Kepler 22b

A mere 600 light-years off lies a planet within that sweet-spot known to allow for liquid water.  Since the telescope used can only detect planets with orbits directly across our plane-of-view, and we've only been able to carefully observe a handful of stars -it stands to reason that there are many more such planets.  Of course this says nothing about whether there's actually any water, let alone a magnetosphere capable of sustaining an atmosphere and/or hydrosphere. 

Looking at Drake's equation we've got rough estimates for only the first two terms (rate of star formation, number stars with planets) and we're now struggling to define the third - planets that could potentially support life.  The rest of the terms are still complete unknowns.  But it's nice to see were making progress.


NASA's Ames Research Center earns credit for the find, but since nobody has stepped up to lay a claim to the planet itself; I hereby claim this planet as my own.  (That was easy.)  Now let's hope there aren't any pesky natives to interfere with my new acquisition.  Anybody want to buy a continent?

The Exception

It occurred to me after reading what I last wrote.  Although, Sci-fi writers quietly eschew the impossible task of creating the truly alien (while pretending to do otherwise) the one glaring exception is H.P. Lovecraft.  Instead of politely ignoring the problem, he reveled in it.  He took the impossibility of it, built a gilded frame around it, and shined his spotlights into the abyss.  (Of course, for Lovecraft, it wasn't so much the impossibility of creating the truly alien that he found vexing, but rather the impossibility of being able to cope with it.)

Imprint

Despite its implied pledge, Sci-fi is always more concerned with distorting the familiar than presenting the alien.  How could it be otherwise?  It fills itself with overly (yet necessarily) anthropomorphic aliens, impossible/implausible (and occasionally visionary) technologies, and entire planets that resemble one tiny fragment of our own multifarious Earth. No matter where they take us, writers can only deliver recognizable elements - mixed-up and blended through the kaleidoscope of their craft.

Many would fault Sci-fi for this limitation, for not being able to deliver the very object of its focus, but this too misses its mark.  At its core, Sci-fi is always about facing the consequences of (inevitable) change.  (At least all Sci-fi worth reading is.)  At its best, Sci-fi somehow illuminates those unpredictable, dreadfully wondrous contingencies within our impending, impossible future.

Link to the Past

Despite spending over a year overseas, I'm finally back home and blogging again.  After being away so long it seemed as easy to start over with a new blog rather than revive the old, but this blog is really just a continuation of the old.  So in the interest of continuity I'm linking back.

I even spent a bit perusing the old blog and was happy to rediscover a few gems I'd forgotten.  I've never taken my blogging too seriously, but it strikes me that there is modest value in writing these posts.  I'm at least flexing my writing muscles in a different way and I'm leaving behind markers in time.  Perhaps their only real relevance is to me - but that's still something.

Here's a few I'd forgotten but appreciated re-visting: World's Shortest Intelligence Test and Great Sci-Fi Writers.  And of course I'll never forget Abducted by Aliens.

Feeding Friends

Last night I volunteered at the local homeless shelter. I helped serve a spaghetti dinner, stayed the night and then prepared bagels and juice for breakfast. It's technically a 'heat shelter' not a formal homeless shelter, but it's all that's available in my community. Persons with nowhere to go get a place to sleep out of the cold, but they have to vacate in the morning, which is just as well I suppose. I hated forcing everyone out into the cold freezing rain, but force them I did. One person even tried to hide in a closet to avoid lockup. Of the homeless in my community I was surprised to learn that most of them have jobs. Not great paying jobs, but at least many of them are working somewhere. Nobody appeared mentally ill or pathologically hopeless, but I have to admit I didn't make any big effort to get to know any of them. I passed out bedding materials, answered their questions, but mostly I just left them alone. And I expect that's how they wanted to be treated.

I was provided a cot to sleep on too, but I stayed up all night in a back room and read all of Cormac McCarthy's The Road cover to cover.  It's a great book, recommended to me by a friend, and I'd recommend it to anyone.  It was dark to be sure - a post-apocalyptic nightmare in which a man and his son simply try to survive in a world where the final remnants of society have devolved into cutthroat gangs of slavers and cannibals.  It's a world where every action is a contest for survival in a zero-sum game.   Share a crust of bread with another, and you'll probably just starve to death sooner - and that's assuming that the other doesn't try to kill you, take all you have and eat you just for good measure.

It makes me think about humanity, society and what holds us together.  As ugly as the world seems whenever you turn on the news, it's truly amazing how much we actually get along.  It's not that I wouldn't kill you and take your stuff if I believed I had no other option for survival - I would.  It's just that as humans we are amazing in our capacity to find other options.  We usually invent non-zero-sum strategies wherever possible.  Given all of our differences and disagreements it certainly could be a lot worse out there.