Comic for Monday December 13, 2021

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Comic for Monday December 13, 2021

'Bzzzt Bzzzt' seems like an odd ring tone, not distinctive, easy to miss. My phone goes 'Bzzzt' often, and I associate it with 'Not important'.

I agree with Tedd, homework is overdone. Just because some is good does not mean more is better. That, of course assumes education is the goal. If breaking the spirit of the potential workforce is on the agenda, I can see the value of too much homework.

Tedd's expression and stance in panel 1 seem un-Tedd-like. Tedd can be passive, thoughtful, exited, heatedly expository, but is rarely just grumpy. The stance is stiff and combative, which is also not a Tedd thing, usually.

MUMBLE GRUMBLE is interesting, it's not punctuated, and how would you punctuate it? Dan separated it by bolding it. I just noticed that the characters speak in caps. Now I want to check if that is normal for comics; it probably is. It sure didn't stand out. So Mumble Grumble us to be read as a collective term for preface that we don't see of indeterminate length. It's a lot like Grace's voice tags, just there to show mood and intent. But a colon would have looked weird.

Of all the facts that could be asserted to be certain truth, I don't think a single word evaluation of the character of Lancelot is in anyone's top five. Can you even be certain that you are talking about the same Lancelot?

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

https://www.egscomics.com/comic/balance-093

Lancelot is a jerk?

Did they never meet Mordred?

 - - - - 

Do some schools still prohibit students from carrying cell phones?

I would expect that a phone Arthur gave would be something Tedd would be required to carry at all times

- - - - -  

Second time in two weeks I attempted to start a topic while someone else was making the same topic

Traffic in this forum is returning to normal

Edited December 13, 2021 by Pharaoh RutinTutin
Spelling

[mlooney 3,417]

I'm sorta amused that Arthur and Tedd having a code phrase to tell

1) It's each other 2) It's clear to talk. I'm also assuming that Dr. Germahn wasn't able to make any thing of Tedd's note and Arthur is forced to talk to Tedd about it

[ijuin 572]

36 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Comic for Monday December 13, 2021

'Bzzzt Bzzzt' seems like an odd ring tone, not distinctive, easy to miss. My phone goes 'Bzzzt' often, and I associate it with 'Not important'.

I’m pretty certain that the phone is in vibration mode rather than that sound being a ring tone.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

2 minutes ago, ijuin said:

I’m pretty certain that the phone is in vibration mode rather than that sound being a ring tone.

Yeah, that makes sense. Mine does a buzzy thing for incoming texts, that's where my mind went.

 

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

47 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

just noticed that the characters speak in caps. Now I want to check if that is normal for comics; it probably is.

Has been the norm for decades

Lower case letters go below the main print line and actually have a wider range of sizes than Upper case letters which are all about the same size

This made it easier to edit and shrink or stretch the old news paper comics based on what the individual paper needed

[Darth Fluffy 302]

28 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Do some schools still prohibit students from carrying cell phones?

I think so. The phones are too much of a distraction.

 

29 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

I would expect that a phone Arthur gave would be something Tedd would be required to carry at all times

I thought that, too. Maybe because of a school policy, it was deemed to be necessary to not apply that as a rule.

 

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Another minor thing, Tedd's thought bubble is a shaded rectangle. I think puffy cloud thought bubbles is the norm, but they take more real estate.

The highlighting for the thought bubble comes from the forward (out of the page) upper right (viewer's right), not from the thinker's head.

 

[mlooney 3,417]

The last school I had any thing to do with after cellphone were a thing (my niece's  school when she was living with me) had a rule that you could carry a cell phone, but not use it during class.  Parents were told that they could call the student only "for emergencies".

Of course when I was in school that idea that you could carry a phone with you was pure Star Trek

[Amiable Dorsai 70]

"Nearly all of [the app icons] are useless." I wonder what the apps that aren't just window dressing are good for?

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

20 hours ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

"Nearly all of [the app icons] are useless." I wonder what the apps that aren't just window dressing are good for?

Had a similar thought

1st idea, a keypad for dialing phone "numbers" that don't include 0-9

2nd, a control for features at hq or special equipment

3rd, just for show now, but Tedd will make them customizable magic features

Edited December 14, 2021 by Pharaoh RutinTutin
Spelling

[Darth Fluffy 302]

1 hour ago, mlooney said:

Of course when I was in school that idea that you could carry a phone with you was pure Star Trek

Literally; I was a fan of Star Trek, but thought many of their devices were unrealistic for how compact they were. Little did I know ...

My cell phone does everything the communicator did, AND many of the functions of the tricorder, and it is much smaller than the tricorder.

Now if I can get the phaser attachment, I'll be all set.

 

[ijuin 572]

The main thing that Star Trek communicators still have over cell phones is range—they can make peer-to-peer calls across an entire planet without an external relay. That, and their batteries seem to hold a hundred times more energy than ours are capable of.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

13 minutes ago, ijuin said:

their batteries seem to hold a hundred times more energy than ours are capable of

That is a fundamental engineering principal our best minds have yet to master

Equipment on Star Trek never fails unless and until the Writers put the failure in the script

Our Reality needs better writers and prop designers

[Amiable Dorsai 70]

2 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

That is a fundamental engineering principal our best minds have yet to master

Equipment on Star Trek never fails unless and until the Writers put the failure in the script

Our Reality needs better writers and prop designers

And dilithium. At least twice as good as lithium.

[ijuin 572]

Yes, we are still stuck using mono-lithium for our power systems.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

5 hours ago, ijuin said:

The main thing that Star Trek communicators still have over cell phones is range—they can make peer-to-peer calls across an entire planet without an external relay. That, and their batteries seem to hold a hundred times more energy than ours are capable of.

TOS had a lot of ground to Enterprise communication, communicator to hub. When they talked peer to peer, it could have been relayed through the Enterprise, like a cell tower, or not, I don't recall that they ever said either way. I recall it being used to communicate between away team members, so short range, do not recall a planet-wide scenario. If they used them through the time portal, that would confirm the peer to peer. Cell phones as phones are cell-centric, you connect by dialing, and the network sorts out your call. I sometimes use WhatsApp, which places calls through the Web, Skype used to do that, so we essentially have planet-wide peer to peer (you have to install the app). Our phones talk quite far to towers, but definitely local area.

Batteries have improved enormously in my lifetime, several times. Granted, the power on Star Trek devices seemed limitless.

 

[mlooney 3,417]

15 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

1st idea, a keypad for dialing phone "numbers" that don't include 0-9

Fun fact.  The DTMF frequency set includes a 4th column.  A-D  I've had a "butt-set" that included all 4 columns.  So a phone keypad that has 4 more keys is possible.  "Press A for Arthur, Press B for Dr. Germahn, Press C for Tedd's Lab..."

[Darth Fluffy 302]

2 hours ago, mlooney said:

Fun fact.  The DTMF frequency set includes a 4th column.  A-D  I've had a "butt-set" that included all 4 columns.  So a phone keypad that has 4 more keys is possible.  "Press A for Arthur, Press B for Dr. Germahn, Press C for Tedd's Lab..."

I did not know that, but it makes sense. That would expand the list of playable tunes a bit, having that extra note in four chords.

OTOH, I'll bet it was not universally implemented, only for phones that has a speed dial feature. In particular, I wonder if the commonly available Radio Shack DTMF encoder/decoder set of that era implemented it.

At the office I'm not working at during COVID, phones are basically a network device. I don't know why they haven't eliminated the phones and replaced them with a phone app on our workstations. Hmm, if they did, I'd have my work phone with me.

[mlooney 3,417]

2 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I wonder if the commonly available Radio Shack DTMF encoder/decoder set of that era implemented it.

I've seen DTMF pads that had the 4th column, but they were "professional" in nature.
https://www.tech-faq.com/abcd-tones.html

 

[Darth Fluffy 302]

43 minutes ago, mlooney said:

I've seen DTMF pads that had the 4th column, but they were "professional" in nature.
https://www.tech-faq.com/abcd-tones.html

Nice article. No date, I wonder how old it is. It mentions pay phones; it's been years since I've seen one. Maybe for lack of looking for one.

 

[mlooney 3,417]

I remember seeing pay phones in Tulsa, but that was 4 and half years ago.  I don't think there are any here in Small City Kansas.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

1 hour ago, mlooney said:

I remember seeing pay phones in Tulsa, but that was 4 and half years ago.  I don't think there are any here in Small City Kansas.

Bart Simpson's prank calls to the bar are loosing context.

[mlooney 3,417]

5 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Bart Simpson's prank calls to the bar are loosing context.

You a bold to assume I have watched enough Simpson's enough to have any context for that.  I'm not sure I've seen more the 2 or 3 shows fully.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

5 minutes ago, mlooney said:

You a bold to assume I have watched enough Simpson's enough to have any context for that.  I'm not sure I've seen more the 2 or 3 shows fully.

I checked the meme after posting, and they've moved on to cell phones, so their context is safe.