Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Going viral

Woof! Woof!
What's that, Widdlebum? Another Kiwi's trousers have fallen down the well?
Woof! Woof!
Tigris has mistaken the Facial-Muscle Faradiser for knitting needles? Someone stocked up the staff tea-room with chili tim-tams by mistake?
Woof! Woof! Woof!
Ah, the giant vat-grown brain has floated away from its nutrient tank and is hovering over the Old Entomologist Garden Bar, to the consternation of Evangeline van Holsterin and her idiot boyfriend who were conducting a stock-take. AGAIN.

This keeps happening, every time we let one of the giant vat-grown brains connect itself to the Interducts... it ends up downloading a Fluxnet wetware virus that overloads its neural circuitry so it inflates with steam and hydrogen from the burnt-out myelin sheathing. Things always end with a spark, and a loud wet POP, and we're finding bits of basal ganglia and angular gyrus in the guttering for months afterwards.

One feels a certain grudging admiration for those hackers who put so much effort into designing the stopping algorithms, exploiting weaknesses of our cerebral architecture to crash the system or shake it to pieces in the manner of Tesla resonance. This is why we can't have nice things. It goes without saying that "the Gödel sentence for the human Turing machine" comes into it.

It is rumoured that governments are also involved in researching wetware viruses, ones that induce a spiral of self-destructive delusion rather than bring up the BSoD instantly. I could not possibly comment. Of course we would only hear of such programs if a laboratory accident were to expose the researchers to their own designs.

It would make the hackers' task so much easier if one of the neurotransmitters of the brain's wiring were also neurotoxic if it gets out of neurons into the spaces between them. Fortunately that is unpossible, for our Intelligent Designer would never arrange anything as stupid as that... no, wait, there's glutamate.

Thus the alt-med sector of the Interlattice is awash with special low-Glutamate diets that will reduce one's vulnerability to intense, virus-induced, emotionally fraught mental states that leave glutamergic nerve pathways in scorched ruins. They all have the downside that any diet eschewing natural glutamate-rich foods tastes like library paste, but this matters little to anyone sufficiently obsessed about controlling exactly what goes into their mouth.

It is mere coincidence that Gödel himself turned anorexic and starved himself to death before he could publish his final discovery. We dodged a bullet there.

21 comments:

M. Bouffant said...

Is "carrying out a stock-take" a local phrase for "taking inventory?"

Smut Clyde said...

An 'inventory', sir, is my office at Riddled.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

They need to make sure the inventory is in good order, m.b. For instance, what if the ale is going bad? Best taste it to make sure it's o.k. And what if it was going bad just after you tasted it? Better check again.
~

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

P.S. I see no trousers.

(From here.)
~

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

I prefer free-range brains, myself.

mikey said...

...this matters little to anyone sufficiently obsessed about controlling exactly what goes into their mouth.

Oh crap. Where is the threshold between reasonable concern and obsession? As I think about it, the list of things I WON'T put in my mouth is significantly longer than the list of things I WILL.

And then there are a whole series of wobblers, things I don't THINK I want to put in my mouth be I might give it a shot once or twice 'cause, what the hell, it probably won't kill me, right?

But then I remember that everybody on the planet these days has at least three cameras on them at any given time and anything you choose to do will be filmed from several angles with dramatic lighting effects and broadcast for the amusement of cretins.

OK, you're right. Let's go with "obsession"...

El Manquécito said...

If all that glutamate goes to ones head how come brains don't taste like parmesan or bacon or anchovies huh?

Smut Clyde said...

Do anchovies taste like bacon?

There is no place for brains in the low-glutamate diet.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

I look forward the the Riddled players' musical comedy version of Fiend Without a Face.

Hamish Mack said...

I'm just saying that Widdlebum is not a reputable dog.

El Manquécito said...


There is no place for brains in the low-glutamate diet.


I still don't see brains on the pizza Venn diagram.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Possibly related to Riddled's interests.
~

tigris said...

I still don't see brains on the pizza Venn diagram.

There's another circle that breaks the plane of the screen and encompasses your brain.

El Manquécito said...

That would explain a lot.

Substance McGravitas said...

Stocktaking.

Smut Clyde said...

Possibly related to Riddled's interests.

Oh well done Randal Graves.

I recognise the style; the image is from the Smithfield Decretals, in the British Museum... it has whole sequences of Planet of Night of the Lepus devil-bunny marginalia... an animated GIF may follow.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Oddly, I am little interested in Riddled's Interests.

If they weren't violent, loosely-bolted-together alcoholic loonies with little impulse control and a disgusting visceral sense of humor that is illegal in much of America, I doubt I would bother.

Hamish Mack said...

Shucks it weren't nuthin' Zombie. we's allus like this.

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

I'm sorry, but I only buy free-range, organic brains.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

I fear I must AHEM the good Doctor. See comment at 11/12/12 7:11.

I apologize for finding it necessary, but it is an Internet Tradition, you know. My blog could be revoked if I didn't.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

If they weren't violent, loosely-bolted-together alcoholic loonies with little impulse control and a disgusting visceral sense of humor that is illegal in much of America, I doubt I would bother.

If this was 3Bulls, that would be a candidate for Words of Wisdom, if I do say so myself.