Crompsin

Yeah, I was outside looking up at the stars again. I do that a lot now that I'm trying to find deep, meaningful answers to the grand life questions that actually end with a period. I behold with such wonder the cradle of being as it spins smoothly on its celestial gyros. Such a vast expanse of clean bright pinholes in the endless dark blanket of the cold universe. It never fails to humble me.

I got to thinking about that The Golden Record again.

Hope in a can.

It is up there, out there... far, far away... floating onward to destiny.

...

I can't help but think about what I'd put in with it, what I feel represents us as a planet, as a species.

...


...

What would you have sent as a part of that deep space probe's payload?

I think the infamous Kalashnikov automatic rifle and a slinky should have gone.

Really show alien life how screwy we are on this spinning globe of funky blue/green!

Any other good ideas?

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C19H28O2 = C6H2(NO2)3CH3

All your base are belong to us.

elaphe

As Douglas Adams has already answered this question for me, let me pass along his wisdom. The answer to everything is "42".

As for what I would have put in the can to illustrate humanity... a copy of Windows. A symbol of humanity's quest for productivity and efficiency so full of bugs ans security flaws that it sucks the life out of me every time I get the damn "Windows has detected a problem with..." box that pops up.

Maybe someone out here can work out the bugs and beam us the ultimate patch!

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"Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

DaveOrion

If they are out there, they already know how screwy we are. Our TV & radio signals have been beamed out into space, at the speed of light, for over 60 years (see 'Contact',w/Jodi Foster, Great Intro). These signals are traveling much faster than voyager.......God only knows how some ET will interpret that eclectic mix of humanities thoughts & ideas.......I hope the ET's are friendly, or we're royally screwed.

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The world cares very little about what you know; it is what you are able to do that really matters.

Crompsin

Listening is one thing, but holding a shiny flat round thing in your hand is another.

So is holding a slinky with your alien tentacle paws. Or an AK47 assault rifle.

...

'Sides, any intelligent life out there will eventually intercept rerun episodes of Friends and automatically determine that our entire planet is completely barren of intelligence.

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C19H28O2 = C6H2(NO2)3CH3

All your base are belong to us.

DaveOrion

I can see the insight one might gain from personal contact with an ET object, but voyager is simply traveling to slow, it hasnt even reached the next system, Alpha Centauri. TV & radio signals seem more likely to really reach out, over 60 light years in all directions so far. Thats already past the 100 closest stars in this galaxy.

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The world cares very little about what you know; it is what you are able to do that really matters.

Crompsin

GOD DAMNIT, Dave!

What would you put in the f'n can?

__________________
C19H28O2 = C6H2(NO2)3CH3

All your base are belong to us.

DaveOrion

No need for violence, I'll tell. It seems impossible to put anything in the can since its traveling along at such a high velocity, and I'm stuck here on Earth. However if I had a matter transfer device I'd beam over a roll of scotch tape, our highest technological achievement.

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The world cares very little about what you know; it is what you are able to do that really matters.

Crompsin

Who said anything about violence?

I just wanted a noun. ANYTHING. Just put it in the can. I'm sending another probe. Crompsin I. Full of junk that MacGyver would covet.

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C19H28O2 = C6H2(NO2)3CH3

All your base are belong to us.

Baraka_Guru

You meant duct tape, right?

__________________
"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. [...] In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer."

—"Politics and the English Language," George Orwell

"Humankind cannot bear very much reality."

—"Burnt Norton," Four Quartets, T. S. Eliot

albania

There's a definite limit to how well one can resolve a signal from background noise. My gut tells me that to get anything useful an alien species would have to be pretty damn close to Earth. That is not to say they wouldn't be able to detect signals that came from Earth, thus proving that we're an "intelligent" species, they just would never be able to make anything coherent out of them much less see a rerun of friends or what have you.

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My fairest child, I have no song to give you; No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey: Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you For every day.
Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; Do noble things, not dream them, all day long: And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever One grand, sweet song. -Charles Kingsley

DaveOrion

Yes indeed I did mean duct tape, a must for all serial killers, kidnappers, and do it yourself fixer upper types. Very Sharp Baraka.....

I'd never say never, a highly advanced ET species may have technology that is capable of eliminating the background noise and the cleaning up the signals. We're pretty good at that right here on good ole mother earth.

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The world cares very little about what you know; it is what you are able to do that really matters.

noodle

a pencil and paper. they'll be obsolete soon.
photographs of people of every race, both genders and all ages.
a candle and matches.

george w. bush.

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Crompsin

Thanks, Noodlepants. Good stuff.

I especially concur with the photographs and matches/candles.

I don't think we should send Bush into space.

I think we should mail him to Iran.

__________________
C19H28O2 = C6H2(NO2)3CH3

All your base are belong to us.

QuasiMondo

Could be worse....they could catch an episode of the Jerry Springer show.

__________________
"Like it or not, change has come. O.J. is in prison, and a black man is in the White House. Is everybody happy now?"

-Tim Reid & Tom Dreesen

Crompsin

Yeah. We're screwed if they find our television transmissions.

__________________
C19H28O2 = C6H2(NO2)3CH3

All your base are belong to us.

albania

I didn’t thing I said never. But there are a few issues at hand here, first is that the universe is full of stuff, including background radiation that is everywhere even in sectors of "empty space". As photons travel through space they interact with what’s around them. They deviate in course they lose energy and they get absorbed. Second, even assuming there was a sector of empty space and direct path from your light beam to whomever you were transmitting to you'd still never be able to get the full message across at any distance. This is so because it is impossible to create photons that will travel perfectly parallel to each other and there are practical size constraints to making a receiver. As the distance to your intended target increases you'll need a bigger and bigger receiver to pick up the complete message. If you could travel all the way out to infinity you'd need an infinitely large receiver. All these things make my intuitive physicist side tingle; my gut feeling is that no one will be seeing crappy reruns of any show here on earth sixty light years away.

At distances of the earth and solar system even it's not as bad, but we have help we know the approximate location of the receivers and transmitters and of the stuff in between them, and all sorts of clever tricks make it possible for us to share information effectively.

__________________
My fairest child, I have no song to give you; No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey: Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you For every day.
Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; Do noble things, not dream them, all day long: And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever One grand, sweet song. -Charles Kingsley

Shauk

how messed up would it be if they saw "star trek" and thought we were some advanced race?

I'd put a dick in the box, err I mean, youtubes greatest hits? err damn this is hard. Uh.. maybe a 12" vinyl cut of Heaven Scent, cuz somehow I wound up with 4 copies of the damn thing when "Groove" (the movie) made waves in the raver culture. (I still think that movie blew ass)

DaveOrion

Actually you did say "never".

A quick look at wikepedia turned up this little fact,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI

If we have the ability to pick up a signal equivalent to an airport radar, from 200 light years away, then an advanced ET species could surely do the same.

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The world cares very little about what you know; it is what you are able to do that really matters.

roachboy

i like to think that out there somewhere another group of beings gets to watch leave it to beaver.
dont you?

and they get to watch everything else.

i think that's enough.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

DaveOrion

Leave it to Beaver & Playboy TV, thats enough for any civilization.

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The world cares very little about what you know; it is what you are able to do that really matters.

albania

I should learn to read, yes you should have a problem when someone says never.

I talked to my Electricity and Magnetism professor. He said it was plausible to send a communication of some sort to places even a 100 light years away, we have dishes large enough on earth that could also pick up such a message assuming the power was sufficient. He said that since tv signals are not generally pointed into sectors of space that it wouldn't be likely for aliens to ever see any tv show.

__________________
My fairest child, I have no song to give you; No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey: Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you For every day.
Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; Do noble things, not dream them, all day long: And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever One grand, sweet song. -Charles Kingsley

Crompsin

And I like tater tots.

ENOUGH!

What do you want to send to aliens?

__________________
C19H28O2 = C6H2(NO2)3CH3

All your base are belong to us.

QuasiMondo

I'd send them a Top Gear video.

__________________
"Like it or not, change has come. O.J. is in prison, and a black man is in the White House. Is everybody happy now?"

-Tim Reid & Tom Dreesen

albania

What a thread nazi. *snickers thinking about godwin’s law*

A twinkie.

__________________
My fairest child, I have no song to give you; No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey: Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you For every day.
Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; Do noble things, not dream them, all day long: And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever One grand, sweet song. -Charles Kingsley

Crompsin

Twinkies might be the only earthly concoction to survive a billion years in space.

__________________
C19H28O2 = C6H2(NO2)3CH3

All your base are belong to us.

Ourcrazymodern?

Practically intact.
We're listening to us right now.
I'd send some silly virus. Or a nice picture of my mom with a brief explanation attached.

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BE JUST AND FEAR NOT