Author Topic: EP174: Private Detective Molly  (Read 30579 times)

ieDaddy

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Reply #50 on: September 30, 2008, 10:29:28 PM
I think the story said she was two foot tall. And being scared of rats (or, in the Débutante Mollie, the dark) is more of a character quirk than a self-preservation thing, I think.
Umm... Norwegian Roof Rat?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_rat

It is a brown or grey rodent, with a body up to 25 cm (10 in) long, with the tail a similar length; the male weighs on average 350 g (12 oz) and the female 250 g (9 oz).

Yup, nose to tail - it's 20 inches long.  If you extrapolate that out and say Molly was a 5 foot girl, that's like having a rat just over 4 feet come at you.  That's what I call a Rodent Of Unusual Size.




Planish

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Reply #51 on: October 04, 2008, 08:14:22 AM
The disturbing part, on the other hand, was that parents would use their child's doll's journal to spy on their own children. It's a creepy thought that I'm sure many parents would have no trouble with at all.
The genie has certainly popped out of that bottle. Behold! NannyCams:

- - - - -
Although, properly, they are meant to spy on nannies, not to be nannies.

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ieDaddy

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Reply #52 on: October 16, 2008, 08:51:17 PM
I think my favorite part about this one was the concept of a doll designed to be a caregiver as a clear subordinate toy, not as a nanny-servant like in last week's episode. Molly mentions the other functions of her alternate personas: doctor, social worker and herself as bodyguard. The disturbing part, on the other hand, was that parents would use their child's doll's journal to spy on their own children. It's a creepy thought that I'm sure many parents would have no trouble with at all.

I wish I had one of these 2 days ago.  Daughter came home from the park with a big gash just under her chin that required 2 stitches.  She had apparently cleaned it up herself, there was no blood on her clothes, and she didn't want to talk about it.  Eventually we got it out of her that she was swinging around the pole to the swing set and got knocked - but it was weird that it was so deep with so little blood and she didn't cry or anything (well, not until the doctor put stitches in).

I would totally use anything I could to spy on my daughter.  It's all in the interest of keeping her safe.  I'm probably one of those mean parents who believes that her privacy starts the day she moves out, but until then...I remember what I was like as a kid and I'll do whatever I can to protect her.

I'm all for the illusion of privacy, but lets face it, when you have kids running off with strange men they've met over the internet, teenage drinking, and (an example our possible next VP has provided) teenage pregnancy, not to mention cyber and regular bullying, pedophiles, all all the other ills of society, the day I can put a GPS chip in her I'm going to do it, in the past day we've even had a kidnapping of Cole Puffinburger, and it took us 10 years to put OJ behind bars because they finally caught him for doing something wrong that was just to outrageous for him to get off (yup, I think he did it too).  There's way too many people out there with bad intentions, hell, there are people out there with good intentions that create bad situations.

If I had a way to come home from a hard day, sit and talk about stuff over dinner, and then read about what she didn't want to tell me - I would so take it.  I'm all about trust, but there's nothing wrong with "Trust but verify".



JoeFitz

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Reply #53 on: October 16, 2008, 10:43:56 PM
If this story works for a kid (a real kid, and not the generic kid that it seemed aimed at), it wasn't my kid.  She was bored, bored, bored. 

I was just flipping through a Calvin and Hobbes book and it struck me that the noire style used here reminded me Watterson's Detective personality for Calvin, Tracer Bullet. The strips were full of cliches that would probably fly over the head of most young children: ex. "I've got 8 slugs in me. One is lead, the rest are burbon." It's not quite a send-up of the style, but rather an admittedly flawed use of the cliches to tell a story aimed at adults knowing that it is playing with the chosen style.




Anarkey

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Reply #54 on: October 17, 2008, 12:14:38 AM
If this story works for a kid (a real kid, and not the generic kid that it seemed aimed at), it wasn't my kid.  She was bored, bored, bored. 

I was just flipping through a Calvin and Hobbes book and it struck me that the noire style used here reminded me Watterson's Detective personality for Calvin, Tracer Bullet. The strips were full of cliches that would probably fly over the head of most young children: ex. "I've got 8 slugs in me. One is lead, the rest are burbon." It's not quite a send-up of the style, but rather an admittedly flawed use of the cliches to tell a story aimed at adults knowing that it is playing with the chosen style.

You may be right about that, although that same kid that found this story so boring also loves Calvin and Hobbes with a deep and abiding passion.  Of course, Watterson's a genius, and his strips work on many levels (unlike the story) so perhaps it's an unkind comparison. 

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Father Beast

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Reply #55 on: October 24, 2008, 04:41:05 PM
OK, here's my two cents.

Loved it.

Not as much as Impossible Dreams, but up there.

I enjoyed how the doll had to follow her programming, but found ways to protect the child (as she saw it) by going around her restrictions. I imagine a doll of this type would do something similar if there was some sort of abuse going on, even though it was clearly against the wishes of the parent/guardian.

So the story was good.

I was also fascinated by the doll herself. I found myself wanting to play with it, see what it would do. Yes, I played with dolls as a boy.

I wondered how much extra the social worker had to pay for the multiple style Molly, seeing as he really only wanted the P. D. type. If he'd just gotten the debutante Molly, it probably wouldn't have had the extra expensive converter kit. but he wanted the PD, which probably meant he had to get the ultra deluxe seven (or however many it was) version Molly, and then go through the trouble of breaking the selector. Quite the investment. All because PDs aren't that much in demand for girls.

If the mice are a problem, I think warrior princess Molly could dispatch them with her sword.


On another note: the job of a reader is to make the listener forget there is a reader and focus on the story. Ana Eley did just fine. It felt as if I was just reading it myself. which is how it should be.



Windup

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Reply #56 on: October 27, 2008, 04:00:45 AM

I would totally use anything I could to spy on my daughter.  It's all in the interest of keeping her safe.  I'm probably one of those mean parents who believes that her privacy starts the day she moves out, but until then...I remember what I was like as a kid and I'll do whatever I can to protect her.
....
If I had a way to come home from a hard day, sit and talk about stuff over dinner, and then read about what she didn't want to tell me - I would so take it.  I'm all about trust, but there's nothing wrong with "Trust but verify".


I feel like I should give you the secret hand sign for the Holy League of Parental Facists (or however my daughter thinks of it).  I agree on all points -- sometimes the risk is just too great.  Though I find that for me, the trick is often to know, but not to act.  She's reaching the point where I need to let her muddle through a lot of things on her own, and that's hard.

"My whole job is in the space between 'should be' and 'is.' It's a big space."


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Reply #57 on: October 27, 2008, 10:29:25 PM
Speaking as one of the kids here, I find this extremely creepy. I mean, toys that spy on your every move? Has our society become so absolutely obsessed with security and control that we're spying on our kids?

I really think this is overkill. Great story though!

I wonder what it would be like to feel my brain...


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Reply #58 on: November 02, 2008, 11:48:12 PM
Ana is one of my favorite readers

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Windup

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Reply #59 on: November 03, 2008, 12:02:39 AM

Speaking as one of the kids here, I find this extremely creepy. I mean, toys that spy on your every move? Has our society become so absolutely obsessed with security and control that we're spying on our kids?
 

I was spied on extensively as a kid.  The agents were called "Moms of friends," "teachers" and "neighbors."  They were adults who knew me and knew what I was up to, and if I got involved in anything dangerous or stupid, they would (and did) inform my parents.  Coverage wasn't 100% -- it never is -- but it was complete enough that it tended to keep me out of trouble.

That's a much preferable system to some sort of technology spy, but its underpinnings are gone.  In most suburban homes, both parents work outside the home, and kids are unsupervised on a daily basis when they hit middle school.  The elderly neighbors who formed part of my personal safety net have, for the most part, relegated themselves to retirement communities.  And we just don't know each other as well.

This was brought home to me several years ago, as I was biking home from work, and suddenly two little boys -- probably around 12 or 13 years old -- came exploding out of the culvert under the bike path, trailing the distinctive odor of marijuana smoke.  I thought that if I were my age in the town I grew up in, I'd know who those kids were, and I'd know their parents.  And when I got home, i would have given them a call and said, "Look, I'm not taking a position on this, and I have no intention of involving the police, but I think you should know this happened, and I'd want you to do the same for me if the situation was reversed."  And hopefully, there's a reasonable conversation about risk that follows.  However, since I am where I am, I didn't have the foggiest idea who the kids where, and I just have to hope they are going to be OK. 

If that's creepy, then well, I guess I'm creepy.

"My whole job is in the space between 'should be' and 'is.' It's a big space."


eytanz

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Reply #60 on: November 03, 2008, 12:23:15 AM
Speaking as one of the kids here, I find this extremely creepy. I mean, toys that spy on your every move? Has our society become so absolutely obsessed with security and control that we're spying on our kids?

I really think this is overkill. Great story though!

Well, that depends on the age of the kid, no? I don't think the age of the girl in this story was made explicit, but between her behavior and the fact that she was four feet tall, I'd say she was probably 6 or 7. Kids that age need to be supervised.
« Last Edit: November 03, 2008, 12:25:30 AM by eytanz »



McToad

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Reply #61 on: November 13, 2008, 12:50:38 AM
Good story overall.  I had this nagging feeling I had heard it before, then I saw it was a 'reprint' from Strange Horizons.  Comparing the two, I think I like this one better in audio.

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Reply #62 on: June 23, 2010, 05:13:25 PM
Mixed feelings about this one.  The doll noir act was cute, and Anna's voice meshed with it very well.  The interchangeable Molly dolls were a cool idea.

But the message was a little too heavy handed for me, maybe it's just the timing that I listened to it while the health care bill was in heavy debate.  Molly circumvented her programming much too easily for my tastes--that sort of thing would probably be hard coded, not in self-modifying code.  How did a private detective know how to tamper with the machine in the correct way?