until we had six individuals, all of whom were pathological liars as well as highly suggestible. At the end of their discussion all six had childhood memories in common with each other and with no one else. We then sent them on solo tours of each other’s memories
Image CC-BY-NC-SA by otherthings
Ten years ago a couple of Sandoz chemists discovered a pair of compounds, thymoumanine and lismonine, that (respectively) stimulate and depress activity in the hippocampus. MillerCoors LLC bought the patents eighteen months ago and has begun test-marketing a pair of beverages based on the compounds. I wonder whether the cans will be red and blue?
Image CC-BY-NC-ND by pinkangelbabe
Inspected by 9973 and verified false at time of posting.
Ghostspace hit its 10,000th memorial last night. Founder Gui Youling built the site anticipating that users would want to create virtual memorials at the GPS coordinates at which loved ones died—the geoblogging equivalent of a ghost bike or a cross at the side of the road. Instead, a huge preponderance of users has chosen to construct memorials at the coordinates of the deceased’s favorite places—the geoblogging equivalent of sprinkling cremains on Mount Shasta or tipping the forty. I notice via Google that Coffinpimp in Accra is now offering custom-pimped Ghostspace memorials. Go check them out!
image CC-BY-NC-SA by clickykbd
Inspected by 9973 and verified false at time of posting.
This isn’t really news—Wired will probably be on it thirteen minutes from now—but it was news to me.
My architect brother-in-law has just picked up a freelance gig designing navigational interfaces for MAS patients.
As the grinders (ex-grinders, friends-of-grinders, grinder-aware, yadda yadda) among you will have already picked up, a substantial number of MAS patients, unable to establish a working chronology or prevent spontaneous retrieval, end up essentially drowned by their own memories. (This will probably be fodder for song lyrics and satire fifteen years from now, but if it happens to your sister it is no fucking joke.)
Anyway, it turns out there is a growing cottage industry designing bespoke memory palaces for MAS patients (which seems far out until you remember that Pakistan now earns most of its foreign exchange from custom-on-demand prosthetics). Word is: If you’re going to Cuba, for fuck’s sake talk to an architect first. Don’t get stuck in a pole barn with your whole life’s worth of memories. (Or if you do, bring some burning tar and a big fucking knife.)
(Photo CC-BY-NC-SA by lfaisco)
My shrink has me on Progenil, which is some kind of weird enpatrogen (I hate that word. Can’t they call it an enmatrogen?) that gives me access to the memories of my ancestors. This is great, but it doesn’t have any lateral effectiveness—no access at all to aunts and uncles, great-aunts and great-uncles, etc. How long are we going to have to wait for a decent entiogen?
As I understand it, most of the side-effects of this stuff are due to the thousands of ancestors you have once you get back ten generations—or around 200 years—or around 1770 if you’re me. A long time ago, but not way way lost in the mists of time. And once you get to the actual mists… Jesus! It’s motley back there, and a bunch of it comes through in crazy-assed Finno-Ugric dialects that can be really disorienting. You have to just sort of relax and treat it like the sound of the sea.