This round’s questions which I feel like sharing are:

What was the first thing that engaged each of your five senses after you woke up this morning?

Whilst I resent the implication that I sleep whilst there is science to be done, I will answer your puny question. This morning began with the sounds of screaming, and the smell of gunpowder, as the annual Hospitality Workers Ball took place. Marvellous affair, involves waiters, bartenders and sundry to finally give those shitty customers what-for. It was accompanied by the feeling of my stupid cat attempting to lick my eyeball, as well as the sight of the blasted little thing. I am unsure as to what taste was in my mouth, but let us just describe it as wretched, and remind me never to drink curdled Polish Rutabaga Liquor ever again.

If you could see into the future, but only once, what piece of information would you want to know?

Dear fellow; I do not know whom you have been consulting with, but such nonsense is far beyond what any reasonable scientist would look for. Besides which, did you forget the Pre/post cognition wars? Even considering seeing the future can be construed as a War Crime. (But if I could, I would see the verdict of my inevitable war crimes trial)

Hast thou seen the white whale?

First of all, who let you in here, and why haven’t I shot you yet? Second of all, my name is not Ahab, nor is it Ishmael.
Third of all, you damn well better not call me Ishmael, sir, or I will rewrite your neurons to spout nothing but early nineties pop hits.
Fourth and final of all: No. I damn well haven’t. And if I see her again, I will shoot her. I have my Stalker Hunting Permit for a reason.

Which is a nice little segue into discussing todays topic; Temporal War Crimes, and the Pre/Post Cognition Wars.

Back in 2041, and forward in 1976, temporal examination became disturbingly confused, due in part to an excess of Postcognitives and Precognitives in each of the timelines. One would often attempt to look to the past, or future, even within the confines of ones own mind, and suddenly discover that they were, in fact, looking at the back of their own head from 5 minutes ago. Needless to say, this annoyed a great amount of people, who were casually minding their own business. Some time later, the aforementioned annoyed people, were very professionally minding the business of the pre- and post-cognitives. Often with chainsaws, shotguns, and a disturbingly large amount of prejudice.

Entire timelines were wiped out by the mobs, courtesy of 2923′s laxity in licensing time-travel devices, and eventually, 90% of the Temporal Spaces in which precognition and postcognition were possible were annhilated. And not before time, if you pardon the pun.

Even if you don’t, you had better. I have not been allowed to commit extreme violence for hours now, and I have this new Electro-saw to test out.

Anyhow, my synthetically sinful sweetlings, it turned out that the Giant Bastards Who Run Everything disapproved of the loss of revenue from the 90% of Temporal Spaces that were eliminated, and thus wielding the mighty powers of large armies with larger weaponry, they put an end to the foolishness with extreme professional prejudice. And then declared that even contemplating time-travel would be considered a War Crime, and punished to the full measure.

This story petered out, I know, but frankly, given the delicate nature of Time, and the fact that I do not wish to be prosecuted just yet, (their guns are still bigger than mine. Quite annoysome),  you will have to sit there and suffer.

But do not contemplate timetravel. Even for Science. Because I will not come to your assistance when they shoot you repeatedly in the genitals. Oh no. I will simply laugh.

Yours, in good faith,

Doktor Bedlam.

Anything else is not their goddamn problem. And even enforcing the law is sketchy at times.

The goddamn fucking cops are not your friends, you animals. Please try to remember that.

I hope for your sake that you are, otherwise the revolution will pick you up, violate you with a spiked taser, and then shove a purple wand down your urethra. Am I clear?

Now, on to the science. I’ve spent a year now, perculating and probing the idea of Synaptic Viruses and Neural Meme Guns. These are tricky concepts, and you can lay the blame on Richard Dawkins for the concept of memes. You can also blame Douglas Hofstadter and his Metamagical Themas columns.

Let’s start simple, with the definition of a meme. A meme is the unit of self-replication for an idea; a unit of cultural transmission, a unit of imitation. Basically for you useless fucking idiots out there who need me to speak slowly and clearly; a meme is a self-replicating idea.

Next, we come to the definition of a virus. According to my various goddamn dictionaries, which tell me things that I do not wish to hear (such as the fact that Virii is an improper pluralisation of virus), a virus is an ultramicroscopic infectious agent that replicates itself only within cells of living hosts.

A synaptic virus is similar to a meme, in that it is a self-replicating idea. Except that it is an infectious, foreign idea that invades your synaptic relays, and overwrites them, turning thought patterns into new thought patterns. Until the virus dominates your thoughts, allowing you no others, because all your neural pathways and synapses are dominated by this foreign entity.

From here, the next step of a synaptic virus is to alter genetic coding in order to provide a form of transmission aside from the neural meme gun. These transmission protocols are likely to be biological (similar to other viruses, transmitted through air, water, or biological functions), auditory (a sound which infects those who hear it, transmitting the virus through airwaves, or visual. The best example of a transmittable synaptic virus/meme comes from an issue of Global Frequency, by Warren Ellis. The entire series is worth reading, so you plebians should get off your fat fucking asses and go buy five copies. Keep one for yourself, and then pass the other four on to people you know, with the instructions that they should also buy copies and hand them out.

Spread the disease, fuckwipes. Doktor Bedlam is done talking for now.

Next up, I link you to an uppity bitch I know. She’ll be discussing gender politics and all sorts of other shit, which should hold your attention longer than the thirty seconds it usually takes you to get off and then fall asleep.

But back on topic, the LHC goes off in approximately an hour.

Be watching.

FOR SCIENCE.

Doktor B.

PS. The next entry will involve Synaptic Viruses (I want to call them Virii, but that is not quite correct English. Fuck you linguistics!), Neural Meme Guns, and if you’re lucky, I’ll finish that fucking definition of Electro/Teslapunk so that you meatbags know what I’m talking about

Viralpunk. An offshoot of Biopunk in which we viral-based knowledge sharing. Education through tailored diseases

Cough on someone, and transmit every memory you’ve had to them.

Think on the possibilities. How well do you know your girlfriend? How well would you like to know her?

Just remember; I’ve known your girlfriend in ways that you can only dream of. Biblical Ways.

Edit: Genetic Engineering involves viral transmissions. This one is firmly in biopunk territory. But it’s a specific form of such.

Also, Viral marketing.

End Edit.

Now, discuss.

Doktor B.

But I digress; these days I prefer to wear a different set of gloves. You can call me Doktor Bedlam. And unlike certain other gentlemen, with names like Steel and Horrible, I am not mad. I am in fact rather calm, if you discount my burning love for genitalia. And the burning in my genitalia when I must urinate.

But that’s all beside the point. The point is, I am Doktor Bedlam, and I am here to introduce you children to the wide world of Biopunk, steampunk, cyberpunk, and electropunk (which is also deemed Teslapunk after everyone’s favourite little Serbian-American crackpot).

I am also going to rant at you about all manner of things, from table etiquette and how to devise a doomsday device that actually works, to how you should be living your lives in worship of myself, and my lovely assistant, Miss Twist.

That is what you can expect from these sporadic writings. Now bugger off, and find something useful to do, peons.