Comments on: Fifteen years

By: Christine Pulliam

Christine Pulliam — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:24:54 +0000

I’m a few days late in saying it, but wanted to add my well wishes to the pile. Congratulations, Phil!

By: cc petersen

cc petersen — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 20:02:06 +0000

Phil,

I started my web page in late 1992 right after I started graduate school, as a way to relax from first-year classes. It was a Lynx-dominated (text-only) design, and was called the Henrietta Leavitt Flat Screen Space Theater. It became a fullfledged website with actual designs and graphics in 1995. Since then I’ve moved it through three different servers, added on a blog, and other pages, and begun doing video.

I remember reading your comments on Usenet, too, way back in the day. I used to get involved in Usenet discussions, but dropped out as I got wound up in my thesis writing; and I had a particularly hilarious run-in with the N*ncy Unit. She somehow found out my office address, snooped around and got my husband’s name, and then published a putdown about how I was pretending to a be a “woman” married to a “man” named “Mark”…

Boy, those were the days!

By: dhimes

dhimes — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 01:44:52 +0000

Ah, yeah, the days of grad-hap all those years ago….
Great work–keep it up!

By: defectiverobot

defectiverobot — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 21:11:29 +0000

Conblogulations Phil!

By: RobD

RobD — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 21:05:04 +0000

That’s funny, all the eggs in your photos have white shells. Is that the norm on the US? Over here (ye olde Europa) our eggs are mostly, well , biege… What’s that all about?

By: MaDeR

MaDeR — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 17:14:14 +0000

Lugosi, this “Astronomer” is troll. Some time ago, BA wrote something that rubbed in wrong way this poor mindless fellow. Not having any arguments or anyting remotely connected with Reality on his side, he resorted to rather low-class insults. Typical.

By: Nadia

Nadia — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:46:50 +0000

Happy Anniversary, Phil!!

By: Lugosi

Lugosi — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 11:28:23 +0000

I’m confused by the comment from fake “Astronomer” (7 comments prior to this one). Is that supposed to be an insult of some kind? What does it even mean? Why would someone’s Johnson catch on fire when they blow out candles? Is that why my pants caught burst into flames during my last birthday party? Does he realize someone hacked into his computer and stole all his capital letters?

By: Michael Lonergan

Michael Lonergan — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 09:08:48 +0000

Beche… said:

“Internet years are like dog years, so I think a 15th anniversary qualifies for a telegram from the queen (or whatever you Americans get).”

I think he’d just get screwed over by this President!

By: James

James — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:52:49 +0000

Congratulations, Phil.

15 years.

A lot has happened in that time.

Here’s to 15 more. Let’s hope that by then, the Moon Hoax is considered to be nothing more than on par with those that used to believe the Earth was flat.

By: Beche-la-mer

Beche-la-mer — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:20:02 +0000

Congratulations, BA. I worked on an early Australian public access version of the ‘net in 1988 — with DOS programming and a 286 processor — but I didn’t discover your site until 1998, when it was already in pretty colours with hyperlinks and pictures.
Internet years are like dog years, so I think a 15th anniversary qualifies for a telegram from the queen (or whatever you Americans get).

By: Stark

Stark — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 06:54:04 +0000

And to the flail “Astronomer” above me, play on the freeway. plz k thx bai

By: Stark

Stark — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 06:52:03 +0000

I really do enjoy your writing, Phil.
My motto has always been “Keep on doing what makes you personally happy”, so please continue!

Congratulations on 15 years of lighting those beautiful candles of skepticism and free-thought around the world. Carl Sagan would be proud! As I am!

By: WillC

WillC — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 04:10:59 +0000

omg 1993

By: melior

melior — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 03:48:45 +0000

There’s an old, old bar trick involving a bet that a raw egg can be made to balance on end. It relies on a surreptitious sprinkling of a few grains of salt on the bar, which makes the task far easier.

By: KaiYves

KaiYves — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:26:19 +0000

You rock, BA! Keep it up!

By: Kullat Nunu

Kullat Nunu — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:08:16 +0000

1993!? You have had a website for a 15 years!? Congrats!

I started to BABBle in 2003, but can’t exactly recall when I found this site. Not knowing that it has been here for a decade before that…

By: Lugosi

Lugosi — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:01:19 +0000

Your site has certainly evolved (please don’t tell Ben Stein I used that word) over the last 15 years.

By: Richard Saunders

Richard Saunders — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:46:54 +0000

You beat me by 2 years!!

By: MandyDax

MandyDax — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:18:25 +0000

Wow, happy webiversary, BA. I started college in the fall of ’93, and put my first webpage together on Mosaic before the end of the year. That really takes me back (and makes me feel a bit old ). Anyway, here’s to another 15! I look forward to downloading your 30th webiversary post directly into my brain.

By: Jack Hagerty

Jack Hagerty — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:04:43 +0000

SLC says: “Dr. Plait got his PhD at UVa, the bailiwick of those eminent scientists Fred Singer and Pat Michaels.”

Yeah, but it’s the UVb you really have to watch out for. SPF 50 at least!

- Jack

By: John Wilson

John Wilson — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:10:48 +0000

Did you convince him to at least look into the “evidence”, or did he simply get tired of being shown how wrong he was, and stopped e-mailing you about it?

A bit of both, I think He acknowledged that my position had merit, but continued to insist that he was simply, “passing on all opinions”. A position I have become all too familiar with since.

By: hale_bopp

hale_bopp — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:09:26 +0000

Congratulations!

I don’t remember the exact date I wrote my first web page, but it was the summer of 1995…sadly, I haven’t done quite as well on the web as you.

By: Brango

Brango — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:32:13 +0000

Happy Anniversary Phil… 15 years and we still have to put up with dolt-itude, what’s up with that!!

The struggle against those who tout the unprovable as fact and demean the factual as theory will never end. Not while stupidity is legal.

Keep the faith! Err… I mean keep the fact!

By: firemancarl

firemancarl — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:19:23 +0000

Congrats Phil! I dated a 1994 grad of UVA, I was living in Va Bch. I liked Charlottesville, and I used to live in Colorado. Both nice places. Hey, did you know a guy named Collin Ducharme(?) No, I don’t know him but I remember hearing that he left UVA and it’ s basketball team to go to Farmville VA because the college there are a degree in astrophysics or some such.

My convoluted point is, small world!

Congrats again on 15 years!