Can Life Exist in Outer-Space
I thought I'd talk about the possibility of other unknown life existing. Whether you believe in Alien beings is up to you, whether you have religious or scientific beliefs stopping this is also up to you. I don't want to change anybodies belief systems by writing this, I just want you all to think. I want you to think, maybe there is. If you do start believing in this, having previously not, I don't want to be condemned in changing your beliefs and making you become blasphemous. To all the naysayers out there who would just to just keep an open mind reading this, just don't scough to yourself and believe you to know more than me. You may know more than me, I may be factually wrong on some points, please inform me so. Read it all before jumping to a conclusion.
Ok, lets get started at the beginning. Right at the beginning to be frank, the creation of our solar system. Now, if you believe in the scientific answer, then when our 'big bang' happened, what is really stopping the same thing happening millions of miles away. Now, does Quantum entanglement imply there must be? If you're not sure what this is, it is defined as when
The objects that make up the system are linked in a way such that one cannot adequately describe the quantum state of a constituent of the system without full mention of its counterparts, even if the individual objects are spatially separated.
For a full descriptive definition please check the wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement. Does this mean that at the time of the big bang, with the particles responsible for this, were their entangled pairs doing the same thing somewhere else?
What about it mathematically, the chances that it happened for us, as as likely as it happened elsewhere. Its probably more likely, given that it has happened elsewhere. The probability that it happened originally, is almost negligible, but then it happened, so we're not looking at the probability of it happening, we're looking at the probability of it happening again, which given that its happened the first time, is more likely to reoccur then occur initially.
If it happened pre-telescope era, then we have no possible of way of witnessing another big bang, we can only see an aftermath, the creation of planets. Who knows, it could be happening right now, somewhere deep in the cosmos unimaginable miles away.
Now, I know what you're thinking, big bang doesn't necessarily mean life. Ok granted, the same thing could of happened, then no life at all starts. This leads on to the next point, convergence, if it happened elsewhere (Quantum entanglement aside) its likely to happen elsewhere. Evolution teaches us that its survival of the fittest and the 'best design' survives (in humans the best design is the ability to kill/destroy other species). Now if our evolutionary steps have figured out the steps it needs to create an intelligent life, why can't another evolutionary chain do the same thing?
To answer all of those religious people reading, 'What about my god?' Well, I'd like to think of it this way, would a deity of ultimate power be content of watching a single planet of scurrying life. You have to also ask yourself, what species is the creator? Who created the creator? Ok, maybe he just came into existence. Theoretically (probably going to hell for saying this) God is an alien. If Jesus was his son, he inherited 'abilities' from his father, scientifically possible to be handed down his gene pool. Jesus is cross-species, human/deity. What about heavenly angels, they must have a species, how are they different from God? How are they different from Jesus. They could be another evolutionary step from wherever God resides, of was created from. It wouldn't be too far-fetched to consider that prophets had some telepathic connection with another species. Who knows. I mean you could go so far and theories that the star that the three wise men followed was a craft watching over his Son. I also read this article, http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1223697/pg1 which aside from ranting and self-belief, it makes theoretical sense. Maybe God's species cannot create new life, but could modify other things within the cosmos. He could create a new life, and use the new life to create a heir, a new deity to carry on his legacy. If I was one of my kind, and cannot create new life, I'd consider doing it that way, generating/modifying a subspecies, using my genes to make a theoretical clone. I'd also like to point out a revelation I had the other day, watching the original Superman movie. Notice any connections it has with Jesus and God. Some higher deities, send their son to earth, to be raised by an earth mother. Who then goes on to help the needy and save people. I mean ok, its not exactly the same, but it is an alternative to the story of Christ.
I've gone on too much about the religious aspect of things. I was going to go on about convergence. Now I touched on this earlier on and talked about how life could converge after the big bang. We see it in nature all the time, two beings evolve to have the same genetic aspect. Such as squids having nearly identical eyes to us humans, even tho they went off on a different evolutionary path from us eons ago, and we've ended up with having almost identical eyes. Most recently is the platypus, recently scientists have discovered that some of its venom is found elsewhere, ie in snakes, anomie and others, this level of convergence is unusual, but it proves my point exactly. If creatures on earth, can evolve from separate early stages end end up with the same basic design. Why can this not happen elsewhere in the cosmos. Ok, it may have to alter given other natural effects. Like being too close to the sun, so a stronger skin is needed. Or living on a low gravity planet, so they would end up taller. I think tall grey men is a logical option for an alien species.
Also, if they've converging on the same level as us, or even a slower level. They could even have better technology than us. You could think of inventions and technological advancements as an evolutionary tree, one advancement leads onto another which could lead on to two more and so on. I think they can fork off and develop into other technologies, in the same way life on earth has such diversity. Now, how akin this is to evolution, I think technologies can converge too. More driven by their environment. For example, they have no fossil fuels on their planet, maybe they have mastered fusion/fission in the same way that we've mastered using fossil fuels. Maybe, high gravity means they need smaller circular aircrafts, so they have less surface area? For the same reasons, maybe a vertical take off would be required. So that is our basic UFO shape. With the mastery of more yielding fuels, maybe they have mastered space because of this.
Now, if they have made contact, there are lots of UFOs in the sky, I don't know. I wont know until one comes down and says something akin to "Yo sup". If there are any life forms out there, again how are we to know, for sure. Life outside of earth is not unreasonable in both situations, science and religion. In the end, you can't prove a negative, so you will never be able to prove they don't exist.
Capacitive Touch – Ardiuno
Capacitive touch screens are becoming more and more popular in todays electronics. I knew this was because they are cheap and easy to make, as well as looking modern. They are popular to have, especially on a UI front such as a smartphone or a multimedia device. It is also easier to cover with something, such as a thin plastic cover, or some other thin product that is easy to clean/maintain etc. So today I decided to look into it and found it was VERY easy to make, all I actually needed was just the wires and a micro controller.
I'm using my Arduino Duemilanove, I have extended the wire with a piece of tin foil, to make something more user friendly, but for the most basic of devices, you can just touch the end of the wire (this will make more sense when you've seen the setup).
Capacitive Touch Example
What that is in the picture above, on the right bottom hand corner, there is just a tinfoil shield taped on with duck tape, and at the left hand side of there there is a wire taped on also with duck tape (the wire has to be connected to the foil). Then on from that is my breadboard, the breadboard just extends the wire from my foil to pin 13 on my Ardiuno, it also has my LED, coming from pin 3 with a 10k resistor to protect it, then grounded to the Ardiuno board. Thats the simple set up. Now my Ardiuno Code, based on http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Code/CapacitiveSensor in the Ardiuno playground.
/*
** getCap function found http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Code/CapacitiveSensor
** You are free to do whatever you want with this code
** If I inspired you, you could nicely link back to this page http://www.scaryinter.net/index.php/16/10/2010/capacitive-touch-ardiuno
*/
void setup()
{
pinMode(3, OUTPUT);
}
void loop ()
{
char pin13 = 1<
1){
digitalWrite(3, HIGH);
} else if(capvalU = 1){
digitalWrite(3, LOW);
}
}
char getcap(char pin)
{
char i = 0;
DDRB &= ~pin; // input
PORTB |= pin; // pullup on
for(i = 0; i < 16; i++)
if( (PINB & pin) ) break;
PORTB &= ~pin; // low level
DDRB |= pin; // discharge
return i;
}
Basic explanation is, the getcap function measure the time it takes for a pin to charge, this usually returns a value of 1, when the charge time is normal. Then, when you're touching whatever is on the end of pin13, it rises to 7/5/8. The if statement in the loop then checks if the value is 1 or more than one, and lights the LED, or turns the LED off. A working video of this below.
Excuse the loud banging, there was somebody chopping wood nearby. So basically, we have a touch sensor, made out with a bit of scrap tin foil. My next goal is to make this smaller. Some tin foil the size of a finger, followed by being covered with paper, maybe like a calculator?
Update:
I'm stopping here for now, because I'll end up running out of pins on my arduino.
Blogged My Dinner – Fajitas
Well, I was thinking of something non-paranormal to blog, so here it is, my dinner.
First off I fried the chicken. I know what you may be thinking, this doesn't look like succulent chicken breast, you're right, its Chicken Thighs.
Frying the chicken
Now technically I mis-bought them but I'll say I did it for the texture. One advantage of using the thighs is that its usually a bit more fattier. Now apart from all the flavour being in the fat. This is something I don't get with people who cut the fat off before cooking chicken, or other meat, I understand more about after its been cooked, then its just a pocket of flavour that'll do you nothing but harm! I mean harm in the sense of artery clogging goodness. People do that, then put it in a salad and cover it in a dressing which is 10x the fat content!!! Anyway, I've digressed of the matter into a rant, cooking with a fattier this also allows me to fry them in their own juices, instead of using oil to cook them. You need to cook it on a high heat, otherwise it'd take ages to brown and cook, so before I started I let the pan warm up and the chicken started cooking instantly. Cook it until its cooked through, most recipes on the back of spice packets and boxes of 'kits' will tell you until browned. If like me, your frying pan was hot, then in some cases it browned on one side, whilst still being raw on the other. So just look through make sure its all cooked, if you diced the chicken evenly, so they're all the same side, they should all cook at the same speed. If your frying pan isn't big enough for this, use a wok? Anyway now that the chicken is ready you can go on to the next step. This is something I recommend opening a window for or if your oven has a ventilation system use that.
Now this next step is simple, just cover the chicken in the spices. I was using Old El Paso Fajita Spice mix (http://www.britishcornershop.co.uk/product.asp?id=2296).
I mean all you have to do here is make sure all the chicken gets a thorough coating. In my case I used to much of the mix, the pack I used (as linked) serves 500g of
Spiced Chicken
chicken. I only had 250(ish)g of Chicken, so I had clumps forming. Once everything is thoroughly coated, you're probably gonna want to take it off the heat, the excess spices I had, probably half a packs worth, clumped up and started burning. This is why you're probably want to ventilate your kitchen. You could if you want to, add any vegetables at this point, such as onions, peppers, chillies anything else and let them cook for a few minutes. I chose not to, because I had a chunky Salsa and I'm not over keep on overly crunchy fajitas.
This is another as easy part. What you want to do here is warm the tortillas up, you can do this in the oven as well
Warming Flour Tortillas
as on the oven, you can also do this in a microwave. In the microwave, basically put them in the microwave for 30-45 seconds, for the in oven method you'd need foil. Specific methods should be on the back of the packet (be it a kit or the Tortilla wrapper. I used it in the frying pan, its alot quicker, and the first tortilla gets covered in spices adding to the flavour. What you do is drop them in the pan, wait a couple of seconds turn it over, wait a couple of seconds, take it out. The pan needs to be hot so after you've emptied the chicken put it back on the heat and let it warm back up. Now a warning here, they warm up quickly (if the pan is hot as it should be). So you need to watch out, if you leave them in two long, they shrink, bubble up, and get really hard, and end up like a round crispy tortilla (similar to the Dorito).
Once you've done that (you probably should warm them all through first otherwise whilst you're filling you might over warm a tortilla) you then need to start filling the tortillas. Fill them up with some of the chicken, just a
Finished Fajitas
nice clump of them, then a dollop of salsa, if you want to mix them up do so now. Then fold in the tortilla. This is done by folding in the bottom first, then fold in the sides over each other. You may want to put them so the folds are on the bottom, that way they wont open up.
All thats left now is to eat up and enjoy, I did.
October the 13th New York Day Time
Ok, I've decided to create a post about the 13th of October's New York sighting that happened in daytime. I'm sure you've all seen the picture I provided in my first post. Well, I've decided to review that sighting.
First pictures.
First of all lets look at the backstory. I first heard of this on twitter, people said they were standing at the corner of the street, and they could see UFOs, after a couple of more tweets about the same thing I started to investigate, I was intrigued. Apparently, there were silvery objects floating in the sky of unknown origin. The first pictures I saw were from, which appear to be three yellowy ellipses in the sky.
The story goes on, and people are standing there for hours watching these, trying to make sense of them and not being able to do so. These even attract the attention of ABC's New York Correspondent as told to me by @ShelbyKnox. Stories emerged about a helicopter traveling towards these Unidentified Flying Objects. New information slowly comes out, a new picture (the one in my first post) and some more information about it pops up.
Somebody starts a rumor about the whole thing is a hoax, without any real hard evidence, people start saying it was balloons. Somebody finds the picture below, of people holding (appearing to hand them out) yellow balloons.
Yellow Balloons on Broadway.
Whether these balloons were let out is debatable. It may fit the MO of the first image (seen above and to your right). They look nothing like later pictures and videos seen. Also, according to a news website, the New York Police Department has to be notified about a mass balloon release, and they were as baffled as the public. (The police and the FAA having received multiple calls about these UFOs). Later up a video crops up, from the ABC's New York correspondent . He is talking to baffled New York Denizen and you see one of the mysterious objects in the sky, and nobody now knowing what they are.
As well as ABC's interest in the story, other news agencies catch up with the story.
- http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_localnyc/mystery-shiny-objects-floating-over-manhattan-spark-ufo-frenzy
- http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/10/13/2010-10-13_mystery_shiny_objects_floating_over_manhattan_spark_ufo_frenzy.html
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/13/new-york-ufo-sighting_n_761717.html
- http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/14/dozens-report-ufo-new-york-city/
Thats just a few of the news sites picking it up, also there is there furry of tweets and blog posts on the matter.
Fox news then goes on to post a news story.
There is also footage of the UFOs.
Sometime after the story lost momentum, with basically everyone talking about it, just regurgitating the same things. There comes a story trying to explain it.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/10/14/2010-10-14_ufo_nyc_kids_say_no_mysterious_floating_orbs_were_escaped_balloons_from_teachers.html
Now, whether this answer what people saw in Chelsea New York, we can never know for sure. My concerns are that people saw lots of balloons, and the ones that video is trying to explain were in clumps? Why did that lady make the connection the day after? If he channel is always 880 (assuming thats the news channel that she is talking to), why did she not pick up on this story the day after, not the day it happened?
Missing Chinese Village
Stories have hit Chinese news sites about the villages at the end of the Qinling Mountains having just vanished. I say vanished, the stories are in Chinese or poor English, so the story might be lost in translation.
Qinling Mountain Range
The main story hit here, http://news.cn.yahoo.com/ypen/20101013/47282.html (It is in Chinese so I recommend using Chrome and the translator addon).
What it says in translated English.
(Xinhua Ji Nan) 10 13, one on "the end of the Qinling Mountains to a village to disappear overnight," the post pass crazy on the network, especially in the micro-Bo was crazy reserved. After many journalists confirmed that the network confirmed rumors of the news department.
"I have heard, yesterday 4:00, the end of a village in the Qinling Mountains, all disappeared overnight! ... ... There are a large number of troops sealed off the scene ... ..."
Baidu Post Bar in the Qinling reporter saw a lot of friends concerned about the so-called "foot of the Qinling Mountains next village disappeared." More users skeptical on the matter.
Reporters today (13), respectively, to Shaanxi Provincial Public Security Bureau, Shaanxi Military District, and the Qinling Mountains surrounding Hanzhong, Ankang, Baoji, Xi'an, Shangluo confirmation, the parties did not receive any relevant reports have indicated that Network attached network belongs to the rumors.
Now, this could be a hoax, something lost in translation, but definitely something to keep an eye on. The village is also said to be located near a nuclear facility, so maybe this is related to an accident, hence why troops are sealing off the scene.
There is an accompanying video to this story, found here.
I am led to believe that this is a similar video as to a previous video posted, it may be the same video (the latter being uploaded to youtube in May).
‘UFOs’ Seen via earth Cam
First of all I want to start off by saying I'm not a skeptic and I believe beyond doubt there there is life out there. Not because of things I've seen because of what makes sense to me. I believe that in the same possible chance we (life) were created, what are the chances of this happening on another planet, I believe the same as on another planet. I've not seen anything I would class as definitive proof as non-terrestrial life encountering earth. Nor do I believe the government would cover up such a thing, I can't think why they would even hide it? Also, if the government was trying to cover it, they're doing a very poor job of it, seeing as there are many public and well known sitings.
Ok, now that little snippet is out the way I'll start on the subject of this first blog post. This is something I've followed since somebody on an IRC network linked me to a story about a book written by former US NORAD officer. He apparently (I have not read the book myself) writes about Non-terrestrial life (Aliens) visiting the earth on October the 13th. More about the officer here http://www.unexplainable.net/UFO-Alien/Ex-Norad-Official-Alien-Contact-October-13th.shtml and on yahoo http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20100914/bs_prweb/prweb4491804_1 You could probably google up yourself some more results if you wanted. There had been a few sightings in the days before October the 13th, and then yesterday (GMT) October the 13th there were mysterious flying objects in New York, during day that people out there watching, could not explain.
A UFO as seen over New York.
Theres also a video from ABC News.
There are lots of pictures and such out there, whether it was visitors, or an deliberate prank (theres rumors out there it was numerous balloons being released), but I don't want to go into this in much detail. What I want to go on to talk about is about what people thought they were seeing the night after, on an earthcam camera.
http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/midtown/?cam=empiresouth
That is the camera in question, I don't know what you will see at the time of posting, so I'll explain what was going on. Basically lots of lights moving (described as dancing), then eventually a larger light appears then disappears. Numerous people took these as UFOs, not sure how many were just trolls or just crazy tinfoil hat people, I explained multiple times how they were actually planes, yet still unbelieved I was. So here I will explain in detail so I wont have to repeat myself.
New York City Skyline Earthcam
Firstly, the camera is directed to the LaGuardia airport. I mean that stands a point on its own.
I will go on tho, people complained how the dots were jumping to one point to another. I'd like to remind people that it is not exactly a live feed, it will encounter alot of lag, especially with the traffic it received tonight with the people watching it. So your jumping of dots was more than likely than just a few seconds of lag on the camera. Since its a landscape view you can't really compare it to something moving so you really don't see it as laggy.
My next point is driven by people saying that the dots stay still for a few second whilst other dots are still moving, then it moves off in another direction. Flight paths are not directly in line with runways, if a plane has to turn in the air, it may appear as to he is not moving, especially if he is turning from head on to the camera. It's all a matter of perspective a work I kept repeating during this evening. Would people kindly remember its not a 3d image, let alone a clear image.
People were also saying you don't usually get that many planes in the sky at once, when there was sometimes up to four dots in the sky. Granted this isn't usually how airports operate. Earlier in the day, the airports were closed due to fog, so you can expect some backlog, and the airports willingness to let many planes in the sky at once. Also consider the fact that there are three airports in a tristate area, so these planes could be traveling to any one of them. Just because two dots seem to be near each other, doesn't mean they are, again perspective the same is said about satellites, if you've ever looked up to the sky and seen a satellite moving, sometimes you would see two traveling near each other, what you would perceive as centimeters apart, when in fact they're thousands of miles apart. Same logic here, just because they appear to be close they are more than likely a good few km apart. This leads onto the next issue that was raised. People complained that the dots went across one another, again this is perspective, the one in front will no doubt be closer too the camera, same way you can put one hand in front of the other.
People were pointing out they were moving in triangles, and 'dancing' around. As well as the points I raised above, there was no real attention on twitter for these lights, nobody in and around New York were interested. Yet only a few hours earlier, something in the sky had ABC's New York correspondent make a story about it. Yet a good few hours of glowing lights in the night sky does not cause any attention of people in and around New York? It didn't arouse the attention of any authorities? I'm pretty sure after 9/11 people are more suspicious about mysterious objects in the sky. Could of been a terror attack? No authorities acted on this, so that leads me to believe that it really was nothing to worry about, since they either didn't care it weren't bothered by whatever is causing them.
I was also talking to a New York resident, who told me it is like that all the time, sometimes there are "rows of planes". He was not phased in anyway by the lights.
I live near a major airport, the town I live in is right under its flightpath. I know what a plane coming in for landing/taking off looks like in the dark. Thats what it looked like. They were all converging on the same point of the screen, either taking off or landing. They were planes. I mean I'd like to see comments on why they can't be planes, and I will reason with them.