Donna e Mobile

 George waited nervously while Veronica did her thing. In the post AGIfail, the socials looked different from when he realized they were a thing to now, but she cooked her podcast simulacrum like an intimate radio show. Even if her fanbase was in the several millions. Gen directed him to research the thing that was radio. It was dying when she was growing up, but her longtime friend Tom reminded her of how potent it used to be.  

Dangerous even. It was one of the reasons for the intelligence-use directives in the Humanity/Ring Treaty. Which is what he ruefully wanted to talk to her about--face to face even if they IM'd one another all the time.  

You do that for the existential things. 

"So from the correspondence, I am getting a lot of hate about showing my arms and legs all the time. Why don't I get natural-look limbs? Why don't I get regular eye implants? The first thing is, I don't have scars, I have lessons, and I am proud of my journey, so you aren't going to tell me to stop being about where I have been, or make me feel bad about what makes me what I am today.

"For another thing, I show what I am made of to be completely honest with you--I wrecked myself, I was totally through it, I was close to death a lot of times, I struggled with how to be whole, and I am made up of a lot of very intentional decisions. I'm not mad about them. If you are mad about them, but aren't living in and with my body--what is your DAMAGE?  Because my wrecked body wasn't about you. My survival wasn't about you. I did my recovery without you and don't know where you were in the process, so I don't really have to care about your little input. But another thing--

"You want me to normalize myself for you, pretty myself up and be compliant to your idea of aesthetic and nice. I have lost too much skin and spent too much money just to get here and be functional to give one solitary fuck how you think I should represent. And that doesn't just go for me.

"I am not just thinking of me. Because I am not alone, there are a lot of you out there who have been through your own journey, with illness, or metabolic changes, with tragedy and mental outcomes--and it gets ugly! People can't expect you to stay what they want you to be, and the real people will come to love you through some of the bad times in what you are.  And my robot legs and arms? My eyes?

"Staying alive wasn't even my bad times. My bad time was finding out who my friends were and weren't.. And coning to understand who I could trust and couldn't. I can't wear that on my body--but I can show you what parts of me have been through changes based on where I've been. And if someone doesn't respect that, they don't respect me--and if they play games with me because I'm highly visible, I can only think it affects less-visible people who, like me, are technologically assisted but on the low. 

"You think you are aiming up to punch at me, but I stand for all people with technological assists--we are real, we are people, we don't owe you shit. especially not people who couldn't mostly pay out of pocket like what I did, and didn't deserve your judgment for how we look or choose to represent our physical life--because we are seriously just out here trying to live.

"So anyway, this is Veronica Bright reminding you of what was Smart--see you on the Brightsides, my Brightsiders!" 

****

"So, what is our ladyship asking us to do today?" Veronica liked to pretend her godmother was the Worst, and she was but wasn't. George got the generation gap, but it wasn't a Gen thing. 

Not this time, mostly, anyway.

Flesh of Her Flesh

Sylvan didn't consider himself a ghoul, even if that was what they technically called his kind of work. He considered himself an ex-med student, for the most part, and an artist, at times. He offered a commodity (skin) and a talent (the cleanest scalpel-work a careful eye ever thought it saw). He made enough money to keep himself and her in their flat. He realized it wasn't a permanent arrangement, but it would do.

"Her" or "she" meant his mum. He stopped thinking of her as "Mom" or "mother" for now. It wasn't that he didn't love her, he had, it was just that she had contracted a severe form of narcovirus and simply wouldn't wake up, as far as anyone knew. No one ever did. He wasn't even sure there were trials, although at first, he sincerely looked for them. It was just that there were so many, many other New Plagues that fought for grant dollars. He got discouraged, and then got wrapped up in trying to kit out their place with proper equipment for her long-term care.

He was just over the line, what with his scholarship and her savings. And it wouldn't feel right, anyway, leaving her as a ward of the state, where anything might happen to her. Not after she worked so hard to get him into school with the burning faith that he could do something about the scary reality that was settling in.

She developed dropsy. It wasn't to be unexpected. He left her alone for great periods at a time while he still tried to pursue his studies. She. He was sure she wasn't uncomfortable, breathing normal, he fought to get Lasix to pump through her IV to work out the fluid and stabilize her blood pressure. But she just expanded on the bed. He moved her with difficulty as he regularly checked for atrophy or bedsores, flexing her legs for intervals in the hopes that she wouldn't curl into a grim fetal position. But she lay her damp form on the bed, straight, and with skin entirely smooth...

The kind of care he tried to provide between classes and tutoring was just the humane requirement she deserved, was all. The penalty for victim-dumping was high for people inclined to shorten their loved-one's lives, whether for compassion or financial reasons, probably because everyone was supposed to keep up hope. But he didn't even consider an alternative, even if it kept him trotting. He didn't really even have the cash to hire a migrant nurse under the table, anyway, not that he would entirely trust one. He heard things.

But that skin. So much of it.

NASA is "All About that Space"

In a darn fine parody of Meghan Trainor's "All About that Base", NASA is bringing space travel back. No, this is sublime.

I take Oceans for Granted

I was about 8 years old the first time I dipped my toes in the surf at Ocean City, NJ. I was something like 32 when I floated my body on the warm, sweet water of the Mediterranean. To me, the idea of coming out to an ocean and flipping my shoes off and getting in there isn't a big deal. I'm able-bodied and car-possessing and I swim like anything. I was ten and learnt how to really do laps in a rec center public pool. My folks took us with hoagies and sodas on ice up to Lake Nockamixon to get some really quality pool time in from the time I was ten to teenage. My dad is a good diver--although he can't see shit in water since he can't wear his glasses--same as me. I am naturally buoyant, what I find hard to do is get under the water. I float like an Ivory Soap--good clean fat quantity, me.

When I am by an ocean, I feel at home. My ancestors were probably North Sea fishermen. I've long thought my body was fat to keep myself buoyant in North Sea Water so I could survive a dunking and live to produce another generation of floating fisherfolk. 

The idea that anyone might live just so close to water and never be swimming seems tragic to me in a way. I read Elaine Morgan regarding aquatic apes and decided it made sense.

To me, seaside is Mecca. Visiting the ocean is necessary. I love being on and in the water. I am both delighted a century-old lady got a chance to see the ocean, and sad this is probably her first and last time.

Today's Refrigerators Are Too Smart By Half

You know, they put computers in everything these days. Even the iceboxes:

Security researchers at Proofpoint have uncovered the very first wide-scale hack that involved television sets and at least one refrigerator. Yes, a fridge. 

This is being hailed as the first home appliance "botnet" and the first cyberattack from the Internet of Things. 

A botnet is a series of computers that seem to be ordinary computers functioning in people's homes and businesses, but are really secretly controlled by hackers. TheInternet of Things is a new term in the tech industry that refers to a concept where every device in your house gets its own computer chip, software, and connection to the Internet: your fridge, thermostat, smart water meter, door locks, etc. To a hacker, they all become computers that can be hacked and controlled.

Fine. I'll get the new MacAfee for Fridges.  What I'm holding out for, though, is a fridge that senses when there is nothing inside it and calls out for takeaway.

All Wormholes Are Probably Connected

Okay, this is probably me watching waaaaayyyy too much genre tv, but when I read this story this week, all I could think was, well no duh, they're a network of stargates.

The Teeth of the Crocodile

So, I've been hearing about this krokodil drug that has now apparently hit the US--it rots people's flesh from the inside-out. This, right here, is how I know that I have no understanding of the addicted mindset. Because rotting from the inside out (or even the outside-in!) just seems like something that should be a sufficient deterrent to use. ("Hi, my name is Ivan and I'm going to be your pusher today. Can I interest you in some Krokodil? It has a high a lot like heroin but it's dirt cheap. Oh, and it could give you gangrenous abcesses that expose tendon and bone." "Um, gee, Ivan, I think I'm going to have to spend some more time with the menu. Do have anything good in meth?") I myself, I could never use something that gives you basically leprosy.

But that's just me. I remember those old anti-drug commercials where they used eggs as a demonstration:


That was dumb. You don't eat raw eggs, but fried eggs are delicious. It would make way more sense to say "This is a crackhead. This is a crackhead, on crack." And just show people how it really is. But today, we have "faces of meth" websites and people still use meth. And really, who do people get these drugs from? It's not like people never see people who been physically chewed up by the substances they use; it's like they just refuse to accept it personally. It can't happen to them, or, they feel like chasing the high is somehow worth the risk. But this particular drug? A flesh-eating drug? That's not a bad complexion day. That this is catching on is something of a horror to me, even beyond the Cannibal Bath Salt craze.

You might note I've opted to post a picture of actual crocodile teeth. You can look up pictures related to krokodil, the drug, if you like. I did. I'm kind of sorry about looking at them, though.

It Came From Beneath The Sea

So, it would probably not surprise my readers too much if I mentioned that I was pretty well influenced by H.P. Lovecraft regarding my estimation of what the creepiness threshhold might be.(HINT: the creepy is everywhere.) As a result, I'm sensitive to the idea the nature itself could be overturned and chaos could take over our expected pardigm of a happy, life-giving planet. I also would not be surprised if the "horror" came from the sea, just as life is supposed to have done. In fact, given that we use the oceans as our dumping ground, I'd be very surprised if there wasn't some horror from the sea that we should very well expect--and thus,  I find that I, like the folks at Grist, appreciate the plucky resolve of the humble jellyfish in their bid to shut down powerplants.

I don't know what it is about powerplants that has attracted the collective wrath of the mucosal marine menace, but I do know that, thanks to global warming, the jelly fish as a variety of lifeform has exploded in population. And I also know that most of our forms of energy have a baleful impact on the rest of the oceanic biota, especially in the form of acidification, which is outright harmful to corals, fish, the whole oceanic foodchain.

Could it be possible that, at this very simple level of evolution, the jellyfish boasts the complexity to follow orders and the simplicity to be subject to primal influences--perhaps originating from the planet, herself? Or, perhaps, some other, ocean-dwelling being(s) of greater complexity?

In other words, are the Deep Ones sending jellyfish into nuclear reactors to fuck shit up?

And if so, is it smart of us tool-using primates to send robots to do battle with them?



I welcome the eventual oceanic cybershoggothic overlords that will cap the oil wells and deliver retribution upon the overreaching monkeyfolks of the future. (No I don't. It sounds terrible. Let's don't provoke them.)

Google Doodle Celebrates Erwin Schrodinger's 126th birthday

You know, I like it when ya'll Doodle nerdy at me.

Ermahgerd, pretty corn...

 I don't know how I missed this corn porn, which was posted at, like, half-a-dozen sites I occasionally visit--but check out this rainbow "glass gem" corn. I don't want to eat it--I want to wear it. I'm speaking as a person who does not make a habit of wearing produce. But that is really some very pretty corn. (Keeeee-rist! Blogger has enjoyed eating the videos I've tried to embed, lately--sorry it took so long for me to notice this one.)

Meat the Future: From the Printer to the Plate?

  As you can gather from the Strangely Random ouvre, I'm something of a fan of meat. And yet, I'm also something of a fan of the environment, as well as a person concerned about the ethical questions raised by our eating the other species of animal that we share our planet with. I don't subscribe to the concept of the "dumb animal"--from observation, I've come to the conclusion that pigs, cows, chickens, the animals that we have domesticated and enjoy as food, are capable of feeling and thought, even language, of a kind. No, it isn't like our version of feeling or thought, but, still. They aren't people, but they sure aren't things. For that reason, I'm fascinated by the technological answer that might avert the ethical issue--3D printer proteins! Mechanically-generated meat! How in the hell does that work? Well:

Modern Meadows CEO, Andras Forgacs, tooks to Reddit recently to answer questions that people might have about his company’s technology. If you hadn’t heard, Modern Meadows is developing technology to bioprint meat and leather goods. Funded by PayPal cofounder Peter Theil’s Breakout Lab, Modern Meadows has successfully printed a 2 cm x 1 cm x 1 mm artificial muscle. Although the price point for bioprinted meat is still outrageously high, $326,700 for their first sample, Forgas believes his company is creating the future of humanely sourced meat.

So far, very expensively. But if you think about it, it has some serious potential. One could program the ideal marbling. Boost the compostition of Omega 3 fatty acids. Do away with gristle, but maybe still retain the flavor of gelatin. And I'm a little concerned about where the materials that the printer extrudes come from. Until they've worked this all out a bit, I think I'll just work with the grass-fed, free-range, local source meats I get at the Whole Foods.

This is old--But Elephant Painting Flowers and other animal tales.

This sort of thing always makes me pause--we aren't the only sentient beings on the planet--we're just the ones most certain that we're the only sentient beings on the planet, because of our privilege as the foremost users of tools and symbolic language. I don't know how an elephant is taught to draw flowers like that.  But I think that it could display an awareness of the elephant's selfhood as a being communicating its impression of the concept of flowers. And that ability to convey perspective is the shrinking of a gulf between humans and other species.

Two stories this week tweaked my attention on this subject:

Hens feel empathy for their chicks:

 If you’ve been looking for a reason to take up vegetarianism, here you go: A new study finds that chickens can feel empathy. Researchers in the UK ruffled the feathers of chicks by exposing them to puffs of air. The result: signs of distress in the chicks … that were also mirrored in their mothers. The hens showed signs of stress including an increased heart rate, a lowered eye temperature, and increased levels of alertness, preening, and clucking at their chicks, the Telegraph reports.

And whales may have names:

Subtle variations in sperm-whale calls suggest that individuals announce themselves with discrete personal identifier. To put it another way, they might have names.



The findings are preliminary, based on observations of just three whales, so talk of names is still speculation. But “it’s very suggestive,” said biologist Luke Rendell of Scotland’s University of St. Andrews. “They seem to make that coda in a way that’s individually distinctive.”

Wow. 

Anderson Cooper wears Bunny Suit for Bonobos.

This is a little funny when Cooper, who is such a serious interviewer, puts on the bunny suit to interact with the bonobos, but this piece actually is really fascinating for showing how our fellow primate near-relation does have some cognitive capacity for understanding language. This sort of thing always fascinates me because to my mind, when we think of homo forms of primate as tool-users, the thing that probably sets us the furthest apart from any other variant seems to be language.

It's impossible to know how far back this useful knack was acquired. We only vaguely know from artifacts like cave paintings when we developed an ability to express ourselves symbolically, but our vocal ability must have anteceded that by hundreds of thousands of years. Which makes me wonder if some earlier form of primate, other than homo sapiens, was the first talker.

I know for sure our less-near relation, dogs, definitely develop an impressive voabulary for spoken commands and read situations in context with surprising precision. Also, I have found that dogs and cats in homes where they are regularly spoken to, will not only sort of look like they are listening, but understand more basic things like pointing and being told to sit or go away even if they aren't inclined to do either, as if they can also "read" what is going on.

Sometimes it seems like a dog can understand "walk after dinner"--even in situations when that isn't the habitual, Pavlovian order. Do they have a sense of time? I've known dogs that have hidden treats "for later". It seems like they can strategize. My parents' current dog, Buster, seems to agonize over the decision to eat a treat or hide it under his cushion. Wheels really do seem to be turning.

For pure "squeee!"--the video has an adorable baby bonobo.

A neat Youtube Lesson! I'm teaching you things!

Okay, this is a thing I learned that I wanted to tell all my blogger friends about, so I put it on my Number 2 Blog that no one reads because I am a total ass and no one should like me. (You should love me.)

Are you tired of your embedded Youtube videos being of ginormous size so that they screw up your formatting and look like this:



Of course you hate that shit. It sucks. And it seems like most of your Youtube embeds used to fit just fine. That was because most of those earlier vids were posted with the size set to "width='480'" and "height= '385'".

Recently, more videos have been posted to Youtube with format of "width='640'" and "height='385'". But you can fix that to make your embed more blog friendly--here's what you do:

When you have copy-pasted your embed html, look at the end of the code where the size turns up:

allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385">....

See the "width" and "height" tags? You can fill in your own specs. I have found that width "475" and height "289" work out pretty well with most blog formats. You want to keep them in a consistent ratio so you don't elongate or widen the screen and distort the picture. The end result will be this:



See? Way better fit.

Now, this could even be a 'shop, but still-- BIG FISH!!!

Now, this picture is of a mind-bogglingly big goldfish. Something about the hand-position, particularly the left hand's fingers, if you can see'em, makes me think this is a really, really cool Photoshop. But I've raised Comet fish, which are the Koi's boisterous American cousins as far as goldfish go, and I think the fish in this pic is too still to be alive. If he let that thing go, it floated, because what I know about big old goldfish like comets and koi is--they are all swimming muscle. If you snatch them up in a net to move them to a tank for quarantine or whatever, they writhe and make a hell of a fuss. They do not pose for a picture.

On the other hand, I have experienced the weirdness of goldfish growth. It seems like the more room you give them to grow, the more they do. I know they can be pretty self-sufficient in man-made ponds, so I can easily imagine them thriving in lakes given the opportunity. But part of their coloring is enhanced by the commercial feed they get. So I kind of think if they were let go in a lake or large natural pond, they wouldn't be as pretty as the big ol' boy in this pic is because their color would fade a bit. But maybe having been bred for color, a truly orange/red koi might hang on to the color, too.

Anyway, as a fish-fancier, I thought that was a really neat picture.

Hope for me yet?

Why Do Heavy Drinkers Outlive Nondrinkers?

The sample of those who were studied included individuals between ages 55 and 65 who had had any kind of outpatient care in the previous three years. The 1,824 participants were followed for 20 years. One drawback of the sample: a disproportionate number, 63%, were men. Just over 69% of the never-drinkers died during the 20 years, 60% of the heavy drinkers died and only 41% of moderate drinkers died.

These are remarkable statistics. Even though heavy drinking is associated with higher risk for cirrhosis and several types of cancer (particularly cancers in the mouth and esophagus), heavy drinkers are less likely to die than people who have never drunk. One important reason is that alcohol lubricates so many social interactions, and social interactions are vital for maintaining mental and physical health. As I pointed out last year, nondrinkers show greater signs of depression than those who allow themselves to join the party.

This is entirely weird. I'm not going to suggest this says anything positive about the habits of drinkers, except that I'm not liable to be a daredevil because as a practised toper I know my limits, and know very well it's hard enough to play pool and imbibe, let alone skydive or participate in parkour. But those straight edge folks are always up to something, thanks to the feelings of health and well-being they enjoy in the morning (what's that gag--"I feel sorry for those folks who don't drink 'cause when they get up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel all day long"--probably Dean Martin). This lets them believe that climbing mountains and crossing streets are perfectly normal activities one should take for granted.

A practiced drunk takes nothing for granted. The floor could move. Furniture could decide to plot against you. Your e-mail account could be hi-jacked by the absinthe fairies. Shit happens. Naturally one wants to guard against it by staying in poorly-lit rooms away from loud noises and stupid people whenever possible. One wants to reconnaisance any new environ for potties and exits. And one looks for soft landings. It's educational--drinking is.

And if there is any truth to the idea the religious have of repentence being good for one, the biologically mandated repentance of the hangover at least makes your dedicated boozer more of a homebody than not. You don't decide to take up jogging, which is what did in Jim Fix (pounding the pavement is unhappy for throbbing heads) or fiddle about with steroids, since your liver is already tender. You are disinclined to especially overeat, it taking away from valuable alimentary real-estate that could fit a few beers, and the result of overeating having probably been broadcast against shining porcelain on a few occasions, anyway. One's taste for going a-roving diminishes apace, and although some take to fighting when in their cups, the majority of drinkers find a peace that passeth understanding, shantih, shantih.

And I'm not even sure that this post is entirely smart, or just a tribute to Kingsley Amis, or what, since I have, after all, been drinking. And in the interest of furthering my art and my health, I subscribe to the likelihood that I will at least have another before bed.

New turtle species discovered in US river

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz., Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Scientists have announced the surprise discovery of a new turtle species -- not in some far-off exotic location, but in the southeastern United States.

Northern Arizona University researchers say finding the new turtle in a familiar environment proves that even in a country considered well explored, more new species could still be awaiting discovery, a university release said Wednesday.

Discovered in the Pearl River that flows through Louisiana and Mississippi on its way to the Gulf of Mexico, the newly named Pearl Map Turtle had until now been mistaken for one native to the neighboring Pascagoula River, scientists said.

UPI.com

Nice and small and green. Squee-worthy.

SQUUEEEEEE!

Wee froggies!

Okay, I think these are adorable. Also, it's always fascinating to me that we are still discovering new species. Now, these little guys were seen before--

I saw some specimens in museum collections that are over 100 years old. Scientists presumably thought they were juveniles of other species, but it turns out they are adults of this newly-discovered micro species.

Neat!

If we wiped about mosquitoes, they'd never be missed.

I have no love for mosquitoes, but they love the crap out of me. Well, to be more precise, they love the blood out of me. When I go out in my backyard lately, I get ambushed. Right now, my legs are a hive-y mess that remind me vaguely of when I had chicken pox when I was six. I'm torn between a desire to not scratch, because it only triggers a new wave of horrible, skin-crawling itch, and to basically claw my skin open until I look like raw meat.

Even pain is preferable to a maddening itch.

Now, when I was a little kid, mosquitoes left me the hell alone. I saw them literally hover by me, and take off like I was nothing. Not even chopped liver. What changed? Eh--I got fat and I drink. No, seriously. The way I see it, I'm a big target, exuding lots of CO2, and my skin is probably tasty with cholesterol and uric acid from a pretty burger and beer diet.

So, I know why they like me according to the science, but, here's a good question--why does the world have mosquitoes? I mean, what niche do the serve in the world's ecosystem? I know fish think mosquito larvae are pretty tasty, but really--

Couldn't we do without the little blood-sucking bastards?

It turns out, maybe we can.

There are 3,500 named species of mosquito, of which only a couple of hundred bite or bother humans. They live on almost every continent and habitat, and serve important functions in numerous ecosystems. "Mosquitoes have been on Earth for more than 100 million years," says Murphy, "and they have co-evolved with so many species along the way." Wiping out a species of mosquito could leave a predator without prey, or a plant without a pollinator. And exploring a world without mosquitoes is more than an exercise in imagination: intense efforts are under way to develop methods that might rid the world of the most pernicious, disease-carrying species (see 'War against the winged').

Yet in many cases, scientists acknowledge that the ecological scar left by a missing mosquito would heal quickly as the niche was filled by other organisms. Life would continue as before — or even better. When it comes to the major disease vectors, "it's difficult to see what the downside would be to removal, except for collateral damage", says insect ecologist Steven Juliano, of Illinois State University in Normal. A world without mosquitoes would be "more secure for us", says medical entomologist Carlos Brisola Marcondes from the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil. "The elimination of Anopheles would be very significant for mankind."

I know, just because we don't see any unintended consequences doesn't mean there wouldn't be any. But on the other hand, after watching these spindly-legged rat finks pierce my epidermis despite DEET, OFF! Patchouli oil, citronella, and a host of other things, stinky and pleasant, trying to ward them off, I really could contemplate biological warfare.

Damn. I'd probably have malaria right now if it wasn't for the vodka tonics.....

Growing new teeth with stem-cells.

This is pretty neat:

The technique, developed by Dr. Jeffrey Mao, involves placing a tooth “scaffolding” made of natural materials in the patient’s mouth and directing stem cells to develop into a new, healthy tooth. By growing a real tooth right in the patient’s mouth, the patient’s healing time is greatly reduced when compared to that required after dental implants, and the chance of rejection by the patient’s body is almost eliminated.

Okay, I know this is altogether too practical--but regrowing teeth? No bridges, crowns, etc? I know this is not the actual point of doing it--but I think people would also like to (as a matter of principle, you see) be able to point to their jibs when at an advanced age and say, "And I've still got all my own teeth!"

And they would be all one's own, and not just paid for.