Folks–
I have to take the blog offline for a few hours today. Sorry about this, but it’s all part of My Very Big News. So until about 17:00 tonight Eastern time (21:00 UT), I will have to turn off comments, and I won’t be posting. Sometimes WordPress hiccups and allows commenting even after I turn it off, but be warned that I’m making a database upgrade, and any comments left on this blog after 10:00 Eastern time (14:00 UT) will be deleted.
However, once things are back up and running I’m hoping everything will be fine.
Until then, feel free to read my last post about Tunguska and let it sink in for a while.
July 1st, 2008 at 7:53 am
Oooh, exciting! Science articles in PRINT form…? I’d never heard of such a thing!
July 1st, 2008 at 8:05 am
Phil I hope this doesn’t mean that you’ll be abandoning your “Doomed” posts and those of the same ilk?
July 1st, 2008 at 8:07 am
Also, is there a Feed for just this blog?
July 1st, 2008 at 8:22 am
Yeah, I can’t seem to find an RSS feed except for Discover’s general blog.
July 1st, 2008 at 8:32 am
Cue railing against Phil Plait for “selling out” or something.
This is a lot nicer than the old site though, which, no offense, was kinda fugly
July 1st, 2008 at 8:39 am
That’s great!
Hope you’ll get all success you deserve at this location. But then again, it’s kind of easy… just continue with your great job.
July 1st, 2008 at 8:40 am
Awesome Phil. I hope this new megablog thingamajig will bring more science to the masses!
July 1st, 2008 at 10:08 am
Not sure what to make of it yet. Is it possible to use a bigger font for the main text? (And a smaller one for “DISCOVER”?)
July 1st, 2008 at 10:17 am
BA – I really hope you can still write exactly what you want to here. Like Rev. BigDumbChimp says – I hope you won’t be abandoning posts like your “Doomed” ones. This would suck if you have to be all corporate PC from now on.
And can you still do political posts? Or will Discover make you only do science stuff? Just hope they don’t bias your writing. Well, guess us BA fans will just have to wait and see.
Bet you’ll get a lot more readers with this new move though. Good on ya!
July 1st, 2008 at 10:38 am
Rock on, Phil!! Well done on the move! W00t! (er, does this mean we have to be all grown-up and serious here?)
July 1st, 2008 at 10:39 am
Oh MOST IMPORTANTLY: will you be able to still write about Doctor Who?
July 1st, 2008 at 10:53 am
w00t!
So happy to see you here! Welcome home!!
(and Gia- how could it possibly be BadAstronomy without The Doctor?)
July 1st, 2008 at 11:05 am
Congratulations, Phil! I’ve bookmark-bar’ed (?) the new address. Good to go!
Rich in Charlottesville
July 1st, 2008 at 11:18 am
Always good when quality writing gets a higher profile. But yeah, don’t go all corporate on us! Updated Google Reader accordingly.
July 1st, 2008 at 11:19 am
Man, those squid-lovers can’t keep a secret.
You want us all to rough ‘em up a bit, Phil?
July 1st, 2008 at 11:31 am
Yay, Dr. BA!
I hope you love the new digs.
Kisses
July 1st, 2008 at 11:35 am
[...] yeah, odds ‘n ends. Dr. BA has been teasing us with a secret Big News thing for a while now, and there’d been a hitch, [...]
July 1st, 2008 at 11:37 am
Hey, I’m out of comment filter Purgatory!!!!!
W00T!!!oneoneone!!!
July 1st, 2008 at 11:51 am
congrats on the new digs!
July 1st, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Still tastes like Chicken….
Congratulations – love the new look (yeah, I think the Discover logo is too small – any chance it could be larger?)
July 1st, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Comment filter purgatory? I wonder if I’ve escaped too? Please, please, please!
July 1st, 2008 at 12:06 pm
It’s Discover… I kind of like the old site though. More homey. Oh well. And WTF happened to the link to David Tennant?! I need to send that picture to everyone I know!!
Cheers!
July 1st, 2008 at 12:06 pm
He shoots, he scores! Another Woot!!!!111
July 1st, 2008 at 12:08 pm
So does this mean that now when your blog gets slammed, it won’t drag down BAUT too?
July 1st, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Right on schedule. Almost. Well, it was worth the wait. Congratulations. Big time.
(So, after Carl Zimmer’s The Loom did about the same in parallel, with a slipped late-Monday announce and a move to Discover Tuesday morning, I figured Discover might be the BA Blog’s new home, too.)
July 1st, 2008 at 12:11 pm
*Pats on the sofa* Yeah, I could get comfy here. *flops down* Who brought the beer?
July 1st, 2008 at 12:11 pm
-sniff-sniff-
Is that “New Car Smell” spray you used in here?
July 1st, 2008 at 12:15 pm
BTW, Bryan…
http://www.myvillage.com/images/celebs/photos/doctor-who2.jpg
July 1st, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Alas folks, still no preview button!
(Otherwise, lookin’ good and congrats Phil!)
July 1st, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I did a refresh from the old site and when I was transplanted here, I thought if I had clicked on some link. It’s going to take a while to get used to it, and just like several others have noted I hope this doesn’t change what Phil can write about. I enjoy his side trips into other topics. I can’t wait to read his next post with the full info on the change.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Now, the only thing I could get of this, follow the other ants move, would be if I could actually get a comment through the filter…
July 1st, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Congratulations on your new home. Does this one come with preview?
July 1st, 2008 at 12:19 pm
NO!
July 1st, 2008 at 12:26 pm
thank you Nicole! Best shot of Tennant ever!
Cheers!
July 1st, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Great! One more tool of the corporate media!
July 1st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
“Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
Now we’re being censored by your corporate overloards. Are you sure you didn’t sell out to FOX?
July 1st, 2008 at 12:55 pm
It’s just like Bad Astronomy…. but with a style sheet!!!
July 1st, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Phil I hope this doesn’t mean that you’ll be abandoning your “Doomed” posts and those of the same ilk?
I always wanted to start a blog. I could be talked into it, maybe. You *know* I won’t pull any punches.
“Doomed” would become “MindRaped”.
NEW HOME FOR THE BA AND STILL NO PREVIEW! ARGH!!!!!!
This is the 21st century on a commercial science site! I mean, GEEZ!
Phil, you might want to have badastronomy.com autoforward. I just get a weird “Internal Server Error” at the moment.
July 1st, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Best shot of Tennant ever!
I prefer a nice shot of whiskey myself.
July 1st, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Q.D.
Make it a single malt and I’m in . The occasion obliges .
July 1st, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Wow, what a change. I hope when Phil gets back home he gives us the lowdown on the big move.
July 1st, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Housewarming party!
July 1st, 2008 at 1:46 pm
*looks around… blinks eyes… scratches head*
Where the heck am I?
*sees big sign that reads “DISCOVER” where “Bad Astronomy used to be…*
Hmmm…
*follows the instruction on the sign, turns Disc Over. Nothing happens.*
This is very peculiar.
*looks around some more… shrugs and smiles*
‘Yes… this is a fertile land. And we will thrive!’
July 1st, 2008 at 1:48 pm
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/feed/
July 1st, 2008 at 1:50 pm
It’s a great move, but it’s a minor grievance you didn’t take it to a science blog aggregate like ScienceBlogs. There we can read what interests scientists from the horse’s proverbial mouth by the community linking.
I browsed some Discover articles, and they are the stereotypical dumbed down “cherry-picking without providing references” stuff that the media has bored us with for decades. (Hence blogs, of course!)
Hmpf! Okay, the interviews with scientists is one reason to visit Discover. (And BA and CZ, yay!)
July 1st, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Torbjörn, did you read the article about Mercury? I got a bit concerned due to the ad at the top of that one. I’m guessing (hoping?) that the people who hired Phil have looked at his blog and won’t censor stuff due to having stuff like that on here.
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/apr/08-mercurys-secrets-revealed
July 1st, 2008 at 2:14 pm
I think most of us would have had this site bookmarked already.
Now we have the BA and Anne( Inky )Casselman in the same place, hey maybe this leads to Phil being a regular contributor to Discover.
Onward and Upward, Good for you Phil.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I just saw an ad on CBC for Expelled, it ends with with a voice deep in gravitas saying “Expelled, no intelligence allowed”.
I mean I get their feeble attempt at a pun but…HAHAHAAHAHA!!!
July 1st, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Congratulations, Phil. Onward and upward and all that, what what?
July 1st, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Congrats, Phil! Here’s hoping the new digs are as roomy and comfortable as can be, with no more crashes (yeah right) or migration errors.
On that note… could you please redirect the http://www.badastronomy.com address to here as soon as possible, please? Early this afternoon I was able to get here by typing in the above address; now, at 2:30 p.m. EDT, it still goes to the old site.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Well, while we wait, here’s some solid woo woo
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/features/the-lunatic-fringe-is-moonlight-the-miracle-cure-854991.html
July 1st, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Mena:
From my experience those ads are triggered by keywords, in this case “mercury” must have brought astrology (argh) ads in, so be prepared. The same thing used to happen at the old BA site . Granted, a “science” magazine should be more careful but then again Discover is not exactly “hard science” territory. Nevertheless the addition of BA and CZ to Discover blogs may be a sign of change. I hope.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Q.D.
Thanks a lot! As if this piece of “information” wasn’t enough, it must be sided by such a nice picture. Now I need two shots of single malt!
July 1st, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Mena, I got an ad for a fake IQ test. Is that what you saw?
July 1st, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I’m more of a reader than a writer here, and to that end I have one small quibble. The text of the post and comments abuts the left side of the screen with no margin at all. I keep wanting to scroll left.
July 1st, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Law Mom, can you adjust your screen resolution?
I am at 1152 by 864 and the blog looks fine.
July 1st, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Is it just me, or is the text size, a bit too small? I liked it larger, like on the original site.
July 1st, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Phil’s RASC meeting in Toronto ended at 12:15PM, so he’s prolly in an airplane now heading home.
He should be back in Boulder tonight and blogging up a storm after supper!
Any of your BA-Blogees headed to Green Bank for the Green Bank Star Gaze? I’ll be there on Thursday shooting hi-def video for NRAO.
Rich
July 1st, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Ok, so this is the new place huh. The fonts a little smaller but I guess I could get used to squinting my eyes.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:02 pm
It’s a brave new world. Congrats!! I’m sure we’ll get used to our new home away from home.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Richard – you’re correct, Phil is in an airplane headed home right now. He’s had a rough weekend trying to make this move go smoothly while he was out of town at a meeting. He video Skyped me and the Little Astronomer last night at 11:00 pm ET and said he literally didn’t know what to do with himself because he didn’t have access to his blog (it was in the hands of Discover at that point).
I’m sure Phil will be blogging up a storm tonight (after he’s scooped the cat litter, of course – for some reason it really piles up when he’s out of town
). I’ve been following these comments today because I have been a bit anxious over this move myself and on behalf of Phil I want to thank everyone for their overwhelmingly positive and kind comments. Phil will be home in about 3 hours. Stay tuned…
July 1st, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Tim G , it was an ad for an astrologer. Well, an Astrologer, with a capital “A”, perhaps because she gives 100% accurate horoscopes. It changed for me right after I put that message up, I thought that it had something to do with my cookies and browsing history, but I guess that I just had good timing. I didn’t get a chance to click on her link to see what sets her apart from other astrologers though. Dems da breaks I guess.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Hello testing 1,2,3,4…seems to be working. La la la la! Hmmmm, good sound (at least I can hear it.) Oh wait, I’m making that sound…never mind. Congrats Phil.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Likin’ the new dig, Phil.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:20 pm
The font’s too small, and the contrast is too low: light gray text on a white background. Some bits, like the “leave a reply” header are apparently bolded and are fine, but that’s only a tiny percentage of the page. It’s painful to read.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Wow, look at this. New digs!
July 1st, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Great! My wife gets Discover so that we can have conversations about science. I’ve always thought that was very nice of her. (I’m a physics and math major and intend to go into astronomy)
Will you be in the regular magazine now? Maybe with a monthly commentary or occasional article?
July 1st, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I hope this turns out well for BA, but I’ve got to say that at first glance I don’t like the site layout here. Smaller text and bigger ads are not a pleasant combination, and the colors look. . . less clean. It’s hard to describe.
Oh well, I’ll probably like it better in a few days. Congratulations!
July 1st, 2008 at 4:31 pm
sandswipe, you should get Firefox with the adblock plugin. I never see any ads on any website.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I think it looks great, personally. I like the layout and everything. The font is an ok size to me, but I agree the font color is a little too light. Not difficult for me to read or anything, but the contrast could be better.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:37 pm
this new site is nice, but I’ve tried looking at older posts with youtube videos embedded in the post, but they don’t appear. Is this just me?
July 1st, 2008 at 4:41 pm
The sidebar says: “Phil Plait, the author of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author.”
That’s two “authors” in the same sentence.
BTW: PLEASE add a preview button.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:43 pm
I’ll second the contrast suggestion… and I also like the alternating back-colors on every other post… makes it easier to scroll through and navigate threads.
And can somebody do something about the fresh paint smell??
July 1st, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I really liked my theory that you and Carl were trying to spread the truth about e.coli found on Mars, and running from NASA the Discover thing is a bit of a let down comparatively, you know?
July 1st, 2008 at 4:49 pm
New place eh? Cool.
For Firefox users who find the text a bit small (like me. 1680×1050 screen res kills small fonts) I can highly recommend the MouseZoom addon. It lets you zoom the whole page to your liking and remembers the zoom level when you go back to that page.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2244
July 1st, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Hey, does my prediction of being sponsored count as psychic? Congratulations! I too hope that there are no restrictions placed on what you can post.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Will you have less control over ads? I just saw this one in the sidebar here (on the “blogs” listing that has BA at the top):
Amusing site. Contains stuff like this:
Almost worthy of a skeptical blog post…
July 1st, 2008 at 5:01 pm
I guess when Phil shows up we’ll find out what is going to happen to his own site.
Huh.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Looks great! I’m sure BA will do whatever tweaking is allowed when he is done with all that kitty litter.
I also use FireFox with the Adblock Plus and Flashblock add-ons. I see no ads, nor any flash that I don’t want to see. I highly recommend them to those annoyed by weird ads.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:09 pm
*looks at address from RSS feed*
OMG PHIL! ROCK ON!
July 1st, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.
Sorry, someone had to say it!
July 1st, 2008 at 5:12 pm
…That’s the big surprise? A move to another site?
That’s the first thing that crossed my mind when you mentioned it, but I thought “Nah, it couldn’t possibly be something that insignificant”.
You’re becoming increasingly predictable Phil; I hope you have more in store from the way you hyped it all up.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Discover? Wohoo! Congrats.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Congratulations Phil! I have a lot of fond memories of Discover Magazine, I think I subscribed when I was 12 years old. I hope this gets your message out to a lot more readers.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Wow, Phil! Congrats on the new place. It looks great.
One of the good magazines out there, and our own BA is a part of it now. I’m so proud. *tears up* Got something in my eye. *sniff*
July 1st, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Congrats BA, this will hopefully open a window for those who are “soft science” to the wonderful world which is Bad Astronomy.
And Phil you might want to invest in an automatic cat poop scooper, saves more time for your blogging goodness.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:32 pm
This looks great! Congratulations!
July 1st, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Just to figure out the timestamps, what zone they are (my guess, Eastern Time) I submit this to cyberspace at the sound of the tone, 1435 Pacific Daylight Time.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Phil, best wishes on the new site/location/sponsor. I’ll just echo the others with my hope that this new set up won’t inhibit your outspoken style.
Blog on my good man!
July 1st, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Wow, cool! Good job Dr Plait!
July 1st, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Now I see. I bet this will increase your hits big time. Certainly increase the hits on Discover that’s for sure. I don’t know what Discover magazine is, so about to find out. Scuse me while I browse.
Congrats BA BTW.
Bob(Big)
July 1st, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Firefox sees the feed for this blog as http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/feed/
Hope this helps the others looking for the feed.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Congratulations on the new digs, BA – here’s hoping it’s a huge success!
But how could it not be?
July 1st, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Ok, had a browse, looks cool. Just one thing BA, you need to make a new post ASAP because as I write, your top entry still says you’re going offline for a few hours. Plus, I think Discover aught to give you some front page launch publicity, e.g. welcome BA, our new blogger (at the moment you aren’t listed on the front page). Maybe they’d be good enough to do a launch when you are settled in. Cool.
Bob(Big)
July 1st, 2008 at 5:53 pm
(Result of last experiment: timestamps are Eastern Time.)
People who are suggesting format improvements: you may wish to carry your concerns to the powers that be at Discover Blogs http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ (or higher up the food chain).
Probably one reason Phil has gone to a sponsored site like this is so he can focus on the writing and let other professional infrastructure support people deal with the reader preferences for formatting, style, access and such.
While I’m sure he’ll do his best to transmit your requests to the decision-makers, you might have more success, and cause less effort to Phil, makinge your own case with the folks at Discover Magazine.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:54 pm
looks good so far.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Phil,
I liek the new site. Except for the “Stumble it!” images. They’re annoying, distracting,
ugly, and pretentious. Do you really need them? Have they done anything really
good and necessary for you?
I miss your “Bad Astronomy” logo too. Is there anyway to include it at the
top of the Discover Magazine blog?
Hope you like Canada.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Hey Guys,
Couple questions. Is the Flat Earth Society real or is just some elaborate joke? Would it be wrong to buy a shirt from them if they were available? I really wouldn’t want to help fund such lunacy but the shirt would be really cool.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Just popping my head round the door to say hi. Nice place. Hope I’m out of filter purgatory too!
… any tea on this spaceship?
July 1st, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Looks like a mistyped my email now the comment is awaiting moderation.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Well loks like my old message was deleted so I will repeat looks good so far.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:18 pm
wow ive been waiting all day for this “BIG NEWS”, and here it is, tada. not what i expected but cool. and now i know why phil siad not to leave comments on his last 2 posts. there were over 200 and now there allllll gone. oh well
i anticipate reading what made phil switch to discover. i would have perfered Scientific American, but its phils blog. and i will continue to read it
July 1st, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Phil’s on the homepage! http://www.discovermagazine.com.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Oh, congratulations, BA. I hope pay you a decent amount.
This loads a lot quicker – the old site was always slow.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I noticed one other change: where are the links to other Blogs?
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:32 am
kpipzuoq
kpipzuoq
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:51 am
Thank you Mrs BA,
never realized that you were looking out for us as well.
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:46 am
There once was a Doctor named Plait,
Who’s astronomy blog was quite great.
Then he took it offline
For reasons sublime
But for what, well we all had to wait.
Now he’s back and he has a new home;
Good luck in the universes you roam.
Now as we’ve come to Discover
This comment did not recover,
And that is the point of this tome.
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:59 am
Is the Flat Earth Society real or is just some elaborate joke?
The last I checked it was mostly a goof, but I’m sure there’s a handful of believers.
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Mena, I run Firefox (with NoScript), most ads are by default absent. Sounds bad though.
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:37 am
nwcvukle
nwcvukle