Distance Learning for fun and profit...

[lostandthedamned]

The current approach to technology suffers in part from discrete advances in areas improving, say processing speed or transmission rate of data, without looking at the system as an end to end whole.
Whatever fabulous crypto machine you have or magnificent decoder you math up it will always be easier to simply attack the end user who will invariably just use Passsword1 for their key.
Same deal as with data transfer rates.
I read a story recently of a town who had gotten fully fibered up at great expense. A few weeks later people started to complain that they were not seeing the speed boosts they'd paid for. After a lot of investigation it turned out that most of them where running their devices on wi-Fi, so throttling the data to a crawl.
PEBKAC LIVES

 

[Mr_Rose]

Slightly related, one of my biggest annoyances from working tech support is users that don't understand that having your WiFi device connected to your WiFi access point is directly equivalent to plugging your Ethernet cable into the back of your desktop, nothing more! It is definitely not "the internet" and yes that cable you unplugged from your modem so you could fit a new phone extension was important. 🤯

 

[kaosisreality]

There are a disturbing number of people who gave up understanding how anything works and replaced everything technical they don't understand with "magic" in their minds. "What do you mean my magic computer needs more than magic to work? Why doesn't it just work no matter what?"

DISTURBING NUMBER OF PEOPLE ACTUALLY THINK THAT.

 

[mp3.1415player]

"So, you want to know how the light switch makes the bulb work, do you?"

"I do, yes. I can't figure it out. It's something to do with electrickery, I think?"

"OK. It's pretty simple. Right, you see this switch here on the wall?"

"Yep."

"Great. Now, on the other end of the switch, inside the wall, there is a string. It runs up the wall inside a little tube, all the way across the ceiling, and down into that light over there. Got that?"

"With you so far. Seems reasonable."

"Inside the light bulb there is a little pixie."

"A pixie?"

"Yes. Only a tiny one, but it's there."

"...All right, I think I can see something that might be a pixie in there."

"They're very small and that's a frosted bulb, so you'll have to take my word for it. So, the string goes into the bulb, and ends up tied onto one of the pixie's legs. Not too tight, that would be cruel, but it's not coming off. The pixie is strapped into a teeny tiny little seat. What do you think happens when I flip the switch like this?"

"The... string pulls on the pixie?"

"Exactly! Yes, the string pulls on the pixie. And what do you think that does to the pixie?"

"Um..."

"I'll tell you. It gets really annoyed."

"Well, that seems only sensible..."

"I know. And an annoyed pixie gets very, very active. It starts flapping its wings like crazy."

"OK...?"

"It flaps its wings so hard, in fact, that they start to glow!"

"Really?"

"Yes. It's just like when you blow on a fire, right? Lots of air motion, you get a glow. A bright one."

"And that's where the light comes from!"

"That is indeed where the light comes from, yes. I do this, the string gets pulled, all the way up there, across there, down into there, and bob's your uncle, the pixie gets annoyed and light comes out. See? Perfectly logical and straightforward application of String Theory."

"Hey, I've heard of that! I was wondering what it was. I wish the people on the TV could explain things as clearly as you do!"

"Well, I am an engineer, I know how to tell non-engineers about my field."

"And why does the bulb finally stop working?"

"The pixie dies. Because it doesn't get fed."

"...Poor little thing."

"Meh, pixies breed really quickly. If we didn't put them in bulbs we'd be overrun with the damn things."

"Fair enough. While you're here, can you explain how the toaster gets hot?"

"Sure. Have you heard of glow worms...?"

 

[Jordisk]

There are a disturbing number of people who gave up understanding how anything works and replaced everything technical they don't understand with "magic" in their minds. "What do you mean my magic computer needs more than magic to work? Why doesn't it just work matter what?"

DISTURBING NUMBER OF PEOPLE ACTUALLY THINK THAT.

Click to shrink...

Your computer only works when the magic smoke is in it. When the magic smoke leaks out, it doesn't work anymore.

 

[Rhys898]

Got to love angry pixies!!!! They are the greenest of light sources

 

[White Wyvern57]

Not the pixies from Final Fantasy XIV I hope. Those have a tendency to transform us mortals into leafmen!
Edit: they're also afraid of beavers for some odd reason...
@mp3.1415player

 

[Tara Li]

Next thing you know, they'll be giving Einstein's "No Cat" explanation for radio.

 

[Icemanau]

Sounds like someone explaining to Minister Fudge how the lights work in 'Jedi Granger'...

 

[PossiblyEnos]

A most skookum explanation of basic electrosity.

 

[edale]

The real reason we lock Pixies in bulbs for light instead of letting them roam free:

 

[Master Zoen]

"So, you want to know how the light switch makes the bulb work, do you?"

"I do, yes. I can't figure it out. It's something to do with electrickery, I think?"

"OK. It's pretty simple. Right, you see this switch here on the wall?"

"Yep."

"Great. Now, on the other end of the switch, inside the wall, there is a string. It runs up the wall inside a little tube, all the way across the ceiling, and down into that light over there. Got that?"

"With you so far. Seems reasonable."

"Inside the light bulb there is a little pixie."

"A pixie?"

"Yes. Only a tiny one, but it's there."

"...All right, I think I can see something that might be a pixie in there."

"They're very small and that's a frosted bulb, so you'll have to take my word for it. So, the string goes into the bulb, and ends up tied onto one of the pixie's legs. Not too tight, that would be cruel, but it's not coming off. The pixie is strapped into a teeny tiny little seat. What do you think happens when I flip the switch like this?"

"The... string pulls on the pixie?"

"Exactly! Yes, the string pulls on the pixie. And what do you think that does to the pixie?"

"Um..."

"I'll tell you. It gets really annoyed."

"Well, that seems only sensible..."

"I know. And an annoyed pixie gets very, very active. It starts flapping its wings like crazy."

"OK...?"

"It flaps its wings so hard, in fact, that they start to glow!"

"Really?"

"Yes. It's just like when you blow on a fire, right? Lots of air motion, you get a glow. A bright one."

"And that's where the light comes from!"

"That is indeed where the light comes from, yes. I do this, the string gets pulled, all the way up there, across there, down into there, and bob's your uncle, the pixie gets annoyed and light comes out. See? Perfectly logical and straightforward application of String Theory."

"Hey, I've heard of that! I was wondering what it was. I wish the people on the TV could explain things as clearly as you do!"

"Well, I am an engineer, I know how to tell non-engineers about my field."

"And why does the bulb finally stop working?"

"The pixie dies. Because it doesn't get fed."

"...Poor little thing."

"Meh, pixies breed really quickly. If we didn't put them in bulbs we'd be overrun with the damn things."

"Fair enough. While you're here, can you explain how the toaster gets hot?"

"Sure. Have you heard of glow worms...?"

Click to shrink...

*Laughing* This is bad and you should feel bad for posting it.

 

[Loki Thorson]

"So, you want to know how the light switch makes the bulb work, do you?"

"I do, yes. I can't figure it out. It's something to do with electrickery, I think?"

Click to shrink...

This is a Taylor explaining how the world works to an eager Arthur Weasley... Just don't ask why he now keeps a rubber ducky in his sock drawer, his ears will turn red and he'll start to mumble incoherently about the weather ;>

 

[Derek M]

"Inside the light bulb there is a little pixie."

Click to shrink...

"The reason this screen on my computer is so much more expensive than a light bulb is that there are 1960 x 1080 pixies. It takes a lot of work to tie all those pixies down, after all..."

"All right, I understand that, but what happened to that mouse? Did somebody skin it?"

 

[Blaflaix]

"So why are fluorescent lights so long? Do they have more pixies?"

"Fluorescent lights actually work completely differently. Instead of pixies, they have dragons inside."

"Dragons!? We have dragons around? Why didn't anybody tell me? And how do they fit inside tubes?"

"They aren't like you think. Dragons start out a few inches long. They grow throughout their lives, but since they only live for 10 years at most, they generally don't grow more than 4 inches long."

"Why don't they grow huge like the stories?"

"Global Warring."

"I've heard of that, but how does that stunt dragon growth?"

"Dragons are only awake while there is war. In the ancient past, there would only be war sporadically and only during summer, so the dragons would be in torpor and continue growing over centuries. Now we have more people and more arguments and we are pretty much constantly at war somewhere, so the dragons never go into torpor and die while tiny."

"Huh. So how do they work in fluorescent lights? Do they get angry like the pixies?"

"Not quite. When you pull the string, a panel slides back showing a tiny model knight. Since knights are the natural enemy of dragons, the dragon breathes fire. That's why the tube is so long. So the fire doesn't burn out the knight. Once the dragon grows enough, the fire-breath reaches the knight and the bulb 'burns out.' That's why they turn dark at the end. But they still usually last longer than pixies."

"I heard there was some argument between the inventors?"

"Yes. Thomas 'The Pixie Wrangler' Eddison invented the incandescent lightbulb, and Nikola 'Dragon-breath' Tesla invented the fluorescent lightbulb. There was a huge fight over the best system."

"Why were they fighting over the lightbulbs? It seems like they are useful in different ways?"

"They weren't fighting over the lightbulbs, they were fighitng over string technology. Eddison favored direct pullant, which was a string that you pull and release, like being tight on a pixie or not. Tesla favored alternating pullant, which has two strings, one on each side of a switch so you can pull both directions, like opening and closing a cover on a knight model. The lightbulbs were just one demonstration of their argument."

"That sounds... trivial? I mean, I'm sure it makes a big difference to the engineers, but to me it doesn't make much difference."

"They went to some effort to make it seem important. Eddison actually invented a method of execution involving alternating pullant to make it look dangeorus. You really don't want to know how that works."

 

[LostArchivist]

That last part amuses me (well, the rest did too). Apparently she CAN still escalate on people!

Shaking his head, he wondered how he could persuade her to let it drop. They had far more important things to be doing than worrying about one smallish city that was an edge case in almost any metric you wanted to use. Right now it was mostly keeping to itself and in his view they should just let it be while dealing with all the other things that would invariably crop up.

Click to shrink...

I wonder how much of it's because Alex is a control freak, how much because she thinks it has to be parahuman... and how much because they're throwing off The Experiment.
After all, the government isn't supposed to be around to step in in whatever messed-up hellworld they're aiming for...

Carlos looked back at him. "SpiceBottles?"

"That's the one. Crazy people, they make PHO look normal," Chris chuckled. "Half the time they're trying to weaponize cinnamon or something, the other half they're screaming about politics."

Despite herself Vicky giggled. "I heard a rumor that site is run by the government who set it up so people would brainstorm new military ideas without realizing it," she commented with a small grin.

"Yeah, that sounds… unlikely," Chris replied, returning her look. "Where did you hear that?"

"That rumor site. Insufficient Veracity. They're full of that sort of thing. PHO has an entire section dedicated to trashing their paranoid delusions."

Click to shrink...

I very much see what you did there. On another note, why do I suspect that the government DOES run the site in question? Especially with all the recent changes going on in this story?

Amy as her lab partner was tending the three bunsen burners that were heating sections of the synthesis apparatus. "And we need to turn that one down a little, it's supposed to be at two hundred and six degrees centigrade." She pointed. Amy adjusted the gas flow very slightly and both watched as the thermometer sticking out of the top of the reflux condenser dropped a couple of degrees. The boiling solution inside the flask underneath it was slowly changing color to a bright yellow.

Click to shrink...

I'm sorry, but my COLLEGE chemistry course was never this interesting. I want a refund!

Raines appeared curious as he watched this, as if he wasn't sure what was going on. When Brendan tilted the lid of the metal box towards himself, revealing the contents, the doctor looked down and his eyes widened comically.

Neither said a thing for nearly thirty seconds.

"How many would you like?" Brendan asked gravely. "Obviously this isn't the largest one that can be made, but at a few thousand yottaflops, it should still be useful, don't you agree?"

Click to shrink...

This never gets old. I don't think I've ever felt bad for the NSA before...

After several seconds of silence, Taylor said in a faint, awed voice, "Oh, my god, it's full of data..."

Click to shrink...

Nooo, don't connect your brain to the eldritch computer! This is where all the problems started the first time!

I have a feeling that this bodes poorly for everyone's sanity in the near future, as well. She does not need the inspiration (or the high; I'm not sure...).

 

[tfesmo]

Nooo, don't connect your brain to the eldritch computer! This is where all the problems started the first time!

Click to shrink...

Nah. When DL!Taylor looks into the Abyss and the Abyss looks back, she solves the language barrier and writes a phone app, then uses the Abyss to refine physics and rewrite the textbooks again.

 

[Transreal Cloud]

"So, you want to know how the light switch makes the bulb work, do you?"

Click to shrink...

You know we only really see Arthur being this obtuse in circumstances when it's reasonable to infer he's trying to set Harry at ease.

 

[Bel]

So, since I got caught up in the Numberphile channel a while ago, I have to ask if Taylor has created a 'Taylor's Number' of dimensions in subspace or what have you. She's already making physicists and description experts cry, might as well add mathematicians to that group as well.

I mean she's already deducing Armsmasters bike route randomiser in her head, would be fun what else she pulls out, and that was before she got a variety of shards to giver her inspiration or do some of the grunt processing work.

 

[TheBiggerFish]

I mean she's already deducing Armsmasters bike route randomiser in her head

Click to shrink...

Wait, she what?

In this fic?

 

[tfesmo]

Wait, she what?

In this fic?

Click to shrink...

Chapter 17:

Spinning the chair around a couple of times with her hair flying out, she laughed slightly, then turned to her main workbench and started checking the logs from her sensors to see if anything interesting had happened overnight.

"Hmm. Armsmaster is kind of predictable on his patrol route," she muttered to herself, while reaching over to turn up the volume on the alien soundtrack, the soft words washing over her and as always making her mind feel even more alive for some reason. "I mean sure, he's using a pseudo-random algorithm to plot the turns, but the salt is only sixteen bits and the pattern is obvious..."

Click to shrink...

 

[sdwood]

Some boffin somewhere is going to invent cheap and practical quantum processing, or optical processors, or some other cheat with a made-up name like "positronics," or a cybernetic brain, or some such thing.

Click to shrink...

The "thing" has to completely undermine the thermodynamic limits on what's possible with conventional computing. Note that there's no proof that quantum computing will do this.

 

[Frank_Marks]

So what would happen to Emma if Taylor puts one of those little data tabs on her?

 

[Bronze_Moose]

Click to shrink...

Dragons!

Click to shrink...

This reminds me of the story of the time my parents convinced my (then a little kid) uncle that a vineyard was a plastic farm. You see, they had been driving down the highway, and there were hills on either side with vineyards, and the ground was covered with black plastic, used as a weed barrier and to keep the roots from freezing during the winter (which it was at that time). He asked what was grown there, and they told him all about the plastic farms. Fast forward to when he was in high school, and his teacher put up a picture of a vineyard to discuss the next topic. He eagerly raised his hand, and exclaimed that he knew all about it, and went into detail. Of course, the whole class laughed at him.

We still don't let him live it down.

 

[sdwood]

"It flaps its wings so hard, in fact, that they start to glow!"

Click to shrink...

I wish to GOD I could force myself to believe this explanation wouldn't work.

I've spent to much time doing tech support. I can't.

This never gets old. I don't think I've ever felt bad for the NSA before...

Click to shrink...

Don't worry, it'll never happen again.
What? I have problems with people who deliberately introduce flaws in encryption standards.

So, since I got caught up in the Numberphile channel a while ago, I have to ask if Taylor has created a 'Taylor's Number' of dimensions in subspace or what have you. She's already making physicists and description experts cry, might as well add mathematicians to that group as well.

Click to shrink...

The important question is whether Taylor's Number is larger or smaller than Graham's Number. And if larger, is it by a countable or an uncountable infinity?