UDLS

[gfish]

I've been remiss in posting my Undistinguished Lecture Series presentations here.

2008-02-29: Navigation Techniques That Don't Rely on General Relativity -- How We Got Around Before GPS.
Our ancestors managed, more or less, to get around for thousands of years without the amazing convenience of GPS. How did they do it? We'll look at a range of Polynesian and Viking techniques as well as the basics of full celestial navigation.
[This one I did in innovative Crayolavision. They're all handdrawn in crayon on construction paper, with very little text. I never got around to annotating them, so I'm not sure how useful they will be by themselves. Enjoy!]

2008-05-30: Fermi's Paradox
There are more stars in the universe than our puny meatbrains can possibly comprehend. Likewise, the universe is ridiculously old. So why wasn't the galaxy filled with advanced civilizations millions of years before we came down out of the trees? SETI hasn't turned up the slightest scrap of evidence for anyone else zipping around out there after almost 50 years of looking. What might this ominous silence mean for us here on Earth? (Hint: Nothing good.)
[This was thrown together at the last minute when the originally scheduled speaker backed out. It could have used some more polishing. Again, they're a bit low on text. My preferred style just doesn't lend itself to slides that stand alone.]

Comments

[solarbird]

I think one of the problems with Fermi's Paradox is that we very probably do not have the technology to detect signals being used by other civilisations (c.f. wrong codex, wrong spectrum, wrong set of spectra) or, even more likely, they're just not using RF, but are instead using quantum entanglement-based systems or something else we don't even guess at yet. So I'm less worried on that front.

Another thing I wonder about is whether there's simply not a lot of interest. Human social interaction is driven mostly by evolutionary human social structures. When those don't match up, interaction interest drops off sharply. (How much do most people really interact with fish?) Maybe it'd end up being research-and-curiosity, with species-based cultures living in the same areas but essentially separate, like deer and elk.

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

Jesus christ. And then you all went out drinking after that. Must've been an interesting evening at Koerner's.

What was with the robot slide?

[tfabris.livejournal.com]

ROFL @ "Drake Harder" and "The Drakening"

Also, love how the first presentation is crayon on construction paper. That is priceless. DIE, POWERPOINT, DIE.

[porysski.livejournal.com]

Nice use of xkcd in the Fermi's Paradox presentation.

[maida-mac.livejournal.com]

Those are excellent. I love the crayon pictures. ^_^