Comments on: Be Vewy Quiet! I’m Hunting Comets! Huhuhuhuhuhuh

By: someone

someone — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 17:32:05 +0000

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/30/AR2005073000403.html

By: Irishman

Irishman — Wed, 04 May 2005 19:04:39 +0000

The Boutros Says:
“Why is the U.S. the only country not working off the metric system anyway?”

Stubbornness.

Actually, the last official count I heard was three countries, but the other two were insignificant little blips on the map. *

* Amerocentrism running rampant again.

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Tue, 03 May 2005 12:16:33 +0000

â€œImperialâ€?, i.e. from the British Empire, ergo English.

Just don’t say that in Glasgow or Belfast !!

By: The Boutros

The Boutros — Mon, 02 May 2005 17:08:03 +0000

Just stumbled upon your blog whilst doing a search on the weeb for this new planet thingy. Awesome!!

Why is the U.S. the only country not working off the metric system anyway?

I was a Physics major at the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada) and was probably one of the few people to get your little conversion joke there (like my (subtle) favourite, “G, I wonder what it’ll take for those two people to get together?”) – yes, I’m a loser.

By: Irishman

Irishman — Mon, 02 May 2005 15:56:59 +0000

“Imperial”, i.e. from the British Empire, ergo English.

What language do we speak in the U.S.? English. Sure, it’s a variant from the “mother tongue”, but it’s still English. The unit system devised is also English.

Call it English, call it Imperial, call it U.S. Customary – it all means the same thing.

By: Rodney

Rodney — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 00:28:29 +0000

If this was “Plan 9″ we’d be in BIG trouble.

But I suspect it’s McCanney that’ll be sweating, once contact is made.

By: Delance

Delance — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 07:37:03 +0000

Amazing. A man-made object with make direct contact with a comet untouched by our atmosphere. If this was a B-Movie, this would mean *trouble*!

By: monolithfoo

monolithfoo — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 23:11:12 +0000

oh. btw I’ve been having trouble posting. Just fyi. Or is it something I should change? Once I got the spam notification… don’t know much about that email provider, but I can change it easily enough.

By: The Bad Astronomer

The Bad Astronomer — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 22:33:51 +0000

No, it’s from “Joe Versus the Volcano”.

By: monolithfoo

monolithfoo — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 19:28:32 +0000

Funny. An astronomer uses ‘cloud’ for somthing bad. Is this a common inside joke?

By: The Bad Astronomer

The Bad Astronomer — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 16:47:44 +0000

Hmmm, yes, I mean Imperial. Had a brain cloud there for a moment. I’ll fix it.

By: motz

motz — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 16:08:07 +0000

give someone an inch and they’ll take a mile…

or something like that….

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 12:03:05 +0000

Wow! That should give the probe some fantastic pictures.
But, Phil, what do you mean by “English” units? I live in England, and we use metres and centimetres all the time (but not exclusively – we buy fuel for our cars in litres, but measure the distances we drive in miles). Inches, feet, yards, furlongs and miles belong to the Imperial system of units. Presumably, the system no longer bears this name in the US (can’t imagine why …. ).

By: monolitfoo

monolitfoo — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 02:14:30 +0000

This is so awsome. Two of my favorite things coincidental. The 4th and deep space exploration. Am I wrong or is Deep Impact really two independant spacecraft that were only physically fixed to each other in the launch vehicle?

By: haran

haran — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 01:50:23 +0000

There was a news item (Nature 434: page 685) in the April 7th issue of Nature by Rex Dalton reporting that Deep Impact’s main telescope has focussing problems which may affect the quality of images.
I hope the problem is fixed, otherwise the size of the crater may remain a guess