Alien Life

I heard a scientist say that because of the vast number of planets in the galaxy, it is almost certain that alien life exists. My reaction: hmmm.

Frankly, I have no idea what the odds may be for life originating on a planet or moon, and anyone who tells you they do is seriously delusional. Given enough time, life may be inevitable. Or life may be a fantastic fluke. No one knows for certain how life got started on Earth.

Let’s divide alien life into four types. Type 1 is all life excluding intelligent life (on a par with human intelligence). Type 2 life is intelligent but not technologically advanced. Type 3 life has technology that is emitting radio waves. Type 4 life has advanced beyond radio and no longer uses it.

Scientists are looking for life in the galaxy by listening for artificially-produced radio transmissions. That means they’re looking for type 3 life. The galaxy might be loaded with bacterial life, but only a biologist is going to get excited over that discovery. Ordinary people are only going to get excited over type 3 life (or type 4 life, which we aren’t searching for because we don’t know how). Type 3 is the only kind of life that will be discoverable by humans unless we find a way to go out into the galaxy and examine planets and moons, and that will not happen for a very long time, if ever. Science fiction dramas notwithstanding, the galaxy is simply too immense. “How immense is it?” you ask. Allow me to quote from a previous blog post titled Laniakea.

If we shrink space so that our Milky Way galaxy has the diameter of the Sun, then the Sun’s diameter will be about the thickness of a dime, and the Earth’s diameter will equal the thinnest human hair. And if you are a human who is 6 feet (1.83 meters) tall, how tall would you be in our shrunken galaxy? You’d be 2.45 millionths of a micrometer tall. What else is that small? Not much. In fact, it would take a thousand of you, lined up head to toe, to equal the length of the smallest virus humans have studied.

So we’re pretty much stuck with trying to detect, not any alien life, but only alien life that is using powerful radio transmitters with antennas that, through sheer happenstance, are pointed our way at the very moment we’re listening for them. Well, not literally at the moment we’re listening. A civilization 10 light years from us would have to have transmitted a signal our way 10 years ago for us to detect it today.

A century, or ten centuries, from now, it’s very possible that humans will no longer use radio waves for communication. The same could be true of alien technology. So let’s be generous and assume that our radio civilization will last for 1000 years before our radio technology is replaced by a new technology. That means our search for alien life is limited to life that has advanced to at least our level of technology but not much beyond it – a thousand year slice of time.

An alien civilization’s solar system is likely as old as our own. Our solar system is 4.5 billion years old but, for perspective, let’s scale that down to one day (24 hours). If we do that, a radio civilization that lasts for 1000 years will then exist for two hundredths of a second, or twenty milliseconds. If all of Earth’s history were to be compressed into a single day, 1000 years would pass faster than the eye can blink. It’s not surprising that we haven’t found life out there. If intelligent alien life exists, it will take a large amount of luck and extremely fortuitous timing for us to detect it. The odds of success are not good. But we have to look. Because sometimes, against the odds, that stroke of luck happens.

ObamaCare Repeal Fail

The Senate fell one vote short of passing a “skinny” repeal of the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. ObamaCare. For 7 years the GOP vowed to get rid of ObamaCare. Trump promised to replace it. But in the end, they fell one vote short.

Three Republican senators voted “No.” One of those Republicans was John McCain. He defied his party and the wishes of President Trump to vote “No” to a bill that would have repealed the individual and employer mandates. He voted “No” to legislation that would have been a victory for Trump. His “No” vote was a surprise and a blow to GOP plans for health care.

McCain’s vote shouldn’t have been a surprise. Remember when Trump was campaigning and said this about Sen. McCain:

"He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured, OK? I hate to tell you. He is a war hero because he was captured.”

Young Donald Trump received multiple deferments from military service. John McCain risked his life for his country, was captured, and was a prisoner of war for five and a half years. His wartime injuries left him permanently incapable of raising his arms above his head. But, according to Trump, McCain wasn’t a real war hero; he was only a hero because he was a P.O.W.

When Trump thinks about McCain’s “No” vote, there is one more thing he should consider. As the saying goes, “Karma’s a bitch.”

Rainy Days and Rainy Nights

When I was young, I hated rainy days. I had to stay inside, and I hated staying inside. I loved the outdoors. Now I’m older, and I love rainy days. Mow the lawn? Can’t do it – its raining. Trim the bushes? Can’t do it – it’s raining. Run the weed-eater? Can’t do it – it’s raining.

Night is the best. Because of the rain, the temperature tonight is just 70°F and is supposed to hit 61°F. So I have my bedroom window open. The night air comes in, the night smells come in, and the night sounds come in. I hear the chirping of crickets. Some years, I hear the drone of cicadas. I live less than a half mile as the crow flies from Interstate 95, and often I hear the sounds of Interstate traffic. I hear the incessant drone of tires on pavement. Sometimes I hear Jake  brakes slowing a tractor-trailer. (Perhaps you’ve seen a road sign that states: “No Jake Brakes Within City Limits.” They’re loud.) Frequently, I hear a train on its way through town. I hear the rumble of steel wheels on steel rails, and I hear the engine’s air horns.

The forecast calls for heavy rain tonight – an 80% chance. My house has a shingle roof, but half of my bedroom has a copper sheet on the roof above it. I can hear rain hitting the roof very well.

When I can’t sleep, I get up and see what’s on the television. Usually there is nothing interesting and I end up on the computer, perusing the World Wide Web. Sometimes I’ll use the opportunity to write a blog post. The house is very quiet, with only the sound of the refrigerator running. When the refrigerator turns off, there is no sound at all – except for the tinnitus that is always in the background.

The weather forecast calls for rain off and on for the next 24 hours. I say, “Bring it!” I love rainy days and rainy nights.

Lady Luck

According to the BBC, this twisted pile of smoking metal used to be a new £200,000 ($258,000) Ferrari 430 Scuderia. While cruising down the M1 motorway connecting London to Leeds, the vehicle “went airborne”, zoomed off the M1, and smashed itself to pieces. The driver walked away with “just cuts and bruises.” He had owned the vehicle for one hour.

Another BBC article showed the remains of a £143,000 ($126,700) McLaren 570S and reported that the driver and passenger escaped with “minor injuries.”

Who are these people? How were they able to walk away from a mass of debris that isn’t even recognizable as having once been an automobile? Are they invincible, like superheroes? Were they teleported out of their cars at the last second by a benevolent deity? Or are they just unbelievably lucky? Because if it’s the latter, I want one of them to buy my next lottery ticket. Come on, guys, I’ll split the winnings.

But on second thought, they don’t need me. People that lucky have probably won all the lottery money they can handle – and they used some of it to buy themselves supercars. I hope they bought insurance, too.

Sticks and Stones

It rained this afternoon and will probably rain again before morning. That means I can’t trim the bushes in front of the house. My electric hedge trimmer doesn’t play well with rainwater.

A few weeks ago I trimmed all but two bushes, after which the rubbish bin was chock full of leaves, so I had to stop at that point. I had planned on trimming the last two bushes a day or so later, but the weather turned hot (heat index 112°) for a while, and it was simply too hot to finish the job. Then the temperature turned bearable and I had a chance to finish the job, but bearable wasn’t good enough. I wanted comfortable weather. So I waited some more. And now it’s comfortable, but it’s raining. I still have to trim the last two bushes – I’m just procrastinating. It is the way of my people. My personal philosophy is, “Why do today what can be put off till tomorrow?”

I’ve been hit by summertime laziness. I posted two articles in June and, so far, one article in July. Now the end of the month is almost here and I’m just getting around to my second July post. Lazy.

But it’s not entirely laziness. There’s been plenty of fodder for the blog mill, not the least of which has been the clown show in Washington, D.C., and I’ve been tempted to write some commentary. But the clown show has been very adequately covered by hundreds of online news articles, opinion pieces, and late-night comedians. Therefore, I feel like I have nothing of substance to add to the conversation. Strangely, having nothing of substance to write about has never stopped me before, so the cause of my writer’s block is not entirely explicable. (I’ve been wanting to use that word, explicable, for years. Now I have. Next up: sanguine. Or possibly, amanuensis. But I digress.)

I decided I had to write about something. That’s how you get rid of writer’s block: just start writing. So I decided to blog about a product currently available at Nordstrom. They are selling a rock for $85. It comes in a little leather pouch. I don’t know if it comes with instructions, but it probably has a warranty. If it breaks they’ll send you another rock free. Assuming they have another rock. At this date, Nordstrom is sold out of rocks. Which raises two questions. First: why would anyone want to spend $85 for a rock? And the bigger question: how do you sell out of rocks? “Sorry, I’d like to take your $85 but I’m waiting for a shipment from the rock factory.”

I hope my bout of writer’s block has been quenched. It would be helpful to have an amanuensis, but I doubt I ever will. Still, I’m sanguine about it all. (Two birds, one reusable stone – pouch included.)

Conspiracies

NASA is once again knocking down a conspiracy theory that was promoted by a guest on Alex Jones’s website, Infowars, that advances the notion that NASA is hiding kidnapped child sex slaves in a colony on Mars. Yes, Mars the planet.

Alex Jones seems to have a “thing” for stories involving child sex slaves. The last big Infowars conspiracy involving kidnapped children was the story that child sex slaves were being held by Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager in the basement of a pizza restaurant in Washington D.C. That conspiracy theory was dubbed “Pizzagate” and as unbelievable as it sounds to normal, rational people, the story actually induced a North Carolina man to travel to Washington D.C. and enter the restaurant with an AR-15 style rifle and fire several shots, hitting walls, a desk, and a door. After getting everyone’s attention, he demanded to know where the kidnapped children were being kept. When he discovered the restaurant didn’t have a basement and there were no kidnapped children, he surrendered to police. He earned himself four years in prison and agreed to pay $5,744.33 for damages to the restaurant. (In my opinion, the judge should have tacked on an additional four years just for stupidity. It should be illegal to be that gullible.) Other people are facing prison sentences and huge fines for phoning in threats to pizza restaurants in D.C. A Louisiana man is facing five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for threatening a different pizza restaurant. He said he wanted to “save the kids” and “finish what the other guy didn’t.”

When it comes to absurd nonsense, I didn’t think Alex Jones would be able to top Pizzagate, but he’s done it. According to the new conspiracy theory, NASA is holding child sex slaves on the planet Mars – a neat trick considering NASA has no way to get humans to Mars. In fact, NASA astronauts have to hitch a ride to the International Space Station on a Russian rocket, because NASA has no way to get astronauts to its own space station.

When a significant number of wide-eyed American adults so easily fall hook, line and sinker for a preposterous fiction, I worry for the future of this country.

And what’s up with Alex Jones and child sex slaves? Find another topic, Alex.

Food Ignorance

I recently read a startling fact. Seven percent of adult Americans think that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. Yes, I said adult Americans. That amounts to 16.4 million people who don’t know that chocolate milk is made of milk, cocoa, and sugar.

A study in the ‘90s found that 1 in 5 adults don’t know that hamburgers are made from ground beef.

Interviews with 4th, 5th, and 6th graders at an urban California school revealed that more than half of them didn’t know pickles were cucumbers, or that onions and lettuce were plants. Four in 10 didn’t know that hamburgers came from cows. And 3 in 10 didn’t know that cheese is made from milk.

Ask them where food comes from and their answer is “the store.” But, where did the store get the food? For too many Americans, that question is one of life’s great mysteries.

Commotion in D.C.

Watching the Russia election-meddling investigation on Capitol Hill reminds me of a line from Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

… it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

There will be subpoenas, there will be witnesses, there will be testimony – then, there will be more subpoenas, more witnesses, more testimony. And so on.

James Comey says about Trump: “Lies, plain and simple.”

Donald Trump says about Comey: “… so many false statements and lies…”

Oy.

Trump is not afraid to lie, even when the lie is obvious to everyone. In a meeting with Congressional leadership, Trump began the conversation this way: “I won the popular vote, you know.” In reality – I mean, everyone else’s reality, not Trump’s reality – Clinton received 2.8 million more votes than Trump. But Trump lives in a different reality.

I’m sure Trump’s supporters are aware that he lies about facts, but I doubt that they care. Trump’s supporters are more concerned about this question: “What’s in it for me?” If they have better jobs and more income, they’ll be happy campers. Maybe that’s good. Maybe all of us should ask that question.

“What’s in it for me?”

Cognitive Ease

I recently watched an interesting video on Derek Muller’s Veritasium YouTube channel. The video is called The Illusion of Truth. In the video, Muller explains a psychological phenomenon called cognitive ease. When you hear or read something and it seems familiar and right and true, you are experiencing cognitive ease. (This is the opposite of cognitive strain, in which we have trouble understanding or believing something, even though it may well be true.) Sometimes the reason we experience cognitive ease is because we are hearing or reading something that we already know is true or because it simply makes sense.

But beware: we humans can be manipulated into feeling cognitive ease – manipulated into feeling that something is true when it is not. One of the simplest ways to create cognitive ease is through frequent repetition of a phrase. With each repetition, we become a bit more comfortable with the idea, and the idea becomes a bit easier to believe. Eventually, we accept the statement as fact. Advertisers and sales people (and politicians) have known about this phenomenon for a long time.

In his video, Muller mentions neither politics nor politicians. The video is just a discussion of cognitive ease: what it is, how it works. However, as I watched the video, I couldn’t help thinking about a certain politician and the derogatory nicknames he consistently applies to his opponents.

Hillary Clinton - “Crooked Hillary.” Bernie Sanders - “Crazy Bernie.” Ted Cruz - “Lyin’ Ted.” Marco Rubio - “Little Marco.” Jeb Bush – “Low Energy Jeb.” And more recently, Senator Elizabeth Warren - “Goofy Elizabeth Warren” and “Pocahontas.”

This politician also attacks our judiciary, labeling judges “so-called judges” and deriding their rulings as “erroneous” and “ridiculous.” He refers to news stories he doesn’t like as “fake news.” Clearly, he feels he should be able to do whatever he wants regardless of the courts or the Constitution.

While this politician is hardly alone in the manipulation game, he is the most visible, the most brazen, and perhaps the most dangerous of the many who will gain by convincing us to believe in their worldview. If we do that, we may find ourselves supporting what they want to the detriment of what we the people need.

Let’s remember: cognitive ease through frequent repetition is an effective tool used by advertisers, sales people, and less-than-scrupulous politicians.

Kirstin Maldonado

Probably no one has had her name misspelled and mispronounced as often and in so many ways as singer-songwriter Kirstin Maldonado. Maldonado takes it in stride, smiling wryly in this photo while wearing a tank top displaying some of the more common misspellings.

Recently, I watched an interview with Maldonado, and the woman conducting the interview introduced Maldonado as “Kristy Maldano.” My reaction: “Really? You couldn’t get either name correct?” I would have thought that a basic requirement for an interviewer would be to know the name of the person being interviewed. But I would have been wrong about that.

The worst mangling of Maldonado’s name that I’ve seen to date has to be “Kinston McDonald.” Kinston. McDonald. Wow. I suppose that given the current state of education in this country, it must count for something that someone at least got her initials correct.

Best known for her work with three-time Grammy-winning a cappella super-group Pentatonix, Maldonado just released her debut solo single and music video Break A Little. Maldonado wrote and recorded the song and designed the music video. Her debut EP is set to be released this summer.