I’m curious, Phil, do you really think that alien robots (slow, expensive, tiny) are more likely to be discovered prior to something like radio waves (fast, cheap, broadcast)? Or was that statement just an artifact of the show’s editing?

The comet comment caught me, too. He said something to the effect that comets are not predictable because the come from out in the galaxy and are not orbiting the Sun. Aren’t most comets either on a highly elliptical solar orbit (a la Comet Haley) or else perturbed from the Oort cloud? In other words, orbiting the Sun. Okay, the predictability can be lower because they either have long periods so we don’t know they’re coming, or they are disturbed by something to head inward.

I’m still not sure what we would do if Yellowstone blew up. Okay, maybe it wouldn’t end all life on Earth, but it sure would make our lives mighty unpleasant.

but did you watch their movie the next night, about the black hole? now i bet that made you wince!

(For those not in the know, Adrian is at Kansas U and studies the effects of GRBs on the Earth.)

In fact, I winced very hard at the comments about what happens when the Sun dies, and then totally forgot about them when I wrote my review. That was the one really big scientific screwup they made.

Nothing really exciting, just a gentle mocking of the apocalyptic aspect of the show. Some funny lines, and even a (weak) tie-in punchline with the Darryl Hannah story about being removed from a walnut tree they made fun of yesterday. (Don’t ask).

This edition of the Daily Show will be repeated a couple of times tonight and tomorrow. Sadly no BA sighting.

All of this is because TV folk, without any scientific checkback, had final authority to construct the thing out of the comments they had compiled, making it as sensational as they could.

And it bugs me when shows seem to just throw together every piece of public-domain astronomical video they can find.

I didn’t mind the sci-fi tie-ins, considering the expected audience, and it wasn’t overly dramatic or alarmist, which was a welcome surprise.

Now it remains to be seen if they got the ratings they wanted. I hope they do, as there is a huge overlap between science and scifi, and I would love to see more documentaries in this vein. It certainly would beat that craptastic TV movie drivel, like “Mansquito” and “Crocodile 2: Death Swamp”, they usually fill the air time with.

I thought that comets are generally defined as being part of the solar system so I wouldn’t expect to get hit by one from outside the galaxy until Andromeda gets a lot closer.

Dr Thompson…is she spoken for?…(pant snort drool)…

Anyway, I’ll have to catch the repeat as I missed it last night.

I’ll have to see if it airs again on the 25th.

If there will be a robot uprising, I will be prepared. I got just the manual I need.

Another one I thought was less then a doomsday scenario was, actually, one of their most likely options. Well, I should be a bit more specific then that. While I think it is possible that there might one day be that horrific a virus, the one in particular that the show seemed to focus on, Bird Flu, isn’t that virus. I won’t go into reasons of why I think this unless someone wants me to.

I thought the astronimcal parts were good, though, BA, I might have to disagree with you a bit on what strategy aliens would take to kill us. It was neat to watch a show and see some scientists I knew of on it, like BA and Neil Tyson (he gave a guest lecture at my college about a year and a half ago).

One thing I need to mention about the gamma ray burst part. There was that one guy who, a couple of times, pitched the idea of storing DNA away somehow so we could reseed life. Did anyone notice that he mentioned buring some of it deep underground in case of a gamma ray burst only minutes after BA said that a GRB would melt the crust of the planet?

It was just a bit too cheesy for my taste.

Guess I’ll have to program the TiVo for the repeat so I can watch your bits and skim the rest.

Yeah, that was kinda funny. As soon as I was able to say, “hey, there’s the BA”, you’d be gone.

The BA also said:I really don’t think a robot uprising is anything we need worry about too much, for example. Maybe a little, but really, I don’t think military drones will get “a mind of their own”.

That whole sequence was ridiculous. The only reason I can think of for including it was so the Sci/Fi channel could “plug” Battlestar Galactica.

What really cheesed me off was the use of clips from the movie “I Robot” to drive home their point of the “killer robots”. Sadly ironic since Isaac Asimov’s robot stories (on which that movie was “based”) take the view that robots are simply tools, and if one builds tools well, then all of this killer robot “stuff” becomes pulp fiction non-sense.

It was nice to see something with a little less fiction on SciFi. Whenever I watch that channel, it’s more for entertainment that reality. Although, after some of the programs I’ve seen on The Discovery Channel, I’ve started calling it The End of the World Channel. Granted, the things DS shows is in the realm of possibility, but sometimes it seems overly dramatic. I guess that’s how you get ratings, though.

Anyway, good show, and if it’s any consolation to Heidi, I blurted the same thing out to my wife. I knew he was going to be on, and was looking for him, though.

Berlie, on the 3rd rock from OUR Sun.

I did not know you were going to be on the show. My significant and I were watching, I spotted you and blurted out (in a some what moronic fashion), “Hey! Hey! That’s the Bad Astronomer! The site I’m always telling you about!!”

I have to agree, I do not see the robot uprising any time soon. All in all it was quite interesting. Only caught myself doing a “Yeah, right” a couple of times.

You did a fine job by the way They should have had you on more, in my humble opinion.
Congrats, none the less!

Heidi in Phoenix….first post, about time, I’ve been a regular reader for quite some time.

Stuart

Things are a bit wonky on the blog this morning. Must be the killer bots threatening to rain down killer comets on the SciFi channel, not to mention Phil’s fatal GRBs.

Ellis, please read more carefully. I wrote “in this COUNTY,” not country. I was referring to local results, as I thought I made clear by including my city, which is Statesboro in Bulloch County GA.

But you do have a point about the SciFi channel and their usual programming. That’s why it’s so good to hear a voice of reason like the BA aired there, even if in such brief segments.

I’m definately not too sure about the growth of machine AI to be as fast as was stated (though it’d be nice). And even when it happens, I don’t think we have much to worry about. Still, I think I better check on Ebay for any spare cybernetic parts…

I’m skeptical on the terrorist nuke part. It’s not THAT easy to get one and transport it, especially if it’s one megaton, like the example stated.
A dirty bomb is more probable.

As for the ecosystem part, I know there is a little good news in that area; such efforts to preserve species have begun in Florida with saltwater fish. The efforts date back to the initalizing of net bans in the early 1990s. Nowadays, fish populations are healthy. Goes to show some simple things can save our animals.

Hmm, maybe I’ve become a bit wordy in this post. I have a kindred spirit here!