SF Question.

Many years ago I read a short story that I would love to be able to identify. I don't remember the title, or the author. The story takes place as a dialogue (perhaps an interview?) between a normal man and a member of homo superior. The homo superior explains that while he's faster and stronger and smarter than the average human, his kind is outnumbered milllions to one and would, in the long run, have no hope of surviving the normal xenophobic reactions of homo sapiens, if it wasn't for an additional gift. Somehow, they go unnoticed, no matter what they do. The only reason he's willing to reveal all of this to the interviewer is that he knows it will be forgotten in a very short time.

Of course, that means that his kind leave very lonely lives, since their power also works on each other, so they don't even notice when they meet another of their kind.

During the story, the world series is playing on TV, and its slowly made obvious that the star pitcher is also a homo superior, and is deliberately blowing the game, out of sheer bordom.

Ring any bells with anyone? If I had to guess, I'd say it was a Heinlein, but would just be a guess.

Um, oops?

For unexplained reasons, webigail my mail/web server spontaneously rebooted twice in just a few minutes. I decided to turn it off for a few minutes to let it cool off and make sure all capacitors were discharged, just in case. That was several hours ago, and I just noticed I hadn't ever turned it back on. Oops, sorry.

Its back up now, but I'm in no mental state to fix it if it decides it wants to be a yoyo machine. If it stays up, fine, but if it reboots again, I may just shut it off until I have a brain.

Eureka

Since I've been feeling so lousy all day, I've not done much at all except sit and watch videos. I've downloaded 75% of the 5-year run of Justice League Unlimited, which I have been following. I've also managed to get myself hooked on a new show called 'Eureka'. It sounded bad enough that I wasn't planning to watch it, but when Terry left me the first 12 episodes, I figured I'd check them out.

The premise is simple: there is a little American town called 'Eureka' on the Pacific Coast that is almost exclusively stocked with super-geniuses. The town was secretly founded by Einstein to help ensure that America would always have the world lead in science and technology. As a result, the vast majority of the town's citizens work for Global Dynamcs, a secret government contractor working on every black project imaginable.

The series revolves around the life of the Sherrif, a man of normal IQ but great investigative skills and a good knowledge of people. His job is to keep peace in the town, which can be difficult when the occasional disgruntled employee builds himself a mecha and goes on a rampage.

The show is campy and off-beat enough that I've had great fun watching it. It certainly doesn't take itself too seriously, and I love most of the characters.

Thoughts on Future Sexuality.

Thanks to my friends list I was just watching TITLER, which is, essentially, Hitler with Tits, and I had a bit of an epiphany.

I recently read Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan and thouroughly enjoyed it, but something was bothering me about it, and I just figured it out. The story takes place in the far future and humanity is now unisexual. For the most part, people don't have genitals until they are in a relationship and then they grow a matched pair so that those two individuals can have sex if they desired.

At the time I noticed that this tended to make poly relationships, orgies, promiscuity (the organs take at least a month to grow), and masturbation impossible. It seemed to me to be awfully repressive of human sexuality to go that route, but something else was bothering me, and I couldn't put a finger on it until now.

Breasts. They also eliminated all secondary sexual characteristics. You know, I don't think I'd want to live in a world without boobs. I could survive the wierd pair-bonding thing, but I insist on there being boobs. Heck, if I had been desinging the unisex world, everyone would have breasts, because why not?

Still Sick.

I spent most of the day asleep, and I've been feeling groggy and tired while I've been awake.

I've also had a splitting headache for most of the day, as well as a queasy stomache. I'm thinking I may just give up on this whole being-awake business and go to sleep soon.