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Hannelore is on the space station for her dad's birthday party

5 (13.2%)

Another impromptu party in the centre of town (no beer sledding, alas)

1 (2.6%)

A busy day at Coffee of Doom

9 (23.7%)

Bubbles takes Faye to a robot night-club to show her how synthetics party

2 (5.3%)

Either Elliot or Clinton or both take Roko to a human night-club to show her how humans party

4 (10.5%)

There is a party at the apartment; lots of people show up

0 (0%)

The town fayre has come around and Faye wants Union Robotics to have a presence there

4 (10.5%)

Opening night at the LEGAL Ultimate Robot Fighting Championship

11 (28.9%)

Other (specify in comment)

2 (5.3%)

Total Members Voted: 37

[BenRG]

Okay, drawing clues from Jeph's twitter feed for this week's poll. Jeph apologised to his future self for committing them to several weeks of drawing crowds. Why do you think that could be?

Well, I'm guessing that Hannelore's appearance is going to be a precursor to her attending another birthday party on the space station. Maybe she's going to try to explain Station and Tilly's relationship to her father or maybe she's going to want to talk to her dad about how she can handle her mother (or whether she should even try or just let failed relationships be)? The reason why I mention this is that Jeph has been researching obscure mathematics and physics, you know the sort of stuff  the denizens of the space station would think classifies as 'party small talk'

The only other idea I can really get behind is for Claire to be Martens 'plus one' at a Liberal Sciences Party at Smif College. Dora and Tai would certainly be there too. The point is... who would have guessed that Sociology, Philosophy, Economics and Library Science post-grads could get so excited? Or so loud!

What do you guys think?

[OldGoat]

Well, I'm guessing that Hannelore's appearance is going to be a precursor to her attending another birthday party on the space station. Maybe she's going to try to explain Station and Tilly's relationship to her father or maybe she's going to want to talk to her dad about how she can handle her mother (or whether she should even try or just let failed relationships be)? The reason why I mention this is that Jeph has been researching obscure mathematics and physics, you know the sort of stuff  the denizens of the space station would think classifies as 'party small talk'

Dunno, but if it happens the one thing for certain is the consumption of vast quantities of spathe ham.

[shanejayell]

Another comics or anime convention? They had one way back...

[Near Lurker]

Is that Bailey?

...I guess Bailey probably doesn't like men, but I don't think we were ever actually told that, and "he's cute" doesn't necessarily mean this girl does...

[OldGoat]

Is that Bailey?

...I guess Bailey probably doesn't like men, but I don't think we were ever actually told that, and "he's cute" doesn't necessarily mean this girl does...

When did Bailey appear?  I don't remember her.

[Nepiophage]

Is that Bailey?

...I guess Bailey probably doesn't like men, but I don't think we were ever actually told that, and "he's cute" doesn't necessarily mean this girl does...

When did Bailey appear?  I don't remember her.

http://questionablecontent.wikia.com/wiki/Bailey

[BenRG]

In some ways, Marigold's intense neurosis that she's not good enough for Dale and he will leave her the very moment a 'better offer' comes along is tragic but it does give us a very good insight into her mindset and, maybe, just how bad her early life must have been to create this neurotic certainty that she will eventually be abandoned.

At some point, she desperately needs to realise the degree to which Dale finds her out of his league.

This aside, her 'stay away from my cream' cat hiss is always hilarious. As is the fact that those three customers all had a reason for being there that had nothing to do with Dale other than the professional.

[anahata]

My 'other' vote:
Since a party at the space station was was mentioned, and a new romantic attachment has developed there, maybe it's a wedding.

[SmilingCat]

In some ways, Marigold's intense neurosis that she's not good enough for Dale and he will leave her the very moment a 'better offer' comes along is tragic but it does give us a very good insight into her mindset and, maybe, just how bad her early life must have been to create this neurotic certainty that she will eventually be abandoned.

Though she  has mentioned bullying in the past, I feel compelled to point out that her early life doesn't actually have to have been bad for her to feel like this. There isn't always a simple "oh that's why" reason for a person's problems, and it seems... I don't know... dismissive to assume otherwise. Worse, it encourages a "well get over it" attitude towards those who can't point to a clear reason for their emotional disorders.

[War Sparrow]

I, for one, am encouraged to see Marigold maturing. Communication is hard, and awkward! But good for her for expressing her feelings in a forthright, honest fashion. I wouldn't do it in quite such a public fashion, but I do like that CoD is seen as a "safe place" for her to express her feelings.

[brasca]

In some ways, Marigold's intense neurosis that she's not good enough for Dale and he will leave her the very moment a 'better offer' comes along is tragic but it does give us a very good insight into her mindset and, maybe, just how bad her early life must have been to create this neurotic certainty that she will eventually be abandoned.

Though she  has mentioned bullying in the past, I feel compelled to point out that her early life doesn't actually have to have been bad for her to feel like this. There isn't always a simple "oh that's why" reason for a person's problems, and it seems... I don't know... dismissive to assume otherwise. Worse, it encourages a "well get over it" attitude towards those who can't point to a clear reason for their emotional disorders.

True, but there’s been plenty of times Momo had to push Marigold in the right direction and seeing as how she’s her companion AI she probably knows her better than others.

[drewdane]

pardon my being dense, but... pants kept falling down?  Dance belt?   

[Theta9]

pardon my being dense, but... pants kept falling down?  Dance belt?   

Look up "Dance belt" like I just did. It doesn't hold the pants up. That is not its function.

[Mr_Rose]

pardon my being dense, but... pants kept falling down?  Dance belt?   

Look up "Dance belt" like I just did. It doesn't hold the pants up. That is not its function.

Indeed. Not the pants.

[Penquin47]

pardon my being dense, but... pants kept falling down?  Dance belt?   

After doing it in the back room, Marigold put on the suit and Dale wore her clothes so he didn't have to wander out naked.  As his hip/waist size is smaller than hers, the pants kept falling down.

[TheEvilDog]

I think Drewdane was wondering about some of the terminology.

@Drewdane, a dance belt is a piece of clothing worn by male dancers to support their junk (mainly to keep them from injuring themselves during rehearsals and because dancers often wear skin tight clothing that the dance belt hides the outline of their nads).

[zisraelsen]

Comic! Well done, Marbear.
Wait, is Marbear pronounced marr-bear or Mare-bear? I've been pronouncing it the first way.

[cesium133]

The backward-in-time effect has already been demonstrated by Target.

[DaiJB]

Okay, I nearly put 'Busy day at Coffee of Doom' but changed it to 'Other', because I think Dale walking home in the CofD outfit attracts attention (much to Marigold's distress), resulting in large numbers of unexpected extra customers turning up.

Dora ($$$ signs in her eyes), immediately changes her mind, has Emily make costumes for all staff.
Penelope protests the objectification of the staff, refuses to wear hers.
Faye, who happens to walk in at this moment, says Aha, you're afraid we'll see what you really look like in a superhero outfit and your secret life as Pizza Girl will be exposed. Fight ensues (again).
Dora hires May to advertise around town while wearing the costume, May says yes, but only if she's allowed to show off her incredible dancing skills....

[War Sparrow]

This is shaping up to be a good week for Marigold character development!

[BenRG]

I'm glad that Marigold is at least trying to help herself now. Recognising that you've got a problem is the first step to confronting it. Although the cynic in me can't help but wonder if Momo had to literally stand guard to stop Marigold from fleeing from her research into something less difficult to mentally confront!

Seriously, though, Marigold is always so cute and the way that Dale so obviously adores her is always sweet!

You know, I don't think that Emily is talking about an app that is so crude as to need you to type in your question before it gives an answer. She'd likely code a crude AI algorithm that would be able to diagnose your issues just based on your keyboard entry patterns and how you move the mouse pointer! Naturally she wouldn't see any problem about deliberately creating a non-embodied AI that lived on the 'Net and could access all of its data to diagnose and help people.

[traroth]

Using deep learning and collected user data, Google could probably offer a "searches you will probably be interested in" feature. I mean a feature that would hit the nail on the head most of the time...

[Thrudd]

Using deep learning and collected user data, Google could probably offer a "searches you will probably be interested in" feature. I mean a feature that would hit the nail on the head most of the time...

I would be happy with just a Hammer that could do that.

[DSL]

Using deep learning and collected user data, Google could probably offer a "searches you will probably be interested in" feature. I mean a feature that would hit the nail on the head most of the time...

I would be happy with just a Hammer that could do that.

I used to have a Hammer that would hit the nail on my thumb with unerring accuracy.

[OldGoat]

Comic! Well done, Marbear.
Wait, is Marbear pronounced marr-bear or Mare-bear? I've been pronouncing it the first way.

It would have to be the latter.  It's a name her friends gave her and a rif on her given name, so it would keep the original first syllable.   Only someone who had seen her name only in print and never heard it pronounced would use the former.

[Tova]

Using deep learning and collected user data, Google could probably offer a "searches you will probably be interested in" feature. I mean a feature that would hit the nail on the head most of the time...

It already offers results you may be interested in.

[cesium133]

What's in a Lorentz Factor? 16 ounces of espresso?

[St.Clair]

I just hope the glow isn't Cherenkov radiation.

[Near Lurker]

Using capital sigmas and deltas as variables seems like it could get confusing...

[shanejayell]

I see it now: Coffee of Doom becomes Coffee of Physics.

[Tova]

What's in a Lorentz Factor? 16 ounces of espresso?

It's the precise amount of caffeine required to speed up your metabolism enough to achieve measurable time dilation.

For science.

[Mr Intrepid]

Smif  College has a physics department.  Good on them.  I wonder if Penelope is part of that?

[jesslc]

The backward-in-time effect has already been demonstrated by Target.

This is fascinating and disturbing at the same time.

I feel like I'm probably missing something obvious... but can anyone explain why Jeph would say he's both so happy and so angry with this comic?

Also good on Marigold for a very valiant effort this week! Not only telling Dale about her insecurities but also not letting them dictate her behaviour. That's tough work, so good on her.

[Gyrre]

Using deep learning and collected user data, Google could probably offer a "searches you will probably be interested in" feature. I mean a feature that would hit the nail on the head most of the time...

Ja, but being made by Google, it'd have backdoors for and reporting to the CIA and other assorted alphabet soup agencies.

[cesium133]

Some (crappy) ideas for other physics coffee drinks:
The Rydberg: black coffee filled to the brim of the cup so the slightest motion spills it on you.
The Ion: the cup is underfilled, but at least it doesn't spill all over you.
The Bose Einstein Condensate: Iced coffee, frozen solid.
The Magneto Optical Trap: Iced coffee, with a laser etched sketch in the bottom of a magnetic cup.
Schrödinger's Cat: 16 oz. espresso, or 16 oz. of vaguely brown water. Final state not determined until you taste it.
The Evaporative Cooling: coffee served at 195 degrees Fahrenheit. You should probably blow on it some before trying it.

[Storel]

I feel like I'm probably missing something obvious... but can anyone explain why Jeph would say he's both so happy and so angry with this comic?

My guess: He's proud of the job he did researching the equations (and "Lorentz factor" terminology), but he's angry because he had to draw the same set of equations from different angles in four different panels...

[OldGoat]

I see it now: Coffee of Doom becomes Coffee of Physics.

Same same.

[Cornelius]

Comic! Well done, Marbear.
Wait, is Marbear pronounced marr-bear or Mare-bear? I've been pronouncing it the first way.

It would have to be the latter.  It's a name her friends gave her and a rif on her given name, so it would keep the original first syllable.   Only someone who had seen her name only in print and never heard it pronounced would use the former.

That's assuming you pronounce Mari like Mary (in English, though that's pretty much a given in this setting). /ˈmarɪɡəʊld/ is an accepted pronunciation of the flower, though, so Marr-bear has always made sense to me.

[BenRG]

This is another comic that strongly suggests that, whoever and whatever Emily Azuma may be, she isn't a baseline human. The fact that she seemed to intuitively know what at 'Lorentz Factor' coffee would be without an eye-blink really does suggest that she isn't entirely bound to conventional time and space!

Meanwhile, poor Dora and Marigold are both clearly in the position where they have to deal with the fact that something happened in front of them that, not only did they not understand, they may have been unable to perceive. Emily as SCP-5001? SpookyBot is SCP-001, of course.

[Tova]

I feel like I'm probably missing something obvious... but can anyone explain why Jeph would say he's both so happy and so angry with this comic?

I'm guessing because it's complete nonsense. 

[JoeCovenant]

Comic! Well done, Marbear.
Wait, is Marbear pronounced marr-bear or Mare-bear? I've been pronouncing it the first way.

It would have to be the latter.  It's a name her friends gave her and a rif on her given name, so it would keep the original first syllable.   Only someone who had seen her name only in print and never heard it pronounced would use the former.

???

But the first syllable of Marigold IS Marr... not Mare.

[pendrake]

For comic #3933...

1. "Um... four fifty?" ~ As usual, I love Dora's business sense.  Even when confounded, she still has the presence of mind to not let a money opportunity pass by.  ;$

2. Makes me wonder what components / ingredients would go into a "Lorentz factor" coffee drink?

3. It is always good to be in a job that you feel is very satisfying.  Gods know there are far too many that are not... 

4. I also get the feeling that if we ever met Emily's family, they would be surprised to see Emily holding down her barista job for so long (hired back in #3106).  From what we know of Emily, her family is quite wealthy, to the point that Emily probably does not "have" to work for a living.

[BenRG]

Speaking of Euclid-class anomalies, I'm wondering if the espresso machine at Coffee of Doom may be an undocumented instance of SCP-294. In essence an anything liquid dispenser. It might explain how Hannelore made her teas and how Emily apparently offered today's customer a cup of hot math.

[Scarlet Manuka]

I see it now: Coffee of Doom becomes Coffee of Physics.

It's better than the other alternative, Physics of Doom. Though they're probably working on that up on Station.

[brasca]

For comic #3933...

1. "Um... four fifty?" ~ As usual, I love Dora's business sense.  Even when confounded, she still has the presence of mind to not let a money opportunity pass by.  ;$

2. Makes me wonder what components / ingredients would go into a "Lorentz factor" coffee drink?

3. It is always good to be in a job that you feel is very satisfying.  Gods know there are far too many that are not... 

4. I also get the feeling that if we ever met Emily's family, they would be surprised to see Emily holding down her barista job for so long (hired back in #3106).  From what we know of Emily, her family is likely quite wealthy to the point that Emily does not "have" to work for a living.

They have a house by the lake so I estimate that they are wealthier than most of the cast except Hannelore’s parents.

[Case]

Line 3 seems a bit weird - It looks like a standard multi-particle Schrödinger-equation, but the independent variable of the state-vector \psi being "q t" instead of "t" (or is this q_i?) confuses me - could be that q is meant to be a scaling factor, but normally, q and k are used to denote momentum. Could be the result of a partial Fourier-transform, but then the Laplace operator in the kinetic term should have been transformed, too?

Could also be I need another coffee to get brain started.

Line 4 looks like a metric in the general relativity sense (rather than special relativity), and I have trouble seeing what it has to do with the other 3 lines. It looks like "3 lines of Quantum theory, one line of general relativity" and the two don't normally go together easily (special relativity, otoh, can and is readily incorporated into the usual quantum field theories).

(Also, whatwith the Lorentz-factor being the ratio of coordinate time over proper time (dt/dtau), line 4 pretty much says that in the situation considered here you cannot extract a simple Lorentz-factor, since not all of the terms on the r.h.s. are proportional to dt^2? Though I have to admit my shameful ignorance of much of general relativity, so that might just me being ignorant of a common generalization of the definition of the Lorentz-factor in general relativity ...)

Am I sitting on my brain? 

[eschaton]

Dropping out of lurking mode to ask - is the bald guy with a mustache supposed to be a famous historical mathematician or physicist?  He's wearing kinda an old-fashioned suit, so that was my first thought. 

Maybe it's supposed to be Max Planck?  He has the bald head, the mustache, usually wore bow ties for pictures, and was German after all. 

[zioninavision]

So far it is uncertain as to whether Emily will specifically be sent into Roko to help find and adjust what might be causing her limited integration with the new body!

Perhaps within, there would be some type of bread palace, a version of Northampton made entirely from bread, or, maybe a temporary switch to action-adventure within a bread temple/dungeon that holds an embodiment of the disconnect?
 
Moreso, maybe the rest of Roko's original self is still inhabiting the original body within her own layered AI consciousness and would need Emily or someone else to go in and talk to them! 

[BenRG]

@Case,

My guess is that Jeph copied some equations from some source that are meant to demonstrate that information can only radiate outwards from a source at c and cannot travel faster (and, thus, cannot travel in a negative-t direction, based on the mathematical indistinguishability between transluminal motion and travelling backwards in time. If this is no longer current, pray grant me pardon as my understanding of such things comes from 1970s/1980s sources).

[Case]

Dropping out of lurking mode to ask - is the bald guy with a mustache supposed to be a famous historical mathematician or physicist?  He's wearing kinda an old-fashioned suit, so that was my first thought. 

Maybe it's supposed to be Max Planck?  He has the bald head, the mustache, usually wore bow ties for pictures, and was German after all.

Well, the bald head & mustache could also point to Dirac, Sommerfeld, Thompson ... 

I don't think it's necessarily meant to be a specific historical physicist so much as a type that may have been 'not uncommon' at US physics departments during a short period of time around the end of WW-II - back in the foundational period of quantum theory and relativity, Germany-, and specifically Göttingen, was the Mecca of theoretical physics, and physicists would learn German to be able to be were the music is. Starting in the 1920s/30s, American Unis (particularly MIT) started aggressive hiring practises to attract foreign talent, and with the rise of the Nazis, and later the race between the US and the Soviet union for German engineers and physicists, I guess you got them 'a dime a dozen'.

So there (probably) was a period when you'd hear a lot of German on US physics campuses (there are some remnants of that in (nominally) English math and physics-jargon, e.g. English-language textbooks talking about Eigenvalues of linear operators), even from non-German physicists (consider also, that even in Europe, German native speakers aren't necessarily German nationals - Austrians speak German, too, as do a lot of Swiss. And until WW-I, a sizeable share of German-heritage communities in the US offered bilingual German/English education).

Contemporary German physicists rarely wear bow ties and most of us speak pretty decent Inglese (either that, or I missed another memo ...), whatwith English being the current lingua franca in physics.




P.S.: Planck would be a possibility if we purely consider looks, but methinks that'd be a bit ahistoric - firstly, he died in 1947 and never lived in the US, and secondly, old Max had a cold-ass stare that'd make a Borg squirm. Don't think was the type to chat up random barristas. Very Kaiserreich, very Prussian.