Thanatos's Tharmturges Present: Tropical, Tipsy, and Typically Random Banter #127

[Moff Chumley]

What's wrong with Latin? It's a nice language. And it's great for ominous chanting.

You know french or spanish? It's like that, but with three genders, twelve tenses, and a system for 'conjugating' verbs that's six times harder than the one for nouns.

Yah. I hate that language.

[Alteran]

What exactly is Biotech?

It's...um...I'll tell you tomorrow!

I mean, I sort of know. Biotechnology is the long form, obviously. I had a booklet that described it in more detail before, but I think that's gone now.

Generically speaking, Wikipedia defines it as "Any technological application that uses biological systems, dead organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use." I took a mini-biotech course for part of last year (long story), and we mainly did things with bacterial cultures, viruses, and DNA. Possibly some other stuff as well, but I'm sort of forgetting that now.

Like I said, if you want to know I can give you a better answer tomorrow.

[Sneak]

So. School started today. Fun stuff. I get to come home at 7:00 PM every day, exhausted from cross country, to do my several hours worth of homework! Yeah!

Who, me? Bitter?

Supposedly my English class is going to consist largely of bioethics debates, though, if what my teacher said today is to be believed. That'll be interesting.

[averagejoe]

You know, I've probably watched too much Strong Bad as I keep wanting to call you, "The Sneak."

[SDF]

So. School started today. Fun stuff. I get to come home at 7:00 PM every day, exhausted from cross country, to do my several hours worth of homework! Yeah!

Who, me? Bitter?

Supposedly my English class is going to consist largely of bioethics debates, though, if what my teacher said today is to be believed. That'll be interesting.

Sounds like my little brothers schedule.

I don't really understand what most of the debate is with bioethics anymore. Unless it relates to GMO food politics or the like. As soon as I get my genetics Ph.D. I plan to twist the human genome worse than a tornado on a wind up toy.

[Shadow_Elf]

Sounds like my little brothers schedule.

I don't really understand what most of the debate is with bioethics anymore. Unless it relates to GMO food politics or the like. As soon as I get my genetics Ph.D. I plan to twist the human genome worse than a tornado on a wind up toy.

You have to discover how to give people super powers. Then no one will accuse you of unethical tampering. Super powers are just too awesome to be debated like that.

[randman22222]

You have to discover how to give people super powers. Then no one will accuse you of unethical tampering. Super powers are just too awesome to be debated like that.

Watchmen.

Now, can I get some weather control?

[Cobra_Ikari]

Watchmen .

Only one person in that has any superpowers.

Superpower controversy comes about because people without superpowers are jealous/afraid of those with them, and harass/attack/etc. them because of it.

But if you can MAKE someone superpowered...

...well, when everyone's super, no one is! >.>

[Shadow_Elf]

Only one person in that has any superpowers.

Superpower controversy comes about because people without superpowers are jealous/afraid of those with them, and harass/attack/etc. them because of it.

But if you can MAKE someone superpowered...

...well, when everyone's super, no one is! >.>

I don't care if I'm special. I care if I can discorporate, teleport, fly, shoot lasers, breathe fire, punch through walls, run at Mach 1, turn my skin to steel, invent anything I can think of, control the weather, telekinese things, read minds, turn invisible, generate force fields, manipulate metal, shoot spikes, multiply myself...

The list goes on. If everyone is super, no one is special but everyone is still super .

[Coidzor]

Meh. It'd basically become a new class system due to the cost of doing it. supply and demand would enter into it and, yeah...

Depending upon what kind of powers could be granted anyway.

The standard faster, tougher, super strong, and super endurance suite would become subsidized for the wealthier militaries' special forces at the very least.

[Cobra_Ikari]

The list goes on. If everyone is super, no one is special but everyone is still super .

*coughs*...I was channelling The Incredibles for a second there. >.>

[Assassin89]

*coughs*...I was channelling The Incredibles for a second there. >.>

Now if only you could put the characters from TF2 in said channeling, that would be even more interesting.

[Shadow_Elf]

*coughs*...I was channelling The Incredibles for a second there. >.>

Didn't catch that .

One could draw some parallels to X-Men though. In the movies, at least, the plot seems to revolve around super vs. non-super conflicts. But its the super vs. super conflicts that are the most fun to watch! .

In a slightly related topic, my favourite movie line ever comes from X-Men 1:
Storm: Wanna know what happens to a toad when it gets struck by lightning? Same thing that happens to everything else.
*Electrocutes Toad*

So... nonchalant, yet epic.

[Alteran]

Meh. It'd basically become a new class system due to the cost of doing it. supply and demand would enter into it and, yeah...

Imagine how the dominance of the rich would increase if they could crush the fleshy throats of the poor in their steel grasp!

Or burn their fleshy flesh with laser eyes.

Or break their boney spiness with telekinesis.

The horrible (but also a little bit awesome) possibilities are endless.

[Phase]

If Bioshock taught me anything (other than my man crush that is Sander Cohen), it taught me that genetic manipulation for super powers only serves to make the gap between the haves and the have-nots greater.

[Coidzor]

Imagine how the dominance of the rich would increase if they could crush the fleshy throats of the poor in their steel grasp!

Or burn their fleshy flesh with laser eyes.

Or break their boney spiness with telekinesis.

The horrible (but also a little bit awesome) possibilities are endless.

I was personally imagining them making much, much worse banana republics.

[Serpentine]

Man, so ridiculously out of the loop again Oh well, tough titties.

Oh, and Curly! You'd like this! Last week I read Atrahasis, the old Assyrian myth, which is essentially the Noah's Ark story. Then I read the same story in the Epic of Gilgamesh (Babylonian). Then I read it from another Sumerian source. These are all translations of tablets at least 3000 years old, and you get to the end and it says from the hand of X, junior scribe, checked with the originals by Y to ensure accuracy.

And THEN I got to read Genesis 6-11 in the Bible and in the Torah, which is the same story as the myth told two thousand years before. And there IS evidence that there were some really big floods in Mesopotamia thousands of years ago. And reading five slightly different versions of the same myth (the ancient ones had the flood as a work of multiple gods and had the protagonist by a different name - Atrahasis or Utnapishtim).

[/ancient history geek-out]

There're flood myths all over the world. Literally - Australia, the Americas, Africa, everywhere. 'course, you get floods all over the world, too...

Oooh, wait. I believe I have a Gilgamesh copy favourited. I'm off to go see if I have.

While you're at it, keep an eye out for dragons, demons/devils, and/or anything that could be considered such. Gotta figure out what I've gotta read <.<
Actually, you might be able to help. Do you have any sources on exactly when and where all these cultures - Assyrian, Babylonian, Mesopotamian, Judaic etc - were? And is there an actual name for those off-the-Mediteranean-northern-Africa-and-Middle East civilisations/areas, like "Mediterranean" and "Medieval Eastern Europe" and the like? Just that's really stalling me...

[KataraAltinaII]

I was wandering down the halls of my college, and then I made a wrong turn. when I turned around, I saw 3 dollars lying there.

so... I picked it up, and was up $3.[/random]

[Cobra_Ikari]

...

...I feel underwhelmed. v.v

Way to set yourself up to be awesome and then let me down! D=<

*hugs anyway* >.>

[Dallas-Dakota]

But . . . I'm not. Guess I'll trust to my beautiful words then to fashion an illusion of physical beauty then.

I intimidate and scare people?
*cries quietly in a corner displaying none of her impressive posting ability (which I don't have)*

Curleth, you impress people with your vast knowledge which spans the reaches over many subjects.

And you are beautifull.

[Coidzor]

Actually, you might be able to help. Do you have any sources on exactly when and where all these cultures - Assyrian, Babylonian, Mesopotamian, Judaic etc - were? And is there an actual name for those off-the-Mediteranean-northern-Africa-and-Middle East civilisations/areas, like "Mediterranean" and "Medieval Eastern Europe" and the like? Just that's really stalling me...

Hmm. You need a source to cite for the time period and location of culture-groups?

[Trog]

In regards to ancient flooding I believe it has been posited that the sea levels rose at the end of the last ice age engulfing many coastal communities around the world thus being a quite possible source for stories of great floods around the world. Scientists have been finding many ancient communities that were once on the coast still preserved under the sea, including cities which may have rivaled the earliest known major cities of ancient times. Interesting stuff.

[Destro_Yersul]

Sooo, guess what sucks? I'll give you a hint. It's the ten minute drive between me and the skytrain station.

know why it sucks? I don't have a driver's license, and there aren't any buses at 1AM when I'm coming home.

In further regards to this, what is awesome is getting back to the skytrain station and realizing that you were wrong and there are buses and you don't have to walk for over an hour to get home four days a week.

[Tiger Duck]

that is fairly awesome

[DraPrime]

*grumble*

I woke up at 6:45, because I thought that school would start at 7:45, not 8:30 like it always does on Wednesdays. Now I've missed some vital sleep.

[Nameless]

*grumble*

I woke up at 6:45, because I thought that school would start at 7:45, not 8:30 like it always does on Wednesdays. Now I've missed some vital sleep.

And I woke up at 12.

[Alteran]

And I woke up at 12.

...I hate you now.

[V'icternus]

Well I woke up at 11AM, so I feel your pain. That's way early for me on a weekday, you know.

[Cobra_Ikari]

I woke up at 8!

Oh, hey! That's 15 minutes ago!

...you guys are addictive. >.>

[V'icternus]

Yeah, but do you smoke me, inject me, sniff me or eat me raw?

...I mean, hey Cobra, wassup?

...Good, good...

Oh, wait, you mean you haven't answered yet? Sorry, my bad...