Lost Dreams

Have you ever woken up from a dream and immediately started forgetting it? It sucks; literally. It feels like the memory is being siphoned right out of you. Is this what it feels like for people with dementia? To remember a fleeting moment, some faraway story, liminal dreamlike instances, only to have it reeled back into the recesses of your mind.

It’s a strange feeling to lose a dream. They’re nothing but the unconscious machinations of your own mind, and yet you can forget it as easily as if it were a bad movie or remember them so vividly that years from the fact they still come up in your conscious thoughts. Try as you may, there comes a point when you've simply forgotten too much to remember the dream at all. Traces of it slip in and out of your mind, barely on the tip of your proverbial tongue until all that remains is the vague notion that you had a dream, and that you forgot it.

What does your subconscious think? It must be like hearing the dream's own judgement of death — a whole world, lost to time in between your temples.

It's one thing to lose a regular dream, but sometimes you get the vivid dreams of entire worlds and realities that you were part of. To lose those brings a certain melancholy; you know that it was just a dream, and that it doesn't matter, but you feel as though you should feel differently.

That world now becomes lost, locked away in neural limbo. A hundred thousand worlds killed over a lifetime of dreaming, the dying vestiges of your latest massacre haunting you when you wake up and forget. Sorry. I’m exaggerating here. But there is a certain sense of responsibility, just a shred of it — if you just tried hard enough, maybe you could have saved that dream or remembered that detail.

You know, I once tried mapping my dreams. I had the vague sense that they all seemed to happen on one planet. I drew maps, wrote notes, concocted entire stories until I realized I was chasing ghosts, coming up with detail after detail to try to fill those gaps created by lost dreams. It was a pipe dream — pardon the pun — to try and be the cartographer of my own mind. Though at the end of everything, I suppose you'd try to hold on to anything.

Tepuis and Time

At some point, you probably have found yourself reflecting on the past and realizing how different it was from your present-day life without ever noticing any changes. We spend a great deal of effort remembering big changes and significant events in our life — we record videos and take photos, cementing moments in our memories until we can piece them together second by second, frame by frame, all for the sake of not forgetting. And while many of these memories are the significant ones, in immortalizing these instances, we often overlook the small changes that separate each passing week, month, and year, the minute tweaks that can amass to be just as or more influential than the landmark recollections we cherish.

In South America, there are flat table-top mountains called tepuis — they stretch far above the cloud line, jutting out like massive obelisks. Originally part of the supercontinent Gondwana, tepuis are remnants of a large sandstone plateau formed from inselbergs (small mountains that form in flat terrain) that remained after the region eroded. Their steep sides separate the top of the mountain from the forests below, isolating its organisms and ecosystems. Over millions of years, this has resulted in the tepuis having an incredibly diverse and unique selection of organisms found nowhere else in the world.

Even more remarkable are the sinkholes on certain tepuis — each chasm or gorge digging deep into the mountain is ecologically distinct. These contain species and ecosystems different from other sinkholes and the central tepui ecosystem, islands within islands of an already isolated region. For some species, like the pebble toads found on the Weiassipu tepui, the only difference between toads at the top of the tepui and those that live in one particular sinkhole is that the subspecies in the chasm perch on leaves while the ones above plaster themselves to tree trunks. Otherwise, they look identical, possessing the same life cycle and diet.

When talking about evolution, whether biological or personal, we tend to be drawn to the most noticeable changes and conclusions. This makes sense — after all, evolution seemingly concerns significant changes in things, the differences that would matter, right? Why shouldn’t we be wholly focused on that? Yet that “big difference” — the contrast that makes it so there are two subspecies of pebble toad — is one that arises because of a hundred-foot difference in altitude.

Much like the pebble toads, we as individuals evolve too. The smallest changes in our lives accumulate until one day we look back and everything is different — we notice these big differences, but we hardly stop to notice the small changes that lead to them. One set of characteristics and mannerisms might define who you were a year ago, while another set — differing perhaps in just a couple of traits — outlines who you are today.

This is not some novel philosophy, but it is one we should not only recognize but also utilize. This may seem like just another reminder to “live in the moment” or to “stop and smell the roses!” What I would rather say is that many times, the most memorable and impactful moments seem to be the dullest ones in the present.

Think of the times when you experienced nostalgia — are those instances focused on the spotlight moments or on the subtleties of your life as you remember it? Alongside the grand and grave moments that can define a person, the minutiae of everyday life can be just as important: Maybe it’s the intimate motion of opening and closing the bedroom door you have used for the past eight years, or the familiar silhouette of neighborhood buildings through sunlight and snowstorm, or perhaps it’s just the comfortable feeling of those excellent socks you used to wear when you were twelve. It’s the minute memories like these that have subconsciously shaped you parallel to the more significant events you remember clearly — this is what drives a substantial part of your evolution as an individual.

Evolution in the natural world entails changes for the better — organisms evolve to suit their environments; random genetic changes occasionally prove to be more beneficial than their non-mutated counterparts, and thus the organisms with them are more successful.

Yet our personal evolution as an individual encompasses both the positive and negative. In the vein of being aware of changes to your self and identity, it’s often said that we shouldn’t live in the past. Alongside having more peace of mind or resolution when dealing with, reminiscing about, or simply trying to understand changes in life, we should be aware of these changes because, just like organisms, those whose evolutions don’t occur fast enough or in the right direction go extinct. A failure to adapt to change means we can become stuck in the past, unable to move on from events or a period in our lives.

However, unlike organisms and the natural world, we control our personal evolutions. Sure, we may not fully control the circumstances that lead to the aforementioned small changes. Still, we can respect their power, notice them, and accept that we have become different versions of ourselves. Like the hundred-foot altitude difference for the pebble toads, a few months may be all it takes to separate your past identity from your present. Be sensitive to the small things, the subtle differences, the barely perceptible pieces of your life that change each day.

These changes are inevitable, just like they are in the natural world. Take particular notice of changes — regardless of how small — in your life, and appreciate them. That way, we don’t lose sight of ourselves, outpaced by our proclivity to focus on the momentous, looking back bewildered, with a “what changed?” echoing through our minds.

Letter To Professor Song

Dear Professor Song,

 

Given the recent release of a massive shit from my bowels into my toilet bowl, I cannot possibly give any less of a shit about your class. Allow me to elaborate.

 

Last night at five minutes to twelve, my stomach gratuitously informed me — through extensive use (and in my opinion, overkill) of nerve signals — that, for lack of a better phrase, "nature calls." You can imagine my utter dismay — I was almost done proofreading my paper on the importance of pipe traps.

 

The entire affair only escalated from there. I reached the toilet with mere seconds to spare before an ungodly amount of excrement exited my body. Contrary to what my gut had me believe a moment earlier, I was not due on the toilet seat for a regular weeknight dump, but one of those never-ending rounds of defecation that only happen once in a blue moon (or twice, if you've ever tried our cafeteria's salad). For this reason, I was unable to complete the semester paper, as my excursion to the bathroom took me from roughly midnight to half-past three.

 

But I digress. The point of this email is to direct your attention to the lack of structural integrity in our plumbing system. Trust me, you have not experienced true horror until you hear the guttural growls of your very own toilet bowl after flushing down a titanic proportion of night soil. I will spare you an account of the horrific events that ensued, but I'm sure you heard the police sirens last night when they were investigating reports of an explosion and a potential "bomb" threat.

 

Despite being in the nation's most prestigious university for civil and mechanical engineering, the fact that its plumbing system remains woefully inadequate to cope with true emergencies has led me to the decision that I will no longer be taking your course nor will I be pursuing civil engineering anymore.

 

I am currently in the medical wing recovering from a concussion and three fractured bones. If you have any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them as soon as my attending doctor prescribes me some painkillers.

 

Best regards,

Amy

Another One, Bartender

I recently loaded a new survival world. I haven't touched my other worlds (the oldest world, a few hardcore ones, and some regular survival worlds) as of late, and I thought I might try something new, making a base in a stronghold.

I've always had a proclivity for underground homes — they're among the simplest shelters to make in this game but have so much potential.

There's also the added bonus of the fact that you are gaining blocks while making it, compared to having to use more blocks than you gain from when you build a normal house. Besides, Minecraft being a game based around mining, who wouldn't want to make an underground base?

I picked a seed with an especially small stronghold, only about two or three rooms large, including the portal room. I figured it would be good to make it manageable to renovate at the beginning, when I have no materials, and then expand it more as I get wealthier.

The seed spawned me in a mushroom biome bordering a spruce forest. Within two minutes of loading in the world, I was immediately mobbed by pillagers from a nearby outpost.

The new copper ore. Sadly, it doesn't give any experience and isn't really useful in the early game.

After gearing up in full iron, I made the mistake to try and clear out the now massive horde of them, since they kept spawning while I was mining in the area.

I've never really fought pillagers since they came out, and when I did it was usually by bow. The piece of shit that is the pillager with the axe does a terrifyingly unexpected amount of damage. I also made the mistake of trying to fight the outpost at night, which meant that I was quickly forced out into the ocean.

Miniboss

My healthbar after about a minute near the outpost

Running away

I spent the rest of the night and day fishing on a nearby island, and managed to get a lucky Unbreaking and Mending fishing rod catch.

Useful, yes, but also not really — I don't want to spend all my time fishing.

For now, I think I'll hold off dealing with the atrocity of an outpost and focus on building a starter home inside the stronghold.

Whale Falls

 It's no small feat for life to exist anywhere in the universe, yet in the most extreme of conditions we find thriving flora and fauna everywhere we look. In this instance, the abysmal depths of the seafloor holds a special -- albeit morbid -- place in my heart. 

Let's take a look at it. The ocean is divided into several layers of varying depth. Here's a diagram:

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...

Light only penetrates the first 800 or so meters, beyond that, the amount that filters through is insignificant in terms of supporting life. This diagram is a good diagram, but it doesn't show a few variations present in real life. For example, seafloor altitude is not constant worldwide, but rather can start as far up as the bathypelagic zone, although typically extends to the abyssopelagic zone. The hadalpelagic zone is where trenches in the seafloor are. 

While light goes down to almost 1000 meters down in some cases, the strength of the light is extremely weak. Light that can support photosynthesis only penetrates a meager 200 meters. 

Now, most animals and plants on the surface of the world are supported by photosynthesis, creating energy from sunlight. A cow will graze grass that lives off of their photosynthetic processes. All life stems from light, yet in the places in the world that have virtually no light -- such as the still support a litany of life-forms.

Down in the abyssopelagic zone, commonly referred to as the abyssal zone, creatures on the seafloor have special adaptations to live. One particular adaptation to life is living off of something called marine snow. 

A vampire squid swims amongst a flurry of marine snow, fragments of once-alive organisms.
Nature's way of saying, "memento mori"

Marine snow is a euphemism for a macabre form of sustenance deep-sea creatures thrive off of. Essentially, marine snow is the remnants of dead animals and plants, alongside other various materials like feces. Very pleasant. 

But marine snow is often composed of small pellets and flakes of organic material, derived from small organisms in the upper regions of the water column. What happens when something much larger, say, a whale, dies?

Oh, boy. Here we go.

Thar she blows!

When a whale dies, its body floats around the surface of the sea for a few hours up to a few days. Eventually, a whale's body will begin to sink to the bottom of the ocean. This is known as a whale fall.

The carcass of a whale will remain on the seafloor, and gradually get eaten by organisms and scavengers. Larger organisms such as crabs, giant isopods, and sharks will consume the flesh of the whale for up to two years! After all the meat has been stripped away, organisms will begin to break down the nutrients in the bones and whatever leftover meat is present, breaking down the lipids and forming bacterial mats, which in turn sustain and nourish other organisms like clams.
This entire process takes many years, building up a localized ecosystem around the dead whale.

Circle of life.

Fort Pumpkin

 I think I've found a suitable large-scale project to ensure the cycle of tedious accumulating resources isn't repeated: an island fortress.

By taking any medium-sized island, I could convert it into a walled-in fortress, I could have courtyards for trees, gardens for crops, regular pens for animals, and the occasional empty space or quarry for blocks. And of course, it being a fortress, a hill should serve as a base of operations, and have underground areas to retreat to in the event of an attack. In other words, if I decide ever to let any friends in, I'll have a safe space to stay while they inevitably raze the aboveground sections. 

After twelve or so worlds, I finally created one that spawned me on an island that wasn't too small or too close to mainland. I started off slow, because the large majority of the island is a prairie area, full of animals but not much wood and exposed minerals. Of course, it being an island, all the mobs decided to manifest aboveground, leading to several deaths and last stands in the water.

It's a good thing that endermen are hurt by water.

But this did have an upside, and as pictured above, I was able to get a hefty amount of carrots, potatoes, and bones for bonemeal to start off a rudimentary farm for food. I didn't want to slaughter what precious animal herds I have on the island, so using crops seemed like a good idea. The temporary farms are just behind the hill in the picture.

I set up shop in the aforementioned hill, and carved out a section to begin the bunker. 

Unpleasant proportions.

I think that the plan would be to have an underground section of storage, backup farms, and tunnels, a small inner courtyard for any pets I may acquire. The island did come with a herd of horses, after all. Alongside this, I'd wall in a good section of the island -- if not all of it, and make the island a home.

I've decided to christen the entire base Fort Pumpkin, as my spawn point was on a pumpkin patch. Speaking of it, pumpkins really are nice as a building block and a fun thing to use for pumpkin pies. I'll cap off this post with a screenshot of an enderman infiltrating the storage area -- sans storage.

Needless to say, he overstayed his welcome.

We'll see how far this world goes.

Tea and Biscuits

 Imagine this: a ship made of ice and wood shavings, able to regenerate itself by freezing sea water, one so grand that only the British could envision it. Welcome to Project Habakkuk. 

I bet if they added flags and dirt and claimed it as British soil and land, and they traveled around the world, the sun would really never truly set on the British Empire.

During the Second World War, Geoffrey Pyke devised a solution to fighting German U-boats in the Atlantic ocean, where Allied troops had little to no air cover. Pyke thought that an iceberg station in the Atlantic to help store aircraft and fight the German U-boats. Instead of ice, however, he invented a material called pykrete. Pykrete is made of around 14% sawdust and 86% ice, a 6:1 ratio. Pykrete is something like a biological concrete, and it was proposed for the Habakkuk because it can be maintained using seawater.

Wood shavings and water.

The Habakkuk would have giant coolers to maintain the pykrete hull of the ship, and since it would be fighting in seawater, the Habakkuk would have a virtually unlimited source of armor, as long as the Habakkuk didn't run out of power. 

The Habakkuk would not have main cannons, just machine guns. Its primary weapon would be its aircraft, since it was going to be an aircraft carrier. Sadly, the British Royal Navy never carried out their weird but wonderful idea due to a "lack of paper" and "paper needed in other industries", which sounds like an excuse to not build the most overpowered ship in the history of ships.

I wonder if they would have stores of tea and biscuits on board.