Disturbance at Lake Webcomics

Clint Eastwood

WeedLordVegeta

no anime threads

CorporateLogo

There is no escape, welcome to the Webcomics Thread.

Gundi

To be fair... if you've been rampantly cheating in over half your classes repeating a grade seems pretty reasonable. Like, with that many classes trying to make it up through just something like Summer school would be pretty difficult to manage, if not necessarily impossible.

Sterica

The Webcomics Thread...the biggest joke of them all.

Bucketman

Yeah but she is also that entire...city/school's only connection to its supernatural and maybe evil neighbors.

Also she is made of fire.

Gundi

Also I'm reposting this from the last page of the last thread because I did not type this much to have it all be never read by anybody. You will read (or quickly scroll past) my wall of text! Vis a vis the introduction of technology via time travel with the idea of accelerating technological growth:

Technology isn't inherently good! Also technology is not a force independent of the society it is found in. Also technology generally works as a system so introducing a single invention way earlier than it would have otherwise existed probably wouldn't have as big an impact as you'd think. Like, take for example... firearms!

So let's say you went back in time to for example... ancient Sparta. And you bring with you a modern, contemporary machine gun. Because, I don't know, you think the movie 300 would be improved with machine guns. You explain all the basic principles the gun operates on, give them a demonstration of how it works, and then hand them the thing to use and replicate as they see fit. You hop back in your time machine, giddy at the thought of how crazy its going to look to historians that Spartans made the biggest single military leap ever in history.

Except... the Spartans run into quite a few problems. First off is the gun propellant: you were kind enough to explain what black powder is made of, and the spartans thought at the time that it'd be easy enough to make. Except... well, they have trouble getting the consistency right: sometimes there's too little boom, or even worse, too much boom. Speaking of, they can't figure out how the hell you made the thin barrel capable of withstanding so much force. Iron was too expensive to use, and even it was unable to match the strength of the materials your gun was made of. So they figure they'll have to try and make the guns out of bronze, except to do so they have to massively increase the width of the barrel, and are forced to abandon the complex machinery of your gun as being simply to impractical for even their best metal workers to manufacture. Even simple barrels are difficult, but at enormous cost they manage to make a few dozen large guns capable of being loaded by the muzzle.

It's around this time, that they hear word of a Persian invasion, so they hitch their guns to horses, and barely manage to make it to Thermopylae. With no small amount of laboring, they point their barrels at the Persians aim... and fire! The Persians are at first terrified by the loud noises the guns make, and one of metal balls the Spartans fired manages to land within fifty feet of the Persian line. And then the Persians realize that none of the other balls came anywhere close to hitting them, and indeed that a third of these weird Greeks weapons had simply exploded, mortally wounding the Spartans operating them and sowing confusion among the rest of the ranks. With a laugh, the Persians charge and thoroughly rout the Spartans as they're still trying to reload a second volley. The battle is not remembered by history, and with the subjugation of the Greek states by Persia much of Europe comes to imitate and idolize Persian civilization.

Like, the idea of just going back to any point of history, introducing a random modern technology, and expecting that technology to both be used in a contemporary way, and to furthermore expect it to lead a civilization to more resemble our own, is silly. Technologies are fundamentally connected to the time and place and society they are found in. And I'm sorry for kind of ranting here... but, the view of either science or technology as an independent force that fundamentally reshapes societies is one I'm pretty opposed to. I can't say its never worked that way, but I think the reverse is much more often true: technologies are adopted in specific contexts for specific reasons. There is no technology that is inherently desirable or even inherently useful, there exist simply technologies that have been adapted at certain times because they were desirable and useful to certain people at certain times. Some of those people arguably made really poor decisions.

And that folks is what you get when you spend way to much time studying sociology.

Cilla Black

As someone who actively participated in one last thread, can we try to have less dumb arguments in this thread

Brolo

i refuse to even try

knitdan

I like arguments as long as everyone is civil.

I actually enjoyed all the GK speculation and whatnot.

BahamutZERO

truly rolo is a shining example of not trying that we should all aspire to

Brolo

also is this a stealth anime thing

Gvzbgul

Gundi wrote: »

Also I'm reposting this from the last page of the last thread because I did not type this much to have it all be never read by anybody. You will read (or quickly scroll past) my wall of text! Vis a vis the introduction of technology via time travel with the idea of accelerating technological growth:

Technology isn't inherently good! Also technology is not a force independent of the society it is found in. Also technology generally works as a system so introducing a single invention way earlier than it would have otherwise existed probably wouldn't have as big an impact as you'd think. Like, take for example... firearms!

So let's say you went back in time to for example... ancient Sparta. And you bring with you a modern, contemporary machine gun. Because, I don't know, you think the movie 300 would be improved with machine guns. You explain all the basic principles the gun operates on, give them a demonstration of how it works, and then hand them the thing to use and replicate as they see fit. You hop back in your time machine, giddy at the thought of how crazy its going to look to historians that Spartans made the biggest single military leap ever in history.

Except... the Spartans run into quite a few problems. First off is the gun propellant: you were kind enough to explain what black powder is made of, and the spartans thought at the time that it'd be easy enough to make. Except... well, they have trouble getting the consistency right: sometimes there's too little boom, or even worse, too much boom. Speaking of, they can't figure out how the hell you made the thin barrel capable of withstanding so much force. Iron was too expensive to use, and even it was unable to match the strength of the materials your gun was made of. So they figure they'll have to try and make the guns out of bronze, except to do so they have to massively increase the width of the barrel, and are forced to abandon the complex machinery of your gun as being simply to impractical for even their best metal workers to manufacture. Even simple barrels are difficult, but at enormous cost they manage to make a few dozen large guns capable of being loaded by the muzzle.

It's around this time, that they hear word of a Persian invasion, so they hitch their guns to horses, and barely manage to make it to Thermopylae. With no small amount of laboring, they point their barrels at the Persians aim... and fire! The Persians are at first terrified by the loud noises the guns make, and one of metal balls the Spartans fired manages to land within fifty feet of the Persian line. And then the Persians realize that none of the other balls came anywhere close to hitting them, and indeed that a third of these weird Greeks weapons had simply exploded, mortally wounding the Spartans operating them and sowing confusion among the rest of the ranks. With a laugh, the Persians charge and thoroughly rout the Spartans as they're still trying to reload a second volley. The battle is not remembered by history, and with the subjugation of the Greek states by Persia much of Europe comes to imitate and idolize Persian civilization.

Like, the idea of just going back to any point of history, introducing a random modern technology, and expecting that technology to both be used in a contemporary way, and to furthermore expect it to lead a civilization to more resemble our own, is silly. Technologies are fundamentally connected to the time and place and society they are found in. And I'm sorry for kind of ranting here... but, the view of either science or technology as an independent force that fundamentally reshapes societies is one I'm pretty opposed to. I can't say its never worked that way, but I think the reverse is much more often true: technologies are adopted in specific contexts for specific reasons. There is no technology that is inherently desirable or even inherently useful, there exist simply technologies that have been adapted at certain times because they were desirable and useful to certain people at certain times. Some of those people arguably made really poor decisions.

And that folks is what you get when you spend way to much time studying sociology.

Yeah, which is why my point was 1) technology is fast (no mention of it being good), and 2) the best way to do it is to give them concepts and improvements, not just modern technology. You don't need to make the people in the past 'jump' forwards, just help them move forwards faster.

Like, chat to Ada Lovelace! Give her some encouragement and ideas and gold to back her up!

Cilla Black

Brolo wrote: »

also is this a stealth anime thing

"stealth"

BahamutZERO

the other two threads rolled 1s on their hide and move silently checks, this thread rolled a 20

Brainleech

Mortal Sky

Hey, JoJo is a French comic and you can't convince me otherwise

knitdan

It's says japanese manga right there on the wiki

Mortal Sky

Lies

Moth 13

I found Rohan Kishibe goes to the Louvre in the children's picture book section of my library. Not quite sure how the sorting system could have messed up that much.

Brainleech

Harkovast sadly is now one of those paid to see it comics

ASimPerson

Minor Acts of Heroism

Thetheroo

A Redtail's Dream is forced to socialize

BahamutZERO

Brainleech wrote: »

Harkovast sadly is now one of those paid to see it comics

wow... really? uh... well good luck to shunk comic with that. I will "miss" it.

BahamutZERO

did stilts get banned on points for posting in the anime thread?

Thetheroo

Malky Fookin' Dungeon is a great sometimes NSFW webcomic

Seriously

Brainleech wrote: »

Harkovast sadly is now one of those paid to see it comics

you know what

normally I don't go in for 4/1 noise, but in this instance



yeah, I approve

Harkovast has not shunk for work material in its archives

BahamutZERO

@Berk No complaints about readability this time. This page looks great!

Gvzbgul

Hey, if it works it works.

Thetheroo

ASimPerson

That reminds me, I can't wait to see what ggdg does this year.

Not quite April 1st out here yet, though.

Seriously

she already did the thing actually

Sterica

It's not much this year 'cause she's busy.

Check the characters page

Radius

that is the meanest april fools I hate this so much

Gundi

Gvzbgul wrote: »

Gundi wrote: »

Also I'm reposting this from the last page of the last thread because I did not type this much to have it all be never read by anybody. You will read (or quickly scroll past) my wall of text! Vis a vis the introduction of technology via time travel with the idea of accelerating technological growth:

Technology isn't inherently good! Also technology is not a force independent of the society it is found in. Also technology generally works as a system so introducing a single invention way earlier than it would have otherwise existed probably wouldn't have as big an impact as you'd think. Like, take for example... firearms!

So let's say you went back in time to for example... ancient Sparta. And you bring with you a modern, contemporary machine gun. Because, I don't know, you think the movie 300 would be improved with machine guns. You explain all the basic principles the gun operates on, give them a demonstration of how it works, and then hand them the thing to use and replicate as they see fit. You hop back in your time machine, giddy at the thought of how crazy its going to look to historians that Spartans made the biggest single military leap ever in history.

Except... the Spartans run into quite a few problems. First off is the gun propellant: you were kind enough to explain what black powder is made of, and the spartans thought at the time that it'd be easy enough to make. Except... well, they have trouble getting the consistency right: sometimes there's too little boom, or even worse, too much boom. Speaking of, they can't figure out how the hell you made the thin barrel capable of withstanding so much force. Iron was too expensive to use, and even it was unable to match the strength of the materials your gun was made of. So they figure they'll have to try and make the guns out of bronze, except to do so they have to massively increase the width of the barrel, and are forced to abandon the complex machinery of your gun as being simply to impractical for even their best metal workers to manufacture. Even simple barrels are difficult, but at enormous cost they manage to make a few dozen large guns capable of being loaded by the muzzle.

It's around this time, that they hear word of a Persian invasion, so they hitch their guns to horses, and barely manage to make it to Thermopylae. With no small amount of laboring, they point their barrels at the Persians aim... and fire! The Persians are at first terrified by the loud noises the guns make, and one of metal balls the Spartans fired manages to land within fifty feet of the Persian line. And then the Persians realize that none of the other balls came anywhere close to hitting them, and indeed that a third of these weird Greeks weapons had simply exploded, mortally wounding the Spartans operating them and sowing confusion among the rest of the ranks. With a laugh, the Persians charge and thoroughly rout the Spartans as they're still trying to reload a second volley. The battle is not remembered by history, and with the subjugation of the Greek states by Persia much of Europe comes to imitate and idolize Persian civilization.

Like, the idea of just going back to any point of history, introducing a random modern technology, and expecting that technology to both be used in a contemporary way, and to furthermore expect it to lead a civilization to more resemble our own, is silly. Technologies are fundamentally connected to the time and place and society they are found in. And I'm sorry for kind of ranting here... but, the view of either science or technology as an independent force that fundamentally reshapes societies is one I'm pretty opposed to. I can't say its never worked that way, but I think the reverse is much more often true: technologies are adopted in specific contexts for specific reasons. There is no technology that is inherently desirable or even inherently useful, there exist simply technologies that have been adapted at certain times because they were desirable and useful to certain people at certain times. Some of those people arguably made really poor decisions.

And that folks is what you get when you spend way to much time studying sociology.

Yeah, which is why my point was 1) technology is fast (no mention of it being good), and 2) the best way to do it is to give them concepts and improvements, not just modern technology. You don't need to make the people in the past 'jump' forwards, just help them move forwards faster.

Like, chat to Ada Lovelace! Give her some encouragement and ideas and gold to back her up!

But technological innovation isn't inherently fast. Rates of technological innovation are dependent on lots of innumerable different variables that vary from being difficult to impossible to quantify. Technological innovations also don't inherently speed up other technological innovation. In fact, there are numerous examples where one part of a technological system ends up hindering the development of other parts of a technological system. Innovations only increase the rate of innovations in specific contexts, they don't do it just by their existence.

And it seems like you're also assuming that any particular innovation would lead to similar consequences as when those same innovations were made in entirely different circumstances. The circumstances behind an invention's invention matter a lot. And it also seems like you're assuming that technological systems can only develop towards one set path. A world where Lovelace had done everything she ever wanted to do could lead to technological systems entirely alien to you or I. Not because they are necessarily 'more advanced,' mind you; simply because they might be so different to the paths technology developed by in actual history as to be unrecognizable or incompatible. You could have a world where the computer is never invented, or at least never adapted beyond a mere curiosity for some intellectuals. You could have a world where firearms are never invented. You could have a world where the wheel is never invented.

The point I'm trying to make is you don't actually know what would have happened had Babbage and Lovelace been able to successfully develop and show to the world their 'Analytical Engine.' You can't say if their success would have ultimately sped up or retarded development in the field of computer science in the long run, and even if you could say with certainty that it would have 'sped up' computer science, what would that actually mean for the world? To say that it would benefit humans universally or even in general to have had any particular innovation in the field of computer science occur a few decades earlier and in a different location than it otherwise would have would be a ridiculously grand claim to make.

ASimPerson

Seriously wrote: »

she already did the thing actually

Bobkins Flymo wrote: »

It's not much this year 'cause she's busy.

Check the characters page

Oh, whoops.

Etchwarts

Radius wrote: »

that is the meanest april fools I hate this so much

April Fool's is the worst holiday

Quantum Tiger

Brainleech wrote: »

Harkovast sadly is now one of those paid to see it comics

For those who don't get it, check today's date

Radius

Nah, there is almost always enough good stuff for me to outweigh the bad.

Even if Gigi is going for the deep cuts, I will laugh about this in time.

Brainleech

Quantum Tiger wrote: »

Brainleech wrote: »

Harkovast sadly is now one of those paid to see it comics

For those who don't get it, check today's date

I know it's that silly day

Sterica

SirEtchwarts wrote: »

Radius wrote: »

that is the meanest april fools I hate this so much

April Fool's is the worst holiday

Uh we don't have to look at Harkovast so I think today is the best holiday ever.