Octopus Arms

[ysabetwordsmith]

 ... definitely know what the other arms are doing, even if the central brain does not.  Cool.

Comments

[siliconshaman]

I rather thought they had a setup that was rather more like a parallel processing network, than a hierarchical central processor.

[dewline]

That is an amazing thing, isn't it?

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

The arms are parallel to each other. There is a central brain. Scientists are still trying to figure out how these things integrate.

[technoshaman]

Octipodes (the name is Greek, so "Octopi" is wrong, it's Ok-TIP-uh-deez) are AMAZING in general...

'course, my knuckles also know if I got my password wrong even if my brain doesn't know where... but I can't camo against a surface without looking at it... *dayum*...

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

That depends on what you mean by "correct." Octopodes was the original plural. English has adapted a different plural by overusing -us > -i but it's elegant. The now-native English +es is awkward in this case. I've picked up "octopodes" for use with nerds but nobody else would recognize it.

This is how languages evolve.

Re: Well ...

[technoshaman]

*nods* and I tend to go back to original forms when I recognize the butchery of Noah Webster.... The Queen's took a *mauling* at his hands, and when I saw that I decided that at least for myself the only decent, right, and honourable thing to do was to revert to status quo ante... besides, at the time I had a dipstick boss that demanded proper English in tickets. It was my own private swing of the finger. Proper. BLOODY. English.

(Narrator: He enunciated clearly. ;)

Re: Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Proper. BLOODY. English.

(Narrator: He enunciated clearly. ;)<<

In which case it would be:

Proper. By Our Lady. English. ;)

Zwounds used to be "God's wounds."

Re: Well ...

[technoshaman]

Oh, now you're going back beyond MIDDLE English!

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye,
So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

I had to memorise that as a senior in high school.

Re: Well ...

[zeeth_kyrah]

I think of octopus arms like the king's servants. While he might not know quite everything they're doing, as long as they're still attached he's in charge and has overall control of goals and purposes.

Re: Well ...

[siliconshaman]

Hmm... sounds like a hub & spoke array with a ring, which is one of the more optimised hybrid networks for parallel processing.

No wonder they're smart.

Re: Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

This is a favorite:
http://www.kristinhall.org/songbook/ForeignSongs/SumerIsIcumenIn.html

One of my high school teachers had studied Old English. To show the differences between that and modern English, she had us read a paragraph each of the old stuff. So she started off with the first paragraph, passed the book to me, I read the second, held the book over my shoulder for the next student ...

... and heard a tiny voice say, "I have to follow that?"

I hadn't realized that most people couldn't do what I did, splicing farmemory with a current example to sight-read Old English.

And that was in the magnet school.

Re: Well ...

[technoshaman]

..... That wasn't that hard... I s'pect you're a bit older than me, but yeah...

And I know a bardling in England that *sings* the original, too... she's mostly into newer stuff (1750s forward) but she can go all the way back when she wants to...

Language skills and memory, ain't it fun?

Re: Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

In fact, Uni's Madrigals sang some old songs and carols in Middle English or Latin. They had real garb, too, one of the girls' mothers was into historic recreation. In the holiday season they go all around town singing at churches and other schools and such.

Re: Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Hmm... sounds like a hub & spoke array with a ring,<<

That's what I always figured. It had to be either that, or a true five-pointed-star pattern with five brainlets caucusing. If scientists are observing the arms communicating with each other aside from the brain, then that points toward a hub-spoke-ring.

>> which is one of the more optimised hybrid networks for parallel processing.

No wonder they're smart.<<

I hadn't known that part. Cool. It means you can use octopus biomimicry to improve computer systems. Now I wish I could build an octobot and see how long it takes to learn how to open jars.

Re: Well ...

[technoshaman]

Latin! I've sung in Latin a couple of times. Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur!

(I also love things sung in their original languages when the "familiar" version is in English.... my favourite holiday album is Heather Dale's Spark, in which she sings in English, French, Irish Gaelic, Cornish, Welsh, German, and EIGHT VERSES of "Adeste Fideles" in Latin (oddly, the song is not that old! Written and added to over time between 1749 and 1850)... not on this album, but she also does the Huron Carol, written by a French Jesuit missionary, Jean de Brébeuf, in Wendat, then in French, then in English... )

Re: Well ...

[fyreharper]

Ohhhh thank you, that makes the pronunciation of zounds make *so much more sense* (why yes, I did recently watch the “B or not a B” video recently ;) )