As pointed out in email: Lou Sche ffer's "Aliens Can Watch `I Love Lucy'"

pdf warning

The earth is at the center of an expanding bubble of electromagnetic radiation.

The bubble, expanding at the speed of light, contains all of the man-made
electromagnetic transmissions of the earth - radio, TV, radar, and so on. In
theory, an alien civilization could receive these signals, and form their opinion
about the earth by analyzing them. To most people, it is quite discouraging to
think that some alien civilization would form their opinion of earth based upon
our situation comedies.

Upon a slightly deeper analysis, the conventional wisdom says: 'Aliens might
detect our TV signals, but at least they can't form their opinion of our civilization
from our TV transmissions. Decoding the transmission is so much harder
than detecting it that we don't need to worry about this.'

In this paper I argue that this view considerably underestimates the technologies
that aliens might employ.

John W. Campbell Memorial Award for the best science-fiction novel of the year

The Award was created to honor the late editor of Astounding Science Fiction magazine, now named Analog. Campbell, who edited the magazine from 1937 until his death in 1971, is called by many writers and scholars the father of modern science fiction. Writers and critics Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss established the award in Campbell's name as a way of continuing his efforts to encourage writers to produce their best possible work.

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In retrospect

I wonder if Andrew Breitbart's demented raving as shown here

was the symptom of a medical condition?

A poll

[Poll #1823224]

A poll

[Poll #1823224]

Two thoughts about a spider

1: Look, there's a small spider on the front of my glasses.

2: Wait, it's slightly closer than that.

Three news items

Still unindicted former Prime Minister to be Harper blames Liberals for robocalls.

When this proves ineffective,

The Conservative Party is reviewing tapes of every call made by the Responsive Marketing Group call centre in Thunder Bay, Ont., in the last election before Elections Canada investigators arrive next week, CBC News has learned.

Can someone job my memory: when a Conservative says "review, do they mean shred or burn?

Also:
Misleading B.C. election call traced to Conservative Party