I'm New

Joined
Jul 14, 2011
Messages
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Hello. I'm new to TONMO (it's fun in all caps),but I've been interested in cephalopods for most of my remembered life. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to be able to own any, but that shall not deter me from enthusiastically participating in the community. Being a unique person who has suddenly discovered a whole website of people with many of my own psychological characteristics, I'm somewhat overwhelmed. To keep this post moving, here's a list of random things that greatly interest me:
-Hans Larsson-style reverse engineering of ancestral cephalopod characteristics
-Metasepia pfefferi (obviously)
-The possibility of creating a mathematical formula for determining the weight of a Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni specimen from the LRL
-Teaching octopuses to play chess
-Biological reasons for the lack of freshwater and terrestrial cephalopods
-Tool use in Amphioctopus marginatus
-Gliding capabilities of the Ommastrephidae
-The eyes of Nautiloids (and everything else about them)
-Cultural depictions of Cephalopods (less Cthulhu, more Kraken)

I realize that, among my own people, these may be fairly standard interests, but I don't mind that. After poking around the website a bit, you people seem pretty great. Not to mention the fact that my childhood hero, Dr. Steve O'Shea, is here. I can't wait to get started.
 
:welcome: Stauroteuthis!
Sadly Steve is on sabbatical for awhile but we hope to see him again soon. However, a number of members were his post grad students so he is currently present in a peculiar form of effigy. Of your list of topics of interest only chess playing, reverse engineering (might be an interesting discussion with Architeuthoceras and Terri :biggrin2:) and weight calculation (and probably discussed if you leave out the hamiltoni) are topics not heavily discussed. Chess playing? TV watching, possibilities of pushbuttons, yes but chess playing?:roll:.

One of the getting started things I like to recommend is to edit your profile and put something meaningful in the displayed location.

Welcome aboard:sink:
 
:welcome:! Always great to see this! Re: not being a ceph keeper, no worries, me neither. I don't even own a fishbowl. But cephs are great, and TONMO delivers for all ceph-heads.

Thanks for joining - jump right in, the water's fine!

:sink:

/could be worse ways to go I suppose
 
DWhatley;185084 said:
:Chess playing? TV watching, possibilities of pushbuttons, yes but chess playing?:roll:.

I realize that it hasn't happened yet. Someday, though, cephalopods will outcompete artificial intelligence, and the majority of online chess will be against genetically enhanced octopuses.

You have encountered my terrible sense of humor. I seem to recall a thread called "Groaners". I'll have to look into that.
 
I seem to recall a thread called "Groaners".
subtitled "the thread that will never die :wink:

Level_head should be chiming in here soon. He has written (supposedly 3 but I have yet to see any but the first :sagrin:) novels of an alterante/advanced ceph civilization that I am sure you would enjoy (I did).
 
tonmo;185089 said:
:welcome:! Always great to see this! Re: not being a ceph keeper, no worries, me neither. I don't even own a fishbowl. But cephs are great, and TONMO delivers for all ceph-heads.

Thanks for joining - jump right in, the water's fine!

:sink:

/could be worse ways to go I suppose

Thanks for being a cool guy with an awesome website. :biggrin2:
 
Welcome, Stauroteuthis! You've probably spotted that there is a section of the forum dedicated to your namesake critter. And I would guess that you might have arrived here because of the Wikipedia link to the TONMO forum — but no matter how you found it, hail and well met!

As DWhatley indicated, I have written some science fiction involving a distant future race of octans, the descendants of a benthic octopus species. Their science is still primitive in many respects; they have yet to discover fire, but have a finely developed Mendelian understanding of aquaculture. In the first novel, one of their science projects is creating a problem...

It is not yet published, and four more books are plotted out in the series and under construction. I would be pleased to have another cephalopod enthusiast as a beta reader. Send me a private message with an email address and a preference (Word, PDF, or Kindle) and I can get you fixed up.
 
So when do I get my pre-beta Kindle version of the second book? :sagrin: I need books for my Xmas present Playbook (for testing purposes to be sure it is fully functional of course:biggrin2:)
 
Patience, dear friend. "Beta late than never" as they say.

As there is a larger story extending across the entire series, I realized that I was messing things up a bit in Book Two.

And in the meantime, some neurological research I'm involved in has demanded a fair amount of time. Of course, that last aspect is not quite fair: I'm still finding time to write my daily (and now, expected) poetry on a rather good SF webcomic called Endtown. In fact, the next one is due in about thirty-five minutes...
 
Level head: Nice, I love the idea of octopuses becoming an advanced civilization. Trust me, when you release your books to the public. At least you'll have one faithful buyer guaranteed.
:indiffer::indiffer::indiffer::indiffer::read::indiffer::indiffer::indiffer::indiffer:



Also, I've always had dreams of genetically enhanced octopuses (or octopi) being extremely smart. Or even being able to display writing characters and words etc by using their chromophores. As for the chess playing idea, I wouldn't be half surprised if a 3 year old beat me. Heh....those good ole' days in the chess club.....not a good experience for me.
 

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