Modem Noises

I've never identified with Claire more than this moment.... (and I'm a trans girl who only found this comic because of her.)

Diana

The futurama episode with the werecar has a good joke about it, bender being terrified because he saw so many 1s and 0s, and even a 2. Makes me laugh about robot dreams.

Aaron Schulz

I’ve read all of them but that one. I particularly like the late transitional Memory, Komarr, and Civil Campaign, but everyone is different.

Matt Grayson

Curious. Was it a good book? I have read only 1-2 books in the Vorkosigan Saga

Dimitar Bounov

One of my favourite series contains a novel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_of_Athos whose ending implies that the title planet will be full of telepaths in a few hundred years, but the author pretty much forgot about it.

Mark

in five years we're gonna have psychics in the comic, and i personally, can't wait

Gaz

Pintsize's AGAB is assigned goblin at boot

Miranda E. O. Wilde

Times like this are when you can see Claire and Clint really being related!

Seidmadr

Come on, they'd use ESP-8601

Drew McGhie

I love that Beeps and Faye were kinda semi serious. They were this close to get a new room mate.

Bagge

Telepathy with humans is like trying to watch adult movies on a scrambled cable channel.

William Cole

because telepathy with humans is not like calling a fax line apparently

Adrian Bartoli

I initially read Claire's comment in the final panel as "Considering how many faulty assumptions you have to make to believe in PHYSICS" and I was suddenly incredibly disappointed in Claire and felt she had let me down.... Then it was all reversed and my faith in her was restored when I realised my mistake.

Andrew Mitchell

A fair point, but I still feel that a Pintsize who is not a chaos goblin is no Pintsize at all.

Uniquitous

Pintsize has, on occasion, shown unexpected wisdom and insight about his position as a human companion. I think this storyline is the beginning of him becoming relevant in the comic again (really, QC has grown so much in quality and maturity of the stories, Pintsize's purpose was in danger of becoming vestigial and forgotten if he didn't experience some growth himself).

Czarzhan

If Pintsize ceases to be a horrible goblin, what's even left?

Uniquitous

On the other hand, about 15 years ago when fiber-to-the-apartment-building internet was a thing, and they were trying to get customers by offering everything down to and including "just a VoIP phone connection and no other internet", and I was a cheapskate student with a free dialup connection at the university, I got a just-plain-VoIP-phone connection and used it for my dialup modem for a couple of years. It was one of the most stable modem connections I've had.

Brooks Moses

Don’t be a wet blanket Claire!

Matthew Van Gangelen

There are a few possibilities, a couple are horrifying. :(

OldGoat

Well, I can verify that fax over VoIP doesn't always work. Had to get the company a land line. Next company we let a service do the landline and email us PDFs of the faxes.

Tudza

GOD I call fax lines at work SO MANY TIMES BY ACCIDENT and it sucks

Agnes

Google "the internet is expanding" on YouTube, if you haven't seen it 😇

Drazi

"Family reports receiving 16 calls from missing grandparents' landline in collapsed Florida condo" Not kidding, google it.

And now all I can hear is a dial-up modem.😑

Anthony Gaglianese

There is probably a genre of spooky AI stories. "On nights of the full moon, a mysterious shared object library can appear on empty mass storage, and if you link it, BAD THINGS HAPPEN!"

Max Kaehn

Beeps and Pintsize are totally different. Beeps is a moving target. Pintsize is mobile artillery.

BobC

Yeah, I don't entirely like the way Claire responded to that, but I suppose there's a difference between "belief" and "open to the existence of." I can get on board with belief requiring faulty assumptions, whereas simply being open requires one to, well, be open to the idea that there is not *yet* a mechanism of action we know of

Valraven

They (Roko and Pintsize) already tried a date and I believe Pintsize threw toast at her? Neither were impressed.

Douglas E. Smith

This is really clever hehe

M. R.

Just leaking packets

Sammitch

So let’s say Pintsize returns, talks to Beeps. Beeps reintroduces Pintsize to Roko. They share a bond from feeling out of place in their new bodies. It gets romantic-ish. Oh no. Oh no no no. I’m going to need some brain bleach!

Miyaa

1010011010

Sally Fields

Ooh, the scary ghost facsimile that haunts eastern Québec who was also… a MIME!

Miyaa

Claire is not onboard with this conversation train!

Bruce Steinberg

I feel like psychics would not be out of place in a world with superheroes and eldritch horror AIs

Dylan T

I knew she was going to say that!

A. J. Alfieri-Crispin

Could be UDP nothing is confirmed but data is just screamed I to the void.

Michael

Salty unemployed librarian

doorbender

As in "Ghost in the machine"?

Michael Boettger

Fax machine: "418"

Ting