Boxy Brown

I use Google Maps all the time. Whenever I have to go some place new, I always drive there in street view first! I'll bet it's saved me thousands of hours wandering around lost or trying to figure out where to park. It really is amazing at how much geographic data is freely available. It must be a lot easier delivering pizza than it was when I was a kid

This has been out for a few weeks, but I didn't see it mentioned here. I saw it on APOD a while back. I'd agree it is hypnotic and spectacular! The first time I connected, the view appeared directed at the Sun and totally overexposed. I was about to leave, when, as the Sun began to dim, I realized it wasn't pointed at the Sun so much as at the Earth's limb. Sunset from orbit was quite beautiful, and strangely compelling. Those astronauts are darned lucky. Here's the link to the APOD entry, which has a few more interesting links embedded: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140514.html

Perhaps, but it might make sense to travel ten light years to acquire resources. You might not even send people out to collect them. Perhaps you send out robotic missions that send the materials back here. If you had the technology to accelerate to ten percent of the speed of light, you would begin receiving resources within a century ( I'm assuming travel to our nearest neighbour here, 4ish ly away). Over the past century, our population and our dominion over this planet have grown exponentially. As we deplete the resources on Earth and as technology advances, there will come a point where exploiting the materials in the rest of the solar system will be as profitable as exploiting the remaining resources on earth. If our growth continues as it has in the past, we would consume the resources in the rest of the solar system relatively quickly, and get to the point where exploiting the resources in the next star system over is as profitable as those remaining in the solar system. Relative to the current age of the galaxy, it wouldn't take long for a species like ours to spread across the galaxy. The Independence Day reference was tongue in cheek, although if you've traveled across ten light years to get something your species needs, maybe you're less inclined to share! I believe that given our insistence on perpetual growth, our curiosity, and there always being a few individuals willing to take great risks, we will eventually try to leave our home. Why not others? But that is the paradox I guess. Obviously there is something wrong with this scenario. There are so many possibilities to explain it too, that it's a lot of fun to speculate. We won't know for sure until we expand and/or meet our neighbours, find we can't or shouldn't expand at all, or occupy an otherwise empty galaxy. I just hope I live long enough to see the first interstellar probes start sending back data. (and the Voyagers don't count... I want pictures from the next system over!)

If you take any culture that is both superstitious and keen observers, does it make sense to think they wouldn't recognize these as an attempt to communicate? If they noticed it (and somone flashing bright light at you is hard to miss), it would attract their attention, and a short repeated message doubly so. I would be surprised if they didn't try to investigate the source, or didn't think someone or something was trying to send them a message. If you thought novae and comets were signs from the gods, what would you make of a structured series of flashes? If you are trying to communicate with the unknown, you don't try to hide or obfuscate your message. You add enough structure and order to make it impossible to mistake it as noise or a natural phenomenon. The recipient may not be able to decipher it, but the important information is knowing a message was sent at all. As for the climate change hypothesis, I wonder if this only puts an upper limit on the star size we associate with a possibility for life. Most of the stars out there are smaller than ours, and their evolution is stretched over a longer period of time. I'm not an astronomer, but I would assume that means that the increase in insolation on any orbiting planet would take longer as well. It probably isn't linear, so a marginally smaller star, like Tau Ceti (80% of the Sun's mass) might take a much longer time to cook it's habitable planets. Perhaps it's a dangerous galaxy and no one wants to be heard. I suddenly feel like watching Independence Day ;-)