singularityblues.com

Ohhhhhkay. Main Comic and Fanboy Stuff are in the usual places.

I was in a pretty foul mood last weekend. Sorry about that. I should tell you that I’ve been expecting something like this for over a year now. The “up” side is that I have money in the bank, and a “Plan A” in place.

All I have to do is execute.

The main sequence comic is pretty rough this week. I’m trying not to pull any punches. If Putin can say “suck my dick” (ro the Russian equivalent) then I can get away with some rough language, too.

The Heartland is a theocracy. The question is, how strict a theocracy is it? As you can see, Congressman Stonewall still wants to pursue a “live and let live” policy (within limits, of course), while Senator Finch pursues a more Godfearin’ hard line. But, Congressman Stonewall is it right: Dr. Grist holds Finch’s leash.

There are hidden agendas galore in the City, too, but it’s not going to get anybody killed.

Not permanently, anyway…

Or: why a Magickal world (in my parliance, a High Energy Low Probability — HELP — world) will never develop science.

You see, it all started out with trying to pick which technological niche the Dominic Deegan world occupied. The good people at Orion’s Arm have given me one, kinda sorta: clarktech (or femtotech). “Any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic”. Or vice versa. The Oracle for Hire universe has femtotech. Which is to say, the adepts there (the “mages”) are able to manipulate their environment at the femtometer level. Which is to say, at the sub-Heisenberg level.

In Plain English: they can do shit that’s, well, MAGIC! It confounds and denies what we perceive to be The Laws of Nature.

At first I figured that since they had femtotech, they would be working their way back to “our” technology, but slowly. After all, if you have magic, why do you need chemistry, mechanics, or physics?

Then it hit me: science, as we know it here, is almost impossible for them. In our universe (and the Singularity Blues universe) there is no such thing as “mind” over matter, no telekinesis, . When we observe something, we usually observe the “thing as such”.

So.

Some important things necessary for the scientific method to be discovered is intellectual integrity and peer review. Intellectual integrity is going to be a challenge in a magical world because the observer will be able to affect the outcome, consciously or unconsciously. This is important, because if you can change the nature of reality around you, even for a moment, you can throw what we laughingly call “causality” right out the window. How could you know, how could you even check, if you inadvertently gimmicked the outcome of an observation?

And if you can influence other people’s minds, well, forget peer review. “This is the result you were looking for (Jedi wave of the hand)”.

So where in the hell am I going with this? I’m making the following point: The technology of the Singularity Blues universe is going to be baffling to the Oracle for Hire people, and vice versa: Miranda will be suspicious of all the “Luddite” goings on at Casa Bernard, and Fran will just plain hate Magic.

Let the hilarity begin!

Comic Update

Today’s art is shitty. I’m in a foul mood. Read on.

Dead Men Feel No Fear

I have six month’s left at my job.

That’s the Word on the Street, at any rate. The last time this happened, at the beginning of George W. Bush’s reign, I was out of work for six months. You might remember what happened. Worldcom melted down, taking the bulk of the telecommunications industry with it. Then some goat herders decided to park some airliners in the World Trade Center.

The rest, as they say, is History.

Being out of work for nine months can give you nightmares. Especially when you have a $100,000 mortgage on a house worth $50,000. And a wife that thinks having benefits is more important than actually making the mortgage.

I was paying child support at the time, did I mention that? The Judge isn’t interested in mere economic fact. You can make that much, you better take a job that makes that much.

Now, it’s a little different. This time the financial industry got caught selling themselves pipe-dreams, and the fscking dominoes are falling again. Not a problem, unless you work “in the industry”.

Lucky me. I work in “the industry”.

Except that this time I’ve learned my lesson. Child support has ended. My kids are in a semi-stable state. I’m soon to be divorced from #2 (amicable). No house, zero credit card debt. Money in the bank.

Free as a fucking bird.

That’s the way to live, kids. Since Corporate America decides that screwing us in internet time is the way to go, the way for us to go is as light as possible. No kids. No property (except what can be put in a safe deposit box), no ties. The only thing of value is what you can hold in your head. Because you know for damn sure they’re going to take everything else.

Don’t like that? Join a church. And if you belong to the “wrong” church? Oh well. Shoulda checked to see who was in the White House.

There’s a storm coming, friends. I don’t think anybody’s going to like it much.

Pick One

That’s the punchline to an old production joke, which goes:

“Good, fast, and cheap. Pick two.”

So. I’ve already picked “cheap”. This is a labor of “love” (or, more to the point, vanity), so you get to pick this up for nothing.

That leaves quantity and quality.

I have chosen quantity. It has to do with vanity. I commit myself to very little these days, but it’s a point of honor to update the comic once a week. Even if it’s one stinking frame.

So. What’s all this about? Jealousy. visit this link and you’ll understand why.

There are so many people out there that are producing really, really good stuff. And then there’s me (*grin*).

Ah, well, at least I know where my talents lie…