Cordial Deconstruction

Observations from our shared single objective reality in a materialistic, naturalistic, & effectively macro-deterministic universe.

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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 »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 5, Season 3, Amber 31422

Posted by Karl Withakay on November 4, 2010

(A Red Episode)

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

Alternate Universe Convenience Theater

Maybe you shock a flat line in the alternate universe, but you don’t do it here.

Starring Carry Grant as Sam Spade

In our universe, the line, “the stuff dreams are made of” was spoken by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon.  The line was likely derived from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, spoken by Prospero: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on…”

An Earth Shattering Experience

In Our universe, October 17, 1989 (the date of the first use of Amber 31422 in the alternate universe) was the date of the Loma Prieta earthquake.

Miscellaneous Trivia

31422 is a zip code in Savannah Georgia.

Quote of the Show

Walternate to Broyles:

“Nature doesn’t recognize good and evil, Phillip.  Nature only recognizes balance and imbalance.  I intend to restore balance to our world, whatever it takes.”

Would You Like a Little Technobabble With That?

Ferrocene is a real compound, but I found no indications of any application for use in negative matter rings.

Fringeternate Team Standards Equally Low

It didn’t strike any of the Fringeternate team members as odd that the suspect’s brother Matthew reacted so nonchalantly to the possibility that his brother might not be trapped in amber, or that he didn’t ask how they could have been previously mistaken about him being encased in amber?  They appear to have FBI academy reject investigators assigned to the Fringe team in the alternate universe too.

Drug Trivia

According to PubMed, Neurontin (Gabapentin) is:

“used to help control certain types of seizures in patients who have epilepsy. Gabapentin is also used to relieve the pain of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN; the burning, stabbing pain or aches that may last for months or years after an attack of shingles). Gabapentin is in a class of medications called anticonvulsants. Gabapentin treats seizures by decreasing abnormal excitement in the brain. Gabapentin relieves the pain of PHN by changing the way the body senses pain.”

Neurontin has numerous uses, some of which are disputed.

Elavil (AKA, Amitriptyline) is a tricyclic antidepressant with various off label uses, and is not a particularly noteable drug.

Those were, however, some very high doses for both drugs, on which I’m sure Scott will comment.

It Must Have Been Under Her Gown

How did Olivia maintain neutral buoyancy and avoid floating to the top of the tank without a weight belt?  People can’t normally hover in the water like that, which is why divers wear weight belts to reduce their buoyancy to keep from floating to the surface.  Also, you’d think they would have made sure to secure the regulator (air supply) to he mouth in some way.  I would think a semi-conscious person hopped up on drugs might accidentally spit it out and drown.

Too Brief a Scene

Unfortunately we were only treated to a few seconds of Olivia wearing those hotty glasses.  I hope we see them again; they go well with the darker hair.

Animated Suspension?

I don’t see how Matthew could have been conscious while suspended in the amber.  To have any sense of consciousness, you need brain activity.  You can’t have brain activity without oxygen, which means you need breathing and blood circulation, neither of which seem to be present for a person trapped in amber.  Without metabolic activity, there is no brain activity, which means no consciousness or perception of the passage of time.

Fringe Unit Really is for Fringe Agents in Both Universes/ Just Flip a Coin

Let me get this straight, Mentat Astrid put a 50% probability on the possibility that it was the other brother trapped in the amber, and she didn’t bother to run the equally likely scenario for potential outcomes?  She assumed a 50% probability as the most likely scenario!

Petergheist

Does anyone else think the Petergheist is a bit of a lame plot contrivance designed to provide us with overt, explicit narration of Olivia’s inner thoughts?  Couldn’t the writers give the audience a little credit and find a little more subtle way of hinting of what’s going on in her head?

Minor Note on These Posts

FYI:  I usually spend about 20 or 30 minutes after posting going over the post proofreading and making tweaks.  If you are one of the few people who read it immediately after posting, you might want to check back the next day for edits or changes.

Posted in Fringe, Medicine / Health, Red Episode, Science, Television | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

NPR Chooses Not to Employ Me (or Juan Williams)

Posted by Karl Withakay on October 22, 2010

In case you’re not aware, NPR fired Juan Williams after he made some anti-Muslim remarks on the Bill O’Reilly show on Fox News.  Probably the most significant statement he made was the following:

“But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

I’m not going to discuss what I think of what Williams said, and I’m not going to discuss whether or not I agree with NPR’s decision to terminate his employment with them.

I am going to discuss some of the reactions to NPR’s decision.  In this post on the Fox News web site, numerous people are crying censorship and are demanding an end to federal funding of NPR.

Here are a couple of quotes from the article:

Newt Gingrich:

“… the idea that that’s the excuse for National Public Radio to censor Juan Williams is an outrage and every listener of NPR should be enraged that there’s this kind of bias against an American,”

Mike Huckabee:

“NPR has discredited itself as a forum for free speech and a protection of the First Amendment rights of all and has solidified itself as the purveyor of politically correct pabulum and protector of views that lean left,”

Let’s be clear here.  NPR has a right to determine who they want to employ and who they want to represent them.  NPR is not obliged to provide Juan Williams a venue on which to appear anymore than they are obliged to provide one to me.  NPR is not preventing Juan Williams from appearing on Fox News or anywhere else; he is perfectly free to speak his mind anywhere someone will give him a microphone.  NPR has not violated Juan Williams’ First Amendment rights in any way.  NPR is not a public access soap box that every American has a right to utilize.  Is NPR violating my First Amendment rights by preventing me from using NPR to broadcast my insights?  No, clearly not, and neither are they violating any First Amendment rights of Juan Williams.  I am not constitutionally entitled to a job as an on air personality at NPR, and neither is Juan Williams.

Let’s all be clear and honest here.  If you object to NPR’s decision, fine.  If you object to the continued federal funding of NPR, fine.  Go ahead and campaign to end their funding, but don’t do so on the invalid argument that NPR is engaging in censorship or the suppression of free speech.  That demonstrates either an ignorance of the First Amendment and censorship or intentional dishonesty:  you either don’t understand the concepts, or you are lying to better sell your position to the ill-informed.

Posted in Criticism, Media, Public Radio | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 4, Season 3, Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?

Posted by Karl Withakay on October 14, 2010

(A Blue Episode)

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

Sometimes It’s OK To Be a Dick

The title of this episode is a reference to the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick upon which the movie Blade Runner was based, which is arguably the greatest science fiction movie of all time.

The Writers Seem to Be Telegraphing It In For Us Lately

Peter to Fauxlivia:

“We draw our moral lines in the sand, and unless you can put yourself in another man’s shoes, I don’t think you can really judge their actions.”

Ignoring the fact that Peter is mixing genders between masculine and plural/gender neutral indefinite singular here (“another man’s shoes…judge his actions” or “another person’s shoes…judge their actions”), the entire scene seemed poorly contrived to supply us with the dialog to strongly hint that Peter will eventually come to some sort of acceptance of what Walter did.  Either that or they just want us to think Peter is an oblivious hypocrite.

Quote of the Show

“Don’t you see that the brain is consciousness?  The mind is God.”

Mad As a Hatter

Walter’s explanation for the origins of the term “mad hatter” is one of the theories behind the origins of the term, but the actual etymology is undetermined.

Did He At Least Have To Sign For Them?

Apparently Homeland Security briefings are not “Classified” or “Eyes Only” but are instead for “Official Use Only”.

Don’t Tell Lies That Can Easily Be Uncovered

When Newton calls Fauxlivia on her cell phone, she tells Peter that it is her sister Rachel calling.  Rachel visits semi-regularly, and she and Peter occasionally speak together without Olivia present.  It seems that lie could easily be accidentally exposed several different ways.  A Better lie would have been for her to say it was her cell phone company trying to sell her extra services.  I would have bought it as my cell phone company does that almost every month.

Clsd Craptioning for the hrg !pred

I’d just like to point out for everyone that doesn’t use closed captioning (I use it for Fringe to make it easier to write down quotes), that tonight’s captions appear to have been prepared by a partially deaf, arthritic person with two fingers missing on each hand on a computer with several keys missing.  Thanks, Captionmax!

Unanswered Question:

Did Newton kill the shapeshifter cop’s family after killing him?

Do They Have to Make the Product Placement So Obvious?

It sure seemed natural for the camera to pan down to and center on the Taurus badge on the trunk of Fauxlivia’s car (or is it more proper to call it Olivia’s car that Fauxlivia was driving?) before it took off in pursuit of Newton, didn’t it?  It looked like a shot right out a Ford brochure.

Protected Storage

I suppose locating the data storage unit at the base of the spine could offer it better protection from damage than locating it in the brain would.  By the way, it’s only a theory (really just a speculation) that the stegosaurus had a second brain in the hip region of its spinal cord.

Who’s In Charge of Designing the Security Protocols, anyway?

So, you have a high value, dangerous shape shifter that can somehow move between parallel universes in your custody, and you don’t have him under constant, 24 hour video and audio surveillance?  WTF?

Something Just Occurred to Me…

While watching the previews  for next week’s episode, the following thought occurred to me:  In the other universe, are they going to secretly dye Olivia’s hair in her sleep every once in a while?  Sooner or later, her blond roots are going to show, and that would likely trigger a breakdown of the imprinting of the Fauxlivia personality.  (I suppose one could also ask if the carpet matches the drapes, but that would be a little crude.)  Perhaps they have a method of permanently altering hair color in the other universe.

Posted in Blue Episode, Fringe, Product Placement, Science, Television | Tagged: , | 6 Comments »

Bill O’Reilly Throws Muslims Under the Bus

Posted by Karl Withakay on October 14, 2010

I believe Bill O’Reilly believes in what he says.  When he recently said, “Muslims killed us on 9/11“, I believe that he believes that we were attacked by the Muslim religion itself  (ie: we were attacked by the Muslims) rather than just that the persons who carried out the attack were Muslims.

I also believe he is dead wrong.  Though it is technically correct to say that 9-11 was carried out by Muslims, it is also technically correct to say 9-11 was carried out by heterosexual men.  In either of these cases, the statements serve no useful purpose and only serve to deceive and mislead by making false implications and encouraging erroneous inferences about responsibility for the attacks.  As a heterosexual man who did not participate in the attacks, I wish not to be incorrectly associated with those that did, and I imagine many Muslims feel the same way.

I could provide various statements about  things that were done by (people who happened to be) Republicans or Christians that I’m sure Bill O’Reilly would freak out about if you said them to his face, but I think I’ve already made my point.

Posted in Critical Thinking, Criticism, Media | Tagged: | Leave a Comment »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 3, Season 3, The Plateau

Posted by Karl Withakay on October 7, 2010

(A Red Episode)

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

But Does the Drink Have Different Ingredients in the Other Universe?

It would seem the spelling of Manhaten with one T in the previous red episode was either intentional, or the writers are doing a good job of covering their mistake.  The newspaper vending machine was for the “Manhaten Courier”

Did We go to War With the Netherlands?

The beggar’s sign read;

“ARUBA WAR VET

PLEASE GIVE WHAT YOU CAN!”

Nagging, Unanswered Question

If they want Olivia for her ability to travel freely between universes without dangerous consequences, how did Fauxlivia (and the rest of our world’s Fringe team) travel to our universe again?  Will the writers address this question eventually and put in some sort of dangerous consequences at some point?

Decades Beyond Ball Point Pens?

I would guess that ball point pens will be around in this universe for a long time still, despite the iPad.  After all, we still have wooden pencils and AM radio, don’t we?

Small Pox Outbreak in Texas

So, did they not eradicate small pox in the other universe, or was it reintroduced, perhaps by a Fringe event?

Interesting Standard of Ethics for Human Research

I’m not sure why they would need to revert the subject back to their original state to determine whether there were any permanent adverse side effects from the nootropic drug; the researcher described that as a necessary part of human drug trials.  Unless the subject was already experiencing adverse side effect that they wanted to find out whether they were permanent or not (in which case they would be discontinuing the trial due to the already known adverse side effects), they best way to look for adverse side effects would be continue the phase II trial he was participating in.  They should have already discovered any obvious problems in the phase I trial.  I suppose they could have wanted to determine whether there were any side effects from discontinuing the drug after being on it for as long as Milo had been on it.

Of course, you have to question whether it would be ethical to discontinue the treatment once the obvious benefit to the subject had been demonstrated.  Not being a researcher. I’m not sure how or if the Declaration of Helsinki applies in such a circumstance.

I’m Not Sure the writers Know What Exponential Means

I don’t think the human brain has enough cells to increase intelligence exponentially five times, but I could be wrong.

Anybody Got a Cat, a Radioactive Substance, Some Poison, and a Box?

Assuming quantum events like radioactive decay are really non-deterministic,  the best way to defeat a super mentat like Milo would be to use a random, unpredictable event like the radioactive decay of a particle to choose your strategy.  Since such an event is not precisely predictable, Milo would never see you coming until it was too late.

Posted in Fringe, Medicine / Health, Red Episode, Science, Television | 3 Comments »

Space Post Page Added

Posted by Karl Withakay on October 6, 2010

I now have a page with links to all my space themed posts.  I know you can use the space tag, but that returns full posts instead of just post titles and links.  Also, many of my posts that are not primarily space themed have space tags, and I wanted to provide a place to go to that lists the collection of posts which are exclusively dedicated to space topics.

Space Posts:  https://blog.cordialdeconstruction.com/space-posts/

Posted in Science, Space, Stephen Hawking, This Blog | Leave a Comment »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 2, Season 3, The Box

Posted by Karl Withakay on September 30, 2010

(A Blue Episode)

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

Blog Fodder For Scott

The weren’t exactly psychic nosebleeds, but I’m sure Scott will mention them.

I Have No Sarcastic Heading For This One, But The Numbers Are Off…

Walter said about Oppenheiner,

“And how do you think he slept, after his little invention had killed hundreds of thousands in a fraction of a second?’

The little boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed about 66,000 as a direct result of the blast, and the fat man bomb killed about 39,000 in Nagasaki as a direct result of its blast.  Also, although the actual nuclear detonation took fractions of a second,  it took one second for the little boy fireball to grow to its maximum height of 280m, and although it traveled faster than the speed of sound, the blast wave also took longer than a fraction of a second to propagate.

Any Chance Fauxlivia Will Change Her Mind?

“I’ve been noticing a lot of things since we’ve been back.”

You don’t think there could be any subtle foreshadowing there that Fauxlivia will eventually decide she likes our world better, do you?

They Got Me

I’ll admit it, they got me with the raspberry jam on the tie.

From My Notes I

“Does Bell leave Massive Dynamic to Walter???”

Good Job at Not Arousing Suspicion Fauxlivia

Peter should already be suspicious of her out of character behavior, recent events be damned.  Maybe Fauxlivia’s not any brighter than our Olivia.  Maybe Peter’s not that bright, either.

Good Cover, But I Still Question…

They did a good job of explaining how Fauxlivia is going to be able to maintain her cover, but I still don’t see how those closest to Olivia aren’t going to catch her slipping up on something she should know sooner or later.

From My Notes II

“Must have read her lips to get her name- DEAF???  Deaf=Immune to device???”

I’m Not A Neurologist, but…

That whole deal about harmonic music reducing neural activity, and that being why we think more clearly when we listen to that type of music didn’t quite ring true to me.  Don’t we need neural activity to think?  Even if that were so, Walter’s “neural activity” was flat lining while the music was playing, but he was also talking at the same time.  I’m interested to see Polite Scott’s take on this.  (I’m being very reserved in my questioning here because i don’t know and don’t feel like taking the time to do the research right now.)

Size Does Matter

That silencer (more properly called a suppressor) was too small to be effective.  You need room for the muzzle gasses to expand and slow down.  Suppressors are basically mufflers for guns, and little mufflers don’t work very well.  Also, if she wasn’t using subsonic ammo, there would still be a load crack (mini sonic boom) from the bullet traveling faster than the speed of sound.

Perhaps The Dumbest Thing I Have Ever Seen On Fringe

Shooting a gun that close to a person’s ears is almost guaranteed to produce at least some permanent hearing loss and probably a lot more pain then Peter exhibited.  130dB is about the threshold of pain, and typical service handgun comes in at about 160dB at the muzzle.

Did She Use Blanks?

Nobody seemed particularly concerned about ricochet potential in an area with lots of hard surfaces like the subway station, did they?

Is There a Reason To Think It Would Be Booby-Trapped?

Just cut all the wires, Peter.  The device is a weapon component, and likely was not designed to prevent disabling.  Nuclear weapons, for example, are not designed to prevent them form being disabled.  In fact, they are designed to be rendered relatively inert when tampered with.

You Better Sign For That

Sure, Peter, you can take the ultrasonic death component for the ultimate weapon of mass destruction back to your father’s unsecured lab to tinker with on your own.  Why bother with security or safety measures?  It’s not like the lab has ever been broken into before by armed criminals, other than that one time, of course.

Bearer Shares

Massive Dynamic must be the only company in the world that issues stock in bearer shares such that whoever posses the physical documents is the owner of the company.  No wonder Bell kept them in a safety deposit box.

Posted in Blue Episode, Fringe, Science, Television | Tagged: , | 3 Comments »

Astronomer (Probably) Has 99% Chance of Being Wrong

Posted by Karl Withakay on September 30, 2010

Astronomers have spotted a so-called Goldilocks planet ( Gliese 581g)orbiting another star.  A goldilocks planet is a one that is of the right size to be terrestrial and which lies in the habitable zone of its parent star; conditions which are needed to support life remotely close to as we know it.

During a press briefing, astronomer Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz said the following:

“Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent,”

“I have almost no doubt about it.”

This is an astounding statement for any reasonable scientist to make, even one that is an astronomer and not a biologist.  I would even say such a statement borders on irresponsible, assuming there isn’t some missing context or qualification to that statement.  Professor Vogt is essentially saying that the fℓ term (the fraction of the habitable worlds that actually go on to develop life at some point) from the Drake Equation is 100%, which is extraordinarily unlikely to be true.

Whether or not already developed life flourishes everywhere we look on earth is independent from the likelihood of it developing in the first place.   By analogy (admittedly one of the weakest forms of argument), diesel fuel is very hard to light on fire, but burns very well once started.

We really don’t have any reasonable estimate for the fℓ term of the Drake Equation, but I think we can say is significantly less than 100%.  If it were 100%, you would expect life to be spontaneously developing all the time.  You would expect to be able to observe spontaneous abiogenesis at least under laboratory conditions, and yet, we have not yet ever observed life arising from non-life, therefore it must be somewhat less than common.

Additionally, this planet may be the most habitable world we’ve found so far, but the Garden of Eden it ain’t.  First of all, it orbits a red dwarf star, which isn’t ideal.  Red dwarf stars are fairly deficient in UV radiation which is probably important to, and may be vital for, the development and evolution of life.  Also, the planet is tidally locked with its parent star, meaning one side of the planet is always facing the star and one side is always in darkness- not ideal for moderate temperatures on most of the planet.  It’s likely the planet itself would have a Goldilocks zone of its own; the day side is probably too hot, the night side is probably too cold, and the zone bordering the day and night zones is probably the habitable zone of the planet.

Even if my last paragraph regarding the actual habitability of the world in question is totally wrong, even if this planet existed in exactly the same conditions as the Earth in regards to parent star, orbit, composition, magnetic field, etc, there’s just no reason to assume a 100% chance of life.  By definition, that would mean life had to instantaneously spring up the moment habitable conditions were achieved, and that life would continue to spontaneously arise all the time.  I personally believe (without much supporting evidence) that the odds of life developing in any ideal environment are probably very low, but I will confidently say the odds are significantly less than 100%, and they are less for Gliese 581 g than they were and are for Earth.

Posted in Critical Thinking, Criticism, Science, Space | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

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