I'm curious what can we imagine the aliens could use to communicate.
Subspace FTL communication?
Ok, so that is fiction, but ask someone 200 years ago what they would have used and they wouldn't have been able to tell you either.
If you had tried to explain radio to someone 200 years ago, they would have looked at you like you were insane.
The real answer is, "We have no idea". But I'd suggest that whatever it is they use, we haven't found it yet and have no idea what it is. I just don't think we're likely to find ET using smoke signals, radio, or two cans and a string. Pick your option, none of them will work until we find something better.
In fairness, if we hadn't gotten involved, Hitler would have gotten around to us sooner or later.
Without our involvement, England would have fallen sooner or later, then Hitler would have won in Russia (as it was, he came close).
Given another 20 years to completely take over Europe and half of Asia, then we would have had another superpower to deal with.
Our grand mistake was to leave the USSR intact at the end of WWII. Patton and Churchill had it right, both wanted to rearm and reform the Germans under the Allied banner and turn against Russia. FDR wouldn't hear of it, he missed on that one.
Likely signs of life would be something like EM leakage from artificial generators, not necessarily some form of communication broadcast.
I fully understand that...
But my point remains that the odds of finding that make looking for a needle in a haystack child's play.
It isn't impossible (few things really are), but it is so remote that I'd suggest the resources would be better spent on another area of space development.
I would disagree. The idea that aliens are nearby, using the same freq we are, are transmitting something we will picky, and that we are looking in the right place in the sky... The odds are so very long...
I am reminded of an episode of ST Voyager when they found evidence of an older civilization and someone finally figured to check the RF bands, which hadn't been used for centuries.
I would suggest that such aliens have something better than radio to use. Yes, they might have used it for a few hundred years, but that is a thin slice of time to catch it, without being ahead of or behind the transmissions in space.
Yes, that would be the kicking ass part, but we aren't as good at making real friends, I agree.
I think our other problem is that we confuse "kicking someone's ass" with being able to use that military as a police force. The first few weeks of the Iraq invasion when it was military vs. military, it was no contest, we ran right over them. After that, someone forgot to tell our political leaders that you don't secure a city street corner with a tank, it is the wrong tool for the job.
For what it is worth, I started off supporting the whole thing, until it dragged on and on and I started to wonder why we weren't winning.
Or for that matter, why we didn't just win outright.
I now believe that the whole thing was more about giving our military something to do and about extending the reach of government power further.
After all, just like Vietnam, if we had wanted to win, we could have. We knew for some time where Bin Laden was (North Pakastain), so why did we allow a little line on a map stop us, when that country wasn't helping us find him?
Wouldn't want it to be over too soon, now would we?
Ok, that is a bit tin-foil, but we also didn't seem to be trying very hard.
In 1991, we took 500K total troops into Kuwait to free it from Iraq.
In 2003, we took 125K total troops into Iraq, a country 25 times larger than Kuwait, and expected the same easy result.
Iraq is the size of California, 125K troops would get lost in California and no one would notice, why did our leadership think that would be enough?
I have no idea if it happened or not, but if I was George W. Bush and I wanted to invade Iraq, the first thing I'd do is pickup the phone and call the general that helped win last time and say, "ok, how did you do it and do you want to do it again?".
At the very least, I'd want to talk with professional battlefield generals, rather than politician generals. You need both kinds, but when you need to go kick someone's ass, you take Patton, not Eisenhower, out into the field.
We'll have this match won before Christmas because we are the best.
Vietnam was a low point for America when it comes to "we're the best".
Since 1991 and the Gulf War (the first one), we have completely changed this view point to, "we're the best, we're the only, the United States of America, and we can kick anyone's ass".
And if we're really nice, we'll bring some of our friends along to share the glory...
Ok, so that doesn't reflect all Americans and most don't come out and say it so crassly, but I believe the undercurrent of belief is there, that we have the most powerful, superior military force in the history of the world and that we can stand toe-to-toe with anyone.
It is, of course, a lie, because everyone's ass we've kicked for decades has been third rate forces. Even crushing Iraq (twice) doesn't mean much. Sure, we destroyed Russian designed tanks and airplanes, but who says the crews were trained or that they even had the same armor and computers as the "real" Russian equipment? Export versions are rarely the same.
We might find our "superior" armored tanks don't survive actual Russian anti-tank rounds nearly as well as they do the Iraqi anti-tank rounds.
Here is hoping that the professional generals know this, even if the average politician is clueless.
Of course, superior tanks and planes aside, we do have 12 aircraft carriers, compared to... well, lets see here... If you count the UK's "sort of" carriers and the Chinese's new "show" carrier and perhaps even the French's "pretty but useless" carrier... The whole rest of the planet combined has 12 carriers. Except that none of them are as capable as our carriers are. (Spain has 1 carrier believe it or not, but it is 25% of the weight of ours and is only a STOVL carrier, so I'm not sure I'd even count it much)
Boy, we sure do love to spend money on our military. Sheesh!
Being born and raised in the US, I've had my fair share of "My country tis of thee..." songs, and I recall very clearly every morning in elementary school standing up, putting my hand on my heart and reciting the pledge of allegiance.
If another countries aren't doing that, then good for them, and shame on me for not knowing that.:)
No, no they don't... the Hindenburg used four 1,200hp engines to move, at a max speed of 85 mph carrying up to 72 passengers.
I actually took the time to look up some numbers...
Actually, the Hindenburg does burn about 1/3 less fuel than a 747 does crossing the Atlantic, so you get points there.
Now lets take off a few points:
747 - 8 hours
Hindenburg - 78 hours
747 - Safe flying in almost any weather
Hindenburg - Safe flying in good weather
747 - Doesn't use hydrogen gas which blows up, one of the best safety records of any aircraft, ever
Hindenburg - Uses hydrogen, which explodes and burns - If you replace it with helium, you lose almost half your lifting power.
747 - you can park a dozen in the space used to handle a single Hindenburg
Hindenburg - If you want to carry the passenger capacity of a dozen 747s, you'd need to reserve... perhaps all of Rhode Island to park them all, you'd need 710 of them to carry the same number of passengers per week
I'm in Texas, so no, if you're talking about the Ed Pawlowski that comes up in a Google search, not at all.
Eddie looked like a 70's leftover, long hair and everything. He also looked like he had spent too much time falling out of airplanes, but he was a nice and friendly guy who came across as serious about the business of teaching.
I sure don't think he was doing it for the money!:)
Yes, this is true, but MS and Apple have no need, and probably no desire to sue each other.
MS needs Apple to continue to exist as a computer maker, or their anti-trust problems grow. MS invested $150 million 15 years ago in Apple to keep them alive, for this very reason.
Apple needs MS to promote and grow the Windows Phone. Frankly, Apple would MUCH rather have Windows Phone as the iPhone's competition rather than Android. And Apple would have the same problem with iPhone as MS does without competition.
So they need each other. And Apple is, quite frankly, not going to get into the console gaming business any time soon... unless they buy Sony...
No, but that is exactly my point... unless you meant to reply in principle, rather than directly to me.
If it was possible to create a 200 mpg carburetor, it would have been done 10 times over by this point. Even more so thanks to the Internet and the fact that we can sit here and talk about it.
We were endowed by our creator with the ability to design a parachute. I'd be rather foolish to jump out of a plane without one.
Of course, we have the plane for the same reason.
It reminds me of another one...
A group of super-smart scientists go to God one day and say, "God, thanks for all the help and guidance you gave us along the way, but we've got it now, you can go."
"Oh really?" Replies God? "You don't need me anymore?"
"Nope, we have it figured out now, we can create anything, produce all the food we need, control the weather, heal the sick, stop war, we're all good now, we don't need you anymore." Replied the super-smart scientists.
"Oh really, so you could turn water into wine, sand into bread?" Asks God.
"Oh yes, watch..." Replied the super-smart scientist as he picks up a handful of sand.
God interrupted him, "Ok, but get your own sand..."
I don't have a ready link, but you might be shocked at the per person, per mile fuel consumption of a 747 vs. a rigid airship.
If I was a betting man, I'd bet on the 747 actually burning less fuel per passenger mile than the airship. And it has the benefit of doing it in a whole lot less time.
My skydiving instructor's name was Eddie, he was a very experienced guy (he sure looked it), he said that he had over 8,000 jumps in his logbook going back over several decades.
In all that time, he has had to use his reserve chute 4 times, however all 4 uses were in the first 4,000 jumps, he hadn't had to use it in almost 20 years.
His comment was that due to modern chute designs and modern safety practices, if you're just "jumping out of the plane, opening the chute, and landing", the odds of dying are very low. If you do stunts, formations, or fly a sport chute, your risk goes way up.
He showed us a video of a reserve being used, we also carried an AAD (automatic activation device) and frankly, they have saved a lot of lives in skydiving.
In short, depending on the model of course, but for a student, if you're falling more than 29 feet per second when you pass through 750 feet above the ground, it fires a wedge cutter that cuts the closing loop to the reserve chute, which is spring loaded so it will deploy even if you're upside down, tumbling, or whatever...
It takes no more than 250 feet beyond that to fully open a student chute and 250 feet beyond that to fully arrest your sink rate to just a few feet per second, so even if you're completely passed out, you'll live.
Over 1,000 people have had their lives saved via an AAD, and most jump zones require them for all jumpers.
Except, the probability of death isn't random, either in a car or in skydiving.
It isn't zero, but you can moderate your risks in several ways, both in cars and jumping out of airplanes.
And sometimes... stuff happens, to everyone, at some point... sometimes it is doing what you love, sometimes it is something stupid...
Steve Fossett is a good example, there is someone who circled the Earth and a balloon, did a ton of other amazing things. What killed him? A simple easy airplane flight doing nothing special at all.
Sometimes it is just your time to go, and sometimes God (or whomever you believe in) sticks his hand out and says, "not so fast, you're not done here yet").
People survive when they shouldn't and die from things that shouldn't kill them.
Another favorite of mine is Richard Bach, Illusions remains one of my favorite books of all time.
"When you have come to the edge of all the light you have
And step into the darkness of the unknown
Believe that one of the two will happen to you
Either you'll find something solid to stand on
Or you'll be taught how to fly!"
Richard Bach
"Bad things are not the worst things that an happen to us. NOTHING is the worst thing that can happen to us." Richard Bach
"Here is a test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: If you"re alive it isn't." Richard Bach
"Listen,' he said. 'It's important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do." Richard Bach
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I'm curious what can we imagine the aliens could use to communicate.
Subspace FTL communication?
Ok, so that is fiction, but ask someone 200 years ago what they would have used and they wouldn't have been able to tell you either.
If you had tried to explain radio to someone 200 years ago, they would have looked at you like you were insane.
The real answer is, "We have no idea". But I'd suggest that whatever it is they use, we haven't found it yet and have no idea what it is. I just don't think we're likely to find ET using smoke signals, radio, or two cans and a string. Pick your option, none of them will work until we find something better.
I agree, the example made no sense, but I'm not an ant, I'm human... Ants are happy with what they have, I am not, I need a bigger TV. :)
Without our involvement, England would have fallen sooner or later, then Hitler would have won in Russia (as it was, he came close).
Given another 20 years to completely take over Europe and half of Asia, then we would have had another superpower to deal with.
Our grand mistake was to leave the USSR intact at the end of WWII. Patton and Churchill had it right, both wanted to rearm and reform the Germans under the Allied banner and turn against Russia. FDR wouldn't hear of it, he missed on that one.
Likely signs of life would be something like EM leakage from artificial generators, not necessarily some form of communication broadcast.
I fully understand that...
But my point remains that the odds of finding that make looking for a needle in a haystack child's play.
It isn't impossible (few things really are), but it is so remote that I'd suggest the resources would be better spent on another area of space development.
Answer: More or less no one.
Who will be listening to radio in 150 years?
Answer: More or less no one.
The time window to hear or detect someone, while looking in the right direction, makes winning the lotto look easy.
SETI is a nice idea, I'm all for the idea in principle, but the current plan? Waste of time.
Darn auto correct... That should be pickup, not picky. :)
I am reminded of an episode of ST Voyager when they found evidence of an older civilization and someone finally figured to check the RF bands, which hadn't been used for centuries.
I would suggest that such aliens have something better than radio to use. Yes, they might have used it for a few hundred years, but that is a thin slice of time to catch it, without being ahead of or behind the transmissions in space.
I think our other problem is that we confuse "kicking someone's ass" with being able to use that military as a police force. The first few weeks of the Iraq invasion when it was military vs. military, it was no contest, we ran right over them. After that, someone forgot to tell our political leaders that you don't secure a city street corner with a tank, it is the wrong tool for the job.
Or for that matter, why we didn't just win outright.
I now believe that the whole thing was more about giving our military something to do and about extending the reach of government power further.
After all, just like Vietnam, if we had wanted to win, we could have. We knew for some time where Bin Laden was (North Pakastain), so why did we allow a little line on a map stop us, when that country wasn't helping us find him?
Wouldn't want it to be over too soon, now would we?
Ok, that is a bit tin-foil, but we also didn't seem to be trying very hard.
In 1991, we took 500K total troops into Kuwait to free it from Iraq.
In 2003, we took 125K total troops into Iraq, a country 25 times larger than Kuwait, and expected the same easy result.
Iraq is the size of California, 125K troops would get lost in California and no one would notice, why did our leadership think that would be enough?
I have no idea if it happened or not, but if I was George W. Bush and I wanted to invade Iraq, the first thing I'd do is pickup the phone and call the general that helped win last time and say, "ok, how did you do it and do you want to do it again?".
At the very least, I'd want to talk with professional battlefield generals, rather than politician generals. You need both kinds, but when you need to go kick someone's ass, you take Patton, not Eisenhower, out into the field.
We'll have this match won before Christmas because we are the best.
Vietnam was a low point for America when it comes to "we're the best".
Since 1991 and the Gulf War (the first one), we have completely changed this view point to, "we're the best, we're the only, the United States of America, and we can kick anyone's ass".
And if we're really nice, we'll bring some of our friends along to share the glory...
Ok, so that doesn't reflect all Americans and most don't come out and say it so crassly, but I believe the undercurrent of belief is there, that we have the most powerful, superior military force in the history of the world and that we can stand toe-to-toe with anyone.
It is, of course, a lie, because everyone's ass we've kicked for decades has been third rate forces. Even crushing Iraq (twice) doesn't mean much. Sure, we destroyed Russian designed tanks and airplanes, but who says the crews were trained or that they even had the same armor and computers as the "real" Russian equipment? Export versions are rarely the same.
We might find our "superior" armored tanks don't survive actual Russian anti-tank rounds nearly as well as they do the Iraqi anti-tank rounds.
Here is hoping that the professional generals know this, even if the average politician is clueless.
Of course, superior tanks and planes aside, we do have 12 aircraft carriers, compared to... well, lets see here... If you count the UK's "sort of" carriers and the Chinese's new "show" carrier and perhaps even the French's "pretty but useless" carrier... The whole rest of the planet combined has 12 carriers. Except that none of them are as capable as our carriers are. (Spain has 1 carrier believe it or not, but it is 25% of the weight of ours and is only a STOVL carrier, so I'm not sure I'd even count it much)
Boy, we sure do love to spend money on our military. Sheesh!
If you want patriotism in the UK the closest you'll find to it is when England is playing football in a major tournament.
Fair enough... but then why do you still go to war? Why did you come and fight in Iraq with us then? That war was pointless.
Other than perhaps showing off your new Challenger 2 tanks (very cool BTW), and other neat toys...
Or was that rather the point?
Being born and raised in the US, I've had my fair share of "My country tis of thee..." songs, and I recall very clearly every morning in elementary school standing up, putting my hand on my heart and reciting the pledge of allegiance.
If another countries aren't doing that, then good for them, and shame on me for not knowing that. :)
We are taught the pledge of allegiance in class for just this reason.
I don't want America to lose a war to a foreign invasion, but that doesn't mean that I should go die for her in a pointless war.
WWII is the last war that really mattered. The rest were about money, politics, oil, etc.
Google provides a ton of services to you for "free".
Except, they aren't free, they cost Google a lot of money. So who is actually paying them?
*That* is Google's customer, not you...
You are the product to be sold...
If you want to be the customer, you have to pay up.
Actually, yes it is... I have thousands of hours of flight time. 40 hours in the type he was flying, with his experience, is enough.
The zepps basically travel on wind.
No, no they don't... the Hindenburg used four 1,200hp engines to move, at a max speed of 85 mph carrying up to 72 passengers.
I actually took the time to look up some numbers...
Actually, the Hindenburg does burn about 1/3 less fuel than a 747 does crossing the Atlantic, so you get points there.
Now lets take off a few points:
747 - 8 hours
Hindenburg - 78 hours
747 - Safe flying in almost any weather
Hindenburg - Safe flying in good weather
747 - Doesn't use hydrogen gas which blows up, one of the best safety records of any aircraft, ever
Hindenburg - Uses hydrogen, which explodes and burns - If you replace it with helium, you lose almost half your lifting power.
747 - you can park a dozen in the space used to handle a single Hindenburg
Hindenburg - If you want to carry the passenger capacity of a dozen 747s, you'd need to reserve... perhaps all of Rhode Island to park them all, you'd need 710 of them to carry the same number of passengers per week
I'm in Texas, so no, if you're talking about the Ed Pawlowski that comes up in a Google search, not at all.
Eddie looked like a 70's leftover, long hair and everything. He also looked like he had spent too much time falling out of airplanes, but he was a nice and friendly guy who came across as serious about the business of teaching.
I sure don't think he was doing it for the money! :)
MS needs Apple to continue to exist as a computer maker, or their anti-trust problems grow. MS invested $150 million 15 years ago in Apple to keep them alive, for this very reason.
Apple needs MS to promote and grow the Windows Phone. Frankly, Apple would MUCH rather have Windows Phone as the iPhone's competition rather than Android. And Apple would have the same problem with iPhone as MS does without competition.
So they need each other. And Apple is, quite frankly, not going to get into the console gaming business any time soon... unless they buy Sony...
If it was possible to create a 200 mpg carburetor, it would have been done 10 times over by this point. Even more so thanks to the Internet and the fact that we can sit here and talk about it.
God did design the parachute?
I'm sure you're fun at parties too, aren't you?
We were endowed by our creator with the ability to design a parachute. I'd be rather foolish to jump out of a plane without one.
Of course, we have the plane for the same reason.
It reminds me of another one...
A group of super-smart scientists go to God one day and say, "God, thanks for all the help and guidance you gave us along the way, but we've got it now, you can go."
"Oh really?" Replies God? "You don't need me anymore?"
"Nope, we have it figured out now, we can create anything, produce all the food we need, control the weather, heal the sick, stop war, we're all good now, we don't need you anymore." Replied the super-smart scientists.
"Oh really, so you could turn water into wine, sand into bread?" Asks God.
"Oh yes, watch..." Replied the super-smart scientist as he picks up a handful of sand.
God interrupted him, "Ok, but get your own sand..."
If I was a betting man, I'd bet on the 747 actually burning less fuel per passenger mile than the airship. And it has the benefit of doing it in a whole lot less time.
Helicopters beat the air into submission...
In all that time, he has had to use his reserve chute 4 times, however all 4 uses were in the first 4,000 jumps, he hadn't had to use it in almost 20 years.
His comment was that due to modern chute designs and modern safety practices, if you're just "jumping out of the plane, opening the chute, and landing", the odds of dying are very low. If you do stunts, formations, or fly a sport chute, your risk goes way up.
He showed us a video of a reserve being used, we also carried an AAD (automatic activation device) and frankly, they have saved a lot of lives in skydiving.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_activation_device
In short, depending on the model of course, but for a student, if you're falling more than 29 feet per second when you pass through 750 feet above the ground, it fires a wedge cutter that cuts the closing loop to the reserve chute, which is spring loaded so it will deploy even if you're upside down, tumbling, or whatever...
It takes no more than 250 feet beyond that to fully open a student chute and 250 feet beyond that to fully arrest your sink rate to just a few feet per second, so even if you're completely passed out, you'll live.
Over 1,000 people have had their lives saved via an AAD, and most jump zones require them for all jumpers.
It isn't zero, but you can moderate your risks in several ways, both in cars and jumping out of airplanes.
And sometimes... stuff happens, to everyone, at some point... sometimes it is doing what you love, sometimes it is something stupid...
Steve Fossett is a good example, there is someone who circled the Earth and a balloon, did a ton of other amazing things. What killed him? A simple easy airplane flight doing nothing special at all.
Sometimes it is just your time to go, and sometimes God (or whomever you believe in) sticks his hand out and says, "not so fast, you're not done here yet").
People survive when they shouldn't and die from things that shouldn't kill them.
Welcome to life!
Another favorite of mine is Richard Bach, Illusions remains one of my favorite books of all time.
"When you have come to the edge of all the light you have
And step into the darkness of the unknown
Believe that one of the two will happen to you
Either you'll find something solid to stand on
Or you'll be taught how to fly!"
Richard Bach
"Bad things are not the worst things that an happen to us.
NOTHING is the worst thing that can happen to us."
Richard Bach
"Here is a test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: If you"re alive it isn't."
Richard Bach
"Listen,' he said. 'It's important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do."
Richard Bach