On That Note 2016-08-24

[ChattaStarhawk]

And Bud is left speechless...

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/on-that-note/

[Dave]

We haven't seen her brain-lock like that, since the day she learned that Phix is Shelly's grandmother.

"Of all the things I had anticipated... that wasn't one of them."

[JSStryker]

Time till reboot 40 seconds...

[jeffepp]

Well, we should have known that THAT was one of her kinks.

[Sgt. Howard]

She might be flashblinded

[Opus the Poet]

The program Bud.exe is not responding...

[Dr. Otter]

I think she took it rather well.

[Gyrrakavian]

I guess that answers the question 'teleportation or disintegration'.

[DilyV]

Uhhhhhh... yeah... what Bud said...

Weaponized Blackthorne indeed...

EDIT: Holy hell... Look at the Skull in the smoke in the panel after the ZOT.

[ShirouZhiwu]

Her mom can now write the book: "How to raise a teenage nuclear warhead."

[Aleister Crow]

Now I'm wondering. Suppose Castela continues getting stronger as she gets older. Are we looking at a superweapon that could eventually surpass the Chimera in destructive power?

[lake_wrangler]

I love Castela's "You're not listening to me" frustrated look on the middle three panels...

[FreeFlier]

We haven't seen her brain-lock like that, since the day she learned that Phix is Shelly's grandmother.

"Of all the things I had anticipated... that wasn't one of them."

I don't think this one is that strong . . . her eye area isn't displaying TILT this time.

--FreeFlier

[eee]

And she broke the Bud!

Now I'm wondering. Suppose Castela continues getting stronger as she gets older. Are we looking at a superweapon that could eventually surpass the Chimera in destructive power?

She may surpass them now. They don't have that 'disintegration touch' ability, and we don't know how far she can extend it.

[jwhouk]

Code: Select all

The application Bud has stopped responding. Do you want to close it?

REPORT - WAIT - OK

[Atomic]

Now I'm wondering. Suppose Castela continues getting stronger as she gets older. Are we looking at a superweapon that could eventually surpass the Chimera in destructive power?

I'm reminded of Moore's Law, which suggests computer power doubles every 18 months. That boils down to about a factor of 10 every 5 years. So, if this would apply to her:

• Born - She can move 1 kilogram.
  
  Age 5 - 10 kg. Helps mom with potato and flour sacks.
  
  10 - 100 kg. Helps move furniture by lifting it.
  
  15 - 1000 kg (1 long ton). Assists Aunt Shelly in the auto shop. Picks up cars and moves them like a wheelbarrow.
  
  20 - 10,000 kg/10 tons. Shipyard apprentice. Assists moving major assemblies, ship engines, and entire propellers.
  
  25 - 100 tons. She's a crane.
  
  30 - 1000 tons. She's a tugboat.
  
  35 - 10,000 tons. She's a ship crane.
  
  40 - 100,000 tons. Where did you want me to put the aircraft carrier? Next to the submarine? OK - got it!

And then it really gets interesting!

[Sideromelane]

Did she dump enough energy in to make sandstone laze? Because there might be some questions about a beam of radiation knocking out satellites from the ground if she did.

How much energy would that even take?!

[Catawampus]

Time till reboot 40 seconds...

So both Bud and Castela need to be rebooted, just in different meanings of the word.

Now I'm wondering. Suppose Castela continues getting stronger as she gets older. Are we looking at a superweapon that could eventually surpass the Chimera in destructive power?

She may surpass them now. They don't have that 'disintegration touch' ability, and we don't know how far she can extend it.

Castela might also be one of the few (if not the only) individuals who can physically damage Bud.

So it might be a good idea to check on her emotional composure before shaking hands with her or giving her a high-five.

[Dave]

Did she dump enough energy in to make sandstone laze? Because there might be some questions about a beam of radiation knocking out satellites from the ground if she did.

How much energy would that even take?!

Not sure that's even possible, under the circumstances. Creating a laser, in a relatively small space, requires some form of reflective cavity within which the energetically-excited gas (liquid, crystal, or plasma) is confined. Without a parallel pair of mirrors, there will be no opportunity for the photon packet to bounce back and forth, building up strength each time and then "leaking" out through one mirror in the form of a (near-)parallel beam. Even tiny semiconductor lasers (e.g. CD and DVD-player laser diodes) have two polished parallel surfaces to create the necessary back-and-forth.

You can generate some amount of coherent energy in an open "cloud" of plasma (e.g. a natural maser) but it won't beam - it will tend to radiate outwards in all directions and will be subject to the inverse-square law.

So, a sensitive satellite might have detected a flash from Castela's vaporization of the rock (assuming that the "mini World Grid" containment field didn't block the light pulse), but I doubt very much as if there would have been enough energy hitting the satellite to even "blind" a highly-sensitive sensor for a moment, let alone knocking out the whole satellite.

Now, if she were to pick up a laser tube (with mirrors, intended to be pulsed via a flashtube) and then ZOT its innards like she did the rock... it might be able to emit quite an impressive laser pulse. Dunno if the laser would survive for more than one use, though. If she blew apart a chunk of sandstone so easily, a fused-quartz tube and/or ruby crystal might not hold together for more than a millisecond.

[Tarrow]

Did she dump enough energy in to make sandstone laze? Because there might be some questions about a beam of radiation knocking out satellites from the ground if she did.

How much energy would that even take?!

Not sure about the energy requirement to make quartz lase, but....
Quartz / silicon dioxide boils at 2230c, and it takes about 730 joules of energy to raise the temperature of a 1kg mass of silicon oxides by one degree celcius. So raising the temperature of a kilo of sandstone from ambient-ish up to boiling point (i.e. vapourising it) would take in the region of 1.6 megajoules of energy.

"Weaponised" almost fails to cover the abilities of someone that can conceivably throw 1" steel ball bearings with significantly more kinetic energy than the 30mm rounds out of an A-10 main gun. Though still not quite enough power to throw golfballs into orbit