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Monthly Archives: April 2009

Cnidaria

This threatens to supplant metal detectors as the worst hobby in the world.
Evidently thousands of hobbyists worldwide have launched weather balloons designed to be neutrally buoyant in the jet stream, and are inhabiting them for hours each day (some full-time) via telepresence. By convention one balloonist only communicates with another if their balloon is [...]

Conjunction

The President this morning announced a temporary ban on conjunctive surgery, saying that elective conjunction jeopardizes the very notion of “individual,” as in “individual liberties” or “individual rights.” Completes, partials and their supporters are expected to demonstrate later today.
Image CC-BY-NC-ND by techne
Inspected by 9973 and verified false at time of posting.

Burned

Without any fanfare that I can find, Hallmark Gold Crown Stores have added a service that scans your retina with a gigapixel scanner, then prints out a hundred postcard-sized photos from earlier in your life, as though the images were actually burned onto your retina and just waiting for magnification to reveal them. Surely [...]

Pervert

Kai sent this in from City Pages:

Natural woman seeks man with both his own original hands. No transplants, no upgrades, no plugins, no prosthetics. If you’re out there, give me a sign.

Image CC-BY-NC-SA by assbach
Inspected by 9973 and verified false at time of posting.

Precrime

More news from the world of cortical implants:
The Arkansas Department of Correction has contracted with iLess in Mountain View to equip violent offenders with remote-readable cortical implants. The theory is that corrections officers will be able to monitor parolees’ visual imaginations and intervene ahead of any crimes. But seriously: Have you ever watched [...]

Recombinant Muay Thai

You probably have to be Thai to really understand this one.
I’m told (via Nong) that a big chunk of Muay Thai fans have gone over to a new version of the sport. Fighters all have crude but effective cortical implants (no place like Thailand for implants, after all). Each fight (in the absence [...]

Lucy plays with her head

Lucy smiled at the photographer, ready to show her trick one more time. There was a slight pop as her head came off–

Fragment

until we had six individuals, all of whom were pathological liars as well as highly suggestible. At the end of their discussion all six had childhood memories in common with each other and with no one else. We then sent them on solo tours of each other’s memories
Image CC-BY-NC-SA by otherthings

Animal Sentience Passed Over for the NEXT BIG THING–

The milk leapt
and opened
for the peanut
juice (essence)
and snorted
in–deep.

It worked (for).

Mood Mob

Social scientists have expressed concern that teenagers’ widespread use of reciprocally-aware RFID-transceiving mood rings may lead to mass social-sorting by mood: Happy teens will only encounter other happy teens, angry teens will only encounter other angry teens, and so on. Parents counter that this does not represent a change versus the historical pattern of [...]