Why the Guardian is going down the pan!

[stdP]

Surely they are completely different. Alien life should be taken for granted, given that the number of exoplanets in the observable universe is of a similar order of magnitude to the number of stars.

Whilst my initial posting probably outs me as an alien skeptic, I broadly agree with you - the chances of other forms of life in the universe, given its immensity, is almost a dead cert.

But the idea that a civilisation advanced enough at the same time as us (who's to say the species capable of this all died out a billion years ago, or won't be around for another ninety millennia?) would expend unimaginable resources to tear across vast resources to eventually come across a miniscule pinprick of a planet in order to put on a show of The Universe's Fuzziest Blobs and their own unique brand of cow-tipping... all whilst only being detectable by the US military/the illuimunati/a slice of mystic pizza yet completely invisible to everyone else. I find it patently ridiculous and it smacks of the same earth/human-centric mindset that got all those astronomers excommunicated.

We only left the gravity well of our own planet a little over fifty years ago. If we'd been able to leave the planet at light speed (currently thought to by physically impossible by most physicists) - so let's be generous and say sixty light years under our belt - by now we'd have made it less than 0.25% of the way across our own galaxy. As Douglas Adams put it, "The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination".

The term "UFO" means something more than simply a flying object that the person seeing it hasn't positively identified.

That's literally the definition of UFOs. Don't ascribe meaning that isn't there.

 

[PTK]

If a space craft landed and a creature emerged, I wouldn’t automatically assume that they were representative of the original designers. Much more likely to be an engineered lifeform designed for carrying out exploratory activities on the surface of this particular planet; the equivalent of us sending a rover craft.

There is a scene in Morons from Outer Space where the ET thinks that a litter bin is an intelligent Earth being, as its lid makes a noise as it moves up and down in the wind.

 

[Sue]

Well this thread has taken a turn to the deadly dull.

 

[Orang Utan]

If a space craft landed and a creature emerged, I wouldn’t automatically assume that they were representative of the original designers.

No you wouldn’t. You’d shit yourself and leg it

 

[PTK]

Well this thread has taken a turn to the deadly dull.

Ohhh, how dare you! I haven't been so insulted in the last half hour.

 

[tommers]

A Labour landslide is in sight – so let's prepare for the biggest party of our lives | Zoe Williams

A win for politicians you don’t hate is incredibly rare. We can’t waste this opportunity to celebrate, writes Zoe Williams

www.theguardian.com

Getting back onto the subject.

 

[two sheds]

 

[Dystopiary]

A Labour landslide is in sight – so let's prepare for the biggest party of our lives | Zoe Williams

A win for politicians you don’t hate is incredibly rare. We can’t waste this opportunity to celebrate, writes Zoe Williams

www.theguardian.com

Getting back onto the subject.

OMFG.

 

[Dystopiary]

 

[krtek a houby]

It's technically from the Observer but is worthy of Dr. Jazzz.

‘It only takes one to be real and it changes humanity for ever’: what if we’ve been lied to about UFOs?

The continuing lack of transparency about UFOs in the US is causing concern not only about the existence of aliens but about the psychological fallout of uncovering a conspiracy

www.theguardian.com

If a belligerent government like the US or China or whoever, got hold of alien tech... it stands to reason they'd keep quiet about it but make all the right noises about "transparency".

Maybe.

 

[gosub]

For time dilation to be appreciable, you have to be travelling pretty close to the speed of light — 0.9c, say — and that requires phenomenal levels of energy for a massive object. But put that to one side. Is your theory that an alien will be happy to abandon its entire civilisation for 2000 years of their time — and use up years’ worth of its own — just to have a quick buzz of the Earth? And then what? Like I say, I find it more plausible that we might have got something wrong in our own current understanding of physics.

Think hardest bit is actually working out how yo slow down having acquired that sort of velocity

 

[Silas Loom]

Think hardest bit is actually working out how yo slow down having acquired that sort of velocity

The voice of bitter experience.

 

[Orang Utan]

Think hardest bit is actually working out how yo slow down having acquired that sort of velocity

Hand brake

 

[gosub]

The voice of bitter experience.

Did have some solar sail ideas a while back. (Thought they missing a few tricks from modern nautical.) [Don't now think there's much to be gained- coulombs law] but not a scooby on the stopping.



Did aquaplane into a wall once ....always check your tyre pressure

 

[PTK]

The voice of bitter experience.

Yes, they intended to land somewhere else, but overshot and landed on Earth.

 

[redsquirrel]

A Labour landslide is in sight – so let's prepare for the biggest party of our lives | Zoe Williams

A win for politicians you don’t hate is incredibly rare. We can’t waste this opportunity to celebrate, writes Zoe Williams

www.theguardian.com

Getting back onto the subject.

That is truly shit
And fucking Williams moaning about Centrist Dads, FFS!

 

[Sue]

That is truly shit
And fucking Williams moaning about Centrist Dads, FFS!

She's not known as Woe Zilliams for nothing. You may also have missed this gem:

'But the real reason I have no trace of shame about it [going to a private school] is that I hated it so much, and came out of it so completely horrible, and it took so many years to rewire some basic trust in humanity, that I just cannot conceive of it as a privilege.'

Kate doesn’t want Prince George to go to Eton – and for once I agree with her | Zoe Williams

I was miserable at my all-girls’ school. According to rumour, so was the Princess of Wales. No wonder she wants to keep her son out of another single-sex establishment, writes Zoe Williams

www.theguardian.com

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

A Labour landslide is in sight – so let's prepare for the biggest party of our lives | Zoe Williams

A win for politicians you don’t hate is incredibly rare. We can’t waste this opportunity to celebrate, writes Zoe Williams

www.theguardian.com

Getting back onto the subject.

'Politicians you don't hate' eh?

 

[tommers]

'Politicians you don't hate' eh?

It's a really weird article. Halfway through she kind of admits that there's nothing to get excited about but then finishes it by saying everybody should be excited. It doesn't even make any sense within the frankly ludicrous world that it creates.

 

[two sheds]

If anything's going to make people vote tory it's triumphalist shit like that in the Guardian, we can likely look forward to it regurgitated by the tory party in their ads nearer the election.

 

[DotCommunist]

Think hardest bit is actually working out how yo slow down having acquired that sort of velocity

another engine on the front, do the maths then when you hit the correct point still someway from destination do a slowdown burn with the front engine. Jobsa goodun

 

[DotCommunist]

A Labour landslide is in sight – so let's prepare for the biggest party of our lives | Zoe Williams

A win for politicians you don’t hate is incredibly rare. We can’t waste this opportunity to celebrate, writes Zoe Williams

www.theguardian.com

Getting back onto the subject.

I'm sure they will be popping corks at guardian towers having finally got the blairite tribute band the cunts wanted.

 

[Pickman's model]

If anything's going to make people vote tory it's triumphalist shit like that in the Guardian, we can likely look forward to it regurgitated by the tory party in their ads nearer the election.

It will already have had an emetic effect across the country

 

[gosub]

another engine on the front, do the maths then when you hit the correct point still someway from destination do a slowdown burn with the front engine. Jobsa goodun

E=MC^2 Mkes that an unlikely approach to work cos now you are adding as much fuel again to stop.

As with all formulas best off focusing on the ^2. As that's speed of light in a vacuum. I do think having a purer vacuum is going to figure somewhere

 

[Silas Loom]

We can probably all agree that for intergalactic travel to work, there need to be folds or wormholes or some other form of cheat mode in spacetime. Astrophysics is frothy, fast-evolving and largely theoretical, with plenty of acknowledged unknowns.

So the existence of a mechanism which allows a suitably advanced intelligence to manifest physical objects on Earth for unknown purposes (perhaps simply to troll) shouldn’t be an affront to reason.

Annoyingly, the emissaries of these advanced intelligences might, for all we know, dress up in velvet capes and lurk around in goth discos drinking straight from the neck, which forces me to agree with kabbes about the broad equivalence of extreme improbabilities in siloes. Bugger.

 

[Orang Utan]

If aliens do establish a means to travel to Earth, they’d almost certainly be hostile. Extraterrestrial conquistadors

 

[Silas Loom]

If aliens do establish a means to travel to Earth, they’d almost certainly be hostile. Extraterrestrial conquistadors

The likelihood is that they’d be mainly interested in extracting resources, but not necessarily in the same ones as we are, or in consuming humans as a luxury food*. If they were small enough, or primarily adapted to deep-sea conditions**, we could probably coexist without much friction. Perhaps we already are. Giants would certainly be problematic.

* See M Faber, Under the Skin
** See J Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, where Bocker, who provides the voice of omniscience usually to be found in JW novels, makes exactly this point

 

[Orang Utan]

That Under The Skin book is sooo good. Even more disturbing than the film.

 

[Santino]

another engine on the front, do the maths then when you hit the correct point still someway from destination do a slowdown burn with the front engine. Jobsa goodun

Accelerate constantly to the halfway point and then turn around and decelerate the rest of the way, hoping that at no point does your ship hit a tiny piece of dust.

 

[two sheds]

Accelerate constantly to the halfway point and then turn around and decelerate the rest of the way, hoping that at no point does your ship hit a tiny piece of dust.

Don't work. You get older as you accelerate so by the time they get to half way they'll be 300 years old and therefore dead and decelerating won't make them young and alive again

or the other way round