Alien Insomniac

Space Fascism: The dreams of a generation reduced to "ugh"

2011-02-01T12:13:00.002-06:00

All my life I have had a love of space and the stars. It developed when my father first taught me the names of all 9 planets when I was 3 or 4. When I was 6 I watched Armstrong step off the LEM onto the moon. I had high hopes for the Apollo program and was disappointed when it ended. I remember Apollo-Soyuz and Skylab. Watching the Viking launch was a bright spot in a rather boring adolescence. Seeing the photos later was really special to me. The shuttle and the space station...well they're in space and appear to be about all we've got.

Most of this stuff, the programs, astronauts and all...most of it is government funded. For years we've heard talk of privately funded space programs. Efforts so far have been intriguing and I look forward to more from people like Branson and Rutan. The problem with privatisation is when the shift happens. That is the point at which a massive corporation assumes the funding of space travel.

If you watch science fiction, from the best to the worst, there is always "the company" involved. It's troubling that the cost is so high that only big players can participate longterm. I don't want our first manned interplanetary trip turned into a reality show. And that's probably what will happen. We're already being pre-programmed with movies like the 2009 Virtuality where the first interstellar mission has a host with a camcorder in everyone's face. I started making the gag sign as soon as I realised what they were doing. I'll post a review later.

Tastes Like Chicken

2010-01-31T10:17:00.003-06:00

Accurate Reporting

2009-07-17T16:42:00.002-05:00

Terminator kills human by mistake, then says "My Bad"

2008-12-09T04:21:00.001-06:00

Well not quite but I've never seen Cameron make a mistake.

Cameron and John: New rule

2008-12-06T13:20:00.002-06:00

If she's going to kill him, even in some elseworld flashbacky vision, she has to give him a little first. Even the black widow spider mates with the male before eating him. Skynet and the Terminator producers should at least show John that much respect.

Grand Theft Spaceship

2008-12-05T01:55:00.001-06:00

A shipful of agnostics

2008-12-04T02:16:00.000-06:00

Group living in close quarters is not an easy thing. When I was in Israel in 1985 we had about 18 people sharing a house. There were four bedrooms, maybe five and several people slept on the roof. We got along and we didn't get along. We broke into cliques. We made friends. We made enemies. There was some contact during the immediate months and years after the six weeks of that summer and I don't know if any others are in touch now 23 years later. If you count the atheists there were at least three major religions represented there. There were disagreements over religion and I doubt anything was argued through to any kind of resolution. It was a complex interpersonal situation and it needed to be short duration.

So lets move ahead a few years...past all the international bickering and BS...to a point where we're actually able to send a crew on a long term space voyage. Long term for us is going to have to be the Mars mission. Are we going to just throw the people together and send them up and let them be people or are we going to screen them to the point where everyone just fits together like parts in a machine? And if we go with this second option, can they have strong political and/or religious beliefs? Or will they need to be neutral as far as those things go?

We might need a combination. There are certain personalities that won't do for any kind of close-quarters situation. Some folks need to be able to limit their interaction with others significantly. I don't think either extreme is a good idea. Human experience gives us plenty of examples of how well unmoderated groups do in situations which allow no escape and limited solitude. Over-screened, hand picked groups who are chosen because of their ability to work together is an idea which has its downside. Such a situation is artificial and would have some unwelcome herdish and other psychological effects.

Whatever group is picked is going to have to train intensely as a group where they have a way out before we put them in a metal and glass container and send them millions of miles away.

Question

2008-12-03T04:02:00.003-06:00

If an intense and sometimes painful erection that results after an extended period driving a semi is diesel-dick, then is an intense and sometimes painful erection that results after an extended period in orbit space-dick?

A little wisdom overlooked in Star Trek

2008-12-02T00:28:00.002-06:00

When we truly start encountering new peoples and new civilizations, we might do well to not refer to them as species...at least in their presence.

Watching Close Encounters

2008-12-01T00:49:00.003-06:00

I wonder if anyone out there misses the good old days, when aliens just played with little kids' toys, scared the cat and buzzed the highway patrol.

My er...absence

2008-11-06T12:46:00.002-06:00

I haven't abandoned this blog. I haven't taken the time to write here. I have been writing at my other blog at roguesun.com. I'll be getting back to this one soon. I want to return to posting daily here.

Alien Shots

2008-09-20T19:46:00.002-05:00

Ooooooooze

2008-09-07T01:23:00.002-05:00

The Journey

2008-08-27T04:43:00.000-05:00

It takes 26,000 years for our solar system to pass through 13 constellations which we call the zodiac. How do we know? Well the calculations can be done and have been done using observation and extrapolation. But if one clings too tightly to calendars of a more recent creation, such calculations are seen as the stuff of fancy. For if everything is only 6-7000 years old, how can the solar system have been around for 26 millennia? The schools of thought that gave us the 6000 year paradigm also gave us an Earth-centered universe, an immutable sky and a flat Earth. If those people were wrong about those three things how do we know they're right about the age of the Earth? Maybe we know that the solar system takes that long in its travels because we've lived it?

An odd vision

2008-08-20T03:21:00.002-05:00

I guess it was about 40 minutes ago, so about 2:40am CST I was in the living room walking towards the kitchen and I was looking at my front door. I saw the door gone and the doorway open to and filled with an almost totally black cloud.

It lasted a split second and then was back to normal. I am going to look into what that might mean. I'm hoping it's just one directional. I know there's darkness out in many places in the world. I just don't want to come home to it.

Weird.

Alien Museum Display

2008-08-08T00:55:00.001-05:00

Gray

2008-08-01T00:04:00.001-05:00

A New Space Station

2008-07-30T16:55:00.000-05:00

To alleviate the orbital shift problem with regards to Mars to enable yearly travel without worrying about planet position I think the international space associations should begin work on a space station to be built between the two worlds. This should not be needed in the years when both planets are on the same side of the sun, but as our orbits carry us farther apart, a midway platform could be useful. This would feature some system of artificial gravity, housing, food storage and prep and a refueling and repair section.

During the odd years we would fly supplies to the station from Earth and an expedition would be sent from an ongoing base of operations on Mars as well to pick up supplies, exchange crew and do any needed repairs. Then both ships would fly back to Mars and the Earth and continue their operations until the direct trips are again possible.

It might be necessary to keep a crew at the space station full time for maintenance as well. These persons would travel back and forth to Earth according to a rotation schedule.

If we work on a station like this and the ships that will make the trips first we would be ready to have a permanent Martian base sooner perhaps and one that would be more conducive to preservation of crew and equipment. The idea of stocking for two years and then forcing the crew to wait until the planets make it back around to the same side of the sun seems inefficient.

Grays

2008-07-26T21:20:00.001-05:00

What? Separate bathrooms too?

2008-07-25T01:02:00.002-05:00

Thanks to Lbc42 for permission to use the photo.

Obviously Lax Security at Area 51

2008-07-22T17:06:00.005-05:00

One of the biologists, who will remain unnamed, removed this creature was removed from its environmentally controlled case, messed with and brought to the cafeteria to show it to a coworker. The employees in question have both been fired and sent back to Las Vegas awaiting further action. Hopefully we will be able to save this specimen.

Thanks to World Megan on Flickr

About right

2008-07-18T18:39:00.002-05:00

Another project

2008-07-13T15:28:00.002-05:00

Is anyone working on a way to clean up the debris circling the planet? Over the years I've heard about paint chips, nuts, bolts, pieces of solar panel, etc. circling the Earth at above bullet speeds and how they can rip holes in space craft. Is this just one of the hazards or can we do something about it. Do the orbits of these items eventually give out so they can burn up in the atmosphere or will this stuff develop into Earth's Rings?

Garbage particles instead of ice and rock.

I think I'll move to one of Saturn's moons.

WANTED: A Review

2008-07-09T02:44:00.002-05:00

One Liner: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen meets Jumpr.

Nice casting job overall. In the case of Angelina, very nice casting job. Always glad to see Morgan Freeman. CG was good. Certain beginning plot elements took a while to wrap up. College coed relationship was crap and cartoon/reality show-ish. Nice ancient secret society motif, though I think they'd have had problems with the real secret societies of the time. Ending was a bit predictable.

Would I go see it again in the theatre? No.

Would I buy the disc? Yeah but the director's cut will probably be better.

Rating: 3¹/₂ Jacketed 9mm Bullets.

The aliens left it in my pocket when they dropped me off at home

2008-06-25T23:43:00.001-05:00

1 Terabyte Thumbdrive. A marvel of technology.

The Other Make a Wish Foundation

2008-06-25T03:33:00.003-05:00

This will only work with a terminally ill patient whose passing is imminent. That is the only way the government alphabet agency folks will go for it.

The Area 51 camo dudes wheel in a 42" HD Plasma TV. They give the patient a full briefing on everything. He or she gets to see the full show, MJ 12 stuff, 3D tour of S4 and the captured craft that we know they have but they won't admit to. Then they bring in one of the alien ambassadors from one of the more trustworthy star systems to talk to the patient about near-light travel, wormholes, propulsion systems, crop circles, abductions, and what was up with the Phoenix Lights. Then they bring in the alphabet agencies one at a time to explain black helicopters, underground bases, weather modification, cryptography and who shot Vince Foster. And sometime during this whole process the patient departs. If by some miracle the patient, on hearing all this, fully recovers, he or she gets to go work for the agency of choice.

I'd go hang with the alien ambassador.

Jogging anyone?

2008-06-22T00:38:00.003-05:00

Sometime in the early 1990s the US Air Force issued its 509th Bomb Wing a uniform patch to celebrate the flight test of the B-2 bomber. The original version said "CLASSIFIED FLIGHT TEST" at the top. Since the B-2 was tested at Area 51 the Air Force decided that those words were too sensitive. They issued a second patch that says "TO SERVE MAN" It's a spoof off a 1962 Twilight Zone ep by the same name. This is a replica patch that you can order from Cabinet Magazine.

Tasing the Planet: Putting a bad idea to good use

2008-06-19T02:47:00.003-05:00

Okay hear me out.

We launch a low-Earth orbit geosynchronous solar energy satellite and tether it to the ground. It will convert the energy from the sun into electricity and transfer it to a primary receiving station. Then we'll set up a world-wide network of capacitor-like systems to take in and store the power until it is needed. Think of it as a macro-taser of sorts. The system will charge, transfer and we'll have an abundant supply of energy.

Like everything else we build it will have to be maintained. But hey, what's spacewalking for?

The Dangers of Star Trek

2008-06-16T18:55:00.001-05:00

As much as I have loved the Star Trek series over the years I am forced to the conclusion that it has gone to serve, in part, indoctrinating the fans towards the idea of world government. It's very subtle. Earth of the Trek universe isn't ruled over by certain bloodlines. There aren't roid-head shock troops rousting people at work and at home. There are no official stories tossed about to guide public opinion. It's like they've gotten over all the crap we're dealing with in yet another abortive attempt to force this system upon us. The problem is that Star Trek works. People aren't chasing avarice and dissipation. They look free. The universe in those shows looks quite inviting, especially compared to the crap that was going on in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s.

And so I was taken in, for a time, by the idea of a unified world. But I wanted that as the model, not this Wal-Marted, Made In China, RFID idea with suspected terror under every placemat and people turning each other in to the police with text messages. But Trek is not completely free either. The hidden controls are a bit harder to identify. Everyone is tissue typed and DNA/RNA mapped. Since everything is provided and no one works for profit, to do so is looked at as barbaric. That is the method of the Ferengi, for example. There are a few out and out parallels: International Law/Interstellar Law; United Nations/United Federation of Planets; The UN has the "Peacekeepers"/Star Fleet.

While I do still watch the episodes and I do appreciate the entertainment/diversion value of the shows, I have to question Mr. Roddenberry's motives when he says it was supposed to be a "space western." The West and the UN are well not exactly the same. So I wonder if he didn't have to add in the globalist/"unity" elements back in the 1960s in order to get approval/funding.

I'll have to divert power from my alarm system to operate the deflector array since someone will be wanting to fire torpedoes at my truck.

Water on Mars

2008-06-12T21:02:00.002-05:00

Live Alien Capture

2008-06-05T21:17:00.000-05:00

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-06-03T04:06:00.002-05:00

Some might think of this as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Part Deux. That's not a fair assessment of the film. There were some elements apparently borrowed from the previous story but it has some themes that are unique to this film and quite inventive.

I went into the theatre with low expectations. A friend who is not a sci-fi buff really disliked the movie. So I was going on her perceptions which differ from mine quite a lot. What I really enjoyed was the Inca God/Alien theme. People have wondered for decades about the reason for the Inca wrapping of children's heads to elongate them. I thought this movie gave as good an explanation as I've heard.

There has been quite a bit of discussion of crystal skulls that have been found around the world. I haven't read much about that. The aliens in this movie were silicon-based lifeforms. That's the conclusion I drew from watching how they dealt with that part of the theme. We usually think of silicon-based life as some sort of living rock creatures or animated crystal. There have been several productions that have dealt with those themes. This was a totally new idea. The skull was not a carving in quartz but was the alien's cranial bone composed entirely of quartz. The aliens are definitely of a different order from us, as theorists have speculated. We don't know how they handle respiration, circulation, digestion, etc. I am going to have to get the book to see if the author goes into more detail about these beings.

Vulcan Wisdom

2008-06-02T22:49:00.002-05:00

Don't Tease

2008-05-31T09:16:00.000-05:00

I'm a UFO nerd. Everyone who knows me either knows that or eventually figures it out. I've noticed a trend on the documentary channels that when there is an asteroid strike back 10,000 years ago they now call it an extraterrestrial event, which of course makes my ears perk up. It's kind of a letdown.

Price Too High

2008-05-29T11:38:00.000-05:00

The globalists have as one of their platform planks reducing the population to 500 Million and keep it there. Maybe you've read or heard that, maybe not. They've certainly not been idle in that regard. What I strongly suspect you've not heard is that at least one of the alien species our governments have been dealing with is interested in reducing our population by 80%. Understanding the globalists and their ever increasing desire for avarice and power, obviously their plan includes themselves being part of and ruling over the 500 Million or the aliens' 80%. Beyond the no-brainer, who knows? The plan could be turning the planet into some sort of regional territory with themselves holding some vassal capacity.

I've long had a love of and a desire for everything to do with space exploration. I cheer every time one of our battlebots makes it to Mars, then wonder what the government is censoring when the comm system drops off. I've never been able to handle the idea that the Earth and human race are just God's little Claymation toy and this is all there is and we're the only life in the universe. I've never been one to look at the stars and planets and think that all that was made to be Christmas lights to adorn the Earth. I looked at it and thought, there's a lot out there and I want to see it all. But I'm not a globalist. And if the price of space exploration is the deaths of five and a half billion people it's not worth it. Just stick a few orange cones and a detour sign on the dark side of the moon and the evil aliens can head back down their wormhole to wherever they came from and by all means, take the globalists with them.

I beg your pardon, but our TOMTOM is on the fritz. Could you direct me to the abductees?

2008-05-29T04:24:00.002-05:00

Christians and Aliens

2008-05-28T09:32:00.000-05:00

The popular Christian perspective on the subject of space aliens says that the aliens are not physical beings from another planet but are in fact demons. According to this theory the ships are either manipulations of light and sound or are actual material objects designed and built by demonic or Satanic technology. The abductions have to do with an attempt to create an angelic/human hybrid or a return of the Nephilim which are mentioned in Genesis and Exodus. If you are interested in reading more on this perspective have a look at Alien Encounters: The Secret Behind The Ufo Phenomenon by Chuck Missler and Mark Eastman.

While I believe in the existence of demons as part of the angelic "sphere" of creation, I think this way of looking at the UFO/alien phenomena is limiting and feeds into the earth-centered paradigm or strict literal reading of Genesis. The intentions of the US government aren't always the best in the world and a lot of the advice and assumptions that end up as policy are bad. Something has been going on for most of the last century and continuing into this one that has required a tremendous amount of monetary and intellectual resources to keep the truth from the public. While I don't think the space demon theory touted in Christian circles was an invention of the government, I do believe it has served their purposes as a tool of misdirection and one that cost them nothing.

Where's my Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator?!?!?!?!

2008-05-25T17:49:00.001-05:00

The Phoenix Lander is on the way to touchdown on Mars. If we can keep Marvin distracted by hiding his ordnance, the lander can make it to the ground unmolested. Hopefully if experiments work out we can start bottling water for the astronauts when they land.

The Evian Space Agency in association with NASA

Questioning the Logic of Roswell

2008-05-21T23:10:00.003-05:00

We were told that sometime on 7 July, 1947 an unidentified flying object crashed on a ranch in New Mexico near the town of Roswell, home to the Roswell Army Air Field. We were told that there was wreckage that was collected by officers from the US military. This information appeared in the local paper in Roswell. Then a few days later that story was retracted and changed by the Army who said it was wreckage from a weather balloon. Then fifty years later a U.S. Airforce officer held a press conference and talked about an official report completed by the Air Force which said that not only was it not a crashed UFO it was also not a crashed weather balloon. The report says that it was in fact wreckage, which included paratrooper dummies which was part of a classified project called Mogul.

Now.

If the Army Air Corps was merely trying to shift attention from a top secret project why was it necessary to change the original story at all? Would not shifting attention to weather balloons and radar targets have the public looking at things that were around, but involved materials that were similar to the items used in Project Mogul, something they definitely did not want disclosed at that time? What difference does it make whether the public believes that a UFO crashed and there was debris or that a weather balloon crashed and there was debris? Maybe the concern had to do with not wanting a big jump in public attention on the area and what was happening. But I think everyone will agree that the events have gotten a tremendous amount of that over the last 60 years.

Then if we look at some of the claims made in the second official story we find some inconsistencies that the Air Force has not been able to explain to the satisfaction of the average UFO enthusiast. The government always sends out their spin masters and debunkers but those explanations are never any more credible than the stories they are intended to correct. So what I've always believed is that an extraterrestrial craft crash landed outside Roswell. The government, for reasons they will not disclose, wants the public to believe something else. And maybe in another 60 years they'll admit to the truth.

Original recording made by Chinese Astronomers in AD 1054

2008-05-19T16:23:00.001-05:00

Crab Supernova Explosion

Abduction: It's not just for cows and people anymore

2008-05-19T13:37:00.000-05:00

more cat pictures

On Summer Glau as Cameron Philips in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

2008-05-16T20:51:00.002-05:00

If she kills you, you get to stand in the same line to find out if you get to heaven and since the line is really really long (From what I hear Adam and Eve are still standing in it. Occasionally ticket scalpers show up. But eventually they get beat up by angelic security and thrown out.) when people start asking each other how they died, instead of "I got hit by a bus" you get to say, "This unbelievably hot chick grabbed me by the throat, lifted me a foot off the ground and snapped her fingers. Next thing I remember was standing in this line."

Beaming

2008-05-12T08:50:00.001-05:00

I didn't take this photo, but I wish I had.

Which one of you blokes shot my sodding UFO?

2008-05-09T21:31:00.000-05:00

A tear in the fabric of the universe

2008-05-08T23:27:00.001-05:00

Time Machine Safety Tip N° 356

2008-05-01T03:46:00.002-05:00

Traveling back to the 19th century when you and your time machine are located in a condo on the 49th floor is not advisable. Most things back then were, well, on the ground.

Learn to think 4th Dimensionally. It could save your life.

I come in peace

2008-04-21T03:06:00.004-05:00

Trailer

2008-04-20T14:19:00.000-05:00

ABSOLUTELY HOT QUOTE!!!

2008-04-18T18:51:00.000-05:00

"[300] is probably what the History Channel looks like on the Klingon Homeworld."
--Eye magazine critic Adam Nayman

Cow abduction

2008-04-12T01:50:00.000-05:00

Check out this video: UFO cow abuction caught on tape!

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Squirrel enters alternate dimension

2008-04-11T00:01:00.000-05:00

You saw it here first!

Anakin and the Force Kitty

2008-04-10T10:26:00.000-05:00

Jedi Baseball

2008-04-08T23:35:00.001-05:00

Check out this video: Jedi Baseball

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Greys vs Reptilians

2008-04-06T22:55:00.000-05:00

Check out this video: Greys vs Reptilians

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Terminator Body Functions

2008-04-05T09:02:00.003-05:00

Okay I've seen Cameron (Summer Glau) eat (actually nibble) on a couple of occasions, so I have to ask: Can terminators burp? Can terminators fart? Is everything perfectly incinerated? Or does she suffer from occasional irregularity? I figure just giving someone orgasms and going on STANDBY lying down like Vick (T-888) isn't enough. Ya gotta scratch and make some noises. Float a hydrogen air-biscuit. Drop a few metal-oxide pellets in the toilet. Leave the seat up.

Wow!

2008-04-05T00:01:00.000-05:00

Stowaway

2008-04-04T13:37:00.003-05:00

This is paraphrased from a dream I had.

I sneak onto the KSC.

Outwit the security agents.

Take all the instrumentation and other junk out of a satellite.

Put in oxygen tanks, food packs, extra padding, water, a camera and my iPod.

Climb in.

They load the satellite into the Shuttle payload bay.

The shuttle launches.

We get into orbit.

They take the big white arm and launch the satellite.

I orbit the Earth 3 times to pick up speed and then start tapping the little attitude jets to point the satellite at the moon.

We're about half way there now and I wake up.

Stonehenge: Another way they might have done it

2008-03-24T17:14:00.001-05:00

Interesting.

ALIEN INVASION SCHEDULED FOR 31 OCT

2008-03-24T00:30:00.004-05:00

If the bad aliens have done their homework they will invade on any given Halloween. The people will think the news reports are another War of the Worlds hoax broadcast.

In Memoriam

2008-03-18T18:35:00.001-05:00

RIP Arthur C. Clarke

The Travelocity Gnome ESCAPES!!!

2008-03-13T19:09:00.000-05:00

Um, not that kind of enhancement

2008-03-11T09:37:00.001-05:00

When someone asks if you know of anyone who has had some genetic enhancement, don't show her your boobs.

Once. For all people. For all time.

2008-03-10T01:59:00.003-05:00

What if the aliens landed in the church parking lot instead of at the Pentagon? Would they be welcome in the pews? Or would everyone assume that they're Satan's minions come to bring about the return of נפלים (nephilim) and hide their daughters? What if they showed no interest in the government or the scientists? What if they truly did come to worship with you?

Connectivity restored

2008-03-08T22:50:00.000-06:00

It started sometime before 6am on MLK Day, 21 Jan. My internet connection went down. I called Time Warner tech support who could only tell me useful things like they weren't able to see my modem on the network. Duh. He advised me to go to the office and switch out my modem. I did that. Got home. No workie. I called tech support again. She asked me to check the cable to see if it was connected to the wall. Then I had her schedule a visit from a tech. So the next morning the tech came over and determined that the problem was at the junction pedestal which is in the back yard of the neighbor behind me. The other problem is they have dogs. So he did something to boost the signal but said that it was a temporary fix. He left a note on the door of the neighbor asking them to call so he could get in and fix the line. They never called. the connectivity came back for the most part. There were a few times when it would go down but I was busy and just tried to tolerate it. That is until yesterday. I came home Friday at 2am to find the connection down. I restarted the modem and after about an hour of blinking it connected again. Then later in the day Friday I decided to hook up a wireless router I bought. To do that I had to shut down the modem and it never found the signal when I turned it back on. So at 2am this morning I called tech support and asked them to send someone. They scheduled it on standby. So this afternoon I went by the neighbor's house behind me and asked them to do me a favor and bring the dog in. The message I got from her was that if they were there when the tech showed they'd keep the dog tied up but if not they wouldn't make any exceptions (tying up the dog when they were away, etc). I figure oh well I've been shit out of luck before. Fortunately the tech showed up and found that their fucking dog had chewed through the cable insulation and jerked on it to the point that he broke the coax connector. He fixed that and buried the end beside the junction pedestal. So after going through the router setup again we now have wireless internet. What I didn't tell the tech was that he should have sprinkled wolf piss around the pedestal to scare off the mutt.

Now that's putting our equipment to good use

2008-03-04T16:57:00.004-06:00

The Earth and Moon shot from Mars.

See the story here.

H/T Below the Beltway

The Physics of Roadkill

2008-03-04T16:36:00.001-06:00

Schrödinger is taking Heisenberg out for a ride in his new roadster when they hear a "Thump".

Heisenberg says "I think you just ran over a cat."

Schrödinger says "Is it dead?"

Heisenberg replies "I can't be certain."

Ships

2008-03-03T02:09:00.002-06:00

A little something I threw together in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. The Pleiades image is from NASA.

Alien Booty Call

2008-03-01T23:59:00.001-06:00

This image is ©Terry Donovan Used with permission.

More changes at Alien Insomniac

2008-02-29T04:28:00.003-06:00

I did a rewrite of the blurb. I originally started this blog with a theme of me being a sleep deprived expat extraterrestrial. With everything going on in my life that has been a bit difficult to keep up with. It has become more of a personal blog with a theme, the theme being space and everything we're going to have to build and go through to get there. I'll still be cracking jokes and posting fun stuff. But I want to cover a lot of other topics that I believe are really important to the task of getting us out there.

Out of the mouths of babes

2008-02-29T00:05:00.001-06:00

It doesn't look like the picture

2008-02-28T13:39:00.007-06:00

I saw this through a 6" reflector telescope when I was 15. It was white and yellow with a hint of the bluish arc. I couldn't see any of the red through the eyepiece. It didn't and won't look like this to the naked eye. Back then (1978) this was due to photographic plates being exposed for long periods. Now it's CCDs. If we were staring at this out the window of our UFO and were close enough so see it like this I suspect its appearance would be quite different. Remember this photo is 1300 years old. Well it took that long for the light to reach us. A lot can happen in a millennium. There may be older stars that have gone wonky (red giant, nova, pulsar, variable, supernova, etc). Guess I'll have to come back and haunt some observatories.

Well Excuse Me!!!!

2008-02-27T10:57:00.002-06:00

I saw this ad in a magazine article a long time ago. I called the R.J. Reynolds company to see if I could get a copy of it. The conversation went like this:

Employee: "R.J. Reynolds. Are you a smoker?"
Me: "No."
Employee: "Okay. How may I help you?"
Me: "Hi. I saw your ad about UFOs featured in an article in [name of mag]. I thought it was kind of funny and I was wondering if I could get a copy of it."
Employee: "Sir we don't have that promotion available. And if we did have any promotions available they'd only be available to smokers because WE ONLY WORK FOR SMOKERS!"
Me: "Okay. Thank you." :::click:::

I thought that was rude. I don't smoke. But I wasn't calling to give them grief about their product. I think this exchange happened in the middle of the lawsuits, though. Maybe she had just gotten off the phone with some prankster or something. I don't know. I just think a person needs to pay attention to who they're talking to instead of just having knee-jerk reactions.

Orion Constellation

2008-02-26T20:37:00.005-06:00

I took this with my Panasonic Lumix Point and Shoot camera. I used the night scene setting, which gives roughly 8-seconds of exposure time. I held the camera in place on a sign that is mounted in the ground. Exposure of 2. I will be doing more of these now that I know this trick works. I had to just let the camera take whatever was in front of it since I was not using a tripod. I may bring my tripod in to see how well that works when we have another clear night.

This is only 375x500. The photo is best viewed large.

Wisdom from Terminator

2008-02-26T14:45:00.001-06:00

The machine may not kill you.

It also may not save you.

Flying Saucers: Look on the bright side

2008-02-26T04:47:00.002-06:00

At least now you know what shape to use when you design your spacecraft.

Does warp speed make my butt look fat?

2008-02-25T06:46:00.003-06:00

Einstein teaches us that an as an object approaches the speed of light the object's mass begins to increase in proportion with the square of its velocity. When this happens space around it begins to curve. So the closer we get to c our mass approaches infinity. From what I've come to understand, when that happens our ship becomes a boulder at the bottom of the stocking of space. To keep that from being our fate we would have to stay way below the speed of light. And where's the fun in that? The other option would be a speedboat approach. If you watch the boat races, the faster a boat goes the less of its hull actually rides in the water. It tends to hop or skim the surface. Its ability to maintain top speeds depends on fuel and how well its hull and engine are constructed. If it were possible to split water molecules for fuel we could see transatlantic speed boat races, but that's the subject of another blog post.

In order to reach light speed we have to control the way that space curves around our ship as we get extremely close to c. We would need to be able to dampen its curvature enough to keep the effects of traveling at that speed from being fully realized. I'm proposing something like happens when the guys walk on the non-newtonian fluid or cornstarch mixture in this video.

As you can see, as long as they're moving they're fine. I'm not suggesting that we transform all of space into a non-newtonian fluid. It may only be necessary to alter the space immediately around the ship. The energy to do all that might be acquired from the ship itself. We'd have to have some way of shunting the energy produced from the near light travel into reshaping space. The ship won't travel faster than light. What will happen is the ship moves...space curves...the ship produces a field around it that un-curves space. Our speed won't be infinite. More than likely there'll be an upper limit. I believe on Star Trek it was Warp 10. At any rate, a ship built to do this should be able to get to places to scoop up things like water often enough to survive.

Well don't everyone rush the patent clerk's desk. Take a number and form a single-file line.

The musings of an amateur theorist

2008-02-25T05:40:00.004-06:00

I'm not a physicist but I play one on this blog.

Every few days I go through what I guess are thinking exercises. So when I write the more serious posts here about physics, astronomy and such it's me pondering out loud. Most of the discussions I encounter are usually on topics that aren't my passion. Space, science and engineering are what "do it for me," "turn me on," and so forth. And from the comments I get, I'm not alone. I spend a lot of time watching science documentaries. If the Science Channel got their money from viewers instead of advertisers I'd be screwed. Well no. I'd just subscribe to that and not buy a magazine subscription or something. Now that I think of it they are getting money from the viewers in that we have to pay for the cable/satellite service. But anyway. So ideas come to me and I mull them over and try to get these term papers in my head to some sort of conclusion before I post them. They're not always long. Sometimes it's just a few sentences. At other times what I'm thinking about spills over several paragraphs. I usually don't know how close I am to the mark of what is being discussed amongst scientists. I may be reinventing something or coming up with something totally new. At best I hope to add something useful to the international conversation amongst scientists, engineers and technologists. Maybe some day I'll earn one of those honorary doctorates. :)

Just wanted to let everyone know that.

On falling space debris

2008-02-24T14:20:00.002-06:00

Anything that falls from the sky and crash lands in my yard or through the roof of my house is mine.

I don't care if it's radioactive. I'll buy a lead box and stick it in that. I don't care if it fell on its own or was shot down. It's mine, Mine, MINE I tell you!

XD

If the government wants it back they have to bring their checkbook.

Alien Hybrids and Pit Bull Crossbreeding

2008-02-23T02:42:00.002-06:00

I just heard a disturbing version of the theory about alien/human hybrids. Evidently we're too warlike and aggressive. Therefore the aliens have taken it upon themselves to combine their DNA with ours to produce kinder, gentler humans. I know that some wishful dog breeders mate pit bull terriers with less aggressive dog breeds to try and produce a pit bull that is less prone to spontaneous aggression. I'm not sure how well that is going. I heard about a pit bull/lab dog that seemed just as dangerous as the real thing. So I have to wonder how such a program would work with humans. The canine evidence would suggest that one generation isn't quite enough. And if you keep the breeding going too far you have to ask yourself whether you have a pit bull or just a mutt with careful pedigree records. In looking at humans, if we're more peaceful what are we to do with all that time? Read books? Paint? Play music? There are people all over the place doing all those things. Or is it that they're trying to get the warmongers painting? Just what in hell is it that the aliens want? Diluting aggression may not produce a smarter race or one more inclined towards higher intellectual pursuits. It may only result in making a population more willing to accept a leash...which could be the real aim of the abductors and their human government sycophants.

My Google Lunar XPrize Competition Entry

2008-02-22T16:26:00.005-06:00

After careful consideration of the fact that this is the chance of a lifetime I have decided to enter the Google Lunar XPrize Competition. After pouring over numerous photographs and blueprints I will be launching the Battlebots Backlash to the Moon. After successful landing and taking and submitting the required videos and photographs, the robot will seek and destroy all other bots on the lunar surface. I urge the other contestants to take this into consideration when building their robots. Instead addition to the required transmissions to Google for the competition we will be doing a special Battlebots/RobotWars broadcast which we hope will be picked up by the Science Channel. Otherwise we will make arrangements with online video sites to rebroadcast our metal fisticuffs on the internet.. Thank you.

Google and the Next Giant Leap

2008-02-22T13:16:00.003-06:00

Google is sponsoring an X-Prize for a team to get a robot to the moon. Works for me. When I saw the article on Forbes.com I thought they were talking about a manned flight like SpaceShip One. The contestants are vying to land a robot, travel 500m and send back photos and video.

They're also sending up photos and messages with each spacecraft for a "lunar legacy."

COOL!

Domain Names

2008-02-21T18:44:00.003-06:00

If lunar acreage is for sale why can't I have a .moon domain?

Well if it's anything like the Antarctica domain .aq, you probably have to be on location.

Gravity Flooring for Spacecraft: Enough of the centrifuging

2008-02-21T03:56:00.002-06:00

I've been thinking about how we can make this work since the other options are ships with rotating sections hoping that the body will be fooled into thinking that tangential acceleration is the same thing as gravity. Actually, that idea might work provided something doesn't get out of sync.

That's the problem I have with the way we handle gravity now and the ideas that are on the way next. Right now the astronauts have to do resistance training with recumbent bicycles and doing squats against rubberized tethers. The next thing is to have ships rotate. That will have you walking around the walls doing a delicate dance between centripetal force and tangential acceleration. Magnetic shoes are an idea but that could cause issues with the instruments, so it is probably not the best idea.

The best idea is something a few years or decades beyond our capability. If we had a material that we could roll into structural shapes for a ship that had two states. In its base state it would be no heavier or more dense than steel girders. Then with a charge or force applied it would be in an active state and provide us with one Earth gravity. Now let's also assume that the ship has one deck. As long as the flooring system is working properly, the ship's occupants should be able to walk, exercise, sleep, eat and do everything they can on Earth without having everything floating around in the air.

What this substance is and how we create it in the first place is a question I can only guess about. Maybe I'm thinking about the cart and we still don't have the horse yet. That is to say we first need to generate the gravitational field that we'll apply to this material. Maybe the material is coils of wire instead of girders. Some material such that when you apply electricity to it you get gravity instead of magnetism. Maybe it reacts to light instead of electricity. We may not be able to produce this on Earth. This might be something that has to be fashioned in space.

I leave it to the minds out there to play with.

John Galt has been found

2008-02-20T04:38:00.002-06:00

The theatrical production of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged has had the status of "announced" for several years. Until recently the only person cast has been Angelina Jolie in the role of Dagny Taggart. I'm not sure when this was updated, but Jamie Clay will play John Galt. Mr. Clay is quite a bit older than Angelina and I don't recall there being a very big age difference between the two characters. According to Mr. Clay's page on IMDB this will be his first time as an actor. I think using unknowns is a good idea for a movie like this. There are a lot of people out there who are expecting the studio to screw up this project. If they don't have to deal with major stars maybe they can focus on doing this well. It's listed as coming out this year. Well it's February so we've got 10 months left. I really think they need to bump it ahead to 2010.

JUMPER: Sliders meets Highlander

2008-02-19T23:48:00.002-06:00

I don't want to give away too much. Those of you who found Hayden Christensen annoying as Anakin Skywalker, well he has redeemed himself. This is a film about people who are able to create wormholes and pass through them whether it's five feet or half way around the globe. It's also about some other people who hunt them down. It also stars Rachel Bilson, Diane Lane and Samuel L. Jackson as an evil Mace Windu. I really liked this movie. Christensen did well with this character. I've seen him in Shattered Glass, but nothing else. I'll have to catch up on his other films.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - A slightly twisted thought

2008-02-19T03:05:00.002-06:00

How long before John gets to find out that Cameron is fully functional?

;D

Time Travel: How's about an upgrade?

2008-02-18T15:29:00.003-06:00

If our first time travel device takes up several square acres I think that as soon as we are able to hop ahead, say 100 years, into the future we should buy one of theirs and bring it back here. It would mean that we would be plugging in 22nd century technology into a 120V outlet but it should be smaller and run cooler. It might be possible to hook up three or four in the space one of ours takes up. And if we can find one that runs off Linux we shouldn't have too much trouble getting our stuff to talk to it. If you get there and find that everything in the future runs off Windows 3000, come back and tell us so we can fix that.

'Cuz there can never be enough moon photos

2008-02-17T19:54:00.003-06:00

Captain Jack is the new Captain Kirk

2008-02-17T15:10:00.003-06:00

John Barrowman kissing James Marsters (BtVS) on an episode of Torchwood on BBC America.

Aelita and Alita: Interesting Parallels

2008-02-16T21:34:00.007-06:00

The 1924 Russian silent film Aelita: Queen of Mars features a main character Aelita, played by Yulia Solntseva. There's a trip to Mars and a love story and a struggle...all the things we've come to expect from fiction. What I find interesting is that in the 1951 film Flight To Mars which involves a trip from Earth by a group of scientists and a reporter where they arrive to encounter a thriving population with a secret. One of the Martians is a woman named Alita played by the late Marguerite Chapman.

I sometimes wonder where characters and places get their names in fiction. It's always interesting to see a connection between one creative work and another, with one writer showing inspiration by borrowing from another. There may have been people in 1951 watching the screening of Flight to Mars who had seen the silent film years before who would have been able to relate the two names.

Stuff I've seen in the night sky

2008-02-16T20:17:00.004-06:00

It's not a very long list.

The Moon
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Orion Nebula
Comet West (1976)
Weekly flyover by a satellite (seen in the mid 1970s in California)
Meteors and meteor showers
UFOs (2)

The taking of relics in the name of science

2008-02-16T15:58:00.006-06:00

Pathologist Thomas Harvey performed the autopsy on Albert Einstein and kept the physicist's brain for 43 years. It is said he carried the brain all over the place and handed out slices of it to other researchers. I'm not sure what they hoped to accomplish other than understanding a bit about a genius brain. Brain pathologists don't get to examine normal brains in living patients. The work they do en-vivo is always with epileptic and aphasic patients. The scientists who received slices of the Einstein brain were probably elated.

Are we to call the late physicist St. Albert since bits of him have been passed around the country like the relics of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches?

I found that icon image at TrinityStores dot com.

Reinvention

2008-02-15T03:19:00.003-06:00

I am making some changes to the way I do things around here:

I will not be writing sponsored posts on this blog anymore. There aren't many on here now. I am leaving those where they are.
There will be advertising. Text ads, video/flash.
I am running ads for this blog with Google and other places.
I will be writing at least one post per day on here in keeping with the same theme. I will try to make them as in-depth as possible.
This blog's URL will eventually become alieninsomniac.com as soon as I can figure out how to get godaddy to talk to blogger properly.
That's about it for right now.

Physics: Current and future steps

2008-02-11T02:53:00.001-06:00

I watch a lot of documentaries. I know that you are all flabbergasted with shock from reading that. I just saw one that covered four of the greatest minds of history, Galileo, Newton, Einstein and Hawking. Galileo had the hardest job, in my opinion. He was dealing with a recalcitrant church that believed the sky was immutable and was willing to excommunicate and execute individuals for disagreeing with the conventional thinking. Then Newton refined the work of Galileo. Einstein took Newton's work farther and Hawking has built on Einstein and others. There is work being done on faster than light motion and other more esoteric studies. But the focus continues to be on unified field theory. While the other physicists need to keep doing their work and in some cases suffering ridicule for it, I think it is good that we are getting concentrating on unified theory. Think of it as marking time with a purpose. It is our grounding...a prerequisite for the future. We're training for the Olympics of science. This learning that we're doing is helping get us to a Type 0.1 civilization. The things we'll be able to do in the centuries to come will have people calling our silicon wafers the other stone age.

Exploring Space: A sketch in a couple of paragraphs

2008-02-11T01:44:00.000-06:00

Let's assume that we've already developed a self-gravitating ship. By that I mean a ship that is able to bend space in such a way as to propel itself from one spot to another in the galaxy. How we do that is the subject of numerous blog posts. So we've all climbed aboard our ship and we're strapped in. We peed before we left the hangar because this is a 1950s science fiction film we're in and there is no bathroom on the ship. We've got five months travel time so we're going to be sound asleep most of that time.

Being that this is our maiden voyage there are no usable stellar maps. We're going to be taking images to create those. Our mission is to fly out to within a lightyear of the Orion nebula, drop off buoys on the way (gotta leave the breadcrumb trail) and then come back to Earth. These buoys will be recording a 360° image of space. On the way back we'll be using those images to create a map, in 3 dimensions, of our trip. The other job the buoys will perform will be to transmit a signal to help us maintain our course. This is especially good during the down periods when we'll all be sleeping.

Of course we could send out more unmanned probes. I'm sure that would save money that could go to feed the "huddled and starving." I don't know about you but I'm a little tired of watching the robots get all the action. Europe sent people to the new world. They didn't send out models of ships. Some didn't come back. They were called explorers. They go out and worry about the getting back part later.

Night Sky Feed: Looking into camcorders

2008-02-10T20:15:00.000-06:00

I am about to be in the market for a camcorder. I am planning on doing some night sky recording later this year. I am applying the same thought process towards that as I do towards buying cameras. The emphasis will be on optical zoom first then pixels. I saw a couple of models at Target on Saturday. I am going to do some web searching before I decide on a model. I may end up spending this tax rebate thing on that. I don't know yet. My Panasonic camera will do video but I cannot cancel the audio portion. It might be necessary to buy a video converter. The key to eliminating the audio may be in the fact that the converter I am using is freeware. I wish I could set up a night sky webcam to run constantly but that would require building a special shed for the back yard and running an internet line out to it. It would be better if I had some property away from the city's illumination. The purpose of this is to enhance my blog with what will be a recorded feed rather than live. I'll see what I can come up with. When I am able to create a live feed I might have to take out extra insurance to cover the hardware, etc. since I won't be able to be present all the time.

Flash Gordon: DING DONG!!! The King is Dead! (er, we think)

2008-02-10T16:14:00.001-06:00

I just saw the season finale of Flash Gordon. They wrapped up a few things. The Scooby Gang is stuck on Mongo. Ming is dead. I am just hoping the writers will wrap up their business so we can get a second season. Most shows like this there is kinda of a principle of conservation. By that I mean in order for you to get what you want you have to give up something. So while Flash's parent are reunited and escape through the rift back to Earth. Flash, Dale and Zarkov are trapped on Mongo. If they're going to do this every season, wrapping up a large part of the plot instead of having five seasons of Flash chasing after his father, I am willing to keep watching. If the show is going to develop Incredible Hulk sickness with the main characters always 3 corners and two locked doors away from their prize, then I will have to drop it. They didn't say anything about the next episode so we may have to wait until the writers strike is over. The world is supposed to end Friday 21 December 2012, so I hope they are back before then.

Jolt Energy Mints!!!

2008-02-10T15:56:00.000-06:00

They're Back!!! Fry's Electronics managed to scrape together another couple cases of Jolt Energy Mints.

Time Travel: Only good for one person at a time

2008-02-09T17:24:00.000-06:00

The traveler boards or puts on or clips on her time machine. She sets it for some point in the future or past. Then she throws a switch, pushes a button, thinks something, says something. Lights come on and off. Everything stops. The traveler has reached her destination. The shakes, tastes, smells, blinks and noises differ from story to story but the outcome is more or less the same.

Traveling into the future for say five years means there is five years of history she has not been a part of. She left. She's out of place. She's not going to arrive with those memories intact. To the people who didn't skip ahead she disappeared for five years. People were born. People died. Administrations change hands. She might have jumped ahead to a destroyed world. Her nation might be occupied by a foreign power. The location she left might be a convenience store five years later and she could appear right between the robber and clerk. A bomb could go off where she's landing. The place could be burning down. If she's traveling from her apartment did she pay up the rent for five years? The manager could have evicted her, moved the stuff out and rented the place to someone new. She could land in someone else's bedroom right in the middle of the mattress. Best case she can hope that everything is roughly as she left it.

Now a day or two has passed and the traveler is ready to return. She sets her device to place her back where at the point she left. She arrives there with a rough understanding of the events of the next five years. There is one tiny little problem. The world five years hence was a changed world. The fact that she left it and hopped ahead changed it from simply moving forward. There were people's lives she was a part of and suddenly, without explanation, she's gone. Assuming she is not a prominent figure in either world, the "big stuff" won't be affected. World events, changes in the stock market, lottery numbers and all the other things connected with money that people say they'd use to their advantage if the had the opportunity to visit the future should be about the same. She can still score at the race track, call up her bookie, whatever.

That's just some of the stuff surrounding one person who travels into the future. You can flip the scene around and tell what might transpire with a time traveler in the past. Both assume quite a lot. The time traveler can do little more than surf the internet, read books and newspapers. If they do anymore than scan the place they'll end up causing additional problems with the timeline. Time or the time continuum is kind of like cheap stockings. If you do much more than look at them you'll end up causing a runner. And nobody likes that.

This was just the simplest of examples. Things get more complicated by adding space to the calculations. Then what about multiple time travelers? By multiple I mean people going on separate trips roughly at the same time. What if one keeps his continuum in tact while the other does something stupid? Most of our science fiction stories don't handle these issues well. They'll abuse one or more aspects to keep a story together then when anyone tries to analyze it they come to the conclusion that several characters should have died or never been born. Oh well. Movies are about selling tickets. Fiction writers have to concentrate on writing good fiction. Hopefully at some point the two will meet.

Mini T

2008-02-04T08:58:00.001-06:00

I think it would be cool to have Verne Troyer as one of the Terminators in the Sarah Connor Chronicles. He's a cool dude. The ladies always like him. He can easily infiltrate and take everybody out. Even if he gets the skin burnt off him and you see that polished stainless steel endoskull and the glowing red eye, people won't think he's that much of a threat. Hell he could probably still get a date. He might have a problem with dogs though. And he'll need a specialized gun to operate. I'll have to work on that.