Alien Insomniac

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.