Sekino: When I was born, I had a malformed tearduct. Repairing it involved sticking a wire up my nose and out the corner of my eye. This was in 1973. They gave me a relaxant, laid me down, and I went through the procedure. My parents said it bothered them seeing it done, but were assured that was unable to feel anything, and of course, I didn't struggle at all.

I am told that the first thing I did when the relaxant wore off was scream for several hours straight, until I collapsed from exhaustion. When I woke up, I whimpered for the next day or so, and flinched when anyone came near me. My Mom had to talk my Dad out of going down to the doctor's office and beating the shit out of him. He told me he couldn't go to my followup appointment. He didn't trust himself.

Of course, I don't remember any of this, it's all secondhand. I don't know if there's a connection (I've seen other people do it, too), but when I'm anxious about something, I cover my nose without even thinking about it.

WOW. I had completely forgotten about that game. My brother and I would fight for hours over that thing. That image brings back some memories.

Now for the one with the little figures that worked their way across a vibrating metal plate...

Saw someone else reference Canticle for Leibowitz. For failure of attempted preservation of knowledge, see "The Earth Abides." Also, there's short story called "Shark Ship" (ship as in sailing ship, not space ship) by CM Kornbluth. Unintentional preservation of knowledge by a group isolated from the rest of the world and unaffected by the apocalypse. Similar thing is hinted at at the end of Farnham's Freehold, but with intent.

In fact, Farnham's Freehold inspired me as a kid to prepare for the coming apocalypse by learning how to find and isolate fungi with antibiotic properties and then extract antibiotics from them. I also learned how to make beer. I figured if I had those memorized, I'd be set for admission into any enclave. I even had a list of stuff to learn how to do, and had some of them worked out on paper but never memorized. Smithing, making textiles, making paper, canning & preserving foods, farming, a bunch of others.

Man, I wonder how many people I would have accidentally killed before I got kicked out/strung up.

It's your backyard, do what you want with it. Personally, I'd "unpublish" everything that has the word "steampunk" in it, along with a variety of other things around here, but hey; it ain't my backyard.

This is not big brother, it's not censorship, it's private property.

Still, doing this is counterproductive. I have a vague recollection of someone called Violet Blue, but that's it. I don't know who or what she is, and have no idea what kind of controversy or drama you're talking about. But rest assured, I have Google at the ready, and I shall now set out to discover every sordid detail I can.

Maybe I'm just too skeptical, but is this legit? It sure looks legit, but that can be manufactured.

It's too damn funny/sad to be true, especially the DHS howto in the last section.

"The new species wiped out the indigenous lizard populations, although how it happened is unknown"

and

"The lizard also dropped some of its territorial defenses"

They were probably able to interbreed with one or more of the native species, and wound up getting some new traits that had already evolved on the island long ago. The territorial tendencies in the wall lizards probably evolved due to competition for food in Italy, and the native lizards couldn't cope. Only their gut features live on.... I mean 30 generations to get wholly new features de novo? Those lizards smell fishy to me.

The lizards are originally from Italy, right across the Adriatic. It's what, 100 miles? Maybe 200? The native island lizards and the wall lizards are very likely to have been siblings, phylogenetically speaking.

Alternate titles:

"Why you won't be going to college"

"Why Mommy hasn't been getting out of bed in the morning"

"Your new daddy won't leave us now!"

What have we done? What the hell are we doing?