Are we Alone?

Well, time for me to put up another big-question post.

Fermi's Paradox has fascinated me for years, and an interesting in MITs Technology Review has reminded me of the topic. The interesting point of Nick Bostrom's article (registration required) is that he hopes that we find no signs of life on Mars. Bostrom suggests that there must be some bottleneck that explains why the galaxy (and the universe) is not teeming with life. He calls this restriction the Great Filter. If that problem is behind us, then there is a good chance our civilization will survive for a long time, while if it is ahead, then our chances of survival must be minuscule.
He concludes that:
If--as I hope is the case--we are the only intelligent species that has ever evolved in our galaxy, and perhaps in the entire observable universe, it does not follow that our survival is not in danger. Nothing in the preceding reasoning precludes there being steps in the Great Filter both behind us and ahead of us. It might be extremely improbable both that intelligent life should arise on any given planet and that intelligent life, once evolved, should succeed in becoming advanced enough to colonize space.
But we would have some grounds for hope that all or most of the Great Filter is in our past if Mars is found to be barren. In that case, we may have a significant chance of one day growing into something greater than we are now.

I found this an interesting way to think about the problem.
Even thoughI love Science Fiction and stories about galactic civilizations and alien species, the Fermi Paradox leads me to conclude that we are alone or nearly so.

It's Alive!

So, after almost a year away from semi-regular blogging, I have finally gotten around to resuscitating my personal blog at The Awe of Understanding (which is tied to our family domain which won't get it's much needed face lift until the summer).

Why am I telling you this? Well I just wrote a piece that I'd like your feedback on, if you are so inclined. It's called "Specious and Insidious". I would cross-post it here, but I'd like to start building some "viewership" over there and would also like to keep any comments you might like to leave active on the home site.

Of course, I'd welcome any comments on any other piece you see there (most of them date from 2007 and before, but they aren't completely time-sensitive.) Nathan Roberson '92 and I had quite a debate about recycling a couple of years back that might interest. And I would also love feedback on the style, layout, design, or any other aesthetic element that you may have an opinion about.

JoCo show

Cross-posted from my livejournal -- my write-up on the Jonathan Coulton show in Chicago, 5/3/08.


This was our ... fourth time(?) seeing JoCo with Paul and Storm, so we've pretty much got it memorized now. The previous shows were all at Schuba's though, while this one was that the Lakeshore Theater, which is a bigger venue -- about 350 capacity, and it was sold out. In fact, he mentioned on his blog that all 3 of his recent Midwest shows were sold out. Yay!

Stuff that was new and different:

(1) He rickrolled us! He did Mr. Fancy Pants using the Zendrum like at his December show, but this time he had "Never Gonna Give You Up" programmed into it, so in the middle of the song he essentially rickrolled the audience. I'm glad that joke's not dead yet, cause it still makes me lol.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZfUfpyeyPx4

(2) He performed "Flickr" live with a screen behind him projecting the original video (not the Spiff one, although that would've been cool too). Here is "Dwyer rockin' out on air guitar":



(3) They did "First of May" in the encore of course, as the show was on the 3rd of May. So yes, technically outdoor f*$%ing had started 2 days previously, but who's counting. They also did "Sweet Caroline" in the encore, which I gather has become a regular thing. Here's "First of May" from our show: (lyrics definitely NSFW)


http://youtube.com/watch?v=UTUS0Mgl1ZE