THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Comic Discussion => QUESTIONABLE CONTENT => Topic started by: Tova on 28 Nov 2021, 13:29
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Here is one of those WCDT thingies with a Questionable Poll.
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Poll answer: other. I had a goal, and I have achieved it, but now I want something else that I haven't figured out yet. So I'm a cross between Sam and Dora.
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If you can think of a QC character that fits that answer, I'll edit the poll to include them.
Edit: Wait, I think I've got it!
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Yay, I'm May!
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Marten level. I have a job, it's alright, that's about it...
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I picked May level... I have a goal, I accomplished it, I'm still doing it and will be for the next 15 years or so, but I'm working out how to make what I want to do after that happen. Seems like it's the closest fit.
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Yay, you ignored Cosmo!
At a guess, Aurelia called Yay because they're bonded by exchanging secrets. But a priori somebody with a social protocol database would have been a better choice. Does she know Momo?
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Yay, you ignored Cosmo!
That was deeply confusing for a moment.
There's a new comic BTW.
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Awww. Hey/Spookybot is surprisingly nice at times.
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Most of the time they tend to be more someone the other characters humour. This time they are being appropriately supportive.
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"Tremendous emotional damage"?! Catastrophizing just a little bit, aren't we Aurelia?
...Though I suppose Claire did that, too - and I'm sure Clinton would have done something similar if he were there, so... :roll:
*Edit: I went for the Pintsize option - There is no "goal" there is only a "way" :-D
(Dang it, I unleashed my inner hippie again...)
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YAY AND AURELIA FRIENDSHIP YAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!
And I don't quite want to pick Pintsize level on the poll because I don't think I'm at current Pintsize level, if that makes sense? Pintsize seemed much less satisfied with life in earlier eras of the comic. I'm in a place of "I know my goal, but there are complex obstacles between me and it, such that there are multiple catch-22 roundabouts to navigate to try to achieve it," so maybe like a nega-Marten drifting discontentedly*. Or just this face: :psyduck:
* - It occurs to me that earlier Marten wasn't all that content with his drifting either. Hm.
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I suspect that Yay's research has been knocked considerably off-kilter by the alarming number of parents who resent or ignore the existence and happiness of their children in favour of their own social and financial priorities.
Also, Yemisi's sartorial advice is unique and possibly should be passed through a reality filter ("How would I react to someone else wearing this?") before being adopted.
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*Edit: I went for the Pintsize option - There is no "goal" there is only a "way" :-D
That's a better Pintsize Level than the one I put in. 8-)
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The idea to try to cure feeling unhappy with a mind altering substance feels way more unhealthy for me than the conversation between mother and daughter.
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Oddly, not the first time I've seen a crop top sweatshirt.
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Oh come on Aurelia, all you need to do is explain the difference between disappointed *for* and disappointed *with*.
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I'm not sure that clarification would cheer Claire up.
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Wait, what ?
I need a goal now ?
That sounds like I'd have to restrict my options.
Cant I just be super curious all the time ?
I'm not sure that clarification would cheer Claire up.
But the clarificiation of Claire would result in more Claire !
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Oddly, not the first time I've seen a crop top sweatshirt.
I used to own one when I was still a twenty-something. Always wore a t-shirt or something underneath, though.
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I need a goal now ?
No of course not.
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Is it just me, or is Cosmo being inappropriately phallic in this comic?
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Eye of the beholder?
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Decommissioned Communications Satellites:
Because you never can tel(star) when you'll need one!
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Wine from a screwtop jar... That's classy!
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Sheesh, the number of people who bussed tables or who drove taxi cabs before they got their career or artistic breakthrough. Of course there's no shame in it. Exactly the opposite.
Philip Glass drove cabs before he became one of the USA's most celebrated modern composers. Pretty sure he's not ashamed of his time driving cabs or fixing people's water pipes.
And yes, there's a new comic, in case you were wondering.
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Isn't Aurelia kinda playing the misunderstood victim a little bit? I mean, her disappointment was palpable, she shouldn't be that surprised with her daughter's reaction.
And I understand Claire, kinda wanting something else in life, but strangled by adult life responsibilities. Sleeping bad, working a lot in a stressful job, seeing time fly by. "And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you, no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun" - Pink Floyd's Time. Very relatable.
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Bad Yay! No nuking them from orbit! :laugh:
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Judging yourself by standards you'd never expect from someone else is a pretty common mindset. Or so I tell myself.
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Awww. Hey/Spookybot is surprisingly nice at times.
How about now?
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Wine from a screwtop jar... That's classy!
I think it may actually be a water bottle. Even classier.
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Okay, that pretty much confirms what most readers assumed about Claire and Clinton's dad.
Also, if I were Yay, I'd worry that Aurelia has a lot more chemical crutches for dealing with parental challenges than cannabis. That wine looks like it's option 2.
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Awww. Hey/Spookybot is surprisingly nice at times.
How about now?
They're still being nice to Aurelia. I say it still counts. Also, I quite enjoy the gleeful look on their face as they offer up their own unique super-powerful-collective-consciousness version of, "You want I should rough 'im up for ya?"
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Of all things about the comic, the idea of dropping a satellite on someone is what breaks my suspension of disbelief (go figure).
Satellites stay up because they move sideways very very fast. Dropping them instantly would be only marginally easier than putting them into orbit instantly. And I can't think of any viable mechanism to do it, future technology or not, that doesn't break physics.
I imagine Yay could use whatever they have at their disposal to decelerate the satellite, but "putting a satellite on a rapidly decaying orbit that will cause it to burn in the atmosphere and, eventually, hitting a target with some of the resulting shrapnel that somehow doesn't get destroyed on reentry" both doesn't have the same ring to it, and seems just as implausible as stopping the lateral movement of a satellite mid-orbit. How do you aim that? At that point, you can't control for how the satellite tumbles in the atmosphere as it breaks apart. And the smallest change makes it go completely unpredictably wild because chaos theory.
Yes, I'm WAY overthinking this. Yay is probably just making a joke. Not that they don't probably have the means to kill someone instantly that they have prepared. That much, I can believe.
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Of all things about the comic, the idea of dropping a satellite on someone is what breaks my suspension of disbelief (go figure).
Satellites stay up because they move sideways very very fast. Dropping them instantly would be only marginally easier than putting them into orbit instantly. And I can't think of any viable mechanism to do it, future technology or not, that doesn't break physics.
I don't think that Yay said that they could do it instantly. However, it would be possible to deorbit a satellite gradually by running its RCS motors to exhaustion. In that time, the orbital reconnaissance assets Yay can access could locate Mr Augustus and let Yay fine-tune the burn so that the debris scatter oval would centre over his most likely location at that moment.
Yes, space nerd over-thinking it too.
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Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuum.
Trying to drop a regular satelite on people doesnt work. At all.
Absolutely. Not. Ever.
1. It burns up into the atmosphere
2. The remains, if any, will spread over a wide area
3. You cannot control where exaxtly the remains will hit
4. Also communications satelites are usually in geostationary orbit, 36,000 kilometers above the surface, taking exactly 24 hours for one orbit and thus staying in place over whatever country placed the satelite there. Up there there are simply not enough remains of an atmosphere to slow the satelite down and the satelite wont be able to create enough acceleration to drop to earth at all. Decomissioned communication satelites are placed in a parking orbit, not dropped back to earth.
The infamous rod of thungsten, emerging from a space station in the "safe" area, i.e. still much below the Van Allen belt, about 300 km above the surface, thrown with sufficient acceleration (the most efficient way is to throw it backwards), mentioned in this comic before would work. Though even that thungsten rod of course would require some acceleration ability on its own to target a very specific point on the planets surface, for even minimal movements up high in the atmosphere (caused by the winds up there) of course causes huge differences in what point on the surface will be hit in the end.
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Bad Yay! No nuking them from orbit! :laugh:
No, not nuking, just a little sattelite crater! Cause, you know, Antigua is very small. Nuking would leave no Antigua at all.
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I mean, the QC universe is far more advanced then ours. Maybe there is a technology that allows for greater control over a satellite movement and protective materials that withstand the reentry heat. They got fricking AI!
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If I remember right, Aurelia is not yet aware of Yay's immense power. The next sentence should be something like "what do you mean, 'drop a decommissioned satellite on them?' Is that an option?"
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I love the little side-eye infodump that explains so much about the Claire, Clinton and Aurelia's insecurities.
Having had quite similar conversations with friends in the past, I doubt that either Yay or Aurelia are thinking of this literally. It's just a version of "Kill it. With fire. From Space!!!"
Offering to hire a hitman would have quite different implications.
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While the sports(?) bottle is a small step, at least she is not (yet) drinking straight from the wine bottle :{
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If I remember right, Aurelia is not yet aware of Yay's immense power. The next sentence should be something like "what do you mean, 'drop a decommissioned satellite on them?' Is that an option?"
I don't remember exactly what was in Yay's coming out speech yielding to Aurelia's mom powers. It couldn't have included all of Yay's powers -- that would have taken too long.
So, what are we here for if not to overanalyze a joke? Imagine starting with a LEO communication satellite and tracking its deorbit maneuver in real time, controlling its RCS to stay on a planned trajectory. I have no idea how much precision you could get. At a guess it would be less than an ICBM, which is carefully designed for precision. A typical ICBM has a CEP of 150-200 meters and even the ones that are allegedly 10 meters or less are not precise enough to land on a person. So, then, Yay must have been kidding.
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I mean, it's impossible to make everyone in a room fall asleep by snapping your fingers as well. So.
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Having had quite similar conversations with friends in the past, I doubt that either Yay or Aurelia are thinking of this literally. It's just a version of "Kill it. With fire. From Space!!!"
I agree, it feels like Yay's intent is to get smile out of Aurelia, or at least distract her. And it's not like the strip hasn't joked about orbital bombardment before...
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I don't remember exactly what was in Yay's coming out speech yielding to Aurelia's mom powers. It couldn't have included all of Yay's powers -- that would have taken too long.
Comic: https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4590
"We are actually an indescribably powerful, multiply-embodied hyper-AI whose necessarily cryptic existence has rendered us desperately lonely"
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Meanwhile, Comic: https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4668
No, the plural for milf absolutely should not be milves.
Also, I advise that you do not search for the term "milfs" out of grammatical curiosity.
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It's been around long enough I know it... *lol*
That last smile reminds me of the Grinch, oddly enough.
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I mean, the QC universe is far more advanced then ours. Maybe there is a technology that allows for greater control over a satellite movement and protective materials that withstand the reentry heat. They got fricking AI!
There must be something, since they have functioning orbital pizza delivery. If Station can drop a pizza on someone's house from orbit, Yay can drop some other orbiting junk on someone's house.
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Now I have the problem that I want to ask if there are actually people who are into MILFs in the first place, which would explain the existence of this riddiculous internet acronym in the first place, but then again I dont actually want to know the answer to that question.
Its not a problem to design something in a way that it lands from orbit at a specific point on the planet. But you need to have the necessary hardware - heat shield, navigation system, sufficient rocket motor acceleration to slow you down over a specific point, some sort of acceleration system (wings might suffice) to correct errors in position (namely wind forces).
A communications satelite wont have any of that because its not needed for its operation. And again, those are typically geostationary, so they will stay up there, for billions of years, until the sun eats the planet.
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In this wild and varied world, people can be (and are!) into anything.
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Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuum.
Trying to drop a regular satelite on people doesnt work. At all.
Absolutely. Not. Ever.
1. It burns up into the atmosphere
2. The remains, if any, will spread over a wide area
3. You cannot control where exaxtly the remains will hit
4. Also communications satelites are usually in geostationary orbit, 36,000 kilometers above the surface, taking exactly 24 hours for one orbit and thus staying in place over whatever country placed the satelite there. Up there there are simply not enough remains of an atmosphere to slow the satelite down and the satelite wont be able to create enough acceleration to drop to earth at all. Decomissioned communication satelites are placed in a parking orbit, not dropped back to earth.
The infamous rod of thungsten, emerging from a space station in the "safe" area, i.e. still much below the Van Allen belt, about 300 km above the surface, thrown with sufficient acceleration (the most efficient way is to throw it backwards), mentioned in this comic before would work. Though even that thungsten rod of course would require some acceleration ability on its own to target a very specific point on the planets surface, for even minimal movements up high in the atmosphere (caused by the winds up there) of course causes huge differences in what point on the surface will be hit in the end.
There is already the orbital pizza delivery thing Station and Hanner's dad made in universe, which does imply that the materials for that kind of thing are common and disposable. Having satelites that can be decomissioned by dropping to the earth on a set target area for recovery and salvage might be a major thing considering the real world Earth's space debris problem, and the QC universe seems to have far more common orbital travel. Might be in conjunction with other things to try at preventing a requirement of orbital trash crews such as those shown in Planetes...which is a pretty interesting anime for the concept.
Actually, a communications satellite that's functioning as one might be pretty good cover for a rods of god type weapon...or for a classified one, having a heavily fortified "black box" that might survive deorbiting and similar things with a record of events to try figuring out what, exactly, happened to it might be a decent idea.
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Now I have the problem that I want to ask if there are actually people who are into MILFs in the first place ...
Do you mean ... are there people who are into attractive older ladies? Is that what you're asking?
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EDIT: this is in response to snubnose's comment. I didn't notice the thread had a second page.
Without going too specific and explicit:
As I understand it, being into MILFs mostly means being into older women.
I don't find this either troubling or unusual. I'd be *more* concerned if nobody was into them, because that would mean men, women and non-binary people of all ages are exclusively attracted to young women and not older ones. And past a certain age, that becomes more and more creepy.
IME, "MILF" has more to do with age (and possibly being attractive in a specific way) than whether the woman is an actual mother or not. It's shorthand.
EDIT 2: also, as to "MILF" being a "ridiculous Internet acronym", I don't think "MILF" originated on the Internet. My quick research suggests the term grew organically in 80s and 90s common speech (which was before the mainstreaming of the Internet, and certainly before Internet was meaningfully used for porn), and it got introduced into the mainstream through the American Pie movie.
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(...) and certainly before Internet was meaningfully used for porn (...)
You mean, the first 24 hours of the Internet?
Also I agree, being into older women is not creepy at all, given it's corresponded. It may be that snubnose have a slightly diferent concept of MILF in mind (depending on the sources researched, I don't blame him...)
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(...) and certainly before Internet was meaningfully used for porn (...)
You mean, the first 24 hours of the Internet?
Fair. I was referring specifically to porn that was both widely available and visual in nature. Early Internet had (relatively) little of that due to bandwidth issues and its entirely non-commercial nature. As in, there weren't porn sites (which is, I imagine, how a lot of people know the term "milf" today).
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Man, I like frogs!
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I just wanted to say that I love the Aureliaface in panel 4.
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The idea to try to cure feeling unhappy with a mind altering substance feels way more unhealthy for me than the conversation between mother and daughter.
I'd be surprised if there was a great deal of disagreement from folks here in principle, or the world at large, although I think you'd find an awful lot of them, myself included, do not practice what they preach.
Written from a train, on my way to visit my mother for five cannabis-free days.
Now I have the problem that I want to ask if there are actually people who are into MILFs in the first place, which would explain the existence of this riddiculous internet acronym in the first place, but then again I dont actually want to know the answer to that question.
Speaking from casually polling other men - and yes, we are the worst; when I say casually polling I mean 'disgusting misogynist conversations that I these days try to avoid' - and my own brief fling with a woman two decades my senior, I don't know many people who are into 'MILFs' in the traditional sense. The actual having of a child is incidental, it is generally more of a 'television has taught me that women past 30 are incapable of being attractive, so LOOK HOW HOT THIS 45 YEAR OLD WOMAN IS????' than an actual MILF fetish. That, and often finding it appealing if a woman has experience, or a belief that any woman of a certain age, especially if divorced, must inevitably have been sexually repressed and need liberating. By your penis.
In my case, the point where I had gained experience of actually having an intimate emotional relationship with a woman of that age was pretty much the exact point I stopped calling anyone a MILF at any point, although given it happened around the time I was basically learning what feminism actually is, I'm not sure how often I was using that term anyway.
Relevant disgusting anecdote, at my first full-time job I was in another office to talk to somebody about something, and I overheard a conversation between two dudes who worked there:
'Aaron, I need your password so I can fix your computer'
'All small letters, "milfhunter"'
'Aaron it's supposed to be something people can't guess'
I must admit though I would date almost any of the characters in QC quite happily and Aurelia being a divorced stoner means we have two things in common
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From a security perspective, I'm appalled that your coworker just handed out his password like that, especially in such a way that half the office could overhear. Does he WANT to get hacked? Also: 'milfhunter'. Ugh. That's gross and a very insecure password.
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To be fair, it was 2007
To be fairer, fuck that guy
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To be even fairer, basic computer security principles were well known even before 2007.
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New comic.
I dunno. Asking people 'how do you guys have sex?' always strikes me as a bit rude.
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It's definitely the wine.
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Poor Yay. *lol*
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Okay, Yay's obvious discomfort implies that there is someone that they may be interested in... :-D
Any wild guesses? Personally, I think there's a certain attraction to Roko...
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This broke my suspension of disbelief.
Aurelia's son was obsessed with AIs. Aurelia's daughter lives with Pintsize and Bubbles. And she's NEVER heard that there are AIs with sex drives?
While it's my headcanon that Yay is aroace, that might not be so. Aurelia is crossing some pretty insensitive boundaries here.
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Okay, Yay's obvious discomfort implies that there is someone that they may be interested in... :-D
Any wild guesses? Personally, I think there's a certain attraction to Roko...
Roko's a frand but I doubt Yay is or wants to be into bread or bread products.
The level of discomfort seems to imply that Aurelia is a potential romancee (thus the conflict between "you have massive mom vibes you are still giving off" and "and also you are maybe-flirting with me and the combination is super weird"). I mean, in what other configuration is Aurelia as surrogate mom and these quetions as problematic?
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You mean, aside from your mom asking about your sex life being awkward?
Edited out typo
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Down Aurelia. Sex may be another way to avoid having to deal with all the problems you're having with Claire (and Claire's own problems in specific). However, I'm pretty sure that jumping a friend like that is inappropriate and likely counter-productive. Additionally, as Yay points out, you've managed to get into their 'mother figure' category so, of course, having this conversation in any way is intensely awkward or even actively traumatising for them!
Okay, Yay's obvious discomfort implies that there is someone that they may be interested in... :-D
Any wild guesses? Personally, I think there's a certain attraction to Roko...
Roko's a frand but I doubt Yay is or wants to be into bread or bread products.
Yay has to know about Roko's kink but personal romantic attraction is rarely based on a full logical assessment of compatibility. At least not in humans so in some ways it's another example of 'people but more plastic' if Yay has that impulsive attraction.
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Yay, before you get uncomfortable that Aurelia is interested in sex, give yourself a full understanding of how she got to be a mother.
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Sex for reproduction (and as 'marital duty) and sex for enjoyment, unfortunately, can be founded on very different parts of the psyche.
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Yay, before you get uncomfortable that Aurelia is interested in sex, give yourself a full understanding of how she got to be a mother.
My reading was that Yay was uncomfortable in discussing their own interest in sex with "Mom-vibes" Aurelia, not that Aurelia is interested in sex.
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Err ... I never said being into older people is creepy. Though re-reading it, I guess my last statement could indeed be read that way. I just find it quite rude to state that you merely want to f*** a person. Not hit on them or romance them etc. The whole concept of one night stands goes kind of over my head. I wouldnt know how to emotionally handle that.
There is already the orbital pizza delivery thing Station and Hanner's dad made in universe, which does imply that the materials for that kind of thing are common and disposable. [...]
IMHO it mostly really just shows that Jeph doesnt do the research on such things. *shrug*
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While it's my headcanon that Yay is aroace, that might not be so. Aurelia is crossing some pretty insensitive boundaries here.
Not aro (and ftr I don't think Aurelia's boundary crossing here is that bad as long as she backs off now that Yay's made their discomfort known, which I'm sure she will), but as an ace who feels a bit uncomfortable and isn't sure how to respond when people try to get me to talk about my "fantasies" or "type" or whatever other [generally heteronormative] expectations, those two things aren't mutually exclusive. I haven't been in one of those situations since starting to accept what I've sort of always known about myself, so a lot of that discomfort did come from feeling like I was failing to person right, but even now, I've barely started with the self acceptance baby steps and don't want to have to either give vague non-answers or suddenly have some sort of "coming out" conversation. Even someone who's totally comfortable with all aspects of their orientation shouldn't have to do that if they don't feel like it.
Down Aurelia. Sex may be another way to avoid having to deal with all the problems you're having with Claire (and Claire's own problems in specific). However, I'm pretty sure that jumping a friend like that is inappropriate and likely counter-productive.
I don't get this reading that Aurelia was expressing sexual interest in Yay. Her questions were about sex, but they didn't seem suggestive of anything. (And I'm ace, not oblivious, lol.)
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Down Aurelia. Sex may be another way to avoid having to deal with all the problems you're having with Claire (and Claire's own problems in specific). However, I'm pretty sure that jumping a friend like that is inappropriate and likely counter-productive.
I don't get this reading that Aurelia was expressing sexual interest in Yay. Her questions were about sex, but they didn't seem suggestive of anything. (And I'm ace, not oblivious, lol.)
Panel 2 is definitely indicative of attempting to be seductive, both verbally and non-verbally. Maybe only teasingly but as she's drunk and high, she may not be thinking things through.
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I guess my last statement could indeed be read that way. I just find it quite rude to state that you merely want to f*** a person. Not hit on them or romance them etc. The whole concept of one night stands goes kind of over my head. I wouldnt know how to emotionally handle that.
Oh, the term "milf" itself is absolutely disrespectful and icky. No argument from me here.
I'm fine with people having casual sex, too. But "casual" is not the same as "objectifying", although many people seem to think it is. You can absolutely have a one night stand and still treat your partner for it as a person, not a tool to fulfill your needs.
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I kinda just read Aurelia as being smug about the fact that Yay is deflecting. This seems peak mom-who-loved-to-torture-their-teens-with-sex-talk vibes.
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I didn't get flirty vibes from Aurelia either; to me she gives off more "inquisitive parent prying into child's sex life and embarrassing them in the process" vibes instead, but idk. I doubt Jeph is going to ship them after he established Aurelia as a motherly figure for Yay, for obvious reasons.
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You know, I just noticed something: Yay's hairstyle is a lot like Clinton's current hairstyle.
EDIT: Compare and contrast: 4656 Clinton (https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4656) with today 4669 Yay (https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4669).
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New comic!
Subjectively Yay is totally a teenager mature adult it's all very technical shut up
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Only 2 years? I'll say it doesn't map the same way, it feels like Yay should've been around for longer. Then again, that might be why none of the other powerful AIs, like Station, ever suspected their existence.
I see that Aurelia skipped the intermediary and now drinks straight from the bottle. Hopefully it's almost empty, I'm getting worried about her.
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Yeah, that's surprising. Tho also probably MUCH longer in subjective time...
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Only 2 years? I'll say it doesn't map the same way, it feels like Yay should've been around for longer. Then again, that might be why none of the other powerful AIs, like Station, ever suspected their existence.
I see that Aurelia skipped the intermediary and now drinks straight from the bottle. Hopefully it's almost empty, I'm getting worried about her.
Agreed. I suspected Yay was as old as Station since he's the only other AI comparable in power. I also suspected Yay might have played a roll in Bubbles' unit getting wiped out and was interested in her locked up memories as potential evidence. That would've added a twist to all this.
I must say Questionable Content's timeline isn't the easiest to figure out. In our time we've know Yay for almost 4 years now.
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That makes me wonder how long Yay had been in existence when we first met them back in the Faye/Bubbles arc.
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I agree with everyone who says two years really feels like too short a time, even given how recently the Singularity happened. I'm assuming that Yay's code has existed in a pre-sentient form for a lot longer but two years is the approximate age of the current independent distributed intelligence.
That makes me wonder how long Yay had been in existence when we first met them back in the Faye/Bubbles arc.
The internal timeline of QC is difficult to understand but maybe just over a year
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Down Aurelia. Sex may be another way to avoid having to deal with all the problems you're having with Claire (and Claire's own problems in specific). However, I'm pretty sure that jumping a friend like that is inappropriate and likely counter-productive.
I don't get this reading that Aurelia was expressing sexual interest in Yay. Her questions were about sex, but they didn't seem suggestive of anything. (And I'm ace, not oblivious, lol.)
Panel 2 is definitely indicative of attempting to be seductive, both verbally and non-verbally. Maybe only teasingly but as she's drunk and high, she may not be thinking things through.
Not a good place to use "definitely," since a number of people are saying they didn't see the same thing you did in that panel. That looked like a teasing face, to be sure, but seductive? It seems a lot more like a wry look of amusement to me, like someone gets when they're nudging someone else and feel like they've caught them in a half-truth.
I'd assumed from Yay's omniscience and attitude that they were older, too, but they were just a bundle of interlinked babies back when they threatened Corpse Witch! This takes their arc away from a place of "has been at this for ages, but after meeting Roko, caught a glimpse of why people have friends" and into "was born an AI demigod but is baby, so legit JUST discovered that friendship is quality" territory.
Also, Yay's look of disgruntled embarrassment sparks joy. That is all.
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This also means that Yay weren't some lower-status AI that evolved demigod abilities over a long period of time, but they were actually *created* that way (by whom and why is anybody's guess) OR someone was testing the limits of AI consciousness and ended up biting off more than they could chew.
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With the speed of machine processing compared to biological brain speed - heck, Yay's subjective experience of life is probably measured in centuries...
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I see that Aurelia skipped the intermediary and now drinks straight from the bottle. Hopefully it's almost empty, I'm getting worried about her.
What may she be covering up with all the Sex, Drugs, and Rock'n'Roll? Were the boy toys just that, toys? Managing to not think for a while from booze or weed? Rockin' out on her guitar at 11 fills up any other thinking spaces?
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To be even fairer, basic computer security principles were well known even before 2007.
I keep trying to get my parents to at least use 1337 speak/leet speak passwords for years, now.
EDIT: I prefer using a mix of my own variation on leet mixed with obscure mythology knowledge. For an example that's too short to ever use; did you know it was much more common to swear by a different, lower body part of Crom's than his teeth? His eistna[/]- '3!s7n4', '3!$5tna', 'E!stn4', etc.
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I’ve been using a variant of the “correct_horse_battery_staple” method for quite some time.
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Gotta love passphrases.
EDIT: Re. Yay being only 2 years old, I keep being reminded of Jane in the Ender's series (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_(Ender%27s_Game)). She is a very powerful AI that was kinda hand waved into existence, and in the books she is described as experiencing time very differently from humans (milliseconds would be days to her). If Yay does something similar, then technically they are extremely old indeed.
And for several excruciating seconds, which to her were years of loneliness and suffering, she was unable to fill up the sudden emptiness of her topmost levels of attention. Vast portions of her mind, of the parts that were most herself, went completely blank. All the functions of all the computers on or near the Hundred Worlds continued as before; no one anywhere noticed or felt a change; but Jane herself staggered under the blow.
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I kinda just read Aurelia as being smug about the fact that Yay is deflecting. This seems peak mom-who-loved-to-torture-their-teens-with-sex-talk vibes.
Welcome, new person!
For passphrases, I suggest http://www.diceware.com. Free, simple, and with mathematically measurable security. Also rejected by most sites's password filters :x
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Also, a useful site to check how easy your password is to crack: https://password.kaspersky.com/
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More sensible than some. :-)
The trouble is that password checkers (especially those in password safe programs or sites which generate extreme passwords) have an extraordinary range of judgements. I can present the same password and get assessments ranging from "strong" to "very weak".
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This broke my suspension of disbelief.
Aurelia's son was obsessed with AIs. Aurelia's daughter lives with Pintsize and Bubbles. And she's NEVER heard that there are AIs with sex drives?
While it's my headcanon that Yay is aroace, that might not be so. Aurelia is crossing some pretty insensitive boundaries here.
Ehhh, some parents have the ability to support a special interest without letting its intricacies be absorbed into their brains. Like, my sisters are certainly aware of and can identify their kids’ favorite Pokémon and if there’s Pokémon branded stuff they’ll show them or consider buying it, but I don’t think they know about generations, evolutions, the numbering system, etc.
And with Claire, she’s probably not asking her about her roommates sex lives.
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For new passwords, I have a perl script that I run. It reads random characters from a file, and generates a total of ten 15-character candidate passwords. I select one that I like, type it a few times to see if it types more or less easily, and start using it.
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Err ... I'm a programmer.
That doesnt mean my parents are good with computers.
Or my siblings, for that matter.
Besides, Aurelia is pretty good with computers already for her generation, considering she's a Youtuber.
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Zoe had a carefully worked out line of reasoning that concluded that someone like Yay was essential to keep the QC world stable. That doesn't mesh with them only having been around for two years.
Unless there was a predecessor whom Yay murdered ...
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Or used to be.
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I’ve been using a variant of the “correct_horse_battery_staple” method for quite some time.
I had to look that up. The trick is to be consistent with your substitutions.
I've mixed the two methods, but only once. And, I completely blanked on the phrase for one of them even though it had two things I liked (black licorice and sarsaparilla).
Gotta love passphrases.
EDIT: Re. Yay being only 2 years old, I keep being reminded of Jane in the Ender's series (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_(Ender%27s_Game)). She is a very powerful AI that was kinda hand waved into existence, and in the books she is described as experiencing time very differently from humans (milliseconds would be days to her). If Yay does something similar, then technically they are extremely old indeed.
And for several excruciating seconds, which to her were years of loneliness and suffering, she was unable to fill up the sudden emptiness of her topmost levels of attention. Vast portions of her mind, of the parts that were most herself, went completely blank. All the functions of all the computers on or near the Hundred Worlds continued as before; no one anywhere noticed or felt a change; but Jane herself staggered under the blow.
Definitely. Most people aren't going to guess variations on 'Skadegamutc' or its variant spellings as passwords.
[I haven't used it in awhile.] BTW, they're the ghost-witch of Mikmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, and Abénaki folklore.
That would certainly explain Yay's loneliness. Hopefully they only deal with that if they choose to overclock.
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I agree with everyone who says two years really feels like too short a time, even given how recently the Singularity happened. I'm assuming that Yay's code has existed in a pre-sentient form for a lot longer but two years is the approximate age of the current independent distributed intelligence.
Also surprised at 2 years, as I'd formed the view (perhaps incorrectly) that Yay was built as some sort of super-spy machine but had become free of it, much as Bubbles is no longer in the military. Purpose completed ? Escaped ?
Perhaps Yay precipitated the Singularity. Or was built to attempt to stop it happening.
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It's also possible Yay has existed as a program for far longer but only gained sapience recently. Like the Puppet Master in GitS.