Christopher Buckley, or C-Buckz, as I'm tempted to call him (just kidding, although that really makes me wish he'd marry Star Jones so she could be Star-Buckz - sorry, it's been a long week) has an article at the Beast trying to put a handle on how much the $1.2 trillion dollar deficit really is. And while I like what he does, he's taking a macro approach, and before I had read it I was already planning on taking more of a micro approach.
Let's start with Bernie Madoff. One fraud case, 50 billion dollars. That's a lot of money. A whole lot. It averages out to about $170 for every man, woman, and child in America.
Now, you didn't lose $170 in the Madoff fraud case, which you're probably pretty happy about. And that makes you like most Americans - almost all of them in fact. But for every American who didn't get ripped off by Madoff, that means that one of them who did lost an extra 170 bucks. Put another way, if you put all Americans on one side of a giant room with a big line down the middle, then for every single person that got to cross the line to the "didn't invest" side, some investor would have to pay $170. Just think about how long that would take ...
Now think about the stimulus. The tax rebate stimulus in early 2008 was $150 billion. Then TARP was $700 billion. Now Obama proposes another $825 billion. That adds up to $1.675 trillion (Just for fun: $1,675,000,000,000) There are 138 million taxpayers in the United States, so this amounts to $12,140 per taxpayer. That's incredible! Essentially, the federal government is forcing taxpayers to band together and go into (an additional!) $12,140 worth of collective debt each (albeit at a low interest rate, and of course the burden is not evenly distributed).
The entirety of the debt when Clinton left office was under $6 trillion. It's now over $10 trillion with $1 trillion deficits projected indefinitely. And we haven't even gotten to Social Security et al yet.
January 16, 2009
Many Random Thoughts and Articles
Iowa representative Steve King, who predicted an Obama victory would lead to al-Qaeda "dancing in the streets," now says that he doesn't know why Obama will be using his middle name Hussein in the inauguration, but that his given reason - historical consistency with previous inaugurations - "could not be the reason."
UPS delivered 30 pounds of marijuana to a Texas resident last Tuesday. Two side thoughts: One, I don't know anything about the prices of drugs, but even with my suspicion that marijuana is cheaper than other street drugs out there, I'm surprised at the article's valuation of the delivery at $350/pound. Two, thank goodness that guy didn't have an accidental arrest warrant out.
Last night was Bush's final presidential address. Mostly it's not worth watching, but if you're willing to be overly-nitpicky you can find humor in a couple of spots. At 4:37 he describes, without naming, the two sides of the war on terror. If you pretend the descriptions apply in the opposite way he intended them it's sort of funny. At 6:38 - and again, this is nitpicky - his phrasing leaves me wondering if there were more Supreme Court appointments that I didn't know about. Finally, though his phrasing is technically accurate given his intention, at 9:00 it sounds as if he's using a rather glaring tautology.
The inauguration security force in Washington DC will consist of 42,500 personnel. By comparison, this is roughly nearly 30% of the total number of US troops currently serving in all of Iraq.
Do the results justify the actions? Don't look too much into me mentioning this - I'm in awe of this guy, but it's worth pointing out that yesterday's emergency landing in the Hudson brought a damaged plane within 900 feet of the GW Bridge - for reference, that means it was essentially at the same altitude as the top of the Empire State Building when it passed over the bridge. And that's without considering what would have happened had he missed the river and landed on the island ... On the other hand, I can't really think of any better options, and it's not like the pilot is going to be like "well, there's a chance this may not work out, so I'm just going to crash us in a field for the greater good." Just an observation.
Found this slideshow of "right-leaning celebrities." It's just funny because of how deep they had to dig. And one of their best example, Dennis Hopper, campaigned for Obama anyway.
Finally, a take on Pinky and the Brain that would be funny if it weren't true.
UPS delivered 30 pounds of marijuana to a Texas resident last Tuesday. Two side thoughts: One, I don't know anything about the prices of drugs, but even with my suspicion that marijuana is cheaper than other street drugs out there, I'm surprised at the article's valuation of the delivery at $350/pound. Two, thank goodness that guy didn't have an accidental arrest warrant out.
Last night was Bush's final presidential address. Mostly it's not worth watching, but if you're willing to be overly-nitpicky you can find humor in a couple of spots. At 4:37 he describes, without naming, the two sides of the war on terror. If you pretend the descriptions apply in the opposite way he intended them it's sort of funny. At 6:38 - and again, this is nitpicky - his phrasing leaves me wondering if there were more Supreme Court appointments that I didn't know about. Finally, though his phrasing is technically accurate given his intention, at 9:00 it sounds as if he's using a rather glaring tautology.
The inauguration security force in Washington DC will consist of 42,500 personnel. By comparison, this is roughly nearly 30% of the total number of US troops currently serving in all of Iraq.
Do the results justify the actions? Don't look too much into me mentioning this - I'm in awe of this guy, but it's worth pointing out that yesterday's emergency landing in the Hudson brought a damaged plane within 900 feet of the GW Bridge - for reference, that means it was essentially at the same altitude as the top of the Empire State Building when it passed over the bridge. And that's without considering what would have happened had he missed the river and landed on the island ... On the other hand, I can't really think of any better options, and it's not like the pilot is going to be like "well, there's a chance this may not work out, so I'm just going to crash us in a field for the greater good." Just an observation.
Found this slideshow of "right-leaning celebrities." It's just funny because of how deep they had to dig. And one of their best example, Dennis Hopper, campaigned for Obama anyway.
Finally, a take on Pinky and the Brain that would be funny if it weren't true.
January 15, 2009
Go Away Charlie Rangel
We already knew that he sucks (tax evasion as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is tough to explain) and now he's reintroducing legislation to reintroduce the draft. It'll never pass, but he still sucks.
Supreme Court Ruling Causes Violent Double Take
I nearly hit a car yesterday while driving home. OK, that's not quite true, but I certainly lost my full mental capacities for a moment while listening to NPR report on a recent Supreme Court ruling.
Let's say you are John Smith of Washington County. The cops pull you over for speeding, run your license, and see that you have an arrest warrant out in Washington County. Let's further speculate that the arrest warrant isn't for you, it's for a different John Smith, but was attributed to you by clerical error.
Now we'll have some real fun. Let's say there's something illegal in your car, which of course the cops found during the arrest/search process. Of course, eventually it will be discovered that the warrant was in error and your arrest will be cleared ...
However, due to yesterday's Supreme Court ruling, the evidence that the state had no right to search for or seize from you in the first place is now totally admissable for use in a subsequent prosecution.
I mean, that's just such a blatant abuse of governmental power. It's unfortunate that throwing that evidence out would let guilty people walk, but it's certainly not worth the encroachment on the rights of citizens. I could go on but I'll just stop.
BONUS: While searching for this article I found an article about frequent-atheist-lawsuit-bringer Michael Newdow trying to get religious references pulled from next week's inaugural address. He'll surely fail so why does he keep trying? According to these two articles the answer is simple: atheists have so much narcissim and hubris, there's no other way to release it.
Let's say you are John Smith of Washington County. The cops pull you over for speeding, run your license, and see that you have an arrest warrant out in Washington County. Let's further speculate that the arrest warrant isn't for you, it's for a different John Smith, but was attributed to you by clerical error.
Now we'll have some real fun. Let's say there's something illegal in your car, which of course the cops found during the arrest/search process. Of course, eventually it will be discovered that the warrant was in error and your arrest will be cleared ...
However, due to yesterday's Supreme Court ruling, the evidence that the state had no right to search for or seize from you in the first place is now totally admissable for use in a subsequent prosecution.
I mean, that's just such a blatant abuse of governmental power. It's unfortunate that throwing that evidence out would let guilty people walk, but it's certainly not worth the encroachment on the rights of citizens. I could go on but I'll just stop.
BONUS: While searching for this article I found an article about frequent-atheist-lawsuit-bringer Michael Newdow trying to get religious references pulled from next week's inaugural address. He'll surely fail so why does he keep trying? According to these two articles the answer is simple: atheists have so much narcissim and hubris, there's no other way to release it.
Victimless Crimes
On the radio during lunch today part of the O'Reilly Factor consisted of a discussion of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Long story short (more Wiki surfing) that got me thinking about victimless crimes.
Clearly this is a group that overall would take the position that, in general, if there's no victim there's no crime. So I'll go the other way - is there a case for something with no victim that should still be outlawed?
It's totally possible, by the way, that there may be some really obvious ones; I'm just not thinking of any off the top of my head.
(PS - O'Reilly, for the record, routinely cuts off callers spewing anti-gay talking points and remarks that he doesn't think that the govt has any business regulating the bedroom, which is a little more liberal/libertarian than I would have put my money on; nonetheless, he does oppose "redefining the religious and historical term 'marriage'" and also seemed to oppose repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on the grounds that the number of heterosexuals alienated by its repeal would be greater than the increase in homosexual enlistment)
Clearly this is a group that overall would take the position that, in general, if there's no victim there's no crime. So I'll go the other way - is there a case for something with no victim that should still be outlawed?
It's totally possible, by the way, that there may be some really obvious ones; I'm just not thinking of any off the top of my head.
(PS - O'Reilly, for the record, routinely cuts off callers spewing anti-gay talking points and remarks that he doesn't think that the govt has any business regulating the bedroom, which is a little more liberal/libertarian than I would have put my money on; nonetheless, he does oppose "redefining the religious and historical term 'marriage'" and also seemed to oppose repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on the grounds that the number of heterosexuals alienated by its repeal would be greater than the increase in homosexual enlistment)
Off to a good start!
Well, the Czechs do not disappoint: in an effort to promote European unity the Czechs commissioned a stereotype-based piece of art that included an element representing each country in the bloc. Who could have guessed that Romania would be upset to be represented as a toilet?
It's cold
So, we're all freakin' out here in the StL because it's really cold today. In terms of wind chill, the high today is supposed to be -16. But check out this map - barely above -35 in anywhere in Iowa and below -45 in most of Minnesota.
And yet Saskatchewan (spelled it right the first try!) is chillin' at -10, and Alberta won't even go below zero and parts of British Columbia won't go below freezing! This is crap.
And yet Saskatchewan (spelled it right the first try!) is chillin' at -10, and Alberta won't even go below zero and parts of British Columbia won't go below freezing! This is crap.
January 14, 2009
ADHD and Sports
I've kind of always wondered if there was a problem with ADHD drugs being abused in sports. Personally, I'm always afraid to play hockey if I've taken my medicine because it can really increase your heart rate, but apparently it can be quite helpful to athletes.
Although this guy drags out his argument longer than he needs to and presents it as if he's a genius who amazingly pierced through the information to find the truth, the article is nonetheless interesting.
Basically, in baseball a ban on stimulants led to a three-year increase in players with medical exemptions for Ritalin, Adderall, and similar drugs from 28 to 106, or 8% of players (nat'l averages are 3-5% for children and 1-3.5% for adults).
Although it's not my favorite it's the best I could find: here's an online ADHD test. Unfortunately it doesn't take the common step of splitting the questions into sort of a "mental and physical" dichotemy, but overall it's not bad.
Although this guy drags out his argument longer than he needs to and presents it as if he's a genius who amazingly pierced through the information to find the truth, the article is nonetheless interesting.
Basically, in baseball a ban on stimulants led to a three-year increase in players with medical exemptions for Ritalin, Adderall, and similar drugs from 28 to 106, or 8% of players (nat'l averages are 3-5% for children and 1-3.5% for adults).
Although it's not my favorite it's the best I could find: here's an online ADHD test. Unfortunately it doesn't take the common step of splitting the questions into sort of a "mental and physical" dichotemy, but overall it's not bad.
Scare quotes
The New Republic has a pretty funny article posted right now about the WSJ editorial board's use of scare quotes. According to the article, "Like most of us, the Journal [editorial board] uses scare quotes to signify that a term is misleading." The problem, argues The New Republic, is that The WSJ uses quotation marks in ways that seem to either indicate a certain level of incompetency in the use of the English language or a disdain for certain policies. Assuming that one of the respected papers in our country can speak our language, that leads us to the conclusion that The WSJ is simply implying a lot more than it is saying, an interesting practice for a news source.
I am posting this more because of my own frustration with the overuse of quotation marks than because of my opinions about the WSJ editorial staff (opinions that are more or less nonexistent).
I am posting this more because of my own frustration with the overuse of quotation marks than because of my opinions about the WSJ editorial staff (opinions that are more or less nonexistent).
January 13, 2009
Restructuring the Calendar
(Warning: there's no point to this post, and it's long. It's just, to me, interesting to ponder)
I've been working on my budget a lot recently, and the way our calendar is set up is really screwing me up, because I (like most people, I imagine) budget monthly but get paid biweekly. A simple example: if I spend exactly $30 per paycheck on something like health insurance, then there will be 10 months where I'll spend $60 and 2 months where I'll spend $90. So my monthly budget averages out to $65, but I can't possibly ever be on budget, even if I'm able to perfectly anticipate my expenses. The example isn't perfectly general but you see the point.
Restructuring the calendar (ever) would be like switching America to metric by March, or like switching society to a base 8 number system. It just won't happen. It's kind of weird to think that by the year 8000, we won't have been able to improve upon our calendar. But let's pretend (I should go into the base 8 thing sometime) that our little group was in charge of a new one and whatever we wanted would be approved. What would it look like?
I assume that an ideal calendar system would have the same number of days in each week and weeks in each month (and thus days in each month). I know there aren't a lot of programmers here, but just think about how much easier calendars and scheduling would be if, say, there were 360 days in a year (the prime factorization is 2*2*2*3*3*5).
You could have 6 days in a week, 5 weeks (thus 30 days) in a month, and 12 months in the year.
You could have 9 days in a week, 4 weeks in a month, and 10 months in a year.
You could have 8 days in a week, 5 weeks in a month, and 9 months in a year.
As long as the product in this format is 360 (or 72*5), you're golden!
(Better yet - imagine something like 256 days. 8 days in a week, 4 weeks in a month, 8 months in a year. Done. Added bonus: still a round number of months per season/quarter)
Unfortunately, we have 365 days. Prime factorization? 73*5. Or, for our purposes, 73*5*1. Which means the same format above still applies, but your only three options for inputs are 73, 5, and 1. I suppose the best solution that fits our "model" is 5 days in a week, 73 weeks in a month, and 1 month in a year (i.e., no more things called "months"). (In retrospect, have 12 months in which the last month has an extra week probably wouldn't be the end of the world, but again defeats the purpose)
So that's pretty ugly. But you know Tuesday would always been on 27th of every year, or however you aligned it. One might keep track of dates with labels like "Monday 49". All-in-all, my opinion is that this would be an improvement over the current calendar and the best possible choice.
There are two things that really screw this up, however. The first is weekends/work weeks. What are we going to do now - work four days and then take one off every week? Aside from the fact that this means an increase in work days (from 71% to 80%, though we could add more holidays ... side thought: as technology increases our productivity/net worth, we should be taking more time off anyway), it kind of defeats the purpose of the weekend. No traveling to see family, and who's going to do yard work on a "Saturday" if they have to work the next day, every week? (You could solve this by moving to a ten-day week, but then you'd have 36.5 weeks, which at least would even everything out every other year)
The real pain, however, is leap days. The whole point of my calendar is regularity. The last day of the week is always a number divisible by 5 in every year. So how do you handle leap days? My only thought is this: say the 5th and final day of the week is "Friday" - I guess you'd just end leap years with a "second Friday". But that defeats the whole purpose as well. Of course, there's no way to get around the leap year problem - you could go to a 400-year calendar, but even then it's not quite perfect.
I don't feel like writing any more on this.
I've been working on my budget a lot recently, and the way our calendar is set up is really screwing me up, because I (like most people, I imagine) budget monthly but get paid biweekly. A simple example: if I spend exactly $30 per paycheck on something like health insurance, then there will be 10 months where I'll spend $60 and 2 months where I'll spend $90. So my monthly budget averages out to $65, but I can't possibly ever be on budget, even if I'm able to perfectly anticipate my expenses. The example isn't perfectly general but you see the point.
Restructuring the calendar (ever) would be like switching America to metric by March, or like switching society to a base 8 number system. It just won't happen. It's kind of weird to think that by the year 8000, we won't have been able to improve upon our calendar. But let's pretend (I should go into the base 8 thing sometime) that our little group was in charge of a new one and whatever we wanted would be approved. What would it look like?
I assume that an ideal calendar system would have the same number of days in each week and weeks in each month (and thus days in each month). I know there aren't a lot of programmers here, but just think about how much easier calendars and scheduling would be if, say, there were 360 days in a year (the prime factorization is 2*2*2*3*3*5).
You could have 6 days in a week, 5 weeks (thus 30 days) in a month, and 12 months in the year.
You could have 9 days in a week, 4 weeks in a month, and 10 months in a year.
You could have 8 days in a week, 5 weeks in a month, and 9 months in a year.
As long as the product in this format is 360 (or 72*5), you're golden!
(Better yet - imagine something like 256 days. 8 days in a week, 4 weeks in a month, 8 months in a year. Done. Added bonus: still a round number of months per season/quarter)
Unfortunately, we have 365 days. Prime factorization? 73*5. Or, for our purposes, 73*5*1. Which means the same format above still applies, but your only three options for inputs are 73, 5, and 1. I suppose the best solution that fits our "model" is 5 days in a week, 73 weeks in a month, and 1 month in a year (i.e., no more things called "months"). (In retrospect, have 12 months in which the last month has an extra week probably wouldn't be the end of the world, but again defeats the purpose)
So that's pretty ugly. But you know Tuesday would always been on 27th of every year, or however you aligned it. One might keep track of dates with labels like "Monday 49". All-in-all, my opinion is that this would be an improvement over the current calendar and the best possible choice.
There are two things that really screw this up, however. The first is weekends/work weeks. What are we going to do now - work four days and then take one off every week? Aside from the fact that this means an increase in work days (from 71% to 80%, though we could add more holidays ... side thought: as technology increases our productivity/net worth, we should be taking more time off anyway), it kind of defeats the purpose of the weekend. No traveling to see family, and who's going to do yard work on a "Saturday" if they have to work the next day, every week? (You could solve this by moving to a ten-day week, but then you'd have 36.5 weeks, which at least would even everything out every other year)
The real pain, however, is leap days. The whole point of my calendar is regularity. The last day of the week is always a number divisible by 5 in every year. So how do you handle leap days? My only thought is this: say the 5th and final day of the week is "Friday" - I guess you'd just end leap years with a "second Friday". But that defeats the whole purpose as well. Of course, there's no way to get around the leap year problem - you could go to a 400-year calendar, but even then it's not quite perfect.
I don't feel like writing any more on this.
How Porsche cashed in on Volkswagen
Here's the article, but I've summarized it below. Reading about it on Wiki, it seems like most of this happened at the end of last week. (Come to find there are some disparities between the two articles, but the non-Wiki story is way more interesting, so I'll use that when necessary)
In March 2007, Porsche began increasing its stake in Volkwagen, "its most important partner", amid fears that VW would be bought up by hedge funds and subsequently dismantled and liquidated (I'm trying to resist the "chopped up for parts" pun), Porsche increased its stake in the company to about 30%.
Over the next year and a half Porsche continued to buy stock in VW (which they did not "finally reveal" until October 2008). Over that time, as Porsche continued to buy up the stock, the price of it increased. Of course, hedge fund managers could see that the price was going up without any new news about the company, and so reasoned (correctly) that the new price had been artificially inflated. So they bet on the stock to fall.
How does one actually bet on a stock to fall? This is something few people understand. It's not quite the same as betting in Vegas. Short-selling, as it's called, involves entering into an agreement wherein you receive money (in the amount of the current stock price) now and are obligated to return a share of the stock later. So if the current price is $50 and the future price is $40, you can receive $50 today and are then obliged to return a share of stock later. Typically, then, to return the stock you would just buy a share at that day's price and transfer it to the other person.
I'm just going to make up numbers in this part ... So shares of VW had a true value of, say, $60. Thanks to Porsche buying up all the shares, the price had been inflated to $80. Betting this "bubble" would burst, the hedge funds shorted the stock.
Except it turns out that Porsche now owned 75% of VW - nearly all the stock that is available for purchase. And Porsche didn't want to sell it, so they priced it at $100, which they could do because they basically held a monopoly on the stock.
Why is this a problem for the hedge funds? By shorting the stock, they had an obligation to return a share of the stock to its original owner (Porsche). So on the day it came due, each one had to go buy a share at the market price and give it up - except now the market price was $100, even though the stock was still only worth $60.
And according to the article, that's how a company with $8 billion in annual revenue made $10 billion playing the market.
In March 2007, Porsche began increasing its stake in Volkwagen, "its most important partner", amid fears that VW would be bought up by hedge funds and subsequently dismantled and liquidated (I'm trying to resist the "chopped up for parts" pun), Porsche increased its stake in the company to about 30%.
Over the next year and a half Porsche continued to buy stock in VW (which they did not "finally reveal" until October 2008). Over that time, as Porsche continued to buy up the stock, the price of it increased. Of course, hedge fund managers could see that the price was going up without any new news about the company, and so reasoned (correctly) that the new price had been artificially inflated. So they bet on the stock to fall.
How does one actually bet on a stock to fall? This is something few people understand. It's not quite the same as betting in Vegas. Short-selling, as it's called, involves entering into an agreement wherein you receive money (in the amount of the current stock price) now and are obligated to return a share of the stock later. So if the current price is $50 and the future price is $40, you can receive $50 today and are then obliged to return a share of stock later. Typically, then, to return the stock you would just buy a share at that day's price and transfer it to the other person.
I'm just going to make up numbers in this part ... So shares of VW had a true value of, say, $60. Thanks to Porsche buying up all the shares, the price had been inflated to $80. Betting this "bubble" would burst, the hedge funds shorted the stock.
Except it turns out that Porsche now owned 75% of VW - nearly all the stock that is available for purchase. And Porsche didn't want to sell it, so they priced it at $100, which they could do because they basically held a monopoly on the stock.
Why is this a problem for the hedge funds? By shorting the stock, they had an obligation to return a share of the stock to its original owner (Porsche). So on the day it came due, each one had to go buy a share at the market price and give it up - except now the market price was $100, even though the stock was still only worth $60.
And according to the article, that's how a company with $8 billion in annual revenue made $10 billion playing the market.
FYI - Clinton Hearing
In case you're interested, the Senate hearing on Hillary Clinton's Secretary of State nomination is available here. (Hey, she just spent time talking about microfinance! Awesome!)
Bernie Madoff sucks
I know this story is sort of ubiquitous, but it can't hurt to emphasize how awful this guy is. I mean, the guy cost his investors 50 billion dollars. That's with a B. Billions of dollars is not foreign to us, but it's not something you hear with individuals. Bill Gates' entire net worth is $58 billion, roughly the same ballpark as the amount stolen. Or, put another way, $50 billion is also roughly the same amount the government has spent on AIG, Chrysler, and GM combined - and it'll get some of that money back.
What really did it for me, though, was that he defrauded his own sister out of millions, leaving her with "nothing" (though to be fair, I'm not sure what "nothing" means to a millionaire).
What really did it for me, though, was that he defrauded his own sister out of millions, leaving her with "nothing" (though to be fair, I'm not sure what "nothing" means to a millionaire).
January 12, 2009
Well, that was bound to happen
Bart, your questions answered.
I got laid off today. More specifically, my "position has been eliminated." The company won't pay for my boss to have an assistant anymore.
So: Between my savings and small severance, I have living expenses through the end of my current lease, which April 30. My immediate plans include hitting up the temp agencies and filing for unemployment.
So: Advice? Ideas? Leads? (No, really. I'll send you my resume).
I got laid off today. More specifically, my "position has been eliminated." The company won't pay for my boss to have an assistant anymore.
So: Between my savings and small severance, I have living expenses through the end of my current lease, which April 30. My immediate plans include hitting up the temp agencies and filing for unemployment.
So: Advice? Ideas? Leads? (No, really. I'll send you my resume).
Searching for Extraterrestrial Life ("Where are They?")
I stumbled The Bloop on Wikipedia today. I innocently found my way over to SETI, which refers to the collective Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. The rest of my day was gone.
(Before you decide to make fun of me as you think about the fact that I blew my day on this - remember that you're helplessly intrigued by the space elevator)
Typically this wouldn't have happened - I can Wiki-chain or whatever you want to call it and then go on with my day. But I found that my view on the existence of Intelligent Extra-Terrestrial Life (I'll call it IETL or better yet IL) appears to be in quite the minority, at least as best as I could surmise from Wikipedia. I'll try to sum up my view thus:
There is almost certainly intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and it's probably not that uncommon. However, it is unlikely that there is life anywhere "close" to us - essentially a zero probability of being close enough to reach by either manned or unmanned space travel, and not much better odds that we are close enough to intelligent life to have any sort of one-way, let alone two-way, communication.
There's a whole Wikipedia page devoted to the topic of what's called the "Fermi paradox" - assuming IL exists, why haven't we found it? (Often, "Where are They?") Variations on my (I suppose, uninformed) opinion do exist on the page but are not very prominent, which surprised me. So I got interested in reading about this stuff (and bored at work) and ended up on all kinds of interesting pages, which I've listed below. (Some I have not yet read)
SETI
Fermi Paradox
Megastructure
Kardashev scale
Rare Earth Hypothesis
Interstellar Travel (Last one I've read)
Drake Equation
Bracewell probe
Light cone (I'm really interested in this one but haven't gotten there yet)
The article on interstellar travel seemed to imply that we might be able to reach Alpha Centauri within 50 years. The star is 4.3 light years away, or 25 trillion miles. This would require traveling 57 million miles/hr, or approximately 1,500 times the current record of 38,600 mph.
Talking again about IL, one article had an interesting take on life-favoring characteristics on earth. The moon, it claims, is the result of a Mars-sized object colliding with a young earth. This favorably increased our rotation speed, which minimizes intra-day temperature variation, and also put us at a favorable tilt on our axis (too much tilt results in too much inter-seasonal variation, but too little of such variation would slow evolution and thus delay the existence of IL)
That's all I've got for right now. Except that apparently one (very) unfortunate side effect of hypothermia is a literally-unstoppable urge to remove one's clothing.
(Before you decide to make fun of me as you think about the fact that I blew my day on this - remember that you're helplessly intrigued by the space elevator)
Typically this wouldn't have happened - I can Wiki-chain or whatever you want to call it and then go on with my day. But I found that my view on the existence of Intelligent Extra-Terrestrial Life (I'll call it IETL or better yet IL) appears to be in quite the minority, at least as best as I could surmise from Wikipedia. I'll try to sum up my view thus:
There is almost certainly intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and it's probably not that uncommon. However, it is unlikely that there is life anywhere "close" to us - essentially a zero probability of being close enough to reach by either manned or unmanned space travel, and not much better odds that we are close enough to intelligent life to have any sort of one-way, let alone two-way, communication.
There's a whole Wikipedia page devoted to the topic of what's called the "Fermi paradox" - assuming IL exists, why haven't we found it? (Often, "Where are They?") Variations on my (I suppose, uninformed) opinion do exist on the page but are not very prominent, which surprised me. So I got interested in reading about this stuff (and bored at work) and ended up on all kinds of interesting pages, which I've listed below. (Some I have not yet read)
SETI
Fermi Paradox
Megastructure
Kardashev scale
Rare Earth Hypothesis
Interstellar Travel (Last one I've read)
Drake Equation
Bracewell probe
Light cone (I'm really interested in this one but haven't gotten there yet)
The article on interstellar travel seemed to imply that we might be able to reach Alpha Centauri within 50 years. The star is 4.3 light years away, or 25 trillion miles. This would require traveling 57 million miles/hr, or approximately 1,500 times the current record of 38,600 mph.
Talking again about IL, one article had an interesting take on life-favoring characteristics on earth. The moon, it claims, is the result of a Mars-sized object colliding with a young earth. This favorably increased our rotation speed, which minimizes intra-day temperature variation, and also put us at a favorable tilt on our axis (too much tilt results in too much inter-seasonal variation, but too little of such variation would slow evolution and thus delay the existence of IL)
That's all I've got for right now. Except that apparently one (very) unfortunate side effect of hypothermia is a literally-unstoppable urge to remove one's clothing.
Thank you, 23/6
I was wondering last week about who the hell voted against impeachment last week. Of course, I had all the information I really needed the whole time:
Number of times "Milton" appears in name: One
Number of Nobel Prizes won: Zero
Number of times "Milton" appears in name: One
Number of Nobel Prizes won: Zero
Relief
A long time ago, in a post far, far, away, I mentioned that you wouldn't hear from me for a weekend while I studied for an exam.
On their infinitely mysterious scoring system, I have today been informed that I scored a 6 - the minimum passing score, and thus I am not quite looking to change career fields yet.
I'd love to celebrate, but it's 8:30 in the morning. (Add some Bailey's to my morning coffee, perhaps?)
On their infinitely mysterious scoring system, I have today been informed that I scored a 6 - the minimum passing score, and thus I am not quite looking to change career fields yet.
I'd love to celebrate, but it's 8:30 in the morning. (Add some Bailey's to my morning coffee, perhaps?)