The day I realized I was not alone.

When I was thirteen years old, I had that experience that everyone has, I hope, at some point in their lives. That moment of realization when understanding seeps in: I am not alone. Everyone wants to be unique, but everyone also wants a community, and having too much or too little uniqueness is a terrifying state. "Are there people like me? Am I the only one?"

I was thinking about this yesterday after a conversation with a friend. When did I realize I was not the only person "like me"? I can point to it precisely. I was, as I said, thirteen, and I was reading Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's "Illuminatus!" trilogy, and I came across a filler page in the second volume. It was a collage of different things, some silly, some insightful, all dedicated to the art of guerrilla ontology. In the lower-left-hand corner of that page was this quote:

When I was nine years old, I acquired my first split beaver magazine. You can imagine my disappointement when, upon examination with a microscope, I discovered all I could see was dots.

And that was when I realized I wasn't the only one.

When I related this story to Omaha, she said, "You really did that?" Of course I did. Who wouldn't?

News I Can Use

There are two kinds of Tranhumanists. You can find them here. I'm somewhere in the middle, with the SPINAL IMPLANT GOES HERE tattoo (oh, I gotta get one, I just need a decent wrapper icon), the gene code and the algorithms on my portable data accessory, and I do not fear either sunlight or women-- rather enjoy them, actually.

One of the distinctions is that Extropians are big on the calorie-restricted diet in the hopes that they'll hit the break point, that technological deadline after which the rate at which life extension technologies expand exceeds the rate at which they're getting old. Well, they need not starve themselves much longer. Scientists Identify Compounds That Mimic Calorie Restriction. An enzyme named PPARα seems to be the primary target, and drugs that give one the benefits of calorie restriction without the pain may be on the way soon.

Are you ready to live to 130? I'm not kidding about this. You might just have the choice soon.

And, blessed be, I might not end up a crusty old man at 125 after all. Possible New Cure For Psoriasis. I have it mild, but I'd like to mediate the problem and avoid psoriatic arthritis. This seems to inhibit the out-of-control skin growth, but doesn't deal with the underlying immune disorder. Ah, well.

Nerve Cells Guided To Repair Spinal Damage. The evolution of self-dissolving scaffoldings filled with drug cocktails to encourge the growth of bodily tissues proceeds apace. I'm telling ya; in about ten years you'll be able to go and get a dick any size you want grown. Nerve cells are the hardest to regenerate; if we can fix them, we can grow just about anything.