Freefall

This comic's lack of an RSS feed annoys me. I've gotten spoiled.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Yah, me too. At least it updates fairly early and on time.

Also, you can't permalink to the current comic. I think this sucks more than the lack of a RSS field.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

You can permalink to the current comic image. But yeah, the author needs to take his comic website out of 1999.

I think Gardener In The Dark (GITD) is a variant of the normal pruning program, deliberately made so agressive that it will lobotomize a robot brain into uselessness.

Thus, Mr. K's belief that it will make him a lot of money, by forcing replacement of Jean robots at about 18 years. And yeah, it "solves" the AI problem.

And since it's been set up as a query trap, it can take out older robots already gone sentient.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. — George S. Patton

Nooooooooooooo! Now how's she gonna get her notes back? Maybe he'll assume the message was "given to him" by humans with those instructions? I hope. Or maybe he'll just ignore them and wait for someone else to do it since he hasn't been ordered to throw them away. Robots work in shifts, right? We don't know for a fact that there's anything stopping him from adding a note "Do not search for GITD" to the stack, though as a query trap if there isn't it's practically a bug.

Your funny quote here! (Maybe)

Well, I guess it's a good thing that Blunt has been ordered not to install new software.

Dang! Mandatory upgrade.

edited 19th Nov '09 6:43:03 PM by LarryD

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. — George S. Patton

But that order gives him permission to take actions to halt the upgrade manually, which would under normal circumstances have been violating a safeguard and probably impossible anyways.

Your funny quote here! (Maybe)

Hum de dum.◊ I'm losing track of the Loads And Loads Of Characters — is this one of the robots who works at the "recycling" plant? I wonder what will happen when he finds his shut down buddy.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Oh hey, you're right. I thought he was just some new character created to deliver Florence's notes, but yeah, this was actually one of the "Quality Control" robots, named Edge (Not a scrapyard robot, by the way). Specifically, this is the one who was a jerk.

Man, that was a good story arc. I'm rereading it and it's loaded with great quotes.

edited 3rd Dec '09 11:47:43 AM by Brickman

Your funny quote here! (Maybe)

Thanks for finding that. Rereading now as well...

Actually, given how much of a Jerkass Edge is, will his reaction to finding his boss apparently self-shut-down be to investigate or celebrate his "promotion"?

edited 3rd Dec '09 12:31:00 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I think he knows that there's a difference between sleeping and dead.

Anyways, I feel like posting links to the funnier of the strips/quotes I just found during my reread, so: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12. Some of those probably belong in either the Quote Bin or the series' quotes page.

Your funny quote here! (Maybe)

I like: "I'm sorry, Helix. But to command this ship, it's vital that I remain undigested."

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I guess he offed himself in a literal way: by tripping off his breaker.

It's occurred to me that it's possible that what's-his-name is actually dead rather than just "asleep" like we thought. Edge sure seems to think he is, and he seemed to be of the opinion that this was drastic measures that he needed to take to obey his orders.

Your funny quote here! (Maybe)

The idea being that this is somehow a more permanent state change than, say, turning a computer off and on again? I find it hard to believe that a robot's personality is stored in volatile memory...

Edit: Anyway, it looks like Edge is pulling out the robot equivalent of the shock paddles◊.

edited 6th Dec '09 7:27:40 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Hmm, not the shock paddles. More like a field diagnostic test kit. And he's rebooting Blunt - how sweet!

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Turns out it was a diagnostic terminal◊.

Heh. Job perks

Edit: Huh, ninja'd by ninteen seconds.

edited 8th Dec '09 9:30:06 PM by LarryD

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. — George S. Patton

Hey, go edge! Wasn't really expecting him to be this competent. Probably at least should have expected him to be this eager to help whats-his-name the boss, but I guess I wasn't giving him any credit at all because his previous appearance made him look like such a Ted Baxter.

Your funny quote here! (Maybe)

And Edge indulges◊ in an "it's alive!" moment.

And Blunt is back, if slightly disoriented.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. — George S. Patton

Hmm, I guess now Blunt will have to go through the same mental process that started when he got Florence's sticky notes, except now Edge will be there to offer criticism and advice. Thus giving enough material for an entire month of the Notes Saga...

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Logically, the robots should know that a stack of hand-written notes can't infect you with a virus, and should be smart enough this time to not fall into any potential lurking query traps.

Your funny quote here! (Maybe)

Blunt and Edge need a detective. Absent that, they do know an engineer with excellant troubleshooting skills.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. — George S. Patton

I think you just called it. They're going to send for Florence.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I hope. Eventually, they'll have to, but on the purrasia forum it's been suggested that they're going to try using a cybernetic brain. (It's the Igor reference.)

edited 18th Dec '09 10:09:04 PM by LarryD

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. — George S. Patton