Questionable Content

Only the first floor is charging alcoves, the fact that Beeps live down the hall and Millie is on the third floor instead of the nice old couple means Jeph just forgot.

Such is QC.

New comic for today

I like the hair actually, it's kinda cute

I mean, maybe the old couple is directly above them and Millie lives in another apartment on the third floor? Or did the real estate lady say that their only upstairs neighbours would be the old couple? idk.

"The building is pretty quiet. We remodeled the first floor into AI recharging cubicles, and the top floor is a nice retired couple."

Now, I suddenly realize that while it's implied that Renee and Brun are on the second of three floors, and that each floor only has one apartment unit (or the equivalent space in cubicles), there could be more floors between the ground and top floors that are also "pretty quiet," but that the landlady didn't feel the need to spell out, I suppose.

Eh. The place looks totally different, windows, paint, outlet setup. Either it's not the same apartment, or Jeph forgot about the first scene he set there.

OK, you're right, I was looking at a different strip that must show a different room.

Edited by Geoduck on Mar 4th 2020 at 7:38:37 AM

No? The link I posted is set in Brun's (future) bedroom. The strip before shows the main room, and it matches this newer strip, with the same three light switches next to the door and the refrigerator in the kitchen alcove to the left as you come in. Same paint color, too. We never saw the living room window in the older strip.

Clinton is got a cutie upgrade.

Apparently conditioner is a thing. I don't have enough hair to worry about that. I think my shampoo has conditioner in it, anyway.

Beeps has found the right crowd. Also, Millie's lab is actually called Invisible Emu? Did they feel like they had to make an emu invisible just to live up to the name? Or is the emu their mascot?

How would an invisible emu mascot work? You wouldn't be able to see it.

Because it's invisible.

You could use an outline for the logo. Or if you're really fancy use some of those optical things so emu disappears and reappears depending on which angle you're viewing your business card.

Company name? Invisible Emu. What do they do? Make emus invisible.

How much do they make in profit per year? Billions.

...I got nothing on this one.

I feel that at some point we're going to return to the original cast of characters, only to find Marten staring at his burning apartment and all sorts of uncanny shit happening that we missed.

I was expecting Elliot and Clinton to walk into an in-depth discussion of sex toys, and I feel Jeph could have made a much better punchline out of that scenario.

I'm sorry, hasn't emu lady actually been fairly reasonable up to this point?

Maybe she activated Drunk Mode again.

Or AI programming/conditioning is really, really pants in this setting.

So this leading up to something happening between Clinton/Brun/Elliot?

Well, they’re in the same room now. Though so are other people.

So the Drunk app is apparently freemium

I hate freemium.

The way I see this, Beeps drinks socially to be friendly and get along with folks in an alcohol friendly environment. She probably doesn't dust off the Drinkr app very often.

Millie, on the other hand, drinks to get shit-faced. So of course she'd chip in for the premium version.

Then again, the existence of a free version that locks off the top functionality of getting drunk would probably dissuade free users from reaching that threshold - it's probably a massive case of drinking blue balls. But saying that, Beeps definitely comes across as a "casual beer and/or glass of wine at social gatherings" type.

It not only locks off the top — it take a lot longer to reach higher levels of drunkenness.

Edited by M84 on Mar 8th 2020 at 10:23:10 PM

And then it turns out that Drinkr is just a fancy Bitcoin miner, taking up more and more processing power until the affected user is the AI equivalent of black-out drunk. The Pro subscription is just the Bitcoin miners skimming more cash off the top.

Most A.I.s don't mind, as long as the program doesn't corrupt their core functions. :P

Edit: oh wait that's the commentary that today's comic was trying to impart. I got so caught up in being silly that I didn't register that this was the case.

Edited by MrMallard on Mar 9th 2020 at 2:08:21 AM

Or maybe Millie loaded up the whole program at once, because as mentioned she drinks to get shitfaced. Beeps on the other hand has sensibly kept the bar at Level One until all the humans have had a few more swallows, so as to properly keep pace with them.

The thing is, this is a freemium program. Hence, it's designed specifically to entice customers to go for the full version by having the free version be limited and somewhat frustrating. I'm assuming the long time it takes for Drunk mode to actually get to a level higher than "light buzz" is part of that.

The fact that neither she or Beeps seemed to have opened their beers means she went from 0 to shitfaced basically immediately.

Ok, yeah, that’s a good point.

You’re right, the cut-and-paste panels indicate that very little time is passing. But why would either of them actually open their beers? They’re not going to drink them. They’re just holding them to be sociable.