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  1. - Top - End - #121
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Quote Originally Posted by sihnfahl View Post
    What sort of design would you prefer to see?
    Dunno. Something to show that she's now 97% metal and plastic. Something more like the plans here, or the intermediate stage of her transformation. She looked more robotic with her previous prosthetics. Now she just looks ripped.
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Quote Originally Posted by Narkis View Post
    Dunno. Something to show that she's now 97% metal and plastic. Something more like the plans here, or the intermediate stage of her transformation. She looked more robotic with her previous prosthetics. Now she just looks ripped.
    In that picture, it's hard to discern what it would have looked like, as that had the base chassis, not the paint job.

    And I think that was the intent, to make her look almost completely human. "You retain your mind. You retain your looks. You remain ... you. The only thing you are losing is the meat."
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    I think that if she decided to look to much like a machine she might be worried that she could become one. Kim does not want to give up on her humanity and not looking human might be something she thinks is a step in losing it. Of course we have zero idea what going to a nonhuman form would do to the human mind as well.
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  4. - Top - End - #124
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Quote Originally Posted by HandofShadows View Post
    Of course we have zero idea what going to a nonhuman form would do to the human mind as well.
    Right, because as we all know, the vilest people in history were all... Furry (or dressed like robots). Stalin was a Furry, Nero was a Furry and as we all know Mark Twain was a Furry.

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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Random note: it's not actually explicit that her brain is in her head. There's also room for it in her chest cavity. That said, there are advantages to minimizing the distance between the primary sensory nodes and the CPU.

    Also, once we start talking multiple bodies and remote control, there's no point talking about where the main brain is housed, because at that level of technology the main body never needs to get involved at all--the advantages and disadvantages become moot. But that's also the level of consciousness uploading, which is canonically "years away." (Unless someone suggests another way to remotely control a human body with facility equal to actually being in the human body, lag-less and all.)

    Quote Originally Posted by -D- View Post
    Right, because as we all know, the vilest people in history were all... Furry (or dressed like robots). Stalin was a Furry, Nero was a Furry and as we all know Mark Twain was a Furry.
    I'm sorry, was there logic somewhere in this leap?

  6. - Top - End - #126
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Quote Originally Posted by Lethologica View Post
    Random note: it's not actually explicit that her brain is in her head. There's also room for it in her chest cavity. That said, there are advantages to minimizing the distance between the primary sensory nodes and the CPU.
    If connections between sensory nodes and CPU is made of proteins, sure. If it's made of electronics, there is no reason your brain can't be several thousand kilometers away.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lethologica View Post
    Unless someone suggests another way to remotely control a human body with facility equal to actually being in the human body, lag-less and all.)
    Lag-less?! Your nerves transmit at around 140m/s. Let's say speed of electrons is pessimistically ~290,000,000 m/s. If you suppose most noticable lag is 0.001 s, you'll need to be about ~2900 km away from your body to actually start experiencing lag. If your brain were LA, your body could probably go on a pub-crawl to Chicago.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lethologica View Post
    I'm sorry, was there logic somewhere in this leap?
    I was merely remarking upon the paradox, of people in "inhuman" looking suits behaving inhuman, when humans have rich history of behaving inhuman without of need to dress in different suits, all the while simultaneously we so far never had an inhuman looking human that wore a different suit while committing similar crimes.

    Summary. People don't have to dress up to be ***** to others.

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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Quote Originally Posted by -D- View Post
    Summary. People don't have to dress up to be ***** to others.
    Which has nothing to do with what I said. The psychological effects of a human brain in a very inhuman body are a total unknown. It has nothing to do with how people treat each other. To even try to connect the two idea's is irrational.

    As a note it is clear that Kim's brain is in her head. Look on the left side you can see the brain case. Putting the brain in the head is actually something we see time and again in SF. Just look at the cyborgs in Ghost in the Shell or Appleseed. Even robots will often have their brains in their heads such as C3PO from Star Wars IIRC. This done because people tend to build from what they know. And for humans, the brain belongs in the head.
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  8. - Top - End - #128
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Also possibly because of someone's shooting at you, they most likely shoot for center mass. It's probably safest not to use that for something irreplaceable. I feel like the relative increase in armor from putting the brain in the chest isn't worth putting it closer to the largest target.
    Also, for things slower than bullets - I feel like it'd be easier to dodge something aimed at head height than torso height.

    I wonder if her joints have an increased range of motion? A lot depends on whether the skin is one connected piece - otherwise it might tear if, for example, her head went all the way around.
    Quote Originally Posted by jamieth View Post
    ...though Talla does her best to sound objective and impartial, it doesn't cover stuff like "ask a 9-year-old to tank for the party."
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Quote Originally Posted by HandofShadows View Post
    Which has nothing to do with what I said. The psychological effects of a human brain in a very inhuman body are a total unknown. It has nothing to do with how people treat each other. To even try to connect the two idea's is irrational.
    Yes, it does. The Furry were examples of people that feel more comfortable in their non-human avatar. The psychological effect of a human brain in a very inhuman body, won't be as different than having a brain connected to limbs that aren't your own or you controlling an Avatar that isn't human looking.

    To think that people will act wildly different in their robotic bodies is IMO preposterous. It's like saying owning a gun and owning a mask, implies you are out to rob a bank.

    EDIT: If you are worried about anything I would be worried in the opposite direction. People that are in inhuman looking bodies are likely to have spent some portion of their life empathizing with humans; Humans that have been humans all their life are more likely to not to be able to empathize with non-humans. Hence the human looking shell.
    Last edited by -D-; 2015-06-17 at 03:37 PM.

  10. - Top - End - #130
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    I understood the problem to be not the psychological impact of being in a different body meaning you act differently, but being able to actually physically function with operating a completely different body then our brains were designed to handle.

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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Also, being a furry isn't a "radically different body". It's a costume on a perfectly normal human body. It's really not comparable.
    Quote Originally Posted by jamieth View Post
    ...though Talla does her best to sound objective and impartial, it doesn't cover stuff like "ask a 9-year-old to tank for the party."
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Quote Originally Posted by Qwertystop View Post
    Also, being a furry isn't a "radically different body". It's a costume on a perfectly normal human body. It's really not comparable.
    Furry (full veils) covers the part where your appearance is somewhat inhuman. The different human body is covered by artificial prosthetic that already exist in the wild. It's still rudimentary and hard to attune, but with advances in medicine I see no reason you couldn't have your nerves be wired in a way to minimize the adjustment period.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mith View Post
    I understood the problem to be not the psychological impact of being in a different body meaning you act differently, but being able to actually physically function with operating a completely different body then our brains were designed to handle.
    Our brains are remarkably plastic, even into adulthood. And if not, there are always drugs that can make them more plastic.

    There were people that could see four colors, who reused their visual cortex for seeing via echo location, who got their vision perturbed upside down and learned to cope, and that had artificial hands and senses grafted onto them and managed to master them. And this is only the stuff public is aware of (I'm talking research papers and current clinical studies, not Illuminati).
    Last edited by -D-; 2015-06-17 at 04:24 PM.

  13. - Top - End - #133
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Quote Originally Posted by Mith View Post
    I understood the problem to be not the psychological impact of being in a different body meaning you act differently, but being able to actually physically function with operating a completely different body then our brains were designed to handle.
    Hmm. good points. From one point of view, we actually do both rather regularly. While driving we expand our sense of self to encompass the vehicle, "you almost hit me!" rather than "your car nearly hit my car" Also we don't think about the steering wheel or pedals any more than we think about our feet when walking. The human brain can shift it's "self" to almost anything that even indirectly responds to thoughts.

    We act completely differently behind the wheel than when we are pedestrians too. Human beings are known to change their speed to keep from matching a stranger's pace. While driving cars, we unconsciously speed up when passed, then return to our old speed later. That is more like the behavior of a pack animal. A human uses it's voice to warn or greet others. In a car we use the horn mostly for yelling displeasure at strangers, which is uncommon (outside of the internet anyway). I guess we don't feel like we have a human body on the internet too.
    I wonder what other ways operating different sized or shaped bodies changes how we think, and how long the effects linger. Big questions for transhumanists.

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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Quote Originally Posted by Spojaz View Post
    I wonder what other ways operating different sized or shaped bodies changes how we think, and how long the effects linger. Big questions for transhumanists.
    There are other ways you can infer about this.

    If full cyborg or remote controlled avatars are possible, people will probably be more reckless. The safer something makes us feel, the more we push it outside its nominal range of operations. For example gloves in box increase chance of death compared to no gloves box (because it's easier to break your arm), seatbelts make people drive faster, etc.

    Another thing is that people probably will have a minimum age of transplantation into inhuman bodies, barring life threatening injuries. Empathy requires people to work on a similar level. I'm talking arms/legs/digestive system, etc. Having those during childhood, will probably be essential for normal functioning as an adult. Empathy once learned generally doesn't necessarily dwindle like an unused muscle. We often empathize with cats, lions, wolfs and various predators. I'm pretty sure we can empathize with humans in different bodies.

  15. - Top - End - #135
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    And the law works in her favor!
    Quote Originally Posted by jamieth View Post
    ...though Talla does her best to sound objective and impartial, it doesn't cover stuff like "ask a 9-year-old to tank for the party."
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Quote Originally Posted by Qwertystop View Post
    And the law works in her favor!
    Looks like the Department of Inquisition Congruity is in a pickle!
    Last edited by Lethologica; 2015-07-09 at 05:18 PM.

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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Quote Originally Posted by Lethologica View Post
    Looks like the Department of Inquisition is in a pickle!
    The Department of Congruity does the law enforcement. Kim visited the Department of Inquisition here. But it probably is true that the Department of Inquisition can no longer classify her as a weather balloon.

    So what happened to the police car? And did Kim get a license from Asmodea, who was the head of the Department of Distraction?
    Last edited by eschmenk; 2015-07-09 at 03:50 PM.

  18. - Top - End - #138
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Quote Originally Posted by eschmenk View Post
    The Department of Congruity does the law enforcement. Kim visited the Department of Inquisition here. But it probably is true that the Department of Inquisition can no longer classify her as a weather balloon.

    So what happened to the police car? And did Kim get a license from Asmodea, who was the head of the Department of Distraction?
    Ah, right. I was mixed up by the reference to the DoI in the update.

    It's possible Asmodea is in the car with Kim--heck, I doubt Kim would even need the car to go fast by herself. (Though I suppose handicapping the mooks is a bonus.)

  19. - Top - End - #139
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Quote Originally Posted by Lethologica View Post
    It's possible Asmodea is in the car with Kim--heck, I doubt Kim would even need the car to go fast by herself. (Though I suppose handicapping the mooks is a bonus.)
    Did you spot Balthazar and Asmodea looking down on the right side of the page? It looked as if they were caught off guard and I think it might have been tough for them to have reached the car from there. I'm not sure what the panels on the right side (especially the ones with Kim) were supposed to be showing, though. (I could imaging that Kim was somehow signalling the car about what it was supposed to do, or maybe she was stretching in preparation for jacking the car.) I also don't know what was spotlighting Kim (a light on the gun?) nor why the cop car was spotlighting the cops nor how the cops failed to notice that it suddenly got darker when the cop car stopped spotlighting them.

    Also, I don't know if the dark skinned woman is from the Dept. of Inquisition, or is just a scientist who was working for Congruity.
    Last edited by eschmenk; 2015-07-09 at 10:15 PM.

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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Quote Originally Posted by eschmenk View Post
    Did you spot Balthazar and Asmodea looking down on the right side of the page? It looked as if they were caught off guard and I think it might have been tough for them to have reached the car from there. I'm not sure what the panels on the right side (especially the ones with Kim) were supposed to be showing, though. (I could imaging that Kim was somehow signalling the car about what it was supposed to do, or maybe she was stretching in preparation for jacking the car.) I also don't know what was spotlighting Kim (a light on the gun?) nor why the cop car was spotlighting the cops nor how the cops failed to notice that it suddenly got darker when the cop car stopped spotlighting them.

    Also, I don't know if the dark skinned woman is from the Dept. of Inquisition, or is just a scientist who was working for Congruity.
    I did not spot Balthazar and Asmodea, thanks for the heads-up. But now that I have--they weren't caught off guard, they're behind and above the mooks (check the wall pattern), and they're coordinating with Kim.

  21. - Top - End - #141
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    I concur with glasses guy. Why the blatantly metal arm? Is it a reminder?
    (They can pretty clearly detect that she's a brain in a machine, so there's little secrecy to be had there.)

    Going full cyber... that's a big step. But probably the best idea at this point for her, given the state she tends to be in. She's been de-limbed and injured quite a few times at this point.
    So no more translating between muscle and metal. Now it's directly between machine and mind. Which strangely seems to make her more "whole". Hard to describe.

    ...ripped machine, that is. Yowsers.

    The clothing is probably not part of the suit, though. That's just tastefully avoiding nudity. ;P
    On the other hand, I'm having my doubts about her having anything to be nude with at the moment.

    I wonder what her hair and skin is made of. Does it transmit touch information like regular skin? And how is the brain fueled? Does she need to breathe? Eat?

    Questions over questions. Interesting stuff.
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  22. - Top - End - #142
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Oh, hey! A cool thing!
    Spoiler: I didn't notice this parallel before
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    Last edited by Fralex; 2015-07-13 at 09:58 PM.
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Yeah... he says that, but... the first one is a bit of a stretch, the similarity being "Kim with lots of robot parts." Fair to say that Kim was planned to get lots of prosthetics, sure - but not anything special about visual design.

    The second pair is a lot more similar, but as there's nothing that mandates the scene be any particular way in the newer one, it could as easily be remembering his older art and deciding to match it - the characters (both the waiterbot and the guy from Recursion) are one-off scene-setters thus far.

    The poem is definitely identical, but again there's no way to know that it's "planned the older thinking of the newer" rather than "while writing the newer one, remembered the earlier poem and decided to use it again." At the moment, at least, nothing comes to mind that makes it more than deep-sounding poetry.

    Sorry, I'm skeptical on this.
    Quote Originally Posted by jamieth View Post
    ...though Talla does her best to sound objective and impartial, it doesn't cover stuff like "ask a 9-year-old to tank for the party."
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  24. - Top - End - #144
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    It's normal for artist/authors to have several ideas for stories simultaneously and they might think about the various stories and maybe do some sketches while they think about them, but they usually only finalize and present one at a time. While they finalize each story, they can do it in a way that's consistent with any other ideas they happen to have. I don't doubt that Diaz had some ideas about Dark Science already while doing Hobb, but that's not unusual.

    The fact that Diaz even said "10 years" says more about his previous update schedule than anything else, actually. He started Dark Science over 5 years ago, so a lot of his current ideas are going to be at least that old.

    The other thing is that 10 years is a slight exaggeration. In the 2009 DC Sketchbook, he says:
    Quote Originally Posted by Aaron Diaz
    When I was drawing Kim’s first appearance in “De Los Muertos,” I only intended her to make a single appearance, but afterwards it was clear that having a simple recurring face might open up new opportunities. This was around the time I started getting into drawing large, single-page stories, and Kimiko fit perfectly into the role of bewhildered explorer, and later, mad scientist.
    Well, De Los Muertos was a little under 10 years ago and he wasn't thinking about Kim being a mad scientist yet, so he couldn't have been thinking about robot parts for her quite 10 years ago. But he quickly went that way with her. Epilogue was just a few months later. Years later, in the 2010 Sketchbook you can see that he's starting to come up with ideas for Dark Science, which started in June 2010. The ~6 year old sketches from back then are finally being realized in what we are seeing now. So, yeah, you can see how he gradually firmed up his ideas about Kim between about 5 to 10 years ago, then those ideas became fairly locked in once he started Dark Science. It's not because he's obsessive about figuring everything out decades in advance.

    And yes, I think the one with the butler and also the poem were specifically examples of him looking back and imitating or copying what he had published earlier.
    Last edited by eschmenk; 2015-07-14 at 12:10 PM.

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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Huh. "Epilogue" is clearly a premonition of the lost future in the Hob storyline, though. This claimed callback is comparatively tenuous.
    Last edited by Lethologica; 2015-07-14 at 12:58 PM.

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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    New page

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    Someone is going to have to use to have new capabilities.
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Ooh, wow. This is really gorgeous.
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    New update. I like that it's much more frequent now.
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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    A bit of a blast from the past, but there's currently on Roll20 an unofficial attempt at a Dungeons & Discourse game, or rather something closely based on the idea. The handbook is pretty detailed.

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    Default Re: Dresden Codak: As beautiful as it is slow to update

    Quote Originally Posted by sr123 View Post
    A bit of a blast from the past, but there's currently on Roll20 an unofficial attempt at a Dungeons & Discourse game, or rather something closely based on the idea. The handbook is pretty detailed.
    Heh. Saw a mention of something like that a while ago, don't think it was the same one.
    Quote Originally Posted by jamieth View Post
    ...though Talla does her best to sound objective and impartial, it doesn't cover stuff like "ask a 9-year-old to tank for the party."
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