At the AAS meeting last week I was writing up a blog post about my friend Travis Rector’s image gallery. I clicked on the URL to cut-n-paste it into the blog, but I must have screwed it up: the URL I pasted in was to Orbiting Frog, a blog I had been perusing a few minutes before, liked, and added to my feed reader.
So a few hundred (no doubt baffled after clicking) BABlogees went to Orbiting Frog, expecting to see some of Travis’ pretty pictures. I saw the error fairly quickly and corrected it, but the "damage" had been done: Rob at Orbiting Frog got a bunch of hits.
He noticed the traffic spike, wrote it up, and said he had been Bad Astronomered.
Verbing: I has it.
Anyway, I was going to write up a nice post about OF and tell everyone to go there, but it looks like my work here is done…
… almost. You should read Chris Lintott’s blog too. He runs GalaxyZoo, is co-host of the beloved UK telly programme "Sky at Night", and is a cool guy and good writer. Show Chris and Rob the lurv.
January 18th, 2008 at 10:29 am
And you just did it again?
January 18th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Good thing ttfnRob has a sense of humor. Otherwise, he might have handed you your head on a Plait.
Actually, there must have been a prior reference to Orbiting Frog on your site, as I have it open on the tab next to yours.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Great job! Being a verb puts you in the exaulted company of the late R. Buckminster Fuller. (I Seem to Be a Verb 1970)
January 18th, 2008 at 11:06 am
I wasn’t going to say anything about that little matter, but I attempted to show someone at work all those pretty pictures, only to be frustrated by badastronomerism.
We must fight badastronics in all forms!
January 18th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Dear Good BadAstronomer:
Have you noticed that cartoonists almost universally depict evening scenes with a crescent moon oriented the wrong way? In that scenario the source of illumination had just sunk below the horizon, so why do they illogically depict it in the same orientation as a left paranthesis “(” rather than correctly like the right parenthesis “)”?
Maybe cartoonists are required to attend courses at the School of Bad Science, the same people who borught you the five-point snowflake and the four-color rainbow with green at the outside edge: Red-Orange-Blue-Green!
Keep up the good work,
Frank
Up in Eastern Maine
January 18th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Verb is good, but Phil when you finally incarnate yourself in the 3rd person, we’ll know you’ve teetered off the edge.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
We are not amused.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
I was a Technical Writer, in another part of my life. My editor told me once that I could “verb any word”.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
He’s been Bad Astronomered again. It’s a nice site. Pretty pictures of stars and stuff.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Well, it’s lacks the verbal aesthetics of “slashdotting” and “pharyngulation,” but it’s a start. Maybe you could try “’stronomered” or “plaited.”
January 18th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Surely next you should try to become an adjective? I assume you are a noun already…
January 18th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
So do you agree with this usage?
Honestly I always thaught bad astronomering was being wrong about stars stuff. Maybe I was bad astronomering myself (this statement can only be false).
January 18th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Shouldn’t you put in the correct link to Travis Rector’s image gallery?
Here it is:
http://tinyurl.com/3bzadr
January 19th, 2008 at 11:18 am
I got bad astronomered a while ago. I had to create a very blatantly pandering movie to be bad astronomered. It did more than triple my website traffic for about two or three days. I’ve tried to get bad astronomered again but no luck.
It’s kinda like getting slashdotted but sexier.
January 19th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
“Plait” -is- a noun and a verb. An online dictionary surprises by telling me that in one meaning it’s equivalent to “pleat”, to fold decoratively. I guess it’s just an insignificant difference like astronomer / astrologer or Dr. Spock / Mr. Spock.