Why sending a message to aliens is easier than sending a message to future humans

November 25, 2009

By John Pavlus

Why sending a message to aliens is easier than sending a message to future humans

Nothing like Thanksgiving family gatherings to remind us all of the generation gap. Sometimes it seems like it'd be easier to get a message across to extraterrestrials than to communicate clearly with someone twenty years older or younger than you.

Well it's not all in your head. According to these articles in Wired and Slate, it literally IS easier to send comprehensible messages to aliens than to future generations of humans.

We've been beaming electronic messages-in-bottles out into space since the 1970s, but according to scientists at CalTech and Stanford, few if any of these messages were tested to see if they could be easily decoded. So they took it upon themselves to devise a new code so simple and easy that a handful of college students cracked it in less than an hour. (The message contained basic stuff that any sufficiently advanced civilization should recognize, like arithmetical expressions and atomic mass ratios.)

In contrast, our own Department of Energy has been laboring for almost twenty years to craft an intelligible message that our fellow humans might decipher tens of thousands of years from now. The goal is to prevent future civilizations from accidentally uncovering dangerous nuclear waste buried in Yucca Mountain, NV and other sites--and the message is as simple as it gets: "KEEP OUT!"

What's so hard about that? Well, you can't use any known language, since even a thousand years from now it's unlikely than anyone will be able to read it. And even if they could, who's to say they'd take the warning seriously? (British archaeologists didn't exactly turn on their heels when they read King Tut's sternly worded hieroglyphics cursing anyone who dared set foot in his tomb.)

The DoE's solution sounds more like an Andy Goldsworthy art project crossed with a haunted house. Giant, menacing earthworks, like a landscape full of massive black thorns or obelisks showing faces screaming in terror, would supposedly get the idea across that the land above the waste dump is best left uninhabited.

But humans are eternally curious--especially about mysterious, ominous stuff like obelisk fields (hello, Stonehenge?)--so no one can say whether that approach would do any good. In fact, the best policy might just be leaving no markers at all -- hiding the nuclear waste in plain sight, rather than calling attention to it.

Or maybe it'd just be easier to send the message to aliens, and let THEM find a clever way to warn our 300th-century descendants about the dangers of nuclear waste...?

Simple Scraping With Lynx

November 24, 2009

A scraper is simply an automated Web browser.

By automated, we mean that a scraper can be driven either by you directly (usually via the command line) or by a script (or batch file). Scraping at its most basic, is simply the act of running a program that automatically retrieves information from a remote Web page or Web service.

If we accept that simple definition of scraping, then the very simplest of all scrapers, is Lynx.

How To Install the W3 CSS Validator

November 23, 2009

Did you know that you can install the same CSS validation tool on your local machine? Follow the simple instructions below, to set yourself up to run the W3 CSS validator from the command line!

CSS Validation on the Command Line

Web developers are all familiar with the W3's CSS validation service.

CSS validation is an essential part of developing a Web interface. The same goes for XHTML validation and running JavaScript through JSLint.

Attack of the Mad Scientists, Part 1

November 20, 2009

By Lonesome Polecat

As someone who designs boardgames, I feel lucky that I get to see all the different stages a game goes through before it's published. First there's making a prototype, typing up rules, playtesting, etc. But my favorite part is watching the artwork develop. I'm no artist myself, so aside from making some suggestions along the way I leave the artwork to the professionals at Fiery Dragon.

My latest game creation is on the very Nerdabout-worthy topic of mad scientists, so I thought I'd share some of this early artwork, to be followed up with pics of the finished product when it comes out in a month or two.

First up is the board, which no boardgame should be without. This first pic is of my own homemade prototype which I used while developing and playtesting the game.

Cleverbot takes a Wikipedia approach to simulating AI

November 18, 2009

By John Pavlus

Everyone's seen those internet chatbots that aim to provide a simulacrum of "real conversation" via algorithm. Actually, chatbots have been around for over 40 years -- the first famous one, ELIZA, parodied a psychotherapist by answering every statement from the user with a question that vacuously parroted the statement back.

Things have come a long way since then, and now a veteran chatbot programmer named Rollo Carpenter has come up with a new solution to the "computer conversation" problem that ironically updates ELIZA's method.

How To Use Lynx to Quickly List All the URLs On A Web Page

November 17, 2009

When used with the --dump option, Lynx parses an HTML document and builds a list of hyperlinks in that document.

If you have tried either of our previous Lynx recipes, then you may have noticed that, in addition to parsing out the textual content from Web pages. Lynx prints all of the URLs referenced in a document, as a numbered list at the bottom of the output.

Lizts by Liz: Top 10 Animal Videos! A Mix of Old and New Classics

November 16, 2009

Here's another Lizts by Liz! She puts it all in order so you don't have to. This week...Top 10 Animal Videos! A mix of old and new animal video classics that will make you laugh, giggle or gasp.

By Liz Suman

TICKLING MONKEY

SHOP-LIFTING SEAGULL

In honor of Carl Sagan’s birthday, an interview with the creator of “Auto-Tune the Cosmos” (AKA “A Glorious Dawn”)

November 12, 2009

By John Pavlus

By now you’ve probably seen Carl Sagan’s (born 75 years ago on November 9) viral music video hit from beyond the grave, “A Glorious Dawn”:

Well, Monday 11/9 would have been Carl Sagan’s 75th birthday, and there are two celebrations on tap.

One: White Stripes guitarist Jack White has a record label, Third Man Records, which has issued “A Glorious Dawn” on limited-edition 7" vinyl . Who knew that Jack White was a secret nerd? Even more awesome is the fact that the record’s B-side has an etching that reproduces Sagan’s famous “Golden Record” of earth sounds, which was launched on the Voyager 1 probe in 1977. The probe left our solar system in November of 2004.

Two: I’ve conducted a short interview with the creative genius behind the song, John Boswell. Enjoy!

What inspired you to remix COSMOS into a music video?

I gained a deep appreciation for science and philosophy in college, and when I first saw an episode of Cosmos about 5 years ago, it immediately resonated with me. I loved the style and message, and Carl's charisma was the cherry on top. The idea to remix it came to me after being inspired by other artists that have used auto-tune technology on speech, such as the Gregory Brothers and DJ Steve Porter; they were both working in mostly comedy but I wanted to apply the concept to a more personally meaningful source. I turned to Cosmos because I knew how profound Carl's message is and that it would fit well with a mash-up; the result was surprisingly pleasing, so I decided to put it on Youtube for anyone who may take interest in such an idea.

Were you surprised at the attention that "A Glorious Dawn" received? Has anyone from Carl Sagan's estate commented on it?

At first, I was only expecting maybe a few thousand views for the video - through some devoted Sagan fans that keep tabs on new Sagan-related material. However, the song and video quickly caught on to the Sagan community, and spread from there, to viewership levels that I did not forsee in any way. To my delight, the song has reached and inspired many people who have never heard of Sagan and motivated many to further research his books and TV series. I have been in touch with his wife and people who have worked on Cosmos, and they have expressed their sincere appreciation for the song, which is highly satisfying for me. I feel honored to give back to the Sagan community in this sense.

How did the record release with Third Man come about? Is Jack White a COSMOS fan?

Third Man Records approached me about releasing A Glorious Dawn not long after the video began its viral spread. Jack White loved the song, and I can safely assume he is a big fan of Cosmos and Carl's message. I was initially skeptical about the ability to get proper copyright clearance for release, but Jack and friends really pulled through on that front. We reached an agreement that keeps them, the Sagan family, and myself very happy and excited about the release. Even if you don't own a record player, it is a pretty cool collector's item.

You’ve made a sequel to the original music video. Are you going to make a whole album's worth?

Since the follow up video, We Are All Connected, was a success as well, I will definitely continue the series. Whether I will eventually compile a whole album's worth of material is yet to be seen; there is a plethora of footage out there with excited scientists talking about all sorts of fascinating subjects, so there will never be a shortage of source material. I am currently working on a third video, which is coming along great, and it should be out in about a week or two. If you enjoyed the previous two, this new one will fit right in.