This morning I was:
1) Inspired by a quote. According to The Weekend Australian Review, the Italian fabulist Italo Calvino said: “Fantasy is like jam; you have to spread it on a solid slice of bread. If not, it remains a shapeless thing, like jam, out of which you can’t make anything.”
2) Amused, and frightened, by the concept of El Cheapo aliens. Catching up on my New Scientist reading, I came across the scary thought that ET might, like us, be in thrall to bean counters. If so, extraterrestrial economics of the thriftier kind suggests that aliens would use small and cheap beacons as transmitters, and choose to transmit their intergalactic greetings at frequencies closer to 10 gigahertz rather than 1.42 to 1.72 range that the SETI projects scan. It’s the thought of accountants ruling the universe that unsettles me. Is there then no escape from their adventure-strangling mindset?
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2 comments:
I like that image of the jam hanging there, dripping shapelessly to the floor.
It is evocative :)
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