Inexplicable record company behaviour...

The Voyager 1 spacecraft is a 722-kilogram robotic space probe of the outer solar system and beyond; it was launched on 15th Sept 1977, and remains operational, currently pursuing its extended mission to locate and study the boundaries of the Solar System, including the Kuiper Belt and beyond. Its original mission was to visit Jupiter and Saturn; and it was the first probe to provide detailed images of the moons of these planets. Voyager 1 is as of now the farthest manmade object from Earth, traveling away from both the Earth and the Sun at a relatively faster speed than any other probe; 17 km per second. Wow!

So anyhoo, enough with the dry science stuff. I discovered today that NASA included something really interesting on board Voyager 1 - The Voyager Golden Record.

The quote at the beginning was recorded by President Jimmy Carter, and reads: "This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours."

The record contains 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whlaes. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings in fifty-five languages.

I am heartened by the optimism that NASA must have had in order to include this with the spacecraft before we flung it towards the stars. I was particularly drawn to the way in which the information was encoded, for surely the question must have formed in your mind "How the hell will anything know what on Earth the sounds mean?".

The data was pressed onto the record in a coded analogue format; the key to decode the information is to be found in the simple diagram of a hydrogen atom etched onto the surface of the record. Hydrogen is the simplest and most common substance in the Universe and will almost definitely be known to any extra-terrestrial life forms; by being aware of its nature and some simple facts about the time it takes to change from one state to another, the information on the record can be decoded and played. (click picture to enlarge)

I find it incredible that we could potentially have managed to communicate with a culture with which we have no common ground whatsoever (barring that we share the same universe) whilst still so often causing strife and woe through our lack of communication with each other.

It is perhaps worth mentioning that the record is more a symbolic statement than a genuine attempt to illicit a response. At current speed, it will take Voyager 40,000 years to get to the nearest star and so it is best seen as more of a 'time capsule' rather than a genuine attempt to communicate.

I have but one gripe with the entire project, and it rests firmly on EMI's shoulders (worry not, dear reader, my cryptic title, which has so far had nothing to do with the plot, will soon be explained). The list of music on the record justifiably reads as a who's who of music throughout history: Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Chuck Berry's Johnny B Goode, The Rite Of Spring by Stravinsky, and many more, including everything from ancient Far Eastern folk songs to Aboriginal chants. However, there is one notable exception: it doesn't contain a Beatles song. How can this be so? Carl Sagan, who was chairing the committee who decided upon the content, nominated 'Here comes the Sun' for inclusion which was roundly and readily agreed. The Beatles themselves were contacted and were humbled to have received such an illustrious request. All went swimmingly well until the process hit EMI's copyright department and you can guess the rest. PERMISSION DENIED. Yes, you heard me right, EMI said "Ermmm....Errrr...let me just think about it for a minute....hmmmmm.....No". Details as to why were never released.

I know it's a cliche, but I really WOULD have loved to have been in THAT meeting.

SAGAN: Hi there EMI executive-type people, we're making a compilation that represents the entirety of the history of musical culture across the whole globe that might someday represent the first contact humans have with extra terrestrials and we'd love to put one of your songs on it.

EMI CAPITALIST: Hi Mr Sagan. We got your memo on this issue last week and whilst it did originally look like an excellent opportunity for EMI to expand into untapped commercial markets, we are concerned that once it leaves the Earth, we will no longer have control of the data stored on the record. It could, foreseeably, be copied by any sentient life form that finds it and then freely distributed without EMI receiving a single penny in royalties. For this reason will shall have to withold copyright on this particular occasion. Good day.

So if it does ever reach alien ears, they will not have the pleasure of the Fab Four for company, unfortunately.

7 reasons why my cat is better than your dog...

1) He doesn't have an anus fixation

2) He is clearly capable of some kind of independant sentient thought - i.e. he isn't retarded.

3) He doesn't require my assistance when taking a crap

4) He likes watching Scrubs

5) He can clean himself

6) He doesn't destroy my shoes

7) He only licks his testicles for about an hour a day

Hurrah...

News just in - Blogging now counts as work rather than merely procrastination. Fact. Get used to it Dad. Further to this, another essential experiment I have done today is to ascertain in what situations it is acceptable to use icing sugar rather than normal sugar:

1) In tea - A definite 'No'. It comes out tasting like those very synthetic sweeteners. Think of a tea-flavoured sweetie for instance. Exactly. Horrible.

2) On Shredded Wheat - Ding! A 'Yes'. I have to say, this was a revelation. Try it. Further cereal research demonstrated that Weetabix can also be taken with icing sugar rather than granulated.

3) In coffee - surprisingly, this worked much better than the tea but should still only be used in emergencies.

Results for caster sugar and demerera sugar will be posted tomorrow.

Just say no...

So Danny Wallace has been annoying me more than usual of late. He wrote a book some time ago called the 'The Yes Man' and continues to masquerade as a prominent media johnny. The dust jacket has this to say about the book......

'I, Danny Wallace, being of sound mind and body, do hereby write this manifesto for my life. I swear I will be more open to opportunity. I swear I will live my life taking every available chance. I will say Yes to every favour, request, suggestion and invitation. I Will Swear To Say Yes Where Once I Would Say No.' Danny Wallace had been staying in. Far too much. Having been dumped by his girlfriend, he really wasn't doing the young, free and single thing very well. Instead he was avoiding people. Texting them Instead of calling them. Calling them Instead of meeting them. That is until that one fateful date when a mystery man on a late-night bus told him to 'Say Yes more'. These three simple words changed Danny's life forever. Yes Man is the story of what happened when Danny decided to say Yes to everything, in order to make his life more interesting. And boy, did it get more interesting.'

I don't want to mock him or his clever 'social experiment' but I'm going to have to, unfortunately. Immediately upon hearing of his idea, the thing that upset me the most was that I didn't get involved when it was actually going on:

"Danny, give me all your money"

"Danny, shag your own mum"

or more simply

"Danny, lie down prostrate and naked in the road whilst I flag down this bus".

Now what would have been funny, and is still something I might try and sell to any TV producer who'll stop firing up the charlie long enough to listen to me, would be to try something along the lines of 'The No Man.' I know we Brits are already famed for our stubborn rudeness, but we still go about it in a conscious deliberate way. The decision to break someone's limbs rather than let them beat us to a seat on the tube is always mulled over before being made (albeit very briefly), and I'd say at least one time out of every ten we let the other person win too (if as a man he's bigger than us, or as a woman she's got tits). So whilst we seem to the rest of the world to be some form of zenophobic collective hellbent on world domination (past history excused, of course), I think there is still some room for improvement here.

If, instead of deliberating before refusing requests for directions from vacant tourists, we AUTOMATICALLY said 'No' then people would see exactly how rude and obnoxious the humble human is actually capable of being.

I think we should get badges made and they'll only have 2 letters on them.