Science wasn’t actually certain how fungi like cordyceps “hijacked” their host’s behavior, and we always kind of assumed it was causing some relatively simplistic damage to the brain, but now it seems the truth is much more like all the dramatized versions of it in sci-fi horror.
These fungi integrate themselves on the cellular level with the host’s tissues all throughout their body, actually seem to send signals to the host’s muscles and even alter the host’s genes with their own.
And all the while, it turns out THE BRAIN ISN’T TAKEN OVER AT ALL.
These fungi, all along, have been converting their hosts into animal-fungal hybrids they control while the host’s brain and consciousness remain helplessly alive and largely unaltered.
Tags:
#ants #bugs #body horror #this probably deserves some other warning tag but I am not sure what #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #(the button meme) #Wildbow
You turn on the radio one morning to find another one of those Rap songs where every 4th word is a swear. Naturally the Radio bleeps it out, but you realize that it sounds familiar. You realize that the rappers are speaking in Morse code.
Your eyes widen as you swerve over onto the shoulder of the expressway, nearly hitting a Jeep Cherokee in the process. It didn’t matter to you. Frantically searching the glove compartment, the backseat, and your purse, you finally find a small notepad and a pen with a low ink cartridge. You listen closely to the radio, and begin to scribble down as much as you can. You realize it was merely a pattern.
— -. . / – .– — / – .– — / ..-. .. ..-. – -.–
Unfortunately for you, you aren’t very well versed in translating Morse code, merely recognizing it. You reach into your purse to grab your phone, but after a moment of searching, you realize you had left it at home before you left for work. “God damnit,” you mutter. You’re more than halfway to your office, and you’re already running late due to the fact that that you decided to follow some whim and jot down some cryptic message from a provocative rapper. Concluding that it would probably be best for you to mosey to work, you pull back onto the expressway and try to make it to work on time.
Upon arriving at work, you ask any coworker in sight if they know Morse code. Nobody seems to, and some don’t even know what Morse code is. You slump your shoulders in disappointment and head over to your desk, when suddenly, the quiet, mouse-like secretary clears her throat and says, “Excuse me, I know Morse code!”
You turn around with the same wide eyes as before. “You do!?” you ask vigorous excitement, which seems to startle the young woman.
“Yes,” she says, “when I was younger, I planned on joining the navy, so I taught it to myself.” You feel a bit sorry for her, that she wound up as a mere secretary instead of a naval officer, but that feeling of pity didn’t stop you from being grateful for the lucky coincidence of her knowing Morse code. You show her the pattern.
— -. . / – .– — / – .– — / ..-. .. ..-. – -.–
“That’s all there is?” she asks, furrowing her brow.
“Yeah,” you shrugged, “it just kept repeating that over and over again. What does it say?”
“One, two, two, fifty.”
Your heart sinks a little. “What is that? What does that mean, is it like a phone number or house address or something?”
The secretary shrugs. “I’m really sorry, I don’t know. It’s too short to be a phone number, but beyond deciphering it, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
You nod slowly, and though you understand, you are still not at all satisfied. You go to sit at your desk. 1 2 2 50. The sequence plays over and over in your head all day, and needless to say, your curiosity an wonderment got the best of you. It was not a very productive work day.
You head home, and the same damned song plays on the radio. You shake your head as if that would make the song stop, then decide to plug 12250 into your GPS to see if there are any autofill results. None. You become increasingly frustrated.
When you get home, your daughter is sitting at the kitchen table, working on homework. She runs up to you and gives you a big hug, and asks about your day at work. You put on a fake smile and sigh. “Interesting,” you say— no doubt sugarcoating the intense excitement, disappointment, and confusion.
“Will you help me with my homework? I have to memorize something for my history class tomorrow.”
“Of course, doll! What are you memorizing?”
She hands you a laminated sheet of paper. “Roman numerals!”
You glance over the page, your eyes quickly darting from one, to two, to fifty.
It dawns on you. You’d recognize this pattern anywhere.
For those like me who read this and who had no fucking clue what the point was, here is the explanation. (Apparently you have to know a certain meme well for this to make sense.)
Today, Tumblr’s owner, Verizon Media, announced that Automattic plans to acquire Tumblr. Automattic is the technology company behind products such as WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, and Simplenote—products that help connect creators, businesses, and publishers to communities around the world.
We couldn’t be more excited to be joining a team that has a similar mission. Many of you know WordPress.com, Automattic’s flagship product. WordPress.com and Tumblr were both early pioneers among blogging platforms.
Automattic shares our vision to build passionate communities around shared interests and to democratize publishing so that anyone with a story can tell it, especially when they come from under-heard voices and marginalized communities.
We look forward to continuing to create products that empower your self-expression and sense of community and that build a better, more inclusive internet.
They’re dumping it for–in the grand scheme of things–almost nothing
No, Automattic *isn’t* ending the NSFW ban
‘As for what this means for WordPress, executives from both Tumblr and Automattic will “look for ways WordPress.com and Tumblr can share services and functionality.” We wouldn’t expect any immediate changes, though.‘
I think my main reaction to this is to trust WordPress a bit less. The main appeal of the place for me is that it *isn’t* Tumblr, a separate platform with separate interests.
I’m going to continue my project to create a more stable copy of my Tumblr on WordPress. I’ll probably even continue my plan to start giving them money this winter (what better way to give people an incentive not to screw you over?).
But I’ve been wavering, lately, on whether to *also* look into self-hosting. Not as a Plan A, you understand: I’d *rather* not go through the effort of running the whole infrastructure myself. But I have put (am putting, will put) a lot of effort into making a specifically *Wordpress-compatible* version of my Tumblr, and this WordPress-compatible version is probably distinct enough to deserve its own backup. (After all, if I *did* end up self-hosting one day, that’s probably the software I’d use.)
WordPress export files don’t include images, which would make it a massive pain to re-instantiate my blog using only an export file (not *impossible*–all of the images are also stored elsewhere–but painful, and if I wanted possible-but-painful I’d just re-instantiate from a tumblr-utils scrape), but perhaps a tiny, local server to receive site-to-site exports, not to be made outward-facing unless necessary.
I’m not sure yet what the most practical option is, and how exactly one goes about it. I’ll have to look into it. But I *am* going to look into it.
Tags:
#in which Brin is paranoid #(but what else is new) #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #PSA #Wordpress #The Great Tumblr Apocalypse #reply via reblog #oh look an update
Should do it ancient greek/time traveller style: Once the competition starts you aren’t allowed to use anything you didn’t find in nature or make yourself, including the clothes you wear.
The problem with that is the main limitation would be which ores and other materials you had on hand, rather than your technical prowess. Most of the event would be about prospecting rather than building stuff. Which might be truer to how progress actually goes, but less true to what the event is aiming for. And it would take many times longer.
Or what if we only let them rely on modern sources for things that they could realistically get with something they’ve already built? So like no ores until you have developed what’s needed for mining etc., but once you have you don’t have to mine it yourself?
This sounds fun, but I’ve been in the Bay Area too long, so I read “advance up the tech ladder” as founding a startup and getting acqui-hired and becoming a VP at Google or something.
I think that would also be a fun extreme sport to watch, and I think people should still have to start naked.
Tags:
#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #(I also read it that way)
