Almost Human Fan Con

While the conversation can be boiled down to a guy giving a lady a compliment about her looks, there are a few key differences here from the pathetic pile of gelatin conversations we’re all sick of seeing in media.1) Sandra didn’t change anything about her normal look to get the compliment. She didn’t feminize herself more or anything like that. She’s in a classy, traditionally masculine blazer. 2) The compliment from Snazzy Tie wasn’t sexualized at all. He carefully waited until after they were done working to say she looked nice, not hot. 3) Snazzy Tie acts a little shy and nervous about the compliment exchange, which in many ways is considered the more feminine role. 4) Sandra is the one in the more masculine career. She’s an experienced police chief who has won some awards and Seen Some Shit. Since they’ve probably been working together on this trial Snazzy Tie definitely knows that. 5) Snazzy Tie wasn’t in the position of ‘reassuring’ her about Avery being an awful person. Sandra reassured her own damn self. The only person she accepted support from in the episode was John, which is already their usual pattern of behavior. 6) Saying thank you and leaving without acting shocked or overwhelmed to have gotten such compliment was treated as a normal and completely valid response. 

Everyone knows a woman over lets say 35 is supposed to put a bag over your head and pretend you’ll never have sex again in your life. Sandra is an adorably classy lady in her 40′s and that ‘still got it’ smile and eyebrow is perfection. It isn’t framed as comedic, or a big deal. It isn’t framed as a strange response for her to be happy but not overwhelmed or suddenly interested in Snazzy Tie because he’s paid attention to her. She’s just had a super shit week and got a compliment and is happy about it.

While Avery’s insults in this episode were purposefully and blatantly sexist, very pedestrian, they did upset her, but more importantly we never hear her or anyone else confirm verbally that she is upset because she ‘wants a man’, only Avery the fuckwit says that. That standard, overwrought conversation gets left out, and it leaves viewers a lot of room for interpretation. Sandra is in a very stressful job and might just be stressed. Being blamed by the media for a tragic incident when you’ve just lost eleven coworkers and one of your closest friends is in the hospital is a fricken stressful experience to have shoved in your face. Sandra could be lonely for any number of reasons. Sandra could be bi. That is still an option here. Maybe Sandra has lost a relationship in the past and is still sad about it sometimes. We just don’t know, (because fuck you Fox) and the episode doesn’t shove a pedestrian reason down our throat. All we see is Avery freaks her out a bit because he’s a creep.

Snazzy Tie gave her the compliment completely independent of the whole prior situation with Avery and that is important. 

Also, as another tiny fem person who’s moving into a serious career, and someone who is frequently described as ‘intimidating’, when people find your manner and career and such intimidating or frightening you don’t get these compliments much. The Winter Soldier Strut is how I naturally walk. I intimidate people by accident for a living. I can easily imagine Sandra having the same experience. 

I would imagine police androids are paid for (at least in the U.S. system) by a combination of municipal tax funding, bond programs, government subsidies of some sort, and donations. There’s probably yearly fundraisers and awareness campaigns for how much better life is with traffic drones and police androids.I bet most major metropolitan areas in the world have them in 2048. I bet whatever line is currently being used by police or military is kept as ‘classified’ as possible until those organizations move on to something else, which is why there were so many DRN derivative bots once Dorian was recommissioned, because everyone had had two+ years with the tech. I think we can assume smaller cities would have the up to date bots, but in smaller numbers. Towns might have very few bots or older bots or no bots at all, depending on the area. But I bet everyone has traffic drones. That seems like it’ll be an easier thing to implement. If there hadn’t been such a political smear campaign towards the DRNs I bet a lot of them would be alive and working in the little cities and towns. 

My personal pet theory is the MXs are fundamentally cheaper than the DRNs, because wouldn’t that just be typical?

Brain Implant Allows Man to Feel Touch on Robotic Hand

For the grand test, they blindfolded the subject and hooked him up to a robotic hand. When they pressed one of the fingers of the hand, it communicated with the implant, which fired the neurons in the region of the brain corresponding to that finger. At first, the patient was able to correctly identify the location about 85 percent of the time. Then, as he got used to it, he reached 100 percent.

almost human rewatch:  skin

These are all the notes John has on Anna and inSyndicate from his flashbacks. Some are difficult to read, so I will list them in order of appearance:

Screenshot 1 - Find Anna looking through files. She claims looking for photos - What is Goshen? - inSyndicate strikes precinct. No Anna. - Recollectionist. Anna cluster triggered. Mistake? Maybe not. Begin membliss. - Anna brings up inSyndicate. I say too much.

Screenshot 2 - First trip to Recollectionist. Anna cluster triggered incorrectly. - Myklon Red. - Parisian underground protests.

Screenshot 3 - Anna disappears, then returns - “Anna Moore” - St Christopher - Where’s Anna

Screenshot 4 - Anna disappears, then returns

Screenshot 5 - Keynote at Oxford? - Investigate Anna. All returns clean.

Screenshot 6 - 032302081405 - Anna brings up inSyndicate. I say too much. - inSyndicate raid scheduled - inSyndicate strikes precinct. No Anna. - inSyndicate raid. Where is Anna?

I had to do a screen grab from this one and I deleted it, my apologies. 

Almost Human FanCon Tech Panel: Recollection & Scrubbing

In Almost Human John Kennex regularly goes to a “recollectionist” and takes a drug called “Membliss” to recover memories that he has lost - but just how plausible is this fictional technology? Though we may not be able to play your memories like reruns on late night television, scientists are looking into ways to read your memories. Researchers studying memory have been able to use a technique called an fMRI to study new memories being formed, and have been able to distinguish between the different memories. They can’t currently just look into your mind and figure out where you ate lunch last week, but they could potentially tell you to memorize three videos and then be able to tell which video you are remembering afterward.

Though these studies may be a long shot from the recollectionists in Almost Human, there is a new project that has been started that may bring humanity a step closer to this fantasy. This project is, quite appropriately, called the BRAIN Initiative, and it even comes with a snazzy acronym (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies). The goal of this project is to map the brain as it is working at a wide scale cellular level, allowing scientists to see the brain in unparalleled detail. With this technology you would be able to watch each and every neuron shift and create a memory as it is happening. Using this new insight, the possibility of having your memory recalled for you becomes more and more possible as our own understanding of our minds grows.

Of course as our understanding of memory grows it may become possible to manipulate, or even completely erase them, like the “scrubbers” on Almost Human who remove unwanted memories.