Interesting piece at The Atlantic here about how a group of scientists are hoping to find alien life by first finding Dyson Spheres–the power sources that Freeman Dyson posited would likely power advanced civilisations.

For some reason, I found this quote really funny:

‘”More than once some inexplicable object has been discovered that looked like aliens, and then slowly it became clear that it was a very interesting, but totally natural, phenomenon,” he said. Indeed, Nikolai Kardashev once thought he’d identified several good candidates for Type III civilizations, which operate on a galactic scale. But in the end, they turned out to be quasars.’

Writing SF is making my sense of humour weird.

It was going to be brilliant. Witty, erudite, informative–everything that makes a great post great.

But then I spent four hours assembling the most complicated piece of flat-packed furniture known to man. And I find I just don’t have the energy.

So here’s a video instead.