Feeling Crabby

Did you know that crabs feel pain? Neither did I, but it's right there in the science journal of experimental boilology. It says "If you cook crabs they'll die screaming horrible deaths of utter agony." Or something like that. I mean, look at this article in the Globe and Mail, titled "That lobster you are going to boil feels pain: study".

Wait... are lobsters crabs? 'Cause I'm pretty sure they have different names for a reason. Also... what the hell! How do you know if crabs feel pain! Did they interview the crabs?

EXPERIMENTER: "Ok, now I'm going to give you a light shock. I'll move it up a little after each one and you tell me when you feel that it qualifies as pain."

CRAB: "Gotcha."

EXPERIMENTER: "How's that?"

CRAB: "Tingles a little, that's about it."

EXPERIMENTER: "What about now?"

CRAB: "It's a bit uncomfortable, but nothing I can't handle."

EXPERIMENTER: "And now?"

CRAB: "That's weird... my claw keeps snapping open and closed."

EXPERIMENTER: "Ok, I'm going up again."

CRAB: "Ow! Yeah, that hurts."

EXPERIMENTER: "And now?"

CRAB: "What the hell!? Yeah, I already said it hurts. Turn the damn thing off!"

EXPERIMENTER: "A little bit more..."

CRAB: "Aaaah! Stop it!"

EXPERIMENTER: "You smell so good right now."

CRAB: "What is wrong with you!!!! Owowowowow! Wait, what's that?"

EXPERIMENTER: "Oh this? Ummm.... Stage 2 of the experiment requires me to melt some butter on you. It's nothing to worry about."

Honestly though, how do you quantify pain in an animal? For people it's easy, you just ask them. So what did they use as a criteria for the crabs? Apparently, learning quickly to avoid a stimulus is enough. For example, here’s the crab experiment:

1. There's two caves.
2. Crab goes into one cave.
3. Crab may or may not get a shock.
4. End of trial one.
5. Crab goes into the cave a second time, crab gets a shock.
6. Crab says "eff this" and tries the other cave.
7. Ergo, the crab feels pain.

Whaaaa??? Why does that mean the crab was in pain? I mean sure, as people we can extrapolate and say "yeah, that probably hurt." But by that logic we'd also say anteaters hate their freaking lives because ants taste like ass, whereas in actuality anteaters probably think ants taste like tapioca pudding.

Let me put this another way. I'm going to show you the exact same experiment with a person, and you can tell me whether this behaviour can be explained as straight-up proof that crabs feel pain:

1. There's two elevators.
2. Paul goes into one elevator.
3. Paul may or may not smell fart.
4. End of trial one.
5. Paul goes into the elevator a second time, Paul smells fart.
6. Paul says "eff this" and tries the other elevator.
7. Ergo, Paul feels pain.

See? Step 7 makes no sense. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't describe that scenario as a painful experience (that would be one helluva toot), yet by the crab experiment criteria it's "painful".

Just one more reason to be critical of everything you read.


COMPLETE TANGENT:
Ever heard of Gamma world? It's a roleplaying game like Dungeons & Dragons, made by the same people (Wizards of the Coast), and more or less using the same rules. The major difference is that it's futuristic sci-fi instead of fantasy.

This is the description of one of the powers for the character that controls electricity: "You zap your enemy with an arc of electricity, making your foe jerk and dance around like a spaz."

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? "Jerk and dance around like a spaz"??? Since when was the word "spaz" used by anyone a) older than 11, and b) not totally out of touch with derogatory terminology?

Now, some of you regular readers may be aware that I discovered I was epileptic about a year and a half ago, so obviously I'm going to be more sensitive about this. But this description could basically be written as "You zap your enemy with an arc of electricity, making your foe jerk and dance around like an epileptic.", or ""You zap your enemy with an arc of electricity, making your foe jerk and dance around like a retard."

Including that description in a game book validates its use as a non-offensive term, which it is not. Some people would say that it's part of the vernacular now and has lost its offensive tone, like the words "gypped" (gypsied) or "heepy-jeebies" (Hebrews and Jews). I disagree, because people still use the word spaz specifically in the derogatory manner, directed at the group it's derogatory towards.

At any rate, I wrote the letter below to Wizards of the Coast:

Hi there,

I have a simple request of you, which I hope you'll take seriously.

In the description of the Electrokinetic power "Electric Boogaloo" you say "You zap your enemy with an arc of electricity, making your foe jerk and dance around like a spaz." As an epileptic, the use of term "a spaz" makes me sick every time I see it. Maybe the person who wrote it didn't realize the term "a spaz" means "an epileptic", and was unaware of the painful association that terminology has for any person who experiences grand mal seizures, particularly those who experienced seizures when young. Regardless, could you change that description in future versions of the rulebook? I want to play gamma world, but I literally can't play an Electrokinetic character. Given that there's a thousand other ways to describe the power without using those words, I don't think this is an unreasonable request.

Take care,
Paul

And this was their response:

Greetings Paul,

Thank you for contacting Wizards of the Coast Game Support, we appreciate you for providing feedback. This email is to inform you that we have received your comments, and while we cannot guarantee an additional response, we do appreciate that you took the time to bring your thoughts on the word choice for Gamma World.

Thanks again, and if you have any additional questions or comments for us, please contact us again. Have fun, and good gaming!

Translation: Yeah, whatever.

So hey, Wizards of the Coast; go screw yourselves.

Saltwater Crocodiles are Awesome

I had the best birthday ever on Sunday, and my birthday isn't until the end of June! It wasn't even supposed to be a birthday celebration, but if I were to plan out the best birthday ever, that would have been it. Let me outline the events that occurred and we'll see if you can spot my favourite part:

1. We went to the Australian Reptile Park and saw a saltwater crocodile leap 6 feet in the air to eat a hunk of chicken
2. We had tasty and cheap dumplings for dinner
3. I ate a gigantic chocolate sundae while everyone else at the table stared in disbelief that I was able to jam the whole thing down

I see a lot of hands up in the air for #3, but you're wrong. Saltwater croc wins hands-down. This was without question one of the most awesome things I've seen in my entire life. I could get on the plane right now and go home and this trip would still feel like a fantastic success.

Snake!:
It wasn't just the croc either, there was lots of awesome stuff at the reptile park. For instance, have you ever seen a more snakey looking snake than this guy?

Seriously, this guy came with his own ladder. He offered me an apple while I was there. Baloo and Bagheera showed up and did a song with him (okay, maybe I got too obscure with the Jungle Book reference). Still, awesome looking snake.

Turtle!:

This was a Galapagos tortoise who was totally not content to just chill out in his pen. He was booking it around in a circle, and Erika couldn't help but take a dozen photos of him. Actually, this is probably a better representation of him:

He's even turning left like he's a NASCAR racer (by the way, every photo in the history of NASCAR is taken from the exact same camera angle. Seriously, Google image it).

Alligators!:

The alligators are right there when you enter the place too. It's a huge pen with a ton of gators... pretty cool to see them just chilling out up there. There's a walkway near the water where some of them were hanging out and guess what... this is what Erika is studying!

Sorry, let me zoom in so you can tell better:

Okay, so maybe it's not as cool as the alligator. But hey Erika likes fish, and it's at least near a gator, and... well... okay, touchy subject. It's probably best if I just move on.


And now for the main event!
I don't mind telling you that this was so awesome I'm just going to throw out a bunch of photos out there and not even try to make jokes. How cool are these!

Just chilling out

Don't mind me, I'm just a log. Nothing to see here.

If you look close he's actually staring at the guy, not the chicken

He's going for it!

RAAAAR!!!

CHOMP!

C'mon people, this is awesome! My favourite shot by far is this one though:

One ass-kicking reptile, coming up

That is one mo-fo of a crocodile! By the way, am I a bad person for kinda, maybe, sorta hoping to see the croc go after the guy instead of the chicken? Only like 3%, but still.

That was my visit to the Australian Reptile Park. It was fantastic. Y'know, in case you couldn't tell.


COMPLETE TANGENT:
Can someone explain to me why my Toilet Duck kills 99.9% of the germs in my toilet bowl? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's some guy in the R&D department at Toilet Duck Incorporated who worked really hard to find a way to get the Toilet Duck formula from killing 99.5% of the germs up to 99.9% of the germs and his boss was super impressed so he got to go home and tell his wife about how Toilet Duck is now 0.4% more effective because of him and this could mean a big promotion and then they both went out for a fancy dinner to celebrate - but let's be realistic. It's a toilet! Why do I care about germs? It's not like I'm making kimchi in there! And I hate to break it to you R&D guy, but I'm one cheese sandwich away from inflicting my 100% effective germ creating power on that same toilet.

It's probably cheaper to just clean the thing with vinegar.

Post Script

Day 6 of my 90 days of blogging, and today I’m trying to post this via email. Apparently I can just send a mail to a specific email address and ba-boom! Instant post. This is also how I’d go about sending posts from my phone. I’m going to go ahead and say that I’m pretty sketchy about this actually working the first time through. If there’s anything I’ve come to believe about technology in 12 years working with computers it’s that:

a)      Computers only do exactly what you tell them

b)      You have no idea what you’re actually telling them because the instructions were hard coded by a guy at 3am after a month of 70 hour weeks and he never factored in that you would want to back up your computer over wi-fi while watching YouTube and downloading virus-riddled movies over bit torrent.

 

Realistically, most of our interaction with computers come from us trying to do something, realizing that didn’t work, then learning the workaround that does work. Rarely is anything a 1:1 “I wanted to do something and it worked”. So while I’m certain that I may be able to post this over email, I think it’s much more likely that I have done something wrong, and will shortly discover what that is. The fun part for you, the viewer, is that I intend to just leave those errors up. You may bask in my shame, as I work out how to make this happen.

 

If this doesn’t go up at all I may have to revise my plan…

The Multiverse is Out to Get Me

Ok, so a few days ago I posted how much confidence I have in the Canucks and that I believe them now. That it’s not hyperbole and they really are the guys who are going to bring Vancouver the cup. So what do they do? They punch me in the neck. Why? I'll tell you why: The Multiverse.

There’s a theory in physics that every possible outcome from a given situation spawns a new Universe. So in one Universe you go left, in another you go right. This extends to everything that may potentially happen. Maybe a leaf falls, maybe it doesn’t. Two Universes. Obviously this means that there is an infinite number of Universes, since there’s pretty much an infinite number of things that could happen between The “Big Bang” and “Whatever Happens When We Literally Run Out of Time”.

But wait, there’s more! There’s also consciousness (getting a bit more metaphysical here), and in some schools of thought your consciousness just wanders through the multiverse following “the path of least resistance”, aka the most probable outcome of any situation. So while it’s theoretically possible to suddenly develop telepathic powers and direct them at the unsuspecting ladies of the world, it’s much more likely that you’ll learn a few magic tricks and discover that whipping them out at the bar has the same success rate as whipping out… well, you know.

So here’s the thing: Why does my consciousness follow the freaking path where the Canucks must repeatedly build me up and KICK ME IN THE FACE! I want to believe, and trust me, I still think we’re going to win in 7. But the fact that this, of all things, is the most probable path for my consciousness to take through the multiverse is complete and utter bullshit.

I still believe in the Canucks. But I’m mad as hell at the Universe.