Questionable Content

She's on performance enhancing drugs for that competition.

It's true.

Clinton.

Run. Just run.

Clinton in general is prone to walking onto verbal landmines, and Liz is a minefield.

A School Story

Evidently there was an original version of this strip which didn't show the events in question, and Jeph had to slap together a re-do explaining how it wasn't her robotic arm that got bitten and infected.

Because she didn’t have them yet, not even more rudimentary (i.e. more like real life) prostheses. Interesting.

Edited by HeraldAlberich on Apr 30th 2024 at 1:01:53 PM

I could imagine her removing the realistic prosthetic to pet an animal. If you're not getting full tactile feedback, petting a cute furry creature would seem largely pointless (and especially prone to annoying the creature, for that matter).

#5299: Sinister

Clinton and Liz share similar experiences.

Edited by jouXIII on May 1st 2024 at 4:21:03 PM

Confirmation that she was born without them. Or, I suppose, injured at a very young age. But most likely congenital.

Huh, I guess this would be common ground for them.

And the left hand/right hand (strictly, right brain/left brain) thing is potentially disturbingly plausible.

There was an epilepsy treatment in the past that involved cutting the corpus callosum that attaches the two hemispheres in the brain (long story short, damage on one hemisphere can lead to epilepsy when the brain tries to correlate data between hemispheres) and it would occasionally manifest in cases of one hand acting without the person's conscious control. As I understand it, it was seldom violent, but a not uncommon effect was one hand unconsciously unbuttoning clothing if you weren't paying attention to it.

Of course, it's also one of the things where there were a fairly small number of cases to study, so the case studies are often fairly anecdotal and I remember, when reading psychology books over a span of a few decades (my mother was a psychology major and we still had her books in the house, then I picked it up in college, so I got to compare), you could see how the understanding of how the brain operated influenced how scientists recorded results.

Side note to that, with everyone cramming AI into things, I feel like we're not too far off from the movie Doctor Octopus situation where an AI algorithm in artificial limbs might result in such limbs acting somewhat independent of the owner's desire due to optimization in the wrong direction...

AI everything extending to artificial limbs does seem like a disturbing idea yeah.

#5300: Wild Eep

Oh, Ayo...

I've never smoked anything, but I really do find the smell of marijuana gross. Like it makes me physically nauseous.

x4 That's exactly what I was thinking of, yes.

Okay, by honest coincidence, I'd recently caught a CGP Grey video on the subject.

There's a reason I stick to edibles. That being said, I don't find the smell of weed to be nearly as offensive as other smoke smells. Probably because I grew up on a swamp that was full of a plant called either stink flower or skunk cabbage depending on who you ask that smells remarkably similar to weed.

Isn't weed itself also referred to as "skunk", or am I thinking of something else?

I have a family member who smokes weed, and I can attest that it smells just like skunk spray to me.

Bizarre to me that most people don't find the smell of weed pleasant. It's such a rich and full sent. However I've definitely picked up on some strains that smell really harsh that I question why anyone would buy.

Maybe I've just gotten used to the smell so I can pick up on the subtitles of it after working so long as a park ranger and dealing with every other person who walks past smelling of it.

#5301: Can She, Though?

Well, he tried.

It was a worthy but doomed effort.

Solemnly bows his head to pay respect to that whole house, as they're all going to need it

Edited by TheWanderer on May 5th 2024 at 9:43:22 AM

I'm moderately interested in experimenting with edibles but I hate the smell of weed smoke (and I'm not thrilled about the smell of tobacco smoke either). Also thanks to childhood asthma and sleep apnea I'm just not okay with messing with my breathing in general.

#5302: Changing Places

That seems about right.

For once I agree with the grumpy robot.