Author / zbicyclist

by zbicyclist

Flea at last, thank God almighty we are flea at last!

Andrew Miller sends this in: “This sounds like a reference to some phrase. ‘Friends with benefits’ is the only similar thing I can think of and would be a stretch at best. Also not sure why one dog has opposable thumbs and a smartphone. Is the joke just “fleas are contagious?” That would be less of a joke and more of a useful tip for a child that just discovered them.

Since I have space in the comment box and it’s come to mind, I’ll recite De Morgan’s Siphonaptera:

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.”

by zbicyclist

The Thorax Clinic

Uncle $crooge sends this in: “It’s probably some kind of weird McEldowney fetish so I probably will regret sending this in and learning something that I really don’t want to know. Still, maybe it’s just a harmless joke; I just have no idea what this strip is about.”

I don’t really understand it, either, but I’m giving it an Arlo tag just because it’s McEldowney. The ones before and after this one are also themed The Thorax Clinic, but have a different patient.

by zbicyclist

Penny Arcade (bad language warning)

Christian sends in this comic, which is a new one for me. “Y’all need submissions… and I like visiting, so here’s a webcomic that I frequently enjoy even when I have little clue as to what any of it is about…. and the paragraphs of commentary that accompany each comic often don’t help… not because the jokes are flawed (although sometimes they are … and sometimes on purpose…?) … but because these comics are usually about video game culture/industry/playing… and the last time I was able to be not awful at a video game was when the controls were up, down, let, right, shoot.”

This one is a vocabulary lesson.

“Friendslop is a slang word, used to describe a subgenre of cooperative indie games oriented around a low barrier of entry and social interaction, emphasizing gameplay in social groups … Common elements of friendslop games include a low entry difficulty, frequently described in relation to Bushnell’s Law, that allows people of any gaming skill to participate, and a focus on social interaction. Usually these games will feature a team working towards a common goal, such as climbing a mountain in Peak“ (Wikipedia)

by zbicyclist

Another Vocabulary Lesson

Noosignatures were proposed to fill the gap between biosignatures (chemical signs of life) and technosignatures (detectable advanced technology like radio signals). They indicate intelligent activity that is not necessarily technological. Examples include:

  • Stone tools (e.g., Acheulean hand axes) 
  • Architecture or carvings
  • Undeciphered writing systems (e.g., Indus Valley script) 
  • Complex cultural products such as bread, used as a thought experiment for measurable complexity 

Chemical signs of possible life go back billions of years on earth. Production of radio waves, a bit over a hundred. Noosignatures on earth would go back maybe 3 million years or so. Exactly how you could detect these from earth is unclear.