Daily Archives: May 28, 2011

Not that friendly?

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Or perhaps, just not as friendly as I thought I was.

I have realized recently that part of my psychological herniation complex is that I think of myself as a very open and friendly person, but in many ways, I am not.

I am, in fact, a shy and quiet person (sorta?), definitely an introvert, not keen on chaotic social situations, the sort of person who doesn’t like noise or crowding[1] or large raucous groups of people or any kind of situation where I can’t think straight or hear properly or move freely.

I have definite and particular tastes in the company I keep, and the objective truth is, most people don’t fit the bill. I don’t know if this is a result of simply being an involuntary loner for so long that you become a voluntary one, making a virtue of necessity, but I am extremely independent by nature and am not much of a team player. I never learned to work well with others in a team sense because I never had to growing up. I was always off all alone, doing my own thing. I had no friends for much of the time, and my siblings were much older and therefore did not have much in common with me, and had their own friends and social circles and lives, and so I grew up a lone and lonely kid.

And my parents had lives and careers that did not really include me either. My parents were always either tired or busy. I was subtly but deeply encouraged to just fade into the woodwork.

I grew up feeling like I was an unwanted guest who had overstayed his welcome but couldn’t leave.

I was not a planned child.

I am also an intellectual. I spend all day feeding my mind or stimulating it. I have an overdeveloped brain and an underdeveloped everything else.

So really, I am a quiet, bookish, reserved, introverted person. My idea of a fabulous evening is dinner with friends and stimulating conversation. That’s truly all I need. Some of the times in my life that I have felt the happiest and the most alive have been really great conversations with truly interesting people.

And the truth is, I can’t really talk to people who are not at least somewhat the same. I grew up in a household of bookish intellectuals, all very independent and self-reliant, and because I had such a socially stunted childhood in the school system, I never learned to get along with other kinds of people.

To be honest, in many ways, they frighten and/or depress me. I know it’s my problem, not theirs. I have lived a cloistered life, with my books and my thoughts and my video games and my Internet. I have avoided actual contact with life, the way most people live it, and have substituted thoughts for emotions, ideas for interactions, and stimulation for experience.

All of this is ineluctably true. Objective evidence from my own personal history, intuitive introspection, gut feeling of truth…. all point to my being more of a closed off, private person.

So why is it so hard to admit that to myself, let alone accept it? Why do I think I am supposed to be different? Why do I cling to this idea of myself as a kind of person I am clearly not, and look at the person I have described thus far and think “Geez, what a boring and antisocial prick”?

I don’t know why. Perhaps because that is preferable to the truth. Perhaps because I have not, until now, really thought about how I think about others versus how I think about myself. Perhaps because when you have thought of yourself a certain way for long enough, it is really hard to think of yourself any other way.

Perhaps deep down, I just don’t think I have any right to be anything but incredibly eager to please and friendly and open and funny and charming because I am fundamentally disgusting and horrible and unlovable and not worth anyone’s time or attention, so I had better do everything I can to maximize my chances of getting people to like me before they see the real me and go away.

Monsters can’t afford to be fussy, or difficult, or high-maintenance.

Even when they are.

Footnotes    (↵ returns to text)

  1. As opposed to crowds…. I don’t mind being in a crowd, it’s being crowded in tightly that makes my social anxiety team up with my claustrophobia to kick my ass)↵

Friday Science Roundup, May 27, 2011

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May twenty SEVEN, two thousand and ELEVEN. Hey, that rhymes!

Forgive me, bad sleep has addled my brain. I just woke up from a dream in which I turned a corner and there on the wall was this HUGE bug, bigger than a dinner plate, and it made this horrible buzzing sound that made the air shake with how loud it was. It was mostly like a huge fly, but with some beetle features. And it was coming right at me. Scared me so bad it woke me up.

I blame all the Monster Hunter Tri that I have been playing. Lots of imaginative nasties in there.

Anyhow… on with the science!

First, some mad props to some extremely bright researches for invented a truly magic marker.

The problem : millions of mothers and babies dying each year from easily treated prenatal conditions. The majority of these are in third world countries, where the fifty cent dipstick test we use to screen for these conditions here in the modern world is prohibitively expensive.

Enter this new marker. Instead of the dipstick urine test, you just draw a line on a piece of paper, and then drip a drop of the patient’s urine onto the line. If it changes color, you have your result.

The first one developed detects a common but nasty condition called pre-eclampsia. It can cause very serious complication for the mother, but if caught early, it can easily be treated.

And with the marker test, the cost goes from fifty cents per test to one third of a cent per test. That makes the marker test one hundred and fifty times cheaper.

Now that is the kind of efficiency that can save millions of lives.

Next : cleaning up Japan’s radioactivity problem with the help of a truly heroic blue goo.

The stuff is called DeconGoo, and like a lot of miracle products, it was discovered by accident. A researched accidentally dripped a solution he was working on onto the floor. When he went to clean it up afterward, he discovered that it had solidified into a rubbery blue gel that was easy to peel up off of the concrete floor.

But the truly miraculous thing was that where the goo had been, there was a spot so incredibly clean that absolutely no amount of scrubbing could match it. It had stuck to, and then encapsulated, everything on the surface that was not made of the surface.

Pretty awesome, huh? I want some of this stuff just for cleaning around the house. I am also kind of curious as to what would happen if you put this stuff on human skin. Presumably, it would be one hell of an efficient depilatory and exfoliant, if nothing else.

But for now, its noble use is to clean up all the little traces of toxic stuff left over after a hazmat situation. Right now, the usual method involves essentially good old soap, water, and elbow grease, and that has the distinctly unfortunate problem of taking the stuff and putting it into water, which is hard to clean up and has a nasty tendency to seep right back into things, go places you don’t want it to go, and in general be a bitch and a half to deal with.

Not so the new blue goo! Everything it soaks up gets trapped in the goo when it solidifies, and then you just peel it off like it was so much Silly Putty.

That is freaking awesome.

And speaking of awesome, Disney wants you to truly feel your video game experience. In fact, they want it to send chills up your spine.

They have invented a chain which uses a device they call the Sensory Brush to exploit a number of little known minor flaws in how our bodies perceive vibration to create a number of lifelike tactile sensations to enhance your video game (or even movie) experience.

Of particular note is the claim that this system could mimic the feel of the gravity and acceleration associated with race car driving for a driving based video game.

I don’t much care for driving video games myself (unless I get missile launchers), but I have to admit, that sounds pretty freaking sweet.

And get this… the system can also simulate feelings like rain dripping down your back, or someone touching you from behind. Imagine THAT moment while watching a scary horror movie! They had better make those seats water-proof, or rather, urine-proof.

And, you know, porn. ‘Nuff said.