The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
I Am an Odd Bugger…
On the flight home this morning, I saw an ad in the in-flight magazine, a variation on this one that Vox found last year, only in this ad the wording was changed a bit, and the picture was a combination photo/MRI/Da Vinci anatomical illustration.
In this ad the question asked was “How does a 67 year old man have the body of a 30 year old?”
Without hesitation, my twisted mind responded “Cut into steaks, chops, and roasts and stored in a freezer in his basement?”
Great Company.
I just got back from dinner with Matthew of Triggerfinger (again) and KevinP, the guy who maintains this outstanding Wikipedia page on The Joyce Foundation. Kevin is also one of us gunnies who take newbies out to the range for the first time. We had a good dinner and great conversation. Damn, it’s nice to sit down and talk with people who know the topic and are as involved and passionate about it as I am.
Unfortunately I have to get up at 5:00AM tomorrow (4:00AM Arizona time) to catch my flight back, so this is it until the weekend. Good trip, and meeting new people (never my strong suit) has been an enjoyable experience.
A Pleasant Evening.
I had a very pleasant evening with Sarah “Stickwick Stapers” and her husband last night. Dinner at The County Line, and then a little star, planet, and nebula gazing through one of the UT Austin Astronomy Dept. telescopes. Mars was a blob, but Saturn was quite beautiful. I was reminded of an art print I have, Sword of Herschel, a piece done by a Tucson artist, Kim Poor.
Click for larger image
We then returned to the restaurant parking lot where I’d left my car and stood around talking until almost 11:00. We would have done it longer if we didn’t all need to get up early this morning.
Now I get to add Sarah to the list of “bloggers I’ve met.” And no, we didn’t discuss religion!
Last Meal in Austin, TX.
OK, the arrangements for tonight are:
Dinner, 7:00PM at the Iron Cactus on Stonelake Blvd.
The relatively late start will give everyone a chance to get there (I hope). Looks like there will be at least three besides me. Please RSVP in comments if you can. Hope to see you there.
Thursday Night Blogmeet.in Austin?
Reader KevinP suggested via email that we get together Thursday night for dinner and conversation, along with anybody else who’d like to attend. I think that’s a great idea. Please leave comments suggesting a location and an RSVP. We’re planning on meeting for dinner wherever about 6:30PM.
So what say you, Austinites?
On the Road Again…
I’m in Austin, Texas through Thursday for some software training. First impressions: flat, warm, muggy. And it’s supposed to rain tomorrow. My hotel room was 83°F when I checked in. The A/C’s been running an hour now and it’s still 79°. Wait… 78°. Woohoo!
So, any bloggers/readers in the Austin area? What is there for a non-drinking, crowd-hating, unarmed gunblogger to do here in his off-hours? Any restaurant recommendations? I’ve got five nights to kill, and Showtime®™ looks like it’s going to wear very thin very fast. I brought two books, but I think I’ll have finished them by Wednesday.
Movie Gun Meme.
The day before yesterday The Munchkin Wrangler wrote about the best movie prop ever – the M41-A pulse rifle from Aliens. Yesterday, Jay G wrote about his personal movie prop, Judge Dredd’s “Lawgiver.” Today, Say Uncle linked to both of those, and threw in his personal favorite, the gun used by Robocop.
A long time ago I wrote about movie prop guns, too, and coincidentally one of them was from Aliens…
Plus, I was reminded by all of this of the piece I wrote about the making of Aliens about a year later.
UPDATE: Cryptic Suberranean votes for Decker’s “Chief’s Special” from Bladerunner.
Flowers for Algernon?.
If you’re unaware, that’s the title of a 1959 Science Fiction novella (one included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 1) by Daniel Keyes that was made into the 1968 film Charly. In the story, surgeons alter the brain of a mentally retarded man, and he becomes brilliant – but only for a while.
I was reminded of that story by this:
Deep Brain Stimulation May Improve Recall
It brought back vivid, 30-year-old memories for patient, researchers say
WEDNESDAY, Jan. 30 (HealthDay News) — Deep brain stimulation (DBS) may help improve memory, suggests a Canadian study that found that DBS of the brain’s hypothalamus unexpectedly prompted detailed memories in a patient.
DBS — which involves electrical stimulation of targeted brain areas — is used to treat Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders, and is being studied as a potential treatment for a number of other conditions, including cluster headaches and aggressive behavior.
The team at Toronto Western Hospital was testing DBS as a potential appetite suppressant in a morbidly obese 50-year-old man. While the researchers were stimulating implanted electrode contacts in order to identify potential appetite suppressant sites in the hypothalamus, the patient reported a vivid memory of being in a park with friends when he was about 20 years old.
As the researchers increased the electrical stimulation, the memory became more vivid.
The heightened memory occurred again when the researchers repeated the test in a double-blinded setting. The electrode contacts that proved most effective at provoking memories were located close to the fornix, a bundle of fibers that carries signals within the limbic system, which is involved in memory and emotions.
In addition, electrical stimulation boosted activity in the temporal lobe and hippocampus, important components of the brain’s memory circuit.
The researchers also found that three weeks of continuous stimulation of the hypothalamus led to significant improvements in the patient’s results on two learning tests. He was also better able to remember unrelated paired objects during stimulation.
The study authors concluded that “just as DBS can influence motor and limbic circuits, it may be possible to apply electrical stimulation to modulate memory function and, in doing so, gain a better understanding of the neural substrates of memory.”
Every day, Science Fiction becomes science fact.
Too bad more people don’t enjoy the genre.
I Guess the Rumors of a Disorganized Campaign Were Right.
I got a letter in the mail today from “Friends of Fred Thompson.” Click on the image for the readable version:
Check the date. Sheesh!
