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Badass

Heh. They're each other's phobia...

Digit is impressed(?)

Are Texas Tan's known for thier explosive properties?

Or was that an early manifestation of sphinxness?

I think that Plinkett said it best: WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR FAAAAAAAAAAAACE?

Yep. She did it with malice aforethought.

The case of the exploding spider... Story at 11.


I suppose that's one way to start up a phobia...


Meanwhile, dialog is good... I think...

Actually, that really can happen if a spider of significant size (or maybe any spider) falls far enough and hits something. That's one of the reasons they tend to use dragline silk. Though, if they don't realize their perch can suddenly be moved from under them, then they won't be as likely to do so.

So nightmares confirmed on both sides.

Alkarii wrote:Actually, that really can happen if a spider of significant size (or maybe any spider) falls far enough and hits something. That's one of the reasons they tend to use dragline silk. Though, if they don't realize their perch can suddenly be moved from under them, then they won't be as likely to do so.

I kinda question that - a mouse dropped from ANY height will survive, and spiders are even further out on the square-cube law.

AnotherFairportfan wrote:

Alkarii wrote:Actually, that really can happen if a spider of significant size (or maybe any spider) falls far enough and hits something. That's one of the reasons they tend to use dragline silk. Though, if they don't realize their perch can suddenly be moved from under them, then they won't be as likely to do so.

I kinda question that - a mouse dropped from ANY height will survive, and spiders are even further out on the square-cube law.

Spiders also have rigid exoskeletons . . . mice are flexible. Flexible enough to fit through anyplace they can get their skulls through.


And I question if Shelly really has a true phobia . . . Phobias are irrational by definition, and that's a pretty rational reason to have problems about spiders. Especially overhead spiders.

--FreeFlier

FreeFlier wrote:

AnotherFairportfan wrote:

Alkarii wrote:Actually, that really can happen if a spider of significant size (or maybe any spider) falls far enough and hits something. That's one of the reasons they tend to use dragline silk. Though, if they don't realize their perch can suddenly be moved from under them, then they won't be as likely to do so.

I kinda question that - a mouse dropped from ANY height will survive, and spiders are even further out on the square-cube law.

Spiders also have rigid exoskeletons . . . mice are flexible. Flexible enough to fit through anyplace they can get their skulls through.


And I question if Shelly really has a true phobia . . . Phobias are irrational by definition, and that's a pretty rational reason to have problems about spiders. Especially overhead spiders.

--FreeFlier

I have a needle phobia. It is a major project for me to allow myself to get an injection or have blood drawn.

Sometimes i faint.

I can trace it to one specific incident when i was eight or nine (i think) involving me getting thoroughly hysterical over the second Salk booster.

Opus the Poet wrote:Digit is impressed(?)

Let's just hope that she's not bursting with admiration.

AnotherFairportfan wrote:

Alkarii wrote:Actually, that really can happen if a spider of significant size (or maybe any spider) falls far enough and hits something. That's one of the reasons they tend to use dragline silk. Though, if they don't realize their perch can suddenly be moved from under them, then they won't be as likely to do so.

I kinda question that - a mouse dropped from ANY height will survive, and spiders are even further out on the square-cube law.

It's a problem for any large arthropod, really. That's one of the more common ways for giant millipedes to get injured/killed (that, and being licked by drug-addicted lemurs). Being a rigid container full of squishy soft insides, they don't handle hitting the ground very well; they don't have the elasticity of skin and muscle to absorb the forces. For a large spider with a big fat abdomen, it's rather like dropping a chicken egg on the kitchen floor.

AnotherFairportfan wrote:Badass

Heh. They're each other's phobia...

And, unfortunately, Digit might not be a good candidate for EMDR therapy. She may not even be able to make rapid eye movements!

This will be an interesting knot to unravel. Phobias can be difficult... the obvious approach of "throw these two into an Adventure together and they'll sort it out and become friends" may or may not actually work.

Let's see... Shelly is afraid of Digit (spider phobia). Monica was terrified of Phix, and let this fear drive her away from Shelly for a while. Calista was terrified of Monica. Calista eats toasted spiders, which might terrify Digit, who was already phobic about humanoids in general because of their faces... and most humanoids are scared of losing face.

Inter-personal relationships by mail, anybody?

Another facet of Digits new life is her lack of dragline. Most spiders leave a silk thread behind as they work their way up, down, and around things. Might she have a fear of falling now, on top of everything else?

AnotherFairportfan wrote:

Alkarii wrote:Actually, that really can happen if a spider of significant size (or maybe any spider) falls far enough and hits something. That's one of the reasons they tend to use dragline silk. Though, if they don't realize their perch can suddenly be moved from under them, then they won't be as likely to do so.

I kinda question that - a mouse dropped from ANY height will survive, and spiders are even further out on the square-cube law.

Well, if you don't have to really drive all that fast for bugs to splatter on your windshield, I imagine a spider wouldn't have to fall all that far to do the same. Although, I'm wondering if the spider fell far enough.

Too bad Mythbusters went off the air...

Atomic wrote:Another facet of Digits new life is her lack of dragline. Most spiders leave a silk thread behind as they work their way up, down, and around things. Might she have a fear of falling now, on top of everything else?

Ah, but how do you know that she doesn't still leave one behind her sometimes?

Alkarii wrote:

AnotherFairportfan wrote:I kinda question that - a mouse dropped from ANY height will survive, and spiders are even further out on the square-cube law.

Well, if you don't have to really drive all that fast for bugs to splatter on your windshield, I imagine a spider wouldn't have to fall all that far to do the same. Although, I'm wondering if the spider fell far enough.

Too bad Mythbusters went off the air...

I referenced the square-cube law because that affects terminal velocity for different-sized critters.

Here's a fairly famous quote from an essay on the square-cube law by J B S Haldane:

To the mouse and any smaller animal it presents practically no dangers. You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away, provided that the ground is fairly soft. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes. For the resistance presented to movement by the air is proportional to the surface of the moving object. Divide an animal’s length, breadth, and height each by ten; its weight is reduced to a thousandth, but its surface only to a hundredth. So the resistance to falling in the case of the small animal is relatively ten times greater than the driving force.

An insect, therefore, is not afraid of gravity; it can fall without danger, and can cling to the ceiling with remarkably little trouble. It can go in for elegant and fantastic forms of support like that of the daddy-longlegs

.

Those insects are being hit by your windsheld a lot harder and faster than they would fall.

Q: What's the last thing that goes through a bug's mind when it hits the windshield?

A: Its rectum.

AnotherFairportfan wrote:Are Texas Tan's known for thier explosive properties?

Or was that an early manifestation of sphinxness?

Texas Tan is a species of tarantula, and any tarantula is incredibly fragile, generally a fall of more than a couple feet will injure or kill them, from a loft hatch, guessing at least 10 feet high ceiling, it's fair to say it would have just... burst.

General google result: http://s103.photobucket.com/user/neptun ... 7.jpg.html Although that looks like a male, females are usually bigger bodied and will burst... more.

So I was right. But that wasn't a guess on my part. I read it in some science magazine for kids that belonged to my one of my nieces. The spider in this case was a golden orb weaver, hanging on a kid's face, and they were explaining that the spider was in more danger, because she could have fallen, which was why she attached a drag line.