Freefall

Siu Mai with pan-fried vegetables◊, an Italian recipe.

This reminds me of something I saw recently about Ancestry DNA tests, namely that the "ancestry" part is based off of everyone who has samples in the system, so when someone living in Europe gets tested and come up, say, 30% African, they make European ancestry just a bit more African. Were it not for tribalism and the historic tendency of most people to never move far from their homeland, the results would become increasingly homogenized.

It does make sense that physical well-being would trump privacy in robot eyes◊.

Asking the hard questions about human privacy◊.

Part of the complication is that there isn't a single hard-and-fast answer to the question.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Qwerty and Dvorak's dynamic◊.

I love how this comic (in general) explores many of the issues with conscious AI in a way that keeps things light enough not to be utterly terrifying.

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

This comic often makes fun of those issues.

The universe is under no obligation to make sense to us.

Patient confidentiality◊

Huh. That's actually a step backwards from the modern day. In the US at least, while some of the specifics are dependent on what state you're talking to, veterinary records are treated by the veterinarian as just as confidential as human medical records.

Mind you, HIPAA doesn't apply to such records and it's much easier for a court to force disclosure of such records (and as such Florence probably should do what she can to secure those), but as a general rule, unless there's a legal reason those are necessary, they shouldn't be accessible except to the treating veterinarian (in this case, Winston), their staff (moot in this case, unless he has an employee we just haven't seen), the patient and their owner, and any other veterinarian that is authorized by the patient.

Honestly, Winston is just admitting to very sloppy professional standards here.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

I could see veterinary records being easier to access than human medical records to make it easier to prove owner abuse, since the animal can't give testimony. Or does that not matter?

Of course, it wouldn't be applicable to an AI like Florence.

Has it ever been stated how many pets there are on Jean? If any.

(Annoyed grunt)

Yes, they're easier to access, but even getting that requires a court order. Like, you can't just waltz into a vet's office and ask to see my cats' records for the heck of it. My vet wouldn't turn those over unless either authorized by me or ordered to do so by the court.

Now, in cases of suspected abuse, it's not unfathomable that you could potentially get such an order (and depending on what you showed the judge to argue for the order, it might be fairly easy, and the requirements would be much lower than getting someone else's health records), but the fact is, it really shouldn't be a simple matter of just walking up, rifling through the vet's records, and walking away.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Patients of veterinarians can't legally authorize anything, since they are not recognized as intelligent beings.

Winston is also responsible for the development of planetary-scale animal biomes. It's quite likely that his records are publicly available because he doesn't treat pets as often as he's giving treatments to entire habitats.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Lucy, I'm home!◊

All your safe space are belong to Trump

Kibble and ramen noodles◊.

I've heard of worse combinations.

I've seen college students eat worse.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Ah, ramen noodle. And tins of cat food (even cheaper than tuna). I remember those student days. Good times.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

Dinner conversation about Dvorak.◊

Dvorac as a robot with ADHD? Sounds scarily plausible to me.

All your safe space are belong to Trump

It occurs to me that Dvorak already started to figure out how to adapt Gardener In The Dark to be robot alcohol; I really hope nobody ever suggests the idea of robot caffeine to him.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Caffeine can actually be used to help manage ADHD. Who's to say the same wouldn't be true for robot analogues? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ADHD is often managed with stimulants, yes. Because ADHD comes from a deficit in executive function: the brain's "controller" needs to wake up.

Whether that's Dvorak's problem is anybody's guess.

Dvorak sounds like he'd be vunerable to memetic hazards.

The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!

I dunno... I have a sneaking suspicion that the memes are more in danger from entering his brain.

That said, there was a throwaway joke somewhere in the strips of him getting a jingle stuck in his head and musing if it was a virus.

Side note, when trying to locate that strip, I came upon this. How did I not know someone tried to turn this into an RPG?

Not bad, but I've noticed a few errors. For example, Qwerty shouldn't have the "Linked" trait, since he had his radio removed. (Although, I suppose he could still physically plug himself into the network, if he wanted to...)

P.S. — Clippy's list of tools includes "Mr. Kornada"

edited 17th Jun '18 3:36:34 AM by pwiegle

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