Senior Astronomer Seth Shostak Chimes in About the Search for Extraterrestrials?

I found this 'Truth Be Told' talk with Seth Shostak amusing on a few levels, especially when in the first few minutes of the talk he mentions chimes and his or someone's phone sends out a chime right on time and you can hear a WTF(?) tone in Seth's voice as he contemplates that meaningful coincidence:-)

He also mentions Captain James Cook a lot throughout the talk and my last post was about Captain Cook and his boat -

Scott Morrison Announces $6.7 Million Captain Cook Project?

Seth also mentions the space object ʻOumuamua which was discovered by Robert Weryk using the Pan-STARRS telescope at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, on 19 October 2017.

"The name comes from Hawaiian ʻoumuamua, meaning 'scout' (from ʻou, meaning 'reach out for', and mua, reduplicated for emphasis, meaning 'first, in advance of'), and reflects the way this object is like a scout or messenger sent from the distant past to reach out to humanity. 

It roughly translates to "first distant messenger"."

Captain Cook was killed in the Hawaiian islands on Valentine's Day by the natives there ironically enough.

But did Seth have to make a bet using a cup of Starbucks coffee?-)

I'm sure Chris Knowles would like to chime in on that bet;-)

Coffee and the Siren's Song