2012 — 21 January: Saturday
Some people1 think, and/or say, that there's nothing new under the sun. Other people2 think, and/or say, there's a first time for everything. Last time I logged off my email account I saw something new, and for the first time:
Self-repairing automata? Yeah, right. Just what this planet needs.
Given today's...
... feather warcast (mostly cloudy, rain or drizzle at times, strong blustery winds) I'm hoping Mike will agree to defer our next walk until Monday. I also have a crockpot that needs stuffing later this morning. But, first things first, the necessary cuppa while I listen to Brian Matthew.
Changing the way...
... I view coffee. I used to think "percolation" was something done to ground-up, roasted, coffee beans. Not any more, thanks to Keith B Wiley's paper The Fermi Paradox, Self-Replicating Probes, and the Interstellar Transportation Bandwidth...
I shall draw a discreet veil over the convoluted process by which I eventually obtained that "asymptotically equal to" symbol though I could comment that it was a much easier process when I had my Acorn RISC PC.
I won't pretend...
... that the sight of an NHS emergency ambulance (which has been parked behind my house throughout my crockpot veg chopping session) is in any way welcome or soothing. Unsettling, too, to realise that "Elastic Rock" — the Ian Carr "Nucleus" album I chose for musical accompaniment — is over 40 years old. Definitely time for my next cuppa, don't you think, Mrs Landingham?
I've been reading, among numerous other things, a pair of articles by Robert Freitas on the Fermi Paradox, which he obviously doesn't see as a paradox at all. Most interesting. But then I'm not neutral. I would dearly love the thought of ETI, preferably benevolent, of course. So much more interesting than this over-populated, over-polluted, over-tribalised, globe of violence-prone, war-loving, mud-dwellers.
Tick, v.g.
This made me guffaw. I like guffawing. Thanks, Ian!