March 28th, 2017
28 Mar 2017 · page 687 of 1306
Because magic, that's why.
Moving last week's filler back in the archive so it doesn't disrupt the story, remember you can see all of the filler ever right here at any time!
Cast: Harriet Barber, Jack O'Malley
Comments (97)
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It's like she knows the in-ternet is that thing that's mean to Sid.
A projector? That must be hell on battery life.
That thing survived an explosion and is still running several months later, it'll be fine
I thought he got theflashlight app!
Nope! Because magic, that's why. I can think of at least one RPG system that has spells for transforming magic into the right flavor of electrical current. :)
It's projecting the same no mater how he holds it so I'm guessing magic.
"I'm gonna Poke it". I love it.
"Hey guys, watch this!"
"Two people responded to your post strip."
Don't poke the internet! Never poke the internet.
Also this is a gloriously weird turn.
Let's be honest, the internet deserves way more than just a poke.
Always poke the internet, it's how it works!
👉👈👇👉☝👈👉👉👉
I tried your cheat-code and it didn't do anything!
Sorry, can't help myself...
Right, forgot the O'Malley couldn't read.
I'm having trouble picturing an app that would just be labelled "Internet." Wouldn't a web browser be labelled with its own name?
My husband's elderly S2 has one, it is a very Not Good browser.
Of course this is Widdershins Earth. The internet companies we know might not exist there.
It hasn't improved over time.... I think mostly because Samsung is like, "Why bother? no one is gonna use it anyway..."
Question for Kate: Do you or your husband smoke a pipe?
What was your inspiration for drawing Harry and Henry as avid pipe smokers? (aside from genius, of course.)
Nah, not a smoker. Just thought it'd look neat.
Darn. I always imagined you drawing and smoking a pipe, like Norman Rockwell in his famous self-portrait.
Duh, Harry needs to be a smoker so that they can have the pipe zapped by Greed as their greed-linked item! It's important to the plot, dontcha know. ; )
I've got an old android phone and the default browser is really just "Internet"
Actually, I've got a Samsung S7, and yep, the only browser on the home screen by default is "Internet"... Bleah....
I've got an LG G4 - Marshmallow, just over a year old - it has chrome and, yep, 'Internet'. (Goes and checks) Seems to be a staple built-in of Android.
Now, what remains true for phones in the Widdershinsverse, is a different matter entirely, of course. ;)
Nah, it isn't stock Android. My Pixel only has Chrome.
Although I'd always thought of Alexa as more of an iPhone kind of person.
Okay, so that got me curious enough to do a little more research. The answer is kinda amusing.
'Internet', the stock AOSP browser is part of the stock build (IE: Go to [source.android.org](http://source.android.org "source.android.org") and pick up the source package to compile for the mobile phone you're building, and when you've sorted out the HAL/drivers for the hardware you're doing, 'Internet' is one of the stock apps you're building.
This also makes sense: abridged is supposed to work without the Google Apps, that as a manufacturer, you have to pay licences for - Cyanogen feel full of this early on))
So, build a phone from stock, and you'll pick up that app. As it's open source, you can also customise it for branding purposes, unlike Chrome.
The ONE exception to this is Google themselves!
Despite one of the selling points for Google's own phones being 'stock, uncustomised, Android', they've been deliberately dropping the stock browser on their own phones since the Nexus (and now Pixel) series!
(I have more links, but [http://www.guidingtech.com/...](http://www.guidingtech.com/23316/get-back-stock-browser-aosp-android/ "http://www.guidingtech.com/23316/get-back-stock-browser-aosp-android/") is a decent little summary.)
Now, the funny bit is that this isn't really any kind of a big deal, (it is a bit crap), but some Nexus/Pixel users apparently miss the stock browser that much that they've compiled it themselves for their models of devices and submitted it to Google Play so other Nexus/Pixel users can download it! People are odd, is what I'm saying. ;)
The message in the middle from "Unknown: 2 _ 4 _ BEST DEAL 4 U __"
What's in the blanks? :D
(Also, did I just spam by copy-pasting a spam-mail as a comment? :P)
2 somethings 4 1 BEST DEAL 4 U TRY IT?
"2 Pizzas", I think.
Closeups on both phone panels, because why not
[http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/phone2.jpg "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/phone2.jpg")
> David: (image) met a good cat.
She has such wholesome friends.
That's her little brother. The entire text chain is just pictures of neat cats and dogs they each found.
Oh of course it is! Such a delightful family. ♥
This is a delight.
Oh, I am just loving the task bar at the top: twitter (what's her handle? can I follow @AlexaBakes?)
"Emdil"?
Thanks for sharing these closeups! The message from Em raises an interesting point. It looks to me like in the present-day, magic isn't widely studied, but Widdershins is still the known place for people who have magical talent to go and study / practice magic. ...?
ALEXA TUMBL'S!
Yep. Her address is on the last page she was in- [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/march-19th-2014/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/march-19th-2014/")
51 messages. uuuuuuugh if that was on my phone i'd have to look at every single one of them and get rid of the notifications.
Mal and Harry will probably only have to look at the one from Alexa.
'Course, Mal's going to look at that spam email and download malware that destroys the phone before they can read it....
"I'ma poke it." -Famous last words before every TPK in D&D
My last words always seem to be "No, check for traps fi-!"
"Hold my beer!"
Well at least that is safer to fiddle with such a device than being in a fantasy world and finding an metallic artifact that can only be described as a 'boom stick'.
So how does this work... hummm what is down this pipe...
I believe there is a comic where a group of medieval fantasy guards find a loaded pistol. One thinks it's a fancy hammer, then picks it up by the barrel and smacks the butt of the pistol against a wall to illustrate. The pistol promptly discharges into his general abdominal area if memory serves.
I think real medieval guards would be able to guess that it was some sort of super-advanced man-portable cannon made of strange, futuristic materials. How it actually works... that's another matter entirely.
Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed your day off.
haha, Harry said snot.
Well, [this](http://gunnerkrigg.com/?p=490 "http://gunnerkrigg.com/?p=490") comes to mind.
Aha! So /this/ is how we get the Reader Questions panels to be canon! :-D
Huh, wouldn't think you'd reception in the magical spirit void. Do extra carrier and data-rates apply?
Oh my god, he's going to come to the comment section isn't he? Duck and cover folks.
Well, considering Mal can't read, and he's dealing with technology centuries newer than him....it'll probably something likadsidklfkgke kfgisd-=!!!!
(Of course, an accidental selfie of Mal and Harry would be hilarious)
Emojis. Mal will be able to communicate via... Emojis.
FOR HE IS THE CHOSEN ONE. THE GREAT TRANSLATOR BETWEEN THE MORTAL AND SPIRIT REALM. THIS WILL BE HIS TIME.
Imagine how Alexa would respond to receiving that, particularly if she recognized Harry in frame...
Just hope Alexa's phone doesn't come with vocal input...;)
"I'm gonna poke it."
--Jack O'Malley, just before something goes wrong.
"Imma just gonna poke this big red button here. What's the worst that could happen?"
That's half of Action Science (to mangle Atomic Robo). The other half, of course, is to constantly take copious notes, preferably on indestructible paper.
That wallpaper looks vaguely familiar. 😊
When did Mal learn to read?
I'd be interested in knowing what part of this page gave you that impression, if possible?
It looked like only Harry was reading to me. (In fact Mal said, "What's it say?") All he seemed to understand was that it kept going "Eep!"
Yeah, that was definitely the intention. i was asking because I didn't want to have written a confusing thing- if someone is thinking he is pressing a particular icon in that last panel, he isn't, he's just poking at the thing randomly.
It's not your fault when we read too quickly.
I made the same mistake (thinking that Mal was reading), until I remembered that Mal is illiterate.
Then I read it again more carefully, and realized that Mal was not poking the In-ternet button on purpose. He is just frobbing at random to see what happens.
The part where Mal is poking buttons. Or is he just poking pretty squares and managing to hit things like mail?
Having someone "read" to an illiterate does not imbue the illiterate to know what/where the reading came from.
From here, the eep eep noise could be messages streaming in.
Mal's choice of pushing things is very limited. Either sheer luck is driving the choices or Mal is choosing left-right or right-left.
When Mal should be asking, "WHAT DO I PUSH!?"
Fair enough! The beeping is indeed messages coming in, and he is indeed just poking the screen- since they don't know what a touchscreen is, even if he could read which bit said what, he wouldn't necessarily know what to do about it, thus he'd not ask what to push- rather, he's just experimenting by poking the weird item.
Thank Kate A.
I believe you now, that Friday's has Mal asking what to push when the screen is more complex!
Point gained, Mal pushed something that attracted his eye, not because he read it. Makes sense to me!
I also like Harry telling Mal to learn to read.
Thank you for the reply!
Mmmm, messing with a phone imbued with gluttony while you have work to do and don't want to continually consumer information might not be a good idea.
I forgot that it's imbued with gluttony. And then there is that spam-mail on the screen about "2 pizzas 4 1 best deal 4 u"... I sure hope they don't deliver!
This is where Ms Harriet accesses information from the future and discovers that she will marry Mr Mailk and have 8 children.
Really curious to see what information from the future they may access. I've never read a story before that had people in past times get a hold of present-day tech.
"I'm gonna poke it." Amazing how often that approach yields spectacular results.
Mal: proving that literacy and technological literacy are entirely different beasties. :)
I'm really wandering what kind of bandwidth they're going to get? Also, what Alexa's home page is?
So much, so very much, potential hilarity.
"I'm gonna poke it," is the most best line. Many a tale has begun in such a way. (Also, 2 - for - 1 pizzas sounds good. :)
... and ended in such way :p
Too true. As someone pointed out earlier, TPK often comes after just such a line.
Wow...
I swore I internally heard a collective Squee from the fan base as I saw these page.
Editted: Squee, not Squeeze. No, bad autocorrect!
I cannot help but laugh every time I look at the expressions on their faces.
Too late. He found a link to TV Tropes. His fate is in God's hands now.
Won't work, 'ee can't read.
AND YOU THINK THAT WILL SAVE HIM?!
"I'm gonna poke it!" .... If the Witch-business fails for Mr. O'malley, there's a job for him in the Engineering sector, he definitely has the right mindset to work with us XD
Will a Troll appear ?
Because the Internet needs a good poke every now and then.
The problem they will have with Gluttony is that they will get stuck on the interwebs
It'd be a little far-fetched to say Mal would get service here.
Alexa, honey, *CHECK YER @#$%IN' MESSAGES!!!*
Intern ET? So aliens are behind this... the plot thickens
"I'm gonna poke it." If I said my career in tech started any differently, I'd be lying...
What the heck is Po arne?
Must be important if she has a whole button(app) for it.
"In-ternet? In.. Ternet." - made me laugh!