Author: Matthew Groff

  • That Possible Space Probe: Oumuamua

    This has been one of my favorite stories to read of late, and if you aren’t aware, please check the wiki page. Even The New Yorker did a story on it. I just find it fun that we can have a scientific debate on the physics of this object moving through our solar system, and from the data, it is possible that the object was created and sent by intelligent beings from another planet.

    That’s pretty cool.

    From what I can tell from the data, Oumuamua was in the Neptune distance from the Sun around 2014, and it will leave our system in the 2023 ballpark. So, if this thing was sent by an intelligent being, it sure isn’t in a hurry. I would think that if I could send a craft to, let’s say for the sake of argument, a neighboring star, that I would have a little speed to it, so I would be able to appreciate the discovery. But maybe it was built with the idea that the information would make it to the next generation. They have other things to do while they wait for the data. Maybe…

    Or, maybe they saw us, and don’t want to have any part it. Maybe, having studied how humans behave, the aliens realized it was better to slowly “ghost” out of the system, because humans quickly forget stuff that isn’t in their face.

    You know, like when you walk into a store, get greeted by an employee, but then you realize that you should leave, but you still go through the motions of looking at stuff, so the employee forgets about you and then you can leave.

    Again, if it’s intelligent life, they would know that about us.

  • Gen X: Still a Bunch of Losers

    And I feel completely justified in saying that because I am Gen X, and we are a bunch of losers.

    On SNL this weekend, they had a sketch called “Millennial Millions,” and the clip is below…

    This is a subject matter that I have hit on before, which is that Baby Boomers are ruining everything for everyone, making life way more difficult than they had it.

    Anyway, the part that made me really sit up and laugh was at the 3:15 make when Kenan Thompson as the host laughs at a contestant, then adds, “I’m Gen X. I just sit on the sidelines and watch the world burn.” And there we have it; Nothing better encapsulates my generation than that statement.

    The first person that I know who threw all this shade at us was my friend, and artist Erin Orr, also Gen X, who made this point about three years ago. Her logic to us was more along the lines that Gen X should be moving into the political forefront, as we should be established in careers, earning real money, have families, and the first wave of us just hit 50. In 15 years, retirement will begin to set in. With all of this happening in our generational lives, where are we? Why aren’t we demanding to be on the political scene to have our concerns heard? It’s like we can’t shake our loser persona, and the rest of the world has just moved on to the next group.

    That’s why I’m not real surprised that this story happened, and Gen X got left out again.

  • Blackout: Learning Experience

    Yesterday, very powerful and disruptive storms hit us on the west coast. The rain wasn’t any worse than a bad thunderstorm in Texas around late May, but whereas a Texas storm is done and over in about thirty minutes, the rain yesterday lasted for over twenty-four hours.

    As the storms were tapering off in the middle of the evening, just as we were about to start making dinner, we lost power, and got plunged into darkness. Luckily, we have a large collection of Yankee candles thanks to our many trips to outlet malls, and we quickly had light in our apartment.

    As we sat and waited for the power to return, the wife and I thought about the last time we were in a power outage. For me, it had to be at least 20 years, back when I was in Texas. My wife was in New York for the blackout of 2003. For our daughter, this was the first time she had experienced no electricity.

    We explained to her what was going on, and that nothing would work in the home. I know she heard us, and understood, but it was cute to watch her go from room to room, trying light switches, and then ask if we had extra electricity in the apartment to use. Like a battery, you know. We even opened the front door, so she could see the complex and the whole neighborhood cloaked in darkness.

    It was interesting to watch her learn. She had been given information, but she still needed to experience it for herself; to touch and see. She questioned why this happened, and how does rain make electricity go away. She wanted to know what we could do to fix it, and when I told her there was nothing to do but wait, she didn’t like that.

    If there is a problem, then we have to solve it.

    Waiting is still a lesson to be learned.

  • The Unexamined Life Sucks…

    Which I think is a more accurate translation from ancient Greek.

    I watched a documentary on Freud last night, and it didn’t help me sleep. What struck me in this program was that it claimed that in moments when Freud was stuck and frustrated by his own theories, he would apply them to his own life to see if they stood up to objective scrutiny. Depending on how you feel about Freud, you may feel that he succeeded or failed.

    It reminded me of Socrates’ quote, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I know that he said it, or supposedly did, at his trial, choosing death rather than exile. Now, my interpretation is that the ancient world was about examining the external, and the modern world is about examining the internal.

    I remember wanting to write books from a very early age. I remember wanting to have as many books around me as possible. I can even remember memorizing the books my parents read to me, so I could act like I was “reading” them. (My daughter has started to exhibit the same behavior now.) I remember “scribbling” with wavy lines on paper, like I was handwriting a story. When I did learn how to write, this might have been when I was 9 or 10, I asked for and received a child’s typewriter for Christmas. I also remember wanting to tell stories; make them up, read them, perform them, etc.…

    But where did this come from?

    I understand the nature/nurture dynamic, but it can’t be all nature, can it? Being given books by my parents clearly had an impact, but is that it? Did books give me a feeling of power? Were books my “friend” when my older brothers left me alone to do older brother things? Was it playing by myself in those situations where I was forced to use my imagination to create my own stories as I did not have the interaction with another child? Or is it just something that is in me that was inevitable?

    I’m not sure if there is a clear answer here, or even a need for an answer, as in, what does that answer really “give” me? I am who I am, and I don’t regret it.

    But…

    As I mentioned above, my daughter has exhibited one of these behaviors. Is that coming from me, genetically, or from the example I set?

  • On Thoughts of Breaking a Plate

    I broke a plate this afternoon. I was putting away the dishes, and I wasn’t paying attention. It slipped out of my hand and crashed onto the floor. The sound of the plate shattering was much louder than I expected. It was almost ear pricing as the sound was in such a high register. The plate broke into a few large pieces, but the majority was made up of tiny shards that went everywhere.

    First, I was angry, as the plate I had broken was one we had received for our wedding, and I don’t think they make them anymore. I started to move to clean it up, but then I stopped.

    I stopped to look at the mess I had made, though by accident; The strange pattern all of the pieces had made. As our kitchen is central in the layout of the apartment, shards had made it to the living room, master bedroom, and even the dining room. The spread was impressive.

    What if I left it? It was a silly question and couldn’t be answered with a, yes, leave it. A child’s bare feet would be home soon. Messes are made to be cleaned up. As are accidents.

    And so, I cleaned the floor. Picked up the large pieces, swept up the tiny ones. Vacuumed the tiles, and then mopped. I would say that it now looked like it never happened, but the clean floors will give away that something happened.

    I was reminded of a question that a history professor posed to us, his class; If there is no evidence of a historical event happening, did it really happen?