Cordial Deconstruction

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Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 14, Season 3, 6B

Posted by Karl Withakay on February 20, 2011

A Blue Episode

As always, an episode synopsis can be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent.

Building and Small Kitchen Appliance Manager

OK, the blender comes on by itself, and they are going to call the building manager.?  Um, did the blender come with the apartment?  I understand the building had been having other problems, but why would the building manager care about problems with a tenant’s blender?  There’s no reason to think electrical problems in the building would cause a blender to turn itself on, unless you’re in the loop on the whole Fringe thing.  Call GE or Black & Decker for a defective blender, not the building manager.

Fringe Division, Your Tax Dollars Hard at Work

So let me get this straight, when there are no active Fringe cases, the Fringe division can’t find anything for Walter or Peter (but especially Walter) to work on or research?  Is the division in pure reaction mode, doing nothing while waiting for a Fringe event to happen?  I guess they’re done researching the doomsday machine.  What do Olivia, Astrid, and Broyles do when there are no active cases, work part time jobs?  Is this a division of the FBI or a volunteer fire department?

If the Building is  a Rockin’, Don’t Come a Knockin’…

Is putting a portable seismograph in a multi-story building in a busy urban are really going to be very useful?  The normal motion of the building (yes, buildings move in the wind), the vibration cause by people moving about in the building and using the elevator, and the traffic in the streets below, etc are going to create a lot of background noise on that seismograph.

Walter’s Consistent Position

Peter is surprised that after all the Fringe events that Walter has seen, he doesn’t believe in ghosts, but it seems consistent to me.  The Fringe events are weird, but scientifically explainable phenomenon (at least in the show they are) and not really paranormal in nature.   It appears that Walter believes that the mind is a scientifically explainable, emergent property of the brain, and that there is no soul to survive the death of the body and brain; therefore he doesn’t believe in ghosts.

Proof, You Keep Using that Word, I Do Not Think it Means What You think it Does…

Walter:

“If her husband had this apartment, then it stands to reason that her husband’s double may have this apartment on the other side.”

Wlater’s OK, so far…

“Which proves I’m right.”

Um, non sequitur.  At this point, what Walter had was a reasonable speculation, and the basis of a plausible hypothesis, but he doesn’t have proof of anything, yet.

Quantum Plot Point

Quantum entanglement has been a somewhat popular science fiction device recently, having been used in Flash Forward, Mass Effect 2, and now Fringe, and it’s pretty much always used wrongly.  It doesn’t work on the macroscopic level, and the real potential applications aren’t as cool as things like faster than light communication or bridging universes with emotional longing.  Quantum teleporting sounds cool, but is mostly of interest to physicists.  Quantum computing and cryptography are technically cool, but don’t provide any major new plot devices beyond faster computers and unbreakable codes.

Einstein was not a fan of quantum theory, and was never able to fully accept it.  His “spooky action at a distance” and “God does not play dice with the universe” quotes were intended as disparaging remarks about quantum theory.

Premature Comment…

During the climatic scene in the apartment, I wrote down in my notes that it was a lost opportunity that the writers didn’t make this a parallel episode showing how the teams in each universe dealt with the two different sides of the same Fringe event, beginning to end, especially considering the dilemma that Walter was facing in this episode.  At the end of the episode, they did show the Fringe team in the Alterverse investigating the disturbance on that side, but I still think it would have been more interesting to see my version.  It will be interesting to see if the disappearing event in the alterverse ever gets questioned further, but I’m not holding my breath.

Location, Location, Location.

Just a couple of notes here about the vortex events in Fringe.  First, it’s very convenient that none of them have occurred anywhere not on or very close to the surface of the Earth.  If one occurred at the bottom of a deep ocean trench, in the core of the Earth, high in the atmosphere, in or on the Sun, or on the moon, etc, they could be kind of hard to seal in amber.  Also, the writers are portraying a geocentric universe.  Think about it for a minute.  The location of the disturbances and the vortices are fixed positions on the surface of the Earth, but those locations are not fixed in space.  The Earth rotates on its axis, so the rips in space are also rotating about the Earth’s axis as well.  The Earth, and the rips in space also orbit the sun, which orbits the center on the Milky Way, which is also in motion as well.  The rips in space are not fixed points in the fabric of the universe (if such a concept even has any meaning), but they follow the same somewhat chaotic path in the universe that the locations on Earth where they first appeared do.  The vortices appear to be dragged along by gravity.

Posted in Blue Episode, Fringe, Science, Television | Tagged: , , | 5 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 13, Season 3, Immortality

Posted by Karl Withakay on February 11, 2011

A Red Episode

As always, an episode synopsis can be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent.

Note:  I may have the occasional error regarding this episode, and I may fail to cover something I otherwise would have, but as I am out of town on vacation, I had to watch the episode live with no ability to pause or replay any scenes, and I can only take notes so fast.  P.S. Greetings from Cape Canveral.

Something For the Search Engines:

“Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” –Mark Twain

Helter Skelter Beatles?

I didn’t catch the scientific name of the beetles in the show, but I couldn’t find anything on Skelter Beetles (if that was what they were called, it took a while to get closed captioning going on the hotel TV).  I found longhorn beetles, which have nothing to do with sheep; the name is related to their long antennae.  I wonder if it is supposed to be a nod to the Beatles song Helter Skelter.

I Was Worried There For a Little While…

…that the writers were trying to set the ground work for the split between Frank and Fauxlivia with the interaction between Frank and Mentat Astrid.  While they may still intend something to develop between Frank and Mentat Astrid, I’m glad that they came up with a better (and more plot related) cause for the breakup.

Get Smart is Multi-Universal

Lincoln’s comment that he was a cone of silence when it comes to secrets indicates that the TV show Get Smart must have existed in the Alterverse as well.  It also indicates that the cone of silence in the alterverse version of the show was as equally ineffective as the one in our version of the show was.

Walternate Won’t Do What Walter Once Did.

I thought that maybe Walter and Walternate’s ethics and morals might cross paths headed in different directions, but Walternate stood firm against experimenting on children.  Good for him.

49 and Still Fine

Has Joan Chen aged at all in the last 20+ years?

What’s Your Standard for Off the Wall These Days?

Frank:

“His research reads a little off the wall.”

How does anything strike anyone in either universe with Fringe knowledge as off the wall?

Humans the Closest Living Relatives of Sheep?

It seems a little bit of a stretch to think humans were the next best hosts for the beetles.  The part about the compatibility being due the similarity of human and sheep DNA really seemed off base.  Cows, goats, gazelles, horses, deer, pigs, hippos, bats, whales, and hedgehogs are all closer relatives of sheep than humans and other primates.

Ever Heard of a Tactical Light?

I know there is some disagreement about the use of tactical lights mounted on hand guns, mostly about muzzle discipline and never pointing a gun at anything you don’t intend to shoot, but I’m still surprised that you pretty much never see them used in TV shows.  Instead, it’s always the flashlight in one hand, with the gun in the other hand, resting on the wrist of the hand with the light.  It’s not really good for controlled fire compared to a two handed grip that a tac light allows.

Did You Get the Memo?

The closed captioning referred to Fauxlivia as Bolivia.  We confirmed Fauxlivia two episodes ago.

Frank, Stanton, MD, Infectious Disease Specialist

Good job reading the sonogram, Frank.  I’ll defer to a real MD like Polite Scott, but I would think he should have been able to tell the stomach (or other part of the GI tract) from the uterus, but I’ll defer to someone with better expertise in that area.   I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that telling a 6 week embryo from a beetle larva on a sonogram might not be so simple.  According to Wikipedia, 6 weeks is indeed when a human embryo will start to move.

Not My Area, Again

I’m curios if Scott has anything to say regarding the fall and adrenaline triggering “some kind of morning sickness”.  I figured she just got sick at the thought she had a parasitic insect growing inside her.

Why Didn’t You Say So Sooner?

I’m not sure why the bad guy let everyone think Olivia was the one that was infected for so long.  I guess he was worried they might try to save him, and felt it was better to be safe than to be sorry.

Posted in Fringe, Red Episode, Science, Television | Tagged: , , , | 19 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 12, Season 3, Concentrate and Ask Again

Posted by Karl Withakay on February 5, 2011

A Blue Episode

As always, an episode synopsis can be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent.

Pure Energy

I’m assuming the book Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care in the William Bell artifact storage room was an intentional nod to Leonard Nimoy’s most famous role as Mr. Spock on Star Trek.

For the Search Engines:

Die Ersten Menchen: Literally translates to “the first people” from German.

From a Mile away…

Who watching the show didn’t know something was going to shoot out of the doll when the ring was pulled?

No Offense, Walter, but is that a Rhetorical Question?

Walter:

“Why would anyone want to kill a scientist?  What did we ever do?”

Peter:

“Really?”

Peter Bishop: Fringe CSI Team

Hey Peter, maybe it’s not such a good idea to pull the ring on that doll.  On one hand, it’s going to make the crime scene decontamination/remediation more difficult by spewing extra toxin everwhere, and on the second hand, that might be the last sample of the toxin left you just sprayed all over the room.

Crack Biohazzard Investigation Team

First, it’s interesting that their chemical & biological agent detector makes noises like a Geiger counter.  Second, it’s strange that they declare the site clean and safe after running their detectors through the house.  I guess it never occurred to them that the canisters of toxin they found might be booby trapped.

Service Medals/ Decorations Trivia

The decorations in the case were a USN/USMC Combat Action Ribbon, a Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, a Purple Heart, and a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal.

Frankly Olivia, I wouldn’t Blame Peter if He Did Like Faulivia Better…

Faulivia is more self confident and no nonsense than Olivia is, especially since Olivia got back.  I wish Olivia would either just get mad at Peter or get over it, but one way or another, just deal with it and move on one way or another.  Frankly Fauxlivia exudes a hotness that Olivia usually lacks.  Olivia did look pretty hot at the museum, though.

HIPPA, Schmippa, Who Cares?

Walter:

“May I See his medical chart?”

Sure, that won’t constitute any kind of HIPPA violation will it?  We can just hand out confidential medical information to anyone who asks for it, can’t we?

Medical Mumbo Jumbo

Suspect’s wife:

“The doctors said there was something wrong with Aaron, some kind of DNA pathogen that he passed on to our child.”

Pardon me, but WTF is a “DNA pathogen” supposed to be?  Any pathogen other than a prion is going to have DNA, or at least RNA.  It would be only slightly less descriptive to call it a organic or carbon based pathogen.  Is it supposed to mean a pathogen that attacks DNA???

Read What Thoughts?

I question what thoughts the mind reader was supposed to be reading.  The patient had severe brain damage, not locked in syndrome.  I would think he brain was too damaged to process any of the questions that were put to him.  I doubt anything useful could have been gleaned from reading his mind.

What is Walter’s Degree In Again?

Because it’s certainly not biology, physiology, taxonomy or anatomy.

Walter:

“Jellyfish are one of the few creatures without any bones.”

Lets ignore the various non-animal creatures such as protists and bacteria for now.  Apparently Walter is not aware that 95% of all animal species are invertebrates.  In fact, vertebrates are basically the exceptions.  Technically, it would be more proper to say, “Humans are one of the few creatures to actually have any bones.” than it was to say what Walter said.

Stylish, but Useless

The suppressor (they’re properly called suppressors, not silencers) on Olivia’s gun sure was nice, cute, and concealable in that dress, but it was way too small to be the least bit effective.  Suppressors need sufficient room for an expansion chamber to allow the muzzle gases to slow down to subsonic speed.  That gimmick suppressor would have been useless.

Posted in Blue Episode, Fringe, Science, Television | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 11, Season 3, Reciprocity

Posted by Karl Withakay on January 29, 2011

A Blue Episode

As always, an episode synopsis can be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent.

Fauxlivia Official at All Levels

It’s nice that we now have confirmation that the name Fauxlivia is official on all levels in our universe now.  Sorry Bolivia fans.

Check the Horizontal Hold

Those were LCD flat panels in the hanger, not CRTs, so they should not have been affected and distorted by the magnetic field the way they were in the show.  The picture on a CRT will be affected by a magnet because the electron beam(s) are directed by magnetic deflection.  LCD flat panel displays are not distorted by magnets like that.

Strange Magnetism

So the device created a magnetic field strong enough to pull an office chair across the floor, but not strong enough to collapse the steel scaffolding which was closer?  The ceiling fans right above the device weren’t ripped form their mounting either.  I believe the force generated by magnetic attraction falls off relative the inverse square of distance such that the force exerted on the scaffolding and fans should have been much stronger than the force on the chair.

Was that a Psychic Nosebleed?

We’ll see what Scott has to say.

Mystery Force

Dr. Falcon says to Walter,

“Every human being has a unique electromagnetic signature.  We’re testing to see if it was indeed your son’s that triggered the machine.”

Walter responds,

“I have a graduate degree form MIT as well.  I don’t need a test to know how unlikely it is that this has anything to do with electromagnetics.”

Well, as unlikely as it may seem to Walter, I would still think it is more likely than any other explanation.  There are only four fundamental forces through which things can interact.  The strong and weak nuclear forces operate only over very short, sub-atomic distances, and gravity is very weak.  (Consider that you have the entire mass of the Earth pulling on you, but you are still able to lift your feet off the ground to walk.)  The only interaction left if electromagnetic.  It’s far more likely the interaction is electromagnetic than some unknown mystery force such as dark energy.

MRI, CAT Scan, Tricorder, or What?

What was that scanner-machine Dr. Falcon put peter through supposed to be anyway?  Walter says to Peter,

“Peter, do you have any idea how much radiation you’re about to be exposed to?”

I thought they were trying to determine Peter’s unique electromagnetic signature, but Walter is implying Peter is about to be exposed to dangerous levels of ionizing radiation.  Why would it require dangerous levels of radiation to measure Peter’s electromagnetic signature (if it exists)?  They way Walter describes it, it sounds like that’s a CAT scan machine, though why they need X-Ray imaging to determine Peter’s EM signature is beyond me.

Walter’s Marbles

It’s going to take more than just replacing lost brain cells/tissue for Walter to get this wits back.  Growing new brain cells won’t re-grow the pathways or regenerate the missing knowledge.  By analogy the data and the formatting of Walter’s hard drive is missing as well as part of the platter.  Just replacing the missing part of the disk won’t replace the formatting, and it won’t restore the lost data.

Did Astrid Run Over the FBI Director’s Dog?

If Astrid has these ninja like data analysis skills, why is she assigned to the Fringe division and cleaning fish tanks in Walter’s lab?

Computer Clichés

Mainframe computers aren’t particularly common these days.  The term is used whenever a writer wants to describe a really powerful computer, and they don’t think it’s impressive enough to just call it a server.  If they want to impress us, it would make more sense to call it a supercomputer rather than a mainframe.

The Death Star Plans are not in the Main Computer

Broyles,

“Shut down the mainframe; shut it down now, and from on, no one accesses that file except you.”

I’ve already covered the mainframe issue, but is all of Fauxlivia’s data really contained in a single flat file rather than in a database or series of files and databases?  Also, if the system has been compromised, shutting the system down isn’t a bad idea, but there’s a good chance it’s too late and all the data has been copied already.

Infiltrated, Hacked, or Both?

Broyles,

“Suppose Walternate knew we were close to identifying the list of shapeshifters on that drive.”

Olivia,

“How would he know that?”

Broyles,

“Because someone on our side may have told him.”

Olivia,

“We got a mole.”

It’s a little surprising that Broyles and Olivia assumed that they had a mole.  (Or maybe it’s not so surprising, considering how inept the Fringe team often is.)  While that is a likely possibility, the other possibility is that their computer systems have been hacked by someone who comes from a universe where the Motorola Razor cell phone was developed in 1985.  That person might consider cracking our most sophisticated computer security child’s play.  It seems like an equal probability to me.

Electromagnetic Blood Analysis?

Dr. Falcon,

“…but your lab work, the EEG readings, it all looks pretty standard.  Nothing to indicate you and the machine share an electromagnetic signature.”

What does lab work have to do with looking for an electrometric signature?

It Must Work, William Bell Designed It!

Peter,

“Lie detectors are unreliable.”

Olivia,

“He’s right; people beat them all the time.”

Nina,

“Not this one.  William Bell designed it.  It measures the slightest shift in the facial muscles, which allows us a link to stress and a particular emotion.

His facial muscles tell us his stress is not connected to guilt or shame.”

Bull on numerous levels.  Bull that it’s possible to 100% reliably determine the underlying emotions behind facial expressions.  Even if it were, you better hope your suspect is not a sociopath who doesn’t feel guilt or shame for his or her actions.  Even if they’re not a sociopath (or just someone who doesn’t feel guilty or shamed by their actions), you better hope they haven’t had cosmetic surgery (or injury) to alter their facial muscles and structure to throw off your lie detector.  Lastly, these aren’t human beings here.  They’re SHAPESHIFTERS.  There’s no reason to assume they have normal emotional responses or that they’re not able to completely control their facial expressions due to any emotions they do have.  They can shift their shape, after all.

Or You Can Choose Door Number Three

Why didn’t Nina wait until after they had done the DNA analysis on the three different serums before telling Walter about them?

Basic Data Analysis

The first thing they should have done with the list of names from Fauxlivia’s data file is run a cross index again the FBI & Massive Dynamic personnel lists and red flagged any matches, but this is the Fringe team we’re talking about here.

No Comment

On Walter’s expression of chimp behavior just because he might have a few chimp cells developing in his brain.

Walter’s a PhD, Not an MD, Right?

Walter speaking about the chimp DNA in his brain,

“My immune system will recognize it as foreign and reject it.”

I’m not a doctor, but I believe it’s generally considered a bad thing when immune cells cross the blood brain barrier.  I could be wrong, but it’s my understanding that under normal circumstances, immune cells don’t cross the BBB, which is why infections of the brain are very serious, if rare.  It remains to be seen (or at least to be confirmed by someone with more medical knowledge than me) if Walter’s immune system will rid him of that chimp DNA that’s supposedly in his brain

Why No Mention Of Olivia?

The files in Peter’s room, which were presumably Fauxlivia’s files, listed the members of the Fringe team, but Olivia’s name was not listed.

Too Simple?

Did the computers fail to crack Faulivia’s simple letter substitution code because they ruled out something that was so elementary that an eight year old reader of Encyclopedia Brown stories could crack it?

You Might Want to Consider Some Chelation, Peter

Peter’s probably got some significant mercury poisoning going on.  He was covered in mercury from killing that guy.  He probably got a lot more exposure from the other killings.

Paleontology Class

Brandon Fayette to Nina,

“The planet has been spinning for five billion years.  We’ve only been around for the past 250,000.  There were six major extinction events before we even crawled out of the slime.  So who’s to say one of them didn’t wipe out a great civilization?”

First of all, everything I can find says there were only five major extinction events, not six.  Second only the first two can be considered to have occurred before our ancestors “crawled out of the slime”.  Lastly, we have fossil records of those mass extinctions, but no archeological evidence of any civilizations.  It seems unlikely any disaster would wipe out any traces of a civilization, but leave the fossil record intact, so an undeteced, previous civilization is implausible.  Also, the Earth is only about 4.5 billion years old.

Good Idea, By the Way

I’m still not sure why it makes sense to assemble the weapon intended to destroy our universe.  It seems like we’re playing right into our adversary’s plans.

Fringe Compensated for Last Week’s Show

While I enjoyed last week’s show, I didn’t find a lot to blog about.  They made up for it in spades this week.  Eleven pages of notes and 3-1/2 pages (as Word flies) of blog material.

Posted in Blue Episode, Fringe, Science, Television | Tagged: , , | 10 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 10, Season 3, The Firefly

Posted by Karl Withakay on January 21, 2011

A Blue Episode

As always, an episode synopsis can be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent.

Paging Doctor Brown, Doctor Emmett Brown…

While Christopher Lloyd did a decent job in this episode, his being cast in this role didn’t do much for me, contrary to my expectations.

Just Something For the Search Engines

If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him, is a real book written by Sheldon B. Kopp, a psychotherapist, in 1972.

The Observer (Singular)

Olivia:

“The Observer?  It’s been a while since we’ve seen Him”

That’s an interesting way to phrase it, I’m pretty sure Olivia knows there’s more than one Observer.  At the time she speaks this line, there’s really now way for them to know if this is any particular Observer.

More For the Search Engines

Violet Sedan Chair, Walter’s favorite band has been mentioned before.  The fictitious band apparently has an album out.

Piano vs. Keyboard

Wouldn’t it have been easier to bring a keyboard in for Roscoe rather than wheeling in an actual piuano?

Maybe I’m Out of Practice Due to the Long Break

But that’s all I’ve got for this episode.  I’m very disappointed that I found so little to Deconstruct after the long drought.  Maybe it was the episode; maybe it was me.  Hopefully next week will prove better fodder for Deconstruction.  😦

Followup 1-27-11

Do As I Say,  Not As I Do

The Observer/ An Observer

“There things that I know, but there are things that I do not.  Various possible futures are happening simultaneously.  I can tell you all of them, but I cannot tell you which one of them will come to pass because every action causes ripples, consequences both obvious and unforeseen.”

Considering the Observer is admitting that due to the butterfly effect, even they can’t precisely determine the future, it’s interesting the degree to which they are willing to intervene in this episode, potentially upsetting the balance of the universes even further.  I would think that from their perspective, the better option would be to avoid any further invention and let the universes find a new equilibrium on their own.  Perhaps every current future without intervention they see results in the destruction of one or both universes, and they have determined the risk of intervention is warranted.

Posted in Blue Episode, Fringe, Science, Television | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

No Reason to Fear Aliens (Again)

Posted by Karl Withakay on January 11, 2011

Recently I came across an article on space.com, Study: If We’re Not Alone, We Should Fear the Aliens by Mike Wall, SPACE.com Editor, that I thought was deserving of some Cordial Deconstruction.  Technically, this is more a Deconstruction of the study the article was reporting on, and not so much of the space.com article, though I may refer to the two interchangeably in this post.

The article makes the following statement which it describes as the only two possibilities based on the study:

“When considering the prospect of alien life, humankind should prepare for the worst, according to a new study: Either we’re alone, or any aliens out there are acquisitive and resource-hungry, just like us.”

My basic reaction to this false dichotomy is, 1.) Bull and 2.) So What?

I’ll first deal with the assertion that we are probably alone.  It would only take one other example of a planet with intelligent life in the approximately 300 sextillion (30 X 10,000 billion billion) stars in the visible universe for this assertion to be wrong.  The fact that we have not heard from ET is not reasonable support for the assertion that not even one  single ET existst. There are numerous possible reasons why we might not have heard from ET yet, other than ET doesn’t exist (though that is a possibility).  Among those possible reasons are the following:

-It’s possible ET’s civilization didn’t stay at the level where they leaked radio signals into space long enough.  (Fiber optics, directed digital broadcasts,  and beyond anyone?)

-It’s possible that ET is so far away that there hasn’t been enough time for its signals to reach us yet.

-It’s possible that ET’s civilization is too far away for their leaked signals to be discernable from background noise.

-It’s possible that ET evolved on a planet that wasn’t conducive to developing technology.  Maybe the requirements for life are there, but there aren’t enough heavy metals to develop technology beyond the Stone Age level.  Maybe the environment is so hostile that ET is just barely able to survive and doesn’t have time to develop beyond the Stone Age.  Maybe it’s a water world of whale like creatures.  (Our whales haven’t developed radio technology despite a lack of serious interference from humans until a  few hundred years ago.)

Really, at this point the only conclusion that we can come to from the fact that we have not yet detected ET is that if ET exists, it is not an easy thing to detect ET.

As a footnote, I’ll mention that there are at least two other possible reasons why we may not have heard from ET:

-It’s possible that ET died out before developing radio technology, either due to natural events or self destruction.

-It’s possible ET’s civilization didn’t last long enough to be detected.

Though both would support the idea that we are currently alone, they lead to another possibility- Even if we do detect signals from an extraterrestrial intelligence, considering that they will have likely originated a very long time ago (anywhere from thousands to billions of years ago), ET may have died out since transmitting the signals, and thus we could technically currently still be alone despite the signal.  In the absence of an actual visit by ETs, we can’t actually know if there are currently any other intelligent civilizations light years away.  Even with a visit from ET, they can’t know if their civilization still exists back on their home world, signals and information can’t travel faster than the speed of light.

One very astonishing assertion by the article/study is that evolution is predictable, and that it inevitably leads to intelligent civilizations.

“Further, Conway Morris says, evolution operates predictably, producing relatively predictable outcomes. These two suppositions argue that alien life, if it exists, should be fairly similar to terrestrial life, generating intelligent beings much like us”

It’s very astonishing because life existed on this planet for about 3.7 billion years before a species came along that could fashion simple stone tools, let alone broadcast electromagnetic signals such as radio.  For 99.9% of the time that there has been life on this planet, there has been no species that comes close to the study authors’ definition of intelligent.  Multicellular didn’t appear on Earth until after about 2 billion years after life first developed, and vertebrates took about 3.2 billion years to show up.  Dinosaurs roamed the Earth fat, dumb, and happy for about 160 million years and may have stayed that way if they hadn’t been killed out in a mass extinction.  Seeing as we have only one example of a planet with life on it to use as a reference, I think it’s incredibly anthropic and near sighted to conclude intelligent beings are always the inevitable result of evolution.

The article quotes Conway Morris, one of the authors of the study, regarding the ability to contact alien civilization despite the probable vast distance between them,

“At least so far as this galaxy is concerned, a distance of circa 100,000 light years doesn’t seem insurmountable, given a relatively slow diffusion rate and a geometrical rate of establishment of colonies,”

Ignoring the possibility that intelligent life could be as rare as one civilization per galaxy (we really have no idea how rare or common intelligent life may be outside the sailor system) as Morris does, that’s an interesting use of the word “given”.  Normally, I would reserve the word given in such a context for either an established fact or a reasonable assertion.  In this context the word would be better replaced with the word “assuming”.  There is no reason to assume a geometrical rate of establishment of colonies or any interstellar colonies at all.  I’ve previously shown in a series of posts that there’s no point in worrying about an alien invasion, partly because the resource requirements of interstellar travel make such travel and alien invasion highly impractical.  Simply put, the energy and resource requirements for interstellar travel vastly outweigh any possible returns.  If you have the resources to travel to another star to plunder one of its planet’s resources, you don’t need to do so.  By analogy, why drive from Florida to Alaska to buy gas for your car?  If you have enough gas to drive to Alaska, you don’t need to go.  The numbers don’t add up.  This concept is covered more in depth in posts on the linked page.

The other reason to not worry about an alien takeover is that, assuming I’m wrong, we’re doomed anyway, as I also concluded in a post in the above link.  If ET is so advanced and capable that it can travel across the stars (perhaps superluminally) without bankrupting their planetary economy, then they will find us and do as they please no matter how hard we try to hide or prepare, and our puny bullets and nuclear weapons likely won’t bother them at all.

Don’t worry, be happy, because worrying won’t matter one way or another.  🙂

 

Series of related posts HERE.

Posted in Critical Thinking, Criticism, Science, Space | Leave a Comment »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 9, Season 3, Marionette

Posted by Karl Withakay on December 9, 2010

A Blue Episode

As always, an episode synopsis can be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent.

Will There Be Any More Red Episodes?

Now that Olivia is back in our universe, I’m guessing the regular alternating pattern of blue and red episodes may be over.

Not so Fringe

The use of an umbrella to deliver the drug to knock out the first victim in the show is probably based on the murder of Georgi Markov with a pellet containing ricin toxin believed to be delivered by just such an umbrella.  I really like it when Fringe uses real world concepts like this or the number stations in episode 6 of this season, 6955kHz.

I am Not A Surgeon…

So I’d have to ask someone more qualified to comment on whether or not there really would have been that much blood splattered all along the walls/ plastic drapes like that, but I do question it just a little.

I’m A Little Disappointed

It didn’t turn out to be a zombie episode; the potential certainly was there.

Just a Comment

I really like the relationship and interaction between Walter and Peter in Fringe.  It’s consistently the best written and acted part of the show, in my opinion.  The scene between Walter and Peter in the car in this episode was just such a gem.

Lady Fortuna Has Smiled Upon Us

I assume Walter is speaking of this Lady Fortuna, Roman goddess of fortune and not any relation of Bib Fortuna of Star Wars fame, but with Walter, you never know.

Is Hanging Around the Fringe Team Making Walter Dumber?

Scar tissue on the arteries indicative of heart surgery, steroids, immunosuppressants, antifungals, and antibiotics in the medicine cabinet, and nobody, not even Walter is screaming “TRANSPLANT RECIPIENT!”?  Peter was smart enough to look in the medicine cabinet, but not smart enough to put two and two together with what he found?  What  was he looking for, statins?

Paging Dr. Ross, Dr Alex Ross

I wonder if the name Alexandra Ross is supposed to be a wink of the eye to famed comic book talent, Alex Ross.  I’m sure Scott will have something to say about that.

A Bag Full of Hammers Might Make a Keener Investigative Team

Even after learning the Doctor Ross was a surgeon, the team was still surprised to learn the victim was a transplant recipient.  I think the chances of the other universe winning are better than even odds.

The Eyes Have It

As Far as I can find, eye banks do harvest whole eyes, but for cornea transplants, not whole eye transplants.  Roland would be not be putting the original eyes back in Amanda’s body, just the original corneas with somebody else’s eyes.  I’ll have to ask Scott is tissue compatibility is a two way street.  That is, would the victim’s tissues (eyes) necessarily have been a match for Amanda if Amanda’s tissues were a match for him?

Paging Dr. West, Dr. Herbert West or Again I Am Disappointed

Walter:  “…but imagine the possibilities, if this can permanently erase cell decay”

Astrid:  “Milk that doesn’t go bad.”

Walter:  “and cheese.”

…and the dead walking the Earth, killing the living, wreaking havoc, etc.  Don’t these people read H. P. Lovecraft, Mary Shelly, or watch Jeffery Combs or Boris Karloff movies?

I thought for sure Amada was going to come to life and try to kill Roland at the end.  The writers dropped the ball a second time in this episode.  Zombie fail.

Also, would that rot-proof milk and cheese still be digestible, even if it weren’t zombified?

There’s Product Placement, and There’s In-Show Advertising

Guess which I consider the Sprint video chat scene to be.

Marionette Voodoo

Creepy Roland’s marionette rig wasn’t complex enough to produce the amount of articulation that Amanda’s  inert body demonstrated, such as the pointing of the toes during the ballet.  And why make the rig at all if he’s going to bring her back to life, and she’ll be able to dance on her own?  Really creepy.

ALWAYS Look In the Basement For the Mad Scientist’s Lab!

Come on people, it’s so simple.  Perhaps you need a refresher course!

Did I Miss Something?

Or did the show not really clarify how Amanda re-died?  Was Roland’s experiment a failure?  Did he choose not to finish it when he decided it wasn’t really Amanda?  Did she kill herself again?  Is she really still reanimated but just non-responsive?

Posted in Blue Episode, Fringe, Product Placement, Science, Television | Tagged: , , | 13 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 8, Season 3, Entrada

Posted by Karl Withakay on December 2, 2010

A Purple (Both Red and Blue) Episode

As always, an episode synopsis can be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent.

No Wonder Wikileaks Is So Successful

So the FBI, the top law enforcement agency in the USA, doesn’t have a screen saver password policy (on their MacBook laptops), especially on Fringe Division (defenders of the universe) laptops?  Sure the files were encrypted, but those were Fauxlivia’s special files, not the FBI’s.

For the Search Engines

Na einia kalytero anthropo apo ton patero toy  (According to the closed captioning)

Να είστε καλύτερο άτομο από τον πατέρα σας  (In Greek)

Be a better man than your father  (In English)

I Am Not A Doctor…

But shouldn’t Olivia have supplied Peter with a tourniquet to use to shoot himself up with that paralytic?

Also, if that was a paralytic drug, Peter probably had some damage to his corneas once he was able to blink again since nobody was keeping his eyes moistened.  Also, it was a bit dangerous leaving Peter unattended under the effects of a neuromuscular inhibiter, he might have experienced adverse side affects such as difficulty breathing or cardiovascular problems.  And why a paralytic drug anyway?  It seems an odd choice to be keeping around for a rainy day.  I would think a more traditional sedative would be safer.

Well, We Are All In the Fringe Unit For a Reason

“Eight weeks and none of us suspected anything.”  Fringe team is not staffed with the sharpest tacks in the junk drawer.  Peter, as an honorary member of the Fringe team fits in just fine, although it seemed at times he was more willfully ignorant than unsuspecting of Fauxlivia’s true identity.

If You’re Not Going to Use That Any More, Can I Keep Some Parts to Play With?

If it didn’t matter where the mass came from, why not just send back a sack of potatoes and keep the whole, living Olivia to experiment on and study?

Quote Of The Show

“She tricked my son with her carnal manipulations and he fell right into her vagenda”

I laughed out loud when I heard that line.

Spooky Action Across Universes

So the typewriter is a quantum entanglement telegraph?  Although it’s a bogus application of the science, I won’t call it bad science fiction unless you’re a quantum physicist, in which case you already know quantum entanglement can’t be used to transmit information.

Third Time’s a Charm?

Olivia had traveled back to our universe several times in Walternate’s Fringe Lab, and she always reverted back to the alternate universe.  What made her so sure she would be successful on the next try?

Zed’s Dead, Baby/ I Am Not a doctor Part II

Since when does adrenaline neutralize sedatives, and why the Pulp Fiction stab in the chest?  Her heart wasn’t stopped.

Nature vs. Nurture

“They’re genetically identical, so they think alike”  Not so fast their, Olivia.  Brain development is a lot more than just a result of genetics.

To quote academic clinical neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine, Steven Novella:

“The genome provides a set of processes by which brain design unfolds – but that program is dependent upon input from the brain’s environment…”

The genome provides more of a template for developing a brain rather than a blueprint for the finished product.  The development of a brain and the resultant though processes is heavily influenced by environment during development.  If you want to argue that their thought processes should be similar because their genes are the same AND their environments during development were similar, fine, but genes alone won’t cut it.

Peter Has a Brief Moment of Deductive Insight

Good work figuring out that was a shape shifter Peter.  Be careful.  If you keep showing such levels of stunning deduction, they may not let you stay with the Fringe Division.

Wow, That was Quick

So normally, you have to shoot Olivia up with a bunch of psychotropic drugs and let her cook in the sensory deprivation tanks for a while, but this time all it took was a little Cortexiphan and a couple of seconds in the tank and pow, she’s home free before she’s even had time to relax.

Are We Really Trusting the safety of Our Entire Universe to these Guys?

Did it ever occur to anyone on the Fringe team that it might be a good idea to take the owner of the typewriter shop into custody for questioning and maybe also search his shop?  It’s not like the fate of the world is at stake and he’s known to be involved or anything, is it?

Posted in Blue Episode, Fringe, Purple Episode, Red Episode, Science, Television | Tagged: , , | 6 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 7, Season 3, The Abducted

Posted by Karl Withakay on November 18, 2010

A Blue Episode

As always, an episode synopsis can be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent.

For the Search Engines

The complete prayer is as follows:

“Through suffering comes redemption.

Through sorrow comes exaltation.

Through pitch dark comes cleansing fire,

And through the fire we shall find the spring of new life.”

Is That a Good Idea For a Kid’s Game?

In Max’s bedroom , there was a copy of the other universe board game The Quarantine Zone, with the the tag line: “Can you escape before it’s too late?” on the front of the box.

And Knowing is Half the Battle

I can understand the need to conceal their identities, but why the  Destro masks?

Other Universe News

Playing on the radio:

“Polls show that most Americans oppose the proposed law to limit the number of children to two per family, however leading politicians from two of the three major parties favor the law.”

So, they are working on population control and the have a three party system.

Another For the Search Engines

Apparently it took 5 years after the Peter Bishop kidnapping for the Peter Bishop Act of ’91, which states that every kidnapping must be treated as a possible Fringe event, to be enacted.

Is This the Alternate Universe in 2010 Or Ours In 1985?

So in a universe where they had the Motorola Razor super slim cell phones in 1985, they still have pagers in 2010?

One More For the Search Engines

The book in Max’s rooms was Burlap Bear Goes to the Woods, written and illustrated by Thomas Tomas Christensen.  In our universe, I could find no Burlap Bear books, and I found nothing really of note by any author named Thomas Christensen.  EDIT:  I have been informed by Scott that this Fringe Author’s books have been seen in the show before.

Some Things Are the Same

Broyles’ son was listening to the Radio drama The Shadow featuring the characters (Lamont) Cranston/ The Shadow and Margo Lane, which are the same characters that appear in our version of The Shadow.  It makes sense that a blind child might enjoy listening to radio dramas.  It’s what I did as a child when I had a cornea injury and had to basically go blindfolded for a couple of days.

Some Things Are the Same But Later

I laugh at the backwards alternate universe that has only now advanced to the point of producing Red Vines which we have had since 1952!

Which Universe Was That In?

I wonder whether Olivia was remembering a Fauxlivia or an Olivia memory about a case involving a suspect that was draining hormones from pituitary glands?

Get Your Sugars Straight

You don’t have sucrose in your blood.  Sucrose is broken down in the stomach and small intestine into its component sugars glucose and fructose before being absorbed into the bloodstream.  I would guess that you’d also be dead from hyperglycemia (diabetes) long before your blood sugar was high enough to sweat that much sugar, sucrose or not.

Do they At Least Have Universal Healthcare In the Alternate Universe?

So not only do they have a small pox epidemic in the alternate universe, they also had an epidemic of the Avian influenza H5N1 as well.

Olivia’s Retained Her Crackerjack Investigative Skills

If Olivia was a good investigator, she would have asked not only for the names and addresses of all male church members, but she would have also asked for the records going back as far as the first Candy Man kidnapping to either look for someone who has been around that long, or to look for a pattern of a new member every two years.

One in Four Chance and Olivia Hits the Jackpot

So the Fringe Teams splits the list of over 40 names, and Olivia just happens to get Wyatt Toomy, the kidnapper?

Fringe Team: Multi-Universally for Sub-Par Agents

It’s not really a good idea to question people who could potentially be kidnappers by yourself without a partner for backup in case things go bad fast, as happened to Olivia.  Also, it’s best not to let your guard down when you don’t know whether or not the suspect is still in the apartment, like Olivia did.  She must be recovering her true personality.

Peter Is Either a Moron or Fauxlivia is REALLY Good In the Sack

If I were Peter, I could buy that Olivia had not seen Casablanca, but not that she didn’t know it starred Humphrey Bogart and not Ronald Regan.  I have to conclude he is being willfully ignorant because the sex is so good and/or he just likes Fauxliva better.

Obligatory Tony Todd Reference

If Fringe Team wanted to find the Candyman, thet should have just looked into a mirror and said his name three times.

WordPress Problems

WordPress made some changes and it ended up screwing up some of the links in this post, as well as blanking out all the links in the Fringe review index page somehow including all previous revisions of that page since October.  The links should be fixed and working now.

Posted in Fringe, Red Episode, Science, Television | Tagged: , , , | 10 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 6, Season 3, 6955 kHz

Posted by Karl Withakay on November 11, 2010

A Blue Episode

As always, an episode synopsis can be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent.

Science Fiction is Often Cooler When Derived From Reality

Number stations are a real phenomenon that I’d heard of before this episode, but I don’t remember where from; maybe I don’t remember because I listened to one.  The stations are pretty much exactly as portrayed in the episode, minus the multiplexed memory wiping signal, and they are reported to have been around since WWI.  They broadcast a series of numbers, words, or letters in a artificially generated voice, tunes or Morse code.  It is generally believed that the transmissions are used to send messages to spies.  It’s a fascinating subject, and is also an excellent basis for a Fringe episode.

Magic Maglev

Broyles describing the floating mystery box:

“It’s not floating, exactly.  Apparently it’s got some sort of magnetics inside.”

OK, but unless the rack also had “magnetics inside”, that doesn’t explain how the box was able to float

Maybe He’s Thinking of Using an iPad?

I don’t know where Peter gets “It’s impossible to do microelectronics with gloves on.” from.  I found links for selling gloves “ideal for use in microelectronics”, links about latex glove allergies in microelectronics applications,  links selling gloveboxes for microelectronics, and a nifty picture of someone wearing gloves while handling a silicon wafer of integrated circuits, and that only took me a few seconds to find.

Analog Demodulation

Considering that Walter didn’t know what about the signal was responsible for the amnesia, he shouldn’t have been so sure that his wa-wa peddle would alter the signal enough to make it safe to listen to.  I would have patched it directly into a computer (without any speaker output), run the audio through a speech to text application to get the numbers, and used an audio program to analyze the waveform to see if there was a multiplexed signal.

Physical Abnormality Almost Always = Evil (In Pop Entertainment)

As soon as I saw the different color eyes, I thought, “There’s no way this guy isn’t evil.”  At Least he didn’t have a humpback.  The real question is, since he turned out to be a shape shifter, did the original person he copied have different colored eyes, and was he therefore also evil?

Bad Planning or Bad Transistor?

So did he not check the device until he got on site, or did the transistor go bad while he was setting the device up?  Rather than having a spare of every individual transistor and integrated circuit that might go bad to do a field repair with, wouldn’t it have made more sense to carry a spare finished, complete board or better yet, a spare device?  By the way, why didn’t he get the spare transistor from the same place he got all the other apparently untraceable parts?  He didn’t buy the transistor after he discovered the bad one; he already had it with him.  Are the writers trying to get me to believe that the only traceable part in either of the two devices was the one replacement transistor?

Wait A Minute…

Uh, how did the bad guy know what frequency the pilot would tune to when trying to re-establish contact with the tower?  (Why was the pilot communicating with the tower over the amateur frequency of 4029kHz before switching to 6880kHz, which is just past the amateur, aeronautical mobile range when neither frequency is used for air traffic control?)

Quotes of the Show: Amusing Dialog

Walter while unpacking another of the devices he can’t figure out:

“Fantastic, now I have bookends.”

Walter to Nina:

“Nina, if I’d have known you were coming, I’d have baked a cake.”

Astrid to Nina:

“He means that…literally.”

For the search Engines

The complete number sequence from the 3rd ring of the calendar was as follows:

8, 21, 16, 7, 11, 8, 10, 13, 12, 34, 17, 9, 15, 8, 42, 40, 27, 11, 9, 21, 18, 12

The 2nd ring had the following text:

Light Meets Dark, Period of Darkness, Dark Meets Light, Period of Light

The Inner ring was numbered 1 through 6, and the outer ring was marked 10- 360 degrees by 10’s.

Walter Is Not an Evolutionary Biologist, and it Shows.

Walter in response to Astrid considering the concept of ancient people who evolved before the dinosaurs absurd:

“Why should we be so arrogant as to assume we’re the first Homo Sapiens who walked the Earth?

Hey, if Walter wants to postulate that we are not the first intelligent species to walk the Earth, fine.  If he wants to postulate that we may not be the first bipedal intelligent species to evolve, fine.  But for Walter to suggest that the species Home Sapiens could have evolved before the first true mammals existed and then later evolved again into the same species displays a total lack of understanding of evolution, common descent, genetics, and the concept of a species.

Neither Verified Nor a Theory

Walter really shouldn’t think that a random work of fiction “verfiies” any of the speculations or conjectures that he liberally calls “theories”.  It correlates with his ideas, and may even support them, but it certainly doesn’t verify anything.

Walter Is Also Not An Astrophysicist or Cosmologist

“The Big Bang and its counterpart, the Big Crunch.  The universe expanding and contracting and expanding.  And endless cycle of creation and destruction.”

This one’s a little more of a nit pick, but Walter’s a little out of date on the Big Crunch.  The expansion of the universe is in fact accelerating and not slowing down, and therefore unlikely to end in a big crunch.

Is Peter an Expert on Eastern European Military Grade Electronics?

What makes a transistor military grade, anyway?  Why would they need to be licensed?  We’re not talking about integrated circuits here.  It’s a simple transistor.  Maybe it’s manufactured to very precise standards, and is very reliable (but not so reliable one didn’t go bad), but what could require it to be licensed?  I suppose it might have been radiation hardened, and maybe the government wants to know who’s using hardened components.  That might make sense since such components might be used in a nuclear weapon.  I still want to know how Peter is such an expert on military grade Polish components.

Tom Cruise’s War of The Worlds Plausibility Problem Resurfaces

How deep are these weapon components buried (seemingly buried for many years) such that nobody has ever accidentally dug one up before, and yet they can be unearthed with conventional construction equipment in an evening?

Posted in Blue Episode, Fringe, Science, Space, Television | Tagged: , , , , | 9 Comments »

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