branding lady, meet meek little lamb

[mxglam]

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?

Comments

[msglam]

"Yeah! And it could be useful against the tougher capes Boots can't kick into submission, and some types of minions."

[alicornucopia]

Nod.

[mxglam]

The next afternoon, at a time when neither Glam nor Lorica have to patrol (actually Glam hasn't been patrolling since joining the Wards yet, but anyway), it is power testing time!

Glam conjures a boat. They are now on a boat.

[thinkering]

Boat!

"What do you want to check first?" asks Lorica.

[mxglam]

"Hmmm... I kinda forgot what-all we had to test! There was range, and quantity of things, and time, and how range relates to time..."

[thinkering]

"Well, okay, simple starter test, give the robot a thing and the robot will carry it away."

[mxglam]

Glam produces: a rubber duck. For nostalgia. It is given to the robot.

[thinkering]

The robot accepts it, cradles it carefully, and zooms out over the water.

"And make buoys, one at a time, farther away from you," says Lorica, "and a robot can hop along the line of them and see how far away the farthest one you can make is. If you can make functional binoculars that might help."

[mxglam]

Binoculars: are made.

"As long as there aren't obvious flaws on the lenses to squint at, looking through them won't count, I think. That's the principle behind my mask, anyway."

And lo, they are functional.

Buoys start to be made.

[thinkering]

A robot hops from buoy to buoy, noting its distance from the flock around Lorica.

[mxglam]

They go quite a-ways!

And they keep going, and keep going, and keep going.

They stop at around the distance Glam can't see them with much clarity through the binoculars.

[thinkering]

"Do you have a sense of what's stopping you?" Lorica asks, when the robot has no new buoy to hop to.

[mxglam]

"Well, the obvious thing is that I probably would not be able to tell at this distance whether I was successful with very high confidence." Binocular is replaced by better binocular.

Buoy buoy buoy buoy buoy...

[thinkering]

Hop hop hop hop hop!

[mxglam]

Stop.

Bye binoculars, hello small toy telescope.

Couple more buoys.

Stop.

"Hm. Now if I were to guess it's the angle. It's far enough away that any new buoys would be hidden by the old ones."

But! A few of the buoys have started disappearing. And it's not been half an hour yet.

Glam has not noticed this.

[thinkering]

One of the robots does. "Are you dismissing intervening buoys on purpose so they're not blocking your view?"

[mxglam]

"Uh. No? Where?" Telescope not good for this, old binocular better. They look. They're hard to find, what with all the buoys, but eventually Glam notices a gap. "Huh. That's new."

[thinkering]

"It hasn't been half an hour. Maybe we should check your limit on how many things you can have at once too." Does the robot with the duck still have the duck?

[peterxy]

It does! It does still have the duck!

[thinkering]

"And it's only some things and not in order." Any pattern to where the gaps are?

[peterxy]

There isn't a visible pattern. In fact, not-a-visible-pattern can be described as the pattern - it's almost as if someone picked exactly the right number and distribution of buoys that would make it hard for Glam to notice any are missing very easily.

[thinkering]

"They look random but only almost. It would be hard from where you're standing to notice the gaps."

[mxglam]

"Really now. Hmm. I think anything like a direct hard limit on distance is starting to sound less plausible. What if I started making buoys in all directions instead of out in a straight line?"

[thinkering]

"Well, if you use more directions than I have robots it will be harder to keep track of them, but sure."

[mxglam]

"I meant not necessarily counting them like that, but maybe more spread out, without an obvious pattern. My hypothesis is that there's something related to attention here, too."