Blog of Blarg

We thought that they did because they have 12 different molecules for photoreceptors, whereas humans have only 3. BIG difference, right??

Nope. Turns out that they simply do not have the mental wherewithal to blend, and so needed a separate receptor for each color. The human brain adds color emissions together to create a singular representative color, like reverse engineered printing. Shrimp can’t do that. They can’t take light emitting “green” and light emitting “red” and come back with “yellow”, like we do. They have to have a receptor for yellow, and are relatively horrible at distinguishing shades of colors.

as @scififantasystuff​ said, their 12 color receptors work to register independent colors instead of mixing the signals in their brain, but this means that they are able to register colors directly in the eye, instead of having to send it to the brain for decoding like we do! While this does lower their ability to differentiate colors—ranking worse than humans, bees, and butterflies on color specificity—it makes them much better at registering color quickly. instead of comparing the signals from 3 different channels, their eye are described as working more like a satellite, pinging one ‘box’ of colors out of a kind of spreadsheet in their brain to register color much MUCH quicker than us, but with less specificity.

HOWEVER! They can still see in spectra we can’t! Only 8 of their 16 light receptors are dedicated to the human range of color– 4 of them are for seeing in ultraviolet, which many other animals (like bees as stated above) can also see in, but generally only have 1 receptor to cover it (likely the 1-4 work the same way as the 3-8 for color) The last four are for seeing light polarization, which i don’t fully understand the physics of, but seems to be a measure of reflectivity and light direction, but here’s the wild part: mantis shrimp can see in SIX types of polarization! six!! they can see horizontal, vertical, two types of diagonal, and two types of ‘circular’ polarization, and are the only known animal in the world to be able to see this circular polarized light. in an attempt to understand the purpose of this, a team of scientists created a camera to pick up on this polarization, which you can see more of in this article here!

Here’s a screenshot from that video, in which you can see what a mantis shrimp would see when looking at another mantis shrimp:

[ image description: two boxes side by side with a bar at the far end showing a dark blue to deep red gradient, in which the deep red takes up the entire top half of the bar. box one is labeled “Haptosquilla Trispinosa” in the top corner and “Colour” in the bottom corner. It shows the front half of a mantis shrimp poking out of a shrimp-sized hole in a yellowish-brown coral or rock. box two is labeled “DoLP” in the bottom corner, and is almost completely black, speckled with various shades of blues and a couple greens corresponding to brighter sections of the colored image. however, right in the middle of the picture around the mouth area of the shrimp, are two oblong spots of the deep red of the bar on the left with an edge of bright reds, oranges, and yellows, much like an infrared camera. below the two pictures is text that says “The camera detects the degree of polarization (DoLP) of the light reflecting off of various sea creatures, the same way the mantis shrimp sees them. / end description. ]

Those two bright red spots are a way that mantis shrimp can communicate with other mantis shrimp through their own secret polarized light! how cool is that!

It’s also cool to point out that because of the way that their eyes are set up, each individual eye of the mantis shrimp can see in trinocular vision, as opposed to us needing BOTH eyes to see in binocular vision. each eye can gauge depth independently and can focus on three different objects at once, meaning, yes, a mantis shrimp could theoretically be focusing on 6 different places and registering that information in 3 different spectra simultaneously at any given second! to say that they just “don’t have the mental wherewithal” to register color misses out on so many aspects of this creature that we’re still trying to figure out! their eyes independently evolved an apparatus that works like a DVD player, but infinitely more advanced than our own! these are the same critters that can shatter glass with a punch the force of a rifle bullet! 

This is such a cool idea. What other info could it be? Careers, hobbies, economic status, lifelong ambitions? Orientation, single/taken/etc status? Insect-style role in the hive (worker/drone etc)?

If human languages are based on primitive monkey-brain ideas of whether or not the person we’re talking about is a potential mate, then what different considerations might an alien race make?

Maybe they have two drastically different body types that need to pair off to defend from predators. Maybe their civilization depends on cultivating plants that grow best when sung to, and a range of different vocal tones per household is best. Maybe some are nocturnal and some are diurnal.

Hello everybody! This is Xarthaborf, he’s-”

“Actually, it’s she now.”

Pronouns based on proximity.

What’s better at saying “that one” than saying exactly where they are? Different pronouns for if they’re 5 feet away vs. 20 feet away. Did you turn your back on somebody in the middle of a conversation? They have different pronouns now.

After a while, humans try to maintain the same distance from others when conversing (lol try doing that while walking together) so their translators don’t freak out on them.

I presume there might be a completely different set of nuanced ‘pronouns’ when describing inanimate objects, which makes everything even more confusing to the humans.

That would be fascinating. I imagine the humans would have quite a time wrapping their brains around it! There’s probably a “position unknown/unspecified” pronoun that the humans want to use all the time (like “they”), but the aliens insist that nope it sounds wrong to use just that one.

Different pronouns depending on whether you’re talking about a parent, a sibling, partner, a lover, a friend, an aquaintance, a coworker… imagine the drama potential.

People switching up to friend or lover pronouns too early in a relationship and getting rejected.

Stranger pronouns being literally only okay if you’re using them to describe somebody you just met and will never see again, because any closer degree of relationship than that will have its own pronouns, and not using them is a calculated insult.

Specific pronouns to refer to mortal enemies that pretty much nobody ever uses outside of works of fiction, because using them to describe somebody is like openly admitting that you’re probably planning to kill that person.

This concept possibly getting watered down though as time goes on. Like how swear words like ‘damn’ and ‘hell’ have kind of lost their power over the years, young people start using mortal enemy pronouns to refer to like, people who are mildly annoying, or public figures they don’t like (both of which previously had their own pronouns). Older generations getting really offended by this.

Separate pronouns for fictional characters.

A classic sitcom trope is somebody assuming they’re being referred to with certain pronouns that suggest dramatic changes in their relationship with the person talking about them, only for them to find out at the end of the episode that the person was actually referring to somebody else.

Everybody knowing the moment shit has gone down because “I just saw Skrith and Jarn in the cafeteria this morning. I know you said friend seemed okay last night, but you won’t believe which pronouns friend used to refer to enemy-of-friend!”

Actually, pronouns denoting other people’s relationships to people in relation to you. You might not know X that well, but they’re your friend Y’s close friend, so you can either use aquaintance or friend-of-friend pronouns.

Sibling, parent, child, cousin, etc. pronouns originally only being used for blood family or adopted children, but gradually getting used to refer to any relationship that fills that role in your life. “Oh no, child isn’t actually a relative, but I looked after child while child’s parents were on research trips, and friends were okay with child using parent pronouns for me if child wanted to.”

Human translation devices really not being able to keep up with this, because how the fuck is the software supposed to know how close you are to this person? Humans who actually try and learn the language not faring much better, because not only are there a lot of pronouns to learn, but the nuances of when exactly you’re meant to change are very culturally specific.

Aliens meanwhile being kind of horrified that most humans will use the same two or three pronouns to refer to everyone they encounter. Do they all hate each other? Or, conversely, are they all super close? What is wrong with these people?

similarly, proximity pronouns sounds like a logical extension of determiners like “this/that/yon” – in Spanish and a lot of Romance languages, the pronouns (e.g. él/ella) and definite articles (el/la) actually derive originally from [gendered] determiners indicating proximity in Latin (ille/illa)

there are Indigenous languages in Australia (e.g. Guugu Yimithirr) that use cardinal languages instead of relative directions, so that you have to change whether you’re talking about NESW instead of left/right by remembering which direction is which and keeping track of things & people moving and turning

1. Know how I know you’ve never been robbed?

2. I am going to call my insurance company and file a claim, the only usefulness a cop has at this point is generating a report number for said insurance company to refer to

Why might they be allowing others in not on the list? Because those doses spoil! They have limited shelf life, so it’s actually really important we use them before that happens! And if that means saying “okay open call for anyone who wants them just to make sure they get used” most places are saying “then that’s what we’ll do should there be leftover doses/cancelled appointments.”

My sister worked as a summer camp counselor and youth educator and everyone went by fake names specifically so

1. The campers wouldn’t look them up on Facebook and see pics of the adult counselors, well, acting like adults- having a beer, complaining about dating etc.

2. Because the state she worked in had mandatory reporting laws if they even suspected abuse, and it’s a lot harder for a kid to identify you to a vengeful abusive parent if they don’t know your real name.

So my sister and her friends all have second names to keep their public and online lives separate, but this time it’s the IRL people using the second name.

I know a Spider, my sister has a Tarantula and they are both in the process of getting doctorates, one in genetics the other in robotics and her brain has helpfully conflated them into a single budding mad scientitst who is building Mutant Cyborg Arachnids.

She used to be able to keep track of who knew who because I had the large international cadre, and Sister’s friends were all from the PNW.  Last year, Sister and a number of her friends moved internationally so now the Australians, Germans and Irish are starting to run together for her.

We haven’t even told her that one of my French People, “Ponds” has met and is kinda-sorta dating Sister’s International-Master’s-Degree-In-France “Frog”.  

I inherited my night-owl tendencies from my mom so sometimes she would come down, see me on the computer and ask “How are the Australians?”. My sister has since moved to Australia and likes to call in and ask “So How are the Americans?”

“Which one of you has the Porcupine again?”

This situation is FURTHER compounded by my Dad having both Theater People Who-All-Have-The-Same-Six-Names-Because-They-Were-Born-In-The-50′s-So-They-Have-To-Be-Referred-To-By-Roles-Mom-Has-Seen-Them-Play-Onstage, AND his Civil Activist Friends that got started in the 60′s when it was OK to change your name to something like “Virtue” or “Pasadena Orange Blossom” so recently “Falstaff” is in a facebook fight with “Rolling Stone” about Colorado Weed Law. 

compared to hawks, falcons have shorter and weaker talons and shorter beaks! this, combined with a lighter overall build, means that falconkind is really badly unsuited to do the hawk/eagle/owl thing where they just plunge out of the sky and stab a rabbit to death with their feet.

so what they do instead is fly really high in the air, keeping an eye out for unwary birds they could get the drop on, and then they DROP. and as they drop, they curl their talon into a fist, which they use to strike their unwary prey at speeds well in excess of a hundred miles per hour. (this either stuns or outright kills the unlucky target) 

and this method works so well that they can even take down birds much larger than themselves, like ducks!

so basically,

FALCON

It's almost like we fucking realized that words have impact, and if words didn't have impact nobody would ever speak.