Chebucto Regional Softball Club

@funkula

I'm not the biggest fan of primates generally... creepy fingers? Look at you eyes? It's scary.

@funkula

Maybe... but they weren't furry, didn't have ears. How did it work?

What is that stubby tail even FOR? Pug ugly stubborn survivors.

I'm scared to get in a time machine because I have a reoccurring nightmare about being mauled by Lystrosauruses who found some of the mean things I've written about them.

Could a computer network provide a way for collective dreaming? Could computer networks be the essential tool of the next level of colony intelligence?

The ants will use the internet to dream. That is what I'm working on in the story today.

2/2

Dreaming is an essential feature of intelligence. It seems that all creatures with memories and complex minds will dream.

Many people are surprised to learn that bees and ants may dream. We have evidence of this based on micro-movements of their legs and antennae detected in sleep. RAM (Rapid Antennae Movement) sleep may be a counterpart to REM sleep.

But, what about the mind of the colony? How can a whole colony of ants dream, if dreaming is essential for intelligence?

1/2

@alexwild

I love the textures of this ant.

I always wonder what the textures are for. I assume the color serves as a warning. Textures like this are often on ants with very tough exoskeletons. Maybe it's about strength?

@lffontenelle

I'm not saying it's bad. I was curious and read everything I could find about it and the results are deeply mixed.

What it isn't is a solution. It's something that might help. For some people more than others.

And it's not incidental or meaningless that it helped me to get through the long healing period by being something I could "do" ... the real cure being slow boring PT and time.

@nyrath @annaleen

It's in the story I'm working on! Not a major plot point ... but part of the history of the moon ants.

Yes. The moon ants.

But I promise this is a "grounded" SF story.

They are inexpensive and when I asked my doctor about it she said "you can try it if you want, some people say it helps, I wouldn't bother, but I won't tell you it's harmful"

I will say that the TENS machine produces a very strange slightly annoying sensation that distracted me from the pain. So, in that sense it "worked."

Of course I wanted it to REALLY work, have a dramatic effect. That did not happen. My doctor told me it wouldn't.

I messed with the damn thing anyway.

It's easy to laugh and make fun of the medbed people... but then I remember my TENS machine and why I have a TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) machine.

When you are sick, when you have chronic pain you'll try things just to see if maybe it might work.

Do TENS machines work?

No. Kinda? Yes? Sometimes?

Basically, it's a machine that runs a current through your skin making your muscles twitch a little.

@Beurkeek

This is magnificent!

@Klara

I guess what I'm saying here is:

Invest in ants.

Fund ant research. That is the future.

OK i will stop spamming u now.

@Klara

I remember just after the last dot-com boom there was a lot of noise about the "next big thing" being bio-tech.

That didn't last long. I think modern investors are too impatient for any R&D that takes actual time or effort to make material advancements.

With software it's easier to just pretend that that you have something when you don't.

The people who really care about technology just keep working even as the funding swirls in and washes away.

Maybe the market is irrelevant.

@Klara

I mean.

All of the "exciting tech so-called revolutions" have been software as of late and I'm a little sick of software.

There are problems in miniaturization and robotics that get so little attention and funding. Probably because "robotics is hard" ... but the rewards for making a real advancement would be so much bigger than all of these things people keep calling "revolutionary"

Show me a more tiny motor.
Show me some real magic.

@Klara

This is an excellent question.

There are some very small cameras and robots, but they aren't tiny enough to explore the world of ants, although laparoscopic cameras can be useful for tree hollows.

I often think about how much one could learn about ants with an ant-sized robot that could interact with them like another insect.

@daviddlevine

[Image Description: A vintage children's book called "Space Cat" by Ruthven Todd. The cover is blue with stars. A cat in a vintage bubble helmet space suit floats over a rocky lunar landscape looking at you with alert ears and whiskers.]

Think of me as a obsessive interest drug dealer.

Did you know that there are road engineering nerds and they do things like commission drone flights and mine interesting satellite data to understand major road failures like the one in NJ?

Thank god I'm obsessed with ants because this would easily take me. But, I know how ya'll are.

This will "awaken something" in someone on here I'm certain.

The ant puns will NOT stop.
They WILL get worse.