Your chance to talk to aliens

There's an interesting article on physorg.com today. It's about the way we've been talking to aliens, and the way we should talk to them. "Scientists Suggest Protocol for Messaging to Aliens" is an article about the best methods for communicating with beings we know nothing about.

If you're interested, click on the article title in the previous paragraph. The best part is that we can play a role in devising the message that goes out to aliens. Here's a quote from the article:

“In the next few weeks, we will be collaborating with mathematicians and radio astronomers to come up with both the content and mode of communication of the message,” Atri said. “As suggested in the paper, it will not be anthropocentric like previous attempts. Once our collaboration comes up with a protocol, we will create an interactive website to test it globally. Anyone with internet access will be able to suggest his/her own message within the protocol guidelines based on scientific principles. We are also open to suggestions from both the scientific community and the general public for improvements in the protocol. It will be a community effort.”

What a holy guy our president is

I'm so happy that President Obama was able to go to the National Prayer Breakfast this morning and take out all his crucifixes and rosaries and rabbit's feet and everything, and show them off. When he showed his favorite crucifix, he said, "Ooooh, shiny!"

I bet our holy president will have a great day today after acting so brave this morning, and all. I know I'm impressed. You?

Cop talk: it's a special language

I happened to catch the following on TV and through the miracle of TiVo, was able to play it back to ensure that I recorded the words faithfully. 

At a press conference, a police spokesperson was answering questions about an elderly couple who had been brutally murdered.

The reporter asked, "Were they killed with a hammer?"

And the police spokesperson replied:

"A hammer was, in fact, an instrumentality causing blunt trauma injuries to both of the deceaseds."

I love this stuff. They have their very own language. I get a kick out of hearing the self-conscious, tortured phrasing they come up with. Their words are an attempt to put a police shroud over everything, to claim the death as their own. So they make things as opaque as possible and sound ridiculous doing so. Still, it's kinda cute.

Xmas Carol is done!

Xmas Carol, my horror novel, is done. Phew. I just did a spell check on it and I'm going to print it and read it, though I may put that off for a few days. In the meanwhile, I'm going to give it to my cousin to read.

One of the odd things about having test readers is that they all read different versions of the book. You give it to one or two readers, get their comments and make appropriate changes. Then you give it to the next reader, and so on. Cousin Carmine is at the end of the line, so he'll have the best read of anyone.

Sigh. What a long job that was. But it's over!

NOVA ScienceNOW episode on the brain

Did you watch last night's episode of NOVA ScienceNOW? It was about the brain and I was really looking forward to seeing it. The promos implied that the show would focus on how the brain creates the illusion of consciousness. So I was amped when I tuned in. Unfortunately, it was a complete bust.

One thing I have to say at the outset is that I love Neil deGrasse Tyson. He can do no wrong and since he hosted the show, that was a big plus. Tyson is comfortable being a scientist, a showman, a funnyman -- whatever it takes. Science is lucky to have him in its ranks.

But the show focused on old research. I was shocked, really. They showed data that's been out there for a long time. Plus there were silly excursions to magic shows, and the episode relied on cartoons and other useless rot. I didn't learn one new thing. Neurological research is uncovering secrets every day, but the show missed them all.

And I see that next week's show, on animal intelligence, is a rehash of an old PBS show featuring Alan Alda. I don't get it. Why show old stuff and make believe it's new? NOVA ScienceNOW? Meh.

The New York Times conundrum

Sadly, there are quite a few New York Times links in my posts. I say sadly because the NYT is about to go pay-only (or pay-mostly, as they want to paint it), which means a lot of visitors won't be able to follow the links in my posts. That's not good. From now on, I'm going to try to use alternate links for my posts. The heck with the Times.

This also raises the question of whether to subscribe to the New York Times online or simply sneer at its paywall. I think the upcoming subscription is supposed to cost $20 a month. Like Apple's 99 cents per song, it's the highest price they think we'll cough up without choking.

I could just subscribe and be done with it but it would set a precedent. And when you play that precedent forward it doesn't make sense. Will we end up paying twenty dollars for each online news site we rely on? I like the LA Times and the Boston Herald too, and quite a few other "papers". This pay scale won't work for a serious news reader who doesn't have a lot of money to spread around.

And of course, I haven't even mentioned the elephant in the room: what the New York Times prints is not always the truth. See, I read Glenn Greenwald and Dean Baker every day, so I know the Times peddles nonsense to solidify the positions of its overlords, especially the government. And this is the "paper of record". It's despicable.

I'll pay for the Times online when they begin to call torture torture and terrorism terrorism, and the latter no matter who the perpetrator, including the United States government or assorted rightwing nitwits. They'll also have to start calling nonsense nonsense. Is that really so hard to do? They present wingnut views as if they make sense. That's not what I want from a newspaper, especially when the facts are so easy to check. Anyone can do it -- but the reporters don't? What's wrong with this picture?

I won't pay for the Times until they start printing the truth. But if they did, if they returned to actual journalism, I'd rush back and subscribe -- and the hell with the bad precedent I mentioned earlier. We need an accurate news source that doesn't cower before government and business. If the New York Times could fill that bill, yes, I'd pay. Happily.

We will develop other news-gathering sources over time to fill the gap that the Times leaves in its wake. And we will always remember that the NYT didn't come through when it counted -- not on the Iraq war, not on the economy, not in the Bush election cycles, and not now, when nonsense is never called by its true name. The New York Times hasn't committed an act of journalism in the past ten years, with the exception of publishing the truth about the widespread surveillance and wiretapping-without-warrants by the Bush administration -- but let us recall that it also hid this information for a year, choosing not to publish it until after Bush was re-elected. 

The New York Times let the people of America down and they're still letting the people down. That's the bottom line. So no more NYT links unless there's absolutely no alternative.

It looks like we're not alone

NASA's Kepler mission has been finding new worlds. Here's a link to the article at Scientific American, and here's a quote from it:

"We have 54 planets in the habitable zone of their stars," Borucki says, referring to the temperate orbital zone around a star that would allow for the existence of liquid water on a planet. "One of them is 0.9 times the radius of the Earth, and four of them are less than two Earth radii." Any of those would be the most Earth-like world ever detected outside the solar system. What is more, some of the larger, more Jupiter-like planets Kepler is sniffing at in the habitable zone might have moons, and some of those satellites would themselves be potentially habitable. "It's sort of awesome," Borucki says of Kepler's haul. "The implications are that there are an awful lot of planets out there."

 This is so cool. Life must be everywhere!