BY LETTER
Conversations and Jokes
 Image from Juan Ochoa |
Overheard in a Traveller's Bar...
Cyborg: What's News in the Old Core?Su: There was an amusing scandal with an Coronese ambassador, his clonewife and several Kja Observance Vecs ... and an Edenese polity actually elected an erotostar ... that was in the Bylanton Orbital Band ... a hedonogenic gynomorph named "Europa Stellara" aka "Benaffet Ketria Mulchovicor" who once syzygied for several tenminutes with Perfect Artist Jyanon Tuyinem-3 ... which means you might see some adamant and hylonanecological "living glass" sculptures of them having wupsex in one of the local museums of modern art there (can't recall where, I don't have my auxiliary mem-companion on me at the moment...)
Overheard on a RiverRoad...
You did what with your happy tongue?I turned it into a sea slug.
That sounds gross, and I don't even have taste buds.
Ok, I'll explain.
Some sea slugs are solar powered. The herbivorous sacoglossan sea slugs keep chloroplasts and other plant plastids, from the plants they eat, alive in branches of their guts and use the sugars they produce from photosynthesis for their own nutrition. Another group, the carnivorous nudibranchs, also show various degrees of this ability to harness solar power by keeping whole single-celled plants alive in their tissues for the same purpose. Various cnidarians (sea anemones, hydroids, sea pens, jellyfish, corals, soft corals, etc) have a symbiotic relationship with a single-celled plant called zooxanthellae (which are related to the free-living planktonic dinoflagellates). The nudibranchs, which eat these cnidarians, simply pirate those plants from their prey.
You bionts can be so interesting.
Ahem, If I may continue?
Go ahead, I'm listening.
Well, I figured 'what if I could do the same thing?' What if my happy tongue could sample my food, which in my case does contain a lot of vat grown algae, and take any useful organelles for my own use? All I've done is programmed the happy tongue to steal chloroplasts and other photosynthetic plastids from my food and transfer it to carrier technocytes, which then transfer their load to my skin cells before going back for more.
You could have just used nano for this. Or just reprogrammed your nanoskin for that matter.
I know. But this way I'm levering the effect, using a smaller amount of nanotech to access a larger supply of biomaterial. One dose is all I'd need.
And you won't mind when your skin turns green?
What's wrong with being green?
It's not easy being...
Don't say it, please. Anyway, its unlikely I'll actually turn green. The green chlorophyll won't be the only pigment in my skin, I could easily eat some brown algae. Plus there will be the other photosynthetic plastids and my own natural colourings will be on top of those. And even if I do turn green, well my skin cells have a replacement cycle so I'd lose any green tinge as fast as I'd otherwise lose a tan.
You do realize a neb like you doesn't have a large enough surface area to replace eir diet with photosynthesis?
True, but as a dietary supplement every little bit helps.
Slogans and Sayings
'What do we get from success?- More work!
What do we get from failure?
- Fired!'
NoCoZo workchant, approx. 9,200 AT
Jokes
An antimatter farmer walked into a bar and exploded. It was a p-bar.-----------
One atom said to the other: I think I've lost an electron.
The other atom said: Are you sure?
The first atom said: Yes, I'm positive.
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Heisenberg and Schroedinger go for a drive. After a while they are stopped by a cop. He says to Heisenberg 'Excuse me sir, do you know how fast you were driving?'
Heisenberg says 'No, but I know exactly where I was...'
The cop decides to search the car. He says to Schroedinger 'Did you know you have a dead cat in your trunk?'
Schroedinger says, 'Well, I do now...'
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René Descartes walks into a bar. The barvec asks if he wants anything. … René says, 'I think not,' then disappears.
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Did you hear about the vec who got cooled to absolute zero?… e's 0K now.
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An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first orders a beer, the second orders half a beer, the third orders a quarter of a beer, and so on. … After the seventh order, the barvec pours two beers and says, "You fellas ought to know your limits."
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Two chemists ordering drinks in a restaurant; one says - 'I'll have H2O'.
The second says 'I'll have H2O too.' When they taste their drinks the second one drops dead.
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Three logicians walk into a bar. The bartender asks, 'Do all of you want a drink?'… The first logician says, 'I don't know.' The second logician says, "I don't know." The third logician says, 'Yes!'
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What's the difference between an etymologist and an entomologist?… An etymologist knows the difference.
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There are two types of sophont in this universe:… Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.
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What does the 'B' in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? It stand for Benoit B. Mandelbrot.
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There are only 10 types of sophont in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.
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Complex numbers are all fun and games until someone loses an i.
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A topologist is a sophont who can't tell a doughnut from a cup of coffee.
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Development Notes
Text by AI Vin, M. Alan Kazlev, John B and Steve Bowers
Graphics by Juan Ochoa
Initially published on 15 October 2003.
Graphics by Juan Ochoa
Initially published on 15 October 2003.
