STAYING CONNECTED

Sunday, June 21. 2009

Ms. Aura’s tweets have indicated that she’ll remain on the human side, but will change from a dolphin into a human. I have no idea how she’ll do this, but she obviously knows more about this portal business than I do. (When Fenton and I went through the portal that one time, we got lost and kept arriving at random destinations. We were lucky to finally discover the human world!)
Ms. Aura has expressed concern about me and this blog, but she seems more interested in the webcomic from which you humans glean details of life on this side of the portal. I share her curiosity, but unlike her I’m not acting upon it.
As events spiral beyond my control, I’m fighting the impulse to simply pull the plug on this blog. I’m not going to, mainly because Ms. Aura already knows about my activity. I might as well keep blogging in order maintain communication with you humans, and monitor the situation. Please let me know if humans begin experiencing any measurable increase or decrease in your instincts...whatever those may be!
Meanwhile, the household is still buzzing over the release from prison of Grandpa and Douglas Squirrel. While Elanor has rebuffed Grandpa’s advances, Gran and Mr. Squirrel have been spending a lot of time together since he was granted freedom.

Posted by Lindesfarne at 02:10 | Comments (23) | Trackbacks (0)

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I'm afraid i won't be in that particular world for quite some time at least a years time from now. while i do have some statements written form last weeks blog i think it better if i not post them yet. multiple world balancing across dimensional spans are a weakness of mine as i only got a C in the class.

I will say this like producing like. your people live similarly to humans and as the began to identify with the seemingly fictional humans in web comic and so forth they start to tap into the human physic. In the end whether they want to or not and human like they become to and extent humanized as they rationalize things rather then relay on instincts that guided their ancestors. the line between instincts and the insight that they normally use to guide them harshly decline. these instincts aren't gone but they are suppressed and forgotten for a while if the stimulus is removed in time and minds that are focusing on the human behaviors patterned are not gathered in force then the forgotten instincts will likely return on their own. also i hope you're little sister and nephew are well. Be weary of him though human like skunks learn by watching and imitation and he will do things he should be able to do if he sees them done enough. before you know it he'll be breaking computer security considering his uncles family and their trends.

#1 e_voyager on 2009-06-21 03:06 (Reply)

When was it again that you Fenton went through the portal? (I'm still relatively new to K&K and still have to catch up on the old comic strips...)

#2 Bär on 2009-06-21 08:25 (Reply)

I think that adventure was an exclusive to one of the collection books. Likely "Oh the Humanity," which featured strips from 2003.

Spoilers:
A storyline involving Danielle and George's wedding revealed Lindy's human origins in Feb. 2004, it climaxed with the Auras crossing over into the human world and turning into dolphins (they were vultures) and thus set the early stages for this upcoming adventure this blog seems to be pointing to.

While Lindy's story was not shown in the regular 2003 strips featured in that book, that year saw some very prominent appearences of the portals as Danielle was re-introduced after the normal rabbit one (Danielle Kindle) meet her death at the hands of terrorists. The human world's Danielle (Danielle Kendall), conducting an IRS audit, was fling thru and was morphed into a rabbit duplicate of her dead animal-world twin. She eventually assumed her animal twin's life, albeit retaining much of her human personality.

Now Danielle Kendall is not dead but she must let her own world believe she is dead...until she can find a way to control the rabbit spirit that dwells within her.
(Okay, maybe not that last paragraph but I've been waiting months to use that comparsion and I wasn't going to waste it. To be honest, she's content in the animal world. She found love, had a kid, no longer has the stigma of being an IRS employee, etc...)

#2.1 Captain Napalm on 2009-06-22 03:28 (Reply)

FWIW, that arc ended in February 2004.

#2.1.1 Classic Steve (Link) on 2009-06-22 10:11 (Reply)

Cool, thanks for all the infos. Reading this, I find it amazing how complex the storyline has grown after all the years the strip has been running.

But what's this about the two Danielles: Is it that for every person in one world there's some kind of symmetric partner in the other? No wonder things get out of balance with too many people crossing through the portal... I mean, doing so wouldn't sound too healthy in any SF story either.

#2.1.1.1 Bär on 2009-06-22 13:14 (Reply)

You did not ask a question, so I will ask you one.
What are team sports like in your world? Even with one species, we have sports that are suitable for different human builds...blocky for football, tall for basketball, etc. In a world with 6 billion civilized people in 6 million species, how do you handle sports like baseball, where statistics are so important and there are championships between teams? How do you keep everything fair (or even possible)?

#3 Thomas Mazanec (Link) on 2009-06-21 09:42 (Reply)

Actually, I meant for my question this week to be my request for observing changes in human instincts.
But yes, we do have all those sports, including baseball.

#4 Lindesfarne Dewclaw on 2009-06-21 10:23 (Reply)

Hmm. Humans don't really have instincts, per se. There used to be something we'd know as "common sense", and most people seemed to have a good amount of it. (You know, things like "Don't spit into the wind", or "Look both ways before crossing the street", "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is", and so on.) Nowadays, it seems that fewer and fewer people exhibit common sense. Larger and larger numbers of people behave more like what we would consider "animal" behavior (no offense) -- like sheep, or lemmings, blindly following the person in front of them, not noticing or caring that they're running into big trouble, or jumping off a cliff, or even voting for some charismatic political leader.

It's reaching a point where I keep thinking that with the fewer and fewer who exhibit common sense, that maybe it's no longer so common. Maybe it should now be called "unique sense", as I (and a few others) seem to be the only ones that still have it.

You know, this seemed to start happening about 20-30 years ago. When did you say you first crossed over into your world?

#4.1 Great Scott on 2009-06-21 15:02 (Reply)

I don't know what human "instincts" are. We are just going the same way we always have, one crisis, scandal, or other news event to the next.

#5 Thomas Mazanec (Link) on 2009-06-21 10:50 (Reply)

Actually, humans have quite a lot of instincts. Most of them don't really affect our behavior. For example, we have the instincts to use our legs long before we have the strength and balance to walk. We also have the instinct to even as infants pick up objects and hit other objects with them - in other words, we have an instinct to use weapons.

The only real behavioral instincts humans have are baby-talk, shopping, and group-exclusive socialization.

By reflex, when an adult human sees a baby, he or she starts to babble nonsensically. Research has shown that this babbling consists almost entirely of the sounds that are most common to the speaker's native language. In other words, baby-talk is a primer to teach the child to make sounds and eventually to talk.

Shopping instincts are derived from our prehistoric past. Ancient humans were hunter-gatherers - males hunted and females gathered edible plants. These reflexes are still seen in our patterns of shopping.

The average human female will browse extensively, seldom buying anything immediately, then going back and picking the desired items (the optimum search pattern for seeking edible plants). Human males usually just go for what they want and leave. (A hunter has to get what prey he can.)

As social creatures, humans use the opportunity of shopping to socialize. Thus one will see groups of males near computer and gadget sections of a large store while groups of women will be near the clothing sections, engaged in gossip and small talk. The groups in that case are exclusively of one gender.

Group-exclusive socialization is seen everywhere humans congregate in numbers. The socialization will usually consist of a group with a common factor. But being rather diverse creatures, any given human will belong to any number of groups.

Humans who socialize exclusively within a single group and use that group's criteria to determine all their interactions are usually unhealthy if not psychotic. The most psychotic examples try to make their group's criteria into the dominant force in society. The worst example was in the 20th century, when a small group of German humans who believed in "fuhrerprinzip" or "leader-principle" tried to impose it on everyone. The half-century of wars that triggered killed off an estimated five percent of the human race and it's legacy is still with us.

Actually,. Domain's races do a much better job with group dynamics than humans do.

#5.1 Bookkeeper-At-Arms on 2009-06-22 15:16 (Reply)

you have and interesting perspective.

#5.1.1 e_voyager on 2009-06-23 13:09 (Reply)

Okay, thanks! BTW, my responses will be sporatic today as I'm taking Dad out to brunch for Fathers Day.

#6 Lindesfarne Dewclaw on 2009-06-21 12:23 (Reply)

i'm sure he'll loved it especially with the effort your putting out of you going outside of your current circadian rhythms.

As for human instincts in this world that i'm currently in human instincts are more of a learned behavior. they revolve around sensing opportunity to make money and sensing when danger is coming. i've only marked four examples out of 50 test subjects that did not fall into this category. two of them were related to sense of approaching storms due to aches in aged or previously broken bones. if i ever stop by on your world i'll try to send you a human written book on biology 101

#6.1 e_voyager on 2009-06-21 12:43 (Reply)

Tell your Dad and George "Happy Father's Day" from all of us here 'cross the portal.

#6.2 Mortar on 2009-06-21 13:28 (Reply)

lol! It sounds like you're losing your instinct for proper spelling. (It's "sporadic"...)

#6.3 Reynard on 2009-06-21 16:20 (Reply)

I first came across webcomics about ten years ago, "yours" being among the first ones I began reading reguarly. Over time, I guess I've become a little more relaxed, but I'm sure it's to the affects of time and experience on one's personality than to "instinct loss."

The books I've read describe traditional views of basic human drives as quite negative, something to overcome or tame. And as the part of the brain that controls rational behavior is the last to fully mature, our teenagers and young adults often have trouble controlling their impulses (though there are some exceptions).

#7 Bixyl Shuftan (Link) on 2009-06-21 14:24 (Reply)

Dad's brunch is my midnight snack, but the important thing is that we spend time together.

#8 Lindesfarne Dewclaw on 2009-06-21 19:33 (Reply)

Lindesfarne, instinct among humans has atrophied. We are taught that there is a right way to do things, which is to think them through. This works well enough usually, until something (stupidity, hate, fear, bigotry) interferes with the thought process. Then the system breaks down and those people whose though pattern has 'seized up' (for lack of a better term) refuse to accept any further information. The closest we come these days to 'instinct' is when we are driven by the need or desire for primal needs like food, shelter or reproduction. There is so little dependence on instinct here that a lessening of it would probably not be noticed. (Looking back on that list of four, I'm wondering whether the last three are redundant repititions of the first.)

Something you may not know: back in the 1960's the British exported much pop culture to the Americas, primarily in music, fashion and slang. One slang term for a young woman or girl was 'bird.' If anyone ever uses that obsolete term around Ms. Aura, it might cause her to have a panic attack!

#9 CharlieG on 2009-06-21 21:49 (Reply)

In the aerospace biz the term 'bird' in still very much in use for describing flying things other than avians. Satellites and aircraft are frequently called 'birds', as in "Launch that bird" and "the F-16 is one good looking bird". And the military has unpiloted drones named 'Raptor' and 'Predator' that could give her pause if she heard them used in a term different than what she was used to.

#9.1 Charlie Tuna on 2009-06-22 13:57 (Reply)

Now, I see many humans are saying that our instincts are atrophied. While human instincts have become somewhat unspecialized, much of our behavior is instinct-based

#10 Akaduur on 2009-06-24 20:07 (Reply)

Reporting from this side of the portal, no real instinct loss on my part. AFter reading some blogg entries, especialy the newer ones, I fidn my apetite gets a bit more, well, picky, but it does pass after a bit. I am not a picky eater. ((For the info of you humans, thats a major stigma here, especialy for an omnivourus species like a fennec)).

#11 Bioman on 2009-06-26 01:57 (Reply)

Am I going to have to slip a couple bucks under the table to Feinstein for a particular bet upon the nature of the portal, then?

See, he was telling me some time back, and I quote, that "cross dimentional portals react upon a magnetic governing equalty. Two points of the micro-wormhole will always grasp upon the strongest and closest attraction point, giving random effects as trans-dimensional poles shift and realign from orbital alterations in both planetary bodies and plane migrations. Stabilization may be influential via a third factor while amidst mid-transmigration via the funnel. In essence, pull the destination mouth away from the mid-direction point and guide to the proper destination." (Thank you, modern day voice recorder technology.)

I was arguing that the portals were stable, based upon this very blog always having a reliable, two way communication system with the Human world. Though, I always figured that other dimensions were coming from other portals.

Eh...best kiss that hard earned cash, good bye.

#12 jup-reindeer on 2009-06-26 16:04 (Reply)

It's been a while since I last checked your blogs (by several months) and it might be too late to get a response in this topic, but I felt like leaving a reply.

Understandably, when we humans cross over to your world, instinct loss occurs, but I'm curious about what happens if members of your people came over to our world and tipped the balance on our side. I was thinking we humans might have more keen instincts, but with Ms. Aura watching out, we might never figure out.

#13 Jumanji (Link) on 2009-06-28 00:11 (Reply)

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