I’m finishing up this tome “Music, Language, and the Brain.” It’s been one of the more difficult books I’ve ever read primarily because its excessive use of academic terminology, but worth plowing through because occasionally you stumble across really fascinating nuggets of science. For instance, at one point the author is describing an experiment involving baby chickens and quails. As eggs, the embryonic birds were housed in isolation so that they could not hear the sounds of their parents. When they were hatched, the chicks showed a preference for the sound of chickens, and quails showed a preference for the sound of quails. This would seem to indicate that we have a genetic, inborn preference for the “talk” of members of our species.
But here’s where it gets weird. Check this out…
A decade after this original study, Long performed an impressive experiment that probed the neural basis for this preference. Using surgical techniques pioneered by Balaban, the researchers cut small holes in the eggs and operated on the embryos, transplanting different portions of the developing neural tube of quails into chicks. They then sealed up the eggs and housed them in incubators isolated from adult bird sounds. After hatching, they tested these chimera birds for their perceptual preferences using the methods of Park and Balaban. They found that when the transplant was in a specific region of the developing midbrain, the chimeras showed a preference for the quail maternal call.
It seems insane that they can even perform such surgeries, and even crazier that it actually worked: the chunk of brain responsible for responding to quail sounds happily set up shop in the chicken brain.
One must wonder if these mutant birds grew to gigantic proportions and developed an unceasing hunger for human flesh. The book doesn’t mention this, but that would be somewhat off-topic.
I had lunch at The Olive Garden today. I’ve never been a big fan of that place but never been sure why. Today it dawned on me: their flavors are too obvious. If they want something to be salty, they pour the salt on. If they want you to notice the parmesan crust, they bake that shit all over the place. If they want you to experience capers they add capers up the ying yang. Everything comes on strong.
The whole experience is a bit like dealing with an old Russian whore. You ever dealt with an old Russian whore? “Come and make love to me, darlink! My body needs your touch!” Yeah, uh, maybe later. “Now my sweet man-bear. I yearn to be dominated by you!!” Eh, I really need to get going. “Please, darlink! I BEG YOU to enslave me with your masterful fingers!!! PLEASE!!!” I think my bus is coming.
The Olive Garden is like the old Russian whore of Italian restaurants.
Many of you who read my writings know that I’ve had long felt the pinnacle of human technological advancement would be the creation of robot prostitutes. I have written countless paragraphs on the subject, analyzing how this development could affect society and culture at large.
Machines have already changed the face of manufacturing industries, but what happens when prostitutes find themselves replaced by robots? Will machines populate our brothels instead of flesh and blood people? Will the social stigma of paying for sex fade? And how will the availability of robotic sex partners impact countries whose economies depend, in part, on sex tourism?
In their paper “Robots, men and sex tourism,” which appears in the current issue of the journal Futures, Ian Yeoman and Michelle Mars of the University of Wellington’s Victoria Management School explore how robotic prostitutes could provide a solution to many of the problems associated with the sex trade, namely human trafficking and the spread of sexually transmitting infections.
There are some interesting considerations. Consider…
They also wonder whether sexual mores might be different where robotic prostitutes are concerned. For example, would spouses view sex with a robotic partner as cheating, or as a form of masturbation akin to using a vibrator?
Coincidentally I once had a girlfriend whom had a vibrator that I affectionately named “Mr. Robotman.” I even had a song for him, sung to the tune of “Mr. Sandman”:
Mr. Robotman
Bring me a robot
Make him the greatest robot
I’ve ever robotted
But that’s neither here nor there. I think we can all agree sex with robots would be HOT!!!
“That’s it baby! You’re rocking my world!”
I am pleased the human carbon unit is enjoying the sensory perceptions being provided by SxBot-2777.
“Yeah, tell me how much you like it!”
As a robot unit I am incapable of your human notions of emotion but I am sure a female of your species would find your techniques quite pleasing.
The reviews for my new album are starting to come in. The Mid West Record (yes, THE Mid West record) says:
WIL FORBIS and the Gentlemen Scoundrels/A Quarter Past Four: Here’s a fun record that doesn’t fit the format. After turning in a killer alt.country release a few years back, Forbis laid low for a while and now has a new set of originals that sound like classic jazz and Broadway tunes but retain the off center locus you need in the margins of today’s alt world if you want to be able to give up the day job. Old timey on it’s face, if you pay attention, there’s a wonderful joke here for you to be in on. Spiff up those spats, wax your mustache and give the guy at the door the secret password. This set is a riot. BTW–the cover art is a gasser.
How the press has handled coverage of the Trayvon Martin case points to what I think are disturbing tendencies on the part of the media. When the story first came out we heard that a guy named George Zimmerman had shot and killed a black kid. Zimmerman, of course, is the whitest name around (presumably derived from German) and the shooting sounded like a classic act of racism. Of course it then turned out that George Zimmerman is more correctly defined as hispanic (at least in terms of appearance. He has more than a passing resemblance to the hispanic rapper Pitbull.)
However, a couple days after the Martin shooting, a young guy in Tulsa rants on his facebook page about “niggers” and then allegedly grabs a buddy and goes off and kills three black men (and wounds two others). The press’s (and the public’s) reaction? Largely, “meh…”
It would seem if there’s any case perfectly illustrating the evils of racism it’s the Tulsa case. More deaths, more overt racism (the “n-word” is used) and, to top it off, the killers looks like they came out of central casting for “hillbilly racist fucktards.” (Pics at the link above.) So why the flaccid press coverage? I think it’s partly a matter of timing. The media already had their “horrors of racism” story in play with the Martin shooting and didn’t want to upend it. Secondly, while there’s plenty of conflict in the Martin case (white versus black, cops versus society, gun nuts versus anti-gun nuts) there really isn’t much in the Tulsa shooting. Most of us agree these guys are scum and should be put in jail. And this gets into a point I’ve made earlier. What the press needs is conflict – large groups of people set against each other. Conflict stories cause people to buy newspapers, watch television shows and discuss these topics (heatedly) at the kitchen table*. With the Tulsa shootings, there’s not much to discuss. Nobody’s going to defend these guys (and rightly so.)
* As I and others have argued, our eagerness to take sides in conflict may be rooted in the evolutionary psychology of our tribal roots.
But the problem is: which is the greater news story? Now, defining what is news is an ethereal art form at best, but I would argue that the Martin case is more of an inflated news story whereas the Tulsa shootings is more of a deflated news story. And we, as consumers of news, should be aware of the hand of the media in manipulating those valuations.
This article, about the vast collection of criminal gangs in Naples caught my eye.
The Camorra is not an organization like the Mafia that can be separated from society, disciplined in court, or even quite defined. It is an amorphous grouping in Naples and its hinterlands of more than 100 autonomous clans and perhaps 10,000 immediate associates, along with a much larger population of dependents, clients, and friends. It is an understanding, a way of justice, a means of creating wealth and spreading it around. It has been a part of life in Naples for centuries—far longer than the fragile construct called Italy has even existed. At its strongest it has grown in recent years into a complete parallel world and, in many people’s minds, an alternative to the Italian government, whatever that term may mean.
I was in Naples several years ago and saw a very curious sight. I was at the train station and there was a uniformed police officer standing, his hands clasped behind him. As I watched, a shuffling old man came up behind the officer and slipped something in his hand. No words were exchanged. A payoff? No doubt. I had witnessed the long tentacles of the ancient criminal organization known only as… Camorra!
Here’s an orchestral piece I recently finished in the flavor of adventure movie themes. It tells the tale of Pantoor (thusly named because the Persian santoor is prominently featured in the music) who travels the land vanquishing his enemies and bedding eager barmaidens. It starts out in the realm of Vivaldi and ends somewhere near Aaron Copland. The Adventures of Pantoor by Wil Forbis
They apply a somewhat loose definition of the term “robot.” But check this out:
1738: The Duck
French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson created a number of autonomous robots in his time, but The Duck is one of his more revered works.
The mechanical duck had over 400 different parts, which isn’t too surprising considering what it could do. It could flap its wings, and it could eat, digest, and subsequently defecate. That’s a pretty impressive robot!
No mention of the coming robot apocalypse however.
Anyone who pays the slightest attention to the media is aware of the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin. And we have of course all seen numerous pictures of the shooter, George Zimmerman.
This difficult case brings many questions to mind. Questions of race, of class, of how far one can go to protect themselves… Also: how did Zimmerman lose so much weight from the period of his file photos to more recent shots? He looks great! Maybe a low-carb diet and daily cardio? But how did he maintain the cardio workout without getting bored by his routine like so many other people? Is he active in competitive sports? Has he tried the Jared “Subway” diet?
These are some of the perplexing questions I hope the media will tackle in coming weeks.
