Adventures in immortality

So I'm going to share some adventures I'm having in figuring out what to do with myself after I die. It's morbid, and I still haven't figured out what I'm doing for the next few years of my life, but I suppose better sooner than later? I really have no good excuse for this.

I have every intent of making myself useful after I die, and that means not being embalmed and encased in metal under the earth for god knows how long. I am already an organ and tissue donor, but the question comes up--what about the rest of me? That's when I remembered the weird, wonderful, and surreal experience of Body Worlds.

For anyone who is unaware--become aware. And go see it. Body Worlds is the exhibition of real human bodies preserved via a method called plastination. The institute responsible for Body Worlds has a detailed explanation of plastination on their website, but roughly speaking, it's a bit like fossilization, except with plastic polymers instead of minerals. The plastination process replaces the perishable cells and tissues of the body with a non-perishable polymer, preserving the body in all its incredible detail. Every muscle, every blood vessel, every organ and ligament on display, all from bodies voluntarily donated by people.

I know I'm weird compared to the average person when it comes to being squeamish. I've been elbow-deep in a vat of brains for anatomy lab, dissected more invertebrates than most people know exist, and had a lovely chat about different types of stitches with the doctor sewing up my foot. That being said, I am not unique in my response to Body Worlds. Despite the display of real human bodies and the sheer weirdness of seeing inside other people, most people respond favorably to Body Worlds. Some strange people like me have near-religious experiences.

I remember seeing one display where only the blood vessels were preserved. A woman, her child, and a bird in simulated flight stood in the case, their forms composed of nothing but the finest web of crimson. It was unlike anything I've ever seen. I don't have words to describe the feeling I had.

The long and the short of it is that I'm currently going through the information packet and paperwork to donate my body for plastination. It's perfectly compatible with organ and tissue donation--that happens first. What remains of the bodies is then sent to the Institute for Plastination to be transformed into an anatomical display. This, as far as I'm concerned, is the most meaningful kind of immortality I can achieve; my body serves a purpose after death, saving lives and educating the public about the wonderful mechanism that is the human body. What could possibly be cooler than that?

Of course, it's not just like I can sign a few forms and be guaranteed plastination upon death--there's more to it than that. I'll update with details in later posts, after I've figured out exactly what I'm doing.

Why 3D Makes Your Brain Cry

Far more eloquent and well-learned people than me have weighed in on the 3D fad in movies and video games. I'm going to talk about how your eyes and brain actually process 3D, and why current 3D is just not good enough to replicate the effect with complete fidelity.

The first myth about 3D vision that needs to die a horrible, flaming, burning death is the misconception that closing one eye will destroy 3D vision. Human beings perceive depth in many ways, most of which are monocular--they require only one eye. Closer things are more detailed than faraway things. Parallax, the same visual illusion that makes railroad tracks converge in the distance, is another way to tell depth. Relative size of objects, objects overlapping, perspective, and relative apparent movement--these are all monocular cues of depth perception, and they work just fine with one eye shut.

However, there is a benefit to binocular vision; this kind of seeing in 3D is called stereoscopic vision. When the eyes focus on a particular object--let's say, a tree--the tree is in the center of the retina of both eyes. But because there are two eyes that occupy different horizontal positions in the head, slightly different images of the scene surrounding the tree will be projected on the retinas of both eyes. Some neurons of the striate cortex in the brain, part of the brain's visual processing system, respond and become extremely active when a visual stimulus produces retinal disparity--images on different parts of the retina of each eye. It's not that each eye sees a two dimensional scene, then combines them for a three dimensional scene. It's that each eye sees a slightly DIFFERENT three dimensional scene, and the difference between what the eyes "see" is what produces difference in depth perception.

When watching a 2D movie, each eye sees only monocular cues. There are monocular cues for depth within the flat plane of the screen, but no stereoscopic vision. What almost all 3D technology works on is fooling your eyes into producing retinal disparity. 3D movies project two images onto the screen, and place filters over the images to polarize the light differently. Viewers wear 3D glasses that have polarized lenses to match the polarities of the two different images of light.

For example, let's say that there's two images of a tree on the screen. The left image may be polarized to setting X, and the right image may be polarized to setting Y. The left lens of the glasses is also polarized X, so only the left image goes to the left eye, and the right lens is polarized Y so only the right image goes to the right eye. This is, of course, quite a simplification, but that's the essential idea. Bada bing--you have two different images going to your retinas, and hey presto, those little neurons in the striate cortex are fooled into responding to retinal disparity.

Except not really. First of all, the polarization only applies to light that's being projected onto the screen. Looking at other objects doesn't make them appear "more 3D than before," and there isn't a screen yet--unless you're sitting right under an IMAX screen--that eats up your entire visual field. You'll still be able to see the theatre, the walls, your fellow moviegoers, and the visual cues, monocular and binocular alike, from these more mundane things won't mesh with the stereoscopic cues you're receiving from the screen. There's no way that giant tree can be that detailed, and also occupying the same space as the guy sleeping through the movie in front of you. Linear stereoscopic glasses even require you to not move your head due to the way they are polarized--turning your head will wreck the illusion.

In addition, stereoscopic glasses do nothing for improving monocular cues of depth. Things like shadows, light, and edges. Ever notice how 3D in movies resembles a pop-up book more than it does real life? The edges are too sharp and clean, and the transitions between objects and backgrounds are too abrupt. This is especially noticeable in live-action movies that have then been adapted for 3D. Our brains in real life combine monocular and binocular cues for the illusion of depth, but that synergy simply doesn't work on the silver screen. Take something like detail. Most movies are shot or animated in very crisp detail, and while the image may "pop" due to stereoscopic glasses, the monocular cue of less detail in the background may not be present. This leads to a "fake" looking 3D experience in which monocular and binocular cues don't match up.

I'm not saying there's anything WRONG with 3D. It's an interesting technology, and it displays some of what we understand about visual processing between the eyes and brain. But in no way does it capture and readily combine all the cues we use in the real world for 3D.

Pixelated Love

So this is a repost from a comment I made on the BioWare forums, but I think it bears reposting. In slightly edited form :)

There is a kind of romance that I find both creepy and downright un-fun in roleplaying video games, almost without exception--the dreaded therapymance. I'm a freaking hero(ine). I'm a Jedi, Sith, Warden, Bhaalspawn, Knight Captain, Spectre, etc. I kick ass, take names, make friends, make enemies, make love, save the known universe, shoot lightning at fools, and do it all with epic style. Nowhere in my job description is "psychologist for crazy people."

NPCs, I will happily be your friend or even lover. I will snipe, spill drinks on the Citadel, snark, eat cheese, sing songs, hunt devils, and consult space hamsters with you. I'll be a shoulder to cry on; I will support and enable your growth as a person to the best of my ability. Because that's what friends do. But I will not be your therapist. I will not sit there and listen to you whine incessantly about your dead spouse, estranged child, daddy issues, mommy issues, dead dog, or toe bunions. I will happily help you find a therapist, but if you can't deal with your problems in a reasonably constructive manner without sobbing on my shoulder every other conversation, I'm kicking you out. You're just not cool enough to be around me. END OF LINE.

I know that simulating social relationships in video games is difficult. I know it's complicated. But for the love of Pete, Biggus Dickus, and Prince Humperdink, can I please have a video game in which I don't need to hold my love interest's hand while they sob about how their daddy didn't love them enough? Is that so much to ask?