That which does not kill us makes us stronger (original) (raw)

That which does not kill us makes us stronger

November 6, 2011 3:07 PM Subscribe

I put a Gödelian spoiler on the back of my car, and now I can't find where I parked it.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:34 PM on November 6, 2011 [14 favorites]

there are certain combinations of white letterforms that, when presented on a blue background, can completely disable a reader into an hours long stupor.
posted by The Whelk at 3:56 PM on November 6, 2011 [59 favorites]

Mrs. French's cat is missing.

The signs are posted all over town.

"Have you seen Honey?"

We've all seen the posters, but nobody has seen Honey the cat.

posted by Artw at 4:07 PM on November 6, 2011 [10 favorites]

Just watched Pontypool the other night Artw, have to say I was quite pleasantly surprised.
posted by SomaSoda at 4:17 PM on November 6, 2011 [3 favorites]

Yeah Pontypool is amazingly good. I really liked that last story as I hadn't seen it before, and it seems like a reasonable way to deal with BLITs.
posted by Peztopiary at 4:31 PM on November 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

Fnord I fnord don't fnord believe fnord in fnord any fnord of fnord this fnord crap fnord.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 4:41 PM on November 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

Wow, I read BLIT quite a while back, but didn't know about 'a different kind of darkness' until now. Thanks! Great stuff.
posted by knapah at 5:00 PM on November 6, 2011

This seems really cool!! But... What is all of this? I would totally Google it but I don't really know what "it" is.
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth at 5:23 PM on November 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

Very interesting.
posted by kafziel at 5:56 PM on November 6, 2011

This is one of those things that I don't understand in the slightest at first glance, but I suddenly want to read/watch/listen to anything I can to get it.
posted by mykescipark at 6:02 PM on November 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

More Scotch...or less. Laiphroiagh or just another wee thimble full of Dewar's?
posted by halfbuckaroo at 7:33 PM on November 6, 2011

I think the closest to a real-life equivalent of these fractals would be the camouflage patterns on military outfits. The newer ones are actual fractals, and they're selected for visual patterns that don't appear in nature, which means that if you try to find where the clothes end and the desert begins, your visual cortex will most likely reach its maximum stack depth and give up.
posted by LogicalDash at 7:54 PM on November 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why doesn't the mind crash more often? It does crash in certain situations : extreme panic, extreme fear , certain mental illnesses. But it is amazing that it doesn't crash more often or with more disastrous effect, isn't it?
posted by Poet_Lariat at 7:57 PM on November 6, 2011

It depends on your particular mental health status.
posted by LogicalDash at 8:20 PM on November 6, 2011

Also, make sure you watch it all the way through the credits. They've implemented a clever little mind-virus.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 9:29 PM on November 6, 2011

I read "Blit" in Interzone magazine when it came out. It blew my tiny little mind.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 10:29 PM on November 6, 2011

I own a copy of the poster on the left of this image.
That red spiral on that particular shade of blue doesn't crash my brain, but it sure hurts a surprising amount.
I'm convinced a dedicated neuroscientist could use it to find an exploit to gain root on my brain.
posted by HFSH at 12:31 AM on November 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Damn it. I had wanted to see Pontypool ages ago, and just noticed because of this that it was on Netflix now, and... now, goodbye, sleeping.
posted by gracedissolved at 1:28 AM on November 7, 2011

The human brain eats Strange Loops for breakfast.
posted by Joe Chip at 2:18 AM on November 7, 2011

Interesting stories, and I think it actually added to the experience that they are distributed around and in differing formats and so on.
posted by Harald74 at 4:45 AM on November 7, 2011

A quick misreading of Zakalwe's comment left me wondering if soldiers' camouflage gear makes them psychologically lot easier to shoot at, because camouflaging hides their humanity compared to more normal clothing, and if that effect is stronger than the benefits they give for not being seen.
posted by Free word order! at 6:36 AM on November 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, there is the theory that religion is composed of non-lethal fragments of a memetic virus that arrived from space, and that in it's original form it would be a potent basilisk.
posted by Artw at 9:23 AM on November 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why that looks like it's kdkdkdkdkdkdk *thud*
posted by Artw at 9:42 AM on November 7, 2011

Guys, you should really look at that picture seanyboy linked for a long time and be one with us, it's great! Don't worry about the itchy crawling sensation at the back of your mind, once you get past that something wonderful happens!
posted by Artw at 9:56 AM on November 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Radio telescopes.
posted by Artw at 10:41 AM on November 7, 2011

How Asherah got to ancient Sumeria would be a question though...
posted by Artw at 11:00 AM on November 7, 2011

IIRC they pretty much just say that finding the code was the reason L. Bob Rife was funding a SETI like effort and that's all the explanation you ever get... possibly it's a Berserker or mangled HMV?
posted by Artw at 12:22 PM on November 7, 2011

Radiolab's episode on Loops covers a woman who has an episode of amnesia that sounds a lot like a "brain crash."
posted by morganw at 1:28 PM on November 7, 2011

It's actually rather rare that I watch a movie not knowing what's going to happen next - Pontypool delivered that in buckets.
posted by Artw at 3:38 PM on November 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think this list may be a basilisk of some kind.
posted by Artw at 4:31 PM on November 7, 2011

Now here's an idea: pop culture functioning as "helpful" bacteria that use up the resources so that the harmful ones can't invade. Sort of fermentation as preserving for the human brain.
posted by Gygesringtone at 4:37 PM on November 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think for all of its l337 mathemagical devilry, this memetic weapon will be powerless against the visual tone-deaf: that is, against colorblind people.
posted by Apocryphon at 5:08 PM on November 7, 2011

I have an unusually crashy mind, I think. There are shades of red and frequency of stripes I can't look at, and plenty of times I've found myself in a bad mental state and thought, you know, if I were a computer this would be a time to reboot. Unfortunately, it's a lot less easy to power cycle the mind. I think this is basically what meditation is for.
posted by troublesome at 6:20 PM on November 13, 2011

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