Lonely

No! I Don't Mean The Character From 'Callan'

Played by Russell Hunter, whom was the antithesis of Callan himself - described as a 'grey, de-gadgetised Bond' - being prone to flatulence from fear and able to sink a pint in mere seconds.  Art!

Very obviously not 'Callan'

     Hunter was also in the dramamentary 'The Robots Of Death', a Doctor Who serial from 1977 notable for the outstanding production design.

     ANYWAY from alien worlds, let us move on in this Intro to -

     Alien worlds.  Or, perhaps, worlds with aliens.  It's a mathematical certainty that there are real live aliens out there in our home galaxy, except that most of them are going to be microorganisms, not Mister Spock.  What might be described as complex life, evolved to the level of a technological civilisation, is going to be a lot rarer, simply for the reason that it takes so long to develop.  Art!

     

     For this Intro, I'm afraid we're going to have to relegate 'The X Files' to the realms of fiction, alongside all those alleged alien abductions with absolutely no proof they ever happened.  Instead, we need to consider the 'Fermi Paradox', which queries why there is no evidence of intelligent life beyond our solar system, given the size and age of the known universe.  Art!

Article courtesy Wong and Bartlett

     Rather than continually expand, such civilisations might reach a point where their demands for energy outreach their ability to supply same, leading to a collapse and cultural extinction.  Or, alternatively, they might go into a 'steady state' where they maintain a low profile baseline without expanding, meaning once again that there is no signature to detect.  So, Hom. Sap. ends up being -

     Lonely.  Art!

     Another study that resonates well here is from Scherf and Lammer, of the Austrian Academy Of Sciences, whom posit that complex technological civilisations are going to be surpassingly rare, if their hypothesis holds water.  They highligh two things an exoplanet needs to develop intelligent life.  Firstly, carbon dioxide.  There needs to be sufficient in the atmosphere to allow photosynthesis and prevent atmospheric outflow, but not too much or it becomes toxic.  The presence of carbon dioxide in an atmosphere is in turn related to plate tectonics.  Art!

     No plate tectonics, no carbon dioxide.  Plus, eventually, the carbon-silicate cycle will cease to function, causing life to cease as photosynthesis stops.  On Planet Earth this process may halt in about one billion years, meaning that intelligent life had a 'window' of five and a half billion years to evolve.

     Secondly, said exoplanet needs a balance of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere, both for biological and technological development.  Biological, because Hom. Sap. needs oxygen to breathe, and technologically because oxygen allows fire to burn, as long as levels are at 17% and not lower.  Schef and Lammer calculated that the odds of an alien complex technological  civilisation arising are vanishingly small, and our nearest alien neighbours are possibly 33,000 light years distant.  Not only that, they would need to survive for at least 280,000 years to have their civilisation overlap with ours and permit communication, provided we are willing to wait 66,000 years for a message back.  Art!

     Then there is a third alternative: aliens are out there, they are advanced technologically BUT they don't want to make contact with other advanced civilisations for fear of the consequences.  'The Killing Star' is a novelisation of Stephen Hawking's warning about Hom. Sap. contacting a superior advanced civilisation, which has always turned out poorly in human history, even when supposedly benign.  TKS is an exampled of an alien culture seeking to exterminate humanity as a matter of procedure, before Hom. Sap. becomes a threat to them, and they do a very thorough job of it.  After all, why allow a potential rival to evolve that will only compete for resources when you can get rid of it before it even starts?  What you might call the 'Don't pick up the phone' hypothesis, being lonely by design.  Art!

<heavy sigh>

     This was also the plot behind 'Odyssey 5', which never got a second season to explore the other threads it picked up <swears dire retribution against studio heads>.  Since the crew of the Odyssey 5 are left in space when Earth is completely destroyed, they were very lonely indeed.

What Were They Thinking?

Another bizarre entry from the 'Museum Of Failure': 'Phone Fingers'.  These were rubber finger covers that mobile phone users could don in order to avoid getting greasy fingerprints on their phone display.  Art!

     I've had to use the MOX illo because nothing came up on a Google search.  Not a surprise, as MOX said they were only around in 2007 and possibly only in Austria, as they were - ahem - 'invented' by an Austrian.  I mean, you could always just, I dunno, wipe the phone display?  Or cut the fingers off a rubber kitchen glove?  An item nobody asked for or wanted.

     

You What?

Once again Conrad is stumped by an item cropping up in my news feed that seems to assume I know what they're gibbering about.  Art!

     Who is Sadio Mane?  Why is that man practicing karate?  Why is that clown wielding a chair?  What is 'AFCON'?  Conrad can guess that this is a sporting event of some variety ao;enrt ''''''''''''

     

      SORRY!  Sorry, I fell asleep as that's how interested I am in sport.  One suspects that this item might refer to the ballfoot game, which I am only interested in when fans of one ballfoot club ladle invective o'er fans of another club.

En Passant

Which is French for 'In passing' and is normally used in chess and I'm using it to be a bit of a pseud.

     ANYWAY Your Humble Scribe had his annual diabetic assessment, the most fraught part of which is the drawing of three syringes of blood, because I am the world's biggest coward when it comes to being stuck with needles.  Art!

The evidence of how brave I was

An Antidote To 'The Herculoids'

Don't worry if you've never heard of them, I hadn't either.  Art!

     Having never seen it, I can only parrot the assertion that it was a typically violent kids cartoon hailing from South Canada.  One animation studio, Hannah-Barbera, was aware of this and sought to get ahead of the field and angry parent's groups by creating a cartoon based on bufoonish slapstick, inspired by 'The Great Race'.  Somewhat bizarrely it was produced in alliance with Heatter-Quigley, a company that specialised in game shows, and the intent was to gamble on the overall winner - a concept that was immediately dropped when it was realised parents might not want their children learning how to gamble.  Art!

     WACKY RACES!

Born in 1968

    Please note that HB only made 17 serials, which was their standard modus operandi at the time; rather than continue making more serials they finished at 17 or 20, because these totals allowed them to get syndication rights.  They have been repeated countless times since 1968 around the world, because who can fail to laugh at Dick Dastardly losing yet again?

     The theme was so successful that it got two spin-off series: "Dick Dastardly And Muttley", with the bonkers premise that Dick was the squadron leader for 'Vulture Squadron', who were always trying (and failing) to catch an enemy messenger pigeon in their eccentric biplanes.  Conrad suggested they use a shotgun, but the censor wouldn't allow it.  Art!

     Then there was 'The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop', featuring that racer, and The Ant Hill Mob from Wacky Races as her pint-sized protectors.  She needed protection because 'The Hooded Claw' was always trying to kill her in order to - steal her inherited fortune?  Conrad suspects that's not how probate law  works.  Art!

     You may detect a resemblance between THC to port and Sylvester Sneekly, Penelope's guardian, which is because they're the same person.  Gasp!

Finally -

Just going to end this without any Biercisms.