Love is a wife who enjoys a marathon session of Wild Wild West with her husband!
Guin twisted her head around.
Although 200 marsyears had passed since she had lived on Earth, Guin still remembered what it felt like to walk the surface of Earth without an environmental protection suit on.
She had briefly worked with HAZMAT teams one summer, helping to eradicate a deadly trend amongst Earthlings of starting their own home laboratories to cook addictive substances such as meth. An unhealthy obsession with a momentary high. A synonym maker’s dream:
20/20 (“Clear Vision” Hawaii)
222 (Chicago)
417 (SW Missouri because of meth capital)
Agua
Albino Poo
Alffy
All Tweakend Long
Anny
Anything Going On
the attenborough (London; 11/29/07)
Artie (as in i, Boise, ID 7/30/09)
Bache Knock
Bache Rock
Bag Chasers
Baggers
Barney Dope
Batak (Philippine Street Name)
Bato
Bato-(Philippine Street Name)
Batu Kilat (Malaysia, it means shining rocks)
Batu or Batunas (Hawaii)
Batuwhore
Beegokes
Bianca
Bikerdope
Billy, Or Whizz,
(Britain – cartoon character called Billy Whizz who seemed to be always on the stuff!)
Bitch
Biznack
Blanco
Bling (LA, CA 8/12/09)
Blizzard
Blue Acid
Blue Funk, (Southwest Area of SD Ca.)
Bomb
Booger
Boorit-Cebuano (Filipino Street Name)
Boo-Yah! (Southwest Area of SD Ca.)
Bottles (Used in New Zealand 7/31/07)
Brian Ed
Buff Stick
Bugger Sugar
Buggs
Bumps
Buzzard Dust
Caca
Candy
Cankinstien
CC
Chach
ChaChaCha
Chalk
Chalk Dust
Chank
Cheebah
Cheese
Chicken Flippin
Chikin or Chicken
Chingadera
Chittle
Chizel
Chiznad
Choad
Chunkylove (Missouri)
Clavo
Clean out the chimney (Used in New Zealand 7/31/07)
Coco
Coffee
Cookies
Cotton Candy (LA area)
CR (California Central Valley)
Crack Whore
Crank Is “Walk” & Coke Is “Talk.”
Crankster Gansters
Creek Rock (Sand Mountain, AL)
Cri,Cri (Mexican Border in Southwest Arizona)
Criddle
Cringe
Critty
Crizzy
Crothch Dope
Crow
Crunk
Crypto
Crysnax (LA area)
Crystal Meth
Crystalight
Cube
Debbie, Tina, And Crissy
Desoxyn (drug name for meth at the pharmacy)
Devil Dust
Devils Dandruff
Devils Drug
Dingles
Dirt
Dirty
Dizzy D
Dizzle (Missouri)
Dizzo (Missouri)
D-Monic Or D
Do Da
Doody
Doo-My-Lau (H.B.)
Dope
Drano
Dummy Dust
Dunk (LA, CA)
Dyno
Epimethrine
Epod
Eraser Dust
Ethyl-M
Evil Yellow
Fatch (Mexican Border In The Southwest Arizona Area)
Fedrin
Fil-Layed
Fire
Fizz Wizz
G (short for Glass or Go-fast)
G-unit (Los Angeles, CA 8/12/09)
Gab
Gackle-a Fackle-a
Gagger (So. Calif.)
Gak
Gas
Gear Or Get Geared Up
Gemini
George as in george glass from the Brady Bunch movie (CA 8/17/09)
Gina or “I want to talk to Gina tonight” (Calif; 11/18/07)
Glass
Go
Go Fast
Go-ey
Go-Go
Go-Go Juice
Gonzales (Like the cartoon “Speedy”)
Goop
Got Anything
Grit
Gumption
Gyp
Hawaiian Salt
Hank
High Speed Chicken Feed
High Riders (Used in New Zealand 7/31/07)
Highthen
Hillbilly Crack
Hippy Crack
Holy Smoke (Hong Kong)
Homework (This is because homework is generally done on paper which had lines)
Honk the BoBo (Southern MD)
Hoo
Horse Mumpy (Tampa, Florida)
Hydro
Hypes
Ibski
Ice
Ice Cream
Icee
Ish
Izice
Jab
Jasmine
Jenny Crank Program, (jenny crank diet) (Seattle, WA 11/4/07)
Jetfuel
Jib
Jib Nugget
Jibb Tech Warrier
Jinga
Juddha
Juice
Junk (San Diego)
Kibble
Killer
KooLAID
Kryptonite
Lamer
Laundry Detergent
Lemon Drop
Life
Lily
Linda
Livin the Dream (Alberta Canada)
Lost Weekend (Bay Area SF)
Love
Low
Lucille
M Man
Magic
Meth
Meth Monsters
Methaine
Methandfriend
Methandfriendsofmine
Methanfelony
Methatrim
Methmood
Method
Moon Juice (Missouri)
Motivation in a bag (Cleveland or Columbus, Ohio; (11/19/07)
Nazi Dope
Ned
Newday
Night Train (11/7/07)
No Doze
Nose Candy
On A Good One
(New Zealand)’place where meth is made is a “P lab”
Patsie
Peaking
Peanut Butter
Peel Dope
Phazers
Phets
Philopon (East Asia)
Pieta
Pink
Poison
Pookie (LA area)
Poop
Poop’d Out
Poor Man’s Cocaine (Philippines)
Pootananny
Powder
Powder Monkeys
Powder Point
Project Propellant
Puddle
Pump (Bay Area SF)
Quarter Tee Bag
Quartz (8/4/09)
Q’d
Quick (Canada)
Quill
Rachet Jaw
Rails
Rails
Rank
Redneck Heroin (Atlanta)
Richie Rich
Rip
Rock
Rock
Rocket Fuel
Rocky Mountain High
Rosebud
Rudy’s
Rumdumb
Running Pizo
Sack
Sam’s Sniff
Sarahs
Satan Dust
Scante (Hispanic Population in Southern California)
Scap
Schlep Rock
Scooby Snax
Scud
Scwadge
Shab
Sha-Bang
Shabs (San Francisco)
Shabu
Shamers
Shards
Shit
Shia (Missouri)
Shiznack, Shiznac, Sciznac or Shiznastica
Shiznittlebang
Shiznit
Shiznitty
Shizzo
Shnizzie Snort
Shwack
Skeech
Sketch
Ski
Skitz
Sky Rocks
Sliggers
smack
Smiley Smile
Smurf Dope
Smzl
Snaps
Sniff
Snow, Motivation (Colorado Springs, CO)
Space Food
Spaceman
Spagack
Sparacked
Sparked
Sparkle
Speed Racer
Spin, Spin, Spin
Spinack
Spindarella
Spinney Boo
Spinning
Spishak
Spook
Sprack
Sprizzlefracked
Sprung (Mississippi)
Spun Ducky Woo
Squawk
Stallar
Sto-Pid
Styels
Sugar
Suger
Sweetness
Swerve
Syabu (pronounced “shabu” – SE Asia)
Ta’doww (Southwest Area of SD Ca.)
Talkie
Tasmanian Devil
Tenner
The New Prozac
The White House
Tical
TIK (1/27/08 – South Africa)
T. D. – for – Tink Dust (as in: ”Tinkerbell”, from Disney)
Talkie
Time (Atlanta, GA)
Tina Or Teena
Tish – Shit Backwards (C.V. Calif. area)
Tobats
Toots
Torqued
Trippin Trip
Truck Stop Special
Tubbytoast
Tutu (Hawaii)
Twack
Twacked Out
Tweak
Tweedle Doo
Tweek (A Methamphetamine-Like Substance)
Tweezwasabi
Twistaflexin
Twiz
Twizacked
Ugly Dust
Vanilla Pheromones
Wake
Way
We We We
Whacked
White Bitch
White Ink
White Junk
White Lady
White Pony (Ridin’ the White Pony)
White
Whip (Western Australia 2/3/09)
Who-Ha
Work: I think that came about from it being my dealers “work” (1/22/08 Arlington, TX)
Wigg
Xaing
Yaaba (Thailand)
Yammer Bammer
Yank
Yankee
Yay
Yead Out
Yellow Barn
Zingin
Zip
Zoiks
Zoom
Freedom to choose is not always about making choices to enhance one’s longevity.
Guin leaned her head against the back of her helmet.
The circulation fans in her suit, linked with sensors on the outside of the suit, simulated Martian winds blowing across her skin and through her hair.
She felt the dry, gritty Martian air on her neck and smiled.
Memories of an early summer day in north Alabama sprang to the forefront of her thoughts.
She had tagged along with a drug enforcement task group as an advisor, her expertise on that particular day a tangential twist on her knowledge of rocket propulsion.
A lab hidden on the local Army base, assigned to explore alternative uses of popular street drugs, wanted access to unusual combinations, hoping to find the one mix of ingredients that could be used on another planet without cause or concern for breaking social rules or violating local laws.
The lab scientists concluded long ago that illicit laboratories were often the most innovative, their access to raw materials limited not by annual government funding but by the implied value of their product, value derived by addicts who often died as willing guinea pigs, a feat no military, government or commercial lab was overtly willing to take.
Guin’s mission was to ascertain the controlled explosive capabilities of the booby traps set up around labs in the backwood lairs of Appalachian moonshiner descendants, trained in ancient techniques and modern warfare to protect their territory against invaders both foreign and domestic.
She, too, wanted to find the perfect propellant.
However, she did not know why.
The company she worked for had only recently hired her and, like all new employees, put her through a trial period to test her willingness to do whatever it took to get the job done and to keep her eyes and ears shut while on joint assignment with other companies and unnamed tactical government agencies.
The HAZMAT suit she wore that day was nowhere near as sophisticated as her current suit on Mars.
Yes, it had a communications system and a rudimentary heating/cooling unit but it easily ripped on sharp objects and did not keep track of her vital signs; its external sensors added up to the detection of a few hazardous chemicals and that was it. Otherwise, she and the team relied on portable gear to deal with expected hazardous situations, which often led to mistakes in the field such as when what they thought was a harmless 55-gallon drum of wax turned out to be a temperature-based state-change toxic fume bomb.
Guin wandered across the short Martian field, kicking up dust and sending small pebbles arching in a path in front of her.
She knew she was supposed to leave this area off-limits but had forgotten why, turning off her connection to the ISSA Net to let her thoughts meander without making meaningful connections for other Nodes on this planet and elsewhere in the Inner Solar System.
However, her telescopic vision locked on to one of the pebbles she’d kicked.
Its shape was unnatural.
This far out from the colony, the chance of a mechanical part falling off a lander and bouncing out here was next to zero.
But it was not zero.
Guin picked up the donut-shaped “pebble” and turned it over.
The visual chemical signature on the surface of the rock returned her to the memory of the HAZMAT team’s discovery.
“We are not alone.”
It wasn’t just that the meth lab cookery they found was way too complicated for the average unemployed lab tech to assemble from parts acquired on the old Internet.
None of the equipment had ever existed before.
All of this found in three mobile homes pushed together, a few rusted pieces of metal siding welded over the rooftops to give the appearance of a “triple wide,” ratty pink fiberglass insulation dangling between precariously-stacked cinder blocks in the crawlspace underneath, but the insides of the mobile homes were cleanly gutted and replaced with unearthly contraptions.
Guin squeezed the Martian donut in her hand. It did not crumble like the other pieces of sandstone under her boots.
Guin had wanted to take a few samples with her from the meth lab but was removed from the building along with everyone else but a few guards.
She was driven back to her office and debriefed about what she saw.
Instructed never to say anything or write a single word about that day, Guin had nearly forgotten about it. She wondered if she should reconnect to the ISSA Net and search for clues about that day but she chose not even to inform the secure Nodes on the ISSA Net what she was thinking about.
Guin had long ago accepted that she only knew what she knew and might never know everything she wanted to learn about.
But she was going to keep filling in the gaps.
That last shipment that was delivered to the colony was designated for this area.
Had she wandered here accidentally or on purpose?
Who had determined that the shipment should be set up here?
What was in the shipment?
Did those who packed the shipment know she was in the area and, if so, did they realize she had been in the party that came upon what first looked like a den of squalor on Brindlee Mountain only to discover the greatest mystery in the second decade of the 21st century?
She was going to find out!
Thx to Jenny, Richard and kitchen at Panera; clerks and security guards in Madison County Courthouse; smiling faces at Petsmart.
The U.S. military announced the results of the first exoskeleton-assisted intermilitary football tournament.
By the close score of 17-16, the U.S. Army triumphed over the U.S. Navy in the championship game. The U.S. Coast Guard took third place while the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force wanted a rematch to determine fourth place.
Several of the players, some missing limbs, some paraplegic and even one quadriplegic, were honoured at the end of the tournament for their prowess and athletic skill, demonstrating their cybernetic skills acquired through many long hours of tough training.
Meanwhile, the CIA, FBI and other members of the intelligence community announced their own version of the games.
Police, fire and rescue units around the country have expressed interest in hosting the next tournament, requesting a few slots for their “best of the best” to compete.
by Tarun Wadhwa
A small team at NASA’s Ames Research Center has set out to “boldly grow where no man has grown before” – and they’re doing it with the help of thousands of children, a robot, and a few specially customized GoPro cameras.
In 2015, NASA will attempt to make history by growing plants on the Moon. If they are successful, it will be the first time humans have ever brought life to another planetary body. Along the way, they will make groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of biology, agriculture, and life on other worlds. And though they may fail, the way they are going about their mission presents a fascinating case study of an innovative model for public-private collaboration that may very well change space entrepreneurship.
The Lunar Plant Growth Habitat team, a group NASA scientists, contractors, students and volunteers, is finally bringing to life an idea that has been discussed and debated for decades. They will try to grow arabidopsis, basil, sunflowers, and turnips in coffee-can-sized aluminum cylinders that will serve as plant habitats. But these are no ordinary containers – they’re packed to the brim with cameras, sensors, and electronics that will allow the team to receive image broadcasts of the plants as they grow. These habitats will have to be able to successfully regulate their own temperature, water intake, and power supply in order to brave the harsh lunar climate.
However, it won’t just be NASA scientists who are watching the results closely – the success of this experiment will require the assistance of schools and citizen scientists.
In a brilliant mix of creativity and frugality, NASA will send schools their own set of habitats so they can grow the same plants that are being sent to the Moon. The reasons for this are two fold. First, every experiment needs a control, and instead of spending the money to duplicate the experiment multiple times, they can crowdsource it. By collecting the data from thousands of experiments, they can gain valuable insights in an entirely new way. Second, it allows children to be part of the moment – to not just watch from afar, but to gain experience and knowledge by actively participating.
It is quite unusual to hear of a significant NASA project that is so simple, small-scale, and low-cost. Thanks to the rapid advances in consumer electronics over the last few years, parts that would have once cost millions of dollars now cost just hundreds. But what really made this project feasible was an unexpected opportunity: the Google Lunar X Prize , the search giant’s twenty-million-dollar incentive prize for a private company to launch a robotic spacecraft that lands on the moon, travels across the surface, and transmits back two “Mooncasts” by December 31, 2015. Multiple teams are competing – and whoever ends up winning will likely fly with this special payload on board.
With this model NASA doesn’t have to spend tens of millions of dollars or wait years for the next mission to the Moon. According to Dr. Chris McKay, a well-renowned planetary scientist, this project would have cost $300 million two decades ago – now, NASA can build and launch it for under $2 million. It serves as a win for both NASA and private space industry. Dr. McKay compared it to the early days of airplanes and airmail, “Just like we buy tickets on commercial airlines, why shouldn’t we buy space on commercial flights?” Without this opportunity, it’s uncertain this project would have ever gotten off the ground – and that would have meant a major missed opportunity not only for future astronauts, but also for people here on Earth as well.
Individuals pictured include Lunar Plant Growth Habitat team members and NASA’s Ames Research Center top management: Dr. Harry Partridge, Emmett Quigley, Dr. Chris Mckay, Dr. Jacob Cohen, Hemil Modi, Dr. Robert Bowman, Dr. Pete Worden, Arwen Dave, Falguni Suthar, Nargis Adham, Sangeeta Sankar ( Photo credit: Hemil Modi) To Dr. McKay, this is “step one in the quest to develop biological based life support systems on other worlds;” or, to put it another way, “this is the Neil Armstrong of the plant world.” The conditions of the moon are more characteristic of deep space than anywhere else we can access and quite different than growing plants on a space shuttle or space station. This experiment will test whether plants can survive radiation, flourish in partial gravity, and thrive in a small, controlled environment – the same obstacles that we will need to overcome in order to build a greenhouse on the Moon, or create life on Mars.
We may also learn a great deal about how to grow food in inhospitable climates here on our own planet. Dr. Robert Bowman, the team’s chief biologist, described how plants constantly have to cope with harsh environments and threats: “Simply knowing how plants deal with stress on the moon can really tell us a lot about how they deal with stress right here on Earth.” We know how plants are affected by conditions like drought – by exposing them to entirely new factors, we can advance our understanding of how they function.
Even if the seeds fail to germinate on the Moon, the fact that NASA is taking targeted risks without incurring significant costs could change business-as-usual for the once-legendary institution. Like most bureaucracies NASA has become quite risk averse and sensitive to perceptions of failure. But with commercial partnerships, they can experience a flop without necessarily having it make national headlines – they don’t have to put their entire reputation on the line every single time.
It may not be too long before space exploration missions are conducted more like technology startups and less like government programs. Dr. McKay sees a world of possibilities emerging from this democratization: “I see much better, more innovative experiments. When your experiment costs 300 million dollars, and you do one a decade, you can’t take any risks. You’ve got to be very conservative in what you do. But if your experiment is a million dollars and being done by grad students, you can do crazy and brilliant things.”
Whenever we do spread life beyond our own planet, it will fundamentally change our cultural perception of what is possible. As Dr. Pete Worden, Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, explained excitedly, “The first picture of a plant growing on another world – that picture will live forever. It will be as iconic as the first footprint on the moon.” Just like the Apollo missions drove an entire generation to embrace technology and science, making the final frontier more accessible will inspire us to strive for even greater accomplishments. You can reach Tarun directly at SH@tarunwadhwa.com or follow him on twitter at https://twitter.com/twadhwa.
Singularity Hub, LLC (2013-11-27). Singularity Hub, LLC. Kindle Edition.
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