Timestream Post: Moment of Self-Doubt from 06.14.2012

Well, all of my posts can’t necessarily be rosy, can they? 

Today, I’m grappling with the ramifications of my decision to engage in a popular television project investigating alleged Unidentified Flying Object sightings and crashes.  The results of the project, now titled, “Chasing UFOs,” bears little resemblance to the hard science project I was led to believe I was helping to create. 

The end result is adventurous and entertaining enough, but today all I can see is what was left out… which was essentially all of the scientific and educational moments I strove to include from the very beginning.  Many of these informative moments I was counting on being included to help preserve my scientific integrity.

Further, considering the time commitment involved and the credibility hit to my scientific reputation I can already see occurring – (especially after some sly political maneuvering performed by other project members during the shooting of the show changed its fundamental structure) – I’m not inclined t0 participate again should the option arise… which it looks like it will.

Will my declining to participate in further episodes entrench me in a legal battle?  (I signed no explicit term of commitment… but then again, when potential money is involved…)  

How does the future see it?  Was the decision to engage in the project ultimately a good one?  Or do I regret the decision in retrospect?

A little advice from the future would be nice.

Cheers,

Ben

From 04:41p.m., June 14, 2012

Timestream Post: A note from 03/17/2012

Well, I’m standing in the midst of my 5th year wedding anniversary, and I thought it sensible to send a note forward another five years.  (It seems a nice increment for several reasons… not the least of which is our digits. *grin*)

We’re just hours from a renewal of our wedding vows downtown at a Las Vegas-style Strip-front “chapel,” to be wed by a singing Elvis.

No doubt, this will be a memorable affair. =)

Will we raise the bar for our ten-year renewal celebration?  Or, in the spirit of this experiment I suppose I should ask in the present-tense, are we raising the bar?  What are we doing?

The big difference this year compared to previous years (Elvis aside) is little Grayson!  At the time of this posting, he should be about 5-and-a-half.  …and I’m dying to know all about who the little guy is becoming!

Developmentally everything going okay?  (He seems to be cruising so far!)  Personality?  Does he still hate sleep?

I can only presume the 2012 end-of-the-world hype will go exactly the way of the 1999, 2000 end-of-the-world hype.  The economy is in shambles, particularly in Las Vegas.  Are things now looking up?

Please, tell me all about 2017!

From the Past and with love for my friends and family (Gray!),

Ben

Me (proud Dad) and Gray, March 17, 2012.

Jumping the Timestream: Post from 07/25/2012

Well, as a follow-up to a timestream post sent a little more than a year ago, I’m writing today to ask the future about the ultimate merits and/or penalties of having engaged in the National Geographic television show “Chasing UFOs,” which as it would turn out is a great deal less scientific than I’d originally hoped/been led to believe.  Not for lack of trying, mind you.  It just wasn’t up to me.  But then again, you know about all that.

My real question is this: It seems there is a fraternity of professional scientists who wanted to try and engage in mainstream media with varying amounts of success.  I myself don’t like the trend toward less-informative television that I seem to have involuntarily become a part of, and I’m considering taking a more vocal stand on behalf of science in the media.

So…  What happens?  This is all very new territory for me.  What do I decide to do, and what doors do these decisions open and/or close?

Very anxious to learn more,

Ben

July 25, 2012; 03:20p.m. PT

Timestream Post: A note from 04.29.2011

So, who are you?

I’m referring to you, my offspring, who as I type this is not yet half way toward growing into a self-sustaining future person.  Jordan (my wife) and I have decided to wait to see what you are, so I don’t know yet if I’m addressing my future son or daughter…  But I can’t wait to meet you!  (-And what more perfect vehicle is there to project my question into the future than my Timestream Project?)

Whose traits will you share?  Whose aptitudes?  Likes and dislikes?  -And I’m dying for an answer to the epic pregnancy question: Blue eyes like me or green eyes like Jordan?  (Or a different color entirely?)  There are so many things I can’t wait to share and explore with you – it’s been a long time coming, but I’m quite excited to be a dad. =)

We’ve got a couple of names at the top of the list, Rowan if you’re a girl and Grayson if you’re a boy.   Though these are top-secret at the present time and may not stay at the top of the list, I feel safe sending them into the future when the point will most likely be moot!  So, maybe-Rowan or maybe-Grayson, welcome to the McGee clan!  (I suppose that’s technically redundant, but whatever.)

I’m sending this forward only a few months, (I’m impatient,) to the projected date of your birth.   By this point, we think it’ll be about Election Day, 2011.  How was the pregnancy?  The delivery?  I can’t wait!

So, best wishes to Jordan for a speedy and uneventful pregnancy, and welcome to Earth, young McGee!

Writing anxiously from the past and with love,

Ben

April 29, 2011.

04_29_2011, 02:28pm.

Time Experiment: Digital Time Travel

Scientia in Posterus. (Credit: Ben McGee)

In the interest of exploring some of the more intriguing implications of our ubiquitous Cyberverse, I’ve decided to attempt to use WordPress as something of a digital time machine.

You see, there’s a “Schedule” feature for blog posts that I realized should work as long as WordPress and the Internet are around, and through it, we may be able to send information across immense spans of time.  (Sure, this feature is intended to make it easy to spread out posts over the course of days or weeks, but why not send messages a year, a decade, a century, or a millennium out?)

-So, presuming the digital infrastructure is going to exist for a while, I’m going to send messages from the present into the future at regular intervals, and each message will be sent to an exponentially-more-distant temporal location.  (E.g., one month, 6 months, 1 year, 10 years, etc.)

Then, when I receive a message from my past self, I’ll post an honest reply as though I were having a real-time conversation with myself in the past.  The conversation might be light or very revealing, depending on what mood it is that’s prompted me to talk to the future – and I’ll do my best to answer in kind.  In this way, we’ll see if I can’t engage in a bizarre, superchronistic conversation across the very fabric of linear time.

(For the interested, I’ve created a new post category called, “Digital Time Travel,” which will chronicle the experiment.)

…And, the kicker here is that to my surprise, I’ve already started the experiment.  As it would turn out, I had a similar idea months ago and already sent a message into the future.  However, at the time I thought it’d be a one-time deal – a single digital time capsule.  Now, I think it’d be better-suited as a long-term experiment; An exchange that breaks the timestream.

Anyway, I thought I’d put the experiment out there so that when messages from the past start showing up on my blog in the present, everyone won’t assume I’ve finally gone all the way around the bend.

(Man, in the spirit of the experiment, I can’t wait to tell my past self what he involuntarily started when that original “time capsule” message finally arrives…)

Time flies, and I hope to invoke some turbulence.