Random Thoughts XI: Listen to the Whispers

[Birdjaguar]

If you go to get stuck, make sure you ask for the British English version of the shot!

 

[El_Machinae]

It just occurred to me that we could use CRISPR to give pet animals a variant of color vision. Now, whether their evolved neuroanatomy can handle the new signals is a different question. They don't have a long evolutionary history of having color vision to shape their neuroanatomy, so looking at models like Squirrel Monkeys (who have a long history of sometimes having color vision) wouldn't translate over perfectly.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It just occurred to me that we could use CRISPR to give pet animals a variant of color vision. Now, whether their evolved neuroanatomy can handle the new signals is a different question. They don't have a long evolutionary history of having color vision to shape their neuroanatomy, so looking at models like Squirrel Monkeys (who have a long history of sometimes having color vision) wouldn't translate over perfectly.

I asked Maddy her opinion, and she didn't seem very excited. If the pets' anatomy isn't broke, don't mess with it.

 

[amadeus]

I learned a little bit from this.

edit: ignore the red zebra, that part is clickbait

 

[Takhisis]

ignore the red zebra

…
Hmmmm.
The only valid answer to that is ‘you just lost the game’.

 

[amadeus]

I don't get it.

Point is, cats can't see red, and they wouldn't see red as white anyway so that stupid zebra is just bait.

 

[amadeus]

I’m working on my own forum-based “pay-to-win” game. Here it is:

Get the ball across the gap!

________●_ (crocodile here) ____

Spoiler In-game purchases :

$.50 — Anti-Crocodile Spray

$.25 — Levitation Boots

$.60 — Anti-Crocodile Levitation Boots (Best Value!)

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I’m working on my own forum-based “pay-to-win” game. Here it is:

Get the ball across the gap!

________●_ (crocodile here) ____

Spoiler In-game purchases :

$.50 — Anti-Crocodile Spray

$.25 — Levitation Boots

$.60 — Anti-Crocodile Levitation Boots (Best Value!)

Wingardium Leviosa!

And hey, presto, it's levitated over. Sorry, no purchase necessary other than the 7 Galleons for the wand, and those are paid to Ollivander.

 

[amadeus]

Galleons? Didn’t they have any metric ships?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Galleons? Didn’t they have any metric ships?

It's a Harry Potter reference.

 

[amadeus]

Fair enough.

Fantasy (forgive me as I don’t know if that’s the right classification) has never really been my strong suit, let alone novels really of any type.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Fair enough.

Fantasy (forgive me as I don’t know if that’s the right classification) has never really been my strong suit, let alone novels really of any type.

Yes, it's in the fantasy genre.

A Galleon is the basic unit of currency in the Wizarding World. One Galleon is equal to approximately 5 British pounds. Ollivander (the wandmaker) charges 7 Galleons per wand, which means in Muggle (non-magical) money, it's 35 pounds. This makes a wand somewhat pricey when you translate this into Canadian dollars.

 

[Takhisis]

Heh, it's mostly a way to show how far the wizarding world lags behind Muggle developments which include decimalised currency, non-bullion coins, and also gunpowder.

 

[amadeus]

£sd isn’t so hard to get. 12 and 20. We use 12 for clocks and 20 is just two tens.

You want some bizarre currency? Look up the Burmese kyat during the rule of Ne Win.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Heh, it's mostly a way to show how far the wizarding world lags behind Muggle developments which include decimalised currency, non-bullion coins, and also gunpowder.

Galleons, sickles, and knuts... the currency system in the Harry Potter universe makes less sense than Fighting Fantasy currency, which was never standardized among the gamebooks. What cost 1 Gold Piece in one book would be more or less in another book.

When I finally started novelizing some of these gamebooks for NaNoWriMo, I used a combination of FF and D&D to come up with a monetary system that actually makes sense and came up with a plan so my main character wasn't dragging a huge chest of gold around with him during one book and having it mysteriously disappear between that one and the next. I gave him a family to send it home to, and a reliable friend to store the stuff he didn't feel safe in sending with a friend. After that was taken care of, I sent him off on his next adventure.

 

[Gori the Grey]

 

[amadeus]

Brian Williams is reportedly leaving MSNBC. Sadly, these reports come from Williams himself who added that he was shot by Gavrilo Princip and he survived the Hindenburg explosion.

 

[Takhisis]

25% of any hard data you read on the Internet is made up on the spot.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I've read as high as 40%, actually.

 

[amadeus]

"Jethro Bodine" sounds like a Chinese sentence if you say it syllable-by-syllable.