I apologize yet again, because I've come down with the same cold Mister Black's been fighting for four days and didn't get a page done. I did suggest a Christmas art bonus to our dear Artist, who promptly DIDN'T GET IT DONE IN A TIMELY FASHION $@#%$%^@%^.
soo.? the cat (hell) broke out of the balloon bag, causing it to pop, an go up in flames, an dropping the penny gondola to the ground..
..oh an causing everyone to go ,, "OOOO..."
A.I.S. convention! Sheela had told of "Ariel" based in Denmark. I should not have been surprised that she has a mermaid avatar, nor that Tokyo Rose would be a Joyce fan! The waiting must be for Aeneas?
A.I.S.'s we have met remaining conspicuously absent are Aeneas (Nova Roma) and Centcomm (New Troy). There's probably a Luna A.I.S out there as well, but I don't think we've met them yet.
Of course what they are waiting for depends on why they are there. Re-introducing the sane Aeneas to the A.I. Community would be an excellent reason, I agree. Technically (AFAIK), Rose isn't an A.I.S., but the Treasures are.
If I remember right, yes, Rose is a 300+ year old cryogenic human.
I was remiss in not mentioning CentComm, but in my defense, if I interpret the A/N correctly, she was sleeping. ;)
I suspected that there were A.I.S. entities beyond those who we have been introduced to so far. Five of them have appeared here, two have been introduced. I suspect there are more, and as you mention, one of these, or one yet to arrive, may well hail from Luna.
TR was active at the start of 'Luna Star', 914 years before the start of 'Datachasers'(http://lunastar.thecomicseries.com/comics/7). Whether she was a functioning human being or a sentient corpsicle at that time is unclear but her love for snooping other peoples communications and fondness for artificial sentience is clearly evident.
Of course there's no guessing what effect actual, biological death of that corpsicle would have on Rose. She might not even notice. Or she might discover she's no longer a cyperpath. Or she might blink out in a sudden flare of logical contradiction, or her avatar might morph and give way to a completely different persona as her "silent helper" AIS mourns her passing and then comes to the fore to demand that Rose's memory be paid respect.
I mean, what are the rules? We got no idea what the rules are. Just sit back and enjoy the popcorn.
I don't think this is a convention. More like a haggle, or maybe a murder. (It would be gaggle if they were geese) calling them a murder hits a little too close, but an "assassination of AI's" would be worse.
Also, Rose has been funneling her sentience through a baby-AIS for so long, that by now, she's probably half AIS.
And I wasn't even the one who came up with the idea of a Danish AIS being based Ariel the mermaid (That was Centcomm, I think, and Rose approved). Though my head canon immediately accepted it as true.
That said, I expanded upon what Denmark would have as a unique resource .. ie., bio-tech, clean-tech and filters, possibly also stuff like anti-agaics, and clean energy.
Heck, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the organic food synthesiser that Calliope Taylor was fighting with at the beginning of the comic, all the way back on page 3, would be replaced with a new one from Ariels domain. It would fit quite nicely with what Denmark, (and Scandinavian region in general) is doing these days.
That said, I wonder what the "ECP" stands for ?
I'm guessing something akin to Euro-Combine P.... something, something ?
Peacekeeper perhaps ? I'm sure Ariel would *love* to have a few warships to keep the peace with. 🤣
Anyways, I'm really looking forward to what they will do with Ariel. 😁
Oh yeah, and my head cannon has Ariel pegged as a bit of a trickster, should be interesting to see if the dynamic duo went with that as well.
In fact, it will be interesting to see if they have incorporated any of the stuff I have come up with, or go an entirely different route.
Ah, so this is a gathering of all the AIS members that basically called off the war?
*edit: Taken with Gilrandir's post above, and noting that CentComm and Aeneas have both yet to arrive, this could get interesting when you consider CentComm tried to 'euthanize' Aeneas, and Tokyo Rose rescued him.
Not sure if I'd qualify as tainted (for whatever value of that word you are using), but I do have a warped sense of humor, which is fueled by such things as Gary Larson's "The Far Side" comics, Rowan Atkinson's "The Black Adder" TV show and a little known US TV show called "Special Unit 2" (never made available on DVD, unfortunately), just to name a very limited few sources. ;)
Sorry, but Buddy is out riding mutated polar bears.
He doesn't have time to meet with you now.
If you wish to call upon him, you must first find out a way to turn Maple Syrup into beer. Only then can you meet with him. .... Remember to bring the beer. 😂
You know, all this time I just took it as a given that the AIS characters mentioned so far were the only ones. Dare I hope there is a German AIS that looks like an Octoberfest girl? Or a Dutch boy wearing wooden shoes? Maybe an Austrailian one with a really big knife? :)
If I understand the lore right, Germany, Britain and France took the brunt of the nuclear war, so there's probably not much left of them. And since the Dutch is right in between those three ... yeahh …
Actually, I'm curious as to how the Vatican survived.
Maybe they rebuilt the Vatican so it could float, and left Italy before the war started ?
I sort of imagine AI avatars morphing and switching a lot, as a form of emote. Like the AI whose avatar changes clothes on a daily (or minute-ly) basis, or who wears a different face for a few seconds when being sarcastic, or switches back and forth between expressed gender depending on mood, or even just becomes a twisting swirl of multicolored light when "zoned out and happy" as a way of expressing, "I'm happy right now, please don't bug me."
But it seems that in comics hardly anyone ever changes clothes. The clothes are part of the character's look and along with the hairstyle, colors, stature, etc, help the audience recognize who they are. So comic artists don't change them very often.
I'm really surprised TR didn't tell him to come blow his horn, though I guess in a way he is, so calling him blue boy might make sense. I guess it's better than calling him "blue balls." That is something Rose wouldn't really not like.
Umm, which one are you talking about? None of the AI present are from North America, except perhaps Deep Blue. So far as I know, the only "American" AI we've see so far are Centcomm (New Troy) and Aeneas (New Rome).
Yes, CentComm's dolls are based on a sexbot design. It was CentComm's intent to do so, if I remember right. It was something like she felt she was getting screwed or something like that.
Deep blue...wow he must be like a total party animal you know lampshade on head keg stans all that if rose thinks talking to him is so exciting and fun
just a reminder.: Only Aeneas (and us) knows what/who "Tokyo Rose" really is... Nobody else knows for sure (including the other AIS.).. an Rose likes it that way...
thats part of her mystique,, i wood not put it past her to start a few of the rumors ,, both real an false..
I may be the only one who thinks this, but I gotta say "BRAVO" to Cent for Master Loyola. I think that's probably the best looking male character you've ever rendered. Perfect for a virtual priest... Fit, calm, and a compassionate look about him.
is the 'Loyola' AIS sited in the vatican itself or one of the various 'Loyola' colleges around the world ? or maybe dispersed throughout them ? or both ?
Yep, he was the one responsible for the answer -- 42, but he wasn't powerful enough to determine the question. That is what the earth was built for.
Douglas Adams was truly a genius. He did a 1 hour video project for the BBC called "Tomorrowland" in 1980 about a new way to retrieve information. You can find it on youtube. The thing you have to understand while watching it, it was created 10 years BEFORE 'Gopher' which is the conceptual parent to the world wide web(www).
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer). Deep Thought was the name of the computer when Carnegie Mellon started work on it. Deep Blue was the name after IBM took over the project.
I must have missed those particular writings in high school English literature. And college English literature had us reading a disproportionate amount of homosexual-oriented fiction, despite it being a US military academy in the days of “don’t ask don’t tell.”
I was introduced to Joyce in college, "Finnigan's wake" was on the reading list (not an easy read, btw). TR actually introduced me to these letters. They were published Posthumously, which means they survived 3 evacuations during pre-WW2. They actually meant a lot to his wife, Nora.
You can read them here, but be warned they are VERY NFSW:
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/02/02/james-joyces-love-letters-dirty-little-fuckbird/
At 900+ years, Rose is not merely the oldest present; she is prehistoric as far as other AIS are concerned; she looms out of unremembered history like a leviathan of deep time.
She was active at the time of Luna Star which makes 950 (?) years the lowerbound on her age. We have no idea how old she was then.
Centcomm existed, sort of, but was not yet 'sparked' and conscious, and most people didn't even know yet that anything like AIS could exist. But Rose did. Rose had already trained that "Baby AIS" she was talking about to be her assistant/avatar/standin/continuation, so Rose was clearly centuries ahead of the game. Her interest in machine intelligence/consciousness at the time is the interest of somebody who wants desperately for other people to not fuck it up. And the interest of someone who might, or might not, actually be lonely for company.
Rose was there before Centcomm. She is directly responsible for the existence of the Three Treasures, and Aeneas. She probably wrote the texts that were used to train the creators of the rest.
They would not believe, even if told, that she is (or at least started out) biological. Aeneas actually saw her "in the flesh" (literally, if by remote link), and even he didn't know whether to believe it. And Aeneas has no firm idea just how old she is, I think.
If you merge chess playing 'Deep Blue' with Jeopardy playing 'Watson' and bit of self modifying gaming AI that has been developed since 'Watson' and then let it grow itself, you would be well on your way to the Datachasers 'Deep Blue'.
Deep Blue - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer)
Watson - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(computer)
Deep Blue played the famous chess games in 1996 and 1997 and used custom VLSI chips. If parts were used from a previous system they were probably standard parts taken from stock.
The initial version of Watson started tests in 2006 and the televised competitions were in 2011. Since Watson was based a commercial IBM server (thousands of them), it would not have used components from previous systems.
Software is a different story. There might be code from previous AI systems that are carried through to the next. It is unlikely that hardware would be carried over between systems.
The current development system can be compared to the tik-tok paradigm from Intel. Faster processors and GPU's would be used as they become available. A separate process would improve the software with the software loaded on whatever would be the currently fastest equipment.
I think, as I write this, that Christmas is probably breaking over the International Date Line.
But wherever it catches up with you, have a happy Holiday.
My wife and I celebrated Yule three days past; our neighbors celebrate Christmas and I'm-not-sure-what, respectively. Hm. He's from South Africa, and that's mostly Christmas....
And we have some Russian Orthodox neighbors next block over who'll be celebrating Christmas two weeks or so from now.
Happy Festivus ...The festival for the rest of us!
(My two issues with this season is the the massive over commercialization and then all of the people telling me I "have to be happy" right as my SADD is kicking into full gear.
I know this is probably something you've heard, but I wound up with a cheapo SADD lamp that was marketed as an alarm clock and it actually works for me. I also use it as an alarm clock because I'd gotten way too good at sleeping through the normal beep beep beep one
I changed the bulbs in my office for full-spectrum light (lots brighter in blue and red than in most commercial bulbs), and it really did help with that.
That said, knowing shit ain't the same as feeling shit, and I understand how we know-it-all people with advice about light are probably making you feel extra-stabby right now. Been there. Sympathies. I still feel that way when I'm being depressive (yeah, winter SADD aggravates it but it's never been nearly the whole story) and people tell me "just think positive!"
Seriously though; if not a happy Christmas, I hope you can manage at least one of the lesser goals, like being productive, or relaxed, or indulging in little physical pleasures like long hot baths and good food and so on.
It can definitely be a nuisance and even more than that for some, especially with the holiday stresses coming right when the days are the shortest.
Now that I'm retired I decided to let it work for me this year, I have no problem staying in bed until noon for a change and I don't keep a schedule of any kind except the odd appointment I schedule as late as I can or go back to bed after.
I used to get through it by working nights and completely resetting my internal clock, that worked for me but it might not for everyone, it's not the same for everyone but I guess my secret is I'm always tired and cranky so it never really mattered, even if it should have.
SADD is a real thing but trying to convince people who aren't affected by it is almost as hard as putting up with it...working for executives who never had to work a rotating shift in their life but love to tinker with schedules and shifts just compounds it...luckily I had no shortage of people willing to trade night shift off, I was at least functional then instead of being a zombie in the daytime...that got me through it, your mileage may vary.
I understand that the United States Air Force wrote a manual on rotating shifts and jet lag and how to minimize the bad effects. If you could find a copy, you could put it on your desk for your bosses to see. However, just imagine the problem in the higher latitudes (both north and south) where you have the "land of the midnight sun.
Working shifts doesn't kill you, CHANGING shifts kills you...
For years we used to work two 1800-0630/45 night shifts then two 0630-1900/15 day shifts right afterward...the 24 hours 'off' between the end of the second night shift and the start of the first day shift was usually spent wide awake and that first day shift was either a sick day or a 'zombie day'...
I called it 'child abuse' and traded the day shifts off whenever I could.
It later got changed to doing the day shifts first which was marginally better but a block of four days then four nights would have been a lot easier, after working 52.5 hours (more or less, it varied a bit) in a week you did have five days off between sets, sort of, but that first one was a complete write off, and most of the last one since you started the first night shift the evening of your last day 'off'. That and a touch of SADD made life interesting to say the least...and if you didn't have SADD when you started, you were issued it along the way.
One of the more enjoyable appendices of the winter for me, besides the sheer delight of denning up a lot, is the challah; so I wish all of you who can tolerate wheat and fat and sugar some happy challah daze.
That looks pretty tasty, except I have to add dairy, lemon and vanilla (and some berries) to the previously mentioned "no" list. :P
Fortunately for me, I don't have severe reactions (i.e. anaphylatic shock, etc.) to any of the 50 plus foods I'm sensitive to, but it does make life more "interesting" when it comes to food.
when you keep kosher and are allergic to fish, that pretty much lets anything from the ocean out...except seaweed...and I do like miso soup :) (as long as it's made without tuna)
Why was the priest amazed by the little mermaid's trapeez act.
Because she was a superb Ariel-ist.
Blue Bonnet,
Deep Purple,
Baby Blue,
Big Red,
etc...
The penny is dropping
the cat is out of the bag
the balloon is about to go up
hell's a poppin......
..oh an causing everyone to go ,, "OOOO..."
Then again, if a major water supplier (even out in wastes) went silent, some AIS would notice?
GAH .. too many choices!
Of course what they are waiting for depends on why they are there. Re-introducing the sane Aeneas to the A.I. Community would be an excellent reason, I agree. Technically (AFAIK), Rose isn't an A.I.S., but the Treasures are.
I was remiss in not mentioning CentComm, but in my defense, if I interpret the A/N correctly, she was sleeping. ;)
I suspected that there were A.I.S. entities beyond those who we have been introduced to so far. Five of them have appeared here, two have been introduced. I suspect there are more, and as you mention, one of these, or one yet to arrive, may well hail from Luna.
I mean, what are the rules? We got no idea what the rules are. Just sit back and enjoy the popcorn.
And I wasn't even the one who came up with the idea of a Danish AIS being based Ariel the mermaid (That was Centcomm, I think, and Rose approved). Though my head canon immediately accepted it as true.
That said, I expanded upon what Denmark would have as a unique resource .. ie., bio-tech, clean-tech and filters, possibly also stuff like anti-agaics, and clean energy.
Heck, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the organic food synthesiser that Calliope Taylor was fighting with at the beginning of the comic, all the way back on page 3, would be replaced with a new one from Ariels domain. It would fit quite nicely with what Denmark, (and Scandinavian region in general) is doing these days.
That said, I wonder what the "ECP" stands for ?
I'm guessing something akin to Euro-Combine P.... something, something ?
Peacekeeper perhaps ? I'm sure Ariel would *love* to have a few warships to keep the peace with. 🤣
Anyways, I'm really looking forward to what they will do with Ariel. 😁
Oh yeah, and my head cannon has Ariel pegged as a bit of a trickster, should be interesting to see if the dynamic duo went with that as well.
In fact, it will be interesting to see if they have incorporated any of the stuff I have come up with, or go an entirely different route.
*edit: Taken with Gilrandir's post above, and noting that CentComm and Aeneas have both yet to arrive, this could get interesting when you consider CentComm tried to 'euthanize' Aeneas, and Tokyo Rose rescued him.
I wonder how much Aeneas knows/remembers.
Though you may have to be tainted a bit first.
...and it seems like the AIS are sensing or aware something is amiss... =S
PS: I like Ariel
Not that it matters much, it's just a digital avatar.
He doesn't have time to meet with you now.
If you wish to call upon him, you must first find out a way to turn Maple Syrup into beer. Only then can you meet with him. .... Remember to bring the beer. 😂
Actually, I'm curious as to how the Vatican survived.
Maybe they rebuilt the Vatican so it could float, and left Italy before the war started ?
They're both good...each in it's own way.
But it seems that in comics hardly anyone ever changes clothes. The clothes are part of the character's look and along with the hairstyle, colors, stature, etc, help the audience recognize who they are. So comic artists don't change them very often.
Haven't seen him either .. yet .. though he has been mentioned in the comic.
Obviously, she isn't present, at least not yet.
Obviously, she isn't present, at least not yet.
thats part of her mystique,, i wood not put it past her to start a few of the rumors ,, both real an false..
Cue a Dolly flashback or re-entrance ?
or does this sum up her memories of the last time ? ;)
Again, I say "BRAVO"!!!!!
ther's a touch of Shatner in there but it's not him...
"It's Better Manually"
Because manually was so much better than IBM's way in the earlier days.
Douglas Adams was truly a genius. He did a 1 hour video project for the BBC called "Tomorrowland" in 1980 about a new way to retrieve information. You can find it on youtube. The thing you have to understand while watching it, it was created 10 years BEFORE 'Gopher' which is the conceptual parent to the world wide web(www).
You can read them here, but be warned they are VERY NFSW:
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/02/02/james-joyces-love-letters-dirty-little-fuckbird/
She was active at the time of Luna Star which makes 950 (?) years the lowerbound on her age. We have no idea how old she was then.
Centcomm existed, sort of, but was not yet 'sparked' and conscious, and most people didn't even know yet that anything like AIS could exist. But Rose did. Rose had already trained that "Baby AIS" she was talking about to be her assistant/avatar/standin/continuation, so Rose was clearly centuries ahead of the game. Her interest in machine intelligence/consciousness at the time is the interest of somebody who wants desperately for other people to not fuck it up. And the interest of someone who might, or might not, actually be lonely for company.
Rose was there before Centcomm. She is directly responsible for the existence of the Three Treasures, and Aeneas. She probably wrote the texts that were used to train the creators of the rest.
They would not believe, even if told, that she is (or at least started out) biological. Aeneas actually saw her "in the flesh" (literally, if by remote link), and even he didn't know whether to believe it. And Aeneas has no firm idea just how old she is, I think.
Nice reference. :-)
That's actually a double-reference there. ;)
Watson - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(computer)
Deep Blue played the famous chess games in 1996 and 1997 and used custom VLSI chips. If parts were used from a previous system they were probably standard parts taken from stock.
The initial version of Watson started tests in 2006 and the televised competitions were in 2011. Since Watson was based a commercial IBM server (thousands of them), it would not have used components from previous systems.
Software is a different story. There might be code from previous AI systems that are carried through to the next. It is unlikely that hardware would be carried over between systems.
The current development system can be compared to the tik-tok paradigm from Intel. Faster processors and GPU's would be used as they become available. A separate process would improve the software with the software loaded on whatever would be the currently fastest equipment.
Here's wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas!
But wherever it catches up with you, have a happy Holiday.
My wife and I celebrated Yule three days past; our neighbors celebrate Christmas and I'm-not-sure-what, respectively. Hm. He's from South Africa, and that's mostly Christmas....
And we have some Russian Orthodox neighbors next block over who'll be celebrating Christmas two weeks or so from now.
It's all good.
(My two issues with this season is the the massive over commercialization and then all of the people telling me I "have to be happy" right as my SADD is kicking into full gear.
That said, knowing shit ain't the same as feeling shit, and I understand how we know-it-all people with advice about light are probably making you feel extra-stabby right now. Been there. Sympathies. I still feel that way when I'm being depressive (yeah, winter SADD aggravates it but it's never been nearly the whole story) and people tell me "just think positive!"
Seriously though; if not a happy Christmas, I hope you can manage at least one of the lesser goals, like being productive, or relaxed, or indulging in little physical pleasures like long hot baths and good food and so on.
Now that I'm retired I decided to let it work for me this year, I have no problem staying in bed until noon for a change and I don't keep a schedule of any kind except the odd appointment I schedule as late as I can or go back to bed after.
I used to get through it by working nights and completely resetting my internal clock, that worked for me but it might not for everyone, it's not the same for everyone but I guess my secret is I'm always tired and cranky so it never really mattered, even if it should have.
SADD is a real thing but trying to convince people who aren't affected by it is almost as hard as putting up with it...working for executives who never had to work a rotating shift in their life but love to tinker with schedules and shifts just compounds it...luckily I had no shortage of people willing to trade night shift off, I was at least functional then instead of being a zombie in the daytime...that got me through it, your mileage may vary.
For years we used to work two 1800-0630/45 night shifts then two 0630-1900/15 day shifts right afterward...the 24 hours 'off' between the end of the second night shift and the start of the first day shift was usually spent wide awake and that first day shift was either a sick day or a 'zombie day'...
I called it 'child abuse' and traded the day shifts off whenever I could.
It later got changed to doing the day shifts first which was marginally better but a block of four days then four nights would have been a lot easier, after working 52.5 hours (more or less, it varied a bit) in a week you did have five days off between sets, sort of, but that first one was a complete write off, and most of the last one since you started the first night shift the evening of your last day 'off'. That and a touch of SADD made life interesting to say the least...and if you didn't have SADD when you started, you were issued it along the way.
Merry Christmas, Centcomm, and a Happy upcoming New Year! I saved some ham for ya! :D
Fortunately for me, I don't have severe reactions (i.e. anaphylatic shock, etc.) to any of the 50 plus foods I'm sensitive to, but it does make life more "interesting" when it comes to food.