hmm placating hordes of undead does sound like good motivation for dual doctorates, and hey there has got to be money in that, have the undead pay you for food, government pay you to prevent war, cities pay you for a necessary public utility. every town should have at least two people with the qualifications to fix such a devise. and pay them very very well.
There was an old comic – from Dragon magazine I think – begins w/ the text “this is a scroll of (negative intelligence, brain damage, etc – I’ve seen it done several ways) continuing to read this scroll will result in …” and then it starts blending nonsense words then gibberish.
Congratulations to “Norman” who correctly predicted Virginia would be taking the Brain-o-Mat on the trip yesterday. Assuming there are other people with dual doctorates in neurobiology and engineering, I wonder if they’d be able to make extra Brain-o-Mats (in case demand is too high for a single one, or to set ones up in different locations)?
I’m not so sure Virginia *is* mad. To me she comes across more as an incredibly brilliant scientist who’s just spent so much time around Anasigma types that she’s lost all frame of reference for evaluating things like right vs. wrong, dangerous vs. safe, and good ideas vs. bad ideas. (Either that, or they hired her because she was never good at making those judgments in the first place.)
I’m not ruling out madness, of course, but there are some in-universe arguments that Virginia isn’t mad. For instance, Narbonic shows us that the process of *going* mad seems to follow a fairly consistent trajectory–the buildup, the appearance of the “Madness” personality sprite, the break, the fugue state and swath of destruction, the return to a new equilibrium when you accept your madness–and we haven’t seen any signs so far that she’s been through any of those. She also doesn’t seem to exhibit the manic tendencies of the Narboniverse’s other mad scientists, and her creations don’t follow the destructive-for-destructiveness’-sake logic theirs usually do; here, for instance, she’s actually trying to be helpful. Also, she can’t do the laugh.
Most people think they’re not. Don’t you? Of course, many do fancy themselves mad, mostly for fun, but they don’t really believe so in their heart of hearts. People who really do think they’re mad… well, they probably are.
That said, since the issue of whether Dr. Lee is mad is not yet resolved, it remains to be seen if the one to be subject to the power of delusion is her… or you.
Virginia isn’t (capital M) Mad herself, she’s something a bit more unusual. Mad science looks to be mostly discrete events, each breakthrough mostly unconnected to all the others. She’s apparently figured out how to connect some of those dots in a way that forces them to be consistent.
Don’t get me wrong, she’s only ‘sane’ in a very narrow definition of the word. Namely that she has no ability to impose irrational rules on the universe herself. She has to piggy-back on the works of the truly Mad for that.
She created an unkillable zombie soldier and put a brain on a jar to power a helicopter. To me, that’s imposing irrational ruled on the universe. My vote us still with mad and evil.
She’s not mad, she’s a brilliant engineer. That’s WORSE: mad scientists may make more interesting toys, but they are unrepeatable and impractical. An engineer can make things that are still pretty cool, can take practical considerations into account when they plan, and ANYONE can replicate them. It’s a real problem.
It may be worse. She may be an undiagnosed mage. (I’m thinking specifically Iteration X, since the Technocracy are the ones who can actually get their rotes accepted as science rather than SCIENCE!!.)
I mean, we’ve already had a mild-mannered voodoo priest, a mad ’70s scientist who is CLEARLY a Daughter of Ether in its purest form, a house full of sentient animatronic puppets, a forest full of werewolves, and a castle home base for a secret society of martial-arts accountants. It’s rather obvious that the ability to shape reality in at least minor ways is endemic in this world…
Petaluma Copperfield’s Annual Zombie Walk
Saturday, Oct 26 2:00p
Copperfield’s Books, Petaluma
Join us for our annual ZOMBIE Walk! Meet in the store dressed as a Zombie, then we’ll lumber through town and return to the store for our Zombie Party…
Some are moaning that we should change the name of the town from “Petaluma” to Zombieluma”
Hmm, no, I don’t see this as ending well. Any population expands to the limit of it’s available resources, and usually a bit past. So, the only thing that’s been limited the population of zombies here in California is the lack of usable brains (insert rimshot). Now that bar is going to be artificially raised. By a lot, potentially.
That’s normally true, but it assumes the population regularly reproduces for its own sake. Zombies generally reproduce not out of a desire to pass on their genes or gain sexual gratification, but in the process of trying to feed. So reliable brain-o-mats might cause the opposite problem: The zombie population slowly dwindles as they are not replacing those lost to accidents or malfeasance.
It’s Skin Horse. Of course it won’t end well. But in what way will it not end well? The device itself causing trouble, or Anasigma trying to sabotage the mission without losing Ginny as an asset?
No, that would be just wrong. You can’t have a “Giant Were-chicken of Zombieluma,” now can you? No, it has to stay Petaluma, trust me. You don’t want to make a Giant Were-chicken angry.
By the way, I may have figured out one of the reasons why Reply chains break. It seems to happen a lot when two comments are being written at the same time…or at least the posting times are very close. My other comment today was in reply to Steve’s, about the Petaluma zombie walk, and for various reasons it took me a couple of minutes. Commodorejohn’s post came through between the time I started writing and the time I hit “Post comment.”
This is what I thought I had seen happen before.
As another long time web developer myself, I can tell you that it’s probably not the only problem. There are probably a lot of other issues caused by being programmed by the same kind of people that choose PHP to do their stuff.
I just noticed something: If you click the “Reply” link you get in a notification email, you always respond to that person… even if you clicked “reply” on another comment afterwards.
As far as zombie IQ’s go- wouldn’t brain-o-mat brains be blank?
Just got done rereading Tim Waggoner’s “Loose Upon the Earth a Daemon” in which a Frankensteinian “plug” (revivified corpse supersoldier) regains too much of his past-life memory to be… safe to be around. What a TV series this would be! Kinda like if Our Heroine were to be freed of her passphrase against violence… Imagine what MASH might have been like, in a world in which corpses are more valuable than wounded, for one thing…
Five bucks says it’s fungal based now.
“If it comes with a manual, it’s not mad science.”
“Mad Science” means never stopping to ask “what’s the worst thing that could happen?” —Maxim 14
Mostly because if you ask that question it’s bound to happen.
And if you ask it three times in a row while staring into a mirror by candlelight, the universe implodes.
And once more, my curiosity wars with my self-preservation…
Don’t worry, we patched that. I think. I’m like, 70% sure. Better not risk it, though.
hmm placating hordes of undead does sound like good motivation for dual doctorates, and hey there has got to be money in that, have the undead pay you for food, government pay you to prevent war, cities pay you for a necessary public utility. every town should have at least two people with the qualifications to fix such a devise. and pay them very very well.
Have you tried turning it off and on ägarinna?
*again.
I am now scared of your autocorrect, sir.
–Dave
It’s what can happen when you cross the streams of English and Swedish dictionaries on the same android smartphone.
Occasionally you summon beings from beyond the veil.
That depends entirely upon the manual
Yeah, if the manual itself subtracts sanity points…
There was an old comic – from Dragon magazine I think – begins w/ the text “this is a scroll of (negative intelligence, brain damage, etc – I’ve seen it done several ways) continuing to read this scroll will result in …” and then it starts blending nonsense words then gibberish.
Congratulations to “Norman” who correctly predicted Virginia would be taking the Brain-o-Mat on the trip yesterday. Assuming there are other people with dual doctorates in neurobiology and engineering, I wonder if they’d be able to make extra Brain-o-Mats (in case demand is too high for a single one, or to set ones up in different locations)?
Thank you. ^_^
Also, good point. If it’s not reproduceable by non-gadgeteers, that’s a good clue that it’s not sane science yet. And inconvenient.
I think you mean devisors :p A devise runs on mad science, a gadget runs on physics. Useful distinction.
Now at Starbrains this autumn: the harvest spice brains with soy-milk foam. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
(TUNE: “Here Comes The Rain Again”, Eurythmics)
I made a sane machine,
Built a better box for the Brain-O-Mat,
Based upon the one that was in St. Charlie …
I will avert the apocalypse
(At least, if it’s the zombie kind) …
This thing will satisfy their hunger
If they’re out of their mind!
So, get a Ph.D.!
Biology!
Secondly,
Neurology!
Go for three …
Psychology!
I made a sane machine,
Call it Version 2 of the Brain-O-Mat!
Dead no longer need to devour the living!
I’ll be in charge of installing it …
If it breaks down, I’ll repair it quick!
I’ll be resisting Tip’s advances,
‘Cause I’m dating Nick …
Kudos!
*plip!*
She really does think she’s not mad, doesn’t she? The power of delusion…
I’m not so sure Virginia *is* mad. To me she comes across more as an incredibly brilliant scientist who’s just spent so much time around Anasigma types that she’s lost all frame of reference for evaluating things like right vs. wrong, dangerous vs. safe, and good ideas vs. bad ideas. (Either that, or they hired her because she was never good at making those judgments in the first place.)
I’m not ruling out madness, of course, but there are some in-universe arguments that Virginia isn’t mad. For instance, Narbonic shows us that the process of *going* mad seems to follow a fairly consistent trajectory–the buildup, the appearance of the “Madness” personality sprite, the break, the fugue state and swath of destruction, the return to a new equilibrium when you accept your madness–and we haven’t seen any signs so far that she’s been through any of those. She also doesn’t seem to exhibit the manic tendencies of the Narboniverse’s other mad scientists, and her creations don’t follow the destructive-for-destructiveness’-sake logic theirs usually do; here, for instance, she’s actually trying to be helpful. Also, she can’t do the laugh.
Most people think they’re not. Don’t you? Of course, many do fancy themselves mad, mostly for fun, but they don’t really believe so in their heart of hearts. People who really do think they’re mad… well, they probably are.
That said, since the issue of whether Dr. Lee is mad is not yet resolved, it remains to be seen if the one to be subject to the power of delusion is her… or you.
As seen here, she has the theory behind evil/mad laughter down, just not the application:
http://skin-horse.com/comic/todays-comic-794/
Virginia isn’t (capital M) Mad herself, she’s something a bit more unusual. Mad science looks to be mostly discrete events, each breakthrough mostly unconnected to all the others. She’s apparently figured out how to connect some of those dots in a way that forces them to be consistent.
Don’t get me wrong, she’s only ‘sane’ in a very narrow definition of the word. Namely that she has no ability to impose irrational rules on the universe herself. She has to piggy-back on the works of the truly Mad for that.
She created an unkillable zombie soldier and put a brain on a jar to power a helicopter. To me, that’s imposing irrational ruled on the universe. My vote us still with mad and evil.
She’s not mad, she’s a brilliant engineer. That’s WORSE: mad scientists may make more interesting toys, but they are unrepeatable and impractical. An engineer can make things that are still pretty cool, can take practical considerations into account when they plan, and ANYONE can replicate them. It’s a real problem.
It may be worse. She may be an undiagnosed mage. (I’m thinking specifically Iteration X, since the Technocracy are the ones who can actually get their rotes accepted as science rather than SCIENCE!!.)
I mean, we’ve already had a mild-mannered voodoo priest, a mad ’70s scientist who is CLEARLY a Daughter of Ether in its purest form, a house full of sentient animatronic puppets, a forest full of werewolves, and a castle home base for a secret society of martial-arts accountants. It’s rather obvious that the ability to shape reality in at least minor ways is endemic in this world…
For what it’s worth, the mysterious author (Goldbug?) of the cast page (see the link at the top of the page) states that Virginia is sane.
Said link used to be a tab. I kinda miss the “dossier” theme. It was very appropriate.
I’m telling you, it’s rigged. You can’t have hordes of hyper-intelligent undead running around, after all.
They might arrive in time for the:
Petaluma Copperfield’s Annual Zombie Walk
Saturday, Oct 26 2:00p
Copperfield’s Books, Petaluma
Join us for our annual ZOMBIE Walk! Meet in the store dressed as a Zombie, then we’ll lumber through town and return to the store for our Zombie Party…
Some are moaning that we should change the name of the town from “Petaluma” to Zombieluma”
Hmm, no, I don’t see this as ending well. Any population expands to the limit of it’s available resources, and usually a bit past. So, the only thing that’s been limited the population of zombies here in California is the lack of usable brains (insert rimshot). Now that bar is going to be artificially raised. By a lot, potentially.
That’s normally true, but it assumes the population regularly reproduces for its own sake. Zombies generally reproduce not out of a desire to pass on their genes or gain sexual gratification, but in the process of trying to feed. So reliable brain-o-mats might cause the opposite problem: The zombie population slowly dwindles as they are not replacing those lost to accidents or malfeasance.
Does it have an off switch this time?
I think Virginia would be confused about why you’d want an off switch on it.
Wasn’t Anasigma interested in creating conflict between zombies and humans? I suspect this will not end well…
It’s Skin Horse. Of course it won’t end well. But in what way will it not end well? The device itself causing trouble, or Anasigma trying to sabotage the mission without losing Ginny as an asset?
It was Zombie Nightmare? But Adam West was nowhere to be seen!
No, that would be just wrong. You can’t have a “Giant Were-chicken of Zombieluma,” now can you? No, it has to stay Petaluma, trust me. You don’t want to make a Giant Were-chicken angry.
By the way, I may have figured out one of the reasons why Reply chains break. It seems to happen a lot when two comments are being written at the same time…or at least the posting times are very close. My other comment today was in reply to Steve’s, about the Petaluma zombie walk, and for various reasons it took me a couple of minutes. Commodorejohn’s post came through between the time I started writing and the time I hit “Post comment.”
This is what I thought I had seen happen before.
Sigh. As a long time software developer, I can tell you that the problem probably simply is that is was developed in PHP.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/06/the-php-singularity.html
As another long time web developer myself, I can tell you that it’s probably not the only problem. There are probably a lot of other issues caused by being programmed by the same kind of people that choose PHP to do their stuff.
I just noticed something: If you click the “Reply” link you get in a notification email, you always respond to that person… even if you clicked “reply” on another comment afterwards.
It’s now perfectly obvious. The comment system for a webcomic on mad science was designed by a mad software engineer.
As far as zombie IQ’s go- wouldn’t brain-o-mat brains be blank?
Just got done rereading Tim Waggoner’s “Loose Upon the Earth a Daemon” in which a Frankensteinian “plug” (revivified corpse supersoldier) regains too much of his past-life memory to be… safe to be around. What a TV series this would be! Kinda like if Our Heroine were to be freed of her passphrase against violence… Imagine what MASH might have been like, in a world in which corpses are more valuable than wounded, for one thing…
This may be the first time I’ve ever seen the word “irreparable” used in a non-metaphorical sense.
Maybe install a few of them.
This is the sort of system that needs to be highly redundant.