I don't really get Cutter's 'lack of tension' comment. Then tension comes from the fact that the audience understands their match made in heaven will be under constant threat from the (as yet undefined) superhero who will inevitably destroy their idyllic union. :)Sequel!!! ;D
I wish it had ended with the phrase "your lair or mine?" I felt like the last few hundred words were not necessary.
I wish it had ended with the phrase "your lair or mine?" I felt like the last few hundred words were not necessary.Maybe. I totally agree that is a good line, and it would be a fine place to finish if the intended message is "even mad science geeks can get laid". But I didn't think that was the intended message. I think the story is going for "even supervillain mad scientists can find true love", and the last few hundred words are needed to get that.
And if my date suddenly blurted out "I have an atomic death-ray!!" or whatever, I wouldn't ask for the check. I'd be intrigued. I'd ask questions. Even if the person was clearly crazy, I'd keep on plumbing to see just how deep the crazy went.As would I. But then Brian is so clearly not you or me. His opening line "so, what do you do" is fairly pathetic even before we realise it's relatively late in the date. Chrysanthemum has already assessed him as too stupid to understand, which may be generically true of most people but I don't think she'd be that dismissive on no evidence. Which means that Brian is exactly the sort of guy who would have nothing to say in reply to her horticultural note on her name, and probably be utterly scared off by an extreme swing-ball comment about death-rays.
I have a dog named Chrysanthemum, but we call her Chrissy. And she isn't good at science or world domination.
Show of hands: who hasn't tried to make a robot significant other? Am I right?
Show of hands: who hasn't tried to make a robot significant other? Am I right?
Oh yeah, that! Why would she take a man who only redeeming quality (according to her) was his looks, put his brain into a robot and try to make a relationship work? It makes no sense. I invoke the "Chewbacca defense"!
I don't really get Cutter's 'lack of tension' comment. Then tension comes from the fact that the audience understands their match made in heaven will be under constant threat from the (as yet undefined) superhero who will inevitably destroy their idyllic union. :)
Show of hands: who hasn't tried to make a robot significant other? Am I right?
Oh yeah, that! Why would she take a man who only redeeming quality (according to her) was his looks, put his brain into a robot and try to make a relationship work? It makes no sense. I invoke the "Chewbacca defense"!
Personally I think most hearts are quartic equations at the very least. That means four solutions that are most easily found using a trial and error method, rather than a formula.
It's only problematic if you misunderstand her motives. As Max e^{i pi} said, her intention is not to turn this utter jerk into a robot boyfriend - he's clearly beyond useless for that. And putting the computer in a handsome body assumes you can build an AI that's better than a human brain - which is too damn hard for a sensible (read lazy) mad scientist. But...Why would she take a man who only redeeming quality (according to her) was his looks, put his brain into a robot and try to make a relationship work? It makes no sense. I invoke the "Chewbacca defense"!
Yeah, that didn't make any sense to me either. You don't put the dumb brain in the robot body, you put the computer in the handsome body. The former defeats the whole purpose. And I don't think that can be explained away by how difficult it is find good AI. Or if it is, the author should have said so.
It's only problematic if you misunderstand her motives. As Max e^{i pi} said, her intention is not to turn this utter jerk into a robot boyfriend - he's clearly beyond useless for that. And putting the computer in a handsome body assumes you can build an AI that's better than a human brain - which is too damn hard for a sensible (read lazy) mad scientist. But...Why would she take a man who only redeeming quality (according to her) was his looks, put his brain into a robot and try to make a relationship work? It makes no sense. I invoke the "Chewbacca defense"!
Yeah, that didn't make any sense to me either. You don't put the dumb brain in the robot body, you put the computer in the handsome body. The former defeats the whole purpose. And I don't think that can be explained away by how difficult it is find good AI. Or if it is, the author should have said so.
The things computers have enormous trouble with are the things even dumb jerks find easy. Look at the enormous effort required to produce something that can perform as well as Asimo, for instance, and compare his utterly remarkable running, throwing and catching skills to a typical college football player.
A computer-controlled human body would not be much use as a boyfriend. But a human-brain-cored AI running a robot body would be brilliant!
III. Chet.2
Chrysanthemum finished lighting the candles in the middle of the table. She sat and poured wine into two glasses. The white tablecloth looked immaculate against the backdrop of the exposed steel and stone that made up her laboratory.
“Everything looks lovely!” said Chet.2. “This is the nicest date I’ve ever been imprisoned on.”
“I could have just killed you, you know. I still might.”
“Lucky for me you have some kind of robot fetish.”
“If that were true, I could have just programmed one. At least then I could force it to give me some respect.”
Chet.2 looked genuinely puzzled, or at least a thoughtful looking light bulb blinked on top of his bulbous head.
“Why didn’t you then? You obviously could have.”
Chrysanthemum sighed.
“I don’t really want a robot. I want a partner. Someone with whom I can share things. Someone who can think. You’re the closest I’ve got.”
Chet.2 made a sound between gears grinding and a snort.
“Bullshit. You found me so irresistible, you wanted to keep me forever.”
Forgetting himself in his smugness, Chet.2 raised his wine glass to where his lips ought to have been and smashed it against his oversized, metal face. He was surprised, but he couldn’t be hurt.
Chrysanthemum watched the red wine stain the fresh white tablecloth.
This is it, she thought. Rock bottom. Zero Kelvin.
QuoteIII. Chet.2
Chrysanthemum finished lighting the candles in the middle of the table. She sat and poured wine into two glasses. The white tablecloth looked immaculate against the backdrop of the exposed steel and stone that made up her laboratory.
“Everything looks lovely!” said Chet.2. “This is the nicest date I’ve ever been imprisoned on.”
“I could have just killed you, you know. I still might.”
“Lucky for me you have some kind of robot fetish.”
“If that were true, I could have just programmed one. At least then I could force it to give me some respect.”
Chet.2 looked genuinely puzzled, or at least a thoughtful looking light bulb blinked on top of his bulbous head.
“Why didn’t you then? You obviously could have.”
Chrysanthemum sighed.
“I don’t really want a robot. I want a partner. Someone with whom I can share things. Someone who can think. You’re the closest I’ve got.”
Chet.2 made a sound between gears grinding and a snort.
“Bullshit. You found me so irresistible, you wanted to keep me forever.”
Forgetting himself in his smugness, Chet.2 raised his wine glass to where his lips ought to have been and smashed it against his oversized, metal face. He was surprised, but he couldn’t be hurt.
Chrysanthemum watched the red wine stain the fresh white tablecloth.
This is it, she thought. Rock bottom. Zero Kelvin.
She was hoping for more of a companion, but I still feel like it was to be more of a path to finding the right one than for the cyborg to be the end result.
She was hoping for more of a companion, but I still feel like it was to be more of a path to finding the right one than for the cyborg to be the end result.Which agrees with my earlier stated reason for not wanting to end at "Your lair or mine" - the path MUST lead past that point to end with a companion.
It still begs the question why she'd chose a total ass to begin with. I can buy Max's explanation, he certainly was expendable, but she couldn't possible expect even a halfway decent companion. G.I.G.O.Indeed, and whether she was thinking that at the end of the Chet1 date or not, she realised it quite clearly at "This is it. Rock bottom. Zero Kelvin."
Why on earth is her heart like a quadratic equation? Is the title just invoking a mathematical word to seem cute. I mean Quadratic equations are kind of interesting, in that they can have two solutions (which can be identical or imaginary), but this story was a traditional 'there is one true soul mate' trope - if anything, her heart was a linear equation.
Why on earth is her heart like a quadratic equation? Is the title just invoking a mathematical word to seem cute. I mean Quadratic equations are kind of interesting, in that they can have two solutions (which can be identical or imaginary), but this story was a traditional 'there is one true soul mate' trope - if anything, her heart was a linear equation.Ultimately, the takeaway from my ramblings is that it's almost better if the title is just invoking a fancy math word that most people only vaguely understand. And that's a let-down for me.
And finally: let P be the group of people that are alive at this time. Let T be the group of all the time that exists in the universe. Let pl(p,t) be any function that pleases person p (p is in P) at time t (t is in T).And to be honest, let S be the group of EP subscribers and M be a major subset, and let n be a subset of T containing all values from d, the date of release, to an arbitrary point some weeks later, then I would contend that pl(M,n) is a sufficient condition
And if my date suddenly blurted out "I have an atomic death-ray!!" or whatever, I wouldn't ask for the check. I'd be intrigued. I'd ask questions. Even if the person was clearly crazy, I'd keep on plumbing to see just how deep the crazy went. Maybe even ask for a demonstration. Yeah, sure, I might up in pieces in a freezer, but the odds of that are still pretty low.
The things computers have enormous trouble with are the things even dumb jerks find easy.
His opening line "so, what do you do" is fairly pathetic even before we realise it's relatively late in the date.
So what's so pathetic about that question? I ask this in all seriousness. I can't say that I am unhappy that I never spent much time on the dating scene, because I would undoubtedly trip over all kinds of things like this that make no intuitive sense to me.
But he wasn't asking for the check to run away. At first I thought that was the meaning too, but we know she took her home with him.I think you're conflating two different dates. She took Chet home, not Brian.
So what's so pathetic about that question? I ask this in all seriousness. I can't say that I am unhappy that I never spent much time on the dating scene, because I would undoubtedly trip over all kinds of things like this that make no intuitive sense to me.
I was surprised that was considered a "pathetic question" as well. With people you don't know well, "What do you do?" leaves open a wide range of possibilities, and doesn't make a bunch of assumptions the person may or may not fill.
But he wasn't asking for the check to run away. At first I thought that was the meaning too, but we know she took her home with him.I think you're conflating two different dates. She took Chet home, not Brian.
Well, yes, when you first meet someone it's a perfectly sensible question. But they're on a date, at dinner, and far enough in for Brian to yell "check please". He should have asked that question looooooong before this. That was my point - not that it's inherently a bad question but that it's pathetic in context. Admittedly I confused my point something rotten by saying "even before we realise it's relatively late" when what I meant was either "given that it's relatively late" or "even before we realise how late", and without noting that I hadn't even contemplated the possibility of it being a blind date and thus assumed they had at least met and conversed some days before.
It didn't matter at all in my mind. The whole scene was set up to show that while she felt compelled to date for whatever reason, she held a general contempt for nearly everybody else, so it wouldn't have mattered what he said. She was already disengaged and doodling. [We can assume later that] Brian's not even a viable candidate for cyborg testing, so she just wants to bail. It happens with everybody on a smaller scale. Once you realize there isn't an attraction, the rest of your time together is just going through the motions.
And speaking of death rays (http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_23492963/feds-2-ny-men-tried-make-x-ray)...