It’s like watching an episode of MST3K and they make a reference to the singer of an obscure band or The Galaxy Rangers and you’re certain you’re the only person in 100 miles who got it.
I suspect “soft body physics” is probably not something that can be accounted for in a single nice, neat equation like E=MC^2, but I still think it would have been funny to try and cram one of those “people doing science” chalkboards full of math onto her top.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
First!
Also on that note… Why do I get the feeling that letting Halo ask questions is like the obligatory child asking “why” over and over again?
One of the reason Jeff Bezos is the world’s richest guy (ever, probably) is that he asks ‘Why’ in sets of 5.
There are many reasons people become wealthy.
The primary reason in Bezos’ case is that he noticed that the anti-trust laws in the United States were not being enforced at all, and contemplated what might be the way to exploit that in the most complete way.
One assumes he has also fugured out ways to squirrel large caches of wealth all over the planet so those assets can be hidden from the courts when his empire does inevitably finally get dismantled.
That too….
“Anti-trust”? Absolutely nothing Bezos owns is anywhere near a monopoly. His is not the only major cloud-computing company. His is not the only major mail-order company. His is not the only major grocery store chain. Etc. etc. etc.
The main reason he’s one of the richest guys ever is because he has a very good track record of starting or acquiring companies in various fields and shepherding almost all of them to a high level of success. And he doesn’t rest on his laurels after one stellar success, he then goes on to build another successful company, and on and on.
Also, another reason he is very rich, is because he is known for exploiting his workers.
Which, in the grand scheme of things, may not net him much as saved expenditure,
but it does give insight in the way he thinks.
Packaged online storefront services for small to medium businesses.
Where is he at in book sales, particularly ebook sales?
There used to be a lot of different sites for book reviews. Where did they go?
Did you set out to find examples of businesses in which he is not dominant yet?
Sorry, Ichneumon, that’s another way of saying “Bezos keeps buying out his potential opposition.”
That’s what all the large US based companies are doing – it’s a clear breach of anti-trust legislation. That’s why the EU is giving the mega IT corporations so much grief. And why they are stunned that the USA will not support them.
There is also the fact that the US doesn’t collect VAT for interstate deliveries. Or at least didn’t until the SC allowed it in June ’18.
Amazon actually lobbied for these taxes. Although some critics think that’s only because they saw it was inevitable, and realized they would be less affected by it than their smaller competitors.
sales tax is not VAT as far as i know. the calculation is very different.
VAT (in the rest of the world) and GST here in Oz were developed to eliminate and replace Sales Tax Hell.
GST actually did it, but it was locked down to a universal 10%. It is not levied on unprocessed goods, which are normally food items.
The GST rate is protected by an electoral method similar to that protecting our Federal Constitution: for the GST, a majority of States and Territories must vote in favour at a referendum. This is considered highly unlikely to happen, due to the feral nature of our politics.
Wasn’t the Oz GST only applied to certain things, and not everything?
Over here, it started out at 10%, now it’s 12.5% and applied to everything, now including online purchases from overseas (because local businesses were bitching like babies about lost revenue)
As said, yes, not unprocessed food, and a couple of other things which I cannot remember, but that number is very small. It also applies to services, the “S” in the title. The plumber fixing the kitchen catastrophe will itemise all parts used, plus his/her/its time. Attempts were made to bypass the GST with cash transactions, but the Feds simply pointed out that with no “Tax Invoice” there could be no warranty on substandard work or parts…
Oz GST was also “extended” to online purchases from overseas.
But, it’s still only 10% :) And it is considered one of the best implementations of a consumer tax.
Although I still come across (older) people cackling like hens over the GST they have managed to not pay!
Goods and Services Tax, even the Government pays it, or at least it should
Anyone who offers (or receives) goods and slash or services has to pay the tax, which applies to both the buyer and the seller
Yes, it does.
Neat trick here: only the last buyer in the chain pays GST. All suppliers get to pass the GST component upwards, culminating with the retailer who leaves a little note on your sales docket saying “TAX INVOICE / GST Incl. in Total $x.yz / # INDICATES TAXABLE ITEM”
Your retailer must now remit your GST to the ATO.
I’m normally quite caustic about the Oz (mis)government, but the ATO (tax office) performed a major miracle in streamlining and documenting the GST.
Thank you for explaining that, always believed it was calculated at every step in the chain: seller to buyer to seller to buyer
The farmer charges GST on the corn they sold, the transport company charges GST for delivering the corn to the big storage shed, then again (if it’s not a different transport company) for distributing it to the various supermarkets, and then the supermarket puts a final GST (after jacking the price 400%) when selling it to the customer (probably a few more steps involved)
Like yelling “First!” over and over again, maybe? :-)
I don’t understand why you made that lame post when you had something genuine to say.
Or, at least combine the two
Yeah. I remember a few years ago, people with nothing to say would post that wherever they could, and luckily for the most part, after a few months, the people doing that got auto-banned by the site bots.
If you think posting a comment first means something (it doesn’t) then just notice that you did indeed post first. That’s enough. Everyone can tell that you posted a comment before anyone else- look at this webcomic. How many of the comic pages have comments? All of them. How many pointless posts like the one above exist? Maybe 3.
It’s sad, really, to advertise yourself as someone aware that their value in life is so mediocre that the only win they can find equates to interrupting a narrator with a megaphone the second they pause for breath between sentences, simply because you beat everyone else by a few seconds.
Yeah, could vaguely remember some comics deleting “First!” posts (if that was all the post contained), wasn’t sure so didn’t say anything :D
Of course, taking the time to combine the two posts when you have something genuine to say can result in not being the first anymore. I found that out personally, years ago, on this very webcomic.
That’s not a justification for doing it, though. At best, all you’re doing is proving that you should be working for the Department of Redundancy Department… “First!” is redundant because the first post is always at the top of the first page of comments. Everybody already knows you’re the first to comment. At worst, you’re annoying people who have to scroll past inane “First!” comments.
Er… it’s not a justification for not combining two posts when you have something genuine to say. (Somehow, the word “not” got left out, so I decided to clarify what I meant.) Better yet, just get right to the genuine part and don’t worry about being first.
Really wish we were able to edit comments on this forum.
That, and up/down vote any particular comment
No, never the voting, that way leads to trolls
If you like (or dislike) a comment, then reply and say why
+/- 1, because reasons.
“But, but, but, then I wouldn’t be “First”.”
Seriously, it is a fact that if you take some time to write a good post,
others will have put up their post and maybe even made the same point
only because they don’t care about a typo or two.
Cortanis his 2nd post, slightly more thought out, is at :07, the same time as the first one from LuckySimon.
So, if you want to be one of the first, there is not much leeway for when your post has to be placed.
Then again, I prefer substance over speed.
112th!
Numberth?
LAST!
Oh sure, because anything I say after this is just the start of a new argument. Er, thread.
massxdensity/support=jiggle would work :P
Second Life, seems to have solved that.
MassXDensity/Support=Jigglefactor, or make it more obscure (MxD)/S=JF would work:P
I notice that she’s no longer appallingly unfit.
To bad about Frix, but she knew he was a dog when she met him…..
Which is actually kind of funny because she’s actually had very little time training. If the timeline is right she’s only had a few weeks of it. She’s just been a lot more active lately outside of the training.
She’s young. At that age, three weeks of enforced exercise can make quite a bit of difference. In fact, 3 weeks IS about how long you have to stick with it at that age, before you suddenly find you’re making gains.
You could use the spring equation. Soft body physics uses spring simulations as the root functionality. Those springs aren’t visualized of course. But you could imagine tissue, especially breasts as solid masses connected by springs under different tensions.
Theres a great gamasutra article about breast physics out there
Daily laps for three weeks (Sydney time, not counting the time she was Lost in SPAACCEE!!) will do anyone some good, even Sydney :P
Aaaaaaand… Youse don’t even have to run! I walk… really stepping out, about 100metres/minute… 2.8Km to the gym 6 days a week, half an hour solid workout on my program, 2.8Km back home. No pain, loss of flabby belly, gain of muscle mass. Ah, born in 1st half of last century.
It doesn’t have to hurt, unless you want to do a Royal Marines Entry Course!
100 metres per minute? Walking?! o_O
that’s 6km/h. typical walking speed is ~3km/h. so that’s pretty brisk, and at that point why not a light jog, but it’s not unreasonable for someone to walk that fast.
however, at that speed it would take ~30 minutes to go the 2.8km mentioned. the real question is who on earth walks 30 minutes there and another 30 minutes back for only 30 minutes at the gym
Probably because their exercise regimen isn’t ’30 minutes at the gym’ but ’30 minutes at the gym and a 60 minute brisk walk to and from the gym’ :P
Normal walking speed is just shy of 5 km/h (3-3.5 mph), so 6 km/h is a brisk walk, but by no means a strain on most healthy adults.
For a walking speed that was a pretty high strain on me, when I was in college, I frequently power walked places at a speed somewhere around 6-8 mph. Yeah, I did occasionally pass some joggers going the same way.
This wasn’t really me in shape, this was me attempting to not be late for class despite my tendency to procrastinate, and figuring out that for me, the energy to keep tossing myself in the air was being wasted on landing. I suspect some can manage to jog in a way that translates it to forward momentum when they land, but I couldn’t. On the other hand, I have long legs.
I founds that it does use less energy but it puts stress on different parts of your body. Jogging I run out of breath pretty quickly, but on the other hand I’m not sure power walking the way I was doing it in college (similarly, long legs) was terribly good for my ankles.
When I was younger, my walking speed, was rather fast. Though, it did make my butt wiggle and sway side to side.
I don’t want to go to there :(
Thank you for doing the maths
A number of years back, before mum had her surgery and was able to get around better (and our bus service hadn’t gone to shit), would often walk into town and meet her, usually took me around 25-30 minutes, and the distance was around the same, just never did the math to see how quick that was
Had terrible shinsplints and would have to stop around the halfway point for a minute or two (if didn’t simply ‘push through’ the pain)
Flattish ground. Nothing that could legitimately be called a “hill”. The arithmetic says 107.7meters/minute :)
OTOH, in the outer suburbs…
Yeah, Sydney is making progress with her fitness level. I notice that she hasn’t puked her guts out yet.
Plus, it doesn’t take her ten minutes to get her breath back to talk :D
Guessing her trainers didn’t anticipate that, just wait until she can run and talk :P
Nah, that’s an easy one: When you can run and talk, they make you run faster.
And then when you can do that, they make you call cadence.
Who said that this isn’t her FIRST lap around the track? you’re all assuming that she’s been gone around for a few laps already…
yea gods! i can’t write a sentence correctly for squat today…
Seems fine to me
And she’s still showing improvement if it is her first lap
You could go with something like (MxD)/S=JF (Mass x Density)/Support=Jiggle Factor
There’s some really good Second Life Breast Physics videos…
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=second+life+breasts&iax=videos&ia=videos
Error(s) in Anvil’s second bubble in panel seven?
Repeating usage of “thinks” and ‘get’ instead of ‘yet’ (or maybe missing a ‘to’ in front of ‘get’)?
I think it should read “which Cora thinks won’t be a problem to get, given recent events.”
That’s what happens when you mix dialog with elastic modulus in support garments :P
That bubble seems like perfectly normal english to me, so unless it was something else that’s already been corrected, I don’t think there’s anything to change.
Yes, it’s been corrected to what daedster said (minus the ‘to get’)
Wouldn’t Anvils boob jiggle be an infinite source of power for her kinetic energy absorption ability.So put an infinity symbol on her top.
Not only is it a power up, it’s far more comfortable than having her jigglejogglers… jigglejoggling.
As noted here, Anvil had already noted that sometimes the Jiggle Factor can be painful, even though it can be used to help charge her up.
Arrrgh! With the words “As noted here,” there should have been a link to an earlier page.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-255-the-arc-wrestling-federation/
That was a good fight!
Sometimes I forget just how useful Anvil’s power set can be. Would be great to see her in action again.
They can, problem is, the amount they generate is negligible compared to the discomfort
I (vaguely) recall a previous thread stating that she can not power herself up by such things as hitting herself or jumping up and down to get the impact from hitting the ground. The power-up needs to come from an external source or otherwise she would fall under the definition of a perpetual motion machine.
The X-Men character Sebastian Shaw was a kinetic absorber and various writers had him rely on attacks to power him up (sometimes electricity too) and others wrote he could power himself up by repeatedly punching a wall. If we live long enough to see the creation of “ARCHON, The Next Generation” there will probably be a number of ret-cons of current characters in there somewhere. (Let’s just hope we never see it devolve into a poorly animated kiddie show of ‘Sydney and her Super Friends’)
I recall one comic where Shaw asked for something to read while he was locked up. When he was (foolishly) allowed a few books, he proceeded to repeatedly slam the biggest book into his forehead until he stored up enough energy to allow him to break out of his cell. It seems pretty inefficient to transfer calories to muscle contraction to impact to absorption, but since he can store energy for hours, and release it in less than a second, it does add up.
I like to imagine him having something like this hooked up to an electric induction motor in his home, for his morning pick-me-up.
Who need silly renewable, nuclear and fossil power when we can have infinite boob energy.
Stored in mammary banks I assume?
No, the jigling of her boobs is dependent on her movement, so it’s powered by everything that makes her move.
I initially thought the shirt said “Physics VS Spandex” to reference the absurdity of myriad costume malfunctions. Ah well, that’s what zoom is for.
I had the same thought on panel 4 – fortunately, panel 7 cleared things up.
Entirely unrelated, Dave, but what level would the Patreon need to reach for us to, say, get special animated versions of some pages/panels every month or two?
Enough to clone DaveB
He barely has enough time to do two regular pages a week (not a critique)
I think animations had been suggested before, and turned down. The plan is (or at least was) for the comic to be published in hard-copy at some stage, and moving images don’t really translate well to that format.
The field you looking for is Elastostatic. At least this is what it was called in University for the Mechanics Engineerings class.
So Anvil, Sydney and Xuriel…
Eskimo sisters?
Sydney and Xuriel, yes.
Sydney and Krona, possibly but planned if not already.
Not to mention Sydney and Cora. Now Hiro and Math are Eskimo brothers? Is that a thing?
I read panel 6 not as awkwardness over Eskimo-relative status, but fear of crushing the puppy-eyed hope. Anvil seemed more interested in Altus when the team met the crew, although we don’t know what happened after that or how tall Frix is relative to the other male crewmembers.
I can see how that (buying the FTL ship) might work. I’m currently writing a story for personal satisfaction about an Orion from Andy O’s TMI universe selling a surplus planetary shuttle without a FTL drive to an Earth dude in exchange for a large quantity of Shiner seasonal beers. I’m thinking the dude could make a decent living running medium volume but heavy payloads everywhere from LEO to the Oort cloud.
Sydney could do that, already. But for some reason, unknown to the critical reader, they want her to improve her physical fitness before training the abilities she’s been hired for.
Actually, the critical reader understands Syd has been recruited into what is at least a para-military organisation, in which she is expected to engage in physically demanding counter-{something} duties at really inconvenient times with zero consideration for her circadian cycle. Syd is not in an “office job”.
Sydney’s health is a prerequisite to her performance and judgemet in the field, whether or not she is facing hostile forces. The nature of her “battle accessories” demand her highest awareness, simply to avoid deep-frying her comrades due to flab-fatigue while commanding forces roughly equivalent to a naval battle-group.
Also, this has nothing to do with Earth High Command (aka, President Ears) getting hold of its own FTL-capable engine
And your argument that they’re not training her for those is actually pretty short sighted. Physical fitness tends to have a pretty direct correlation to quick thinking/reasoning, etc. It’s why a lot of E-sports teams have started exercise regimens, despite their actual sport having little to do with physical fitness. Getting her in shape and healthy is likely to help her in general with her powers, since she’s limited to two orbs at once (for the moment), so sometimes its better to run than to sheild or fly. Etc.
Heck, to draw an even more direct example, the guys that fly the drones in the military have to keep a solid fitness score.
I’m just saying that we’ve seen her in track and field way more often than we’ve seen her training her super skills. I think that only happened once, right before and during the “dog and pony show”. And they tested some abilities like flight speed and the unknown orbs. But there was no real training on how to use the powers in combat situations. All her real training happened during combat. Everything was improvised, more or less.
Many others on the team seem to have had some training, though. They have developed a lot of tactics involving cooperation and combination of multiple team members and their respective powers.
Yeah.
Walking before running, and fitness before fighting.
Regular military has fitness improvements before heavy weapons.
An artilleryman will never lay hands on a Howitzer until after bootcamp. Rifles, squad machineguns, grenades, the Ma Deuce, some mines. that’s about it for bootcamp.
The same thing with surveillance equipment or for mechanics.
You will get into shape up to and including the point where you can handle a couple of days worth of sleep deprivation while still functioning adequately and go a day without water before you get any specialized training.
Sydney’s adventure on the Alari homeworld was a demonstration of how being in shape is critical in the field.
Thing is, Sydney already has her hands on a Howitzer. She’s already being deployed. They don’t have time for a normal bootcamp. Normal procedures for training don’t really work. But maybe they still try, because it’s a military organisation, they’ve always done it this sequence, they just can’t adapt.
Now I’m waiting for them to give her driving lessons. (Is this a thing in an US Military Force? I know it is for Forces of my Country.)
Umm, doesn’t Sydney already know how to drive? o_O
Yes. That doesn’t mean you’re allowed to drive vehicles of the Military. Sometimes not even normal military cars. Because if someone can be ordered to be a passenger, they don’t have the freedom to get out of the car, if they think that you’re a dangerous driver. They have to follow orders, where a civilian person would just be able to leave the vehicle. Therefore, the military forces that I know make sure that their drivers are safe, give them extra driving lessons and even test them.
It’s a bit more than a howitzer cannon. She is not normally deployed unsupervised. She wears medically-prescribed woolly mitts to bed. She is normally fully supervised at all on-duty times, and probably (discreetly) when off-duty doing the comic-store stuff. Everybody who matters is aware of her need for
speedAdderall meds.The huge difference between Syd and almost all the other characters is that SYD AIN’T A SUPER. What applies to Supers does not easily translate to non-supers.
The “military” does it this way because it works, and they rigidly follow the old adage that if it ain’t broke, you have’t tried hard enough. Adapt they certainly can. Every military looks at every other military, and from time to time they even send theirs to do courses with other military institutions. For example, I do believe the US Marines sent some of theirs to the Royal Marines Entry Course sometime last year.
Oh yes, BTW, if a service-person believes a driver to be incompetent, they are required under several sets of OH&S to report their concerns to their superiors, usually starting with their corporal, but if necessary their Company/Regimental Sar’majors (aka Warrant Officers) who usually have ultimate authority in these matters.
Sydney has already been inadvertently deployed a few times, and her main role in the field is as long-range support, but that doesn’t mean she won’t still benefit from strength and endurance training. If nothing else, being used to long and irregular hours means she’ll be better prepared for them when the next major incident brews up.
Takes a lot of energy to sit on ones primary asset and blow up some random group halfway round the world :P
It’s already been brought up, in the comic, that physical exercise doesn’t do much for a lot of the team. The primary reason for the exercises is discipline, and it’s something that the team can all do. And given that their own powers are all different, though there’s a fair amount of overlap (strength, durability, flight on a lot of them), it’s not like anyone could train Sydney in the use of her powers. Nevertheless, her powers seem to improve with usage, as she experiences very distinct “level up” events.
As for tactics and coordination, well, the subject’s been raised: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-626-the-superhero-handoff/
That’s a Really Good Point.
Bearing in mind that Syd’s not actually a Super, do supers genuinely need exercise to stimulate mental functions? (Of course, we do need to steer carefully around less-than-first-grade authors here.)
It’s just occurred to me that I’ve voiced a Really Scary Thought.
I have no mouth now…
Course it will work (pending Council approval), seeing how all that Dirt scum wanted was an FTL-capable engine to hoon around in, and Cora’s only objection was the corruptibility of the Fel ship (not that there would much in the way of a change in a government agent like that jerk :P )
Also, of course the Council approval will be trivial to get, given the recent circumstances… so long as there’s a fel ship that really needs to be removed from the planet and destroyed. It’s possible once that ship has been properly dealt with, that approval may be more difficult to get.
Though, that having been said, I expect Deus will be in to save the day before too horribly long.
Or, if not, odds are probably pretty good that the next idiots who decide to attack that unsophisticated, completely unprepared and unsuspecting planet with no hope against advanced alien technology will happily supply a space ship that’s less dangerous to everything and everyone. It’s possible that meaningful parts of the FTL drive might even survive.
Ah the idealism of youth.
Nothing which is decided by politicians and bureaucrats ever turns out to be trivial.
In Steven Gould’s Jumper Series book Exo, Cent a teleporter uses her ability to adjust velocity to put Satellites in orbit and do other LEO paid activities.
The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers is obscure now? o_O
That makes me sad :(
Goose is the bestest, EVER!! :P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfNsR8wqsuQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Sso3h0xMJA :D
I used to log into a BBS called Beta Mountain. How many people here even know what a BBS was?
Me, vaguely
What about IRC’s? mIRC and pIRCh mostly
And ICQ (fairly sure it was ICQ, because it sounds like ‘I Seek You’)
I remember ICQ, but only because when I first asked what it was, the answer was that it stood for “Irate Clown Quotient”, which was like the band ICP, but +1.
With an answer that bad, you can never forget it.
Now I feel old. When I was a teen, I used to log into a BBS to download games for my 8-bit computer (a Commodore 64, if you must know.) As a college student, I regularly played MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) via the student mainframe, and participated in Internet forums via LISTSERV. I also remember when ICQ was originally developed by Mirabilis (before it got bought out by AOL in 1998, and then by Mail.Ru in 2010), and I still use mIRC from time to time.
Bullion Board (Service) sp?
Close, Bulletin Board Service (bullion is regarding gold or silver, typically in bar or ingot form)
I’m pretty sure it’s the spandex that’s before the physics.
“I suspect “soft body physics” is probably not something that can be accounted for in a single nice, neat equation like E=MC^2”
There actually IS a nice, neat, really big equation for it, but you have to break the material up into tiny pieces and individually model them in parallel, if you’re trying for a physics based realistic solution. I’ve got no idea how they model it in video games, but I’m pretty sure the “gainaxing” isn’t physically realistic even in the games that do it better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_elasticity
Well truth be told that equation is the super special case simplification of the real equation.
I much like sticking with DC circuits where the math is as easy as P=IE
At least Sydney made per Perception check to notice the two missing ships. It seems with Sydney that the obscure she notices immediately, the blatantly obvious takes a bit longer.
In an RPG game I would probably make the player flip a coin. Head is a critical success, tails is a critical failure.
Me and mum are the same: we can go past something for weeks before noticing it’s either gone, or something new was added (and sometimes it’s an entire building :P )
You’re a normal human. I live in a small town in the country. When the town did some road improvements, they also installed a small clock tower ~8ft, in the corner of the park nearest the main intersection. For a few weeks, the local FB page carried a discussion with about half of the posters asking if that clock had been there before and a few of the more evil of us (guilty!) making posts about how nice it was that they finally got the tower telling the correct time again! :D
That’s the first time anyone has called me ‘normal’
… I only noticed there is building being build behind some trees when it was twice as tall … and no, those trees were NOT so dense it wouldn’t be visible through them.
El Goonish Shive dedicated an entire story arc to “Change Blindness.”
Wow, Sydney’s actually showing improvement.
Is Anvil reacting, in panel six, to Sydney’s eyes, or to the question about Frix? o_O
It’s both, since she’s making puppy dog eyes over Frix.
Being super strong and neigh indestructible (< Yeah, that's the wrong neigh.)
her boobs shouldn't sag and may not jiggle as much as we might expect.
Is she experiencing microgravity from her point of view?
I don't think comicbook physics has addressed this other than for fan service.
she isn’t either of that, just a kinetic absorber.
neigh, tho.
The word you are looking for is ‘nigh’ (short for ‘near on high’)
↑This‼️↑
Anvil is super-strong even without channeling absorbed kinetic energy into, for instance, a jump or punch. Her powers are listed as “moderate super strength and powerful kinetic absorption” on the cast page. She’s probably not nigh-invulnerable, though. She can absorb kinetic energy, which would protect her from impact, likely piercing/cutting to a large degree, and heat (since heat transfer involves molecular motion — hotter particles move faster). It wouldn’t keep her from freezing (unless she used stored energy to keep herself warm), nor asphyxiating, being poisoned or tranquilized. Depending on small a level her power works, it might protect her from radiation poisoning, by robbing subatomic particles of the energy they’d need to fragment DNA and otherwise damage tissue.
In other words, she has a power that negates or blunts some attacks as a side effect (like Heatwave and Mr. Amorphous), not a power that specifically functions as protection (like Max and especially Achilles).
I don’t know if Dave has specified the upper rate of how fast she can absorb energy. If she is in the path of a rifle bullet, will it slow down quick enough once it touches her skin to prevent it from getting up close and personal with her internal organs? (grenade shrapnel is several times faster than a speeding bullet)
She got hit with a punch from Vehemence when he thought he was swinging at Maxima, and it didn’t even make her flinch. Given that Maxima can pluck a bullet out of the air, she can move faster than a speeding bullet. Assuming Vehemence thought he had a chance in heck to hit her, he must have been throwing a punch with enough speed that she couldn’t effortlessly side-step it. I’d hypothesize from that example that Anvil can absorb a very large impact force over a very short period of time that is far greater than the speed and kinetic energy of a rifle bullet or piece of shrapnel from a grenade.
The part I’m wondering about is if it scales up to the near-luminal or down to the subatomic. That is, could she protect herself from a railgun round (very short transfer time), or from the subatomic particles that cause radiation poisoning (very small area of impact)?
okay, so, do NOT subscribe to research papers. I won’t go in the detail, but basically, they are basically a fame scam that the scientiffic community is forced to go with. Not once cent of what you pay to subscribe (and the subscriptions are absurdly high) go to the actual authors, who not only have to pay to be published, but also often are asked to give up their copyrights.
What you do is you go to google scholar to search for papers and once you found one you’re interested in, you copy the address of that page, go to sci-hub dot si and paste that address in the search bar. It’ll bypass the paywalls, and give you the full article.
(the domain name of sci-hub changes often cause it’s constantly taken down, but there’s always at least one active)
Yes it’s piracy, but if there ever was one justified kind of piracy, it’s this one.
Or just write to the author who will give you a copy for free.
Well, yeah and no.
Why a certain number of authors do it, not everyone does, be it because they don’t want to or because they’re literally swamped in mail, and didn’t notice yours.
Thing is you shouldn’t have to go and ask researchers for the results of public research.
Sci-hub isn’t a definitive situation, but it’s a quite good bandaid on the problem while we try to switch to a free and self-hosted distribution system.
+1 on this
Far be it from me to complain that this strip is bad (it’s not) because I wanted to see the thrilling legal procedure of a vigilante getting booked, but it is still disappointing. For all that sloooow build up through the fight scene and exposition about how demons aren’t inherently evil I expected a bit more of a pay-off on that front. At LEAST an explanation for why she has multiple arms.
Still… this is fine. It’s just not what I was hoping to see.
Just remember: this webic is supposed to be from Sydney’s perspective, hopefully we will get the answers during the Unpantsing later
In my brothers Doctoral Thesis, he had one page of high level math qnd wrote “What more can one say.” at the bottom. Perhaps you could do an equation with that?
Did he ACTUALLY succeed in defending a thesis with “What more can one say” in it? If he did, the exam board was uncharacteristically lax.
… or they didn’t make it all the way to bottom.
He did actually, in Astrophysics.
Can’t wait for the debriefing session, maybe Maxima could throw a couple of things toward Sydney!?
Don’t believe Sydney could fit in Maxi’s briefs ;)
Ah, come ON! They’re bigger than they look!
Question is, could they hold her… tight?
Was actually implying that they would be too big for Sydney (meaning that Sydney was smaller than Maxi)
Was also actually getting ‘height’ crossed with ‘width’ :(
Use the spring equation next time. Here’s a good Kotaku article for jiggle physics
https://www.google.com/amp/s/kotaku.com/how-video-game-breasts-are-made-and-why-they-can-go-so-1687753475/amp
“Those are all really good questions . . . hey, wait! You’re supposed to be doing PT right now!”
Damn, Anvil is just like the best looking of all the women to me.
Was just about to post a similar comment
Not so much that she is the best looking (that’s a personal opinion), just that she looks fantastic on this page, better than she has in a long time
She’ m,y favorite too, but I go fro Amazon women! :)
All of phisics is a soft body – there is not any thing truly rigid, only relativly rigid. For example the ball pendulum toy.
You mean that most hazardous toy right after lawn darts, Clackers?
WO is talking about a Newton’s Cradle, which is used to demonstrate conservation of momentum across a dynamic system. It’s close to a perfect transfer of energy through the suspended ball bearings, but not perfect, because of things like (as WO mentioned) less than absolute hardness of the balls, slack in the wires, and drag effects on the swinging balls.
Fairly sure most people would know that by the name ‘Clackers’, because that’s the sound they make :D
Funnily enough I know ‘Newton’s Cradle’ or just ‘desk toy’ but haven’t heard ‘clackers before’. Granted I did learn that name at a science communication/kids play location called Scitech.
There’s an actual toy called a clackers that’s basically a plastic bolas and is much more dangerous than a Newton’s Cradle. I assumed that’s what anonymouse was referring to.
Don’t believe have heard of that one…
I had a pair of green ones as a kid.
I think it was made for kids that could use a hammer correctly so that they could have smashed fingers too. There are some YouTube videos of old commercials from the seventies.
The balls tended to come off the strings, and hit someone with, rather major force, breaking Noses, knocking out teeth, and other injuries. They were taken off the market, fast afterwards.
Sounds like mass-produced ‘Conkers’ (someone decided to take a free game kids played and make money from it)
I am sure somebody already pointed this out but, one, Anvil is perfect, and two, she said “thinks thinks”.
I prefer ‘physics by spandex’, myself. Jokes aren’t funny if you have to work too hard to get them.
Hooke’s Law would have been a good candidate: F=kx
panel 7 ‘pending approval of the galactic council, which cora thinks thinks won’t be a problem’
Already mentioned that (you forgot the ‘get,’ after ‘problem’… ooo, thinking about it more, maybe it was supposed to be ‘getting’ rather than ‘to get’)
There’s no sexism in the video game industry.
You’re either trolling, terribly ignorant, or too sexist to recognize it.
I find it hard to believe anything other than trolling.
Not that trolling and ignorance are mutually exclusive.
Well, except for the cliche’ of the male nerd gamer living in his parents’ basement. I guess DaveB hasn’t heard yet how GamerGate was completely discredited yet.
By “discredited,” do you refer to how the accusations against them were completely disproven? How it was really just a bunch of pissed off consumers who were angry about atrocious behaviors by video game companies against their customers and employees? And how a shocking number of the anti-GG people were, after years of accusing gamers of being sexists, exposed as having committed sexual harassment – or even arrested for actual sexual assault, in a number of cases?
(for those questioning all that: look it up. We’re talking about a multi-BILLION dollar industry. Any large industry like that is going to attract some seriously scummy sociopathic types)
We must be talking about two different Gamergates. I’m talking about the “Journalist” who pretended to be a gamer online and claimed she was being discriminated against by OTHER GAMERS, specifically male gamers, in the game.
Any gamer who’s a real gamer knows that if a Gamer Girl reveals they’re a girl, they actually get treated a lot BETTER than other players, not worse, Usually because a lot of male gamers wish they could find a woman who shares their interests.
Yeah, GG was turned into a generic bogeyman by the media. But the original GG was about how video game companies were engaged in unfair and unethical business practices. Particularly when it came to dishonest “reviews” that were actually advertisements (Which makes the gamers sound oh so entitled… until you realize it’s a bunch of consumers being upset about false advertising for products that can cost upwards of $40-60).
Then one of the complainers made a bunch of legitimate accusations against someone, added a sexist accusation… and the companies squealed with glee at the prospect of a scapegoat, and that’s when things got twisted.
I think most people hearing “Gamergate” will think of this series of events outlined on Wikipedia, which started with online harassment of the female author of a poorly-received game. When she spoke out, the harassment escalated to death threats and doxing her real-world home address, leading to her fleeing her own home. Similar events unfolded with other female developers and their supporters, leading to the media attention.
It’s a complex issue involving lots of bad behavior in and around gaming industry and culture. I don’t pretend to understand it all, but the well-substantiated stuff I have heard is enough to keep me from ever wanting to work in gaming.
I’ve had plenty of death threats against me for the smallest thing online and doxing happens to everyone.
It has nothing to do with them being female. It has to do with them being disliked for their actions.
This happens to people of both sexes. There is absolutely 0 evidence that women are treated worse than men. There’s just women complaining about being treated like everyone else, and assuming it is unique to their sex.
These are people that starts out with the assumption that there’s sexism, spreads lies, and propaganda, then calls it sexism when there’s push back.
Nobody likes how collective outrage plays out on Twitter. It always becomes too much. But you live under a rock if you think that only happen to women.
No one’s suggesting it doesn’t happen to men too, but when threats against women specifically mention gender as a both motive and a key attribute of the target, it kinda makes anyone rational think that just maybe perhaps the attacks are gender-related.
I like that Cora came to a resolution which was not ‘We are going to illegally steal your ship and cause an act of war.’ I also like that the G-Men got something for Earth worthy of trading the Fel ship, given that Earth did all the work in the first place in downing the Fel ship (well, ArcSwat did, and mainly Maxima did, which means Earth – and more specifically the US – did, since Maxima is a soldier for the United States. On Earth).
It’s close to what I guessed which was
one of Cora’s undamaged and functional escape pods in exchange for all the
contaminated items for disposal.
I don’t see the government representative taking an IOU.
We have no idea yet what sort of collateral was involved, although I’m pretty sure the Council would have problems if one of the members of the Council (the alien representative of the Council) did something which was cheating the US government out of something which was clearly and legally belonging to the US government. Probably would violate a few treaties and compacts between the Council and the US government too.
Probably will be something about it in the debriefing.
Without the shields from Cora’s ship providing protection from the Fel ship’s attack, there likely would have been little remaining of the Arc facilities and personnel, save for the few people that are nearly fully invulnerable. Saying that Earth did all of the work ignores Cora’s contribution.
Namely, attracting the Fel in the first place
That’s true as well. Although Cora only came to Earth BECAUSE of helping Archon (ie, getting Sydney back to Earth).
That’s true as well. Cora’s shield did provide protection, so it’s logical to say it was a joint effort, at least in preventing casualties in the initial salvo by the Fel ship.
I still think Archon should do some contracting work with this particular fashion designer. She obviously specializes in women’s wear.
…Oh, and she also employs fashion ninjas…
Syd is stepping up her puppy eyes game!
I can’t believe more people didn’t mention it. She triggered every protecc instinct I have O_O
Puppy dog eyes for Frix. How appropriate!
Sydney might be missing a bet by not offering to share her relationship with Frix with Krona.
I adore Sydney’s wide eyes :).
How nice of Cora to split the bounty on the ship she didn’t take down. ಠ_ಠ
You mean the ship whom her ship’s shields prevented everyone in Archon headquarters from being killed by?
To be fair, while she did not take it down, she’s doing the trade and the US does not have an intergalactic ship capable of doing so, and dealing with the diplomatic problems of being a liaison to the Galactic Council, which can eliminate problems down the road for the US and Earth. By getting the US ‘starter FTL’ ship, it increases the likelihood of being able to reverse engineer FTL technology, which would be a huge win for the US. Also, Cora did give intel on the Fel just before the attack. And it’s not necessarily going to be an ‘even’ split anyway. For all we know, the US will be getting the lion’s share of the split.
It’s not uncommon for sellers to receive a commission. When you sell your house through a real estate agency, they take a percentage in exchange for doing the work of lining up buyers and handling the paperwork.
Hell, that applies to retail stores and grocery stores. Your local supermarket BOUGHT the produce and foodstuffs, then brought them to a location that’s convenient to you and other hungry customers. You’re paying more for the food than they did when they bought it from the farmers and manufacturers… the effective result is that the farmers and manufacturers got paid and the supermarket got a “commission” for arranging the sale.
lets be honest Cora is a representative of a far more powerful far larger “nation” and if the tables were turned the U.S. would have no problem simply taking the ship and giving the small nation nothing in return no matter how little they were involved in taking the ship down.
Ok, but why is Archons training ground surrounded by only a forrest? Based on the position of the rising sun I can tell its ground level and not some weird air training ground, so somone could definitly enter Archons most vunerable place (The place where noone is wearing body armor) and just wreak shit up. I hope they atleast have some form of security in there.
I suspect the Archon base is part of (or at least similar to) a business park near an airport, and there’s just a ring of small forest with additional buildings beyond it. We’ve only seen a few angles of the complex so it’s hard to say.
As for vulnerability, I expect there’s at least a perimeter guard and security fence/system around the entire site, similar to any military base. While many on the team are nigh-invulnerable, there’s plenty (especially the support staff presumably) who can’t take a rifle shot and need traditional protection. Even though the internal forces could respond quickly and deal with pretty much any attack, including alien invasion, security should never allow the public to approach to a proximity that would allow a couple snipers pick off the squishies in an opening salvo.
If it’s possible to sufficiently secure the White House for the president while they’re giving public tours inside the building, the private grounds of a military base with ArcLight in residence is surely even better secured.
To screen it from view.
Most bases I have served at were surrounded by forest when they were created unless they are inthe mountains or a desert, or if they include port facilities.
Over time, cities tend to be built around them.
Panel 6 caption: Anvil is saved from trying to answer a super-awkward question by the magic of A.D.D.!
For those looking for information on soft body physics as related to this comic, I would refer them to the classic work of 50 years ago, https://www.amazon.com/Stress-Analysis-Strapless-Evening-Scientific/dp/B000H5A3F0/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Stress+Analysis+of+a+Strapless+Evening+Gown&qid=1582563916&sr=8-1
Since her power set is angelus to a non-Newtonian fluid something about newton hating her or vice versa might work for Anvil.