{"id":1272,"date":"2010-04-21T07:14:34","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T15:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=1272"},"modified":"2010-04-21T13:03:01","modified_gmt":"2010-04-21T21:03:01","slug":"coincidence-i-think-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=1272","title":{"rendered":"Coincidence?  I Think Not."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/octopus_eye.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1274\" style=\"margin: 7px 15px;\" title=\"octopus_eye\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/octopus_eye.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"298\" height=\"197\" \/><\/a>So, I see that some of you have noticed the endearing footage of the kleptopus making off with some hapless diver&#8217;s video camera. (For those who don&#8217;t follow the endlessly proliferating comment threads from previous posts, the smoking-gun is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stuff.co.nz\/life-style\/cutestuff\/3590839\/Octopus-flees-with-camera\">here<\/a>.<sup>1<\/sup>)  Oh yes, how cute.<\/p>\n<p>But how many of you have noticed how closely this act of industrial espionage followed on the heels of  other, supposedly &#8220;independent&#8221; octopi <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/earth\/hi\/earth_news\/newsid_8572000\/8572828.stm\">discovering the wonders of hi-def technology<\/a>?  (Apparently standard video wasn&#8217;t up to their standards.)<sup>2<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>Octopi learn of the existence of human video tech.  Other octopi start making off with human video tech.  Why am I the only one to be connecting these dots, people?  Why am I the only one to see the conspiracy for what it is?  (Well, I suppose Glenn Beck will raise the alarm once he figures out how to pronounce &#8220;octopus&#8221;; but what about the <em>rest <\/em>of you?)<\/p>\n<p>You cannot trust the octopus.  The octopus is a coward by nature, a creature of night who fears the open spaces, who lurks unseen in the complex topography of benthic habitats.  Not like its forthright pelagic cousin, the Squid: noble denizen of the open water, proud and honest and fearless.  Squids have nothing to hide.  You won&#8217;t catch <em>them<\/em> snatching up some ill-gotten bit of technology and scuttling for the shadows.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, and apparently &#8220;The Island&#8221; is now up for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.locusmag.com\/News\/2010\/04\/locus-awards-finalists.html\">Locus award<\/a>, as is the Dozois &amp; Strahan anthology in which it appeared.  This is good news.<\/p>\n<p>I will have more good news later this week.  Assuming the octopi don&#8217;t get me first.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><sup>1<\/sup>Thanks to David Held, who first alerted me to the camera-theft footage; and to<br \/>\n<sup>2<\/sup>Sheila Miguez for alerting me to the lab work.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, I see that some of you have noticed the endearing footage of the kleptopus making off with some hapless diver&#8217;s video camera. (For those who don&#8217;t follow the endlessly proliferating comment threads from previous posts, the smoking-gun is here.1) Oh yes, how cute. But how many of you have noticed how closely this act [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,22,18,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biology","category-marine","category-misc","category-writing-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1272"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1279,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions\/1279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}