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Distance Learning for fun and profit...

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Mr_Rose said:
She bypassed it entirely; direct quantum/subspace (I forgot which) are basically unlimited free energy in a way all those stupid over-unity devices can only dream of. When he says her phone has really great battery life she is not kidding.
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Yes but nobody knows that but her, I believe.

Cracking fusion when you have room temperature superconductors, quantum computing, and a significant and cheap way to tell gravity to do what you want....

Also, fusion is probably easier to sell than "magic power from space-time" as people will kind of want to know things like "Does this run out?" and "Will this cause me to get cancer in my brain and also space-time" and "Can you make a blue box bigger on the inside" (and when only one person on the planet can answer that question, and about 5 others can sort of follow along with the explanation, that's gonna be a hard sell), and also it's probably pretty easy to just repurpose the infrastructure you have to support fusion plants. Especially with room temperature superconductors to get power wherever it needs to go. (Plus, you don't have to give out incredible energy dense, highly concealable, power sources to people who might figure out how to make them go ker-blam)

That shouldn't be a hard problem for engineers to solve, as someone has magically removed a ton of complexity (room temperature superconductors), given them computers that are insanely over powered so modelling complex geometries is easy, and oh yeah they can screw around with gravity enough to create powerful shearing fields.
 
Abacus said:
General Brass: "You're basing our entire military research policy on what a teenager wants to do."
Angus: "Seems to be working out pretty well, doesn't it? Maybe you should assume we've got our reasons for doing it this way."
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Brass is wrong. They're only basing half the military research policy on what the teenager wants to do. The other half is based on exploiting the projects the teenager got bored with.
 
Morat20 said:
Cracking fusion when you have room temperature superconductors, quantum computing, and a significant and cheap way to tell gravity to do what you want....
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I'm just saying, Taylor probably isn't going to do it because she already has better.

Which is actually a point; it'd be nice to see some of these guys branching out and doing their own things what Taylor has revealed, maybe asking her for help along the way, or not. It would definitely be the ultimate proof that none of her stuff is tinkertech.
 
Someone of Spicebottles Spacebattles posted this.
Vicky: "You set the FBI on our mom! You set the FBI on our mom!"
Taylor: "After what she did to Amy? I almost set the Simurgh on your mom!"
Amy: "Wait, WHAT?!?"
Taylor: "... you heard nothing!"
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And now i have funny image in my brain, where Taylor actually set Simurg on Carol. And Ziz just apperars cosplaying one well-know coyote and shows this text: hands off from THE AMY, or else... And disappear.
 
cryptoam said:
Nope. Not enough. See above.

DM me for further implementation details.
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I was basically brainstorming a simple set of security rules. If you wanted to go full paranoid you'd probably be able to build a system that was safe against virtually anything except an omniscient being. But actually using such a system is a major headache.

I did a mandatory stint in the army (not US, European country) as a communication tech (basically, wasn't called that) and the security setup around encryption was many layered and very secure... when it worked. Spoiler, it didn't always work.

Was going to write a lot more but I'm not actually sure if I'm allowed to, I signed a lot of papers covering what I did and learned and I'm not sure how long I'm supposed to keep my mouth shut? It's been twenty years so I'm probably fine but then again I'm not terribly interested in finding out I was wrong by having some national security types come knock on my door.
 
Morat20 said:
Anyone who complained about their methodology should be demoted to private and removed from the military for gross stupidity.
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To be fair, there's always people who think they can better direct things. In this case, I can see it being hard to truly convince someone that Taylor is really special enough that the awesome might and experience of a US army general... means pretty much nothing. The US military has diverted huge sums to a research team, and filled it with the best of the best. The average person, let alone a general who is potentially in a better position to get how bright the US governments best roughly are, would be honestly incapable of realising that the difference between Taylor and the next most brilliant person is greater than the difference between that next most brilliant person and the general's daughters pet hamster.

Seeing the decisions being made by a teenager... I can get them thinking that she might not be making the best choices for the nation as a whole. Which may even be true. The problem is that no-one is better equipped to make those judgements, even if they had full information. Taylor is literally the only person who can conceive of what she could achieve on that given day, so managing her time is fundamentally impossible for anyone else to constructively attempt. Her explaining what she wants to do and getting people to understand may legitimately take long enough that, over time, it significantly decreases the output rate of the project. They may actually get more useful creations out of it, but at the levels we're talking the difference is likely to be minor in value and significant in output. Explaining stuff takes a lot of time when you're working with bureaucracy.

After all, technically they are being irresponsible by not asking her to come up with something that might harm the Endbringers. They are just assuming she'll sooner or later end up with something. Irony is, she HAS made the correct judgement and dealt with it, she just hasn't mentioned it.
 
MTB said:
Isn't QA by now basically 'Entity Mk2, now with sapience and a guide to common sense'?
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And now I'm thinking that whenever QA and Taylor manage to generate her mobile avatar form, her audible speech to anyone other than Taylor will sound like this:
Meau!
 
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Abacus said:
Seeing the decisions being made by a teenager... I can get them thinking that she might not be making the best choices for the nation as a whole. Which may even be true. The problem is that no-one is better equipped to make those judgements, even if they had full information.
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There are more problems than just judgment. For example, suppose the general knew beyond doubt that a certain direction was a more productive use of Taylor's research efforts than her own direction. In order to get her to change her direction, he'd need to spend time talking with her to convince her to look into it, which is time in which she's not researching or composing critical documentation. Further, she'd go about the research less playfully than if it were her chosen direction, which would in turn leave some corners of the subject unexplored.

Conversely, even Taylor doesn't have the information to judge which line of research will be most productive. She won't know what she doesn't know until she's already started to research.
 
Jadesteele said:
Either that, or the first two QA has earmarked for her Harem.
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You see, QA has decided that she wants to breed more [Best Not-Hosts!], and Amy and Vicky are the start. She hasn't figured out that it doesn't quite work that way. Yes, Amy could fix that, but that's not part of QA's plan.

Bonus points for anyone who gets the reference.
 
mp3.1415player said:
Doctor Raines gaped at the small bluish crystalline block nestled in the padded interior of the box, the internal fractal construction glinting under the room lighting in a way that caused very strange reflections to spray across the walls. After a while he closed his eyes and slumped back into his chair, apparently unable to do much else.
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I worked on quantum photonic computing for a while, and yeah this would be the appropriate freaking reaction.
 
kaosisreality said:
Maybe she does contracts or patents? Criminal law is one of many specialized fields of law.
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'Do not admit the police to your home unless you want to make anything and everything in 'plain view' admissible evidence in court' is "passed the bar exam" level material, so regardless of Carol's specialty she should know it.

Then again, Carol's invincible sense of self-righteousness might well armor her against the normal human thought of 'Always keep the cops on the doorstep unless YOU called them to come to your house.' After all, she couldn't possibly have done anything wrong!
 
cliffc999 said:
'Do not admit the police to your home unless you want to make anything and everything in 'plain view' admissible evidence in court' is "passed the bar exam" level material, so regardless of Carol's specialty she should know it.
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The broken window is in plain view outside the house. I rather imagine she's of the assumption that if they're there about that, there's not much worse they can see. But yes, that is strange.
 
cliffc999 said:
General Brass: "This is nonsense! We are the US government and we will not be treated this way by some bratty teenager!"
Angus: "First off, as Tonto once told the Lone Ranger what do you mean we, white man? Second off, there are appoximately 50 generals in the US military with sufficient rank, experience, and specialized credentials to replace you at need. Do you know how many people on Earth are qualified to even partially replace the Prime Asset? Zero. Literally everyone else in this project is more expendable than she is."
General Brass: "Are you saying that I would be relieved just to pacify some teenager? Ridiculous!"
Angus: "... how did you not see the copy of the Evacuation Order for the Prime Asset that specifically states she's the number one force protection priority for the Secret Service, demoting the President himself to number two? It's literally the cover sheet on her personnel file!"
General Brass: *incoherent squeaking noise*
Angus: (pulling out his cell phone) "Fuck it, I'm calling the Joint Chiefs right now to get you relieved on the grounds of 'You were stupid enough to take command of this project without even reading the President's standing orders first.' Pack your shit."
General Brass: "I- clearly, there has been a miscommunication-"
Angus: "Nope, too late, pack your shit. But on your way out, could you do me a solid and fetch me Taylor's personnel file? Obviously we need to stamp her operational priority on the outer cover, and in BIG RED LETTERS this time."
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Tagg is that you?
 
Though 'General Brass' there is probably going to have an involuntary stay somewhere where he can't blab about the Prime Asset. He was in the same room as her and knew who she was, and has already shown incredibly poor decision-making skills. Don't think DARPA or the secret service are going to trust his judgement about going to the PRT/Media/etc to complain and outing the most important person on the planet.
 
Keeping in mind that Carol, as a member of New Wave, may well be accustomed to doing LEO business in her home? And that most people don't know what the hell is on the Bar exam? And that many states' Bar exams are not commutative with some or all other states?

That's definitely a sentiment that every lawyer I know who has worked as a criminal prosecutor holds. But the estate attorney I know isn't nearly that... adamant about LEOs.
 
cliffc999 said:
Then again, Carol's invincible sense of self-righteousness might well armor her against the normal human thought of 'Always keep the cops on the doorstep unless YOU called them to come to your house.' After all, she couldn't possibly have done anything wrong!
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It's also entirely possible that as a lawyer who has a side job as a vigilante (even if inactive) she's gotten in the habit of ensuring that there are no (or as little as possible) incriminating items visible in her home. Outside of ... you know, being fresh off a major domestic disturbance and bender/hangover of course. That sometimes impedes judgement.
 
Santander said:
Tagg is that you?
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No, Tagg is actually canonically capable of offering sympathy to an upset teenager.

... I'm not kidding, he actually did. Not Taylor, of course, one of the Wards. But still better than General Brass here.

Bel said:
Though 'General Brass' there is probably going to have an involuntary stay somewhere where he can't blab about the Prime Asset.
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The OSS used to take officers who knew too much about something That Sensitive and had a case of loose mouth and have them put into St. Elizabeth's (a US military psychiatric facility) for 'observation'.

This 'observation' tended to last all the way to V-J day.

Involuntarily psychiatric holds + top secret security clearances can be a real bitch sometimes.
 
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Abacus said:
Taylor: "I'm gonna go get a Burrito and watch a movie." *Gets up and leaves.*
Angus: "She's gonna go get a burrito and watch a movie now, and the President himself isn't dumb enough to try and give her that order without a really good reason. Even then, it'd only be a strong suggestion."
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Taylor: "Hey Angus, I really enjoyed that movie I saw yesterday. Sorry, for taking off and leaving you with that guy. By the way, they had some cool stuff that I figured out how to make while I was having desert..."
 
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