Maggie's Farm

Note: These videos are designed to be played in full-screen mode.  Click on the little symbol on the player's tool bar to pop them open.  If you don't see the little symbol, update your Flash.  The keyboard's left and right arrow keys act as an 'instant replay' and 'quick forward'; the up and down arrow keys control the volume.  My 'House Tribute' is here.

Just for fun, I thought I'd post that clever 'speed dating' scene from earlier this season:

And I'm including this next clip for two very different reasons:

— For starters, you have to admit that you just don't see this kind of special effects on your average medical TV drama.  A few kidneys, sure.  The occasional esophagus, fine.  Intersteller gas ball barreling through a supernova, not so much.

— I'm letting it run past the super-duper graphics part because it opens up one of the most interesting debates around; the odds of our being alone in the universe, and leads to my own post on the subject.

But we'll get to that.  Remember, full-screen size:

I can relate.  I felt exactly the same way after the kid's stupid remark.

But as to the professor's question; is our solar system unique?

Well, no.  Not in the slightest.  A sprinkling of inner solid planets, a few gas giants further out, a couple of ice balls on the rim, a dead zone where a planet used to be, a sun in the center, lots of empty space outside — that's all standard fare as solar systems go.

Now, I certainly don't have any kind of formal training or education in the field, but if li'l ol' me can figure out the above and blow his "unique solar system" theory to smithereens, then pretty much anyone could, right?

Therefore, the obvious conclusion is that he's full of beans and, as such famed astronomers as Carl Sagan have claimed, with umpteen gazillion galaxies out there, then — by the numbers alone — there must be a whole pisspot full of advanced civilizations kickin' around.

Right?

Except there's one little problem:

That was just the professor's lame-ass theory.

If Sagan and his ilk want to play the numbers game, then let's play.