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

[thinkering]

"If you don't have what strictly amounts to a range limit it throws a lot of the original ideas into uselessness. ...But your duplicates have memory. And you could make a lot of those. I wonder if they increase your capacity, or at least don't deplete it?"

[mxglam]

"My capacity?"

[thinkering]

"The number or complexity or whatever of things you can have going. I wonder if they can remember, or look at, or whatever, things for you."

[mxglam]

"Oh!"

New Glam: "Maybe. Let's try to make lots of buoys again."

The buoys are cleared away, a third Glam appears, and new buoys start being generated.

[thinkering]

Robots track them.

[mxglam]

Each Glam glares at a section of them.

The rate of disappearances of buoys from the sections the copies are glaring at is somewhere between Glam's section and unglared sections. The latter, however, is higher than it was when it was just Glam neglecting to look at the buoys.

[thinkering]

"You're losing fewer in places copies are looking at but more in the gaps."

[mxglam]

"Hm."

All buoys disappear, a bunch of new copies appear so everywhere's observed by someone, new buoys start appearing again.

The rate of disappearances from sections the copies are looking at is higher than before, but lower than the unobserved sections were.

However, now copies start noticing disappearances. "One vanished here!"

"One here."

"Two here!"

"Here."

...it is not the easiest of tasks keeping track of which Glam is saying what.

[thinkering]

"They're tripping over themselves in accurate reporting," Lorica confirms.

She notes but does not report on the disappearance of the distant rubber duck.

[mxglam]

All copies disappear, as well as the buoys. "Yeah. I guess they can be used to extend my attention some, but not completely."

[thinkering]

"And you lost your duck."

[mxglam]

Sigh. "I wanna do one more test. Bot, can you bleep when your sib has a duck? Also when it loses the duck?"

[thinkering]

"Yes," says the robot.

[mxglam]

New duck!

"I'm gonna start playing with buoys again until they start disappearing. My prediction is that the duck won't disappear this time, 'cause the bleep would be distinctive enough that I'd notice it happening. Make sense?"

[thinkering]

Bleep.

"Sort of."

[mxglam]

"Only sort of?"

[thinkering]

"It sort of makes sense."

[mxglam]

"Yeah, I got that, I'm wondering why it only sort of makes sense instead of making sense completely."

[thinkering]

"You might be distracted enough by the buoys to lose the duck regardless?"

[mxglam]

"Ah. Yeah, I guess. Well, trying anyway!"

Buoy buoy buoy buoy buoy buoy buoy buoy buoy buoy...

Buoys start disappearing at the expected rate. Duck does not disappear.

[thinkering]

The robot, accordingly, does not bleep.

[mxglam]

After enough time has passed: "Either my hypothesis is correct or I've managed to convince myself enough of it that it's become correct."

[thinkering]

"What an interestingly convenient power you have in that way."

[mxglam]

"Or at times inconvenient, convincing myself that I'm right isn't the easiest of tasks, you know. But yeah, overall, don't think I can complain."

[thinkering]

"And this is you working alone, it'll presumably improve if you manage your reputation right."