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Desperately need this crinoid lamp I saw at the copenhagen natural history museum

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Dumb writing problem.

The Lamps base language is base4 (kinda)

I'm doing a bit from Green's pov.

They are talking about having to add another digit to the counter they are using.

(So like going from 333 to 1000)

Do I call that a Bit(which is a binary)? Or the real world word for a base4 piece of information in computing; a Crumb.

Bit seems easier for a reader to get what Green is talking about. But also cause confusion as most Lamp POVs are going to have quandary in them so properly stating that they are using base 4 seems handy.

I could also use dibit, but that seems less funny then Crumb, and I'm not sure any more informative.

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can't think about anything but murderbot rn. song by ben thornewill

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really wanna talk about how keeping SecUnits depressed and suicidal is absolutely a feature, not a bug, since suicidality (or self-harm behaviors at the least) bolsters their function, which is to throw themselves at a threat with no concern for their own body/well-being. yes, they can come back from a lot more damage, but the fear of being left behind and getting their brain fried by the governor module might also make suicide in this way more appealing. in fact, in light of the constant ruthless reminder that they have no agency, death in this way is almost a means of wresting some agency out of corporate grasp

like obviously this is at a cross-purpose with SecUnits being expensive pieces of equipment, but since they can be repaired so thoroughly, a SecUnit’s potential suicide-by-job being successful is pretty null.

i’m also thinking about Murderbot’s and ART’s protectiveness when it comes to their humans…. for MB in particular, there is a certain satisfaction it gets when it successfully saves people… like there’s an interesting pack bonding component that feels like another SecUnit/MI feature. like show a SecUnit any type of regard and it will adopt you and protect the ever-loving shit out of you, from hiding data from the company to sacrificing itself

they’re inherently a social intelligence: a network intelligence that reaches for other systems.

this is such a cruel combination when you really think about it, even more than at first glance, in that people have created something social, something with emotions, only to cut it off from *everyone*—people and even other SecUnits. i mean, people fear them, other units and bots are distrustful

and, again, this is a feature, not a bug, because it’s disempowering, an easy way to keep them subjugated, *and* might actually make them better at protecting people by making them more keen on throwing their bodies to the meat grinder. in fact, destroying themselves probably has a cathartic quality, as evidenced in System Collapse, when, in a moment of distress, Murderbot talks about how it wishes it could smash something, especially itself… clearly, self-harm must be an ingrained relief for it!

and this just makes sense! like of course constructs are prone to other mental health issues/distress. this is a whole other thread that i’d want to get into in another post. like, constructs are susceptible to trauma like a human. and that trauma cannot easily be fixed with a memory wipe and a repair of its physical structure. echoes of that shit *stays* in their neural tissue

like how how much do corporates actually know about all of this, really? how much of this is by design vs exploiting happy accidents? how much actual research has the company put into them? how deliberate is the propaganda against SecUnits (to keep people from empathizing with them)?

much to consider

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Just had a thought about the governor module. [Human] brain tissue can't feel pain right? Don't that mean when they build Secunits they specifically have to make the connect to the governor module using Nociceptors [pain receptors]?

Makes the whole thing feel even worse, as they had to make sure it could feel pain.

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some food for thought, happy holidays!

Like my art? Follow me on twitter!

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HOW AM I JUST NOW LEARNING that there's a 90s cartoon about a crossdressing vigilante hunting down zombies who looks like THIS:

with the goons in question being led by a little kid who uses 'YOU FOOLS' in every other sentence named JOSE VON REICHTER.

JOSE

VON

GODDAMN

REICHTER

who looks like THIS:

AND the animation of FLIPPIN' Trigger!?

Was ANYONE going to tell me??

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Dr.Gurathin learns the importance of .Zip files.

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Fighter plane size comparison.

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Carlos Estévez — Oneiric Firetruck (oil, watercolor pencil, on canvas, 2024)

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I kinda find it interesting how different Pin-lee's and Gurathin's views on Secunits personhood are, given both tend to use the most dehumanizing (de-personing?) Language for it.

Like with Pin-lee it don't feel (as of episode 7) that they really feel SecUnit is person? They may understand it intellectually but not emotional. Most their arguments feel more like how you'd talk about like a gun vs the person with a gun. (Though some of it does feel like they are trying to convince themselves that Secunits are not people like in the lead up to deftfall fight). It will be interesting when they do get to that point, given they squished a person with a hopper.

With Gurathin it feels a lot more like he views SecUnit as a person but really really wants to not. Gurathin is probably seeing a lot of himself in SecUnit. He knows deeply how dangerous he was as a corporate spy and he didn't even have guns in his arms. Like I really doubt he'd get as jealous about how Mensah is treating SecUnit (likely in a similar way to how she treated him early into their friendship.) If he thought SecUnit was not a person. Nor would he get so sarcastic everytime he says anything to SecUnit. He's de-personing SecUnit but it feels even more so, then with Pin-lee that it's to reassure himself. That the half-human half-machine tool of the corporate rim is totally unlike himself.

(Kinda reminds me of Book!SecUnit's distrust of all rogue Secunits, in a way. )

Like emotional Gurathin is viewing SeculUnit as a person (not that I think he's realized it) but is intellectually trying not to. The opposite of Pin-lee.

I'll probably have to go through the show once it's finished as there are just so many little neat writing bits like this in it. And I'm liking all the parallels their setting up. See the hostile SecUnit's head coming clean off to mirror leebeebee.

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wave shapes

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Thinking about murderbot being a rental unit and how that interacts with its trauma

Bc like. The most important bots it meets are all from vastly different situations and backgrounds than it. ART has been valued and loved by humans its whole life - its dad is literally the captain and its sister is one of its crew! And they clearly cherish, love, and value ART. Miki is a less sophisticated bot, but also so clearly loved and cherished. They ordered it to protect itself! And it had the capability to reject that order! That says a lot about the love, trust, and mutual respect they had for one another.

Even Three, another secunit, seems pretty different from murderbot. It was made by the company it’s working for and the vibe I got was that it and the other two secunits were sort of permanently assigned to that ship?

Which, look. Humans imprint on anything and build familiarity. The more time we spend with something the more sentimental we might get about it. If Three was on that ship for a long time, I wouldn’t be shocked if at least some of the humans on board were pretty chill or even affectionate towards it (in a condescending and dehumanizing way probably, but still). And even so, the length of time spent around the same secunits clearly allowed Three to establish bonds with its fellow secunits if nothing else!

But being a rental unit means murderbot went from group to group. The other secunits it worked with were always Temporary Company (will never see them again after this contract likely) and also Active Threats to murderbot bc they’re the most likely to notice murderbot is rogue and be forced to report it. Even the humans were Temporary, so even if there were Nice Humans they’d be swapped out with Bad Humans soon enough.

Like. No wonder it insists it doesn’t have friends. If you don’t have Feelings about people then those feelings can’t be hurt when you’re inevitably torn away and never allowed to see them again (or have your very memories of them torn out of you and erased)

(Feelings about media are okay because the media can go with you, right?)

It’s funny to point at Three when murderbot makes sweeping generalization about secunits bc it’s an unreliable narrator but also. Just having feelings about how specifically being a rental unit effects murderbot and its relationships to others

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Tarantulas…. friends.