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Zixar

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    Signs... UFO's and ET

    in Cafe starry eyed discussions

    Posted

    Dot: Let me put it this way, I don't think we'll see any aliens in our lifetime. There's a famous equation in the search for extraterrestrial life called the Drake Equation, which deals exactly with this question. It's fairly straightforward as math goes: (paraphrased from http://www.seti-inst.edu/science/drake-bg.html )

    The equation is usually written: N = R* • fp • ne • fl • fi • fc • L

    Where,

    N = The number of civilizations in The Milky Way Galaxy whose electromagnetic emissions are detectable.

    R* =The rate of formation of stars suitable for the development of intelligent life.

    fp = The fraction of those stars with planetary systems.

    ne = The number of planets, per solar system, with an environment suitable for life.

    fl = The fraction of suitable planets on which life actually appears.

    fi = The fraction of life bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges.

    fc = The fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.

    L = The length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

    That's 9th-grade Algebra I. The problem is that no one has an accurate value for ANY of the terms of the equation. (In other words, your guess is as good as theirs.)

    Although our instruments have gotten good enough to detect extrasolar planets (check out the stars 55 Cancri or Upsilon Andromedae for two examples) the only ones we can detect at this point are Jupiter-sized and larger. There are quite a few of those out there, so we have some places to look. Unfortunately, some of these planets are so massive and in the wrong place that they rule out finding any type of Earth-similar life in those whole solar systems.

    There's a very thin orbital band around stars in which life as we know it can fluorish. This is called the stellar habitable zone, and Earth just happens to be smack in the middle of the Sun's.(more or less) Venus is too close, and Mars is on the outer fringe of the zone--life is just barely theoretically possible there. Every other planet in our solar system is either baked by the Sun or frozen. In the solar systems outside our own, some of the discovered planets wreck the habitable zone because they're so big they can't support life themselves, and their gravity would attract and destroy smaller planets in the zone. In short, nearly all of the extrasolar planetary systems we've found so far are sterile.

    There's another problem, too. Click on this link:

    http://imgsrc.stsci.edu/op/pubinfo/PR/2002/11/prc/0211ay.jpg

    (It's big, but well worth the wait.) This is a picture of a dinky little galaxy in Draco from the new Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys. Beautiful shot, no? "Yeah, but what am I looking for, Zix?"

    Look at the other stars in the photo. Count them. (Hint: It shouldn't take long, there's less than 10 visible.) I'll wait...

    [twiddles fingers, hums]

    Don't tell me you found almost six thousand? There really are less than ten stars visible in that picture. (They're the ones with the diffraction "spikes" on them.)

    EVERYTHING else apart from those 6-7 stars (and the big galaxy in the middle, of course) is another separate galaxy. There are 6,000 galaxies in this one picture of a tiny, tiny portion of the sky. "Ho-lee ....." And that shot was picked more or less at random for the new camera. They knew the big Tadpole Galaxy was there, but had no clue they'd find 6,000 others by sheer accident.

    With all those galaxies there just has to be life elsewhere, right? Well, it turns out that there is not only a stellar habitable zone in each solar system, there's a galactic habitable zone in each galaxy, outside of which your whole solar system has little chance of surviving long enough for any possible habitable planets to generate a civilization. That cuts the probability way down again.

    The final reason why we won't see aliens in our lifetime is because of the sheer distances involved. There might be Denebian Slime Devils after all, but unless they started riding a light-beam 1500 YEARS ago, we'll never see them. Even our closest neighbor is 4 years away at the speed of light. (They're just now getting baseball broadcasts from 1998...) Since we can't come anywhere close to the speed of light, we can't even go next door to see if anyone's home at Alpha Centauri.

    Still, we keep listening for new signals in the hopes that we'll get HBO-Galactic. You can help, if you like. There's a project called SETI@Home ( http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ) that you can download a screensaver from. When active, the screensaver processes data from radio telescopes searching for any type of non-natural signal. Who knows? Your computer's idle time just may be the key to finding those little green men after all...

    I'm not holding my breath.

    Fiat lux!

    Zixar

    [This message was edited by Zixar on July 19, 2002 at 8:09.]

    Sick sense of humor

    in Humor

    Posted

    My friend Jim was a fueling-boom operator on a KC-135 tanker for years. This is one of his favorite jokes:

    It's Christmas Eve, and Santa is heading out to the flight line to get the sleigh going. A man in aviator glasses walks up to him and says, "Hold it there, Mr. Kringle. I'm from the FAA, and it's past time for your safety-check. If you want to keep your pilot's license, I'll have to ride along and test you on safety procedures."

    Santa says, "Well, it's a bit inconvenient, but I can't disappoint the kids."

    The FAA instructor watches as Santa goes through a thorough inspection of the sleigh, checking the reindeer's harnesses, the tie-downs on the toys, then they both get in the sleigh and start down the preflight checklist item by item. They finish the list and get clearance to taxi from the tower.

    "Oh, I should tell you something," says the FAA inspector as he pulls a shotgun out of his backpack and cocks it.

    "I'm going to fail your number-four engine on takeoff!"

    (p.s. But that's not the real punchline to the story! When Jim tells his wife SanDe this joke, she instantly came back with, "But how COULD he shoot Vixen????" (I admit I had to run down the list to verify it... That's just the kind of thing that SanDe WOULD know by heart!))

    Sick sense of humor

    in Humor

    Posted

    Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by US Air Force Pilots and the replies from the Maintenance crews.

    (P) Left inside main tire almost needs replacement

    (M) Almost replaced left inside main tire

    (P) Test flight OK, except "autoland" is very rough

    (M) "Autoland" not installed on this aircraft

    (P) #2 propeller seeping prop fluid

    (M) #2 propeller seepage normal - #1 #3 and #4 propellers lack normal seepage

    (P) Something loose in cockpit

    (M) Something tightened in cockpit

    (P) Evidence of leak on right main landing gear

    (M) Evidence removed

    (P) DME volume unbelievably loud

    (M) Volume set to a more believable level

    (P) Dead bugs on windshield

    (M) Live bugs on order

    (P) Autopilot in altitude hold mode produces a 200 fpm descent

    (M) Cannot reproduce problem on the ground

    (P) IFF inoperative

    (M) IFF always inoperative in OFF mode

    (P) Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick

    (M) That´s what they are there for

    (P) Number three engine missing

    (M) Engine found on right wing after brief search

    (P) Aircraft handles funny

    (M) Aircraft warned to straighten up, "fly right" and be serious

    (P) Target Radar hums

    (M) Reprogrammed Target Radar with the words

    Sick sense of humor

    in Humor

    Posted

    One engineering student comes up to his friend, another engineering student, and notices he has a new bicycle.

    "Where'd you get the bicycle?" asks the first student.

    "It was the funniest thing. I was walking back to the dorm from the lab and this beautiful blonde chick pulled up on a bicycle."

    "Go on..."

    "Well, she stops in front of me, gets off the bike, strips naked, throws her clothes on the ground and says 'You can have anything you like, big boy!'"

    The first student nods his head and says, "Good choice! The clothes would never have fit you!"

    Best Movie of 2002? (so far)

    in Entertainment Archives

    Posted

    Well, I think "Road To Perdition" just nudged Minority Report out of the top spot (barely).

    Be warned, it is a little slow in spots...but a solid story and some terrific acting.

    (Oh, Reign Of Fire was definitely worth a matinee. Could have done more with the premise, but it was entertaining, nonetheless.)

    Movie: Reign of Fire

    in Movies, Music, Books, Art

    Posted

    Well, I had heard a few negative reviews of this movie, but the premise intrigued me so much I just had to drag Zixette along to see it.

    Apart from a few plot holes (where did they get all the gas for the tank and the helicopter?) it was a much better movie than I had been led to believe. Thumbs up!

    lyrics please (((firebee)))

    in Movies, Music, Books, Art

    Posted

    Adios: Perhaps not. If it's old enough, it may be in the public domain.

    Firebee: Not to be overly contrary, but have you considered the case where one person writes the lyrics and another writes the music? According to your logic, the lyricist would have no rights to his words unless the musician was singing them. It doesn't work like that, I'm afraid.

    Go to www.harryfox.com , the site that handles most all the song licensing issues in the USA. The International Lyrics Server that used to reside at www.lyrics.ch was shut down over copyright infringement.

    It seems picky, unless you're a songwriter yourself, I suppose. (Not that I am!) Do you realize you can't even sing "Happy Birthday To You" in a public place without paying a royalty to the copyright holder? That's why all those restaurants sing some insipid "happy-happy Birthday" song instead of HBTY.

    A line or two, perhaps a verse, or the chorus, that's reasonable "fair use" of lyrics. The whole thing isn't.

    Honestly.

    God bless!

    Zix

    lyrics please (((firebee)))

    in Movies, Music, Books, Art

    Posted

    No offense taken, Firebee, but the problem lies in section 3 of the Fair Use provision of the Copyright law. Reproducing them in their entirety falls outside of fair use.

    If you typed the entire text of a Harry Potter book into a post, even though you don't make any money off of it, you still deprive the author of the chance to make her fair profit off of it. Reproducing a paragraph or two is "fair use". Retyping the whole thing is illegal.

    Even though songs are a lot shorter, they still enjoy the same protection under copyright law.

    Not that I'm about to narc on anybody for doing it, I just want to make sure you realize it isn't really risk-free.

    God bless!

    Zix

    (Geez, I listened to it carefully a couple of times, and it still sounds like "laugh"...)

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