As we all know, Identity Theft is a just a cunning way of saying, “As a bank, we can save a crap-load on insurance premiums by off-loading the liability to our customers.”
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If one considers the events which led to the evolution of life on this planet (and I’m assuming we’re not at our pinnacle yet, nor the only dominant species that the Earth will throw out). The odds of the same or approximate circumstances occurring in another part of space are improbable, but still very very possible.
However, given the expanse of space and time we hit upon a physical and temporal logistical issue. The nearest star to our Sol is Proxima Centauri C, a mere 4.2 light years away, and still beyond our reach. The furthest galaxies that we have currently observed (through Hubble or gravitational lenses — quite literally using the gravitational effect of in-between galaxies) are approximately 14.5 billion light years away. Plenty of space and environment for independent life to evolve, so unlikely that we will ever make contact due to the distance and our inability to focus on projects that go beyond a term of government.
Temporally, the universe is old. Current theory suggests approximately 14 billion years, life has existed on Earth for ~3.7 billion years, the universe may well continue in existence way into a googleplex of years. So, we hit our next barrier to first contact; both species actually hitting their technological peek at the same point. Assuming all space and time faring requires technology, and is not a feasible natural trait.
Taking this in to account, we probably have a better chance of meeting inter-dimensional species, as opposed to extra-terrestrial species. Or extra-terrestrial species that are also inter-dimensional, where logistical definitions made here quietly pop down to the pub for a sly one on a Sunday afternoon, just as our new friends sneak our of their dimension for a joy-ride with the neighbouring provincial dimensions.
Food for thought?
Yesterday, I finished reading Ayn Rand’s novella, ‘Anthem‘. Whilst it was certainly easier to get through that ‘The Fountainhead‘ it still did not lose any impact. Inspired by Yevgeny Zamyatin’s ‘We‘ (which was also source material for George Orwell’s ‘1984′) and Stephen Vincent Benét’s ‘By the Waters of Babylon‘. Anthem is based in an unspecified dystopian future, where the ego of the individual has been replaced by the goals of the collective. Who seem unable to decide upon anything due to the various committees… It takes fifty years to re-invent and approve the candle as a standard piece of government issued equipment. I’ve worked on some projects like that.
Something tells me that ‘We’. or ‘Anthem’ were also source material for the Star Trek writers that created the Borg. It’s a good read, and at only fifty-six pages in length, it’s not going to having an imposing impact on your reading list. Better still it’s been archived by project Gutenberg, and is availble for free.
Mobile phone are now well and truly proliferated, and have permeated deep in to society. Yet many still consider use in some public places to be rude. In a restaurant, the ‘quiet’ carriage of a train, in the middle of a conversation, to name but a few.
I walked in to my local corner store today, just to buy some consumables. The cashier was on his mobile phone, talking in a jovial way. As I go to pay, he switches the mobile phone to ’speaker’ mode, and continues to serve me whilst still talking to the other person… Oddly enough, I can clearly hear the sounds of another Till on the phone. So his friend is clearly doing the same to a customer in his shop!
Perhaps I should have vaulted the counter, grabbed the phone and yelled to the other customer, “Let’s both complain!” But I couldn’t be arsed. Apathy and the convenience of remaining-unbarred-from-the-local-corner-shop rule again. It did make me laugh though, out loud, in the shop, to the cashier, whilst impersonating Brian Blessed… Probably not a good thing.
Whilst I was researching some Knowledge Management stuff for a recent piece of homework, I ran across some great quotes from Thomas Jefferson. Whilst I knew about Jefferson’s stance on how the control of knowledge was a form of tyranny. I’d not specifically bothered to go and read some more, till I stumbled upon:
- Matsuura, J.H. (2006) Thomas Jefferson and the Evolution of a Populist Vision of Intellectual Property Rights and Democratic Values, Symposium Technology and Democratic Values in the Early Republic [Online]. Available from: http://www.archipelago.org/vol10-34/matsuura.htm (Accessed 27 November 2008).
On monopoly patent rights:
. . . other nations have thought these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.
On the diffusion of ideas:
That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.
And finally, on the communal nature of ideas… Reminded me of WikiWikiWebs:
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others to exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it focuses itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver can not dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
One great thing about being a dad, is that you get to indulge in media for kids. Many folks will know that we have a little collection of old fairy tales, because I have a near physical revulsion for many modern saccharine induced renditions of them. Take note Disney: A fairy tale that has had its moral surgically removed via key-hole knobbery, has no value at all.
That said, new tales are always welcome and Two Frogs has oodles of charisma and charm, especially amongst the mums and dads who have an appreciation for security.
Two frogs are sitting on a lily pad and one of them has a stick. The stick, he says, is to beat off the dog. But there is no dog. Yet. So begin the trials and adventures of this hapless pair.
… of this reading that I chose for our wedding, so I thought I’d share it here:
“There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world — its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles. The more you understand, the more you look, the greater is your enjoyment of life and your sense of peace. That’s all there is to it. Everything else is fun and games. If an activity is not grounded in ‘to love’ or ‘to learn,’ it does not have value.” — Anne Rice (Servant of the Bones.)
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