Of Science and the Human Heart

Happy holidays and such!

2013-12-25T18:59:02Z

Merry Christmas, friends!

Still alive, I promise!

2013-10-30T18:14:04Z

I've really gotta be more consistent with updating this thing, I swear. Between Tumblr, travel, class projects, and all the various and sundry strangeness that comes along with senior year, I've been way less consistent with the whole longer-form blogging thing than intended. But! In two days, wrisomifu starts up again, so I'll actually have an excuse to hang around this neck of the woods again. Pretty excited, actually: I'm working on a bunch of creative nonfiction, converting some Pacific Rim headcanons to actual fic, and poking with renewed enthusiasm at my sci-fi sandbox universe. Space Captain actually has a proper name and personality now and there are flickers of what might be a plot emerging from this mess of questionable xenobiology, so we'll see where November takes it.

Some adventures I've had lately:

+ Took the GRE on Monday, which was exhausting but not nearly as awful as I'd feared. Did exactly as well as I'd predicted I would, and probably will not have to take it again, which is pretty great. The most miserable part was waking up before 6 to drive an hour away to a testing center in the middle of nowhere, honestly. My friends are basically running a GRE shuttle service for those of us who don't have cars and totally deserve, as my German grandmother would say, an extra gold star on their crown in heaven. In the absence of gold stars, I've repaid them in gas money and Cookout milkshakes. It works out.

+ Had last01standing come visit for a weekend, which is always an excellent time. We climbed a mountain in some fog straight out of a zombie movie, found a super-neat underground bar, and went rollerblading and mostly managed to avoid those tiny super-fast children on skates who are more of a hazard than the green shells in Mario Kart.

+ Went to a Nine Inch Nails concert in DC, which deserves its own entry and will probably get one. I have a long, long history with NIN -- I've loved them for the better part of a decade now, which is pretty wild. (The Hand That Feeds was the first song I ever downloaded from iTunes back in early middle school. While I never went through a full-blown goth/punk/black-clothing-and-rebellion phase, it was a very near miss.) The show was spectacular, I sang myself hoarse, and had a really good time in general with my two friends. Trent Reznor is much healthier and more emotionally stable these days, and while I think a number of folks didn't really know how to respond to NIN sounding faintly hopeful these days, I am really glad he's doing okay, and the actual quality of the music remains fantastic. (I'm working on a little narrative about all this that you might see in a bit. Stay tuned.)

Life carries on, but now I've gotta get to class. I'll be around!

Nine years of 815

2013-09-23T01:02:02Z

Really missing ontd_lost today. LOST was the strangest and most formative fandom experience of my entire life, and the community was a major part of it. *raises a can of Dharma beer*

Cue the overambitious craft projects...

2013-09-08T17:05:33Z

Yup, just signed up as an artist for the Pacific Rim Big Bang. Also signed up for a Pacific Rim craft swap. This may be a sign that I've lost control of my life, but damn, it feels really good to be active in fandom again.

Good morning! Have some meta.

2013-08-26T16:37:54Z

So last01standing has a really excellent post on why she reads Stargate Atlantis's John Sheppard as asexual, and I am still in the process of having a lot of feelings about it. Dunno how many of you old SGA folks are still around, but trust me, this is worth checking out.

In which I launch headfirst into old-school LJ traditions

2013-08-19T20:22:19Z

Okay, has anybody here done a Big Bang before? Because I am seriously considering signing up as an artist for the Pacific Rim one but have no idea what I might be getting myself into.

Hello, still alive!

2013-07-26T06:32:16Z

Quite alive, actually. I've gotten into the bad habit of tag-blogging over on Tumblr and remembered that there are slightly better venues for rambling personal thoughts over on this part of the internet.

Anyway, a few things I've been up to lately, if you were wondering where I'd gone.

The internship is either ramping up or winding down, depending on how you look at it. I've got another week and then I'm driving back to Ohio with a friend of mine on what we have dubbed the Great Trans*American Adventure. More on that in the near future, but it means I've only got a couple more days to knock around the beach and historical sites, which is...kinda sad. I've really enjoyed the independence of this summer, and I've really enjoyed being here. I'm not sure I could ever live in the Hampton Roads area long-term -- the population's really transient due to the military, the traffic's a nightmare, and the ocean will eventually wipe large chunks of it right off the map (trust me, I've spent all my time going to conferences on emergency planning about sea level rise, and let me tell you, waterfront property is not a wise investment 'round these here parts) -- but for the summer? Yes, definitely a good place to be.

Anyway, that means I've got a bunch of big pieces to finish, mostly on the aforementioned conferences on sea level rise. This has been a strange sort of job -- I'm about two steps further removed from the science than I'd like to be in a science writing job, but hey, I'm an intern, that's sort of to be expected. What I didn't expect was the amount of actual journalism I'd gotten myself into -- interviewing professionals and transcribing recordings and coming up with clever leads are not things I was actually very familiar with at all. It was weird having to learn to write in an entirely new format, but I think I picked it up fairly quick and now I've got an even broader set of skills to work with. The good thing is that people seem to have liked my work -- my boss passed along a really nice little note from a conference director who said she'd liked one of my pieces so much they were gonna run it in their own newsletter. So that's an encouraging sign!

Let's see, what else. I've been fairly active on the fandom front, actually, though the vast majority of it is over on Tumblr. There is a bizarre and excellent podcast called Welcome To Night Vale that you should really check out if you like any of the following: community radio, conspiracy theories, weird science, or small desert towns that shouldn't exist and contain all sorts of reality-warping extradimensional abominations that everybody just kind of accepts as part of life. It's sort of, er, HP Lovecraft's Prairie Home Companion? Spooky, funny, and really well done. For a story with no visual components the fanart is all spectacular.

I have also sort of fallen head over heels in love with Pacific Rim, which I was not actually expecting but at the same time totally was. There is nothing apologetic about that movie: it knows it's working with a nutty concept (oh no, attack of the giant deadly extradimensional aliens -- let's build huge-ass robots to punch them in the face!!) but just barrels ahead, laughing all the way. It's fun, which is more than can be said for the vast majority of action movies that have come out recently. I am so tired of everything being grimdark all the time. If you're gonna give me an apocalypse, at least make it colorful! And Pacific Rim is certainly good for that. It's also a giant pile of all my favorite tropes and visuals -- technology porn, neon and rain, squabbling scientist bros (one of whom is covered in glorious tattoos), massive nuclear-powered machines, mind melds, Idris Elba being majestic, lack of romantic subplot(!), bromance literally saving the day, and Ron Perlman in gold-plated shoes. It's self-aware and joyful and I love it for that.

It's also turned out to be a hotbed of really good meta over on Tumblr about non-romantic primary relationships and more weird science and the consequences of getting inside someone else's head. I keep wanting to write crossover fic with literally every fandom because I hadn't realized up until this point that mind-melds or neural handshakes or whatever you wanna call them are probably my favorite trope. You literally control these massive machines through the power of trust and shared experiences and willingness to let somebody else into your head, which is...not the sort of message you usually get in an action movie? Aside from the part where you've gotta go kill stuff and the fate of the world is at stake, I think I'd actually make a pretty good Jaeger pilot.

(For the record my Jaeger would be called Trinity Vortex and be red and turquoise and my co-pilot would either be my sister or Roommate -- both of whom are appalled that I'm in love with such a ridiculous movie. Feh, I say. I'll get both of them to watch it yet and then we'll go save the world with kickass robots powered by feelings. Not that, uh, I've put much thought into this or anything.)

Giddy rambling aside, go see it, it's a blast. Friendship robots, man. It just doesn't get old.

I have a bunch more I wish to write about but I need to go draft a piece on sea turtles and go to bed. We'll save the rest for the weekend.

Oh, science fiction.

2013-06-05T19:41:01Z

I've had a spare universe rattling around in my brain for quite a few years now. If you follow me on Tumblr, you've heard me refer to it as the Catalyst!verse -- it's mostly been a mental sandbox, a place to file cool aliens and space pirates and exobiology and other original sci-fi stuff. I've done a lot of worldbuilding with it and have developed a handful of really neat characters, but the problem is that I never really had a story to go along with them.

Last year around finals week (it's always finals week, isn't it) I had a story idea blindside me -- I was thinking about space operas and the roles of characters in them, and how dangerous it would be to find yourself acting as the mentor figure to somebody who the universe has dubbed a Protagonist: more often than not, in order for them to complete their Hero's Journey, their mentor figure will wind up dead. And I thought about retelling a Hero's Journey Space Opera Story from the perspective of a mentor figure who is all too aware of his impending doom but is powerless to stop the narrative from unfolding as it will, and is not very happy about it.

And I thought, wow, this is interesting, we could try for some experimental meta space opera thing and finally put the Catalyst!verse to work! I already had a cast of characters I could easily fit into the necessary archetypal roles if I pruned some of their characteristics a bit. I had a bunch of alien cultures, a couple of worlds for my crew to run around on, and all the raw materials that only needed a plot to go launching off somewhere really interesting.

The problem with this meta idea is that it needs to have an element of campiness in order to work properly, and I fear the Catalyst!verse is a universe that wants to be taken a little more seriously. I've poured an unbelievable amount of research into the biology, ecology, and cultures involved in my little sandbox universe, and the entire idea is to make this stuff plausible. I'm a science person, after all, and this is how I have my fun. I don't want to take all my work, deliberately make it cliche, and deconstruct it again.

So now I'm stuck. I've re-written half my characters to make them fit the meta story and put a fair bit of thought into arranging how a universe where people were aware of the tropes controlling their lives would work. I like a lot of what I have and want to go forward with it -- sort of. Because I'm afraid that going with the meta version would reduce years of worldbuilding to a joke. But if I don't go with it, I don't really have a story anymore and we're back where we started -- a sandbox with no plot.

*flops over*

The life aquatic

2013-06-05T03:20:37Z

Life is going really well here. Work is low-key but I've got my first real assignment tomorrow, in which I get to go to the aquarium and talk to some folks who study fancy seaweed. I've been going for walks by the beach every day, which is excellent: I get to check in on some nesting ospreys, say hello to the neighbors' assorted dogs, and go splash around after horseshoe crabs and other marine crawlies.

My penchant for beach-walking became the source of a misadventure on Friday. There's the public beach on one side of the point, but then a private beach owned by the marine science school on the other, right behind the boat basin where they keep the research vessels. The whole area is fenced off to prevent random people from coming in to mess with the boats or the experimental tanks, but the gate is unlocked during the day and you can come and go as you please. I get out of work around five and usually spend an hour bopping around down by the water, and I'd been doing that all week and exiting through the same gate, which had remained unlocked. Until Friday afternoon, where I suddenly found myself trapped in the boat basin, which is surrounded by barbed wire and water in a remarkably Alcatraz-like fashion.

There was absolutely nobody around, not even a passing boat. I was going to jump the fence, but I didn't have a towel or jacket to put over the barbed wire. I would have just jumped in the water and swum but I had my electronics on me, and didn't think trying to cache them in the sand dunes for the weekend was a brilliant idea. Cell reception is awful out here for some reason, but after several futile attempts I managed to call a friend and have them look up the number for security, who I then had to call and explain what happened in shame. The head of security was a tiny, fast-talking country woman with a giant truck, and she just laughed and laughed when she rolled up to see me trapped behind the fence. She was ridiculously nice and gave me a ride back up the road, and said she'd be happy to leave the gate unlocked if I mentioned it to her a little in advance.

(Turns out there's a gap in a gate way further down along the perimeter that I would have just been able to squeeze through, but it was impossible to see from within the basin. Good to know for future reference. Just in case.)

To my surprise and delight, living alone is actually fun. I've been doing a hell-ton of reading, a little gardening (bought some baby basil plants yesterday and they are precious), a lot of experimentation with new recipes (lemon-sage chicken! horchata! strawberry-mint popsicles! bananas foster! and all turned out wonderfully, if I do say so myself), quite a bit of art, and have finally, miracle of miracles, started to put some serious energy into a certain long story I should have written years ago. I'll make a separate post on that later -- I've got some writing thoughts I need to mull over.

There's something rather freeing about being able to sit around in my boxers drawing aliens and singing along with bad synthpop at any hour I choose. *laughs* I dunno, maybe the novelty just hasn't worn off yet, but this is pretty great so far.

Bit of a PSA:

2013-04-20T22:12:17Z

Even the most reportedly benign malaria drugs may have unexpected side effects. Remember this while you are taking them. The entire universe will suddenly get spectacularly more irritating, but keep in mind that it's your perception of it, not the universe itself, that has changed. Except for the parts of the universe that consist of your companions who are also on malaria meds, because they are experiencing the same thing. Pissing matches and some shouting may occur. Don't take it personally. Remember that it's the drugs talking. Remind one another of this periodically.

Quarantining yourself when you are feeling particularly aggressive is a good option and will be appreciated by the group as well. Again, don't take it personally. You may have non-scary but very vivid, exceptionally detail-oriented dreams. Try bonding with your companions over them instead of snarling at each other over literally the most irrelevant things imaginable. It's better for morale.

Thank your lucky stars that tomorrow is everyone's last dose of Malarone, and you'll be back to your regularly scheduled programming shortly.

What even is my life these days.

2013-03-22T21:28:18Z

Explored Eastern Europe and successfully brought everybody home not much worse for the wear, got a couple of internship offers for the summer, and am leaving tomorrow to go clamber around on some active volcanoes for a while. I'd say this was a pretty successful week. More details when I'm not about to faceplant into my keyboard from exhaustion, though.

Grocery Run

2013-02-03T13:38:56Z

Some items to consider when you're shopping at Swiss supermarkets:

+ Lipton Yellow Label. Yellow Label is the only caffeinated drink you'll readily find in the tea aisle. Trust me, I checked. There are all the fruit teas and herbal tisanes you could desire, exotic flavors like red currant, vetiver, and rhubarb brightly illustrated for those who can't read German. The Yellow Label isn't bad, but I'm rationing my imported stash of English black tea all the same.

+ Haribo Turtles. I'm used to gummy bears and worms, but these are something else: dense gems filled with a bright gel in any number of fruit flavors. Lecker gefullt! the packaging announces, neglecting to admonish parents to watch so their kids don't choke on the treats. They are delicious but difficult to chew, and if you're willing to be uncivilized it is easier to rip them in half with your teeth. There's probably an art to this that I haven't learned yet.

+ Toast. Well, it's called Toast, but you get to do the charring as you see fit. Small blocks of bread are pre-cut to the size of your palm, preservative-free and so inclined to go stale within a day or two. One variety is called Super Toast!, pasty-pale and distinctly Wonderbread-like, and the packaging is splashed with a stylized American flag. The rest of the packaging is written in German, and I am left questioning the target demographic.

+ Bergmilch. Though all the milk here is ultra-pasteurized, they must use a different process than they do in the states. It tastes distinctly of cow, like organic milk does back home, and always seems lukewarm even when it's come straight out of the fridge. It's fine for adding to tea but hard to drink plain, even the skim. I feel guilty for not liking the animal flavor -- this is what milk is supposed to taste like, after all, and it seems I like the neutral taste of plastic packaging better than the reminder that this was once in something alive.

+ Lemons. Half the lemons are wrapped in matte black paper, numbered in red and faintly metallic gold. The labeling fits a bottle of whiskey better than it does a fruit. There is no explanation for why some are wrapped and some are not, but the crate of black and yellow citrus resembles a carton of overgrown bees from across the aisle.

+ Easter eggs. Or what look like Easter eggs despite the fact that Lent hasn't started yet -- shells dyed a variety of jewel-like colors, sitting unrefrigerated in clear plastic cartons on the shelves. The room-temperature eggs have alarmed many students, who can't imagine a world where that is sanitary. I have been suspicious of any sort of egg for my entire life, and so they've simply been an amusing novelty rather than something I want but am now afraid to approach.

+ Nutella. The hazelnut spread has swapped places and price points with peanut butter, a fact the American students alternately rejoice over and lament. I am not particularly attached to peanut butter but I'm sure I'll miss it some time in the indeterminate future. For now the novelty sustains me as effectively as the food.

Onwards to adventure!

2013-01-17T04:37:36Z

I'll be off wandering Europe and a bit of Africa for four months starting tomorrow. I've got a travel blog for school set up over here. Wish me luck, and I'll catch you guys on the flip side!

A long-expected journey

2013-01-16T03:28:31Z

Well, in two days I’ll be boarding a plane to Europe. The reality of the PGS trip hit me yesterday with an intensity not unlike that of the asteroid at the end of the Cretaceous period, and it occurred to me that I am so not ready for this.

But then again, who is?

I went and saw The Hobbit again a couple of nights ago, and I really can’t think of a better movie to watch before undertaking a long journey (particularly one involving travel through the mountains.) It is comforting to know I am at least a little better prepared than Bilbo Baggins at this point: I have warm clothes, an arm shot full of vaccinations, a trusty notebook and semi-trusty iPad for field notes of all sorts, and a pack of interesting folks to meet up with on the other side of the Atlantic.

All things considered, I am actually in decent shape. Now I just need to convince myself of this.

(At least I’ve remembered my handkerchief.)

I'll post again before I go with a blog link and such for the travel journal I'll be keeping while in Switzerland, if any of you are so inclined, but for now: packing. Packing is a good idea.

Auld Lang Syne and such.

2013-01-01T01:24:25Z

It's the last day of 2012, and it doesn't feel like it should be. This is the first time since I started keeping this blog that I haven't been in Charlotte for New Year's Eve, and I am trying but failing to not mope about it.

Travel has become such an essential part of my family's holiday routine that I don't know what to do without it. In addition to not going to Charlotte, we also couldn't go to Detroit to see my mom's parents because of the snow we've been getting. There's a bunch of stressful stuff -- illnesses, divorce -- going on with the family members we do have in town, so we didn't get to see them for very long this year either. Grace's best friend wanted to come up for New Years but those plans got shot down because everybody has to work tomorrow. This Christmas, to be frank, has been kind of a dud. The most important part of the holidays, for me, is participating in traditions with people I love. It's a vital part of ending the year right, sort of a ritual thing -- even the dumb traditions (and my family has many) are important. Most of the traditions were cut short this year, and many of the people I love were not around, which...yeah. Can't say I'm terribly happy at the moment, but at least I'm writing instead of just sulking on the couch with New Year's Rockin' Eve playing to an otherwise empty house.

Anyway. Year-at-a-glance time. Hard to believe I've been writing these posts for five years now.

January: Had a few days of brilliant Virginia History Adventures with the roommate and T, started work on the Malagasy camera trap project through the Wildlife department, got emotional over the end of the Dark Tower series, and geared up for another heavy semester full of interesting things. Officially came out as ace on LJ, which started my slow progression towards talking about it a little more in real life.

February: Turned 20, helped halter-break a calf, fell in love with Top Gear, and recognized that my Schrodinger's Relationship with T was a thing. Not sure what kind of thing (and I'm not sure I ever will), but a thing all the same.

March A bunch of applications to various things that wound up not working out and a disappointingly dull spring break were balanced by some fun photo shoots, good reading, and even better conversation. I bring up "good conversation" a lot in these year-in-review things, but they are a core part of learning about myself and how the world works and a Super Important Thing, so I try to note that they've happened to indicate personal growth.

April: Learned a lot about grief and community. A friend of mine passed away while he was studying abroad in the same place I'll be going this semester. Later in the month I went to a mountaintop removal site for one of my classes, which took on a hell of a lot of metaphorical and spiritual significance on top of its ecological one. I overuse the term existential crisis, but the event that resulted from this genuinely was one. I should write about it sometime, but for now I'll just say it was a strange and painful time and I will be forever grateful to fialleril or all her support.

May: Heard Michelle Obama speak, kicked ass on finals, and then returned to Ohio to job-hunt futilely for the rest of the month. Added some interesting life skills to my repertoire out of pure condensed boredom, but generally tended to stagnate. Note to self: do NOT spend another summer in Ohio if it can be helped.

June: Finally conquered my phobia of driving, which was huge. Got a job at Columbia, which taught me a great deal about patience, competence, and how to manage from below when necessary. Mourned the passing of Ray Bradbury, my literary hero for all times, and celebrated his life with another Dandelion Wine re-read, casual space research, and key lime-flavored ice cream.

July: Work, work, and work, punctuated by an excellent trip to the beach with T, Bennett, and Metalbender Bro. I also had The Best Day Ever with spastic_visions, which involved exploring the ruins of an abandoned hydro plant in Richmond and having lunch at the world's most adorable space-themed 50's diner. Trips like this make everything worthwhile.

August: Discovered that writing in Wordpad is an excellent change of pace, and that the raccoons living under the deck are startling when they're unexpectedly in the apple tree at night. Put together an entire Italian course and some politely-worded threats directed at the study abroad office. Rushed headlong into a 22-credit semester, which was rash but certainly made things interesting. Got a job at the Writing Center, which was trying but pretty great.

September: Learned to knit, started a Life on Mars rewatch with Roommate, and wrote a ton of essays on some really interesting things. Started to discover that while fiction is hella fun, creative nonfiction in the form of short essays is what I seem to be best at. Went camping with a group of excellent folks at the top of a mountain and successfully built a fire in the rain.

October: Lots of writing, assembly of hilariously complex Halloween costumes, and sitting on the lounge floor at four in the morning talking with a bunch of guys about feelings and relationships and other issues that the media is convinced men don't talk about. Went out swing-dancing as a fairly convincing Tony Stark and befriended a number of really cool professors. October was really, really good.

November: Was a Miserable Fuck courtesy of Wriso again this year -- finished nothing but accomplished far more than my sporadic postings indicated on two and a half different stories. Got super into transhumanism and the Singularity thanks to Deus Ex and some cyberpunk novels, and realized that my interests in nukes and robots may actually have some academic applications.

December: An academic whirlwind due to finals and study abroad preparation. The semester was busy but excellent, and I'm really happy with the still-hazy-but-getting-somewhere academic/professional track I'm taking. Did a lot of thinking and talking about friendships, relationships, and the future, and concluded that the people I'm living with are some of the most excellent humans you could ever hope to encounter. I love these guys so much it makes me want to cry. Ohio was a flat note as usual, but was a good reminder that family is the most important part of the holidays and that this too shall pass.

All in all, a tough but good year. Here's hoping 2013 is brilliant too.

Still alive!

2012-12-20T05:39:04Z

Sorry to drop off the face of the earth again -- December's always chaotic beyond belief. I'm back home as of this evening and am more exhausted than I've been for a very long time.

Successfully survived a 22-credit semester and did quite well, all things considered. Never again, though. I don't think I've gotten more than four hours of sleep a night for the past week, but (almost) everything is done. It's out of the frying pan and into the fire now that I'm back, though. I've got three seperate projects to complete over break and a heck of a lot of prep work to do before Switzerland.

I'm not sure I ever posted about it officially, but I am, in fact, going to be in Europe next semester. I'll be based out of southern Switzerland but will be spending a fair amount of time in Germany, Italy, and France as well. I've got a semester-long project on European nuclear policy to keep me entertained, so expect enthusiastic rants about science and culture and possibly Cherenkov radiation. I am extremely excited and also extremely nervous about this whole affair.

I am also apparently going to Ghana, as I learned, er, yesterday. One of the professors who's traveling with us on the Switzerland trip is Ghanaian and wished to take us all to his home country for a week, which is brilliant, but I really wish I had a little more than one day's notice (I am not exaggerating at all here) to fill out and mail a visa application and start scheduling doctor's appointments for vaccinations, the latter of which I am especially not looking forward to. Oh, and I will need anti-malarials, which are a thing I really was hoping I'd never have to deal with, based on horror stories from some of my buddies in the wildlife department. Friendly tip: stay the hell away from Lariam. (I'm getting doxycycline. Everything should be fine, but still. One of my classes had an entire unit on blood parasites, and even the thought of plasmodium makes my skin crawl.)

I really don't like moving out. A large chunk of my friend group is scattering across the globe in the spring, and while it's obviously very exciting, it's also bittersweet. These people are my family and I am really going to miss them. I know I'll only be gone for a semester, but I've got quite a few senior friends who'll be graduating in the spring who I had to bid farewell this morning. Exam stress plus emotional wobbliness led to a few near-weepathons from all parties on the hall. Sigh.

I should get to bed, as I am incredibly overtired, but you can expect to see me a little more active in the upcoming weeks. LJ's not going quiet on my watch.

2027

2012-12-10T04:32:54Z

I've been playing through Deus Ex for the past two weeks and just finished the game over the weekend. Jesus, that was something. My transhumanism kick has only intensified, and has also spread to most everyone else on Fourth High. We've been doing a lot of talking about the issues that the game addresses, and somehow decided to turn it into a writing prompt for everybody to address as they see fit. This might not make a lot of sense unless you've played the game, but I liked it enough to post here anyway. Our prompt is as follows:

In the not-too-distant future, human augmentation a la Deus Ex is available to the general public. Where will you be in fifteen years? Will you be augmented? Most importantly, in what ways will augmentation change your life?

It’s three in the morning in the rainforests of northeastern Madagascar, and I’m the only human around for miles. With no light pollution to speak of and a new moon hanging over the dense canopy, the forest floor should be ink-black and impossible to navigate. Fifteen years ago it would have been madness to do a late-night transect without so much as a flashlight, but my augmentations mean I’m practically a living research station. Instead of relying on camera traps to gather information about threatened species in remote parts of this island, I can just go for a walk and collect it myself.

Through my mechanical eyes, the world is bright as day. The tangled maze of trees and vines are outlined in pale yellow, and any animals I pass are surrounded by a halo of gold. I’ve got my retinal implants calibrated to look for the endangered creatures I’m studying, keyed in to heat signatures, movement, and pattern recognition. My HUD displays a small map in the corner of my vision, showing my location relative to the camp my team and I are working from. As somebody who’s specializing in the behavior patterns of nocturnal mammals, the ability to see in the dark is a pretty convenient thing.

Mosquitoes buzz around my ears, and I find myself wishing that my dermal armor protected against them a little better. The armor’s designed to shield me from punctures and blows — any sort of injury that would break the skin and damage tissue beneath — but does next to nothing against insects’ tiny pincers and proboscises. It’s really nice to not have to worry about infections from cuts out here, but even the small things in the jungle still like to bite. A lot.

Not that the armor doesn’t come in handy: an angry fossa tried to take a chunk out of my forearm the other day when I was adjusting its radio collar. The matrix of carbon nanotubes under my skin instantly went rigid, and the animal recoiled, confused as to why it suddenly seemed to be biting something closer to the consistency of ceramic than muscle. “No hard feelings,” I told it, buckling its collar back into place before letting it loose. “It takes some getting used to on my end, too.”

The bite didn’t hurt. Didn’t even leave a mark. Few things do anymore, and to be honest I’m not sure how I feel about that. Scars are sort of a badge of honor in outdoor research, and the only ones I’ve got left are from my pre-aug years. Before I replaced my legs, I still had silvery-pink patches on my heels from my very first fieldwork assignment in my freshman year of college. Those are gone now, along with the bad knee and the deep gouge in my shin from a childhood bike wreck and the countless small marks from a lifetime of socializing with overenthusiastic, long-nailed dogs. My legs are mostly metal now, black-lacquered augmentations that start just above the knee and end in feet that aren’t quite human-shaped. They’re closer to digitigrade in form, and make me look like I’m wearing a pair of seriously badass boots at all times. These aren’t for style, though. Fieldwork involves an awful lot of hiking, and as somebody with bad joints, it sort of made sense to replace them instead of waiting for high-impact activities to wear down my cartilage or knock my kneecap out of place again. These, along with the Icarus system in case I lose my footing in a tree or near the edge of a cliff, make me faster, help me keep my balance over rough ground, and reduce my chance of injury in treacherous terrain. And I don’t have to worry about the nightmarish consequences of soggy socks, which is a definite plus.

There are a lot of advantages to being augmented in the field, but not everyone, including some members of my research team, feel that way. Some of the non-augs think that people like me are “cheating” by enhancing our physical abilities far beyond their natural range. They’ve got a point, but I try to look at it this way: I want to be the best scientist I can possibly be. Not for personal gain, necessarily, but because good science is always going to be needed. And if there’s a way to make that process safer, easier, and more efficient, why not take advantage of it? I’m stronger and more physically resilient now than I could have ever been in a world without augmentations, and it’s made me a lot better at my job. Aside from the fact that I’ve now got to take doses of Neuropozyne along with my anti-malarials, there don’t seem to be many drawbacks in my book.

But not everybody thinks that way. As long as they’re not dicks about it, I’m perfectly fine with that. If really I wanted to, I could probably change their minds with my social enhancements, but that gets into some pretty sticky moral ground. You can’t run around wafting pheromones at random bystanders just because they disagree with you. The CASIE system comes in handy during policy debates, allowing me to analyze the personalities of committee members and tailor my arguments to appeal to them accordingly. I keep it turned off most of the time, though. I much prefer to get to know people for real, rather than try to judge them via a personality matrix. All the details and idiosyncrasies and quirks — all the things that make people interesting — aren’t things you can learn though a HUD.

I’m hit by a sudden wave of nostalgia. I remember late night college conversations back when all this technology was theoretical, and how my friends and I used to talk about how we’d modify ourselves once the future rolled around. I’m not sure we ever expected it would actually come to pass. Some of us adopted it wholeheartedly — last I heard, Devon had gotten a set of protective lenses that dramatically reduced glare from welding and molten metal, and was suitably enthused by the whole affair. Some of us stayed a bit more ambivalent. I make a mental note to put a call in to Emily and see how Chicago’s treating her.

Something rustles in the underbrush a dozen meters to my right, and I turn on my smart vision very briefly to make out the outline of a mongoose climbing up a fallen log. My HUD by itself can’t tell me what species it is, but I watch its glowing golden outline for a moment, noting the general silhouette and the way the animal carries its bottlebrush tail, and conclude that it’s a broad-stripe. It’s my own experience, not the technology itself, that lets me identify the creature before it disappears again. Nobody’s written specific algorithms to conclusively ID these rare animals quite yet, so people still have to rely on their own skilled observations for much of this job whether they’re augmented or not. I kind of like that. Makes me feel…better, somehow, to know that some things haven’t changed.

__

For the record, I doubt I'd actually get augmented if it were an option in real life. There are a number of reasons behind that, but I'll save 'em for another time. Besides, this is more fun.

Seems all that talk of robots and uranium actually got me somewhere after all.

2012-12-06T17:31:57Z

So if things go as planned, I miiiiight wind up with a job over the summer curating articles for an international group of science writers with an amusingly SHIELD-like acronym for a name.

It’s a trial run and nothing’s set in stone yet, but oh my lord, this is totally a thing I can do. My first potential task is to review an advance copy of a book on exobiology. EXOBIOLOGY.Trying hard not to flail about prematurely, but I’ll keep you guys updated.

Moral of the story: go to lunch with your professors. They can point you in the direction of some awesome opportunities.

starfoozle @ 2012-11-18T23:26:00

2012-11-19T04:26:35Z

I'm home for Thanksgiving but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm on break. I've got a project and a debate to present the Tuesday after I get back, a sprawling list of supplies to buy for studying abroad next semester, scholarship and internship essays to complete, a metric ton of Italian to catch up on, and relatives to entertain all week. Oh, yes, and I'm working 9:00-5:30 on Black Friday at an outlet mall. I may die.

Still Wriso-ing, or attempting to, at any rate. I've done a bunch of worldbuilding and plotting for the Catalyst 'verse and am in the midst of reworking a short story about the consequences of futuristic iPods. I'm on a pretty hard transhumanist kick after playing some Deus Ex (or more accurately having a friend of mine at the controls while I made the decisions) and reading The Rapture of the Nerds, a book with an intensely specific target demographic which I was surprised to find myself in.

Unless you know a great deal about the Singularity, Objectivism, classic SF, theoretical physics, and the culture of Southern Baptist megachurches, you're not gonna get a lot out of The Rapture of the Nerds. There are constant clever shout-outs to daleks and tasps and Dyson spheres and computronium, and the story is more or less inaccessible if you can't follow the references. I, to my utter surprise, could. My academic and creative background maps onto the themes the book discusses almost perfectly, but I honestly wonder how many other people could fully appreciate it. (I can only think of two, and both are double-majoring in philosophy and computer science. One of them is an industrial DJ who seems determined to become a Replicant, and the other knits hats based on cellular automata. I don't know how I keep meeting these people, but that's beside the point.)

Anyway, the book, if you wish to read it, is for free online under a Creative Commons license. It's about a technophobic Welsh potter getting called for technological jury duty in a post-Singularity world. Check it out.

I live!

2012-11-02T03:05:07Z

I've been scarce for a while. Sorry about that -- now that midterms have passed and WriSoMiFu is occurring, I should, you know, actually be around LJ for a bit!

I've been doing quite a bit of creative stuff to ward off classwork stress: learning more complicated songs on guitar, knitting a scarf for my best friend before she goes off to China, re-teaching myself how to use my tablet, and the like. This also manifested in the form of costuming -- I was a much more convincing version of Tony Stark this time around and I helped a bunch of my friends put outfits together for Halloween and the "Heroes and Villains" swing dance this Saturday, which is going to be brilliant. A crew of people at the dorm dressed up yesterday for low-key festivities (and also $2 burritos from Chipotle for showing up in costume.) I was later informed that I was bringing all the ladies and gentlemen to the yard, as it were, which cracked me up. Seems I make a decent-looking dude.

Like I said, I'm doing Wriso this year (short for Write Something, You Miserable Fuck) and am using it as an excuse to actually get my stories out of my head and onto paper. I've been working on two Big Ones for...well, a very long time now, and I figure if I'm gonna call myself a writer I should actually, y'know, write. Wriso allows for the perfect combination of whining, abuse, and motivation to get me off my literary ass. I'm very excited.

Hope you guys are all doing okay in Sandy's wake. We were bracing for apocalyptic winds here and got off very lightly, with only some minor damage to the trees and none to the buildings. My thoughts are with everybody up north and on the coast.

starfoozle @ 2012-10-08T03:49:00

2012-10-08T07:49:22Z

This weekend I actually wrote a short piece of original fic(!), worked on a whoooole bunch of worldbuilding for my self-aware space opera thing, did my homework, sent all necessary emails, and worked on Halloween costumes for everyone. Productivity's an excellent feeling.

Said costuming has resulted in the video game Deux Ex becoming somewhat of an auxillary fandom of mine overnight. I spent quite a while today sifting through glorious concept art in an effort to turn my metalbender friend into the game's cyborg protagonist, and man, it's really cool. I've got a soft spot for anything set in Detroit, and that plus all kinds of cyberpunk goodness is exactly my cup of tea.

I've amassed an amusing amount of these auxillary fandoms and need to come up with a better term for them -- you know, the shows or books or movies you don't actually keep up with yourself but enjoy seeing on your flist or dashboard or crossed over with fandoms you're active in. I'm this way with Supernatural, Farscape, and a whole bunch of video games -- the work the fandom produces is spectacular but I've got no particular motivation to get directly involved. It's kinda fun.

starfoozle @ 2012-10-07T03:56:00

2012-10-07T07:56:18Z

My memory's been shot to hell all semester and I know it's mostly because of stress and sleep deprivation, but I'm also wondering if it's because I haven't been keeping a diary this year. The human brain doesn't work quite like a computer and this is hideously unscientific, I'm sure, but I've got a theory. Without writing things down, I have no way to offload memory, and I think details start getting deleted to make room for more information. I don't like this and intend to fix it shortly.

Huh.

2012-09-14T04:35:56Z

Started writing a little blog post intended for Tumblr about wolfdog hybrids and it somehow spun out of control into a mutant personal manifesto of sorts. Will probably post here once I get it into shape.

starfoozle @ 2012-09-07T15:03:00

2012-09-07T19:03:44Z

A head cold and the nastier side effects of Benadryl have rendered me utterly useless for the day, so have a meme stolen from fialleril instead of any kind of proper entry.

Pick a number from the list and I'll answer it in the comments.

1 - Your current OTP
2 - A pairing you initially didn't consider but someone changed your mind
3 - A pairing you have never liked and probably never will
4 - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t
5 - Have you added anything stupid/cracky/hilarious to your fandom, if so, what
6 - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom
7 - Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it
8 - Do you prefer characters from real action series or animated series
9 - Has the internet caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why
10 - Name a fandom you didn't care/think about until you saw it all over tumblr/your social network sites
11 - How do you feel about the other people in your current fandom
12 - Your favorite fanartist/author gives you one request, what do you ask for
13 - Your favorite fanart or fanartist
14 - Your favorite fanfiction or fanauthor
15 - Choose a song at random, which OTP does it remind you of
16 - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)
17 - A ship you’ve abandoned and why
18 - A pairing you ship that you don’t think anyone else ships
19 - Show us an example of your personal headcanon
20 - Do you remember what your first fanwork was?
21 - Self-rec: What's your favorite fanwork you've created?
22 - Are you one of those fans who can’t watch anything without shipping
23 - 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms
24 - 3 OTPs from 3 different fandoms | Take Two!
25 - A fandom you’re in but have no ships from
26 - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go

starfoozle @ 2012-09-05T01:55:00

2012-09-05T05:55:08Z

I've got a peculiar and inescapable drive to make stuff. It's a sort of psychic itch that is really only relieved by doing something with my hands -- making crafts or paintings or collages, fixing things, playing guitar, etcetera. I've got a theory that it comes from my mom's family, who were all carpenters and barrel-makers and handymen as far back as anybody can remember. I would really like to do something productive with this phenomenon, as it tends to manifest unexpectedly and distract me until I wind up re-learning macrame or dissecting old electronics for the hell of it.

I've been talking with my ~~metalbender~~ material science engineer friend who takes classes at the foundry to see if I can't get some animal skull replicas cast out of metal. Aluminum's cheap, and working on a wax positive or figuring out how to cast real bones in a sand mold sounds appealing on so many levels. (If this turns out to be a thing that's doable, it could have some neat implications. At the very least, it will assure I have the most badass paperweight in the entire world.)

If the dead stuff plus molten metal doesn't work out, I think I shall take up knitting.