Posts Made By: jess tauber

From the east- moon, venus, jupiter. I was rather hoping for the moon (as advertized by several news orgs) to be BETWEEN the planets, but I guess that happened when the conjunction was still over Eurasia. Well, at least I got to see it at all (90% of the time weather blocks all the interesting stuff).

Jess Tauber

What do you expect, when dummies rise to positions of power, everywhere, so long as they toe the party line, very much more easily than geniuses who won't. Iraq, the financial crisis, global warming, habitat destruction and species extinctions- the list goes on and on. Blind faith rates in there somewhere, doesn't it?

Just yesterday on a major television station there was a news story about a huge upsurge in horoscopes since the meltdown on Wall Street, as people want better advice on where to put their funds. Rather than a knowing smirk at the end of the piece, the reporters started into a little conversation, entirely seriously, about how to spot the fake psychics versus the REAL ONES! The country is in great hands....

Jess Tauber

Silicone-based life, eh? I'm guessin' he wasn't thinkin' Arby's, hmmmmmm?

If you think this was celluloid slaw, wait til' the remake of 'Forbidden Planet' gets out. Robbie will be doing dance routines and singing how great it is to be a robot, and the monster will lead all in a rendition of 'Circle of Life'.

Jess Tauber

This morning was my first view of Lulin, at the left end of a elongated elliptical string of stars just to the southeast of Saturn. Serendipitous positioning, would have made a nice pic, but I haven't yet forayed into imaging. In 20x80 vintage binos I could just make out the core with averted vision, and it seemed that the coma was slightly off-center. My blue-green colorblindness, though, made it less spectacular than it might have been. I hope to get out in the next days with my 10 incher to get a better look.

Jess Tauber

I dunno- if I followed the BSG plot at the end, your very mitochondria are 'Hera'looms... .

I still don't get why the evil cylon leader shoots himself in the mouth, or what the Baltar-angel-thingie means when he says 'silly me', after he notes that God doesn't like being called that.

They at least got one thing approximately right- it is likely that 150 KY ago what were nearly anatomically humans probably didn't have 'language-as-we-know-it'. But the idea that they buried their dead is unsubstantiated by evidence, and body painting is a symbolic activity so probably AFTER the rise of language per se. Otherwise the subplot sounds a little like 'The Inheritors'.

So Starbuck goes where??

There are still other movies comin' round, so it ain't over til its over.

Jess Tauber

Some people claim it was Lipton's, but personally I'm leaning towards Campbell's....

Actually, after reading about all the interesting chemical and mineral species produced in space itself, plus what I know about reprocessing on planetary surfaces (gases, fluids, surfaces) (and also geological processes underground), I'd guess that the soup must have had components from all possible sources- relatively unmodified planetfalls would bring active metals and things like polyphosphates that earth itself would rapidly destroy, geological reworking would make petroleum-like polymers and ring compounds that could then be modified on the surface (I don't think you get them by space or normal surface reactions).

And let's not forget the role of radiation- cosmic rays, x-rays, UV (maybe from the original open cluster the sun was part of), solar flares, etc. (and earthly lightning actually produces free neutrons!), and radionuclides- lots more actinides in those days from exploded supernovae in the original cluster- these wouldn't have dissolved in the oceans the way they do today with an oxidizing atmosphere- but would have accumulated on beaches- self-assorting layerwise versus other minerals like iron, nickel, etc creating a reactive structure that might exchange materials up and down as the tides came and went (and when bodies of water dried up these would be available for more gaseous reactions). You get alphas, betas, gammmas, etc.

Even elements radioactively transforming can prompt chemical changes- if the new species doesn't 'fit' where the original was anymore- so can act as a kind of molecular scaffolding. The soup probably contained all sorts of organometallic compounds that could mediate reduction-oxidation reactions (we only have a taste of that remaining today, with metallo-enzymes, etc.

Unfortunately writers on this subject tend not to take the entire plethora of possibilities into account, but are squarely blindered within their respective specializations. Very much 'within their boxes'.

Jess Tauber

Weather balloon??? How many times will the people fall for that old canard? Don't cry to me when the 'probe' begins....

Jess Tauber

Typical gee something is eating us lets escape and then get revenge type movie.

For the cost they could have given us some character development for the bugs- maybe they actually have minds? A social life? This was done in Starship Troopers.

Imagine instead two or three formulas dragged out and all they do is change the actors (sometimes not much, though) and the monsters. The myth-monster of the week type is awful.

In any case the movie finishes with a cliffhanger- something new bearing down on the heroes, but we don't get to see it. A new trendy-endy-thingie? There seems to be more of that these days, though it used to be seen more in the horror genre (the hand grabbing your leg from the grave).

All I can say is that these bugs were humbugs.

Jess Tauber

I always use my nights under the sky to get a sense of perspective, a way to gauge the petty troubles of our lives on earth. Generally this works- then some clown across the street throws on the search lights and I remember what it feels like to be a killer ape

Jess Tauber

I've been in contact with him on and off- he has a Facebook page as well.

Jess Tauber