91av

Mars bars

Plans to establish human habitation on Mars have gained momentum in recent years, thanks to the likes of Elon Musk. But what might inspire an unenthusiastic public to move to an airless desert hundreds of millions of kilometres away? Perhaps some stirring music.

That seems to be the hope of the Mars Society, a “space advocacy organization dedicated to the human exploration and settlement of the planet Mars”, which to write an anthem for the world next door. “What successful movement has ever not had an anthem?” asked Robert Zubrin, the society’s president, in a BBC News report – presumably rhetorically. Feedback agrees. This is why we break into song when we want to void our bowels.

“Rise to Mars, men and women / Dare to dream, dare to strive,” sings Castellino, to stirring strains that bear more than a passing resemblance to La Marseillaise. “Build a home for our children / Make this desert come alive.”

Here we remain unconvinced. The style brings to mind imperialistic European dirges of centuries past, and may struggle to resonate with audiences in 2020. But what other Red Planet-themed anthems might be out there? Mars from The Planets by Gustav Holst has no words. The songs of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds have too many. We are currently inclined towards Life on Mars? by the incomparable David Bowie. The tune is soaring and the lyrics hypoxic-environment-grade impenetrable. Plus, with his powder-blue suit and orange mullet, Bowie provides the perfect template of alien chic for the wannabe Martian. Further left-field suggestions are welcome.

New name game

We may wish to escape to Martian climes to avoid a looming spat on Earth. In a 91av interview on 4 January, SETI researcher Jill Tarter dubs an inhabitant of this planet an “Earthling”. Reader Alan Wells of Brighton, UK, Earth, objects. “I believe ‘Earthling’ is unsuitable, not only as it is a diminutive, but also because of its connotations in pulp sci-fi,” he writes. Terran is a possible alternative, but hardly attractive, he says, and Gaian already refers to adherents of the Gaianist movement. So what should we call ourselves when we make contact with alien life?

Doesn’t cut it

Pending answers to such weighty questions, we turn to the almost equally important topic of emoji pedantry. We noted aberrations in the design of certain symbols representing animals back in 2018: a lobster two legs shy of a full set here, an ant with a double-jointed thorax there. We are glad to report that these have since been corrected, but meticulous analysis published on the website Github has brought new anomalies to light.

This time, it’s scissors. The relevant emoji usually depicts an open pair viewed from an angle parallel to the axis of the hinge. Rotating part of the image allows us to see if the tips of the scissors will close when the handles collide with each other. Shockingly, it seems tech giants such as Google and Apple have managed to design scissors that are almost incapable of cutting anything. Ah, for some old-school tech expertise…

Internet of many things

Mind you, Big Tech has had bigger things on its mind, judging by some of the gadgets on display at CES, the world’s largest technology fair that was held in Las Vegas, Nevada, last week. These included smart toothbrushes, smart rubbish bins and smart litter trays. Because who doesn’t need to stream their cat defecating live to their smartphone?

At some point, we may decide that not every object needs to be connected to the internet, that showerheads don’t have to act as Alexa smart speakers as well as dispensing water. But that time hasn’t come yet. If anyone needs us, we will be attaching voice-controlled wheels to all our furniture, in case we need to tell our wardrobe to move.

Old name game

What a supportive bunch you are. We pledged that 2020 would be the year we finally broke our addiction to nominative determinism. Many, many of you responded to our pledge by informing us of yet more cases of exceptionally aptly named people. Ah well, ’tis mid-January: the season for breaking resolutions.

Our mumbled thanks, therefore, to John Jones and Robert Anker, who both spotted a letter in our 14 December issue from Usha Grieve at the organisation Compassion in Dying. John was also one of three correspondents to tell us that Keith Weed has been nominated as the next president of the UK Royal Horticultural Society.

What is the opposite of nominative determinism, though – nominative free will? A chance for us to turn things around in 2020 might be to collect more examples of people who have jumped over the shadow of their name. We have previously noted Sarah Dry, author of Waters of the World, police chief Danielle Outlaw and the calm, self-controlled barrister David Pannick (12 October 2019). Our new favourite, sent to us by Larry Stoter, is the microscopist at McMaster University in Canada who used a beam of charged gallium ions to etch what is perhaps : Travis Casagrande.

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