it comes in pints?

The Friday Fuck Off Thread

James Frey can fuck off. What a poseur tool.

That's it. I'm too tired to elaborate. It's yours for the fuck offing.

A Contest!

My putative crybaby son has a bumper sticker contest going. Have fun!

In the Navy

So we saw the young feller off today.

My office mate's kid has been working here too for a few years. Today was his last day of work, and he's off to join the Navy.

Godspeed, young swabbie!

Quote of the day

This a little bit different from my usual quotes of the day(s). Usually, I quote something deep, pithy, or at least witty. But this one gets the honor because it is simply unparseable:

”I hope that he will understand, if he is the nominee, the degree of disillusionment that will happen if he doesn't become a greater man than he will ever be.”

Wow.

Just ... wow.

I'm having a devil of a time trying to find a grammatical term for that.

UPDATE: I just realized that I hadn't put in a link. Sorry Dave!

Nice touch

Received a letter today from the judge on my recent trial, thanking me for my service and such. I'm happy and gratified to have the opportunity to participate in a civic duty, despite the inconvenience with work and all. But it's still nice to hear from the court that it's appreciated.

Yeah, I'm sure it's more or less a form letter, but it's still a nice touch and one I haven't seen before in two previous trials and several other times I had to take a day off and show up at the courthouse. Your Honor, very nicely done, sir.

And speaking of ignorant hillbillies...

How do these ignorant dolts keep getting elected?

I mean, I'm sure he's a lawyer, but stilll...

Ignorant hillbillies

Just now catching up on my reading, and realized I had forgotten to post about this on Sunday.

Now that the political contests have moved on to Kentucky and West Virginia, Instapundit notes that the media are filling up on stories about ignorant, disease-ridden hillbillies from inbred political backwaters.

When the Sainted Bride mentioned this story on Sunday, without even hearing where I knew it was either a ghetto or an upscale, lefty, earth-mama school.

Help a Girl Out, Please

Okay, guys...I'm doing some research and I need your help. Girls are welcome, too, as always, though the character I'm writing about is a twelve-year-old boy. What I need are stories about stupid shit you did roughly between the ages of twelve to fourteen. Pre-pubescent misadventures and the like. If you don't want to share them in the comments, you can e-mail them to me (secondbreakfast3 - at - yahoo - dot - com). I'd appreciate it and who knows? It might be fun. Thanks.

"There was three pumas in the cravasse..."

Gawd these guys are funny. First saw them on their variety show back in the sixties. Saw them in person back in the early 80s. Saw their revival show back in the late 80s.

What a classic act. Here are a couple of their classic bits (revised) performed with the Boston Pops (and no, the line in the post title is from the original bit, not from this one):

And their lovely rendition of a Gilbert and Sullivan song, with some, er, unsettling Georgia overtones:

And for those nostalgic folks out there, their final performance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, with a tribute to Johnny:

"No wonder Mom always liked you best"

OHMIGODOHMIGODOHMIGOD

So I'm sitting at home doing my telecommuting thing. Overloading my brain with SOPs that need-A-Changin' and various spreadsheets. Even a [spit] Powerpoint [spit] presentation I'm supposed to give at the Operations Department meeting tomorrow (can't postpone it because I already swapped a slot once).

And so to lighten the mood while doing these things, I threw on the turntable a Smothers Brothers record. [Strange Interlude: The Sainted Bride and I saw the Smothers Brothers in Reno many years ago. Quel excellent. The SB even met Dick in person when she worked at a bank in Santa Cruz, many years ago, because he owned a vineyard up the coast a ways. But I digress...]

Then I got sidetracked and thought it would be kinda fun to find something on Youtube and embed it. I found some rather quickly, including this one. Screamingly funny, but far to un-PC to embed. So click on the link and go to about 3:45 minutes in. Then listen to the Brothers Smothers, through the "anthropologist" verse to the one after. Then you will understand why I didn't embed it. And you will laugh. And yes, I will post later some of the other things I found, including the song the Sainted Bride lovingly refer to as "Cabbageheads".

Happy Mother's Day

To all our Moms out there. I hope you're being spoiled today.

Rock 'n' Roll Trivia (The Incredible Motown Deity Smokey Robinson edition)

Ah, Smokey.

Damn Sir! If I had ovaries I'd melt in your presence, even in just the presence of one of your CDs. Heck, if I had a better stereo system I might grow ovaries and melt anyway.

Heh. Just kidding.

Shut up!

All kidding aside, Smokey is one of the all time greats. Joel knows what I'm talking about. And so without further babbling foolishness, a big ol' dollop, indeed, a veritable Baker's Dozen (UPDATE: Bah! Baker's Dozen my foot! This is Smokey! I added another to make it a Baker's Dozen Plus One) of Smokey's amazing goodness:

1) There are some sad things known to man, but there ain't too much sadder than what? [Laura and her daughter: The tears of a clown]

2) If you want it, you got it forever. This is not a one night stand. What do I love? [Laura and her daughter: I love it when we're cruisin' together]

3) Now, if there's a smile on my face, why is it there? [Laura and her daughter: It's only there trying to fool the public; when it comes to foolin' you, baby, that's quite a different subject]

4) You know my smile looks out of place. If you look closer, what can you see? [Laura and her daughter: The tracks of my tears]

5) Don't let my glad expression give you the wrong impression. Why not? [Rob: Because really I'm sad, sadder than sad]

6) My mama told me I'd better do what? [Laura and her daughter: Shop around]

7) If I appear to be carefree, it's only to camouflage what? [Rob: To camouflage my sadness]

8) If you feel like loving me (if you've got that notion), what do I do? [Laura and her daughter: I second that emotion]

9) What is it that I try to do, just like Pagliacci did? [Nightfly: I try to keep my sadness hid]

10) I don't like you, but I love you. What do you have? [Ricki: You've really got a hold on me]

11) I don't care what they think about me and I don't care what they say. I don't care about anything else but what? [Laura and her daughter: Being with you?]

12) I would do anything and I would go anywhere. Just do do what? [Kate: Just to see her]

13) Outside, I'm masquerading. What's happening inside? [Laura and her daughter: Inside my heart is breaking]

14) My smile is my makeup. How long have I worn it? [Laura and her daughter: Since my breakup with you]

99 balloons 56 Questions

Stolen from the Lovely Ricki.

UPDATE: Shit. Had to shut this down already because of the f*ckin' spammers.

1.ONE OF YOUR SCARS, HOW DID YOU GET IT?
I love this one. I have several minor scars from various mishaps over lo these many years, but the worst scar I have is one that didn't even bleed. When I was about ten, I hopped over the chain link fence we had and scratched my wrist. Didn't even bleed, the blood just kind of seeped to the surface. It's a question-mark (or fishhook, depending on your perspective)-shaped scar on the inside of my wrist.

2. WHAT IS ON THE WALLS IN YOUR ROOM?
Bedroom? Wallpaper. Many years before we put it up, the Sainted Bride and I heard that one sure route to divorce is to hang wallpaper together. So she made me put it up by myself.

3. DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME YOU WERE BORN?
Yes, 2:32 p.m. When I turned 30, I celebrated by bringing a Guinness to work, and at 2:32 p.m. I walked out the back door and drank it.

4. WHAT DO YOU WANT MORE THAN ANYTHING RIGHT NOW?
Free time

5. WHAT DO YOU MISS?
Certain relatives. My parents. My Auntie and Uncle. My grandparents. Ricki, dammit, you made me cry.

6. WHAT IS YOUR MOST PRIZED POSSESSION?
One that is not even "mine". It's "ours". All those pictures I'm still not finding time to scan and send to family.

7. HOW TALL ARE YOU?
Five foot, ten inches

8. DO YOU GET SCARED IN THE DAY?
Um, no.

9. WHAT’S YOUR WORST FEAR?
That Hillary, Obamalama, or McCain will be elected.

[sigh]

10. WHAT KIND OF HAIR COLOR DO YOU LIKE ON THE OPPOSITE SEX?
Any

11. WHAT ABOUT EYE COLOR?
Any

12. COFFEE OR ENERGY DRINK?
Coffee. To paraphrase Ricki, you wouldn't like me when I'm decaffeinated.

13. FAVORITE PIZZA TOPPING?
Sausage.

14. IF YOU COULD EAT ANYTHING RIGHT NOW, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Pizza. You should have waited before asking

15. FAVORITE COLOR OF ALL TIME?.
Blue

16. HAVE YOU EVER EATEN A GOLDFISH?
No. I'm not THAT old.

17. WHAT WAS THE FIRST MEANINGFUL GIFT YOU EVER RECEIVED?
Well, I think it would probably have to be this one.

18. DO YOU HAVE A CRUSH?
On the Sainted Bride.

19. FAVORITE CLOTHING BRAND?
Three-way tie. Levi's, Lee, and Wrangler.

20. WHAT KIND OF CAR DO YOU WANT?
I want to retire so I don't have to commute. Then I want a full-size, 4WD pick-'em-up truck.

21. WOULD YOU FALL IN LOVE KNOWING THAT THE PERSON IS LEAVING
Not a clue. I don't know that we have control over that.

22. HAVE YOU BEEN OUT OF THE USA?
Yes.

23. YOUR WEAKNESSES?
I tend to take on too many things at one time.

24. MET ANYONE FAMOUS?
These guys.

25. FIRST JOB?
Pulling weeds for 50 cents an hour. I was about 10.

26. EVER DONE A PRANK CALL?
Yeah, many years ago.

27. DO YOU THINK EVERYONE OUT THERE HAS A SOUL MATE?
Probably not.

28. WHAT WERE YOU DOING BEFORE YOU FILLED THIS OUT?
Reading Ricki's blog.

29. HAVE YOU EVER HAD SURGERY?
Yes.

30. WHAT DO YOU GET COMPLIMENTED ABOUT MOST?
Good judgement.

31. WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY?
Another birthday.

32. HOW MANY KIDS DO YOU WANT?
The ones I already have, thank you very much.

33. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
Yep, after my Dad's best buddy in the Navy.. Got some very nice comments about that, too.

34. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST TURN OFF WITH THE OPPOSITE SEX?
Those who are so damned full of themselves that they act like arrogant, prima donna snotburgers. I don't care what they look like, that is utterly unattractive.

35. WHAT IS ONE THING YOU MISS ABOUT GRADE SCHOOL?
Childlike innocence.

36. WHAT KIND OF SHAMPOO DO YOU USE?
Head and Shoulders. I know, boring.

37. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
No. Looks like the chicken had a seizure when it scratched.

38. ANY BAD HABITS?
Yelling at stupid drivers.

39. ARE YOU A JEALOUS PERSON?
No.

40. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Yes.

41. DO YOU AGREE WITH FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS?
I have no idea what this means.

42. HOW DO YOU RELEASE ANGER?
Yell at stupid drivers.

43. WHAT’S YOUR MAIN GOAL IN LIFE?
To retire young enough to enjoy it. Ain't happened yet.

44. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE TOY AS A CHILD?
A rifle. Shot actual, factual plastic bullets (spring-loaded).

45. HOW MANY NUMBERS ARE IN YOUR CELL PHONE?
Couple dozen, I suppose. Not sure.

46. WERE YOU A FAN OF BARNEY AS A LITTLE KID?
I think my kids were too old for Barney.

47. MASHED POTATOES OR MACARONI AND CHEESE?.
Mashed potatoes, with gravy. Not that I don't likes me some mac 'n cheese.

48. DO YOU HAVE ALL YOUR FINGERS AND TOES?.
So far.

49. DO YOU HAVE A COMPUTER IN YOUR ROOM?
Not in the bedroom, if that's what you mean.

50. PLANS FOR TONIGHT?
Fill out silly internet memes.

51. WHAT’S THE FASTEST YOU’VE EVER GONE IN A CAR?
About 120 mph. Middlin' long story, but it was on the autobahn between Mannheim and Frankfurt.

52. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO?
The whine of the fan on the computer.

53. LAST THING YOU DRANK?
A Sierra Nevada.

54. REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT?
Small-l libertarian. Registered Democrat (Truman Democrat) but leaning Republicans these days because the Dembulbs have largely drunk the Kool-Aid, and the capital-L Libertarians seem to be mostly frickin' nuts.

55. DO YOU HAVE A LOW SELF ESTEEM OR A HIGH SELF ESTEEM?
High.

56. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING?
On CD, just finished Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Just started "Mirth of a Nation" – not spectacular so far.

The Friday Fuck Off Thread

I'm sure you all will have stuff that's much worse, but for now, Guy Ritchie can fuck off. I finally watched that piece of shit movie of his last night and now I'm pissed off. It's not just that Revolver was bad. It's that asswad had the nerve to run around after it was panned saying that it was because we were all just too stupid to get it. That was the most retarded fucking movie I have ever seen in my life. That is not an exaggeration, folks. I mean it. Worst fucking movie ever made.

The fuck off floor is yours.

Having to close the FFOT before the weekend is up because of obsessive spammers linking to filthy p*rn sites can fuck off. Even if Ken wants to thank you for the links.

Coming up

UPDATE: It's Flemming Rose and it will be about 6:40PDT. ANOTHER UPDATE: Some technical issues, moved to (probably) 7:30.

I don't see it on their guest list on the website, but coming up this morning at a few minutes after six, I think, on KSFO will be the a representative of newspaper that published the Danish Muslim cartoons. I didn't catch the name, so I don't know yet if it's Flemming Rose or another. I'll update when I know more. If interested, you can listen here.

Remember, keep it young, keep it hip

Well, y'all know I ain't much in the way of hip. But the Sainted Bride is off to a work function this evening and I'm left unsupervised. So what did I do after perusing all the cool internet porn sites?

I gravitated (for some reason, don't remember the specific reason) to one of my favorite shows of all time. Sadly, copyright and licensing laws prevent it from being shown in syndication these days, but here are a couple of excellent clips. Not the ones I searched for, but alas, those I could not find. Perhaps someday, GLWatCRD.

Oh, and for the record, the single funniest sketch of all time, and the single funniest episode of all time (not the same episode) were on this show. Alas, couldn't find them. But please enjoy these two clips:

And no doubt you have all seen, or at least heard of, this one:

Someday, perhaps someone will post Col. Buchanan's will. ABSOLUTELY the funniest TV sketch of all time.

Twelve Angry Men

Well, more like eight angry men and four angry women. Well not so much angry as... well not even peeved. All wanting to do our civic duty, and only somewhat inconvenienced (more for some than others, of course, but we're all committed to doing our civic duty. And stuff). And we did.

And yeah, I forgot to post this earlier when I got home from the duty.

whereof they shall have been duly convicted

Yes, justice has been done and jury duty is over. Justice has been served and now I have to get up at my usual time instead of adhering to the way primo hours I've been following this week.

It was most certainly not a slam dunk, at least on one count, but it was interesting nonetheless. I actually do find jury duty interesting.

Went right down to the wire as to whether we would need to show up again tomorrow to continue deliberations. But just after our foreman finished filling out the forms, the deputy poked his head in and said "Judge says see you tomorrow", at which point we all screamed "NO! WE'RE FINISHED! DON'T MAKE US COME BACK!"

Well, not exactly, but close enough. And the rest is history.

[sigh]

I really could have used another day of sleeping in and following Lawyer's Hours (Jeez, Dave*, do you guys like, actually work?) but it is not to be . Back to work...

*Yeah, Dave, I know. There's a lot of stuff that goes on out of the jury's presence, but two hour lunches? That's what dreams are made of...

Blast from the past

Okay, I really, truly, honestly have no idea why this popped into my head this evening. But when I was younger, my little bros sometimes watched Wonderama. I was a little old for it when it went national, but it was kind of cool. Especially since I was bordering on pre-adolescent and kind of in a snotty, Jr. High type mindset when I saw it.

And I so desperately wanted to catch an aardvark and go on that show just to show up that Bob McAllister.

Of course, I'm matured some in the last 35-40 years or so. I guess.

Oh. Good. Lord.

One more brief American Idol post. Just caught a few seconds, walking back into the house after watering plants. But Rasta boy needs to go home. Not least for reminding me of that (mercifully) short reggae phase that Eric Clapton went through.

Eric, drugs are bad. I'm glad you got it out of your system. 'Nuff said.

SHORT UPDATE: For the guy who came on later, yeah it was pretty good but it's not wise to choose a Ben E. King song because, dude, you're not Ben and if you don't fricking NAIL it, you'll get marked down more than otherwise. Just sayin'...

And now again

Since I'm a wee bit out of touch, I thought I would provide a video one of the songs the Caps performed last night.

I was hoping to find "Ebony and Ovary" but I think it's too recent. Also, there was a McGreevey song the Bingster and Bill would have enjoyed but, alas, couldn't find that one either. So here's a different one. Enjoy.

And now...

...off to see these folks.

UPDATE: Spec. Tac. U. Lar. Especially the new (and especially topical right now) "Ebony and Ovary".

They even hung out in the lobby after the show, signed CDs, and such. We bought their two latest and got them autographed. DNT got autographs on two copies of the latest Lirty Dies lyrics as well, one for a friend at school who had just missed them in Sacto not long ago.

And tomorrow, back to jury duty.

Jury Duty

And now I'm off to report for it.

UPDATE: And I'm on it. Knew it as soon as my name was called for the first 12 in voir dire (I can spell it, I just can't pronounce it) because there's no reason, being a fairly average, non-offending sort. Mostly.

SECOND UPDATE: Just as an irrelevant aside, the pay sucks ($15 a day, starting second day, plus $0.15 a mile, starting second day). But the hours were way primo. Instead of leaving the house before 5am and getting home about 6pm, I left the house about 8:15am and got home about 5pm. Of course, all that stuff I'm not doing at work will still be waiting for me when I get back...

Country/Western Music Trivia (Yet another Retread Edition)

So that sorta-fisking of Nick Bostrom took a lot out of me. Also, I've still got a lot of stuff to do in the yard, and dinner to make, and miles to go before I sleep. So I have nothing new on the trivia front. So in order to have at least something to post, I went back through some of my previous posts to find questions that no one got. And I think I may have thought of a couple of new ones. Maybe. How would I know? I'm like, totally tired and old.

But in any case, I hope you will enjoy these retreads/new questions that I may or may not remember the answers to in the cold, harsh light of day:

1) When you're blue and all alone, when their glamour starts to bore you, what should you do?

2) The moral of the story is never judge by what they wear, because underneath some ragged clothes could be a millionaire. Everybody listen, don't be fooled by this galoot. What galoot?

3) I've tried and I've tried and all night long I've cried. What is it that I can't do?

4) Just for a moment I stood there in silence, shocked by the foul, evil deed I had done. What deed?

5) Deep within my heart lies a melody. A song of what?

6) Multiple answers accepted for the following multipart question:

M is for what?
O is for what?
T is for what?
H is for what?
E is for what?
R is for what?

7) And just one more for fun: I was drunk the day my Mom got out of prison, and I went to pick her up in the rain. But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck, what happened?

8) Well, what the heck. ANOTHER one just for fun, that I don't think I've used before. They left the city in a pickup truck, gonna make some dreams come true. They rolled out west where the wild sun sets and the coyote bays at the moon. Who did this?

Heroine

Pfc. Monica Brown: A true heroine. Hoo-rah, indeed.

Moose Butter

Now that I've got your attention...

Daughter Number Two is home this weekend, that we may see these folks.

More than that, because she's home we went out to dinner and then she decided she wanted to see "The Music Man" at the high school. So we did. Fun. And now it's late. And I'm wired from being up too late, so I'm drinking beer and blogging. Sorta.

Anyhoo, a while back, DNT played for me a recording by "comedy a cappella quartet" moosebutter ("98% a cappella, 100% goofy"). I don't remember just what it was, being a long, long time ago, but today she passed along their rendition of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer". Tres amusing ("Won't you slay my guide tonight?").

It's not currently available on Youtube (though their puppet version of "Psycho the Musical" is), so I uploaded it. Enjoy the whole thing. You will not be disappointed.

Who's Afraid of a Martian Probe?

Apologies in advance. I didn't realize how long this had gotten until I finished, and since I have stuff going on tonight and tomorrow, I'm not going to try to edit it down to a reasonable length. You have been warned, but I, in my infinite mercy, have hidden it below the fold for those of you not interested.

Continuing the discussion from last night, and trying to refrain droning on, I looked up Nick Bostrom. He's the one who thinks we're living in a computer simulation. Well, that's not quite accurate but it might explain a lot. Dr. Bostrom is a philosopher at Oxford. Somehow, I suspect if he were an evolutionary biologist or a physicist, he wouldn't be nearly so pessimistic.

Dr. Bostrom's thesis may be summarized as follows:

1) There are no other civilizations out there, because if there were they would have colonized us already.

2) Therefore, there must be a "Great Filter" (giggle) that prevents the formation of spacefaring civilizations. This GF is a probability barrier which makes it vastly unlikely, even impossible, for civilizations to reach the stars and colonize the galaxy.

3) This GF must lie either in our past or our future, i.e., it must either prevent the emergence of advanced societies, or these societies must destroy themselves before they can reach the stars.

4) If we were to find evidence of life on Mars, it means the GF is less likely to lie in our past.

5) If the GF does not lie in our past, then it must lie in our future, and we are doomed to destroy ourselves before we reach the stars.

Jeez. That's depressing. No wonder the poor fellow is terrified of finding life on Mars. Fortunately for us, he's wrong on all counts. Let's tackle them in turn.

1) There are no other civilizations out there, because if there were they would have colonized us already.

Dr. Bostrom's argument is that technologically advanced societies that do not destroy themselves must reach the stars and colonize the galaxy, even the entire Universe. In a nutshell, it would take barely 20 million years, at 1% of the speed of light, for a civilization to colonize the galaxy once it achieved space flight. Well, he's right there; even if it took longer, it's a mere blink in the history of the galaxy, so time is not the barrier.

But where he falls down is in the dismissal of other reasons a civilization may not do so.

Various schemes have been proposed for how intelligent species might colonize space. They might send out "manned" spaceships, which would establish colonies and "terraform" new planets, beginning with worlds in their own solar systems before moving on to more distant destinations.

IF they moved on. I'm down with terraforming the local planets, that's a no-brainer. But sending manned craft beyond a solar system is a huge technological leap. I have my doubts about its feasibility even in the far distant future.

It has been pointed out, of course, that at one time people couldn't travel around the world. "But technology triumphed!" and now we can jet around the globe. And:

Considering that space travel was science fiction a mere half-century ago, we should, I think, be extremely reluctant to proclaim something forever technologically infeasible unless it conflicts with some hard physical constraint. Our early space probes are already out there: Voyager 1, for example, is now at the edge of our solar system.

Fine, but when it comes to interstellar travel we are butting up against a hard physical constraint, not technical trivia. Unless there is a new revolution to shake up physics, we won't be thwarting the speed of light.

And just as we should "be extremely reluctant to proclaim something forever technologically infeasible", we should be extremely reluctant to proclaim that we will overcome any technical barrier. Yes, the computer revolution and rocket ships are amazing things, but I'm still waiting for my flying car. Actually, a more accurate analogy might be thermonuclear reactors. They've been just around the corner for 50 years but they still aren't here. The point is, we will have many new technologies, but there may well be technological barriers that are insurmountable or too expensive. Star travel may well be one, and could easily explain lack of contact.

Of course, there are other methods besides manned craft:

But much more likely, in my view, would be colonization by means of so-called von Neumann probes, named after the Hungarianborn prodigy John von Neumann, among whose many mathematical and scientific achievements was the concept of a "universal constructor," or a self-replicating machine. A von Neumann probe would be an unmanned self-replicating spacecraft, controlled by artificial intelligence and capable of interstellar travel. A probe would land on a planet (or a moon or asteroid), where it would mine raw materials to create multiple replicas of itself, perhaps using advanced forms of nanotechnology. In a scenario proposed by Frank Tipler in 1981, replicas would then be launched in various directions, setting in motion a multiplying colonization wave.

Okay, that sounds technologically feasible. But what would be the point? There are two main reasons for space travel: to send people (perhaps to save the species from the inevitable death of the local star) or to gain something of value, especially knowledge. Unless all those generations of self-replicated probes are capable of sending back information (at no more than the speed of light, remember) why would anyone choose to do so?

Even if an advanced technological civilization could spread throughout the galaxy in a relatively short period of time (and thereafter spread to neighboring galaxies), one might still wonder whether it would choose to do so.

Is there an echo in here?

Sorry. Continue.

Perhaps it would prefer to stay at home and live in harmony with nature. However, a number of considerations make this explanation of the great silence less than plausible. First, we observe that life has here on Earth manifested a very strong tendency to spread wherever it can. It has populated every nook and cranny that can sustain it: east, west, north, and south; land, water, and air; desert, tropic, and arctic ice; underground rocks, hydrothermal vents, and radioactive-waste dumps; there are even living beings inside the bodies of other living beings. This empirical finding is of course entirely consonant with what one would expect on the basis of elementary evolutionary theory.

But it misses a big point: that spread was mostly passive (certainly in the case of bacteria), into places immediately reachable (unlike other stars), and it was mostly at the margins (meaning that as populations increased, some individuals were pushed out to find new food sources - Malthus wasn't completely wrong).

Second, if we consider our own species in particular, we find that it has spread to every part of the planet, and we have even established a presence in space, at vast expense, with the International Space Station.

Okay, but remember that, with the exception of space, Antarctica, and a few islands, all of that was reached on foot before the coming of advanced technology. And it was because people were searching for food sources. Back when life was "nasty, brutish, and short" people didn't travel away from food sources.

Third, if an advanced civilization has the technology to go into space relatively cheaply ...

Ay, there's the rub. We get back to the technological barriers. Even if it's relatively cheap (and it probably is) to expand within a solar system, interstellar travel is a whole different ballgame.

... it has an obvious reason to do so: namely, that's where most of the resources are. Land, minerals, energy: all are abundant out there yet limited on any one home planet. These resources could be used to support a growing population and to construct giant temples or supercomputers or whatever structures a civilization values.

Problem is, this directly contradicts the von Neumann probe idea. Either you bring back those resources to the home planet or you send part of the population to exploit them onsite. A von Neumann probe would be useless. And neither idea lends itself well to interstellar travel.

Fourth, even if most advanced civilizations chose to remain nonexpansionist forever, it wouldn't make any difference as long as there was one other civilization that opted to launch the colonization process: that expansionary civilization would be the one whose probes, colonies, or descendants would fill the galaxy.

Yes, but again it comes back to whether interstellar travel is feasible and inexpensive enough. It also ignores other possibilities. Perhaps civilizations always have, as we do, chattering classes that want to spend money at home instead of space. Perhaps the end stage of civilizations is Luddism.

Or maybe, maybe even likely, it would be difficult to find people willing to leave the home solar system. Think about our own history of colonial expansion. The first explorers were sent by their respective kings to stake claims, find riches, and one-up the competition. After this, there were some missionaries and padres out so save souls of natives, a few settlements commissioned by the kings, and some religious nuts. But when it came time to populate the Americas and enslave the native populations, by and large the immigrants were poor folk with few options and societal outcasts of varying sorts. The rich didn't leave their riches. The middle classes didn't leave their comfortable homes (except for new business ventures). So not only are we a nation of immigrants, we are largely a nation of outcasts.

What does this mean for space travel? I suspect that a society sufficiently advanced to acquire the capability of space travel is also a very wealthy society. Wealthy people will go on jaunts into space. The less wealthy among them may well be interested in jobs exploiting the resources of their solar system. But it may be difficult to find people willing to spend the rest of their lives in a ship heading on a multi-year, maybe even multi-generational, voyage to distant stars. I think this explanation is at least as plausible as any other to explain why we haven't been colonized already.

In any case, I don't think it at all implausible that advanced civilizations could flourish without conquering the galaxy, which would make the Fermi Paradox no paradox at all.

Well, I think I may have spent too much time on this part, so let's move on. Fortunately, most of the argument above takes care of them as well, so they will be quick.

2) Therefore, there must be a "Great Filter" that prevents the formation of spacefaring civilizations. This GF is a probability barrier which makes it vastly unlikely, even impossible, for civilizations to reach the stars and colonize the galaxy.

3) This GF must lie either in our past or our future, i.e., it must either prevent the emergence of advanced societies, or these societies must destroy themselves before they can reach the stars.

The idea of a probability barrier to spacefaring civilizations is not too far off base, but I think Dr. Bostrom has an incorrect view of it.

If the filter is in our past, there must be some extremely improbable step in the sequence of events whereby an Earth-like planet gives rise to an intelligent species comparable in its technological sophistication to our contemporary human civilization.

It really should be thought of as a series of filters, with a cumulative probability. Thus, the argument that it lies either in our past or our future is way off base. It can, and almost certainly does, lie partly in both, and the actual probability is the product of the probabilities of all steps. Any or all of these may be extremely improbable, or all may be fairly probable yet have a cumulative probably that is very small (so that we may be the only one) or large enough that there may be many such civilizations.

What would these steps itoward ntelligent, technologically advanced civilizations be? Dr. Bostrom identifies some:

1) The origin of self-replicating cells

2) The origin of eukaryotic cells from prokaryotes

3) The rise of multicellular organisms

4) Sexual reproduction

I really don't know why he would consider sexual reproduction a requirement for advanced civilization. I suspect it (or some other form of gene shuffling/exchange within species) is a probable result of evolution rather than a requirement, but that's a different discussion.

Oddly, one he didn't mention was the rise of intelligence itself. It is true that

Some people seem to take the evolution of intelligent life on Earth for granted: a lengthy process, yes; complicated, sure; yet ultimately inevitable, or nearly so.

but others aren't so sure. Stephen Jay Gould, for one, was very pessimistic about the odds that human-like intelligence could evolve twice, even given eukaryotes, vertebrates, even mammals as a starting point. I'm not nearly so pessimistic, but I certainly don't consider it inevitable. In fact, I might rank it second least probable on the list, eukaryotes being number 1.

Unlike Dr. Bostrom (who only discusses the first step above), I don't actually consider the rise of self-replicating cells to be all that unlikely.

For example, perhaps it is very improbable that even simple self-replicators should emerge on any Earth-like planet. Attempts to create life in the laboratory by mixing water with gases believed to have been present in the Earth's early atmosphere have failed to get much beyond the synthesis of a few simple amino acids. No instance of abiogenesis (the spontaneous emergence of life from nonlife) has ever been observed.

Um, well, yeah. A few weeks is obviously not enough time, and we are at only the most tentative first stages of being able to probe the possibilities.

The oldest confirmed microfossils date from approximately 3.5 billion years ago, and there is tentative evidence that life might have existed a few hundred million years before that; but there is no evidence of life before 3.8 billion years ago... Nevertheless, several hundred million years elapsed between the formation of Earth and the appearance of the first known life-forms. The evidence is thus consistent with the hypothesis that the emergence of life required an extremely improbable set of coincidences, and that it took hundreds of millions of years of trial and error...

I suppose it is consistent with that. But it's also likely to be an inherently slow process. The first self-replicating molecules and proto-cells could not have been very efficient. I would go with a lot of others who suggest that a few hundred million years is probably a very short time to advance from an "organic soup" to living organisms, so life formed early, perhaps surprisingly early. And if that's the case, it suggests the formation of the most primitive cells may well be very probable, perhaps even inevitable in the right conditions.

Of course, there are still a lot of other stages required, of varying probabilities. And this has gotten far too out of hand so I will not even bother with my cropper argument and just say that I think some form of life is highly probable under the right conditions (maybe under a wide range of conditions); multicellular, differentiated organisms much less so, intelligent life fairly (but not prohibitively) improbable. But given the vast number of potentially habitable planets out there, I think it highly likely that other advanced civilizations exist. Perhaps not very many and probably well-scattered, but I think it highly unlikely we are the only one.

Jeez, before I get any further off track, let's finish this up.

4) If we were to find evidence of life on Mars, it means the GF is less likely to lie in our past.

5) If the GF does not lie in our past, then it must lie in our future, and we are doomed to destroy ourselves before we reach the stars.

But again, that would only be if it is assumed inevitable that advanced civilizations will achieve interstellar travel if they don't kill themselves.

Well, not much more to say about it besides what I spouted already. I think Dr. Bostrom is flat wrong to think that advanced civilizations must self-destruct. True, he has company; CW worries that advanced civilizations (and we in particular) pollute themselves out of existence before reaching the stars. Our buddy John is less worried than CW and less wordy than I.

But I think Dr. Bostrom is probably right on this point:

If the Great Filter is ahead of us, we must relinquish all hope of ever colonizing the galaxy

More accurately, I think it is unlikely we will ever colonize the entire galaxy, but I would not relinquish the hope because I don't believe the Great Filter (one last giggle) necessarily lies ahead of us. I suspect the technological hurdles will be too great for some Galactic Federation to be formed, and that if people leave the Solar System it will be few and just a way to ensure survival of the species beyond our Red Giant future. But I'd like to be wrong about it.

Meantime, assuming we don't exterminate ourselves prematurely, which I do NOT consider in any way inevitable, even if we don't quite make it to the stars we can still have a great ride for the next few billion years plundering the Solar System and mocking "The View".

The Friday Fuck Off Thread

Condescending bastards who talk to grown adults as if they're four years old because they seem to think they're the only person in the world who ever got an education or had the occasion to crack a fucking book from time to time can fuck the fucking fuck off. Think carefully before you say the words "you should read...." to someone, especially when there's a good chance you're speaking to somebody who already has fucking read...

I know that's a stupid one, but I've collided with these people far too often. No, Mr. McSmarterthaneveryone, I don't need to pick up a copy of that Howard Zinn book that so many people seem to think makes them a brainiac because they keep a copy on their shelves. I read it when I was fucking seventeen. In college. Bite me.

Go ahead. Bite back.

I have no title for this post because it's too long and I'm wasted

[UPDATE: I corrected the honorific for Dr. Bostrom; that should have occurred to me last night]

Our buddy Bings linked to an article by Nick Bostrom. I mocked a bit of it below, probably unfairly, but the phrase amused me.

And this may have gotten overly long and rambling, so apologies in advance if it's not up to my usual super-journalistic-fiskatory standards. Which I doubt it would be even if I actually had such standards. My only defense is that Dr. Bostrom's article is also overly long and rambling. And I'm drinking.

It's not so much that Dr. Bostrom is wrong in his analysis, though I think it's at best woefully incomplete. He just seems terribly overwrought about the possible implications of finding out that life might exist outside our small, fever-ridden orb. As I mentioned in Mr. B's post, it reminded me of Bertrand Russell's depression over entropy, or this guy's rather ridiculous views on Darwinian evolution.

I haven't the time nor, realistically, the expertise in the appropriate fields to a thorough job on it but I'm well enough informed, I think, to point out some rather large flaws.

Such a discovery would be of tremendous scientific significance. What could be more fascinating than discovering life that had evolved entirely independently of life here on Earth?

What indeed? It would be great to learn that life on Earth is not just some weird, cosmic accident.

But I hope that our Mars probes discover nothing. It would be good news if we find Mars to be sterile. Dead rocks and lifeless sands would lift my spirit.

I think that attitude is just sad myself, but his argument is, I think, very poorly fashioned.

Before the actual arguments, though, he throws in a little bit of utter foolishness:

Conversely, if we discovered traces of some simple, extinct life-form--some bacteria, some algae--it would be bad news. If we found fossils of something more advanced, perhaps something that looked like the remnants of a trilobite or even the skeleton of a small mammal, it would be very bad news.

Yeah, it would mean the damned trilobites beat us in the Space Race.

Okay, in fairness, I assume he knows that anything we might find would not actually be related to any critters on Earth. The simplest might closely resemble bacteria or algae but certainly there would be no trilobites or mammals. For that matter, I don't even know if they could be reasonably referred to as plants or animals (that would make an interesting philosophical discussion, though, but from here on I'm going to drop the "resembling" part and just call them by the earthly analogs). He's just trying to make a point about finding multicellular, even large, complex species.

The more complex the life-form we found, the more depressing the news would be. I would find it interesting, certainly--but a bad omen for the future of the human race.

[sigh] Yeah, well, I think this passage is really silly and not just for the "bad omen" part. The likelihood of finding fossils of large, complex creatures is zero (well, perhaps not exactly zero, but close enough for Rock 'n' Roll). On Earth, bacteria don't just outnumber, they outweigh eukaryotes. The fact that visits have not yet turned up evidence of even bacteria pretty well guarantees that no large critters ever existed. And that's not even considering the likelihood that whatever surface water Mars may have once had dried up or froze into permafrost before the emergence of larger metazoan types (600 million years ago on Earth, after three billion years of bacteria and blue-green algae).

Now, that's not to say we won't eventually find evidence of bacteria, even primitive eukaryotes, perhaps even living bacteria in permafrost or some other hidey-holes (they can be pretty tenacious). But this part is really just a sidetrack to the meat of the article.

How do I arrive at this conclusion? I begin by reflecting on a well-known fact.

Actually, two well known facts. He goes into a fair amount of detail, but these two facts really boil down to:

1) We haven't had any visitors from space and, despite the efforts of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), we haven't detected any signals from space, and

2) There are about 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and about 100 billion galaxies, and if any of them had intelligent life, they would have already colonized the entire galaxy and maybe even the Universe.

From the first fact, he delves momentarily into the Fermi Paradox, about more of which later. Also, the SETI argument doesn't impress me too much. The night sky, far from being, as Dr. Bostrom puts it, "empty and silent", is awash in noise from the Cosmic Background Radiation to gamma rays. And among this noise, an intentional signal (and it would have to be intentional; those radio and TV signals we've been putting out for several decades are almost certainly unintelligible to alien civilizations. Especially the "Gong Show" and "The View") would be almost undetectable, much less recognizable, unless we had a dish antenna pointed directly at it. If there are any stay-at-home civilizations out there, I doubt we could actually detect them (this is not to say we should cut funding to SETI, it's a drop in the bucket and the potential payoff in knowledge is huge, but I just don't believe it will pan out even with millions of civilizations out there).

From the second fact, he concludes, almost certainly rightly, that there are many Earth-like planets out there capable of harboring life. Astronomers may quibble about the numbers (most stars may be binaries which have no planets, many may not form habitable planets, etc.), but bottom line is that there is a big ol' boatload of them even in our own galaxy.

From these two facts it follows that the evolutionary path to life-forms capable of space colonization leads through a "Great Filter," ...

Okay, this is what set me off. Phrases like this smack of pseudo-science and set my teeth on edge, which why I had some fun with it below. That's not fair to Dr. Bostrom and, on a few hours' reflection and a rereading, I realize that my first reaction was a bit harsh. Not that it affects my opinion of the article, but I'll try to tone it down a little.

... which can be thought of as a probability barrier... the filter consists of one or more evolutionary transitions or steps that must be traversed at great odds in order for an Earth-like planet to produce a civilization capable of exploring distant solar systems. You start with billions and billions of potential germination points for life, and you end up with a sum total of zero extraterrestrial civilizations that we can observe.

Okay, beyond the chosen phrase, he's not really too far off base here, but that "sum total of zero" is a problem. As mentioned, it may be only our inability to detect, or their inability to transmit, detectable signals.

Okay, long story short for tonight, because it's getting late and I need my beauty sleep (desperately! Just ask Julie and Emily). Dr. Bostrom's problem is that he assumes (1) that an advanced civilization would colonize the galaxy in a few million years if it were capable of doing so and that all advanced civilizations have that capability, so if we haven't been colonized already that must mean that other advanced civilizations don't exist, (2) that because other advanced civilizations don't exist, either we are the only ones that ever existed or all advanced civilizations must necessarily self-destruct, and (3) if we are not the only ones that ever existed, then the reason that other civilizations don't exist is that all advanced civilizations are doomed to destroy themselves, and so we must be doomed.

Cheery outlook, eh? Well, there are more problems with his article than I can deal with tonight so I hope to get a chance to deal with them tomorrow or over the weekend.

A little help here?

So today, Google has had a picture by Jeff Koons on their homepage, as they so often have special pictures on holidays and other event. I had no idea who he is so I clicked on it. Then I, er, googled his name. Sounds kind of interesting but I still can't figure it out.

Anybody know why? Is there some particular reason or is it just a pretty picture? Enquiring minds want to know!

Actually, "enquiring" is a strong word. Just mildly curious, since they normally use a different picture for a reason.

For our buddy, Mr. Bingley

It's not the post I promised him, that will have to be later. But I think he'll appreciate it.

And speaking of malpractice

And by the way, the f*** happened to basic honesty and decency?

I've never looked at Craigslist, heard a little about it but that's all. I get the concept, I suppose, but don't know details of how it works. However, I am willing to give Craigslist a small bit of advice:

Clamp down on stuff like this (registration probably required).

Doug Kelley was perplexed when Craigslist ads for his Sacramento carpet-cleaning business started disappearing from the popular Web site. Every time he re-posted one of his classified ads, it would vanish – often within minutes.

After competitors' ads started showing up, some of them openly denigrating his company, West Coast Carpet Care, Kelley knew he had a problem.

Since then, Kelley estimates he has spent $11,000 in attorney's and court fees fighting his online business adversaries.

"You'd think (Craigslist) would want to get rid of the tweakers and keep good-quality, licensed business people who are productive members of society," he said.

You'd think.

Like other small businesses worldwide using the free classified Web site, Kelley stumbled last year onto a little-known dark side of Craigslist.

Some critics say it's a situation where anything goes, including slanderous attacks and competitors ejecting each other's ads in a process called "flagging."

Using conventional software to circumvent Craigslist rules, some individuals have figured out how to quash competition by removing ads of their rivals, whether they're house-cleaning services or real estate sellers.

I guaran-damn-tee that if I knew of a business that did this, I would not patronize it and would make sure everyone I know hears of it.

Craigslist employs an automatic tool that yanks offensive or false ads if enough different users flag them. The problem: Single users can cheat the system with software that makes the flagging appear to be from multiple users.

It's a different form of Internet advertising sabotage, similar to "click fraud" where individuals repeatedly click on a rival's paid Web advertisement on Google or other search engines, to run up their rivals' costs.

This is appalling, and only slightly less vile than setting fire to your rival's business.

Nonsensical phrase of the day

I can't figure out if it's a redundancy, an oxymoron, or just a meaningless phrase:

The former president has privately told people that his wife's campaign has committed "political malpractice," according to Time magazine.

What exactly would constitute "political malpractice"? Accidentally doing something honest and decent?