Today in telepathic monkey pong:

Pictured: the classic family board game about
the societal death spiral of end-stage capitalism.

I have complicated feelings about billionaires in general and Elon Musk in specific. I believe that billionaires shouldn't be a thing in a world where people have to work like three jobs and still can't afford rent. It's like, so you know how when you're playing Monopoly and you're in the end game phase where one person has all the railroads and built hotels on Park Avenue and Boardwalk and everyone else is basically just going around the board, slowly getting drained of whatever money they have left? America is like that. And we're just a couple more laps away from our own Bastille Day.

They know computers have trackpads, right?

Which brings me to telepathic monkeys. Noted billionaire and former world's richest human Elon Musk owns like, a ton of companies and one of them is called Neuralink. Musk and some other rich people founded the company to develop implantable brain-computer interface technology. That is, devices that all people to interact with computers using their brains instead of their fingers or whatever. And they've succeeded. Sort of. They posted a video today on Youtube showing a nine year old macaque monkey playing a game with its mind.

They know Pong has those dial things, right?

The video's narrator explains that the macaque, called Pager, has had devices implanted in his skull. These devices read and then transmit the impulses in his brain to a computer while he controls the game--which, preposterously, they call mind-pong--using a joystick. By recording the impulses between Pager's brain and hand, the computer learns which neurons firing controls which movements. Sort of like when you flick light switches on and off to see what does what? I don't know, I'm not a cyber-monkey specialist, the point is once the computer can read the monkey's mind, they unplug the joystick and he keeps controlling the game using only the implants.

Resistance is adorable! 

A not unreasonable question would be why? Why have these Bay Area gentrifying tech goons shoved wires into some poor macaque's head only to teach a glorified Pong machine how to read its primitive monkey brain? What's wrong with these psychos? And on the one hand, you're not wrong. Lots is wrong with them. And it's highly unlikely that this monkey consented to being assimilated into a one-macaque Borg collective. But on the other hand, why do you hate science? 

The possibilities are endless: telepathic monkey
Frogger, or telepathic monkey Ms. Pacman.
Perhaps, one day, telepathic monkey Galaga.

This William Gibsonian nightmare actually does have applications beyond telepathic monkey Pong. The hope here is that humans with paralysis could use similar devices to interact with computers. They could operate a phone or a motorized wheel chair or maybe even a car. People with neurological damage might be able to use this technology to communicate, and amputees could use it to control prosthetic limbs with these things. The implications are actually really exciting and mean a higher quality of life for million. I just, I don't know. I'm suspicious of the people developing it. Like, what are they really up to?

Maybe it's my mistrust of the criminally wealthy (it's definitely that), I just question the motivations of a guy who once launched an electric roadster at Mars just 'cuz. Like, is Elon Musk developing this technology because of all the good it could do, or does he just want to watch a monkey play mind-pong? 

"Yeah, but what I'm asking is: can't it be both?"

-The 21st century's 

broey, stoner Edison

Trains: Because I suddenly care.

Is it weird that I'm like super-excited--one might even say stoked--by the Administration's infrastructure investment plan's provision setting aside $85 with a "B" billion for public transit? Wait, don't answer that, because yes. The answer is yes. But I mean:

Is uh...is it hot in here? Mercy me...

The victim in Murder on the Orient Express
was killed in his own private sleeping cabin.
You don't get that kind of comfort on a plane.

Yeah, Amtrak, the sort of public, sort of private company that operates public train routes, produced that map in response to the plan and I don't mind admitting to you that it set my heart aflutter. The company also posted a list of benefits to an expanded and improved rail system including reduced emissions, more jobs, less traffic, and even social equality. One thing they left off however was that trains are just a classy, comfortable way to travel, or at least they used to be. Just look at old movies, they weren't all about murder.

Although if the in-flight movie
options include 22 Jump Street, it
may be time to call The Hague.

Look, flying is objectively miserable. And I'm not saying this just because of my crippling fear of plane crashes. Between the post-9/11 rules trying to protect us from shoe bombs, the TSA, the crapshoot that is bag checking, and the increasing ticket prices air travel is the literal worst. Especially for those of us over 5'0" because goddamn, thirty inches of legroom is a--ok, I want to say warcrime, but that feels somewhat hyperbolic. So let's say regular crime. Charging $800 to be crammed in a flying metal death tube for five hours in the middle seat with zero legroom is a regular crime. 

Pictured: Our problem.

And sure, I know what you're thinking: "Trains? What is this, the middle ages?" And that's fair, but it's also nonsense. Shame on you for trotting out such a specious argument. Why do you hate trains? Admittedly trains were first introduced in 1804, but in Japan where it's actually the future, they have a train that goes 224 miles per hour. There are even faster ones in China. What's our problem? Wait, don't answer that either, there are only so many hours in the day, the point is trains are great and the future.

Again, I'm as surprised as you are that I suddenly care so much about trains, but something about that map just made me yearn for a future with free-healthcare, a liveable federal minimum wage and reasonable gun laws where we all take trains and listen to NPR. And it's a future that's entirely achievable if a certain conspiracy addled lunatic fringe political party whose name sounds like schmupulbicans would just fold under the weight of their own hypocrisy and ideological bankruptcy and let us get on with our lives.

Pictured: the COVID-free alternate timeline 2021 where we abolished
the electoral college and Episode IX was Dual of the Fates. What?
I mean, if we're talking best possible timeline, why not go all out?

Galactic Schadenfreude!

Hey, guess what today is? Why yes, it is First Contact Day...how'd you know that? I was looking forward to the big reveal, but fine. Yeah, First Contact Day. The day, forty-two years from now, when aliens will land. This according to the 1996 movie and definitely accurate guide to the future, Star Trek: First Contact. These aliens's arrival will unite humanity and help lift us out of the bombed-out shell of our post-nuclear war wasteland.

They'll also roll their eyes and give us no end of shit for 
our illogical behavior and our many human emotions. 

Oh yes they are.

Yeah, Star Trek is actually kind of a bummer when you think about it. Although I think we're a little less worried now about nuclear war then we were when the movie was made. It's not to say we're not doomed. I mean, we have climate change, global pandemics, and actual white supremacists just roaming the streets and storming the Capital and what I'm getting at is that if there are really aliens out there, what are they waiting for? 

Cool...

We've clearly demonstrated that we cannot handle things on our own. Like, with COVID, all we had to do was wear masks. That's it. Yet we're surrounded by people who just couldn't be bothered, so it's still a thing a year later. Or what about climate change? All we had to do was switch to clean energy and-ok, that is admittedly trickier. But I mean, it was a choice between recycling and switching to electric cars or dying in the upcoming Water Wars and nine out of ten of us picked the Water Wars. Nine out of ten. Can you believe it? Huh? Yeah, so can I...

Jeff Bezos would quickly learn 
that no one has to laugh at his jokes
in a post-scarcity civilization. 

Anyway, now would be a swell time for some technologically advanced species of extraterrestrials to swoop down out of the sky and start handing out cures for all known earth-diseases, anti-matter reactors, and replicators. Not only would it solve so many of our problems, but can you imagine the looks on the faces of the ultra-wealthy? Think of it, where would the Jeffs Bezos, the Elons Musks, the Pharmas Bro of the world be if everyone just had a little device in their kitchen that spat out a limitless supply of food, clothing, insulin, or whatever else we needed? 

It would be goddamn sweet. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm looking forward to First Contact, not just because of the mind-blowing ramifications it would have for us and our place in the universe, but also because of schadenfreude. Lots of schadenfreude. 

Unless of course the aliens who land are
like hyper-capitalists or something. Then we'd
just be back where we started from. 

A crime of whimsey!

Is it weird that I'm amused by Lego crime? Ok, yeah, it probably is. And sure, crime is crime and crime is bad, but the headline: "French police on the trail of international gang of Lego looters?" I mean, c'mon, it's a crime of unbridled whimsey. But it's also a crime of unbridled robbery, which I suppose is less amusing. 

"Alons-y! Je cherche des indices!"

-Some French inspector

Move over Defenestrations of Prague!

So back in June, French police arrested three people in the act of robbing a toy store in Yvelines, which is near Paris. The suspects, all of whom are Polish, are evidently part of an international ring of Lego thieves. Their strategy involved setting up in a Paris hotel and using it as a base from which they'd then rob a bunch of toy stores before returning to Poland to sell their ill-gotten interlocking Danish plastic bricks, making this quite possibly the most Euro-crime imaginable. 

Remember kids: tiny crime doesn't pay.

And this isn't even the first time. The gang had been reported in France at least twice before and focuses on stealing high-end and collectable sets which necessarily command higher prices on the Lego black market. Which is apparently a thing that is real and exists in Europe. Although in fairness, it's also a thing that exists here in the states. Back in 2018 Portland police busted a group of thieves who'd been stealing Lego sets and selling them online to pay for opium...which is somewhat less whimsical. 

Unfortunately for the thieves, French
Police have been issued protective footware.

So I'll just stick to the French story, which, to my knowledge, doesn't involve opium. I just can't get the image out of my head of a group of hardened criminals fleeing the French equivalent of a Toys 'R' Us (Jouets C'est Nous?) with armloads of Harry Potter and Batman Lego sets, throwing loose blocks like caltrops on the ground behind them to slow up the cops. All set against the sound of those ridiculous French police sirens that go wee-ooo-wee-ooo. I know it's a crime and everything, but you have to admit, it's an adorable one, right?

Anyway, the article says that French authorities are building a case against the thieves which I'd like to think they meant as an hilarious pun. You know, because Legos? Building things? There's probably a joke in there somewhere. Doesn't matter, it probably just means they're gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses. 

Although if they are building a case, let's hope
they have better instructions than the ones that
 come in the box. See? I got there in the end.

Today in offensive sums of money:

Wai-wai-wait, I just got it. It's not about the game at all, it's about rich people rich people-ing. Which is a realization I probably should have come to earlier...

"Sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear you over the sound of
me fanning a stack of large bills out in front of myself."

-Some rich

Ok, not a huge house, but still, a house.

Huh? What am I talking about? That's a reasonable question, and I'm glad you asked. Are you sitting down? Good. You know how there's been this phenomenon in the last few years of collectors paying huge, like offensively large sums of cash for old video game cartridges? Like, usually NES games and often complete, unopened copies of Super Mario Bros. and they go for over a hundred thousand dollars. That's thousand with a "t." I mean, that's a house to most people. Like, an average American home. 

Anyway, I mention this because a copy of SMB (acronym!) just sold for an incredible, stupefying, should be goddamn illegal, six hundred and sixty thousand dollars of money. 

No really, like an actual crime.

Although if I'm being honest...

Ok, so what kind of idiot pays that much for a game when there are forty million copies of it in the world, right? Obviously it's the fact that it's thirty-five years old, unopened, from a rare print run, and in pristine condition that makes it valuable. And that's whatever, but I think I sometimes get stuck on the idea that people spend this kind of money on these games because they're fans, and that may be true, but it's also an investment to them. I'm a fan too, but if I had six hundred grand lying around, I'd put it in the bank or something. Pay off some bills. Maybe buy a house.

Because even if it is an investment, isn't it kind of a dumb one? Admittedly I don't know anything about collecting, but this isn't a Klimt painting. This is a video game and at least some of its appeal is based on nostalgia and that won't be around forever. Nobody's dropping this much on Atari games, and I kind of wonder if it isn't because that particular bubble has simply burst as the people who remember them fondly have simply aged out of caring. And if that's the case how long until the NES bubble follows? 

Of course it could also be because Atari games were never very good. 
Again, I'm not not an expert on the video game collector's market, but 
seriously, why were they such a big deal in the late 70's? They sucked.

Aye, there's the rube...

Ugh...guess what today is. No, go on guess. Huh? No, it's-well ok, fine, it is Tanzanian Arbor Day, and it's really weird that you know that, but that's not what I was thinking of. It's April Fool's Day and it's the worst, like the actual worst day to be on the internet. 

Which I think is saying something.

If you told me this was happening
right now, I'd probably believe you.

It's a day where everyone gets cute and posts hilarious joke stories which in a post-Trump world full of mass shootings, pandemic, and rapid climate change becomes a minefield of "is this real or is everything just really fucked up?" I personally blame the April 1997 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly. It's functionally pre-internet, I know, but I think it established a precedent of printing semi-plausible nonsense as fact and then having a good laugh at how we all had our trust betrayed.

And thus a generation's cynicism was born. 

The issue, printed at the height of Street Fighter II's popularity, claimed that if players jumped through a complicated and quarter-draining series of hoops they would get to fight a secret final boss character called Sheng Long. No such character existed and rubes did indeed spend who knows how much time and money trying to pull it off only for the magazine to clue us all in later that the whole thing was a ruse. Which, I mean, as a bunch of dumb, internet-less barbarians, why or how would we even know to doubt this entirely plausible story? It was, in 21st century parlance, a jerk move and I believe inspired the current tradition of internet April Foolery.

Inauthentic, sure, but better than patrons
peeing in the corner. Which was a thing.

And here it is, not even nine a.m. and I've already encountered a similar funny, funny joke about a thing that sounds plausible but is definitely a lie. And from Shakespeare's Globe of all places, giving it the stodgy patina of authority. Shakespeare's Globe, if you're unfamiliar, is already itself kind of a lie being a replica of Shakespeare's theatre but with concessions to modernity like a sprinkler system, restrooms, and a blog. A blog from which sprung the claim this morning that archivists had discovered a long lost play by Shakespeare in the theatre's attic.

Yeah, the attic. Which, ok, admittedly in these early hours of the morning and for the briefest of moments I may--I repeat may--have not immediately recognized this as a hoax. 

Although the attic of a theatre built in 1997 does seem like
an unlikely place to find a quarto lost since 1603.

I relate a lot of things to
video games, what of it?

The head researcher quoted is called Dr. Will Tosh and Tosh is British for bullshit, and I should have spotted that earlier, but otherwise the story isn't all that unbelievable. The play in question is Love's Labour's Won, a sequel to Love's Labour's Lost. And it probably is or at least was a real Shakespeare play as it's referred to in first hand accounts from the time, though it's lost now. It's also possible that it's just an alternate title for some other play that we do still have (maybe Much Ado About Nothing), or that it never existed in the first place. Or it was stuck in the seventeenth century equivalent of development hell. Who knows? It reminds me of how people used to insist that there was a sequel to the The Goonies, but they're just remembering the NES game The Goonies II. Doesn't matter, the point is there may have been a play called Love's Labor's Won.

Above: the scene earlier today.

But leaving aside the absurdity of finding a here-to-for undiscovered, leather-bound copy of a lost play just lying around in the goddamn attic of a twenty-five year-old theatre, waiting to make some researcher's career, it's not as though this would be outside the realm of possibility. I mean, while not a newly discovered play, scholars did use text analysis software to attribute a play called Cardenio to Shakespeare as recently as 2015, so it's not like being dead has ever stopped the playwright from adding to his resumé. 

Look, I don't want to tell The Globe how to April's Fool, but this isn't really a prank. It's more like, I don't know, academic fraud is too strong a term, but it seems like they could've been more funny when it comes to making up a fake story, you know? Huh? No, I don't think I can come up with anything better, I just-fine, how about:

Breaking news: Shakespeare's Ghost Haunts The Globe.
Theatre staff reports he's actually kind of a dick.*

*What? No good? Fine, but it's not like I'm getting paid for this.

Do they want super-intelligent apes?

Because this seems exactly like how one would go about creating super-intelligent apes. Yeah, what even am I talking about? I'm talking about growing ape brains in a lab, and then poking at the genes to see what happens. This can't end well, can it?

Pictured: some scientist, seen here poking something, possibly genes.

Probably.

The gene pokers in question are Dr. Madeline Lancaster from Cambridge University in the U.K. and her team, and this is science so I should walk it back a bit. Nobody's growing ape brains, they're just growing brain cells. Specifically those from chimps and gorillas. Human brain cells too. But they're just cells in a Petri dish or something, so it's not like they can get out and run around or anything. Probably. Also they're not so much poking at the genes as they are manipulating a specific gene that controls how large the brains grow in development. 

Like seriously, don't go to zoos.

They found that the gene, Zeb2, tells the cells to stop dividing and start maturing. This happens later in humans, which is why our brains are so much larger than other primates, or losers as I like to call them. Of course, whether or not brain size is directly connected to intelligence is still up for debate, and even if true, it's probably more complicated than big brain = smart. Still though, last time I checked, we're not the ones in the zoos. Which, incidentally, is incredibly cruel. 

The very idea is fraught with unsettling,
yet adorable ethical concerns.  

Anyway, Lancaster's team found that if they delay Zeb2 in ape brain cells, they keep dividing and develop more like our brains. Likewise, if they activate Zeb2 early in human brain cells, they stop dividing and are more in line ape brains. Or something. I don't know, I'm not a neuroscientist, but you're probably wondering why they're even doing this? According to Lancaster, it's important to know how the brain develops in order to get a better understanding of neurodevelopment disorders and that's great, but I also think it's important not to create a species of super-ape.

And again, to be clear, that's not what's happening here. Lancaster and her team aren't growing brains, just brain cells. Everything is under control. For now. I mean, nobody thought anyone would sabotage the electric fence in Jurassic Park either, and look how that turned out. I guess what I'm saying is that maybe we shouldn't not worry about our inevitable take over by super-intelligent apes of our own making.

Behold: Dr. Madeline Lancaster, grim architect of our extinction.
That is if pandemics, war, or climate change don't get us first.