@cstross

The #arque from Keio University has had a lot of coverage since 2019. But none of it appears to address a fundamental (sic!) point that I was first caused to think about when reading Jack L. Chalker's Well Of Souls series, where a character's body being altered to have a tail by a sadistic slaver is a plot point.

There's not a single picture, nor a single mention, in the gushing coverage that I have seen, of a wearer sitting down.

It's a really basic aspect of the whole thing, and is totally ignored; which (alongside the 6 years that have passed since) tells us all that we need to know about how blinkered the engineering that went into this is and how uncritical the journalists regurgitating the press releases have been.

Most things of this kind that have reached real medical use have had a fair amount of thought put into how the user eats, sleeps, sits, dresses, goes to the toilet, and suchlike.

@MissConstrue
#tails #SciFi #WellOfSouls #JackLChalker #KeioUniversity