by the numbers

A lot of people already think I'm crazy when I talk about this, but for the life of me I can't think of why this isn't bigger news.
Before the Kepler spacecraft had a malfunction last year, it sent us a ton of data for us to check and verify. Guess what? We've quadrupled the number of planets outside the solar system.
1,750 planets found in the habitable zones around other stars. If a planet is found to have an orbit comparable to, say Venus, Earth, or Mars, it is said to be in the Goldielocks zone. Not too hot, not too cold. Water has a good chance of being in a liquid state on these planets, and where there's water...
The armchair quarterback in me thinks we are about to go from possibility to probability, in discovering extraterrestrial life.

Okay, problem #1: We're too far away to do anything about it! As much as I'd like to believe it, we are not going to engage the warp drive to get there. Instead, we're going to bend a law of physics or two. Scientists are working on teleportation. I'm not sure how, not sure when, but that looks like the way things are going to happen.
We'll use regular sub-light travel to get around the solar system, which is fine by me.

We will 'never' have a face-to-face meeting with another race. Sorry sci-fi fans, no green skinned girls for you. H.G. Wells hit on it first: Our germs and viruses would wipe out another race, just as their germs would kill us.
Solution: Suits and Avatars. Let's skip ahead and say we got to another solar system and want to go down to meet the natives. We're going to have to do it in a sealed environment space suit. I recall my world history. When explorers came to the New World, they brought with them bacteria and viruses the Native Americans had not been exposed to, ever. From my history lessons I recall whole tribes falling ill to measles or small pox. Now imagine that on a larger scale. Our first contact could be our (or thier.) last.
Now how about a halfway step?
We send a hologram of ourselves. They see us, we see them. 

Language will be a problem. We will have to communicate using the one thing they will hopefully understand: mathematics.
That's why the golden disk on the Voyager probes are so darn important: they contain some mathematical equations. Most notably the 14 closest pulsars to us, thereby telling the aliens where our home world is located.

Even if we discover an alien race and establish contact via hologram, we're going to have to have a protocol in place dealing with how we establish contact. More importantly, when. If we discovered an alien race of reptiles, but they have yet to invent gunpowder, I say leave them alone.

We don't have to own the stars and planets. Standing on their surface and witnessing the majesty of the stars, that's ownership enough.

Losses

There are times when an event comes out of left field and smacks you when you're not looking. Case in point: Harold Ramis passing away on Monday. 

Wow. That's all I can say. The man wrote and starred in so many of my favorite movies. He was a class act. If anything, I'm inspired by the example he set.
There are so many things we want to do, but come to find out what's holding us back is usually ourselves.

There, that sums it up nicely. 
People like looking at pictures and I've found a few that simply fit the way I'm feeling or share my outlook on life. I got these from the many Facebook feeds, so please feel free to share the memes.


See, it's important to give credit where it's due. 
Here's one of the reason I get excited about science.
Water detected on planets outside our solar system. I'm going out on a limb here: I think we will eventually find alien life forms. Perhaps in our lifetime, if not soon after that. We're building better telescopes and devising new methods for detecting the requirements for life to exist. Now I'm not going all Star Trek here. I'm speaking strictly as a card player. The odds are pretty good.
There are millions upon millions of stars in our galaxy. We've found thousands of extra-solar planets, and more being discovered daily. Simply put: the odds of one of those planets harboring life are pretty good. If we haven't done it already, we need to develop a protocol for contact with an alien species. I don't think it's going to turn out like any writer or director has thought... Just saying.

loosening it's grip

We're now at the point where we have to turn on the air conditioner and use the heater at night. Welcome to Texas trampoline weather. I broke out the fan so we have a breeze flowing through the house. Memo to me: call the air conditioner repairman for a check up. 
Middle child gets her braces off tomorrow. Yeah! She's all grown up and such a pretty girl, it breaks my heart. Which reminds me, March's birthday cards have to be addressed and sent out.
Ah, spring.
There's a general feeling I've noticed when talking to other people. We're losing our fear. People are tired of being afraid. Perhaps I'm putting my own spin on it. The general feeling goes something like this: 'Oh, it's not as bad as all that.'
So things are looking up.
We deal with things as they come, one at a time. Spring cleaning has come to my household. We held a garage sale last month. I'm seriously considering putting a garden in. This week, I'm going to start some zucchini seeds. I'll let you know how it goes.
It's time to make things grow.  

Today was a good day. Spent time with my family. Made them breakfast. I learned my oldest is almost as clever and treacherous as I am when designing an adventure on the computer. I still have problems embedding fonts into a pdf so it can be uploaded to Lulu, an online publisher. See, there's a technical side to writing. It's not all chips and dip. 

A rock

"Dad," my youngest daughter began as she walked in from the garage. "I'm going to put these out by the front tree to keep the other rocks company." She carried with her a small bucket with an odd assortment of pebbles and shells. Far be it from me to keep the neighborhood rocks isolated and lonesome. Besides, I'd never really noticed the pail before, even on garage cleaning expeditions.
Previously, that particular pail has served as a candy bucket for Halloween. It was also pressed into service to make sand castles. This time it hauled rocks.
As she passed my chair, I noticed a dark shadow in the middle of the stone collection. "Hold up there, champ." I said in my father-knows-best voice. "Let's see what you got there."
Slightly smaller than my fist, this smoothly worn rock seemed to weigh more than his compatriots. I was pretty sure I wasn't holding a geode. I'd collected geodes as a kid, and this was the wrong type of rock for that. About the only thing I knew for certain was it didn't belong out there with the other rocks.
"Sweetie," I asked in my softest voice. "Can I hang on to this one?" 
Picking the rock up from my open hand, she held it up for inspection. My child considered my request only for a moment. "Sure, Daddy."
She handed me the ebon rock before turning to skip out the door.
This curious little rock might become a paperweight on my desk or headboard. The rock itself isn't as important as finding new connections with my kid. A friend sent me a video yesterday. In this short flick, you can easily identify my daughters from two years ago.
God, they look so different and yet the same. They've filled out from awkward teens to young women. The moment when a father has to defend his daughter from the vile clutches of strangers came while we were ordering some Bush's chicken.
Middle child came in to the restaurant in a stunning dress, full makeup, hair done perfectly along with high heels. I spotted no less than 7 male heads turn our way. As soon as we had our dinner, I ushered everyone out. By carefully positioning myself, I was able to deflect most of the lecherous stares. The saying goes never get between a mother and her young. I'd add to that: Don't try to get to the daughter when the father is in the way.
That incident at the restaurant was over a year ago. Sadly, my daughters are young women ready to go forth and leave the nest. I'm happy and at the same time don't want it to happen. So while my youngest is still in her teens, I'll take any connection or memento I can hold on to.

With interest

So is everyone still alive after that meteor flew by? Kicking, breathing... More importantly, did anyone care? Not that we could have done anything about it. "But dude, that Guardians of the Galaxy trailer was on Jimmy Kimmel. That's important, dude."
Lesson learned from this: Don't worry over the things you can't control. If some big rock wants to plow us into oblivion, I say bring it on.
Maybe I'm not following the same news the rest of the world is. For instance:
A UK Surgeon used a 3-D printer to make an artificial pelvis for a patient. The surgeon implanted it 3 years ago. The surgery is considered an unrivaled success.
Called it. It's just a short jump from there to growing our own replacement organs.

Free speech and net neutrality collide:
You tube is threatening to remove the account of a scientist who debunked the claims made in an Aids denialist documentary.
Some people believe the earth is flat. Some people believe HIV doesn't cause Aids. Some people believe the earth is only 6,000 years old. Some people don't believe our climate is changing.
In the other corner is people who think the exact opposite. People discuss and debate. Hopefully, the truth comes out. I'm being optimistic by assuming people are reasonable and intelligent.
Changing people's minds is never an overnight process. A look at history shows that it takes generations.
But who decides what information goes out to the masses? Is it up to Viacom, You Tube or AT&T to decide what you read, hear or watch?
This is at the core of the net neutrality debate. Free speech and facts backed up with proof and evidence.

Ending on a good note. (I am of course, an optimist.) In a few weeks an updated version of the classic series, Cosmos, will air. In the 34 years since Carl Sagan took us on a journey of our understanding of the universe around us, so much has changed. Perhaps I should say our understanding of the universe has changed. This article sums it up nicely. You know where I'll be March 9th, glued with my TV set to record this milestone series.
Here's the preview.

Milestones

The word anniversary can mean many things in one form or another. Birthdays, celebrations, remembrances. This past weekend marks 15 years since I've lost my hearing. Soon, my daughter will have her 14th birthday. After that, my wife and I will celebrate 23 years together.
The Chelyabinsk meteor strike occurred one year ago, February 15. Scientists have been scrambling to explain what exactly happened and how we can be ready for it the next go round.
Picture time:

Map showing the trajectory of the main fireball in yellow (and two additional explosions at top left). The pink oval, called the strewnfield, is where the densest concentration of meteorites were found. 
Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/109376/happy-1st-anniversary-chelyabinsk-the-fireball-that-woke-up-the-world/#ixzz2tbjFi2J7

Those who witnessed it experienced eye pain, temporary blindness and sunburn so bad that skin peeled. Now for the part that is going to make you pause for a second.... about 76% of the meteor burnt up before it struck the ground. If it had been made of denser stuff, such as iron or nickel, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
The link goes into how much damage it caused and how big the meteorite was. If there is one piece you take away from the scientific jargon, the people who studied the meteorites after the impact agree: it broke off of something bigger.
I'll let that sink in for a bit.
I don't want to get all pessimistic about 'the sky is falling'. We as a species are getting better at spotting these things. In fact, there's going to be a near miss tonight. Here's the link where you can watch it live. 
Here is the USA Today link about the meteor that is going to miss us filled with as little scientific jargon as possible.
I want to get this posted so my friends can see the asteroid pass by around 9 PM Eastern time.
Enjoy.


  

New Horizons

Technically I've got an hour left till deadline, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
If you ever have the chance to go to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner, especially with the one you love, do it. This is not your usual fare. Avocados in an egg roll. Moroccan chicken. Red velvet cheesecake. Steak Dianne. Madira Chicken. It was delicious. For Valentines day the wife and I wanted to go some place that didn't serve happy meals. I'd say we succeeded.
After that, we saw Monument Men. Even better, we enjoyed the movie. The open captions worked this time throughout the movie. Bravo, Regal Cinemas for bringing up your average to .50
Often times I say it's a good time to be alive. At the same time I pity the people who complain that they're bored. We humans are actually in better shape than we were in the past. Our life expectancy is up. Diseases that killed off hundreds of thousands are now being eradicated. We are exploring our deepest oceans and farthest reaches of space.
Want to know something that will blow your mind? In 2007, Timothy Brown had HIV and Leukemia. Sounds like he rolled snake eyes in the game of life, doesn't it? The thing is, while undergoing treatment for his leukemia, the HIV went away. Yep, seems he had a very expensive and life threatening bone marrow transplant. As of this writing he is coming up HIV positive only part of the time. Scientists have yet to recreate it, let alone figure out what the hell happened. This is a big step in the right direction. Now the men in white coats have to figure out that they did and how to do it again. I'm watching you guys...
The New Horizons spacecraft will be visiting Pluto this time next year. Up to this point we know zilch about the ninth planetary body that makes up our solar system. A quick review:
Pluto was discovered with math. In the 1840's Urbaine le Verrier noticed Uranus was orbiting erratically. Using Newtonian Mechanics, he predicted where we might find Neptune. But Neptune was acting strangely too. The common belief in the later part of the 19th century was there was another planet out there. They didn't find it until 1915. Funny thing was they didn't know they had discovered it. Percival Lowell went to his grave thinking he hadn't found it, but in looking back at pictures taken, he in fact found a lot of stuff, but didn't recognize what he was looking at. It was too far away to make an accurate observation.
I'm just going to say this now. What Voyager did for Jupiter, New Horizons is going to do for Pluto. A lot of books are going to have to be re-written.

Vaccinations

First I'd like to apologize for missing an update Monday. Life got a little hectic around my household. If I know I'm going to have to be in three places at once in the future, I'll plan ahead. Bwah hahaha! Me, planning ahead. For a second I almost believed that.
Todays rant has been building for a while now. There is a group out there telling anyone who will listen not to vaccinate your kids.
Do not listen to these people, they're idiots.
"But Jenny Macarthy says her son got Autism from being vaccinated."
Ugh! I doubt being a Playboy bunny qualifies you as an expert in the field. I would take her advice with a heaping spoonful of doubt and a morsel of skepticism. Yes, I realize her son is has Autism, but there is no link between vaccinating a child and autism. In fact, the one doctor who said there was a possibility of a link was later found to have faked his research and sub-sequentially retracted his paper from the Lancet, a medical journal.
Still, the rumor persists in internet limbo. My guess is that Mrs. Macarthy is looking for someone to blame for her son's condition. Hate to break it to you people, but there times when things happen for no reason whatsoever.
Let me back up for a second. I'm not here to pick on one particular person or single them out.
Organizations like the Lions club and Rotary club have been instrumental in helping to eradicate preventable diseases such as Polio, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, and Chicken Pox, among other historically fatal illnesses.
The current generation has not had to deal with the debilitating, disfiguring, painful and sometimes deadly diseases. Just because we've been successful in stamping out these illnesses in the US, doesn't mean they're gone. All it takes is one infected person to pass it on.
Years ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was a senior in high school, I happened to be one of the first students to contract a strain of German measles. Yes, I'd been inoculated for the main variety of measles. To this day I'm not sure where I contracted it or who passed the illness to me. What I do know is that I spent the week in unconscious oblivion. There's a story in there where I think I woke up on Wednesday to relieve myself and discovered my privates were polka dotted. Scary stuff for a 17 year old.
The following week I returned to an empty school. There were perhaps a dozen students present in a school that numbered in the thousands.
Fast forward a few years. One of my students came up to me to tell me his brother had Chicken pox. Quickly separating him from the other students, I ran down the mental checklist in my head. I was certain I was immune, but apparently there are two strains. I went on to my other job at Disney World and proceeded to unknowingly infect hundreds of thousands of tourists. A few days later I came down with the symptoms. My boss took one look at me and sent me home. Admittedly I slept through that one too.
The point being vaccines are only good against what they are made to prevent. There is no 'one shot cures all'. There are many diseases I missed out on simply because I was inoculated.
By my reckoning I fell ill twice, but missed getting sick from the dozen or so others that are out there.
So do yourself and your loved ones a favor: make sure your shot records are up to date. In this age where people cross the world for a vacation, it only takes one person to smuggle a germ past a border and unleash it on an unsuspecting populace.
Your homework for the week: Read 'The Stand' by Stephen King and see how fast a flu bug can spread.

Creationism debate

Bill Nye the science guy, debated Ken Ham, the founder of Kentucky's creation museum the other night. Both sides say they won the debate. While I admire Bill Nye for taking on a creationist in a public forum, I also think it was kind of pointless. This sums up my feelings.
 
While Nye believes that the earth was created billions of years ago, Ham believes God created the earth 6,000 years ago. Simply put, Ken Ham is a zealot. Nye, who I regard as a extremely smart man, is capable of changing his mind, however, a zealot such as Ham is someone who refuses to change his mind and won't change the subject.
Bill Nye brought up Geology, Astronomy, even the fossil record and the Grand Canyon. He brought facts and empirical evidence.
Ken Ham purposely put blinders on. Every fact, every point Bill Nye made, was countered with the equivalent of putting fingers in his ear and saying, 'la-la-la, I can't hear you, the bible says so, la-la-la. This is where you lose me. Like any reasonable man, I've listened to both sides of the argument. The more I hear from scientists who are out there discovering our world, the more it makes sense. By telling me it's in the Bible, doesn't end the matter. Even as a kid, I couldn't reconcile myself to accepting 'because the Bible says so' . I change my mind to fit the evidence, I don't change the evidence to suit my theories.
It's a long debate, just shy of two hours, and while I think Bill Nye did something he felt he needed to do, there was no way he was going to change Ham's mind. My hope is people watching the debate see how ridiculous the young earth argument is.
Here are the highlights from NPR.
As I watched, I believe Bill Nye had a trick up his sleeve. By engaging in this debate (and keeping his cool), he made Ham and his whole creationist movement look stupid.
At the end of the debate, Nye was asked if there was anything that would make him change his mind. Bill's immediate response was; 'evidence'. When asked the same question, Ham replied; 'Nothing.'
The very definition of a zealot.
Does this mean I don't believe in God? Perhaps not. As I've stated before, we are not the highest rung on the evolutionary ladder. I like the concept of a superior being, I don't agree with the Christian interpretation. What pope Francis is doing is phenomenal in my opinion. I'm a big fan, and that's something you don't get me to admit very often.
I suppose what I like best about science is this: Lie, deny, or erase the evidence, but that doesn't change the facts.
Like they say in that Mother Jones article I linked: perhaps this will upset the status quo and get us back on track as critical thinkers. At the very least, it made Ken Ham look like the charlatan he is.

A bonding we will go

Last night I began a project with my oldest daughter. We're building a little virtual reality adventure. There's not much more to say about it except we just started. No pictures, no updates... heck, I don't know what we're going to do with it yet.

In a perfect world, I'd introduce it at Chimearacon in April. Don't ask me, that's how they spell it. Goes against my spelling rules and grammar, but I didn't make that call. That's the Facebook link, by the way.

Every time I've gone, it's been fun. Geeks of all flavors and armchair generals come out of the woodwork to test their mettle. In the past I've driven a Roman chariot, piloted a futuristic mech, and built a civilization. I've played wizard chess and slain dragons... and that was just Saturday!

The whole convention is cool, we are the little con that could. There are a bunch of fan clubs ranging from Lego builders to Anime Enthusiasts. Dr. Who fans to World War II historians. There's a lot to see and talk about. Card games, board games, computer games, you name it. Come on down the first weekend of April, 4-6th.

but seriously

It was the best of weekends, it was the worst of weekends...
Spent time with my dad, which is always a good thing. In watching him, he seems more relaxed. I think that's necessary to stop and look around, rather than rush through things.
My dog got out. He saw a chance and took it. As I chased him down, it occurred to me he was simply playing. It had been at least a week since I walked him, so this was his way of demanding attention. It came to a close when I tackled him and got a busted lip when he head butted me. Haven't had a sock to the jaw lately and this was a reminder of what it would feel like. Ouch.
Our Superbowl party was great. I hope you had a good time at yours. Lot of my friends are Broncos fans. By my reckoning, I know two Denver fans for every Seattle fan. To that I say: Did you see Lawrence Fishborne in that KIA commercial?
What I got out of Sunday evening was I got to spend time with my family. Dad watching the game live rather than on 15 hour delay. Thanks to my sister for hosting and cooking a fabulous dinner. As of this writing, I'm stuffed worse than at Thanksgiving. I don't think I'll need to eat for at least a day.
A new week is upon us, another month to tear into, although it will be a short one.
Our local board game convention will be the first weekend in April. Here's the website.
I'll be running the Robo Rally tournament. It seems that was such a popular event, I'll be bringing it back. Which reminds me... I'll need to sign up and register the event. I want to put out this call to my fellow geeks and game lovers in town to come on down and play. I'll do a full write up in the next post, I promise.