Stephen Tive Pirrie

Thanks @tortillauk 🤦🏻‍♂️

@spoonybear @jdoggzzzz @ProfBrianCox Perhaps we will conquer time (hibernation). But as he says, “if we survive to the 22nd century”. Related: Have you read the Dark Forest Trilogy?

@jdoggzzzz @ProfBrianCox That’s the killer thought isn’t it. The idea of countless, limitless, unknown levels of life which can never find one another just always flailing in the dark

A few more thoughts on the possibility of life beyond Earth. All these thoughts are guesses. The lack of firm evidence for alien intelligence (so far) is sometimes called the Fermi Paradox, and it is a paradox. Put simply, there has been over 10 billion years and there are many millions of worlds in the Milky Way on which a civilisation could have arisen as far as we know. At first sight, one might therefore expect that there should be many civilisations in the galaxy far in advance of us, and we might have expected to see them. Why don’t we (or, let’s be careful, why is the evidence not bloody obvious!)? One answer might be that civilisations never develop interstellar travel. I don’t see any reason why interstellar travel is impossible, and I think we’ll develop it if we survive into the 22nd century. Related - perhaps civilisations don’t ever solve the problems posed by industrialisation and the discovery of nuclear weapons and never make it to the stars. Topical - see Oppenheimer!Maybe just ‘getting along’ as a global civilisation is harder than science. Maybe (see UFO hearings) they are here but we haven’t discovered them or somebody knows but has managed to keep it a secret? Maybe. But if this is the case then at least I can say that the alien civilisations aren’t making their presence very obvious, otherwise my Astronomy colleagues who spend their time gazing at the sky and listening for signals would surely have spotted them! But let’s not rule out the possibility that we just haven’t detected them (or there is evidence but only a few people know about it) but they are indeed here. My guess is that the average number of civilisations in a typical galaxy is low - perhaps less than 1. That’s a guess, based on what we know about the evolution of complex life on Earth. Put simply, it took the best part of 4 billion years here to go from cell to civilisation, and that’s a third of the age of the Universe. I think this MAY imply that, if this is typical (lots of ifs) then the Milky Way may be filled with microbes but not complex living things at our level of intelligence. This would be my guess. BUT make no mistake, I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if a UFO landed in Oldham town centre tomorrow morning and the captain said ‘Take me to the leader of Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council’. In that case the Fermi Paradox would no longer be a paradox, I’d have learnt a lot about biology and I could get back to tweeting about other interesting stuff. I’d also ask them why gravity is so weak relative to the other forces of Nature.

@Nickjames40Nick Thanks

@Tive He came in at 9.15 and it ended at about 11pm.

Blenheim Palace sky and Lionel Richie doing his stuff this evening. He was brilliant. #BlenheimNocturne

@Welsh_Mayflower What time did he start and end please? Trying to work out my Own timings. Thanks.

Fantastic night at Blenheim Palace #Nocturne watching Lionel Richie. What a performer!!

@SteveHarding_ @BlenheimPalace What time did he start and end please? Trying to work out my Own timings. Thanks.

@BlenheimPalace last nite to see Lionel Richie supported by Gabrielle had a great time

@alicia_nicholls What time did he start and end please? Trying to work out my Own timings. Thanks.

Time to party all night long with Mr Lionel Richie 🫶🏼

Remember KidPix? Desktop Publishing is still fun...! — Visual Study: "What Is New?"

The best way to spread Christmas cheer is to sing it loud for all to hear youtube.com/watch?v=KnW1TW…

The question: “what law would you love to see brought into force in the UK?” The answer: cc @beer52 Link: reddit.com/r/AskUK/commen…

I was there. It was… surreal.

@neilperkin Feel free to pilfer from this open.spotify.com/playlist/1o2wf…

When I'm writing I find the radio too distracting but film soundtracks are great for deep work. Current favourite - the Interstellar soundtrack. Any others that people find good?

#TomHanks is trending for two very different reasons. They're both wonderful.

@NedHartley @simonjward can confirm. my daughter didn't know who he is and I explained about school dinners etc. oh and the football thing but she was most interested in the former. not sure about any of the comments but not sure what bad you could say about him guest editing.

@simonjward Ah thanks man. I needed that

Oh man

@GeekDadGamer LucasFilm treasures - Sam and Max and DOTT in particular but also some Indy games. Dark side Detective may be closest today. Overcooked makes me laugh but mainly via social dysfunctional dynamic that comes with multiplayer.

Forget about games that make you cry, I'm looking for games that made you laugh. What's the silly, fun, absurd game that get's your eyes watering? Drink More Glurp for me.

@CASTeacherHerts @TigWilliams @GeekDadGamer PC or Mac: gog.com/game/day_of_th…

@TigWilliams @GeekDadGamer I remember Day of the Tentacles being the only game on the computer at my mum's work (when I was small). Would love to play it again!

@nathanbenaich @Jack_O_Meara It's because it's in guidebooks.

@Jack_O_Meara Thing is, pretty sure they’re all from outside london.

Why do ppl still queue for Dishoom? I don’t get it.

@ikavalerov @nathanbenaich The British response to this would be: "If no one is queuing how do you know they're popular?"

@nathanbenaich One of the things that surprised me the most about London - people queueing for expensive restaurants. In Kyiv or Odesa the best restaurants are typically reservation only, sometimes they do offer tables for people without reservation, but I've never seen such queues