I've ranted a lot recently. Fortunately, the Star Trek trailer speaks for itself.
It looks like they've got the general concept down, i.e. space is disease and danger, wrapped in darkness and silence but also extremely pretty, especially when you fill it up with multicolored phasers. But I'm particularly susceptible to the charm of bright colours after watching Quantum of Solace yesterday, which is such a fffffffflipping beige-fest.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Self-Indulgent Zelda/Bio Combo Post
Searching around recently for an award-winning premise to a sensual-love-novel, I was guided towards the Gerudo, a band of all-female thieves from the game Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Legend states that they give birth to a male Gerudo only once every hundred years and it's strongly implied that they spend the rest of the time propagating themselves through breeding with Hylian men. While this does make for a fine premise, it doesn't make a lot of sense biologically.
For comparison:
A Hylian
A Gerudo
As you can see, Gerudo are distinguished from the Hylian race by the traits of red hair, rounded ears, large noses, and tanned skin. Which raises the question, if they're only able to reproduce with Hylians how has the Gerudo gene pool not been watered down to extinction by Hylian genes within a handful of generations?
On top of that, why are male Gerudo so rare? And how did this state of affairs come to be in the first place?
Not one to pen an erotic novel unless it's built on a foundation of hardcore science, I tried to create a couple of explanatory theories.
Theory one - the Gerudo females only mate with the Gerudo male
It's never explicitly stated that they mate with Hylians, only that they take them as boyfriends. Assuming they only bear offspring to the Gerudo male, the gene pool would be preserved, though the implications of such extensive and repeated inbreeding (they'd all be half-siblings) would likely be severe.
This theory also relies on the Gerudo being extremely long-lived, an idea that's not entirely unfounded. Ganondorf has been present in Zelda games often set hundreds of years apart, and Koume and Kotake are quoted as being 400 and 380 years-old respectively upon their deaths; the counter-argument to this being that all three of them channel some serious voodoo magic that may have life-extending properties.
However, even if we assume that the Gerudo are immortal, this is an extremely risky means of reproducing. If that one male Gerudo dies, through accident or injury, during the hundred year gap between male births - which is extremely probable considering the Gerudo's warlike nature and harsh, desert environment - then there'll be nobody around to conceive the next male, and obviously the result would be extinction.
This theory also fails to address the rarity of the male.
Theory two - the maternal chromosomes are static
This allows the Gerudo to reproduce with Hylians under the requirement that all the genes necessary to create Gerudo characteristics are present on the maternal chromosomes, which are passed on from the mother to the daughter unchanged and in their entirety. No crossing over occurs during meiosis and the chromosomes are non-randomly segregated, effectively making each generation a series of half-clones.
While feasibly able to continue indefinitely without loss of genetic material, the health repercussions would be considerable. A survivable level of genetic diversity would be maintained by the constantly changing paternal chromosomes, but the maternal ones would gradually accumulate deleterious mutations that they'd be unable to shake through the reshuffling that normally occurs during meiosis.
Again, the end result would likely be extinction.
Theory three - sex-linked Gerudo-ness
My personal favourite theory is that the genes that code for Gerudo traits are located entirely on a single sex-chromosome, unique from both the X and Y. This hypothetical chromosome, tentatively named the Z chromosome, would resemble the Y in being devoid of all vital genes, coding only for the traits of red hair, large noses, rounded ears, tanned skin, and perhaps a propensity towards violence and kleptomania, all of which would be controlled by a hormone also encoded on the Z chromosome, tentatively named gerudosterone.
This would sortof make them more of a sub-species or third sex rather than a race.
Because very little crossing-over occurs between sex-chromosomes, the Gerudo genotype is secure no matter how extensively they outbreed with Hylians, and the Gerudo phenotype is fine so long as the Gerudo alleles for hair colour, nose size, rounded ears, and skin colouration are dominant over all of their Hylian counterparts.
Under this theory, the reason that Gerudo males are so rare is because they're completely non-viable. A male Gerudo zygote with karyotype 46,YZ would lack the genes on the X chromosome necessary for cell survival. The only way that a male could be viable is if he had aneuploidy, an extra chromosome. Through a fluke of meiosis, one of the gametes could be sporting both sex-chromosomes, resulting in a zygote with a karyotype 47,XYZ. The rarity of the male Gerudo is simply a result of the statistic unlikelihood of this disorder occurring.
The combined effects of testosterone and gerudosterone on the individual would potentially result in violent tendencies and a predisposition towards pure evil-
- though the psychological effects of being an infertile and hypogonadotrophic lone male in a fortress of women should not be overlooked as a cause of mental instability.
Origin
Considering the origin of sexual reproduction is still something of a mystery, it would be difficult for me to theorize what would cause a third sex to evolve into existence, so for the time being I'm going to cop-out and say that magic did it.
The origin story of Hyrule goes that it was created by three Goddesses - Din, Nayru, and Farore. Of the trio, Din most strongly resembles the Gerudo - being associated with themes of power, earth and fire (they live in a desert), and the colour red.
So I'm going to go ahead and say that the Gerudo are a genetic abnormality created by Din in the image of Din, based on that little evidence.
And also the fact that GERUDOS is an anagram of U R GODES.
Which even I'll accept is a stretch.
GODES doesn't even sound like Goddess.
And text speak barely existed in 1998.
For comparison:
A Hylian
A GerudoAs you can see, Gerudo are distinguished from the Hylian race by the traits of red hair, rounded ears, large noses, and tanned skin. Which raises the question, if they're only able to reproduce with Hylians how has the Gerudo gene pool not been watered down to extinction by Hylian genes within a handful of generations?
On top of that, why are male Gerudo so rare? And how did this state of affairs come to be in the first place?
Not one to pen an erotic novel unless it's built on a foundation of hardcore science, I tried to create a couple of explanatory theories.
Theory one - the Gerudo females only mate with the Gerudo male
It's never explicitly stated that they mate with Hylians, only that they take them as boyfriends. Assuming they only bear offspring to the Gerudo male, the gene pool would be preserved, though the implications of such extensive and repeated inbreeding (they'd all be half-siblings) would likely be severe.
This theory also relies on the Gerudo being extremely long-lived, an idea that's not entirely unfounded. Ganondorf has been present in Zelda games often set hundreds of years apart, and Koume and Kotake are quoted as being 400 and 380 years-old respectively upon their deaths; the counter-argument to this being that all three of them channel some serious voodoo magic that may have life-extending properties.
However, even if we assume that the Gerudo are immortal, this is an extremely risky means of reproducing. If that one male Gerudo dies, through accident or injury, during the hundred year gap between male births - which is extremely probable considering the Gerudo's warlike nature and harsh, desert environment - then there'll be nobody around to conceive the next male, and obviously the result would be extinction.
This theory also fails to address the rarity of the male.
Theory two - the maternal chromosomes are static
This allows the Gerudo to reproduce with Hylians under the requirement that all the genes necessary to create Gerudo characteristics are present on the maternal chromosomes, which are passed on from the mother to the daughter unchanged and in their entirety. No crossing over occurs during meiosis and the chromosomes are non-randomly segregated, effectively making each generation a series of half-clones.
While feasibly able to continue indefinitely without loss of genetic material, the health repercussions would be considerable. A survivable level of genetic diversity would be maintained by the constantly changing paternal chromosomes, but the maternal ones would gradually accumulate deleterious mutations that they'd be unable to shake through the reshuffling that normally occurs during meiosis.
Again, the end result would likely be extinction.
Theory three - sex-linked Gerudo-ness
My personal favourite theory is that the genes that code for Gerudo traits are located entirely on a single sex-chromosome, unique from both the X and Y. This hypothetical chromosome, tentatively named the Z chromosome, would resemble the Y in being devoid of all vital genes, coding only for the traits of red hair, large noses, rounded ears, tanned skin, and perhaps a propensity towards violence and kleptomania, all of which would be controlled by a hormone also encoded on the Z chromosome, tentatively named gerudosterone.
This would sortof make them more of a sub-species or third sex rather than a race.
Because very little crossing-over occurs between sex-chromosomes, the Gerudo genotype is secure no matter how extensively they outbreed with Hylians, and the Gerudo phenotype is fine so long as the Gerudo alleles for hair colour, nose size, rounded ears, and skin colouration are dominant over all of their Hylian counterparts.
Under this theory, the reason that Gerudo males are so rare is because they're completely non-viable. A male Gerudo zygote with karyotype 46,YZ would lack the genes on the X chromosome necessary for cell survival. The only way that a male could be viable is if he had aneuploidy, an extra chromosome. Through a fluke of meiosis, one of the gametes could be sporting both sex-chromosomes, resulting in a zygote with a karyotype 47,XYZ. The rarity of the male Gerudo is simply a result of the statistic unlikelihood of this disorder occurring.
The combined effects of testosterone and gerudosterone on the individual would potentially result in violent tendencies and a predisposition towards pure evil-
Origin
Considering the origin of sexual reproduction is still something of a mystery, it would be difficult for me to theorize what would cause a third sex to evolve into existence, so for the time being I'm going to cop-out and say that magic did it.
The origin story of Hyrule goes that it was created by three Goddesses - Din, Nayru, and Farore. Of the trio, Din most strongly resembles the Gerudo - being associated with themes of power, earth and fire (they live in a desert), and the colour red.
So I'm going to go ahead and say that the Gerudo are a genetic abnormality created by Din in the image of Din, based on that little evidence.
And also the fact that GERUDOS is an anagram of U R GODES.
Which even I'll accept is a stretch.
GODES doesn't even sound like Goddess.
And text speak barely existed in 1998.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Negative Nancy
Too long, do not read
The Scout Update has been out for over a week now and I haven't yet commented on it because:
a) I've been playing it
and
b) I don't think it's very good, and the fact that Valve are releasing these updates free-of-charge sort of makes me feel as though I don't have the right to complain, especially as TF2 has one of the finest hours-of-enjoyment:money-paid ratios of all the games I've ever played.
But what the hey.
The problem with the Scout update is that new weapons aren't very fun for any and all concerned.
The Force-O-Nature: it's third jump is negligible, and the knockback it delivers to the enemy is not only irritatingly disorientating for them but means that the Scout has to chase after his target and recalibrate his aim with each shot due to them being launched out of the point-blank range in which the weapon is remotely effective. Being hit by the knockback generally propels you into the air, making maneuvering to safety (or at all) difficult, an ability that can now be claimed by the Scout, the Soldier, the Demoman, the Pyro, and partly the Heavy.
The Sandman: A purely terrible weapon in all ways. The idea of rendering the player incapable of even reacting whilst the enemy team lays into them should not have even been considered. It's maddening. Whilst the removal of the Scout's double jump is admittedly a steep and restrictive trade-off, balancing out an annoying effect with another annoying effect does not make good design.
Plus, having to wait 10 seconds for your baseball to replenish screws with the idea of the Scout being a fast, twitchy class.
Bonk! energy drink: Useless. Presumably the idea behind it was that the Scout could use the invulnerability to get through particularly bad choke points. Unfortunately, the 1 second it takes to drink the thing necessitates that you use it out of combat, and the 6 second invincibility only lasts long enough to get you into enemy lines, rarely out the other side. Bizarrely, despite dodging the projectiles thrown at him, the scout still takes knockback, so that any choke-point sporting an enemy sentry gun (i.e. all of them) is extremely difficult to navigate.
If you somehow succeed in passing through the choke-point, you're reduced to the speed of a Soldier, ensuring that all but the slowest classes who care to follow your giant blur-trail can hunt you down with ease.
Why is the Scout even slowed down after use? Surely the lack of a pistol is trade-off enough.
Then there's the inability to cap a point or carry the intelligence while under the effect of Bonk! So you can get into a base, but not out of it.
And then there's the fact that Valve forgot to remove the word final from the end of the new maps. It's a minor detail that suggests that Valve aren't really giving the updates their full attention and, while I'm in no position to hold them to any standards but their own, they run the risk of mucking up a fine game with sloppy updating.
Whine complete.
The Scout Update has been out for over a week now and I haven't yet commented on it because:
a) I've been playing it
and
b) I don't think it's very good, and the fact that Valve are releasing these updates free-of-charge sort of makes me feel as though I don't have the right to complain, especially as TF2 has one of the finest hours-of-enjoyment:money-paid ratios of all the games I've ever played.
But what the hey.
The problem with the Scout update is that new weapons aren't very fun for any and all concerned.
The Force-O-Nature: it's third jump is negligible, and the knockback it delivers to the enemy is not only irritatingly disorientating for them but means that the Scout has to chase after his target and recalibrate his aim with each shot due to them being launched out of the point-blank range in which the weapon is remotely effective. Being hit by the knockback generally propels you into the air, making maneuvering to safety (or at all) difficult, an ability that can now be claimed by the Scout, the Soldier, the Demoman, the Pyro, and partly the Heavy.
The Sandman: A purely terrible weapon in all ways. The idea of rendering the player incapable of even reacting whilst the enemy team lays into them should not have even been considered. It's maddening. Whilst the removal of the Scout's double jump is admittedly a steep and restrictive trade-off, balancing out an annoying effect with another annoying effect does not make good design.
Plus, having to wait 10 seconds for your baseball to replenish screws with the idea of the Scout being a fast, twitchy class.
Bonk! energy drink: Useless. Presumably the idea behind it was that the Scout could use the invulnerability to get through particularly bad choke points. Unfortunately, the 1 second it takes to drink the thing necessitates that you use it out of combat, and the 6 second invincibility only lasts long enough to get you into enemy lines, rarely out the other side. Bizarrely, despite dodging the projectiles thrown at him, the scout still takes knockback, so that any choke-point sporting an enemy sentry gun (i.e. all of them) is extremely difficult to navigate.
If you somehow succeed in passing through the choke-point, you're reduced to the speed of a Soldier, ensuring that all but the slowest classes who care to follow your giant blur-trail can hunt you down with ease.
Why is the Scout even slowed down after use? Surely the lack of a pistol is trade-off enough.
Then there's the inability to cap a point or carry the intelligence while under the effect of Bonk! So you can get into a base, but not out of it.
And then there's the fact that Valve forgot to remove the word final from the end of the new maps. It's a minor detail that suggests that Valve aren't really giving the updates their full attention and, while I'm in no position to hold them to any standards but their own, they run the risk of mucking up a fine game with sloppy updating.
Whine complete.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
The effect I have on most women
There's a woman in the Carnegie Building reception who recognizes me on sight and seemingly hates my guts, simply for the reason that I always ask stupid questions.
I don't understand why; it's not as though my queries take a lot of effort to resolve - usually just a 'no' and then a slightly more forceful 'no, go home' suffices.
I don't understand why; it's not as though my queries take a lot of effort to resolve - usually just a 'no' and then a slightly more forceful 'no, go home' suffices.
Monday, March 2, 2009
I've made a colossal mistake
It seems that there are two Sarah Colosso's in the University. One is an anatomist, whilst the other took up the last name Colosso as a stage name (?).
The practical up-shot of this revelation is negligible as I know neither of them, though it does mean that the woman I've been picturing in a Pikachu costume since last October is not the woman who was wearing the Pikachu costume last October.
I've said too much.
The practical up-shot of this revelation is negligible as I know neither of them, though it does mean that the woman I've been picturing in a Pikachu costume since last October is not the woman who was wearing the Pikachu costume last October.
I've said too much.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
I'm gonna lay you out to rest
Some people have no library etiquette at all. There's a man sat next to me suceeding in making as much noise as possible without outright speaking or playing an instrument.
Sofar, he's:
Sofar, he's:
- sniffed a lot
- cleared his throat four times
- tapped his feet
- tapped his fingers
- tapped his pen
- dropped each of his ten books onto a pile, one at a time
- eaten an apple
- drunk quite loudly
- sighed lengthily
- whistled
The only excuse for whistling in a library is if the person sitting next to you has just knocked out your front teeth or forced a pen through your trachea. What an annoying man.
Secret Blogging Fetish
I'm long overdue for posting links to Heather Minto's Mint Blog and Steven Garrard Garrulous Blog, which are both extremely good and proffessional.
Heather has amazing skills with an extremely long camera and Steven has impeccable taste in all entertainment mediums and is a very funny man.
You should read them.
I don't know why I'm doing this, as they make up a large fraction of my readership anyway.
Heather has amazing skills with an extremely long camera and Steven has impeccable taste in all entertainment mediums and is a very funny man.
You should read them.
I don't know why I'm doing this, as they make up a large fraction of my readership anyway.
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