Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for June 12, 2022

There’s more to him than meets the eye, for what no one can see

Lies hidden ‘neath the corpulence of Mr. Memory.

Some say it is unnatural. Some call it blasphemy

This meshing of the human flesh and new technology.

Dick Tracy and Sam Catchem have no time for such debate

Analyze, hypothesize, deduce, and contemplate.

Then put it all together with detective skills so great

Bring to an end the cyber-thefts lest he shall liquidate.

Mr. STOUT is Memory’s parole officer?!?… really?… REALLY?!?…LOL…

“We also threw in a pair of hypno-glasses because why not.”

Another Electro!

The good news is that his next ‘upgrade’ will have even more bugs and run slower than his current operating system.

Oh to be

More than just a memory

To make them pay

For treating me that way

They’ll learn to respect

My superior intellect

My work won’t be done

Until I’m finished having fun

Chief detective Tracy couldn’t call to get this information?

You really need to keep your prisons more superpower proof. Aside from experimental augmental surgery, you must also keep them free of gamma rays, radioactive spiders, speed force imbued lightning strikes and alien parasitic creatures of any sort.

Good morning™, everyone!

“His sentence was greatly reduced for exemplary behavior,” says Ron Stout. That’s pretty amazing considering that he started to re-offend as soon as he was out. Well, at least the parole officer probably knows where Mr. Memory is living (they like to know things like that), so Tracy will likely be visiting there soon.

I wonder how Mr. Memory downloads system updates….bluetooth?

Good morning™, jailhouse schemers !

Looks like this plan has been in the works for some time and has merely moved from the back burner to center stage. Schemer says “steal money”.

I like how Mr. Stout vaguely resembles a werewolf in P. 1.

Got back to Comments late and want to say thanks y’all for the pats (of syrupy butter) on the back. Best No-Prize I ever won. :-)

When I start looking for the sor… purchase I will look at all the pics to see the ones that have full label disclosure.

Check out the Modern Rogue youtube video on RFID implants. Those things are like a glass-covered gel pill (the ones that are “fast-acting”). They’re big, comparatively speaking. And they’re injected under the skin of the fatty part of the back of the hand between the thumb and forefinger (you can get them from licensed tattoo parlors). They’re effectively passive memory, being powered by an external antenna, and only spit out whatever data (like an ID number and a small amount of packet data) you’ve written to the chip. They’ve been used to replace RFID security cards for breaking into secured offices or hotel rooms. They can’t run code, and they can’t rewire ATM systems. Putting chip implants in your fingertips would be incredibly painful, and they’d throw your sense of touch off when you tried typing on a keyboard. It would be like sticking Aspirin tablets into your fingertips and trying to type with pillows. The data in the chips can be rewritten by using the same external antenna and a IC-based credit card (or bank card) reader/writer. There’s no such thing as a “software update” for the implants because they don’t run code. They just read from, or write to, memory. If you need to “upgrade” to handle new security reader protocols, you’ll probably just have the implant surgically removed and a new one implanted.

Aha!

I’m still hanging around, but I’m way behind, by about 4 weeks. Anyway, some people complain about coincidences in fiction, but they don’t bother me because coincidences happen in real life. Case in point, yesterday, around 7:30, I went outside to see if we had mail. Then I glanced down the street and saw the mail carrier walking on the other side of the street, just 2 houses before ours. (I live on a cul-de-sac.) If I’d checked the mail box just 1 minute earlier or later, I would’ve completely missed the mailman (and he was a man).

How’s that for a coincidence? And it’s the second time this has happened to me since I moved here nearly 5 years ago. So don’t tell me there are no coincidences because I know better. I once ran into George Takei at a movie theater, totally unplanned. We were both washing our hands in the men’s room after the movie. I looked to my right and there he was. Being a long time Trekker, I recognized him instantly. I blurted out his name. We laughed and then he left. I was giddy.

There is such a thing as a coincidence. I’m living proof.

So, both Mr. Memory and his parole officer have those fringe-along-the-chin type beards. Is there anything significant about that, I wonder?

""Let’s put computer chip implants in a prisoner’s fingers. What could go wrong?"

Perhaps Diet Smith Industries has a hand in this?

“There was one slight glitch. In order to remain effective, the chips need to be regularly dipped in guacamole. So if you catch someone green-handed, it’s either him or Cloyd and Gidney, the Moon Men.”

MADGE: “Guacamole? You’re soaking in it!”

That’s a nice nod to the unsold Dick Tracy TV pilot; Mr. Memory in that story had an implant that allowed him direct contact to his computer.

He’s got the magic touch!

Dick Tracy checking out his lunch…

1- DT: That’s the only kind of beard I can grow too. I decided it was better to shave…

2-CHIN STRAP: It’s a tribute to the man who freed my people. Jerk. Anyway, about your question…

3- …Says here Memory caused no problems while in prison. Oh. Hang on…

4- ….He did injure the cook staff when they served him sorghum covered slop for every meal. It apparently caused him to gain 150 pounds…

5- …OH! And after being found guilty of being an indiscreet self-abuser, the medical staff planted electric shock pads in his hands which cured that particular problem but then led to him playing the old “palm buzzer” gag on new inmates. And also to him peeing his pants to avoid shocking his privates. There’s always a downside to new technology I guess.

DT: Really? I’m not seeing it…

They have the same facial hair so maybe Memory has already affected his parole officer.

cue the ominous music

“Have you checked on him since his release?”

“Why on Earth would I do that!?”

Good for you, Tracy – and good luck!!

Well, an opportunity to see Philby Fenster, from ‘On the Fastrack’, Rose Trellis’ ex-husband and embezzler by computer extraordinaire. What are the chances that we will see him? Or Patina Welding, who caught Fenster the last time he was out and committing crimes? And what are the chances that this story will “wrap up too soon”, like by mid-July? (I will be surprised if any of it is going on when Aug 1 rolls around.)

Tracy from June 9th, " A sizable man with exceptional computer skills? Shall we go down “Memory” lane, Sam? Talk about a in your face clue, this was it.

If a computer chip got implanted into Mr. Memory, does he also have the mark of the beast?

Staging computer chip placement experiments in convicted felons. What could possibly go wrong?

Mr.Memory, with his self-proclaimed vast intellect was at any rate smart enough to keep his record clean while he was in the joint, and even volunteered (“never volunteer for anything, son”) for the Computer Chip Implant Program—which could only be of use to him as a techno-geek.

But I do think that Mr. Ron(ald?) Stout, Parole Officer, should have more up-to-date first-hand information about his parolee!

No one volunteers for anything.

Let your fingers do the walking…and not through the Yellow Pages