#i tried posting this like 10 minutes ago if you see this twice thats why

[mitathemita]

something something

[tali-likes-tugs]

Can you please make some dating headcanons for the Star Tugs, please? (You can do the Z-Stacks later if you want to)

*screaming* IM BACK

I've been working on this for like 2 months, it sat in my drafts box for about a month and a half with just TenCents' and then Big mac was added like a month ago LMAO

Why not make it an even longer post?👀

Star Tugs, Z-Stacks character relationship headcanons

Sorry about the massive post ya'll hope you enjoy

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Star Tugs

Tencents

General

Very loving throughout the whe relationship but can be very hardheaded/stubborn.

Will bring you flowers when ever he can or leaves notes on your door/office.

Loves to cuddle and watch movies at night.

Favorite dates are sitting at the end of the doc and talking with you.

Beginning of relationship

Thought that you would never like him or want to date him so be kind of acted cruel when feelings arose.

And then something happened

You were pushed off one of the tugs once and without thinking TenCents dove into the frigid water after you and pulled you out.

He held you in his arms until medical personnel could show up and he broke down when you left in an ambulance.

He showed up to the hospital the next day with flowers and when he saw the tubes and wires he cried

Throughout your stay he cringed a little as tubes and such were taken out.

He stayed by your side and held your hand until you woke up and kissed you the minute he could.

He told you how much he loved you and how he felt so bad for being such an ass and he ended up spending the night curled up in your hospital bed with you.

Oj and Hercules still have the photos

Big Mac

General

Veey sweet man

Loves to tease you though so be prepared.

Will give you kisses on the cheek as a way to show love or as a goodbye if he's in a rush.

Kind of protective, specifically when it comes to the Z stacks.

Beginning of relationship

You never expected him to have feelings for you. Not because he does what TenCents does, but because he shows his love in ways that you really have to look for.

You work with him? He'll help you and work with you whenever he can.

You live with the fleet? Will try and help you with meals or cleaning or just keep you company.

He vents to you a lot and thats another way you can tell you've learned his trust.

When he asks you out it's more or less a "would you like to see a movie together?" Or something along the lines of that.

Your first "date" was very sweet and he did did his best to spoil you and make you feel comfortable.

The first time he said i love you, you bith looked at eachother stunned and then smiled

10/10 amazing man.

Otis Jones (O.J)

General

Very sweet and traditional lover.

Will compliment everything, your eyes, your smile, your laugh, you hands, anything he can compliment he will atleast twice.

Is traditional in the sense that you aren't officially dating until he takes you out a few times

Holds your hands and give you kisses on your knuckles whenever

He also does this little thing that if your hands are scuffed or dried he'll put lotion on them for you.

Beginning of relationship

Very upfront with his feelings as he knows that keeping them hidden can only hurt your relationship with eachother.

Very politely asks you while making dinner or cleaning the dishes with you.

Doesn't want to tell anyone until your officially together and comfortable with it.

As i said before he wants to take you out and test the waters a few times to see how you feel about dating.

Brings you daisies and always holds your hand when showing you something.

Top Hat

General

Shows his love through buying gifts and surprisingly, dancing!

Is like Otis in the sense that he wants to take you out a few times before being official.

Little side note, your first kiss was on the stern of his boat as the sun went down to the song You Send Me by Sam Cooke during a party.

Beginning of Relationship

Grampus and Billy were the first to find out and Tophat was slightly pissed.

His love language is very much physical touch and buying gifts so things like slow dancing, soft touches, and new jewelry.

Kind of rubs that whole thing in Hercules' face

Doesn't want kids but very much loves yours if you have them or your nieces and nephews.

If you have siblings he will definitely have a drink with them and have long conversations with them so long as they are smart and can be sarcastic.

You have a promise ring with it, it's a thing for if he ever has to go out to sea you know he's with you.

Plans on marrying you as you are the only person he's been very attached to.

Warrior

General

Very much a himbo but he loves you so much.

Fell very hard very very quick and Big Mac kimd of teased him for it but definitely cheered him on.

Very very in love with you and was the first to say I love you.

Beginning of relationship

Isn't good at dancing or with his words so he told you he loved you by writing it out in a letter.

Walks down the docks while you take about your day and how you're feeling are his favorite "dates".

Loves to hear you laugh so very much, it never fails to make him smile.

Will give you kisses randomly and that's how the rest of the fleet found out.

He had a job with SunShine and as a way to say good bye he ran up to you, grabbed you, and kissed you and ran.

50/10 very loving and genuine man.

Hercules (my most developed character LMAO)

General

O h t h i s m a n i s a f l i r t .

Lives to make you flush.

Gave you a necklace with a photo of him and TenCents in it (TC is basically his son).

Gave you little hints that he was smitten with you right off the bat.

Wasn't afraid to ask you to dinner but you weren't official as he wanted to test the water bc past relationships went to hell.

Everyone knew he had actual feelings for you, he was sweeter on you and seemed to trust you more, and smile at you more than the others and is always more goofy around you.

Beginning of relationship

Took you to a bar to go dancing and the song Sh-Boom - Life Could Be A Dream came on and when he dipped you at the end of the song he kissed you and held you close as the next song came on, foreheads pressed together.

Definitely sleeps with you in his arms every night and his two cats sleep with you. (TenCents and Sunshine have konked out with guys a few times.

Dates where you lay out a blanket in a field and read or look at the stars are very common (he does this thing when if you're on your stomach reading he'll lay his head on your thighs or ass)

Again, lives to make you blush and he'll do basically anything to make you turn as red as TenCents' Scarf.

Loves to dance and sing.

Dusk is sometimes spent dancing on his boat.

Loves to dance to hound dog with you

Sunshine

General

Relatively mature lover.

Very gentle and sweet on you and loves to make you laugh and smile.

Could be covered in grease or dust after work and would still bring you flowers or a sea shell he found if he got the chance.

"Oh boy, here comes lover boy Sunshine!" -tophat

Big mac definitely soothed him into telling you about his feelings.

Beginning of relationship

Very nervous to tell you and stuttered a little when talking to you.

Grabbed your hand by accident one day and thats when you turned to him and told him you had feelings for him.

Poor man almost passed put and fell into the water out of pire relief.

Nights spent watching movies or sitting on the beach talking about dumb things together are his favorite ways to spend time with you.

Z-stacks

Zorran

General

Oh god you never thought he had feelings for you.

He was a complete asshole and seemed to live pissing you off.

So when he asked you out you were stunned and almost turned him down, but decided you would give it a shot.

Very difficult man, but he was a lot softer on you after a little while.

Beginning of relationship

This relationship definitely started by you snapping at him over something hime dod and him leaning down to your face and saying something like "well aren't you a cutie"

You just about smacked him and then it settled in that he was basically flirting with you.

First date consisted of a walk down the streets of San Francisco (yes this au is in SF CA bite me.)

He took you into a shop and pointed out a cat stuffie that you said looked like one you had when you were little and he bought it for you with a red bow on it a few days later.

His love language is definitely gifts.

Zebedee (my love)

General

Absolutely lover man

Basically the Hercules of the Z-stacks just a little harder to read.

Has a son. His name is Zip. You are a parent now.

Zebedee was brought up in a weird house hold so he works very hard to make sure you are comfortable and he doesnt make the relationship miserable.

Beginning of relationship

Was quite open about the whole thing and surprisingly practically cussed out Zorran when he started with his shit.

Very much a sweetheart and would do anything with you if he could.

Zak

General

Dickwad. Doesn't know how to show his love for you, but it's there.

Shows his love by being protective and always being aroune basically.

Very rarely actually smiles but when he does cherish the fucking moment.

Beginning of relationship

"Sir wtf everyone thinks you hate them" kind of vibe.

Thought he just wanted to get to know you but now you're a week into the relationship and holy fuck i want to get married.

Wants to hold your hand most of the time and just hear your voice.

Zug

General

Little bit of an asshole but tries his best

Buys you little things like journals if you like to write or seeds if you have a garden.

Wears ties and always has you pick them out and if you aren't around he wears the one with your favorite flowers or colors on it.

Beginning of relationship

Teases you and acts like a big man when you first get together but then he realizes how much he loves you and becomes a big softy.

Loves to cuddle randomly and Zorran is a little piss baby about it

Loves everything about you, especially your eyes and he always makes it known.

Zip

General

Kind of a ditz but you have to love him for it.

He was a stuttering mess when he told you he had caught feelings and held out a single sunflower for you to take.

Loves to lay his hedon your lap as you play with his hair and talk or watch a movie.

Likes to write stories, a lot of them involve you, and he reads them to you! He's a very good writer and so many of his characters are really well developed and beautifully designed.

He has a little brother named Zacary (Xacary?) and his brother often helps Zip set dates and such up

Beginning of relationship

I have a little headcanon that Zip might have partial autism but he has ADHD and he was abused as a kid so the relationship is a little rough for him at first.

Adjusting to the whole thing of hey they love me, i love them, i can trust them.

But as he warms up he helps more, and dances with you more, and begins to really thrive in the relationship.

Is definitely in love with you even if he forgets to tell you some days.

He's trying his hardest, give him a little time

Zorran definitely had feelings for you qnd was pissy when you fell for Zip and Zip fell for you

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Gonna add Boomer, Lillie, Billy, Grampus, and Cappy on later in a reblog.

[kevkesblog]

Translation: Julian Brandt Interview for “11 Freunde” (June 18, 2020)

Attention: long post! Julian talks about overblown salaries in football, why he even stays at two-star hotels, why he thinks football should not be dramaticly reformed and why you won’t see him in Gucci clothing & more.

Julian Brandt, what do you miss the most at the moment?

Ju:     Just going outside and sitting in a café with some friends. Enjoying a bit more freedom. But I think many people have the same wishes right now.

Yet, the break because of the Corona pandemic seem to have lifted you. You were involved in all four goals during the 4-0 win against Schalke.

Ju:     I would still have preferred it, without the break. I mean it’s like this: sometimes you need just a few days to arrive at a place, sometimes it takes months. Feeling well in a city, a club and with my teammates is important. I’m a football player that needs a comfortable environment.

How was it for you at BVB in the beginning?

Ju:     There were definitely no fireworks at the beginning. But honestly, I kind of expected to need more time. I think thats normal after five and a half years at Bayer Leverkusen. It was a great time there, but in the end it was a comfort zone for me. I switched to BVB because I wanted to do something new.

And because Marco Reus asked you.

Ju:     Many people were in favour of me going to Dortmund. Even my mother wore yellow pullovers astonishingly often, during the time before my transfer happend. And Marco asked me at the national team, that’s true. I felt honored, but I saw a chance playing for a team which plays competitively for the title until the end of the season and is represented in the Champions League regularly, those were the main reasons for my transfer.

What else is different in Dortmund than in Leverkusen?

Ju:     Dortmund is bigger in almost every regard. Even the stadium is enormous and it becomes even more imposing with people in it. Building such a stadium somewhere is one thing. Brining it to live however like in Dortmund – that’s an art in and of itself. You don’t get that very often in Europe. Leverkusen – and I have to be honest here – has never been on my radar for me as a boy. But it’s the perfect club if you want to develop as a young player. I already suspected this after I talked to Rudi Völler for the first time.

I was told, you said „Rudi Völler has honest eyes“ to your father afterwards.

Ju:     He has a sincere attitude. I would have believed everything he said. And his promises became reality. We were playing attractive and successful football. And you don’t get so much pressure as a young player from the outside. The media landscape for example is much smaller in Leverkusen than elsewhere.

Do you miss the fans in the stadium in Dortmund?

Ju:     I was never that guy who was aware of stuff that happend on the stands. But after the game against Inter Mailand, where we were behind 0-2 before the break and won 3-2 in the end – I recognized how important football is for the people here and how much they were willing to support us. It was so honest, authentic and direct. One of the best games thus far.

Before that Michael Rummenigge critized you as „C-youth player“. That was after the Inter game where you scored as well. Was that a key moment?

Ju:     Everybody can voice their opinions that’s totally fine for me. I’m not a person who jumps on it.  And I wasn’t really satisfied with my game as well. Perhaps the 2-1 win against Gladbach a few days before was a turning point. Not only, because I scored twice, but rather because I was able to play on the ten for the first time. After that my game became better.

You said in the beginning of your time at BVB „Peter Bosz liked the risk. We don’t really have that here in Dortmund“. Did the way you play now changed?

Ju:     We play nice football under Lucien Favre. He likes an offensive tactic. Adding that, we score alot of goals. But Peter Bosz was a special coach in that regard because we played a modern version of football with a high amount of ball possesion – often over 80 percent. And we not only wanted to keep the ball all the time, while playing until our opponent gets tired like it’s the case with tiki-taka football. We were always on the attack. At BVB we put more emphasis on the defensive at the beginning. It was a change for me, since I wanted to have the ball and not running behind him all the time.

Is football an elegant game?

Ju:     My room as child was full of „Bravo“-magazine posters with offensive players. Nedved, Robinho, Del Piero and the best among the best: Ronaldinho. I liked it whenever players carry their street football skills to the pitch. Whenever somebody is looking for something spectacular. I want to gamble and not just act in a rigid system.

Doesn’t modern tactics prevent something like this?

Ju:     You are basically being funneled at youth football academies with: receive the ball, passing, receiving, passing. There a strict requirements you have to follow. But I think good teams need self-confident players, saying „No, I won’t fit in, but I rather go into a one-on-one situation“. We have such guys in our national team. Leroy Sané or Timo Werner. Kai Havertz is a player who has a street football mentality too. Often it looks very easy, but it’s not. It just passed over into blood.

You are wearing the jersey number 10 at the national team. Like you also wore at Leverkusen. Does that do something with you?

Ju:     I feel lighter in some sense. Perhaps because I know that you have to earn the number ten. Not like in the past, but I do think it has a certain meaning yes.

We heard you don’t like to talk about your strengths. Why?

Ju:     I think, it looks like I’m a show off. I have enough self-confidence already.

Yet you do know that you can shoot really good. Who taught you?

Ju:     Many things happened because I just tried. I even knew as a ten-year old boy: if I want to become a great football player I have to be able to shoot well with both feet. So, for weeks I shoot with my left foot on our lawn. Shot, flank, pass. It helped a lot. I met Federico Palacios during my youth time in Wolfsburg. He taught me insane techniques. I had a phase were I was obsessively training my first contact: not trying to stop the ball between the lines, but rather take the ball without defender nor midfielder getting the ball instead.

What are your weaknesses?

Ju:     My headers. But I’m currently working on it and I often score. At least without opponent (laughs). Some people say I can work more on my defensive work. And yes, there is some truth to it, even after I already worked on it for quite some time. The thing is: I’m not an aggressive person, its not who I am. But of course, I understand whenever coaches say I need to have a certain minimum amount of aggressive behavior on the pitch.

Do you have a career plan?

Ju:     No, everything I do, I do spontaneously.

But everything you do looks so reasonable: youth football for your home club. Training at a football academy in Wolfsburg. Professional debut at Bayer Leverkusen, your transfer to BVB a year ago…

Ju:     Honestly: I could not have imagined going to VfL Wolfsburg as well at the beginning. Why should a boy do this, when he basically grew up just a 20 minute bike ride away from the Weser stadium in Bremen and was standing in the fan curve in his youth?

Because Werder [Bremen] overlooked you?

Ju:     That’s not true. I even got invited to a try-out training. But then I looked at some other academies. I wasn’t only looking at VfL Wolfsburg. For example I looked at FC St. Pauli as well. Yet, I had the best feeling with Wolfsburg.

Why?

Especially during the ages 15 to 18 a lot is happening: you grow, your muscle mass is increasing, you slowly get to play with the professionals. On the other hand, many doors are opening. Your friends go partying for example. I liked being on a football academy for two and a half years. You couldn’t leave the campus after 11 o’clock in the evening. Apart from that we were very successful and won the German a-youth championship. But I can still remember how perplexed my parents were at the breakfast table, back when I told them about my decision to join Wolfsburg.

You are being called the “Anti-Star” of the business quite often. Does that do something with you?

Ju:     Many people seem to think it’s probably because I have no tattoos and my father is my agent. But to be honest: there are some football player clichées I fit in. I like fast cars. I like playing playstation and I have 40 pairs of shoes in my closet. I just try not to pretend to be someone else. I wouldn’t look good in a Gucci-pullover.

Others like to call you “premature”. You were allowed to train with the professionals at the age of 15 in Wolfsburg. How did you do that?

Ju:     That was insane and unreal. I was riding my bike to the training ground one day and the assistant coach Bernd Hollerbach took me to his side and said: “Introduce yourself to the coach”. So, I went into his office. “Hello Mr. Magath, I’m Julian from the under-17 team.” Of course, I was suspecting he already knew me otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten an invitation. But he was just staring at the television. After a while – it felt like an eternity – he looked at me, didn’t say a word, total silence and then he turned away. And then I was sneaking out of the room.

Magath wanted to test you?

Ju:     I was unsettled a bit, but I wasn’t thinking about it anymore on the pitch. It doesn’t matter who is on your side, or whether your opponent is twenty years older than you and who your father is.

Did you nutmeg someone?

Ju:     I would have been beaten for that. On the other hand: the pain fades away, the nutmeg stays (laughs). I remember I unintentionally shoot a ball into Marvin Hitz’s face.

How many agents were lining up at your doorstep at the time?

Ju:     I stopped counting it after a while. I don’t think all agents are bad but I don’t need one at the moment. I have my father. He may not be Mino Raiola with thousands of contacts all over the world. But he doesn’t need them.

Nevertheless: this son-father-constellation also has it’s potential conflicts…

Ju:     Our family sticks together – we are very harmonic and strong. I can’t remember a time where we were had an argument. I lived together with my brother in Cologne. I also have a connection with my father because of football. He used to play for the first team at SC Borgfeld – which was also my first club. I still remember: we went into the clubhouse whenever the Champions League was on. It was the best day of the week.

Now it’s about big business. Do you know your own worth?

Ju:     It was downgraded since the outbreak of the pandemic. I read that on so some sites.

But it’s still 40 million euros. What does such a number do with you?

Ju:     I can handle that because I can manage those numbers quite well. There is a lot money floating around in football. And I know its not easy to comprehend it with normal standards anymore. We live in our own bubble in that regard. The salaries in football are in no relation to what normal people earn – even with football being the greatest sport on earth. But why is that the case? Because sponsors are flushing so unbelievable high amounts of money into football. I think it’s important not to make the sport a luxury item. It has to stay affordable. In the stadium as well as in front of the TV.

Explain to us: why does a professional football player negotiate whether he should get 10 or 11 million euros per year?

Ju:     It shows how greedy people can be sometimes. But that’s not football specific. It’s as unfair as the richest one percent of the world’s population owning more than half of the world’s wealth, right?

Could this crisis perhaps be a chance in order for football to calm down?

Ju:     Perhaps in the short term. For the next one or two years. If any. I can’t imagine a player like Mbappé being sold next year for 80 million euros. Someone will always pay those insane sums of money.

How do you ground yourself?

Ju:     Through my family and friends. Many are studying or doing an apprenticeship. It’s never about money when we talk, I just like having a great time with them. We don’t need a luxury vacation. But one time: we went to Mallorca for four or five days just as we qualified for the Champions League with Bayer Leverkusen. We stayed at a normal two-star-hotel, one room with a bed and a bathroom – that was it. We went to the beach and relaxed.

Has there never been a situation where a friend or family member had to take you back to the ground?

Ju:     No. I can’t remember that I ever reacted arrogant or snooty. Or a situation where I thought: “Wow. That’s not who you are”. I’m fully aware of my very privileged life. In short: my greatest worry is whether we will win or loose on the weekends. It’s important to be thankful and to remind yourself what you got every once in a while.

Why do you have to remind yourself stuff like that all the time?

Ju:     In order for it never to become normal. I know cheese costs about 69 cents at the grocery store and a different one costs 1,29 euros. But if a tool or device breaks down I sometimes just buy myself a new one. Whereas in the past I would have repaired it by myself.

But is football still the same game you fell in love with as a kid?

Ju:     Absolutely. The game itself hasn’t really changed much. Okay, we have the goal line technology – which I support. And we got the video assistant referee, were people can argue. I abstain in that question. Once in a while, new ideas are being floated: like reducing the playtime to 60 minutes, new tournaments, elite leagues – I think it’s all bullshit. Keep football like it is. The way we learned it. With all its faults and tricky aspects. Even if something goes wrong.

Like during the World Cup 2018. Did you know that you could be the first DFB-team leaving the tournament after the group stage?

Ju:     At some point he heard of it. It doesn’t really look good on your vita but it happened. Perhaps we needed this in order for something new to emerge. You have to remember: other great football nations also failed in similar ways. Italy, Spain or France all crashed out of the group stage after they won the World Cup.

Did the photo with Mesut Özil and Erdogan brought some unrest into the team?

Ju:     The fact that almost all reporting was revolving around that topic was irritating sometimes. Don’t get me wrong: I think its important for the media to cover political topics extensively and with background stories. But I remember after the game against Sweden – after we barely won because of Toni Kroos free kick: shortly after the game you get asked whether the poor performance during the first 75 minutes were due to the photo – and you thinking: why don’t we talk about the game? Mesut became the poster boy for the disappointing World Cup. That’s nonsense. We all played shitty.

During the Confed-Cup the year before, many young players were in the team. At the World Cup the established players came back. Did Löw put his trust into the wrong players in Russia?

Ju:     You can come to that conclusion afterwards, but you don’t know it in advance. I could fully understand Low though. He was loyal and in some cases he felt some gratitude. He couldn’t and he didn’t want to replace a World Cup winner from 2014 with a young player. The way we were defeated at the World Cup was not foreseeable. Because we also played great football between 2014 and 2018.

The team made it to the semifinals at the EURO 2016 and you became second with the Olympic football team in Rio.

Ju:     A great experience with a team that was just thrown together. A contribution of Horst Hrubesch.

What makes him special?

Ju:     He is just great, the guy! He’s from a different generation which you can tell with a lot of things around him. Once he wanted to show me how to shot from the side. I almost tore my muscle fiber doing it. But he manages it very well forming a team with young players. He’s a very free coach and very direct. He always called me lazy (laughs). And he has a very nice and dry sense of humor.

An example?

Ju:     Me and the Bender-twins were sitting together shortly before the semifinal against Nigeria. He came up and said: “Guys, losing today doesn’t make any sense anymore.” A funny sentence, but also true if you think about it.

Julian Brandt, you made over 200 Bundesliga games, played Champions League and participated in one World Cup. You just turned 24. Do you even still have time to suck it all in and enjoy it?

Ju:     Football is quick. I can still remember coming to Leverkusen – as if it was yesterday: my first game for the under 23 team against Essen. My Bundesliga debut against Schalke a week later. That was a little more than six years ago already. Crazy. Veteran players always say: “Enjoy it, because quickly your career will be over.” But how should you enjoy it? A game every four or five days. New photos, new events. You don’t have an awful lot of time to let everything sink in for a moment. I usually do that on new years eve. On a friend’s balcony. I even get sentimental then.

[blake-nikos]

DMing  with a troublesome player pt 2  plus game zero

Okay so i had my session zero  at my  birthday party  (pretty much just a BBQ lunch before D&D cos  apparently  im 28 now so yay me  i guess )  And for over a month Ive been telling my players to make characters,  and what dose miss troublesome do nothing  no character at all not even a idea for a character... yay me  I’m thinking  and say “ well your just spectating then,  you had plenty of time to get ready” and  one of my other players can see the tantrum building in her face and the other player just says “i can just roll up a random character for you,���    as shes accepts that  and seems fine making the whole table wait over half a hour for her...  but while thats happening i start the game and let the ready players introduce themselves and RP a bit  and talk to npcs and get the game moving  so they are not just sitting there bored. all the other players  have been gathered around a table drinking  thanks to one of the players  being a loud drunk dwarf that wants to make friends  and go on adventures.    as i go to introduce her character  she “yells i dont want to go inside   i want to climb onto the roof  and just sit there”  the first fucking thing she dose    is that “lol Im so random shit”     to i say “ fine you dont meet the a party  you dont get any quest information  and the guards are going to see you and try to arrest  you for trespassing/ being a public nuisance”    and there go’s  another 10 minuets  of her arguing with the other players . ending with  a reluctantly and aggressive “fine  i’ll go inside but im not sitting with the group”      at this point  im just starring at  one of my other players who also GM’s    just like having a physic conversation with each other  as hes about as frustrated as i am. Time go’s on they get the  starter quest  and go into the sewers to find what is killing the giant rats   its a phase spider btw  there going through  get jumped by some rats and come across a giant rat-king but not before they split the party... well not really   3 went to kill the rat-king the rest waited  down the path a bit about 4 rounds of combat  with 2 experienced and one skipping his turn  cos  is PC  cant  keep line of sight  and cant see in the dark.... so 2 players and 1 enemy doing combat, they know what they are doing, combats quick they know there actions  and spells  but  4 rounds and about 3-4 minutes in real time later.  miss troublesome screams  at the table  breaking the flow of combat  yelling “im bored   i want to do something!   my character walks down the path! away from the party”      at this point the players remind her this his what happens when you split the party,    her response is” well my character gets bored easy” In my head im screaming  “fucking really!  the character with such a developed backstory  and personalty that you had someone else  fucking randomly generated a hour ago!   thats bullshit and you fucking know it,  you are using that as such a cop out its ridiculous“           I say none of this of coarse but remind her it has only  been 24 seconds in game,  your character  has that short attention span you would walk off  alone  in a place where you have see people get ambushed twice.  the other players  in character stop her  like what the fuck are you doing  but she still walks  30 feet way    ( i should have let her go her max  distance and  get her self killed )     any way they kill the rat king some cool rp stuff happens  and the party finds the phase spiders nest   she trys to get the webs of the ceiling and they fall on her basically putting her in a grapple state  oh damn just that caused drama with her. the spider  tries to stealth kill some of the party but  fails 3 times  (just unlucky rolls for it )   eventual it dose a good chunk of damage to the party and kills one out right a legit death in my first game.  ( there are healers in town that have revivify and the friendly drunken dwarf  fireman carries that high elf rogue  out of the sewer  as quick as he can   and the elf is saved  at the last second but that death is actually given the player some cool rp ideas so it all works out )  any way the spider is knocked down to 3 hp  and it phases out and runs. the remaining players  including miss troublesome  find 3 people webbed up in the spiders nest  2 young girls and a man all in black,  the cleric wakes him up as miss troublesome  is digging through his pockets  and finds all his stolen goods  and his daggers...  i let her know what she found and list all the stolen items and his weapons  shes says she “ takes them,  and i throw the daggers away”          hes says he cant walk  she she picks him up over her shoulder and tries to pickpocket his loot back   but notices the cleric watching him,  till he sees the party's rogue  and tells him in “thieves cant”  he’ll split the loot  he has hidden  if he gets him out of here  the rogue  agrees and tries to convince the other players  to let the thief go but they dont want to so,  the thief grabs a massive egg sack off the wall and slams it on to the  miss troublesome’s  head covering the her in baby spiders,  he grabs his loot as the party's rogue  chases him then  leads the party in the wrong direction  letting the thief escape.   out of game   she asks why he attacked  “you took his loot  you know hes a thief why would he let you just take him and his stuff”       then she carries on for another 5 minuets  yelling “ i didn't take his stuff!!  just his daggers”     the whole table  looked at her  at this point   one player says you have to be  specific and she fucken starts to cry “i did but no one listens to me “     again  shes 30   and she was the only one talking at the time  and not to mention the countless times she tried to start random convos  with other players about out of game stuff while they were trying to RP the rest was all rp stuff and went  smoothly.    this post is already long enough  but  that was my first game GMing Evey one liked it “apparently” even miss troublesome  even tho everyone was frustrated by her.   I might do a more of a campaign diary type post  if people are interested and try not to make it about miss troublesome some     May the GM gods  THE MATTHEWS  Mercer & Colville  pleas give me strength and guide me.       

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21 Men And Women Who Killed In Self Defense Share Exactly What Life Is Like Knowing They Killed Someone

Back in 2012 two men busted in my back door. It took them a few minutes as it was a metal door on a metal frame with sturdy hinges and a lock. One of the guys was probably 6′ 6″ and pretty large; he was finally able to break it off the hinge with a crowbar. When I heard them start hammering on the door I told my wife to call the police and lock herself and our baby behind two doors and I went out into the hallway with a shotgun. I kept yelling at them to leave and that the cops were coming and that I was armed – they kept coming. Eventually I heard a pop and the banging stopped and I knew they were through. I told them in no uncertain terms that if I saw them in my house, I was going to kill them.

A few seconds later they came around the corner both holding what appeared to be weapons and I shot the bigger one twice in the chest. The other one just stood there confused, probably trying process what in the hell had just happened. He took one step towards me and I shot him as well. Police showed up about two minutes later – both died at the scene. One had a knife and duct tape, the other had the crowbar. I later found out that the larger one was wanted for some sort of manslaughter charge because he killed his girlfriend a state over.

I have zero regrets about that night. They had multiple chances to leave and I have no doubt that they would have hurt my family if I had not stopped them.

—sd___throwaway

This was about 2004-2006. I don’t remember the exact year anymore.

I killed a guy that tried to break into my apartment because he was wanting his wife that he had just beat the shit out of.

2am. I hear them arguing. I could hear it through my bathroom wall. I shut my bathroom then bedroom to drown it out.

2:15am. She’s banging on my door, broken nose, left eye swollen, and limping from tripping and falling to get out of the apartment. Told her to go to the bathroom, clean herself up, then hide in my bedroom.

Husband comes out of the apartment, yelling her name, and he notices her blood trail to my apartment. Starts banging on my door, yelling to let him in. I warned him 3 times that he doesn’t stop, I will kill you. He kicks the lock on the door, door swings open, and I swing my baseball bat down onto his head.

He falls to the ground stunned. He lands stomach first and I see a handgun tucked into the back of his shirt. I grab it, throw it into my apartment, and warned him one more time.

He got up, came at me, I slam my bat into his stomach, then slam my bat over his head one last time which caved his skull in. I knew from the blood spatter from when I hit, he was dead. Thankfully, the neighbors had called the police when it started and the second he fell to the ground dead, police had made it to the top of the steps.

It never affected me as much as it should have. I reacted the best way I could for the situation I was in.

I don’t think about what I did anymore. I can’t fix the past.

—_hardliner_

I was jumped by 4 guys about 10 years ago. I was down on the ground and they were kicking and punching me. I grabbed my knife from my pocket, reached up and stabbed one of them in the stomach. Blood everywhere. some mine, mostly his. they all ran. One of them yelled back that he would find me later and kill me. He later died at a hospital because he took too long to get help.

Basically I never really felt bad about it and I don’t regret it. It has popped into my head randomly from time to time and it weirds me out that I took a persons life but thats about it.. doesn’t last long. My thoughts about it are that I was protecting myself and whether or not they would have killed me I feel it was not just justified but exactly what I should have done.

—OnwardtoGehenna

My senior year of college, I had an off campus apartment in a really shitty part of town. I often went to the batting cages with my roommates just for fun, so we each had our own baseball bat.

It was a Friday night and I heard a bang at the backdoor. I honestly thought it was just one of my roommates who had locked themselves out drunkenly. Well I get down there and there’s a guy in the kitchen wearing a ski mask. I just grabbed one of the baseball bats and swung at this guy as hard as humanly possible.

Well I hit the guy square in the head. He fell back, broke down the sliding closet door. Two of my roommates came running out, and I was just standing over this guy, who was profusely bleeding on our kitchen floor. One called 911 and the other one took off the guys ski mask and we tried to stop the bleeding with it. At this point the lights were still off and I didn’t actually realize how much blood was everywhere.

Two cops show up what felt like an eternity later, and then an ambulance wheeled him off. He died not too long after that. Our last roommate showed up while police were still taking statements. He just walks in and gives us this look like “what the hell happened?” And I just said “I broke your bat, I’m sorry”. He didn’t really give a shit about the baseball bat, I just didn’t know what else to say.

None of us slept that night. We just watched south park on Netflix and all called out of work the next day. I remember there was a lot of disbelief. I mean I couldn’t believe that had just happened. Never felt bad about it though. I did often wonder for awhile what led that guy to break into our place.

I do however own a .22 revolver now.

—DoesTheNameGoHere

Back in 1995 I lived in a quiet neighborhood in the SF East Bay with my wife of a few years and our 20 month old daughter. We had a small 3 bedroom two story house, and one of our second floor bedrooms doubled as my home office. One quiet Saturday morning I was in my office playing Command and Conquer on my computer with my headphones on, oblivious to the sounds of the outside world.

I’d probably been playing for an hour or so when, during one particularly quiet moment, I faintly heard my wife cry out downstairs. Knowing that she was down there with our daughter, I pulled my headphones off to see if she needed help with anything. Until the day I take my last breath, I’ll never forget what I heard when I pulled them off. I heard the voice of a man, with a thick Mexican accent, shout, “Quit yelling bitch, or I’ll fucking cut your head off and fuck your fucking daughter!” My daughter was crying hysterically.

After that, it was like some switch was thrown in me and my higher brain just shut off. I wasn’t making decisions. I just acted. I don’t even remember pulling the .45 from the lockbox in my desk, I just remember walking down the stairs slowly, scared as hell that I was going to see my wife dead when I reached the bottom. Instead, when I reached the bottom, I saw my wife half naked, bent over the couch, bleeding from somewhere in her upper body, while being raped from behind by some burly guy with a knife in his hand. He wasn’t TRYING to rape her, he was in the middle of the deed and was probably nearing climax.

I never said a word to the guy. Not while I was upstairs, not while I was coming down the stairs, and not when I walked into the room. His back was to me, so he had no idea I was even standing there.

He was holding his knife in his right hand, so that was the arm I grabbed with my left when I pulled him off. He spun away from her and me with a confused look on his face, and I shot him square in the chest at nearly point blank range before he had a chance to say a single word. His face went pale as he went onto one knee, and I fired twice more. One hit his neck, and the second missed entirely. I was told later that the first shot was the fatal one.

What happened next has always been a point of shame for me. The only thought going through my head at that point was that I couldn’t let my daughter watch this man die. Without even checking on my wife, I scooped my daughter up and walked out my front door. As I walked out to my driveway, I saw one of my neighbors standing there staring at my house (he’d heard the gunshots). The poor guy went pale when he saw me walk out, and I vaguely remember asking him to hold my daughter while I went and checked on my wife. The neighbor asked me if I’d shot her, and I told him, “No, I shot the man who was raping her.” I didn’t realize at the time that I had the guys blood spray covering half my body, and that I looked like something out of a horror movie. I then handed him my daughter and my gun (I also have no idea why I gave him my gun), and went back into my house to help my wife.

The police and DA gave me some flak about the exact circumstances of the shooting (one of the detectives told me that it was more of an “execution” than a “defense”), but in the end they declined to pursue any charges. The man who attacked her turned out to be a guy with serious mental issues who had been previously convicted of two violent rapes, one of which was against a 9 year old girl. Under California’s then-new 3 Strikes law, he’d have gone to prison for life if I hadn’t killed him.

As for recovery; I like to think that I’ve recovered from it, but it certainly induced a few behavioral changes. To this day, for example, I can’t wear headphones that block out background noise. Even after years of counseling, over-ear and noise cancelling headphones give me panic attacks because I can’t hear what’s happening around me. I found out later that he’d been raping my wife for nearly 10 minutes before I heard him, and that he’d actually told my wife THREE TIMES that he was going to rape my daughter when he was finished with her. I was sitting 30 feet away and had no idea it was going on, and that fact has fucked with me for years.

My wife had a much worse time of it though. In addition to two stab wounds to her shoulder and upper arm, and the bruising and injuries from the forceful rape, she ended up having a mental break and took years to really recover. For the first 6 months, she absolutely could not be in any room by herself. For more than a year, she couldn’t be in a house by herself (and she NEVER reentered the house where this happened). For several years, she’d break out in a sweat when she heard men with deep hispanic accents talking, because she’d hear his voice again. Even now, decades later, she starts shaking if you try to talk to her about it. She’s fine in every other sense, but even discussing it freaks her out.

—ta_aimtrue

I got assaulted in an alley in New Orleans 20 years ago. The guy hit me in the back of the head, cut me a few times with a knife, put the knife to my throat and told me that he was going to rape and kill me. I choked him to death. Felt his windpipe crumble in my hands. I’ve had PTSD ever since. Constant nightmares. I see his face turn red, blue, and purple. I hear the crunch of his windpipe. I feel him struggle against me. I have scars I see every time I get out of the shower. I did what I had to do and don’t regret it but killing a man with your bare hands is a lifelong struggle.

—Offtopic_bear

My house had been robbed twice while I was at work. One day I had to call out sick and while I was sleeping I heard someone downstairs. I called out “Who’s there?” When we’re sick, our supervisors come to see if we’re actually home, but I was worried because they always knock first, and I was sure I didn’t hear any knock or doorbell.

I heard footsteps running up the stairs and I called out that I was armed. My supervisor definitely would have stopped, but the footsteps got louder. I got behind the door and two men charged into my room with guns. I moved my arm and they turned around. I shot one of them in the neck while he shot the wall behind me, the other man ran downstairs.

It turns out I shot my coworker’s cousin, who knew my schedule of when I wasn’t going to be home. The coworker was not in on anything. The other man was the cousin’s friend.

I was not charged. I do not feel guilty because the last two months made me feel very violated. I changed jobs because I was uncomfortable working with people who knew about it.

—ThrowawayKillSD

Happened about a decade ago. I was walking back home and these 2 kids tried to rob me. I don’t necessarily know what age they were, but they were somewhat short (I live in a country in which the average person isn’t very tall) and pretty scrawny. I was pretty deep into depression that had me at a point in which I didn’t really care about much of anything.. and was contemplating suicide constantly, so as weird as it might be to say, I wasn’t particularly scared, which is probably why he kept getting even more agitated.

Both were probably on drugs, one with the gun was yelling more and more and for some reason I reached out for his gun, in the struggle the gun fired twice, both times he got shot and died. The other one started yelling for his brother, charged me with the knife he had, I shot and kept shooting until the gun ran out.

Called the police, they couldn’t pretend to care less, two junkie kids on drugs, yeah. Would probably be different in the US.

At the time the only thing that freaked me out was the fact I wasn’t freaking out. I kept thinking I was some kind of monster, yet was mostly indifferent towards it.

A year later after I got on meds for my depression and it felt like it crashed on me pretty hard. Got heavily into drinking.

—deleted

I work graveyards at a gas station in that grey area part of my town where a good neighborhood is immediately bordered by an extremely bad one, so I see all sorts of shit, both good and bad.

A couple years ago (4-5 now maybe? I usually try not to think about it.), I was in the back room stocking, and hear the front door open, so I come out face first into two younger guys running in with guns drawn. I carry, but I’m not the idiot that thinks he can draw, ready, aim and fire before someone with a ready weapon kills me, so I put my hands up and stop moving. Guy 1 keeps coming and grabs me by the back of the shirt while Guy 2 peels off and starts grabbing all of the Newports and scratch tickets. Guy 1 puts the gun to the back of my head and brings me around to the register area, where I open the register. He pulls me to the back of the register area by the cigarette display and his friends moves over to empty the till.

While they’re changing places, Guy 1 says “Hurry up blood let’s merc this fool” (or something very similar), and gestures with his gun in such a way that I got a look at it. He. Had. No. Magazine. His friend may have, but he was facing away, on one knee, with his weapon stuffed in his rear waist band with his fucking comically long shirt over it. Unfortunately for them my CZ-75 compact most certainly did. I smacked Guy 1 in the head with right hand as hard as I could, and drew while shooting upwards at him. I wasn’t really aiming, just fired twice into center of mass from just above my hip. First round caught him in the upper sternum/collar bone area, and the second caught him in the base of the neck and travelled upwards through his skull, before finally ruining the Marlboro light display with bits of his head. (Oddly, those cigarette cartons with the red on the white and gold are my clearest memory of that night.) I spun towards Guy 2 and fired three more times, catching him once in the upper abdomen and twice in the chest.

I immediately called 911, and then proceeded to sit on the floor in silence for the ten minutes it took them to get there, shaking. After all, the adrenaline was wearing off. All said and done, I was questioned for about twenty minutes, and my weapon was confiscated for the duration, but other than that and ~a month of nightmares I was fine. Nightmares stopped once the detective in charge of the case let me know that I was wasn’t the first store they’d robbed, and killed or severely beaten the other checkers. Then I was just glad that I’d removed trash like that from the world. Can’t hurt anyone now.

—F_N_DB

I was in an incident where I shot and killed a squatter during an eviction. In all honesty, he shot me first, and I dont really remember all the details which is probably a good thing. I was also present with a marshal at the time, so there wasnt much of a report to take.

I think about it sometimes, especially when my shoulder hurts. Hard not to honestly. I’m alive, and he isnt, and at the end of the day I feel pretty good about that. I never knew his name, or why he fired his weapon at me instead of just walking out peacefully. He’s probably in an unmarked grave somewhere in Michigan, and that doesnt bother me too much. I don’t intend to end up like that man.

—kegman83

Having lived in a more dangerous neighborhood growing up, I was taught as a teen gun safety and was at the shooting range regularly with my dad and brothers. One day I arrived home after college to find someone going through my things in my bedroom. He came at me with a knife as soon as he saw me. I pulled my gun out of my purse and shot him in the chest.

It happened so quickly, all I could think of was the knife and his proximity and that he had physical advantage over me and I needed to do something before he got within arms length and could use his strength to rape me. I didn’t take time to aim, I certainly didn’t intend to kill him. I wanted him to not be able to come near to me.

I don’t regret pulling the trigger. I do have nightmares about it and what would have happened if i didn’t have a gun that day.

In regards to the “he’s gonna rape me” mentality. I live in South Africa, where some believe (incorrectly) that sex with a virgin cures AIDS. There were a number of reports of rapes in my neighborhood at the time.

—deleted

Was getting out of the Army a few years ago. I took my wife and kids home early in order to focus on getting out and finish selling the house before I completely left the area. I left both of my cars at home with my wife (had a buddy who was also leaving the Army, drive me around) so there was zero cars at my house. Anyways, the front door opened to a hallway to go to the kitchen and backdoor and the stairs to go upstairs. I was sleeping on the floor in the master bedroom where the top of the stairs led because all my stuff had been packed except for a few knick knacks… and my .45 S&W M&P.

Three guys broke in that night, shattered my back door (big center window in door) which woke me up. I didn’t have much to take.. but my laptop and tv was the only thing downstairs. I heard them talking.. heard them say stuff about not having much and taking the laptop and tv. Then heard them talk about looking upstairs. As soon as I heard the first step creak, I yelled out that I have a gun. No movement… then they pretty much bum rushed the stairs and into my room. I shot the first guy in the neck, his buddy took a shot at me and missed where he then was shot in the shoulder. The third guy rushed back outside and left his buddies. The guy shot in the neck was dead instantly, guy with a gsw in shoulder was withering in pain. Kicked their guns down the stairs and called 911. Cops were there in about 10 minutes. Took my statement, took my gun and offered an ambulance. Don’t think they ever found the third guy also.

3 years later and I think about it from time to time. What bothers me most is that I didn’t kill the guy I shot in the shoulder so I do fear he could find me again and also… that the house was nearly empty.. so that dude lost his life over nothing. I’m pretty much fucked in the head from deployments and such.. so this just adds on to it. I just smoke a lot of weed to deal with it.

—unknownshadow2419

 Well, I was sitting in a gas station parking lot when a man knocked on my passengers side window. I was waiting while my friend grabbed some beer and he had just walked in. I live in an area with a lot of homeless people and being the too nice person I am I rolled the window down to give the guy some of the change sitting in a cup holder. He pulled a gun on me and unlocked the door to get in. I had a gun but it was in an awkward position. I had never had to pull it before so I didn’t really know how well it would work but it was the most reasonable place I could think of, not to mention I was a newbie gun owner at the time (left side in the cup holder on the door). You never really know what the best course of action is until it happens to you.

I do exactly as he says and pull away. I didn’t know what the hell was going to happen but I was scared shitless and I really hoped he wouldn’t see my gun. We end up pulling into an old dark parking lot.

To give a little context on why what happened next happened how it did, I drive a little kia soul stick shift and it jumps speed bumps. Like jumps them. I see one and at this point the guy isn’t really paying attention to me so I put my foot to the floor, jump this speed bump, he hits his head on the roof and his gun falls in my lap so I grabbed it and pointed it at him.

At this point I expected him to get spooked and get away but I was wrong. The guy had a pocket knife and he pulled it. He stabbed me 2 times before I could get a shot off. Everything went dark and that’s all I remember.

When I woke up I found out he died in my car and I actually shot him 2 times. It turned into a huge legal battle because the gun was stolen and he had drugs on him. Everyone thought it was a drug deal gone bad. I’ve dealt with it for years and to this day I’m still not the same. My family disowned me because of it. Ive also turned into a hermit that lives in the woods away from everyone because I don’t trust anyone. It can get lonely sometimes but its alright.

The one question I saw a lot “why did your family disown you?” They thought I was dealing drugs along with the rest of the city. I lived in a small Southern town where everyone talks at their tea parties and spread the rumors/drama. Also, my friend at the gas station is the reason I didn’t get locked up for murder. He testified and I got out of trouble. It still took forever. I mean, it was a death not just a gunshot wound. Everyone had a lot of questions and didn’t feel they were getting the answer they wanted to hear.

—TranquilW0lf

I am female, 5’2 and weigh a little south of 100 lbs. I’ve always been on the smaller side and I used to always have earphones on. I was always decked out in “nicer clothes”. Looking back, I was probably an easy target.I’ve always grown up on the “greener grass”. My parents are both successful and I’m an only child. It was a huge culture shock for me when I decided to go to college in a not-so-safe area. My school is a fairly high ranked private school in probably the worst location of SoCal. Really high crime rates & all that fun stuff.

I was walking to my apartment after a long day at the library – it was around 1 am or so. I normally drive, but that day I had lent my roommate my car so I decided to walk to school instead. I could’ve taken the shuttle, but I figured I should exercise and all that fun stuff. I was young and reckless.

I think I was about 10 minutes away from my place when I noticed I was being followed. I didnt think much of it, so I kept going. There are a lot of homeless people in the neighborhood and they’re fairly harmless, so I figured it was one of them panhandling or something. What I didn’t know was that there was someone else in front that was “following” me too. The cops said they had planned it from the start – I wasn’t a random target. They were herding me to a location they wanted me to be in. I dont really remember how it happened, but I turned the corner and everything went black. When I woke up I was sitting on the floor of the alleyway in the corner and there were about 3 guys towering over me. Two of them had a knife and they told me if I screamed they would make sure the cops wouldn’t be able to identify my body.

I remember them grabbing me by my hair and dragging me further down the alley, and being forced on the floor on my stomach. One of them held on to my hair and my hands so I couldnt move my head and I felt strong pressure on the back of my calves & thighs. I imagine they were probably stepping on my legs so I couldnt move. I remember crying and choking on my snot & tears while trying not to make a sound. I also felt something really cold on my neck – I knew it was the knife so I kept quiet. They rummaged through my bag and took everything worth while, and threw the rest in the giant trash bins. Whoever was stepping on my legs bent down and started patting me down to make sure I didnt have anything on me that was worth stealing. They took my iPod, iPhone& around 200 in cash from my pocket. I felt really strong pressure on my side after that knocked the wind out of me – I felt like I was going to die. I imagine they kicked me. I couldnt curl up into a ball and cry though, they were still holding on to me. The part after that is a blur – I remember one of the guys saying “lets bounce” and another voice saying “lets have some fun with this asian bitch”. I think there was a small debate whether or not I was asian (I’m half) but I dont really remember. I think my adrenaline kicked in when I felt pressure on my lower back and someone pulling down my jeans. I started flailing and screaming then. They kicked me a lot more and cut my shoulder from my flailing. I think that scared them – they weren’t really planning on hurting me. I got an arm free and grabbed the knife by the blade. I remember it stinging and thinking “YES”. It was more of a “I’m still alive” than a “yes, I can hurt these guys”. I managed to wrestle the knife away from the guy holding my hair and tried to stab him. I felt some pain in my back (which later turned out to be stab wounds).

What they don’t tell you in movies is how hard it is to stab someone. I think I tried to stab his legs, his arms, stomach, anything I could reach. I couldn’t fully get it in but I knew he was hurting because he kept screaming. I think when I realized I had done something was when I felt the knife slide in and the other guys yelling and running. When there was no more pressure on me I looked up and saw that I had managed to stab the guy in the eye. He stopped moving and just fell. I don’t know if he was dead then – I want to imagine it was the shock that caused him to pass out. I started screaming and crying and yelling. I think I passed out too. I remember waking up to sirens and going to the hospital. I had multiple stab wounds and had to go through intensive surgery. I also had 3 broken ribs, a fuck ton of fractured bones and all that fun stuff.

A couple days later the detectives on my case told me that the guy didn’t make it and that they were sorry his shitty ass couldn’t rot in prison. I just remember thinking “Good, I hope he rots in hell.”

—deleted

Attempted carjacking by two “refugee” fucks in the wake of a massive natural disaster. Far enough away to avoid being completely destroyed, but close enough that practically all law enforcement and EMS were sent out of the area to assist in the worst spots. Rather unscrupulous individuals took advantage of this. Waves of people fleeing the worst of it, no electricity, awful heat, break-ins, theft, rapes, lady down the street found with her head stove in; pleasant time.

Made a run into town to obtain some supplies, and was hauling gas and food back to the house in a pickup. Probably should have covered the bed, but in any case, got jumped at a stop sign by two guys, one with a machete and the other with what looked like a HiPoint handgun. Both waving their weapons about and screaming “Get the fuck out of the car” and related pleasantries.

Fortunately, the Glock was right in the door. Felt like time slowed down, remember seeing the gunman’s eyes widen at the sight of it. Shot the gunman in the stomach and chest and hit the other in the chin. Bled way more than a deer would, the teeth were a rather unpleasant sight, and they never really mention people shitting or pissing themselves on death in the movies. Machete died extremely fast, gunman curled up and was making some kind of noises (gunshots had fucked up hearing). Took ages for the deputies and EMS to show up, with the gunman dying shortly afterward. Cut and dried affair legally speaking, deemed clear case of a justified shooting.

Didn’t exactly shed any tears over them. When you attack someone, that is an outcome you can expect. Been more on my guard in the years since, and had random adrenaline rushes and unprovoked feelings of extreme danger present for a few weeks afterwards.

—DGUthrowaway1

About 11 years ago (late 1999) I was jumped by two guys at a small park in Whitney, WA. It was 8:45 – 9:00 PM, I had just gotten off of work and was going to run a few laps to burn off some excess energy. The sun was just about set as it was summer time, but there was a little bit of natural light left. The park was located on top of a plateau-type land formation and there was only two ways in or out — the road leading up and a small dirt trail at the opposite end of the park. I had been there for about 15 or 20 minutes when I realized that I not only was being watched by two men, I was being ‘herded’ into a corner away from both exits.

Initially, I told myself I was being paranoid. I picked up my pace in the direction of the dirt path and that’s when one of the guys started running at me and I knew shit was really going down. I started running full tilt toward the dirt path at the end of the park. Unfortunately, he had a good angle on me and slammed into my hip/lower body and took me to the ground. At this point, my memory gets very hazy. The first guy who got to me was unarmed — we struggled on the ground for a few moments (years). One thing I remember specifically about this moment was that when you’re in a life or death situation all bets are off — I was scratching his face and gouging at his eyes and pulling his hair and was basically just going ape shit to get away. Shortly after getting tackled, the second guy arrived and he WAS armed with a knife. I was still struggling with the first guy when I was first stabbed (total of 3 times) in the right thigh. I’m not sure if didn’t want to kill me or if he had poor aim, but I was fortunate I was not stabbed in the throat or stomach.

The third time I was stabbed I thrashed and my second assailant lost hold of the knife. I picked it up on impulse and hit him with the butt of the knife in the temple repeatedly until he stopped moving. To be honest, my memory of actually ending his life is almost non-existent. It happened very quickly. His ‘buddy’ booked it after his companion went down and I was left at the park with 3 serious stab wounds and a body (this was before I had a cell phone). It was the two hours it took for me to get help that have stuck with me over the years. I remember being so so so scared that I was going to jail, being so so so scared the other guys was coming back, and overall just being so so so fucking scared.

At the end of the day, I don’t regret what I did. I was not only threatened, I was actually attacked and wounded. I simply defended myself to the best of my abilities. The long term damage mostly has to do with paranoia in concerns to be followed and watched.

—tea_train

My parents went out for date night when I was 10. Got me a babysitter from the neighborhood who was 14 or 15. He’d been my babysitter a few times before. I always wanted an older brother. Both my parents worked and my brother is 7 years younger than me, so I never got to have much playtime. He and I would play video games, play with lego, stuff like that. It was a lot of fun.

This night he tried to molest me. He got on top of me and started touching me. He wasn’t much bigger than me so I was able to get away. We were in the TV room and I ran to my room on the other side of the house. I got my baseball bat and hid behind the door. When he came in I hit him in the knees and he fell down. I just kept hitting him on the ground. Don’t know how long. Eventually I ran away and called the police and told them to come over. I remember being really scared that he was going to get up and chase after me when I was making the call. Once the call was done and I went over to watch him I realized he was dead. His face was all mushed up and bleeding but he still looked surprised.

Not really recovered psychologically. I try not to think about it too much. I think about it a lot.

—hailfishscale

Someone tried to rob me with a knife. I was on my way home from my shitty job at college where I got paid under the table. It was Friday and I was walking the three blocks to my house with a wad of cash in my pocket that I needed. He stepped out and waved the knife and told me to empty my pockets. My immediate thought was Fuck no you junkie. My second thought was the words of my friend, a black belt in kyokushin karate, “If you get in a knife fight don’t be afraid to get cut. It’s gonna happen anyway, just don’t let it be bad.” We were half joking when he said that. When was I ever gonna get into a knife fight?

I said “No” to emptying my pockets. He stepped forward brandishing the knife. So I threw all 230lbs of myself at this spindly man that should probably weigh 170-ish but was instead closer to 140 lbs. I did get stabbed. Honestly, with my adrenaline running I hardly felt it. It felt like a hard punch at first. I eventually tackled him, and from on top slammed his head into the sidewalk once and he went limp.

He was still alive at the time, if unconscious. The problem was actually that he actually started a brain hemorrhage (or some sort of brain bleeding) and died after reaching the hospital.

Anyway, right after he went limp and I started to calm down a bit did I realize that my side hurt really fucking bad. Far more pain than I remember ever feeling. That was when I noticed I had been stabbed. Which was weird, because I remember that when I took the slash on my arm it hurt really bad the second it happened. Anyway, I also had a trip to the hospital.

—deleted

I got carjacked almost 25 years ago in Newport News, VA when it was all the rage in certain shithole eastern US cities. Instead of just shooting me with the little semi the guy had, he had me drive him to a couple of crack houses (also all the rage 25 years ago). Dragged my ass inside to two or three, used cash he made me pull out of an ATM to buy for him, back in the car for another go around.

Seems like this went on all night, but it was probably only an hour or two. Regardless, at some point the guy started to bug out and wasn’t paying attention to me when we got back in the car for round number whatever. My tire iron was under the front seat of my car, and I flat out smashed his face in with it. Heard bone break, blood all over, the whole nasty deal. Pushed him out the door and drove home.

Honestly, I puked a bunch, got shitfaced drunk, puked some more, raged quite a bit, and then passed out. Never called the cops, never got questioned, and talked about it with only a couple of friends. Since maybe the first couple of days, when the adrenaline come-down felt like it was going to kill me, I haven’t though that much about it. It’s possible I didn’t kill him, although I doubt it and always assumed he died.

Sounds weird, but I haven’t lost much sleep over it either. I’m fairly certain he would have killed me if I hadn’t hit him. Anyhow, it lurks in the back of my thoughts, and if nothing else I know that I could kill someone if necessary, because I certainly tried to kill that guy, and to the best of my knowledge I did.

—SD_Killer 

Via

[alienvirals]

Alien intelligence: the extraordinary minds of octopuses and other cephalopods

After a startling encounter with a cuttlefish, Australian philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith set out to explore the mysterious lives of cephalopods. He was left asking: why do such smart creatures live such a short time?

Inches above the seafloor of Sydneys Cabbage Tree Bay, with the proximity made possible by several millimetres of neoprene and a scuba diving tank, Im just about eyeball to eyeball with this creature: an Australian giant cuttlefish.

Even allowing for the magnifying effects of the mask snug across my nose, it must be about 60cm (two feet) long, and the peculiarities that abound in the cephalopod family, that includes octopuses and squid, are the more striking writ so large.

Its body shaped around an internal surfboard-like shell, tailing off into a fistful of tentacles has the shifting colour of velvet in light, and its W-shaped pupils lend it a stern expression. I dont think Im imagining some recognition on its part. The question is, of what?

It was an encounter like this one at exactly the same place, actually, to the foot that first prompted Peter Godfrey-Smith to think about these most other of minds. An Australian academic philosopher, hed recently been appointed a professor at Harvard.

While snorkelling on a visit home to Sydney in about 2007, he came across a giant cuttlefish. The experience had a profound effect on him, establishing an unlikely framework for his own study of philosophy, first at Harvard and then the City University of New York.

The cuttlefish hadnt been afraid it had seemed as curious about him as he was about it. But to imagine cephalopods experience of the world as some iteration of our own may sell them short, given the many millions of years of separation between us nearly twice as many as with humans and any other vertebrate (mammal, bird or fish).

Elle Hunt with an Australian giant cuttlefish at Cabbage Tree Bay, Manly, Sydney. Photograph: Peter Godfrey-Smith

Cephalopods high-resolution camera eyes resemble our own, but we otherwise differ in every way. Octopuses in particular are peculiarly other. The majority of their 500m neurons are in their arms, which can not only touch but smell and taste they quite literally have minds of their own.

That it was possible to observe some kind of subjective experience, a sense of self, in cephalopods fascinated Godfrey-Smith. How that might differ to humans is the subject of his book Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, published this month by HarperCollins.

In it Godfrey-Smith charts his path through philosophical problems as guided by cephalopods in one case quite literally, when he recounts an octopus taking his collaborator by hand on a 10-minute tour to its den, as if he were being led across the sea floor by a very small eight-legged child.

Charming anecdotes like this abound in Godfrey-Smiths book, particularly about captive octopuses frustrating scientists attempts at observation.

A 1959 paper detailed an attempt at the Naples Zoological Station to teach three octopuses to pull and release a lever in exchange for food. Albert and Bertram performed in a reasonably consistent manner, but one named Charles tried to drag a light suspended above the water into the tank; squirted water at anyone who approached; and prematurely ended the experiment when he broke the lever.

Most aquariums that have attempted to keep octopuses have tales to tell of their great escapes even their overnight raids of neighbouring tanks for food. Godfrey-Smith writes of animals learning to turn off lights by directing jets of water at them, short-circuiting the power supply. Elsewhere octopuses have plugged their tanks outflow valves, causing them to overflow.

This apparent problem-solving ability has led cephalopods (particularly octopuses, because theyve been studied more than squid or cuttlefish) to be recognised as intelligent. Half a billion neurons put octopuses close to the range of dogs and their brains are large relative to their size, both of which offer biologists a rough guide to brainpower.

The coconut octopus is one of the few cephalopods known to exhibit the behaviour of using a tool. Photograph: Mike Veitch/Alamy

In captivity, they have learned to navigate simple mazes, solve puzzles and open screw-top jars, while wild animals have been observed stacking rocks to protect the entrances to their dens, and hiding themselves inside coconut shell halves.

But thats also reflective of their dexterity: an animal with fewer than eight legs may accomplish less but not necessarily because it is more stupid. Theres no one metric by which to measure intelligence some markers, such as tool use, were settled on simply because they were evident in humans.

I think its a mistake to look for a single, definitive thing, says Godfrey-Smith. Octopuses are pretty good at sophisticated kinds of learning, but how good its hard to say, in part because theyre so hard to experiment on. You get a small amount of animals in the lab and some of them refuse to do anything you want them to do theyre just too unruly.

He sees that curiosity and opportunism their mischief and craft, as a Roman natural historian put it in the third century AD as characteristic of octopus intelligence.

Their great escapes from captivity, too, reflect an awareness of their special circumstances and their ability to adapt to them. A 2010 experiment confirmed anecdotal reports that cephalopods are able to recognise and like or dislike individual humans, even those that are dressed identically.

It is no stretch to say they have personalities. But the inconsistencies of their behaviour, combined with their apparent intelligence, presents an obvious trap of anthropomorphism. Its tempting, admits Godfrey-Smith, to attribute their many enigmas to some clever, human-like explanation.

A paradox: octopuses have big brains and short life spans. Photograph: Peter Godfrey-Smith

Opinions of octopus intelligence consequently vary within the scientific community. A fundamental precept of animal psychology, coined by the 19th-century British psychologist C Lloyd Morgan, says no behaviour should be attributed to a sophisticated internal process if it can be explained by a simpler one.

That is indicative of a general preference for simplicity of hypotheses in science, says Godfrey-Smith, that as a philosopher he is not convinced by. But scientific research across the board has become more outcome-driven as a result of the cycle of funding and publishing, and he is in the privileged position of being able to ask open-ended questions.

Thats a great luxury, to be able to roam around year after year, putting pieces together very slowly.

That process, set in motion by his chance encounter with a cuttlefish a decade ago, is ongoing. Now back based in Australia, lecturing at the University of Sydney, Godfrey-Smith says his study of cephalopods is increasingly influencing his professional life (and his personal one: Arrival, the 2016 film about first contact with cephalopod-esque aliens, was a good, inventive film, he says, though the invaders were a bit more like jellyfish).

When philosophers ponder the mind-body problem, none poses quite such a challenge as that of the octopuss, and the study of cephalopods gives some clues to questions about the origins of our own consciousness.

Our last common ancestor existed 600m years ago and was thought to resemble a flattened worm, perhaps only millimetres long. Yet somewhere along the line, cephalopods developed high-resolution, camera eyes as did we, entirely independently.

A camera eye, with a lens that focuses an image on a retina weve got it, theyve got it, and thats it, says Godfrey-Smith. That it was arrived at twice in such vastly different animals gives pause for thought about the process of evolution, as does their inexplicably short life spans: most species of cephalopods live only about one to two years.

The study of cephalopods gives some clues to questions about the origins of our own consciousness. Photograph: Peter Godfrey-Smith

When I learned that, I was just amazed it was such a surprise, says Godfrey-Smith, somewhat sadly. Id just gotten to know the animals. I thought, Ill be visiting these guys for ages. Then I thought, No, I wont, theyll be dead in a few months.

Its perhaps the biggest paradox presented by an animal that has no shortage of contradictions: A really big brain and a really short life. From an evolutionary perspective, Godfrey-Smith explains, it does not give a good return on investment.

Its a bit like spending a vast amount of money to do a PhD, and then youve got two years to make use of it … the accounting is really weird.

One possibility is that an octopuss brain needs to be powerful just to preside over such an unwieldy form, in the same way that a computer would need a state-of-the-art processor to perform a large volume of complex tasks.

I mean, the body is so hard to control, with eight arms and every possible inch an elbow. But that explanation doesnt account for the flair, even playfulness with which they apply it.

They behave smartly, they do all these novel, inventive things that line of reasoning doesnt resolve things, by any stretch, says Godfrey-Smith. Theres still a somewhat mysterious element there.

Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life is published by William Collins. To order a copy for 17 (RRP 20) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of 1.99. It is out through Harper Collins in Australia.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

The post Alien intelligence: the extraordinary minds of octopuses and other cephalopods appeared first on AlienVirals.com - Latest Alien & UFO News.

from AlienVirals.com – Latest Alien & UFO News http://www.alienvirals.com/alien-intelligence-the-extraordinary-minds-of-octopuses-and-other-cephalopods-2/

[booksbroadwaybbc]

I know I have the potential to be great, and I choose the path of the weak every time. via /r/selfimprovement

I know I have the potential to be great, and I choose the path of the weak every time.

Im so shitty. I dont even know why im writing this. Honestly I see other people post and I wonder if this actually helps. I'm at a point where If there's even a chance it could help, I should try it. Im 29, skinny black guy. I literally weigh about 130 lbs. Live with a roommate and brother. Other brother moving here in bout a week. Im older than all of them. Somehow I've got to this point in my life dropping out of every school endeavor i ever embarked on. Dropped out of High School, got my GED got into college then dropped out of that. Was too busy smoking weed, playing fighting games...just being a fool. Never been in a serious relationship at any point in my life. My love-life is non-existent. My only working background is in grocery stores and call center. I legitimately want to just stop everything. If I have to take calls for another few months that really might be it for me. I'm at the complete end of my lane. Im not here to discuss where my thoughts have gone, but I know for certain I cant keep doing this type of work for the rest of my life...I don't think I'll last to the middle of 2019 before I quit and look for another job. Speaking of that, my last 5 years of work history is just me bouncing between jobs. I got a job at software company doing customer support, but i threw that away too. They wanted to send me to Ireland, a real chance to start over and for some reason i threw it away. I just feel inadequate as hell in comparison to my brothers (one who has graduated college, the other who is going to Lincoln Tech now). I don't have problems talking to women casually, but I dont have it in me to discuss anything romantic with a woman. I wouldn't date me. If I was a woman I wouldn't even talk to me lol, let alone date me. I see my laziness, my apathy, my lack of empathy toward other people, and I know it's' shitty. I hate it, I hate myself and I absolutely must improve. I know that I can, when I actually put my mind to something I excel.

But you know what I hate more than anything? People who look for sympathy, people who want others to feel bad for them, and worst of all people who don't fucking work. So as I make this post, I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me. If anything insult me, because well thats what I deserve and probably what I would do to someone else.

So since im literally at the end of my fucking rope, I've been trying to rewrite my life as hard as possible. Dedicating literally every minute of every day to improvement. Literally every --single---minute of every ---single--- day. As i write this now im at work, im doing quite a few things inbetween calls, and decided to visit this reddit because I made this account and subscribed to it a few weeks ago.

I probably sound like an idiot going into detail on this, but as embarrassing as it is I will. I made a plan for myself for the next 5 years. The plan includes my goals and ways to achieve them day by day. It also includes checkpoints every so often for me to check In and make sure im actually focusing on my goals. I need these checkpoints because in the past when I tried to do things like this I would lose focus eventually and fall into loads of weed use and alcohol abuse. My goals are listed below in no particular order:

Improve my overall Health - this multi-part goal. It includes both physical and mental health. I weigh 130 lbs pretty much on the dot. I'm not sure what my ideal weight would be (I don't know how I'd look at lets say 170 lbs for me to call that my ideal weight), but the first milestone is 150lbs. I want to hit this in 6 months, or atleast check in at that time. In terms of how I plan to do that, I've detailed a complete workout regime for me. Of course, I could go into detail on that, but the most important step, more important than working out is just eating more. The hardest part of course is always sticking to the regime, but atleast i've wrote down what I need to do. I don't know why but for some reason I just have trouble getting myself to eat. Even when i'm hungry, i'll smoke or go for a walk or go to sleep or just game - I'll do anything but eat. As of today, I'm changing that. For my mental health, I plan to read recreationally more especially when on public transit which Im on for about 2 hours a day. Why reading? I need to stay away from my phone. I spend so much time on discord, losing myself in non-stop content online through youtube or twitch or whatever. I need to get back in touch with me, and not be scared to be in my own thoughts. As a kid i use to read a lot, I was a creative kid. I think somewhere in the weed use I lost that, I want it back. After doing some research I've also started journalling. I Journal twice a day, once in the morning once at night. I try to spend 30 minutes a day total (15 minutes per night/day) writing down my thoughts from the previous day and goals for that day in the morning, and what I actually accomplished and thoughts for the day that night. After reading what I've wrote for just a few days, turns out I'm actually a very bitter person. Maybe not bitter, but definitely angry and intense. I'm also trying to meditate, but Im not really good at this. What I do is just sit down in my room, light a candle, make some tea, close my eyes and think for 10 or so minutes. Any thought that comes in I try to analyze where it came from and if it's a negative thought or stemming from a negative. Im not good at this yet honestly. Its important to know these things aren't something I want to add in only for a limited time. I think I need to do this for the rest of my life, otherwise I spiral fast. My mom has suggested therapy but, I completely refuse. If I can't fix myself I won't get fixed. I'm not scared to ask for help, but therapy is out of the question until I've done absolutely everything I can to fix myself.

Develop a Skill. Particularly I want to program. I've taught myself abit of HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Honestly I'm a complete beginner, but I've dabbled abit. I've made steps to already begin teaching myself in my routine. I've been using codeacademy pro for about a month now and I'm working on deploying my own site (my first project will just be my resume on a responsive one page site, got the idea from a friend). This comes from, I have to develop some type of skill in order to move out of Customer Service. I don't know what else to even do, though IT support comes to mind but I don't want to support anymore I want to create and develop. I'm not trying to avoid work, I just want to avoid working with the general public, and I want to avoid my job being to educate others or fix mistakes they've made. Even though I think that still happens in development, I atleast want a career that pushes me mentally and forces me to improve my skillset in order to stay relevant. Most importantly, I want a job I can be proud of. A job that I myself can be proud of. Even though Customer Service/Call Centers are important for alot of companies, I cannot stand this line of work. It is so mind numbingly tedious and repetitive, and I feel like I am wasting my life and my potential handling these minor inquiries when I know I can use my mind to accomplish and work on something much greater. I don't care how arrogant or fucked up it sounds. It's not that I think i'm better than anyone, I just KNOW that i can achieve more than this. I know that im here because of how shitty of a human i've been. I'm tired of it, I have to change it.

Learn another language. The only other language I've had real interest in is Japanese. Honestly I've been at odds even with myself on this for a long time. Is it bad that I enjoy that type of culture? I'm not trying to be a "weeb" or just say it to sound cool. I've spent time learning to recognize some hiragana/katakana just on my own in the past. I don't think it's a perfect culture or anything, but its the only one that legitimate has always interested me for as long as I can remember. So i've decided to pursue it and fuck it, if I look stupid or like a weeb or whatever I guess I just have to accept that. Again I have my own routine I've detailed for myself for learning, and I have a few people I can actually practice with. I somehow got a friend of mine a job in Japan as a english teacher...but I havent done anything myself to move toward that and I know god damn well I could.

I want to become better at interacting with people. Last few months I've lost myself in just complete self indulgence. I won't go super into detail, but I think we all know what this means. Drug use, alcohol use, long nights on the internet avoiding sleep exploring the most degenerate shit man. The worst is after nights like that you can't look people in the eye, or have normal conversations. It just eats at you knowing youre not only wasting time but spending it on something so shitty and useless. Putting time off with family/friends to stay at home and waste time, I won't do shit like this anymore. When you fall into a rut like this, or whatever it is, all your relationships around you start to crumble. Then I wonder why I havent been in a relationship, lol. Well im done and hopefully by writing this It gives me strength to not fall back into that dark place and keep me on the right path. I will show I can support my family and I can receive their support as well. It will take time to repair these relationships, but If i dont start now I feel like they really will crumble forever.

This is basically my current mental state. I don't know if this even fits this subreddit but I hope it does and if not feel free to inform me. The purpose of this is to show that, I am on the path to self improvement, its all I care about right now. Being better than I've been in the past month. Better than I was yesterday, because if I dont change my life now I'm legitimately scared what I will do or where I will be 5 years from now. If you actually read all this, thanks. If you have any thoughts, please let me know. If I sound stupid, let me know. If I sound like all im doing is crying and complaining, please inform me. You have any videos I can watch on improvement, including mentalities/mindsets/meditation please let me know. Im open to anything. It took me about 2 hours to write this in between calls. As I hit post I'm going back to coding and planning on working on my first project immediately tonight. Guess i'm saying this more for myself than anyone.

Thanks for reading.

-Just

Submitted November 10, 2018 at 11:22PM by StoicJust via reddit https://ift.tt/2z213YJ

[viralhottopics]

My Life as a Robot

I have been part robot since May. Instead of legs, I move on gyroscopically stabilized wheels. Instead of a face, I have an iPad screen. Instead of eyes, a camera with no peripheral vision. Instead of a mouth, a speaker whose volume I can’t even gauge with my own ears. And instead of ears, a tinny microphone that crackles and hisses withevery high note.

Im a remote worker; while most of WIRED is in San Francisco, I live in Boston. We IM. We talk on the phone. We tweet at each other, but I am often left out of crucial face-to-face meetings, spontaneous brainstorm sessions, gossip in the kitchen.

So my boss found a solution: a telepresence robot from Double Robotics, which would be my physical embodiment at headquarters, extending myself through technology. Specifically, an iPad on a stick on a Segway-like base. The telepresence robot market is crowded, ranging from high-end offerings like iRobot’s Ava (starting price: $69K) to the relatively more affordable Double, which starts at $2,499. The company says it has sold nearly 5,000 of them since its launch in 2012. Mostly these go to big corporations like IBM and McDonald’s, but I’ve heard of teachers and hospitals using them, too. Supposedly all a Double needs to work is a strong Wi-Fi signal.

Christie Hemm Klok/WIRED

The first time I opened the Double interface in Chrome and clicked on an icon of my robot 3,000 miles away I was greeted by the pixelated image of my boss’s torso and a few headless coworkers. There probably were some instructions somewhere that I should have read, but I didn’t. “How do I move it?” I asked them. “We don’t know,” they said. I clicked around. Nothing. I tried the arrow keys and, boom, jolted out of the robot’s charging dock and toward onlookers. I was like a foal, learning to walk. It took about 10 minutes to discover that a) driving a robot using a browser interface is clunky and b) the hip flooring choices of WIRED’s office were going to be my nemesis, with every transition from concrete to rubber to carpet providing another opportunity to fall on my screen.

Growing Pains

Before I ever tried the robot, I was sure I would hate the thing.I thought it would make me small and flat and foolish. I thought it would be annoying to deal with, would require me to wear pants (something we remote workers often don’t do, world!). I thought it would make me a novelty, a sideshow, a joke. And I thought it would be a waste of time.

Diary Entry: Day 1 Nice to meet you…robot, is it? says a strange torso I encounter in the kitchen.

EmBot, I say, Nice to meet you, too!

The figure leans down and puts a hand out to shake. Helpless, I move the EmBot from side to side using the arrow keys in what I hope translates as a gesture of excitement, rather than malfunction. Ill never really know if it worked out. The screen freezes and when it comes back, the torso is gone. I am alone, standing in a stream of humans trying to get breakfast.

Its just me, a robot, waiting in line for the human food I cant eat, I say. No response. I repeat it a few times. Is this thing on?

When I boot up, some of my original fears are realized: I’m disoriented and silly and helpless. I am a spectacle. People ogle and take pictures. I feel like a dog, the recipient of gawking smiles that say, Awwww, youre so adorably unable to take care of yourself. But, most importantly, I am surprised to find that being a robot is delightful. It’s thrilling. I am in the office! There is the kitchen! There is Sam! Hi, everyone! I am here!

Diary Entry: Day 2 I roll over behind Sams desk for a brief chat about a deadline. She hasnt heard me approach. I dont know what to do. If I just say her name shell freak out. I Hipchat her, Look behind you. As soon as I do it, I realize thats creepy—but its too late. She turns and there I am.

Hi, I say as casually as possible, I just–

Sam cuts me off. Em, she says, can you control the volume? Youre very loud.

I am? I ask.

YES, the entire bullpen yells.

I find and adjust the volume. I guess I was screaming all day.

Later that morning, I experienced the joy of being in the daily editorial meeting as a robot. Plunked at the end of the conference table, my iPad head tracked the conversation, listening. Yes, I interrupted people because my browser was a few seconds behind. Didn’t matter. I heard Molly on the phone from the Caribbean and she was barely audible. The audio system sucks. As she was trying to talk people were kind of looking exasperated. Not at her, but at the system. That was me two days ago, I kept thinking. Two days ago that speaker system was my only conduit to theentire company.

It was then I knew I could never go back. I felt so superior as my robot. I loved my robot.

I Am Become EmBot

The crazy thing about being a human 3,000 miles away from your telepresence robot is that divide instantly dissolves when you activate. As soon as I call into EmBot, I am her, and she is me. My head is her iPad. When she fell, I felt disoriented in Boston. When a piece of her came off in the impact, I felt broken.

Nothing drove home the depth of my connection more than the first time someone touched my robotic body without asking. My coworker (who shall remain nameless) came up to gawk at me, and then moved behind my screen. As I was chatting with other people, he picked me up and shook me. I expected pranks like this. Id have done the same thing if I were in the office and it were some other poor schmuck calling in to a stupid robot from far away. But I didnt expect how instantly violated I felt. He just picked up an extension of my body. One moment I was in control of myself, the next, I was powerless. I laughed from the iPad screen faced away from him, but I was unsettled, and then immediately embarrassed, for the first time, because why should it matter to me if the stick Im currently streaming from is picked up off the floor a continent away?

Get over it, I told myself. But then it happened again. And again.

Diary Entry, Day 3 My coworker picks me up as Im wheeling to the meeting because Im slow. I don’t want to be slow! I want to walk on my own! Im an adult! She lifts me up before I have a chance to object. In the air I meekly say, Just ask me first if youre going to lift me, which no one responds to because I assume they think that it’s a joke.

This became my secret shame. People wanted to help me, but every single time they did it, I felt infantilized. I needed to tell my coworkers not to pick me up—a conversation I dreaded. I did this by sending them a draft of my daily robot diary, in which they read about how I was feeling. (Classic passive aggressive move, you say? No doubt, but the few times I’d said the words aloud, they hadn’t clicked for people, so I thought the log was the best way.) It worked. Now no one touches my robot without permission. Case in point:

Diary Entry: Day 5 I cant get out of the all-glass conference room alone. I turn my screen to Joe and he says, Should I carry you?

Thats probably wise.

Ill just drop you off where its straight and then you can make your way from there. Joe is basically my robots father, and my robot is a toddler. When he picks me up Im jostled. He gently places me down at the straight hallway and I want very badly to navigate quickly back to my dock to prove Im self-sufficient, but the screen freezes twice and the motor is slow and it takes me forever.

Later, on the phone, another editor off-handedly said, You know, when Joe lifted you up and carried you—now I hope this doesnt make you uncomfortable—but from our end, with your face on the screen, it looked really inappropriate. Like he was cradling you in his arms. Because when we see the face, our brains cant help but project the rest of you, and so it was like you were actually being carried.

Looking at the future. #embot #newnewwiredoffice

A photo posted by @joemfbrown on May 7, 2015 at 11:00am PDT

So, even though I had given Joe permission to lift EmBot up, the fact that my face was still on the screen made other people uncomfortable. Fine. Another rule: If I ask for help and you pick me up, I’ll disconnect so the screen is dark. Voila. Everything was going to be fine.

EmBot Grows Up

After I put a stop to the inappropriate robot-touching, things quickly went from good to great. I’d call this the euphoria stage. I mastered the arrow keys (rather than holding them down and over correcting, just hit them quickly one at a time and roll like a BOSS). I figured out how to makethe robot stand taller so I wasnt constantly having conversations with peoples crotches. I booted up in the middle of spontaneous brainstorm sessions and shared ideas.

Diary Entry: Day 6

Major breakthrough! I have my first West-Wing-style walk and talk as Embot. I knew this day would come. After the morning meeting, Patrick walks with me down the hallway discussing a longread Im editing. Hes so cool about the robot thing that I briefly forget completely that its not normal to be a disembodied metal moving machine with an iPad for a face. He only says one thing that would be weird if I was walking down the hall as a fully-fleshed human, Youre about to run into wall, come this way.

At this point, I was also the star of cocktail parties in Boston. Everyone wanted to know how it was going with the robot. Are people still laughing at you? No. Isnt it weird that your robot is naked? No. Whats the worst thing thats happened with the robot so far? When I hit a dead-zone and EmBot died behind a strangers desk, with my face frozen on the screen, and I found out later that they thought I was lurking and spying on them. I mean, thats also one of the funnier things thats ever happened, but pretty terrible for that poor creeped-out human.

And just like that, I was a part of work in a way Id struggled to be since I first came on at WIRED. As a typical oldest child, tyrant and benefactor to two younger brothers, I pride myself on making sure everyone feels like were all in this together—whether “this” is divorce or publishing a magazine. Its hard to be that kind of leader when youre isolated from your team completely. When youre a voice coming out of speaker. EmBot changed that completely. Suddenly, there I was, materialized. My reporters and I started meeting face to face to discuss deadlines. Everything was so jovial and natural.

Christie Hemm Klok/WIRED

The other incredibly wonderful thing at this stage was that though Embot put me physically in the office, because she was just my head and not my body no one at work was seeing how pregnant I was looking. Now, of course, they know I am pregnant, but since I am not there, the visual reminder of my changed condition was not in their faces. I have worked at places before where women start getting treated differently when their bellies show. The kid gloves come on. I had been dreading how this could play out, but the way EmBot works I remained present and yet unchanged. No one remarked on my belly. It was not a factor in my work.

I became obsessed with EmBot. I couldt stop thinking about her when I turned her off at night. How sad that this thing that has made my life so much better was just dead when Im done working.

Diary Entry: Day 8

Its Friday. It occurs to me that EmBot doesnt get to enjoy the weekend. If only she had arms, she could push the button, summon the elevator, and be free. But shes a prisoner at work. Whereas my physical body is having adventures, growing a human life inside it and moving into a new apartment AND dog-sitting a Bernese Mountain dog.

Mostly my weekend will be about trying not poison my unborn child with paint fumes. My physical body is such a liability. Embot, though she is shackled to work and unable to exist without me to inhabit her, in some ways has the much simpler side of existence.

What if I have to share the Embot with someone? I tell myself that would be fine, but I know already that I would be feel upset. Embot is a part of me. Anyone else would be an intruder.

You can see from the daily diary entry that it was right about now that my connection with EmBot got a little weird. I couldnt let go of this notion that Embot was me and yet she lacked all freedom to exist outside the office. I started to feel that she was a caged animal. Which made me feel like a caged animal.

EmBot needed her freedom.

Get her a Mi-Fi, my friends suggested. Suddenly I imagined this vast conspiracy—finagling a coworker in SF to get me a company MiFi and surreptitiously hiding it under her screen. But then what? EmBot would rush out into the big bad streets of SOMA and try to find other robots to play with, meanwhile my poor comrade would be grilled by the Conde Nast HR department wanting to know “WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ROBOT? Who pushed the button to call the elevator, huh? The robot has no hands!”

That was clearly a terrible idea … and yet. I fantasized. I drove her past the elevator banks a few times to see if the Wi-Fi was strong enough for her to sneak out the door. I dont know what my plan was. EmBot was becoming a teenager. A teenager pushing her boundaries, pushing her luck.

First Pangs of Mortality

A photo posted by Patrick Witty (@patrickwitty) on May 7, 2015 at 12:09pm PDT

Within a few days, I started to realize perhaps EmBot wasn’t invincible after all. For one thing, I couldnt hear meetings very well. Sometimes I had to put my ear directly to the computer speaker to hear the people at the far end of the conference table, which meant that in the room EmBots face was just the folds of my (hopefully not-waxy) ear canal.

Double offers a $99 audio kit, which maybe would help this, but since we hadn’t yet decided if the robot was a wise investment, it was too early to shell out for add-ons.

Worse, though all EmBot needs to live is power and and Wi-Fi, signal strength was proving to be a big problem. Double Robotics acknowledges this is the leadingissue among corporate customers, because most businesses don’t prioritize a strong signal in hallways. This doesn’t matter for humans, but these dead zones can make navigating an office impossible for robots.

So even as I was obsessing about freeing EmBot from the cage of WIREDs office, she seemed less and less reliable. Even when the Wi-Fi was strong, the video would freeze for no reason. I missed crucial information in meetings, only to later learn that everyone thought I was listening because EmBot had frozen with my face on the screen, trapped in a ridiculous expression of curiosity.

And then, this happened:

Diary Entry: Day 12 I am feeling so alone. Embot is in a coma. She didnt charge overnight. “Haha,” I played it cool over IM to Davey, who sits next to Embot and checked on her vital signs for me. She shoved Embot into her dock. I assume shes charging now, but I cant tell.

Diary Entry: Day 13

She remains cut off of me. Its like Embot is in the kind of coma where she cant move or speak or alert the doctors that she is alive but inside her head, she is screaming, LET ME OUT! IM HERE! DONT TURN ME OFF!

Ive called her doctors, or parents, or gods, DoubleRobotics, but theres no answer. Theyll get back to me in one business day.

If she ever wakes up again, I promise to give her a better life. To give her some freedom.

Diary Entry, Day 14

Embot just had a seizure. I was so happy when she woke up that I decided this was my big chance to sneak her out and onto the elevator. I eased her out of the dock and turned to the right, but immediately something was wrong: her head was shaking. Just a little a bit at first but then side to side violently, thrashing around, my field of vision swinging wildly, too fast to make out peoples faces. I tried turning her and found that she was still responding to me somewhat but she could not be still. She was like diabetic Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias, shaking out her beautiful wedding hair in Truveys salon.

I heard Chuck say, Oh no, youve woken EmBot like she was some kind of monster.

What is happening? Davey cried from her desk.

EmBot is having a seizure! I screamed into the computer. I dont know what to do!

As Embots camera panned quickly in front of Davey I saw her get up.

Can you put her in her dock? I asked, breathless.

She wont stop moving. She just keeps shaking.

I turned her off on my end, but Davey reported that she was still seizing on her own, face blank. She was like the body of a chicken, walking bloody around the yard after the chef cuts its head off. I implored Davey to find a button to turn her off. She did. She docked her. Shes docked now.

My heart wont stop beating. Maybe EmBot is corrupted and corroded and my time with her is over. Maybe EmBot is a monster. I feel like I just a had a seizure.

@EmilyDreyfuss FYI, Embots going crazy. Wandered out of its dock, now manically rolling back and forth.

Alex Davies (@adavies47) May 19, 2015

Were working on a fix. A coworker in San Francisco is logging into her, which normally would upset me, but Im so nervous I don’t care that another being enters her.

Im on the phone with Double Robotics, relaying what he finds.

He reports: On the screen it was shimmying back and forth, and I looked across the room and it looked like a wandering confused and dizzy child aimless and afraid. and alone. I left my screen and went over to see if I could help. I picked it up and smelled the wheels to see if it was on fire or anything then hurried back to my screen to put it in PARK. I may cover it in a sheet.

The Reckoning

Teaching my robot the hard lesson that she is not free http://pic.twitter.com/wen8MONbBm

— emily dreyfuss (@EmilyDreyfuss) May 21, 2015

After EmBot terrorized the office, nothing was the same. I relinquished my delusions of granduer. Double Robotics sent a new unit, and immediately upon activating it I knew it was not really EmBot. It rolls differently. Its speakers are quieter. It doesn’t connect to the Wi-Fi as well. It teeters differently on the carpet-edge. It’s not me. It’s just a robot. A robot I can’t trust.

I still use it, of course. Sure, It’s incredibly glitchy. Most weeks I have to write in our group chatroom, “SOS: EmBot is stranded somewhere between the dock and the IT department. Can someone rescue it?” It went through a phase where I couldn’t hear anything being said in meetings. Then for four days it was paralyzed, so needed to be picked up and carried everywhere. Now it does this thing where it clicks and hisses when the Wi-Fi connection struggles, setting an off-tempo jazz rhythm to every meeting.

It’s fine. I still prefer it to the speakerphone. It brings everyone in the office joy, even when it struggles. I get laughed at a lot from the iPad camera, but I like it. In a lot of ways, EmBot is a joke we are all in on together. Could we just set up an iPad in the conference room with FaceTime or Skype and achieve essentially the same thing? Sure. But where would be the fun in that, people? Where would be the soul-searching? Human life is short, and being a part-time, part-useful robot makes it ever so slightly more interesting.

Diary: Who Knows What Day, I’ve Lost Count

Joe carried EmBot to the head of the conference table for the edit meeting, because her Bluetooth connection isn’t working properly so I can’t control it. Sam asked, somewhere off-screen where I couldn’t see her, “Em, did you get new glasses?”

“No,” I spoke to the rest of the room, “my jerk cat knocked my glasses off the bedside table and I’m far too pregnant to crouch down low enough to get them, so I dug these out of a closet.”

“And that story,” someone from behind the robot said, “is the best argument in favor of having a robot. We would not have gotten to hear that if you were on the speakerphone.”

So, yes, as it turned out, most of the fears I had about becoming a part-time robot came true—it’s an unruly distraction that often makes me look ridiculous, that falls over and can’t be counted on—and yet my coworkers didn’t lose all respect for me. No, what happened was much more subtle and unexpected than that: EmBot lost her humanity. But I gained mine back.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2iw9PIh

from My Life as a Robot

[alienvirals]

Alien intelligence: the extraordinary minds of octopuses and other cephalopods

After a startling encounter with a cuttlefish, Australian philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith set out to explore the mysterious lives of cephalopods. He was left asking: why do such smart creatures live such a short time?

Inches above the seafloor of Sydneys Cabbage Tree Bay, with the proximity made possible by several millimetres of neoprene and a scuba diving tank, Im just about eyeball to eyeball with this creature: an Australian giant cuttlefish.

Even allowing for the magnifying effects of the mask snug across my nose, it must be about 60cm (two feet) long, and the peculiarities that abound in the cephalopod family, that includes octopuses and squid, are the more striking writ so large.

Its body shaped around an internal surfboard-like shell, tailing off into a fistful of tentacles has the shifting colour of velvet in light, and its W-shaped pupils lend it a stern expression. I dont think Im imagining some recognition on its part. The question is, of what?

It was an encounter like this one at exactly the same place, actually, to the foot that first prompted Peter Godfrey-Smith to think about these most other of minds. An Australian academic philosopher, hed recently been appointed a professor at Harvard.

While snorkelling on a visit home to Sydney in about 2007, he came across a giant cuttlefish. The experience had a profound effect on him, establishing an unlikely framework for his own study of philosophy, first at Harvard and then the City University of New York.

The cuttlefish hadnt been afraid it had seemed as curious about him as he was about it. But to imagine cephalopods experience of the world as some iteration of our own may sell them short, given the many millions of years of separation between us nearly twice as many as with humans and any other vertebrate (mammal, bird or fish).

Elle Hunt with an Australian giant cuttlefish at Cabbage Tree Bay, Manly, Sydney. Photograph: Peter Godfrey-Smith

Cephalopods high-resolution camera eyes resemble our own, but we otherwise differ in every way. Octopuses in particular are peculiarly other. The majority of their 500m neurons are in their arms, which can not only touch but smell and taste they quite literally have minds of their own.

That it was possible to observe some kind of subjective experience, a sense of self, in cephalopods fascinated Godfrey-Smith. How that might differ to humans is the subject of his book Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, published this month by HarperCollins.

In it Godfrey-Smith charts his path through philosophical problems as guided by cephalopods in one case quite literally, when he recounts an octopus taking his collaborator by hand on a 10-minute tour to its den, as if he were being led across the sea floor by a very small eight-legged child.

Charming anecdotes like this abound in Godfrey-Smiths book, particularly about captive octopuses frustrating scientists attempts at observation.

A 1959 paper detailed an attempt at the Naples Zoological Station to teach three octopuses to pull and release a lever in exchange for food. Albert and Bertram performed in a reasonably consistent manner, but one named Charles tried to drag a light suspended above the water into the tank; squirted water at anyone who approached; and prematurely ended the experiment when he broke the lever.

Most aquariums that have attempted to keep octopuses have tales to tell of their great escapes even their overnight raids of neighbouring tanks for food. Godfrey-Smith writes of animals learning to turn off lights by directing jets of water at them, short-circuiting the power supply. Elsewhere octopuses have plugged their tanks outflow valves, causing them to overflow.

This apparent problem-solving ability has led cephalopods (particularly octopuses, because theyve been studied more than squid or cuttlefish) to be recognised as intelligent. Half a billion neurons put octopuses close to the range of dogs and their brains are large relative to their size, both of which offer biologists a rough guide to brainpower.

The coconut octopus is one of the few cephalopods known to exhibit the behaviour of using a tool. Photograph: Mike Veitch/Alamy

In captivity, they have learned to navigate simple mazes, solve puzzles and open screw-top jars, while wild animals have been observed stacking rocks to protect the entrances to their dens, and hiding themselves inside coconut shell halves.

But thats also reflective of their dexterity: an animal with fewer than eight legs may accomplish less but not necessarily because it is more stupid. Theres no one metric by which to measure intelligence some markers, such as tool use, were settled on simply because they were evident in humans.

I think its a mistake to look for a single, definitive thing, says Godfrey-Smith. Octopuses are pretty good at sophisticated kinds of learning, but how good its hard to say, in part because theyre so hard to experiment on. You get a small amount of animals in the lab and some of them refuse to do anything you want them to do theyre just too unruly.

He sees that curiosity and opportunism their mischief and craft, as a Roman natural historian put it in the third century AD as characteristic of octopus intelligence.

Their great escapes from captivity, too, reflect an awareness of their special circumstances and their ability to adapt to them. A 2010 experiment confirmed anecdotal reports that cephalopods are able to recognise and like or dislike individual humans, even those that are dressed identically.

It is no stretch to say they have personalities. But the inconsistencies of their behaviour, combined with their apparent intelligence, presents an obvious trap of anthropomorphism. Its tempting, admits Godfrey-Smith, to attribute their many enigmas to some clever, human-like explanation.

A paradox: octopuses have big brains and short life spans. Photograph: Peter Godfrey-Smith

Opinions of octopus intelligence consequently vary within the scientific community. A fundamental precept of animal psychology, coined by the 19th-century British psychologist C Lloyd Morgan, says no behaviour should be attributed to a sophisticated internal process if it can be explained by a simpler one.

That is indicative of a general preference for simplicity of hypotheses in science, says Godfrey-Smith, that as a philosopher he is not convinced by. But scientific research across the board has become more outcome-driven as a result of the cycle of funding and publishing, and he is in the privileged position of being able to ask open-ended questions.

Thats a great luxury, to be able to roam around year after year, putting pieces together very slowly.

That process, set in motion by his chance encounter with a cuttlefish a decade ago, is ongoing. Now back based in Australia, lecturing at the University of Sydney, Godfrey-Smith says his study of cephalopods is increasingly influencing his professional life (and his personal one: Arrival, the 2016 film about first contact with cephalopod-esque aliens, was a good, inventive film, he says, though the invaders were a bit more like jellyfish).

When philosophers ponder the mind-body problem, none poses quite such a challenge as that of the octopuss, and the study of cephalopods gives some clues to questions about the origins of our own consciousness.

Our last common ancestor existed 600m years ago and was thought to resemble a flattened worm, perhaps only millimetres long. Yet somewhere along the line, cephalopods developed high-resolution, camera eyes as did we, entirely independently.

A camera eye, with a lens that focuses an image on a retina weve got it, theyve got it, and thats it, says Godfrey-Smith. That it was arrived at twice in such vastly different animals gives pause for thought about the process of evolution, as does their inexplicably short life spans: most species of cephalopods live only about one to two years.

The study of cephalopods gives some clues to questions about the origins of our own consciousness. Photograph: Peter Godfrey-Smith

When I learned that, I was just amazed it was such a surprise, says Godfrey-Smith, somewhat sadly. Id just gotten to know the animals. I thought, Ill be visiting these guys for ages. Then I thought, No, I wont, theyll be dead in a few months.

Its perhaps the biggest paradox presented by an animal that has no shortage of contradictions: A really big brain and a really short life. From an evolutionary perspective, Godfrey-Smith explains, it does not give a good return on investment.

Its a bit like spending a vast amount of money to do a PhD, and then youve got two years to make use of it … the accounting is really weird.

One possibility is that an octopuss brain needs to be powerful just to preside over such an unwieldy form, in the same way that a computer would need a state-of-the-art processor to perform a large volume of complex tasks.

I mean, the body is so hard to control, with eight arms and every possible inch an elbow. But that explanation doesnt account for the flair, even playfulness with which they apply it.

They behave smartly, they do all these novel, inventive things that line of reasoning doesnt resolve things, by any stretch, says Godfrey-Smith. Theres still a somewhat mysterious element there.

Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life is published by William Collins. To order a copy for 17 (RRP 20) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of 1.99. It is out through Harper Collins in Australia.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

The post Alien intelligence: the extraordinary minds of octopuses and other cephalopods appeared first on AlienVirals.com - Latest Alien & UFO News.

from AlienVirals.com – Latest Alien & UFO News http://www.alienvirals.com/alien-intelligence-the-extraordinary-minds-of-octopuses-and-other-cephalopods-3/

[alienvirals]

Alien intelligence: the extraordinary minds of octopuses and other cephalopods

After a startling encounter with a cuttlefish, Australian philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith set out to explore the mysterious lives of cephalopods. He was left asking: why do such smart creatures live such a short time?

Inches above the seafloor of Sydneys Cabbage Tree Bay, with the proximity made possible by several millimetres of neoprene and a scuba diving tank, Im just about eyeball to eyeball with this creature: an Australian giant cuttlefish.

Even allowing for the magnifying effects of the mask snug across my nose, it must be about 60cm (two feet) long, and the peculiarities that abound in the cephalopod family, that includes octopuses and squid, are the more striking writ so large.

Its body shaped around an internal surfboard-like shell, tailing off into a fistful of tentacles has the shifting colour of velvet in light, and its W-shaped pupils lend it a stern expression. I dont think Im imagining some recognition on its part. The question is, of what?

It was an encounter like this one at exactly the same place, actually, to the foot that first prompted Peter Godfrey-Smith to think about these most other of minds. An Australian academic philosopher, hed recently been appointed a professor at Harvard.

While snorkelling on a visit home to Sydney in about 2007, he came across a giant cuttlefish. The experience had a profound effect on him, establishing an unlikely framework for his own study of philosophy, first at Harvard and then the City University of New York.

The cuttlefish hadnt been afraid it had seemed as curious about him as he was about it. But to imagine cephalopods experience of the world as some iteration of our own may sell them short, given the many millions of years of separation between us nearly twice as many as with humans and any other vertebrate (mammal, bird or fish).

Elle Hunt with an Australian giant cuttlefish at Cabbage Tree Bay, Manly, Sydney. Photograph: Peter Godfrey-Smith

Cephalopods high-resolution camera eyes resemble our own, but we otherwise differ in every way. Octopuses in particular are peculiarly other. The majority of their 500m neurons are in their arms, which can not only touch but smell and taste they quite literally have minds of their own.

That it was possible to observe some kind of subjective experience, a sense of self, in cephalopods fascinated Godfrey-Smith. How that might differ to humans is the subject of his book Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, published this month by HarperCollins.

In it Godfrey-Smith charts his path through philosophical problems as guided by cephalopods in one case quite literally, when he recounts an octopus taking his collaborator by hand on a 10-minute tour to its den, as if he were being led across the sea floor by a very small eight-legged child.

Charming anecdotes like this abound in Godfrey-Smiths book, particularly about captive octopuses frustrating scientists attempts at observation.

A 1959 paper detailed an attempt at the Naples Zoological Station to teach three octopuses to pull and release a lever in exchange for food. Albert and Bertram performed in a reasonably consistent manner, but one named Charles tried to drag a light suspended above the water into the tank; squirted water at anyone who approached; and prematurely ended the experiment when he broke the lever.

Most aquariums that have attempted to keep octopuses have tales to tell of their great escapes even their overnight raids of neighbouring tanks for food. Godfrey-Smith writes of animals learning to turn off lights by directing jets of water at them, short-circuiting the power supply. Elsewhere octopuses have plugged their tanks outflow valves, causing them to overflow.

This apparent problem-solving ability has led cephalopods (particularly octopuses, because theyve been studied more than squid or cuttlefish) to be recognised as intelligent. Half a billion neurons put octopuses close to the range of dogs and their brains are large relative to their size, both of which offer biologists a rough guide to brainpower.

The coconut octopus is one of the few cephalopods known to exhibit the behaviour of using a tool. Photograph: Mike Veitch/Alamy

In captivity, they have learned to navigate simple mazes, solve puzzles and open screw-top jars, while wild animals have been observed stacking rocks to protect the entrances to their dens, and hiding themselves inside coconut shell halves.

But thats also reflective of their dexterity: an animal with fewer than eight legs may accomplish less but not necessarily because it is more stupid. Theres no one metric by which to measure intelligence some markers, such as tool use, were settled on simply because they were evident in humans.

I think its a mistake to look for a single, definitive thing, says Godfrey-Smith. Octopuses are pretty good at sophisticated kinds of learning, but how good its hard to say, in part because theyre so hard to experiment on. You get a small amount of animals in the lab and some of them refuse to do anything you want them to do theyre just too unruly.

He sees that curiosity and opportunism their mischief and craft, as a Roman natural historian put it in the third century AD as characteristic of octopus intelligence.

Their great escapes from captivity, too, reflect an awareness of their special circumstances and their ability to adapt to them. A 2010 experiment confirmed anecdotal reports that cephalopods are able to recognise and like or dislike individual humans, even those that are dressed identically.

It is no stretch to say they have personalities. But the inconsistencies of their behaviour, combined with their apparent intelligence, presents an obvious trap of anthropomorphism. Its tempting, admits Godfrey-Smith, to attribute their many enigmas to some clever, human-like explanation.

A paradox: octopuses have big brains and short life spans. Photograph: Peter Godfrey-Smith

Opinions of octopus intelligence consequently vary within the scientific community. A fundamental precept of animal psychology, coined by the 19th-century British psychologist C Lloyd Morgan, says no behaviour should be attributed to a sophisticated internal process if it can be explained by a simpler one.

That is indicative of a general preference for simplicity of hypotheses in science, says Godfrey-Smith, that as a philosopher he is not convinced by. But scientific research across the board has become more outcome-driven as a result of the cycle of funding and publishing, and he is in the privileged position of being able to ask open-ended questions.

Thats a great luxury, to be able to roam around year after year, putting pieces together very slowly.

That process, set in motion by his chance encounter with a cuttlefish a decade ago, is ongoing. Now back based in Australia, lecturing at the University of Sydney, Godfrey-Smith says his study of cephalopods is increasingly influencing his professional life (and his personal one: Arrival, the 2016 film about first contact with cephalopod-esque aliens, was a good, inventive film, he says, though the invaders were a bit more like jellyfish).

When philosophers ponder the mind-body problem, none poses quite such a challenge as that of the octopuss, and the study of cephalopods gives some clues to questions about the origins of our own consciousness.

Our last common ancestor existed 600m years ago and was thought to resemble a flattened worm, perhaps only millimetres long. Yet somewhere along the line, cephalopods developed high-resolution, camera eyes as did we, entirely independently.

A camera eye, with a lens that focuses an image on a retina weve got it, theyve got it, and thats it, says Godfrey-Smith. That it was arrived at twice in such vastly different animals gives pause for thought about the process of evolution, as does their inexplicably short life spans: most species of cephalopods live only about one to two years.

The study of cephalopods gives some clues to questions about the origins of our own consciousness. Photograph: Peter Godfrey-Smith

When I learned that, I was just amazed it was such a surprise, says Godfrey-Smith, somewhat sadly. Id just gotten to know the animals. I thought, Ill be visiting these guys for ages. Then I thought, No, I wont, theyll be dead in a few months.

Its perhaps the biggest paradox presented by an animal that has no shortage of contradictions: A really big brain and a really short life. From an evolutionary perspective, Godfrey-Smith explains, it does not give a good return on investment.

Its a bit like spending a vast amount of money to do a PhD, and then youve got two years to make use of it … the accounting is really weird.

One possibility is that an octopuss brain needs to be powerful just to preside over such an unwieldy form, in the same way that a computer would need a state-of-the-art processor to perform a large volume of complex tasks.

I mean, the body is so hard to control, with eight arms and every possible inch an elbow. But that explanation doesnt account for the flair, even playfulness with which they apply it.

They behave smartly, they do all these novel, inventive things that line of reasoning doesnt resolve things, by any stretch, says Godfrey-Smith. Theres still a somewhat mysterious element there.

Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life is published by William Collins. To order a copy for 17 (RRP 20) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of 1.99. It is out through Harper Collins in Australia.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

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