Every time someone calls someone a slut, not marriage material, etc, I think of this:

From PostSecret

I’ve always wondered why someone would do something like that.

Anyways! Dragons. Have you seen some of the intermediates between dinosaurs and birds? They look like dragons. Exactly like dragons. Now, I don’t know about the breathing fire, but there are definitely animals which spit poison or foul scents for defense. Could it be possible some survived, and then we extincted the few that made it past the ice age?

One of the bad things about electronic data is how corruptible, how easy it is to alter or loose. Books on a hard drive are much less eternal, ironically, than on the flimsy page.

-You could write the books of the world in characters made of atoms/molecules and they would occupy an extremely small space and be very permanent, depending on the material and method used to do the transcribing. In fact, this seems like a good way to “back up” the world’s books. The only thing that would suck about this is the dependence on some sort of reader/microscope to be able to interact with a book. The simplicity of paper and ink is one of the appeals of books. No complex tools are necessary to express ourselves, only things easily accessible by anyone.

-We can also switch materials for books. This seems like something necessary to do-something more renewable that paper that would still absorb ink cannot be hard to come by. The pen is the more necessary part of the equation. Ease of writing is something we rely on in many areas of our life; what we write on, from walls to paper, is not as much of an issue so long as it is not difficult to.

So! That’s what I’ve been thinking about.

As soon as we got back my brother asked me to come see the kitten. Always in favor of seeing kittens, I said yes. Chances are it was some healthy, sprite soul who didn’t need or want human help. My mom volunteered to go with us. We walked the block and a half to encounter a pitiful little ball of fur who’s eyes were encrusted shut. The thing was tiny. I started forward to hear it say “eu!”. My mom and I were shocked. She suggested to go call animal control to help it and her and my brother walked away. I stayed, and after ascertaining the kitten would not bite me, put my hand onto its fur to check out what condition it was in. I was prepared for the worst, as baby animals aren’t known for being hardy. Its fur was dirty, but despite being skin and bones its heart and muscles seemed to be healthy. Amazingly, despite the condition it was in it started a resounding purring. That’s when I knew I couldn’t leave it there.

I brought it up to my brother’s office. While I waited for a box to place it in in enthusiastically rubbed and purred on me. Originally it was supposed to stay outside the office, but it wasn’t too enthusiastic about boxes, so we brought it in. A trip to Petsmart secured some kitten milk, soft food, and eye rinse; every couple hours I worked on its eyes, which got progressively better. It sat quietly in one place, and on the ride home snuggled up until it had to poop in its box. Upon arriving home we made room for it in the bathroom and it sat quietly in its box.

The next day all it wanted were laps. If there weren’t laps she or he would chirpingly meow until a lap was available. Place it on a lap and it would go to sleep. The only time it left a lap was to purposefully jump down and go towards the food or ask for the litter box. It never showed any signs of fear towards any of us, just snuggling.

After a fifteen minute bath(to kill any ticks or fleas. It was not fond of this!), umpteen pet wipes wipes, lots of eye rinse, lots of cat food, and as much love as I and my family could give it, its nose is no longer clogged, its eyes are wide, adorable, and puss-free, and its coat no longer has any dirt. It wants to play all day and sleep on the floor, or laps! all night. It’s a sweet, playful kitten.

Had it been in worse shape it would have needed a professional, or if it had been younger would have needed more intense care. But I’m glad we provided for this kitten.

I rescued a sparrow from the cats. It was very soft. I put in a secluded spot where I was sure it would have time to recover and fly away. That night, the cats feasted on a sparrow which looked awfully like the one I rescued.

I rescued another sparrow. It lived with me for two days, and had no visible signs of injury. It pooped a bunch. I gave it hiding places, water, and food. One day, it just dropped dead.

I rescued an alligator lizard. I gave it a home where it seemed happy, though it tried to bite me a lot. It then lay eggs and died. The eggs went bad.

My rescue efforts have not been very successful.

I have been helping my brother with his business. It is not the type of work I am suited for: clerical and people oriented. Apparently do my job satisfactorily, but after it I feel drained. I have been reading lots of stupid books, and a couple not so stupid ones.

I re-read Jane Eyre and A Little Princess among the others. I adore the latter and always have. I love Jane Eyre’s visuals, and despite disparities in our character have a strong liking for hers.

There is more to write, but I am tired.

There is something profoundly disturbing about a robot playing good music, mostly because art is the one thing that a robot is not supposed to be able to do. Of course, it is ultimately severely limited, as it can only take some concepts related to good music and splice them. But splicing is a valid way of creating new art. Existential crisis! What does it MEAN? That a good beat is not hard to come by(well, yeah, we knew that already)? That Disney actually has been programming its starlets all this time? Maybe the music world is already ruled by robots! Self-replicating robots with a limited sphere of musical understanding, all playing their one dimensional harmonies as a lullaby. I’m scared.

One of the projects featured on the site We Make Money Not Art a while back was of a guy who built self-contained automatons which, when running low on energy, stole some from the many sources available in the city. He also built robots which had plant and bacteria symbiotically living in its belly and drank river water when it needed to recharge. I need to be friends with him, and that has so many implications for energy production!

Now the fantasy. I read on Boing Boing about a man who disguised the entrance to his children’s playroom with an armoire to make it into a “secret room”. Why stop there(not that man, in general)? Why not have a beautiful indoor garden linked? Why not create our own secret miniature fantasy worlds and disguise the entrances to them in our homes, money allowing?

This story revolves around an ordinary working man being driven to the point of suicide by radicals who drive him out of business. Through some twists and turns, he builds a balloon and resolves to travel to the moon with it. The character’s woes start with the appearance of radicalism and “long speeches…which left not a bellows in the city uncared for.” An obvious satire on those who believed reverently in government reform at the time, Poe demonstrates his opinion of how much the “common man” cared for the new theories by making them the fuel for an unintended type of fire. Harassed by day-to-day life, Hans finds a reprieve in the natural sciences, though the natural sciences he studies seem more like flights of fancy. All of them are “very theoretical” and quite contrary to anything particularly factual; but to dwell on that would be to miss the point. Through the use of these “theoretical” papers and pseudo-scientific jargon which sounds perfectly factual, Poe jabs at the sciences and creates an image of a human being literally taking wing on a flight of fancy and defying the supposed order with individual creativity. While to claim science itself as part of the establishment is ludicrous, it is worth being reminded of these points in an entertaining and highly creative fashion, a Steampunk novella which holds the genius of the mind as factor determining the possible.

Of course, I’ve only read half of it so far.