View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
Glam isn't allowed to actually patrol the following day (it's a Sunday), so they mostly browse the 'net and read books. Echo's busy with her family (and she is allowed to go out patrolling), and Lorica's... doing something.
They're slightly worried about the fact that Yates hasn't replied to their email, but it's the weekend, so maybe that's why.
Has she replied to the email by Monday?
Sadde and Bell in Worm
+ Show First Post
mxglam
mxglam
"I mean, I'm not sure what it's suggestive of but it's... generally suggestive?" Shrug. "I'm starting to think that my power responds to the accuracy of my expectations?"
mxglam
"Lemme think of a way to verbalize this."
Think think.
"Okay, so, I'm thinking along the lines of my brain's... resolution, so to speak? Like I said, I can't really keep track of literally all buoys, and as long as what it looks like to me is the same then my power keeps stuff within that limit? And you didn't tell me immediately about the duck vanishing, so I couldn't... accurately expect to be informed of its disappearance. Or maybe it's because you're invisible to my power or something. I'm getting a Schrödinger's cat vibe, here."
Think think.
"Okay, so, I'm thinking along the lines of my brain's... resolution, so to speak? Like I said, I can't really keep track of literally all buoys, and as long as what it looks like to me is the same then my power keeps stuff within that limit? And you didn't tell me immediately about the duck vanishing, so I couldn't... accurately expect to be informed of its disappearance. Or maybe it's because you're invisible to my power or something. I'm getting a Schrödinger's cat vibe, here."
thinkering
"But if I'm invisible, the fact that I wouldn't tell you about the duck should have likewise been invisible..."
mxglam
"Maybe? But if my power looks at ways I could come about the information that my duck disappeared, goes through the bot, and then hits a spot it can't see, it might've just thought no decision would be made, or that the information wouldn't go past that node. We could test the same thing, except this time you resolve in advance to tell me immediately when the duck disappears, and then test it again but make it so some automatic alarm not involving you will go off when the duck disappears."
thinkering
"Okay. Can you give the faraway bot a new duck from here?"
thinkering
"That way. It stopped when the duck vanished. I can see it if I squint." When she squints, her helmet display zooms, but still.
thinkering
"Look, we know your range goes that far. It had the duck when it was exactly where it is, and the duck didn't disappear until you were distracted by buoys. You should totally be able to give the robot a duck."
mxglam
Glam giggles. "I think that is one of the best sentences in the English language," they comment.
And yet. No duck.
And yet. No duck.
mxglam
"Hmm... Actually this is a good test of that hypothesis, can you tell one of your bots to automatically tell me when the faraway bot gets a robot? Or maybe some sort of bleep, or some feedback."
thinkering
"Sure, that one'll bleep as soon as its sibling has a duck."
Bleep!
thinkering
"Congratulations. I wonder why exactly that helped and how we can figure out. Duck is getting farther away again..."
mxglam
"Well it ties in with what I was saying, I think? Accurate expectations. Maybe a better name for it is... reasonable feedback?"
mxglam
"For my power to work I need to... be reasonably confident that it worked, is my guess. Which normally just translates to field of view, right, that's how I normally tell if a thing exists is by looking at it. But this is apparently working off knowledge of the world that I don't necessarily have."