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Marten Level -- I'm drifting contentedly

13 (37.1%)

Samantha Level -- I haven't quite worked out what my goal is yet

5 (14.3%)

Claire Level -- I have a goal and I'm working my butt off to get there

1 (2.9%)

Faye Level -- My goal is within my grasp, but I'm still working hard to make it a success

2 (5.7%)

Dora Level -- Life goal accomplished!

3 (8.6%)

May Level -- I've accomplished a life goal, but now I want to work out a new goal

7 (20%)

Pintsize Level -- I don't fit any of the above, and my post explains why!

4 (11.4%)

Total Members Voted: 35

Voting closed: 05 Dec 2021, 13:29

[Tova]

Here is one of those WCDT thingies with a Questionable Poll.

[Farideh]

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.

[Tova]

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!

[Farideh]

Yay, I'm May!

[shanejayell]

Marten level. I have a job, it's alright, that's about it...

[Penquin47]

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.

[Is it cold in here?]

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?

[Tova]

Yay, you ignored Cosmo!

That was deeply confusing for a moment.

There's a new comic BTW.

[shanejayell]

Awww. Hey/Spookybot is surprisingly nice at times.

[John Allenson]

Most of the time they tend to be more someone the other characters humour.  This time they are being appropriately supportive.

[DaiJB]

"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... 


*Edit: I went for the Pintsize option - There is no "goal" there is only a "way" 
(Dang it, I unleashed my inner hippie again...) 

[ihaveavoice]

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: 

* - It occurs to me that earlier Marten wasn't all that content with his drifting either. Hm.

[BenRG]

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.

[Tova]

*Edit: I went for the Pintsize option - There is no "goal" there is only a "way" 

That's a better Pintsize Level than the one I put in. 

[alanari]

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.

[Gyrre]

Oddly, not the first time I've seen a crop top sweatshirt.

[JimC]

Oh come on Aurelia, all you need to do is explain the difference between disappointed *for* and disappointed *with*.

[Tova]

I'm not sure that clarification would cheer Claire up.

[snubnose]

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 !

[Farideh]

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.

[Tova]

I need a goal now ?

No of course not.

[Christophelous]

Is it just me, or is Cosmo being inappropriately phallic in this comic?

[Tova]

Eye of the beholder?

[badbum61]

Decommissioned Communications Satellites:
Because you never can tel(star) when you'll need one!

[Farideh]

Wine from a screwtop jar... That's classy!

[Tova]

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.

[_Islanio]

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.

[shanejayell]

Bad Yay! No nuking them from orbit! 

[sitnspin]

Judging yourself by standards you'd never expect from someone else is a pretty common mindset. Or so I tell myself.

[St.Clair]

Awww. Hey/Spookybot is surprisingly nice at times.

How about now?

[Gnabberwocky]

Wine from a screwtop jar... That's classy!

I think it may actually be a water bottle. Even classier.

[BenRG]

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.

[ihaveavoice]

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?"

[oddtail]

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.

[BenRG]

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.

[snubnose]

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.

[Marco]

Bad Yay! No nuking them from orbit! 

No, not nuking, just a little sattelite crater! Cause, you know, Antigua is very small. Nuking would leave no Antigua at all.

[_Islanio]

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!

[traroth]

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?"

[John Allenson]

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.

[notStanley]

While the sports(?) bottle is a small step, at least she is not (yet) drinking straight from the wine bottle :{ 

[Is it cold in here?]

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.

[Tova]

I mean, it's impossible to make everyone in a room fall asleep by snapping your fingers as well. So.

[David F]

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...

[Farideh]

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"

[Tova]

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.

[shanejayell]

It's been around long enough I know it... *lol*

That last smile reminds me of the Grinch, oddly enough.

[Scarlet Manuka]

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.

[snubnose]

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.

[Farideh]

In this wild and varied world, people can be (and are!) into anything.