Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

@chandra No, I get you. We've got one of the worst cases of early adopter syndrome imaginable, and maybe the crows, raccoons, et al will get to evolve by rummaging around in our ruins, and thus do a far better job than us. :p

@chandra Yeah, but the fun part is getting THEM to effectively admit that's the case when there are zero takers...

um

what

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190411-the-violent-attack-that-turned-a-man-into-a-maths-genius

Yeah. Summary: a traumatic assault turned a mathophobe into an obsessive savant who sees everyday patterns as rich and beautiful. I wouldn't wish his other symptoms on anyone, but... this is our final frontier and source of my greatest hopes.

Human brains are pretty broken and dysfunctional... in their crappy factory-default settings. But their untapped potential is fucking amazing. THIS, not some egomaniac dipshit libertarian dream of immortality, is why I became a transhumanist.

If we can do this, not only can we drastically increase raw human potential, we might figure out how to fix the GAPING COGNITIVE FLAWS that makes us so vulnerable to authoritarian manipulation and memetic attacks.

Heh, or they could engineer a race of perfectly obedient computing devices out of it. Probably that one. *shrugs and laughcries* But if SOMEHOW we can win this round of the Red Queen's Race, and beat them to this technology...

I mean, hey, what the hell, damn near everything ELSE Bruce Sterling and William Gibson predicted ended up coming true. Maybe we'll get something good for a change...

"The secret is to bang the rocks together, guys!"

panel 4 is the name of my sex tape :(

Question for the Neptunian diaspora:

Your oceans are full of these adorable little buggers, aren't they.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=130&v=e0jQfiT7Acs

I love this idea: fund no-deal Brexit with bonds pegged to the success of the post-Brexit economy. You support Brexit? You think everyone who doesn't is deluded? Put your money where your mouth is. It's the free market, after all. You'll make a killing, surely, off the scurrilous Stayers.

I want to see this in the USA, too. Let's sell Trump "futures." We can pay them back in 2024 with all that, um, winning or something.

How can it be that I find Rob Beschizza so deeply annoying and thick-headed as a BoingBoing poster, but like his stories so much?

Oh, right. Because he's Cory Mk II. Of course I feel the same way about him, just not as vehemently.

https://boingboing.net/2011/10/11/mixtape-of-the-lost-decade.html

Heh. Maybe someday someone from the LJ/Twitter days—or one of you—will read Parallax and say the same thing about me. I should even be so lucky.

@001zlnv Admittedly, it makes no sense that something as awful as zucchini could disappear so completely when you put it into a snack bread, but...

Ain't it just our fuckin' luck that there's ONE genuine miracle in this crapsack universe, and that's the one we get. :p

@zx3 Nah, sadly best I can do in this crappy cosmos with this crappy Terran body I possessed is a bit of a cruel Byronesque smirk. And that's on a good day.

My fangs, my fangs, my queendom for my fangs!

@silicondawn @anthracite "Naive Melody" by the Talking Heads?

Um... yeah, probably, come to think of it. I mean, love did drive me to move to a BIG DEADLY SWAMP with a SMALL DEADLY DRAGON. <3

@zx3 I used to get that shit all the time in high school. And I was too tongue-tied and too embarrassed—and too low on the social totem pole compared to all the well-meaning varsity types who'd say it to me—to explain that face just means I'm not sad, I'm TRYING TO FUCKING THINK ABOUT SOMETHING.

It always feels like it's more about their feelings than ours, yanno? Sorry to not give you a fuckin' Hallmark poster to look at, normie scum. ;D

Argh, I'm watching the single highest-maintenance customer I've ever seen. She's asked a question about EVERY SINGLE ITEM in the bakery case, asked TWICE for things they just told her they don't have, and allowed a SIX-PERSON line to accumulate behind her in a cafe that's normally got no line at all.

And she's a sweet old lady who's been perfectly patient and kind through the whole thing—I think the poor dear's wits have just wilted a bit—so there is absolutely not a damn thing any of us can do about it. She is beyond all mortal power, and I almost envy and admire her for it.

Also, why does nobody believe people when they say that zucchini bread tastes nothing at all like zucchini? I swear to god, if you make it right, it's absolutely true.

for those of you keeping score at home:

tiger 22
fish 0

another glorious victory for mars

@001zlnv i hate these logic puzzles 🐯​

Torn at the moment between:

1) ecstatic there are a dragon, one and a half cannoli (that is NOT a euphemism), and a delivery order of sushi waiting for me here back at home

2) fucking exhausted and stressed out about a FOURTH week of having to play catch-up at work due to a major life disruption

3) faintly horny, which surprises the hell out of me since my libido's been shot lately and I still have a huge headache from the flight pressure

4) just plain PISSED about the shitty luck so many of my friends and family are having, and the lack of real safety nets for them

So in summary, imagine a weary Tigress Of Babylon riding through town on a giant pretty dragoness in an ornate bondage harness, with a pastry in one glove and a laser pistol in the other, mowing down landlords, autocrats, and quite possibly my own sister-in-law.

Truly the end times are upon us, and lo, they are stripey. 🐯​

@JulieSqveakaroo Oh FUCK I'm so sorry, that's the last damn thing you needed. *hughughug*

#moodsnapshot #oldmeme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsveiPJcxlE

(Back in NOLA and so fucking glad.)

@kelseyhusky yeah, sympathies there. *hug*

@001zlnv @Phorm Exactly. I'm just fine, at this point, with being the one other people climb over to get outta the pit. It's a damn sight better than giving up so *nobody* gets out.

And you get the satisfaction of knowing that the first kid who makes it back to the surface will probably start by finding a big sharp stick, finding the bastard who threw us in, and impaling 'em with it—ideally, with an ode to us on their lips.

@Phorm This is how I've dealt with it, but I'm not sure how reproducible it is:

1) see dead father on a hospital slab at age 11

2) go through a seven-year religious phase that ends with realizing there's nobody behind the wheel at all

3) read Camus at 16; think far, far, far too much about it

4) develop an all-pervading anxiety disorder that's got you convinced at age N that you're surely be dead by N+5

5) treat every single day of your life like an unexpected bonus round, with zero grand long-term plans and zero expectations

6) read a lot about and learn to admire raccoons, who somehow manage to scrabble obsessively at their desires despite the likelihood that they'll spend most of their lives with parasites and die in a trash compactor somewhere

7) pile up so many instances of having your heart broken and your pleasures suddenly yanked tantalus-like away from you that you finally convince yourself another one will come along someday, but not to get too attached to it, because it'll perish just like the rest and that's actually kind of fine

8) get a good creative partner and focus on at least leaving some damn thing behind

Kids, don't try this at home. I am a professional nihilist.