About one arcminute, with my glasses on.
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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January 2nd, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I laughed, I admit it.
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Geez, Phil. That’s just plain terrible.
I’ll be using it myself later today…
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Hahahaha! That’s priceless!
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Pfff.. I’d kill to have an arcminute *with* my glasses.
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Have to admit it took me a second, it’s been a long day. But then, I too laughed.
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Damn – I had to go look it up, and then I laughed. Nicely done!
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I don’t get it. It’s going to be a long year.
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
First lol of the year – kudos, sir
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Ouch.
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Smeared to 1.5 arcseconds without my glasses.
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Okay, as of my last eye exam two and a half years ago, that’s my eyesight as is, no glasses or contact lenses.
I think it’s worsened very slightly since then.
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Nice!
Along the same lines, I guess my resolution is 1680×1050, but I’m trying to get down to 1024×768.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I get it! It took ten minutes of going, “Huh?” Plus looking it up. Arcsecond, resolution, glasses! HA! That BA. So funny……
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Gosh, Phil, that’s not a very long time.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
This is the worst, and best, joke I’ve heard all year.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:19 pm
LOL Frell me. All I can think of is Spike Jones and his City Slickers’ rendition of “New Year’s Resolution.”
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Dang, BA! According to Wikipedia your vision is excellent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity#.22Normal.22_vision
With my freakin’ astigmatism I suspect I’d only resolve an arcminute.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Nevermind. I got to get my glasses fixed. I’d swear when I first read the post it said “arcsecond”
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:22 pm
That’s a real kneeslapper, Phil. Come closer so you can be kneed and slapped.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I just noticed that Phil had the cojones to tag this “resolution” under humor.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I’d say that your resolution is entierly seeing dependant.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Best laugh I’ve had all year. Now, to find an opportunity to use it in casual conversation…
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
…tick…tick..tick…huh?
…tick…tick…tick…HA!
Phil, leave comedy to the professionals, geek humor is rarely worth the journey.
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
punny
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:17 pm
mn: Geek humor is ALWAYS worth the journey.
Okay, granted this is a really lame pun, but still. The geekery more than makes up for the lameness.
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Very funny honey…. don’t forget to buy milk when you go down to the shop.
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
(groan)
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I laughed so hard I nearly woke my sleeping son. Thanks.
And LONG LIVE PUNS! It bothers me when people say “groan” as if puns are a lower form of humour. There is nothing wrong with them. I can think of much lower forms of humour – just visit some of the sicker joke websites around and you’ll see what I mean…
I think the fact that my five-year-old finds puns very funny (when he understands them) might tell us that an adult aversion to them could be the result of exposure to peer pressure.
Or maybe it just means they are childish. Who cares? I like ‘em!
January 2nd, 2008 at 4:51 pm
*headslap* *grin*
Mike Torr: I think that most people groan at puns because most of them are stupid, cliché, and cheesy. But occasionally someone comes up with a great one that makes me laugh:).
January 2nd, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Boo! Hiss!
January 2nd, 2008 at 6:11 pm
How long have you been waiting to use that joke? (ugh)
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
How ironic is it that when I make a joke about eyesight, people misread it?
I thought of the joke last night, so there.
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Congratulations, BA. That’s the first pun I’ve ever confessed to laughing at.
January 2nd, 2008 at 9:01 pm
I have a deep appreciation for nerd/medical humor. Bravo, Phil!
Encore?
January 2nd, 2008 at 9:54 pm
You make me happy.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Who made your glasses, Fresnel or Fraunhofer?
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:46 am
*rimshot*
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:26 am
Phil, that can’t be the first time an astronomer was tempted to make an off-the-wall reply to a query concerning resolution.
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:16 am
I gotta give it to you, Dr. BA, it takes someone with real vision to make a joke like that…
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:16 am
Ouch. I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:33 am
There’s a couple of 1920 X 1200 27.5″ viewable monitors I’ve been considering.
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:06 am
I agree that puns are very high humor and can work well – especially with geek humor. Anyone remember Richard Wiseman at TAM 5 saying he didn’t hold much with Freud, because his theories aren’t testicle? I’m still waiting for an opportunity to use that.
I think I can use this one at work if I reference monitor resolution. No one here knows much about visual acuity, but everyone’s got a monitor.
“Any New Year’s resolutions Carey?”
“Well I was thinking about going to 1280 x 1024 so I can fit the whole remittance report on my screen.”
Priceless. I’ll give you credit Phil.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:01 am
[...] Phil Plait’s New Year’s resolution. [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Huh?. . . . . . . . . . . Oh yeah! Ha Ha! Took me a few seconds. Non-astro ppl would never have got that one.
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Hahaha. Long live the puns!
January 4th, 2008 at 8:38 am
have you considered Lasik surgery?
January 5th, 2008 at 10:29 am
LOL – it took a second, but then it hit.
Nothing like a good giggle in the morning! : D
January 8th, 2008 at 3:03 am
what luck finding your blog, completely random. thank you for reawakening some tacit knowledge (after looking it all up) which aligns with some astronomy based software i’ve been researching for 4 yrs. having just received astigmatism lenses from santa and contemplating my first telescope to integrate beyond meades ‘mysky’ and the starrynight iphone app that was a good and useful pun for me. optics, math and astronomy … see learning can be fun
January 1st, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Good one, Phil!
Happy New Year to you and yours.
January 1st, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Yeah, my wife asked me for my New Year’s Resolution, and I answered, “about 0.01 arc seconds”. She didn’t get it.