Can we deflect an asteroid with junk mail?

A very creative MIT grad student has won an award in the Move An Asteroid 2012 Competition with his proposal to hit the asteroid with paintballs. 

At first, this sounded like a report from a pseudo-scientific humorous newspaper, but it's a real competition and the plan is stunningly sensible. The idea is to paint the asteroid white, changing how the rays from the sun affect it - changing it's trajectory - so it doesn't hit us. (Yes, they are doing this for a reason - there is an asteroid headed our way, it will be close to Earth in 2029 and again in 2036.)

I've just been battling piles of paper. There is always more paper. More junk mail. More things you printed in error, and have to shred. More requests from charities, so you have to shred the mail because it has your address on it. More junk mail. And every once in a while a very important piece of paper. 

It's that one very important piece of paper that is the main problem. You can't just get rid of all of the mail at quick swoop. You have to see if that important piece is inside the mountain of junk.

It's quite demoralizing, because you know you've lost at least one important piece of mail in the past and you don't want to do it again. So you pile the paper up to do something with it later. And then you start another pile because the first one is in danger of toppling. 

But this goes on for way too long. 

Finally, you have to spend a day covered in paper, sorting it, and searching for that all important piece.

So why can't we hit the asteroid with paper? Send it mountains of mail. It's mostly white, so that could deflect the sun like the paintball plan, and it's bloody depressing to boot. It should be depressing enough to be a cosmic downer. We can demoralize the asteroid into stopping and giving up by covering it with paper.

I think it's a good plan.

Why is danger so pretty?

Mount Vesuvius in Italy is a volcano that blew it's top in 79 AD, burying Pompei and Herculaeum, and has erupted many times since then. But people still live at it's base, and apparently, from what I've seen on TV Specials online, more people are moving there all the time. Why? Because it is a fabulously beautiful place to live.

I live in Vancouver, BC. It's in the Ring of Fire which surrounds the Pacific Ocean and is known for earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. And yes, we know, we're due for a big earthquake. So why do we live here? Because it is a fabulously beautiful place to live.

So what about the more physically "stable" areas in Canada? Well, there was an earthquake near Montreal yesterday - a place not in the Ring of Fire. And yes, you guessed it, it's a beautiful place as well!

The sun had a hiccup last weekend sending a coronal mass ejection (CME) our way. This image from NASA of what it looked like when it hit the earth in eastern Canada and the US is also stunningly beautiful! Sure, GPS tools everywhere had a hard time giving accurate distances for the past few days, leading to some dangerous situations, but people who see the Northern Lights far further south than usual still went "ooh, aah".

So why is danger so pretty?

Maybe it's a coping mechanism of evolution. We are attracted to dangerous places because the whole planet is a dangerous place to live, and if we didn't enjoy the scenery... we'd be a depressed bunch of monkeys on the verge of extinction. Not that we aren't in danger of extinction... but we can at least enjoy it. Because it looks so pretty.

How about Sasquatch hunting as a retirement project?

I've just read about a man in his 70s who has a PhD in wildlife biology, and is searching for Sasquatch evidence.

What a wonderful project for retirement... and he has the credentials to be taken seriously if he finds more evidence. Unfortunately, as the article says, no one believes in the evidence that has been gathered so far. Actual DNA evidence is what scientists are looking for before they believe the Sasquatch is real.

Of course, in August 2012, scientists announced evidence for the discovery of 2 new pre-human species so it's not a matter of "we've found all there is to find" in terms of us monkeys who walk upright. There were many species that led up to us, maybe even more than we know about now.

In September 2012, scientists announced a new monkey species had been found living in the Congo. So there are new living monkey species to be found, even now.

I think it may be possible that there is another species of us monkeys that lives in the forests of B.C. They're just not sociable enough to want to make contact with us. Can't blame them really, we're apparently a lot shorter than them, and we likely smell funny to them - apparently they smell funny to us, so the same is probably true on their side. And they may "whoop" to each other to communicate, but some of us babble incessantly, talking to each other without ever "communicating" anything. So much noise, so little communication. So I'm not surprised they haven't popped round for tea. But maybe this retired PhD can find them! He's probably pretty good at that whole "communication" thing.

Is it "woman of a certain age" time already?

My spouse and I went to see Jerry Seinfeld doing stand-up comedy at the Orpheum Theatre last night. He was great to see again. At the end he took questions from the audience - one question was "Are you going to do another TV show?" his answer was "No. I'm old. I'm rich. And I'm tired!" Fair enough. It was fun to see him on stage.

Before the show started, and again at the end they had Frank Sinatra recordings playing.

I knew most of the Frank Sinatra songs. I have most of the Frank Sinatra songs. Oh dear, this may mean I'm now a "woman of a certain age". The rather obtuse way of saying "she's an old broad" or "middle aged" or "past it"... overall, not very complimentary.

But as Jerry's warm up act says "you're getting older - live with it" (the warm up guy, whose name I cannot find online - annoying - was good...) (even though I did find an interesting link to Jerry's new web project Comedians Getting Coffee. Go see - it's fun.)

As we were waiting for the show to start we realized that my spouse's mother was the age I am now when my spouse and I got married. OK, "woman of a certain age" sinks in as the appropriate moniker now. She liked Frank Sinatra too.

And once again I have to ask "I'm middle aged? When did that happen?" It just creeps up on you. Time is sneaky.

Who's eating the locals?

The local farmers' market is a wonderful thing to go to on a sunny Saturday morning. Most everyone brings their own bags. Many of the bags have advertising - usually for local organic or natural foods places.

This morning I saw a bag I haven't seen before it said: Eat Locals

I'm thinking the Vancouver Zombie Walk is over now... I got some interesting photos like this one from it, but eating the locals just seems downright unsociable.

Oh, the tyranny of the misplaced s.

But is he parking cars?

Archeologist think they've found where Richard III, King of England until he died in 1485, is buried. They think his body is Leicester, near a social services building, in the car park.

So my head has been ringing with the obvious question from a Douglas Adams devotee... has he been parking cars?

In the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Marvin is discovered in the car park of the restaurant after eons have passed since he saw the other characters in the novel.

After Marvin washes his head at Zaphod over the phone, Zaphod asks him: "Will you please tell us where you are!" Marvin's response: "I’m in the car park." Zaphod: "In the car park!? What are you doing there?" Marvin: "Parking cars what else do you do in the car park?"

Richard has been in the car park for only hundreds of years, not eons like Marvin... but what else would he do in the car park?

And why did I find a website with the full script so easily by googling "parking cars what else do you do in the car park?" I read this book years, if not decades, ago, but I still remember the words. They seem to be imbedded in my brain.

I think I'll go and stick my head in a bucket of water.

What took UFO spotters so long?

Oh goody! UFOs spotted on Mars!

So what took them so long? I expect UFO followers to scour any photos published by government agencies as soon as they come out. Curiosity landed on Mars on August 6, and has been sending photos back to earth from even before it landed, and no one saw any UFOs until now?

Of course, UFO means unidentified flying object. I'm sure even a speck of dust flying around Mars is unidentified. Isn't that why the rover is on Mars, to find unidentified things and examine them?

So what is Mars dust made from... does the planet have dust bunnies? There doesn't seem to be any furniture from the photos I've seen, so they wouldn't be hiding in the usual spots you find them on this planet. And wouldn't there still be dust flying around after the Curiosity landing? It didn't exactly land like a feather drifting down to the planet, it hit rather hard.

But calling the UFOs dust takes all the fun out of it. Many people think humans never went back to the moon because they didn't find any aliens to talk to on the moon. Maybe the chance of aliens on Mars will spur on more missions! That's the fun of it.

See this news article for more on the UFOs.