gestalting or pinky and the brain

Via the always engaging The Browser comes a fascinating investigation into the ethics of genetic experimentation and hybridisation. Such husbandry is just about marrying up the right DNA—which does present technical hurdles though brute technology is quick to obtain and accommodate pathways that are penitentially advantageous to humans as organ farms, a repository of spare-parts, but from some fronts bodes caution, lest these chimera achieve an animal-singularity.
Personally, I couldn’t say that there was some enduring uniqueness to modes of human consciousness that make us special or so horrifyingly privileged. Some ethically-minded individuals are expressing concern that a human mind trapped in a laboratory rat’s body (reading gestating as gestalting) would elicit outrage. I’d dare to submit that an unadulterated rat probably is thinking along those very lines without some imagined vital spark. What do you think? Perhaps humans ought to be spliced with some humanity.

offworld or freemasonry

The always fascinating BLDGBlog reports that a group of researchers have discovered how to create construction materials for future colonists on Mars using native building blocks in an environment apparently devoid of water. Heating sulphur to the point of liquefaction, it is mixed with soil to produce Martian concrete. The resulting bricks are relatively easy, light but sturdy, to use and are infinitely recyclable—in addition to being far less of a logistics investment in bringing supplies from home. Earthling settlers, given the weaker gravity of the planet, might be free to create impossibly ambitious cathedrals to exploration and discovery.

6x6

octarine: there’s a robust movement to name Element 117 after fantasy author Terry Pratchett, not to the exclusion of honouring Lemmy Kilmister with a heavy metal homage

★: for the artist’s 69th birthday, a review and analysis of David Bowie’s 25th album

putting on the ritz: a fascinating exploration of the luxury hotels, secret vertical villages of 1920s New York

dialogue ballons: beluga whales communicate with bubbles

montage: gorgeous, expansive architectural collages, via the Everlasting Blort

amanuensis: New York Public Libraries release thousands of archival images and seek a resident remixer

shell-schocked

Not to dwell on the negative, especially as it was my resolution to be better at detecting my own biases and be less susceptible to outside ones (nor would it be fun to have Groundhog Day fall on New Year’s Eve—as it would get to be pretty torturous quickly as a time time-loop or even as a theme-restaurant), I am given to understand that a few Silvester venues, close to refugee shelters and within shelters in general, were moved—New Year’s was not cancelled anywhere in Germany exactly as some outlets are reporting, because of fears that the celebratory fireworks might incite incidents of post-traumatic stress disorder in populations having just fled war-zones.
I don’t know what to think about this either—but it kind of strikes me as the logic used during the witch-trials: if she floats, she must be guilty of witchcraft but if she sinks and drowns she’s innocent and now in God’s bosom. It seems like a strange sort of assessment that fortunately never materialised—that legitimate emigrants would find the pyrotechnics to be pure psychological torment and those along for the ride maybe not so much. “Build a bridge out of her.” There are talks of toning down the drunken Faschings parades but I am unsure about the veracity of that, too. One ought not pin resolutions on the easiest goals but I am unsure if I can sustain these challenges.

minced oath or lightwater syndrome

Swearing came about as a linguistic loophole to prohibitions against blasphemy. Socrates’ frequent but rather timid exclamation of “by the dog”—referring to constellation of Canis Major and not “god” backwards, of course—was even known as the Rhadamanthine oath in order to forever ridicule that king’s embargo on invoking the names of the gods in vain.
All sorts of stealth cursing came about and though a lot of the inventions ring as old-fashioned and mincing profanity, which is almost equally unacceptable in polite-company as one’s dancing around the taboo and not making the effort to really distance oneself from vulgar language. Self-censorship’s euphemistic history extends as far back to when we first learned to mask our unmitigated reactions with language: consarnit, Sam Hill, Land of Goshen, Jesus wept (which is considered suitable as one is reciting the shortest verse in the Bible), ‘zounds for by Christ’ wounds and ods bodilns—by God’s nails. If we’ve somewhat matured in keeping our speech cultured (and possibly our own minds out of the gutter), it’s interesting then that we’re being drawn back into the phase of snickering humour by those filters we put in place to keep content age-appropriate and our immediate environment relatively smut-free. Those automated bowdlerisers (despite advances in the industry) perennially and incredulously inconvenience residents of the English towns of Sussex and Penistone and the titular village—as well as many unfortunately named persons—and the phenomena is called the Scunthrope Problem, after another municipality in Lincolnshire with Norse etymology. Keeping a swear-jar near at hand is a good motivator to be as colourful with one’s metaphors as possible or at least to retain adult-decorum.  Alright governor.