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Mawwage. Twue Wuv. :3

Renee gets a hold of Clinton. He has to get another cybernetic hand.

Emily finds out about Brun. She gets JEALOUS. Hilarity Ensues.

Brun disappears into the night, and is never heard from, ever again.

Dora mounts the harpoon over the specials board.

Cosette promptly burns COD down ten minutes later.

Another Faye and Bubbles arc!

MOAR PINTSIZE!

Who cares? All I know is One man. One bowl. One year's supply of cereal. A lifetime of memes.

Something completely different, of course.

NO PATREON SPOILERS!

(Some Patreon spoilers)

Brun turns out to be a secret AI ((secret))

Return of the Secret Bakery

[Nepiophage]

Is it my imagination, or is Clinton been slowly turning into a red-haired Marten over the course of this arc? 

Edit:  To elaborate, ever since the fire, with his messier hair and lack of glasses, he's been drawn more similarly to Marten.

Funny, I see him as turning more into a red-haired Sven. Which would be hot indeed.

Also, maybe I'm just projecting my own prejudices here, but at his current level of hotness, he can do better than Brun, I think.

Better than Brun? There's no such thing!

[Thrillho]

And conversely, I was referring to personality (self-confident, relatively sane, does the right thing) with the second. Brun is a bit of a mess, personality-wise, and I don't think she's up to being a good companion for  Clinton or anyone else right now.

Yeah that's still a fairly unpleasant way to describe someone.

[Neko_Ali]

"She's different, so doesn't deserve to be with anyone."

An extreme interpretation of the statement, but still an accurate one. Everyone is different. Everyone is weird in their own ways. If people were just always looking for the 'perfect' person the would would be very lonely... Especially given the fact that what is 'perfect' is subject to change. Instead we find people we fit with. They may not be perfect, but they're perfect (or more commonly good enough) for you.

And yeah, recent surge of in-control-ness and hotness aside, Clinton is still pretty much a mess himself. But ultimately, he's a good guy, in the appropriate use of the word.

[aliensporebomb]

Speaking of that Kiss Me song, my understanding is it was one of those songs written by a christian band totally unlike all their other material so after that song broke there was some discussions and tensions within that band about trying to change everything about the band to resemble that type of song/theme/music and thus lead to a band breakup.

I think it's funny - despite Clinton being described as hot Hanners found it necessary to proclaim "Please don't try to smooch me."  As if Clinton would ever make the attempt.  That guy is pretty shy from past interactions with ladies.  And given that she's the daughter of his hero - I think he'd be terrified to even entertain the thought.

I hope we see Brun again too.  She has an air of mystery about her.

[USS Martenclaire]

I think it's funny - despite Clinton being described as hot Hanners found it necessary to proclaim "Please don't try to smooch me."  As if Clinton would ever make the attempt.

He still remembers the hose.

[hedgie]

I can kinda understand Hanners there.  The last time someone kissed me, I flailed and nearly fell off my barstool despite being sober.

[comicalArchitect]

Is it my imagination, or is Clinton been slowly turning into a red-haired Marten over the course of this arc? 

Edit:  To elaborate, ever since the fire, with his messier hair and lack of glasses, he's been drawn more similarly to Marten.

Funny, I see him as turning more into a red-haired Sven. Which would be hot indeed.

Also, maybe I'm just projecting my own prejudices here, but at his current level of hotness, he can do better than Brun, I think.

Shallow, self-absorbed, manipulative is hot. Got it.

Honestly, I do kinda find personalities like Sven's attractive. Not gonna say whether that's healthy or not.

[Case]

Is it my imagination, or is Clinton been slowly turning into a red-haired Marten over the course of this arc? 

Edit:  To elaborate, ever since the fire, with his messier hair and lack of glasses, he's been drawn more similarly to Marten.

Funny, I see him as turning more into a red-haired Sven. Which would be hot indeed.

Also, maybe I'm just projecting my own prejudices here, but at his current level of hotness, he can do better than Brun, I think.

Shallow, self-absorbed, manipulative is hot. Got it.

Honestly, I do kinda find personalities like Sven's attractive. Not gonna say whether that's healthy or not.

Hot-shot, give me no problems.
Much later baby you'll be saying never mind.
You know life is cruel, life is never kind.

Kind hearts don't make a new story.
Kind hearts don't grab any glory.
We're the kids in America.
Everybody live for the music-go-round.

[Kugai]

EXPERIMENT 1101 - CLINTON AUGUSTUS

[Gyrre]

I've got this feeling that Emily and Brun are going to get on very well on a personal level and this is going to lead to... surreality. Specifically, they will come to a gentlewoman's agreement that they both want Clinton and will have a fair contest to woo him. This concludes with them shaking hands over terms in the middle of CoD, hugging like sisters then immediately turning to someone else and start trash-talking the other and adding "don't tell Clinton I said so!"

It just goes on like this, with the two of them plotting and conniving against the other but, when in each other's company, having no problem with the other on the grounds that it's 'just business'.

I'm more inclined to think that they'll end up working together on a project that leads to the creation of the praeses (sp?) from 'Alice Grove'.

[Gyrre]

We don't; we merely acknowledge the complication that the characters display to us.

That reminds me of a quote I rather like but can't place. :
"Okam's razor is a fine thing, but the universe is a Rube-Goldberg machine."

I may have mangled that slightly.

[comicalArchitect]

Guys guys guys. What if the reason Jeph's "getting into some hard sci-if" is that Brun's SECRETLY AN AI.

[Zebediah]

We don't; we merely acknowledge the complication that the characters display to us.

That reminds me of a quote I rather like but can't place. :
"Okam's razor is a fine thing, but the universe is a Rube-Goldberg machine."

I may have mangled that slightly.

Here's an article by a NASA physicist complaining that the Standard Cosmological Model is starting to look more and more like a Rube Goldberg machine.

And here's another explaining how the Standard Model fits remarkably well with observational data - which would imply that the underlying universe really is akin to a Rube Goldberg machine.

And, you know, I'm perfectly cool with that. I don't need my reality to be elegant. If it's an absurdly complicated and hacked-together universe we live in, well, that's just fine by me.

[Case]

We don't; we merely acknowledge the complication that the characters display to us.

That reminds me of a quote I rather like but can't place. :
"Okam's razor is a fine thing, but the universe is a Rube-Goldberg machine."

I may have mangled that slightly.

Here's an article by a NASA physicist complaining that the Standard Cosmological Model is starting to look more and more like a Rube Goldberg machine.
...

The author has M.Sc. in plasma physics (not particle physics) and has been working as a software engineer and analyst for NASA for the past 24 years. Means no research in any of the fields he's pontificating about. And that's the way the article reads:

So the "Standard! Model! of! Cosmology!" and the Standard model of particle physics don't go well together. Wellwellwell - what on Earth are we going to do now? Probably time to go look for another job, now the sham has been exposed ...

... NOT.

The author fails to point out the difference between the Lambda-CDM model, one specific parametrization of the Big Bang cosmological model that is sometimes called "The Standard Model of Cosmology" on the one hand, and the Standard Model of Particle Physics on the other.

The Standard Model of Particle Physics deals with three of the four fundamental interactions - Electromagnetic and weak nuclear interaction  (unified into "electroweak" interaction) and strong nuclear interaction. Those are Quantum Field theories - and the SM is a huge synthesis of the better part of theoretical physics work of the 20th Century. Einsteins' General Theory of Relativity describes the remaining interaction - gravitation. It is a classical (i.e. non-quantized) field theory. Attempts at unifying the four include the various string theories, and quantum loop gravitation - just mentioning those so you don't confuse the cutting-edge "Last Mysteries of Physics"-stuff with:

The "Standard Model of Cosmology" is a name for a specific parametrization for a specific approximation derived from Einstein's Field equations that roughly does for Cosmology what the SM of particle physics does for ... pretty much all the rest of physics.  AFAIK, it doesn't describe 'much' except for the existence and structure of the cosmic microwave background, the expansion of the Universe, large-scale distribution of Galaxies and the abundance of Hydrogen.
(When I say 'not much', I mean 'by comparison to the reach of the standard model of particle physics. The Lambda-CDM is certainly a huge achievement - in one subfield of physics called Cosmology)

The two have nothing to do with each other at all - they describe completely different phenomena in largely unrelated subfields of physics. Furthermore, the one is for quantum field theories, the other for a classical one; we've know since the early 20th century that the twain don't go well together - hence the Brouhaha about a Theory of Everything. The SM of Cosmology is not that TOE, and doesn't aim to be.
Even if the SM of Cosmology were to be in trouble - the effect on the rest of physics would be ... zero. Nil. zip. Nada.
Nix kaput.

Not pointing out the difference between the two to a lay-audience while happily jumping between them from one sentence to the next is tantamount to deliberate misdirection.

Not cool. at. all.

While adherence to the "Universal code of ethics for scientists" is entirely voluntary, there is a reason why the code was proposed. One of them is the 7th tenet:
"Do not knowingly mislead, or allow others to be misled, about scientific matters. Present and review scientific evidence, theory or interpretation honestly and accurately."

I recommend not trusting this guy to give you the correct time of the day. 

EDIT: Cynicism & snark. Bad form pissing on the colleagues in an entire branch of physics while aiming at a NASA blogger. Jeeze ... when did I become so cranky?

[Near Lurker]

I have to wonder what would happen if Emily and Raven ever collaborated...

[Perfectly Reasonable]

But what does this tell us about the Cambrian Explosion ?

The Ultraviolet Catastrophe ?

Are we pursuing a two tailed hypothesis ?

[brasca]

I have to wonder what would happen if Emily and Raven ever collaborated...

It would be nice to see what she's been up to. 

And while I can understand Clinton's annoyance it's still a step up from previous encounters at Coffee of Doom.

[mustang6172]

Guys guys guys. What if the reason Jeph's "getting into some hard sci-if" is that Brun's SECRETLY AN AI.

Congratulations!  You just kept Brun from passing the Turing Test.

[jwhouk]

I have to wonder what would happen if Emily and Raven ever collaborated...

The Blink.

[Zebediah]

Comic!

BUTTS

ROBOT BUTTS

[Penquin47]

Butts!

"We had to discuss the ontology of my buttocks" is a very bizarre sentence and I love it.

[eschaton]

Guys guys guys. What if the reason Jeph's "getting into some hard sci-if" is that Brun's SECRETLY AN AI.

Look's like it's not the way things are going, but I remembered thinking it would be a funny conclusion to that arc if we saw a neck seam on Brun in the shower. 

[chaospersonified]

I am always happy when Jeph has a flare-up of butts disease

[Gyrre]

Dear Method,

Was it necessary to get that song stuck in my head? I mean, really?

Here, let me drive it out of your mind for you.

"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip,
That started from this tropic port,
Aboard this tiny ship"

Is it gone now?

I'm kind of partial to:

"Mari Mac's mother's making Mari Mac marry me.
My mother's making me marry Mari Mac.
Well I'm going to marry Mari for when Mari's taking care of me.
We'll all be feeling merry when I marry Mari Mac."

[Zastie]

On one hand Jeph might need an intervention to get his butts disease treated.. on the other hand it's extremely amusing.

[ysth]

I am disappointed to see that CoD makes tea with *shudder* tea-bags. They'll be serving freeze-dried instant coffee next.

As an intermediate step they could try ground coffee in coffee bags (which is what I drink a lot of the time); they're individually sealed to keep the aroma intact until use.

Of course, I'm not seriously suggesting these for commercial usage, though bags are often used for tea commercially, I observe.  Also, individual coffee filters are not uncommon in second-grade catering establishments, as they look suitably pretentious in use.

https://books.google.com/books?id=qxPNBAAAQBAJ&lpg=PT227&dq=sunshine%20loose%20tea&pg=PT227#v=onepage&q=sunshine%20loose%20tea&f=false

[DSL]

Re the comic: How loose is the definition "look like people"? Bilaterally symmetrical and bipedal? Pintsize has a head, torso and two arms and legs and acts and thinks like ... most humans, really. Winslow is an overgrown iPod with vestigial limbs and thinks and, well, ditto.

[St.Clair]

I want to say, "she's human enough to blush" (at a certain implication).
But that's not quite right either, is it?
This whole non-human sapience thing is tricky.

[brasca]

Getting a coat is one thing, but could Bubbles get durable pants even if she wanted?

[BenRG]

It seems incredible to me that Bubbles could have known Faye for months and not figured out that she has these little quirky obsessions! Of course, I may be doing her an injustice. She may have guessed but hoped that she was wrong!

Faye is still trying to figure out a way to get Bubbles to loosen up and this does suggest that learning to live without her armour might have a psychological aspect that could aid to that end. It's a reasonable idea; unfortunately, it also makes her sound like she's clumsily flirting with Bubbles or is a psycho stalker!

Getting a coat is one thing, but could Bubbles get durable pants even if she wanted?

Yes but she'd likely have to go to a specialist outsize clothier. She is a lot bigger than an average person so it's unlikely that she'd find off-the-shelf stuff in her size.


[EDIT]
P.S.:
I've just noticed Bubbles's blush in panel 4. She doesn't look angry at that point; to me, she's reacting to flirting and not in a negative way. Faye owes it to her to make her intentions plain (assuming that she is entirely sure of them herself).

[KOK]

Are robutts different from other butts?

[Detachable Felix]

[EDIT]
P.S.:
I've just noticed Bubbles's blush in panel 4. She doesn't look angry at that point; to me, she's reacting to flirting and not in a negative way. Faye owes it to her to make her intentions plain (assuming that she is entirely sure of them herself).

[mod hat] Keep the shipping out of the WCDT please, Ben [/mod hat]

[osaka]

Of course it could've been reduced to "Bubbles, are you wearing pants? Yes", but what would be the fun in that?

[Neko_Ali]

Blushing can also indicated embarrassment because someone was talking about her butt, which is usually an embarrassing subject for humans. And Bubbles does seem to have the usual AI similarity to humans when it comes to emotional response.

[katsmeat]

So the comic won't get renamed "Questionable Clinton".  Huzzah!

He's OK - I don't mind him that much .... but was seriously outstaying his welcome after six weeks.

[BenRG]

I'm thinking that Bubbles agreeing to appear in public wearing human civilian clothing rather than her armour would be a huge step for her in psychological terms, equivalent to someone with shut-in syndrome agreeing to leave their room. Because of that, I'm not expecting it any time soon. Jeph is going to have to give a long, drawn-out build up to make the pay-off worth it.

That said, I can see, in a moment of anger, her stripping off in her private room and standing in front of Faye yelling: "See? Are you happy now you've seen this?" whilst Faye reacts in the way anyone would if one of your work friends suddenly decided to strip naked (i.e. freeze and visibly freak out). If done tastefully, it would make for a very, very funny strip!

P.S.:
Just a speculation about Bubbles's armour: I think that the inner, dark layer is a mix of composite-link chain mail and possblly a few layers of thermal insulation and something like kevlar for extra protection against fast-moving projectiles. The main plate is likely something like laminated composite armour of the sort used on light armoured vehicles. Fully-armoured, I bet Bubbles probably weighs about 500lbs but likely is closer to 200lbs when naked (I use that term because it is clear that this is how she'd view it).

[Akima]

I wonder if Overwatch exists in the QC universe...

[Method of Madness]

I'd honestly never noticed that the darker red stuff wasn't part of the outer layer, I'd just assumed it was one layer, but different colors.

[Detachable Felix]

I wonder if Overwatch exists in the QC universe...

Only if Jeph's Butts Disease gets worse

[Gyrre]

I might be wrong but I think that teas are a relatively new thing at Coffee of Doom. Maybe Hannelore's attempt to get in a product line suitable for Synthetics with olfactory sensors has led to human tea drinkers also buying them?

In panel 2, the girls poses are such that their hands are not visible.
In panel 4, the girls have very dynamic poses with hands front and center.
I get it. Drawing hands is hard. And one dynamic panel at a time is enough. Respect. trex

Actually, Dora and Hanners' postures in panel 2 are very defensive. I find myself wondering if they were afraid that it wasn't Clinton at all but some pod person who can wear the skin but not entirely mimic the man.

Well, he's drinking something warm, so it's probably not sugar water. That's a good sign, right?

[Gyrre]

Guys guys guys. What if the reason Jeph's "getting into some hard sci-if" is that Brun's SECRETLY AN AI.

Congratulations!  You just kept Brun from passing the Turing Test.

She gets B.O. when she hasn't showered. Android chassis don't sweat.

[Penquin47]

Guys guys guys. What if the reason Jeph's "getting into some hard sci-if" is that Brun's SECRETLY AN AI.

Congratulations!  You just kept Brun from passing the Turing Test.

She gets B.O. when she hasn't showered. Android chassis don't sweat.

You never know.  Someone might have invented that technology.  Why, I haven't a clue, but I'd be more surprised if it didn't exist than if it did.

[brasca]

Getting a coat is one thing, but could Bubbles get durable pants even if she wanted?

Yes but she'd likely have to go to a specialist outsize clothier. She is a lot bigger than an average person so it's unlikely that she'd find off-the-shelf stuff in her size.

There's that, but for someone with as much strength and agility as her she'd need something that would avoid ripping easily especially in the seat unless she bought something that was really baggy. 

And technically speaking I would say Bubbles is wearing chaps since the leg portion is armored, but the crotch and seat is not.   

[sitnspin]

It's all armoured, the darker parts are just a less dense, more flexible armour. She explained this in the strip.

[Is it cold in here?]

Bubbles might be better served by a skirt.

[Kugai]

Like Brianne of Tarth? 


I think it would be an interesting development to see Bubbles reach the stage where she's finally comfortable in her development thanks to Faye that she decides to dump the Armor outer shell and wear normal clothing.  It would certainly say a lot about her psychological development when she stops 'Hiding' behind her Armored Shell and starts looking 'Normal' - whatever that is for her.

[blt]

[EDIT]
P.S.:
I've just noticed Bubbles's blush in panel 4. She doesn't look angry at that point; to me, she's reacting to flirting and not in a negative way. Faye owes it to her to make her intentions plain (assuming that she is entirely sure of them herself).

[mod hat] Keep the shipping out of the WCDT please, Ben [/mod hat]

After about two weeks of Clinton-Brun: He'll invite her to his place/the fire found them in bed together/their personalities do/don't go well together/shipping in these WCDTs I'm getting sort of hazy where this line is drawn, when and why.

[Rghfrgl]

That networked AI is a dick.

[Radium_Coyote]

It's spelled Ptarth.

And it was always obvious that Bubbles had a deep, reflective mind.  It's just that the scars from making it haven't gone away yet.

And as regards to the "Simulation Theory", I heard it very simply put this way: "Given the apparent age of the universe, what are the odds we're the first people to come up with that idea?"

[mustang6172]

Arbitrary power requires arbitrary cooling fan.

I never noticed Jeph's outlook was so bleak.