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Variety and quality from you guys, as always. Thanks.From George Politis, a fascinating link about--a wasp. Here's an excerpt:
As an adult, Ampulex compressa seems like your normal wasp, buzzing about and mating. But things get weird when it's time for a female to lay an egg. She finds a cockroach to make her egg's host, and proceeds to deliver two precise stings. The first she delivers to the roach's mid-section, causing its front legs buckle. The brief paralysis caused by the first sting gives the wasp the luxury of time to deliver a more precise sting to the head.
The wasp slips her stinger through the roach's exoskeleton and directly into its brain. She apparently use ssensors along the sides of the stinger to guide it through the brain, a bit like a surgeon snaking his way to an appendix with a laparoscope. She continues to probe the roach's brain until she reaches one particular spot that appears to control the escape reflex. She injects a second venom that influences these neurons in such a way that the escape reflex disappears.
From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach's antennae and leads it--in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex--like a dog on a leash.
It's amazing stuff, and here's the link to the full story:
http://tinyurl.com/92sxw.
From DQ reader John, a gut-busting series of e-mails about why I should play WOW, ending with this comparison:
Just let me know when you want me to write a guest column about how the success and suaveness in my virtual world somehow compensates for the grim reality that is my life.
.........................Virtual Life.........Real Life
Girls.....................Cute................Not so cute
............................Skinny..............Not so skinny
.......................I have a GF..........Not so much
Work................Satisfying...........Filled with employee complaints and annoying memos
.........................Profitable...........Not so much
Transport......Have to walk.......Have a Honda Accord
......................Fly Hippogryph.....Fly crappy Southwest
Don’t think I couldn’t go on.
Here's a link from Ryan Brandt about a guy who is able to actually play songs on his Guitar Hero guitar. Sure, it might be "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," but it's still a pretty interesting mod. Here's the link:
http://home.comcast.net/~jason.cecil/nerdstrument.html.
The mod I really want to see is one of the Red Gibsons modified so that it's double-necked, just like the guitar that can be purchased in the in-game shop. Add the second set of buttons, and you're playing multi-player--solo. That would just be ridiculously fun.
A new Culture Clash column from Matthew Sakey is up and available. It discusses how "games" and "play" are are viewed with disdain by mainstream adults in the U.S., while in Japan, "play" has a much more positive connotation for everyone. Here's the link:
http://www.igda.org/columns/clash/clash_Feb06.php.
DQ reader Pete Thistle reminded that the DVD version of the sensational documentary film "Murderball" is now available. If you weren't reading the column when I originally talked about the film, here's the Rotten Tomatoes page (rating 98%):
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/murderball/.
From Michael Clayton, a link to an interesting article about those funky yellow numbers (like gas station price signs) that you see in Best Buy. Now you can find out what they're for:
http://www.cabel.name/2006/02/retail-secrets-best-buy-wall-numbers.html?www.dailytech.com.
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