Oh bt, I was gonna ask you - how smart are squid compared to land animals? Could a squid beat a chicken at tic-tac-toe?

I would pay a lot of money to see that....

Oh, is "chickens can be taught to play tic-tac-toe" true, or a myth?

You know what I love about Hugh Laurie? The way House makes "that face" when he figures it out. I know brilliant people who get that face when everything clicks.

Love it.

Oh bt, I was gonna ask you - how smart are squid compared to land animals? Could a squid beat a chicken at tic-tac-toe?

They devote as much of their body mass to their neural system as reptiles. I would put a squid as being easily above a chicken for problem-solving ability. An octopus is about as smart as a cat at problem-solving.

Of course, they specialise. As noted, squid are gregarious, and have good communication ability (especially for critters with no faces). Octopi are very talented escape artists, and can produce a variety of responses to dangerous situations depending on the characteristics. And Humboldt squid will drag a man down to a depth of 70 feet to die AIEEEEEE!!!

So a Humboldt squid could easily take a chicken in a fight. In water, anyway. The chicken might have more of an advantage on land.

Too bad they can't meet in a neutral environment and fight. Like maybe in some half-water, half-air zero-g environment....

how smart are squid compared to land animals? Could a squid beat a chicken at tic-tac-toe?

Could a squid kick Nutty's ass on a squash court?

Teresa Nielsen Hayden, an editor at science fiction publisher Tor Books, posts this stirring defense of fan fiction, or fanfic:

In a purely literary sense, fanfic doesn’t exist. There is only fiction. Fanfic is a legal category created by the modern system of trademarks and copyrights. Putting that label on a work of fiction says nothing about its quality, its creativity, or the intent of the writer who created it.

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction this year went to March, a novel by Geraldine Brooks, published by Viking. It’s a re-imagining of the life of the father of the four March girls in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Can you see a particle of difference between that and a work of declared fanfiction? I can’t. I can only see two differences: first, Louisa May Alcott is out of copyright; and second, Louisa May Alcott, Geraldine Brooks, and Viking are dreadfully respectable.

I’m just a tad cynical about authors who rage against fanfic. Their own work may be original to them, but even if their writing is so outre that it’s barely readable, they’ll still be using tropes and techniques and conventions they picked up from other writers. We have a system that counts some borrowings as legitimate, others as illegitimate. They stick with the legit sort, but they’re still writing out of and into the shared web of literature. They’re not so different as all that.

[link]

Is Wilson Canadian?

Also, I had exactly the God's a House/Wilson shipper! thought

Apart from being good at it (which will likely come with working with House), how is Wilson different from Cameron?

Aille seemed like a reasonable shortening (cut the "ann")...but, you know, I was mid-show.

Gilmore Girls was very good last night. The teaser was to die for (and then VM followed up with another excellent teaser.) I am very glad that we finally have an explanation for Luke's reluctance to introduce Lorelai and April. And Paris was great.

GG: You really want Paris on your side in a fight. April's mom crossed over into craxy land with her speech to Lorelai, IMO. Wicked over-protective/control freak

GG: You may say that about April's mom -- but that was EXACTLY Lorelai's policy so far as dating when Rory was young. She didn't start dating in front of Rory (so to speak) until Rory was in high school and her choice? Rory's English teacher. .