It’s a Bug’s Life

No, not the Pixar movie, Dear Reader…

*/grins… I love that film, Clicky…*

Sew… carrying on from today’s earlier post, and I’d really like to get this one wrapped up before the end the year, let’s take a look at the word ‘bug‘…

“insect, beetle,” 1620s (earliest reference is to bedbugs), of unknown origin, probably (but not certainly) from or influenced by Middle English bugge “something frightening, scarecrow” (late 14c.), a meaning obsolete since the “insect” sense arose except in bugbear (1570s) and bugaboo (q.v.).

Probably connected with Scottish bogill “goblin, bugbear,” or obsolete Welsh bwg “ghost, goblin” (compare Welsh bwgwl “threat,” earlier “fear,” Middle Irish bocanách “supernatural being”). Some speculate that these words are from a root meaning “goat” (see buck (n.1)) and represent originally a goat-like spectre. Compare also bogey (n.1) and Puck. Middle English Dictionary compares Low German bögge, böggel-mann “goblin.” Perhaps influenced in meaning by Old English -budda used in compounds for “beetle” (compare Low German budde “louse, grub,” Middle Low German buddech“thick, swollen”).

In the United States bug is not confined, as in England, to the domestic pest, but is applied to all insects of the Coleoptera order, which includes what in this country are generally called beetles. [Farmer & Henley, “Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English,” 1912 abridged edition]

Meaning “defect in a machine” (1889) may have been coined c. 1878 by Thomas Edison (perhaps with the notion of an insect getting into the works). Meaning “person obsessed by an idea” (as in firebug“arsonist”) is from 1841, perhaps from notion of persistence. Sense of “microbe, germ” is from 1919. Bugs “crazy” is from c. 1900. Bug juice as a slang name for drink is from 1869, originally “bad whiskey.” The 1811 slang dictionary has bug-hunter “an upholsterer.” Bug-word “word or words meant to irritate and vex” is from 1560s.

As we heard earlier, a pearl is created from a grain of sand or a parasite irritating the fuck out of any oyster…

39357032e253b8e497ae08e9e25772d9

*/lights up… Yeah and an oyster can irritate the fuck out of you if it’s contaminated with a bug… /puffs…*

The seed of this shamble idea was sown in January 2015 but it started to germinate on this Friday evening just gone…

germinate

*Germ–innate… /drags… innit! …/blows smoke ring…*

… When Cade DMed me on Twitter…

Cade fell asleep Roob wants to see why 1 Cade mentions sandy hook Roob spots a Ruby

*/taps ash… Sandy–Hook… /drags… I dunno, Clicky, sounds beachy…*

*/smokes and thinks… We are completely immersed and riddled with bacteria, Clicky… We can’t live without them. They are everywhere and they are invisible…*

Indeed I had contacted my other bestie, Leggy, in January 2015 on a bacteria-related query – he’s a proper microbiologist…

Go to man 1

A Void had posted an interesting idea at Red Frank‘s MEROVEE…

tenor

*/cough… I couldn’t believe it when I read the link again, Clicky… /pats lips… She starts off talking about archons! …/drags…*

A Void wonders about Archons and gut bugs and Roob asks for links

A Void’s links…

… And Leggy’s reply…

Go to man 2

… Of course I replied…

Go to man 3

Bacteria (n.)

1847, plural of Modern Latin bacterium, from Greek bakterion“small staff,” diminutive of baktron “stick, rod, staff, cudgel.” So called because the first ones observed were rod-shaped. Introduced as a scientific word 1838 by German naturalist Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg. The Greek word is from a PIE *bak-“staff used for support, peg” (compare Latin baculum“rod, walking stick;” Irish bacc, Welsh bach“hook, crooked staff;” Middle Dutch pegel“peg, pin, bolt”). De Vaan writes, “Since *b was very rare in PIE, and Celtic shows an unexplained geminate, we are probably dealing with a loanword from an unidentified source.”

Pearls Before Swinehund

Dear Reader, this post follows on from the previous LoL post, and I should probably start this post with a word about pearls…

*Is she saying ‘knacker‘ or ‘nacre‘, Clicky? …/lights up…*

Back in September of 2013, over on Sync Miss For Him, I shambled the album cover artwork of Lightning Bolt by Pearl Jam…

lightning bolt album artwork

*/fumes… It pisses me off that some numpty locked and buried Sync Miss For Him, Clicky… /drags… I’m gonna have to do this from memory… /sigh…*

Basically it occurred to me that each of the tracks’ artwork could correspond with a globally headlining news event/events that had occurred (and was yet to occur) in 2013; each image represented a month. The image for ‘Getaway’, for example, relates to the inauguration of Obama in January that year, ‘Let the Records Play’ with the close flyby of asteroid DA14…

*Yup! …/flicks ash… Blue Frank is convinced the asteroid pass and meteor explosion are intimately related…*

*Oh yeah! …/drags… February was a very busy month that year, Clicky…*

‘Mind Your Manners’ depicted the election of Pope Frankie in March,
‘My Father’s Son’ and the Boston Marathon bombing in April,
‘Pendulum’ and the murder of Lee Rigby in May,
‘Infallible’ and Edward Snowden revelations in June,
‘Future Days’ and the birth of Prince George in July,
‘Sirens’ and the imminent but thankfully scuppered attack on Syria in August,
‘Lightning Bolt’ and the Navy Yard shooting in September,

thats all folks.gif

*/huffs… Well, it was at the end of September when I posted the shamble Clicky… /puffs… hind sight’s easy… /blows… predicting what’ll happen is difficult…*

For the remaining three track artworks, I figured ‘Yellow Moon’ might have something to do with North Korea, although in hind sight ‘Swallowed Whole’ could have been something to do with North Korea. ‘Sleeping By Myself’, however, I speculated it could be related to a high-profile divorce, or the death of a prominent black man…

*/final drag… Signing a message about cigarettes, Clicky… /stubs butt… “from so far”…*

Dear Reader, I seem to have rambled on a bit and not actually covered what I wanted to cover in this post. Another post will follow that moves us forward in time to January 2015, and on again to this Friday just gone. It’s about bacteria…

landscape-1489068966-doctor-who-spoilers

*Oh shush, Clicky… /lights up… Go get a Song…*

On The Lash: Touring Turing Turning

For the last three days, Monday to Wednesday, John Lamb Lash has put out a new talk a day…

Sew… seeing as I’ve now written quite a number of posts about Sophia’s Correction recently, Dear Reader, I thought I’d preface the titles of future Lashy inspired posts, starting with this one…

*/reaches for fags… Well, Icarus did also fall, Clicky… /shakes lighter… but I believe that was under entirely different circumstances… /lights up…*

MONDAY

Let’s start with a selfie taken in the red universe of MEROVEE…

Roob on Merovee 1 Roob on Merovee 2

*/drags… That gnosticism image has a sort of fishy tail to it…*

The Turing test, developed by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.

The twist on the Turing test is that it is we that are being tested, for our ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour toward this AI scam, and whether we’ll swallow the official narrative unquestioningly…

TUESDAY

Another selfie but this includes Cade, as I told him that another Lashy talk was up, and that I’d specifically asked Leggy to have a listen…

Roob tells Cade what shes up to

*/puffs… Leggy has written loads about The Righteous, Clicky… /blows smoke rings… and Goetia…*

I was not expecting Leggy to write a post about it!

Racial Superiority

It doesn’t exist.

It’s a meme. An ancient one, started by one tribe in the Middle East – not Islam, not even Judaism. Way before them.

It’s a meme that caused a change from the old Pagan religions to new, highly organised religious structures. It wasn’t created by those religions. It created them.

Some years back I wrote a little thing about the origins of government and control of the people. Where one becomes leader, then a group takes control, and they consider themselves superior to the other members of the tribe. That’s still going on.

*And Cade also mentioned Lashy’s talks in his latest blog post, Clicky… /final drag…*

Roob says goodnight to Cade

*My diagram depicting the long way round…/stubs butt… Last thing I sent him that night…*

WEDNESDAY

“Did you hear about Uber?” Thoughtful Man asked me when he got home from work. He’s been out working the mean streets of Southend all day, making sure Christmas shoppers and celebrators got home safe and sound.

I’d read something about Uber online earlier. “The EU has finally ruled that Uber is a transportation company and will be dealt with as such. That?” I replied dishing him up his evening dinner.

“No,” Thoughtful Man said scrolling through the news feed on his phone. “An Uber driver confessed to killing that woman in Lebanon.”

“The murdered British diplomat found on the side of a road?”

Thoughtful Man had found the article and handed me his phone. “Yes. An Uber driver did it and the Lebanese government is advising everyone in the country not to use them; they ain’t safe.”

“Well we know that,” I said handing his phone back to him. “That whole company is built on deceit and debt. Weird though…” I trailed off and busied myself refilling his glass.

“What’s is? Thoughtful Man asked between spoonfuls of saucy ravioli. He stopped eating and squinted at me. “What’s weird?”

“Nothing really,” I replied demurely. “Only I finished listening to a talk about the word uber just before you got home.”

*The really spooky thing though, Clicky, is their faces… /lights up… Those girls lined up on the video image… /deep drag… They look exactly like people I work with now… /exhales … The same features… /taps ash… and not just women…*

Dear Reader, the previous Fourth Turning and the current one have one thing in common. I wonder what a comparative mythologist, like John Lamb Lash would make of this…

And First Mother’s husband called the first plant Skarmunal, corn, and the second plant utarmur-wayeh, tobacco.

“Remember,” he told the people, “and take good care of First Mother’s flesh, because it is her goodness become substance. Take good of her breath, because it is her love turned into smoke. Remember her and think of her whenever you eat, whenever you smoke this sacred plant, because she has given her life so that you might live. Yet she is not dead, she lives: in undying love she renews herself again and again.”

The Great Myths #12: The Corn Mother (Penobscot) https://t.co/NQI2xpd4ra via @wordandsilence1

— RooBeeDoo (@RooBeeDoo1) December 20, 2017

Have a Song ❤

Alpha, Beta, Cerebral, Delta… /waves…

*Pretty! Thanks, Clicky… /pats snout…*

Red Frank over at MEROVEE put up a new post last night, that touched on things I covered from the last John Lamb Lash talk two weeks ago. Namely AI, D Waves and Quantum Computing. He was inspired, no doubt, by the breathless news yesterday from NASA that Google AI had been instrumental in the discovery of a new planet circling a distant star…

I DMed Cade on Twitter, as I thought the post might interest him. I was a little surprised at the reply he gave…

Roob sends a link to Cade who has an unexpected reply

‘Beta waves were discovered and named by the German psychiatrist Hans Berger, who invented electroencephalography (EEG) in 1924, as a method of recording electrical brain activity from the human scalp. Berger termed the larger amplitude, slower frequency waves that appeared over the posterior scalp when the subject’s eyes were closed alpha waves. The smaller amplitude, faster frequency waves that replaced alpha waves when the subject opened his or her eyes were then termed beta waves.’

If you’ve looked at the Red Frank’s post, Dear Reader, you will see he brings up not only the ‘Observer Effect’ but also Stanley Kubrick. The wiki write-up on Beta Waves did the same for me. Observe…

*Saved by the “Mandy situation”, Clicky? Interesting…*

Roob Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut in Beta Waves

Indeed I was thinking about Cade’s ‘Cosmic Corridors’ from the evening before, and travelling from/to points A (alpha) and B (beta)…

Cade poses Roob a question

… And then he mentioned ‘wrinkles’…

Cade and Roob discuss restrictions on space

*I believe he’s read the book, Clicky…*

Cade's wrinkles and Roob's brain

*/smirks… Wrinkles…*

*So the brain gif I used was dancing to ‘The Chicken Song’, Clicky? …/rolls eyes… Figures…*

Roob asks Cade about beta waves and the observer effect

We’ll have to explore seeing through our eyelids in the dark another time, Dear Reader. This post is quite long enough for now…

Have a Song 😉

Past Presents Yet To Come…

Yesterday…

*Mellow, Clicky… Nice! …/lights up…*

The 8th December, was the anniversary of John Lennon’s death in 1980, Dear Reader. 37 years ago; I was reminded of that day whilst reading Blue Frank‘s post yesterday about May Pang, John Lennon’s girlfriend, briefly, in 1973…

*Weird, Clicky… /drags… Red Frank has a new MEROVEE post up today about a black hole discovery that’s puzzling scientists…/taps ash… created just after the Big Bang, like…*

Merovee The Grand Unifying Theory of Everything

*GUT of everything? …/drags… As John Lamb Lash mentioned at the end of his last talk… ‘See colon backslash’ …/blows smoke ring… The singularity… /stubs butt… I asked my good friend, ‘The Gut Doctor’ about 137 before, Clicky…*

u8la7yacohdfuy5se8crzu9h

*Roob-ID-I-um… /lights up…*

Rubidium-87 has a half-life of 48.8×10⁹ years, which is more than three times the age of the universe of (13.799±0.021)×10⁹ years, making it a primordial nuclide.

…Knot only that, Dear Reader, it was but a year ago, on December 8th 2016, that the very first Underdog Anthology was published. I was reminded of this reading Leggy update on the upcoming Christmas edition, posted last night…

*Leggy just emailed me a complete final copy, Clicky… /puffs merrily… It looks fucking AWESOME!!!*

Underdog Christmas Anthology Content

*That’s interesting, Clicky… /stubs butt… ‘Christmas Ever’ covers page 137… /lights up…*

There’s an additional treat included with three illustrations Leggy drew way back in the 80s. Three perfect Santa cartoons that illustration Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come perfectly…

…And, Dear Reader, you may notice from the Contents page that a certain missive writer from Text US has a story included. I had the most enormous fun last weekend editing ‘Christmas Ever’, as Cade wrote it…

There is a real treat in this one for those who enjoyed Brian W. Aldiss’s excursions into the deeper, stranger SF regions. If you re-read his shorts such as ‘As for our Fatal Continuity’ and ‘Send Her Victorious’ (in ‘Comic Inferno’, well worth a read if you can still get it and the title story is in much the same vein too), and his novel ‘The Eighty-Minute Hour’ (which I read several times) then you are going to love this one. I’m not telling you the title yet, but I will when it’s ready to go.

https://t.co/axWxxSdct8

— Cade FON Apollyon (@CadeFonApollyon) December 9, 2017

*/squints… What’s that red book Cade’s using, Clicky?*

The Red Book Backdrop

*/rolls eyes… Figures… /continues to smoke…*

Sew… hopefully, Dear Reader, ‘The Underdog Anthology IV: The Good, the Bad and Santa’ will be available to everybody…

children warning

*/coughs… Don’t give Leggy ideas, Clicky!*

… Um, nearly everybody sometime before Thursday. I will post a link when it is and let you have a look at the Afterword corruption. In the meantime, have a good week, don’t be mean and… Have a Song… 😉

*/puffs… Clicky! I find the new title of that Song highly offensive… /streams smoke… Get another…*

Friday Purchases & Other Pressing Fings

Notice anything different, Dear Reader?

different

*The font, Clicky, the font! …/sigh… Why do I bother?*

Running dangerous low on memory space, I’ve had to upgrade the LoL’s WordPress account. I did this on Friday, whilst off work for “Christmas Shopping”. I now have more memory, no ads, a selection of fonts and themes to choose from, and a new domain…

*Ha! …/pats snout… I love that show, Clicky …/lights up…*

Whilst I had the plastic handy, I decided to replace the lost copy of a book I used to own. And it has just been delivered! On a Sunday!

Jessicas Trap

I could have got it quicker by buying it for Kindle, but seeing as it was a Kindle version that was lost, I thought I would indulge in a tangible copy with built-in page turning sound effect…

*And scrolling too… /drags… It’s got it all…*

“Christmas shopping” completed, I spent the rest of Friday morning editing a short story Cade was writing for the upcoming Underdog Anthology…

Cade tells Roob he feels hit by a train

It was funny him mentioning feeling like he’d been hit by a train, as I’d just been atweeting…

Beyonce the Tank Engine https://t.co/g1K63CaQF3 via @YouTube
This never gets old 😀

— RooBeeDoo (@RooBeeDoo1) December 1, 2017

… And then it got weirder…

Cade gets to it whilst Roob listens to a talk

*/sings… I’m a singularity, I’m a singularity, I’m a singularity, I’m a singularity, I’m a singularity, I’m a singularity, I’m a singularity. Now up put your hands up…*

I mentioned Part 1 of John Lash’s Archonic Dementia talk previously and this is another longish one. But was so incredibly syncy that this time I took some notes. Kinda…

Roob notes 1

*Familiar themes here, Clicky… /scratches gnos…*

Roob notes 2

*/puffs merrily…*

I didn’t manage to listen to the talk all in one go…

Lashy really doesn’t like the proponents of AI and D Wave computing, likening them to “carnival barkers“. And then he mentioned something that brought me up a bit short…

Roob notes 5

‘The cover image is the Seal of Solomon, the seal used on the brass vessel in which Solomon trapped 72 demons and their legions of spirits. I redrew the version in Goetia, scanned it then meddled with it in Paint Shop. It’s relevant to the story, as is the chosen colour and the strange object at the bottom of the back cover. That’s enough hints – no spoilers.’

Roob notes 6

Email from Ruth to Kevin on 2nd July 2014 Norman's House

‘Samuel’s Girl‘, the next book after ‘Jessica’s Trap’, has already been republished and ‘Norman’s House’ will finally see the light of day in the new year. As for what Lashy’s thinks ‘The Singularity of November 2017’ is…

river-song-spoilers

*Er… or Dear Reader could just simply listen to the talk, Clicky… /rolls eyes…*

Have a Song 😀

Christmas Ads Past and Present

Thoughtful Man sent me something to watch on Arse-about-Facebook this morning. A Christmas ad from 1978…

*Crikey! That brought back memories, Clicky… /lights up… Packed with stars of yesteryear…*

*Thirty years apart butt…/flicks ash… also packed with stars, Clicky…*

Apart from the quality of the production, the biggest difference between the Christmas ad of 1978 and the Christmas ad of 2017, is that one concerned itself with selling products whilst the other is selling an idea…

‘Unlike John Lewis’s famously tear-jerking adverts of 2011 to 2015, the tone of Moz The Monster is more in line with last year’s lighter ad, Buster the Boxer.’

*/:O… He does?! Go and get it Clicky… /deep drag… For Dear Reader…*

*/squints… Moor covfefe-coloured chillin, Clicky? *

Of course, the M&S advert doesn’t feature any products either but it is flogging a movie…

Butt what of Moz?

*No, Clicky, the one under the bed… /relights fag…*

Sew… could be moose, “would-be-Arab” and/or cheese…

*Knot lanky Cleese, Clicky… /rolls eyes… Although… /coughs… At least that one’s short…*

*Thank you… /stubs butt… Enough of Christmas ads, Clicky… /sticks out tongue… Ugh! This year’s batch are gruesome… Go get sumfing to cleanse the palette…*

*/lights up…*

Don’t worry, Dear Reader, there’s only 44 more days to go now. Have a Song… 😀

Belt & Braces /assumes position…

New Who Outfit

*Straight in there with the photo eh, Clicky?*

Dear Reader, today the new/knew/gnu Who outfit was released to the world…

Apparel (n.) c. 1300, “fighting equipment or accouterments, armor, weapons;” mid-14c., “furnishings, trappings;” late 14c., “personal outfit, a person’s outer clothing, attire,” from Old French apareil “preparation, planning; dress, vestments,” from apareillier (see apparel (v.)). Middle English also had apparelment (late 14c.).

… Posted an observation or two on MEROVEE…

…and further discussed with Poppy in Twitter DMs…

PSP and Roob discuss The Doctor's new Outfit 1

*She’s a great Dane and I wear the face of Great Dane, Clicky… /lights up… We could be twins… /draws deeply with Gallic shrug…*

PSP and Roob discuss The Doctor's new Outfit 2

*She makes some excellent points, Clicky…*

*The owls are not what they seem, Clicky? …/blows smoke ring… What you on about?*

*/drags… Ah, cooper… /exhales… Gotcha! *

PSP and Roob discuss The Doctor's new Outfit 4

*Three parent babies are a thing, Clicky…*

PSP and Roob discuss The Doctor's new Outfit 6

*Nice! …/flicks ash…*

PSP and Roob discuss The Doctor's new Outfit 7

*/stubs butt… Belting, Clicky, belting…*

*/rubs throat… Clicky?*

*… Make us a cup of coffee, sweetie… /sticks out tongue… Those rainbow belts really uber zesty…*

*Oh and get a Song… /bats lashes…*

I think that’s enough to be getting on with for now, Dear Reader. Although a Cade style question suddenly occurs to me…

Q: What’s the point of humans?

A: Our ability to imagine? ...*/shrugs*...

Until next time… Have a Song…

Oh What A Fluster! /cluck…

Fluster (v) early 15c. (implied in flostrynge), “bluster, agitate,” probably from a Scandinavian source (compare Icelandic flaustr “bustle,” flaustra “to bustle”), from Proto-Germanic *flaustra-, probably from PIE *pleud-, extended form of root *pleu- “to flow.” Originally “to excite,” especially with drink; sense of “to flurry, confuse” is from 1724. Related: Flustered; flustering; flustery. As a noun, 1710, from the verb.

A bit of an omni–shambles for you now, Dear Reader…

*/lights up… Class are fick? That’s a bit harsh, Clicky… /puffs…*</i>

I have a post in moderation over on MEROVEE. See, I took a selfie…

*Yeah, the skeleton of a post… /drags… Knot fleshed out…*

*It’s released? /cough… No point me continuing with this post… /huffs… Fucking pointless exercise…*

Um… Apparently my MEROVEE Friday afternoon scribblings have been set free, Dear Reader. You can go read it now. Only if you wanna…

*Oh… /sucks smoke… Homework, Clicky?! …/snorts smoke… Well okay then, if you wanna try…*

*/clicks tongue… Gotcha… /pats snout…*