Sunday, July 11, 2010

Beware of houses made of meat

Scientology building on Hollywood Boulevard in...Image which Zemanta thought was relevant for no good reason via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  29 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Devarim).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Day of the Five Billion/UN World Population Day, National Slurpee Day.

Today’s news and commentary:
Today’s weird thing is “In Vitro Meat Habitat is a Shelter That You Grow”, which is something which comes from bad science-fiction where it is clear that the writer has not thought the idea through to figure out whether it makes sense.  Hint to anyone seriously interested in pursuing this line of invention:  live tissue needs nourishment to stay alive, and animal tissue for the most part does not make its own food.  Yes, a house made of flesh is almost certainly doable, but having to feed the house is not an idea I particularly relish.  And knowing my luck, I would get a house with allergies which would cause its respiratory system to make a lot of noise and keep everyone in the neighborhood up all night.  And such a house had better be plugged directly into the sewer system, because there is no way I am going to clean up after it.  Enjoy (or be weirded out) and share the weirdness.

Aaron
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1 comment:

Malcolm NC-17 said...

Aside from the fact that living in a live meat house is icky and a step in the wrong direction (I've already been in a uterus and wasn't planning on going back), there is yet another thing wrong with a meat house. Termites are a bad enough problem when houses are made of wood. How does anyone propose keeping natural predators or even carnivorous pets from eating a meat house?

Living structures made of trees seem like a much better idea. Those would have the disadvantage of being extremely slow to construct and would not be able to be repaired quickly. But if you can spare the time, the results are at least interesting. A few examples:

http://www.inhabitat.com/2005/09/18/fab-tree-hab/
http://inhabitat.com/2009/08/26/worlds-first-building-made-of-hundreds-of-living-trees/
http://inhabitat.com/2009/07/27/botany-building-bending-trees-to-form-living-structures/

Congratulations on what might be your first genuinely weird thing of the day. Of course, I have you beat with living furniture:

http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/06/17/pooktre’s-living-growing-tree-chair/
http://inhabitat.com/2009/07/30/top-5-pieces-of-living-growing-furniture/

Living furniture has its antecedents in science fiction too. Many of Frank Herbert's books involve "chairdogs" and "bedogs," which I find a terrible idea since I don't care for furniture to shed or go on the carpet. Herbert never mentioned it, but perhaps the Bene Gesserit spent much of their training practicing Voice to make the furniture do their business outside.