1 And these all revolve around Obama.

2 Is this going to be on the test?

3 Not everyone can be self-igniting, you know. 

4 You killed that link.

5
In before the Uranus joke.

6 I am a planet.  I am I am I am!

7 Time for a good Uranus joke....

8 Blue Hen-
I thought about going for the Obama joke, but then thought, naaaah, too easy. 

9 I thought Saturn would count higher then just compromising part of a 1% remainder.

10 You said there'd be no math on this blog!

(At least it's a new thread...hooray!)

11 "We really are little tiny bits of nothing as far as the Universe is concerned." Unless your name is Barak Obama. The oceans will lower, blah, blah, blah.

12 So we have Sagan was saying "...billions and billions" regarding space and we have O'dumbass with his trillions and trillions of wasteful spending. Something is just not right.

13

 

Frost: Hey, I sure wouldn't mind getting some more of that Arcturian poontang! Remember that time?

Spunkmeyer: Yeah, Frost, but the one that you had was a male!

Frost: It doesn't matter when it's Arcturian, baby!

14 Blue Hen-
I thought about going for the Obama joke, but then thought, naaaah, too easy. 

Posted by: pep

 

I just make it look easy.

 

"Be not afraid. I go before you always"

15 Gaff: Saturn is a fair bit larger than the other remainder planets, it's just that the sun is so large in comparison.

16 Sob.   It's always me and the Kuiper Belt picked last.  Would it hurt you to throw us a bone?

17 Do you know what happens when you ride a bicycle on a different planet? I was hoping you'd know because I saw some skid marks around URANUS.

18 In before the Uranus joke. Professor Farnsworth: "Scientists changed the name of the planet in 2220 to get rid of that stupid joke once and for all!" Fry: "What it called now?" Professor Farnsworth: "Urectum!"

19 That's the best visualization I've seen. Sent it to a teacher.

20 Antares is a punk....he never could have outfought
VY Canis Majoris

21 pep, Yeah, well I don't have those scruples.

22 Are you counting me?

23 It's been raining and raining and raining ....but look, the sun....

24

We really are little tiny bits of nothing as far as the Universe is concerned.

You're mistaking size for importance.  Rosey O'Donnell isn't the best woman, just the biggest.  

25 Holy Cow! You already killed that link.  Moronlanche!

26 How many Olympic-sized swimming pools is that?

27 Jupiter exists to store the bodies of Chris Christie's enemies. The parts he doesn't eat.

28

You're mistaking size for importance.  Rosey O'Donnell isn't the best woman, just the biggest.  

Posted by: Alec Leamas

 

Uh huh. Yeah honey, that's right. Keep saying that.

29

We really are little tiny bits of nothing as far as the government Universe is concerned

There you go

30 Don't tell that to one of our dogs.  She thinks she is the center of the universe.

31 What are you kidding me? My left nut is bigger than Antares.

32 We really need a way off of this rock. I'm glad we have a well managed, efficient agency reigniting the spirit of exploration, preparing to building colonies on other worlds, and helping Muslim scientists looking for Jinns and Ghouls.

33 Obama is the Saviour of Earth? What the hell's 'Earth'?

34
Alderon > Antares

35 Antares is a pimple on Pat Caddell's dick.

36

Well, uh, it could be 2% or 3%, so it could be worse.

37 We should mine the Sun for solar energy.

38

 "We really are little tiny bits of nothing as far as the Universe is concerned."

Or our observation of it caused the universe.  Read Biocentrism for a theory that incorporates consciousness into phyics to explain quantum behavior and by extension, cosmology. http://tinyurl.com/39vkoo2

39 O/T:  "Hacker infiltration ends D.C. online voting trial"  link

Had no idea that people hold "hacking parties" until very recently.  Of course it involves alcohol.  Knew about lan parties, been to lots of those.  But you know, when you mention "hacking parties" to the geeks....they seem to know about them....won't admit they've been to them, but they know...

too funny, too funny......

40 A Universe full of big ginormous balls. Why does God hate triangles?

41
Remember the episode of Star Trek: TNG when they found the DYSON'S SPHERE and they also found SCOTTY in the TRANSPORTER?

42 The remaining 1% of the visible mass is miscellaneous leftover crap.

43 Wow.  We really did kill that site. 

44 I'm not a little bit of nothing. My Momma and Jesus love me.

45
Carl Sagan spoke unexpectedly and stupidly.

46
A light year is about 6 trillion miles/10 trillion kilometers. 

And the average human head weighs 8 pounds.

47

We really are little tiny bits of nothing as far as the Universe is concerned.

True, Monty, except for a small detail. Through 10,000 years of staring up at the sky, and 50 years of listening to the noises of space, we have yet to hear or see a single sign of intelligent life anywhere. Yet the astronomers are convinced that there are millions of Earth like planets out there, and they must house millions of civilizations. Yet, they got nothing to date. That thar is significant I say.

48

The remaining 1% of the mass is miscellaneous leftover crap.

Dude obviously never met my wife.

49 Where's the picture of Rosie O'Donnell's ass?

50
they also found SCOTTY in the TRANSPORTER?

You'd think he would have died from whisky withdrawal.

51 This might be a good way to show how insignificant Humans are to planet earth. A picture of the earth next to an representation of all the oil and coal we extract.

52 We all are as dust in the wind, dude!

53 I'm thinking this is another ploy by that insufferable prick Stephen Hawking.

54

Think differently:

Living organisms exist to propogate specific DNA arrangements from one generation to the next.  Anything in an organism that isn't DNA is superfluous junk, and since only a few physical copies of the DNA end up descending to the next generation, the rest of the DNA in the organism is redundant.

So the small, apparently insignificant bits are really the whole purpose of the endeavor.  Up until the ascent of man, the pageant of life and its diversity of forms all still boiled down to different ways of making offspring.

Humankind added a layer to that.  As a byproduct of our struggles to survive long enough to make babies that in turn survive to make babies of their own, we developed ways to record thoughts and ideas with a degree of permanence.  Other organisms may have thoughts, but they don't have any way to transmit them clearly, fully and to individuals they've never met.

So it's possible that all of the living organisms that came before Man were just foundational working materials, junk that had to be worked through to get to the desired form.

And this insignificant planet had to exist to allow that to happen.

And this small, non-descript solar system had to exist for this planet to form.

And so on, back to the Big Bang.

Just as genetic engineers have modified mice to produce spider silk proteins in their milk in miniscule quantities, perhaps the entire edifice of Creation has been focused on creating the miniscule, nay, infinitesimal output of human thought and knowledge.  And maybe we're just another foundational working medium;  maybe the Universe's purpose lies in the species we will eventually evolve into.

55 The remaining 1% of the mass is miscellaneous leftover crap.

Turtles all the way down.

56 The remaining 1% of the visible mass is miscellaneous leftover crap

My God.  Does that mean that there are 99x of invisible Michelle's backsides out there?

57 Honey?  Does this solar system make my butt look fat?

58 Not our best effort...but it has its appeal.

59 The site still comes up for me, but I don't guess they have a huge webserver. You can find much the same stuff on the Wikipedia page for the Sun, though.

60 Tell me something I don't know.

61

The remaining 1% of the visible mass is miscellaneous leftover crap

You mean to tell me that everyone is a minority!?

62 Through 10,000 years of staring up at the sky, and 50 years of listening to the noises of space, we have yet to hear or see a single sign of intelligent life anywhere.


Ahem.

63
I feel so small.

64 I feel so small.

Tell me about it.

65 We really are little tiny bits of nothing as far as the Universe is concerned

Cats have known that fact about humans for the past six millennia, living as they do in a felinocentric Universe.

66
Scotty's time in the transporter was timeless.

The transporter is such a stupid plot device. And don't get me started on how many times "re-modulating" some phase thingy was the answer to the problem.

67 I AM big!  It's the SOLAR SYSTEM that's gotten small!

68 66

Oh no, the Kilrathi!

69

Posted by: HeatherRadish at October 05, 2010 04:48 PM (Vz9lf)

Heh, and one of the greatest comic strips of all time.

70 True, Monty, except for a small detail. Through 10,000 years of staring up at the sky, and 50 years of listening to the noises of space, we have yet to hear or see a single sign of intelligent life anywhere. Yet the astronomers are convinced that there are millions of Earth like planets out there, and they must house millions of civilizations. Yet, they got nothing to date. That thar is significant I say.

Ooh, easy one: They have the sense to want nothing to do with us.

71 Aw, Pluto is releavnt again according to this link.

72 they must house millions of civilizations.

each of them less racist than us.

73

Yes, we're just a speck of a speck of a speck, but a human mind- that can comprehend the universe and create that website- is a big fuckin' deal.

To quote Sheriff Joe.

Kind of tips the balance our way.

74 They're Not Here, They're Not Coming -Don Henley (D-moonbat)

75
I'm sensing a death in the universe...

Jack Klugman is not long for this world.

**end alert**

76 You mean to tell me that everyone is a minority!?

*holds out hands and impatiently taps foot*

Where's my free shit?

77

What do you call an Italian astronaut?

A specimen.

78 I thought Saturn would count higher then just compromising part of a 1% remainder.

Mass != Volume

79 can't click on the link, but is this going to lead to a discussion about God creating the universe?

80 Hawking suggests that if there are advanced civilizations out there, we would do well to go unnoticed, as the track record for less advanced civilizations is poor when confronted with a more advanced civilization, technologically speaking. And we have no reason to think they would be friendly toward us. His argument has merit.

81 True, Monty, except for a small detail. Through 10,000 years of staring up at the sky, and 50 years of listening to the noises of space, we have yet to hear or see a single sign of intelligent life anywhere. Given that the universe is ~15 billion years old, and Homo Sapiens has only been around for ~150K years, I'm not surprised that we don't know much. And we've only been looking in a scientific sense of a couple of hundred years. We are really in our infancy as a species; we tend to forget that. I do think that there are many, many, many earth-like planets out there. Water is very common even in our solar system -- add a heat source and some amino acids (also quite common), percolate for a while, and chances are good that life will spring up. We have the evidence of ourselves. We haven't seen any other unambiguous traces, but then again, we just started looking. (Hell, we're still finding new species right here on earth!) The question isn't whether life exists elsewhere. The real questions are bigger. Does life inevitably lead to sentience? Or is sentience and high civilization a fluke? A gift from God? And if there are other high technology civilizations or galaxy-spanning empires out there, why do we hear no traces of them with our radio telescopes? The Drake equation attempts to quantify some of these unknowns, but I think we are probably still centuries -- if not aeons -- from being a truly spacefaring species. And by that time we won't look very human (we may not even really be human any more).

82
We're kinda small too, but funny!

83 Where does Matt Damon fit in all of this? 

84 they must house millions of civilizations.

I wonder if there are any where the chicks don't drive you crazy.

85 I'm sitting here at my computer. Sittin here in the western US, I'm spinning west to east at 860mph. At the same time, Earth is moving in its orbit around the sun at a rate of 66,661 mph. The Sun is carrying the Earth and myself toward the star Vega at the rate of about 31,000 mph. Our Sun, planets and I am moving around the Milky Way Galaxy at the phenomenal speed of 700,000 mph. At the same time our Galaxy is rotating at the speed of 559,350 mph. Amazingly enough, at the same time our Galaxy is moving through the expanding universe at roughly 1,000,000 mph. So taking all this into account, even though i seem to be sitting still, I am actually moving at rates of speed that boggle the mind, something along the order of 2,360,000 mph.

86 I do astronomy and I tell people the universe is simple, 98% hydrogen and helium, with some impurities.

87 #77 Where's my free shit?

Here is some of the most abundance thing in space...empty space (comprising 99.9% of the Universe).

Enjoy!

88 The transporter is such a stupid plot device. I always wondered why you'd bother having starships at all if you can just beam everywhere.

89
How is a bed related to space travel?

It's a launching pad for a guided muscle!

90 I am actually moving at rates of speed that boggle the mind, something along the order of 2,360,000 mph.

And yet my wife says that I'm not doing anything.

91 can't click on the link, but is this going to lead to a discussion about God creating the universe?

Posted by: curious at October 05, 2010 04:53 PM (p302b)

The link is a size comparison between planets and suns.

And yes, I see baiting for such an argument already happening.

92 84 Where does Matt Damon fit in all of this? 

Posted by: Matt Damon! at October 05, 2010 04:55 PM (osFsP)

Well, I'm sure there's a Matt Damon Uranus joke out there somewhere...

93 They have the sense to want nothing to do with us.

I dunno. Any life form which does not want to have anything to do with Mila Kunis cannot really be classified as intelligent.

94

Just as genetic engineers have modified mice to produce spider silk proteins in their milk in miniscule quantities, perhaps the entire edifice of Creation has been focused on creating the miniscule, nay, infinitesimal output of human thought and knowledge.  And maybe we're just another foundational working medium;  maybe the Universe's purpose lies in the species we will eventually evolve into.

And to think, people say I have wasted my life on the pursuit of cheeseburgers and porn.  Apparently, that's what some superdimensional sciencey-guy who made this whole thing wanted me to be doing!

So, you know, sciencey-guy:  You're Welcome.  I will continue to search out cheeseburgers and porn in aid of your myseterious pursuits.

95 maddogg - the distances and times involved in comparison to the time we have existed as humans, much less have been listening are staggering. The energy arriving here now left those systems before we could have heard it or transmitted something to them. We have only really been listening to the systems in a 50 light year radius; so that is a really small number of potential civilizations.

96

Rigel. Didn't Kirk get laid there?

97 I dunno. Any life form which does not want to have anything to do with Mila Kunis cannot really be classified as intelligent.

...have you met us...?

98 You are all truly insiginificant.

99 our humble little Sun

C'mon now: I, le nouveau roi soleil, am bringing Jimmuh, our greatest Preznit before moi,  back to the White House by installing solar panels atop my personal living quarters! How dare you insult the Sun that shines for me alone?

http://tinyurl.com/292vpxc

100 Yet the astronomers are convinced that there are millions of Earth like planets out there, and they must house millions of civilizations.

They're convinced psychologically, not scientifically. The numbers, when handled by non-hippies, say there's nobody out there, and it doesn't matter if there is, because interaction, spatial or temporal or whatever, is (a probably infinite number of kinds of) impossible.

And that's fine. The beer is already here.

101

Posted by: stuiec at October 05, 2010 04:45 PM (7AOgy)

Yeah, I agree.  We are small, but it took 15 billion years and an entire universe to create us.  In that respect, every person on this planet in a way represents the pinacle of creation, all that the universe could create.

102

We really are little tiny bits of nothing as far as the Universe is concerned.

Or you could look at it in completely the opposite way.  There is nothing more rare in the Universe than the Earth and other planets like it, making these worlds the most valuable places in the Universe.

103

 A gift from God? And if there are other high technology civilizations or galaxy-spanning empires out there, why do we hear no traces of them with our radio telescopes?

1)  Radio waves can't travel indefinitely

2) They have better technology like quantum entanglement (subspace?) so they don't use radios

104 I always wondered why you'd bother having starships at all if you can just beam everywhere.
Posted by: Monty at October 05, 2010 04:55 PM (/0a60)   Nah.  That's like saying 'Why have cars when you can take the elevator everywhere?'  The transporter is just a f'd up elevator. 

105 even though i seem to be sitting still, I am actually moving at rates of speed that boggle the mind, something along the order of 2,360,000 mph.

Posted by: The Great Satan's Ghost at October 05, 2010 04:55 PM (C9wCy)

Yes but what if you're actually sitting still and the rest of the universe is expanding away from you!

106 I do astronomy and I tell people the universe is simple, 98% hydrogen and helium, with some impurities. One of the ironies of the universe we live in is that while Helium is one of the commonest elements in the Universe, it's actually rather rare on Earth, and has to be manufactured at large expense (mostly by processing natural gas).

107
Someday I'm going to invent a coffee that doesn't give one coffee breath.

108 #82  A gift from God? And if there are other high technology civilizations or galaxy-spanning empires out there, why do we hear no traces of them with our radio telescopes?

There could be plenty of high tech civilizations out there...that have existed many, many millions of years ago.  Perhaps on some far flung-world some sentient species had created an empire across the stars but they have since died out.  We forget that the time-scale isn't the same for everything.

One of the first novels I've ever read was Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain.  I remember that one of the characters proposed that an advanced alien species would use biology, not physics for its "coming out party".  Bacteria can survive the cold void of space and would remain potent for virtually forever. 

109 But my wife told me that size doesn't matter!

110 45 I'm not a little bit of nothing. My Momma and Jesus love me.

Posted by: sifty at October 05, 2010 04:43 PM (gxC8L)

Well, you're not that great. I was just being nice.

111 And the biosphere is just a thin scum on a small part of that leftover debris, but we control the temperature of that part.

112 Get to go ponder cosmology in traffic, if I get in an accident I'm blaming you, Monty.

113

We are small, but it took 15 billion years and an entire universe to create us.  In that respect, every person on this planet in a way represents the pinacle of creation, all that the universe could create.

Posted by: ed at October 05, 2010 04:59 PM (Zsqn4)

Thank you.  I agree.

114 Maybe we can find the money to pay off the debt out there.

115 #110  One of the ironies of the universe we live in is that while Helium is one of the commonest elements in the Universe, it's actually rather rare on Earth, and has to be manufactured at large expense (mostly by processing natural gas).

And that Helium was discovered by analyzing the spectrum of the Sun's rays and finding a band that didn't correspond to any element we had encountered yet on Earth. 

116 What's really ironic is that the entire Universe and everything in it is in perpetual motion and yet it is impossible to invent a perpetual motion machine.

117 "It's a great big universe, and we're all really puny.  We're just tiny little specks about the size of Mickey Rooney"

http://is.gd/fMHdN

(Love me some Animaniacs...)

118 The biggest thing in the Universe is Donald Trump's ego.

119
Monty, you forgot to mark this as nsfw.  One of my balls is pictured in the bottom photo.

That's right.  Remember to tip your waitress.

120 This kinda reminds me of comparing dicks in the locker room. Now this is an asian one, this is a white one, and this here is a Black one!

121

 they must house millions of civilizations.

each of them less racist than us.

And all of them much more advanced than we are.  I'd say we're fucked.

122 And the biosphere is just a thin scum on a small part of that leftover debris, but we control the temperature of that part.

Posted by: tmitsss at October 05, 2010 05:01 PM (V4Pya)

Now you're getting it!

123 41 A Universe full of big ginormous balls. Why does God hate triangles?
Posted by: Joanie (Oven Gloves) at October 05, 2010 04:43 PM (wd0Iq)
All of them vying to be mine!

124
Most of the universe stuff is boring because it is theoretical and esoteric minutia. The stuff about aging and space travel, however, is fascinating.

Planet of the Apes touched on it, a little. But there was an episode of SPACE:1999 that discussed it at length. 

125 we have yet to hear or see a single sign of intelligent life anywhere.



Naturally, I'm assuming that you're thinking of Berkeley.

126 #126 And all of them much more advanced than we are.  I'd say we're fucked.

I'd say you are.  Your LIVES are forfeit. 

127 119 Start mining asteroids.  The reputable estimates put more valuable minerals out there than has ever been available on Earth.  (Strongly suggest moving the industries that use it Out There, too, for both technical and ecological reasons.)

The short-sightedness of those who'd limit us to Earth always boggles the mind.

128 99

Rigel. Didn't Kirk get laid there?

Posted by: dagny at October 05, 2010 04:58 PM

Uhura sang an awful song on the show called "Beyond Antares"

Because of that song and the star is arrogant about how much bigger it is, I say we should throw a Black Hole at it to suck it down the cosmic drain

129 I always wondered why you'd bother having starships at all if you can just beam everywhere.

Posted by: Monty at October 05, 2010 04:55 PM (/0a60)

Limited range, and in some episodes, line of sight range only.

130 121

Nothing is perpetual.

What is entropy?

131

they must house millions of civilizations.

One of them's gotta be willing to buy some of this debt!

132

Or our observation of it caused the universe.  Read Biocentrism for a theory that incorporates consciousness into phyics to explain quantum behavior and by extension, cosmology. http://tinyurl.com/39vkoo2

Posted by: Cicero at October 05, 2010 04:42 PM


Ooooh, yeah. I like this. It makes me feel almost intelligent and stuff.

Not being all interplanetary and conscious of the Big Picture, maybe if I get enough people to think of a decent job offered to me or, more directly, think of money appearing amid the cobwebs and dust bunnies in my bank account, it'll happen!

That's my universe today.

I just wonder how many people imagined Beck talking about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff on TV today. That's a friggin' alternative universe for damn sure.

133 I feel so insignificant! Thanks for the self esteem boost...

134 97 maddogg - the distances and times involved in comparison to the time we have existed as humans, much less have been listening are staggering. The energy arriving here now left those systems before we could have heard it or transmitted something to them. We have only really been listening to the systems in a 50 light year radius; so that is a really small number of potential civilizations.

Posted by: Jean at October 05, 2010 04:58 PM (1ZGrS)

No, not really. If there were many advanced (telecommunications using) civilizations out there, some would likely be thousands of years earlier than us, thus giving their radio waves thousands of years to reach Earth. So in fact, we are able to listen thousands of years into the past, even if those civilizations have advanced beyond radio communications, their signals would still be propagating through space. But we've heard........nada.

135 They have better technology like quantum entanglement (subspace?) so they don't use radios Carl Sagan in Cosmos (I think it was) speculated that maybe civilizations just don't last very long in galactic terms. That maybe a Galactic civilization (or even several) might have risen and fallen already before we even made the scene. Maybe the distances are simply too great -- maybe our fantasies of star-travel are doomed to be just that: fantasies. I do think that the notion that we will ever enter space to any great degree in our present biological form is silly. We are too frail to survive long-duration spaceflight. I expect that if we do ever achieve even a large Solar System presence, much less star-travel, we're going to be more machine than biological matter.

136 A golden oldie that I first saw in h.s. chemistry class circa 1980.

137 #132  (Strongly suggest moving the industries that use it Out There, too, for both technical and ecological reasons.)

That was the background behind the CD-ROM game "Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine" - the Earth was zoned completely "residential" and all industry was moved off-world. 

138

Rigel. Didn't Kirk get laid there?

"If de bitch is green, there's something wrong wit de pussy"

139
Antares is morbidly obese fat-assed star.  Lazy fuck does nothing all day.  Has all his meals brought in.  Look how big he's gotten.  It's disgusting.

140 If only we could tax and regulate all that space stuff, we could provide flat screen TV's and coloring books to death row inmates!

141

"A Universe full of big ginormous balls"

Yes.

142 It is not surprising at all that we have heard nothing in the short time we have been "listening" given the immense distances involved and the fact that it is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.

Given all that it would take tens of thousand of years to even send a transmission from the next nearest of the galaxies. It would take a ship traveling even longer time to reach the earth.

The only way this will ever be alleviated is by some sort of "wormhole" travel that allows travel of thousands of light-years in an instant and thus negating the Einstein paradox. 

143 I do respect you Monty but to believe that the chance of a random mixture of chemicals creating life is anything other than room full of monkeys typing Shakespear is ridiculous. Even a .0001% chance repeated over hundreds of millions of planets over billions of years amounts to a virtual certainty. We're here; ergo it can happen. Other planets with water and heat exist -- ergo it can happen somewhere else. (Doesn't mean it will happen, mind you; just that it can.)

144 Anybody have the link to the old Eric Idle song?

145 BTW, be thankful for the humble size of our star. The mega stars burn out very quickly (if the theories of solar reactions are correct) and our sun is the correct size to last billions of years more.

146 145
Antares is morbidly obese fat-assed star.  Lazy fuck does nothing all day.  Has all his meals brought in.  Look how big he's gotten.  It's disgusting.

Posted by: The Sun at October 05, 2010 05:08 PM (TXKVh)

Word!

147
Screw you,  skinny little shit.  And what kind of "name" is that?  "The Sun".

Eat shit.  You can barely charge a a solar panel.

148

 What's really ironic is that the entire Universe and everything in it is in perpetual motion and yet it is impossible to invent a perpetual motion machine.

 

Actually, that's not true.  Gravity will either pull the universe back into a crashing blob of amorphous mush or dark matter will expand it until it all spins into nothingness.  Either way, we're all going to die.

149 #155  Either way, we're all going to die.

And in the end, there will be only chaos.  .

150 Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules— and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress.
  -- Sirens of Titan

151 One other striking aspect of the Earth regarding human beings is how strange it would seem to us if we went back even sixty million years: no flowering plants, no trees we'd recognize, no grasses. And a couple hundred million years before that? We probably couldn't even survive on the earth -- not enough oxygen in the air for us to breathe, and the solar radiation would probably be too high for us to survive.

152 Nobody gets out alive.

153
Naturally, I'm assuming that you're thinking of Berkeley.

Sure as shit any intelligent life there.  Just zombies.

154 139 Problem with that is that, over interstellar distances, radio signals are absolutely awful.  By the time you're far enough out there there might be someone to hear it that ain't you, it's so weak and scattered that it fades into the background.

The biggest problem will be not to find the message, but to recognize that we have something that might be a message...and that means it may be something we aren't thinking of...if it comes.

My money says we'll never find more than the artifacts of a dead culture.  And I half suspect we'll be more advanced than they managed.  We've beaten serious odds to get this far; assuming others have may not be merited...

155 I expect that if we do ever achieve even a large Solar System presence, much less star-travel, we're going to be more machine than biological matter.
Posted by: Monty at October 05, 2010 05:07 PM

Been reading Man Plus again, Monty?

156 We need to start conserving the use of our Sun so it will be here for generations to come.

157 our sun is the correct size to last billions of years more.

The sun isn't then only thing you should be worried about.

158 Seems that some sort of creepy narrative lurks (or my right wing paranoia) So let's get this straight....The Universe judges value of beings (and non-beings) by comparing the relative matter they possess?  What stupidness. It's a dumb, dumb, Universe, people. It can not rationalize, it can not think, it cannot feel. At the risk of hurting its apparent feelings, I am not intimidated by the huge expanse of lifeless garbage; the Universe means nothing without us. And that's just the fucking way it is. .

159

This post needs a link to a youtube of the Monty Python Galaxy song from The Meaning of Life.

 

160 @151: http://is.gd/fMI9D

161 Or our observation of it caused the universe.  Read Biocentrism for a theory that incorporates consciousness into phyics to explain quantum behavior and by extension, cosmology.



So it's like "The Secret" with a PhD in physics?

162 152 BTW, be thankful for the humble size of our star. The mega stars burn out very quickly (if the theories of solar reactions are correct) and our sun is the correct size to last billions of years more. Posted by: maddogg at October 05, 2010 05:09 PM

It will only last billions of years more IF WE ACT NOW!  Greedy oil companies and your cars will knock it down to about 10 weeks unless you sell everything you have and use the proceeds to buy my offsets

163 where's my towel?

164 86 So taking all this into account, even though i seem to be sitting still, I am actually moving at rates of speed that boggle the mind, something along the order of 2,360,000 mph.
Posted by: The Great Satan's Ghost at October 05, 2010 04:55 PM (C9wCy)

Our senses, though, provide the merest glimpse of this phenomenon whenever we experience the bed spins.

165

My money says we'll never find more than the artifacts of a dead culture.  And I half suspect we'll be more advanced than they managed.  We've beaten serious odds to get this far; assuming others have may not be merited...

 

That would still be interesting though

166 Can I buy some pot from you?

167 What is entropy?

Posted by: Gaff at October 05, 2010 05:06 PM (PRm1Y)

 

The Obama administration.

168

I think it's at the end of Men in Black where they have a pullback shot that starts on earth a rapidly draws back from earth through the solar system, through the galaxy, back, and back, and back until the weight of it nearly made me puke.

Yet still, despite vastness of all matter, the libs still manage to know everything there is to know.

How strange.

169 True, Monty, except for a small detail. Through 10,000 years of staring up at the sky, and 50 years of listening to the noises of space, we have yet to hear or see a single sign of intelligent life anywhere. Yet the astronomers are convinced that there are millions of Earth like planets out there, and they must house millions of civilizations. Yet, they got nothing to date. That thar is significant I say.

--------------
If you could just show me one of these "atoms," Democritus, I'd believe in your little particular theory.

170 This is just great. Thanks for reminding me how small and insignificant I am. I think I'll just go shoot myself now...

171 157 Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules— and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress.
  -- Sirens of Titan
Posted by: Zombie Kurt Vonnegut at October 05, 2010 05:11 PM

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

172 I remember my astronomy professor in college telling our class something extremely memorable:

Betelgeuse is so huge, that the ORBIT of Jupiter around the Sun would fit inside of it. 

That's fucking massive.

173 Posted by: jmflynny at October 05, 2010 05:15 PM (LyOUH)

I laughed out loud!

174 Been reading Man Plus again, Monty? Actually, yes! I picked up a new copy after a book thread a month ago or so. It's still a good read, but it's less Mars-centric than I remembered. Most of it takes place in the lab on Earth. I think the "telepresence" stuff in Barnes' Mother of Storms is much closer to where we're going to end up if we get serious about moving off-planet. Our bodies simply are not made for the environment of outer space, and much of the expense involved in space-travel is used in making a habitat suitable for our fragile forms. Instead of building a better ship to carry human beings, we should build better human beings to go into the ships. (Or just upload our minds into robots.)

175 If you could just show me one of these "atoms," Democritus, I'd believe in your little particular theory.

Posted by: arhooley at October 05, 2010 05:15 PM (vCcsF)

You make my point. We can smash atoms and even observe them in an electron microscope, but we can't hear radio from space.

176 The Total Perspective Votex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses.

To explain--since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation--every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition, and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake.

The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife.

Trin Tragula--for that was his name--was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.

And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he spent staring out into space, or mulling over the mechanics of safety pins, or doing spectrographic analyses of pieces of fairy cake.

"Have some sense of proportion!" she would say, sometimes as often as thirty-eight times in a single day.

And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex--just to show her.

And into one end, he plugged the whole of reality as extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake, and into the other, he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it.

To Trin Tragula's horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain, but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.

-- The HitchHiker's Guide

177
I need someone to bring me some bacon and Cinnamon Twirls from Costco.

I'll also give you part of my workers comp check if you'll cash it for me before you get the bacon and Twirls.  Just bring me the change.

178 My money says we'll never find more than the artifacts of a dead culture.  And I half suspect we'll be more advanced than they managed.  We've beaten serious odds to get this far; assuming others have may not be merited...
Posted by: DarkLordOfTheIntarWebs at October 05, 2010 05:12 PM

In the future, after we've perfected travel at faster-than-light speeds, we'll find a good viewing site 'way out the the universe, plug in our receivers, and watch reruns of I Married Joan and the Ed Sullivan Show on signals traveling slooooowly through space. We'll be able to listen to Wolfman Jack and Art Bell again, too.

Hit the time/distance equation just right, and we might even be able to watch the live broadcast of Nixon's "Checkers Speech," too.

If that ain't worth bazillions of dollars and frighteningly intense R&D, I don't know what is.

179 but we can't hear radio from space.

It'd probably just be Casey Kasem anyway.

180 So Beteljuice is the same size as Obama's ego?

181 172 Will it?  If we find the remains of a dead civilization that never did better than, say, the Mayan Golden Age, and they're extinct, we learn...what, exactly?  We have nothing to ever translate their script, if they have any.  No certainty of common points of reference.  No anything, other than a humbling lesson that the universe owes us absolutely nothing at all.

Which some of us don't need that for.  (Religion may compensate, or may not depending on your specifics.  But the fallout of the discovery and its implications would be...interesting, indeed.)

182 "The solar system is composed of our Star and the gas-giant planet Jupiter. The remaining 1% of the mass is miscellaneous leftover crap." Yet the consciousness of all the entire vast mass of the Solar System resides right here on little old Earth. When we look out at the galaxy with our huge radio telescopes and satellites and whatnot, we see not one hint of intelligence elsewhere. Isn't THAT the most awesome fact of all?

183 106 1) Radio waves can't travel indefinitely
__________________

Actually, they can and do. It's just that after a ways it becomes impossible to pick them out of the background noise.

184
160 Nobody gets out alive.

Posted by: Life at October 05, 2010 05:12 PM (gxC8L)

Word.

185 Posted by: Zombie Kurt Vonnegut at October 05, 2010 05:11 PM

Greetings!

186 Gravity will either pull the universe back into a crashing blob of amorphous mush or dark matter will expand it until it all spins into nothingness.  Either way, we're all going to die.

Posted by: Soona at October 05, 2010 05:11 PM (HCvSC)

And if it crashes back together it will start all over again!

But I plan on sticking around to see it. What a show that will be!

187 186 I refer you back to the first section of the post you quoted.  Nutshell:  You'll get static, so sorry.

Radio is primitive, and ineffective over interstellar distances.  We're looking for a message in the wrong medium, and probably can't read the right one yet...

188

My theory about why we can't find ET's: we're the most advanced race in the Universe. Some planet must be the first to have intelligence. Why wouldn't it be us?

189

So Beteljuice is the same size as Obama's ego?

Wait, how can Obama have an ego if he is Spock?

190 191 106 1) Radio waves can't travel indefinitely __________________ Actually, they can and do. It's just that after a ways it becomes impossible to pick them out of the background noise. Posted by: Anachronda at October 05, 2010 05:20 PM (xGZ+b) Well, yeah, but to hear the ET enthusiasts tell it, the galaxy should be so full of radio signals generated by billions of civilizations for billions of years, the fillings in our teeth should be buzzing. Yet all there is is silence...

191

The thing that makes me laugh about libtards and the question of extraterrestrial life is that they actually think that if we were ever to find evidence of ETs, that humanity would cease to kill and oppress each other out of a sense of wonderment.

When in fact, the most likely effect is that we'd just have something new to fight over.

192 Radio is primitive, and ineffective over interstellar distances. Depends on the size of the transmitter. Quasars pump out prodigious amounts of radio energy, and we can hear them fine even from thirteen billion light-years away!

193

You make my point. We can smash atoms and even observe them in an electron microscope, but we can't hear radio from space.

 

Ever listen to Coast to Coast?  I rest my case.

194 The thing that makes me laugh about libtards and the question of extraterrestrial life is that they actually think that if we were ever to find evidence of ETs, that humanity would cease to kill and oppress each other out of a sense of wonderment.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at October 05, 2010 05:25 PM (P9+0W)

Escape from the Planet of the Apes didn't quite work out that way...

195 186 We'll be able to listen to Wolfman Jack and Art Bell again, too.
__________________

So... I don't need to subscribe to the Coast to Coast website so I can download the show archives?

196 183 If you could just show me one of these "atoms," Democritus, I'd believe in your little particular theory. Posted by: arhooley at October 05, 2010 05:15 PM (vCcsF) http://tinyurl.com/25tvynm You rang?

197

I'm feeling unique and significant, as well as pretty and witty and gay.

Don't forget adequate

198 Posted by: Monty at October 05, 2010 05:09 PM (/0a60)

It is impossible to calculate the odds of another planet producing life as complex as ours. I would guess that life exists somewhere else, but with only a single example, it's just that; a guess!

199
I just had a giddy vision of legions of facehuggers scampering in the streets around Haight-Ashbury leaping onto smelly, wrinkled old hippies.

200 198 Well, yeah, but to hear the ET enthusiasts tell it, the galaxy should be so full of radio signals generated by billions of civilizations for billions of years, the fillings in our teeth should be buzzing.

Yet all there is is silence...
________________

Nonsense. We just don't know how to look yet.

201

You make my point. We can smash atoms and even observe them in an electron microscope, but we can't hear radio from space.

I read an analysis somewhere that took into account the age of the universe and the distances involved.  It assumed that 4.5 billion years is the average amount of time needed for radio-using intelligence to develop on a planet.  Based on the speed at which electromagnetic waves travel (i.e., the speed of light), the distances of other so-called "Goldilocks" planets (not too hot, not too cold, etc.) from Earth, and the limited amount of time that radio would have been in use and therefore could have traveled, the author demonstrated that only a very small number of planets would be positioned in such a way that we would receive radio waves if they were being generated by intelligent life.  That we haven't received any radio signals from intelligent life as of now proves virtually nothing.  The universe is just too big for any but a tiny fraction of possibilities to have reached our attention.

202 196 My theory about why we can't find ET's: we're the most advanced race in the Universe. Some planet must be the first to have intelligence. Why wouldn't it be us? Posted by: Aaron at October 05, 2010 05:24 PM (XUIJ5) That would make Nancy Pelosi one of the most intelligence beings in the Universe. That's a bit hard to swallow.

203 48 True, Monty, except for a small detail. Through 10,000 years of staring up at the sky, and 50 years of listening to the noises of space, we have yet to hear or see a single sign of intelligent life anywhere.
Posted by: maddogg at October 05, 2010 04:44 PM (OlN4e)

Not true! In the wee hours of the morning, and on multiple channels, they contact with us in the form of infomercials. The wonders they convey to us ... Sexual potency beyond compare! ... Squeaky clean colons! ... Appliances of wonder! And their Ambassador to us is he who first made contact ... Ron Popeil.

204 Anybody read up on my explanation?

205

The customs and history of your race show a unique hatred of captivity. Even when it's pleasant and benevolent, you prefer death. This makes you too violent and dangerous a species for our needs.

206 Posted by: IllTemperedCur at October 05, 2010 05:30 PM (P9+0W)

There is nothing quite so pungent and disgusting as a San Francisco hippie street person bum. No self-respecting facehugger would touch one.

207 Y'all remember the scene in "Independence Day" where all the hippies got on top of the building under the Alien ship with their stupid little signs and got vaporized? That made me laugh.

208 The Universe is a big fucking deal!

209 The size and origins of the universe is getting boring to me.  What has me fascinated, is the emerging mathematical evidence of parallel universes.

210 That's bum, not bum.

211

I've tried a couple of times to write a story where mankind finally picks up radio signals from another civilization, which turn out to be their old radio broadcasts..  After a period of time, we  manage to determine the location and translate the signals, which show them to be advanced and peaceful creatures. A response is sent from the most powerful transmitter we can build, telling them all about our species and our location in the universe.

The next day we listen as the alien civilization is destroyed and their world occupied by a vicious alien race.

212

Speaking of Planet of the Apes, who the hell names their spaceship "Icarus"?

That's like naming your ocean liner "Titanic."

213 Here's the thing: a billion year old spacefaring civilization, say, would have mastered the art of communication across the vast light years of interstellar space. They would have figured out how to broadcast signals in all directions, to contact any other civilizations out there - presumably, they would be as interested in finding other races as we are. But again: there is NOTHING out there. NOTHING. The 1950's have gone by, the sixties, the seventies... time is going by, and yet we are finding nothing. Of course, we could wake up tomorrow to news that we have been contacted by ET. But does anyone really believe we will?

214
So if radio waves can travel through space indefinitely...

isn't it possible that some far far away advanced alien race fired a laser beam weapon during some battle in space a long long time ago and that laser beam can hit me someday?

215 There are more stars in the known universe than grains of sand on all of Earth's beaches. That one blows my mind.

216

It assumed that 4.5 billion years is the average amount of time needed for radio-using intelligence to develop on a planet. 

You see, that's the problem. I can assume just about whatever I want to assume, and the assumptions make that nothing more than a guess. He also must assume out planet is the same age as all the others, I assume that not.

217 isn't it possible that some far far away advanced alien race fired a laser beam weapon during some battle in space a long long time ago and that laser beam can hit me someday?

Posted by: Soothsayer at October 05, 2010 05:36 PM (uFokq)

Duck.  Now.

218 Posted by: Alex at October 05, 2010 05:34 PM (K9+WM)



That's a pretty decent premise for a Twilight Zone episode.

219 LOL, all this talk of the immense distances and and the "faster than light" paradox reminding me of another aspect of that dealing with "nuclear stuff" like we discussed yesterday.

It IS possible to exceed the speed of light in water or glass (or any other dense material that will allow light passage). When this happens it produces an electromagnetic shock wave that is visible.

When you see the "blue glow" in a swimming pool reactor or in the water surrounding spent fuel this is what you are seeing. It is called the "Cherenkov effect" and it is caused by sub-atomic particles exceeding the speed of light in water.

220
Really. Who's to say a stray laser beam won't hit one of us someday?

221 Will you sell me some pot?

(for 100 points and 20 extra blank ballots in this November's election, name that movie)

222

The Chekov Effect.

I like it.

223

That's a pretty decent premise for a Twilight Zone episode.

Heh.  Part of my problem is that I'm paranoid as to why it hasn't been written yet.  It seems like a pretty straightforward twist on the idea of intertellar communication.

224 Posted by: polynikes at October 05, 2010 05:33 PM (m2CN7)

David Berlinski wrote an article in Commentary several years ago about the possibility of random events creating man. He used as a counter example the eye, with its amazing structures that, according to him, would have no precursors. So it just appeared fully formed, and that, he said, was impossible, and proved that the hand of god was involved.

The article itself was a bit overwrought, but the letters to the editor were incredible. I had no idea what a touchy subject it could be. It's worth digging up.

225 Seem apropos:

Particle Man

226 And their Ambassador to us is he who first made contact ... Ron Popeil.
Posted by: One Who Has Seen the Truth at October 05, 2010 05:31 PM

No truly advanced civilization would worship the the Pocket Fisherman.

227 Monty: "...Instead of building a better ship to carry human beings, we should build better human beings to go into the ships. (Or just upload our minds into robots.)"

Can we interest you in our new Nexus-7 models?

228 You make my point. We can smash atoms and even observe them in an electron microscope, but we can't hear radio from space.

Posted by: maddogg at October 05, 2010 05:17 PM (OlN4e)

---------
Yes, I think we've listened hard enough and waited long enough. Let's close this file.

229
*phoning home*


Come pick me up.....NOW. These humans are idiots.


*pauses to shove the bicycle up Elliott's bunghole*



Now go get me some Reese's Pieces, bitch.

230 When you see the "blue glow" in a swimming pool reactor or in the water surrounding spent fuel this is what you are seeing. It is called the "Cherenkov effect" and it is caused by sub-atomic particles exceeding the speed of light in water.

Posted by: Vic at October 05, 2010 05:37 PM (/jbAw)

 

That blueish glow was the coolest thing in the spent fuel pool building.  We all used to kid each other about taking a quick dip in the spent fuel pool.  Turn out all the lights and it would make a cool SF movie set.

231 Posted by: Bugler at October 05, 2010 05:36 PM (VXBR1)

Nope.

232
Entropy will win in the end.  It always does on a closed system.

233

When you see the "blue glow" in a swimming pool reactor or in the water surrounding spent fuel this is what you are seeing. It is called the "Cherenkov effect" and it is caused by sub-atomic particles exceeding the speed of light in water.

 

So all we have to do now is figure out how to fill the universe with water.

234 Posted by: Vic at October 05, 2010 05:37 PM

So all we gotta do is fill the universe with water?

There must be a "stimulus" program somewhere that would pay for it.

235 Posted by: Tyrell Corporation at October 05, 2010 05:40 PM (swuwV)

I'd like to purchase your "Rachel" prototype.

236 I for one am glad to be far away from those massive stars, cause ya know I burn easily and I don't have any SPF 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

237

Entropy will win in the end.  It always does on a closed system.

Defeatist.

238 But again: there is NOTHING out there. NOTHING.
Posted by: CoolCzech

And thank you for an example of argumentum ad ignorantiam.

239 It took the Earth about 2 billion years to go from bacteria to Bieber. If that's the average length and there is a 1% difference between the ages of two inhabited planets then there would be 20 million years separating civilizations. If two races meet and there is a 20 million year difference in technology, somebody is going to get royally fucked.

240 Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo ( NJConservative) at October 05, 2010 05:41 PM (LH6ir) It's gotta be true. I saw it on The Discovery Channel.

241 The eye has always been a sticking point when trying to rationalize evolution.  It's glossed over with 'oh, adaptation' and stupid shit like that, but the eye is proving to be almost impossible to explain. 

242 Posted by: Soona at October 05, 2010 05:42 PM

Small minds think alike.

My sole experience with "string theory" was using a piece of one to replace a broken shoelace. Caltech was not impressed.

243
about 2 billion years to go from bacteria to Bieber. If that's the average length

Hell, if that's 'PROGRESS' the universe can't end soon enough.

244

If two races meet and there is a 20 million year difference in technology, somebody is going to get royally fucked.

I hope they like the Pocket Fisherman...

245 200 Unfortunately, your statement proves the point.  Quasars are currently understood to be the region at the center of a galaxy, where gas falling into the central black hole creates huge bursts of energy.  Any civilization that can harness such a thing will have better uses for it than some sort of intergalactic semaphore.

And would be so advanced as to be absolutely terrifying.  And far enough away as to be meaningless.

Communications require a medium that keeps its message over distance; anyone with experience in networks can tell you how long you can make a fiber optic cable, or a Cat5, before data gets garbled and it's useless.  Same thing here.  You need something with better focus, that isn't absorbed by floating stuff, and has the power to get where you're going.  Whatever the answer, we probably aren't wired for it; we're looking for smoke signals in a satellite transmission network.

246
It took the Earth about 2 billion years to go from bacteria to Bieber.



And people thought we were stupid.

247

If you really want to feel insignificant...check this video out

...it's a journey through the known universe...it's worth the time to watch...really, really well done

248
the bees know

btw, is it a myth that we can't explain how bees are able to fly, or is it true?

249

Can we interest you in our new Nexus-7 models?

 

I've got a Cherry 2000 in mint condition. 

250 You rang?

Posted by: CoolCzech at October 05, 2010 05:28 PM (tJjm/)

My point being that lack of empirical evidence is still inconclusive when the question is "Does x exist?"

251 248 But again: there is NOTHING out there. NOTHING. Posted by: CoolCzech And thank you for an example of argumentum ad ignorantiam. Posted by: Garbonzo the Garrulous at October 05, 2010 05:43 PM (23kaI) I would thank you if you bothered to read the rest of my post: a galaxy with billions of civilizations, some of them billions of years old, would have figured out how to solve what you apparently imagine are insurmountable technical problems with reaching out to the rest of the sentient beings out there. Yet there is not one iota - not a one - to be heard from any of these hypothetical civilizations. Is it really all that ignorant to speculate as to why that might be?

252 218 The size and origins of the universe is getting boring to me.  What has me fascinated, is the emerging mathematical evidence of parallel universes.
Posted by: Soona at October 05, 2010 05:33 PM (HCvSC)

Ooo, ooo, ooo! Can we visit the one in which Obi-Won achieved his life's true calling as a second-rate race hustler in South Central Los Angeles? Can we, can we, can we?

253 Now go get me some Reese's Pieces, bitch.

Posted by: ET at October 05, 2010 05:41 PM (P9+0W)

Explain, please: you are able to fucking FLY, but you missed your spaceship's departure because you chose to WADDLE through the underbrush to get back to it.

254 #173

Shit. You were first

255 224: I would be more concerned about the hyperdense kinetic kill projectiles.  Sir Isaac Newton remains the deadliest SOB in the universe!

^{And yeah, I think we need a new thread again.}

256 Can we interest you in our new Nexus-7 models?
Posted by: Tyrell Corporation at October 05, 2010 05:40 PM

Still waiting for my debugged ED-209 to arrive, thank you.

257 Pluto is the size of Paladino's chances.

258 260 You rang? Posted by: CoolCzech at October 05, 2010 05:28 PM (tJjm/) My point being that lack of empirical evidence is still inconclusive when the question is "Does x exist?" Posted by: arhooley at October 05, 2010 05:47 PM (vCcsF) This is so. By that line of argument, we might say that lack of evidence of ghosts doesn't mean there are no ghosts. But I think most of us accept that ghosts don't exist. Just because we imagine them doesn't create the burden of proof to disprove their existence. I would say the same thing about our imaginings about ET.

259 I got yer Tiny Bit of Nothing right here, buddy.......

wait==never mind

260 Pluto is the size of Paladino's chances.

Posted by: beelzebub's burp at October 05, 2010 05:49 PM (7+pP9)

Anything to stay relevant, huh?

261

Explain, please: you are able to fucking FLY, but you missed your spaceship's departure because you chose to WADDLE through the underbrush to get back to it.

Fuck you Earthmonkey.  Waddling is highly prized in our culture.

262 The size and origins of the universe is getting boring to me.  What has me fascinated, is the emerging mathematical evidence of parallel universes.

I guess that does provide at least the possibility is that somewhere and somewhen, life made sense.  Cheap unqualified community activists would be relegated to expounding their brilliance in cheap barrooms and adults would actually run the country.

263 185 I need someone to bring me some bacon and Cinnamon Twirls from Costco.
I'll also give you part of my workers comp check if you'll cash it for me before you get the bacon and Twirls.  Just bring me the change.
Posted by: Antares at October 05, 2010 05:19 PM (TXKVh)

What, no lottery tickets?

264 Explain, please: you are able to fucking FLY, but you missed your spaceship's departure because you chose to WADDLE through the underbrush to get back to it.

Women ask me that all the time; I have no answer

265

The next day we listen as the alien civilization is destroyed and their world occupied by a vicious alien race.

Posted by: Alex at October 05, 2010 05:34 PM (K9+WM)

That should be easy to write.  What's making it difficult for you?

266
My point being that lack of empirical evidence is still inconclusive when the question is "Does x exist?"

Black Swan theory?

267 230 Really. Who's to say a stray laser beam won't hit one of us someday?
_______________

Nothing. Saw a story the other day about an astronomer who thinks he saw one; he was looking around and suddenly saw something that looked like a laser pulse. Gone in a flash and he's never seen it again.

Don't recall where I saw the story, though. It was in somebody's coverage of the recent Gliese 581 exoplanet discovery.

268
Explain, please: you are able to fucking FLY, but you missed your spaceship's departure because you chose to WADDLE through the underbrush to get back to it.




Don't ask me, talk to that Spielberg jackass, he wrote the script. I was just trying to get my SAG card.

269 273 Explain, please: you are able to fucking FLY, but you missed your spaceship's departure because you chose to WADDLE through the underbrush to get back to it. Fuck you Earthmonkey. Waddling is highly prized in our culture. Posted by: E.T. at October 05, 2010 05:50 PM (QKKT0) Naked aliens with no dorks don't impress me, E.T.

270 "Barack can't keep making progress without strong allies in Congress," she wrote. "And now the same people who've opposed us at every turn are targeting the folks who voted to make change real. They think we can't do it again. But they're wrong."

Guess who said this?   link

271 268 Evolution proceeds independently of will.  You probably have no idea why you have half the parts you do, but trust me, they're there for a reason.  (Or they were, in any event; they used to help our immune system, but now all our appendix and tonsils really do is get infected easily.  Ironic, really.)

272
Was it a red laser pulse?

woops, my bad

273
Guess who said this?



I thought we weren't allowed to talk about certain space alien races here?

274 Size doesn't matter.

275 Size doesn't matter.

Posted by: One Nation Working Together Rally Attendance Statistic at October 05, 2010 05:57 PM (bN5ZU)

Two thousand porno films say otherwise

276 this kinda shit blows my mind!!!

277

Recently though, I believe in the last couple of years, a couple of scientists have presented a theory that the effects of dark and light conditions in an organisms hunt for food resulted in the development of the eye.  I still see multiple holes in the theory but my expertise lies in me staying in a Holiday Inn a couple of times.

Posted by: polynikes at October 05, 2010 05:49 PM (m2CN7)

It only took one protozoan to develop a light-sensing organelle to start the course of evolution of the eye.  In a primitive sea where the well-lit surface water had photosynthetic life forms at its surface, the simple ability of an organism to go toward sunlight in the day to feed and toward darkness at depth to hide when not feeding would give it an advantage over "blind" organisms.

278 Posted by: IllTemperedCur at October 05, 2010 05:56 PM (P9+0W)

ooo sorry, I didn't know

279

I guess that does provide at least the possibility is that somewhere and somewhen, life made sense. Cheap unqualified community activists would be relegated to expounding their brilliance in cheap barrooms and adults would actually run the country.

 

I was thinking in terms of perhaps getting laid by H.E. Cupp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

280 Naked aliens with no dorks don't impress me, E.T.

Posted by: CoolCzech at October 05, 2010 05:52 PM (tJjm/)

Wait -- you thought that it was his FINGER that lit up when Eliot touched it?

281 I thought we weren't allowed to talk about certain space alien races here?

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at October 05, 2010 05:56 PM (P9+0W)

I never did get that. What's the deal?

282

Eyes, eyes, I just do eyes.

283 Jones: "You wanna see what huge is?"

Damn! That's almost as big as my mustache's left testicle.

284 We're all minorities now.

285
I never did get that. What's the deal?

Joking about the Klingons circling Uranus is VERBOTEN!

286

283 268 Evolution proceeds independently of will.  You probably have no idea why you have half the parts you do, but trust me, they're there for a reason.  (Or they were, in any event; they used to help our immune system, but now all our appendix and tonsils really do is get infected easily.  Ironic, really.)

I never truely believed in the existance of God until I took advanced human physiology classes in college.  People really are perfect, in terms of design.  Our brains, which give us judgement and free will and so on, lead us to do imperfect things.  But when you understand how our bodies react when we go from sea level to a higher altitude or when we go from hot to cold environments (for example), you'll struggle to find any plausible reasons for how we got this way without the involvement of some type of God.  There's no way we ended up this way by chance.  I think. 

287 btw, is it a myth that we can't explain how bees are able to fly, or is it true?

Posted by: Soothsayer at October 05, 2010 05:45 PM (uFokq)

Myth.  Bees don't fly the same way birds or airplanes do.  At their size, they kind of "swim" through the air.

288

162 I expect that if we do ever achieve even a large Solar System presence, much less star-travel, we're going to be more machine than biological matter.
Posted by: Monty at October 05, 2010 05:07 PM

So, the borg......... but in purple shirts?

289

Myth.  Bees don't fly the same way birds or airplanes do.  At their size, they kind of "swim" through the air.

Posted by: stuiec at October 05, 2010 06:04 PM (7AOgy)

Huh. I always wondered about that.

Don't hummingbirds kinda fly like bees?

290 282 Guess who said this?

Buffalo Wallow Woman

291

Don't hummingbirds kinda fly like bees?

Posted by: ErikW at October 05, 2010 06:07 PM (E/3QM)

I believe so.  And you see how fast they make their wings beat.

On the flip side, there are fossils of dragonflies with 3-foot wingspans.  I wonder if they flew more like birds and airplanes, or maybe like hang-gliders, than like bees.

292 I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.  Explain that, you godless evolutionists!

293 Somebody please explain me?!

294

" to truly understand your relative importance in the grand order of things"

Life is like a mustard burp: momentarily tangy and then forgotten in the air.

295

I believe so.  And you see how fast they make their wings beat.

On the flip side, there are fossils of dragonflies with 3-foot wingspans.  I wonder if they flew more like birds and airplanes, or maybe like hang-gliders, than like bees.

Posted by: stuiec at October 05, 2010 06:10 PM (7AOgy)

Well, we sure as shit shot that theory to hell, right here on AoS at 6 o'something Eastern Standard Time.

Wanna tackle the Law of Gravity? I always thought Newton was a punk bitch anyway.

296 A man's ambition must indeed be small
To write his name upon a shithouse wall
But before I die I'll add my regal scrawl
To show the world I'm left with sweet fuck all
And when all of us bold shithouse poets do die
A monument grand they will raise to the sky
A monument made just to mark our great wit
A monument of solid shit now me boys

297 joejm65: "There's no way we ended up this way by chance. I think."

Environmental pressures just kept nudging all the forms along. The best traits for any given environment lived on dependent upon the resources available. It's really not all that difficult a concept. I'd say it's probably, arguably, the most exquisite theory in science and, inarguably, the most exquisite of biology. As far as any divine intervention to have designed the physics/matter that produces such a developmental cascade, well that could well be inspired and is beyond my capacity of logical thought. I'll grant the spiritual its Creationist belief as supreme in that regard until a better theory comes along. That's the best reconciliation I can come up with.

298 He used as a counter example the eye, with its amazing structures that, according to him, would have no precursors. So it just appeared fully formed, and that, he said, was impossible, and proved that the hand of god was involved. The problem is that the human eye isn't all that well designed. For one, your optic nerve *and* all the blood vessels exit through the same aperture at the back of your eyeball -- that's why you have a dead spot in your vision. The rods/cones in your eye are more sensitive at the center than at the edges, you see everything upside-down and have to mentally straighten things out...I could go on. You are prone to things like cataracts and glaucoma. Your eyes are prone to defects like astigmatism. Your eyes are lamentably narrow-band in a tiny part of the EM spectrum. I'll say it again: whoever designed your eyes didn't do a very good job. Also, other animals with much simpler ocular structures -- simple chromatophores in some sea creatures -- get along just fine. The evolution of the human eye is quite easy to trace. Nothing miraculous about it at all (except to the extent that all life is miraculous). (I don't want to get into a big religious debate here, mainly because I'm a Christian myself. But come on -- this is really a specious argument.)

299

Monty, I am of the opinion that the Drake equation is to science what Barack Obama is to statesmanship. If it's just used as a tool of speculation then that's no big deal, but too many people like to throw it out to prove that there's a high probability or even a certainty that there are other intelligent life forms out there ("It's got to be true, it's an equation!"). Well if I just tinker with one or two of the parameters a tiny bit then I can argue that there should have been swarms of  intelligent civilizations over the last few billion years bombarding the region with the electromagnetic signatures of their existence. Since we are not so bombarded with evidence you would then have to believe in the extremely unlikely event that we're the first ones in the neighborhood so to speak. In other words, we're really in no postion to even guess at what some of the parameters in that equation should be so it's usefulness is virtually nil.

300 maddogg at 137 - doesnt quite work that way - the radio signal of strong emitters can remain coherent over vast distances and time, By strong, i am referring to pulsars and stars, etc - not TV stations. At some distance and time the broadcasts of Howdy Doody are fading (mixing, adsorbing, etc) into the background noise.

301 SteveN: Yeah, the Drake equation is just a lot of "I don't know" mixed up wtih impressive-looking mathematical notation. We're hundreds of years, maybe aeons, away from star-travel. We may never get there -- no one can say for sure as yet whether it's even possible, given the distances and energy-budgets involved. And so far, the speed of light as an absolute holds up -- we know of no way to exceed it, even theoretically. We can't even harmonze what we do know about the physics of the universe. We can't harmonize gravity with quantum physics. We can't explain the behavior of the nuclear forces very well in large systems. We are still babies, scientifically. Our reach far exceeds our grasp right now. That's a good thing, I think: it keeps us motivated. But we should bring a substantial amount of humility along with our ambition.

302 Monty, put this up.  It goes all the way to VY Canis Majoris.

303 A little perspective on where we stand in the Galactic scheme of things...(link to Youtube)

A little perspective on where we stand in the Earthly scheme of things, and a good reason to figure out a way to get our ass to Mars, at least... (also Youtube)

304 #317 made me weepy first time I saw it.  Course, I never cry.  I just felt like it, you know.

305 My 2c - long distance space travel will be in Von Neumann machines, robotic mining of asteriods by 2200, there is life out there, lots of algeas, lichens, etc., next real space step - moon base for military purposes - spurred by advances in anti-sats

306 VY Canis Majoris is to Antares as Antares is to Arcturus, roughly

307 IP = 123.13.237.67

308 When considering our lack of ability to hear ET consider this factoid.  Most people look at our TV & radio and assume ET is also beaming out it's internal communications.  But we are already ceasing to send out anything that could be recognized as intelligent via radio.  And no I don't mean the quality of the programming.

Digital.  Look at a digital signal.  Carefully crafted to operate within a narrow range of signal to noise ratios.  SNR drops a little out of spec and you can't recover the original datastream.  Period, you either get it or you don't with only a very narrow slice where you get a signal with a lot of errors.  And the stream just looks like noise instead of an obviously intelligently created signal, especially if you drop below the signal strength to recover the complete binary stream and at medium to long interstellar distances that is simply not going to be possible by anything imaginable to our science outside receiving arrays the size of star clusters.  There is still some analog radio around but how much will remain in another generation?  So the entire window when we will be sending radio signals that our current SETI searches would recognize as intelligent will last around a single century.

And even if ET managed to somehow identify and capture a digital TV stream there would be the problem of making sense of it.  But we can pass over that on the grounds that if they have the science to receive and demodulate it to a binary stream they will be able to eventually figure out an MPEG2 transport stream.  But it is still a big problem for us.

Analog TV's structure is obvious to anyone with a clue as the sync pulses were designed for primitive analog circuits to lock onto.  While we can handwave the problem away for ET's wonder tech, could WE detect, recover and extract the information from ET's random stray TV signals?   No chance.  All we would see is some static that is one bit above the noise floor that looks a little wierd and wonder what natural process was creating it.

The only other strong EM emissions we send out are RADAR pulses that carry no real signs of intelligence.  Again, ET might be listening to them but probably is writing them off to strange natural forces.

309 Nobody has any idea what the future holds, or for that matter what's out there now. It's all speculation, some more sensical than others to be sure, but unfortunately people hate uncertainty.

Maybe we're all alone. Maybe everybody is flying by waiting for us to be rich enough to trade with. Maybe there's a colony ship on the way to wipe us out. Maybe we did recover a crashed alien spaceship, we just can't figure out how the damned thing works!

Maybe we'll have to make sleeper ships. Maybe we won't be able to survive deep space travel. Maybe we'll trade Lady Gaga to some aliens for an FTL drive next month. Maybe we'll find or make a network of dimensional or space-warp tunnels like Stargate. Maybe we'll transmit our minds and rent bodies.

Maybe there's an uncharted, elderly blue giant star with our name on it. That would suck.

I don't know what the future holds, but I do know that assuming there's nowhere to go ends with sitting around on your ass. Humility is kind of like patience - a little goes a long way, and too much goes absolutely nowhere.

310 So, how's life on the nano-pixel doin' ya?

311 "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space..."

-The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
(c/o the late, great Douglas Adams)

312 315 maddogg at 137 - doesnt quite work that way - the radio signal of strong emitters can remain coherent over vast distances and time, By strong, i am referring to pulsars and stars, etc - not TV stations. At some distance and time the broadcasts of Howdy Doody are fading (mixing, adsorbing, etc) into the background noise.

Posted by: Jean at October 05, 2010 06:32 PM (OJHxW)

True, but an advanced civilization might need to send a beam across vast distances if they do space travel. Not as strong as a pulsar, but possibly discernable by 300 foot wide radio telescope. Something, anything should be out there after looking 50 years from all over the world. Of course, it is possible that intelligent life is rare, but non sentient life much more abundant.

313 Tiny bits of nothing? I have an alternate view. As far as we know we are the ONLY sentient beings in the Universe. If that is true then in fact each one of us and our wonderful brains are actually the MOST IMPORTANT things in the Universe.

314

86

"...I am actually moving at rates of speed that boggle the mind, something along the order of 2,360,000 mph."

 

Like what the snail said when the turtle gave him a ride on his back--- Wheeeeeee!

315 That's a good one Monty.

Try This one.