To continue our ongoing lessons in morality, people often confuse “must” and “will.” Even though both are four letter words, you can tell they are different because none of the letters are the same. But people are stupid and often get angry for no reason. If you try to clarify the difference for them, you will have many frustrating conversations.
S: You must do this!
T: Yes.
S: [Later] Why didn’t you do it?
T: It didn’t sound fun.
S: You said you would!
T: No I didn’t.
S: Will you do it now?
T: No.
S: But it is very important!
T: Yes.
S: You should do this!
T: Yes.
S: When will you do it?
T: You are not a good listener.
… and so on. You need to be patient like T here if you want to help people understand.
“Everyone whos first name starts with an “L” who isn’t hispanic, walk in a circle the same number of times as the square root of your age times teeeeeeeen!”
OK, does dramatic necessity now demand she fails utterly? Or will she succeed by failing so badly it drives her Mad?
(BTW, upon consideration I am now dubious that you can contain a Mad in a VR by restraining it to “normal physics.” Mads can make the laws of physics stand up and do tricks with closehangers or, say, paper clips rubber bands and duck tape in the real world, whose rules are much more inherent than those in a computer simulation).
There’s a third option, which is that Pavanne saves her. After all, given the events of Mixed-Up Files as well as the presence of the Boardwalk, it’s clear than she’s built a bridge between Lovetron and Anasigma’s VR (it really needs a name, how about “Malebolge”?)
Oh, there are _multiple_ unfired Chekhov’s guns lying around. I would just _prefer_ her to rescue herself – I’m just afraid that her little rant there risks putting her into the Damsel in Distress Awaiting Rescue role.
That’s possible, though if Madame Delphi is to be believed, then Virginia has to escape on her own, even if she has been given a nudge in the right direction.
That could prove to be irrelevant. I remember a thing – I think it may have been an episode of Kim Possible – where a VR game had a glitch whereupon if a player didn’t win the game, their mind would be stuck in it. Sort of like Nick’s black screen, but without needing to remove their brain from their head first. You could shut the game off, and even remove the VR helmet, but their mind was stuck there, waiting for the game to come back on.
In the particular situation I was referring to, the mind was still in the human head, but the VR had somehow set the mind in an infinite loop waiting for the game to resume. The mind couldn’t come back to reality until the program told it to. And of course if the mind was disconnected from the hardware, it just complicated things even more.
That could be similar to what’s going on here. The extirpation VR has a bug in it (or maybe it’s a “feature”), so that even if you somehow manage to escape your physical confines, your mind is still trapped. So it really would be eternal.
“How can I prove to you that I’m really on your side?” “Repeat after me: quote, I swear I will never do anything to harm you, and also that there aren’t any unpatched buffer underrun exploits, unquote, unquote.”
That’s assuming that she built in some backdoors that she didn’t document. It would be beyond stupid if all she had to do to escape was use one of the standard documented phrases.
This person seems weak and marginally competent; the person who has held all this together, can be neither. Either he’s not the boss, or the boss wants to seem weak and marginally competent.
What exactly do you think a strong and competent person would do in this scenario, Pygar? Yell at Lee? Kill her? Load up a torture sim?
What do you think his goals are? What methods of accomplishing those goals do you think would be more effective than “offer her a choice and then let her stew for a bit, but don’t promise things you don’t intend to deliver?”
Take a step further back- he *seems to be* letting his… “groinular region” do his thinking for him. That’s weak. He’s taking risks, letting her control things, not “keeping his eyes on the prize”… That’s not the “Oscar Zoroaster” who’s been running everything since, probably, well before Whimsy’s death…
He may indeed be weak and only marginally competent – particularly in the women department. But he employs highly intelligent scientists to do his bidding… for example, the highly intelligent woman right in front of us. His power over them was the fear of extirpation, the details of which were never fully disclosed, so it remained a horror of unknown severity.
As for his currently “thinking with his thing”, men – even smart ones – always tend to do stupid things when they’re trying to get the girl.
Surely there were easier times to put her on the cooler than in the apparently critical moments of crippling all potential opposition to the Master Plan. He spent years not shooting Skin Horse out of sheer frustration so he’s got a good amount of patience.
Yes, he exposed a critical flaw right there. The way out is to make the system believe that one is Mr. Green. If only Virginia managed to catch it, and can figure out a way to exploit it, she should be able to easily escape.
To continue our ongoing lessons in morality, people often confuse “must” and “will.” Even though both are four letter words, you can tell they are different because none of the letters are the same. But people are stupid and often get angry for no reason. If you try to clarify the difference for them, you will have many frustrating conversations.
S: You must do this!
T: Yes.
S: [Later] Why didn’t you do it?
T: It didn’t sound fun.
S: You said you would!
T: No I didn’t.
S: Will you do it now?
T: No.
S: But it is very important!
T: Yes.
S: You should do this!
T: Yes.
S: When will you do it?
T: You are not a good listener.
… and so on. You need to be patient like T here if you want to help people understand.
Bug, eh?
Cue a certain swarm of pavaning bees…
“Everyone whos first name starts with an “L” who isn’t hispanic, walk in a circle the same number of times as the square root of your age times teeeeeeeen!”
She’s never played by the rules, and she’s not about to start now.
Only marginally accurate walnuts, huh?
Has Ginny ever actually seen Artie’s “gerbil” form? Now THERE is some truly marginal accuracy!
I like how Shaenon drew him. At least he was immediately recognizable and distinguishable from the hamsters.
Ah, the joys of floating point errors…
That or someone just nicked all the models off of Unity (the engine, not the revenant.)
OK, does dramatic necessity now demand she fails utterly? Or will she succeed by failing so badly it drives her Mad?
(BTW, upon consideration I am now dubious that you can contain a Mad in a VR by restraining it to “normal physics.” Mads can make the laws of physics stand up and do tricks with closehangers or, say, paper clips rubber bands and duck tape in the real world, whose rules are much more inherent than those in a computer simulation).
There’s a third option, which is that Pavanne saves her. After all, given the events of Mixed-Up Files as well as the presence of the Boardwalk, it’s clear than she’s built a bridge between Lovetron and Anasigma’s VR (it really needs a name, how about “Malebolge”?)
“Extirpatia.”
In a few days, it will be the -Republic- of Extirpatia.
That’s so awesome it begs to be founded in the real world! Sort of an island version of Liechtenstein populated entirely by Mad Scientists…
Oh, there are _multiple_ unfired Chekhov’s guns lying around. I would just _prefer_ her to rescue herself – I’m just afraid that her little rant there risks putting her into the Damsel in Distress Awaiting Rescue role.
That’s possible, though if Madame Delphi is to be believed, then Virginia has to escape on her own, even if she has been given a nudge in the right direction.
You’re assuming the VR onion has a layer of “actuality” 😉
What, it’s running on a virtual computer running on virtual electricity in a virtual building maintained by virtual janitors?
Did she remember to give that good Yelp review? o_O
Whoops. This was meant as a reply to Urlance Woolsbane’s post about what Madam Delphi had said. *^_^*
That could prove to be irrelevant. I remember a thing – I think it may have been an episode of Kim Possible – where a VR game had a glitch whereupon if a player didn’t win the game, their mind would be stuck in it. Sort of like Nick’s black screen, but without needing to remove their brain from their head first. You could shut the game off, and even remove the VR helmet, but their mind was stuck there, waiting for the game to come back on.
Mind uploading? Dave dealt with that in Narbonic, didn’t he?
In the particular situation I was referring to, the mind was still in the human head, but the VR had somehow set the mind in an infinite loop waiting for the game to resume. The mind couldn’t come back to reality until the program told it to. And of course if the mind was disconnected from the hardware, it just complicated things even more.
That could be similar to what’s going on here. The extirpation VR has a bug in it (or maybe it’s a “feature”), so that even if you somehow manage to escape your physical confines, your mind is still trapped. So it really would be eternal.
“How can I prove to you that I’m really on your side?” “Repeat after me: quote, I swear I will never do anything to harm you, and also that there aren’t any unpatched buffer underrun exploits, unquote, unquote.”
…is that you, Bobby Tables…?
Now I’m wondering if the walnuts are the Extirpation Server’s attempt to say, “Mom! Mom! Hey, Mom!”
“I made you these walnuts because I love you!”
Collect the glowing walnuts, arrange them in a circle, step inside and click your heels together three times…
There’s no place like home… with blueberry waffles!
Thats what I was thinking. If its based on her tech it may still have her backdoors.
That’s assuming that she built in some backdoors that she didn’t document. It would be beyond stupid if all she had to do to escape was use one of the standard documented phrases.
This time it should something along the lines of walnut crepes (what could be easily activated by a well-meaning swear filter)
It knows she loves removing brain shaped things from their shells.
An apple worked for Sir Isaac Newton, maybe a walnut will work for Dr. Virginia Lee.
This person seems weak and marginally competent; the person who has held all this together, can be neither. Either he’s not the boss, or the boss wants to seem weak and marginally competent.
What exactly do you think a strong and competent person would do in this scenario, Pygar? Yell at Lee? Kill her? Load up a torture sim?
What do you think his goals are? What methods of accomplishing those goals do you think would be more effective than “offer her a choice and then let her stew for a bit, but don’t promise things you don’t intend to deliver?”
Take a step further back- he *seems to be* letting his… “groinular region” do his thinking for him. That’s weak. He’s taking risks, letting her control things, not “keeping his eyes on the prize”… That’s not the “Oscar Zoroaster” who’s been running everything since, probably, well before Whimsy’s death…
He may indeed be weak and only marginally competent – particularly in the women department. But he employs highly intelligent scientists to do his bidding… for example, the highly intelligent woman right in front of us. His power over them was the fear of extirpation, the details of which were never fully disclosed, so it remained a horror of unknown severity.
As for his currently “thinking with his thing”, men – even smart ones – always tend to do stupid things when they’re trying to get the girl.
Surely there were easier times to put her on the cooler than in the apparently critical moments of crippling all potential opposition to the Master Plan. He spent years not shooting Skin Horse out of sheer frustration so he’s got a good amount of patience.
I always wondered while Sweetheart had the hat if she could just bring her hands/paws to her head and lift it off
“…and as God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again!”
“You realize, of course, this means war.”
“Of course, you know, this means Waaaaar…ners.”
“No one gets in and out but me”? My guess: well, Mr. Green’s been everyone. Time for someone else to be Mr. Green.
Yes, he exposed a critical flaw right there. The way out is to make the system believe that one is Mr. Green. If only Virginia managed to catch it, and can figure out a way to exploit it, she should be able to easily escape.
And assuming that how the system figures out who Mr. Green is isn’t ‘the guy jacked in from this particular helmet’.
The Marginally Accurate Walnuts is my new experimental folk/edm fusion group.