Chasing ET with Tweets

Tweets in Space!

That's the plan for the National Geographic Channel, as part of its promotion for a TV show about the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Channel staff will gather up tweets sent to #chasingufos on June 29 and blast them into space via Puerto Rico's Arecibo Radio Telescope.

It's all part of an effort to get people to watch a TV program about something that happened 35 years ago. The event was the "Wow" signal, a 72-second transmission from space received way back in Year 1 of Star Wars movie releases (1977). Some lucky astronomer had his receiver trained to a certain frequency and got a big surprise when a very unusual signal turned up. (For the record, it was 6EQUJ5. SETI geeks will be familiar with this.)

Anyway, back to TV, so this publicity stunt (and I am NOT being paid for this blog post) is to air on August 15, the day in 1977 when the Wow signal got noticed here on Earth. The tweets will enter space on the same day.

So, on to the unknowns: We don't know what the frequency meant (still don't), we don't know where it came from (the telescope that "saw" it isn't around anymore), and we don't know how to find it again. The whole thing could be just an interstellar belch. But it might not be. It just might be ET phoning home. 

Through some serious number-crunching, scientists have narrowed to three the possible origin locations of the Wow signal, so they'll be blasting the tweets to all three, just in case. 

The project managers insist that it's all about the crowd-sourcing, in that they promise to send out any and all tweets posted on that day and bearing that hashtag. This would be a far cry from the gold-disc standard of virtual noise that went out on the Voyager spacecraft because all of that material was chosen by closed committee.

The hope is that the sheer volume of noise created by the tweet blast will be enough for anyone who happens to be listening or otherwise hurtling within earshot an opportunity to sit up and take notice. 

Stay tuned.

Mike Tyson Takes a Shot at Broadway

You'll have only one shot at this, so get your credit card ready … for Mike Tyson on Broadway.

In the euphemistically titled Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth, the famed boxer will present his side of the story, his story, as written by him and his wife. Tyson himself will be delivering the lines, so it's about as first-person as you can get.

The website promoting the show promises a "riveting one-man show." Not so sure how riveted I'd be, but I'm not a huge boxing fan, either. Still, it might be entertaining to see just full of himself Tyson can be. I do recall that he used to give rather festive interviews, especially after he won his fights (which he managed to do a whole lot of during his career).

I am a fan of the show's director, Spike Lee, who says that Tyson is a "great storyteller." Well, that might be true, as far as it goes. Whether his stagemanship surpasses his showmanship and ringmanship remains to be seen.

The show, which ran in Las Vegas earlier this year, runs on Broadway for just six night, from July 31 to August 5.

At 90 minutes, the show is sure to be longer than some of Tyson's fights.

Juicy new treat: bacon sundae

Yes, I eat healthy foods. Yes, I know it's good for me to do so. No, I'm not a junk food junkie. But bacon sundae? I'm there.

Burger King is introducing this sweet-and-savory beast of a dessert item, and I can totally see the benefit: it's all taste buds.

It's vanilla soft serve ice cream topped with fudge and caramel. But they don't stop there. No, they add bacon crumbles (so it's sort of healthy, like a salad with Bacon Bits). But they don't stop there, either. You get a full-on strip of bacon to go with it. (You can dip the bacon in the sundae, as if the bacon is a cookie, if you want; or, you can just crunch it plain.)

I'm down with the fact that it's 510 calories in all. That doesn't bother me, nor does the fat content of 18 grams or the sugar content of 61 grams. In fact, nothing bothers me about this dessert at all. (For the record, I like Bacon Chocolate, too.)

The company swears that they're pulling this in their menu until September 3. Until then, it's full speed ahead into bacony sundae goodness.