Comic for Monday, Dec. 6, 2021

[Amiable Dorsai 70]

This actually makes sense. In comic book terms, anyway.

Or maybe in D&D terms. Lawful Good becomes Chaotic Evil. The idea of Chaotic Evil Cheerleadra is somehow both terrifying and sexy at the same time.

Especially if she has 28 factorial points to work with.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

22 minutes ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

Especially if she has 28 factorial points to work with.

I was wondering! if someone was going to mention! this.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

1 hour ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

This actually makes sense. In comic book terms, anyway.

Or maybe in D&D terms. Lawful Good becomes Chaotic Evil. The idea of Chaotic Evil Cheerleadra is somehow both terrifying and sexy at the same time.

Especially if she has 28 factorial points to work with.

It might seem to mitigate the downsides, but "Those points represent what he can safely handle" makes more sense now.

28! Seems like at least melt the planet levels of power. 

My conclusion is Dan is bad at math, because 7 x 4! is barely a hiccup vs 28!

And it seems weird to put a period at the end of a sentence that already ends with an exclamation point, even if it isn't being used as such.

Also, what does garnering a few more points of power have to do with being evil? He's not sacrificing kittens to get it. I think I agree, Eliot, the Emissary of Magic is bad at his job, but, in all fairness, I'll bet Magic's OJT sucks monkey balls. (This is not meant to be a criticism of arboreal primate testicular genitalia, which are merely being used as a token of emphasis. I'm sure their procreative partners are adequately supplied, because there does not appear to be a shortage of monkeys. In fact, their absence from various endangered species lists is a noteworthy achievement. This, in spite of that old Hanna-Barbara meme, "I hate those rhesus to pieces".)

Tedd and Eliot's went for 'featureless room' to 'heavily trafficed hall' for one panel, and Tedd's reaction in panel 6, per Dan's commentary. It appears they did not plan this discussion very well.

 

47 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

I was wondering! if someone was going to mention! this.

I would have if AD didn't beat us all to it.

 

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

28! points?

The calculator on my Chromebook won't go that high

 - - - 

But what is the difference between a Hero form and a Villain form?

Elliot did not contemplate turning into a villain, just a villain form

As an example, one of my favorite super characters is Quality (later DC) Comic's Plastic Man

Since his first appearance in 1941, his origin and powers have been continuously stretched and remolded, but the core of the character has remained essentially the same

A petty crook gains super powers and tries to use these powers to further his criminal career.  Only he discovers he has more fun and gains more satisfaction doing the good guy thing.  And through it all, his appearance and personality remain essentially unchanged.  Villain or Hero, Plastic Man is a goofy looking guy, the overgrown Jr High class clown, wearing a weird red suit

Again, what is a Hero Form and what is a Villain Form?

[mlooney 3,417]

I'm almost sure that this is how aberrations start. According to The Dan, this will all be resolved in 2 days.

[ijuin 572]

Another possible “bad trade” would be sacrificing a part of your life force / life span in exchange for more power. Even in the situation where you might need extra power to save yourself (or others, such as Nanase and her Guardian Form) from imminent death, there is always the temptation to use too much.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

As an example, one of my favorite super characters is Quality (later DC) Comic's Plastic Man

Since his first appearance in 1941, his origin and powers have been continuously stretched and remolded, ...

I see what you did there ...

[Darth Fluffy 302]

56 minutes ago, mlooney said:

I'm almost sure that this is how aberrations start. According to The Dan, this will all be resolved in 2 days.

Yes, agreed. Spurious discussions on a public forum about senseless topics, such as why Dan used factorial, when that was obviously not what was intended is probably a leading cause of aberrations.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

What if Magic decides that magic is bad because people can't handle magic, then disappears in a puff of logic? Would Tedd know? Would Eliot, already transformed as Cheerleadra, be stuck as Cheerleadra? How would she fly, with no magic? If the griffins can't come to Moperville, does that mean Family Guy is cancelled?

[Don Edwards 548]

3 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

28! points?

The calculator on my Chromebook won't go that high

According to wolframalpha.com, it's 304,888,344,611,713,860,501,504,000,000 (or a bit over 3*10²⁹)

That initially felt wrong, but I took the last six digits of 24! (the last 4 are zeroes) and multiplied it by 25, and the result actually does end with six zeroes. So I think it's correct.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

12 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

According to wolframalpha.com, it's 304,888,344,611,713,860,501,504,000,000 (or a bit over 3*10²⁹)

That initially felt wrong, but I took the last six digits of 24! (the last 4 are zeroes) and multiplied it by 25, and the result actually does end with six zeroes. So I think it's correct.

Six factors of 5 and many factors of 2, so six zeros is correct. I was puzzled for a moment, then remembered that 25 = 5 * 5.

Factorial will eventually overtake any exponential function with a fixed base. It is on the same order of growth as X ^ X, but always smaller.

So be careful where you are using that exclamation point, always treat it as it is loaded, and make sure the safety is on.

[mlooney 3,417]

2 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

So be careful where you are using that exclamation point, always treat it as it is loaded, and make sure the safety is on.

Never point an exclamation point at anything you are not willing to destroy.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

10 minutes ago, mlooney said:

Never point an exclamation point at anything you are not willing to destroy.

while cat != here play(mice);

[mlooney 3,417]

58 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

while cat != here play(mice);

I would think that would be 
while (cat != here) { mice(play); }

Or in Perl, my current language of choice

mice($play) if $cat != $here;  

Unless $cat is a string, in which case it's

mice($play) if $cat ne "here";

It's possible I've spent to much time coding in Perl in the last month or so.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

I had a feeling you'd have fun with it. 

[mlooney 3,417]

Well, one think I changed, other than correcting syntax to C or Perl is I assumed that mice was the function called and play was the passed value. YMMV as to if that's a better design or not.

[Don Edwards 548]

That would depend on whether the mice are playing, or someone/something is playing using the mice.

And I would have put the condition as cat.location != here

[mlooney 3,417]

24 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

That would depend on whether the mice are playing, or someone/something is playing using the mice.

And I would have put the condition as cat.location != here

Based on the base line expression of "When the cat is way, the mice will play", I assumed it was the mice playing.  As to the condition, I don't think that works in either of my languages of choice.  A fast google show the cat.location construct to be a C++ thing, not a C thing.  I do C, not C++.  While Perl supports OOP, I really don't use it that much, at least when I can avoid it.  I still a FOP programmer at heart.

[mlooney 3,417]

And when I say C, I mean ANSI C-89.

[mlooney 3,417]

A more detailed Google shows me that it's a C thing as well.  I don't remember using it, just the -> construct, but I have memory issues and I could have forgotten using it.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

On 12/7/2021 at 2:28 PM, mlooney said:

A more detailed Google shows me that it's a C thing as well.  I don't remember using it, just the -> construct, but I have memory issues and I could have forgotten using it.

I tried the Dilbert solution of strapping a calf brain to my head, but it didn't seem to help ... I don't recommend it.

[mlooney 3,417]

34 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I tried the Dilbert solution of strapping a calf brain to my head, but it didn't seem to help ... I don't recommend it.

I prefer the Dilbert rat dance thing, but getting a rat to dance is tricky some times.
http://www.zvon.org/comp/r/ref-Jargon_file.html#Terms~rat_dance