Interesting things thread

Subject: Interesting things thread
Author: Tomash
Posted on: 2018-09-12 08:11:00 UTC

To try and get some discussion going, I figured I'd start a thread for folks to post something(s) they've run into recently they thought was interesting because other folks might find them neat too.

In my case, I've been at a local conference for the last day or so. One of the more sharable interesting talks was about Helena, which is a system that will automatically generate a web scraping program from a user clicking around in a browser to demonstrate how to get one of the things they're trying to scrape. I was surprised this was a feasible thing, and I'm tempted to see how well it would scrape the Board

I also ran into a Wikipedia page on dry water, which has a cool name and also appears to be a good way to store certain explosives and maybe CO2.

- Tomash

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Interesting things thread by Tomash on 2018-09-12 08:11:00 UTC

Leftover Soup! by Thoth on 2018-09-23 23:01:00 UTC Reply

Tailsteak, creator of 1/0, has made another webcomic! It's called Leftover Soup, and you should totally read it.

WARNING: Leftover Soup contains some adult content, frank discussions of sex, and an awful lot of extreme philosophical and political positions (Tailsteak loves to have his characters get into interesting arguments).

More Stuff! Namely, Ahriman by Thoth on 2018-09-24 22:36:00 UTC Reply

The Ahriman Trilogy is what I've been reading of late. I am halfway-ish to the end of the final book, and... jeez.

Okay, for 40k fans, it is, IMHO, better than A Thousand Sons. That should be enough.

...For the rest of you, do you like morally ambiguous characters? Villain protagonists who are sympathetic enough that you can't decide if they're anti-heroes? Homestuck-esque temporal shenanigans? Grim darkness in the far future? Pretty good writing? If so, it's definitely worth reading.

I'll second this! by Neshomeh on 2018-09-24 23:22:00 UTC Reply

Also, there are lots of other characters who are morally ambiguous but very sympathetic and might make you cry, because this is 40k and we cannot have nice things, only varying degrees of tragedy.

There's this one guy, Ignis, who's written as kind of a psychopath savant. He does not understand other people's feelings, nor does he appear to share many of them himself, but he tries. He is extremely good with numbers, though. He groks the arcane geometry and arithmetic of the universe and uses it to pull off crazy schemes with precision down to the fine decimal points. Also, he has a robot bodyguard who only speaks binaric, so we never understand what he says, but he appears to have more emotions than Ignis. I love them both, and their interactions with the other characters.

~Neshomeh

Ooh, Ignis! by Thoth on 2018-09-25 00:14:00 UTC Reply

Yeah, he's great. So's... Oh man. Too many great castmembers to choose from.

I can, however, point to the two quotes that, more than anything else, define the books. "We are falling, and light is but a memory," and, "if the path to salvation lies through the halls of purgatory than so be it!"

That should give you an idea of what you're getting into.

Human sexuality is always fascinating. by Neshomeh on 2018-09-21 05:12:00 UTC Reply

I just finished reading a book called Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá that takes a fresh, challenging look at what they call the "standard narrative" of human sexual evolution. It pretty thoroughly demolishes the idea that humans are and always have been all monogamy, all the time, and does it in a fun, snarky tone that I think PPCers will appreciate. For all the hilarious wordplay, though, it appears to be extensively researched, and for me it has addressed questions and doubts that have bugged me for quite some time. Turns out I'm not crazy, it's just that modern Western society makes no sense! Yay?

~Neshomeh

Just one question: is it claiming that monogamy is bad? (nm) by 61516 on 2018-09-22 01:42:00 UTC Reply

Nope. by Neshomeh on 2018-09-22 02:16:00 UTC Reply

Some people seem to manage it, and that certainly makes things easier in our society. As with any consensual act between adults, if it works for you, that's cool.

But for many, it doesn't, and there is compelling evidence that it's because we've spent most of our existence as a species in egalitarian forager bands in which hoarding anything to yourself (such as food or an individual's attention) or infringing on another person's autonomy would be detrimental to the group and thus the height of antisocial behavior. Everything changed with the advent of agriculture (which seems to have been a terrible thing for our physical and psychological health). But the point isn't that one way or another is good or bad, just that it's fallacious to claim that only one is natural and right when there is copious evidence to the contrary. {= )

I'd go on, but I'm posting from my phone, so more details I found interesting will have to wait.

~Neshomeh

The comment about egalitarian forager bands... by 61516 on 2018-09-22 02:40:00 UTC Reply

... seems dangerously close to Rousseau's 'noble savage.'

Also nope. by Neshomeh on 2018-09-22 16:28:00 UTC Reply

They discuss Rosseau, and are very diligent about explaining that they aren't claiming anything of the sort. Egalitarian here means that sharing is mandatory and nobody is allowed a big head, on pain of punishment and exile from the group. Again, it isn't about one way being better or more right or good than any other. Just the opposite: one way is NOT more right or good or better, and certainly not more natural. Nature, including human nature, is freaky.

~Neshomeh

Ok, I have one more thought. by 61516 on 2018-09-23 00:59:00 UTC Reply

Whenever I hear about communal property in hunter-gatherer societies, I think about, say, skinning a deer, then getting up partway through to pee, leaving the one good flint knife behind, and then coming back to see that the clan jerk's walked off with it.

You say that like it's a problem. by Neshomeh on 2018-09-23 16:03:00 UTC Reply

I question the assumptions inherent in this thought. First, you assume a concept of property. Suppose instead that there is no more concept of possessing a knife than there would be of possessing a cloud.

Second, you assume there's only one good version of a highly useful if not vital tool that isn't so difficult to make more of. But even supposing that were the case, the knife does not belong to you. If you leave a shared thing lying around and walk away from it, that's a pretty clear signal that you are done using it. Why shouldn't someone else pick it up, especially if there's still an important job to do that you left unfinished? Acting as though you're the only one allowed to use the very important tool would make YOU the jerk, not the other person.

~Neshomeh

Maybe I am the jerk in this scenario... by 61516 on 2018-09-23 16:45:00 UTC Reply

... but that still supports my point. This system seems like it would lead to a lot of arguments about who needs what more, who last had certain things, and what people are allowed to do with what.

In short, I'm very cynical.

True, no group gets along perfectly all the time. by Neshomeh on 2018-09-23 17:21:00 UTC Reply

But in a small group where everyone knows everyone else (about 150 being the maximum number of relationships the average individual can keep track of), and can follow what's necessary from day to day, I don't think it would be as difficult as you imagine.

Plus, if there is tension, the idea here is that individuals might literally kiss and make up like bonobos do instead of harboring resentment, getting violent, and causing further stress and disruption. Ensuring that everyone's needs are met so that everyone can function is how the entire group benefits most. If you can't get along, and cause more discord than harmony, you run the risk of being expelled. That's a powerful incentive for every individual to make sure they're not always the jerk, and for the group to punish anyone who steps out of line before it gets that bad. And then make up with them with lots of cuddles. Harmony = good group function = survival. {= )

That's not so different to how we manage ourselves here and now on the Board, if you think about it. Sometimes we argue, rarely we encounter someone so disruptive they just have to go, and always we renew bonds with each other by playing games, writing together, and basically being attentive to each other. The more attentive and engaged you are with other people, the more respect and status you accumulate. That, I would suggest, is why interaction is such an important criterion for Permission.

~Neshomeh

The takeaway message here... by Huinesoron on 2018-09-24 09:40:00 UTC Reply

... is that humans in Luxury's native Shipverse are clearly descended from bonobos.*

(*All right, 'the common ancestor of humans and bonobos split off from the chimpanzee lineage', nitpicker.)

Which provokes a large number of interesting thoughts that the Department of Analytical Science will have to look into, but most pertinently the fact that Lux looks just like everyone else suggests that something drives 'humans' in every multiverse to look the same. Given that Suvians are a separate species, I'm going to guess it's them: they manipulate humans to look like them, so they can have something hot(t) to molest.

(Also, some years back I came across the delightful term 'monkeysphere' to describe that 150 relationships figure, and I thought you'd like to have it. ^_^)

hS

I'm trying to crack Andalites, actually. by Neshomeh on 2018-09-24 22:02:00 UTC Reply

Because, y'know, I write one, and he's sort of maybe in the process of discovering his sexuality. Also there was that whole thing with him in the Badfic Game. And it's an interesting thought experiment!

Beware: I'm thinking way too hard about sexuality in an alien species from a YA series. Continue at your own risk.

So. Andalites. Sex. How do they? Assuming mammalian reproductive anatomy, because it's easier and there's no canon information to the contrary (why would there be?), we do know certain things that provide clues, such as the fact that they used to live in herds, but after finding out crowding together in big cities was a bad idea, they tore those down and went (back?) to living in family scoops, with just one nuclear family unit per scoop, IIRC. They appear to be monogamous, which fits with the pattern of living in nuclear family units rather than in large social groups. We know they're rigidly hierarchical, though that could be more cultural than biological. We know there is some fairly significant male-female sexual dimorphism, with the males being larger and stronger, and sporting impressive weaponry that can only be for defense or for male competition, since they're grazers. The latter is my bet; it fits with everything else, and I don't recall what they had in the way of natural predators, though I'm pretty sure there was something.

I can guess that, as a former prey species, copulation would likely be brief and to the point. With competition between males determining exclusive access to a particular female, there would be no need for a ton of sperm to compete with other males' sperm, therefore no need for large gonads (they could very well be internal; no one ever comments one way or the other, AFAIK) or a fancy penis, or for more copulation than is necessary to conceive. Andalites are not as social and don't congregate like we apes do, so no socio-sexual behavior.

We know they can and do work together in groups, though, for military purposes and probably others. They have friends. They can empathize with others, even others not of their own species. Maybe this is easier for juveniles than adults, an echo of something like a bachelor herd with a bunch of young bucks running around together until they break off to mate? At adulthood, their rigid social structure likely functions to keep things running smoothly between individuals who would otherwise prefer to have their own space. They're given a psychological territory to occupy rather than a physical one.

We never meet very many female Andalites, do we? Hard to say much about their fertility, whether or not they have a heat cycle, or anything like that. I think it would fit that they would have one, though, and would only be receptive to sex while fertile. If you're strictly monogamous and only mate to reproduce, that's all you need. Andalites ritualize everything, too, and I think that would fit in well with sex being for babies, not for fun. (That doesn't rule out other expressions of affection between cycles, though; palm-kissing and whatnot.)

Anybody want to wander down this crazy fan-theory rabbit hole with me? Who remembers things that I don't to expand or poke holes in my ideas? {= D

~Neshomeh

The Ellimist Chronicles confirms some of your thought by doctorlit on 2018-09-25 13:26:00 UTC Reply

s. At least, by my reading.

After the Ellimist has turned himself into an Andalite and married a female:

Tree came to me and made the hand-words for "child."

Which I read as Tree wanting to have a baby, so she just kind of . . . walks up and asks for one? Sort of feels like it supports your heat cycle idea, too, though it's not confirmation.

We do get confirmation of Andalites being prey animals. Later that same scene:

"Then why have another child? If not the disease, then the monsters, or a famine. Why have another child?"

"Disease take one," Tree admitted. Then, with growing defiance, "Monster take one. Famine take one. More children, some live."

I also found a description for one of those unnamed predators:

It walked on six legs, each as thick as a tree trunk, a knuckling walk. It had a low-slung head that swung from side as it walked. The beast was armored with clunky, leatherish plates all down its back.

[ . . . ]

Then the beast began to move and I reciprocated their emotion. I would never have believed something so big could move so fast.

[ . . . ]

The first of my "brothers" reached the monster. The beast killed two effortlessly. It paused to eat, to rip the two martyrs apart and swallow them, all but ignoring the brave stabs of their fellows.

Sorry, but I keep finding more relevant quotes here. When the Ellimist first reaches the surface of the Andalite world, and the locals fail to recognize him:

Their reaction to me was instantaneous. They charged me at top speed, surrounded me, and twisted around awkwardly to aim their pointed tail blades at me.

No indication is given of the sexes of those specific Andalites, but at least it shows they were willing to use their blades on other Andalites. I'd say fighting over territory is at least in the cards, if not fighting for mating rights.

—doctorlit has hopefully been a little helpful

"Married" is interesting. by Neshomeh on 2018-09-25 15:32:00 UTC Reply

I went looking through Seerowpedia a bit last night, and it seems Aldrea "married" Dak Hamee, too. Sex at Dawn has a whole discussion about anthropologists confusingly using the word "marriage" to describe a whole host of arrangements that may or may not actually resemble the Western concept of "til death do us part" and all that, so I wonder about this. I mean, we're talking about a bunch of aliens. What if it doesn't mean what we think it does?

I actually do think it probably means exactly what we think it does, though, both due to how relationships are presented in-universe and the fact that it's probably just how the authors see the world and it might not occur to them to introduce that much complication to matters that don't much pertain to the overall plot of a YA series. Also, I recalled that the Ellimist meddled with Andalite evolution, and might well have modeled them after himself.

I was thinking, any herd animal I can think of tends to be a polygynous harem, with a top male holding a territory and several females. Either that or the females and juveniles hang together and males roam around by themselves or in small groups. Dolphins are like that, and being somewhat social, cooperative, highly intelligent but pre-linguistic (as far as we can determine), they might be a decent model for early Andalites. Dolphins are FAR from monogamous, though, and highly sexual. (One criticism I have of the book is that the authors don't seem to know this, so miss out on describing another mammal apart from the great apes that behaves this way.)

So, my money's on the Ellimist tinkering with their social evolution and nudging them down the path of strict monogamy, which seems to be how the Ketrans did things. At one point the Ellimist married (there's that word again) one of the other survivors from his world, right?

Ooh, interesting point from my wiki-walk, though: There is a confirmed gay Andalite couple, Gafinilan and Mertil from book 40, "The Other." It's Word of God (or co-god?), not in the text, but still, that puts an interesting twist on things. I haven't read that book, and I don't know if they were meant to be a couple before getting stuck on Earth together, but I wonder if Mertil losing his tail-blade—in essence being emasculated, being in the position of a female who can't defend herself as well with her small blade—has anything to do with it.

I quail somewhat to think of how Andalite society, as terribly rigid as it is, might treat homosexual individuals. Either there's a place demarcated for them in the structure of things, or as with the vecols, it's just bad news. {= (

~Neshomeh

Went through the opening of Ellimist last night. by doctorlit on 2018-09-29 13:32:00 UTC Reply

No time to sit down and read it, but I didn't see any mention of him "marrying" Aguella. There is one sequence where they're flying together, and Aguella starts shedding "mones" (pheromones, I assume) to attract him, but there's no sign of a formal ceremony or anything.

"Marriage" is used directly with the Andalite woman later, though. Literally the whole paragraph is, "I married." Since the entire Chronicles is framed as the Ellimist telling a human character his life story, it's possible he's using an English term there for ease of understanding. Or that he picked up the term itself, or a translation of it, from one of the many cultures he encountered over the millennia, but didn't use it during the Ket portion of the story because it hadn't been a meaningful term to him during that point in his life.

I didn't specifically remember the plot of The Other offhand, but for some reason when you named it, some part of my brain went, "Is that the one with the bees?" And sure enough, when I pulled #40 off the shelf, there's Marco turning into a bee. Funny what our brain decides to catalog for decades, isn't it?

Anyway, glancing through that book, it looks like Gafinilan and Mertil had attended the, um. Andalite training academy? Together. And when Ax, being prejudiced, asks why Gafinilan is willing to trade a healthy Andalite for a "cripple," Gafinilan replies:

For me . . . it is not about traitorous action to my world. For me, it is personal. It is about friendship.

If that word-of-god homosexuality was intended from the time of writing, rather than just an after-the-fact decision, then the above "friendship" may have been code for getting the true extent of the relationship across in a YA series in the 90s without calling down the ire of the homophobes.

—doctorlit apologizes for tardy reply, it's been a tiring week

I mean, not to be crude, but... by Scapegrace on 2018-09-25 11:40:00 UTC Reply

Is "poke holes" really the phrasing you wanna use here?

Scape! by Neshomeh on 2018-09-25 15:06:00 UTC Reply

Since you're here—not to nag, but did you get my e-mail a couple weeks ago? I sent it to h heath one nine nine two, at the hot address. Was that the right one?

And... yes, I rather think it is. {= 3

~Neshomeh

Just replying to that now. =] (nm) by Scapegrace on 2018-09-26 08:47:00 UTC Reply

...*Jaw drops.* by Thoth on 2018-09-24 22:32:00 UTC Reply

Uuhh... no, I don't know enough to have any criticisms... Just... kinda in awe of your total overanalysis here?

Not SURPRISED, mind, because it's you, but in awe.

I wonder what this would mean for me. by 61516 on 2018-09-23 18:25:00 UTC Reply

Given that I'm attracted to strife like a neodymium magnet to a CD full of credit card data, I might have had to pull an Ötzi the iceman, and wander off into the mountains alone to hunt bears.

Explanation of Ötzi:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi

But since when has Modern Western Society ever made sense? by S.M.F. on 2018-09-21 18:19:00 UTC Reply

;)

(Anyway, how would you recommend picking up this book?)
Any particularly cool points in it you liked? by Larfen J. Stocke, esq. on 2018-09-21 07:27:00 UTC Reply

Highlights or such, ay?

It does sound an interesting book, though. That kinda stuff is always super interesting.

It's hard to know where to begin! by Neshomeh on 2018-09-23 16:34:00 UTC Reply

Learning a little about modern-day forager societies and other cultures with different sexual mores is pretty cool. Seems as though, when female sexuality is not restricted or controlled by the males and everyone's autonomy is respected, everyone is happier. Go figure.

Possible reasons for things like women generally making more noise than men.

Female orgasm chemically favoring the sperm of the male who managed it.

Why the penis is shaped the way it is. (But not why people keep insisting it's unappealing, which I don't get.)

The thorough dismantling of the assumptions made about ancient people by depressed men living in crowded, disease-ridden post-industrial European cities with more imagination than data to work with. We're all influenced by cultural bias, but at least we have more hard evidence now. As long as we don't keep throwing out the bits that don't conform to the current political narrative, whatever it happens to be.

Particularly, if we are inclined by nature to violence, which the authors doubt very much, we're at least equally inclined by nature to peaceful cooperation. Pushing one narrative over the other is extremely dubious. Who benefits? Who suffers?

Much respect for Darwin, who got some things wrong but tried hard to increase everyone's knowledge had the grace to admit he didn't know everything.

Not very much discussion of homosexuality, but only because if sex is not strictly about reproduction, but rather functions as a social lubricant, if you will, then it makes perfect sense and needs no further explanation. QED.

Much more that isn't rising immediately to mind!

~Neshomeh

Well... by OpinionedAngel on 2018-09-15 16:10:00 UTC Reply

If you folks superheroes, I found this site fairly recently - http://textsfromsuperheroes.com

It's basically text messages between comic book characters (and others) and is absolutely hilarious. Give it a look, you might be surprised.
Los Vigilantes Oscuros! by Larfen J. Stocke, esq. on 2018-09-12 10:51:00 UTC Reply

Or the Dark Watchers, who are a relatively obscure group of cryptids/folklore, contained within California - specifically the Santa Lucia Mountains.
They're pretty spooky.

Huge, featureless shadow figures, sometimes adorned with wide-brimmed hats and walking sticks and cloaks, seen motionlessly watching travellers and hikers through the mountain from higher peaks and so on. At least one of them has been the shadow of a horse standing, which is real bloody creepy, in a weird fairy tale kinda way. So you'll have hikers look up at a higher up ridge, in the daytime, and see an 11 foot or so shadow-man, silently watching them. In a few cases, people have felt the sensation of being intently stared at. When they take their eyes off them, then, they vanish!

There's one case where someone and their friends were out, stargazing, in their car, and the Watchers supposedly surrounded the car and were staring in at them. They drove right out of there, of course, driving right through the fellas.

They never seem to really do much but stare creepily - they don't even create that kind of, sense of uncanny, unnecessary fear that a few of these kinds of cryptids tend to cause (like shadow people, or the Ben Macdhui Grey Man.) There's been theories that these are all cases of Brocken spectres, in which a person's shadow is reflected off the mist on a mountain - this theory has been posited for the Macdhui Grey Man, too. Infrasound has also been suggested, but that's a pretty bad theory, if I'll be honest, considering that it's only a very small per centage of people affected by infrasound, and it's never enough to cause full hallucinations or so on.

Also notably is that, while it is claimed that the local Chumash people have folktales regarding these fellas, er, they don't, really. It's clear that there is folklore of them in the area, as references to them appear in literature from the place - famously 'Flight' by John Steinbeck and a poem from Robinson Jeffers. Some of these older sorts of folkloric references describe them less as giant shadowguys and more like fairy-like little people. P'raps the folklore stems back from immigrants who brought in fairy stories that got evolved and such, ay?

Anyways they're cool and spooky and are probably nothing. But they're cool and spooky! I'd like to see Hellboy get beaten up by one or so forth.

Also, mate, the other name for dry water - 'empty water' is even cooler.