Author: Glorius Curmudgeon

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Fermi, Drake & the Great Filter

In the summer of 1950, the Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi went to lunch with some fellow physicists and asked the central question of the Fermi Paradox – “Where is everybody?”. He was referring of course to the lack of concrete evidence of the existence of alien life. Given the size of the then-known universe and the multi-billion years available there should be evidence of life.

A decade later with the rise of radioastronomy and the term of SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) Dr Frank Drake developed a formula to estimate the number of intelligent species withing the reach of a radio telescope like Green Bank or Arecibo.

The Drake equation is: {\displaystyle N=R_{*}\cdot f_{\mathrm {p} }\cdot n_{\mathrm {e} }\cdot f_{\mathrm {l} }\cdot f_{\mathrm {i} }\cdot f_{\mathrm {c} }\cdot L} where:

N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible (i.e. which are on our current past light cone); and

R∗ = the average rate of star formation in our Galaxy

fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets

ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets

fl = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point

fi = the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations)

fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space

L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

When I first encountered the issue in the mid-60’s the space program was well underway, progress seemed inevitable and flying cars were just around the corner. I considered that our ‘L’ value would continue forever or at least for the next millennia or so.

That was then, and now I’m not so sure.

Take electric cars for one small example. Electric cars: a better name would be battery cars; contain batteries which store the electric energy needed to power them. In the U.S. currently, most energy comes from coal, natural gas, hydroelectric or nuclear power. The first two (and by far the largest) produce CO2 (otherwise known as plant food) that allegedly produces global warming and is double-plus-ungood. Hydroelectric dams are under attack and are being torn down because they impede spawning of salmon and other sacred species of fish. Finally nuclear power is beyond the pale, opposed by all right-thinking environmentalists. The above is a series of confused, unproven or certifiable dumb conclusions that are all embraced by “environmentalists”.

The presumably “adult” governors of several states have mandated the end of sale of internal combustion engines (ICE) by 2030 or so. The “renewable” resources, hydro, wind and solar, over five years (2014-2019), zoomed from 13.4% to 18.2% of U.S. total power. So, in effect, 80% of electric vehicles are actually powered by coal/natural gas, hydro or nuclear power. The chances of increasing the number either hydroelectric dams or nuclear power plants being approximately zero at the current time, coupled with the outright antagonism of the current administration towards fossil fuels, it looks like the future will tend towards poorer and more restrictive.

We have met the Great Filter and it is us. I now tend to think that Elon Musk is right – we need to become a multi-planet species, or we are doomed.

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Things Getting Real…

Reports are in the Slava class cruiser Moskva (Moscow) has been struck by a missile, suffered a magazine explosion and the crew has abandoned ship. It was reportedly struck by a Ukranian Neptune cruise missile.

The USNI News report is HERE:

Moskva
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And Now for Something Completely Different

I was watching a YouTube live feed from Starbase, TX the other day and someone in comments mentioned that he we was splitting his time between that feed and a live feed from San Diego where the USS Zumwalt was underway.

I poked around a bit and found THIS, which is a live feed of San Diego harbor which bounces around from several vantage points. It also has an audio feed of VHF Channel 16 but they also insert some appropriate theme music. Yesterday when the Dole container ship got underway we got “DAY-O, Daylight Come and I Wanna Go Home”; today I tuned in as the Holland American Zuiderdam and the Disney Wonder got underway they played the theme from The Love Boat.

My TV can also display YouTube.com so the picture below is what I leave on in the evenings.

MV Disney Wonder departing San Diego

I figured out how to capture some pictures and video today (using the Windows-G keys to go into Game Capture Mode). Here are a couple of each below.

MV Zuiderdam underway, MV Disney Wonder on the left and MV Ruby Princess on the right.
MV Zuiderdam with San Diego to the left, North Island to the right.

And finally, they focused on the sunset, from Cabrillo Monument on the end of Point Loma.

Sunset from Cabrillo Monument
Look closely at the bottom of the sun’s disk.

Here you can see the bottom of the sun’s disk it looks compressed. This is probably due to Fata Morgana, a thermal effect since I believe the nearest land to the southwest of San Diego is Hawaii.

Zooming in

It’s only a minute later and they conveniently zoomed in.

Zoomed all the way in

If you are still hoping for an island, watch the final clip. I was hoping for a green flash, but I didn’t see it. but you will notice the horizon reappears after the disk goes down.

A late-breaking addition. I finally figured out how to edit the video to trim down to the maximum size (512 MB) and relearned how to embed it.

Below is MV Zuiderdam clearing the harbor.

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Homesite Layout

Below is the spot I picked out for the site where I plan to build the house. Facing the pond is the Master Bedroom, the kitchen/dining room and a back bedroom. What you won’t notice unless you look carefully, is that the photo was taken while standing on a 15′ rise that will need to be carved away.

The reason I want to site the house there is illustrated in the next two pictures. The first photo looks North from where I was standing towards AT’s house across the road.

AT’s house to the north.

The next picture is the same as the one above but taken down the slope.by the red line nearest the lake.

Same picture from down the slope

Note the red arrow pointing to the telephone pole in AT’s front yard. This is clearly where I want the house to be sited. The only problem is that I will need to gnaw down the front of the hill. as shown below.

Corner that needs to be nibbled away to site the home.

Comments are certainly welcome.

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Tempus Fugit

Below is a reminder that time flies like the wind (the rejoinder of course is “but fruit flies like the bananas”). It is from the “Prickly City” cartoon. It references the Osbourne1, a “portable” computer, seen HERE. The Osbourne Computer Corporation was also known for the Osbourne Effect, wherein a poorly timed notice of an improved product cannibalizes existing sales which, if is late arriving, can lead to sales revenue drying up to the point of causing bankruptcy.

PRICKLY CITY © Scott Stantis. Dist. By ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

It is nostalgic for me because in the early 1980’s I purchased a Kaypro Computer, a much better engineered competitor of the Osbourne 1 (primarily, with a larger screen size). I even personally upgraded it to have an actual hard drive (a 5MB; no, not Terabye, but 5 Megabytes). It was the computer that I used at SOAC (Submarine Officers Advanced Course) in 1985 to exchange e-mails with Lindsay, who stayed in Silverdale. It is one of two antique computers that I moved from Portland, when I get the house built, I will probably set it up in the office. The other one is the venerable IMSAI-8080 that I build from a kit in San Diego.

As noted in the final panel, it was also at a time when inflation was rampant, so what was old is new again. Also, thanks to Joe Biden, Jimmy Carter is no longer considered as the worst president ever.

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Work Coming Along

With the warming weather, some of the projects are moving along. At the top of the list is getting the solar power system up.

Start of second row of panels

Starting up the second row of panels; these will be at a much flatter angle to face the summer sun. The ones against the wall are about 20-30 degrees from the vertical, while the second row is 60-70 deg from the vertical,

Showing the difference in inclination.

The other two panels will be facing SE and SW to face the rising and setting sun. Rather than being in fixed mounting like the first two they will be in portable racks fixed at 45-degree angles. The reason for this is that I plan to move them down to the homesite later this summer to be used down there.

Semi-Portable Rack
Ready for panels

Another project underway is replacing the steep stairs into the trailer with a ramp. This will make it much more accessible to my sisters and others with bad knees; as well for me in the future. Fortunately, AT had a ramp 3’x10′ that he no longer needed.

Sinking supporting post
Substructure of ramp

Ramp would run forward and just clear the storage hatch above. That leaves a single step into the trailer but also clears the light that illuminates the patform.

The outside supports are sent in cement 2′ down

The finished ramp below. Still needs a coat of paint and non-skid down the ramp.

Finished Ramp
Finished Ramp

Finally, Spring has definitely sprung in central Wyoming. Below is the iPhone Weather App.

Sunday 3/27/2022 Forecast

The Sunday and Monday forecasts are great but look for snow Friday night. AT says we should get one or two more snowstorms before spring is truly here.

Finally, even though it’s April 1st, the below picture was taken last night in Wyoming. The Aurora Borealis was visible last night (I slept through it).

Click to enbiggen.

More pictures are available HERE.

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Back at the Ranch

Meanwhile, looking at current projects, I have started assembling the parts to the solar power system. The first four (of a total of 16) panels are shown below.

First 4 panels.

The plan is to install the second group of panels in front of the first four, at a 45-degree angle (the back row is about 20-deg). If they are about 5 feet in front of the back row, they will not shadow them at all. The last two sets of panels will be on the ground also but facing East and West to optimize collections in morning and evening.

Below is a mock-up of the mounting of the second row.

Mockup of second row.

One of the reasons I decided to do it this way is that when I build the house and install a solar system down there, I can move one or two of the panel sections down there, since the load on the trailer will go down.

Speaking of the house, below is what I am planning. It is out of the Menard’s catalog which includes engineering and a complete set of plans.

Lake will be off the top.

The garage should be rotated 90-deg to line up with the semi-road coming in. I’ll be putting a deck off the dining room sliding door to look over the pond. Also, since I won’t have a basement, the stairs will be converted to a pantry. Your comments are more than welcome.

Since I don’t see the current rounds of inflation being halted anytime soon, I have decided to push ahead with the septic system this spring & the house immediately after.

I think I finally have a way forward for fresh water. The well came in with the following water analysis:

. The key figure is the third line, Total Dissolved Solids at 4042. That falls into the category of “brackish water”, the level for most potable water systems is about 150. I finally got in contact with RainDance Water Systems. They called after receiving the lab report and we discussed my water needs, both for household use and potential garden watering. The system they recommended is a larger size reverse-osmosis system. In order to deal with that level of TDS you wind up with a system that could provide 2-3000 gallons per day. The good news is that it’s a system that provides a back-flush system that flushes the R-O system on shutdown so I shouldn’t need to replace the R-O membranes like smaller systems. The system was pricy, but still less that what it would cost to hook up to city water. The good news is that it would provide freshwater hookups to a number of homesites.

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In to Week 4

Things continue to move slowly but painfully in Ukraine. What amazes me is that the lines are moving ever so slowly around Kyiv, but recently the tanks have dug in; when a tank is in a fixed position it becomes a sink for various anti-tank weapons. Also interesting is the city of Mariupol which has been surrounded for over a week, but although hospitals and theatres are being shelled, Russians still haven’t taken and occupied the city.

I continue to believe that we should give Ukraine the weapons (including the Switchblade 600 anti-tank weapon) but avoid direct warfare with Russia. Between sanctions and steadily increasing body count let him struggle, just like Russia did in Afghanistan from 1979-1989. We happily supplied Stinger missiles but didn’t feel the need to directly intervene.

The only thing that will save Putin if he can involve NATO in direct warfare. Then he can portray himself as defending Russia against the western devils. If we deny him this, we (both NATO and the US) need to back off and let him continue to struggle against Ukraine. It’s like being in Afghanistan, but with a highly educated, technically savvy, and well supplied population who hate your guts.

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Ides of March

For those of you wondering why or why not a “No Fly Zone” in Ukraine might be a good idea, I have a discussion of that by two knowledgeable individuals HERE.

One of the people is Ward Carroll, an ex-navy F-14 RIO (radar intercept operator). He has a fairly interesting You Tube channel that mainly discusses various aspects of Naval Aviation. They discuss in great detail what can and cannot be done to aid Ukraine while simultaneously avoiding things getting out of control.

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Happy Pi Day

Today is PI day (3-14). It’s also the eve of the Ides of March (Marcus Junius Brutus, call on white courtesy phone; Brutus, white courtesy phone). The world is also waiting for a Russian equivalent of Brutus (Brutowski) to step forward to give Russia a way to let go of the tar-baby of Ukraine.

I’ve noticed a shift in tone in a lot of news reports. A Russian attack (using cruise/ballistic missiles) on an airbase 15 miles from the Polish border is being hyped as a (near) attack on NATO triggering a Rule 5 violation. It was an attack on a purely military installation, probably a site for receiving military aid from Europe. I am much more concerned with civilian casualties in Kyiv,

It looks like Putin is following the pattern of his previous victories in Georgia and Chechnya, particularly in his victory of the battle of Grozny. Facing unrelenting opposition, he backed off, shelled the city to rubble, declared victory, installed a puppet government, and rebuilt the city. The difference now is that Ukraine is distinctly European rather than somewhere off in the Caucasus between the Black and Caspian Seas.

In my view the U.S. must remain on the sidelines and let Europe deal with European problems. Let the Europeans invoke a no-fly-zone if they desire, and we should provide all the arms we can to Poland and Romania and let them distribute them as they see fit.

Yes, the people of Ukraine will suffer mightily, but if we wind up expanding to Global Nuclear War the suffering will be, well, Global. However, while Ukraine bleeds, the Russian’s will be bleeding more, the Russian Army and the Russian Economy particularly. The only escape for Putin is to escalate into a NATO confrontation so he can portray himself as the defender of Russia against US/NATO.

There are of course comparisons to the 1930’s and Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland and Austrian Anschluss. If the Allies had intervened in either one of those, could WWII have been avoided? In my view, the difference is that neither of them had the level of opposition that the Russians have/will encounter (Mandatory Sound of Music reference). I think now is the time for the US and NATO to pull back (while continuing to arm Ukraine and provide solace and succor to the women and children). Let them exhaust themselves and drive their army and economy into third world status. Keep the sanctions in place until the Russians depose Putin, withdraw, and rebuild Ukraine. Maybe offer to purchase all of Russia’s nuclear weapons to help them rebuild.