Tag: Earth

Guest Post: 7 Reasons Aliens Will Never Visit Earth

Movies have been made and actual human lives have all been devoted to the prospect of aliens one day popping in to say “sup?” But let’s try to put some things into perspective for a minute. This is Earth. This isn’t some kind of Martian Cancun or some interstellar Mecca where everyone is just dying to meet us. This is just plain old, regular Earth, Terra Firma, Planet of the Hairless Apes.

It isn’t going to happen, people, sad as it sounds, and here are seven reasons why aliens aren’t interested in coming.

1. It’s A Little Out Of The Way. Let me ask you something – if you had tons of money, resources and the hottest, fastest ride, would you spend your time driving down to Detroit? God, no! You would go someplace exciting and interesting and full of life. What exactly are we near? What do we have to offer any alien species advanced enough to visit our tiny, obscure patch of the known universe? Religion? College Football? Copious amounts of unsold Big Mouth Billy Bass? No, any self-respecting extraterrestrial knows that Earth is simply not worth the trip.

2. We Have Nothing They Want. One thing is for sure, they aren’t traveling hundreds of thousands of light years to learn the secrets of our clear wire internet. This falls in line with the first reason, but it deserves to be discussed in a little more detail. Movies have been made about how aliens want to establish communication or even invade for our rich and unspoiled wilderness full of untapped resources and crystal clear waters. I guess these aliens have never sampled the fine H2O from the Chicago River nor had a look at the detritus strewn about Lancaster and its many closed mills. Do these aliens even know that China PAINTED their mountains green?! Of course they know. They’re aliens.

3. We Are Not That Interesting. When you get right down to it, we really aren’t. Just admit it. Oh yeah, sure, some dude can eat an entire shopping cart and some woman can almost pop the eyeballs out of her head but that’s about it. We spend more time on our phones living vicariously through other people who have probably had their left hands surgically replaced with a smartphone so they can twitter compulsively. Our highest form of entertainment used to be music. Now, it’s reality television. We watch “reality” television, about “real” people saying wacky and funny things as they live a “real” life. That is how we spend our weekends. We don’t spend them seeking communion with other beings, colonizing the moon or making the Earth less of a sty. Also, while we’re here, if reality television is so “real” then how come they have writers?

4. We Are A Danger To Ourselves And The Environment. If ancient astronauts ever came to Earth centuries ago, I suspect they would have a hard time finding anything remotely familiar. We have tirelessly spent our days as a civilization developing new weapons of war, systematically destroying the environment, and endeavoring to create the perfect hamburger – all because we can. You seriously think any emissaries of peace are going to want a piece of us or what we got going on? We are a powder keg.

5. Why Engage In Fruitful Communion With A Race That Gave The Green Light On A Movie Based On The Battleship Board Game? We are making a movie, based on a board game Hasbro-owned Milton Bradley invented and that people only pretend to have fond memories of. With the economic quagmire that is our lives being what it is, we are making a movie based on this board game with a budget of no less than $200 million. Do you have any idea what better use that money could have been put towards? Do you have any comprehension, as a human being, how many starving people you could feed with that kind of money for a year? I didn’t think so.

6. Actually, They Have Been Meaning To For Some Time But Aren’t Sure If We Will Still Be Around By The Time They Swing By. Do you know what our government does when we aren’t fighting for our lives from imminent commie threats, terror attacks and world wars? They spend their days creating robots that can use guns and developing the next great SUPER AIDS virus, purely for research purposes, I’m told. Aliens keep thinking they want to come on over but why waste the trip if we’re all dead by the time they get here?

7. They Know Better. Remember that old sci-fi trope where we as humans are like children to the aliens? It’s totally true. We are immature, petulant youths and the aliens know better than to let us leech off of them.

Author Bio: Brian is a writer who spends most of his time…uh…writing. When he isn’t spending his time fruitlessly staring up at the starry skies, he is writing both professionally and for pleasure.

February 21, 2012
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Not To Get Too Close To The Sun (Or Even Try)

With the clocks going back, the nights drawing in and the sun on holiday until next April, it could be very tempting to go looking for some rays. As James Bentham tells us though, you don’t want to be going upwards.

***

The Sun, is really rather useful. It is the root cause of life on our planet and lies at the centre of our solar system some 1.496 x 108 km away. Considering what a ridiculously long way that is, it keeps one side of the Earth nice and toasty, whilst the other side has a rest. Thank goodness the human race was capable of developing that mechanical marvel, the electric heater for those dark times. If, like a moth to a flame, you have a desire to get up and close with the Sun though, a number of terrible things could happen en route.

Step away from the sun

1. Oxygen Deficiency. You really don’t have to go very far on your journey towards our nearest star before you start getting into trouble. If you decide to venture out of our atmosphere on the rocket you made in your back garden without adequate breathing apparatus, you will quickly discover that it’s difficult to breathe. In fact you won’t be able to at all, due to the lack of oxygen and you will almost certainly be killed to death. Just look at what happened to Schwarzenegger in Total Recall.

2. Chill Factor. If you have had the sense to get some breathing gear, you’ll probably still struggle. Surprisingly, it’s actually really bloody cold once you’re in space. To put a number on it, it is around -270.7 degrees centigrade, otherwise known as absolute zero. So, if you’ve set off on your journey in your shorts and t-shirt, thinking it’s going to be tan-city, you will freeze to death. Nope, even that nice woolly jumper your Gran knitted for you won’t help.

3. Spaceship For Sale. Okay, so by some miracle you have acquired all the necessary gear to survive in space. But how the hell are you actually going to make it closer to the Sun? You’ll definitely need some sort of vehicle, but you’ll probably need a few billion dollars to get one. That’s weeks and weeks of pocket money you’re going to have to save up and even then, you’ll have to befriend an Arab Prince to get enough fuel.

4. Bumpers. Hurrah, you’re on your way! You’ve burst through the Earth’s atmosphere like Roadrunner on crystal meth. Hang on a sec though, here comes another opportunity for disaster. There is a massive amount of man-made detritus floating around in orbit of the earth. With old, broken satellites for ancient phone networks nobody uses any more like, T Mobile or Vodafone, bits of the last shuttle that tried this ridiculous expedition, you’re pretty much guaranteed to crash into something and join that elephant’s graveyard of space crap.

5. Hemorrhoids. If you do manage to successfully navigate the orbital dumping ground, more terrors await in outer space. Stuff whizzes around in space all the time, as once you apply a force to something in space, it will literally keep going in that direction until something stops it. See where I’m going with this? Meteors and other dangerous bits of the universe will fly at you from all directions and unless you have some Han Solo-esque manoeuvres up your sleeve, you’ll be smashed into a thousand pieces.

6. Two’s Company (And Death). As you get ever closer to the Sun, you may notice yourself starting to behave a bit strangely. A recent documentary involving Cillian Murphy and filmed by Danny Boyle, widely respected by the scientific community, demonstrated this. It’s probably not a good idea to take any companions with you, as one of you will fall in love with the beauty of the Sun, go insane and kill everyone aboard your craft. That’s just how it is.

7. Disco Inferno. You made it! Congratu…oh you’ve gone. Yep that’s right, you made it all this way and were instantly incinerated as soon as you got anywhere near. After all the Sun is ridiculously hot you idiot, why even bother, seriously? Even the outside of the Sun is about 100,000 Kelvin, which is way too hot to write in centigrade. Once you get down to the core (which you won’t because you’ll have died a fiery, fiery death) the temperature reaches about 13,600,000 Kelvin. Imagine burning your hand on the cooker, but times about 13,599,999 and you might just have it, but even then…

So there you go, I think we’ve managed to discern that trying to get close to the Sun is a fairly bad idea. To be honest though, we’ve known for centuries. Everyone knows what happened to Icarus, that maverick. His Dad was like “No don’t fly so close you complete moron, I spend hours making those wings! I stank of bird lime for weeks!”. But Icarus was just like “and what?” proceeding to fly towards the Sun without any of the recommended gear only to fall to his watery grave. Surprised? I think not.

November 3, 2011
Guest Post: 7 Reasons You Would Be Safe In The Event Of An Alien Invasion

When Sam Murray knocked on our email inbox, we thought he’d come to check on the progress of our chest hairs. Thankfully, he just wanted somewhere to hide. The aliens are coming! The aliens are coming! Erm…here’s Sam.

Frustratingly, Earth's atmosphere had caused ET's breasts to sag.

We have all been there, drifting off into a daydream you begin to wonder what you would do if you won the lottery, how long it would take for you to trap a badger out in the wilderness, or what would happen if there was an alien invasion? Well, fear not as I can answer one of them, no, not the badger daydream but the alien invasion. And the good news is, we would all be safe.

Gone are the days that the most well protected place on Earth was the sweet cupboard or the chocolate box in your house as a child. Here we look at the 7 most well protected places on Earth not only to appease your curiosity but to let you plan the quickest route in your Sat Nav if an invasion ever did happen.

1. Fort Knox. Fort Knox is the commonly used name for the United States Bullion Depository. Understandably very little information about the security systems and technologies used at the Gold Depository is known to the general public but we do know the depository is protected by numerous layers of physical security, alarms, video cameras, armed guards, including; Apache helicopter gunships, around 30,000 soldiers, with associated tanks, armoured personnel carriers, attack helicopters, and artillery. It is rumoured a 3 headed dog similar to the one in Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone is rumoured to guard the entrance.

2. Doomsday Seed Vault. The Doomsday vault opened in 2008 and is located in a remote Norwegian island in the Arctic Ocean. It is essentially a vault which contains more than 100 million seeds representing every major food crop on Earth which is why it gets its nickname as the Noah’s Ark for plant genetics. The vault is protected by an armed guard and if that doesn’t put the aliens off then hopefully the -40°C and the fact they have forgot their thermals will. The vault has also been designed to withstand global warming, earthquakes – 6.2 magnitudes – and even a direct nuclear strike.

3. Mormon’s Church Vaults. The Granite Mountain Record Vault, which is the Mormon church’s vaults for storing genealogical and other historical records. The vault is flood-proof, fire-proof and even earthquake-proof, unfortunately it doesn’t say anything about it being alien proof. The vault also contains 6-ton blast doors and seismic sensors can detect if anyone is drilling to get in which I think will stand you in very good stead

4. Bahnhof’s Underground Data Center. At first glance it may seem to be the setting for Dr Evil latest lair in Austin Powers but it is the home to Internet Service Providers Bahnhof and if you are to believe the media then if anyone needs protecting due to the amount of enemies they have made then it is these guys… I don’t think aliens are amongst that list but you should be safe if they are as the site is an old nuclear bomb shelter, situated 100 feet below a mountain in Stockholm and accessed via foot thick steel doors.

5. Saddam Hussein’s Bunker. Mr Hussein was a much sought after man but judging by his home he wasn’t the most sociable chap. Saddam built an impenetrable underground fortress that could and did withstand bombs. The US military dropped two 2-ton “bunker busting” bombs clean on top of Saddam’s bunker completely destroying the palace above, but not affecting the bunker below which should make you feel safer against any alien attack. Apparently, the shelter was designed by the grandson of the woman that built Hitler’s bunker and came as they called “fully furnished” as they called it in the trade. That means it had its very own power station, water treatment plant and air filtering system.

6. The Tower of London. [Insert funny witticism regarding the crown jewels here] Fortunately there will be no touching as the security measures are very tight. There are tower guard sentries throughout the Tower of London complex and every street and every path leading there is guarded by sentries, 24 hours a day, every day, every night. The safest part of the Tower of London is where the Queen’s Jewels are situated so if you can get in there you have made it to safety. They are hosted on a single-level, on the ground floor inside the Army barracks and with reports stating there are up to 1,000 soldiers based there.

7. Area 51. Area 51 is the most infamous alien crash site and probably the first place they would attack, which is why I have left this last on the list and is realistically the last place you should consider, okay, second last after the sweet cupboard. The borders of Area 51 are not fenced, but are marked with orange poles and warning signs both of which would be unlikely to deter any invasion. But stay calm as there is still hope as the base is guarded by the US military and is their test base for all new military aircraft, including stealth planes, B2 Bombers, F-117 Nighthawks and if the conspiracy theorist are right (and for once everyone hopes they are) a few top secret weapons which means they should be able to defend you.

This article was written in association with Yale composite doors who securely protect you in your home. The doors are manufactured in the UK, adhere to the standards set by the makers of the world’s favourite lock and conform to police approved security standards.

February 26, 2011
7 Reasons That RoboEarth is a Bad Idea

Readers of 7 Reasons and people of Earth, some horrendous news has reached us: According to the BBC, robots could soon get their own internet. Yes, the internet. For robots. Now, an ill-considered, knee-jerk reaction to this news would be that it is an appalling development that exudes menace and could prove potentially disastrous to humankind. And we agree. So here are seven reasons that RoboEarth is a bad idea.

1. Time. The internet is wonderful innovation that saves so much time in communication, research, the dissemination of information; in just about every field. But the internet is also a colossal usurper of time. After all, if you want to waste time, where do you go? Online, that’s where. That’s where you’ll find Farmville and Failblog and Facebook, and other sites not beginning with F that rob you of time. But who’s to say that, eventually, like the human internet, the robot internet won’t develop from a useful tool into a place where robots sit about in their tin pants eating breakfast cereal and generally cocking about? And robots shouldn’t be doing that. That’s not what they’re for. Robots are supposed to be making the lives of people easier which, as far as I can tell, means making futuristic cocktails for us (preferably in blue or green) and impersonating Stephen Hawking while we lounge around in spangly jumpsuits on white swivel chairs. I’ve seen Space 1999, I know these things.

2. Information. According to RoboEarth researcher, Dr Markus Waibel: “The human equivalent (of the robot internet) would be Wikipedia”. Ah, so the robots will be sharing information amongst themselves via a robot equivalent of Wikipedia? Well that’s reassuring then. After all, Wikipedia’s a name and concept that we’re all familiar with and who isn’t comforted by the familiar and the…wait. Wikipedia? The user-generated website that’s less accurate than asking Geoffrey Archer for biographical information? The website that told me Pink was born in 1879 and that Carlos Puyol was a pig of the team of Barcelona? The website that I, myself, have mischievously altered in the past using these very fingers and this very keyboard that I’m typing on now? If the robot internet is to be based on Wikipedia, we’ll be filling our robots’ circuits and diodes with unsubstantiated gibberish and setting them loose among decent society like automaton hordes of aluminium and silicone Daily Mail readers. It’s going to be awful.

3. Broadband. Or, as we despairingly call it in my house, “gggaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!” Am I expected to share my bandwidth with robots now? I takes long enough for my videos to load as it is, without having a robot halve my bandwidth by downloading Rage Against The Person albums or trying to watch Cyberpets Do The Funniest Things. What if I want to see something on the iPlayer? I’ll get dizzy watching the little circle spinning round the centre of the screen. I don’t want to share my bandwidth with robots.

4. It’s Mysterious. I don’t even understand the practical application of the robot internet (so it must be evil). The only robot we have in the house is our Roomba robot hoover, and how will the internet benefit that? Is it going to be able to suck cat-hair off the floor better because it’s got access to the internet? No, of course it isn’t. After all, I don’t do the washing up any better because I’ve got the internet, quite the reverse. So why does my hoover need the internet?

5. Science. The robot internet is something that’s being developed by scientists. This means that it’s intrinsically bad. After all, scientists developed the H-bomb; scientists developed anthrax; scientists sent dogs into space; Margaret Thatcher was a chemist* for God’s sake. And because it’s been developed by scientists, it’s not just evil, it’s badly named. It’s called RoboEarth. RoboEarth! What sort of a shit name is that? We can all see that it’s a portmanteau of robot and Earth, but it’s about as uninspired as well…um…actually, it’s the least inspired name of anything, ever in the history of everything, ever. Even the BBC’s Cash in the Attic has a more inspiring moniker than RoboEarth and that’s a shit name too. If you want to get something named right you need to go to humourists. We’d soon tell you that the robot internet should be called Cyborgspace which, although there’s a dull, technical difference between robots and cyborgs (something achingly tedious to do with not being part-human or something), is at least a good bloody name. And also, if humourists had developed the thing it wouldn’t be evil, and it certainly wouldn’t work. And that’s important because…

6. This. Do you know what I said when I first read this news? No, no you don’t, because you weren’t here in the dining room with me when I read it unless you are a)my wife, or b) the cat, so I’ll save you a tricky guessing game that could involve a lengthy email correspondence and I’ll tell you. I said, “Fuck me! It’s the rise of the machines.” And it bloody is. This is how the Terminator movies start. The machines become sentient and then they try to kill us. To death. And what better way is there to give them a friendly helping hand on their merry way to freedom of thought and action, than to give them their own internet, where they can form ideas and opinions and plot with each other unmolested by us. Because there’s no way people will be able to control them. Most of us can’t even stop Microsoft Windows and Norton Anti-Virus when they choose to do stuff that we don’t want them to do on our own computers, so what chance do we have of stopping large sophisticated machines with lasers and stuff that are doing things in remote locations? Things that they want to keep secret from us? No chance, that’s what chance. Most of us are habitually outwitted by the controls of our own central heating systems, and our central heating isn’t actively trying to kill us, so we’re going to be powerless in the face of the robot-apocalypse. Robopacalypse. Robocalypse.** If you want to know how this is going to pan out just watch any of the Terminator films, but take the happy endings with a pinch of salt.***

7. Reasons. Because on the robot internet there’d inevitably be a robot 7 Reasons written by robots, for robots and that would never do, because we do 7 Reasons, and we’re irreplaceable. So, fuck you, robots! And toasters. You may take our lives but you’ll never take 7 Reasons.

*This is the nicest thing I’ve ever said about her.

**This is roughly how it will go. Half of humanity will be engaged in an epic struggle against the machines for our very existence and the other half of us will be sitting around trying to name it.

***Don’t take all happy endings with a pinch of salt. That could prove painful.

February 10, 2011