Well, here's a thing: I have been invited to a drinks event at this year's Labour party conference.
Shall I go? Will there even be a conference? I could be - with due credit to @Bunnco - your Lady on the Spot.
Somehow, the new wildly free ‘you’ doesn’t quite tally with a soggy wet weekend in Liverpool.
It is a drinks do. I should not admit this - but I can get quite wild if the drinks and company are right. I had a most splendid time at the Hacienda in Manchester in times gone past. I rather liked my last trip to Liverpool.
And I am quite sure I would be well able to handle any smelly argumentative Momentum types. I do - after all - have Irish Fenian blood in my veins. They'd have no chance with me!!
Given the drippy duo currently pretending they can run Labour, frankly even I - as a non-Labour type - would do a better job........
Well, here's a thing: I have been invited to a drinks event at this year's Labour party conference.
Shall I go? Will there even be a conference? I could be - with due credit to @Bunnco - your Lady on the Spot.
Make sure you get your discounted rail fare from Virgin Trains. They are incredibly popular there I understand.
Congrats on your son but as you have probably discovered children going away to Uni does not materially reduce the time committed and can even increase the budget.
I know. It's still some sort of a watershed though. Children and horses are the two ways best guaranteed to spend eye-watering sums of money for the rest of one's life.
Attending racing meets: another thing I will have more time for.......
Time. Either you spend 20 hours getting somewhere on a non-stop, or 36 hours with a break of a few hours on the ground somewhere wonderful like Dubai, Qatar or Abu Dhabi.
That said, my ankles now swell on those long trips and take weeks to recover, so my wife the doctor has me on aspirin for these flights.
It's where I watch movies, read books and listen to music. Unless I am in business-class, doing work is out of the question.
Ya'll be careful of those swollen ankles. That is what happened to me, after a while they didn't go away except after a very long lie down. I went to the quack, a blood-test, then an ultrasound scan and I was diagnosed with a DVT in the right leg. I was off work, never mind travelling, for months. Those injections in the stomach aren't nice and nor is having to go the hospital and queue up for a blood test every week. That is when I went semi-retired (it was that or a divorce).
You be careful, Mr. T, also according to my quacks the Aspirin is not quite the wonder drug that newspaper reports might have us believe.
Asprin is not great for DVT prophylaxis.
Compression stockings (excluding people with peripheral vascular disease), remaining hydrated and foot exercises with regular strolls about the plane are better. High risk patients may benefit from LMW Heparin.
Heparin: I have had so much of the stuff that, apparently, I'm now at risk of osteoporosis. I have had so many ops and conditions and other stuff that I've practically done all the learning needed for a medical degree by now. Honestly, when God - or whoever - created me, he was having one hell of an off day.
Just seen the clip of Corbyn getting pissy that the press won't ask him the questions he wants them to ask. I know he's under a lot of pressure, whether one thinks that is fair or unfair, but he just sounds so arrogant trying to demand they ask him what he wants them to ask, it surely cannot be hard for a senior politician even when frustrated to just go 'we're still on that? what a shame. well my answer is as before...'. Such a whiner as well. I'll grant I think he's bad at the job and that colours my view, but it takes a bit of effort to make a journalist asking a question on a trivial incident seem less entitled and more reasonable.
Schedule 1 paragraphs 2 and 3 of the Belfast Agreement gives the Secretary of State the power to call a referendum if it appears likely to him that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should leave the United Kingdom. This referendum can be held again 7 years later.
Note the provision is to ascertain support for a United Ireland not as a Unionist tactic.
Given that this has been agreed by HMG it renders ridiculous unionist calls in Scotland for the majority elected SNP MPs and massively supported SNP Government to give up the referendum proposal.
Of course that total lightweight Ruth Davidson may never have stumbled across the Belfast Agreement.
Thank you.
But what's that got to do with the Edinburgh agreement which stipulated only one referendum and makes no reference to subsequent ones. Indeed the Scottish government's White Paper said it was a 'once in a generation' event - something Salmond & Sturgeon repeatedly said too.....
Given the Scottish diet, seven years is probably about right for a generation.
There has been a material change in circumstances but no one to know what it is.
It was when Cameron changed from one lump to two in his morning tea.
That second lump belonged to the people of Scotland!
Had drinks with a friend in Soho last night; he lives in New Orleans and his American fiancee was in tow.
She was - literally - close to tears at the idea - just the idea - of Trump winning. Quite remarkable.
That the trouble with the left (especially the young) - cannot cope with adversity.
Edit - basically they are a load of spoilt brats. Never been in competition for anything, never had to face disappointment. Grown up in cotton wool where their every thought is fed back to them as being brilliant (for fear of upsetting them).
Whilst I agree with that general description, as it applies to a lot of Millennials, it certainly doesn't apply to my mate's fiancee. She's been through incredible shit and is an absolute survivor. She has a gun at home in NOLA. She's no snowflake. Some of her stories made ME blush...
She's just terrified that he is a real racist and we will see race war in the States if he wins...
Sorry about the generalisations - but the racist card is being played against him by the Democrats and she believes it because she is scared it might be true.
In the UK of course the racist card is now openly mocked. WAAYYCIISST!
2 more national polls released on RCP. Clinton +3 +4 - done by that doyen of accuracy - yougov - which has a track record of underestimating the non-left.
I think we can agree that the polls are closing back to what they were some weeks ago.
However it is not the Nationals - it is the States that count.
That's not news, Sid Meier told us about it 17 years ago.
In all seriousness, if our closest star was also potentially capable of supporting life that is a massive coincidence or potential for life is a lot higher than I realised.
Had drinks with a friend in Soho last night; he lives in New Orleans and his American fiancee was in tow.
She was - literally - close to tears at the idea - just the idea - of Trump winning. Quite remarkable.
This Florida poll has Trump taking 20% AA vote and 40% of the hispanic vote.
Chortle ...
You seem to be chortling a lot about polls showing Trump getting around 20% of the AA vote. He'll do better than expected and that demographic may even be what swings it for him.
That's not news, Sid Meier told us about it 17 years ago.
In all seriousness, if our closest star was also potentially capable of supporting life that is a massive coincidence or potential for life is a lot higher than I realised.
It would not likely be pleasant. Bathed in X-rays and UV radiation. That, and it may be tidally locked.
Time. Either you spend 20 hours getting somewhere on a non-stop, or 36 hours with a break of a few hours on the ground somewhere wonderful like Dubai, Qatar or Abu Dhabi.
That said, my ankles now swell on those long trips and take weeks to recover, so my wife the doctor has me on aspirin for these flights.
It's where I watch movies, read books and listen to music. Unless I am in business-class, doing work is out of the question.
Ya'll be careful of those swollen ankles. That is what happened to me, after a while they didn't go away except after a very long lie down. I went to the quack, a blood-test, then an ultrasound scan and I was diagnosed with a DVT in the right leg. I was off work, never mind travelling, for months. Those injections in the stomach aren't nice and nor is having to go the hospital and queue up for a blood test every week. That is when I went semi-retired (it was that or a divorce).
You be careful, Mr. T, also according to my quacks the Aspirin is not quite the wonder drug that newspaper reports might have us believe.
Asprin is not great for DVT prophylaxis.
Compression stockings (excluding people with peripheral vascular disease), remaining hydrated and foot exercises with regular strolls about the plane are better. High risk patients may benefit from LMW Heparin.
Heparin: I have had so much of the stuff that, apparently, I'm now at risk of osteoporosis. I have had so many ops and conditions and other stuff that I've practically done all the learning needed for a medical degree by now. Honestly, when God - or whoever - created me, he was having one hell of an off day.
Ouch. Genuinely sorry to hear that. Presumably they can head it off at the pass?
Very cool. Let's hope the result stands the test of time, unlike the planet supposed to be around Alpha Centauri.
Unmanned Interstellar travel is actually not that far away!
In April 2016, scientists announced Breakthrough Starshot, a Breakthrough Initiatives program, to develop a proof-of-concept fleet of small centimeter-sized light sail spacecraft, named StarChip,[4] capable of making the journey to Alpha Centauri, the nearest extrasolar star system, at speeds of 20%[5][6] and 15%[7] of the speed of light, taking between 20 and 30 years to reach the star system, respectively, and about 4 years to notify Earth of a successful arrival. (Wikipedia)
Edit (Noting the pun and the date of release one might suspect something)
2 more national polls released on RCP. Clinton +3 +4 - done by that doyen of accuracy - yougov - which has a track record of underestimating the non-left.
I think we can agree that the polls are closing back to what they were some weeks ago.
However it is not the Nationals - it is the States that count.
In my average daily tracking poll Trump is up for a 4th day in a row, now at his best since August 4th, but he's not taking from Hillary and the gap is still big.
That's not news, Sid Meier told us about it 17 years ago.
In all seriousness, if our closest star was also potentially capable of supporting life that is a massive coincidence or potential for life is a lot higher than I realised.
It would not likely be pleasant. Bathed in X-rays and UV radiation. That, and it may be tidally locked.
From Alpha Centauri, the Sun would appear as a first magnitude star sort of extending the "W" pattern of Cassiopeia.
You seem to be chortling a lot about polls showing Trump getting around 20% of the AA vote. He'll do better than expected and that demographic may even be what swings it for him.
So laughable you should be on the stage.
McCain and Romney managed 4/5% of the AA vote. Your contention that Trump will outperform their result by 100/200/300% are the musings of the deluded.
Theoretically, if it is habitable (and we'd probably never know until we got there - some 300-400 generations hence) it would be possible to colonise it even with current technology.
Provided we spent almost all the world's GDP for a few decades on a massive f--k off spaceship.
Love space stuff, but why must it ruin our fantasies of the likelihood of sexy aliens? Haven't read much sci-fi in a while, but it feels like the explanation most people go with for stories is 'ancient precursors meddled in other planets to help life develop'. Be it God or others, we need a helping hand to realise those dreams I guess.
You seem to be chortling a lot about polls showing Trump getting around 20% of the AA vote. He'll do better than expected and that demographic may even be what swings it for him.
So laughable you should be on the stage.
McCain and Romney managed 4/5% of the AA vote. Your contention that Trump will outperform their result by 100/200/300% are the musings of the deluded.
McCain and Romney were up against an African American candidate. If you go back to previous elections the Republican candidate averaged around 10% which should be Trump's baseline.
You seem to be chortling a lot about polls showing Trump getting around 20% of the AA vote. He'll do better than expected and that demographic may even be what swings it for him.
So laughable you should be on the stage.
McCain and Romney managed 4/5% of the AA vote. Your contention that Trump will outperform their result by 100/200/300% are the musings of the deluded.
You might not have noticed in your Clintonstruck delirium that McCain and Romney were up against an African while your paramour is hideously white.
You seem to be chortling a lot about polls showing Trump getting around 20% of the AA vote. He'll do better than expected and that demographic may even be what swings it for him.
So laughable you should be on the stage.
McCain and Romney managed 4/5% of the AA vote. Your contention that Trump will outperform their result by 100/200/300% are the musings of the deluded.
They were against an AA nominee.
There is no excuse for Trump to be doing worse than that, but in most polls this month he has.
Well we have run out of planets in our solar system to explore, might as well send a probe there.
Problem is how can you make it travel faster than 20% of light speed without crashing into anything, and make it stop to enter orbit.
Again, in theory, chucking a probe up to 5-10% of light speed is possible.
If we "did it" I suspect in reality we'd send a few sophisticated probes over a 40-100 year mission window to gather as much info as possible.
They'd have to be very smart with the AI, given that their signals would take 4 years to reach us.
Potential comedy at it arriving (celebration) and then a video feed shows it crashing 10 minutes later, belatedly releasing you celebrated the success of a disaster that happened years ago.
Very cool. Let's hope the result stands the test of time, unlike the planet supposed to be around Alpha Centauri.
Unmanned Interstellar travel is actually not that far away!
In April 2016, scientists announced Breakthrough Starshot, a Breakthrough Initiatives program, to develop a proof-of-concept fleet of small centimeter-sized light sail spacecraft, named StarChip,[4] capable of making the journey to Alpha Centauri, the nearest extrasolar star system, at speeds of 20%[5][6] and 15%[7] of the speed of light, taking between 20 and 30 years to reach the star system, respectively, and about 4 years to notify Earth of a successful arrival. (Wikipedia)
Edit (Noting the pun and the date of release one might suspect something)
McCain and Romney were up against an African American candidate. If you go back to previous elections the Republican candidate averaged around 10% which should be Trump's baseline.
And of course Trump has done much to endear himself to the AA community. Large scale polling of AA voters shows Trump barely moving the dial above 1-2%
Mr. Royale, one doesn't wish to be immodest, but some of us have had massive spacecraft in our manifesto for some years.
If only someone would get on & invent the Tardis technology for real, it wouldn't have to be very big.
Like the teleport, we've known about the concept for years, so it annoys me that no-one has invented either of them yet.
(I'm a very poor traveller who'd love to visit my cousin in Australia. And everyone needs more storage space.)
My favourite method of space travel was from a Peter Hamilton series - Trains.
Wormholes made starships unnecessary, so they open wormholes to planets and put on end in existing trainstations and lay tracks on the new planets. Catch the 1234 from Waterloo to Alpha Centauri!
Mr. Royale, one doesn't wish to be immodest, but some of us have had massive spacecraft in our manifesto for some years.
If only someone would get on & invent the Tardis technology for real, it wouldn't have to be very big.
Like the teleport, we've known about the concept for years, so it annoys me that no-one has invented either of them yet.
(I'm a very poor traveller who'd love to visit my cousin in Australia. And everyone needs more storage space.)
My favourite method of space travel was from a Peter Hamilton series - Trains.
Wormholes made starships unnecessary, so they open wormholes to planets and put on end in existing trainstations and lay tracks on the new planets. Catch the 1234 from Waterloo to Alpha Centauri!
Miss JGP, if I had a TARDIS it's primary use would be book storage.
Mr. kle4, alas, no pre-order period [if I can, I'll try that when I self-publish next], but it's only a little over a week to go [NB the publisher's Canadian, so the time zone might mean it's up relatively late].
Mr. Royale, one doesn't wish to be immodest, but some of us have had massive spacecraft in our manifesto for some years.
If only someone would get on & invent the Tardis technology for real, it wouldn't have to be very big.
Like the teleport, we've known about the concept for years, so it annoys me that no-one has invented either of them yet.
(I'm a very poor traveller who'd love to visit my cousin in Australia. And everyone needs more storage space.)
My favourite method of space travel was from a Peter Hamilton series - Trains.
Wormholes made starships unnecessary, so they open wormholes to planets and put on end in existing trainstations and lay tracks on the new planets. Catch the 1234 from Waterloo to Alpha Centauri!
Southern trains could make even that journey miserable.
And anyway the local shops in AC have all gone it's just like any old high street now.
Love space stuff, but why must it ruin our fantasies of the likelihood of sexy aliens? Haven't read much sci-fi in a while, but it feels like the explanation most people go with for stories is 'ancient precursors meddled in other planets to help life develop'. Be it God or others, we need a helping hand to realise those dreams I guess.
I think the problem with the Fermi Paradox is simply practical.
No one from 50 years ago would have been able to decode our digital transmission signals and as things stand everything is moving towards wifi internet communication. In 50 years time there might be nothing else but microwave wifi signals that will be unable to penetrate the atmosphere to outer space.
We should be looking for alien TV or FM radio signals, but the time between the invention of the radio until the digital switch off was only 100 years on this planet, so trying to find a civilization with 20th century technology nearby will be very difficult.
Or we could simply try and think what communication systems a spacefaring civilization would use, for instance if we sent a probe to alpha centauri how it would be able to communicate with us ?
Mr. Royale, one doesn't wish to be immodest, but some of us have had massive spacecraft in our manifesto for some years.
Ha.
I see the problem with the planet may well be its magnetosphere, not unlike what happened to Mars.
The dealbreaker for these planets seems to be the habitable zone, where liquid water can exist, and that's probably because we can assess it with telescopes from here.
But if it's totally saturated with radiation, it ain't habitable.
Mr. kle4, thanks for that link. Amusing to read of le Monde whining.
To be fair, a lot of the comments below the Le Monde article are highly critical of it, and specifically of its title (which presumably was written by a subeditor). Others, however, accuse us of doping, corruption, elitism (!) and other assorted perfidies...
Mr. T, mildly surprised you don't have aircon. I know it's not common in the UK, but you are a man of means.
Mr. Speedy, but other species would have had millions or even billions of years to evolve. Imagine, if we survive, what we'd be like over that timescale. We'd be all over the bloody place.
Mr. Royale, perhaps. We need more information. Earth-type (in precise terms) planets may be very rare, or not, but most of our knowledge is educated guesswork because we lack the means to go have a proper look.
Mr. Royale, one doesn't wish to be immodest, but some of us have had massive spacecraft in our manifesto for some years.
If only someone would get on & invent the Tardis technology for real, it wouldn't have to be very big.
Like the teleport, we've known about the concept for years, so it annoys me that no-one has invented either of them yet.
(I'm a very poor traveller who'd love to visit my cousin in Australia. And everyone needs more storage space.)
My favourite method of space travel was from a Peter Hamilton series - Trains.
Wormholes made starships unnecessary, so they open wormholes to planets and put on end in existing trainstations and lay tracks on the new planets. Catch the 1234 from Waterloo to Alpha Centauri!
Southern trains could make even that journey miserable.
And anyway the local shops in AC have all gone it's just like any old high street now.
Love space stuff, but why must it ruin our fantasies of the likelihood of sexy aliens? Haven't read much sci-fi in a while, but it feels like the explanation most people go with for stories is 'ancient precursors meddled in other planets to help life develop'. Be it God or others, we need a helping hand to realise those dreams I guess.
I think the problem with the Fermi Paradox is simply practical.
No one from 50 years ago would have been able to decode our digital transmission signals and as things stand everything is moving towards wifi internet communication. In 50 years time there might be nothing else but microwave wifi signals that will be unable to penetrate the atmosphere to outer space.
We should be looking for alien TV or FM radio signals, but the time between the invention of the radio until the digital switch off was only 100 years on this planet, so trying to find a civilization with 20th century technology nearby will be very difficult.
Or we could simply try and think what communication systems a spacefaring civilization would use, for instance if we sent a probe to alpha centauri how it would be able to communicate with us ?
Cixin Liu in his "Three Body Problem" and sequel has a sort of interesting take on this. (Spolier) He suggests that the logical conclusion is that any civilisation that is careless enough to broadcast its existence becomes a "must-kill" for any civilisation detecting their signals. It has some sense to it. Bit gloomy mind.
Train gate getting hammered on Sky news again and video footage. Ain't going away.....
Twitter hashtag #Traingate still rampant with terribly irate momentum types, screaming at each other not to mention err, #Traingate. – All rather bizarre and quite unhelpful.
Is Nigel Farage losing it? He's agreed to address a Trump rally, but he says he won't "fall into the trap" of "endorsing" Trump. What will he do then? Tell people to vote their conscience?
If only they could get Marine Le Pen there, they could call it a triple! Grins all round at the Russian embassy! She could appear as "Madame Frexit".
Don't be gloomy. The odds on aliens destroying us in the near future are long.
I'm not gloomy. I don't think our Chinese friend is quite right in his analysis (massive chance of entirely non-overlapping 'goldilock's zone's), and even if I did these things are hardly likely to happen whilst there's any record of anyone that has ever known anyone that has ever posted on PB.
I think that the news story I would most like to see is 'Aliens found', although there is a pretty good chance that I'd hate every minute afterwards as I think we as a whole would be a bit pants at dealing with such news.
Are you, like me, discovering the drawbacks of penthouse apartments with huge skylight windows?
No, I'm rediscovering (as happens every year) the drawbacks of first floor flats in Georgian terraces, with floor to ceiling sash windows, facing due South.
I feel your pain. 1st and 2nd floor of a south facing townhouse. The 2nd floor is unbearable and that's where my bedroom is, looks like a night on the sofa bed for my gf and I!
Are you, like me, discovering the drawbacks of penthouse apartments with huge skylight windows?
No, I'm rediscovering (as happens every year) the drawbacks of first floor flats in Georgian terraces, with floor to ceiling sash windows, facing due South.
I feel your pain. 1st and 2nd floor of a south facing townhouse. The 2nd floor is unbearable and that's where my bedroom is, looks like a night on the sofa bed for my gf and I!
We all suffer in different ways - I accidentally knocked a fan heater on in the bedroom this morning, didn't notice, and so while lucky my house did not burn down, it's like 45C in there. Ugh. Mine isn't even due to glamorous living.
Is Nigel Farage losing it? He's agreed to address a Trump rally, but he says he won't "fall into the trap" of "endorsing" Trump. What will he do then? Tell people to vote their conscience?
If only they could get Marine Le Pen there, they could call it a triple! Grins all round at the Russian embassy! She could appear as "Madame Frexit".
they will all enthuse the silent trump voters. so silent they wont even tell the republicans private polls or rammussen about voting trump.
saying that, assuming the usa avoids a fascist leader, im thinking france will get one first
You might not have noticed in your Clintonstruck delirium that McCain and Romney were up against an African while your paramour is hideously white.
Dear god I hadn't noticed Obama was black and Clinton white ....
I revise my estimate. Trump gets 3% AA vote ....
Trump's a superpredator.
Trump is deliberately targeting black votes which are nowhere near as entrenched as in 2008 and 2012 (and probably harder to reach by the pollsters).
(In 2012 a greater percentage of blacks voted than Hispanics/ Latinos and non-college educated whites and they all voted Democrat for some reason. If that vote weakens substantially e.g. down to the levels of Hispanics/ Latinos then Trump wins (all things being equal).)
Love space stuff, but why must it ruin our fantasies of the likelihood of sexy aliens? Haven't read much sci-fi in a while, but it feels like the explanation most people go with for stories is 'ancient precursors meddled in other planets to help life develop'. Be it God or others, we need a helping hand to realise those dreams I guess.
I think the problem with the Fermi Paradox is simply practical.
No one from 50 years ago would have been able to decode our digital transmission signals and as things stand everything is moving towards wifi internet communication. In 50 years time there might be nothing else but microwave wifi signals that will be unable to penetrate the atmosphere to outer space.
We should be looking for alien TV or FM radio signals, but the time between the invention of the radio until the digital switch off was only 100 years on this planet, so trying to find a civilization with 20th century technology nearby will be very difficult.
Or we could simply try and think what communication systems a spacefaring civilization would use, for instance if we sent a probe to alpha centauri how it would be able to communicate with us ?
Cixin Liu in his "Three Body Problem" and sequel has a sort of interesting take on this. (Spolier) He suggests that the logical conclusion is that any civilisation that is careless enough to broadcast its existence becomes a "must-kill" for any civilisation detecting their signals. It has some sense to it. Bit gloomy mind.
This is the thrust of Greg Bear's 'The Forge of God' and 'Anvil of Stars' duology. The first has the only credible alien invasion I've ever read.
Comments
And I am quite sure I would be well able to handle any smelly argumentative Momentum types. I do - after all - have Irish Fenian blood in my veins. They'd have no chance with me!!
Given the drippy duo currently pretending they can run Labour, frankly even I - as a non-Labour type - would do a better job........
Attending racing meets: another thing I will have more time for.......
In the UK of course the racist card is now openly mocked. WAAYYCIISST!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37167390
https://twitter.com/ActorAaronBooth/status/768444949029236736
Trump is getting 30% of Hispanics there, but 31% among all adults.
Trump's problem are not hispanics as illustrated above, hence why Nevada is also close.
His problem is with african-americans and white women, that's why he is in trouble everywhere else.
Rio 2016 Olympics: France agonises over Team GB glory
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37168870
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1629/
Very cool. Let's hope the result stands the test of time, unlike the planet supposed to be around Alpha Centauri.
I think we can agree that the polls are closing back to what they were some weeks ago.
However it is not the Nationals - it is the States that count.
These are developing not necessarily to Clinton's advantage http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-making-more-states-competitive-red-states/
Clinton 44 .. Trump 42
http://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/MonmouthPoll_NC_082416/
In all seriousness, if our closest star was also potentially capable of supporting life that is a massive coincidence or potential for life is a lot higher than I realised.
Problem is how can you make it travel faster than 20% of light speed without crashing into anything, and make it stop to enter orbit.
So, the solar system might be the Sun, Jupiter, Planet IX and assorted debris.
Mr. kle4, thanks for that link. Amusing to read of le Monde whining.
Edited extra bit: Mr. kle4, doesn't it make the Fermi Paradox/Great Filter problem even worse, though?
http://thaddeusthesixth.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/the-fermi-paradox-and-great-filter.html
Any poll that has Trump polling more than 5% AA or 20% hispanic is "interesting".
A small sub-sample of a small poll will often provide novel results as in 08/12. Large polls of AA and hispanics give the real story.
In April 2016, scientists announced Breakthrough Starshot, a Breakthrough Initiatives program, to develop a proof-of-concept fleet of small centimeter-sized light sail spacecraft, named StarChip,[4] capable of making the journey to Alpha Centauri, the nearest extrasolar star system, at speeds of 20%[5][6] and 15%[7] of the speed of light, taking between 20 and 30 years to reach the star system, respectively, and about 4 years to notify Earth of a successful arrival. (Wikipedia)
Edit
(Noting the pun and the date of release one might suspect something)
In my average daily tracking poll Trump is up for a 4th day in a row, now at his best since August 4th, but he's not taking from Hillary and the gap is still big.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri#/media/File:Sky-from-alpha-centauri.jpg
No need to answer, I know the answer.
McCain and Romney managed 4/5% of the AA vote. Your contention that Trump will outperform their result by 100/200/300% are the musings of the deluded.
Also the polls from Nevada and Arizona show the same thing, the problem for Trump isn't hispanics, it's white women and african-americans.
As I said a general election is like dating a woman, you have to behave and charm the voter.
Or in Trump's own words from 1980 "somebody with no brains can win an election if he has a large smile".
Or even for this cropped version?
Theoretically, if it is habitable (and we'd probably never know until we got there - some 300-400 generations hence) it would be possible to colonise it even with current technology.
Provided we spent almost all the world's GDP for a few decades on a massive f--k off spaceship.
There is no excuse for Trump to be doing worse than that, but in most polls this month he has.
*cough*
Polling hispanics has in the past been tricky. Past POTUS polls/results have underestimated Dems by around 4 points in Nevada and Colorado.
http://breakthroughinitiatives.org/Challenges/3
If we "did it" I suspect in reality we'd send a few sophisticated probes over a 40-100 year mission window to gather as much info as possible.
They'd have to be very smart with the AI, given that their signals would take 4 years to reach us.
Potential comedy at it arriving (celebration) and then a video feed shows it crashing 10 minutes later, belatedly releasing you celebrated the success of a disaster that happened years ago.
Like the teleport, we've known about the concept for years, so it annoys me that no-one has invented either of them yet.
(I'm a very poor traveller who'd love to visit my cousin in Australia. And everyone needs more storage space.)
edited to add: good evening, everyone.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-in-fourth-place-among-black-voters/
Wormholes made starships unnecessary, so they open wormholes to planets and put on end in existing trainstations and lay tracks on the new planets. Catch the 1234 from Waterloo to Alpha Centauri!
I revise my estimate. Trump gets 3% AA vote ....
Mr. kle4, alas, no pre-order period [if I can, I'll try that when I self-publish next], but it's only a little over a week to go [NB the publisher's Canadian, so the time zone might mean it's up relatively late].
It's called Explorations: Through the Wormhole.
Train gate getting hammered on Sky news again and video footage. Ain't going away.....
And anyway the local shops in AC have all gone it's just like any old high street now.
No one from 50 years ago would have been able to decode our digital transmission signals and as things stand everything is moving towards wifi internet communication.
In 50 years time there might be nothing else but microwave wifi signals that will be unable to penetrate the atmosphere to outer space.
We should be looking for alien TV or FM radio signals, but the time between the invention of the radio until the digital switch off was only 100 years on this planet, so trying to find a civilization with 20th century technology nearby will be very difficult.
Or we could simply try and think what communication systems a spacefaring civilization would use, for instance if we sent a probe to alpha centauri how it would be able to communicate with us ?
I see the problem with the planet may well be its magnetosphere, not unlike what happened to Mars.
The dealbreaker for these planets seems to be the habitable zone, where liquid water can exist, and that's probably because we can assess it with telescopes from here.
But if it's totally saturated with radiation, it ain't habitable.
Truly, we are very lucky here.
Mr. T, mildly surprised you don't have aircon. I know it's not common in the UK, but you are a man of means.
Mr. Speedy, but other species would have had millions or even billions of years to evolve. Imagine, if we survive, what we'd be like over that timescale. We'd be all over the bloody place.
http://tinyurl.com/j77tu3c
Mr. Royale, perhaps. We need more information. Earth-type (in precise terms) planets may be very rare, or not, but most of our knowledge is educated guesswork because we lack the means to go have a proper look.
PS Impressive boasting there......
Don't be gloomy. The odds on aliens destroying us in the near future are long.
If only they could get Marine Le Pen there, they could call it a triple! Grins all round at the Russian embassy! She could appear as "Madame Frexit".
More support for @rcs1000 and his rather clever colleague.
I think that the news story I would most like to see is 'Aliens found', although there is a pretty good chance that I'd hate every minute afterwards as I think we as a whole would be a bit pants at dealing with such news.
I await being four yorkshiremaned.
Our history is one of near-constant conflict interspersed by brief periods of peace.
saying that, assuming the usa avoids a fascist leader, im thinking france will get one first
(In 2012 a greater percentage of blacks voted than Hispanics/ Latinos and non-college educated whites and they all voted Democrat for some reason. If that vote weakens substantially e.g. down to the levels of Hispanics/ Latinos then Trump wins (all things being equal).)