Satan Ninja 198X
Forum => Discuss Anything => Topic started by: 666threesixes666 on April 20, 2014, 01:40:14 AM
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hi im paul, im a linux zombie. 8)
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Welcome to the forums, Paul.
Congratulations, as one of the first posters here, I now deem you a totally awesome dude.
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I'm Richard, a Dutch PhD student living in Glasgow (Scotland). I'm not a linux zombie..
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Hey, glad to have you here, Richard. I've got mostly Dutch ancestry myself so I can only assume you're a pretty rad dude.
Anyway, as far as introductions go, I'll simply link to the "about" page for Jessica and myself, in case anyone missed it: https://satanninja.com/about/the-creators (https://satanninja.com/about/the-creators)
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thanks the conformation email was landing in the spam and i noted only problem with the setup i seen.
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But Adam, that's boring! This is where we can reveal secret special information about ourselves, like the fact that I can bend my arms backward at the elbows and have Morton's toes.
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Rijst, what are you getting your PhD in, if you don't mind me asking?
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Molecular microbiology.
I'm investigating a small metabolic pathway (series of chemical reactions) in Streptomyces coelicolor, which is a model organism for the genus Streptomyces. They're a group of mainly soil bacteria that are best known (well, in certain circles anyway) for their production of antibiotics, immuno suppressants, anti tumor compounds, etc. There's quite a lot of research into them going on, mostly for this reason.
The organism is really cool but also a bit of a bitch to work with, for various reasons I won't bother you with unless you really want to. Anyway, I included a picture to show how pretty they are. They also smell like damp forest (in reality it's the other way around of course, this being a soil bacterium).
(http://mic.sgmjournals.org/content/150/9/F1.medium.gif)
The blue droplets (and very intense blue colour in the background) are a pigment they excrete. They consist of a class of compounds that can be antibiotics, but this one is rather weak. You'd have to take so much of it you'll be mistaken for a smurf. The colour is useful though, because you can keep track of its production very easily when trying out different growth conditions or when you mess with its genome or something.
I hope that wasn't too technical.. ::)
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Man, and here I sit, writing a dumb-ass comic...
But seriously, that's awesome and the picture is much appreciated.
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Dumb-ass comic? It's the best I've come across so far.
Look at it this way, this comic will be read by loads of people while I toil and struggle to write a thesis that, at most, 5 people will read.
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Aw, man, that's an awesome complement. Thanks! I can honestly say you're my favorite European that's not a celebrity.
How did you discover our comic, anyway?
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Cheers, I'm not many people's favourite European that's not a celebrity.
Maddox tweeted about you guys a while ago. I like his writing and he doesn't do spam so I figured it's worth a look. Turns out he was right.
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Ah, good ol' Maddox. Jessica did some minor art stuff for him a couple years ago and he asked her to show him the comic when it was ready. That was very cool of him to tweet it like he did.
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Molecular microbiology.
I'm investigating a small metabolic pathway (series of chemical reactions) in Streptomyces coelicolor, which is a model organism for the genus Streptomyces. They're a group of mainly soil bacteria that are best known (well, in certain circles anyway) for their production of antibiotics, immuno suppressants, anti tumor compounds, etc. There's quite a lot of research into them going on, mostly for this reason.
The organism is really cool but also a bit of a bitch to work with, for various reasons I won't bother you with unless you really want to. Anyway, I included a picture to show how pretty they are. They also smell like damp forest (in reality it's the other way around of course, this being a soil bacterium).
The blue droplets (and very intense blue colour in the background) are a pigment they excrete. They consist of a class of compounds that can be antibiotics, but this one is rather weak. You'd have to take so much of it you'll be mistaken for a smurf. The colour is useful though, because you can keep track of its production very easily when trying out different growth conditions or when you mess with its genome or something.
I hope that wasn't too technical.. ::)
That's so cool! Hah, I'm so going to think of that picture next time I'm in a damp forest. I'm curious to know what you've discovered about it, and what brought your studies to those specific little guys in the dirt.
Heh, I'm a bit of a Wikipedia addict. There's barely anything on Wikipedia about your pet there (but you could change that!), though I did end up reading a little about its genus. Right before you posted your response to me, I had been trying to learn more about different types of single-celled organisms, so that was kind of a coincidence. Before that, I had been reading about arachnids and was directed to gregarines, which are parasitic to harvestmen (daddy longlegs), and that's what initially sparked my curiosity.
Many (maybe even most) of the articles I like to read are biology related. That's not to say I understand all of it. The other day, an analogy popped into my head: my enjoyment of those articles could be sort of like one of those cats that enjoy television, hah. Hopefully I'm learning a bit more than a cat would. I love reading that stuff and getting my imagination going about prehistoric life, learning how different groups are related, and becoming more aware of the organisms and processes that exist in and around us at all times. Mind-blowing stuff that makes me feel giant and tiny at the same time.
Man, and here I sit, writing a dumb-ass comic...
But seriously, that's awesome and the picture is much appreciated.
Dumb-ass comic? It's the best I've come across so far.
Look at it this way, this comic will be read by loads of people while I toil and struggle to write a thesis that, at most, 5 people will read.
Thank you for the huge complement! I do find myself wondering if I should have gone into a more important field that involved more learning. Being sort of a shallow cartoonist and a security guard doesn't feel too impactful, but I at least have the freedom to exercise my imagination, and having sweet fans makes cartooning feel way more worthwhile. I also get the feeling that picking one field of science as a career might make me feel stuck. Right now, I'm free to learn in whatever arbitrary direction my fickle curiosity takes me, though such unstructured learning makes for a really weird, random collection of knowledge full of holes in even the most basic concepts. I admire people who study our world for a living, and make it a healthier, easier, and cooler place to live in the process.
Cheers, I'm not many people's favourite European that's not a celebrity.
Maddox tweeted about you guys a while ago. I like his writing and he doesn't do spam so I figured it's worth a look. Turns out he was right.
Oh man! That's awesome! Maddox is super great. Have you listened to his podcast? http://thebiggestproblemintheuniverse.com/ I don't think I'd ever really listened to a podcast before. I just started his this week and listened to every episode in two or three days as I was drawing the comic. Now I'm sad that I have to wait to hear more. Heh, even though it updates once a week with soo much more time's worth of content than our comic does. Unless you spend hours staring at each of our pages, which I guess I'd be cool with.
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I haven't discovered much really, I'm a bit disappointed at the insight:effort ratio. I spent three years researching two genes and the best I can honestly come up with at the moment is "I don't know what their function is but it is likely that they have one", which won't make it to wikipedia I'm afraid haha!
Model organisms such as this one are used because a lot is known about them, which makes interpreting findings easier because you know more about their context. The question is then, can these findings be generalised to related organisms? They often can, more or less, but there are always exceptions. I picked this project because I liked the description and I had worked with this bug during my master's degree. The job I'm applying for at the moment is with a different bacterium though, hopefully easier to work with (no more waiting 3 days before they've grown to a useful density).
I've never heard of Gregarines, their name implies they're friendly but most parasites aren't. Theories on evolution of the earliest life are positively exciting. Some parts of a cell are so 'ancient' that they are virtually the same among all branches of life. Did you know there's about 50% similarity between your genes and a tree's? Bacteria are much more diverse because they evolve so much faster (with a new generation a few times a day). The soil is a sort of battle ground where different bacteria, fungi and other micro organisms are involved in an arms race and constantly try to eat, poison or simply outcompete each other. Quite amazing to realise all of this is going on all around you when you walk around or even on and inside your body (skin, gut and mouth are full of them).
I hope I haven't put anyone off a meal or something, it's really not as gross as it sounds and human bodies are pretty good at keeping them out or dealing with them if that fails.
Importance is all relative really, I don't feel my work has any direct impact on anything at the moment and it may never have. Art and culture impact people's lives just as much and there's no telling what will happen or who will be influenced into doing something amazing by your work.
I haven't heard his podcasts yet, but I think I should. However I keep telling myself that I'll have plenty of time for that when I finish writing, which should be happening soon I hope. Are they good? (I guess they are if you just spent 3 days listening to all of them)
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I'm Raechel. I'm also not a linux zombie, but have enjoyed many hours watching Paul fixing his computer instead of using it. ;p
I know Adam and Jesscia via the Web Dude and am a nerd of many flavors.
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Hi my name is Rick and I don't know anything about Moleculor Biology. I like your Comic though. I've tried reading Comics before but they didn't have all this crazy stuff about Boobs and Sex and satan in them so I just didn't like them. And no I am not into satanism or anything. And it's alright if you are though. To each his/her own, am I right? I actually like buddhism and shinto myself. Maybe you should include some stuff about shintism in your Comic since it's about Ninjas and they come from Japan where many hints of shintism. A lot of people aren't as Open Minded as me and might be offended by satanism. Just sayin!!!
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People who're offended by Satanism but insist on reading a comic called "Satan Ninja 198X" should press Ctrl+F4, as it will automatically remove all references to Satan from their screen. 8)
Welcome guys! Or welcome back if you just tried that key combination..
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People who're offended by Satanism but insist on reading a comic called "Satan Ninja 198X" should press Ctrl+F4, as it will automatically remove all references to Satan from their screen. 8)
Welcome guys! Or welcome back if you just tried that key combination..
We realized that naming the comic Satan Ninja 198X would be off-putting to a lot of people. But the name amuses us too much not to use.
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I agree that the 198X bit is slightly weird.. ;)
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It seriously does lead to some awkward situations. Especially because our home city of Grand Rapids is notably Christian (we hold some kind of record for the number of churches per square mile in the US).
For instance, last time I went to get my teeth cleaned at the dentist, the, uh, dental assistant lady was making small talk with me. She knows I'm a writer, so she asked what my latest project is.
"I'm writing a comic that my girlfriend draws."
"Oh, how nice! What's it called?"
"Uh, Satan Ninja 198X."
"What was that?"
"Satan Ninja. 198X."
"Oh ... Okay."
Yeah, it tends to be awkward.
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Yeah that's pretty awkward. By the way, do you pronounce it "nineteen eighty-X" or "1-9-8-X"?
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It's pronounced "nineteen-eighty-X" or "nahyn-teen-ey-tee-eks" if we wanna get really phonetic about it.
And on that note, how the hell do you pronounce Rijst? Is the "ij" that funky Dutch letter that we don't have an equivalent of in English? My ancestral Dutch surname ends in that "ij," which is the only reason I know about it.
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I guess the closest would be the way "i" is pronounced in "idol". There's no direct equivalent in pronounciation but this is pretty close.
The word rijst means rice by the way, and for some reason became my nickname about 12 years ago. Most of my friends (the Dutch ones anyway) call me this.
You think "ij" is funky? Try the "eu" in my surname, there's a sound that doesn't exist in English and my name hasn't ever been pronounced correctly here in Glasgow. I've given up on correcting people as they generally don't even hear the difference.. 8)
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Ah, Jessica actually looked up your name awhile ago and told me it was the Dutch word for rice, but I totally forgot.
My ancestral Dutch surname ended with "naaij" but when it was "Americanized" they changed the end to "nay." Apparently, something like "nye" would've been more accurate.
Yeah, it's strange how we can't really hear distinctions in certain sounds when it's not part of our cultural vocal lexicon.
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So Dravian is just a pseudonym then? Or is the Dutch ancestry through the maternal line?
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Dravian is a pseudonym. At least for now.
Here's the story behind it.
When I was in my late teens, I started singing for a horror rock band (think The Misfits). My dad asked me not to use my family name in the band, since my extended family are very Christian, with pastors and Christian authors in their ranks, and my band was vulgar and had some mild satanic themes and such. So for a very brief time I simply used my last initial, making me Adam D.
Then I dyed my hair a kind of blue-black and a couple of my friends jokingly called me "Raven." I decided to tack that on to the end of my last initial, making me Adam Draven. I went by that for a few years, but people kept assuming I took the name from The Crow. Also, some wrestler or something started calling himself Adam Draven, so I altered my fake surname to Dravean.
Shortly before we launched the comic, I decided to alter the spelling to Dravian so that it would be more obvious how it was pronounced.
I'm thinking Dravian is the last stage of its evolution, so I'll probably make it my legal name at some point.
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So you've reached your ultimate form, so to speak.
I wouldn't pronounce Dravean any different, but Dravian does look more like an existing name. Is Safron a peusonym too?
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Most people pronounced Dravean the way I intended, but every once in awhile, someone would say something like "druh-veen." Or they'd avoid saying it altogether because they weren't sure. Also, the "ea" combo kind of gives the impression of a trying to be exotic or fantastical with the spelling. My previous girlfriend is the one who favored "ea" over "ia." Like you said, I think the "ia" spelling makes it seem a little less like a totally fake name.
I'll let Jessica speak for herself. That is, if she can ever pull herself away from drawing for long enough to post on here.
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I'll let Jessica speak for herself. That is, if she can ever pull herself away from drawing for long enough to post on here.
Haha it's quite clear that you do all the writing and she's drawing all the time..
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I'll let Jessica speak for herself. That is, if she can ever pull herself away from drawing for long enough to post on here.
Haha it's quite clear that you do all the writing and she's drawing all the time..
Hah, yeah, kind of. Don't get me wrong, I looove writing, but I'm notoriously awful when it comes to written correspondence because I take forever to write. I have a tendency to overthink everything I say, mulling over exactly how to word everything, which is actually fun for me, but it gets so time consuming that I end up putting off responses until I feel like I have enough time to spare, which is often kind of a long time.
I've actually been wanting to write blog posts for the site, and I still plan to at some point. I do have some of my writing sprinkled throughout the comic itself, so Adam doesn't do all the writing. I can be really slow and meticulous when it comes to drawing, too, and doing SN8X (I don't think I've ever referred to it as that before; wonder if that'll stick) has made me noticeably faster, and my art speed has steadily been increasing.
In reference to your post on July 26:
Man, seems like it would be so frustrating to put all that work into your studies with such little yield. It's frustrating enough for me trying to scour the Internet for answers to frivolous science questions and coming up with really vague answers, on a platform full of information compiled by people who have done all the real work. "What the hell, scientists? Hurry up and figure out what bats evolved from for me." I hope there are a lot of other sources of satisfaction for you along the way, if findings are so rare. But yeah, at least you have some context and aren't just stabbing around in the dark.
I didn't know about the tree thing, or at least forgot that factoid. That's crazy, or at least sounds crazy, having no idea what those genes govern. Adam and I just watched a He-Man episode last night where He-Man and Tila had to murder the oldest tree in Eternia and give him to a dragon as a present in order to rescue Man at Arms. He-Man almost did it, but decided it was too fucked up. I think the lesson of the episode was that trees have a right to life. He-Man probably knew the factoid. God, He-Man, you're so fucking wise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQs0G8MgkhQ
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Maybe when your art speed reaches a certain level, you'll be able to save time by posting sketches instead of meticulously-planned written responses!
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So you've reached your ultimate form, so to speak.
I wouldn't pronounce Dravean any different, but Dravian does look more like an existing name. Is Safron a peusonym too?
Safron is a pseudo-pseudonym. It's my middle name. My father's father's mother's birth name was Safronski or Szafranski or Safronowski, or something like that. I've been meaning to ask my grandpa about that, because I've been interested in genealogy lately. Anyway, either she or her parents legally shortened it to Safron. My parents thought it was neat and made it my middle name. I also think it's neat and made it my professional name, except I still need to get a DBA.
You think "ij" is funky? Try the "eu" in my surname, there's a sound that doesn't exist in English and my name hasn't ever been pronounced correctly here in Glasgow. I've given up on correcting people as they generally don't even hear the difference.. 8)
My father's mother's mother's maiden name was Van Deusen. That name entered the US from the Netherlands in the 1600s, before the US was the US. I think my family has genealogical records dating back to at least the 1300s on that lineage. It looks like the name used to be Van Deursen, and before that, Van Doorsen and Van Doersen. I've always heard Van Deusen pronounced væn'duzɛn, with the "deu" sounding like the "doo" in doodle. My mother's mother's mother's maiden name was Van Husen, and I wonder if that name had ever been spelled with an eu.
Looking at the Wikipedia article on Dutch orthography, eu would be pronounced like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_front_rounded_vowel Sooo... it's like a rounded /e/ sound, I guess? Also, you and Google Translate told me the same pronunciation for rijst, but now that I'm looking at this article, WP says ij would be pronounced ɛi or ə, making rijst rhyme with taste, or rhyme with the "dust" in industry. What's the deal?
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Maybe when your art speed reaches a certain level, you'll be able to save time by posting sketches instead of meticulously-planned written responses!
Yes, hah, I'd love to do that.
...Holy cow, I've spent way too long writing these responses today. Sooo much more wordy information than anyone ever needed to hear. I need to get back to drawing!!
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Safron is a pseudo-pseudonym. It's my middle name. My father's father's mother's birth name was Safronski or Szafranski or Safronowski, or something like that. I've been meaning to ask my grandpa about that, because I've been interested in genealogy lately. Anyway, either she or her parents legally shortened it to Safron. My parents thought it was neat and made it my middle name. I also think it's neat and made it my professional name, except I still need to get a DBA.
Cool! I don't really know about my geneaology to be honest, and I don't know what a DBA is either.. ;)
My father's mother's mother's maiden name was Van Deusen. That name entered the US from the Netherlands in the 1600s, before the US was the US. I think my family has genealogical records dating back to at least the 1300s on that lineage. It looks like the name used to be Van Deursen, and before that, Van Doorsen and Van Doersen. I've always heard Van Deusen pronounced væn'duzɛn, with the "deu" sounding like the "doo" in doodle. My mother's mother's mother's maiden name was Van Husen, and I wonder if that name had ever been spelled with an eu.
Looking at the Wikipedia article on Dutch orthography, eu would be pronounced like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_front_rounded_vowel Sooo... it's like a rounded /e/ sound, I guess? Also, you and Google Translate told me the same pronunciation for rijst, but now that I'm looking at this article, WP says ij would be pronounced ɛi or ə, making rijst rhyme with taste, or rhyme with the "dust" in industry. What's the deal?
Ugh that wikipedia one is way too nasal, perhaps that's how Scandinavians pronounce it.. :p
ij would be pronounced more like ei in feisty, but make the sound further to the front of the mouth. For the r you should roll your tongue the way Scottish people do it.
To pronounce eu, try saying a while mildly pouting your lips (duck face). That results in the right sound with me, more or less. It's kinda hard to explain like this really, in this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJdNN4ThwXk) somebody is pronouncing a collection of Dutch words with different vowel combinations. Amazing what people spend their time on isn't it? ij is covered from 5:40 onwards and eu comes right after that.
Most of the stuff you have in common with trees is pretty standard and essential to all life; genes encoding enzymes of intracellular chemistry (central carbon metabolism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolism), biosynthesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosynthesis)), DNA copying and maintenance mechanisms, structural proteins, etc. It's not exactly the same but very similar, like a book written in different dialects of the same language would be very similar (but with addition and omissions, no analogy is ever complete). After all, there are only so many ways of converting sugar A into sugar B that make sense. Many of the 'older systems' have been more or less optimised during evolution, 'older' meaning the time when animals and plants started diverging, or vertebrates from invertebrates, which is quite a while ago.
The fun thing about nature is that everything is always trying to eat other things or prevent being eaten by them, including humans and He-Man. Basically, everyone has to fight for their right to party.. 8)