Always Seems Worse 2014-09-22

[Aleister Crow]

Castela called the spider "a sweet little bear". Could it actually be one of the ursa sisters?

Doubt it.

The way the spider is drawn, it's likely to be a jumping spider. And out of all the spiders that I've run into Jumpers are the ones with the most personality. Other spiders ignore you, some actively skitter away, but Jumpers are the sort who'll see you and take the time to figure you out. I've had them in my house and I let them roam as they will. Usually I'll see one of them on the floor and I'll play with them using my laser pointer.

They're very personable and the easiest to handle next to the larger tarantulas.

I've always said they're like tiny eight-legged kittens.

[KnightDelight]

I've always said they're like tiny eight-legged kittens.

There may have been a cat (or cat-like creature) nearby when she had her brainstorm, resulting in not only a serious shrinkage but also a shape change into a spider. Paul's excellent way with making endearing creatures from the strangest of candidates (such as Tina's prissy Ms Tentacle demon) not withstanding, I don't think I could ever consider a spider to be cute and cuddly. Especially one which comes up to my kneecap. Maybe I'm still traumatized from seeing a spider through a stereo microscope back in my childhood. It was the most hideous thing I had ever seen. Far more than any movie monster. Worse still, it was real, and I knew it real. This experience did not help to generate subsequent pleasant dreams.

[Taranatar]

I'm 6' tall, 300lbs+ and I'm an arachnophobe.

That being said/written: this is adorably cute. As the Twelfth Doctor said "It's the eyebrows!". And as I always say: if I could talk with spiders, like asking them to stay in their corners and not crawl over me in my sleep, I'd probably be an arachnophile...

Probably!

[Dave]

Eyebrows? How about squeeing and purring? If that spider has a larynx, perhaps it is a (shape changing?) bear?

"Larynx? We don't need no steenking larynx!"

Some species of spider have been shown to be able to make sounds by stridulating (rubbing psrts of their bodies together). This is how insects make noise... crickets chirp, for example, by rubbing their legs together (IIRC). Anybody who has ever been outside when a cicada brood hatched out ("17-year locusts") can affirm that the resulting sound of millions of tiny chainsaws shouting "Here I am, and I'm ready to mate!" is nearly deafening. The sounds of insects in the jungle are quite varied and fascinating.

Arachnids have similar body plans to insects and some can stridulate (although most spider species are believed to be silent). So, it's not beyond even our-world possibility that a spider could stridulate well enough to squee and purr... although it would be quite a concidence if it actually meant the same things by these sounds that fangirls and kittens do

[Dave]

Typo: "we are in a the Library".

Interesting... this is very close to some of the demonstrations I've seen, of typos that everybody "reads past" and don't consciously notice... sometimes this happens even when the reader is told to look for a typo! "Paris in the the spring" for example. Something about the way that the brain handles written language, apparently... duplicated or extra-but-similar prepositions tend to be "filtered out" since their presence doesn't affect the meaning of the sentence much if at all.

[Warrl]

For what it's worth, someone shrunk to insect size would be significantly stronger than the insect.

Not that Dietzel knows or cares....

Not sure about that... the square/cube relationship works out very well for insects and other small beasties. Many of them are proportionally much stronger than we are (e.g. can carry several times their own body weight easily, can jump to several times their height, etc.)

Of course, what you say could be correct, depending on the magical mechanism of size reduction.

Doesn't need magical adjustment. Dietzel is absurdly strong for his size with just a proportionate size reduction. (But he couldn't throw an ordinary-size human around, like Calista did - THAT is magic.) Just because of the square-cube law.

Dietzel is normally what, about 20 inches tall? And now he's about 2 inches? That's a 10-to-1 size reduction... in EACH dimension.

That means his strength - which is proportional to the *cross section* of his bones and muscles, i.e. the square of the size change - is 1/100 what it was.

And his mass - which is proportional to the *volume*, i.e. the cube, - is 1/1000 of what it was.

So he's ten times as strong, relative to his size, as he used to be.

Now there are other limits that affect endurance more than raw strength. The bloodstream is used to provide oxygen and get rid of waste products. You need more blood flow when you're exerting yourself (so your heart beats faster) and more oxygen exchange (so you breathe harder). Crustaceans breathe through their skin, which works well enough for things that size (although their ability to breathe harder is pretty much nonexistent) and not so well for larger things such as canines and humans. WE have lungs, a much better system.

Guess what: the NEED for more circulation and oxygen is based on mass, so is proportional to the cube - while the ABILITY is based on cross-section, so is proportional to the square. In other words, Dietzel's circulation and respiration are seriously more powerful (relative to his size) than normal, so he should be able to go at maximum exertion until he either starves or dehydrates. (And to prevent that, he won't need to eat or drink for very long. As compared to other land creatures of Dietzel's current size, his mouth and his digestive system are huge.)

Of course, quite a lot of spiders have poisons...

[Sidhekin]

Eyebrows? How about squeeing and purring? If that spider has a larynx, perhaps it is a (shape changing?) bear?

"Larynx? We don't need no steenking larynx!"

Some species of spider have been shown to be able to make sounds by stridulating (rubbing psrts of their bodies together). This is how insects make noise... crickets chirp, for example, by rubbing their legs together (IIRC).

Oh wow. I knew insects did it, but I never knew spiders did. (While superficially similar, they're very different if you look closely, and not exactly close relatives of insects either: Their last common ancestor must have lived more than 500 million years ago, making them about as remote from one another as sea urchins are from us.)

Googling stridulating spider gave, among other hits, this clip from a documentary: (well worth watching, unless you're arachnophobic ... or deaf, I guess ...)

And so I learned something today. Thank you!

[zachariah]

This could be a library listen device as well? What better way for the library to monitor what is happening.

Bugging? Spiders are usually better at debugging.

YEs but that is why they are so good at software coding. But for listening who better? Webs will vibrate in response to air pressure at very low levels. Also they can pick up voices without worrying about any electronic signals to betray their location. They can collect the information from other insect listeners when they ingest their RNA. That too is part of being a good coder you know. If fact you can refer to their webs as the origin of networking.

[meisdadoo]

They are not in "a" library, they are in "THE" library, which is programed to give you exactly what you need--not necessarily what you want, or are looking for. . .

Cricket gets a dietzel, he gets shrunk, she forgets her own "issues" and focuses on his problems, optimistically suggest that the answer is somewhere in the library and "TA DA" a webcrawler appears to help them with the search. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebCrawler)

Oh library, you never cease to amaze. . .

[illiad]

Some species of spider have been shown to be able to make sounds by stridulating (rubbing psrts of their bodies together). This is how insects make noise... crickets chirp, for example, by rubbing their legs together (IIRC). Anybody who has ever been outside when a cicada brood hatched out ("17-year locusts") can affirm that the resulting sound of millions of tiny chainsaws shouting "Here I am, and I'm ready to mate!" is nearly deafening. The sounds of insects in the jungle are quite varied and fascinating.

well the proper explanation of cricket noise, check wikipedia - also mentioned in Q I on TV..
""The sound emitted by crickets is commonly referred to as chirping; the scientific name is stridulation. Usually only the male crickets chirp, however some female crickets do as well. The sound is emitted by the stridulatory organ, a large vein running along the bottom of each wing, covered with "teeth" (serration) much like a comb. The chirping sound is created by running the top of one wing along the teeth at the bottom of the other wing. As the male cricket does this, he also holds the wings up and open, so that the wing membranes can act as acoustical sails. It is a popular myth that the cricket chirps by rubbing its legs together."

back to dietzel.. found he has five fingers!!

[sheik]

Some species of spider have been shown to be able to make sounds by stridulating (rubbing psrts of their bodies together). This is how insects make noise... crickets chirp, for example, by rubbing their legs together (IIRC). Anybody who has ever been outside when a cicada brood hatched out ("17-year locusts") can affirm that the resulting sound of millions of tiny chainsaws shouting "Here I am, and I'm ready to mate!" is nearly deafening. The sounds of insects in the jungle are quite varied and fascinating.

well the proper explanation of cricket noise, check wikipedia - also mentioned in Q I on TV..
""The sound emitted by crickets is commonly referred to as chirping; the scientific name is stridulation. Usually only the male crickets chirp, however some female crickets do as well. The sound is emitted by the stridulatory organ, a large vein running along the bottom of each wing, covered with "teeth" (serration) much like a comb. The chirping sound is created by running the top of one wing along the teeth at the bottom of the other wing. As the male cricket does this, he also holds the wings up and open, so that the wing membranes can act as acoustical sails. It is a popular myth that the cricket chirps by rubbing its legs together."

back to dietzel.. found he has five fingers!!

More importantly he seems to have opposable thumbs.

[Mark N]

back to dietzel.. found he has five fingers!!

More importantly he seems to have opposable thumbs.

The more we see of Dietzel and his peculiarity's, the more I think that he is just a dog, just not a dog from the human world. That idea comes from the past interactions of his and now add to it the actions of a certain spider that seems to be not very spider like. There may very well be lots of creatures that have been raised by beings like the Fae to look like human world counterparts but have noticeable (if you are looking) differences. But, then again, I have been way off base before (But this idea also gives him a different lifespan that a real world Bull Terrier).

[kingklash]

Cricket's advice to Dietz-doggy may be what she needs told to her. Then again, maybe this is why the Bibliothiki vorp'd the pooch.

[Aed]

I believe that Dietzel is more that "just" a dog. I think that Paul has given us hints as to how special Dietzel is through out the life of the strip. Whatever he truly is, Dietzel is Monica's companion guardian, of sorts, and may be Wapsi Square's version of Inuyasha.

[AnotherFairportfan]

Some species of spider have been shown to be able to make sounds by stridulating (rubbing psrts of their bodies together). This is how insects make noise... crickets chirp, for example, by rubbing their legs together (IIRC). Anybody who has ever been outside when a cicada brood hatched out ("17-year locusts") can affirm that the resulting sound of millions of tiny chainsaws shouting "Here I am, and I'm ready to mate!" is nearly deafening. The sounds of insects in the jungle are quite varied and fascinating.

well the proper explanation of cricket noise, check wikipedia - also mentioned in Q I on TV..
""The sound emitted by crickets is commonly referred to as chirping; the scientific name is stridulation. Usually only the male crickets chirp, however some female crickets do as well. The sound is emitted by the stridulatory organ, a large vein running along the bottom of each wing, covered with "teeth" (serration) much like a comb. The chirping sound is created by running the top of one wing along the teeth at the bottom of the other wing. As the male cricket does this, he also holds the wings up and open, so that the wing membranes can act as acoustical sails. It is a popular myth that the cricket chirps by rubbing its legs together."

Heh. The loudest animal in the world (proportional to size but pretty loud on an absolute basis - 99.9DB) - the lesser water boatman. (The sound in that clip is not amplified)

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...it makes that noise by rubbing its penis on its carapace.

[Warrl]

Well if someone rubbed mine on the exoskeleton of an insect larger than it is, I think I'd make a loud noise too.

[JSStryker]

Some species of spider have been shown to be able to make sounds by stridulating (rubbing psrts of their bodies together). This is how insects make noise... crickets chirp, for example, by rubbing their legs together (IIRC). Anybody who has ever been outside when a cicada brood hatched out ("17-year locusts") can affirm that the resulting sound of millions of tiny chainsaws shouting "Here I am, and I'm ready to mate!" is nearly deafening. The sounds of insects in the jungle are quite varied and fascinating.

well the proper explanation of cricket noise, check wikipedia - also mentioned in Q I on TV..
""The sound emitted by crickets is commonly referred to as chirping; the scientific name is stridulation. Usually only the male crickets chirp, however some female crickets do as well. The sound is emitted by the stridulatory organ, a large vein running along the bottom of each wing, covered with "teeth" (serration) much like a comb. The chirping sound is created by running the top of one wing along the teeth at the bottom of the other wing. As the male cricket does this, he also holds the wings up and open, so that the wing membranes can act as acoustical sails. It is a popular myth that the cricket chirps by rubbing its legs together."

Heh. The loudest animal in the world (proportional to size but pretty loud on an absolute basis - 99.9DB) - the lesser water boatman. (The sound in that clip is not amplified)

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...it makes that noise by rubbing its penis on its carapace.

OUCH!

[AnotherFairportfan]

...and the penis has sawtooth bumps.

[AmriloJim]

...and the penis has sawtooth bumps.

Ribbed for her pleasure?

[AnotherFairportfan]

...and the penis has sawtooth bumps.

Ribbed for her pleasure?

Lady cats don't think so...