OK that is almost useless advice, "Use that big brain". He's already proved that doesn't happen. Wonder what will happen when he finds out he is a blood sacrifice to fix Aeneas, his blood carries the nanites needed to do the repair.
No, Kyle is not going to be ritually sacrificed on Aeneas's primary control console or something. Working in tech support, I'm accustomed to the term "voodoo fix", but sheesh. ;D
Rose, could you define voodoo fix for me please?
For the life of me, google just keeps coming up with a band or all the separate parts not the whole term.
Perhaps they're referring to a practice known as, "Easter Egging," in the Jargon File?
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/E/Easter-egging.html
Other likely possibilities include, "rain dance," "wave a dead chicken," and, "casting the runes."
A "voodoo fix" is similar to "easter egging" (which I've heard used more for hardware than software), where you do things that don't even seem related to the original problem, but somehow manage to fix the issue anyway. (I once cracked up every second-level tech on duty by popping onto the group chat and asking for advice in a paragraph that included the phrase "I've done everything but slaughter a black-feathered cockerel on top of the case".)
I'm surprised to find that it isn't in common usage; I wonder if it was unique to the local tech support personnel pool?
One of my best friends was involved in a case of "exorcism repair". After months of effort they tried soldering a crucifix to a tester at our electronics firm. It worked. Remove the cross and the fixture returned to being unreliable. So they left it there. When the department head demanded they remove it, their shift leader covered it with a table of metric conversions as camouflage.
I know exactly how that happened. The hardware problem would be a resistor that's slightly too sensitive to voltage changes and switches state at provocation that shouldn't matter, or a switch that's no longer properly debounced sending "chatter" at the system when it gets toggled. The crucifix acted as a capacitor - "charging" it meant slightly smoothing out spikes or breaks in the current. Any lump of metal having the same or similar capacitance value, including a pentagram with a ram's head inscribed in it, would have worked. The crucifix was just "appropriate."
That corresponds to specifically 'rain dance' or going through the motions of basic troubleshooting steps like re-plugging wires, re-seating chips and boards and stuff like that.
Most groups have specific lingo for these things that comes from shared group experiences which generate jargon.
Thank you for providing the definition of that.
Sounds like what I keep having to do for my friends' computers (many of them don't have the money to hire a profession due to the whole 'poor college student' thing.)
I could go into a many thousand word long rant about my experiences with them, but I'll refrain from doing so, since I'd say the tech support people here have probably seen worse hell on the computer front than I could imagine.
I will consider it suffice to say that I cannot imagine the kind of patience it must take to do that stuff professionally or the kind of sarcasm that it would cause an individual to inflict.
The wet socks as she chews on them is something I will never forget!
Or for that matter, waiting until your not paying attention and then licking between your fingers.. Augh! a wake up lick I am doing my best to avoid again!
Hmm. I seem to recall a few matches and flipflops sheela.... Nice to o know your adaptable!
He has a point...An AIS is faster and has more power at its disposal than a human would in the VR envrioment...though a human Could theortically find way with their human chaotic nature to attack an ais they would nto expect and thus gain the upper hand..
But you'd have an easier time Teaching a Muderturd to be safe for hand feeding than that
Like possibly jacking in to the systems on the other side of severed connections. Fix the uplink to Big A last then get out and on to the next one.
Hopefully by the time the AI is able to kill you, enough of it is working that it either knows not to, or you can get the hell out while it fixes itself the rest of the way.
I like your contribution to the cause of feeding murderturds sheela! I am sure the Mr Popolopolis's of the world will appreciate it once they know about the great effort you have made on their behalf!
Like Acantha with her Cookie Of Good Intentions, Kyle should work on convincing Aeneas he's a friend who wants to help. Aeneas knows he's broken; Kyle is offering a chance to get better.
But it'll help a whole lot if he can get Acantha (or possibly Rose) to make introductions.
"...and use of the big brain is always preferred to the use of the little brain, Kyle."
We know that isn't true, if it were true there would be no porn on the internet. The fact that there is uncountable vast quantities of it and lots of people trying to sell some means there self-evidently are occasions, places and entire systems in place that call for the use of the little head.
Since it was mentioned in the Luna Star comments for Artifactus Gone Wild, I have to say that Miraiko (in panel 2) comes a LOT closer to a cheesecake shot than Galina did. :-D
And damn, Miraiko looks FINE doing it too. Which is probably what the guy she just put in the hospital had to say before she significantly rearranged his body. :-D
Okay, so Kyle screwed up Magnificently. Ridicule Me if you Haven't at some point. People grow and change and trauma is one of the most effective teachers known to man. Like Miraiko said, He Bought this opportunity, and Paid for it as well. Wishing him harm because of his past instead of allowing him the opportunity and benefit-of-the-doubt to move past it and succeed is exactly why the American criminal justice system only produces more determined and more desperate criminals.
Speaking of Living the Video Game as well as stupid things done in one's past, when I was Kyle's age I used to work as a bike messenger around Baltimore City all day long through major metro traffic, Tripping my balls off on large quantities of LSD. Talk about a real live vidgame... I used to hallucinate a heads up display (Which was Accurate) just for fun. I emerged from that experience without ever being seriously injured or causing any accidents, and eventually saw enough of Other People's mistakes to understand just how stupid that really was- Without the help of a somewhat friendly AIS (unless this really IS the Matrix). Give the kid a chance to grow up. It looks like he's trying to.
"...trauma is one of the most effective teachers known to man."
"Wishing him harm because of his past instead of allowing him the opportunity and benefit-of-the-doubt to move past it and succeed is exactly why the American criminal justice system only produces more determined and more desperate criminals."
"Give the kid a chance to grow up. It looks like he's trying to."
Hear, hear!
I still find it hard to believe so many readers want to see Kyle dead now. But to wish Lynn or Acantha would accidentally shoot him dead?! Yes, he did a stupid (singular, not plural). But it's not like he intended to hurt anyone aside from Prince Douchy. And we all want the Prince of Douchebaggery dead, don't we? And if either Lynn or Acantha accidentally shot Kyle to death, they'd be traumatized for life and us readers would be bawling our eyes out.
“Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.”
I generally don't subscribe to the simplistic/dualistic notions of good and evil, but I reserve the right to be harsh and dismissive of people who are stupid and careless with dangerous situations and lethal tools. It is true that wisdom tends to come after we really needed it. That said, dude had no real plan and nearly got himself and other people killed by failing to think, communicate and cooperate: People who are that stupid in real life mostly have earned the privilege of teaching the rest of us to do better by being negative examples.
"...dude had no real plan and nearly got himself and other people killed by failing to think..."
Teens are impulsive. Don't get me wrong: Kyle deserves blame! Believe me, I was angry, too! But -some part- of the blame belongs to biology. Teen brains are not finished growing and have a lot of difficulty seeing the big picture.
Kyle was not only a teen, he was untrained and unprepared. If this happened in real life we'd blame whoever was stupid or desperate enough to send him on such a mission.
"People who are that stupid in real life mostly have earned the privilege of teaching the rest of us to do better by being negative examples."
Stupid? Yes. But it's not as if Kyle robbed a liquor store or doped up a friend. Anyway, how often do kids do stupid stuff? Should we wish death on all kids who pull a stupid for no other reason than they pulled a stupid?
While we're at it, maybe we should have TR written out of the story? Rose was the one who recruited Kyle for this job. She deserves some of the blame, doesn't she? (Though, personally, I think TR deserves slack because of what was at stake and because her brilliant contingencies did save the day.)
Oh, wait... Where's the victim? Who's life did Kyle destroy? Nobody's? Then why can't we just let Kyle live'n learn? Good, honest people who are driven by good intentions (instead of selfishness) seem in short supply. Isn't that worth something?
Mostly, I'm just shaking my fist at the apparent presence of the monomyth (I.E. Joseph Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces) in this story. That shit is so overdone I call it an obnoxious cliché when I see it, including all derivatives. You're confusing the issue by suggesting removal of Tokyo Rose and/or Kyle out of the story, which I did not do. The story is written, the characters are present, we're along for the ride and the creators have as much artistic license as anyone.
I did assert Kyle's actions in the story were lethally stupid and earned the right to enjoy a lethal reward. Yes, people engage in--and survive--lethal stupidity every day, not the least of which being texting while driving. Yes, Tokyo Rose enabled him to engage this stupidity, manipulated him into the position of working undercover in the palace which made it possible, so you can fairly argue she deserves more 'blame' for it than he does. You're right that blame is not an optimal construct for these sorts of issues where we're dealing with people that predictably are not rational, and the better overall response in real life is a combination of education, prevention and information/decision management. But even with this experience behind him he's still not a trained military/paramilitary operative with skill at handling time-sensitive, dangerous choices well. He shouldn't be where he is and going where he's going because it's likely he'll have another severe or lethal problem. He hasn't war-gamed this scenario until he knows what his opportunities and risks are unconsciously, I bet he doesn't know everything there is to know about Aeneas' systems when they were operating normally. I doubt he has real-time observation of everything there is to know about Aeneas and what the state of the problem he's walking into is, or that even if he did a human intellect is capable of grasping all of that. TR is essentially throwing a Kyle-shaped object at a time-sensitive problem because the disaster that unfolds if she does nothing seems predictably horrible. He wouldn't really have a chance to succeed if he hadn't been blessed with plot-armour as the chosen one who will delay Ragnarok for another generation. I actually want him to fail and disaster to happen when he dies and stays dead because at least that would be interesting. I predict that he'll actually end up being invited inside for tea by Lynn and Acantha if Aeneas doesn't kill him first, and the plucky teenagers will save the universe, ARRRGH!
Further reading on the topic of behaviour management with irrational people: http://harvardmagazine.com/2015/05/the-science-of-scarcity
@ XRzer04: Amen Brothah, you testify.... I'm also solidly in the "give Kyle a second chance" camp.
As Will Rogers once said: "some of us learn by reading, and some of us learn by watching others, but most of us just have to pee on the electric fence for ourselves."
Perhaps space in this comic is like that. But "black ice cowboys" is a very clear reference to the Shadowrun franchise/games. "Black Ice" is an illegal cyberspace intrusion countermeasure which can cause physical harm or death to hackers. A "Cowboy" is a quote, "very hot, professional deckjockey". And "Deckjockey" is an expert cyberdeck user who uses cybernetic implants and "Decker" equipment to hack cyberspace. (For more info, see this Shadowrun Slang Glossary.)
Very coincidentally: This weekend there was a sale on Steam ("Shadowrun Weekend Deal") which included Shadowrun Returns (80% off), Shadowrun: Dragonfall (70% off), and the new Shadowrun: Hong Kong (??% off?). "Was", being the operative word. At a few dollars each, they were hard to resist.
Actually, Shadowrun 'borrowed' Black ICE from William Gibson, xpace. Gibson introduced it in Neuromancer in 1984. ICE (Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics) was introduced by Gibson in a short story a couple years earlier, Burning Chrome. As was the console cowboy.
Ick, those terms are not local to Shadowrun. Shadowrun borrows them from the works of William Gibson, reference the wildly popular works Burning Chrome, Neuromancer, and Count Zero particularly.
*retreats in disgust from people getting dirty magic on his cyberpunk*
Yep Kyle is refering to Cyberspace.. also this is from "Cyberpunk" from William Gibson Burning chrome and ect all - i was never keen on mixing magic and tech .. So stormwind and AC got it in one .. :D
But basicly Black ICE can KILL. a unprotected netrunner..
"Look at the big brain on Kyle!!!"
Also, as much as I want bad things to happen to Kyle... Now that he's pretty much playing Splinter Cell, his chances just increased by a lot.
For about 6 panels...
For the life of me, google just keeps coming up with a band or all the separate parts not the whole term.
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/E/Easter-egging.html
Other likely possibilities include, "rain dance," "wave a dead chicken," and, "casting the runes."
Just like Rose also does not turn into a bloodthirsty beast if fed after midnight, nor does she mass self-replicate if doused with water.
I'm surprised to find that it isn't in common usage; I wonder if it was unique to the local tech support personnel pool?
(Though probably the same underlying effect.)
But I stubbornly deny their existance!
On the bright side, we have had no floods yet.
Most groups have specific lingo for these things that comes from shared group experiences which generate jargon.
Sounds like what I keep having to do for my friends' computers (many of them don't have the money to hire a profession due to the whole 'poor college student' thing.)
I could go into a many thousand word long rant about my experiences with them, but I'll refrain from doing so, since I'd say the tech support people here have probably seen worse hell on the computer front than I could imagine.
I will consider it suffice to say that I cannot imagine the kind of patience it must take to do that stuff professionally or the kind of sarcasm that it would cause an individual to inflict.
Far more fun to watch, then to "live in the interesting times..."
When it is YOU living it then it isn't an adventure, it is just TERRIFYING!
Toe nibblers...
... for others after I tie their shoelaces together. >:)
Or for that matter, waiting until your not paying attention and then licking between your fingers.. Augh! a wake up lick I am doing my best to avoid again!
Hmm. I seem to recall a few matches and flipflops sheela.... Nice to o know your adaptable!
It has a nice ring to it. :)
And yeah, one has to be flexible to get all the fish!
But you'd have an easier time Teaching a Muderturd to be safe for hand feeding than that
Hopefully by the time the AI is able to kill you, enough of it is working that it either knows not to, or you can get the hell out while it fixes itself the rest of the way.
"Feeding Murderturds hands, is perfectly safe, thank you for your cooporation, and donate your feet too!"
This service announcement was brought to you by Mr Popolopolis. :)
Like Acantha with her Cookie Of Good Intentions, Kyle should work on convincing Aeneas he's a friend who wants to help. Aeneas knows he's broken; Kyle is offering a chance to get better.
But it'll help a whole lot if he can get Acantha (or possibly Rose) to make introductions.
To be fair, there are some parts f Aeneas that does *not* know it's broken. And yes, i just mentioned Aeneas as an "it" !
Yeah Kyle, that is not a save point. You might die again - and this time it might be permanent...
...and use of the big brain is always preferred to the use of the little brain, Kyle.
PS: the next and last words of Miraiko to Kyle: it was nice knowing you... (or something the like...)
We know that isn't true, if it were true there would be no porn on the internet. The fact that there is uncountable vast quantities of it and lots of people trying to sell some means there self-evidently are occasions, places and entire systems in place that call for the use of the little head.
I approve of this. :)
So much to chase down!
.. yes, it's a busy time for us doggies.
Sounds like what Kyle needs to be thinking. And THINKING is definitely what he needs to be doing! Else Aeneas will turn him into scattered atoms!
And damn, Miraiko looks FINE doing it too. Which is probably what the guy she just put in the hospital had to say before she significantly rearranged his body. :-D
Speaking of Living the Video Game as well as stupid things done in one's past, when I was Kyle's age I used to work as a bike messenger around Baltimore City all day long through major metro traffic, Tripping my balls off on large quantities of LSD. Talk about a real live vidgame... I used to hallucinate a heads up display (Which was Accurate) just for fun. I emerged from that experience without ever being seriously injured or causing any accidents, and eventually saw enough of Other People's mistakes to understand just how stupid that really was- Without the help of a somewhat friendly AIS (unless this really IS the Matrix). Give the kid a chance to grow up. It looks like he's trying to.
"Wishing him harm because of his past instead of allowing him the opportunity and benefit-of-the-doubt to move past it and succeed is exactly why the American criminal justice system only produces more determined and more desperate criminals."
"Give the kid a chance to grow up. It looks like he's trying to."
Hear, hear!
I still find it hard to believe so many readers want to see Kyle dead now. But to wish Lynn or Acantha would accidentally shoot him dead?! Yes, he did a stupid (singular, not plural). But it's not like he intended to hurt anyone aside from Prince Douchy. And we all want the Prince of Douchebaggery dead, don't we? And if either Lynn or Acantha accidentally shot Kyle to death, they'd be traumatized for life and us readers would be bawling our eyes out.
I generally don't subscribe to the simplistic/dualistic notions of good and evil, but I reserve the right to be harsh and dismissive of people who are stupid and careless with dangerous situations and lethal tools. It is true that wisdom tends to come after we really needed it. That said, dude had no real plan and nearly got himself and other people killed by failing to think, communicate and cooperate: People who are that stupid in real life mostly have earned the privilege of teaching the rest of us to do better by being negative examples.
Teens are impulsive. Don't get me wrong: Kyle deserves blame! Believe me, I was angry, too! But -some part- of the blame belongs to biology. Teen brains are not finished growing and have a lot of difficulty seeing the big picture.
Kyle was not only a teen, he was untrained and unprepared. If this happened in real life we'd blame whoever was stupid or desperate enough to send him on such a mission.
"People who are that stupid in real life mostly have earned the privilege of teaching the rest of us to do better by being negative examples."
Stupid? Yes. But it's not as if Kyle robbed a liquor store or doped up a friend. Anyway, how often do kids do stupid stuff? Should we wish death on all kids who pull a stupid for no other reason than they pulled a stupid?
While we're at it, maybe we should have TR written out of the story? Rose was the one who recruited Kyle for this job. She deserves some of the blame, doesn't she? (Though, personally, I think TR deserves slack because of what was at stake and because her brilliant contingencies did save the day.)
Oh, wait... Where's the victim? Who's life did Kyle destroy? Nobody's? Then why can't we just let Kyle live'n learn? Good, honest people who are driven by good intentions (instead of selfishness) seem in short supply. Isn't that worth something?
I did assert Kyle's actions in the story were lethally stupid and earned the right to enjoy a lethal reward. Yes, people engage in--and survive--lethal stupidity every day, not the least of which being texting while driving. Yes, Tokyo Rose enabled him to engage this stupidity, manipulated him into the position of working undercover in the palace which made it possible, so you can fairly argue she deserves more 'blame' for it than he does. You're right that blame is not an optimal construct for these sorts of issues where we're dealing with people that predictably are not rational, and the better overall response in real life is a combination of education, prevention and information/decision management. But even with this experience behind him he's still not a trained military/paramilitary operative with skill at handling time-sensitive, dangerous choices well. He shouldn't be where he is and going where he's going because it's likely he'll have another severe or lethal problem. He hasn't war-gamed this scenario until he knows what his opportunities and risks are unconsciously, I bet he doesn't know everything there is to know about Aeneas' systems when they were operating normally. I doubt he has real-time observation of everything there is to know about Aeneas and what the state of the problem he's walking into is, or that even if he did a human intellect is capable of grasping all of that. TR is essentially throwing a Kyle-shaped object at a time-sensitive problem because the disaster that unfolds if she does nothing seems predictably horrible. He wouldn't really have a chance to succeed if he hadn't been blessed with plot-armour as the chosen one who will delay Ragnarok for another generation. I actually want him to fail and disaster to happen when he dies and stays dead because at least that would be interesting. I predict that he'll actually end up being invited inside for tea by Lynn and Acantha if Aeneas doesn't kill him first, and the plucky teenagers will save the universe, ARRRGH!
Further reading on the topic of behaviour management with irrational people: http://harvardmagazine.com/2015/05/the-science-of-scarcity
As Will Rogers once said: "some of us learn by reading, and some of us learn by watching others, but most of us just have to pee on the electric fence for ourselves."
Very coincidentally: This weekend there was a sale on Steam ("Shadowrun Weekend Deal") which included Shadowrun Returns (80% off), Shadowrun: Dragonfall (70% off), and the new Shadowrun: Hong Kong (??% off?). "Was", being the operative word. At a few dollars each, they were hard to resist.
*retreats in disgust from people getting dirty magic on his cyberpunk*
And BlackICE was a security software made by IBM Internet Security Systems, I kid you not.
But basicly Black ICE can KILL. a unprotected netrunner..
Which just means they did as anything with even a slight whiff of cyberpunk has done since Gibson published. His work is that influential.
(couldn't resist)